Most electric car charges last longer than 95 percent of the trips made in the US, but ‘range anxiety’ is still a major drawback for many potential electric car buyers. How many miles will it take to curb that fear?
Range anxiety, or the fear that an electric car will run out of charge before you reach your destination. is a real and present fear for many first-time electric car drivers and buyers.
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Even though research clearly shows that present electric cars can satisfy the requirements of 95 percent of all trips made in the U.S., many car buyers say electric cars need to travel further per charge before they’ll consider buying one.
Of course, not everyone who thinks electric cars need to travel further per charge actually needs the extra range, but how many miles are enough to kill electric car range anxiety for good?
“Most electric car charges last longer than 95 percent of the trips made in the US, but ‘range anxiety’ is still a major drawback for many potential electric car buyers. How many miles will it take to curb that fear?”
Where’s my calculator? Lemme see . . . 95% make it, THEN 5% DON’T ?!?! It’s far worse than I realized. AAA on speed dial!
Ummm… for those who need to drive farther than a BEV will go, they will buy a PHEV. PHEVs, like the Volt and the new plug-in Prius, have gasoline engines that are used to generate electricity so the cars can drive well over 300 miles on a tank.
Of course, if you are one of the truly stupid, and you don’t take that into consideration when you buy the car, then, yes, you will probably run out of juice. Lucky for you, AAA has fast chargers on their trucks for just such a problem.
So, 95% of my trips are taking kids to school, shopping and going to work. Not surprising. What if I need to string a couple of the 95%-ers together in less than the charging time? And I still don’t meet my transportation needs which might call for me to drive to the other side of Chicago with the air conditioner on or to go see the in-laws. So, they’re telling me to buy a Chevy Cruze so that I can use a Chevy Volt for some trips? I don’t think so.
Why would you need a Chevy Cruze AND a Chevy Volt? The Volt will do 100% of what you need.
I already know what I want: 300 miles at 75mph with the air conditioner on.
Lots of people want that. The problem is that they don’t want to pay the full cost of driving fast. The true cost of oil is considerably higher than what you pay at the gas station. The external costs of oil, including military/wars, economic, health and environmental costs are not paid by those who use oil. The soldiers who die or get wounded pay, the people who get sick or die from the pollution pay, the environment gets heavily polluted every day from the extraction, shipping, refining, distribution and burning of oil, so the environment pays, our economy is in shamble largely because of the expenditure of some $400 billion for foreign oil.
So, what you want is a free ride on the backs of others.
Gets worse. Own and use an EV for a year and the battery capacity can be down quite a lot. On cold days and very hot days it can be even worse.
Why is it you don’t have this problem with gasoline?
Octane (C8H18) mp -56.8 C; bp 125.7 C, enthalpy of combustion 5.47MJ/mol
Chemistry can be brutal towards the green religion. Who would’ve known it that Gaia wasn’t a chemist?
Your lack of experience with EVs is showing. I drove a Toyota RAV4 EV for eight and a half years and 91,000 miles. When I sold the car, it was still getting the full 120 mile range that it got when it was new.
My new LEAF is now 18 months old and is still driving the same as the day I got it.
We have a lot of problems with gasoline that we don’t have with renewable electricity (wars, pollution, health problems and economic problems).
‘Cept we don’t have renewable electricity.
In reply to Gamecock: If you want renewable electricity, either sign up for your utility’s renewable energy program, or install a solar system on your house. I did the latter ten years ago and as of year 8, it paid for itself by offsetting my utility bill and my gasoline bill. I’ve driven 109,000 miles on sunlight-generated electricity, and for the rest of my life, I get that energy for free.
If you have been driving your vehicle on self-generated renewable electricity, you have achieved a breakthrough that the leading universities have yet to achieve.
Gamecock, Universities all over the country are installing solar PV. This is not rocket science, it’s merely materials science. Do you not know how solar PV works? It’s quite simple.
About 50,000 tonnes of lithium are mined each year around the world. That on the Tesla’s battery pack basis is about enough for 2 million cars, assuming we all sacrifice our iPods and phones. US in a normal year buys about eight million new cars.
Even if the battery packs didn’t fail and have to be replaced, do you realise what simple supply demand equation would do for lithium prices. And for almost any other battery element usable in vehicles: Ni, Co, La, V etc (here I assume molten salt sodium-sulfur isn’t suitable – its about the only material combination which is sufficiently common that prices would not go haywire with wide usage of EV’s).
