California to gain new EV charging stations under NRG settlement

The original ZEV mandate seemed to assume that we were about to run out of liquid fuels. Things that killed it were expensive batteries and cheap gasoline. Well you can watch "who killed the electric car" and see some other nasty things that killed it, but.... there were the main things.

Let's look at what the goals should be instead of what they are. The number one problem ZEV was supposed to solve is air pollution by focusing on tailpipe emissions. In reality clean hybrids like the prius solve this problem as well. The other thing was to reduce dependence on oil. This is also a good goal, that would also have been more successful with the embrace of cars like the prius.

Since then carb has grabbed a hold on reducing ghg as a goal as well as the other 2. It has also come up with some huge government speak like partial zero emissions that really are normal gasoline cars.

There are three really big things going against ZEVs as defined by CARB, 1st is cost of the technology, the second is lack of refueling infrastructure, the third is availability and price of gasoline.

PHEVs definitely over come all of these things. The smaller battery is less expensive, but research into making the tech less expensive also can be applied to BEVs and FCEVs. They have very low tailpipe emissions. They drastically reduce oil use, but this amount is dependent on driving habits and battery size. They have a infrastructure already built, all that is needed is home and work chargers. They produce about the same amount of CO2 as BEVs.

Its time to shift to the technology that makes the most sense today, instead of looking at government mandated technology from over a decade ago. Hybrids make sense, as do phevs, and bevs. Flex fuel engines that can run on ethanol and methanol as well as gasoline allows even a bigger shift away from oil. FCEV do not make any sense with today's technology, and building infrastructure does not make much sense at this time. Supporting BEVs is a good idea, but unlikely the best one in the near term 20 years.

IMHO it would be more productive if CARB set out a miniumum range for a EVER instead of plotted against them in their rules. Emissions tests should also be changed to give credit for electric miles. Building some infrastructure for EVs is a good idea, but most of them will be charged at home or work in the next decade. Buyers need to understand that.

 

Keiichi,

Japan already has over 800 quick charge stations in place, and I think Japan might be smaller than CA. This CA announcement calls for 200 QC stations.

Look and see how things are going in Japan to get a glimpse of what it might be like here.

Electric Car Quick Charging in Japan: It

What is Japan's top 2 selling cars? Prius and Honda Fit.

Toyota Prius, Honda Fit Top Japan’s Best Selling Car List | AutoGuide.com News

Although Volt has the 40 mile EV range, I think PiP may win the sales race. They are patient and seem to be making the best of a tough situation. I see the PHV range increasing over the years, but it will take years and and generations of the PHV for the EV range to go way up and the gas tank and ICE to shrink.

Like Chelsea Sexton said, best to build up charging at homes, apartments and work. Commute to and from work on EV, then use gas for weekend run around. Plug-in 'hybrids' will dominate sales over pure electrics.

I think Nissan warns against multiple QC's per day, seems best to do L2 at home overnight, work.

Don't forget to ride your bicycle too! Lots of benefits to bicycling - keep more fit, reduce congestion, pollution and energy use

 

CA is slightly larger than japan, but there are many more people in japan. The japanese government also financially supports BPEV (really just evs) more than the US, which helps explain more installed quick chargers. One reason japan decided to give so much support to BPEV was sited as the earlier California ZEV, betting that CARB was correct on technology.

Its good to note that 60% of those fit sales were for the fit hybrid. The hybrid subsidy was reinstated in japan. That makes it a tougher sell for bpev's like the nissan leaf. IIRC cumulative leaf sales in japan are 12,000 while sales of the prius were over 35,000 last month. This reflects a initial adopter car versus an established one.

 

Have a listen to this video interview. Part I at 6:20, Brad Berman asks Chelsea about public charging...

also watch part II at 3:15 for her answer on public charging.... but some Leafers really want L3s as L2 aren't cutting it at the shopping center.

watch part III at 8:30

2010 Green Drive Expo: Chelsea Sexton's Keynote Q&A Session | PluginCars.com

 

Guys, you aren't listening to what I am saying.

