Tesla just a Tease?

[Rich H]

Originally Posted by nak

Transmission? Solar wants to be distributed be cause the sun doesn't shine hard enough on the power company property. Solar belongs co-located with the user, assuming they have south facing exposure. Not all of them do, but many places have south facing roofs. Doing so reduces pain of transmission; the watts travel many feet instead of many miles. If you mandate that solar to be a solution has to be owned and operated by the power companies and only on power company property, then solar has huge drawbacks beyond price of the panels and inverters.

Reliability? Do you mean what it used to be or the modern, lean-company style reliability? Our solar array has been in service for one year with zero failures. For the first decade we owned the house, we never had a power failure and rarely even took hits that would cause the microwave clock to reset. This last decade, we take hours-long failures every year and monthly hits (one of my computer UPS has died along the way). Here in the midwest we are still having glitches and drops a week after the lights went back on. One user is not statistically significant, I know, but I don't have access to AEP's uptime numbers.

The North American power network does not appear to have the same dedication to uptime that the phone network is known for. The North American phone network went 5 nines reliable back in the seventies, though I don't know if that is still the case.

I think you're making my point. Achieving/maintaining reliabilty is the hard, and expensive, part.

And distributed solar is fine. The tradeoff is that the user is disrupted and isolated in the event of any failure (and failures are a certainty), until the local facility is repaired.

[tonybelding]

Originally Posted by Rich H

Your link is to a press release from an electric car advocacy group, not the DOE.

Not true. My link is to a green transportation blog which reported the release of a study from the DOE. It was also reported by other outlets; that was just a convenient one for me to find.

Unfortunately, electric cars in the West cannot be charged using power from the Midwest and East. And I think that if you research the matter you'll also find that cars in the Midwest cannot be charged using power from the East, and vice-versa.

I don't see a problem with that. We're talking about tens of millions of electric vehicles, just in that region alone. Today there are more like dozens in use (not counting NEVs). That's a huge opportunity to displace petroleum fuel

Unstated is the unavoidable balance of the conclusion that, if the currently available off-peak Midwest and East capacity were absorbed today to charge batteries to run all existing vehicles, then any future off-peak load growth of any kind, including "an all-out move to PHEVs", would force the addition of coal and natural gas plants.

Why is this is a problem? Even in those areas -- such as in the West -- where they found off-peak power is tight, we're still talking about a gradual influx of electric vehicles over a period of years. It's going to be hundreds at first, not millions suddenly appearing overnight. At some point they'll have to bring more generation online, okay.

So, put in practical context, your press release says, in effect, that if ohm's law were suspended (an impossibility), and it is assumed that there will be no future off-peak load growth (a most unlikely future), then there is enough off-peak capacity in the Midwest and East to charge all of today's vehicles if they ran on batteries.

No, it doesn't say anything remotely like that. The fact that you would somehow spin that out of this report just shows that you have some kind of axe to grind against electric cars.

What the study shows is that the USA has significant off-peak capacity which could be used to power a large number of electric vehicles -- apparently tens of millions. In doing so, it directly contradicts that you wrote earlier, when you implied that off-peak capacity is some kind of a myth, that it's somehow not available for this purpose.

Some regions have more off-peak capacity than others. I get that. That is not a valid argument against starting to build some electric vehicles today.

The real "myth" is that all of our gasoline cars overnight with electric cars will overwhelm the grid. (And to be fair, you may not have written exactly that -- but others have, it's how this off-peak power debate usually arises.) But so what? It will take decades to turn over the automotive fleet. It took 10 years for Toyota to sell their first million Priuses. By 2012 they expect to be selling a million per year. It's a ramp-up curve, and plug-in vehicles should follow a similar trajectory.

The argument, then, is that we can begin that process today without immediately over-stressing the power grid. There is some buffer of off-peak capacity available to begin with, and later there will be time to add more capacity before it's needed.

