Any one else NOT sold on a plug - in?

Kind of lost me on the night time capacity "Now with a fuel-fired plant, I'm not so sure there is any real "excess capacity": they may burn less fuel at night because of less demand but in order to supply more energy at night they would have to burn fuel."

Up here, night is the coldest part of the day and I get rippled, which means we switch to gas (propane tank out back) because of the draw down the line. I can see a reduction in the summer if it's cool! But the the power keeps going East then too!

 

In spite of my concerns about where the electricity will come from for a lot of PEVs, I think I'd give it a go.

I'll wait for a designed from-the-ground-up machine than fiddle with my Prius, beside a Hymotion pack would probably mean getting rid of my subwoofer


Heretic as it sounds, I'd give the Volt a serious look, if it shows up. Home team thing.

 

I agree with you on the Volt.
IF it is actually delivered and IF it can perform as promised and IF the cost is comparable to other, better options that may be available (for my needs) at the time.
However, if it can't get me 100mpg on 25 mile trips, I'll stick with my two year old hymotion upgrade (at the time the Volt comes out that is).

 

My point, which I probably didn't articulate as well as I could have, is that using excess capacity has a cost associated with it in some cases, a fuel-fired plant being such a case.

Under utilizing a power plant by not burning fuel is quite different from dumping water over a spillway instead of running it through the turbines in the case of a hydro dam, even though they both come under the heading "excess capacity".

I sometimes get the impression people think of excess capacity like fresh food, a perishable product, may as well eat it before it goes bad. In some cases it is, others it isn't.

 

What you have described is the Chevy Volt. It is a series hybrid which is the simplest kind of hybrid to make.

 

Most likely they go to a per-mile driven tax that can be assessed to a car when it has a smog check, or renew the registration/license. There was talk about doing that when the Prius started getting some fan base, "Oh no fuel efficient cars are going to be the downfall of our tax base!", now why I they didn't consider simply raising the gas tax to keep up with demand I don't know.

In the US you are taxed per gallon of fuel you use period, the IRS is going after quite a few home-made biofuel makers for not paying up too!

 

That's true, but I think that coal-fired plants (the backbone of generating capacity) run at pretty much the same output all the time. I tried but failed to find a credible source that would confirm or deny that, other than Wikipedia and several other sources class coal fired plants as "base load" (constant output) plants (same category as nuclear).

If that's true, given the daily and seasonal fluctuation in typical electrical demand, and the high proportion of the grid that is coal + nuclear based, I'm betting that the increase in fuel use with increased nighttime load is far less than proportional -- that a substantial fraction of a nighttime load increase would come in with fuel use per KWH well below the average, due to the total nighttime excess capacity of the existing baseload plants (fossil fuel and non-fossil-fuel). In that case it really would be (nearly) free electricity.

Couldn't find a good source, but here's a paper on how destructive it is to cycle coal-fired plants. Leads me to think that utilities avoid cycling them if possible.

http://www.aptecheng.com/corporate/CurrentEvents/100_CoalPowerWinterMag16-20.pdf

 

Yes it is damaging to cycle a coal fired plant but it is also necessary since the demand drops drastically each night around bed time. Also cycling has a bad environmental impact because plants run more efficiently when fully loaded by design. And since electricity can't be stored (large scale) it has to be generated as it is used. You can't run a plant wide open if the demand is not there. The fuel burned correlates to turning the generator at a constant speed (to maintain frequency) based on the electrical load from the grid.

 

Could be part of the reason they use monster Electric draglines to mine the stuff out west. The pits are close to the station and they have a long cord.

 

Uh, yes, it has been considered. And this is probably the main reason electric cars are the best candidates to replace our gas burning cars.

Nonsense. Most people in my neighborhood use more electricity for their AC units than I use to power my car 12,000 miles/year. An electricity bill that "skyrockets" by $50/month is replacing a gasoline bill that drops by several HUNDRED dollars a month. What's the concern?

Your budget can't take a reduced transportation bill? If you replace gasoline miles with electric miles, you put money in your pocket. The money call comes from the pot. So you pay a bit more for electricity and a lot less for gas. I still don't see the concern.

Uh... because it even saves MORE money?

To protect the environment while saving money and adding convenience to your daily routine.

Yeah. Where the hell is he?

It will increase by an amount less than your gasoline bill will decrease. And you have the option of making your OWN fuel for even less if you wish.

I wondered the same thing. Always concerns me when the OP doesn't bother to come back to the discussion.

(This has already been covered, but I'd already typed this!): Many fueled plants cannot be completely shut down, or at least not easily or quickly. And there are many fixed costs assocated with power plants that don't suddenly stop when the thing is shut down or idled. At reduced capacity they often pollute more (per unit of energy produced) and are less efficient (just like ICE's, there is a sweet spot where they are cleanest and most efficient). If we can run the plants at higher capacity at night, and NOT have to use peakers during the day, all energy becomes more efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce. We have no way of knowing if that cost will be passed to the consumer, but we still all win just because of the increased efficiency/reduced pollution.

