Quote :

"Utilities: Grid can handle influx of electric cars # Story Highlights # Utility companies expect many of the country's cars to convert from gas to electricity # Electricity needs of plasma TVs are helping utilities plan for more electric cars # Automakers hope to bring rechargeable vehicles to the market as early as 2010 # Utility officials say they already are coping with increased demand for electricity"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/07/23/electriccars.grid.ap/index.html

Big business was right; going green is breaking our back. Good thing we listened to them for so long.

7/24/2008 11:34:17 PM

They need to get the fuck on with it, then.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IS IT TOMORROW YET?

7/24/2008 11:37:00 PM

wont charging a car everyday raise the electric bill up the ass? way more than keeping the thermostat at 72 during the summer.

7/24/2008 11:50:25 PM

For one, you charge it overnight, which with many utilities is cheaper because of all the access energy they have for the time being in the PM hours.

Then, according to CNN, the cars would suck up about as much as four plasma screens. Not cheap, but cheaper than gas, I'd assume.

7/24/2008 11:55:14 PM

It is cheaper, especially if you factor in the fact that using more electricity at night would make electricity cheaper during the day as instead of having to operate day plants which start in the morning and run until night, they can be replaced with more efficient base load plants which run 24/7. That takes time, but utilities are used to dealing with time.

The problem remains, however, even after shifting the entire benefit of the changeover to nightime car-charging, you still pay 4 cents a kwh. This is cheaper than gasoline but not substantially cheaper: even at $3.50 a gallon it will take five years to pay off the battery and there is no guarantee gasoline will stay this expensive.

7/25/2008 12:11:08 AM

I wonder how much of the extra power usage could be covered by a few solar panels on your house.

7/25/2008 12:11:25 AM

^^ What's that convert to in $ per mile?

I'm only asking you because I believe you'd figure it out before I would.

[Edited on July 25, 2008 at 12:16 AM. Reason : curious yellow today]

7/25/2008 12:16:34 AM

i did some cost calculations last year here
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=474626
Not sure if they are still valid, but the should be in the ballpark. In short, no, a plug-in hybrid will not raise your electricity bill "up the ass". It will be at most a buck or two for a full recharge, way cheaper than gas at this point

Quote :

"ok, did some quick calculations. If your normal, gas car gets 25mpg (which is a lot higher than you with SUVs get), and gas costs $2.50/gallon (higher than that now), then it costs you $6 to drive 60 miles - the same distance you can get on a full tank of electricity. According to my last power bill, electricity is $0.11/kWh (seems high.... i was thinking it was around $0.07), the equivalent $6 in gas would buy you 55kWh from Progress Energy. According to http://www.evworld.com/electrichybrid.cfm the Prius uses a 1.3kWh battery, so your Prius battery (if charged from the wall) would run for over 42 hours for your $6 of gas. Assuming driving at 50mph, that's about 2100 miles (and still over 1000 miles at 25mph average stop-and-go city driving) for the equivalent of $6 of gas."

7/25/2008 8:03:40 AM

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5406454&page=1

Quote :

"One of the main complaints about plug-in technology is that you're just trading one form of pollution for another -- tailpipe emissions for power-plant smokestack emissions. But a recent "well to wheels" life-cycle analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council shows that a shift by the U.S. to plug-in vehicles would cut carbon emissions by as much as 500 million tons annually and 10 billion tons cumulatively by 2050. At the same time, other exhaust pollutants would decline. They found that the U.S. power grid could easily handle the load of three-quarters of Americans switching to plug-ins, which require only about 1 to 2 kilowatts -- about the energy load of a dishwasher. The cost of that electricity for transportation would end up being about a 75-cents-per-gallon energy equivalent, according to the study."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/18/AR2008071802614.html?tid=informbox

Quote :

"Plug-in hybrids are dramatically cheaper to operate than today's cars. They will consume about 2 cents' worth of electricity to travel one mile, compared with the current 20- to 25-cent cost of driving a mile using gasoline. If consumers flock to them because of their lower operating costs, and they will, the resulting reduction in greenhouse gases will be a benefit of extraordinary proportion -- one that the Kyoto crowd thought could be achieved only through draconian regulation. "

using the numbers he just provided (2nd link)
electric: $.02/mile * ~25miles/gallon = ~$.50/gallon equivalent
gas: $.20/mile * ~25miles/gallon = ~$4.00/gallon

seems like the numbers approximately agree from 1st link ($.75/gallon equiv) to 2nd link ($.50/gallon equiv). They're not exactly the same, but they're close enough to "dirt cheap" that it shouldn't piss anyone off too much.


