This post was originally produced for Forbes.
When I first met Wesley Smith he was running a STEM-rich, team building program for students of all ages, including an occasional corporate group–it was really a Star Trek fantasy experience.
His latest social venture is a bit more down to earth. WAVE is building electric buses that carry small batteries, allowing the bus to actually have room for passengers. Battery requirements for electric buses are so dramatic that electric buses are traditionally connected to overhead electricity and often run diesel engines when disconnected from power. To enable a bus to run on electricity all day the bus couldn’t carry passengers, it would only have room for carrying batteries–and it would be so expensive as to be a nonstarter. WAVE has found another way.
Smith believes that it is obvious that but for batteries, electric buses are far superior to the alternatives. “If not for concerns related to the battery, electric buses are far superior to their di…