This isn't about government mandating ZEV. This is thinking long term. While we aren't exactly running dry on Crude Oil, we should be literally working on these Alternative vehicles and be less reliant on crude oil in general. This isn't me being political or a green environmentalist, but simple facts are that we literally 'lack' the incentive or desire to get off the very thing we keep telling ourselves to get off of, which is the dependancy of Crude Oil.

The EREV is a nice step to being less dependant on gas, but it is still, imo, a more expensive Prius regardless of how you want to paint it. You won't be using the gas engine a lot compared to the Prius but when someone who owns a Volt argues it is cheaper to run on gas than it is to use a recharging location that isn't home... Can't help but say, that's basically a Prius Plugin no matter how you want to shake that tree.

As for Japan vs California with regards to electric cars, again... What electric cars has Japan seen so far, Nissan Leaf, maybe the Mitsubishi MiEV, and yes, I know I am ignoring the Tesla as one of the EV vehicles that could be there. But you also forget a few things with Japan in comparison to California, even with my showing the rough size of Japan versus the US...

Japan is slightly larger than California, broken up into two to three landmasses. However, a fair section of Japan is also mountainous and agriculture, similar to California. Japan's power has been severely compromised due to the Tsunami/Quake back in 2011, and suffering still restructuring the power system that the loss of that nuclear power plant and the fact their power infrastructure had flaws that was mentioned due to the way they did things back around the 19th century that has come back to haunt them to this day.

And lastly, don't forget... The Leaf is almost 2 years old and while we can cite a few prototypes, again prototypes of other EV vehicles have been out in the US as well and we haven't seen a large swelling of them either. It goes back to the very original statement I made in other threads where people are going to be slow to adopt a new technology type system. And for Japan, it will be harder to adopt an electric car as well when your power infrastructure is dinged for 30% of its normal support. Let's also not forget that the country also had most of its companies shutdown or lower production due to the loss of that power. Lastly, the production of the Leaf, according to [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf]Nissan Leaf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame], states Production of the Leaf started in October 2010, trying to shoot for a target of 50k cars. The aforementioned Earthquake disrupted production for several months, not achieving the 50k car production in 2011. 50k cars for worldwide, and not even making 50k cars in one year because of the disruption does not exactly make Japan going to an electric car right away or adopting as quickly either.

 

For a while now, I've been thinking that an add on generator that can be removed would be a great idea. I like your U-haul trailer idea.

As plug-ins grow in popularity, I'm sure apartment buildings will install chargers.

I see battery swapping as a niche market, as many people that take good care of their expensive Li-ion batteries probably don't want to swap them out. But other people might care less.

 

I don't see battery swapping as a niche market, but a plausible one. And not because people are careless with their battery (Although to be honest, people are going to be terrible with whatever they own, expensive or not). Replaceable battery packs would be ideal for future upgrading of a car when the next generation battery pack or battery cell would be ideal for range increasing. If it was multi-cell battery packs, where the cells are replaced, it would allow owners to maintain a good battery pack if they only need to replace an cell within the pack, after all, cells are more likely to fail over time not due to the users, but over time in general.

 

That certainly is one reason. The BIG reason though is because Japan has NO natural oil sources. They have to import 100% of their requirements. I'm betting the farm that when we start having to pay as much per gallon as Japan does (and that's why so many ride public transportation over there ... which of course, the U.S neglects to invest in that) ... that the trips to grandma's house won't look worth while ... especially when we have to wait for a couple hours in line for fuel, like in the 1970's, and when we have to pony up $5 - $8 per gallon. Sadly, that's what it's going to take befor EV's (and massive public transportation projects) become main stream.
.

 

Yes, long term, but this does not mean BEVs are the only solution. Ethanol and methanol were already mentioned, but there is also biodiesel, butanol, and we can even make gasoline and diesel through thermal depolymerization of organic waste and unrecyclable plastics.

