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Page added on May 29, 2010
The Beginning of the End of Our Oil Addiction
The electric vehicle is here – and its mass deployment in the US has just begun.
On Thursday, both the House and the Senate introduced bi-partisan legislation to scale up the use of electric vehicles in the US. The legislation would provide incentives for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in select “communities” around the country, with the goal of deploying 700,000 vehicles in those regions within the next six years.
By encouraging growth in specific locations, the legislation aims to overcome some of the barriers currently preventing greater adoption of electric vehicles: like creating a charging infrastructure and preparing utilities to support that infrastructure. Both challenges face a chicken and egg problem. Consumers won’t buy electric vehicles until there are places to charge them, both at-home and on the road (like gas stations), as well as additional electric services to support them (like smart grids). And infrastructure providers and utilities won’t invest in those stations and services until there are electric vehicles on the road to use them. The community-based approach addresses this problem by providing incentives for all the key components of an electric vehicle ecosystem at the same time, in a single geographic region. And it is the recommended approach of businesses throughout the electric vehicle supply chain, including leadership organizations like the Electrification Coalition.
4 Comments on "The Beginning of the End of Our Oil Addiction "
hoangkybactien on Sat, 29th May 2010 10:10 am
This is a delusion (electric vehicles)!
because, like millions of other man-made products, electrical energy IS also a man-made product! Men must burn fossil fuels such as oil or coal or tires or trashes to generate heat which ,in turn, is used to convert -by mean of steam turbines and generator- into electrical energy. Or Uranium must be consumed in nuclear power plants in order to produce the necessary heat that is used for electrical energy generation.
So, in this context, a direct energy conversion from oils into mechanical power -by mean of internal combustion engine – is more efficient than the two-stage system (electric cars and the means to generate and distribute electrical energy to power those electric cars) that is being promoted.
In other words, if one views individual gasoline car as distributed (spreaded)pollutors, then the electric car system is centralized pollutors.
For example, lets say we want to replace 10,000 gasoline cars in the city of Chicago, then we have to build either coal or nuclear power plants that have the capacity to produce the same amount of energy that the 10,000 gasoline cars produced at any instant of time. Otherwise, the power-plants will be overloaded, then tripped!
And since the efficiency of the power plants/electric car system which is essentially a two-stage energy conversion system almost always lower than a single stage energy conversion system, more fuel (coals, petroleum, uranium) must be consumed in order to produced the same amount of output energy required; thus, we essentiall pollute the environment more, not less!
James on Sat, 29th May 2010 11:25 am
Electric cars will never become the mainstay after oil except for local in city travel. The range of the batteries will be restricted by the physics of the battery, and the natural resources to make the batteries, namely Lithium. The real solution to long range travel will be railroads and buses. After you arrive at your destination from using the train or bus, you can take advantage of electric cars, mass transit systems, bicycles, or just walk. Electric Semi-trucks will never become a reality since the energy required to carry loads a long distance is beyond any batteries ability.
Jeff White on Sun, 30th May 2010 6:56 am
Battery power is not the only way to propel electric vehicles. As far as mass public transport is concerned, vehicles capable of collecting power via overhead wires have been around for over a century.
Trams and trolleybuses were removed from many city streets for being seen as outdated and inflexible. Latest technology has improved their performance and, as oil becomes scarcer and dearer, they may well become the only alternative to using your own two feet.
KenZ300 on Tue, 1st Jun 2010 12:15 am
Toyota has just invested in Tesla electric vehicles and they will be produced at the old NUMMI plant.
Nissan has announced that the Leaf Electric is sold out for orders for 2010.
Israel is pushing to move to electrics as a nation and reduce their dependence on oil.
Many auto makers are planning plug in electrics.
Looks like there may be hope for the future. Will we get there before PEAK OIL drives the price of oil up and damages our economy?