I remember reading somewhere a year ago or so that a plug-in Prius that gets ~40 miles on pure electricity would raise your electric bill by about $8 per month. I didn't see any numbers to back that up and haven't really seen any since then. But $8 a month ($96/year) at $.50 per gallon-equivalent would work out to be about 400 miles/month or 4800 miles per year. A little lower than normal driving mileage, but a hell of a lot cheaper than gas. 4800 miles per year on a 25mpg car at $4/gallon gas is $768.
That 400 miles/month works out to 13 miles/day, which I'd assume is lower than most people's driving habits.
But heck, even if the car only gets 13 miles on pure electric at a time before switching to gas (and then operating at a measly 25mpg), then that's still a monumental improvement.

Just for kicks, lets say a person commutes 40 miles/day and all 40 of those come from pure electricity. 40 miles/day * $.02 /mile = $.80/day. For the course of a month, $.80/day * 30 days = $24/month.
Compare that to gas: 40 miles/day * 30 days/month = 1200 miles/month / 25 miles/gallon = 48 gallons/month * $4/gallon = $192/month. Pure electricity saves you somewhere around $168 per month and $2000 per year.

[Edited on July 25, 2008 at 8:11 AM. Reason : ]

7/25/2008 8:08:28 AM

i am an intern with a power company. i work with coal-fired boilers. this is what i know about our equipment and service area (i would imagine it's about the same for other areas):

the only time our units run at full load is during the day in the summer and sometimes during the colder times of the winter.

if everyone was charging cars at night, we could run our equipment at upper loads all night. we could probably actually charge less for that energy because keeping our units at higher loads increases our efficiency and results in less equipment failures (less unit down-time during peak hours + less maintenance costs = $$$). If we charge less for power at night, that's when people will charge their cars. I'm not sure about other areas of the country, but I see no reason from the electric utility standpoint that plug-in hybrids and even all-electrics would cause strains on the grid. hell, we have dozens of combustion turbines that just sit there all night long.

yes, your electric bill will go up, but most people's gas bill has the potential to go to next to nothing. fossil and nuclear plants are way more efficient than the internal combustion engines in our cars. power company makes more money. consumer saves money. the oil tycoons go broke. it's better for everyone.

i have this same conversation with senior engineers almost weekly.

[Edited on July 25, 2008 at 9:12 AM. Reason : and they agree]

7/25/2008 9:10:55 AM

plug-in hybrids + wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear.

If we had heavy tax incentives for home/business wind and solar along with new nukes we'd be off oil pretty quick. But congress is full of retards, so that wont happen.

7/25/2008 9:13:22 AM

But congress is full of retards politicians getting paid off by automotive/petroleum industries

7/25/2008 9:15:16 AM

I think most of them just lack the higher brain functions to figure it out. You cant blame big oil for all of it.

7/25/2008 9:52:20 AM

Quote :

"even at $3.50 a gallon it will take five years to pay off the battery and there is no guarantee gasoline will stay this expensive."

ahahahahahahaha

--
I strongly agree with the idea of this thread. We need plug-in hybrids at our dealers RIGHT NOW. Anyone want to go in and start a business with me

7/25/2008 10:28:00 AM

^Good luck finding batteries that will provide adequate performance and capacity.

Even Tesla, the darling of silicon valley, has seen huge problems getting a product to the market.

7/25/2008 10:43:25 AM

Quote :

"Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid by 2010 DETROIT — The Toyota Motor Corporation, which leads the world’s automakers in sales of hybrid-electric vehicles, announced Sunday night that it would build its first plug-in hybrid by 2010."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14plug.html

THE IMPOSSIBLE* FUTURE IS NOW



*according to Prawn Star

7/25/2008 11:06:06 AM

My only question is this...what happens if you need to drive long distances? In any case, this would justify building more nuclear power plants. I don't know why we wouldn't anyway.

