The government will have to shift the tax structure to get back what they lost on the gas. I don’t think they’ll tax the electricty, but most likely the car purchase on a sliding scale based on horsepwer and weight, and apply an annual road tax as well.
Maybe the best way to make electrics practical is to forget about the batteries entirely. Just redesign all our highways into giant slot car tracks and have small auxillary engines in the cars for streets that aren’t electrified.
There’s already talk of taxing by the mile. I think that Oregon is considering this due to the increase in gas mileage for cars driven there.
That scares me. There’s a lot of opportunity to electrocute someone if the overwhelming number of roads have electric power running down the middle. It also seems expensive to tear up almost every road in America and lay down an electric system.
We have a few pesos left in the stimulus package for that…
The stimulus package may very well end up turning our dollars into pesos.
“The stimulus package may very well end up turning our dollars into pesos.”
Yuan, I think - not pesos.
IIRC,the production of the EV1 was as a result of zero-emission-vehicle requirements in California. So, rather than lose CA sales, GM saw selling a heavily subsidized EV1 as “the lesser of two evils.”
This ultimately explains why the EV1 was such a good deal: the end user wasn’t truly “paying” for it! I mean, a $4000 Ford Fusion sounds nice, too.
I’m also skeptical as to the “greenness” of electric cars.
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If “I” were to drive an electric car, I’d be getting power off the grid, which comes from coal. I don’t think that effectively going from gasoline to coal power is a good thing for the environment: as it is now, you can’t eat fish in most of the US due to mercury accumulation from coal. (Though I suppose it’d be good for trade balance, as we have plenty of coal.)
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What about all the dead batteries? Assuming the most cost-effective battery, Pb-acid were used…we’re having trouble disposing of all the batteries we use now.
Also, a point rasied: is $225/barrel expected to be the “going rate” for coal-derived “fauxtroleum?” Is this assuming a mature industry?
[b]- If “I” were to drive an electric car, I’d be getting power off the grid, which comes from coal. I don’t think that effectively going from gasoline to coal power is a good thing for the environment: as it is now, you can’t eat fish in most of the US due to mercury accumulation from coal. (Though I suppose it’d be good for trade balance, as we have plenty of coal.)
- What about all the dead batteries? Assuming the most cost-effective battery, Pb-acid were used…we’re having trouble disposing of all the batteries we use now. [/b]
Obviously these good points have to be address. My local grid power doesn’t come from coal…it’s nat. gas, nuclear and hydro. But there is not a one to one correspondence between the energy consumed in an internal combustion engine and the energy used to produce electricity for an EV, For one, electric motors are 90%+ and climbing in efficiency compared to internals 30%. More has to be done in advocating renewables and yes, nuclear power for this purpose.
Secondly, batteries, especially the nickel metal hydride and even the dreaded lead acid, which in primitive form is owner serviceable for the life of the car, are recyclable with some effort. How much does this compare with the waste oil, and other by products used in conjunction with the internal combustion engine that generate high overall levels of toxic waste ? Esp. as a potential threat to precious ground water during their use. Read “Polluting for pleasure” to set the threat of two cycles and their “contribution” and the inconvenience in dealing with them it has caused. 2 and 4 cycles, all used in extremely useful machines, all serious polluters.
Pollution derived from central site, incl coal during electrical power production can be much better controlled than that produced by millions of separate entities running around burning oil products. It just takes the will and commitment.
All these issues have to be worked out, but in the final analysis EVs in some form is conceded by most to play an important part in the solution.
As far as the EV1 is concerned; I trust the opinions of the owners, most of whom were more than willing to buy, at what ever cost, and assume the ownership of them before they were crushed. ALL companies have a company line to maximize their profits; from the tobacco companies to General Motors. I choose to believe people like you and those on this forum who have personal experience on product effectiveness over those that “shill” them. When people start repeating company lines…it’s time to dismiss them IMO.
I think delivery of electricity would work better overhead, like is done for light rail transit cars. It would certainly be safer.
Dagosa,
I agree that the means are in place to recycle lead-acid batteries, just as the means are in place to recycle used motor oil. The problem is that the incentive is to things as cheaply as possible (and/or as cheaply as the law allows, depending on one’s ethics), and thus these items aren’t always safely recycled in practice.
I also wonder about efficiency. I admit the IE’s efficiency is a lousy 30% or less, well below that of a electric motor. But, to get from coal (or NG or nuclear) to motive force, one must:
- Turn coal into heat
- Use heat to vaporize water
- Use steam to drive generator to make electricity
- Transmit the electricity great distances
- Step down the voltage and rectify to DC
- Turn DC into stored chemical energy in battery
- Turn chemical energy into DC current
- Trun DC into motive force
All told, are we really getting more than 30% of the initial input?
Also, I don’t think it’s wise to spend time and money developing a “dead-end” technology such as chemical batteries. If we should ever “get serious” about electric cars, the most energy-dense store of energy is a hydrogen fuel cell…Pb, Ni-MH, etc would only be to “tide us over” until such fuel cells start making economic sense.
I think we need (for economic reasons) to get off of imported oil. I think some options that hold more promise than electricity are:
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Coal-derived petroleum. The US still has plenty of coal, and could even become an energy exporter.
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Cellulosic ethanol. Because this would allow production from waste products, it’d be strongly energy-positive, rather than weakly so as with corn-based EtOH. (Yes, I know there’s an arable land limitation that presents this from being the full answer, but it’s part of the answer.) Also, ethanol-only vehicles would obviate the need for anhydrous ethanol, which is currently a BIG part of the energy expense.
Good combined cycle thermal plants burning clean natural gas are over 50% efficient. Since the electric system in your electric car would be 95% or so, you get a very good overall energy utilization. The final cost to you will be 1/4 to 1/2 of what gasoline would have cost.
If, like in Denmark, the electricity is generated with waste heat utilization (for heating or air conditioning), the generation efficiency is 85%. overall.
Coal-derived petrolem is a dirty and inefficient process, genrating a lot of CO2 which must be put underground for the system to be environmentally acceptable. This will result in very expensive fuel. Only Germany in WWII and South Africa under Apartheid produced it.
The US faces 3 challenges: energy independence with balance of payments deficits (the former virtually impossible to achieve), compliance with climate change CO2 targets, and facing the gradual depletion of oil wordwide (US production peaked in the mid 70s).
If you acknowledge all three of these challenges, ethanol from algae, cellulose ethanol, and electric cars are all necessary. As well as legislating Americans into smaller cars with various taxes. In other words, much like Jimmy Carter’s “off-oil” program!!
In other words, your grandchildren will be driving very different forms of transportion.
Just a note…today the shuttle Endeavour has postponed launch because of a leak while fueling with liquid hydrogen. Let’s see, will Exxon provide pumps across the nation that are more reliable than NASA ? Maybe, but
I still vote no for hydrogen fuel cells and the added dangers of working with LH leaks. Frostbite,increased volatility and blindness are not inherent in a leaky gas pump.
One major problem in getting viable electric cars on the road lies in the fact that Chevron holds the patent to the large capacity NiMH batteries. These were the batteries used in the RAV4-EV and the EV-1. While Chevy is bragging about the Li-ion batteries for the Volt that will go 40 miles on a charge, the NiMH batteries were getting 100-200 miles per charge. The very first one tested got 201 miles. People complain about ranger issues with EVs but if there were 100% EVs out there that got 100-200 miles, I think they would sell millions given the average driver goes about 40 miles per day. If you really want to get your blood boiling read Two Cents Per Mile by Cefo. I found it on Amazon.