The original incandescent light bulb was invented 202 years ago, and only recently have we decided that it might be slightly outdated and that the new twisted ones are the future.
The first ever camera was developed 186 years ago, yet the new digital generation only occurred in 1975, swapping the old faithful darkroom for Photoshop.
The original incandescent light bulb was invented 202 years ago, and only recently have we decided that it might be slightly outdated and that the new twisted ones are the future.
The first ever camera was developed 186 years ago, yet the new digital generation only occurred in 1975, swapping the old faithful darkroom for Photoshop.
Now, after about 200 years of internal combustion engines, some mechanical mavericks that have decided “oil” should be a dirty four-letter word (“oils” then?) and have instead turned their sights to electrically powered cars.
The main argument for them is that this is friendlier to the environment, due to the absence of ozone-destroying emissions released from the cars' tail pipes. More importantly, we cannot rely on oil as a sole provider for joyride juice – it’s what we call ‘non-renewable’ – much like our confidence in Eskom.
Granted, we’ve all seen or heard of a Toyota Prius wandering about, but it’s a hybrid car, a completely different animal. A hybrid car has both a fuel engine and an electric motor with a small battery that is charged by the engine, so load sharing essentially. An electric car is a drive system with energy provided only by batteries. There is also a plug-in hybrid car has a bigger battery than the hybrid, which also relies on being plugged in to charge.
“Electric” is now the new buzzword among trend setters. A number of highways in California have even been “electrified” with fill up stations (plugs) scattered along it for cars to recharge. Mind you, these stations would have to be pretty close together. Imagine having to juice up your car for seven whole hours in order to travel 300km? Watching all six Star Wars movies in a row might give you something to do while you wait, but the first three are rubbish and you would probably have somewhere to be, other than on the side of the road wishing you had a spaceship instead of a big battery on wheels.
The above mentioned car with the recharge time of seven hours per 300km is actually developed by an extremely proudly South African company, Optimal Energy. The vehicle in question is cleverly named the “Joule” and is designed by South African car designer Keith Helfet, who was previously chief designer at Jaguar.
Progress with the car has been a bit halted of late, and after announcing the plans for the Joule in 2008, mass production is only set to begin at the end of 2012, although test drives will be available soon. Going deeper still, the specs are slightly weaker than a Renault Megane with a top speed of 140km, seating for five and a 4-star/5-star NCAP safety rating. To purchase an entry-level Joule you’re looking at around R235 000 and R280 000 for an executive model.
Nissan, Honda and Toyota have all experimented with electric car production and one of the most exciting examples to talk about would be the Silicone Valley brand, Tesla. With the curves of an Aston Martin and the panache of a Ferrari, the nerds behind the car design did a good job in hoodwinking onlookers to believe there really is a V8 under the hood, instead of the 185KW battery pack.
But yet again, the range of the Tesla is even less than the Joule, so although it will take you places looking really stylish, the chances are that those places aren’t always where you want to be. We can’t argue though, that just under 300km is more than adequate for town driving, so perhaps keep a Kombi in your garage for when you want to road trip to Sun City.
What I fail to grasp though, is that if you were to charge your Joule or comparative products merrily at home, 77% of Eskom's power stations are powered by coal, which really is a dirty four-letter word. Pollutants are entering the atmosphere at an exorbitant speed in any case, and the polar bear you're so desperately trying to save is still clawing pitifully to his melting iceberg.
If you really want to do something for the environment then why not go for hydrogen technology? Now there’s something to invest time and money in. Or what about simple catalytic converters? If the point is zero emissions, and we’re getting the juice from non-renewable resources in any case, a catalytic converter decreases noxious fumes and converts around 98% of the gasses released into less harmful ones.
All this aside, people are sticking to their volt-powered guns and electric cars appear to be staying with us for a while. Let’s hope it won't be for as long as the light bulb has.
