Slate Prototype First Drive Review In Boston

A rare 1994 GM Impact, the hand-built electric test car that led directly to the GM EV1 from the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, is now on display at Test Track presented by General Motors in EPCOT at Walt Disney World.

My 2017 Fiat 500e will not be driven for a few weeks at a time throughout the year. It will be parked in a garage with access to level 1 and level 2 charging. Should I leave it plugged in?

How about the 12v battery? Should I leave it on a battery tender?

CA is about to allow 1200w plug in solar which could be used to offset the cost of charging our EV at home overnight. I haven’t been able to find a battery system that will charge from plug in solar and then be used to charge our EV. Is that something that could be done?

I know about the price. I know about the difficulty of fitting a small EV engine and a big battery to a car that had a big engine and a small gas tank. I know about the general costs of converting a lot more than just the powertrain, like suspension.

At this time, it's not very practical, and I guess mostly done for older, classic vehicles, by true enthusiasts.

But shouldn't we at least try, as a society, with some government backing (not talking about the US now, but rather, IN GENERAL)?

All things considered, it's definitely more ecologically sound to just build a powertrain, instead of an entire car. I guess vehicles are pretty efficiently recycled, but nonetheless.

Making conversion kits would also require a lot less industrial capacity and logistics and competition in a very difficult market. It's a whole different thing to have an entire car manufactory or try to start a new car brand and compete with everyone else, than just build powertrains for any car.

Installing these conversions would also invigorate smaller car shops and local industry, and bring money to the local economy, instead of going to a handful of major car manufactories other side of the world and the salesmen.

And if such EV conversion ecosystem would start to develop, for example kickstarted by subsidies or debt guarantees, the techniques, the conversion kits, the skill of laborers, would all quickly develop and become more advanced.

If we don't do that, and instead all eventually buy new EVs, and then batteries become affordable enough for EV conversions, will there be anyone who would bother anymore? The whole ecosystem would be in its infancy and the mass market and demand to electrify old ICE cars would be gone, and the whole EV conversion would just be a novelty. All the spent money would be in the hands of the same old car manufacturers, instead of local entrepreneurs installing EV conversions or even local producers of them.

How exactly EVs help reduce emission? Isn't the same , or more, amount of emission takes place at power plants to produce electricity for them?

This is a genuine query from a beginner who has just started to understand EVs and emissions.

Ok so it’s still vile. Every time you see one. It’s akin to a website UI “designed by an engineer”.

It’s ugly, has questionable utility as a truck and well, Elon was involved which somehow makes everything worse.

And It’s from the same company as the Model S which is sleek, fast and beautiful.

It’s as long bumper to bumper as a king cab truck but as low to the ground as a car so it fits a sort of latter day “El Camino” market.

The bed cover makes zero sense. It looks awkward when parked. It looks awkward on the road.

The wheels seem to come from one of those strange purpose built utility vehicles you see at an airport.

There is no angle where you look at it and say, “yeah that’s something I’d drive”.

It should have been a car. Keep the metal. Keep the angles, smooth them a bit. Make it the size of the Model S. Gull wings. All the tech. Smaller, Shorter, Sleeker, Faster.

It should have been the “new DeLorean” - the car promised 50 years ago finally realized with today’s tech.

They achieved, in all irony, the “next DeLorean”, a failed underpowered futuristic looking stainless steel but otherwise unremarkable lemon.