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GM, Utilities Partner To Advance Plug-In Hybrids
chareverie writes "General Motors is forming a team with utility companies nationwide to create a charging infrastructure for electric cars. Their goal is to improve the design of charging stations — making them weatherproof and child-proof, for example — in locations such as public garages, meters, and parking lots. They're also working on ways to avoid overwhelming the utilities during peak hours. Their goal is to have these improved charging stations implemented by 2010, when the Chevy Volt is introduced. Everyone recognizes however that a national car-charging infrastructure would be far from complete at that time."
I believe we are approaching the era of the "commuter car". Things like this:
http://www.greenvehicles.com/specs/triac.html
80 MPH, 100 mile range. This will suit the majority of people's daily driving needs. We'll all still have our gas-burning minivan or SUV for weekend trips to granny's or the lake or whatever, but most of the time we'll be driving our electric covered motorcycle to work and back.
All you need for this is an electrical outlet at home.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
A gallon of gas contains approx. 1.3 x 10^8 joules of energy, and there are 3.6 x 10^6 joules in a kilowatt hour. At $0.10 per kilowatt hour, that is equivalent to $3.61 worth of electricity to replace a gallon of gas. Which isn't a whole lot cheaper than current gas prices.
Of course, this leaves out difference in conversion efficiency of gas v.s. electricity.
The biggest barrier to pure electrics right now is the time it takes to charge a vehicle.
Super Capacitors are supposed to change that by allowing charge times equivalent or less than the time spent at the petrol pump.
Last time I heard about them was early this year as they were seeking to scale them to the industrial level.
That technology is what will make electric cars "feasible"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I just read an article about the Lightning electric vehicle on elReg
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/22/lightning_fast_charge_supercar/
This may make electric cars practical.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7081
Imagine: 200 miles/charge and a 10 minute "fill up" at a commercial charging station (overnight at your house with 50 amp service)
I'd much prefer this over the "hydrogen economy" that people tout as the future. Also, it would be easier to build out a high voltage charging infrastructure than a hydrogen dispensing infrastructure. The only problem I see is everyone charging their vehicles during peak usage instead of at night causing even greater peaks, but there is no reason people (with garages) can't trickle-charge the car at night.
I may even give up my venerable diesel if I can drive coast to coast in the same time frame and same expense on batteries as on diesel.
(only slightly off topic because I was talking electric vehicles instead of hybrid)
More music, fewer hits
50% comes from coal, 20% from nuke, 20% from natural gas, 7% hydro, renewable 2.4%, and oil/petro is way down there at 1.6%.
Please get your facts straight before opening your mouth.
Back in the late 20th century the EV1 had a waiting list.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Sure, which is why we need to invest in renewable alternatives for large-scale power production. Getting the non-renewable fuels out of our cars is one step in the process, getting them out of our power plants is another step. Just because we haven't perfected the second step yet doesn't mean we should not be trying to solve the first step.
The Volt, as advertised, is a big step in the right direction. It is not the whole solution, but it's at least getting us on our way to part of the solution, which is better than what we've got so far.
OK, first, the Volt is larger than the Prius, faster, has better acceleration, and will only cost a couple grand more, easily saved on the back end with infinite MPG on trips shorter than 60 miles, and at 60-80MPG when running on the engine. Electric costs are increasing, but at a fraction of the rate of oil, and electric power is renewable (or at least, the renewable portion is increasing, and can eventually be 100% of energy used).
The lack of electric cars on the market? mostly, we've been waiting for slightly better CPUs to run the car on, and improved energy to weight ratios in the batteries. Li-Ion by itself could have done this, if it wasn't for the potential of catistrofic cell collape (aka, battery explodes). Li-Polymer, and Li-Tit batteries just recently developed do not have this problem, and additional safteys with on-battery chip technology further improve saftey.
Also, 2-3 hours is no longer an issue. Li-Tit batteries charge to 80% in 3 minutes, 100% in less than 10. A simple 3 phase 400 amp connection is required (available at almost any auto shop). Don't believe the hype about how much the cable weights for these either, look at the cable on an electric welder; same cable...
Sure, at home, 3-4 hours will be the norm, 8-10 on 110 volt outlets. Of course, saince the car will have a gas backup, and can go 360 miles on 10 gallons of gas AFTER the battery dies, who cares? On a side note, if you popped for the upgrade to rapid charge at home, hooking up a 220 volt 100 AMP cable, you can actually run your HOUSE off of your CAR in the event of a power failure, without needing a generator, for 3-5 hours, or just your fridge and AC for about a day.
