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GE To Buy 25,000 EVs, Starting With the Chevy Volt
DeviceGuru writes "In what's claimed as the largest-ever single electric vehicle commitment, GE plans to acquire 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015. The buying spree will initially involve 12,000 GM vehicles, beginning with GM's Chevy Volt in 2011. By converting most of its own 30,000-strong global fleet, and promoting EV adoption among its 65,000 global fleet customers, GE hopes to be in a strong position to help deploy the vehicles' supporting infrastructure, including charging stations, circuit protection equipment, and transformers. In contrast to the all-electric Nissan Leaf, the Volt implements a small gas engine, which can recharge the vehicle's battery to extend its range beyond the 100 mile limit of all-electric cars like the Leaf, leading some to question the Volt's EV credentials."
GE plans to acquire 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015.
Do corporations get the same tax break as consumers do for electric vehicles?
If so, then GE could get a $187,500,000 tax credit (25,000 * $7,500) in the process.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
That's because Georgia is GA, not GE.
It's a hybrid. Unfortunately hybrid is very unambiguous as well.
... moron ...
The new Tesla Roadster claims that it can do 245 miles on a single charge ... and it's a hell of a lot cooler than a volt! 100 miles on a charge, pfft! :)
I was wondering for a long time why fleet vehicles that stop and start every couple blocks were not electric since it seems like electricity would work best in well managed systems more than for consumers. But instead it's the personal vehicle that is the first to do this at scale. I suspect the answer to my query is pretty basic: namely delivery vehicles have to travel more miles on one route than electric storage can sustain. Or does someone have a better explanation of this hole.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What self respecting all electric vehicle is going to admit having f_cked an all gas vehicle to produce that bastard child?
GA is the Georgia the American State, GE is the accepted abbreviation for the former soviet nation Georgia. Google it.
This goes beyond PR. PR is where you spend some money and use the media to try to convince the public you're good guys. This is about learning through experience and accumulating a critical mass of captive consumers for the infrastructure they're trying to develop.
Sounds like Immelt is finally moving the company past Jack Welch. But we'll see how this turns out.
"leading some to question the Volt's EV credentials." ???
Let's be realistic here! It may not be a "pure" EV but the infrastructure is not here yet to support a pure EV. We are at the very start of a transition from gas stations to charging stations. Until charging stations can be found in most places at least a small gas engine to recharge the batteries is needed.
Maybe Neutron Jack knows where they are going to get the electricity for the charging stations.
Out here in California, where the grid is at max, they will get it from "clean and green" gas fired and diesel generating plants! Plenty of CO2 to feed our trees and weeds. "-)
It wouldn't need thousands of dollars per car in subsidies to get people or companies to buy it - from a company that was nationalized and is now owned by that very government.
Yay for statist government-imposed crony-capitalism "solutions".
Consider it this way, using the electric grid is the most effective use of energy transmission. By using large plants, we can use every trick that an engineer can conceive to wring the last watt out of fuel. So far, so good. But by combining the electrical storage potential of any hybrid, with a tuned engine for maximal efficiency gets the best of both worlds. It's easier to design to, also. It's an old trick called co-generation, used in pulp and paper plants. Now, if we can store the "waste heat" for our homes ... well, we just reduced the total energy demand.
Any takers?
JB
This is progress?
Please do cite where those diesel electric plants are. Diesel is way to expensive to run even a decent size business generator on much less a power plant.
These are the type of comments that I was blissfully unaware of when the old comments system was still in place and you could really filter everything that scored lower than 1 out. In the new system, that is not possible anymore. I keep seeing posts scoring 0 since the new system is in place. Or is there a trick that I don't know of to get rid of these posts?
-- Cheers!
Georgia the nation has a GDP of $20 Billion, General Electric has a revenue of $157 Billion. Odds are the government of Georgia could not afford 25,000 Chevy volts.
Everyone knows who GE is, no one cares about broke Soviet Bloc nations.
You're right. There is no infrastructure to support electric vehicles.
What we need is some kind of nation-wide distribution network for electrical power. That's probably decades away assuming you can find someone willing to spend the billions of dollars to install one.
Oh wait...
What you're missing: You charge your vehicle primarily at home - where your car spends the vast majority of its unused time anyway. Charging stations external to that are a bonus but not strictly required. For example you might have an exterior outlet on your office building you can use in lieu of a dedicated charging bollard.
If you're one of the people who think there must be an exact gas station analog in place for electric vehicles, you are wrong. The entire premise of EVs is that the "energy economy" they work in is completely different; distributed instead of centralized. Every outlet is a potential "gas station."
=Smidge=
GE is a huge supporter of the Obama administration and the Obama administration is desperate to prove that its takeover of GM and its pushing of "green jobs" wasn't just a bunch of unconstitutional meddling driven by a hunger for political power. The incestuousness of this is appalling. It calls to mind something that Benito Mussolini once said, something like, 'For the State, everything. For that outside the State, nothing.'
I can see a family with two cars getting one all-electric vehicle. Probably 90% of the driving my family does is within the round-trip range of an EV. But right now I'm not seeing a really mass-market EV. An EV should be cheaper to manufacture than a gasoline powered car if you compare the complexities of the drive systems. EV: Battery, electric motor, differential and final drive system. Gasoline engine: Battery, ignition system, fuel tank, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, air intake, air filter, intake manifold, pistons, crankshaft, valves, cam shaft, coolant pumps, radiator, coolant thermometer, exhaust pipes, EGR valves, muffler, catalytic converter, flywheel, clutch, transmission, differential and final drives. The number of moving parts in a gasoline engine that need lubrication is huge. In an electric motor there is one. Lithium batteries are somewhat exotic and expensive but so are the precious metals they put in your catalytic converter.
I think the manufacturers are happier selling you a hybrid vehicle with two engine systems and charging you more than a gasoline powered car instead of selling you an all electric vehicle and charging less. Or they'd rather make a pure EV that is so exotic they can charge Porsche prices for it, like the Tesla. The only possible exception coming soon is the Nissan Leaf. It'll be interesting to see how Nissan does with it.
If you think electric heat is expensive just wait until you start charging an EV every night...
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Seems simple enough, but if you do not tell wat clarification then it does not help. YOu can make a parallel hybrid with a very small electric motor and a very powerful combustion engine, or the opposite, a very powerful electric engine and a combustion engine that is enough to limb home.
It all depends what the target of the car is.
If you want a zero-exhaust car then a all electric car would be the best option. This might be th eonly option to keep the centre of your town habitable.
If you want every efficiency then the parallel cars might be a good option. However they will have to rated on actual exhaust values in avarge use. Traditional small cars with a combustible engine might beat hybrids here. But that even depends on things like the climate. (In cold climates the heat of the engine is not lost because the car needs heating anyway, in hot climates you power the AC efficient with a battery).
If co2 is the concern then co2 exhaust of electricity generation will have to be taken into account. There is a lot of room to make that more efficient.
what clarification do you want law-maker to ask?
Compared to powering a vehicle with gas that would be cheap.
Ever wonder why we don't all power our homes with gas fueled generators?
And now try to travel more than 100 miles.
Whoops. There are no outlets in the middle of this interstate road. And even if there was an outlet, you won't wait 6 hours until your car is charged.
And it's well known that people (somewhat stupidly) buy cars for the 'worst' case.
It's a hybrid. Unfortunately hybrid is very unambiguous as well.
To be precise, the Chevy Volt was originally a Series Hybrid that added a capability to add about 15% of total power output through a direct mechanical connection, because this turned out to be more efficient. So it's a combination between series hybrid and parallel hybrid which makes it a kind of hybrid of hybrids -- a meta-hybrid!
(The Volt could probably run just fine as a series hybrid, with most of its range, power, and efficiency if the direct mechanical linkage were disabled. In contrast, a Prius can run only on electric motors but with a pretty piddling range.)
It is well known, that rental car agencies are available to fulfill your short term worst case needs. Believe it or not you can even buy a normal car and rent a truck the one time a year you need it.
