Slashdot Mirror
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."
No kidding, with GM's luck. Things might work better if they used ultra capacitors. Even better, use hydraulic hybrids instead of these expensive batteries that are a bear to recycle. One last point, won't charging a bunch of cars require all of the coal plants to go into overdrive? I read a great article about this at http://www.economicefficiency.blogspot.com/
... The reasons are simple: not only is it better for the environment, but it requires far less (maybe even none depending on how you drive) of a non-renewable resource like oil.
Neither of those is a decent reason in the face of hydrocarbon alternatives. Here's a good reason even with them:
Electric cars are simpler and more reliable than internal combustion cars, and will cost less for the same utility.
For your last point, my understanding is that you need to think about it in terms of point-source pollution. It's easier to mitigate 1000 pounds of pollution from one source than it is to mitigate 1 pound of pollution from 1000 sources.
Most homes can't charge one of these things, at "pump speeds"
How about a super capacitor based charger in the home that slowly fills from the grid and can provide a quick charge to the car? It could double as a squirrel population control device.
Making batteries isn't real enviro-friendly.
Cars are some of the most completely-recycled things on the planet. I have no doubt that the batteries will be recycled as a matter of course when electric cars become more common. Lead-acid batteries are already recycled.
Besides, we currently send hundreds of billions of dollars to places like Saudi Arabia... surely that factors into our energy policy?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
How does switching to natural gas help more then the plug in hybrid? It's still a nonrenewable resource. The tech isn't at assembly-line level (like the Volt is). There is still no infrastructure set up for CNG cars (only main bus lines in big cities). The easiest (and most forward-looking) strategy is getting the cars like the Volt on the roads. The Volt can take a charge or be filled up to be charged from the gasoline generator. As a better (or different) fuel source comes around, swap out the generator pack- it's just a provider of electricity to the engine, and can be hydrogen, compressed air, or pony farts. The charging tech can stay the same. Get better batteries? Great- put them in the car. The charging tech and generator can stay the same. Being able to swap out the "fuel cell" in order to utilize differing fuels is a large benefit to range-extended vehicles. We can then worry about other concerns in infrastructure when those fuels reach maturity.
Cities could put charging stations right up to the curb.
San Francisco already does this in some places, where an outlet is built into many parking meters.
And several businesses and parking garages around the Bay Area have "electric car only" spaces next to the handicap spots that have charging stations there.
And that was all built just to support the EV-1, which doesn't even exist anymore. This kind of infrastructure is relatively cheap and easy to do. This isn't some kind of pie-in-the-sky pipe dream.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
If you want to totally fair with the comparison the battery is the fuel tank and most fuel tanks are made of steel. Way easy to recycle.
Yes, but that is a only part of the equation you really need to look at the whole system:
If your gasoline powered engine lasts you 200,000 miles (not unreasonable) and you do regular maintenance (won't last as long if you don't) changing the oil every 5K miles. You end up with about 60 gallons of used motor oil. Not counting any that you need to add between oil changes to compensate for what leaks on the floor or makes it past the rings and out the exhaust.
Motor oil also has a history of recycling but is it much longer than battery recycling?
The real question is which is worse the gas engine and all its byproducts or the electric and its byproducts.
Sure, charging stations are needed for rechargable cars. Only, there are a few little problems. The biggest one is that we aren't building power plants any longer. We are running on coal-fired plants from the 1950s and hydroelectric plants from the 1930s. Nobody is going to build a new high-efficency coal-fired power plant today. Where, exactly would they put it? How long would it take to get through the environmental impact studies? What community group would come out and say they need it, vs. all the groups saying it will kill children and ruin the landscape?
Nuclear? Sure, maybe a couple of plants might get fast-tracked in the next few years. But the electric boom is pretty much over.
Plan on more brown-outs. Supply exceeding demand? I don't think so, not in any future that I can foresee. Will there be more wind and solar generation? Absolutely. Will it keep up with growth in demand from cities? Today, right now, we could use a few hundred megawatts additional for every city in the US. It isn't going to happen.
Yes, they are going to build a huge wind farm in Texas. Only problem is, the transmission lines aren't up to carrying any massive increases, so a huge part of the project will be to increase transmission capacity. And this is happening in a small part of Texas. What about the rest of the states?
Reduce, reuse and recycle. Mostly, for electricity it is reduce. California and Florida both have home controls to turn off your electric consumption during peak demand periods. It is coming to other states as well. There simply isn't enough electricity to go around today in the US. We are not building power plants. We are not increasing transmission capacity.
Do you really think there is enough power to charge up hundreds of cars in a city of any size today?
The real question is which is worse the gas engine and all its byproducts or the electric and its byproducts.
That's a great question. I saw a report on TV not long ago which sought to address this question. The report attempted to look at all factors including costs and environmental impact associated with batteries and the additional electronics/motors, etc. According to the report, only two or maybe three hybrids in current production are actually improvements over ICE. Two of which are made by Toyota. I forget what the questionable third one was.
These top three were the only ones that even had reasonable returns on investments (difference paid for hybrid verses non-hybrid model or equivalent). The top three had a ROI somewhere around for or five years. After than it started falling off to nine or so years. Around the mid park the ROI was somewhere in the twenty year range. The worst, was a Lexus, which had a 99-year ROI.
Long story short, for the vast majority of hybrid cars, ignoring the cool-factor, most hybrids actually do nothing for the environment other than change where the environmental impact is taking place. And don't forget, the majority, overall are actually worse for the environment than best of breed ICEs.
Hopefully the cool-factor will be enough (and it looks like it is) to spur a second and third generation of development. Each generation looks to better for mileage, environment, and ROI.