People DO want them. Patents, mostly, and a few technical hurdles were standing in the way. I WILL pay 30K for a car that gets the USD converted electrical equivolent of 150MPG average for my driving habits and takes 3 minutes to recharge.
DO RESEARCH BEFORE SPREADING FUD NEXT TIME!
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
but for a lot of people the 40 mile limit will be kind of a barrier
That's 40 miles on stored electricity and then the gasoline engine kicks in and it acts pretty much like a regular hybrid. That's the beauty of the plug in hybrid concept: pure electric for short trips and no range limitations if you want to go across country using gasoline. I'd probably only need the gas engine 10 to 20 percent of the time, myself.
I don't drive 150 most days, but I DO drive 150+ miles SOME days.
Isn't that the whole point of the subject Chevrolet Volt car? Electric motor to carry you up to ~60 kilometers for commuting purposes, and an ICE for anything longer in a single day.
What facts do you have to support your opinion that "very, very few people will pay new-car prices for a car that will go 150 miles then require a 3-hour recharge."?
Because I would buy a car like that in a heartbeat.
The average US commute is only 32 miles per day. People don't need a 500 mile range to commute to work everyday.
Here is an online petition with 1755 signatures wanting Mitsubishi to bring the i-MiEV to America, which gets 100 miles per charge and will sell for approximately $24,000.
Here is an article from NPR in which the president of Nissan says "Today, there is latent consumer demand, but no offer."
As gas prices continue to increase, there is plenty of demand for an affordable electric car. Just no one supplying them.
A problem with ultra capacitors, however, is that they don't store nearly as much energy (Whr) for the same weight (Whr/kg) or volume (Whr/L) compared to batteries. Compared to Li-Ion batteries, the difference in energy density is an order of magnitude with current technology. There will undoubtedly be advances that could even that out, but nothing that you could use to design a production vehicle for today.
Ultracaps do have advantages, like almost unlimited cycle lives, very low resistance, and much higher power ratings compared to chemical batteries. However, unless you want to drive a 2-door compact hauling a trailer's worth of ultra capacitors, you are not going to be able to produce a plug-in hybrid with an acceptable electric range.
The only thing I've learned is that the price of oil has NOTHING to do with the actual supply or sustainability as a natural resource and is artificially set by non-sequitur geo-political issues. Unless you assume that there has been less oil pumped over the past year than previous years, or that we consume more oil than can be pumped (hint: both of these assumptions are false).
It's hard to say that anything is cheaper than it should be unless it's being artificially subsidized. In the case of gas, it's really more expensive than it should be because of various taxes. Gas is expensive in Europe because it's more heavily taxed. It's dirt cheap in Venezuela because it's heavily subsidized.
If, as you suggest, more oil has been pumped over the past year than previously and we are not consuming more oil than can be pumped, maybe we're paying too much!
Regardless, I'm pretty sure that no oil company is taking a loss on a barrel of oil and no refinery is taking a loss on a gallon of gasoline. As long as taxes (or subsidies) are not used as a means of regulating demand, gas prices are pretty much what they should be.
No. Iran is trying to enrich uranium so it can be used in a nuclear reactor. It is not reprocessing SPENT uranium for nuclear weapons.
That said, uranium must be enriched to certain levels to be usable as fuel. This link provides a good synopsis of the processes involved in enriching uranium to be used as fuel. Note that the level of enrichment is only 3% - 5%.
By comparison, weapons-grade uranium is enriched to have at least 85% 235U, though if you're interested in a "dirty bomb", 50% will do nicely. The Wiki on the enriching process complete with the various levels of enrichment.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
...if they're able to charge your car in 10 to 15 minutes! Otherwise, except if you're at your destination and your car is waiting at the parkometer, will you really wait 4 to 8 hours for your car to be 85% to fully charged?
Those of you who will say that it's impossible to recharge a car in 10 to 15 minutes, I'll just tell you that Altair Nanotechnologies builds a battery pack that can do the job, it just needs the proper infrastructure to send enough amps and volts to the car.
Nuclear not renewable? Nonsense. Breeder reactors create more fissile material than they consume.
There are currently designs with theoretical breeding ratios up to 1.8.
Can you say free beer?
Except for things like water heaters and HVAC equipment (which are hardwired), most people's garages don't have 240V available; you'd need to call an electrician out to run a 240V circuit.
