Wide Selection Of Electric Cars Available

[vt]

http://www.annapolisgreen.com/evdays/index.html

[dcarrigg]

Re: Wide Selection Of Electric Cars Available

http://www.annapolisgreen.com/evdays/index.html

Of all those, only 4 are even remotely, possibly affordable by the middle class.

This will change. Hyundai's Ioniq and unnamed SUV, Chevy's Bolt, VW's e-Golf, Prius Prime (even though it's ugly as sin)...these actually have a potential to make a difference.

And Ford and Honda's model of just offering plug-in versions of existing vehicles could be a big hit as well if they can keep the price down, reliability up, and total cost of ownership relatively low. And my guess is, they won't roll out with them unless they feel somewhat good about it.

Right now, it's still usually about a $10,000 option...meaning you can pick up the hybrid version of the same car for $10k cheaper. And if you still get the tax credit for the plug-in hybrid, it's almost a no-brainer to go that route and skip the all electric giant battery pack...unless you're made of money and you want to show your car off at the country club as a status symbol. Then, by all means, buy a Tesla.

Long story short? Johnny and Jane Carbuyer might have rational to pick up a Huyndai Ioniq plug-in hybrid for $27,500 and get the $7,500 rebate dropping you down to $20,000 for a new car. But you'd have to be pretty wealthy or pretty bad at math to step up to the Ioniq all-electric for $37,500 and after the rebate pay $10,000 more for the same car just with a much bigger battery pack and shorter range instead of a motor. Even if you're concerned about carbon footprint, the hybrid's a fine option.

There's just not a lot of rational to go all electric...well, unless you're a show-off trust funder or ponzi-schemer. There's not a lot of incentive for the working man.

Then again, I've never heard a convincing argument as to what's so bad about plug-in hybrid options anyways...

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Wide Selection Of Electric Cars Available

So after you buy a Chevy Volt and you want to built a carport with roof angled south and cover it with solar panels, how many panels do you need and roughly how much will the set up cost you so that you can plug in your car and charge it from sunlight?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Wide Selection Of Electric Cars Available

So after you buy a Chevy Volt and you want to built a carport with roof angled south and cover it with solar panels, how many panels do you need and roughly how much will the set up cost you so that you can plug in your car and charge it from sunlight?

All depends on how much you drive. You can roughly think of it this way: For every 15,000 miles you drive (about a year), you burn about 5,000kWh in a small-ish electric car. For every installed kW of solar power, it used to be about 1,100 kWh per year around New England, but this will vary a by location, and I think may have gotten better since I was in the game at all, which was 8 or so years ago now. But keeping the math rough, I'd say a 5kW system should be generally good enough to keep you charged up, driving, and covered by solar energy over the course of a year. So if you have 255W panels (and there are all different wattages of panels out there, some can reduce the space you need significantly), then that would be about 20 panels. Do-it-yourself kits (which aren't legal in every state), can run you about $10,000 for something that size. You'll pay more to have it installed, and even more for higher quality materials with longer and/or more comprehensive warranties. And that's assuming you have a decent south-facing roof at a decent pitch without dormers or other weird overhangs or bad shingles or trees shading or insufficient electric or other issues that could cost you money on the install.

That said, depending on the state, you can recoup that money back pretty quickly. Up in New England, they'll pay more in most states than the retail electric rate for solar energy. So after a few years (say 5-10), you paid off the system by selling at inflated prices to the grid, and the out years are all gravy for you. Then there are federal and state tax credits and sometimes state grants and other incentives that reduce the upfront cost.

So how much does it cost? It's damned hard to say. But you could conceivably get away with a mildly problematic install with master electricians of a high-quality system that will run the car for $15,000 after incentives (say they charge $4/Watt and incentives burn off another $5k). That wouldn't be absolutely crazy. Of course, if you're doing that, and you have the roof space, you may as well double it and power the house too. Generally we use 1/3rd of power for residential, 1/3 for commercial/industrial, and 1/3 for transportation. If it holds in the aggregate, for the average person, it probably holds at the smaller scale too.

Of course, Santa Fe knows this stuff much better than I.

And of course, you could still do this with your plug-in hybrid for regular commutes...get 25 miles in, charge at work, 25 miles home, then have the gas tank to recharge a bit if you need to go further and up your range to 400 miles. You won't burn much gas in the year. The $10,000 you save up front, you could put into more solar panels to power your house. And the only thing you lose is the all-electric bragging rights and maybe a bit of passing power.