Quite true. But using existing capacity (which we have lots of) is generally going to be more cost-effective and cleaner than building a new plant. More than "excess" capacity, we should just think of it as "existing" capacity that is underutilized at night.

Easy: Way the hell better. You're looking at about 90% compared to 15 or 20% in an ICE. There's a reason that my Rav4EV can travel well over 100 miles when it only holds the equivalent energy of about one gallon of gasoline!

Surprise! Yes you can. Here in CA, in fact, it was REQUIRED to have a certain tarrif for your EV charging. This was to incentivize charging only during off peak. You could choose to put your whole house on that rate plan, or leave the house like it was, and just add the new meter for the car. And this is likely how it'll work when EVs become significant. You'll have a house meter, and an EV meter so they can be treated differently, as they should, IMO.

I "forked over" $42,000 so I wouldn't have to use gas for commuting. And the crazy thing is that it ended up saving me money!

Not bogus at all. In fact, it would likely be much less than 9c on an EV-specific meter used during off-peak. This pricing bit isn't something that can't be solved. Cost SHOULD be tiered during peak times. It should be super-cheap during off-peak, when the power is much cheaper to make. We'll have to move to this system (which we did in the 90's already!) for it all to make sense.

Well, my advice is to start by conserving. My family lives in a 2,500 sq-ft home. Including my full-electric car that is driven about 12,000 miles/year, my entire consumption is about 700 kWh/month on average.

What's your local gas station average increase gonna be?

Yay.

Hmm. I think I'll expand on that. Low speed and 30 miles? Are you just talking about NEVs or something? We drive about 50 miles at full highway speeds on a normal commute day, and have half a "tank" left over for any evening errands. And my car is ancient, of course. Modern EVs will only increase in range/energy storage. We use the EV for 90% of our trips. We own a Prius for the couple of times a month that we need to go beyond the range of the EV.

 

Aw crap. I just lost 20 minutes of my second reply. I give up. Most of it has been covered anyway. I'm just here for support for the EV team.

 

While a pure EV is of no interest to me I'm pretty excited about the wave of Plug-In Hybrids we will hopefully be seeing in the next few years. I think they will go a long way to meeting a lot of peoples daily needs.

I've been on a time of day rate system with the power company for years now and it works out quite well. In fact, I just signed up for a new, fairly radical pilot plan a few months ago with SRP. The peak hours are Mon-Fri, 3-6 pm, May-Oct. ALL other times are off peak. Peak rates are 32.5¢/kwh for Jul & Aug and 27.5¢/kwh May, Jun, Sep & Oct. All off peak usage is 6.4¢/kwh. I managed to get by with only 17 kwh usage during the peak hours last month.

I'm not sure how anybody that lives in a 25,000 sq-ft. house can claim to be anything close to environmentally or socially conscious / responsible. That goes way beyond conspicuous consumption into the absurd. A mansion that massive must make the std suburban McMansion look like a shotgun shack. I'm curious, how many bedrooms/bathrooms does a 25,000 sq-ft house have?

 

To me the plug in will never have the range of 600 PLUS miles a tank full, plus its so nice knowing my charger is with me in the car and the car knows when it needs a charge:second:

 

Wow, a 25000 sq ft home, you must be a billionaire.

You must be living in North Dakota to get 700KWH per month without AC and using heating oil in winter.

In southwest states, a 25000 sq ft home will need 20 ton of refrigeration to cool the house in 100+ temperature. With 15 SEER, a 20 ton HVAC will draw 18KW of electricity. Assuming the AC only turn on 3 hrs per day for a R40 insulated house, a month's usage will use 1620KWH of electricity and you are also using gas lamps.

I support EV vehicles but will not buy one until cost per mile is better than hybrids.
All this electricity rates in discussion do not include amortization of the extra cost of the EV battery to the cost per mile. The battery replacement cost also need to be considered. If you size the battery for long life, >10 yrs, you will pay the extra cost up front.
If you size it for full utilization of capacity, you will pay sooner, 3-5 years.

The OEM Li-ion battery costs about $2000 per KWH today (~$1000 for NiMH). According to the DoE estimate, the cost of the Li-ion will comes down to $250 per KWH in 2015 time frame. Then the cost of EV will be in parity with the hybrid today. I hope it will happen in 2015.

 

Yes, the utilities are offering half the off peak regular rate for EV charging today.
Just for forward thinking, when 50% of the vehicles are converted to EV, they will be charging the EVs during off peak hours as today, then the power generating plans will have to run in full capacity to keep the juice going.
The peak hour will then be extended from 5pm to 6am the next day.