Incidentally, a fair amount of that off-peak power is currently being "used", if that's the right word, to light up the night sky with inefficient and poorly designed (unshielded) street lights and security lights. There's another opportunity to reduce waste and redirect it to something beneficial.

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by tonybelding

Green Car Congress: DOE Study: Off-Peak Production from US Grid Could Support 184.8 Million Plug-In Hybrids

So. . . Who should I believe? Rich H, or the US Department of Energy?

you want to quote the actual study... here is the link:

http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pd...s_combined.pdf


now here is the issue. There is certainly additional capacity available at night for charging ev's, perhaps quite alot. I dont think that anyone is arguing that and it is certainly not a bad idea for the power companies to leverage their off peak availability; any generators that are spun down at night would certainly be a more effective use of capital equipment if running and making them money (and us electricity). There are however a few things to consider.

First, the study talks about PHEV's specifically, not pure electric vehicles so the comparison to vehicles like the whitestar or roadster are not an apples to apples comparison. Secondly, the study specifically talks about how the typical cost difference between a PHEV and normal vehicle is about 10K more and that the time to recoup this additional outset is 5-8 years which is not cost effective. Finally, concerning the whitestar while doing the research for this post I noticed that the whitestar is no longer going to be the accessible vehicle with a cost of $30K. The price is now at $60K which again puts this vehicle out of contention for a huge chunk of the populous.


Again, there is nothing wrong with trading our usage of imported oil for usage of domestic coal or natural gas... It will certainly help stabilize us and keep money in the country instead. The only issue is that this has to be done in a way that we can make this option available to the average car buyer (e.g. family that buys a $30K toyota or hyundai) and more importantly to the below average buyer (the people who buy up the used toyotas and hyundai's at $8-15K and cant afford to replace a battery pack for 10 G's or even 5). If we take the tesla solutions (e.g. roadster and whitestar) at face value we have an electric solution that maybe 5% of the country can afford...

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by tonybelding

Not true. My link is to a green transportation blog which reported the release of a study from the DOE. It was also reported by other outlets; that was just a convenient one for me to find.




I don't see a problem with that. We're talking about tens of millions of electric vehicles, just in that region alone. Today there are more like dozens in use (not counting NEVs). That's a huge opportunity to displace petroleum fuel




Why is this is a problem? Even in those areas -- such as in the West -- where they found off-peak power is tight, we're still talking about a gradual influx of electric vehicles over a period of years. It's going to be hundreds at first, not millions suddenly appearing overnight. At some point they'll have to bring more generation online, okay.




No, it doesn't say anything remotely like that. The fact that you would somehow spin that out of this report just shows that you have some kind of axe to grind against electric cars.

What the study shows is that the USA has significant off-peak capacity which could be used to power a large number of electric vehicles -- apparently tens of millions. In doing so, it directly contradicts that you wrote earlier, when you implied that off-peak capacity is some kind of a myth, that it's somehow not available for this purpose.

Some regions have more off-peak capacity than others. I get that. That is not a valid argument against starting to build some electric vehicles today.

The real "myth" is that all of our gasoline cars overnight with electric cars will overwhelm the grid. (And to be fair, you may not have written exactly that -- but others have, it's how this off-peak power debate usually arises.) But so what? It will take decades to turn over the automotive fleet. It took 10 years for Toyota to sell their first million Priuses. By 2012 they expect to be selling a million per year. It's a ramp-up curve, and plug-in vehicles should follow a similar trajectory.

The argument, then, is that we can begin that process today without immediately over-stressing the power grid. There is some buffer of off-peak capacity available to begin with, and later there will be time to add more capacity before it's needed.

Incidentally, a fair amount of that off-peak power is currently being "used", if that's the right word, to light up the night sky with inefficient and poorly designed (unshielded) street lights and security lights. There's another opportunity to reduce waste and redirect it to something beneficial.

