[Nathan]

Hybrids are the height of popularity. Movie stars and celebrities drive them. People are gazing at me in my hybrid with reverence and admiringly saying, "That's some special kind of guy, he drives a hybrid."

So Poor Pete. He drives an EV. EVs are not popular. Everyone knows that nobody wants to buy them <grin>. Poor Unpopular Pete.
Poor Unpopular Prius-Envy Pete.

I have the solution for you that will transform you from bedraggled skunkmeat into a dashing derring bon vivant that the world awaits!

HYBRIDIZE YOUR EV: A TRAILER WITH ICE!

"The Long Ranger range-extending trailer converts an electric vehicle to hybrid mode for long trips. The efficient, high specific-output, gasoline-fueled, trailer-mounted generator maintains battery charge, allowing unlimited driving range at speeds up to 75 mph."
http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extending_trailers.htm

Ain't life grand.
Nathan

 

[pete]

Only problem with it is that it gets half the milage with more polution output than the Prius. It probably also costs more than a Prius.
The extra drag from the air and rolling resistance of the trailor makes it hard to make a range extending trailor more efficient than a self contained hybrid. The advantage of using a trailor is that several EV owners will be able to share a single trailor since for 90% of the time they will be able to make their trips using just the energy stored in the batteries. They will only need it when going on longer trips.

BTW: I don't own an electric (yet...anybody want to buy a bunch of computers so I can) but do drive one accasionally at U-E high school where I volunteer as an advisor for their EV team.

 

[Joel]

The real question on everybodies mind is, what's its quarter-mile speed?

 

[pete]

the 1/4 time for the TZero is 13.2 seconds (without trailor). If you want some times for some really quick electrics take a look at some of these times
http://www.nedra.com/records.html

 

[Daniel]

The real question on everybodies mind is, what's its quarter-mile speed?

No. The real question on everybody's mind is What's it cost and When can I actually buy one? Last I saw on their web site it would be "between the cost of a Porsche and a Ferrari" and it was not available yet. They have not answered my email, though perhaps they get too much email to answer it all.