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Developing Battery Replacement Infrastructure For Electric Cars

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-free-of-charge dept.

FathomIT sends in a NY Times profile of Shai Agassi, owner of a company named Better Place, who is working to build the infrastructure to support large numbers of small-scale charging spots for electric cars, as well as fast, automated battery swap stations. "The robot — a squat platform that moves on four dinner-plate-size white wheels — scuttled back and forth along a 20-foot-long set of metal rails. At one end of the rails, a huge blue battery, the size of a large suitcase, sat suspended in a frame. As we watched, the robot zipped up to the battery, made a nearly inaudible click, and pulled the battery downward. It ferried the battery over to the other end of the rails, dropped it off, picked up a new battery, hissed back over to the frame and, in one deft movement, snapped the new battery in the place of the old one. The total time: 45 seconds."

2 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Dick "High Crimes and Midemeanors" Chaney by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I should have been impeached for disgracing my office and my country in a massive 8 year crime spree.

    I'm ignoring the fact that I totally ruined American credibility and turned our foreign policy into a self-destructive joke.

    Instead, I'm throwing stones at Barack Obama, who is cleaning up my mess.

    I'm a dick, and I left the White House in a wheel chair because I threw out my back lifting a box of karma.

    1. Re:Dick "High Crimes and Midemeanors" Chaney by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Linux just isn't ready for the desktop yet. It may be ready for the web servers that you nerds use to distribute your TRON fanzines and personal Dungeons and Dragons web-sights across the world wide web, but the average computer user isn't going to spend months learning how to use a CLI and then hours compiling packages so that they can get a workable graphic interface to check their mail with, especially not when they already have a Windows machine that does its job perfectly well and is backed by a major corporation, as opposed to Linux which is only supported by a few unemployed nerds living in their mother's basement somewhere. The last thing I want is a level 5 dwarf (haha) providing me my OS.