There are technical limitations that will keep BEVs and a quick charge network from being the sole solution. Besides it possibly being bad for the battery. Tesla's supercharger can add 160 miles of charge to the S in half an hour. The S with 300 mile range, a near 6 figure car, can be filled in under an hour. That can work for most families who want no liquid fuel vehicles.

Let's step back an look at this from a larger perspective. Imagine if all the vacationers on I95 heading to Florida had Tesla S level BEVs with half hour to an hour refueling times. How many chargers will we need along that corridor? Making chargers faster is no where near as easy, cheap, and safe as using a faster pump for diesel at a truck stop.

The infra structure for battery swapping can be just as daunting. It means having an X amount of extra batteries lying around to meet needs and the chargers for dead ones. Plus the means of swapping them. This is after getting a standard for the packs and loading systems. Batteries also aren't propane tanks. They are more suspectable to abuse. That fact that most people don't take care of their things is reason I don't want to be swapping batteries.

Perhaps we will make even faster chargers or an affordable 600mile range BEV. That's long term, and focusing on that too much obscures the fact that today's BEVs are a good solution for many right now.

 

hai! In other words yes we hear what you are saying. We just have another point of view also.

As a dead economist once said, in the "long term we are all dead". We should learn about bad assumptions and move on. ZEV was not long term thinking, it was short term thinking based on a number of bad assumptions. We need to rethink the goals, then use present knowledge to come to today's solution. Long term for a car today is 20 years, and I can't see even 20% BEV in that timescale. HEV is only 3% today.

Definitely agree here, as I think everyone on the thread so far agrees with that sentiment.

prius like a phev has very low tail pipe emissions of dangerous pollutants and uses less oil than most other cars. I guess in that way you might consider a phev as being lower in tail pipe emissins and oil usage. A prius phv will use about 70% of the oil as a prius, a volt 30% when these are used properely. Making them flex fuel, longer range, etc gets us down to a very low percentage of oil and tailpipe emissions. Is 0 really the goal, or is it small John in minisota seems to think he will use significantly less gas as will drinnovation and gwmort.

Its on a spectrum. This apears to be todays technology to reduce gasoline and harmfull emissions, why not embrace the phev be it a prius phv, a volt, or a future ford energi?

Yes agree here. I don't think we need 300 mile range BEVs, but we will have thousands of them with the tesla S. Mitusbishi, Nissan, Ford all have 70+ mile bevs that appear to be a current technology sweet spot. These all can coexist and even thrive with PHEVs. For those going hundreds of miles occationally, PHEVs look like more of a winner than quick charger. That doesn't mean we shouldn't install some quick chargers, but if we put in to many there will be even more politics against EVs.

 

+1

I agree with most of this. But lets be clear. Just about every historian blames the Nixon and Carter policies of price controls for gas lines. If they had allowed gasoline prices to rise with the oil embargos, economic signals would have worked. We can blame Nixon, as Carter knew better, but did not remove the poor policy. If oil prices were allowed to rise naturally people would have used less, and oil companies would have bought more on the spot market. We can expect price spikes, but I doubt another US president will create artificial shortages, unless they really hate america. If there is a long term war that disrupts oil supplies that's anouther matter, but during the Iran/Iraq war there was actually an oil glut as OPEC members decided they needed more cash.

I do think if CARB targeted PHEVs, MITI would have put more resources here also, and we would be further along. Its easy to have 20/20 hindsight though. Instead of moving to PHEVs CARB and MITI backed fuel cells next. On a happier note, I noticed California is building high speed rail.

 

Yes, Troll, biodiesel, Ethanol, methanol, CNG... All alternatives, but CNG requires a larger tank, Ethanol takes time to grow and process to make it. All of them great for another task, being the Range extension part. But as I see it, BEVs can capitalize on a standardized refueling, which is basically electricity.

When you look at how well cars are doing, it is because we have multitudes of gas stations along any given corridor.