7/25/2008 11:15:21 AM

Quote :

"My only question is this...what happens if you need to drive long distances?"

I would assume most of the batteries will have quick charging technology. There is a car being developed that can have a 250 mi range in 10 min.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/13/uks-lightning-to-build-all-electric-gt-sports-car/
Another question is how do we fund our roads if we switch off of oil?

7/25/2008 11:22:16 AM

Quote :

"My only question is this...what happens if you need to drive long distances?"

Why is this a question? It's not that hard.
We're talking about plug-in hybrids, not electric cars. When you drive long distances, it will just use the gas engine, just like today's hybrids do.

The only difference between today's hybrids and the plug-in hybrids is that the plug-ins offer an additional way to charge the batteries. The limitation with the normal hybrids is that the batteries have to be charged by the gas engine or using regenerative braking, neither of which are very efficient or can generate a full charge on a large battery.

With a plug-in hybrid, you can top-off your battery using normal electricity, so in the morning when you come out to your car, the battery will be completely full, giving your a 40-60 mile range. If you go over that range, the gas engine will kick in, just like today's hybrids. The advantage, though, is that, for example, if you commute to work 10 miles each way, and maybe just do some odd-and-ends around town after work, you can do all of that on a single charge without ever using the gas engine. Then at night you plug it in, and start all over again the next day. If you decide to drive to the beach, though, the first 60 miles will be on batteries, then the gas engine will kick in and you'll be back to paying $4.50/gallon until you can get to an outlet to recharge the batteyry

[Edited on July 25, 2008 at 11:27 AM. Reason : .]

7/25/2008 11:26:42 AM

I assume it'll work like a regular hybrid after the initial charge is gone.

^yeah

[Edited on July 25, 2008 at 11:27 AM. Reason : beat me]

7/25/2008 11:27:32 AM

Quote :

"THE IMPOSSIBLE* FUTURE IS NOW 2010"

7/25/2008 11:46:03 AM

LAST GAS CHARGE FOR 80 MILES

7/25/2008 11:48:19 AM

Quote :

"Good luck finding batteries that will provide adequate performance and capacity."

I assume since the car will start rolling off production within a year or so, they've already found these magical batteries.

So yeah, it's now.

7/25/2008 11:50:14 AM

We have batteries that can provide adequate performance and capacity. The problem is that producing lithium batteries is still very energy intensive and as such expensive. It is a catch 22: if energy is cheap then lithium is cheap; but if energy is cheap then we don't need lithium.

That is, unless oil is abnormally expensive and coal is the same old rediculously cheap. In that case, burning coal to produce lithium batteries and electricity to drive a car should be cost effective, given time, compared to gasoline alone. But that requires infrastructure we still lack for large-size lithium battery production.

7/25/2008 12:04:55 PM

coal is sky-high right now too, but it's mainly because it costs so much to get it to power plants with diesel-electric locomotives

7/25/2008 12:48:44 PM

Quote :

"^Good luck finding batteries that will provide adequate performance and capacity. Even Tesla, the darling of silicon valley, has seen huge problems getting a product to the market."

Mini Cooper will have an all electric for sale next year.

The reason Toyota, GM, Ford and Honda are saying 2010, is because they are going to roll out MASSIVE numbers of these cars.

There are about a half dozen models that will be out next year in limited quantities (and not just the Tesla or the UK's Lightning or whatever its called).

When the big car-makers hit, its going to be a flood of full electrics and plugin hybrids that hit the market at affordable prices and it will be the beginning of a big change in this country.

What I fear is the ecological damage all of these fucking batteries are going to cause. Both to manufacture and then to dispose of and recycle

7/25/2008 5:33:15 PM

^ I agree with everything in that post.

My quoted comment was in response to somebody wondering why we don't have plug-in hybrids RIGHT NOW.


Battery technology is still catching up to everything else. It'll get the eventually, if some other form of electrical storage (super capacitors, fuel cells, flywheels, etc) doesn't beat it out in the near future.