Solar + EV = win. A neighbor of mine did this and his average bill is negative $2/month. Having an EV car shortens the solar panel system installation ROI period considerably.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Probably because small-to-medium sized gas fueled generators are notoriously inefficient? They are designed for temporary power and low up-front cost, not long-term efficient use. Not to mention, it's slightly inconvenient to re-fuel them every so often.
a diesel gas turbine (i.e. fuel oil turbine) is more efficient than your typical diesel generator. It's effectively a jet engine.
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I know this. But people still buy 'off-road' SUVs even if they are not taken off-road more than 1 day a year.
Also, 100 miles is just not that much. It's quite easy to exhaust this limit - just forget to plug-in once you get home.
it's well known that people (somewhat stupidly) buy cars for the 'worst' case
Well then the stupid people won't be the early adopters. Other people will figure out ways to make it work for them. For instance in a two-car household, one could be pure-electric (for commuting to/from work, shopping, etc.) and the other could be a hybrid (which is what would get used for road-trips). Or a person could own an all-electric vehicle and rent a gas or hybrid vehicle for longer trips (and still save money overall compared to owning a gas vehicle).
Those people who freak-out about limitations that don't apply to their lifestyle won't be the early adopters, but will adopt the technology when it has become better (better batteries or more charging infrastructure). But they will miss-out on the gains that the early adopters made.
Your average car gets (or SHOULD get) about 300 miles per tank of gas.
300 miles is just not that much. It's quite easy to exhaust this limit - just forget to stop at a gas station.
=Smidge=
And a car engine is what again? Oh yeah, a small to medium sized gas power ICE, designed for temporary power and low up front cost.
Why do you think the energy companies are all quickly getting Time of Use( ToU ) meters installed on everyones home? Very soon there will be a way for them to start increasing the price of electricity used to charge electric vehicles. They will come up with some cockamamie reason way and those running the regional public energy committees will fall for it. Just as they fell for the hydrogen economy crap the Bush Administration pedaled.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I bet 90%+ of SUVs are never off road, and never will be. These are purchased only so some middle aged man can avoid driving a minivan.
BEVs are commuter cars, you don't drive cross-country in them but to work and back every day. Most people don't drive more than 75 miles a day even including side trips for errands. For most people having a car that can drive 200 miles on a tank of gas is overkill for their actual driving needs. For everything a BEV commuter can't handle there's rental cars or a second family vehicle. The car transportation system would be on the whole more efficient if we bought cars closer to our actual needs and shared (rentals etc) cars whose utility was used only rarely.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Please do cite where those diesel electric plants are. Diesel is way to expensive to run even a decent size business generator on much less a power plant.
Depends. Self-generation can actually be cost-effective beyond a certain point, although local power companies will usually go to court to try and prevent it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
These are the type of comments that I was blissfully unaware of when the old comments system was still in place and you could really filter everything that scored lower than 1 out. In the new system, that is not possible anymore. I keep seeing posts scoring 0 since the new system is in place. Or is there a trick that I don't know of to get rid of these posts?
If you figure it out, let me know.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No, they are doing this so that customers can switch to hourly rated power. So peak power will be more expensive, but at night when most of our capacity goes unused lower priced power can be used to charge EVs. This will prevent them from having to build more power plants as the high peak prices will shift load to later in the day.
I had this at a previous home as my work hours meant I did most of my electric use during off peak hours. I saved a bundle.
I've done the math before, using my personal driving habits, and worked out going with electric would cost me about 10%-15% the cost of gasoline per mile, at $3/gallon and $0.22/kWh.
Which, for me, ends up about $100/year in electricity versus $700/year in gasoline.
=Smidge=
I've got it configured to only see 2 and above with karma bonus off.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Yes. But there are gas stations _everywhere_, so even if your fuel gauge reads 'zero' you most probably can still drive safely to the next gas station.
And then drive 300 miles after 5-minute stop to fill your tank.
I'm keeping statistics of my trips. Usually I average at 30 miles per day. However, about once per month I need to travel about 90 miles.
So I'd have to rent a car at least 1 time a month. That's not acceptable, because I'll be spending more on rent than on fuel for a conventional car for this whole month. I suspect that quite a lot of people have the same situation.
Besides, there's a problem with ROI. Right now it's cheaper to produce a 40 miles range-extended car. It will still require gasoline, but it will require 10 times less of it than a 'normal' car. And it will give us time to build an EV-infrastructure.
So range-extended vehicles are the way to go for now.
Every outlet is a potential "gas station."
nice in concept, and all, but that's unrealistic.
my house was built in 1954. it's a relatively new house, compared to many in the US and especially Europe. while many (if not most) of older houses have been renovated, not all have.
my house has had the power 'upgraded' several times. there is still substantial original wiring. if i were to get an EV, i'd have to redo the entire fuse box, put in a larger amperage master breaker, and re-wire the front side of my house in the process.
My grandmother owns several properties, most of which were made before 1930. One she grew up in; one her children grew up in. at least these two do not have 'modern' wiring sufficient for EVs. believe it or not, there are still quite a few properties out there with 30 or 50 amp mains on fuses.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
There are more electrical outlets than gas stations. I'm pretty sure I can find a few places where there are no gas stations for 300+ miles in any direction.
My point is any argument you make against EVs is an argument that can be, and has been, used against gasoline powered vehicles at some point.
=Smidge=
But a natural gas one is even better and cheaper to run.
It's also well known that many people own two cars. My family owns two cars. My wife and I have analyzed our car usage and concluded that we could easily get by with one of our two cars having a limit of 100 miles. An EV with a range of 100 miles or more would be a viable choice for our family, as it would be for millions of others. SUVs and pickup trucks are a bad choice for many, but they're the right choice for some. Small cars don't work for some families, but they're a good choice for others. Just because something doesn't work for everyone doesn't mean it's a bad choice for many.
Only half as much CO2 if you get the power from fossil fuel generating plant. They are roughly twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine. Also, you are buying large and increasing amounts of power from British Columbia which is all zero emission Hydro-electric.
Actually, the US Government has been trying to use Georgia the State to annoy the Russians. Given what happened the last time the Russians let a Georgian run anything, you'd understand why they might push back.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Incorrect. It's more expensive, NG is about twice the cost of diesel.
Om, nomnomnom...
Diesel is way to expensive to run even a decent size business generator on much less a power plant.
Just slightly more expensive. Where I work is 100% diesel generator power, has been for the last 15 years, with several hundred employees running computers, welders, air conditioning, etc. The cost has worked out to about $.26 /kwHr. My last home bill worked out to be $.24 / Kwhr when I divide the final bill by the electric used. Because my company also builds generators it does give a opportunity to test their generators. The previous job I had in the same area had much less reliable power from the grid, so overall Diesel generator is more expensive, not sure it qualifies as way more. Definitely not too expensive.
"There are more electrical outlets than gas stations."
So? It takes 6 hours to charge Volt from a standard 128-volt outlet. And then you need to do it again after 40 miles.
This is not going to work.
"I'm pretty sure I can find a few places where there are no gas stations for 300+ miles in any direction."
Not much (in the USA). Because not all vehicles can travel more than that on a single tank.
Or buy a motorcycle for what it costs to take the bus and rent a truck the couple times a year that you need it.
Problem is, you 'second' car will usually have to be an SUV or something like it to fit all your family. And likely it'll be still used daily.
So it's quite often more efficient to have two mid-range cars with good fuel efficiency then an SUV and an electric car.
That's where Chevy Volt shines - it can replace both of these mid-range cars, cutting you average fuel use almost to zero while allowing you to have unlimited range if it's required.
This is nothing new, so please don't pretend it's some unsolvable dilemma. People add large electric loads to homes now and they do it all the time. Hot tubs, pools, new garages and shops, welders, you name it. A level 2 charger for the Nissan Leaf is 14A at 220V and will charge the car in 8 hours. About the same load as a dryer or stove.
electricity demand could increase significantly
Hopefully people will wake up to the benefits of Nuclear Energy. It is in fact our only hope for future energy demands.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Here's a cite for you: The island I live on has (almost) all of it's power provided by RECO, using Wärtsilä generators (disregarding the very low adoption of PV and wind, and the couple of gas stations that run their own generators).
According to the first link, RECO burns 15,000 gallons of diesel a day providing the power for this island, according to the second, it's one of 1550 such power plants around the world (specificly using Wärtsilä generators.).
