Republican Congressman Calls for Cancellation of $7,500 Plug-in Vehicle Tax Credit

[JRP3]

You answered your own question with the usage of one word, "should."
Don't confuse what "should" be in reality to what "is" in perception.
If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle, but if she still wore dresses & make-up, she may be perceived to be my aunt!

The Volt is perceived to be an EV. You and I know better, but its tough to fight the perception so bad mouthing the Volt will be like shooting the EV community in the foot.
I've run out of cliches so I'll stop pontificating there.

I'm not suggesting that we should bad mouth the Volt, I am saying we should take every opportunity to correctly point out that it is in fact a hybrid, which is not the same thing. There are a lot of misconceptions about EV's and the Volt, I think we should try to educate whenever possible, not perpetuate the ignorance. Sounds like a catch phrase, "Educate, don't perpetuate".

 

[JRP3]

In which case you may as well get a CNG conversion and get the benefits of home recharging and significantly more kWh / $.

I'm not sure how that could work. This Phil unit uses 800 watts and takes 8 hours to fill 100 miles of range: http://www.foxservice.com/austin/kn...ompressed Natural Gas&_filterField=Categories
So that's 6.4kWh's lost without moving the vehicle. Then you burn the CNG in an ICE at maybe 20% efficiency. NG generating plants run between 40-60%, so we can use 50% as an average. Even adding transmission losses, charging, and operating losses, the EV comes out ahead.

 

[DrTaras]

that anyone who gives more than a cursory look will notice

Exactly, but most people do NOT give more than a cursory look about almost ANYTHING other than maybe Kim Kardashian or Snooki! Ugh! :cursing:

That's why every individual failure tends to hurt the whole industry.

Tru dat

PS-The reason I made reference to Kardashian and Snooki is because I noticed that when I did a TMC search of those two terms nothing came up.
I would like TMC to get more mainstream buzz & my teenage daughter told me that was the way to get it.
My apologies to those of you who need to buy a new keyboard because of the knee-jerk reflex to projectile vomit when you see those names! :redface:

 

[rolosrevenge]

It must be remembered that since Obama made EVs a priority and the GOP (leaders and politicians) want more power, they are therefore hoping that EVs fail to make Obama look bad. If it were a GOP president backing EVs, the Dems would be against them for power. It's just simple partisan politics, nothing more. It is sad and disgusting, but the last 6 years have taught me that both sides are equally guilty of this.

 

[EVNow]

It must be remembered that since Obama made EVs a priority and the GOP (leaders and politicians) want more power, they are therefore hoping that EVs fail to make Obama look bad. If it were a GOP president backing EVs, the Dems would be against them for power. It's just simple partisan politics, nothing more. It is sad and disgusting, but the last 6 years have taught me that both sides are equally guilty of this.

I don't think so. When Bush was president and supported EVs, dems were still for EV. This is just a false equivalence.

 

[richkae]

I'm not sure how that could work. This Phil unit uses 800 watts and takes 8 hours to fill 100 miles of range: http://www.foxservice.com/austin/kn...ompressed Natural Gas&_filterField=Categories
So that's 6.4kWh's lost without moving the vehicle. Then you burn the CNG in an ICE at maybe 20% efficiency. NG generating plants run between 40-60%, so we can use 50% as an average. Even adding transmission losses, charging, and operating losses, the EV comes out ahead.

CNG cars are inferior. I looked into them and wrote this on my blog: Compressed Natural Gas | High Speed Charging
The short of it vs an EV: they are more expensive to operate, less convenient to use, and have significantly less cargo space than a proper EV due to the giant CNG cylinder.

 

[zack]

Here you go: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_PNP_CAPFUEL_DCU_NUS_A.htm

That's enough electricity alone (just counting kilowatt hours) to drive Roadsters for 202 billion miles. Americans only drive about 200 billion miles per month. Just the electricity would drive a nation of Roadsters for a full month. Not even counting all of the rest of the wasted energy!

http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=443

 

[W.Petefish]

CNG cars are inferior. I looked into them and wrote this on my blog: Compressed Natural Gas | High Speed Charging
The short of it vs an EV: they are more expensive to operate, less convenient to use, and have significantly less cargo space than a proper EV due to the giant CNG cylinder.

Not to mention that you are sitting in a vehicle that can become a roman candle, or a rocket, at the blink of an eye.