There are two main issues here: the grid generation issue and the solar power issue. As I said, I agree that there is something to using whatever off peak power we have to charge EV's. Nothing wrong with that. Again the fundamental problem is doing this in a manner that the average person can afford. The only way to do this currently is to use that off peak power to manufacture synthetic fuels that go in our vehicles as-is or with as little modification possible (e.g. natural gas vehicle conversions.) Also keep in mind that use of coal/natural gas to power PHEV's does not change the our enivronmental situation in any way since we will still be polluting.

Secondly the solar issue which is where all the hippie science and speculation comes in. As rich and I have mentioned numerous times there is no easy way to deliver solar power economically (e.g. competitive with coal/natural gas) nor to do so reliably. Yes you can put a solar array on your house and generate power during the day when its needed but the whole idea of local solar is that the grid is still used to provide the stability to the system. What we are really talking about is a lifestyle change that we are advocating: have the foresight to save the money up to purchase a solar array and converter and batteries now so that we save on the backend. then buy an EV now at a premium so that we can save on fueling costs on the backend as well. Thats fine I guess if the numbers work (im still not 100% that they do but lets assume that they work out); the problem is that (again) the average american is having trouble paying *this* month's electric bill and *this* month's car payment so how are they going to buy an expensive EV and solar setup?

Again, assuming the logistics can be worked out at some point and we can reliably do solar at home and charge your vehicle, we need to be able to do this cheap, dirt cheap so that the prospect of using oil and then finally even coal and natural gas become the expensive and undesirable route. One really promising technology is thin film solar which if it eventually fufills its promise of ten cents/sq ft would be a highly disruptive change in the way we generate power. At that price, even poor people can just roll the stuff out on their roofs and start generating power very cheaply. Again you still have to figure out how to build a cheap car that can use that electricity but at least we would be 1 step in the right direction.

[nak]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

Secondly the solar issue which is where all the hippie science and speculation comes in. As rich and I have mentioned numerous times there is no easy way to deliver solar power economically (e.g. competitive with coal/natural gas) nor to do so reliably.

Not cheaper than coal (at least not today) is granted. Reliably is another matter. Small scale (a few kW) home solar has no moving parts and all solid state components (aside from the big disconnect switch out by the meter). Failures are most probably caused by bad installs, which means comparable to electrical house fires, which is not a huge issue (though it is non-zero). And your failures take down one house, not all of them. If someobdy has numbers on reliability for this stuff, please post the URL.

Originally Posted by rob13572468

... Thats fine I guess if the numbers work (im still not 100% that they do but lets assume that they work out); the problem is that (again) the average american is having trouble paying *this* month's electric bill and *this* month's car payment so how are they going to buy an expensive EV and solar setup?.

They won't. Not at today's prices. The cars are clearly too expensive, even if the fuel is cheaper. Those of us with a few extra dollars and/or a serious view at cutting pollution are the early adopters fueling demand which is needed before any economy of scale will kick in. This changes if fuel prices or coal prices climb.

We all pay for catalytic converters, airbags, and ABS even though all the car companies said they would price cars out of everyone's reach. Solar isn't *that* cheap, yet.

Originally Posted by rob13572468

Again, assuming the logistics can be worked out at some point and we can reliably do solar at home and charge your vehicle, we need to be able to do this cheap, dirt cheap so that the prospect of using oil and then finally even coal and natural gas become the expensive and undesirable route. One really promising technology is thin film solar which if it eventually fufills its promise of ten cents/sq ft would be a highly disruptive change in the way we generate power. At that price, even poor people can just roll the stuff out on their roofs and start generating power very cheaply. Again you still have to figure out how to build a cheap car that can use that electricity but at least we would be 1 step in the right direction.

The folks at nano-solar are ramping up production. Right now, they will price at or just under the price of conventional cells and make huge profits doing so since their production costs are radically lower (if you believe what they say). Prices won't drop until they produce enough that there is unsold inventory somewhere or their patents run out and the market forces begin to work.

[Rich H]

What's giving you trouble is the fact that, barring error, all utility capacity was built to serve forecast load. The subtlety is that capacity additions require a long time to plan and build, and necessarily come on line in large block increments (i.e., say a 2,000 megawatt baseload plant), whereas load growth occurs gradually in small bits, as consumers add appliances one at a time.

