I think electric cars could replace the market because these require a small amount of energy to consume.Due to economic conditions people cannot afford these fuels..

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It is sad but unsurprising that the Pennsylvania Republican would disparage those who call for an end to [oil] subsidies as engaging in ‘class warfare,’ while at the same time arguing that taxpayers should support the very oil and gas companies he’s invested in because 'we want companies to be profitable',” Sharpton said.

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The problem Kelly and the others have with the Volt is that it has Barack Obama’s fingerprints all over it. That's a reason graphics like the one at left are all over the blogosphere. If the Volt flops, the administration’s investment in the car were wasted, and it’s the political bounty known as Solyndra all over again.

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This would be possible if almost all private cars requiring drivers, which are not in use and parked 90% of the time, would be traded for public self-driving taxis that would be in near constant use. Several of the services, most notably those in the United Kingdom and the United States, sell reports to dealers and then encourage the dealers to display the reports on their Internet sites. Sbt Japan | Sbt Japan | Sbt Japan

Europe is finding that EVs are hardling selling at all. the reasons? Simple. They cost 3 times as much to buy a car whose ONLY advantage is it costs far less on fuel. they have a woeful range - less than any other car - and take 8-12 hours to 'refill'. Long journeys are simply impossible and they are SMALL. the MiEV is a micro car capable of taking two people and a handbag - nothing else. What about the family with 4 young children? EVs are currently suited to niche applications only and witht he current costs to buy are still way higher in total cost of ownership that a thirsty V8.

Not entranced at all.

How about home rooftop or backyard windmills to charge batteries for EVs? Can't see why it wouldn't work around the clock with zero emissions.  With clever vehicle design exchanging batteries as needed shouldn't be too big a deal with the right equipment or tools.

Comments please.

ppollard5@bigpond.com

  Baning of 50 MPG  Mercedes diesel from USA.   Good exmple of emission laws made by burocrats and politics, rather than by experienced engineers.  In 1960 I had a friend who regularly achieved 51 MPG (imperial gallon.  US gallon equivalent 40 MPG) with a morris 850,  Mini, on highway driving.   Remarks on pollution on manufacture and disposal of electric vehicle battrys for a totally electric vehicle world fleet being likened to nuclear disposal is probably taking it mildly.   Spark ignition gas engines can not gain the efficiency of high compression  other than at full throttle opening.  At all other loading throttle vacuum lowers effective compression ratio.  Diesels do not suffer from this as compression is required for ignition and they do not require a fixed mixture ratio.  Hence the much greater efficiency of diesel in stop-start traffic conditions.  Electric vehicles could shine in these conditions especially if dynamic braking is used to create battry input.  Also no idling fuel consumption.  That is if battry manufacture and disposal and electricity generation pollution is ignored.  The elimination of stop-start driving in city traffic,  where the vast majority of vehicle use occurs, would go a very long way to reduce vehicle pollution.  The internal load,  friction and accessories, of an internal combustion engine is fairly constant from idle (100%) to full power,  could be as low as 10% in some engines.  Achieving a stratified fuel charge has possiblities in gas engines.  Doubtful in stop-start-idle of city driving  where the worst pollution conditions occur.

No mention is ever made that tax should be paid on electric vehicle mileage.  Something has to pay for roads construction and maintenance.  And of course part of the petrol or diesel taxes pay for a host of other things as well.

Phil Went

The whole system of mileage requirements in the USA is totally flawed.

I had a new MB diesel in Australia which gave over 50MPG. I was prohibited importing into the USA as it did not meet emissions standard even though more than 95% of cars at the 2011 Frankfurt motor show had equivelant motors.

I purchased the equivelant vehicle in the USA as my AU vehicle only to find that the fuel usage varied between 170 to 200% of my AU vehicle. So no one has been able to explain how using almost twice the fuel is more efficient either in respect of climate consideration or the over use of fuel.

The whole idea is nothing but a politcal/public service mentality that has nothing to do with commonsense or fact

Why not cover as much of the surface area of an EV with solar panel (paint?) equivalents. It won't be the whole story but it can't hurt...

The "vehicle to grid" V2G concept uses the vehicle batteries as a buffer for the mains grid when the vehicle is plugged in, allowing some of the energy in the battery to be used to support the grid when demand is at peak.

One limittaion to this approach is the capacity of current EV batteries. Most are in the order of 20kwh for a 100-odd km range, so not very much capacity is available before the vehicle becomes inoperable. However, the current trends in battery research indicate that 60-100kwh will likely be possible in several years, at which case a substantial abount of energy would be available. Cost may be an issue.

Home battery swapping is probably not viable because the things are heavy and usually located in the middle of the vehicle. However a battery to battery charge transfer could occur at a fast enough rate to make make it equivalent to a swap. Perhaps 2 electric cars?

I would expect that the supply authorities would warm to the idea of home (distributed) buffering as a way to reduce the issues as PV penetration increases and power factor issues beconme significant issues. I believe that this is already the case in California.

A ready source of batteries for home buffering systems would be retired EV bateries that are no longer able to deliver the large peak powers needed in an EV, but still have good capacity for a less demanding applicaiton.

