Why I wouldn't buy an electric car

 

Went out to go for a ride Sunday.  Bike wouldn't start.  Put the charger
on the battery, went off and did stuff, when I got back the battery was
charged and the bike started.  Was too late for a ride that day, so
geared up the next morning and wouldn't start again.  Put the charger on
all day.  Charged up again, started.  Dead again this morning.
Obviously the battery is defunct.

Now, what does this have to do with electric cars?  Well, if "they" can
make batteries that actually last, then "they" should tell me where to
get one to start my damned bike and my damned car and run my damned
computer and my damned cell phone and my damned drill.  Because as long
as all of those things need a new battery every three years or so I'm
not going to buy some snake-oil salesman's story about how the hideously
expensive battery that powers the hideously expensive electric car will
last more than three years.

 


The hybrid I drive at work is over eight years old rand the battery is
still good.

 


Not all that obvious. How do you know you're charging
as you're riding ? Seems like you could just as easily
have an alternator or RR problem as a bad battery.

 

On 9/14/2010 9:32 PM, Rob Kleinschmidt wrote:

So tell me, o brilliant one, how an alternator or "RR" (whatever an "RR"
might be) would cause a battery that is fully charged at 10 PM to be
dead at 8 AM the next morning, with the bike parked the whole time.

 

On 9/14/2010 9:56 PM, J. Clarke wrote:

be) would cause a battery that is fully charged at 10 PM to be dead at 8 AM the
next morning, with the bike parked the whole time.

I can't tell for sure from what you've written above, after charging
the battery, did you leave the charger hooked up overnight?  It
sounds like you didn't.  It's not at all obvious to me, that the
battery must be defunct- it certainly /could/ be, but a fault in the
regulator/rectifier or elsewhere in the bike's electrical system,
can certainly drain a good battery overnight.

The simplest way to isolate the fault would be to disconnect the
battery from the bike, charge it, disconnect the charger, then let
the battery sit for a day or so.  If the battery is still fully
charged after sitting disconnected for a day or more, and it starts
the bike OK, there's a parasitic drain in the bike that is
discharging the battery.