That said, the Volt is intended to charge from a standard 120V 15A outlet (the standard wall outlet) in somewhere around 6-8 hours. Higher voltage and/or current would enable faster charging, but the Volt won't have nearly as large a battery pack as something like the Tesla Roadster, so overnight charging from a regular outlet is feasible. It doesn't need a large battery pack because the battery isn't its sole source of power.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
While the power you're getting may not directly be from fossil fuels, that's not the way the power grid works. A certain level of capacity is generated by always-on power sources such as hydro and nuclear. When additional capacity beyond that is required, in North America it almost always comes from coal.
e.g. Say you plug your electric car in Quebec without an equivalent drop in electricity use elsewhere in your life. The car will take a little more electricity from the hydro plant. The hydro plant now has a little less electricity to send across the grid to a neighboring region. That neighboring region now has a shortfall in electricity that they need to make up, and they'll crank up the coal plant to do it.
So any increase in electricity use results in a nearly 100% corresponding increase in the amount of coal burned regardless of the cleanliness of your local power source. The only way to avoid this is to maintain your total electricity use at a constant level, or to increase the generating capacity of non-coal energy sources.
Too bad it's dirty as hell and releases more radioactive material than any nuclear reactor ever could. But beside that, yes, coal is just the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Depending on your value of "SOME" couldn't you rent a car when you need the extra range?
Some more info on the Volt: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=126606
I am excited to see these type of advance to pull us away from our dependency on oil.
They're already talking a matter of minutes, it's all in having a large array of Li/lip batteries. you can't change how fast you can charge each cell, but by having smaller cells, you charge faster by charging them all in parallel.
even the tesla roadster is talking about charge times in the minutes at special charging stations around california. The Tesla is a high performance electric that does 0-60 in just 4 seconds, top speed is 130 mph, no slouch there either.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Not as absurd as you might think, as you can use aluminum alloy to produce hydrogen...
And if that doesn't float your boat you can always use aluminum to enhance your rocket fuel...
Iron isn't quite as sexy, apparently it can help to enhance diesel fuel...
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
GM's other electric car (EV1, the one that they killed because it worked too well) had a waterproof, childproof, and in fact idiot-proof charger. It looked kind of like a ping pong paddle, except the handle was gripped parallel to the paddle instead of perpendicular. The paddle had a cord that was reeled (coiled? been a while) up on a box that was bolted to a wall, or on a free-standing pedestal in front of a parking spot. You pushed the paddle part into a slot on the nose of the car, and induction was used to pump some juice into your batteries.
There weren't many EV1's on the road, but if you lived in CA or AZ and knew where to look, you could find charging stations for them, so clearly building the infrastructure isn't THAT hard: all you do is bolt down some charger boxes and plug them in to ordinary wall sockets. Generally you'd see them in parking garages near places that engineers worked :p Anyways, the charger boxes themselves are dead simple to build; it's a friggin' transformer and some heavy gauge wire. All of the fancy charge monitoring computers are already built into the car. If GM's smart, they'd license the design for a song, and use it as a marketing coup.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Passenger vehicle occupant fatality rate by type of car (PDF warning)
Fatalities per 100,000 registered vehicles:
17.76 Compact Cars
16.87 Compact Pickups
16.85 Subcompact Cars
16.16 Midsize SUVs
13.87 Standard Pickups
12.34 Full-size SUVs
12.16 Full-size Cars
11.49 Midsize Cars
11.09 Minivans
9.34 Large Vans
SUVs are not safer than mid- and full-sized cars. If you read the PDF, you'll see this is primarily due to lack of maneuverability and penchant to roll over, and a higher fatality rate in rollovers. Those increased risk factors more than swamp out any benefit of "passive safety." Yes compact and subcompact cars do worse, but I would argue anyone who could afford an SUV would be buying a mid- or full-size sedan, not a compact or subcompact.
No, coal is base load power. Extra power comes out of natural gas. It's really hard to put out a large pile of coal. It's really easy to shut a gas valve. Coal takes up the same position on the grid as nuclear.
Not a typewriter
Natural gas pipelines feed many, perhaps most of the homes in US48, about 6m^3 per hour max. The energy in 6m^3 natural gas is about 6*39Mj = 234Mj:h, or 65 kilowatts. NG fuelcells already get at least 40% efficiency into electricity, so that would be 26KW peak. Which means that the average home at 2KW average continuous needs only 0.08% of maximum duty (the typical 5KW peak demand would be 0.2% duty).
Big SUVs have about 80KW max output engines. If a 40% efficient fuelcell drove a 90% efficient NEMA-B motor, 80KW kinetic would consume about 225KW in NG, which would still consume only 84% of the home's incoming flow. So overnight "charging" even a big SUV could still drive that SUV for as many hours as it spent charging. Since most people don't drive SUVs at full motor power all the time, even an hour charging is probably enough to refuel after a day's driving.
