Order your Tesla Roadster Now, TH!NK City Coming to North America in 2009

On Earth Day it is appropriate to feature one of the most sustainable products of the future, the electric car. High gas prices and growing environmental consciousness could finally usher in a new era for electric cars. The Tesla Roadster and the TH!NK City, represent the two extremes in electric vehicle choices and they are among the first, if not the first, electric cars scheduled to go into production.

With the announcement, on March 17, that Tesla Motors had achieved their goal of starting regular production of the Tesla Roadster, the company claimed that the modern era of the electric car had begun.

While this is an important milestone for the company and a watershed for the new era of electric vehicles, we still have a lot of work to do. Our key focus with the Roadster will be on gradually ramping up our production in a deliberate and controlled manner reaching a rate of over 100 Roadsters per month early next year.

Ze'ev Drori, President and CEO, Tesla Motors

With a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 3.9 seconds, a 13,000 rpm redline, the Roadster has the fastest top gear acceleration of any production car tested by Car & Driver magazine in 2007, With an EPA rating of 135 MPG equivalent, the Roadster provides super car performance at twice the energy efficiency. The batteries provide a range of more than 200 miles (333 km) between charges. The Roadster runs on 6,831 laptop computer batteries stuffed in a car, assembled by Britain's Lotus.

More than 1,000 customers have ordered the $98,000 2008 Roadster, according to the company. The estimated base price for the 2009 Roadster is $109,000. Final pricing will be announced just prior to the start of 2009 production.Tesla started production, making one or two cars a week, but it says it will steadily increase production  to around 100 cars a month by early next year. Tesla had to delay production by about six month primarily due problems with the transmission.  The company is now involved with lawsuits with both suppliers and competitors.

Think Global, the Norwegian electric car producer, along with RockPort Capital Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, announced this Monday plans to introduce the TH!INK City to the North American Market in 2009. 

The TH!NK city is currently produced in Norway and international sales are scheduled to begin in Scandinavia, with Switzerland and France also being the initial focus areas. Sales, other than initial trial and demonstration projects, will begin in the North American market in 2009.

"The TH!NK city is the world's only crash-tested and highway-certified electric vehicle and is ideal for markets such as California where we will initiate demonstration projects offering an exceptionally safe and fun car to drive."

-- Jan-Olaf Willums, CEO of Think Global

The 3120mm (123 inch) long, two seat, front wheel drive TH!NK city, weighing 1397 kg (3073 lb), is emission free and 95 percent recyclable. It reaches a top speed of 100 km (65 miles) per hour and can drive up to 180 km (110 miles) on a single charge. TH!NK City meets all European and U.S. federal motor vehicle safety requirements.

It is available with with Zebra sodium or A123 or EnerDel Li-ion batteries and powered by a 30kW peak power, 3-phase electric motor.

The battery is by far the most expensive component of the City and to avoid concerns about their reliability and lifetime Think will lease the batteries. According to a post to Business 2.0 Magazine on CNNMoney.com, in July 2007, Think CEO Jan-Olaf Willums indicated that the City will sell in the US for $15,000 - $17,000, with a Mobility Fee of $100-$200 to lease the batteries.

"We believe there is a dramatic shift underway of how people think about mobility. Global consumer demand is forcing the industry to come up with sustainable solutions, including the development of zero emission vehicles,"

-- Wilber James, a Managing General Partner of RockPort Capital Partners and acting President of TH!NK North America

The five passenger TH!NK Ox, scheduled for production in 2011, was introduced at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show. It will have a range of about 125 miles (200 kilometers) on a charge and a top speed of about 80 mph (130km/hr).

Think Global has more than 17 years of experience in developing and producing electric vehicles and there are about 1,200 vehicles driving on Norwegian roads today. The latest TH!NK city is the fifth-generation electric vehicle that has been produced in Norway. Series production of the newly designed TH!NK city car started late last year and the first cars will be delivered to Norwegian customers. The capacity of its first assembly plant in Aurskog, outside Oslo, is presently being increased to 10,000 cars per year. Think expects to be producing at full capacity sometime during 2009.

Comments

[Cyril R.]

100 roadsters per month is still meagre, but I never considered the roadster a real mass producable vehicle anyway - just a proof of concept.

They're working on a sedan, which should be a more mainstream model to reach the masses. I'd prefer that they would switch to a plugin-concept with range extender though.

