Jul 18 2009
Electric firsts
I actually didn’t plan to write about Formula One again but the unexpected victory of Mark Webber I simply had to mention. I’ve always preferred to support underdogs, those whom circumstances rather than skill let down – Kimi Raikkonen before his ‘07 championship was another.
130 GPs is a long time to wait for victory (a new record too, if I’m not wrong) and Webber fully deserves it. Watching him overcome a drive-through penalty and have a little luck fall his way via people impeding Barrichello had me off my seat for the first time this season.
On the subject of firsts though, I also want to talk about my first urban spin in a plug-in electric vehicle, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV – you can read more about it in this weekend’s Speed pages.
It’s basically a version of the Mitsubishi i city car powered by a big lithium ion battery, recharged by plugging into a wall socket. Nifty. Find out more about it here (along with cute paper craft models for the deft of hand).
While I’ve tried out fuel-cell and plug-in electric vehicles before, I’ve never done so in real life conditions or for anything longer than a spin around the block.
I don’t want to repeat too much of what I said, but the bottom line is the i-MiEV is great fun to drive despite the fact that the batteries run out very quickly (it took me only 70km to go from 3/4 til a recharge reminded popped up, quoted range is 160km).
Complete non-pollution aside, my mind couldn’t stop thinking what if I got stranded by the road with no juice left since you can’t siphon a charge like gasoline.
Problems like these (and how flat-dwellers will charge their EVs) is what the recently set-up government task force is working on.
But even with those surmounted, some argue that EVs merely shift the load from burning fuel on the spot to power stations – if electricity isn’t cleanly produced then it’s still polluting in the end.
Until mankind masters cold fusion or something, there won’t be a magic bullet for energy issues. So despite the appeal of EVs, petrol-heads needn’t worry as the internal combustion engine will be around as part of future mobility options for a long time to come.
