Comments on: Battery exec: Europe ahead of U.S. on electric cars

Amid discouraging news from U.S. automakers, the CEO of car battery company Valence Technology says Europe is poised to get electric vehicles on road before U.S.

[dbargen]

Um, what markets?

What markets are they talking about here? In the year that prices around the world rose (but mainly in the US) sales of electric cars were down. Way down. we're talking less that 150 for the year TOTAL.

Until they can get that range anywhere close to real vehicles, as in 400-500 miles vs. the 45 the Chevy volt is projected to have, and as soon as the cost of replacment batteries (ie. $10,000 for most US hybrids, and that's is projected to be after 10,000 miles or so) goes down, THEN there might be a market.

Europeans see little to no use for the electric car. Americans probably even less so. To have a market for something, it has to be marketable. If you want this thing to work, go talk to a chemist of physicist on how to make cheaper, longer lasting, more durable fuel cells. Until then, you can't be gas for the TOC, power, and reliability.

[sfbiker]

I have 2 cars, one is used 90% of the time for commuting (less than 10 miles each way). If a full-speed (i.e. not a 25mph limited NEV) electric car were available with a 40 - 50 mile range between charges for less than $20,000 I'd buy it today.

I don't know who needs a 400-500 mile range (my gas powered car only has around a 300 mile range).

A 50 mile range for a commute car is more than reasonable since I can plug it in every day (extra kudos go to a manufacturer who figures out how to make a big inductive charging mat that I can park on and automatically charge my car without having to plug it in). It's not like a gas powered car where I need to go to a special gas station to fill up -- with an electric car, it's like I park my car 5 feet from the gas station.

If I need to go a longer distance for a special trip, I can rent a car (or use city car share or similar).

The Zenn electric car is nearly perfect for my needs, but it's a NEV model limited to 25mph and my commute route has mostly a 35mph speed limit, so I don't want to be a 25mph road block while larger cars are zipping past me at 40 - 50mph. If Zenn could release model that can do 45mph, then I would seriously consider purchasing it.

[sigzero]

So?

[ferretboy88]

Electric cars still use energy. I guess we should all walk to work with our tools and computers.

[ferretboy88]

The U.S invented the solar tech and we passed it off to Europe.

[marvinsfane]

All very well and good that we should change to electric motive power, but are there studies on the flow on effect from this.

Consider that people believe that if they have an electric vehicle, they are green. In a way yes, because suddenly they have a method of transportation that is not releasing actual gases from fossil fuels as they drive around, hey I can't see any exhaust, this must be clean, but is it really?

But what about the load then applied against the power grids. To generate that electricity, still requires a vast amount of coal and gas powered plants. Extra load would necessitate additional power plant to feed the grid.

Forget about that ultimatley new power plants may be "green" ie solar, wind etc and this may address the flow on issues. I would just like to know are there any studies around that discuss the ramifications if we were to all suddenly jump on the electric band wagon?

Maybe, if we're all electric, we may just save our depleted ozone layer as the byproduct of electric motive power is the generation of ozone gas! :-)

[mlamonica]

Yes there have been studies on what impact plug-in electric cars will have on the grid load. If there was a huge jump in electric cars that were charged during peak times, it would exceed the power generation capacity that's already here, according to a study by Oak Ridge Labs. link to story: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9893320-54.html

However, if the cars are charged during off-peak times, like the middle of the night, then there isn't the need to build more power plants, according to studies. Pacific Northwest National Labs is one DOE national lab looking at that. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9855296-54.html?tag=mncol