An interesting development in urban EV? Both the selection of Li-ion cells; & then the liquid cooling of the developed battery modules/packs - for longevity - seem to follow the Tesla approach. {I'm also an LED lighting, & torch/flashlight tragic. The highly regarded AW cells, similarly being developed [by him] from selected top quality components!} Of interest the Hyundai i10BEV has a 16.4 kWh battery pack to go with a tonne weight. In Who Killed the Electric Car it is said that oil interests bought out the patents on large format NiMH batteries. I suspect that these are about due to expire? Perhaps time for an updated Toyota eCom! At 770 kg using just an 8 kWh NiMH battery pack; to give an 80 km range, with a top speed of 100 kph [downhill? ;-]. It certainly appeals to me. (The price for an 8 kWh Li battery pack being around $3K?) A super lightweight alternative might be TREV - a Tandem (two seater) Renewable Electric Vehicle developed by students at our University of South Australia. This was their attempt to produce a BEV version of the 2002 original VW 1-Litre tandem 2 seater car. (Just 290 kg, with a Diesel engine producing 6.3 kW.) TREV was around 300 kg, & used a special 5.3 kWh battery pack (costing around a quarter of the total $40K) giving some 7 kW, or 21 kW peak. A range of some 120 km, with a top speed around 90 kph, is given. BUT the students had some difficulty in getting their practical results to accord with theoretical expectations :-) However, there were certainly solid results!! In 2007 their [crude] hand built BEV traversed our Oz continent from north to south. A journey of some 3,000 km through the heat of our Oz central desert. And, in 2010/11 it did a 30,000 km round the world trip. With a beefed up battery pack (around 13 kWh?), & two people on board! At just half the weight of a F1 car though, I am concerned about the safety aspects. A problem for the fragile bodies of an aging population? Perhaps solved with self-driving vehicles.

Henrik, I applaud your vision of the future!!! Would certainly be a game changer ;-) In the meantime I would like to see an updated version of the Toyota eCom. A small 2 seater sister to the original EV RAV4 - & predecessor to their Prius. A specified range of 80 km (50 miles) from just a Ni-MH 8 kWh battery pack. I do wonder about the top speed of 100 kph (60 mph) though. Still in Oz the majority of our population live in urban areas. With most households containing just the one, or two people. Perhaps China can provide an interim solution - before I need a self-driving vehicle. If lightweight F1 cars can be made safe, my increasingly fragile bones might also be protected :-)

Petrol in Oz is more expensive than in the US - tho cheaper than in Europe. With low oil prices the Govt take would seem to comprise most of what Oz motorists now pay. A problem for when many go EV ;-) I'm intrigued by [ultra]capacitors - tho have lost interest in EESTOR. With most of the OZ population urban (only NY in USA seems to have a higher population than our two largest cities?), fuel savings from simply shutting off, then restarting the engine, in stop start driving might be worthwhile? Particularly if pollution is also reduced. I wonder how cost effective - compared to stop/start including regenerative braking? These two ultracapacitors, in series, only appear to have the capacity of one eneloop AA (1.2V x 2Ah) but can crank out 3kW. [Of interest I see that capacitors storing up to 10Wh can be transported - but lower capacity Li cells are constrained??]

Some in Oz have been buying used iMIEVs for around $15k. I'm taken with the predecessor to the Prius. The Toyota eCom - a 2 seater EV with an 8 kWh Ni-MH battery-pack. [This Noddy Car being the small sister of the original EV-RAV4.] A top speed of 100 kph (?) with an 80 km range were specified. Would an updated version (with current safety features) sell at a similar price point? I would certainly be interested in one for urban use.

World-wide, evidence based crowd sourcing should help solve this. As Harvey has earlier commented the ubiquitous smart phone can check the air you breathe, & the water you drink. With an inexpensive sensor a smart phone [micro-computer] can sample these, & then communicate the results.

As an old codger ;-) may I make a plea for lengthy posts to be separated into paragraphs? Or even less, for those of us with a fallible [aged] short term memory. Cheers!

Agreed 100% Harvey!!! With sensor attachments to our mini computers water quality can also be tested. On the health front optometry sensors can accurately [with high resolution displays] test my myopia, astigmatism, & age related cataracts. Perhaps more accurately than expensive specialists, using equipment costing six figures. Still no robotic surgeons, however?

Visually this 0.5kWh battery pack comprises 30 21700 cylindrical cells. The diameter of a ~3.3Ah 18650 cell having been increased by one-sixth - 21/18. Giving an increase in area of some 36% ((21/18)^2) - so one might presume that the increase in cell length of 5mm allows for protection circuitry, to safeguard longevity.

US stats seem to indicate that CPPs are not generally capable of being quickly [large scale] ramped down, then back up again. Apparently higher quality coal helps with this - as does having part (pot/s?) of the generating plant already operational. Having extremely dirty brown coal electricity generation in the Victorian state of Australia I had presumed that with continuously burning our 'peat' we had already produced the CO2, & other byproducts. (We do condense the steam generated to drive the turbines, however, in order to save water :-) If, in fact, the coal is still burned, then might one argue that only a marginal cost is involved? For 'spare' generation capacity, perhaps no additional health hazard? In Victoria any spare [overnight] electricity generation (at the cost of further water usage) might 'fuel' EVs? As a newbie, I would welcome comments on this.