Now, as you pointed out, this is a rather expensive way to go for power generation, but it's certainly done. Of course, the reason this makes any sense if because this is a relatively small island 50 miles off the coast of Honduras, we can't afford the infrastructure needed for a more efficient means of power generation.
Finally, in the interests of full disclosure, I will note that RECO was recently (3 or 4 years ago) bought out by an investor who has been investing massive amounts of money into it, and once he's done bringing the distribution infrastructure up to snuff, he's announced plans to change over to biomass generation.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
Its not a "diesel" engine, it is a gas turbine engine. They operate the same as aerospace gas turbine engines, except they are 10-20x bigger (think school bus sized). It is a continuous burn, no pistons or cylinders, and some of them are up to 60% efficient (compared to 35% for coal and 10% for your car). They can burn just about any fuel too. See ge-energy.com . GE makes quite a few land based gas turbine engines, in Greenville SC.
Yeah but natural gas burnt in a gas turbine engine is up to 60% efficient (converting energy in fuel to electricity), compare that to any diesel engine driving a generator.
On the whole, I think this is good news. If this kind of large scale adoption is followed by other corporations, I wonder how long it will be before we begin to notice significantly reduced noise levels in urban areas? Should totally change the sounds of the city, hopefully for the better.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
128 volt?
Strange outlet you got there, what if I use a 120V AC 60Hz normal one? or better yet, a 220V one? You know like your dryer uses.
From www.mychevroletvolt.com : "The First 200,000 Chevrolet Volt’s qualify for $7500 in federal tax credits (After which there is a phase out schedule)."
So this consumes rebates from a limited pool that may have gone to individuals. I don't necessarily have a problem with that: first come, first served I guess. I like that GE is doing this to jump start infrastructure sales rather than a one time tax benefit.
I'm also curious to know how "refueling" these things will work.
Currently if an employee has a company-owned car they're often refunded for gas purchases, as long as they have a receipt or put it on a company credit card. However, if an employee brings an EV home and plugs it in, how would they be reimbursed for the power that's charged onto their home electricity bill?
I'm guessing that plug-ins generally don't have a standard plug, and so a charging station would need to potentially be installed in an employee's residence. Perhaps that could be metered?
Or, you could get a corolla and what you save in car cost can easily fund gas for years to come.
Minivans are evil, quad cab pickup has room for a family the weekly home depo run and parks nicely at the drive in with a queen sizes air mattress int he back. Your point? Get over trying to dictate what people should be allowed to drive.
No sir I dont like it.
From what I saw, most of the 'questioning' wasn't because people didn't like the Volt, it's because people felt deceived by the marketing. They said it was going to be an all electric vehicle with a nice range. They hyped the electric part a lot. Then the range wasn't as good, and then we found out it wasn't even exactly electric. There is no problem with a car having a gas engine, but when you go a year or two implying that it doesn't, people are going to be disappointed when they find out it does.
Arguably the Volt got more publicity than it otherwise would have if they had said from the beginning that it had a gas generator.
Qxe4
They need to start referring to it as a hybrid.
but they wont. their aim is to reinvent the definition of what an EV is, then start making a distinction that pure electric are something else entirely...
then go on a huge campaign to discredit and push pure electrics out of the market.
Just as long as the oil industry does not suffer so an inefficient hybrid (with a 100 mile range) can continue generating profit for america's most powerful lobby.
how much gas does this tiny engine use, how efficient is it? how big is the tank? how many times do you need to refuel?
Tesla was a step in the right direction, but now with Tesla possibly being bought out in the near future, and slowly being drowned out by cars like the volt due to aggressive marketing, our gas free future is another 20 years away.
I'm willing to bet the majority stakeholder in tesla will be an oil conglomerate or GM, and the technology behind it will disappear. Just like what happened to the EV1.
NG is currently commercial price is $6 / 1000cubic feet for 1 million BTU's worth. Diesel is 2.39 for 130,500BTU.
so Diesel price is around 2* more expensive at commercial. Retail price (NG to your home) brings that down to Diesel 15% more expensive.
There are different kinds of chargers. The one at your house, a level 2 charger, will charge your Leaf in about 8 hours (220v, 15A input). The one at the gas station (fair enough, they haven't installed it at your gas station yet), a level 3 charger (3 phase 240V, 50A) will charge you up in half an hour. And that's right now, and you know the tech is going to get better. There are pulse chargers in development that will charge an EV in under 10 minutes. At that point it's not too far from what we have with gasoline cars.
Oh, sorry. Of course, it's 120V.
220V is better because it cuts time in about 3 times. So you'll have to wait 'just' 2-3 hours instead of 6 hours.
Realistically, you need to have 500V fast-charge outlets. And they definitely are NOT common.
Yes, charging problems can be and will be solved. I'm not going to argue about that.
But they are not yet solved and networking effects work against us (almost nobody is going to use pure EVs until infrastructure is in place and nobody is going to build EV infrastructure until they are common enough).
Range-extended vehicles provide a nice stepping stone for EV adoption.
What kind of area does he have covered with solar panels? The Volt's batteries are 10kWh. A typical solar panel gets 50-200W per square metre in direct sunlight. If we say 200W and assume 100% efficiency charging (I've no idea what this number should be, but it's well below 100 in practice), that's 50 square meter hours of solar panels that you need per charge. If you get usable sunlight for 8 hours a day, then that's a square 2.5 metres on each side covered with solar panels just to charge the car. Which, actually, isn't so bad, although I'd imagine that the area doubles when you factor in charging efficiency. You also have the problem that you either need to store the power (more loss), have a spare battery pack, or leave your car at home during the day in order to be able to charge it directly from the panels.
It sounds like it would be feasible for a fairly typical roof top installation, although there might not be much power left over for the rest of the house...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Owner of an oil-mill buys a Diesel.
More news at 11.
Give me two hours at a home depot parking lot with your credit card and my tools and your problem is solved. You can have your pure electric car, plus be able to use it for long trips. Buy a genny, buy a small trailer, construct the appropriate extension cord. You now have an unlimited range electric vehicle suitable for trips "on demand". It is now a modular hybrid, which is better than the built in always hybrid, because you don't have to lug both the electric drive parts plus the ICE around all the time.. Added bonus, you now have a decent whole house generator for when the grid goes down, like in ice storms. During your commute, your genny trailer stays in the garage, weekends and trips, attach trailer, run the plug, stop and get gasoline when you need it. Enjoy.
Range on electrics is a non problem. We have the range now for commuters, and the genny trailer solves the distance problem. The genny trailer can be bought or rented for the occasional long trip use. If you need ultra long range daily, buy a diesel VW or something.
cutting you average fuel use almost to zero
Why do people keep saying things like this? "Burning some sort of fuel somewhere else, in advance" isn't the same as "burning zero fuel."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Now .. I like what you have been saying .. and you make some good points
But really .. where the hell do you think that there will be no gas station for 300+ plus road miles in any direction ?? I doubt you will find a location like that in the usa at least ..
300 miles is a LONG distance ... Remember .. its 250 miles between NY and DC ..
Realistically, you should very rarely need the high-voltage "level 3" charge. Again, to equate EV charging stations with gas stations is a very big mistake as the two operate in very different ways.
Though I agree that range extension vehicles like the Volt are a good concept, but pretty meh in practice.
The guys at MSNBC decided to drive one from Seattle to San Francisco and got only mid-40s for fuel economy. That's pretty underwhelming considering the hype and cost.
=Smidge=
How much power do you think these things actually draw? If you can run a vacuum cleaner for 10 min without burning the house down, then you can charge an EV overnight.
15A at 115V in ~8 hours.
=Smidge=
If you think electric heat is expensive just wait until you start charging an EV every night...
http://jaredwatkins.com/wordpress/?p=284 Considering the design intent behind the Volt.. operating costs are actually quite a bit cheaper if you use it for daily commuting.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Yeah, Volt's fuel efficiency is nothing to write home about.
However, your argument works for it - average users won't need to use Volt's gas engine that often.
If you need a "truck" to go to home depot weekly , presumably because what you are getting wont fit in a car .. you are doing it wrong .. Please buy a set of time life home repair books. ( also .. home depot now rents trucks for 20 bucks an hour ( or about )
And seriously .. when is the last time you actually went to the drive in ?? Here in NY there is only one I know of within 200 miles of nyc .. and that only shows second / third run movies ( 6 months or more after release )
Interesting comparison. Now the next step: what is the efficiency of a diesel generator vs a NG generator? That will factor into the cost as well.