7/25/2008 5:36:33 PM

I wonder what the aliens use to power their spacecraft, we should figure that out and use that.

7/25/2008 7:00:21 PM

pretty sure aliens travel in tubes

7/25/2008 7:13:35 PM

dude when I get an electric car I am totally gonna bury the cord and plug my shit in to next door.

7/25/2008 10:11:59 PM

Quote :

"^Good luck finding batteries that will provide adequate performance and capacity. Even Tesla, the darling of silicon valley, has seen huge problems getting a product to the market."

1. Take existing hybrid
2. Put charger on it
3. profit?

This is mind blowing. We're totally not ready for it.

7/26/2008 12:30:26 AM

Quote :

"Battery technology is still catching up to everything else. It'll get the eventually, if some other form of electrical storage (super capacitors, fuel cells, flywheels, etc) doesn't beat it out in the near future."

No, its not. Mass-scale production is catching up to the technology maybe, but the battery tech is faaar ahead of the grid's capabilities.

There are plugin systems already on the market that can charge a car in the same amount of time as a gas fillup (3-5min), but they require a 3phase 220 line, which damn near no home in America is equipped for.

There are batteries on the market that can take an all electric conversion 200+ miles on a charge, they just aren't nearly as cheap as stringing a bunch of car batteries together or getting a Lithium Ion battery cluster.

It has nothing to do with technology, it has to do with manufacturing cost and volume price decrease, and infrastructural support for all the technology. The same kind of thing happened with LCD's. Very expensive because it took 3-5 years for manufacturing plants to come online and get their yield high and steady. Once that happened, the LCD market got flooded and prices dropped through the floor.

7/26/2008 1:08:14 AM

I really don't think a 3phase 220 line is going to be all that bad to get to someone's home. It's not quite a do-it-yourself project, but I don't see how it would be a prohibitive investment.

7/26/2008 1:20:00 AM

^^Bullshit. Typical Noen, talking out of your ass again.

There are no secondary batteries in existence that can deliver the kind of power-to-weight ratio of gasoline. It's not even close right now.

Sure, there are a few exotic battery technologies that show a lot of promise, but they still nowhere near being ready for use. It's not a production issue, it's a research and development issue. A technology issue. And right now the battery technology is the prohibiting factor which has kept electric cars off the road thus far.

[Edited on July 26, 2008 at 1:25 AM. Reason : 2]

7/26/2008 1:24:43 AM

http://www.egovehicles.com

http://www.zenncars.com

http://www.vectrix.com

http://www.teslamotors.com

7/26/2008 3:10:23 AM

so, instead of the evil oil companies, we will have evil power companies. w00t!

7/27/2008 11:47:23 PM

power companies are regulated

7/28/2008 7:45:55 AM

lol, the entire nation could go to plug-in hybrids and it wouldn't even affect the size of the power companies very much.

You might as well shift your conspiracies to battery makers.

7/28/2008 8:45:22 AM

^^ The oil companies are regulated. So what? "being regulated" does not change the nature of the business: power comes from coal; coal is produced in capitalistic countries by corporations trying to make money and is therefore cheap and reliable. Gasoline comes from oil; oil is produced in statist countries by governments trying to make money and is therefore irrational and unreliable.

Back when the vast majority of the world's oil came from corporations oil was cheap and reliable. And yet you sit there and honestly say more government is what is needed.

7/28/2008 10:04:46 AM

Banks are regulated too, and a fat lot of good that did us....

7/28/2008 10:07:43 AM

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/07/28/bob-lutz-30k-e-flex-cars-in-europe-in-first-year-1m-worldwide/

Quote :

"Bob Lutz: 30K E-Flex cars in Europe in first year, 1M worldwide by 2020 Now that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged some £90 million for the development of clean vehicles in the U.K., General Motors is seeing plenty to like about the European market for its E-Flex vehicles."

7/28/2008 12:57:46 PM

Quote :

"For one, you charge it overnight, which with many utilities is cheaper because of all the access energy they have for the time being in the PM hours."

some power companies don't offer this. i for one would love it, but i've been used to using less power during the day and more at night anyway.

who knows if progress energy and duke power offer this without load based throttling?