So if a utility always maintains at least its planning reserve margin for reliability, it will inevitably experience significant stretches of time where, arithmetically, it appears to have more capacity than needed while load growth catches up to large increment capacity additions. And that capacity can reasonably be used to serve temporary loads. But that capacity cannot suddenly be declared "excess" in a snapshot analysis and earmarked for new permanent loads that were not in the forecast, without ultimately leaving the utility short of capacity to serve all anticipated loads.

There is no doubt that, technically at least, sufficient capacity can be timely added to the US utility systems to charge vehicle batteries in the future. The problem is to integrate those vehicles into utility load forecasts, and then plan, finance, and build the needed additions. And the problem with that comes down to building sufficient confidence that future electric vehicle chargers will actually be willing to pay the cost of those addititons in charging prices - they will not be cheap - and that the load will actually materialize to justify the capacity additions.

Originally Posted by tonybelding

Not true. My link is to a green transportation blog which reported the release of a study from the DOE. It was also reported by other outlets; that was just a convenient one for me to find.




I don't see a problem with that. We're talking about tens of millions of electric vehicles, just in that region alone. Today there are more like dozens in use (not counting NEVs). That's a huge opportunity to displace petroleum fuel




Why is this is a problem? Even in those areas -- such as in the West -- where they found off-peak power is tight, we're still talking about a gradual influx of electric vehicles over a period of years. It's going to be hundreds at first, not millions suddenly appearing overnight. At some point they'll have to bring more generation online, okay.




No, it doesn't say anything remotely like that. The fact that you would somehow spin that out of this report just shows that you have some kind of axe to grind against electric cars.

What the study shows is that the USA has significant off-peak capacity which could be used to power a large number of electric vehicles -- apparently tens of millions. In doing so, it directly contradicts that you wrote earlier, when you implied that off-peak capacity is some kind of a myth, that it's somehow not available for this purpose.

Some regions have more off-peak capacity than others. I get that. That is not a valid argument against starting to build some electric vehicles today.

The real "myth" is that all of our gasoline cars overnight with electric cars will overwhelm the grid. (And to be fair, you may not have written exactly that -- but others have, it's how this off-peak power debate usually arises.) But so what? It will take decades to turn over the automotive fleet. It took 10 years for Toyota to sell their first million Priuses. By 2012 they expect to be selling a million per year. It's a ramp-up curve, and plug-in vehicles should follow a similar trajectory.

The argument, then, is that we can begin that process today without immediately over-stressing the power grid. There is some buffer of off-peak capacity available to begin with, and later there will be time to add more capacity before it's needed.

Incidentally, a fair amount of that off-peak power is currently being "used", if that's the right word, to light up the night sky with inefficient and poorly designed (unshielded) street lights and security lights. There's another opportunity to reduce waste and redirect it to something beneficial.

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by Rich H

What's giving you trouble is the fact that, barring error, all utility capacity was built to serve forecast load. The subtlety is that capacity additions require a long time to plan and build, and necessarily come on line in large block increments (i.e., say a 2,000 megawatt baseload plant), whereas load growth occurs gradually in small bits, as consumers add appliances one at a time.

So if a utility always maintains at least its planning reserve margin for reliability, it will inevitably experience significant stretches of time where, arithmetically, it appears to have more capacity than needed while load growth catches up to large increment capacity additions. And that capacity can reasonably be used to serve temporary loads. But that capacity cannot suddenly be declared "excess" in a snapshot analysis and earmarked for new permnent loads that were not in the forecast, without ultimately leaving the utility short of capacity to serve all anticipated loads.
.

This is a really good point that I believe is quite non-intuitive for most people... The idea that unused capacity will never really be unused for long since our energy consumption is always increasing and also that peak reserve power can be used economically during off-peak hours.

