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Old 11-08-2012, 02:48 PM  
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Stimulus Provides Infrastructure

A NC firm received almost a quarter million dollars in stimulus grant money to install electric car refueling stations. The four installed at interstate rest stops have proven quite economical as the electric bill as of August was less than $15.00. Since it takes 3 to 6 hours for a complete charge they may prove more useful to locals as a good place to read a good book while getting a free charge.
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Old 11-08-2012, 05:31 PM  
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19 stations $13,000 per station. Most are in various parking decks throughout the city. Pure Electric vehicles are intended more for commuters rather than interstate travel, so you can pull up, plug in and charge up while you're doing whatever business needs to be done. Having them at rest stops makes sense if the objective is to help prevent commuters from being stranded with an "empty tank". 30 minutes on the charger is good for 15 miles or so.

We've got our first consumer-grade CNG fuel point installed locally. Cost per gallon equivalent is a bit over $2. We're seeing a lot of interest in dual-fuel conversions to take advantage of it. With as much driving as I do, I could break even on a conversion kit in less than a year at current pricepoints.
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Old 11-09-2012, 08:09 AM  
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Of course we don't know what taxes will be on EVs once the government gets its toll.This is from http://www.saratogafalcon.org/conten...unfeasible-now
Quote:
Switching to electric vehicles unfeasible for now
September 7, 2012 ? by Nick Chow

This August, Tesla Motors announced that it will open its first Bay Area electric car service center in San Rafael. While many environmental activists applaud this move, it has significant economic and environmental drawbacks.

Electric cars have been praised by car companies and environmental groups for their supposed ?eco-friendliness? because they are powered by ?zero-emissions? electricity. Unfortunately, a majority of this electricity is produced by burning coal and petroleum, which still releases harmful pollutants into the atmosphere.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy?s 2010 annual energy report, 74 percent of our country?s electricity came from fossil fuels and petroleum, while only 8 percent came from renewable energy sources.

Furthermore, electric cars create solid waste in the form of car batteries. Whereas defunct gas engines are reused, electric car batteries cannot be recycled safely, and are thus disposed of in landfills.

Electric cars must also have their batteries replaced during their lifetime, since the batteries? ability to hold a charge diminishes over time. Tesla Motors estimates that its batteries will last approximately five years, and then the battery will need to be replaced, for about $10,000.

Since the number of electric cars on the road is limited, battery disposal has not yet presented a huge a problem. But as the number of electric cars increases, more used car batteries will fill landfills, further compounding the trash problem. According to the New York Times, by 2020, about half a million batteries from electric cars will have to be disposed of annually.

When electric cars first became popular, one of the main selling points was the cars? noise level. When driving an electric car, the engine is barely audible to the driver and the passengers.

Unfortunately, the engine noise is also inaudible to pedestrians and outside traffic. This creates a huge problem to blind pedestrians who rely on a car?s engine noise to gauge its distance from themselves. In a 2011 study, the National Highway Traffic Safety administration found that hybrid cars (running on their electric motors) have a higher collision rate with pedestrians and cyclists than do gas-powered cars.

If a blind pedestrian cannot hear the approaching electric car, it presents a dangerous situation for both the pedestrian and the driver, as well as surrounding traffic.

Perhaps the most prohibitive factor in the developing electric car industry is the cost. The baseline price for electric cars is substantially higher than that of regular cars.

The Nissan Leaf, one of the least expensive electric cars on the market, sells for $35,000 after the $8,000 federal rebate. The cheapest Tesla Model S electric car starts with a baseline price of $50,000 after the rebate.

Not only are electric cars substantially more expensive, but the price for changing the transportation infrastructure is also quite expensive. The cost for the actual electricity to charge the car is relatively insubstantial, but completely revamping gasoline stations to incorporate electric vehicle charging areas will prove to be excessively expensive.

The basic electric charging stations cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 to build individually. According to the website Digital Trends, New York is spending $4.4 million on 325 charging stations. This equates to a staggering $13,000 per station!

Since electric car batteries drain quickly and charge extremely slowly (ranging anywhere from 3-8 hours for a full charge), these charging stations will need to be built extensively throughout metropolitan areas, further adding to the cost.

While electric cars provide some (debatable) advantages, this much is clear: The current day electric car is not quite ready to solve the world?s pollution conundrum.
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Old 11-09-2012, 10:42 AM  
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Originally Posted by Eddie_T View Post
Of course we don't know what taxes will be on EVs once the government gets its toll.This is from http://www.saratogafalcon.org/conten...unfeasible-now
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Whereas defunct gas engines are reused, electric car batteries cannot be recycled safely, and are thus disposed of in landfills.
The recycling industry for these batteries is still being conceived. At 80% capacity, they are considered unsuitable for automotive use (which this takes about 5 to 10 years, depending on the particular battery chemistry) but they still have about 10 years of useful life left beyond that point, more if they are properly maintained. These en masse, these batteries are well suited for grid-storage, which is needed for load-balancing the extra solar and wind energy production that will be needed to cleanly power these vehicles.

Once they degrade to the point that they aren't useful for even this task, they contain 10% to 20% lithium cobalt oxide, a material valued at ~$25,000/ton. Contrast with, say, steel, which has a scrap value of about $100/ton.

When they say "these batteries cannot be recycled safely" the keyword is the unspoken "yet". Any recycling industry requires a consistent waste stream to feed it, and until these cars are on the road, we're not going to have such a stream.

