Electric vehicles may not be the most practical vehicles for everyone, but with a large majority of the world's population concentrated in urban areas, they could be - and will be - a good fit for many people.
But what's the one thing stopping widespread adoption? The same thing always prevents it...infrastructure. Where would you be if your EV battery died on you in the middle of a busy day? Screwed, that's where.
Well that's all about to change.
If you're going to be driving an electric car, there'd better be plenty of charging stations available along the way. That's why GE hired designer Yves Behar to create WattStation, a powerful charger that'll be able to top off your batteries in four to eight hours.
The average (and scarce) curbside charger you see in use today takes between 12 and 18 hours to fully charge a car. Behar will be designing curbside, home, and garage models to debut in 2011.
The LED ring on the top of the charger minimalisticly indicates the level of charge. It beams white when available, green when fully charged, red when charging, and yellow when out of order.
Readily available curbside chargers coupled with the extended range and 8-year/100,000-mile battery warranty on GM's Chevy Volt will come together to make 2011 a huge year for mainstreaming EVs.
Like DVICE suggests, however, "Now if they could just make it so the WattStation could charge a car's batteries in the time it takes to fill up a tank with gas, this could make driving an electric car a painless way to get from here to there."
What do you think of EVs? Would you consider owning one or are there still too many unknowns to keep you from taking the early-adopter plunge?
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