According to kplu

Now, driving an all-electric vehicle is well on its way to becoming mainstream reality. A pilot program is installing thousands of electric car charging stations in the Puget Sound region and making them more available to regular folks.

As more and more charging stations are put up the limited range of an electric vehicle is going to be a moot point.

One blogger is argueing that no, we don’t.

To review the math, a gallon of gasoline releases 20.35 pounds of CO2 (9,231 grams) when it is burned in an internal combustion engine. So a normal car that meets current CAFE standards of 27.5 mpg is responsible for roughly 336 grams of CO2 emissions per mile. In contrast, an HEV like the Prius, which slashes fuel consumption by roughly 40% through a combination of recuperative braking, idle elimination and electric launch will be responsible for roughly 201 grams of CO2 emissions per mile.

The following table compares typical vehicle costs (without tax subsidies) and CO2 emissions per mile for each class of vehicle. It then goes two steps further and (a) calculates an average carbon abatement cost for HEVs, PHEVs and EVs, and (b) calculates an incremental carbon abatement cost for PHEVs and EVs. Both carbon abatement costs are expressed in dollars of capital spending per gram/mile of CO2 emissions.

He finishes off his arguement by saying that we’ll be plugging our cars into a lump of coal.  For the entire article go here

Personally, I think that anything that helps to reduce our need for oil is a step in the right direction.  Replacing our source of electricity is something that’s easier to do than replacing the powerplants for every car on the road.  The sooner we get to work on our cars the better off we’ll be.  Our grid will come over time with wind and solar getting cheaper.

He doesn’t think that the Volt will work because it’ll be too expensive.

“The Volt is a $20,000 car that will cost $40,000. It will be a niche product,” Mr. Agassi says. “We want to make electric cars a mass market thing, and the only way to do that is to make it cheaper than driving a regular car.”

He wants to sell people the car at a price that is lower than regular cars of equivalent luxury/quality and then rent the battery pack and charge for access to recharging stations.

Source: WSJ

It’ll take time but the short answer is yes.  The long answer is that renting or leasing the batteries would be a good option for a lot of people out there.  I’m among those that think battery technology has a ways to go before I think it’ll last a few hundred thousand miles reliably and I don’t want the expense of replacing a battery pack after just a few years.  But if I could just rent the battery pack from the manufacturer then when there’s a problem I just go get a new one, done and done.  Take the risk out of my hands for a few dollars a month and I’ll gladly rent the battery.

I don’t think his idea of charging for access to recharging stations would work.  Would everyone that buys an electric vehicle from him have to have one in their garage?  Could you take it with you on a long trip?  It would probably eat up some valuable space that should go to luggage or something else on those longer trips.  Or is he thinking you put them all over the country like gas stations?  If that’s the case then it’ll take me 6-8 hours to fill up my tank, no thanks.  Plus you have to build all of them first before anyone would buy this car.  I like his battery rental idea, but he needs to face reality about charging for the ability to recharge.

“You’re going to see the electrification of all vehicles” in the years ahead, said Frank Klegon, Chrysler’s executive vice president – product development.

The current Dodge EV is Chrysler’s first attempt to build an all electric vehicle (and is likely going to be their first EV in production).  It’s built on a Lotus Europa platform, and would outperform the Lotus on the track.  It goes 0-60 in less than 5 seconds with a top speed of 120 mph.

Though he’s tight lipped about which one will come first, CEO Bob Nardelli promises that by mid decade Chrysler will have a fleet of electric vehicles.

Frank Klegon, Chrysler’s executive vice president of product development, has said that half the cars sold here in 2020 will feature electric power drivetrains.  That’s a pretty amazing leap in just one decade.  Lets hope they can do it.

Chrysler this week announced that it was much closer than most who follow the auto industry realized with the development of its new prototype of electric cars. It’s clear that cars that can achieve 200 miles on a single battery charge and quickly accelerate to highway speeds on battery power, can resuscitate Chrysler’s market position and possibly be among the factors that change the current oil usage equation.

“We are well ahead where the industry observers thought we were,” Chrysler President Tom LaSorda said.

Whether it was that financial aspect, time-to-market issues, or a combination of both, Chrysler chose to rely on suppliers for help in design of many key elements of the new electric prototype to a much greater degree than usual.

“Chrysler was able to make quick progress on electric cars by relying on outside suppliers for many of the key components,” The Wall Street Journal noted. “That is a big change from the auto industry’s traditional approach in which car makers develop most of a car’s components themselves.”

Right now that bet looks smart. It is clearly part of the trend called “Supply Chain Virtualization,” as companies in most industries are adding less and less value to the products they sell. The supply chain adds 80% or more of the value in many cases, from a production perspective. The final seller is increasingly just the “final assembler” in the process.

Source: SupplyChainDigest