[Kit P]

Proof of what concept. A fool and his money are soon parted.

[Kit P's mom]

Now Kit, did I raise you to be such an asshole?

[Kit P's dad]

Apologies to the readers of this blog. I should have pulled out early.

[Kit P's Wife]

Kit, I want a divorce!

[Tom G.]

For all of you electric car fans here out there here is a fun video of J. Leno's drive of the Tesla.

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/video_player.shtml?vid=229378

Enjoy

p.s. poor Kit P must have had such a terrible childhood to be so negative about everyone and everything.

[Alex]

After having been introduced to Kit's P's family and there intimate dialogues, back to post. It is a start and that is how it viewed. Personally I disagree with products which are aimed at the fashionable-trendy yappies/greenies and I would like to see the tech being affordable and available to everyone.

[Bob Wallace]

Well, there's a very important reason to welcome a high performance electric car to the market. Call it the "mullet head converter".

Right from the start the idea that electric/hybrids have to be underpowered "nanny cars" is destroyed. The Tesla makes an undeniable statement that electrics can kick butt.

That will create more market acceptance for electrics in general and most likely increase number of electrics sold once we get the 'everyperson' version.

(Think economies of scale.)

[Bob Wallace]

Your first electric car might be made in China....

BYD E6

5 seater.

Acceleration of 0 to 100 kph of around 10 seconds.

Top speed should be top speed of 160 kph (100 mph).

Range per charge is expected to be 300 km (186 miles).

Projected the battery had a life of 2,000 cycles, for a lifetime range of about 600,000 km (373,000 miles).

Overnight charging via a 220 volt circuit.

Fast charge to 80% charge in about 15 minutes.

(Take a quick lunch break/get an emergency haircut during your long trip while the battery charges.)

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/byd-electric-car-e6-crossover-mpv.php

[Benny Peak Demand Cole]

Bob Wallace:

That is a great car. A reality? When?
What oil shortage? They are going to have to give the stuff away, if this car is real.

[Bob Wallace]

BYD is projecting production within two years with shipments to Europe in 2010 or so....

This BEV is based on their plug in hybrid which is supposed to be on the Chinese market later this year.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=123027

BYD is mainly a battery manufacturer, but they have been in the car business since 2005 after buying out a Chinese auto manufacturing company.

[Ike Solem]

Kit P. is very far off base. The production of a high-performance electric car is good marketing strategy - everyone who has ever worked in retail knows that there is always the "high-end" product, widely publicized as "proof-of-concept" material, and that creates a larger market for the less-expensive versions (notice, that like a good marketer, I said "less-expensive", not "cheaper").

However, it's up to the customer to sort out the marketing claims and buy what seems best. If you have cash to burn, the Tesla is very nice - if not, the Norwegian model is probably the way to go.

The real question is if one can set up solar panels on one's house and get enough energy out for both a car and basic home needs. You'd probably want the high-efficiency panels - which are the most expensive.

If that doesn't work, how about electricity filling stations? There are two models - the battery-exchange model, and the rapid recharge model. I would not be too surprised if in the future Chevron decides to open electricity filling stations if electric cars take off (not that they'd do that on their own, without government prodding).

It's really the way to go - hydrogen cars are implausible - too much energy loss along the way. Solar and wind-generated hydrogen can however replace natural gas as the primary industrial hydrogen source, however - it's just not a backyard technology.

However, the immediate issue is biofuels vs. gasoline and diesel - because biofuels can be run in existing cars. That's why there's all the fuss over biofuels and food production - when the real main culprits are stock speculation and the rising price of oil. Biofuels represent a threat to the bottom line of all refinery operations in the U.S. and abroad - thus the controversy.

[Innovation Catalyst]

@Bob - Two years ago, China's Happy Messenger was in a similar situation - good range and speed, cost about $10,000. However it was imported by Miles Automotive, who replaced the batteries with lead-acid, thus dumbing down the performance, and raised the price.

[Bob Wallace]

"The real question is if one can set up solar panels on one's house and get enough energy out for both a car and basic home needs. You'd probably want the high-efficiency panels - which are the most expensive."

I'm not convinced that the solar panel question is relevant to the issue of BEVs/PHEVs.

First, if we developed no green energy but relied mainly on coal we would most likely get a net decrease in pollutants. And we would stop the cash bleed out of our economy.

