Electric cars, hybrids, super batteries, we have been hearing about these things for years now and really very little has changed in the market place. Every time someone has gotten close to developing something like the perfect battery, or at least one that would meet the mileage needs of an automobile, the battery has disappeared, along with the company that made it. Today we are being offered a hybrid that does maybe twenty miles before the auto switches over to a gasoline engine. There are kits out that will make it possible to get a maximum of forty miles out of a plug-in hybrid before switching to gasoline, but both of these options are far from ideal. The big oil barons are not too scared of the hybrid plug-in kit, because it voids the car warranty and this stops most people from doing it along with the $5,000 price tag. We keep hearing about General Motor's attempt to build a world shattering hybrid called the Chevy Volt. The car has a huge set of batteries that would allow it to travel 40 miles between charges, hopefully. I say hopefully because no one knows how well these batteries will hold up over the years, there is simply not enough time to test them for something like five years or more. It is interesting to note that GM really has not referred to the Volt as a hybrid very much, if at all. It likes to describe it as an electric car with an auxiliary gas engine. Hey guys this certainly doesn't change the fact that it is not really an electric car. So what is a hybrid? It is defined as a composite of mixed origin and the Volt certainly fits that description.

The thing that gets me about the Volt is that it really is nothing new. It is just a lot of hype that probably won't succeed in bailing out the company. What is this invisible wall that prevents electric cars from going more than 40 miles between charges? Electric cars were around since 1835 when Robert Anderson invented the first one. Even an electric cycle was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris in 1867. Later in Paris, Gustave Trouve demonstrated a three wheeled electric car at the International Exhibition of Electricity in 1881. In 1897, New York City acquired a fleet of electric cabs. If we look at one, such as Wood's Phaeton, we notice that it had a range of over 18 miles. This was on the simplest of batteries. Why is it that with today's technology a hybrid only gets about the same range and even when the Volt comes out, it will only double that puny range? Could it be that we are not supposed to have a viable electric car? The ancient electric cars didn't go very fast, but neither did the gasoline ones. It is true that we now get more top speed from them, which is good, but without a decent range, who needs the trouble? In 1916 Woods invented the electric hybrid. So the hybrid has been around for about 92 years.

General Motors has been into electric cars and forklifts for about 90 years or so. What makes anyone think that that they are actually going to make a viable electric car this time is beyond me. There was a time when it looked like General Motors had gotten things right, as pertains to electric cars. They had come out with the EV1 in 1996 and the people that got them loved them. They were leased however and they were all taken back and destroyed. The lessees loved them so much they did everything humanly possible to stop the cars from being destroyed. But it wasn't only the EV1s that were being destroyed, it was every electric car from every company. Sit down, I want to tell you something and don't want you to faint. The EV1 had a range of 160 miles and was a pure electric car, yet we can only get 40 miles from a future Chevy Volt. I ask you, what is going on here? I don't like to talk about conspiracies, but this has every indication that we are being made fools of to keep oil production high. One problem with the EV1 was that it only sat two people, but with today's weight reducing materials that might have been able to have been overcome.

In the late 1990s a revolutionary battery was said to have been invented. I am not talking about a flashlight battery or anything like that, I am talking about a car battery. Supposedly it was far more efficient that anything we have even today. It is said that the company was bought out and the battery shelved, never to be seen again. This is not the first story like this, it has been reported over and over, with many revolutionary inventions for automobiles that would have saved on petroleum use. Sure there are a lot of false stories out there, but there are a lot of true ones and there are also a lot of stories where threats and even killings took place over these inventions. General Motors tried to explain the the reasons they repossessed the EV1 by saying that battery technology hadn't improved and there were few buyers available, so they had to scrap the project. Others say that this was a weak excuse since they claim that plenty of people wanted to buy the EV1s.

Now lets look at what Chrysler is going to be offering. They made an announcement that in 2010. one of their offerings will be a pure electric car that will be able to go 120 mph and have a range of 200 miles. Hey now we are getting somewhere. This announcement shocked the automotive world when Chrysler Corporation made it in September 2008. It sounds great, but I just can't see how they ever would be allowed to do this. I would look for them to have to cancel this car. or be put out of business. Let me clarify the car with the 200 mile range. It would be a sports car I believe, which would basically be a two seater. It would go from 0 to 60 mph in about 5 seconds and the body would be from a Lotus Europa. They have also gone on to say that maybe they will take a different route and put out a hybrid car with a 40 mile electric range that contains a gasoline engine with an eight or nine gallon gas tank. Plug-ins could become popular with the oil companies since that would allow us to use less gasoline. while still requiring it. They would be able to raise prices substantially to make up the difference in less usage and keep us dangling on the gasoline string. Ford is also testing hybrids and is trying to develop a hybrid Ford Explorer that could be plugged in.

What does all this mean? It seems to me that hybrids will be in our future and they will plug into our power lines. Does this mean we will be advancing? No not at all. There are games being played to delay the demise of oil because there is so much of it still out there and powerful individuals, huge multinational companies and oil rich nations don't want to see oil independence. Look at it this way, what would Saudi Arabia be without oil? Let me answer that question, it certainly wouldn't be a very important nation. With record profits rolling into the oil companies, profits that are bigger than many countries entire national budgets, these companies will never willingly allow oil to be replaced as the major source of fuel and will do everything possible to prevent this, while trying to make their holdings worth even more money. The same goes for the powerful people behind them.

Will we get autos that are are electric, not hybrids? We may, but they probably won't be as useful as the gasoline powered cars we enjoy now. Does this mean that they couldn't be, because technology hasn't reached a point yet that would make this possible? Unfortunately no. If the EV1 could have a range of 160 miles even before lithium ion batteries, what would the range be in the same car with lithium ion batteries? First of all lithium ion batteries are much lighter than the lead acid battery of the EV1, Other required components do add more weight however. These batteries also deteriorate over time, so they may not be the answer to the power source problem for an auto. The battery has to be improved to lower resistance, increase the amount of charges and discharges and improve capacity. Everyone that is touting electric cars knows this already. Some say that NiMH (Nichel-metal hydride) batteries are the answer and there is a car that seats four, costs under $20,000 and has a range of over 200 miles that uses them, but better yet, Zinc air batteries are said to give a routine range of 240 miles. While still not achieving the 300 mile range of the average car, this battery allows one to get close. See http://www.eaaev.org/ for interesting electric car facts.