Toyota & Tesla Team Up on Electric Cars in Cali

Is he going to buy one now?

 

Governator may get one of the first model S that roll out of the factory.

 

Building EV's quickly isn't going to be the problem, licensing and building nuclear power generation and upgrading the power distribution grid is.

Until then the cost of "grid gas" will go sky high, supply and demand.

 

You forget that "grid gas" after 6PM is highly UNDER-used ... and that later into the evening (all the way until 10am the next day) the more & more under utilized grid power gets. If the EV plug hooks into a TOU (time of use) meter that gives a 300% penalty / 300% benefit turning on charge time ... then only desperate folks would be charging an EV, anyway. Additionally, there's the issue of "refinery gas". Believe it or not ... pumping crude out of the ground ... energy for militarey ... transportation to the refinery ... juice to RUN the refinery, etc does NOT come from the laughter of little children, nor on sunshine ... it TOO comes from your friendly neighborhood utility company. The more folks that run EV's the less of ALL of that wasted crap will be needed . . . and thus, the more surplus electricity there will be ... so I wouldn't do too much hand wringing. Less fossil fuel use towards MANUFACTURING fossil fuel sounds like a win/win to me, eh?


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Nope - not even close.

 

Good point. Charge it at night.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone calculated how much current the charging of an EV battery draws, and how much electricity would be drawn if everyone had an EV charging at night - versus peak electricity consumption during the day? (sure, people can charge at different times of the night, but if we are going to go with that strategy, let's have some solid charging times (4 hours? 8 hours?) for the estimation)

 

there was a study done a few years back that the Puget Sound region (100% hydro on off peak demand) could easily absorb 1.5 million EV's charging during off peak times.

as it stands now, we sell power to other areas where transmission losses are relatively huge (over 15%) due to distances involved. we also maintain retention ponds, etc.

a rentention pond is created when water let thru the dam would create issues downstream, so the water is pumped back up to a rentention sitting next to the dam. this is greater than a 15 to 1 (could be more, i dont remember but we take a HUGE hit on efficiency) ratio of power that could be used.

we have a constant balancing act between the very dry summers, winter snow pack, and dam capacity and the inconsistant periods of demand. we frequently dont have the room to store the water collected and sometimes letting it out would causing flooding downstream. so it has to go somewhere.

now if we could let more water out during the off periods, the level of the dam would not hover at critical levels as much as it does now.

a greater off peak demand would allow us to keep water flow more consistent instead of what we do now. i took a tour of the dams (pretty interesting if u have never done this. highly recommended) and they have X number of spillways and close off ones when power needs are low to prevent an overload. iow, if too much power is generated and someone does not use it, transformers blow up and stuff like that...which can be a bummer.

as far as how much current would be drawn, it would not really be a whole lot compared to what power u already use. i put around 500-600 miles a month on my Zenn and it does not really affect my bill noticeably. on paper, i am using like $ 8-9 a month in electricity.

in my area, nearly all the older houses had electric baseboard heat (born of the days of super cheap power and a population that is less than ½ of what it is today). these were labeled as nearly 100% efficient; most heating elements were, but they simply did a very piss poor job of making one feel warm. these things use 4 times more power than your EV would

another way to look at it is what it takes to push that car down the road. most say u are gonna get 4-5 miles per KWH. so toss in thermal and conversion losses and 3½ to 4 miles per KWH is probably a good number to work with. so if your commute is 40 miles RT look at 10-12 KWH per day to recharge

 

Toyota's Surprising Gamble (TM) gives some speculation at to Toyota's motivations for the deal.

 

A poster on the Prius-UK mailing list said that he'd recently been to a refinery on the south coast, where they'd told him that 15% of the crude oil is consumed in the process (e.g. for heat).

 

15% is an interesting figure. if 36.6 KWH is the same energy as a gallon of gas then it took about 42 kwh to get it in your tank . a car getting 42 mpg would be burning 1 KWH per mile. now if 15% or 5.5 kwh of electricity was used to get that gas to us (i highly suspect that in many cases, the percentage is higher) then an EV getting 4 miles per kwh would go 22 miles.

so the ratio of EV only to gas only is 22/42 or about 52% if getting 42 mpg

but since the average car gets less than 42 mpg the ratio would be even higher and the higher the ratio, the more "free" miles would be applied to EV use, correct?

 

Another problem is refilling/charging. A lot of ppl live in condos, Apts, and townhouses. How can they charge the battery? Run a 100-foot cable from their room? It is not realistic.
So hybrids is still the best technology, well diesel is catching up but for some reason U.S. doesn't want to import variety of diesel cars

 

LOL, and why would charging stations be sitting at the curb in front of your house TODAY??? would it be to charge your EV next year, or next decade??

there is a great link of stories printed by the Detroit Free Press back around 190?? something. it was one article after another deriding the decision to build something completely and utterly useless project. u know what it was??

a PAVED street. keep in mind, that hard surfaces meant horses could not run as far, had to reshoe much more often, etc. at the time, no one could imagine any use at all for this very expensive project.

but then again, cars were owned by less than 2% of households at the time. so it was easy to not understand the need for them which brings me to another point. gas stations!! when cars started being built, there was no gas stations... gas was DELIVERED!! by horse no less.

this proved to be a less than ideal situation. deliveries were slow, unreliable (in those days a heavy rain would prevent deliveries of items that heavy due to impassable roads) so driving was something that was planned sometimes weeks in advance.

but we found that driving was cool, it started as a status symbol; a status i now enjoy when driving my Zenn. it will be a status enjoyed when we start driving our Leafs'. but then something weird happened.