Second, I'm getting less convinced that individual purchase/installation of solar panels is the a good financial route.

Thin film is hitting the market at a cost multiple times less than silicon PV. Because manufacturing capacity is limited and will likely be for the near future all this less expensive solar is going to be snatched up by large purchasers.

Individuals are going to be limited to more expensive PV panels. It might be much less expensive to buy power from the big producers.

[Ike Solem]

Bob Wallace says:

"First, if we developed no green energy but relied mainly on coal we would most likely get a net decrease in pollutants. And we would stop the cash bleed out of our economy."

Okay - we all know that the coal industry is rolling out a massive pro-coal marketing campaign - tons of TV ads - but you don't need to be so blatant about it.

Coal-to-liquid processes are ridiculously expensive and incredibly polluting - just as polluting as tar sand oil processing - and unless you are proposing going back to coal-fired boilers as the engine of choice, there's no way coal can be used to produce liquid fuel cheaply and cleanly.

As far as electricity goes, coal-fired power plant owners have fought long and hard against even simple scrubbers that remove sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, arsenic, and a whole host of other nasties that might have ended up in the coal deposit.

To go beyond that and capture all the carbon emissions is a pipe dream. Carbon capture from coal is a big myth, on simple thermodynamic grounds. Capturing all the emissions from any fossil fuel combustion process is a ridiculous notion - build me a car with an internal combustion engine that captures all its emissions as it drives down the road, and I'll believe it. Not too likely, is it?

There has yet to be a single convincing demonstration of this coal capture technology - which, I might add, is hidden behind the proprietary walls of public-private partnerships, and thus might very well be totally bogus - just a big PR scam. How about some transparency there? What went wrong with the FutureGen technology?

Coal is a dead end. We need to place a ban on all new coal-fired power plants and start shutting down and replacing the existing ones with whatever is available - solar, wind, biogas or nuclear - those are the only plausible choices for long-term energy security (in that order of preference, I think).

[Gregor]

That would piss me off if Chevron got into the battery replacement business after gouging us in gas prices. They don't deserve anymore of our money and I for one won't buy from any of the oil companies if I can at all help it.

[Bob Wallace]

I ain't bein' blatant about nuttin.

Fact. We ship box cars of money out of the country to maintain our petroleum supply.

Fact (I think). Per unit of energy created pollution is less in a centralized plant than spread across multiple individual power plants. (Feel free to straighten me out with data.)

Now, I'm all for green energy. The quicker we quit using fossil fuels, the better in my opinion. But let's not give up any little gain that will make things better.

If we hold our collective breaths while waiting for the perfect all-in-one solution we're likely to be a bunch of very blue people.

[bigTom]

Ike, agreed that cleancoal is probably a marketting scam. I am a little more helpful about its potential though. Carbon capture does not mean reducing the CO2 back to carbon, which is simply the undoing of combustion, but the capture and disposal of the CO2 in liquid form (or perhaps only 85-90%) of it. The difficulty is in purifying the stack gases, which are roughly 80% nitrogen and 20% CO2. But the point being made was that even if (not recommending more be built) the electricity comes from coal, electric vehicles would still be better for the environment than internal combustion engines (at least gasoline ones), the ICE is that much more inefficient. Gregor, I think your hostility towards Chevron is misplaced. The domestic oil industry is not to blame for pump prices. In fact they are taking it on the chin because of very low crack spreads (i.e. oil refining is not a good industry to be in anymore). If the oil companies are to receive any blame, it should be for helping to delude the public about the future prospects of oil (claiming we won't hit peak for decades etc.) That complacent business as usual attitude is what has gotten us into the present difficulties. I react badly to the Tesla. I don't like feeding the "fast-powerful car is needed to show you are better than the other guy" mentality. But I appreciate that a new initially premium priced technology just might need this sort of niche to get early development. And the message, that electric is not for wimps will be helpful once more affordable products are available.

[Kit P]

Bob Wallace wrote, “Fact. We ship box cars of money out of the country to maintain our petroleum supply.”

Are you ready for the bad news? Every year we are increasing our imports of oil and LNG to make electricity. It is a small amount but larger than wind and solar. We are not building cleaner new coal plants, renewable energy, conserving, or uprating nuke plants fast enough to keep up with demand.

