Thread: Foreign Oil and why we need it now!!!!
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Old 10-24-2010 | 04:26 PM
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Originally Posted by detpilot
My question for you guys with electric cars is this:

Has the battery technology improved to the point where they don't begin to lose their energy storage ability?

If it's anything like cell phone batteries, they'll go 100 miles today on a full battery, but only 98 miles next week, 92 miles in 3 months, and 40 miles in 2 years...

Or is the technology different? That is my primary concern with buying an electric car (aside from lack of money)
I don't know too much about the LEAF, but jugding by the price of the charging station, it should prevent battery fade from happening. The reason why rechargeable batteries fail is because people do not know how to charge them. A battery is meant to be fully discharged before it is charged again. When the battery is fully charged again, it must be disconnected from the power source. Most people don't wait for their batteries to fully discharge before they charge the again. Then they leave the battery plugged in charging for way longer than it needs to be. This destroys battery life. My cell phone is 3 years old and my battery still lasts 4 days of normal use (it lasted 5 when I first got it). This laptop I am using is 6 years old and the battery will still make it through a 2 hour movie.

If the charging stations are any good, they will automatically stop charging when the battery is full. The best system would also drain the battery first, but if you plugged the car in and then realized you forgot to get milk, you would be out of luck. From the last time I looked into the technology, Tesla had batteries that could last 10 years with only a 20% loss in battery life. It is not for everyone, but for those that drive only a few miles a day (like me) it is the greatest thing to ever happen to a car.
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