interview > eberhard > eberhard 10

Eberhard 10 (0:36)
Topic(s): Efficiency / Electric & Hybrid
User Comments

© WGBH Educational Foundation

Please watch the clip first. If you plan to use it, review the Rules of Use, then click on the download button.

This clip is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Video Transcript

Yeah, it's all about driving range—it's about batteries. I mean driving range all about batteries. And the reason we chose to use lithium-ion batteries as opposed to either lead acid or even nickel metal hydrate that were used in all electric cars ever before. It's the energy density, how much energy can you fit in a given amount of space and weight. Lithium-ion batteries are about four times the energy density of the previous car batteries and that's phenomenal difference. That's like a four times bigger gas tank, so that's for the driving range comes from. It comes at a price that—I think that the driving range is one the most important things to electric cars to become acceptable.