In California, they’re having problems now with the grid being overloaded when people come home and turn on all their stuff. It’s to the point where they’re considering legislating remote controlled thermostats for residential HVAC units so the power company can take control of your unit if demand get’s too great, and charging different amounts for energy used during peak times only works if people have the right kind of meters on their houses (and apparently many don’t). Don’t take my word for it, however, at least one automaker says the grid can’t handle PHEVs right now.
Yeah, but that quote assumes that everybody switched to them all at once, which seems unlikely to happen, given the general negative attitudes about electric vehicles and their greater cost.
As with most other technology transitions, it will happen gradually, and the electric system will grow to compensate. The grid of 1980 couldn’t handle all the computers of today, either…but here we are.
Again, the grid’s having problems now. Adding electric cars to it would be even worse. I wasn’t kidding about California taking control of thermostats.
Not necessarily. According to report numbered 822807 (which dates from the Eighties):
Be interesting to see what the power demands of all the computers are compared to the size of the vehicle fleet then was.
Here’s support for my contention that Plug-ins won’t overload the grid: http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9904484-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Actually, one simple approximation to environmental impact is to just measure everything in dollars. The manufacture of solar panels has a negative impact on the environment primarily because it costs energy to make them, and the solar panel factory has to buy that energy from the same power companies that you do. So the dollar balance doesn’t work out on solar panels, precisely because the energy balance doesn’t work out. Most of the things that can be done to help the environment also help the monetary bottom line, so it’s not even a matter of “sacrificing”.
Sorry, but that’s bunk. Solar panels pay for themselves in energy within a few years: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
Both are (or were) probably true; the previous cite was from the early 90’s, this one’s from 2004. I know that solar panel efficiency has increased enormously in that time.
Ahhh, the time-honored technique of using outdated and erroneous information to support your position.
I don’t think anyone was being intentionally deceptive here – in particular the original quote specifically said “At that time (say 1992)…” So we have a statement about the past, labeled as being about the past, and a statement about the (relative) present, also labeled as such.
The point isn’t so much about solar panels being a net loss of energy as the broader point that energy efficiency arguments are pretty hard to make at all unless you know exactly what everyone’s counting. For example, a lot of folks claim that (say) plug-in hybrids are inefficient because of the energy cost to make them, while failing to count the construction energy costs of gasoline vehicles. That’s just not a comparison that does anyone any good – not enough information to decide either way.
Along these same lines, you hear a lot of people say that ethanol isn’t worth it, because it takes energy to make the ethanol. What they forget is that refining petroleum has some pretty steep energy requirements of its own.
Yes, but that only works if the company’s Smart-Grid Technology is also installed in the house. So not only do you have to buy a new car, you’ve got to buy a new gizmo for the house as well. This makes it impractical for folks who live in apartments, for example. Note also that the claims are being made by folks who’ve got a strong economic incentive for people to switch to plug-in hybrids.
Sure, but I don’t think that’s such a big deal.
I’ve been on time-of-day electrical billing for many years, and It’s a simple matter of swapping out the meter. Then, you either pay 3¢ or 13¢ per kWh.
I doubt that anyone is ever going to force you to charge your car after 10pm, it’s always going to be incentivized economically. So, if you want to make sure you’re not being reamed, you buy the timer yourself…
The only price I could find in the article for their technology was $11K, that’s not exactly what I’d call a cheap timer. Also, not every utility offers off-peak pricing. Certainly none of the ones around here do. And how many folks who own cars live in apartments compared to folks who own their homes? In a place like NYC, or Los Angeles, I’d imagine that apartment dwellers significantly out-number home owners by a wide margin.
I suspect a timer won’t cost more than $100 in quantity (I know I could design one for less). As far as apartment dwellers go, they probably won’t be able to charge their electric cars at home…
Why all this concern about $11,000 technology or even $100 to design something new?
For about $5 at any hardware store you can buy a 24-hr timer that plugs into a socket (say to turn a lamp on and off at the hours you set.) Why would a car need anything else?
Joe Average can just plug his car into the wall of his garage when he gets home at 6:00 p.m, but the juice won’t start flowing till the timer kicks in at 10:00pm.
Except that most of your plug-in vehicles plug into a 220V line. Also, by allowing the vehicle owner to plug their car into “any old socket,” they’re also allowed to charge it up at “any old time,” which is the problem. In California, people cranking up their A/Cs when they get home so strains the grid that the state is considering mandating all new HVAC units be equipped with a remote control unit so the power company can control your thermostat during peak demand times.
The car weighed more like 1500 lbs and the turbo version of it was slower than a stock Ford Escort.
electric motors produce all or most of their torque on start-up. That is not the same as hp and will not compensate totally for zero to 60 times. It will pull hard off the line and be fun to drive around town.
When you are looking for acceleration think in terms of power to weight ratio. Example, A Dodge Caliber weighs 3000 lbs and the base engine is 150 hp which gives you a ratio of 20 lbs per hp. That should get you on the highway.
There are several websites that sell kits-you take a car (like a Porsch 914), rip the engine and fuel tank out, put in an electric motor and a battery pack. These conversions have a range of about 40 miles/charge, and seem to be pretty driveable.
Has anyone done this and calculated the savings?
I’d be interested to know.
It’s not much by the time you factor in the costs of the kits, and the ranges they give are under ideal conditions with things like the radio and A/C off.
Uh, first off, “most” right now is so inconsequentially small that it doesn’t matter whether it’s 220 or 120. And also California has been a very special case since the intolerable rule of Grayout Davis. That is, California may not be the best gage for the rest of the country. Also, I voluntarily have interruptible A/C power. Edison can’t control my temperature directly, but they can cut me off.