It is going to be at least 10 years before EVs will not contribute equally to AGW and importing energy for transportation.

[Danny Shahar]

Kit P, are you suggesting that the need to produce electricity from fossil fuels means that there will be no benefit produced by electric vehicles? Surely you know why that's not true, right?

[Kit P]

Of course it is true Danny. You really do not think there is a benefit to carrying heavy batteries around? Danny is a victum of shallow thinking The only benefit from I can see from EVs is making a certain segment of society who are just boys with toys feel good about themselves. Having lived in California, I know how to speak pychobable. If you need to think your POV or your PV is helping the environment, I tell you that you are stupid. If you want to help the environment take up gardening and start a compost pile.

If you would like to explain the benefits of EV please try but check your facts first.

[bob]

Don't be a "victum" of Kit P's garbage, Danny. Responding to him only leads to frustration, since he'll completely ignore what you're saying and call you names as he prattles on, completely unhindered by your comments.

[Bob Wallace]

Ike -

Here's some data for you.

Were we to move to PHEVs and get the electricity solely from conventional (dirty) coal we would enjoy about a 25% decrease in CO2 emissions per mile (452 grams vs. 326 grams).

Of course moving to a non-CO2 emitting electricity source would be much better, reducing the CO2 per mile by a further 50%. And moving to BEVs would drive the number toward 0.

But at this point every improvement is an improvement needed.

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1569/69/#jc_writeComment

The Technology Review (MIT's site) has the original graph with more info, but their site requires registration.

[donb]

Ike Solem said:
coal-fired power plant owners have fought long and hard against even simple scrubbers that remove sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, arsenic, and a whole host of other nasties that might have ended up in the coal deposit

While I would rather have coal fired plants replaced by nuke plants for baseload generation, I understand the dilemma that the coal fired electricity producers find themselves in.

Imagine yourself being forced to invest millions of dollars into some bleeding edge technology to reduce polution that requires a Ph.D. engineer to keep running. And then when it does fail, the government fines you.

The early days of SO2 reduction produced some rather fine messes of their own.

[Ike Solem]

Well, imagine government agencies that worked closely with industry in order to develop clean technologies cheaply? This is what the DOE was supposed to do, and maybe the agency can go and think about the benefits of working closely with nascent solar and wind industries in this country - especially after the FutureGen flop.

The thing about coal capture is that estimates are that capture of 95% of all CO2 will suck up 50% of the coal energy - meaning a 50% reduction in electricity generation. You are telling utilities to spend billions to cut their power generation in half!

See New Scientist 29 March 2008:Can coal live up to its clean promise? by Fred Pearce:

"So exactly what would this hugely costly undertaking achieve? One EU document on CCS says beguilingly “The possibility exists for a CO2 free energy system based on fossil fuels”. Yet even the best CCS systems will not capture all the CO2, and existing methods typically capture only about 85 per cent. In reality the figures are even more unfavourable, as the CCS process itself consumes anything from 10 to 40 per cent of the energy produced by a fossil fuel power station."

It seems that capturing all the CO2 is very difficult indeed. Also, CO2 from coal weighs 3X as much as the coal did before it was burned.

On the demand end, we need efficient technology - but a lot of that already exists. Electric motors are robust and efficient compared to internal combustion engines, but the energy density in a battery is lower than in a liquid fuel. Batteries are good enough for 200 mile trips, but not for longer. So, biofuels are an option here - except that is running smack into food production. The whole agribusiness industry is one of the most wasteful around in terms of water and energy use - they've been spoiled by decades of cheap energy and cheaper water. Clean it all up and you might be able to get a decent level of biofuel production as well as plenty of food. Go vegetarian if you use biofuels - meat production wastes a lot of energy too.

For the supply side, what we need are big wind farms, big solar farms, a lot of high-tech distributed solar panels, NaS and Li ion battery systems, and a revamped electricity grid, complete with good energy storage systems. That's how we'd be doing our energy system today if we had run out of fossil fuels 50 years ago - it seems unlikely we'd all go back to living in caves.

[Rory @ The Green Web Hosts]

The roadster looks like a great little car. 0-60 in 3.9 seconds? That'll do me. It's better than my diesel guzzling LDV!

[Reality Czech]

Kit P. is very far off base.

This is a "dog bites man" story.

