Now The Artega Battery Car Enters The Eclectic Car Fray,

but would you buy one?

first the plus side, it has a 375 horsepower engine - more than some Porsches - and a range of 186 miles after which it needs to be charged for 90 minutes, it can also reach speeds of 155mph and goes from 0-60mph in just 4.3 seconds,

now the minus side, it costs £131,000, also it is powered by 16 lithium-ion battery modules, each of which contains 12 battery cells, so 16 X 12 = 192 batteries, a soon as the first one fails all performance figures are null and void, the Battery University gives a life of 3 to 5 years for these batteries, adding the caveat that 'life cycle testing is easy to measure and is well understood by the user, some organizations also add a date stamp of three to five years; however, this method is less reliable because it does not include the type of use,'

the article is well worth reading, I did not know for instance that having a laptop continually running on the power grid, the lithium battery will typically last for about two years, this is because at 40 degrees C a 35% loss in 1 year; 65% remaining capacity is typical, figures are not quoted for 30 degrees, but it still makes for interesting reading, especially the way to extend battery life by discharge cycles but these are not complete itself; equally if not more important are temperature conditions and charging voltages, Lithium-ion suffers stress when exposed to heat and kept at a high charge voltage,

but here is the thing that no one is willing to answer about ALL of these so called green cars, how much does a new set of batteries cost? how much does it cost to dispose of the old ones in an environmentally friendly way? lastly how much CO2 is produced in charging them? not where it is driven but where the electricity is produced to charge them.