EVcast #290: Electric Cars = Global Warming

Hey! I'm not an NEV hater, Kevin! I've in fact owned two, and have one right now. But, for publicity and the general public, a lot of folks don't understand that an NEV is slow because it's a small vehicle. They assume that it's slow because it's electric. That doesn't do us any good at all. 

In London, I'd have a GWiz rather than a larger car, but out in the sticks it's sometimes very scary to be in a smaller car which doesn't go too fast. 

Our gas-guzzler is a Smart ForTwo. So I don't have a problem with small cars. But I do have to drive on roads where I'm expected to maintain 50 mph. My G-Wiz just about hits 50mph after a long run up. 

SO yes, I'll be happy to plug NEVs  - but only in appropriate places :) In the UK, we sadly don't have any laws restricting the use of lower speed EVs - and less roads - so very often NEVs end up sharing the road with much larger vehicles which put them both at risk :(

Meet Ellie - my free G-Wiz - the closest we get to NEVs here (of sorts, although she can do a higher speed than most NEVs!)

http://www.aminorjourney.com/journal/2009/10/19/blown-motors-and-free-g-wizzes.html

Thanks for writing Kevin, I'd rather have a discussion than not hear from anyone! ;)

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Ryan,
     Congratulations on making it to the next step in the adoption process.  Go find us some EVs down three in Columbia.  Or at least learn to say EV in Spanish.

Later
John C. Briggs

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Well, Bo, inquiring minds want to know, how many coal power plants does the USA have?  If the attached website is correct, the answer is 614.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Existing_U.S._Coal_Plants

Surprisingly, that include 6 in Massachusetts (Gav still doesn't know where that is).

Pennsylvania has 40 coal-fired power plants and Ohio has 35.   But Texas produces the most power per year from coal with its 20 plants.  Interestingly, it is also the biggest user of Wind Power.  Perhaps it is just a really big state with a lot of people and AC.

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I was looking forward to a more in depth discussion about the Aptera situation.

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Well, living in Texas I can tell you this place sucks for energy consumption. Last summer I racked up an $800 bill and the following month a $550 electric bill. All from trying to cool my stupid 2400 sq ft house. I must add to that though I'm renting this place, and the landlord doesn't like to fix things very often. That was with Green Mountain Energy though, charging me a nice 6 cent premium over the regular electric company down here.

We have a couple Nuke plants down here too John, they help out those, did you say 20 coal plants? Doesn't seem like enough considering the size and energy usage of the state. I'm totally all for getting off the grid myself, but it's hard to conserve in a home you don't own. Working on buying a nice super efficient place next year. Just wish the homebuilder was willing to install geothermal heating/cooling, EER of up to 27 vs the max SEER of 21 with an A/C unit, and they install SEER 15 on all of their houses, which is pretty amazing. Sad isn't it?

On the EVCarCo topic, I met Dale Long and drove my first EV car the same day Bo & Ryan interviewed him. Actually found out about EVCarCo from listening to EVCast, so I thought that was pretty cool. Today I listened to the interview with McQ (episode 129 or something like that) of RTEV.net who oddly enough manufactures the WheeGo Whip, the first EV I ever got to drive. Not bad for an NEV, though being 6'6" tall I was surprised I fit so well. The Current EV has like no leg room, but enough headroom for someone two or three inches taller than me to sit pretty comfortably in there. They just need to add longer tracks for the seats to add some leg room.

Dale mentioned the Crash Tested, DOT Certified highway approved car that's coming out in a few months. He commented on something big coming around the bend, and made it sound like a game changer (as far as available/affordable cars are concerned). Something that good in two months... sounds, again, too good to be true. I've been checking their website daily to see if any major news gets posted.

Keeping my fingers crossed,
Morgan (in the Green Car Dealer Capital of the World Dallas/Ft Worth Texas)

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Morgan,
  Those energy bills are rough.  After doing a lot of conservation in my home (reduced by 74%) and getting solar panels, now I only spend about $204 on electricity per year.  It is very nice.  On the other hand, my out of pocket expenses on the solar panels were $16,000 plus $3500 in conservation measures.  But it feels nice not to have a big monthly bill.

   But capital investment is always difficult.  I have been wanting a high efficiency furnace but have difficulty parting with the $12,000 it will probably take.   I use about 1000 gallons of home heating oil per year for heat and hot water.  So at $2.75 per gallon, that will be $2750 this year.  Not so nice and not very "green".

    The same problem exists with EVs.  If an EV becomes available but is $40,000, I don't know if I will get it.

Later

John C. Briggs

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Dr. Briggs,

I actually remember the podcast where you were talking about solar panels, and when you mentioned how much they cost you. I lived in Mass for 19 or so years, and remember the ridiculous cost for heating oil during the long winters. The nice thing about geothermal, from what I've researched, you can run your house at 72 F all year around and it won't cost very much. Texas that equals massive savings on cooling, up north, on heating. Pellet stoves are neat, we had a quadrafire wood stove the last few years we lived up in MA (we = folks and me) so we burned wood, and the vapors were then cooked like a CC on a car cooks off exhaust once it gets to temp. The cost of the furnace, as I understand it, is about $8k and the drilling is about $15k depending on how much you need to drill, and you only have to replace the system once every 20 years or so. Plus you don't have to worry about pilot lights etc, and maintenance is near nil cost wise too.

As far as BEV's etc I agree that spending 40k on a car would be silly, unless you planned on keeping that car for 10 years or something like that where the cost of repairs/gas/replacement involved with an ICE would be more costly. I love that BEV's don't need to really have much maintenance, since they are relatively simple. If EESTOR ever gets their act together we then don't even have to worry about replacing batteries every 5-15 years, whatever the situation will be. So who knows, maybe the Tesla Model S will be worth the 50 grand it'll cost to put on the road, if you hang on to it for a while that is.

Morgan

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