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by nak

Not cheaper than coal (at least not today) is granted. Reliably is another matter. Small scale (a few kW) home solar has no moving parts and all solid state components (aside from the big disconnect switch out by the meter). Failures are most probably caused by bad installs, which means comparable to electrical house fires, which is not a huge issue (though it is non-zero). And your failures take down one house, not all of them. If someobdy has numbers on reliability for this stuff, please post the URL.

They won't. Not at today's prices. The cars are clearly too expensive, even if the fuel is cheaper. Those of us with a few extra dollars and/or a serious view at cutting pollution are the early adopters fueling demand which is needed before any economy of scale will kick in. This changes if fuel prices or coal prices climb.

We all pay for catalytic converters, airbags, and ABS even though all the car companies said they would price cars out of everyone's reach. Solar isn't *that* cheap, yet.

I agree with your points. The issue in contention is really how do we as a society decide to get our energy going forward... The big thinking right now is the hippie/green/environmentalist 'reduce your energy footprint' concept which personally I do not argee with at all. The truth of the matter is that we should be able to use whatever energy we want or need to, but only do ot in a renewable manner. There is (just in our solar system) a *huge* amount of energy available both from the sun and from the earth's internal radiological processes but we have ignored those options because of the econonomic benefit that fossil fuels have provided for the past 100 years.

So now the issue is how do we really start using our renewable options and the answer in 'in the biggest way possible'. So there is nothing wrong with everyone putting thin film solar on their houses or indeed wherever you can put the stuff but the truth of the matter is that we need to go *big* with these ideas so that we can benefit from economies of scale. One good way to do this is to build large scale solar thermal plants and colocate them next to conventional generating plants wherever possible. The idea is that since conventional plants like coal all use steam turbines its really just a matter of adding an additional steam loop and then using the solar during the day to run the existing turbines and switching to coal at night. honestly the biggest issue and the one we really havent come up with a good answer is how to store up enough solar energy during the day to then use it for our nighttime generation needs. We need to put alot of effort into figuring out what to do about that issue (e.g. ideas like pumping water to a high resevior during the day and then using it to run hydroelectric at night)

Thats the energy part of the problem. then we still have to figure out what to do about our transportation issues (e.g. how to leverage all the extra solar generated power we will one day have and use it to power that 33 mile/day average trip we all make). I just dont see billions of little li-on batteries as being a practical answer.

[Rich H]

Originally Posted by tonybelding

Green Car Congress: DOE Study: Off-Peak Production from US Grid Could Support 184.8 Million Plug-In Hybrids

So. . . Who should I believe? Rich H, or the US Department of Energy?

The Green Car Congress press release said:

"...A new study for the US Department of Energy finds that off-peak electricity production and transmission capacity could power 84% of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles..."

But the actual study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, at http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pd...s_combined.pdf, said:


"...If charging periods are to be constrained to a 12-hour period starting at 6 pm and ending at 6 am, the technical potential would be reduced to 43% of the LDV fleet..."

Funny how the 43% from 6 pm to 6 am stated in the study morphed into 84% off-peak in the press release. Its also worth noting that the real off-peak period is typically shorter than 12 hours.

The real study also said:

"...Providing 73% of the daily energy requirements of the U.S. LDV fleet with electricity would add approximately 910 billion kWh, an increase of about 24% of the total U.S. annual generation, in 2002 [EIA, 2006b]. Without further infrastructure investments, the current electric power system would be heavily loaded for most hours of all days. It is questionable whether today’s electricity infrastructure and capacity mix will be able to support this level of loading on a sustained basis. Planned outages for plant maintenance would likely need to occur more frequently, making it more difficult to schedule maintenance. Furthermore, the overall system reliability could be reduced in this high-use scenario as less reserve capacity is available to the system operators for managing system emergencies..." (emphasis added)

Kind of amazing how the study's questioning whether today's electricity infrastructure can support sustained vehicle charging was transformed in the press release to the certainty that existing capacity could power 84% of vehicles.