Here is what YOU'RE missing: What if I want, or need, to drive further than the available battery power will take me?
There is no battery back available that will take a car 600 miles at Interstate speed. Your Tesla Roadster will die about halfway through, the Leaf will be done around the 100 mile mark, a Chevy Volt will just keep plugging along on it's ICE and I can stop just about anywhere and refill that puppy.
Here's another scenario: Power is out at my house for several hours overnight. Now how do I get to work? On a "pure" EV you're screwed. With a Volt, or a Prius, away I go.
Practicality, usefulness, and robustness FTW!!!
Just exactly how large is his system that it can recharge his car overnight, let alone run his entire house?
He either has an enormous solar system, has almost no electric consumption at home, or something is being misrepresented.
I'm not so sure about that. Gas turbines have a higher power density (kW/kg and kW/m^3), but I believe they have lower efficiency than diesels for automotive use. Aircraft operating at high altitudes, where the incoming air is very cold, can be more efficient. That's because the work to compress the air to get it into the combustion chamber is proportional to volume, not mass, and cold air has a smaller volume. Also, I believe that small turbines are less efficient than large ones due to gap clearance (related to inefficiency) does not scale exactly. Gas turbines used for electrical generation are more efficient, but I believe that's because they use the waste heat in a "combined cycle" to run a steam turbine or some other secondary generator. Can someone who knows for sure chime in?
This is about the only way that either PV solar panels or electric vehicles make any sort of sense economically. Use the solar energy to reduce the cost of the expensive energy; Transport.
Shame the combination has a capital cost for a system comes in somewhere around 70,000 euros. ~30k for an appropriately sized PV installation and ~40k for the vehicle.
You're probably still talking around 10 years for most people. Sans government subsidy.
Deleted
I dont think you have done the math.
30 miles a day .. 5 times a week .. 4.3 weeks in a month ... 30 mpg .. 3.00 per gal ..
((30 X 5 X 4.3) / 30) X 3 = 64.5
goes up to 95 for 20 mpg ..
I dont know about you .. but I can call up my local car rental place and have them deliver ( yes .. you can get a rental car DELIVERED ) a car for less then that. And if you really will be renting once a month , you can get much better rates .. clubs and programs and such..
You also haven't factored in winter, or light incidence angle, both which mean you need a bigger area or tracking systems.
Yeah, could be done, but really expensive.
Deleted
It's been a while, but I seem to remember that if you're running a dual fuel capable turbine generator, your preference is to use natural gas over oil.. It's much cleaner. If you run with oil for too long, it's expensive fuel-wise and maintenance issues crop up much quicker.
Self awareness - try it!
I pay 54 euro for one day of rent, without delivery (it's another 6 euro).
It's a little bit cheaper if I use it frequently, but only for about 15%.
See for yourself: http://www.hertz.ua/en/index.php
Google "HR 5734"
"Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2008 - Directs the Secretary of Transportation to study and report to Congress on the minimum level of sound that is necessary to be emitted from a motor vehicle, or some other method, to alert blind and other pedestrians of the presence of operating motor vehicles while traveling."
Think of the blind!!!!!!!!
Enjoy your government mandated noisemaker.
We both said a lot of things that you are going to regret.
I live in a rural area in central NY, and you might find it hard to believe, but I know a lot of people with families that don't own an SUV or similarly large vehicle. They got over that fetish somewhere around the turn of the century. Many of them own a mid-size sedan and an compact or sub-compact car. My family gets by with a Honda Accord and a Honda Civic. The Civic very, very rarely drives more than 75 miles in a day. With some planning there's no reason it would ever need to. We managed to raise two children without the need for an SUV or something like it. Really, it is possible to get by, even in a snowy rural area, without an SUV.
Agreed.
Wrong. To get out of a tiny niche market, recharging stations will be quite important. Most people don't have multiple vehicles, and yet, they at least occasionally need to travel more than the 100 miles nearly all electric vehicles max-out at... Many people commute more than 100 miles, every single day. Even those that do not, have a need to do so often enough. And the fact that an electric vehicle can't do that at all, eliminates it from consideration as their sole vehicle.
I'd love to get an electric car like the Nissan Leaf, despite the high prices, but I've got two strikes against me...
1) I'm currently living in an apartment complex where I'm a good 100 feet away from my car, and stringing electric lines is sure to be frowned upon
2) I live more than 100 miles (each way) from my niece, whom I regularly visit. In fact between family and work I'd say I drive over 100 miles at least twice a month on average (and it's not always something I can plan well in advance). Hell, I've got a 400mi trip coming up next week.
You can complain that I'm just not the the target customer for an electric vehicle, but I'd bet I'm in the overwhelming majority. Maybe 10% of people are in a position where they could get by with an electric vehicle... Now you're reducing your potential market by an order of magnitude. You've got to CONVINCE that small minority they want an electric vehicle, and that's no easy task. I don't believe all-electric vehicles will be able to breach the 1% mark until a substantial number of charging stations are available. Yes, the nice thing is that "stations" consist of a $10,000 box connected to the electrical grid, and can be easily dropped-in to any high-traffic parking-lot without trouble, but until it happens, there's a lot of truth to the claim that a gas engine is a strict requirement, because it is, to open up the market to that other 99%.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The added cost to your electric bill will be far, far less than you pay for gasoline currently. Something like 1 cent/mi. Sure, it sounds worse because you get it all down on paper at the end of the month, rather than some nebulous recollection that you dropped $20 here, and $20 there, several times over during the course of the month..
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I only know who GE are from watching 30 Rock - if you'd asked me last year I would not have known.
I just use the old comment system, which works as well as it ever has.
Just look at the bottom of this screen for the little widget that says "Prefs". Click on that, change things back to sanity, and you'll never see a penis again.
Kid-proof tablet..
What you are missing is that today the entire engine and transmission is treated as a drop-in component from outside manufacturers. They aren't going to make the electric motor either, so it is nearly a wash between putting in a gasoline engine and an electric motor. Both need fuel supplies, both need all of the other things that make a modern car usable - lights, wipers, seats, etc.
Back in the 1950s a single plant might be making the car - all of it - from raw materials. This was changed in the 1980s following a more Japanese model. The end result was a more streamlined manufacturing plant and far more use of automation. The parts assemblers got a lot more complicated with making things like seats, engines and transmissions which might have been made by the primary car manufacturer on-site before.
> Problem is, you 'second' car will usually have to be an SUV or something like it to fit all your family. And likely it'll be still used daily.
Not really. Remember, the median household size in the US is around 2.6 people. The fertility rate is under 2 children per family. That means there are very few families with over four people.
Which means the vast majority of people are fine with a plain old four door sedan or hatchback. They seat four. (Well, actually, they seat five, but I err on the side of caution because the back middle spot is awful tight if you have one or two child seats in back already. Or if the kids are obese.) There are also minivans, cheaper and with better mileage than SUVs, which have more full size seats, for the extremely rare American family of 6-8 members.
Though at some point, since you have two vehicles anyway, two cars with three people each at 60+ mpg each would still outperform a single 6-person vehicle that only gets 25mpg. (I'm thinking of events you bring the whole family to, but which are still local enough for the electric to be in range.)
Actually, it's not all that bad. In California, 1 watt of solar is approximately 2 kWh/year. The volt driven all 40 electric miles is going to need about 3650 kWh / year, or 1825 watts of solar. You need about 16 m^2 of solar array to power it. That solar, however, from the cheapest I could find, is about $3200. That includes all the loses of the charger, the sunset, clouds, etc.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sams%C3%B8
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/wind-power-heart-of-samso-energy-independence.php
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Yeah, and nobody leaves there stove on for 8 hours at a time. Doing that 3-5 times a week? Are you serious? That'd cost more than gasoline, especially in places like California where the electric cost is high. (I don't care if that's "at night", it's still expensive.)