In April 2008, NG cost about $7:Gj, while direct electricity cost in February, 2008 about $0.09:KWh, which is about $25:Gj. Even at 40% efficiency converting NG to electricity, that's only $17.5 per Gj.
Another advantage of NG powering homes and cars is that very little energy is consumed/lost in the NG distribution, compared to double-digit (up to 50%) losses in electric distribution. Compared with gasoline powering cars, the distribution of gasoline is very wasteful, with not only tankers driving around to filling stations, but cars driving to (and lining up at) filling stations for every refill. While NG can refill along the car's normal route, at home. Meanwhile, any kind of energy storage at home, whether electric in batteries, or tanks of NG, or raising water to roof tanks, or heating water even into steam, all can let the home user buy more energy input only when prices are lowest, which also takes pressure off the distribution systems.
A NG home charger that is also a fuelcell for a 2-5KW (or more) home should cost under $10,000. That's about as much as a good new water heater that's part of a home (air) heating system, which the fuelcell can also supply to bring its efficiency closer to 100% total. In fact such a fuelcell should really cost $3-5K. Which that $7+ savings per Gj would repay in 9 years or less.
And as efficiencies go up, that 9 years could go down to 2-5 years pretty rapidly.
--
make install -not war
We already have the ZENN car, but it is not allowed on most Canadian streets, so unless GM can eliminate government bureaucracy we won't be seeing the Volt any time soon.
-AlPhAbEt
OK, first, the Volt is larger than the Prius, faster, has better acceleration, and will only cost a couple grand more, easily saved on the back end with infinite MPG on trips shorter than 60 miles, and at 60-80MPG when running on the engine.
{snip}
I WILL pay 30K for a car that gets the USD converted electrical equivolent of 150MPG average for my driving habits and takes 3 minutes to recharge.
DO RESEARCH BEFORE SPREADING FUD NEXT TIME!
OK, who modded you up? I'm excited about the Volt for many reasons but your post is filled with misinformation.
First off, the Prius starts at $21k. The Volt's targeted subsidized cost was $30k, but that has since been deemed unrealistic and it's now likely to hit $35k or higher (unsubsidized, it'll cost somewhere between $40k and $48k).
The Prius is roomier (the current generation Prius has more legroom, shoulder room, and headroom than the Volt and the 3rd generation Prius will be even larger).
The Volt will not get infinite MPG on trips shorter than 60 miles. For one thing its electric range was never 60 miles... it started at 40 miles. However, rumor has it that's been reduced to 32 miles (on a side note, its 600 mile gasoline range has been dropped to 360 miles). More to the point is that even if the Volt achieves its goal of the equivalent of 150 MPG, that D.N.E. infinite.
So, next time you decide to accuse someone of not doing research and spreading FUD, perhaps you should do a little research yourself. Or at the very least, don't shout.
how about the fact that fully electric cars cost about $2.82 in electricity to go 100 miles? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Running_costs).
I drive a car that gets a very healthy 30 miles per gallon, and my 10 gallon tank costs me $40 to fill up and go 300 miles...The same 300 miles in an electric car would cost me $9.
As far as travel range, the wikipedia article I linked above mentions that cars running on newer lithium-ion batteries are going 250-300 miles per charge..about just as much as a regular tank of gas.
Except that I already stated that recycling Li-ion batteries was not a big deal but car engines and gas tanks have recycled pretty much since the beginning.
To answer your question about the total well that will really depend.
Where did the power come from? Is it an old grandfathered in coal plant? What about the mining damage for the copper? What about the transportation of the coal?
Over all I do think that plug in hybrids are pretty clean. But the steel industry which is what cars are made of has a very long history of recycling.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
With regard to point #2, I (as a residential customer) already pay different rates depending on the hour here in AZ. SRP, one of our local utilities, has a time-of-use system with a digital meter they can read and program remotely. Currently it only has 2 rate schedules, but it can support up to four.
:).
During on-peak (1pm - 8pm; M-F) power is twice what the standard rate payers pay. But it's less than half during off-peak hours and we've tried to shift most of our usage to those times. Laundry, dishes, A/C, lighting, pool pump, etc. are all timed to run during off-peak only as much as possible. All lighting is CF or LED (even the night-lights).