Carbon capture from coal is a big myth, on simple thermodynamic grounds. Capturing all the emissions from any fossil fuel combustion process is a ridiculous notion

Dakota Gasification is capturing the CO2 from its coal-to-methane process and piping it to an oil field in Weyburn, SK. If the plant changed from methanation to water-gas conversion to hydrogen, it could take all the carbon in the coal and sequester it. This would leave only hydrogen for fuel.

[Clee]

If the plant changed from methanation to water-gas conversion to hydrogen, it could take all the carbon in the coal and sequester it.

Which of course means they are not currently capturing all the carbon in the coal and sequestering it. It seems they are sequestering only 16% of it.

http://www.basinelectric.com/EnergyResources/Gas/A_national_treasure.html
Dakota Gas can now capture and deliver for sequestration 49 percent of CO2 produced at the Synfuels Plant, which represents 16 percent of CO2 produced from all the coal combusted from the Freedom Mine

[Alex]

The tesla roadster would have much to benefit overall as a product from a swap battery system instead of a plug-in.

Some people on this Blog would have much to benefit if they followed what novices had to commit themselves to, when joining Pythagoras's school; five years of silence. If that doesn't work, Do not PANIC ! Yellow-page book reading is recommended!

The Tesla Roadster carries a heavy name. The name of a visionary inventor-genius, a martyr of American science and business inquisition. Shouldn't it live up to that ?

[Kit P]

The BT BARNUM would be a better name except for the fact the Tesla Roadster is an expensive fraud rather than a good natured hoax designed to entertain the public who got what they paid for.

[Bob Wallace]

"The tesla roadster would have much to benefit overall as a product from a swap battery system instead of a plug-in."

That might be true, but at this point in time there is no infrastructure for battery swap-outs.

What is interesting it that one chain of upper level hotels has announced that they will be installing charing stations in their parking facilities in order to provide overnight charges for Tesla owners.

Deep pocket Silicon Valley folks will be able to drive their Tesla to San Francisco or Lake Tahoe and not worry about where they'll get juice for the trip home.

The Tesla was never conceived as a commuter car for Joe Average. It's a niche car, and a very interesting one that's bringing a lot of positive attention to BEVs.

[Bill]

Oil is outrageous, the electric car industry is thriving because of it. Zap cars are sold at dealerships nationwide now.
They just opened one in Davis, CA, Kansas and Florida
www.zapworld.com

[averagejoe]

"The Tesla was never conceived as a commuter car for Joe Average..."

How about for averagejoe? Hmm... on my salary... probably not. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait for something a bit closer to a Geo Metro EV.

[Alex]

"Deep pocket Silicon Valley folks will be able to drive their Tesla to San Francisco or Lake Tahoe and not worry about where they'll get juice for the trip home." :

Meanwhile, in the drive-in:
-Can we go home now honey-pie?

-Sorry peach; I can't. My Tesla roadster is still charging.!!

[G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996]

Carbon capture from coal plants' CO2 is a reality, on simple thermodynamic grounds ... well, obviously not that simple.

It turns out that the dispersal, years ago, of the CO2 from a coal plant's production of 1 kWh of electricity increased entropy. Since the stuff's spreading, from a concentrated plume at the exit from an exhaust pipe, out through the earth's whole blanket of air, making it a warmer blanket, is intuitively something that never happens in reverse, this can readily be understood for what it is, an entropy-increasing process.

What's not obvious, but demonstrably true, is that when it reconcentrates itself by reacting with abundant mineral silicates such as serpentine and olivine, this increases entropy again. Therefore, it happens, and has been seen happening.

The result is that the CO2 from that long-ago kWh(e) can be hauled down through the expenditure of no more than another 0.1 kWh(e). 0.05 to pulverize olivine, catalysing the reaction, and maybe another 0.05 kWh(e) to spread the powder over a large enough area of the Earth's surface that each grain is well exposed to air. More at http://preview.tinyurl.com/59fsnw .

[G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996]

The posting software refers to automated robots. That seems redundant. Can't it be fixed to say evil robots? So as to give users some warning. 'Cause you know, ih'd be tragic, if those ee, vil, row, bots, we-e-in.

[J Anthony]

Bob Wallace (Comment of 4/23, 10:30 am):

Thank you for your reference to the Tech Review article comparing HEV and PHEV CO2 emissions.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1569/69/
Do you know how this could be extended to a pure EV? (I don’t think it would be as simple as using the blue (electric) part of the bars only). Do you know if the EV would look better than the PHEV?

