I worked all this out to give me a sense of things.

1 gallon of gasoline = 125000 btu = 36 KW hours
A gallon of gas in Concord NH costs $2.50
That will buy perhaps 25 KW hours of electricity at 10 cents a KW hour.
But the gasoline engine is not very efficient.
Say 33 % so of the energy of a gallon gasoline will produce 36/3 or 12
KW hours of motive force.
So at $2.50 a gallon the net equivalent motive power of a gasoline is 21
cents per KW hour.
At $1.25 it is on par with electricity.
At $5.00 it is much more expensive than electricity.

Gen 2 battery is 200 volts x 6.5 ams or 1300 ampere hours of 1.3 KW hours
Only about half of this capacity is used to prolong battery life so only
.65 KW hours is available.
It store 6.5 cents of electricity or the motive force of about .054
gallons of gas or about 6 cents worth of gasoline.
That would be enough to power the car for 3.2 minutes assuming 50 MPH
and 50 MPG.
Or about 3.2 miles.

To drive 50 miles you would need a 200 volt x 102 ampere hour battery.
This would weigh something like 1100 pounds.
So much easier to carry 7 pounds of gasoline.
But the gasoline engine also has weight.











Stan Sexton wrote:
> As the DVD "Who KIlled the Electric Car" pointed out, about 80% of us
> drive 29 miles or less per day. Even something as simple as the EV-1
> would be more than adequate for a large majority of commuters. The few
> that need to go farther can just jump in their hybrid. Not
> complicated. If battery packs could be standardized, you could go
> farther by incorporating "battery exchange stations". We have the need
> and the ability to accomodate this need NOW. Actually, we have had the
> ability to have this kind of system for some years now. We just lack
> the will (and something about GM and Standard Oil NIMH Patents).