A couple of weeks ago Energy 2.0 featured a story on the 2010 Chevy Volt–the car that will save GM–and the first mass market example of transport technology that might save us all in the end. But will the public buy it.

This article about the Tesla (the all electric roadster favored by environmentally-conscious celebrities such a George Clooney) demonstrates there is a market for these cars, as long as they are appropriately targeted to customers.

The most interesting part of the article examines the company’s financial arrangements with customers to replace the car’s battery, which they estimate has a lifetime of approximately 7 years or 100,000 miles. As you can imagine, you don’t simply undo the cables and hand swap them like a vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine.… [view entry]

But wireless technology is not only neater (say good-bye to the power-strip Medusa under your office desk), it’s cleaner. The EPA says Americans purchase a total of 3 billion disposable dry-cell batteries every year (part of a worldwide market of about 15 billion) and then throw 2.8 billion of them into landfills. Wireless systems are designed for rechargeable batteries that can be reused hundreds of times before they become trash.http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/big-green-and-juicy.html