Charlie, I'm not sure if you intended this but Smart Cities - the "ambitious eggheads at MIT" link - and the EVT are actually two distinct groups at MIT. We communicate with each other, and sometimes share equipment but other than that there isn't too much overlap. If your mis-link to us was intentional, no problem. Just a heads up.

If the battery array is 80 large, then the whole car is likely around $100,000...at least.

Versus the Tesla Model S....which is also all electric, BUT, its $50,000, 300 mile range, 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, and its quick charge is 45 minutes...but it can be done with a standard 240 volt outlet.

the Model S seems to me to be an all around better car.

Here is the thing on electric cars. I did some math and came to a realization that at this day and age, at least in new york its cheeper to drive a gas powered vehicle. Here is why, new yorkers are paying on the highest electricity bills in the nation, 23 cents per killowat hour. Consider the fact that a car like Chevy volt takes 100 killowats to be fully charged and goes about 100 miles before charging again. Average american will do aboout 400 miles a week drive time. $23 times four is $92. Sooo, its going to cost $93 dollars a week for electricity in new york. Sure, other states electricity is cheeper but the way i see it, unless price of gass hits about 6 or seven dollars a gallon its cheeper to drive a gas powered car. Back to the drawing board DETROIT!!!!!!!

gundam11122002 - few errors I'd like to point out.

Where did you get (ALL) of those numbers? 400 miles a week! that seems high. I do around 130 miles per week.

BTW, the volt can go 40 miles on pure electricity, not 100 miles.

Another error you made is your 100kw claim...The Chevy Volt's batteries can hold 16kw's.

and another error is electricity. you dont pay 23 cents per kwh, you pay around 17.5 cents per kwh.

now, I'm not that great at math, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but here's how I see it.

For you to charge up the Chevy volts 40 mile (16kw) battery it would cost you (.175 * 16) which equals $2.80.
40 (miles) goes into 400 (your avg miles per week number) 10 times. which makes it $28.00 per week.....not $93.

We need a car under 10,000 US , similar to the old Bug....so everybody can afford it. If it has lead-acid batteries and only goes 25 mph and can only go 30 miles, so be it. I'd buy one. But 50,000 US? 80,000 US? Are you kidding. We need to get off our butts and rethink our whole manufacturing for ultimate profits mentality and start thinking about survival, like during WWII when the whole manufacturing process was geared for the war effort. We need that now.....but in getting "everybody" out of gas cars as quickly as we can, and we can start by getting people who drive less than 30 miles at a time out of their gas cars NOW. This is a war, and we need to think of it like that. It is a war for survival. mark rogers, seattle

war for survival? lol

I dont see how choosing between gas or electric has anything to do with survival.....

as for the price tag, it will go down. I mean the Tesla roadster is 100k...and just a couple years after that was released, will be a better electric car that is half the price! in roughly 3 years from now they will be around that 30k range. :)

a electric car battery maker made an offer for the self chargeing battery that never needs recharged just offered of 23 million dollars for 49% ownership of the new battery

Murc, you are mostly correct, except to get the 40 miles, the battery for the Volt only uses 8Kw of power, not the full 16kw. This keeps the batteries charge between 30% and 80% to extend the life of the battery by not deep cycling it. So the $28 you mentioned should be halved to $14.

At point, gundam11122002 is just trying to spread disinformation. one day he and his employer will work out that doing this actually adds to the advertising for the Volt and other plug-in electric cars when people correct them in ever growing numbers.

not a good idea at all actually. costs far outweigh the benefits, and you are still lugging around all that weight.
here's a suggestion MIT.. use H2O and sunlight as the cars mechanism for refueling itself. sit in a sunny spot while at work and have a full tank of gas when you drive home.. every sunny day. easy concept. no pollution, scalable. mandatory maintainence and a tax on sunny parking spots will balance it all out. do it