we found that cars were better than horses. they could go farther, faster and carry a lot more. but then again, it was still a hassle with the gas supply. but then someone thought, "what if we put in refueling stations and the cars come to us for the gas (there was also a quality issue with home delivery that gas stations went a long way towards solving)

so more and more people started buying cars and auto manufacturers realized that they had a market and started making more family oriented amd more comfortable (ya know, like roofs to keep passengers dry, etc??)

now we all know what happened to cars. so lets jump to the present.


now we have a few EV's out and about...not many, and generally speaking most of the population cannot understand why anyone would be so stupid to buy a car that does no more than 35 mph and cant go more than 25 miles without an extended time to recharge. to add to that, many do not have doors or windows. so had cloth doors with plastic windows u could buy as an option, but "zipping" up your door was a hassle compared to just closing it. but eventually people began to realized that a lot of the times, they were stuck in traffic and so speed was not an issue and they lived in town so distance was not an issue and it was kinda nice to be stuck behind one of them instead of those diesel trucks!!

so then EV manufacturers began to realize that they had a market... so they started building cars with roofs... wait a second!!! this story is starting to sound familiar??....

 

Hi Tzh,

I live in an appartment, that is kinda like a condo. There is an AC outdoor unit right next to the parking ariea, that is cabled to my power panel in my unit (similar to standard residential house). One could envisage a device that hooks to the outdoor unit, and provides a plug for the car. And it would charge the car, when the AC compressor is not used. That would work here in Chicagoland. Maybe not in Phoenix, however....

As far as Diesel goes, well, if people with Diesels keep idling up ahead of me, then flooring it, throwing out a big cloud of black smoke, I will be in favor of banning them all. Its well known that those particles in Diesel soot are cancerous. And Diesel people who are doing this on purpose are doing nothing less than force feeding me benzene. Its not nice, its not civil, and if it continues Diesels WILL be BANNED. At a minimum, retrofiting of DPF's is going to happen (just like has been required in Europe). And the sooner the better. We really need a law that says if a Diesel vehicle (ANY SIZE!) is licensed too or parked parked at a residential address for more than 4 hours a day, then it should have a DPF filter, even if the manufacturer did not originally have one on the vehicle (retrofitting mandotory). If people want to follow the European lead on Diesels, they need to follow ALL the European lead - including the mandatory retrofit and bianual servicing of DPF's....

 

"Tesla Motors says in a regulatory filling this week that it has
agreed to pay Toyota Motor Corp. $42 million from the proceeds of its
upcoming public offering for the former New United Motors
Manufacturing plant and 207 acres of property.

"The acquisition doesn't include the plant's auto-making equipment or
an additional 200 acres of property at the site (right) in Fremont, Calif.

"The plant equipment is to be sold at auction by Toyota and Tesla will
be able to bid on items it wants.

"The Northern California-based electric-vehicle maker also reiterated
in its Securities and Exchange Commission filing that terms of the
Toyota-Tesla technology sharing agreement that shook the industry
when announced last week are still being worked out and that the
companies do not have a binding agreement to work together.

"Do or Die
"Further, the filing shows that Toyota's agreement to invest $50 million
in Tesla is contingent on Tesla going public by the end of the year. If
economic conditions or other events prevent Tesla from launching its
initial offering by Dec. 31, the capital investment deal is subject to
renegotiation.

"Those terms have touched off a bit of worry in some quarters that
the Toyota-Tesla deal is shakier than first imagined.
[Emphasis Added.]

More at Edmonds.com

 

I have long hoped that with Toyota's prior EV experience during the 1990's and early 2000's, it wouldn't even NEED a joint venture with Tesla, or any other company. I'd hoped that with Toyota showing off the I.Q. type EV (possibly called the FT-EV), that there would soon be either a teeny Toyota EV, or a Prius sized pure EV. Maybe there still will be. Maybe the Tesla connection just gives Toyota a bigger "sportier" foothold in the EV market, by lending their name to Tesla.

.

 

Business deals are very complicated. The $42M Tesla paying for the NUMMI plant is cheap, it was reported the plant worth about $200M.
For the $50M investment by Toyota, I think it is a loan disguised as investment to Tesla. Then Tesla can used this money to pay rent for the manufacturing equipment. It is kind like an owner financing kind of deal.

All this will make the public offering later more attractive to investors with the small capital investment by Tesla.

 

Apartment dwellers can't charge unless they have somewhere to plug in their lots. The thing is though that it would be a benefit to ICEV drivers to be able to plug in because they can then use EBHs and cabin heaters.

I expect that once EVs and PHEVs hit with their programmable pre-heating from the plug, people will want that from their ICEVs too. I look forward to the day when every car, even an ICEV, has a socket to power the built-in EBH and run the cabin heater (not to mention to pre-charge the mild-hybrid-assist battery).

As for diesel the problem is the small market (due to past inability to build good diesels), tax disadvantage, lower gas prices, tougher US emissions standards, higher prices on imported cars and disadvantageous EPA ratings. Diesel purchases are growing however, so expect a future with more EVs, PHEVs, HEVs, diesels and mild hybrids. The regular gasoline vehicle will eventually be squeezed out.

 

Hmmm ... lack of imagination ?

In Canada a lot of parking lots in front of the apartments have a charging port - for the engine block heaters. How hard is it to install EV charging stations ?

Besides, they could always be installed at work. So, you charge EVs at work, instead of at home.

Bills are already in the work in some states to make it mandatory for new apartments and offices to have charging stations in parking lots. Just like there are regulations regarding number of disabled parkings now.

 

In southern Ontario you do not find and plugs for block heaters