And the real study further said:

"...While we rationalized that PHEV charging could be done without setting new system peaks and causing new transmission congestions, it represents a significant shift from a power system with peaks and valleys to one that is constantly loaded. While the bulk power system is designed to operate reliably at these levels during peak periods, sustained operation at these levels may reveal new constraints. For example, there may be intra-regional transmission constraints that come into place when transmission lines are heavily loaded for extended periods. Specific and detailed regional studies would reveal these delivery constraints. Similarly, the distribution system may impose some additional constraints on the delivery limits to off-peak PHEV charging..." (emphasis added)

So the real study expects transmission and distribution constraints to limit charging capability, but the press release says not so.

Indeed. Who should one believe?

[goldengatehornet]

I would guess that Tesla will be a collectors' car. About 100 will get built before they file Chap 11.

[TimMullen]

I bought a new - actually my wife bought it for me.

It's "candy apple red", with a brown interior.

Here's a couple of photos:

[TimMullen]

I also bought a couple of Exiges:

[Bleu Omdurman]

Originally Posted by AgentTripleX

The Colbert Report Full Episode | Wednesday Sep 17 2008 | Comedy Central

- Jump to 13:55 to hear about how CO2 isn’t causing global warming

- Jump to 16:39 to hear Bob Lutz’s philosophy on electric cars

XXX, thanks. That was a good laugh. Still smiling.

[JAYKAY]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

This is all part of that 'hype' aspect that lets people conveniently ignore the blaring facts, particularly when those facts point to a company that is heading for a delorean repeat.

I had heard essentially that they are still only producing one car a week (remember the 1 car/week and ramping up to 40/week thing from back in january). That means that to date they should have produced TEN cars. If they only have 4 out there then its far worse than what i have heard. The problem comes when youy just start adding the numbers.. At 1 car/week the company with its reported size and employees is hemmoraging money and I believe the purported number is 10/week just to break even at this point. In the mean time they are simply eating away the venture capital.


I talked to someone who supplies parts to tesla and what I heard does not sound very good for the company. Lets just say I would be very interested to hear of anyone who has a tesla and what sort of issues the car has had.

Did you see the silver one in the CIR parking lot the night of the Car Club Challenge? It was parked next to a 360 Modena Spider. I checked it out and the fit/finish was better than I expected (i.e. WAY better than the Lotus). It had IL plates so at least one person around here has one.

Jim

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by JAYKAY

Did you see the silver one in the CIR parking lot the night of the Car Club Challenge? It was parked next to a 360 Modena Spider. I checked it out and the fit/finish was better than I expected (i.e. WAY better than the Lotus). It had IL plates so at least one person around here has one.

Jim

nah, i wasnt there that night.. i wonder who has that tesla and where they live as i have yet to see one driving around in chicago. I would expect that the car is going to be impressive. The elise has never been particularly good in the fit and finish area but then again that wasnt the idea.. With tesla, musk said straight away that he believed that the car wouldnt sell unless they made it more luxurious.

It is going to be interesting to see what happens in the next year as the company progresses. I have heard that musk is spending all his time with spacex which unlike tesla has been a prodigious success, particularly with the latest launch achieving orbit. I would venture a guess that we might see musk start to distance himself from the company in the coming months to forge full speed ahead with spacex.

[ads_green]

Originally Posted by nak

With the Tesla roadster, the cost of the car is out of whack (2.5 times more cdostly than an Elise), but the cost of the fuel is not. Anyone who can afford a Tesla roadster can afford enough solar array to fuel it. What's more, using solar to power a Tesla for twenty years is cheaper right now than paying $4.00 a gallon to fuel a 25 MPG Elise. I used 20 years because that is the waranty period for solar panels. Their actual usable life is far longer.

Using solar to replace cheap grid power is not cost effective, but it has other social benefits like cleaner air and fewer mountains destroyed by coal mining.

Using solar to replace gasoline for mobility purposes is a win today, even without any tax breaks, on a fuel to fuel comparison. You don't need unrealistic assumptions about solar to make this work; the usual 4-5 hours effective peak sun per day numbers are real-world.

