Israel News:
Parking spaces next to the recharging points will be reserved for customers who want to recharge their electric cars while shopping. Over the next few weeks, shopping centers in six locations will be outfitted with the recharging points, including the Petah Tikva Mall, the Grand Mall in Haifa and Netanya's Hasharon Mall.
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From what I've read, people will need to charge their batteries at NIGHT when electric demand is low--not during the day, while shopping. If daytime demand rises, new coal plants will be needed.
Electric demand is low now due to the manufacturing going away.
There's lots of confusion about the Green Revolution in my opinion. As per the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the efficiency of any energy conversion process is well limited in a definitive fashion. Going "green" surely might have a very positive impact on the environment but it says little about our energy consumption and energy needs. The sad facts is that no other source of energy has much commercially feasible energy density as fossil fuels. We will have to come to the realization that the days of energy gluttony will soon be over. Now electric cars is an emergent technology, and rightfully so. While it is a cleaner technology as compared to internal combustion engines, one has to take into account the entire energy balance for making and implementing such batteries. And once rendered useless, the energy needed to recycle and to dispose need to be factored. I'd love to see a study which provides a full account on this issue. It takes energy to create new forms of energy and materials. Solar energy seems to be a good source but the efficiency of commercial Silicon-based technologies (single photon process) is about 22-23% with a significantly lower energy densities as compared to internal combustion engines. Photovoltaic cells based on multi-photon processes are simply too expensive (typically $5000 per sq.ft) and are used in military applications only. As a techie, I am not too optimistic as hype seems to obscure physical reality.
Your quite right about energy density and it is a common misconception. However, more than 75% of all daily travel is under 40km. A plug in hybrid can easily satisfy that today on batteries only. It is just a matter of adapting a bit and adjusting expectations. Over time plug in hybrid range on electric only will get better.
Also, even if all plug in's are recharged by coal plant generators, it is still far far less polluting compared to the amount of pollution those vehicles would produce if they were gas only.
Please note that I said it'll help with the pollution problem. But never ever will it solve our energy dependence problem. For some reason hype has taken over and people are of the wrong opinion that the so-called alternative energy sources will bail us out from the dependence to fossil fuels. Unfortunately it is not possible.
Good videos on Better Places and Shai Agassi's vision for solar electric cars:
http://www.dasolar.com/solar-energy/solar-powered-cars
Way behind the times.
Current tech lithium batteries are chargeable in sixty seconds. The issue of waiting for charge is very soon to be history.
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2009/03/16/a-fast-charge-discharge-breakthrough/
Folks still chasing battery exchanges and other business ventures based on slow charging batteries are going to miss the boat entirely.
I'm somewhat familiar with the research and it looks promising. But it'll take a couple of years to shake out any potential kinks.
The problem with the electric-only vehicles (and what made cars like the much-lauded-now-that-it's-dead EV1 terrible consumer items) has always been the charging time. You forget to charge your cell, that's too bad. You might have to do with a land line for a couple of hours while it charges. What do you do when you forget to charge your car? Call into the office and tell your boss, "Oops, I'm going to be a few hours late to work"?!
Uh, so this is how your going to get jacked? Great, another way to rip off customers, and don't forget the old supply and demand line, coming through the grapevine- they'll raise prices for electricity to unknown and unfathomable highs! If you thought life sucked before, just wait when all your money goes down the drain for your electricity bills... there's no wondering why they are choosing such a low mileage vehicle... it's all coming out now!
uvymopka
The ChiComs can build Hummers; we can't. The mullahs can go nuclear; we can't. No, we have to go windmill. We have to go junk.
Using oil directly supports Iran, Russia, oil dictators and terrorists and your post against wind generators which can charge EV's could cut money going to them.
For every gal of oil you buy $1 goes directly to them so how much a yr do you support our enemies with? What do you call someone like you who helps our enemies?
If we don't cut our oil use by 5%/yr the price of oil will skyrocket and EV's can help that a lot. I drive 2 every day which gets the cost equivalent of 250 and 600mpg. Having to build my own because no one else would they are very inexpensive to make, run and our soldiers are not being killed from my spending unlike yours!
Nukes are 2x's as expensive as wind, solar thermal, biomass, tidal/river generators, ect in mass production and can be installed now VS 10 yrs or more for nukes.
So be a real patriot and cut your oil use and try to learn something useful instead of listening to Rush, ect, lies leading you like a pig with a ring in it's nose to fatten their bank accounts.
But I already have quite a network of charging plug in parking garages, libraries, 7-11 stores who let me charge the few times I need to away from home.
The ChiComs can build Hummers; we can't. The mullahs can go nuclear; we can't. No, we have to go windmill. We have to go junk.
I just read about this in the Time Magazine - excellent idea - Renault is the manufacturer on board - all the cars have a battery that can be switched out when its dead, or charged if you have time to leave it plugged in - the beauty is that if you're driving for a long time, the stations where you can pull in and switch out the old dead battery for a fully charged one are on a map - it takes about as long as it does to fill your tank now, and there's no carbon footprint, at least nothing like burning gas in an internal combustion engine - this should spread around the planet - the sooner the better - go Shai!!!
What about the carbon footprint from burning coal, which is what's charging these cars?
Of the different methods I've read about, carbon footprints can go anywhere from 8%-35% of the footprint of an internal combustion engine. Variables would be battery type, means of power generation, long charge/short charge, off peak vs high demand, you get the picture. The two links below may help in understanding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19car-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.betterplace.com/
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/04/09/greenlings-benefits-of-charging-stations-vs-battery-swaps-vs-ho/
You have to crawl before you walk. And this is a first step.
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Posted: 06- 2-09 12:54 PM