Word: new
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...technological grasp? It does not. Last week twelve shiny versions of this ideal car were lined up for public inspection at the first International Electric Vehicle Symposium in Phoenix, Ariz. Some of the models were familiar Volkswagens and Renaults, converted to run on battery power. Others were brand new and strange-looking. General Electric unveiled its squat, three-door "Delta," which looks like a stylized descendant of the Jeep. Not to be outdone, Westinghouse showed off a sleek "Lotus Europa" sports car. Ford had a streamlined "Lead Wedge" that has whirred across Utah's salt flats at 138 m.p.h...
...new era in transportation that such vehicles promise will be somewhat delayed. The one obstacle that keeps the electric car little more than a conversation piece and unable to compete with conventional automobiles is not the motor but the battery. As many as 16 expensive, low-energy-density batteries are needed to make an electric car go. Together they weigh the car down and completely fill what is now trunk space. More serious, no electric car can cruise much farther than 80 miles or longer than a few hours without having to stop to be recharged...
...create a new battery that would enable the electrics to match the performance of conventional cars, says Dr. J.H.B. George of Arthur D. Little Inc., would take "hundreds of millions of dollars in a crash research program, or 50 to 100 years." As an alternate solution, G.E.'s Bruce Laumeister reckons, it is now possible to recharge today's batteries in a few minutes-but only with heavy-duty circuits and chargers that cost far more than the car itself...
...automobile industry could probably adapt to electric cars, but it would be a painful and costly process. For one thing, since electric cars tend to be extremely durable, "planned obsolescence" would itself become obsolete. For another, the new cars, to minimize the drain on their batteries, would have to be light, small and free of many of today's high-profit accessories. As for the oil industry, Netschert figures that it would lose fully half its market...
Whenever a play is revived, it is rewritten, to some extent, by its new audience. What was once vivid may now appear dim. What passed for honest emotion may now be disdained as gluey sentimentality. Each successive age accords authority only to its own brand of vision and sophistication...