Unless electricity drops substantially or gas increases markedly, the energy density of gasoline will be substantially more economical than EVs for some time now - even with a 10-15mpg vehicle.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I've often wondered why people keep saying there is no infrastructure to support electric vehicle charging when every electric vehicle can be plugged into a standard electric outlet and just about every part of the US is wired to the electric grid. The number of these charging stations for electric cars is several orders of magnitude greater than the number of gasoline stations. (I know that you can charge faster if you have a special charging station but that doesn't really matter since most cars spend most of their time sitting in the garage or driveway where they can be easily plugged into a standard outlet.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I did the math, and it might surprise you. Very rough math here: Leaf goes 100mi on a charge. 14A*220V*8hrs=24.6 kWh, 24.6kWh * .15 cents/kwH = $3.70. OK, gasoline car lets say 40 mpg. 100mi = 2.5 gal. 2.5 * $3.00 / gal = $7.50. or about twice the cost of the electric.
I had to look up the costs for gas and power in California, adjust as required. Here in Canuckistan we pay a lot less for power, ie 6 - 8 cents per kWh and we pay a lot more for gas ie $4.50 per gallon so it works out even better. Of course we have winter so we would need to heat the car. Probably comes out even with you having to run the Air Conditioning.
Yes, it's absolutely possible to do better, however I would point out that there are a few key differences between Samsø and Roatán.
First, Samsø has a population of 4,300 according to wikipedia, whereas Roatán has a popultation of 30,000 according to wikipedia, and depending on who you talk to around here, the estimates go as high as 90,000 (The concept of a census is only loosely applied here.)
Second, the PPP GDP of Denmark is ~200B (Per capita ~31K), while the GDP of Honduras is ~15B, (Per capita ~3K).
Finally the conversion to wind power of Samsø was (as I understand it), largely funded by grants from the Danish Government, while for various lingering political reasons Roatán (and the bay islands in general) are the red headed step-children of Honduras.
So, to summarize, Samsø has at most 1/6th of the people to provide power to, has per capita income approximately 10x greater, and the government was actually willing to spend some of that money on the island.
This is more apples to oranges than apples to apples.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
Agreed that apartment living makes things a lit more difficult. This is a recognized problem from manufacturers like Nissan as well.
However, I disagree that public charging stations are restricting potential market to "1%." Statistics released by the federal transportation department show that 80% of people rarely drive more than 40 miles per day. Even allowing for the occasional trip to a relative's house (which is certainly a valid argument) there is surely a number of people for whom a 100 mile range is perfectly adequate - somewhere between 1% and 80%.
For the record, I'd be one of them if I didn't already own a car that was in good repair and gets decent economy (7 years old, ~28 on average.) This car isn't going to last forever and an EV is absolutely an option I'll be considering when that time comes, probably in another 3-4 years.
Anyway. I'm aware a lot of people have reservations about new technologies, especially if there will be a lot of inconvenience if the tech fails... a dead battery in your iPod is not going to get you stranded on the side of the road. So I would expect market penetration to be quite slow at first, until people get more accustomed to what they can do and how they perform. Something like the Volt is a good stopgap here and I recognize that as well, however flawed I think GM's handling of the vehicle design and marketing has been. (I just can't shake the feeling that the Volt will be the FV1 of the 21st century...)
But my point is, from earlier, that rapid-charge (aka "level 3") stations are absolutely not a showstopper for introducing electric vehicles to market. There is still enough people who can get by without them that public awareness will increase. It is not the chicken-and-egg problem some people make it out to be.
And obviously there are some people for whom an electric vehicle will legitimately not be a viable option. But the flip side to that objection is that we all shouldn't be driving semi trucks all the time because we might need it someday. The right vehicle for the right application, and I think a lot of people will be surprised how a current-generation EV will actually suit there needs when they really sit down and work it all out.
FWIW one last thing worth mentioning is that the first real-world test of the Leaf saw 116 miles at 94.9% battery utilization.
=Smidge=
Well I was really just being snarky with that and turning the whole argument around to point out that these objections existed for gasoline powered cars too - after all, a horse only needs grass and water and you can find those anywhere!
But since it was never specified where I was allowed to select a location that is 300+ miles from the nearest gas station - and with the only implied restriction being that it be somewhere on this planet - I'll start with the entire continent of Antarctica and we can work north from there. :)
=Smidge=
It turns out that electric heat actually isn't that expensive. For one thing, liquid petro megajoules are approaching electric megajoules in price, but also, you don't have to heat 1200 square feet at a time. And that's even without the force-multiplier of a heat-pump.
The parity point for electric vehicles is about $3.00 per gallon. Which, IMO, is why OPEC is steadfastly keeping the price of oil as close to the level where where gasoline will cost that much as possible.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Right now, gasoline and diesel fuels have huge built-in taxes to support the road infrastructure. Electricity does not. However, when electricity is used to power the vehicles, they will definitely move those taxes to the electric grid in some fashion, and your savings will be considerably less. Sad, but true. The good news is that the EV would reduce the pollution generated by a very large factor, as the energy obtained by your EV from a coal, gas or oil turbine, even after transmission and conversion losses, is obtained at much higher efficiency; plus the grid can migrate to less polluting sources as they become available, and your EV won't even notice.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Any direction? Do you really want to go sideways to your intended path in order to get enough energy to get back to it? No, the issue is, how far is it along your path before there is a gas station? And here, in Montana, right where I live, it's 70 miles to the first one, which thankfully is open all night, and then, on the way to Billings, it's another 160 miles, and then another 50. In practical terms, that means we fill up before we leave, and make the trip - 280 miles - in one go, without stopping.
If, however, I decide to drive to Miles City, it's about 200 miles, no all-night gas stations. There's one here, and there are several in Miles city. So one does need to fill up before leaving.
Anyway, I wouldn't buy an EV for those trips. I'd buy it for the 99.99% of my driving, which is in-town and way, way less than twenty miles a day. Maybe five on a *really* busy day.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yeah, the real problem is the price. If I'm counting pennies at the gas pump, (and I am), I'm not going to buy a $40k vehicle unless the lifetime electric usage is part of that price. In fact, on my salary, the maximum recommended vehicle price is less than half of that, and I'm not at all comfortable being anywhere near the "maximum recommended" value of anything when it pertains to monetary liabilities...
Huh. Here in Austin we have a car-share program with caps of $13/hr or $66/day (fuel, like insurance, is included in that price). I tend to use it as a cheap drive-it-yourself cab (bike breaks down? grab a car2go, fold the bike up and stick it in the trunk).
Over how many hours do you typically put in that 90 miles?
According to the American Petroleum Institute, the heating value, or energy stored in a gallon of gasoline, is approximately 131,760,000 Joules. Therefore, a 20 gallon tank in a typical passenger car holds around 2.64 billion Joules of energy. Given the well-known “tank to wheel” inefficiency of vehicles powered by IC engines and if one (unrealistically) assumes that the “battery to wheel” efficiency of a future battery powered EV is 100% and the total vehicle weight is unchanged, then the EV would need to store somewhere on the order of 1/4th of this energy, or 659 megajoules, to have comparable driving range. Even if advances in battery or capacitor technology make this possible at reasonable cost and with more or less the same overall volume and weight, the issue of “refueling” or recharging the system is governed by simple physics that cannot be avoided. For example, to deliver 659 megajoules of electricity to a vehicle in 10 minutes requires a power of 1.1 megawatts. At a standard household maximum voltage of 220V, the current required is just under 5000 amps, much higher than the electrical current typically found in even very large-scale industrial equipment. Modern homes typically have electrical service rated at around 250 amps at 220 volts, and therefore if 100% of the electrical power available in the typical US home was directed toward the vehicle, recharging with the energy equivalent of a 20 gallon tank of gasoline would take about 3.3 hours. If the vehicle charger was designed to deliver a somewhat more realistic 50 amps of current at 220V (thus making it easily the most powerful electrical device in the typical home) the charging time would be more than 16 hours. Current could be lowered and charging times reduced somewhat by using higher voltages. However, the prospect of changing the basic electrical supply infrastructure to millions of homes in the US to enable vehicle charging is unrealistic, at best. Thus, given physical limitations on charging, there simply is no possible way that purely electrically powered vehicles can ever achieve a range of more than a few hundred miles per day unless some system for rapid swapping of battery packs is devised. However, given the current and projected future cost of batteries, a scenario whereby at least two separate battery systems are required for each vehicle is even more unrealistic. Although electrically powered vehicles may occupy a significant niche in the future US vehicle market, the fundamental physics of recharging will restrict them to relatively short-range and local usage only, regardless of future advances in battery technology. Therefore, most individuals who own a single car will not choose an EV because it eliminates the option of longer trips. In the most optimistic scenario, the EV will very likely always be the “second” car a family owns.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Charging at home is actually a problem for EVs. Let's say we switch to EVs and most people, most of the time, charge overnight at home. Now you'd like to take a longer trip, and you'll need to charge once along the way. No problem, your EV is a newer model which is compatible with a high-current fast-charger that can top it off in 5 minutes. Except, when you start looking around for a filling station, you have a hard time finding one, and when you do, there's a 30 minute line, because it's the only one in in the area. Because most people charge at home at night, there's not enough turnover to support ubiquitous fueling stations.
