enclave

電気自動車に関する記事です。トヨタのプリウス，日産リーフ等々徐々にではありますが，電気自動車に乗る人が増えてきていると思います。しかし，記事の中ではまだまだ電気自動車には課題があると述べております。一つには，バッテリーの大きさが挙げられておりました。また，走行可能距離もガソリン車と比較して短くなってしまいます。気になった単語は"enclave"です。『Wisdom第三版（三省堂）』では「（ある国，都市の中の）飛び地; 少数民族居住地; 少数民族集団」という意味です。ここでの少数民族とは，もちろん電気自動車のことを指しております。電気自動車が普及して，"enclave"が"entire country"になる日は来るのでしょうか。（Ume）

The electric car’s biggest threat may be its battery

The battery-powered electric car is making inroads, but there’s one major problem – the battery itself. What’s needed to make the green motor go mainstream?

Visit a super-wealthy enclave in California like La Jolla or a super-techy one like Mountain View, and you will get a glimpse of the future. The car future, that is. Every second car on the road is a Tesla, Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, or similar. The electric and hybrid vehicles interweave perfectly with the regular traffic, and many businesses, shopping centres, and homes have charging points installed.

If the electric car-makers have their way, this is the future that we will all experience at some point, and they are pouring a lot of money into making it happen. The question is how easy is it to scale up the demands of small enclaves to an entire country?

Elsewhere in California Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors recently proposed plans for an enormous battery factory at an as-yet-undisclosed south western United States location (which is the subject of much fevered discussion). This so-called “Gigafactory” is set to cost $5 billion, and slated to produce lithium-ion batteries for 500,000 cars by 2020 – which is more produced annually than were produced worldwide in 2013.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140331-electric-cars-biggest-threat