The Leaf gets even BETTER mpg's than VOLT

If you charge your electric car with wind or solar power, it's theoretically an infinite MPG. However, if we could wake up tomorrow and all cars would have been magically replaced with plug-in electric cars, the electrical distribution infrastructure would collapse. It would be an interesting study to see at what percentage of the number of cars being charged at home the system would go down. I doubt it would need to be a very large percentage since our infrastructure is on the verge of collapse (all infrastructure, not just electric: roads, water, and sewer included).

You gotta love privitization of infrastructure - placing it in the hands of capitalists means maximum cost/profits with minimum or no return of income to improvements or upgrades (in other words, the classic free market way).

 

As Hill points out above, this is plain-out false, since EVs would/could mostly charge at off-peak times when there is excess capacity.

But it's hogwash for another very simple reason: We are not going to wake up tomorrow and find all cars EV or PHEV. The conversion will be gradual, allowing the grid to be expanded as needed.

You might as well say that if we woke up tomorrow and found all our cars turned into blimps there would be no place to park them, or if we woke up tomorrow and found that cheese could fly all our sandwiches would escape and nobody would get lunch.

 

Since I don't eat cheese on my sandwich I would still get fed.

I was more grumbling at the power companies pocketing profits rather than maintaining the systems than I was suggesting that we shouldn't attempt to try new technology. I'm all for it (although it would do me personally no good - too far a commute to use a pure electric car, although I'm up for a plug-in hybrid!). And, in fact, if plug-in cars somehow become wildly popular, and had an impact on the grid, it might force the companies to actually improve the aging systems - at our expense, of course.

 

That actually happens in the mid-west in the summer. It causes brown-outs and occasional black-outs. The systems are both old, and too small to support the growth in some of the areas (although in others layoffs and the general economy are taking care of the problem as whole neighborhoods are abandoned). We haven't had our first brown-out in Denver this summer because it's been unusually cold and wet so far.

 

TOTALLY OFF TOPIC:

PriusLewis: What's that picture in your sig that looks like a gouge in the paint on your car?

 

"The" grid is a mish mash result of monopolies granted over more than 100 years by various levels of government. All perfectly reasonable at the time, but let's not lay the grid or our highways and bridges on the backs of a free market. Much of it never would have been built without government involvement. But now it is time to streamline the grid so it works together and uses 2-way communication, etc.

Free markets are not perfect, but neither are they responsible for all evil.

 

Thanks for asking! That's the graphic at the back end of my pinstripe. It's what you get when you rip open a Prius - White Lightning! Click on the pics link in my sig to see larger pics so it makes more sense. An interesting note - I took the pic under a big, dark thunderstorm. You can see the reflection of the clouds in the paint in the larger picture, and a few drops of rain on the paint. It really sets off the lightning in the graphic - couldn't have planned that!

 

Thanks for the explanation. It looks too much like a real scratch for my liking, but each to his own.

 

Somebody really needs to come up with a new unit measure for this...

MPG just isn't going to cut it for most people.

(I do grasp the concept BTW)

 

very cool pic.

as far as the grid collapsing, aint gonna happen. we have waay more than enough capacity to charge EV's if we simply choose to implement the technology we currently have to update the antiquated system the power companies have now.

they wont spend the money to do it. they would just pass the cost to us which has to be approved thru the BS PUC's that control electricity now.

the government is spending all kinds of money for all kinds of projects, but if they had taken just ¼ of the money they gave those rich-assed MF's to keep them from going broke from losing the billions they siphoned of the tax paying public to pay their bad investments, then we would be well on our way to having a fully developed nationwide distribution of green power.