And Now: EVs From The Axis of Evil

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The things you find on the Internet. FFOG (ever heard of them?) reports that the Iran has an electric vehicle that goes 300 kilometers (186 miles), “with the recharging battery in only six minutes.“

It turns out to be an Opel Tigra conversion. That should make the U.S. government happy. And what’s with the lightning-fast recharge? Charged from a conventional 220v outlet will take the usual six hours to charge fully. For the six minute recharge, you need to take your car to what they call an “Intelligent Charging Station.”

It’s a shed where they swap near empty batteries with charged ones. Wait until Project Better Place gets wind of that. Then Iran will have problems with the U.S. and Israel. But wait: They already have problems.


Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Steven02 Steven02 on Sep 09, 2010

    They actually claim 6 minute charging and it is a battery swap? WOW. I am thinking that the range is also flawed. Probably using 100% of the charge of the battery which will end its life quickly.

  • NulloModo NulloModo on Sep 09, 2010

    The 6 minute battery swap is actually a great idea, and one that I have been proposing as the best means of EV mass market acceptance for a while. Come up with a standard battery for all US EV vehicles, and set up battery swap stations at gas stations throughout the country. When your charge is running low, just drive in, swap out your depleted battery for a charged one, pay for the electricity, and go on your way. It would work just like changing out a depleted propane tank for a full one does now.

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    • NulloModo NulloModo on Sep 09, 2010

      nonce - Just because you define a form factor and an interface doesn't mean that you have to define capacity. You can find SD memory cards with capacities from under 1GB to over 32GB, but they (mostly) all work with the same devices. Actually, speaking of memory cards, that is an area where government intervention and standardization could have saved a lot of time. Over the past decade I've owned devices that have used CompactFlash, MMC, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, and several flavors of SD. It seems that finally SD has sort of taken over the market (though I still have to keep memory sticks around for my Sony stuff) but why did it have to be so difficult? You can buy any ethernet card and plug it into any network, or connect any 802.11x to any wireless network, so why did we have to go through so many attempted standards for physical memory cards instead of just defining one and making everyone adopt it? The standard battery form factor could even be small enough that larger vehicles could utilize two batteries at once for increased power or range. The 2'x4'x1' idea listed above isn't bad. It would fit well inside of a subcompact car, or you could easily fit two of them inside of a large car or SUV.

  • Stingray Stingray on Sep 09, 2010

    LOL Well, with the imagination that people have (blocking a country does that) I wouldn't discard it.

  • Nonce Nonce on Sep 10, 2010

    Congratulations for wanting to make the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Roadster illegal. With friends like you, who needs enemies?

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