The quick answer is: I think so. But I'm not entirely sure.
I attended a round table today with execs from Ford Motor Co., ComEd and the City of Chicago. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but Joshua Milberg, the first deputy commissioner for the Chicago Department of Environment, was rather vague.
Is the city working on a plan to support an electric car infrastructure? Yes.
What is that plan? The city will be making an announcement soon.
What is soon? This week? Next week? Next year? Soon is sometime this fall or winter.
I guess I was kind of hoping that this is what the round table would be about. So, what did I learn? Not nothing. (Double negative intended.)
On the Ford front, I learned that the automaker has plans to launch electric vehicle (EV) models of the Transit Connect and the all-new Focus. These will be available at the end of 2011. Additionally, for will be launching a yet unnamed plug-in hybrid and two all-new hybrids. Today, we had the chance to drive the Escape Hybrid Plug-In Prototype, but there was no confirmation that this is the vehicle that would get the plug-in powertrain.
On the ComEd front, I learned that there are huge considerations in terms of grid impact when electric cars hit the market. If one EV shows up on the block and uses a 240-volt plug to charge, no big deal. But if a cluster of EVs show up on the same block, the transformer in place may not be able to support the surge in usage. Thus the likely policy that will be adopted is "load shifting," meaning that if you charge during off-peak times, it will cost you less. Right now, Illinois is charged 11 cents per kWh. Period. But, if load shifting takes effect, you could conceivably be charged 18 cents per kWh for electricity usage in peak times and 8 cents per kWh in off-peak times--like the middle of the night.
On the City of Chicago front, I learned that, um, the city is doing, well, something, and it will be announced (cough) soon. OK, skepticism aside, I do need to give Mr. Milberg a little more credit. He did say the city is looking at 1) partnerships to help build the infrastructure, 2) policies that will need to change/be addressed to accommodate the onslaught of the electric car and 3) the infrastructure itself.
Other random facts I learned today (In parenthesis is the round table presenter who gave the fact ... so don't blame me if they're wrong. This is a blog, and I'm just repeating. If, however, you can counter or add, the comment field is below):
- In 1914 one third of the cars on the road were electric (Ford)
- The average Chicago driver commutes less than 40 miles per day (City of Chicago)
- You will save $10 for every 100 miles you drive in an electric vehicle (ComEd)
- Electric vehicles will save 6 tons of carbon dioxide per year (ComEd)
- Not all EVs getting ready to launch in the US have a uniform plug, which makes public charging stations a challenge (ComEd)
- Ford will be using a lithium ion battery in their EVs (Ford)
- By 2020, Ford plans to have around 25 percent of their vehicles be EVs or plug-in hybrids (Ford)
- The Focus EV when it launches is projected to get 100 miles per charge (Ford)
Filed under: News you can use
Tags: electric car, EV, focus, Ford, ford escape plug-in hybrid, ford focus electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid
Working with SAE a standard plug design will be used by all EVs, so check off that issue.
The bottom line is dollars per mile. Using the $10 per 100 mile saving in an EV, it will take 40,000 miles to recover, as an example, a $2000 added cost for an EV over a gasoline car and $2000 cost to install a charging station in your garage...if you even have a garage.
What if you park on the street...doesn't look good for that. However, if we get public and corporate parking lots and garages to put in charging stations we can get somewhere. Drive to work; plug in; swipe your debit card and charge your battery all day. Do the same at night at home. Voila!
Good information as usual. I think it is a great idea, if they can just figure out where to put the charging stations. I would like to see cars in Florida run on solor power, we have so much sun here I think it would be a great use of it.
Here in Santa Monica, we've been building solar carports for over a decade. We charge the cars from sunlight just as Judy suggests. The money saved from having to buy gas easily returns a profit for the solar carport owner.
We're going to make a huge infrastructure investment and incur huge capital costs so that we can mine coal, burn it to convert it to mechanical energy which generates electricity, transport it through the grid, incurring transmission losses, and then convert it back to mechanical energy. And how is this a good idea? Hey folks...you heard it here first. Don't you think natural gas, which is less than half the cost of oil, would make more sense?
Infrastructure/capital is pretty small...electricity is already everywhere.
It's a good idea because it's much more efficient than the alternatives, even despite the losses. Coal is only about half the grid, and declining. There have been a great number of studies showing that this is worthwhile even if you just consider the green angle (of course there are other reasons to go electric). Google Sherry Boschert for a meta-review of about 40 of them.
Electricity is everywhere but the capacity is not in place to charge all these cars. I would just like to see one study that compares the TOTAL cost of an electric vehicle to a natural gas vehicle, including the additional manufacturing costs and the eventual replacement of the batteries.
one of the interesting things for did say is that when the life of the battery is done in a car, it still has life in it. so, they actually talked about plans for continuing use for that battery. i know "eventual" will happen, but it could conceivably be 50 to 100 years down the road.
BTW, cudos to the CTA for ordering two all electric buses.
absolutely! for more info, here's the link to the trib article: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-10-28/news/ct-met-cta-electric-bus-20101028_1_cta-fleet-diesel-electric-hybrid-buses-diesel-buses