Cyril Fox, the legendary Director of Public Cleansing for the city of Sheffield, who ran a huge fleet of electric dustcarts and was famous in his field for all manner of technical innovation*, put it this way (paraphrase, very close to exact quote):

"When you purchase a set of batteries, you are in effect paying for five years of petrol in advance."

The more things change...

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*Ten points to anyone who knows what the term "Shefflex" refers to.

Too bad the batteries don't come with 5 years worth of energy in them as well.

Hmmm... assume your 35KWh pack is discharged to 80% and you want to recharge it in ten minutes, you need about a 170KW source, so assuming 220V supply thats about an 800A supply, so a typical USA house panel would go from 200A to 1000A. Now obviously every house in an area wont be recharging at once, but there is going to need to be some re-engineering done on domestic electricity supplies.

Sine the average power use is 2500 watts and we are going to 35000, that means a lot more generators, maybe two to three times the power we now produce.

Battery is like hydrogen, it just stores energy we dont have.
(But it is much better than hydrogen) it just isnt a power source.

A few rich people electric cars w3e can handle.
but shoot
if I was RICH
I would get a twelve cylinder bently.

so it wont work to help us probably.

Actual usage would probably be more like this:
Majority of charging would be done at night, at home, on 220 volts, which is available at all homes. No need for fast charging. At night there already exists excess capacity to handle all the EV's we can throw at it in the fastest imaginable rollout of EV's. Night charging is at reduced prices.
Most people drive less than 40 miles each day, so charging requirements would be less than 30% of the 35KW pack, at night.

If required for a longer trip, fast charging would be done at specific charging stations, like gas stations now. You don't fuel up your gas vehicle at home.

This vehicle sounds awesome, but it is just a replacement of a traditional car with something that charges quickly. I think the way to go is with small Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, and take mass transit between cities. Wherever you get the energy from, the grid or gasoline, there won't be enough to push 3000 pounds of car and 300 pounds of person 60 mph down the highway. Why? Simpler to get a 150 pound person and a 30 pound bag in a 300 pound vehicle around town, and then that person gets on a train with 300 others and gets to the next city.

Here's our little vehicle. It takes a while to charge, but it'll charge itself. Just park it in the sun. The cost will be a lot less than the Phoenix. Something like this might work in an energy limited world.

www.sunnev.com

The Sunnev is great and has it's uses, and with an aerodynamic body it would probably perform even better. However, even in an energy limited future I still see a market for larger electrically powered vehicles. Not to mention the Sunnev still has to share the road with much larger vehicles, bringing up safety concerns.
I can see Sunnev type vehicles for daily use and a larger EV for occasional hauling and longer trips.

The SunNEV is fantastic and I'd have one in a second if I had a place to park it safely (in the city, parking is more of an issue than driving!).

As for safety on the road, do this:

Put an "Insured by Smith & Wesson" sticker in the rear window. Carry a firearm on the road. Carry a cellphone as well. Anyone get aggressive with you, call it in to the police and get 'em busted. Anyone try anything truly dangerous, shoot out their tires and then call the cops.

The friggin' SUV industry tries to use the "safety" arguement but what's really up is this: First they sell monster-Vs to people who have ego problems. Then they tell everyone else, "you'd better get a monster-V to protect yourself from the other ones on the road..." It's a pyramid scheme and a protection racket. If you're really scared about getting hit, drive an armored truck at 3 miles per gallon, or better yet stay home.

I say F--- 'em. Drive what makes sense for sustainability and take a hard line on reckless drivers.

Actually I wasn't talking about safety in regards to aggressive SUV drivers, but in regards to the fact that in an accident, the Sunnev would be crushed by even a Prius.
Frankly, if Peak Oil hits full force as some believe, it won't be an issue because there won't be many people who will be able to fuel their SUV's anyway.

About charging

FWIW, they claim "Off board charger: 10 minutes to recharge to 95% capacity" but they don't mention the voltage. I realize that it is not realistic to have say a 600v home charger, but maybe they have some novel way of doing the fast charge.

The ONBOARD charger is 220v for 6 hours.

I'd buy one in a second to park beside my vegetablle oil powered Mercedes

Peter

I doubt it unless they've altered the laws of physics. Fast charging will not be done at home, not to mention the fast charging station costs something like $100,000.00 Fleet use and commercial charging stations only.

A bicycle would also get squished by a Prius. The SunNEV and similar vehicles are feasible for cases where bicycles are not, for example hauling groceries in cold/rainy weather. Ideal case is you have a bike, a small electric (e.g. SunNEV) for local use, and a plug-in hybrid for longer trips (or access to one via car-share clubs), and use public transport for longer trips wherever possible.

True. I need an armored exoskelton with external airbags.

Agreed.

OK, that makes more sense. You can recharge at home, 6 hours, 220v. For fleet vehicles they have some high voltage/amperage charger that can do the fast charge

Peter

Fast chargers would also be located at, that's right - gas stations.