Every now and then I come up with a great idea — like bail bondsman trucks modeled after ice cream trucks except that they instead play Johnny Cash music to lure “customers” in.
I’m not going to apologize — that’s a top notch idea. And I thought of it.
Pure awesome-ness.
I can totally picture (and hear) one parked out front of every courthouse in the land.
They’d be a taxi cab yellow colour with black and white graphics — impossible to miss even without the Folsom Prison Blues playing.
It’s a shame that I’m too timid to ever consider that line of work.
Anyway, having jumped a few cars recently and even replaced a few batteries, I can’t help but wonder why this century old technology hasn’t been updated much at all.
Sure, the batteries are encased in plastic and have little handles that make them look like wicked heavy lunch boxes but besides that, little has changed over the past 100 years.
Until now…
(insert fanfare here)
Okay, so before I spill out my ga-zillion dollar idea for free here, you’re going to have to read a few more single sentence paragraphs…
How many people have used jumper cables before? I’m guessing that most people have tried it once or twice.
I’m also going to guess that at least once or twice, sparks flew. The scary kind of sparks. The kind that make you think, “Jeez, how did I not get electrocuted?”
Plain and simple, car batteries are dangerous.
That’s why terrorists in movies use them to torture people. Seriously.
Stick with me here…
A show of hands of how many people have plugged their mouse into the back of their computer?
I’m guessing, since this is on the internet, that everyone has done that before. And if your computer is only a few years old, chances are, the mouse connection is a USB connection.
Those are powered, you know.
Didja see sparks? Didja almost get electrocuted?
Of course not.
See where I’m going with this?
Now I realize that the juice that makes the little red light on your mouse light up dwarfs the power to start a car — they’re barely comparable.
But what about that 9-volt battery in your smoke detector?
You know, those batteries with the snaps that’ve been around since the 1950’s?
Again, two different levels of power…
But why is it that replacing a car battery is more like wiring a brand new GCFI outlet in your kitchen (with the electricity on) than replacing the battery in your smoke detector?
It doesn’t have to be.
It doesn’t need to be.
Car batteries should be like 9-volt batteries not like sticking two forks into a live outlet.
They should snap or click into some sort of connection inside the car — maybe just using their weight and gravity to “click” into place.
Maybe even make them like giant Atari cartridges with a bunch of USB style connections on the bottom.
We have the technology, for sure.
It’s changing the mindset of the auto industry that stands in the way.
For that same reason (the mindset thing), I only get 11 miles per gallon…