Daily Blog – John E. Johnson, Jr. – March 21, 2008: BIG HI-FI SYSTEMS IN ELECTRIC CARS.

I see that the car companies are gearing up to make cars that will operate solely on batteries except when you stomp on the gas pedal. They will drive 30 miles on the battery alone, if you don’t try to speed past someone. Previous cars use the battery as backup, and these use a gasoline engine as backup. I guess someone is getting the message that Americans don’t intend to put up with $4 a gallon for gasoline.

Such a car will be perfect for commuting to work and back. At night, you just plug it into a household extension cord and by morning, you are ready to go. The batteries to take us 30 miles are finally becoming a reality.

OK, so say you buy one of these cars. Air conditioning and heaters will be a problem because air conditioner compressors use a huge amount of electrical power, and heaters rely on the heat from gasoline engines so they would need an electrical heating system, and that again would consume lots of electrical power.

However, with switching power amplifiers and more efficient speaker drivers, we could have a nice big audio system in the car right now. Play it as loud as we want, too. No new technology required.

So, while they figure out how to heat and cool the electric vehicle, I am making plans for the audio system I will be putting in my electric car. I plan to get one as soon as they are available. I can’t post a photo here of the sign I will be putting in the rear window of the electric car as a message to oil conglomerates, because this is a family magazine. I suspect such signs will be available everywhere as we all feel the same way.