FEB 15

My first reaction is that there must be some caveats to making the surface of your car hold the charge of one or more EV battery. How do you stop accidental discharges?

However I am curious to the safety risks involved, and its durability in rough conditions. To have a car with an electric charge all around it, who knows what effect it will have when it is faced with various weather conditions.

The brilliance in having the battery embedded into the car material is it probably can't be stolen as easily and will apparently reduce the weight of the car. I have heard that at UCLA they are researching embedding solar planels into plastic.

Imagine a plastic solar car with an embedded battery.

The downsides could be what happens if the car is broadsided, are toxic chemicals going to be spewed in every direction? And, when the battery eventually dies out, how easy is it to remove the battery without having to re skin the entire car?

There are no toxic chemicals to spew out if it is a solid battery composed of carbon fiber and rosin. Though the repair bill would be a lot steeper if a combined battery/panel has to be replaced after an accident.

However, the point about replacing the battery is an interesting one. It is suggested that the life is longer because there are no chemical reactions, but does not actually come out and say that what the lifespace is.

Wow i think this sounds like an amazing concept. A solar-powered car sounds pretty cool too. I hope safety wouldn't be overlooked as well.

This can not be a true battery, as batteries use chemical reactions by definition. Maybe it's a capacitor. Capacitors are not used as an alternative for batteries because they have far less energy density. The highest density ultracapacitors only have about 1/10th the energy density of a lithium ion battery. It would probably be better to use a capacitor and a battery together, as they help make up for each others weaknesses.

I like the idea if it can be proved to be safe in all but the most extreme circumstances (after all, gas tanks are safe in all but the most extreme circumstances as well).

I also wish I could give a word of caution to the folks working on new vehicles that they need to start getting serious on "Infrastructure vehicles". The ones that do actual work. Electric cars are a great start. We need electric pickups with acceptable travel distances. We need farm equipment being made that is all electric. We need long haul trucks that are electric as well. The biggest problem I see is that I don't see these things being looked at seriously. The Pickup is close, but not ready for prime time, and the others I mentioned aren't serious about implementation at this stage in the game. If we're going to get serious about our vehicles going to electric, the infrastructure vehicles ought to be a higher priority. At least we have some trains that can run on electricity. Trains need to be bumped to all electric as well. Ever think we'll see ships running on electricity? The only ones I know of are military vessels using nuclear power plants to generate the energy. I'm not so sure we're going to see many commercial vessels outfitted with reactors.

This is really interesting but what are the possible risks? I'm always hopeful yet hesitant with new technology. What happens in an accident if the battery is embedded in the car. Is the overall value of the car damaged much easier?

I too would be curious about safety issues as well. And certainly the cost of a fender bender would go up significantly. Overall its one of the most interesting concepts that I have come across yet.

What about plastic trains? When is that going to happen? Would hate to see a stimulus program that actually converts our fleet of trains to high grade plastic so their weight is a lot less.

A plastic that actually absorbs the suns rays and converts it to energy to power a vehicle. Even if it doesn't supply all the energy, it could probably put a huge dent in what is consumed since the vehicle is lighter and absorbing the suns rays.

Just avoid strong winds I guess.

Wow. I;m sure lots of people would be interested in this new external battery phenomenon.. if only to see it actually work and watch what it can do. However, I am also quite skeptical about the quality of it. Will it endure storms? Won't it be affected by external factors?

As with every article that seems to come up through ecogeek, I notice that many of the comments are negatives (why the new potential technology won't work) or about what the risks are. There can never be new technologies if the inventors aren't out there trying new things that may or may not work, or people willing to take the risks. Where would we be if Wilbur and Orville had been more worried about the risks when they started flying? Or worse, if people who weren't even involved in their venture had any say in whether it was too risky for them to try it. All invention starts with the question, "What if?" If the inventors listened to everyone who was all too happy to tell them, "that wont' work" we would never have any new technology at all. If all of you who are saying why these things won't work are out there working on something else that will, great. If not, I'd rather see positive reinforcement for any and all ideas that may actually take us in the direction we want to go -- low emissions, low cost, plentiful energy production, and I'm interested in hearing any and all ideas. Come up with the idea, make it work, and then figure out how to make it safe.

This is a horrible idea. It'll turn your car into a giant bug zapper and you're the bug.

This is the way to go, incorporating the electronics into the body of the vehicle along with control wires etc. Combined with energy absorbing shocks, solar panels (the nano UV capturing capacitor type featured in another EcoGeek article, low resistance tires, better aerodynamics, and LED lights all around, we might actually get somewhere. Only thing I don't like is how much a door ding is going to cost and whether or not that could create a discharge. Oh yeah, oil companies still have all the money and control the world. Ooops my bad...