The nice thing about gasoline is you can only get it at a filling station, so they have enough business that there are a lot of them around, and you can typically fill up in 5-10 minutes. It will be a step backward if we switch to electric and that network of filling stations thins out, reducing our overall mobility. But perhaps there are a lot more long distance drivers out there than I'm accounting for, and there will still be a sufficient market for filling stations. I'm always amazed at the number of people driving around and shopping in the middle of the day (not at lunchtime) - don't these people have jobs?
Unless you can have a gas station alternative the EV's wont fly on their own. Lets face it, currently with a gas station littered every 3km people still run out of gas at the side of the road. Imagine if they couldn't fill up every 3km, or could have a motor club car drive past with a can of condensed energy.
It simply isn't convenient enough to own an EV without a gas engine to pull you out of the shit or give you a boost.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
My primary point, above, is that most people have just one vehicle, so even a 95% suitable vehicle won't work for most people. In short, give me the figures for those people who NEVER drive more than 80 miles per day, and I'll use those numbers. 10% sounds about right to me.
I agree. That's why I set that number at a firm 10%.
Surely you don't think that EVERYONE who can possibly get by with an electric car will run right out and buy one??? I think 1 in 10 of the potential market buying an EV is rather optimistic, hence the 1% figure.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
As someone else eloquently put it: "Smart cars don't fix retarded drivers..."
OTOH I know the Leaf in particular includes all kinds of range indicators, warnings (visual, audible and voice) when you're getting low, in-dash GPS with locations of nearby known charging points and a range circle, and an additional mode to conserve power in case you're really screwing up. You really have fewer excuses for running out of battery than running out of gas.
=Smidge=
Well, I do acknowledge and accept that some people are in that situation. In your case you seem to make two long trips per month, so as things stand now it probably isn't an option for you. If it was like once every other month, though, renting a car for that occasion might be a viable option. I sometimes rent even though I own a perfectly good car because I don't want to leave my car parked in the city :)
Of course not! There are lots of people who COULD get by perfectly well with a compact or sedan that buy and use SUVs exclusively, so it would be completely delusional to think people would only ever buy a car that suits their practical needs and nothing more.
But 10% market penetration is still tens of millions of cars in the US alone, and the situation only seems to get better with time.
=Smidge=
That's completely right. Natural gas is much cleaner so it is far easier to get the required environmental permits. The fuel oil clogs up the burners which results in either more maintenance, less reliability, or both. You need special fuel-conditioning equipment for fuel oil, but natural gas can be basically burned straight from the pipeline (with appropriate pressure regulation).
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I would call any solution that involves renting a vehicle more than once a year, non-viable. They're immensely expensive either per-day or per-mile (hence, people own vehicles rather than using rentals), and the processes of renting and returning (and loading and unloading) is terribly inconvenient and quite time-consuming, sucking up several extra hours.
I count 10% as the maximum potential market, and perhaps 1% as real sales. Yes, that's still a respectable number, that should be good enough to start getting some charging stations to appear, but we're looking at upwards of a decade for even that to happen.
Serial hybrids like the Volt, OTOH, aren't limited to that 1%. They could be adopted far more quickly as they make short trips inexpensive, and reduce trips to the gas station, while also making long trips possible and practical. I expect adoption of plug-in hybrids will far outshadow fully electric vehicles for the foreseeable future, and will be the impetus for electric charging stations, rather than the all-electric vehicles which are actually more dependent on them.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If GE is SMART They will replace the gasoline engine in the Volt with a small jet turbine engine ... just like the Volvo ECC had a jet engine ...
x
Ambiguous terminology here, as 'diesel' is used these days to refer to both the pressure/volume cycle and to the fuel oil. So if it's running on diesel, it's still a "diesel engine" even if it's running on the Ericsson cycle. Likewise, it's also a diesel engine if it's running on the diesel cycle while burning some alternative fuel.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Every outlet is a potential "gas station."
Except that it takes 8 hours to fill your tank.
let's see my wife's family is 1200 miles away so it would take 12 days to driver there in an EV that can get 100 miles out of a charge. If we slept and at the recharging cycles I guess in theory we could make it in just four days vs one long and one short day....
Yeaaa....
For a commuter vehicle it works but I would have to have two cars since on the weekends I have to drive over 100miles to he help a sick family member and then run errands for them.
That is still the weakness. A lack of flexibility.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Large NG turbine power plants are around 42% efficient. Turbines are more efficient under a constant load that they are designed for. There are small turbines for individual buildings that use waste heat for heating or absorption cooling. Their electrical efficiency is in the 35% range but using the waste heat can make the overall efficiency 70-80%. (Plus it's nice to have local power generation if the grid goes down.) http://capstoneturbine.com/
The reason turbines aren't used for automotive use is more to do with the power delivery characteristics than their peak performance. Cars tend to spend the vast majority of their time running at far less than peak power, and turbines are most efficient when run at a constant speed and load. Also, turbines require higher-grade alloys to handle their higher temperatures and RPMs. Traditionally, this means that turbine powered cars have had poor throttle response and been very expensive.
However, the current trend towards series hybrid electric cars allows turbine power plants to start playing to their strengths. If used as a range extender, a turbine generator will be running consistently at optimum power and speed and can be sized for average, rather than peak, power output. For example check out the Capstone CMT-380.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
the usa "deserved" 9/11 and 9/11 was an "inside job" just as so far the truth is that the usa paid for al qaeda, everytime a soccer mom filled her SUV
the invasion of iraq, and afghanistan, and ever cia and fbi operation, every rendition, every surveillance tech: it means nothing
you kill al qaeda, by starving al qaeda, and you starve al qaeda by stop feeding wahhabism money via saudi arabia by stop using gasoline. saudi arabia supports a medieval form of islam, builds madrassas all over pakistan, and all those trillions the usa has spent on oil has resulted in one thing: islam became more conservative, and radical
oh sure, there's chemicals, plastics, etc. but these can come from biological sources eventually, and as soon as you take the energy needs out of the equation, the cost of oil goes way down anyways
eventually, the citizens of saudi arabia will have to adapt a society whereby they acquire cash through legitimate means, rather than just sitting on a gold mine. but there is no reason to do that if there is no pressure to do that. they must structure their society in such a way that their society actually works, and the people inside it are actually happy. and if that is to mean anything more than camel trading, it is going to mean the liberalization of saudi arabia. and that will only come, only when you stop giving money to the most conservative political structure on the planet
the argument for electric vehicles is nothing about air quality, or global warming, or economic independence. the strongest argument for adapting electric and rejecting the internal combustion energy, is national security
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's a good joke for an eagle court of honor...
Lets see, if electric vehicles take off, who will see a major spike in sales?
Hmmm, maybe this might clarify things GE energy is one of teh world's leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies in all areas of the energy industry..
A 2007 study by the Electric Power Research Institute calculated that powering a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle would cost the equivalent of roughly 75 cents per gallon of gasoline. I'm not sure where you live, but we haven't seen 75 cents per gallon of gasoline around here since the 1970s. Chevy is claiming that at average electric rates it will cost $1.50 to charge the Chevy Volt's battery. The Nissan Leaf will be able to go 100 miles on $2.80. If I had a Volt and used it to commute the 20 mile distance to my office, my round trip would cost me $1.50. I currently drive a Honda Accord that gets about 30 mpg on drives to work, less if there's ethanol in the gas. Gas currently costs about $3/gal where I live, resulting in a round trip cost of about $4. That's a savings of $2.50 per commute.
