Monday, April 20, 2009

More discussion about the electric car future

One of my blog readers, Mark, continued a discussion about electric cars offline (via Facebook actually). He agreed to let me put our discussion on the blog:

Mark: Hey Karl. I had an idea about your posts regarding electric cars. When and if we get to the level of battery advancement you mentioned, and considering how the modern day consumer is gouged for gasoline now, I can see us being similarly gouged when taking trips and our cars' batteries need to be recharged. It may only take a few minutes to charge a battery, but what will happen when a person finds themselves far away from home with the need to recharge? What kind of situation might they find themselves in to have to rely on a recharge facility? I can see these recharge stations taking advantage of motorists who can't go any further without charging up. Your thoughts?

Me: Well, people who own electric cars are going to have psychological / geographical boundaries until a recharging infrastructure is commonplace. For example, if I were to buy an electric car right now, I would only be able to stay within the Calgary area (or the total range of the car divided by 2 - minus a few kilometres for a safety margin) and I would get nervous as my risk of running out of juice increases. But as recharging stations become common, it would be less and less risky to go further from home and I would be less nervous about venturing farther out.

As far as getting gouged is concerned, I fully expect that the price of electricity will rise period as more people have to charge their cars, but this is as much a supply versus demand thing as it is stations taking advantage. Competition ought to solve that. Case in point, theoretically, a station in Banff National Park that gets its own electricity from wind and/or solar etc. might be able to offer their juice cheaper since they're getting some or all of it off-grid. Time will tell. In fact I'd consider owning/operating such a station. I think as more people get their car's energy from the electrical grid, this grid will need an overhaul to accommodate everyone and I foresee electricity charges being dependent on not only how much you use, but when, and if you offer any surplus energy back to the grid in times of need (such as if you have a fully charged battery in your car). This is because one of the inherent weaknesses of the grid in its current state is its lack of storage capability. Any energy produced while people are sleeping and factories are shut down is totally wasted. But you can't turn wind off, or more importantly, back on when you need it.

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