Comments on: Google revs up smart charging for plug-ins

As part of its work with plug-in electric vehicles, Google is testing software designed to let cars recharge without stressing the grid.

[lvcsslacker]

One more step to prove that google owns the world. Haha

[Super2online]

I be pretty ticked if my battery was almost dead when I came home and plugged it in, and then the "car decides" to charge for only 2 minutes and then stop. 2 hours later I hop in to go somewhere, and batteries guage says the charge is right where I left it when I plugged it in!

The person should be in charge of the car, not the other way around. No thanks Google, I will make sure I'm not buying cars with your technology included!

[tech_crazy]

Yup! There needs to be a manual over-ride at the least.

[streamline35]

Would you be ticked off if you plugged in your car and the entire power grid went down and it didn't get charged anyway? If you have a better solution, please, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it, but until then sometimes cooperation is better for the group as a whole, then everyone being selfish and trying to get ahead themselves, which in the end just drags everyone down. Plus it's a plugin hybrid, so it's not like you can't drive at all, you'll just have a little more gas than you normally would (where as with an electric car, you'd need a slightly better solution, like solar panels).

[EarthForTomorrow]

We would like to talk to Goggle regarding this, as well as other green projects in the wind. If you have a contact for them or team Google is reading this - please contact us via website http://EarthForTomorrow.com (beta)

[Mac OS XP]

I hope it has settings that lets users choose weather to just charge normally or have the software make the decisions. What if my car is out of charge and I know I will need it at 4AM? I'm not going to care how efficient that is, I'm going to care that it's charged!

[mattie121]

My folks had an EV-1. They did something like this, but not centrally controlled. They programmed the charger to run when rates were lowest and paid 1/4th the cost per mile than if they charged at peak times. It's not to hard to imagine that if you had to plug in, you'd set the controller to "eff off central planning" and pay what you had to to charge when you wanted. But if the population of cars is high, it's pretty certain that there would be a lot of capacity that was willing, even eager, to set the charger to "charge when cheapest".

[mlamonica]

The cheapest time is typically going to be at the middle of the night when demand is lowest. This also happens to be when wind tends to blow in some places like California, Reicher said. Of course, your utility has to offer time-of-day pricing to reflect demand, but many utilities don't.

[Spanwite]

With a conventional Vehicle, when do People usually fill up the Gas?
After work, or early in the morning before work; and Gas stations are plastered with Cars.
Rush hour at the Gas Station!

Don't you think this can/should be managed a bit "smarter" as "dumb" with e-Vehicles, in a new age?
Fully Charged can be done in less then 3hr, of course not on a 110Volt flashlight outlet!

[Joe Real]

This is very smart of Google to go into this kind of project.

When recharging your EV, there should be at least two modes of recharging, one is in the economic mode. The car will recharge at the most economic time when the electricity rates are lowest priced.

The other mode is the normal or convenience mode, where you charge anytime you want, knowing that if you charge during the peak electricity demand, you will be billed for an arm and a leg.

At least there is still a choice.

The best combo that I would like is to install a solar PV, especially in California where we have above average sunshine intensity and hours. Peak electric demand has a nice overlap with electricity production from solar radiation. A better program would be for Google, the government, and the EV manufacturers to give lots more incentives for EV owners to install solar PV. This way, for each additional EV, there is a stronger likelihood of adding an energy source from solar PV.

I myself would install solar PV when I purchase an EV. But for now, even though the solar PV cells have been published to be in the sub $1/watt cost of production, the total cost of installation is still at $8-$11/watt. To break even and worth my time, the price should be between $3-$4/watt. What is wrong with a 300% profit margin? Why do the solar industry need to have a 1,000% profit margin?