I did a rough calculation, based on data from
http://gm-volt.com/2007/10/16/help-us-make-a-chevy-volt-faq/,
Posts 2 and 40, which resulted in EVs powered by coal electricity looking significantly worse that a Prius HEV.

Perhaps you can critique my calculation below:

The above GM Volt site, Posts 2 and 40, gave the following data:
- Prius HEV energy consumption from gasoline fuel: 693 Wh/mile
- EV electric energy consumption: 200-300 Wh/mile (250 used here)

Since gasoline gets about 2/3 of its energy from carbon (the rest from hydrogen), the carbon-sourced component of Prius energy would be 693 x 0.67 = 464 Wh/mile.

For the EV, I assumed the end-to-end grid efficiency with a (100% carbon-sourced) coal power plant would be 30%, so that the equivalent carbon-sourced energy would be 250/0.3 = 833 Wh/mile, which is getting on for double the Prius 464 Wh/mile.

[Paul F. Dietz]

Coal-to-liquid processes are ridiculously expensive and incredibly polluting - just as polluting as tar sand oil processing

The question is not the expense, but the rate of return. At $117/barrel oil, CTL processes are extremely profitable, with IIRs of greater than 100%/year. Great expense just means great profit, if your IRR is so high.

Tar sand processing leaves a great volume of -- sand! -- contaminated with hydrocarbons. Coal is typically not loaded with nearly as much mineral matter, and that matter comes out as ash or slag. CTL plants, if they use 'dry' cooling systems, can get by on the water in the coal itself.

Coal-to-methane, with the new all-in-one-reactor process from GreatPoint, looks to be even easier than CTL, so perhaps C(syn)NG cars are the way to go.

[Ike Solem]

True cost accounting of tar sand oil extraction would include water costs, environmental pollution costs, and the actual cost of the natural gas used in the process.

These assets are only profitable because the true costs are being externalized onto the public's back in the form of environmental pollution and global warming.

After all, what is the real energy cost of producing one gallon of syncrude from tar sand? - the physical number? What is the cost of polluting the one river in the region with mass amounts of toxic hydrocarbon residues (yes, the phenyl-benzo derivatives are highly toxic), arsenic, and whatever else is in the mix? Those costs are not counted, are they?

[Bob Wallace]

J. Anthony - not able to critique your numbers this morning, didn't get a good night's sleep. ;o)

But my eyeballs suggest that you're at least correct in terms of direction.

An all- petroleum powered hybrid-electric (using MIT's numbers) would emit 294 grams of CO2 per mile and a PHEV getting its electricity from conventional coal would emit 362 grams. That would lead one to believe that a pure electric BEV fed by only conventional coal would emit more CO2 per mile than would a gasoline engine car.

The statements that I've read run to the effect that BEVs would release less pollutants of all types than ICEs. If our grid were only coal powered then that generalization might not hold. Or it might hold for pollutants other than CO2.

Of course we have the option to move away from conventional coal at the same time we move away form ICEs.

[Danny Shahar]

So this is probably long dead, but my point was only that electric vehicles draw their energy from power plants, which are far more efficient than automobile engines. So even if the power plants and the automobile engines were being run on the same fuel, you could still gain some benefit from electric vehicles. I don't see why that's shallow thinking...

[Kit P]

“don't see why that's shallow thinking”

Because you did not validate your basic assumption. Do not feel inept neither did MIT. Most likely, the power plant generating electricity will be less efficient that you ICE. This based on a ORNL study that looked at what power plants are available to supply additional load.

My RTO provides a ticker for wholesale power prices. It is a mild spring day on the weekend. Power prices should be in the dirt today. There were not. Yesterday, was shocking. Three times higher than what I expected.

The basic problem is that many PUCs will not let utilities build new efficient power plants to replace old inefficient plants. Let me give you an example. The trusty old van was perfect for hauling kids, especially when car seats were involved. Periodically I would go new car shopping and choke. Finally, mileage had dropped off to the point where we getting 13 mpg for running errands and it had been fours years since it had seven passengers and packed to the gils with camping gear getting 24 mpg. It needed $800 to get back the lost mpg which did not make much with 250K miles. If I had to ask the PUC permission to buy a Corolla, they would have denied it because my old van provided the needed transportation capacity. Clinton's EPA would have sued because sometime in the last 10 years I put new tires on that had lower rolling resistance than original equipment.

