Is the Future of the Electric Car Industry in Silicon Valley?

fiannaFailMan writes "The San Jose Mercury News is speculating about Silicon Valley's potential for becoming the Detroit of a future electric car industry. Among the valley's strengths is an ability to adapt to rapidly changing business environments and develop new business models, something that the Big Three can hardly be accused of. On the downside, it's a capital-intensive business and isn't like raising $40 million and having an IPO. Apparently there are five companies in the valley already pursuing electric car technology, most notably Tesla motors."

Comments

Coal or Oil?

[tritonman]

Does anyone know how much more/less polution is put into the atmosphere by using these coal powered cars as opposed to gas powered ones? In most cases it seems that the electricity for these cars is generated by coal burning power plants. I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm really just wondering if anyone has stats on this.

Re:Coal or Oil?

[YttriumOxide]

Stats - not off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to Google (as you are too it seems!), but I have heard that's it's signifcantly less, even when you don't factor in "cleaner" power like Nuclear, Solar, Hydro-electric and so on. Mostly due to the efficiencies in a coal power plant compared to the millions of individual petrol engines.

Re:Coal or Oil?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the USA, it is 70% and dropping. If you ignore the CO2, then coal is MUCH cleaner than gas powered coal. The reason is that coal plants have scrubbers for most of the pollution. Once W. is out of office, no doubt America will crack down on the rest (save CO*). Keep in mind that the gas we burn had to be pumped and refined. The refinery creates a lot of pollution. Finally, it is far easier to change single source, than the multi-source of cars.

Re:Coal or Oil?

[TooMuchToDo]

I have nuclear power in the Chicago area (www.comed.com). I've checked, and it's not heavily subsidized. I purchased a Tesla Roadster to both reduce my oil use as well as to help fund Tesla Motors.

Re:Coal or Oil?

[cayenne8]

"Does anyone know how much more/less polution is put into the atmosphere by using these coal powered cars as opposed to gas powered ones? In most cases it seems that the electricity for these cars is generated by coal burning power plants. I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm really just wondering if anyone has stats on this."

Who cares?

I just want a Tesla 'cause it looks really great, and is a high performance car!!

The only thing that sucks about them...is the lack of an agressive engine exhaust note...I suppose you could play mp3's of a roaring V8, but, that's just not quite the same you know?

I'm all for getting off the 'oil teet' we're currently on in the US, for national security, I'd like to get off oil, but, really, pollution isn't my greatest concern, I actually don't think it is that high on most people's radar.

Re:Coal or Oil?

[TooMuchToDo]

I currently pay 7 cents per KWH to ComEd for nuclear power. I'm not sure what others downstate pay to AmerinIP for coal-fired power, but I happily pay an extra cents per KWH to know I'm not dumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

P.S. 7 cents/KWh is still cheap compared to a majority of other energy sources (natural gas, oil, etc).

Re:Coal or Oil?

[TooMuchToDo]

Are you taking into account reprocessing existing waste using breeder reactors? I recent Scientific American article postulates that with the current nuclear waste/fuel in use already, we have several centuries of fissile material available to us (if reprocessing is used). Therefore, the fuel used to mine the fissile material is a sunk cost, and is spread over a much larger amount of generated power.

Doubtful...

[teknopurge]

Because there are already 3 in detroit perusing it too.

Oh, and can't forget about Audi, BMW, etc. that all have headquarters in Detroit. I see the audi prototypes around auburn hills all the time. Also have seen several time GM's electric car.

Re:Doubtful...

[Firethorn]

I think that it's going to end up being like many computer innovations - Initially done by a bunch of small startups, of which the more successful eventually are bought out by the big boys.

IE Tesla* succeeds, becomes a small but successful company with a factory selling 5k cars a year. GM, Ford, even Toyota or Volkswagon might buy them out.

Sure, some customers of Tesla might call this selling out, decrying any changes to the vehicles - but it flows both ways, as they come out with an EV SUV*

Silicon Valley isn't a good place though, maybe they can make circuit boards but the actual design and construction of cars would have to be elsewhere. Land value is just too high to make a profitable auto plant.

Wages are probably the true killer; that's partially due to the land value. Heck, slap a plant down in ND or something; skilled workers, cheap wages and land. Sure, the winter sucks, but you just insulate the buildings better.

*Easy example, their usage of the lotus frame and preexisting partnerships might limit their choices.
**SUVs serve a need; decry SUVs all you like, I'll simply point out that a hybrid or EV SUV is still get better milage than many non-hybrid cars(no, you're not allowed to compare them against sub-compacts), and definitly better than traditionally powered SUVs.

Re:Doubtful...

[timeOday]

Silicon Valley isn't a good place though, maybe they can make circuit boards but the actual design and construction of cars would have to be elsewhere.

Unfortunately I can't imagine the manufacturing will be anywhere else in the US either. Think China, India, Mexico... Then again, maybe the collapse of the dollar makes domestic manufacturing a remote possibility.

Tesla

[YttriumOxide]

*sigh* I just wish they'd let me buy a Tesla over here in Germany. I, like MANY others, would be more than happy to pay one and a half times the price that they go for in the US, both for the savings on petrol (our prices are MUCH higher than what people in the US pay), and just for the fact that it's a damn cool car.

Honestly, given the chance, I'd hand over the cash TOMORROW for one.

grr

[apodyopsis]

Near where I work (New Forest, UK) there is a new housing development going up, and I happened to notice that they are having solar thermal fitted into the roofs as standard. I did idly wonder if in a few years time all houses would have solar panel roofs as standard and electric cars would automatically recharge when not being used. I don't know, you park the car up pops a small wind turbine and the entire top surface of the vehicle is covered in photo voltaic paint? Park it in the garage or near the house and up pops a cable to connect it to the house power wind/solar array.

