http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/11/autos/volt_mpg/index.htm?postversion=2009081108 Some pretty astounding numbers there. $40k/vehicle? Yikes. 230 mpg? Wow.
I'd be interested to see how the mpg is calculated. One thing is for certain, this is a quantum leap in motoring. What would be a more interesting study is to see how much energy it took to charge the battery and then compare that cost to its fuel usage. After all, the energy has to come from somewhere.
I think they said somewhere that it costs $0.40 to charge? If that's right (and I might be misquoting it) that's pretty cheap. barfo
Well, since the energy will come from the grid - what we can do is calculate it's price - and for those that can stay within the 40 miles round trip between recharging the energy costs are going to be about an 1/8th of the regular gasoline costs. Remember that most of the US's electric energy comes from coal, about 20% from nuclear sources and some from natural sources - these sources are cheaper than using liquid gold. Utilities will only use dino-juice to make electricity when they have no other choice and they need to meet demand (usually when the weather is super-hot and everyone is blasting their ACs all the time) using their expensive "relief power-plants". (That's why you see utilities actually funding most of the programs for energy efficiencies - they do not do from the goodness of their heart - it is a cold business decision). Converting our transportation energy source to the grid is a great thing to reduce our energy dependency - we have no problems with coal, we have deliberately reduced our nuclear dependency - but given the advances in technology it might be the right time to bring it up - and alternative energy sources are just poised for a breakthrough now that there is real money being thrown at it.
Wow. Assume it takes a gallon and a half to travel 40 miles. At $2.50/gal, that's $3.75 vs. $0.40. Holy crap.
Exactly. I can do my whole commute and never use a drop of gas. Then think about this: If we got all the people that could use this car and not use gas on their commute, all of that money we would be spending on gas can go back into our economy. The cash infusion into our economy would be huge. The amount of money not going to people who hate us overseas, will also be huge.
I could commute for 2 weeks and never use a drop of gas (and not have to recharge, either). But then since my commute is only 2 miles, gas prices are hardly relevant to me anyway. barfo
Another important factor is that most of the charging of these vehicles occur in off-peak hours. Air conditioners run hardest at midday. These cars are designed to charge overnight. So electricity is cheaper. Personally, I think the auto industry is missing a major boat in talking about "plug-in vehicles." Who really wants to have to plug in their car every night? Who wants to risk accidentally tearing out a cord in the morning because they forgot to unplug it? Who wants to be without transportation because their idiot teenage son forgot to charge the car when he was done? Instead, they should be discussing "docking vehicles." You drive your car over a spot in your driveway or garage and a magnet sucks a cord to the vehicle. The cord charges the vehicle. When it's charged, or when the ignition is activated, the cord is automatically disengaged. Such a system would make electric cars much, much more convenient than gas cars. You never fill it up, you never have to worry about charging it.
Something of that nature is proposed by Better Place - an Israeli company founded by the guy that was the technology chief of SAP. The idea is to use a standard design batteries - and have gas station double as battery exchange stations - this also extends the range of your travel... See the neat demonstration in the video on this page: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/13/video-better-place-battery-swapper-demonstrated/
Hell sounds like you could walk or bike to work easy enough if you didn't have to haul stuff. I loved it when I lived and worked downtown, because I could walk out my door and 6 blocks to work. If I was lazy I caught max 2 blocks away for the measly distance it carried me. I could even walk home for lunch.
Not to mention how much energy/environmental impact it takes to manufacture, maintain, recycle, and/or dispose of each battery. Oh, and how hazardous these batteries are when one of these things gets plowed into by a semi...
I have a 44 mile round trip for work. I'd be driving for 4 miles on gas in that thing! That's music to my ears... I wonder how much these will end up costing.
A gas engine is just a series of constant, controlled explosions going off about 8 feet from your face as you sit another 8 feet in front of 20 gallons of highly combustible gasoline. Are you saying a pack of batteries is inherently more dangerous than that?
That's probably one of the biggest questions. Again, though, what's it cost us right now in energy, time and money to keep pipelines in the Middle East running, and to transport that fuel to other areas of the world for use? Even if you didn't take into account exhaust pollution, I wonder if batteries might still come out ahead.
If you are getting plowed into by a semitruck you have much more serious issues than worrying about a battery. Now if it was another passenger car or a slow speed wreck, that is much different. All cars have to pass safety standards. I do not know what those are for batteries, but seeing as how car safety has been improved over the last 20 years I am not too worried. As for environmental impact, if legislation is in place to ensure all batteries are recycled, it would help a lot.
You get an additional benefit... If these things catch on, and people start putting them on the grid when they aren't driving them, then you have essentially added millions of batteries (aka tons of energy storage) to the grid. Utility companies HATE the fluctuations in energy consumption during the days, because it makes it such that they have to have power plant capacity to handle the worst-case loading, even though worst-case loading doesn't exist at all times. With the added "storage" on the grid from these battery-powered cars, you can essentially use them to filter the energy consumption, and shave off the peaks of demand, and require a lot less power plant usage.
I think I remember hearing something last week about some stimulus money being used to build charging stations in Washington and Oregon. Part of that (if I remember correctly) was that people who bought certain cars (perhaps the Volt?) would get a "charging station" installed free of charge (no pun) at their house. Also, one thing to remember about these batteries. They are great for 10 years. Then you get a huge bill to replace them. More than 10K. If you want an electric car, I'd get a Tesla.