Do you think the utilities will still offer half the rate at peak hour?

 

Wow. Tough crowd. You've heard of typos, I assume. Meant 2,500, of course.

Nor will it need 600 miles of range to be a practical vehicle. There are many gas cars that barely get 300 miles on a tank, and they sell (or I should say *sold*) just fine. Plus its so nice knowing my charger is with me in the car and the car knows when it needs a charge:second:[/quote]
Modern EVs will have the chargers built in as well. And the car will definitely know when it needs to charge. You'll just have to plug it in when you get home that evening.

Indeed. I am the supreme ruler of all. How I fit the thing on my 18,000 sq ft lot is the real exciting part.

Cost per mile is better than hybrids. By a LONG shot. But no worries. You still can't buy one.

Then I guess we need to amortize the cost of a replacement engine to the gas car side of the equation? The batteries are lasting the life of the cars.

I drive a pure EV. I use the whole capacity of the battery quite often. I'm closing in on year six without any range degredation. Many of our drivers are well over 100,000 miles now. And are using the same batteries. And mind you - these are cars designed for sale in the mid 90's with mid 90's battery tech!

All we have to do is tack on the cost of damage that driving with gasoline does to our society and world... and suddenly EVs are already way the hell less expensive.

 

I think (or rather I hope) we are heading towards an inflection point, where people will suddenly realize "Hey, you mean I can drive around pollution free for 2c a mile and the only down side is I have to plug it in at night?" We've already seen the same sort of thing happen with phones (cell phones cost more, and have limited talk time and have to be recharged every couple of days) and computers (laptops are quickly becoming a popular choice for home and business despite being more expensive and having limited work time before having to plug in.) It seems like that should be creating a culture where people will become more receptive to the idea that its really no big deal to plug it in.

Sure, its cool to know you could drive 600 miles before you have to fill up and then you could drive 600 more. Just like its cool to know that you could talk for 6 hours straight on your land line and never run out of battery. How often do most people do either?

In the short term I would think a 60-100 mile EV and a 20-40 mile PHEV would cover the needs of a vast majority of households. In the long run, EVs coupled with better public transportation and carsharing services for that 1-2 times a year you need to drive a few hundred miles would work pretty darn well.

Rob

 

Sure, rub it in

I seriously covet your RAV4 EV.

Rob

 

Sorry. Habit.

Nobody cared or even listened when gas was $1.40 (when I started driving EV). Now everybody suddenly seems to care.

 

Sorry I misread your typo.

The cost per mile of the hybrid is way less than the EV if you count the cost of the battery.

My TCH gets 40mpg, at $4 per gallon = $0.10 per mile.
Cost of the TCH 1.5KWH pack is $1500, assuming lasting for 10 yrs and 150K miles as on Toyota's warranty, battery cost $1500/150000= $0.01 per mile.

Total cost per miles = $0.10 + $0.01 = $0.11/ mile.

For the RAV4 EV, it has a 28KWH pack. The cost is $28,000.
Same assumption life of 150K miles, cost = $28000/150000 = $0.186 per mile. The recharging cost is $0.02 per miles.

Total cost per mile for RAV4 EV = $0.186 + $0.02 = $0.206 per miles.

Clearly, the EV cost twice as much to operate per mile bases. Capital investment is lower, $25K vs $42K.

Sorry to have busted you bubble.

If you want to bring in the argument of environmental impact, this is not the point because the majority of the citizens are not "TH" and economy is more important.

BTW, the RAV4 EV is size correctly for a tiny 50KW motor. It can only go 0-60 at 18s. This is not acceptable for a lot of buyers. This is the reason Toyota stopped selling it as it would not be a high volume product. You should have known that Toyota lost money for every RAV4 EV sold at $42K
because the NiMH battery costs a lot more in 2000 (2X).

The ICE can last 300K+ miles easily, you will replace the pack long before the ICE. OK, if I want to run way beyond 300K, the ICE should cost no more than $4K.

Modern EVs will have the chargers built in as well. And the car will definitely know when it needs to charge. You'll just have to plug it in when you get home that evening.


Indeed. I am the supreme ruler of all. How I fit the thing on my 18,000 sq ft lot is the real exciting part.


Cost per mile is better than hybrids. By a LONG shot. But no worries. You still can't buy one.


Then I guess we need to amortize the cost of a replacement engine to the gas car side of the equation? The batteries are lasting the life of the cars.


I drive a pure EV. I use the whole capacity of the battery quite often. I'm closing in on year six without any range degredation. Many of our drivers are well over 100,000 miles now. And are using the same batteries. And mind you - these are cars designed for sale in the mid 90's with mid 90's battery tech!


All we have to do is tack on the cost of damage that driving with gasoline does to our society and world... and suddenly EVs are already way the hell less expensive.[/quote]