Word: plugging
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Rebecca Lindland, a senior auto analyst for the research firm Global Insight, is a fan of both electric cars and GM's plug-in Volt. "This is not a George Jetson future," says Lindland. "This is ours." But that future is still a ways off. Lindland said that when she met with GM executives not long ago to talk about the Volt, she reminded them of one vexing question: The plug-in makers' assumption is that drivers will recharge their cars in the garage at home, where it shouldn't be too hard to find an electrical outlet...
That's just one of countless questions that needs an answer before plug-in cars can truly take their place on American roads. Certainly, electric cars have at least one built-in advantage: The electrical grid already exists. Other auto alternatives, like hydrogen fuel cells, would require the development of an expensive new infrastructure to deliver the gas to fueling stations around the country. But to make plug-ins a truly viable alternative - one that could kill petroleum - we will need to make changes to the way we supply and use electricity, both small and large. "Electricity is everywhere...
...21st-century applications. In real-time, utilities rarely know how much electricity any given customer is using, or when. Even though electric cars use relatively little power - the average car recharging draws about as much juice as a widescreen TV - they could still potentially overwhelm the electrical system. If plug-ins suddenly became popular, before the grid had a chance to get smarter, it could lead to a real power predicament. "You can imagine what would happen if five drivers on the block got home at 5 p.m. and all decided to recharge their cars at the same time," says...
...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...