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Not only are electric cars substantially more expensive, but the price for changing the transportation infrastructure is also quite expensive. The cost for the actual electricity to charge the car is relatively insubstantial, but completely revamping gasoline stations to incorporate electric vehicle charging areas will prove to be excessively expensive.
The cost of a consumer-grade charging station is somewhere between that of a water heater and a furnace, and would most likely be factored into the cost of buying the car. The post you started this with suggested the price for a commercial-grade charging station was in the ballpark of $13,000. And they wouldn't be retrofitting gas stations - they'd be retrofitting garages and parking decks.
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Old 11-09-2012, 12:37 PM  
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Originally Posted by rivalarrival View Post
The recycling industry for these batteries is still being conceived. At 80% capacity, they are considered unsuitable for automotive use (which this takes about 5 to 10 years, depending on the particular battery chemistry) but they still have about 10 years of useful life left beyond that point, more if they are properly maintained. These en masse, these batteries are well suited for grid-storage, which is needed for load-balancing the extra solar and wind energy production that will be needed to cleanly power these vehicles.

Once they degrade to the point that they aren't useful for even this task, they contain 10% to 20% lithium cobalt oxide, a material valued at ~$25,000/ton. Contrast with, say, steel, which has a scrap value of about $100/ton.

When they say "these batteries cannot be recycled safely" the keyword is the unspoken "yet". Any recycling industry requires a consistent waste stream to feed it, and until these cars are on the road, we're not going to have such a stream.
The implication is that recycling will also require heavy subsidies so the deficit/debt rolls on.
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Old 11-09-2012, 12:50 PM  
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The implication is that recycling will also require heavy subsidies so the deficit/debt rolls on.
The implication is that as soon as there is a source for the raw materials required, recycling options become commercially feasible.
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Old 11-09-2012, 04:59 PM  
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I live 4 miles from where I work. Right now I drive a Toyota Matrix. If I could afford an electric car I would get one. Not to be good to the planet or any of that HIPPY crap. Nope because I don't like giving money to companies that keep radical muslims or radical communist murders flush with cash and in power.

My problem is this any electric car cost $35k + that to me is outrageous.
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Old 11-09-2012, 08:34 PM  
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Originally Posted by mrmurdoc34 View Post
I live 4 miles from where I work. Right now I drive a Toyota Matrix. If I could afford an electric car I would get one. Not to be good to the planet or any of that HIPPY crap. Nope because I don't like giving money to companies that keep radical muslims or radical communist murders flush with cash and in power.

My problem is this any electric car cost $35k + that to me is outrageous.
Agreed. Unfortunately, there are a ton of catch-22 situations with electric cars. The infrastructure isn't in place yet because the demand is so low, but demand is so low because there isn't much infrastructure. Economies of scale come with massive production, but you can't get massive demand without the infrastructure, so costs stay high, reducing demand. On and on and on... This is why I don't have a problem with long-term (but temporary) subsidies for revolutionary ventures. They're needed to bootstrap the industry, make it feasible to get it started. Installing a fairly large network of publicly accessible charging stations is a start. Subsidizing the cost of the cars is another start. Get the ball rolling, show industry that there is money to be made, then you can pull the subsidies and begin taxing the industry to recoup your investment.

The only other way this happens is for a mega-corporation to build an entire industry completely on speculation, and there are a hell of a lot of other, safer ways for a conglomerate that large to make money, so why should they risk it?

The government doesn't have much to lose on the venture. A few million in subsidies here and there is worth it for for the possibility of taxing an entire industry. Hell, if it means we can leverage the price of imported oil, we can make back that sort of investment in a matter of hours.
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Old 11-10-2012, 02:50 PM  
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Originally Posted by rivalarrival View Post
Agreed. Unfortunately, there are a ton of catch-22 situations with electric cars. The infrastructure isn't in place yet because the demand is so low, but demand is so low because there isn't much infrastructure. Economies of scale come with massive production, but you can't get massive demand without the infrastructure, so costs stay high, reducing demand. On and on and on... This is why I don't have a problem with long-term (but temporary) subsidies for revolutionary ventures. They're needed to bootstrap the industry, make it feasible to get it started. Installing a fairly large network of publicly accessible charging stations is a start. Subsidizing the cost of the cars is another start. Get the ball rolling, show industry that there is money to be made, then you can pull the subsidies and begin taxing the industry to recoup your investment.

The only other way this happens is for a mega-corporation to build an entire industry completely on speculation, and there are a hell of a lot of other, safer ways for a conglomerate that large to make money, so why should they risk it?

The government doesn't have much to lose on the venture. A few million in subsidies here and there is worth it for for the possibility of taxing an entire industry. Hell, if it means we can leverage the price of imported oil, we can make back that sort of investment in a matter of hours.
Sounds good in theory but our government just doesn't seem competent to place subsidies in the right place (or for the right reason).
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Old 11-10-2012, 08:11 PM  
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Sounds good in theory but our government just doesn't seem competent to place subsidies in the right place (or for the right reason).
How many subsidies are you aware of that have failed to produce their intended results, and how many total subsidies have been granted? $90 billion in subsidies to green energy companies on Obama's watch. How much of that was given to companies that went bankrupt? $1 billion. Far better than Bain Capital's record, and absolutely extraordinary given the inherent risks involved in any revolutionary technology.

My point is that the idea that the government is incompetent is primarily due to confirmation bias. When the government does something right, we don't see it. When they screw the pooch, everybody hears about it. We've come to associate everything government-related with incompetence, fraud, waste, and abuse, but what we forget is that the reason we're hearing about this is not because it's the rule, but because it is the exception to the rule.
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