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I live in a first-ring suburb of Philadelphia where we more or less have to drive or bike for everything (there are little downtown areas, but we live 1mi+ from

I live in a first-ring suburb of Philadelphia where we more or less have to drive or bike for everything (there are little downtown areas, but we live 1mi+ from any of them). The top speed limits are 35mph and speeding is rare because the roads are windy and narrow. This Ami would be nearly perfect--the top speed doesn't worry me at all. The one thing I would say is I wish the range were a bit higher. We have a Ford C-Max plug-in hybrid that gets 18-25 miles before turning on the gasoline motor. Two trips in succession will sometimes run out the electricity. A 50 mile range would make me more comfortable, but still I'm excited to see a vehicle like this (even if I'm not super-hopeful they'll catch on in the US).

Pxtl 7y ago
Yeah, I have a Prius Prime with similar range. It can do basically one outing and back in my city before it needs charge, and at 6 hours to charge on a 110 that means the gas kicks in many days. Now, since this is a smaller vehicle with a smaller battery, it might able to charge faster on 110, but likely you'd want a 220 charger. Really, it feels like all EVs will need a 220 line to be practical. Small-battery and PHEVs need frequent top-ups and you don't want those to take hours, and full EVs just take forever to charge on 110.
- asdff 7y ago
  I think we need to forgo charging entirely on EVs, and start swapping batteries at gas stations like you would an empty propane tank for a full one. I saw a demonstration of an electric moped that worked like this. You pull up to the station, put your empty batteries in the rack for charging, and take a set of full ones. Fully charged EV faster than filling up a tank of gas.
  - Pxtl 7y ago
    That's fine for tiny things like mopeds and scooters, but for a full sized vehicle that means half a tonne of batteries.
    - asdff 7y ago
      Maybe we should rethink how we design our electric vehicles. Still, if the batteries are all mounted along the bottom plate, it wouldn't be too hard to engineer a solution that can drop out, roll away, and have a fresh battery array be reinserted into the vehicle. We've been siloing our thinking that an EV should be some quasi hybrid between plugging in your phone to charge, and putting in a gas pump into a car. The best and most practical EV in the future will look nothing like a car today. Maybe in the future we will just bring back street car wiring to our cities and run an antennae above the vehicle like a bumper car.
  - matt_morgan 7y ago
    I have a charger for the car on 240V, in our garage. It charges fully in about 2 hours. Mind you this is a plug-in hybrid, with only ~20 mi range before the gas comes on. But still that's lots better than swapping out lots of heavy batteries. Swapping batteries makes sense for a car you don't own. For a car you own, I don't know. Of course car ownership is probably going away soon enough.
    - asdff 7y ago
      Two hours sucks compared to twenty seconds. It doesn't have to be you swapping the battery. Could be the pimple faced kid working at the gas station, or a robot.
      - matt_morgan 7y ago
        Yes, it takes longer. But it happens while I'm sleeping, and requires no special trip. I do think swapping batteries will be the sensible way to handle this when we're also swapping cars, or when the cars drive us, unless charging times come way down.

Pxtl 7y ago

Yeah, I have a Prius Prime with similar range. It can do basically one outing and back in my city before it needs charge, and at 6 hours to charge on a 110 that means the gas kicks in many days. Now, since this is a smaller vehicle with a smaller battery, it might able to charge faster on 110, but likely you'd want a 220 charger. Really, it feels like all EVs will need a 220 line to be practical. Small-battery and PHEVs need frequent top-ups and you don't want those to take hours, and full EVs just take forever to charge on 110.

asdff 7y ago
I think we need to forgo charging entirely on EVs, and start swapping batteries at gas stations like you would an empty propane tank for a full one. I saw a demonstration of an electric moped that worked like this. You pull up to the station, put your empty batteries in the rack for charging, and take a set of full ones. Fully charged EV faster than filling up a tank of gas.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  That's fine for tiny things like mopeds and scooters, but for a full sized vehicle that means half a tonne of batteries.
  - asdff 7y ago
    Maybe we should rethink how we design our electric vehicles. Still, if the batteries are all mounted along the bottom plate, it wouldn't be too hard to engineer a solution that can drop out, roll away, and have a fresh battery array be reinserted into the vehicle. We've been siloing our thinking that an EV should be some quasi hybrid between plugging in your phone to charge, and putting in a gas pump into a car. The best and most practical EV in the future will look nothing like a car today. Maybe in the future we will just bring back street car wiring to our cities and run an antennae above the vehicle like a bumper car.
- matt_morgan 7y ago
  I have a charger for the car on 240V, in our garage. It charges fully in about 2 hours. Mind you this is a plug-in hybrid, with only ~20 mi range before the gas comes on. But still that's lots better than swapping out lots of heavy batteries. Swapping batteries makes sense for a car you don't own. For a car you own, I don't know. Of course car ownership is probably going away soon enough.
  - asdff 7y ago
    Two hours sucks compared to twenty seconds. It doesn't have to be you swapping the battery. Could be the pimple faced kid working at the gas station, or a robot.
    - matt_morgan 7y ago
      Yes, it takes longer. But it happens while I'm sleeping, and requires no special trip. I do think swapping batteries will be the sensible way to handle this when we're also swapping cars, or when the cars drive us, unless charging times come way down.