Granted, when it's 115F outside the A/C will run some. But we pre-cool way down before 1pm, and let it rise as much as is tolerable with ceiling fans on (between 83-85F as it's fairly dry here). The result is a power bill about half of my similarly sized neighbors. It's fairly easy to compare in tract houses where they're all the same anyway
If Star Trek had the internet: Captain, we've received an IM from the romulans. "Surrender or be destroyed. LOL. o.O"
...electric trains...
They already exist. They are used for short-haul and yard movements.
In Europe, lots of freight (and passengers) are moved by electric trains, taking current from overhead power lines. The population density of the USA means constructing overhead lines isn't economical at the moment.
I know a hybrid train is currently being developed in the UK, just like a car, with electricity for low speeds and a battery and generator. Perhaps even a pantograph, to take 25kV power directly when it's available.
And once they are moving, its like a ship in space, no energy needed to keep moving if their if even a 1% grade.
Not quite ;-) but I was amazed how infrequently the motors were on for a recent journey I made (straight and flat) on an electric train in the UK. (Unusually, with no heating or air conditioning, it was possible to hear the motors.)
Wrong. These are NOT commercial prices. Petrol is heavily subsidised by the government in all these countries.
Who holds back the electric car?
Ironically, GM does.
The volt will come out just in time for Oil to hit $45 a barrel.
When the EV-1 came out, Oil was actually $25 a barrel.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Here's the study re: the grid and plug-ins. It came out a year ago.
Executive summary: Plug-ins are good. Even when powered with current coal technology. Anything else (natural gas, wind, etc.) is pure upside.
That's one great thing about electricity. Unlike gasoline, there are lots of ways to make it.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
The Great Smog of 1952 killed more people than Chernobyl will, and that's not even due to the radioactivity of coal, just coal smoke. If you're comparing 'disaster situations' instead of normal operations, that is.
Of course, if we're talking about situations that safety regulations could not allow at this point in time, it's worth pointing out that over 20,000 people lost their life in coal mines from 1900 to 1910, which means in a single decade coal killed more people than nuclear power ever has. Granted, coal mines are nowhere near as dangerous now, but, then again, neither are nuclear power plants.
Coal plants do not have disaster modes that result in radiation being spewed everywhere. Neither do modern nuclear power plants. Both of them release radioactivity in general, the coal plants a lot more than the nuclear ones. (That nuclear waste? That stuff people care so much we dispose of properly? That flies out the top of coal plants.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
As is usual whenever electric cars comes up, it's time for some mythbusting.
No, they don't increase pollution and overload the grid; precisely the opposite (more specifically, the only pollutant that goes up is particulate matter, and it's displaced away from population centers. NOx and SOx remain the same, CO2 drops, and CO and VOCs are nearly eliminated; the grid gets to make use of its surplus off-peak capacity and, with smart charging, can eliminate the supply/demand fluctuations that are currently so troublesome).
Yes, they are far more energy efficient than their alternatives.
No, modern batteries don't take forever to charge. The phosphates, titanates, modern spinels, and others can all charge in 5-20 minutes, given sufficient power.
Yes, fast chargers exist. The SAE J1772 standard covers Level 3 charging at hundreds of kilowatts. Yes, chargers as strong as 250kW exist. Yes, there's already a network of 60kW Level 3 chargers in place around Oahu. Install one yourself.
No, the batteries are not toxic. Current li-ions are only mildly toxic, and this only because of their cobalt-based cathode. The phosphates and spinels eliminate this cathode in favor of nontoxic elements.
No, lithium is not running out.
Yes, the batteries last a long time. The phosphates last 7000+ gentle cycles, having only 20% capacity loss after 1000 abusive cycles. The titanates? 20,000 cycles. Accelerated aging tests suggest LG Chem's packs will last 40+ years in typical use.
Yes, both rapid charging stations and EVs make financial sense.
Hmm, did I miss any?
Why must all aquatic villains play the organ?
No. These governments typically subsidize gasoline to an *enormous* extent. Iran has had some pretty significant unrest because they were forced to lower their subsidies, i.e. raise prices, because the gasoline subsidy was becoming a major component of their budget (something like $20 billion dollars, I think). And similarly for many of these other countries (I'm not if all of them). I am almost certain that Venezuela does this: Hugo Chavez uses the high prices charged to, e.g. the U.S. to provide populist support at home.
In Venezuela's case, it's becoming enormously damaging: Chavez has plundered his country's oil wealth to buy political support, but the underinvestment in oil infrastructure is leading to declining oil production. I think he'll be in a lot of trouble in fairly short order if either of (a) oil price goes down (b) production falls enough. Maybe he'll be out of office in time, handing the problem to his successor.