 

[slcasner]

That's enough electricity alone (just counting kilowatt hours) to drive Roadsters for 202 billion miles.

I calculate about 11.5 billion miles per month: 46227 MWh / year => 3852 MWh / month. Assuming 3 miles per kWh coming from the wall, that's 11.557 billion miles for the electricity consumed by the refineries in a month. So that is about 1/17th of the total required, assuming that all of the miles driven were ones that could be satisfied with a vehicle as efficient as a Roadster.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Nah. There is an abundant supply of electricity at night that is unused. Since the overwhelming majority of electricity in charging EVs is used at night (that's when you should charge 99.5% of the time), it's the perfect marriage to help balance the system.

At the risk of being a pedant about this point, electricity is never unused; if it's not needed, it's not generated. What is unused overnight is generation capacity. Overnight, big power plants ramp down their output to match output to overall demand; this is inefficient, because the plants aren't operating at their sweet spot AND because we have to build power plants dedicated to occasional use during peak periods. Shifting demand from peak to off-peak improves utilization of the existing power plants and reduces the need for, and use of, costly and inefficient peaking power plants.

The holy grail would be using EVs to accept variable charging rates (if not individually, then collectively). That would truly allow EVs to help integrate large-scale wind generation, which fluctuates minute-to-minute, by creating a highly controllable, minute-to-minute load to follow the generation. Accomplishing that goal, however, will require substantial changes to our communication and EVSE control structure.

 

[Todd Burch]

Yes--I meant capacity.

 

[Jaff]

Agree...I think everyone needs to remember that supporting EV's is not solely the domain of the Left...there are plenty of Centrists and Center-Right folks who support EV's 100%.

I think bashing either side is unproductive and hurts the cause...

I don't think so. When Bush was president and supported EVs, dems were still for EV. This is just a false equivalence.

 

[JRP3]

CNG cars are inferior. I looked into them and wrote this on my blog: Compressed Natural Gas | High Speed Charging
The short of it vs an EV: they are more expensive to operate, less convenient to use, and have significantly less cargo space than a proper EV due to the giant CNG cylinder.

I also blogged about why CNG vehicles aren't a great idea, and far from the panacea some would treat them as: http://ephase.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-not-natural-gas.html

 

[dmckinstry]

My apologies to those of you who need to buy a new keyboard because of the knee-jerk reflex to projectile vomit when you see those names! :redface:

Doesn't happen to me. I probably wouldn't recognize them if I saw them. Don't give a damn about them one way or the other.

 

[dpeilow]

Accomplishing that goal, however, will require substantial changes to our communication and EVSE control structure.

What's cool about the Estonia announcement is that the ABB system can do this. So they are off to a good start.

 

[DrTaras]

It's just simple partisan politics, nothing more. It is sad and disgusting, but the last 6 years have taught me that both sides are equally guilty of this.

I'm reading "The Clinton Tapes" and Bill Clinton laments in the mid '90s at how obstructionist the Republicans in Congress were to get him tossed out. I also remember in 2005 the Democrats filibustering judge votes of the Republican majority and the GOP decrying for an 'up or down vote.' Seems the more things change the more they stay the same. Compromise is the art of the possible!

 

[neroden]

Exactly, but most people do NOT give more than a cursory look about almost ANYTHING

This is arguably the major problem with humanity.

I have a tendency to investigate everything in excruciating detail, and even then I usually find myself feeling that I don't know enough. This is not how the majority of the population behaves. It depresses me.

Y'all, as people trying to get off fossil fuels, probably know all about the principles of super-insulation, heat recovery ventilators, etc., but frankly none of this is understood among most of the HVAC *professionals* within a 100-mile radius of my location, let alone the homeowners. Just an example which has been on my mind (retrofitting a highly-insulated house built by an 'award-winning' builder, which was simply *not done right* in several stupid ways).

I've started assuming that people don't know what they're doing, on every single topic, until they prove otherwise. I have great respect for people who actually admit that they don't know what they're doing, because a large number are really quite insistent about propagating their ignorance....

...to turn the topic back to politics, one person I know says the reason he really respects Al Gore is that Mr. Gore asked actual mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers what the money for research in computing should be spent on -- they told him to fund the design of the Internet. Which is what went into the bill he put through Congress back when, which did fund the design of the Internet.... he listened to the right people.