Another thing you asked is why the multitudes if given cars with Tesla-like 300 mile range charge, again, You have to consider the following. Where is Starting Point A for driver 1? Where is starting point b for Driver 2? And Driver 3, 4, 5 to infinity? If you assume A=B=C=Infinity. You are wrong. You are also assuming any one driver will be consistently driving a distance that you can uniformly put a station.

Now consider this, yes, there are multiple stations in one location, fighting with prices to guarantee your business, but at the same time, there are similar stations sometimes spotted 2 or 3 miles apart because people don't always gas up at the same place 100% of the time. Just as you can't guarantee a person in an EV only will be able to recharge at home 100% of the time.

I am not focusing on fast chargers for high capacity batteries, I am focusing on just setting up the BASICS that should be there to make EVs, regardless of capacities meet their potential and weening us off gas.

One more thing, look at our current standard, Standard Gas or Diesel. One of the things about diesel is that it is great for big rigs, not so great for normal cars, but what hurts for normal cars is that for some areas for normal cities, Diesel is not the priority fuel. While we do have passenger cars that will use diesel, it is not the 'funniest' fuel to get at times in certain cities either. With Biodiesel, Ethanol, Methanol or CNG, those would be the new 'diesel' except some of those won't have the umph to be a 'standard' for some, if not all, car makers.

 

Sorry Austin, but you aren't listening at all...

You are falling back to the belief I am focusing on purely a Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate or belief on Zero Emissions in general.

This is NOT my argument, please stop assuming this. The point I am making with the larger capacity battery based vehicles is that we should not be hampered with a short return range in general or rely on the Range Extension to 'get back'. My argument has NOTHING to do with fuel emissions.

The argument I am making for is to not use fuel period. And yes, the Volt will use fuel as a range extension, but what if we don't WANT to deal with having to use fuel at all? There are alternative fuels, but we all haven't picked one to really stay with because of the cons, and we go right back to our problem of using Gasoline to solve the situation, the one thing we want to not use.

This is where having the Electrical infrastructure would help. A standardized means of allowing people to have the range people want. Be it trickle charge, L2 or even supercharged, the point of the fact is that if there was an electrical infrastructure to provide charging for cars with Leaf Level range to Tesla Model S range, the secondary power source should be the 'emergency fallback' not the 'old reliable'.

The sad thing of it all is that it is that this is all short term thinking... To used to 100+ years of things and not remembering history of before the Car was so widely used. I feel that if we all knew what Cars were like back in the day, besides loud and noisy and scaring the crap out of horses, people would realize why a lot of them were sparse to begin with, the initial lack of places to get fuel unless you were rich and the fact that transportation was still running on steam and coal or horse drawn, as well as the lacking of actual assembly line process until Ford's time.

 

Ok Keiichi, here is your challenge should you accept it ...

Your job is to convince the average, everyday car buyer who was not really aware that we were supposed to stop using gasoline. After all, that's what he's been using his whole life, although he doesn't like the prices going up.

So, the Nissan Leaf is $35,000 and it's sitting right next to a $15,000 Versa hatchback, same size car. You inform the customer they will need to install a 240V charger at home and you hope they have their own garage or can convince the homeowner's association to let them install a charger... so you get past that, then say they can get up to 10,000 in tax breaks for 2012.

 

Yes, I heard this argument. I simply disagree.

Why not try a PHEV using flex fuel. Pick an electrical range. That way users can switch to the winning fuel source. Is a 70 mile ER on a EVER better than a 70 mile range on a BEV? The first is able to recharge or fuel, where the second can only recharge. If methanol is the fuel of choice in the future - currently rejected because it's made from methane cheapest but can be made from switch grass, why not build its infrastructure?

I am in favor of an infrastructure too. I just think the playing field should not be more uphill for a phev with the same range as an EV. This means a small number of level 3 chargers, not a huge infrastructure.

Since there have been cars and planes all my life its hard to remember a time when they were not around. That doesn't mean I can't read history.

