Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech has commented on an article in Sunday’s NY Times looking at the differences in two plans for getting off the addiction to oil. We think we have a better plan than either of them, inspired in part by both of them. Let’s look at the two plans first…

First up is Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place, which is trying to solve the problem by means of pure electric cars with exchangeable battery packs for range extension. Basically, for typical daily driving you run off the battery which you recharge at night. When you need to drive further, you can pull into a battery changing station and they’ll swap out your flat battery for a newly charged pack. Even better, the car is free (in the same way that your cell phone is free, when you sign a two year contract). Just pay a monthly contract that is similar to the monthly fuel bill you’re paying and they’ll lend you the car for free.

The Pickens Plan on the other hand is promoting the use of natural gas for vehicle power, and wind power for electricity. Natural gas solves the range problem in pretty much the same way as gasoline does today – you pull into a gas station and simply refill. CNG is already in use for vehicles in the US, so this is a well known technology; many taxis servicing the airport here in San Francisco are already CNG fueled, as are some of the buses and even some garbage trucks.

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Another California automotive startup, Fisker Automotive has plans for a luxury performance plugin hybrid (PHEV). The very slick looking 4 door car is powered by their Q Drive plugin hybrid system. The car will do 50 miles on pure electric power, so for many people their commute can be totally electric.

If you do need more than 50 miles range, there is a small gasoline engine in the car that will turn a generator to recharge the battery and run the electric motor.

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