http://www.autoblog.com/entry/1234000747054915/

 

That is a given, however I'm inclined to believe that when Toyota says they want better batteries and battery technology before they start talking about selling griddable vehicles, I'm going to take it at face value.

 

It's all about marketing. Toyota doesn't give a **** about the environment, that's why they make so many gas guzzler V8 pickup trucks, SUV's, and luxury cars. The reason they don't want a plug-in system is because it adds complexity and they worry it will associate them with GM's failed EV1 project. There is a huge surpluss of electricity at night on nearly every metro area's electric grid, thus the net effect is NOT an increase in emissions.

 

Huge surplus of elect.? Actually there doesn't have to be and usually there isn't they reduce load and alot of times shut down some units at night and restart in the morning.Kevin

 

Hi All:

___In regards to grid capacity at night … There are a lot of Peekers including Gas, older Coal, and even OIL fired units that come on during the day that help bring generation up to meet demand during the summer months. At night, these very expensive and usually far dirtier units are taken off-line if possible. There is not that much spare cap to just let everyone hop on the grid to charge their EV’s. The supply is much tighter, far more expensive, and far dirtier then you might have imagined

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

Hi Wayne, You're right with one exception,the CCGT's out there that alot of times at least here run during the day for the most part. CCGT are for the most part very clean. Calpine has 2 units across the road from us and we see that alot of time the are up during the day and seem to be at low load or off line at night.We see that if we have one of our units down for repair they are usually up.Kevin

 

In some markets it makes more sense than others.

For example here in BC we have large scale hydro electricity, lots of electricity intensive industry is here for the cheaper/cleaner power, plus we export to the US grid. So as far as adding EVs or PHEVs to this market there would be no additional pollution, nor is there a shortage of electricity in terms of local generation and consumption, especially if they charge at night. We do have some small natural gas plants that fire up to handle peak demand, but they don't operate constantly.

Cleaning up the grid power should be an issue we are looking into and actually doing something about, but getting EVs on the road should not have to depend on clean grid power. They use energy more efficiently, even when you calculate all the losses involved those RAV4 EVs were getting the BTU equivalent of ~112 MPG, and that's old technology. The best thing about the whole EV system is that you can become energy independent (and some with the RAV4's have done this) by using solar and wind power at home to charge the EV and run the house. Pretty hard to do that with a gasoline powered vehicle, can you afford an oil well? Refinery? Nah, didn't think so. Maybe with Biodiesel, but even that won't be a clean and easy to operate as solar panels and wind turbines.

 

Well, I know here in Arizona since virtually all our electricity is from the Palo Verde nuclear power generating station, they actually have so much surplus power at night (since you can't turn off a nuclear power plant, apparently) that for downtown Phoenix, they have this giant freezer of sorts. They use the surplus electricity to create a few million gallons of ice or something of the sort, then during the daytime, that is used in a heat-exchange system to provide cool air for all the downtown sports arenas and buildings that are on the system. For those on the "time of use" electricity plans, electricity costs 1/5 as much off peak (nights and weekends) as it does on-peak, because they have more power than they know what to do with.

 

Every power company I have ever dealt with as a residential consumer has offered cheaper rates at night, reflecting excess capacity they want to sell. Some of the energy is dirty, some of it clean, and most of it somewhere in the middle. But oil burners are a rare power plant for electricity generation. So in the worse case, changing to grid power for transportation almost always decreases imported oil use, dependency, and dollar exodus to regimes the US has reason not to support.

To the extent that the fuel source is cleaner than gasoline, there is additional environmental benefit. One of the reasons wind power has not been adopted faster is the problem with capacity, meaning ability to generate power on demand (rather than at night when demand is low). An increase is night useage to fill up batteries for transport is a perfect match for wind power.

Remember the old saying "build it, and they will come" ?
The collolary for consumers is "generate demand, and they will produce it." For many reasons, we are better off demanding electricity rather than gasoline.

 

Too bad. I'm hoping that my next car will be a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius capable of running exclusively off batteries at 60 mph for a distance of 100 miles, with roof- and trunk-mounted solar panels.

Looks like I'll have to wait awhile.