Electricity in service
Recently we have been writing about “green used vans”. Of course the idea of a car that has insignificant or hasn’t got any influence on environment is supported by everyone. The problem is that no one is actually trying to put this idea into life or to be precise to put the cars into use. For most governments the most important argument is that electric cars is a great boost for the economy since the prizes of oil go up all the time. Lower cost of transport means lower prices of service and products. What is more the “fuel” does not have to come from some giant corporation from Middle East, USA or Russia – it will be produced by the power plants in the country. The electric van user will pay money to electric power provider and the provider will pay taxes to the government. Everyone (including society) makes profits on this transaction. All that has to be done is design a practical electric motor van that may be a substitute for diesel/petrol cars. Truth is that such cars already exist. Take Modec Electric Van for example. It is a 100miles range truck which can go with maximum speed of 50mph and has two tons of carrying capacity. The truck comes in different versions depending on the customer requirements. The 70kW motor of this truck is powered by two 288volt sodium-nickel-chloride batteries (Li-Ion are also available). The batteries have 8 hour charge time but the energy is also retrieved by the regenerative breaking system. The car dodges congestion charge, road tax and the driver does not have to have any additional operator license. Modec can go without any service for 20000miles and that is because the motor has only 3 moving parts. Not much that can be used.
The cars have already been in use in such companies as Tesco, Center Parcs, Hildon Water. But they are still a minority. The best way to popularize this kind of transport is to provide public service institutions with machines like Modec. So again its all in hands of the government. So why it is not as popular as it should be? Well the ones that profit from electric cars unpopularity are the oil companies so they are the ones that might know the answer.