You don't have to charge the Tesla using the exact electrons that come off the solar array. Sell the solar power to the grid (at the time of day when power costs the most) and buy it back in the evening after you get home from work (when it is cheaper).

hate to think how many replacement battery packs would be needed in the space of 20 years.

Most of the inefficiencies of an IC engine is the way it's used with fixed gear ratios. You can improve the efficiency alot by running the engine at it's optimum throttle and rpm.

My view is that a 100% electric car is going to struggle as there isn't a really effective portable way of reliably storing electricity with reasonable running costs (replacement cell for example). This may change as technology advances however right now I can't see anything thats going to take the place of liquid fuel.
Given that we already have a reliable distribution and refueling infrastrcuture in place for petrol and diesel the obvious transition to electric cars would be a sequential hybrid - a small conventional IC engine burning liquid fuel (doesn't have to be petrol so can be more environmentally friendly) operating at it's optimum efficiency point driving an all electric drivetrain. Add in a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (say flywheel or small battery/capacitor) then you can incorporate regenerative braking.
It's not perfect but you get the range and refuelling speed of a current car, no massive change to the infrastructure and can be used with existing technology.

[AgentTripleX]

For those interested they're on tonight unless some breaking news comes in. Unfortunately I don't have cable so I'll miss it. Maybe someone local with Tivo can record for me. I'd love to see it.

[JLSELISE]

Spotted at this weekend's West Coast Lotus Meet in Oregon.
We all know that Lotus design and engineering have been way ahead of their time over the years--so this must be the first Elan plug-in hybrid .

[njboy]

Originally Posted by ads_green

Most of the inefficiencies of an IC engine is the way it's used with fixed gear ratios. You can improve the efficiency alot by running the engine at it's optimum throttle and rpm.

My view is that a 100% electric car is going to struggle as there isn't a really effective portable way of reliably storing electricity with reasonable running costs (replacement cell for example). This may change as technology advances however right now I can't see anything thats going to take the place of liquid fuel.
Given that we already have a reliable distribution and refueling infrastrcuture in place for petrol and diesel the obvious transition to electric cars would be a sequential hybrid - a small conventional IC engine burning liquid fuel (doesn't have to be petrol so can be more environmentally friendly) operating at it's optimum efficiency point driving an all electric drivetrain. Add in a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (say flywheel or small battery/capacitor) then you can incorporate regenerative braking.
It's not perfect but you get the range and refuelling speed of a current car, no massive change to the infrastructure and can be used with existing technology.

From Wikipedia:

Most steel engines have a thermodynamic limit of 37%. Even when aided with turbochargers and stock efficiency aids, most engines retain an average efficiency of about 18%-20%.[6][7]

Internal combustion engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An electic motor efficiency is far better than that. And an electric car already has the energy regeneration that you speak of built in without added complexity.

Lithium Ion batteries are recyclable and like other electronics will surely come down in price as demand increases. Bosch and Samsung joint venture for lithium-ion batteries starts operations

No massive changes to the infrastructure are needed for electric plug ins. The power grid is already at your home. As for demand in the future this will be a slow ramp up process as the cost of EVs will be high at first slowing the rate at which we will see them connect to the power grid.

The argument of more natural gas and coal consumption to supply energy to Evs is a valid one. However why does it have to be these fuels? We have one of the most abundant supply of wind energy (NJ plans to become a world leader in wind power - BusinessWeek) in the world. Let's harness that first then go nuclear and then natural gas.

[SweetDaddyD]

Originally Posted by njboy

(NJ plans to become a world leader in wind power - BusinessWeek) in the world. Let's harness that first then go nuclear and then natural gas.

How about lets harness that, solar, geothermal, and tidal energy- THEN nuke and natural gas. (even though utilizing any one of the of the first choices on a massive scale, let alone all of them wouldn't leave any need to continue to use non renewable resources) Of course with wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, etc a huge corporation doesn't have something to sell you to keep it going, and with their lobbying and political influence it's easy to see why these technologies have not been developed in the US.