Solar + EV = win. A neighbor of mine did this and his average bill is negative $2/month.
That doesn't even come close to telling the whole story. One thing I'd like to know is how much are the loan payments on the solar panels?
One Friday afternoon I got into a conversation with some of my co-workers on the viability of solar power for the home. I did a bit of research that weekend looking into how much sun we get in my area, the efficiency of solar panels, the cost of the panels per area, and so on. I figured out that if I were to cover my roof with solar panels I could run all my electric appliances in my home through the winter, with the possible exceptions of the big ones like my oven and dryer. Natural gas equivalents are common and require very little electricity to run. In the summer I'd have enough excess electricity to charge up an electric car.
Add a sufficiently large battery pack (and perhaps a backup generator in case of storm damaged panels, lengthy dark days, or other reasons the panels fail to deliver) and I should be able to cut the electrical mains to my house. There was one catch, the solar panels would cost more than my house. I'd be trading a $200/month electric bill for a $1000/month loan payment.
Your claim does not add up, or is at least incomplete. Your neighbor's electric bill might be negative but I have to wonder about the total cost.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Plug in a multimeter to your wall outlet - assuming you're in the US, I'd give it equal odds of of reading 128 volts or 120 volts.
Wait, I'm confused... are the EV the eggs or the chickens?
http://www.geindustrial.com/products/static/ecomagination-electric-vehicles/
GE sells not only electrical generation, but The GE WattStation, for charging electric vehicles. If they want this investment to work, at a minimum they have to demonstrate that it works for their company. Then perhaps USPS/UPS/FedEx might consider experimenting with electric trucks, etc.
some of them are up to 60% efficient (compared to 35% for coal and 10% for your car).
Not exactly. Any thermal engine has an efficiency limited by the Carnot cycle. The efficiency is given by the following formula:
e = 1 - Tc / Th
where Tc is the temperature of the cold part of the engine (radiator or exhaust) and Th is the temperature of the hot part. The cold part is at least slightly warmer than the environment where the engine is, for a jet plane in the stratosphere this is lower than for an engine operating at sea level in a tropical country.
The hot part is limited by the materials used in the engine. Normally this will result in an efficiency of around 45% at most. Then there's the mechanical loss in friction, pressure leakage, etc, which is lower for larger engines than for smaller ones.
A large industrial power plant can use waste heat recovery and that's where the 60% efficiency comes from. Even if the thermal efficiency of the power generation itself is lower than 50% you get an additional use of the heat from the exhaust, something very difficult to do in a moving vehicle.
Georgia the nation has a GDP of $20 Billion, General Electric has a revenue of $157 Billion
And Georgia the USA state has a GSP of $400 billion.
Really? Last time I rented a car it took like 20 minutes (walked in the door with no reservations), they put a $100 hold on my credit card and I got a 4-door compact thing for the weekend - cost me like $60 including gas plus I opted for $20 in additional "not my problem" insurance. For no extra charge they offered to pick up the car from my house. I dunno, I guess some rental places are better than others!
I can't argue that plug-in hybrids have a better "comfort zone" and familiarity. I also recognize they have an important transitional role, both because EVs require changes in both perception AND habit. I consider hybrids to be a form of training wheels.
But I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on potential market for EVs.
=Smidge=
I didn't know who or what GE was, and tfa didn't explain it for me. I had it was some US state and came here to post a rant about US-centricism. Turns out it's a company.
The technology is only just starting to get implemented, and there are a lot of challenges viz-a-viz standardization and ownership before it's a widely available method, but...
Would a 2-minute battery swap operation suit your particular needs, if such an option was available?
=Smidge=
tl;dr: It'll take ~16 hours to recharge the energy equivalent of 20 gallons of gasoline from a 220V outlet.
Which is fair. EVs are optimally kept topped-off rather than running it down completely and recharging.
A few posts down I posted a link to this video demonstration of a battery swapping station. The company that is behind it has been developing vehicle and swap station infrastructure in select areas around the world. Such stations - at least in concept - would mitigate a lot of the range problems people associate with EVs.
Though I'm only cautiously optimistic about it since there are standardization issues that need to be worked out for broad application.
=Smidge=
Only maybe but...
1. It doesn't exist yet.
2. It goes totaly counter your "don't think of it as replacing gas stations" statment.
3. what cost?
The other problem is also range. I want at least a 300 mile range. Simple reason is that I live in Florida and I may have to evacuate from a Hurricane again.
I did it for Frances. It was a CAT 5 when we left thank goodness it weakened to a cat 2 before it hit the state.
Imagine tens of thousands of car stranded without batteries and all trying to recharge with a hurricane bearing down on the state.
It was bad enough with gasoline and more than a few people got stranded.
Same thing happened when Huston TX was in the crosshairs and was evacuated.
And imagine this simple issue. You drive your leaf home and plug it in. Your child is at a friends house and gets hurt and you are called to get their as soon as possible. Only thing is that the Hospital and or friends home is too far to get on what little charge you have in your car!
Or you can get their but not get back home!
Again it is that very lack of flexibility that is the problem and will be for a very long time.
And it is that lack of flexibility that the Volt addresses. It really is the best of both worlds for a large number of users. Your other choice really is to have two cars in every family. I could see that working where Dad has a Leaf to commute to and from work and mom has a minivan, crossover, station wagon, or even an SUV as a second car.
Right now when I drive to Texas or Orlando to vist family I only need to stop to refuel once every 300 or so miles. It takes a few minutes to refuel and be on my way. Even with the batter swap if you build an entire infrastructure to support it "and blowing your whole distributed not centralized model to pieces." I do not see it as being as cheap and as fast as refueling.
Now make the assumption that the Volt is the way to go.
My wife and I would use zero gas probably 5 days a week. Our commute to work is within the EV range of the Volt.
My Saturday trip to see my parents is the only time we would use gas most weeks. And Friday night when my wife and I go out to dinner and maybe a movie might be outside of EV range on the Volt.
We would also have the range on the gas motor to go to Orlando to see my brother or once a year to Texas to see my wifes family.
Now imagine even greener versions of the volt. Maybe a flex fuel that can use "Ethanol" Yes I know that is of questionable value at this time from a green point of view but still.
Or maybe one that uses natural gas?
Or a diesel that uses bio diesel when available.
Or maybe even a true flex fuel version that uses a micro gas turbine that will burn just about any fuel?
People will not use an inferior replacement if they have a choice. For many users EVs are still inferior to IC when it comes to range and convenience which are two huge factors.
The other issue is longevity. A well maintained modern IC car can last 200,000+ miles. Well over 100,000 is now common.
Battery pack replacement cost could be the big limiting factor on modern car life.
Will they be worth replacing? Then figure in all the other wear items like bushings, braking systems, bearings, body corrosion, and even eventually motor failure just how long will an EV be worth keeping on the road long?
And yes and IC engine can be very expensive to replace and that is often the limit on a car today but today they do last a very long time.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yes it does. Swap stations are being built right now.
No it doesn't, since it is a range-extension service and not a primary recharge method, you would ideally need only a fraction of the swap stations as you would gas stations. They are not a gas station analog.
I'm sorry if your habits might have to change along with the technology. Feel free to keep buying gasoline if you're so dead set in your ways.
The company that is rolling out these stations legally owns the battery packs for liability reasons. They also lease you the car for legal reasons (since you can't legally sell a car that isn't usable, you can't sell an EV without a battery)
The cost of the battery is taken care of as part of the lease, which is claimed to cost not much more than your typical car lease. They make a small profit on the recharging, so if a battery recharge costs $3 in electricity and say $5 in handling/testing/repairs, the swap costs $20 to you. That's comparable to a tank of gas for similar range.
And you wouldn't need it, or use it, all the time.
Your arguments about evacuations and such are pretty far out there: what about people that have no cars at all, etc? Really seem to be grasping at straws on that one...
Regarding maintenance, Nissan is offering an 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty on their battery pack. It is expected to retain 70% of its max capacity over that time.