Now, I realize that I am in Sci-Fi could cuckoo land here, but bear with me. There are some things that need to happen.. well I would like to happen..

1. Reverse the trend of people living 80miles from their workplace and seeing a >1hr commute both ways as normal. I realize this would require a society change - but if conventional cars cost too much and there is no reliable public transport infrastructures then this could happen.
2. Cheap, High efficiency solar cells mandated on all new builds. 3. Energy efficiency mandated on all new CE devices and proper OFF switches as standard.
4. Micro generation being normal, and grid "top up" being extra.
5. Smart housing that automatically switched off lights, water heating on demand from stored power, low power devices.

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box before I get carried away....

Until the startups prove viability

[OKCfunky]

Tesla motors is having problems delivering on it's promise, and it is FAR from cheap. Until the startups can prover their clout in lording over batteries, only Fisker has enough potential to really make a dent into the plug in like they are currently squaking over. Ultimately, unless the power generation is by nuclear means, the "carbon footprint" won't be offset, but quite the opposite. So you've got a question veiled in a question. Do you want to "be captain planet?" or "get great mileage?" You can't do both with exponentially jacking the cost up out of joe q. publics reach. But one or the other is possible for nearly all. There are still plenty of ICE options to explore to get considerably more efficiency out of the combustion process. But, all of these are moot when everyone wants to have mug and ass warmers in their car, and 50 speakers, and 40 way adjustable seats in their daily driver. Weight is by far the biggest enemy to the mileage they want, and those options alone add a crapload of weight, and then the gov't regulations compound this effort. Eventually, a '70 Chevelle will seem like a light weight car.

Is the cost really that strong a driver?

[dschuetz]

Agassi has computed the economics of oil - prices are above $90 a barrel - and concluded that electricity is the only answer for future personal transportation, because gas will be too expensive. How expensive is "too expensive"? I just did a couple checks, and the average price of gas in the UK is $7.88 a gallon (converted from pence/litre for the UK average). Granted, they probably drive a lot less than we do and have smaller cars, but still -- expensive gas hasn't exactly destroyed the British economy.

I liked my prius partially for the mileage, but also for the low pollution and even just for the quiet, smooth ride it had when on batteries. So even if gas were $1 a gallon, if the electric were the same (or slightly more) cost/mile to operate, I'd use electric/hybrids to enjoy the other benefits.

I guess I'm just saying, they might not focus exclusively on cost/mile as compared to gas, 'cause I'm not sure that argument holds water....

The data is out there, electric makes senses

[hotair]

The data is out there, electric makes senses for many people.

1) The environmental impact - depending on who you listen to (ignoring big oil financed studies) - an 1 well tuned contemporary gas car running after warm up creates about the same pollution as 25-50 electric cars charged by electricity produced by traditional coal fired plants. If you have hydro or wind production, it's cleaner. If you have nuclear, the air is fine but you'll eventually have spent nuclear fuel. I don't know how much more over the life of the plant, but you could figure it out. I think that it depends on how many electric cars. Right now, there are so few that they just soak up extra capacity at night rather than creating significant new demand. (Yes, that capacity still uses more powerplant fuel that if they weren't plugged in)

2) You can build or have built a conversion of a gas to electric today. I'm converting a Ford Escort myself at a cost of about $8000 including the car. I've seen them done for less than $3000. You can buy an appropriate care and spend $10,000-$14,000 and have a shop convert it for you in many parts of the country. This assumes you use old fashion lead-acid batteries. You end up with with a car with a range of 30-100 miles per charge depending on trade-offs you control (size car/payload/cost). Think about your ordinary day's drive. Do you really need 300 miles range? or would 50 do? Then you have to decide what you do for the times you do need a greater range. Rent? Own another vehicle that you drive on special occasions? Form a co-op? At $3/gallon and $0.10 kilowatt/hr, you can drive electric for less than 50% of the cost of gasoline, once you factor in the maintenance and replacement costs. So that leaves some head room for a solution.

3) In my case, (family with 3 kids), we're planning to convert both cars to electric for daily use. We plan to own a 3rd gas powered vehicle for occasion weekend trips and other exceptions. We expect the savings accumulated from driving electric to be completely eaten by the cost of the 3rd vehicle unless gas prices go up (hah!). However, that means we'll be driving clean and quiet and not subject to gas prices at our current cost. Seems like a good idea.

This wouldn't necessarily work for a traveling salesman, or a farm-call veterenarian. But if you commute more than 30-50 miles round trip, what are you thinking anyway? (I realize there are people for whom this is a necessity. I hope they get mass transit. For most people, commuting more than 30-50 miles is already a problem.)

Re:store waste onsite

[Firethorn]

Much of that was scare tactics. IE nuclear plants are using it to try to get the .gov off their asses and finish Yucca or some alternate. Or get money from their own funds for casket storage sytems.

So far, despite having to pay a fee per kwh produced to the .gov for disposal, they've managed to economically store the waste on site just fine.
Given that all the government is considering is storage and internment, I'd say that it's the same thing. Given enough time, it'd be pretty easy to break open those casks and reprocess - much of the short term radioactivity has degraded, meaning that it's nowhere near as nasty to equipment as when it first came out of the reactor. IE you age the waste like some exclusive wines/liquers and reprocess it after 40-50 years of cooldown.

It has to do that the waste produced by a conventional plant in a year is around a single railcar - including shielding. There might have been some transfers from particularly congested plants to ones with more room.