If you want to compare the thermal efficiency of an 1960 POV with a an ICE to a 1960 steam plant, the steam plant would win. Unfortunately, a 2010 BEV will be charging batteries with a 1960 SCGT. Then you must consider the efficiency of transmission lines, batteries, and motors.

France runs its nukes in a load following mode much of the year. BEV may have benefit there but that is an assumption for the French to check.

[Danny Shahar]

I guess I haven't read the studies that you're referring to. I'm not an expert, so if the comparatively few sources I've read have been incorrect, then that's that. I will say, though, that the problem you're referring to does not seem to be a problem with electric cars themselves. So your objections shouldn't be aimed there. By your own account, if the market for electricity production were less restricted, electric cars would be more efficient.

Further, the widespread use of electric cars might open the door for the development of alternative energy production technologies like wind and solar, as electric cars could represent an important source of dispatchable load. What I have in mind are the issues discussed in this report:

http://www.nrel.gov/pv/pdfs/39683.pdf

I'd also point out that even if there are no gains in fossil fuel efficiency as a result of more widespread use of electric cars, the fact that the power would be produced at power plants instead of in automobile engines seems like it could have other benefits, like increasing the feasibility of cleaning emissions and capturing CO2. I anticipate that you'll argue that the plants needed to produce the added electricity that would be demanded by electric cars are dirty ones, and I think that would be a fair point. But that problem isn't inherent to the electric vehicle technology, and represents a way that in the future, we could produce better environmental outcomes than we could with internal combustion-driven automobiles.

No?

[Kit P]

“we could produce better environmental outcomes”

For who Danny? Getting a better environmental outcome is easy. Change how you live. What Danny wants is to continue living in the style he is accustomed to while asking engineers to wave a magic wand. Please feel free to explain your plan if you object to me saying your vision is not practical.

In cities with poor air quality because you have too many cars, too many people, and not enough trees. ; EV could reduce air pollution. Where does Danny want to put the windmills and solar panels? Same place as the nuke and coal plants. In my back yard. I can understand why city folk would want to cut down trees, pour huge amounts of cement, to erect wind turbines and solar farms. City folks enjoy looking at junk except when they drive to their vacation home.

So before we can “produce better environmental outcomes” you have to define what that is. Do you want clean drinking water, adequate shelter, freedom to travel, a pristine natural surrounding, or the climate not to change?

As a practical matter, I do not see EV as resulting a better environment. When I listen to the EV advocates, the just sound like boys with toys reading popular mechanics. Not much different than hot rod enthusiast.

[Danny Shahar]

I don't see where I said anything that would suggest that I wanted problems to be solved with a magic wand. Originally, you were making the argument that electric vehicles were a bad idea because they required fossil fuels, just like internal combustion-driven vehicles. My response was only that there are a number of reasons why we should welcome electric vehicles, including the possibility for greater fossil fuel efficiency (which you don't deny), the implications for the feasibility of alternative fuel technologies, and improved prospects for measures to protect the environment. I never said that electric vehicles could solve any problem, or that their prevalence would not involve any adjustments. The only point is that we should be happy that electric vehicles will open up promising new options for the future of the energy industry. I don't see why that should be so objectionable.

[Kit P]

Danny wrote, “promising new options for the future of the energy industry.”

Since I work in that segment of the energy industry that produces electricity, this the reason I like best.

Well Danny, I think EV are a wonderful idea too. It really makes me happy to to see utilities and manufactures working together to to turn the idea into reality.

When there is no longer any oil to buy, you will see EV SUVs charging instead of idling.

[Danny Shahar]

While I'm skeptical that we'll ever actually run out of oil to buy (the price will just rise...), it sounds like we agree.

[JUDITH MAY]

i WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN ELECTRIC CAR

[Pedal Ride on Car]

Whew... that sure is a long thread which I had hoped would be all pro electric. I'm not going to get into it like the posts above but c'mon, things have to change and happily they are. There will always be the die hard muscle car, fumr spewing drivers that will miss the old day and I have to admit so would I. But, life goes on!

[jason konior]

oh yeah.....

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JASON KONIOR