Electric Cars

[ThomWV]

I see problems for pure electric cars, serious problems. We do not have an electrical grid* in this country capable of supplying the power required for anything like a meaningful number of electric vehicles even if we did have the generating capacity to supply that currently nonexistent market. Additionally it is economically impossible to 'transport' electricity more than about 200 miles by wire meaning that if we are to convert to electrically powered transportation there will have to be many new power plants built relatively close to population centers, something that it is unrealistic to expect to happen when one considers the legal challenges which can be expected from environmentalists alone. And then there is the question of the health aspects the additional ozone that would be created by the tens of millions of high horsepower electric motors that will come into use.

* What passes for a grid in this country is a patchwork quilt of interconnections that divide the country into a handful of regions, most encompassing several states but with several 'islands' where there is nearly no interconnectivity to the outside world - Texas and Florida being notable. Additionally the generation and transmission of electric power is very inefficient with mine-face to power-outlet losses greater than 60% being commonplace; imagine that - when you burn coal to make electricity less than half of the energy stored in the coal that was burned to make it actually found its way to the outlet on your wall.

[Profprileasn]

1. Problems and creative solutions

There are always problems in new technologies. I think we have the smarts to figure them out. Have you heard of those CAV -Compressed Air vehicles. That sounds cool.

[TheWraith]

2. Actually, we've got surplus off-peak electicity right now

capable of supplying about 20 million cars. Further, building new power plants is far from impossible. It's just a matter of actually doing it.

[taught_me_patience]

3. The grid is fine

The problem is that the government does not know if the power going to your house will be used to light the dinner table or to charge up your car. The beauty of the internal combustion engine is that the government can easily tax the fuel going into your car. This is simply not so with the electric car. If you follow the money trail, governments killed the electric car more than any thing else.

[IDemo]

4. answers:

The majority of EV's will likely be recharged at night time, when spinning reserves are (usually) most available. In fact, according to a report by Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory (PNNL), a Department of Energy lab, there is enough excess generating capacity during the night and morning to allow 70 percent of today's light-duty vehicles (LDV) to make the average daily commute solely using this electricity. If plug-in-hybrid or all-electric-car owners charge their vehicles at these times, the power needed for about 180 million cars could be provided simply by running these plants at full capacity.

"We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets," said PNNL scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer. "The estimates didn't include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn't include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don't operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity."

But another factor that comes into play is that EV's can not only sink (draw) AC electricity, they can source (provide) it. Electric vehicles can not only supply emergency backup power to an owner's home, they can supply it to the grid, along with other 'ancillary' service such as regulation, using Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology. Most new production EV's, such as the TZero from AC Propulsion (a V2G innovator), come with V2G capabilities. The technology is not "out there" somewhere in the future.

Power utilities are becoming interested in V2G as their demand increases. Pacific Gas and Electric Company showcased a demonstration project last year utilizing a modified (plug-in) Prius. V2G will work with any vehicle with plug-in capabilities; battery electric, plug-in hybrid, fuel-cell, etc.

In a March 2007 report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission:

It is our opinion that the potential benefits of
vehicle-to-grid (V2G) PHEVs (or the “CashBack” hybrid) are so
compelling that the technology is clearly an enabler of both the
“smart grid” and the successful market penetration of the PHEV
itself. As such, DOE should incorporate the CashBack hybrid into
the PHEV R&D Plan.

and, - The PUF article indicated that the payments to individual PHEV
owners using V2G technology could be as much as $2,000 to $4,000
per year per vehicle for just spinning reserve or regulation services.
This is consistent with the earlier Kempton and Tomic article
(“Vehicle to Grid Fundamentals”, J. Power Sources Volume 144,
Issue 1, 1 June 2005), which calculates revenue up to
$6,000/year/vehicle. This is a sufficient payment to the prospective
CashBack hybrid purchaser to completely offset the higher
incremental cost of the vehicle in less than 5 years. While these
numbers assume a high-power plug and do not include costs that
could reduce them by approximately half, there is still a large net
payback.

Regarding ozone - brushless motors, such as the ones on the Prius, don't make ozone.
You should be much more concerned about ozone created by hydrocarbons and nitrous oxide
from internal combustion engines, which add greatly to ground level ozone levels.