But are not home and business chargers for short range bevs and longer range phevs the proper path? We don't need to imagine a time before Verbiest to see where we are going.

 

At the 2010 Green Expo, Chelsea was asked would she rather put in a bunch of L3 chargers or L2's for public charging ... she said L2's all the way.

I think most people that can afford advanced tech cars have jobs and probably pretty good ones. Good step is to get people Eving to work and back. How? ...

Get them charging at home and work. Smaller batteries like in PiP allow more cars to be able to charge. Volt is also great at increasing EV miles. What other gas car can get 250 MPGs?

Ultimately, customers will vote for what they want with their dollars. In advanced tech cars, Prius has been and is still the big kahuna.

Said it before, but I put my vote on Prius plug-in becoming most popular plug in car. April, May, June, etc.... hybridcars > dashboard report will tell the story.

 

I've heard that CHAdeMO (fast charges) has a rate of about 62.5kW. Gassing up a car, you're putting in at rate of 5,000 kW. That's 80 times faster. What this means to me is charging up an EV at public station might be more like waiting for an oil change at your dealer or Jiffy Lube, etc... bring your laptop or iPad.

 

Reduce consumption, not eliminate it.

 

The thing is... We aren't eliminating the consumption. We will STILL be using Gas run turbines as well as Nat Gas, Hydro Electric and in some cases even Coal based Electric generation.

And I agree we should be using flex fuel, Austin, but again, until THAT infrastructure is in place... We are still going to keep consuming gas at the gas pump with people still driving gas engine vehicles because they will still need them for the SUVs, the Heavy trucks that will still be a hold out over being a BEV based vehicle cause it will STILL not cut it as a BEV. But I am looking at the standard passenger level vehicle where the BEV option is probably the wisest solution. And again, until the alternative fuels are adopted and a standardized and the infrastructure goes up for it, the adoption of those vehicles will be just as rocky as the EV adoption.

And as for the challenge, Cycledrum... You do realize I am WELL aware of the fact the cost of an EV car is hampering it... I stated it as being one of the major reasons some people are not jumping for them initially, this tacked on with the lack of the Recharging Points Infrastucture that won't exactly encourage general sales. And the thing that keeps getting ignored is the fact that there is also the ever hanging '1st gen technology' concerns, which people will always fall back to the Prius hybrid tech first as far as 'new' if not sticking with the tried and true gas engine at the lower cost point.

 

You are putting the cart before the horse. GM chose 40 mile EV range as a design goal because that would cover most American's commutes. Outside of extreme climates, the 70 miles of BEVs available now will work for most. While there are probably people that didn't get a BEV because they aren't in the most category and need a charger near work, a lack of a charging infrastructure isn't what is keeping the population from jumping on the BEV bandwagon.

Newness is one, and it will just take time for that. The other is cost. The ready availability of cheap or free charging isn't going to counter balance the fact that a Versa is half the price of a Leaf. The cost of the batteries have to come down, or the cost of gas has to go up. Hopefully, battery costs will come down. Not only will we get lower costs for the 70mi BEV, but then options with longer ranges will likely be available. Which widens the population that could use a BEV.

I'm not against a charging network. I think it will ease range anxiety, and improve the benefit of small battery PHVs, but I don't think it's lack is a BEV adoption hang up. I wouldn't get a car that couldn't get me to work and back home without a refueling. Be it gas or electricity, and I don't most other people would either.

Yet another barrier, and probably the hardest to overcome, is getting people to change their thinking on what are the needs for their vehicle. A poster on another forum tried to convince his retired mother to look into a BEV. The most she ever drives is 20 miles round trip. She wouldn't consider it because of the off chance she might have to go beyond the car's range. A BEV will excel as a commuter vehicle. The trick, even with households with more than one vehicle, is convincing the public that don't need a vehicle that does everything. That mentality is part of the reason SUVs became popular. Why people get 4WD for the one day of snow they see. BEVs require a shift in thinking and planning to work for people, and some just can't do that.