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Comment by mikepellon | Hacker News Reader

It will be interesting to see if amongst these early electric vehicle manufacturers a de facto battery/charging interface standard can be established. I can see that widespread adoption would be difficult to achieve if consumers cannot reliably charge their vehicles in a number of charging station locations because of properity hardware barriers, etc.

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The answer is not faster charging, but rather, swapping out a depleted pack for a fully-charged one. Standardize on a form-factor for battery packs that mount on the underside of the vehicle, which can then be hot-swapped at service stations in under a minute.

Hawaii seems to already be testing this out... (don't have the link handy)

Yes. At least it would shift the problem from the realm of engineering (better batteries) towards management/market politics.

I think this would be a good start, but I think for the sake of convenience I would like to see something more along the lines of wireless power like Intel have been playing around with.

http://blogs.intel.com/research/2008/08/you_have_to_see_this...

I would like to see power companies deploy these wireless charging substations in parking garages and in people's homes and perhaps have it so that the vehicle has it's own power meter - something similar to what you would see on a home now, so that multiple vehicles could be filling up at the same point perhaps and each is generating their own bill which could be paid at the end of the month? similar to how homes work.

That way, the need to "fill up" is removed, making it more convenient than a typical car, which I think might help adoption rates more than just saying it is a more eco-friendly car.

Have you seen www.betterplace.com? Their basic idea is to have a standard set of batteries which can be topped up at charging stations at home, work, and elsewhere. For longer trips, there are automated battery switching stations. From the how it works section:

"For trips longer than 100 miles (161 km), battery switching stations will be available roadside. Stations are completely automated, and the driver’s subscription takes care of everything. The driver pulls in, and the depleted battery is quickly replaced with a fresh one, without anyone having to leave the vehicle. The process takes less time than it does to fill a tank of liquid fuel. "

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