Interesting point raised about charging your own battery at home with renewable energy. A lot of the criticism about renewable energy is that it delivers the power when the sun is shining and when the wind is blowing and cannot provide baseload power when you need it, and is unreliable for providing peak power. But what if we chose to charge our electric vehicle batteries at times when the renewables are on? Which leads me to two other thoughts.

1. Electric vehicles might need to be designed to have a spare battery that is easily interchangeable so you can leave it at home to charge.

2. If we could beat the 8% energy loss in transmission networks by bulk transport of batteries (or some other high density fuel that can be produced with renewables) then maybe the "batteries" should be charged where the power is and transported. You would need road or rail instead of a powerline though, so more capital cost.

What will the car makers do with all-electric. Most of the profitable after sales service rorts will disappear.

I suspect that they will be playing on the fear of costly batteries, so forcing customers into leasing a battery, ensuring a trailing commission.

Some of us will refuse to buy on this basis and make our own, as we are now doing with electric conversions.

Incidentallly, converting your favourite car is not terribly expensive wen you consider that the converted vehicle will run about 150,000 km before a battery replacement is needed and will cost less than 1/2 per km to run than it did pre-conversion.

It has been my observation the technologies peak in complexity just before they're replaced. This was the case with the carburettor. The elecric assist drive case has a smoother transition.

I prefer to think of hybrid and electric drives as points on a range, where one end is entirely fuel and the other is all electric.

With current technology, the optimum is biased towards the fuel end, with a range extending to electric only, although there is a significant price and utiuity penalty at this end.

One significant discontinuity occurs with electric autonomy, where the fuel motor must be able to be disconnected and the electric components take over completely. The Toyota prius demonstrated this, but is severly limited by the battery cappacity and mechanical arrangement,

Another discontinuity occurs when plug-in capability is added. It is then possible to fuel the vehicle on electricity and only use fossil fuels occasionally. The size of the battery determines the electric range, although most benefit is seen in the first 40km.

Also, we can make electricity at home. I calculate that 1KW of solar panels ($2000 this week) will provide about 25-30km of drive range per day.

Agressive fuel economy requirements will accelerate this process.

PS

Comparing electric and petrol fuel economy is dodgy, as the basis of comparison is never stated and the energy sources are very different. (see make it at home, above) 

Good points Joel, total energy should be considered. But remember, EV's are only part of the thrust to reduce carbon. The continuing adoption of renewable energy options will reduce the overall carbon impact for electricity production.

Another good point you raise is about disposal, because this issue goes beyond disposal per se, it also goes to frequency of disposal - longevity of service. This is a great topic in itself, because we can greatly reduce our carbon footprint simply by producing goods that last longer. We seem to accept white goods with a service life of ~5 years which is ridiculous. Service life of 20 years + is not at all difficult, and was achievable in 1950 [sic]. And so it should be with cars of any ilk - the total energy required to make them should be amortised over a long period of time.

Let us not forget the environmental impact on not only (through mining) of creating batteries, but also the end-of-line deconstruction when they die. Most Hybrid manufacturers gloss over this quite quickly when asked.

Most diesel powered small to midsize vehicles will easily achieve those economy figures now (Mazda, Puegot, Fiat VW - new diesel Golf 3.5L/100km, etc) in style and comfort and no power station carbon footprint. The European countries have long been wise to the economical use of diesel. It just takes a while longer for the penny to drop in America.

I thought Joel would be referring to the amount of energy required to move your body plus car compared to just your body, which is a 20th of the car's weight. Take 99mpg for the Nissan Leaf rated by the EPA. If you use a bicycle to move your body, you would get more like 1000mpg, making the bicycle the most efficient mode of transport. And what about the embodied energy in the car and batteries compared to the bicycle? And the enormous infrastructure required to support EVs? And missing the health and societal cobenefits of cycling? Hopefully the total number of cars will decrease, and the internal combustion cars replaced by cycling as well as EVs.

Good article, but one point missed is that investment in better ICE is into a declining market which has a known dead end (parity). Whereas investment in EV is into a growth market.

There's a flaw in the miles per gallon idea. If electric cars are the answer then you have to look at the carbon footprint of the electricity used in the car. How efficient is it to burn fossil fuels to boil water to make steam to turn a turbine to make electricity to transport it across the country stepping up and then down again to store it in a battery to drive a motor to move a car, compared with burn fossil fuel to turn a motor to move a car. Cars need high energy concentration. How large do the batteries for electric cars have to be and how are they disposed? Does a global fleet run on electricity create a waste battery nightmare akin to the waste problems the nuclear industry has? How much coal do we need to burn to power a global electric vehicle fleet?

I had a short drive of a Mitsubishi Imiev ( 100 % electric ) yesterday at an NRMA Electric Vehicle Roadshow.  Its an amazing experience to be accelerating down the road silently!  When you start it the only thing that noticeably changes is the instument lights come on.  No sound!  Not to mention the other weird and wonderful differences to conventional motoring .  People will be entranced by electric cars.  I would'nt mind betting that if they are competitively priced they will sell like hotcakes.