7/28/2008 1:45:10 PM

I've used both within the past two years, and neither of them had it, IIRC.

It'd probably be removed the second plug-ins became wide-spread, anyways.

7/28/2008 1:47:39 PM

Progress Energy does offer daytime/nighttime rates, but you must ask for it and they will charge you up-front for the installation and removal of the special meter, under the assumption that the next occupant will want to go back to the regular fixed rate schedule:

months of June through September:
16.179¢ per on-peak kWh 4.528¢ per off-peak

months of October through May:
15.296¢ per on-peak kWh kWh 4.528¢ per off-peak kWh
http://www.progress-energy.com/aboutenergy/rates/NCScheduleR-TOUE.pdf

7/28/2008 2:25:47 PM

Quote :

"^^Bullshit. Typical Noen, talking out of your ass again. There are no secondary batteries in existence that can deliver the kind of power-to-weight ratio of gasoline. It's not even close right now. Sure, there are a few exotic battery technologies that show a lot of promise, but they still nowhere near being ready for use. It's not a production issue, it's a research and development issue. A technology issue. And right now the battery technology is the prohibiting factor which has kept electric cars off the road thus far."

When did I ever claim similar power/weight? We aren't talking about race cars. The problem is DISTANCE, not P/W. Most all electrics today claim 40-60 miles per charge. Most 1st gen mass market options will be in the 75mpc range (the 2010 cars current estimates).

There ARE batteries out there that can go significantly further, and charge significantly faster. That are commercially produceable. But they are too expensive and or do not have infrastucture support. I'm talking out of my ass?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_battery

Go read

7/28/2008 8:52:45 PM

power to weight is pretty unimportant for basic commuter travel. If I lived in a large city I'd probably have an electric car or a motorcycle. As long as your electric car can get up to interstate speed and maintain 60 mph that's really all you need for all practical purposes.

7/28/2008 8:57:16 PM

^^I'm very familiar with battery technology. It is, and has been, the limiting factor keeping electric cars and hybrid plug-ins from the mass-market. And I maintain that it's a technology issue, not an infrastructure or production issue. Even the "cutting edge" batteries such as lithium-polymer, molten salt and zinc-air would have issues with range, limited cycling, memory effect, slow recharge, etc. Please point me to a link showing a battery capable of powering a car that can be charged in 3-5 minutes. I'm interested, to say the least.

^On the contrary, battery power-to-weight ratio (along with cost) is the limiting factor in electric vehicles today.

Sure, electric motors can deliver plenty of power to the wheels, but supplying that motor with enough energy requires large, heavy battery clusters that force the manufacturer to make major design compromises. Compromises like not having any storage space. Or having to recharge the thing more than 8 hours. Or being so lightweight that you're guaranteed to die in a head-on collision with a real car.

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 11:32 PM. Reason : 2]

7/28/2008 11:31:02 PM

^ this is all true, but they have to start somewhere, and there's nothing that drives that type of development like loads of $$$ from consumer spending.

The first cars were pretty much crap compared to stuff even 10 years later.

There are a lot of promising new materials in nanoscale research that I think will eventually lead to next-gen battery tech we're waiting for. 30 years down the road, the US is going to be a very different place, for the better, despite the issue of peak-oil.

7/29/2008 2:00:32 AM

I think as long as sony doesn't make the batteries we'll be ok.

7/29/2008 8:55:04 AM

Prawn Star, even if you were capable of recharging the thing in 5 minutes society could never allow you to charge it at home that fast: it would be disasterous to the production and distribution of electricity. As such, that we lack such battery technology is irrelevant: if people want to charge them at home, they are going to charge them over many hours. Which, as a plug-in hybrid, is perfectly fine to leave it plugged in while you sleep.

That said, as the range is only 40 miles, being able to charge it in 5 minutes is worthless: you are not going to stop every 40 miles anyway. That would be a rediculous anoyance, in my opinion. Now, it could make sense if your commute to work is 40+ miles that charging it at work would make sense, but there again you have an 8 hour window to do the charging.

7/29/2008 9:41:35 AM