The Kia Kilovolt

I have a cordless 18V Bosch drill. I've had it probably four, maybe five years. One of my two batteries is now not keeping charge for any appreciable time. Every time I need to use it I have to plan ahead and charge the battery. I've always liked Bosch tools, they seem to hold up better than other brands in the shop. That said, after only a half decade the battery on a small tool in my garage is in need of replacement.

The other day near Folsom, as I was watching the crush of traffic coming down off the Bass Lake Grade on Highway 50 (all those people living in the country to escape suburbia), I was wondering what it will be like in 30 years when all of their cars will [presumably] be battery powered. Here are my suggestions for some car names:

• Chevy Volt
• Oldsmobile Ohm
• Alfa Romero Ampere
• Suzuki Susceptance
• Infinity Impedance
• Izuzu Inductance
• Mercury Megawatt
• Kia Kilovolt

I was wondering -- if I can't get a small shop battery to last longer than a couple of years, how in God's name can we expect to batterize all of our existing and future exurbia, so that someone living on the margins of Placerville can drive her Kia Kilovolt 74 miles daily to work in Rancho Cordova? If I can't get a 5 year old battery to twist a 1/4 inch drill bit through some wood, how will a five year old Oldsmobile Ohm battery twist a drive shaft pushing some overweight foothillian thirty seven miles and 2,300 feet up to their country villa?

Do you think all of El Dorado county could be batterized? I suppose stranger things have happened. Perhaps battery technology will come along and save us -- save us from foreign oil, save us from having to rethink and re-engineer our suburban living arrangements, save us and allow us to continue to build suburbia all the way to Kyburz. One gigantic eighty five mile long carpool lane to save the world.