As far as maintenance on the vehicle itself goes, there is considerably less to worry about: LED lights all around last for hundreds of thousands of hours. Synchronous AC motor also good for hundreds of thousands of hours. Minimal gearing is permanently lubricated. Brake wear is less than typical car due to regenerative braking absorbing some of the load. Tire wear is comparable. Everything else is solid-state electronics. No filters. No oil or coolant to change. The only fluid is windshield washer fluid. The battery is by far the most limiting factor, but it's still expected to be good for a full decade and the technology stands to keep improving with time.
Lastly, I also support alternatives like CNG and biofuels, however they are better suited for trucking than for passenger cars. CNG in particular has the same storage-limited range problem that EVs do, only worse because it requires special fueling equipment.
=Smidge=
You forgot PF correction. I'm not sure how it'd impact cost, exactly, but I know it plays into the picture. If people start charging at night, using a higher power factor (ie industrial), night-time electric costs will go up (2x or so). For now, it might make sense.
I find it hard to believe that the Leaf can drive roughly a mile on 2,500 watt hours. (Why does it use an A/C motor instead of a DC one? That doesn't make sense to me.)
Also, 100 mile range? Let me know when there are EVs out there that are actually usable for daily driving - and for 'daily driving' I don't mean 'average daily driving' I mean 'able to deal with that one day a month when you're in the car all day running errands, going out to dinner, etc.'. If they hit 200 miles/charge, it'd be a bit more practical. Even then, it kinda puts a crimp in cross-state trips - you'd likely need a second vehicle or to pay exorbitant public transit fees if you felt so inclined to visit the family.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I know of Better Place. The system needs a lot of work, but it does have merit. The batteries are heavy and robots need to replace them. The biggest problem is the the lag of the car companies. They are typically 7-10 years behind new technology, and this is new technology. A car is so tightly designed now and has to fit around so many specifications that unless the Feds ease some restrictions, we'll not see battery swapping for many many years, no matter how well developed. On top of that we need to look at the geopolitical issues of batteries. Over 2 years ago I was harping on about transferring energy reliance from the middle east to China and Russia due to the need for metals for batteries. Unless we focus on the zinc air battery, which has it's own difficulty, we will be beholden to those countries. A few weeks ago China made sure we all knew that IT knew that. Personally I say batteries in vehicles are an intermediate step and learning point, so keep them for communing and forget long range. If we want a leap in electrical storage for passenger vehicles we should be looking into ultra capacitors. Give the inertia in the system it's not going to add that much more time on in the grand scheme. I'm also an advocate of hydrogen/fuel cells as the end game, unless we start getting serious about nuke powered electricity, but H2 production and FC's have a lot of work to be done yet. It's highly unlikely that batteries will ever work for Class-8 semi-truck or rail, and they consume 23% of the US transportation fuel. The best move with them is something along H2/FC. In the meantime we may just need to play teh carbon accounting game and go for the 'carbon neutral' biomass derived bio-diesel. (Bio-ethanol needs to just go away, it always was a terrible idea from a resource point)
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Sorry but the evacuations may seem far fetched to you except that I did have to evacuate for Hurricane Frances as did several tens of thousands of other people in Florida.
Not a stretch but a real event that I experienced as did many friends and family of mine.
Another real experience was when I was at work and my mother had to be rushed to the Hospital. She lived well out range of a Leaf and I had to rush the Hospital from work.
Another real experience was my brother getting hurt at University and almost coming very close to death. In fact when they got their they where told that he would probably die. He didn't thanks to the great doctors at the Universities medical school.
Let me guess you are under 30 and have no kids. Trust me as you get older more and more odd things will happen even to you.
In the last six years The cites of Houston, New Orleans, a large section of the gulf coast, and a large section of South Florida have been under evacuation orders.
And that is just in the last six years. For the people that live in those areas it is a real concern.
And here is another real concern. After a hurricane. When Wilma which was just a cat 2 hit I had no power for two weeks. A large part of the state of FL was without power for at least a week. Same for Frances and Jean.
How would I recharge my car for hours at a time? How would I go get ice or fuel for my generator or water or even get to work once my office had power.
And yes my office had power before many people's homes.
Again not a made thing but actually happened to hundreds of thousands of people.
You asked what about people that didn't have cars? I suggest you review New Orleans and hurricane Katrina to see. Then multiply it by Miami, Houston, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Charleston SC.
Then think about evacuation all those people with electric cars.
You may think this is unlikely to happen but I would say that it happens someplace in the US probably at least once every two years or so and effects tens of thousands of people.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Serious question: What federal restrictions are preventing battery swap technology?
I can only think of one actual law that is sorta in the way, but in theory that is easily fixed by updating the law.
I think Chile is in a bigger position to leverage lithium, given that their estimated reserve is nearly 15 times that of China's.
Fuel cells have their own problems that people cite battery tech for: poisonous/rare metals, short lifespan, high cost. There are also more technical challenges to be solved if you want to use hydrogen. Then there's the uncomfortable fact that the bulk of our hydrogen production capacity is done through methane reformation - which produces CO2, something a lot of H2 proponents say isn't a factor in the hydrogen economy. Oops.
But I agree that biofuels are an essential part of the puzzle - and so are EVs. Bioethanol is more palpable with the 2nd generation tech which can process cellulose... the problem is not bioethanol so much as bioethanol from food crops.
=Smidge=
From what I understand, the battery packs are the costliest part of an EV by far. In fact, IAlso, the infrastructure to support battery production on the scale necessary for a wholesale replacement of gasoline-powered cars with EVs doesn't exist, and won't for many years-- some even say that due to the delicate process & materials involved with making, say, certain Lithium Ion battery components, EVs will *always* cost more than traditional cars (at least until oil becomes truly scarce). Oh yeah, and apparently they're also not easily recyclable.
In other words, people who understand the supply chain here have good reasons to believe that this transition will be slow and expensive, even when factoring in economies of scale. Unless, that is, one of the dozens of over-hyped 'exponentially more efficient new battery technologies' we've been reading about for decades actually makes it out of the lab. Since this hasn't really happened yet as far as I know, despite all the knowledge & financing available, I'm starting to suspect there's a good chance we'll be waiting a while longer.
but you did nothing to change how and why you "saved a bundle". Do you really think people are going to stop washing their cloths or cooking at 6pm because it's cheaper to do it at 10pm? I heard the bull shit said by the utilities that people will be able to instantly see their power usage and so they will conserve and therefore putting the cost of the meters onto the customers bills is justified.
The real reason for this is the utilities can get rid of the expensive street/alley walkers who have to manually read meters so there's a big savings for them there. Next is they can get rid of those who go around turning power off and on. Another big savings in personnel for the utilities. And yet another advantage for the utilities is they can no spread blackouts across the entire customer base instead of having large complete blocks/regions of their customer base blacked out to lighten loads. What you'll not hear about is how the low hanging fruit will get automatically shut off during power outages and those paying top dollar for their power will stay on. You will probably also not see affluent neighborhoods or homes getting included in the blackouts.
All and all, I really don't see much of a win for existing home users and all the benefits are on the side of the utility companies. And they aren't even paying for these things because the Public Utility Watchdogs got suckered into believing their misdirections.
BTW, if you started using an EV instead of gasoline and charged it at night when you where home, you'd hardly see much of an increase in your bill. Now, switch to TOU metering where you pay more during the day and maybe slightly less at night, and I would venture to bet you will end up paying more overall doing the exact same thing you're doing now. The Utilities are in this to make money, not reduce the amount of money you pay them. And besides, they could easily have created a wifi based charging watt meter just for your EV charger feed and adjust your bill for that if the EV was going to be such a huge energy draw issue. They should be paying for 100% of the TOU meters, not the customers. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
He wrote up a white paper that addresses many of these questions. I probably should have included it in my original post.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8UUbV0VS_JyOTk0ODczYjYtZDI1NS00ZTk4LTg4ODYtNmU0MTU0NDNiNTRj&hl=en&authkey=CMrI8IUL
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
He wrote up a white paper that addresses many of these questions. I probably should have included it in my original post.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8UUbV0VS_JyOTk0ODczYjYtZDI1NS00ZTk4LTg4ODYtNmU0MTU0NDNiNTRj&hl=en&authkey=CMrI8IUL
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.