Thread: Plug in overnight electric cars poll

We have briefly discussed in other threads the effects on the power grid if plug in overnight electric cars became popular. From
this link

we get:

"But if the entire car fleet were switched to electric, that could put a major dent in oil use and cause prices to drop substantially. Cambridge said gasoline use would plummet by 70% in the United States if all passenger vehicles were electric, while electricity consumption would rise by just one-sixth."

And
this link


says:

"The study concludes that 'the growing number of plug-in hybrid electric cars and trucks could require major new power generation resources or none at all -- depending on when people recharge their automobiles.'"

And to add to the fun, this
treehugger link


says:
"The nation's existing electric power grid could fuel as many as 180 million electric cars, a Department of Energy study estimates."


This one


makes interesting reading. In part, but go read the article, esp the comments:
"Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers claim if pluggable hybrids don't get recharged until after 10 PM then they will require little or no additional electric power plants."
Note it's about plug in hybrids, not pure electric vehicles.

So if timers were set up to do the recharge after 10 p.m., for example, there will be little or no added demand for new power plants over the next few years as the number of electric cars grows. And that doesn't even take into account various schemes to use plugged in electric cars as power reserves for the grid.

Certainly, more power plants will eventually be needed. But there's plenty of time to build them. It'll be 2020 or 2030, according to many articles, before electrics are a significant part of the market. I suspect that if a car like the EV-1 were to be readily available today, even for five or ten thousand more than the equivalent gas version, it would sell like hotcakes. Get the product out there, watch how fast it sells.

So much for my bias. Here's the question:

Do you think there's a near term future for a practical pure electric vehicle? Defined as capable of 60 mph and minimum 100 mile range, works in Maine in the winter, and either has no internal combustion engine or only a small one to do limited recharging of the batteries. And not cost more than 25% more than an equivalent size/quality gas vehicle (never mind the speed/range).

- Yes, we should see that by 2012 (keep in mind the Chevy Volt)
- Yes, by 2020 there will be a few such cars
- Maybe by 2030
- We won't likely see such a car for the next 50 years
- Electric cars will never compete well against fossil fuel cars

There are electric cars available now and by 2012 there should be cars from several differant manufactureres including new start-ups. This time frame is very simular to what happened in the auto market at the turn of the 20 century. I think that electric cars are the future -- especially for mass transist within the city.

2012 is only three years away. If this were practical from the major carmakers we would be seeing near production vehicles now instead of the science projects that are being tested.

GM has a lousy record of commitment to any form of alternative energy. Not much better from Ford or Chrysler. However they are being pushed from the Japanese.

I believe that the practical plug in hybrid will likely come from Honda, and I expect it to hit wide distribution sometime in the latter half of the next decade.

I've aways wondered how would the plugin model work if you didn't own a house/garage to have a plug? Apartment complex's? Job parking lots? Would owners who pay a premium for the new technology want to be limited to 100 miles. Would service stations swap/recharge dead batteries on the fly if owners wanted more then 100 miles? If the service station swap theory came true, what would be the price model for them to make a profit, and would a new car owner with a new battery want to swap their new battery with a battery on its last leg? Would the batteries have bar codes? The power grid would survive if owners coperated and charged at night.

I believe that plugin electrics will serve a niche market for local driving by a select few people. It won't serve the needs for those with long commute distances or even local on the road workers. My wife could make use of one for to and from the office a distance of 7 miles drive to work but when she travels for out of town appointments the Camry Hybrid, a touring car is more suited.
The power grid hit is a theoretical impact study and is quite real if conditions are such that many people use plugin electrics. I see no time ration as a solution. It doesn't work with gasoline- aka Jimmy Carter gas rationing days, and it won't work for plugin electrics. We will need additional power generation and wind, solar concentrators and storage will be needed. Many want nuclear but while this is a very safe form of energy, it suffers at the back end with waste disposal cost. Nuclear power conveniently does not include the cost of waste management in the price per KWH while other power plants do. If the true cost of waste management were included in the cost per kwh of nuclear, we would be paying over a hundred dollars a KWH, not ten cents. The true cost of nuclear is so out of whack with other forms they had to separate it in order to justify its use. Basically, the people of the planet will be paying to manage and store the waste from the electric power we use today for thousands of years.


I see a solution for the plug-in electric as a standard battery design that can be swapped out at "electric filling stations" Pull in like we do at gas pumps and the station attendant simply swaps out your battery with a recharged one. This would be the solution for over the road long distance travel. Today there is no standard for batteries for electric cars but I see this being a standard in the futute. We have this today for most battery operated devices using the "AA cell, the AAA cell, the C cell etc. but still don't have this for laptops and cell phones. That would be the fault of our government.

I read somewhere instead of replacing the battery, the battery refueling stations would replace the battery acid instead.


I think the closest we are going to get is electric hybrid.

Keep in mind that there is a lot of research going on with super capacitors. They are lighter and charge more quickly than batteries. If a breakthrough is made, you may see an electric car that can recharge in a couple of minutes.

An electric car wouldn't be feasable for me since I drive 150 miles round trip each day.

To me a practical electric car is not a hybrid. I have a 10 mile each way commute, but part of it is done on the interstate and I have to be able to a minimum do 65mph. When I can do my commute and have enough reserve to run errands at lunch without having to plug in at work, that is when we will have a practical plug in electric car. It isn't going to happen in the next 3 years so I went with wishful thinking and said 2020.