Word: plug
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that, however, we need to persuade plug-in owners to recharge at the right time - by pricing electricity cheaply late at night, when demand is low. If charging a plug-in battery costs 2 cents-per-mile after midnight, and many times that during the day, drivers will likely wait before plugging in. (If that pricing model sounds familiar, it should be - it's how long distance calling works.) But to make that system work, utilities will need to install smart meters in customers' homes capable of monitoring when cars are charging, and then to price the juice accordingly; smart...
...shift to plug-in cars could also help the development of renewable power, all the more important since a proliferation of electric cars would alter the national pattern of carbon emissions - the utility sector would take on the emissions that once belonged oil-based transport. While a power grid fueled by solar or wind would be clean, one of its key drawbacks is that it would also be intermittent - if the sun were shaded or the wind failed to blow, we wouldn't have power. Likewise, if solar or wind produced more power than the grid could use, that excess...
...plug-ins won't catch on if the home is the only place drivers can recharge. By making charge stations as ubiquitous as gas stations are today, utilities can speed the end of the gasoline-powered car. Which raises yet more questions: How will utilities charge customers for recharging on the road? Who will install and run public charging stations? All of these factors have to be integrated fluidly - most car owners won't switch to electric if plug-ins are any less convenient to operate and refuel than the average gas guzzler. "We want to make sure the environment...
Such infrastructure changes are still far off - official plug-ins have yet to hit the street - but a few companies are already gearing up. A start-up called Coulumb Technologies in Campbell, Calif., is developing public charging points that would enable drivers to plug in and pay for the power they use. Another model altogether is Shai Agassi's Better Place, a company that wants to develop a vast infrastructure of public charging and "battery swap" stations. Agassi imagines a subscription model similar to how mobile phones work. Drivers would lease the batteries that power their electric cars...
...even with infrastructure improvements, the shift to electric cars is likely to take years, even decades. According to Alan Madian, a director at the research firm LECG, even assuming solid growth, we can't expect more than 68 million plug-in hybrids by 2036, which would account for less than 17% of the total estimated fleet at that time. Given that the U.S. car fleet is likely to have grown to over 400 million vehicles by then, we may still end up using more oil in the future than we do today in a business as usual scenario. That...