EV’s just don’t work for mass market. The economics are silly, the limits of energy density say that liquid fuel will always have a cost advantage. Which means ethanol of biodiesel may succeed but battery EV’s never. And lets not consider what lots of hydrogen fuel cell cars would do to the random lets-blow-something-up-Friday-night deographic.
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Congratulations Harold JunkScience.com’s interactive history goes back 16 years to the old Trash Talk bulletin board and you are our first ever commenter required to meet a relevance test. –Ed.
I would suggest its not about range, as such, but the inability to top up/recharge. With a petrol fuelled car the range is effectively infinite, given the refuelling infrastructure in place. There is no such infrastructure for an electric car, until there is they will always be a problem and concern.
It takes many hours to recharge a car. Hence your so called infrastructure must be dispersed, at extreme expense.
Exactly, this will fundamentally limit the utility and appeal of the electric cars. There will always be the nagging concern about being stranded or not able to perform some function, maybe an emergency demand, when the batteries are low etc. There seems no solution for this (anywhere near the convenience and speed of refuelling a petrol car.
Maybe the only possibility to be able to change batteries (assuming the cars were designed for a quick swap). This could address the problem of battery replacement, by having the service points replace sub-standard batteries as they come in. Of course, given the cost of batteries, this would been the change over service would not be cheap.
Dear editor, I thought that was a cogent and coherent response.
Why not let others see it and render their opinions.
Your intellectual dishonesty is showing.
Your situation may get even tougher Harold because I don’t have time or inclination to edit your missives. Get off point or break the normal rules of polite discourse and I’ll simply delete your comment. We go to great lengths to give everyone a say but you are very labor-intensive. I suspect most sites you try to haunt simply ban you, right?
“300 miles at 75mph with the air conditioner on.”
You can get that, just be willing to pay for it.
Electric cars aren’t going to be a total transport solution, but for the second car, commonly known as a ‘commuter’, it will serve a lot of needs. I can go to work, run a few errands on the way home, and still not go fifty miles. It may not work for you, but it works for me.
And a lot of other people.
These kinds of problems have been addressed with the plug-in hybrid car. Most American households have two or more vehicles, so one can be a PHEV and the others can be BEVs. Problem solved. See how easy that was?
You left out the $35,000 to play.
Well, if you want a free car, can’t help you there. Most people expect to pay for their cars.
I’m not interested in buying a new car to live your dream.
Gamecock said, “I’m not interested in buying a new car to live your dream.”
That’s a first. Up till now, everyone I know bought their car just so I can live out my dream. You’re the first to deny me that right. Guess I’ll just have to suffer.
I just have one request… every time you buy gas, I want you to think of me not paying anything for gas for the past ten years, and nothing for gas the rest of my life. That’s all I request. Not too hard for you is it?
Paul, the costs simply don’t add up, and the replacement batteries.
A $15,000 Honda Fit gets 33 MPG (based on personal experience, it’s really 42, but that’s neither here nor there)
After 200,000 miles at $4/gallon, the Fit cost
$15,000+200,000/33*$4 = $39,200
Let’s assume a $39,000 Chevy Volt with no gas burned, ever. After 200,000 miles and a complete replacement battery ($9,500) when the battery warranty ends at 100,000 miles, the Volt uses 0.39 kwh/mile. Assuming $0.15/kwh
$39,000 + $9,500 +200,000 *.39*.15 = $60,200
Stop half-accounting.
It’s not only half-accounting. His dream is not scalable to 250,000,000 people.
Unless he has achieved the breakthrough that researchers have been striving for for years, and have said will be 2025 at the earliest. If you could grow your own electricity for your electrical car, the marketplace would have an interest in it.
To solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
Meanwhile, he drives a coal powered car and looks down his nose at us.
Ben of Houston, If you only care about the dollars and cents, and you compare the plug-in car with a car of lesser performance and accessories, then you make a good point. However, you might be surprised to know that some Americans actually place a value on the characteristics of EVs, and doing so makes the numbers swing strongly in favor of the EV.
The reason about 30,000 Americans have bought plug-in cars the past two years is that they value driving a car that does not pollute and that you can drive on energy you make from the sun with a PV system on your roof.
We value driving a car that is powered by energy over which we will never fight a war.
Millions of us value the fact that our cars remove almost all of the negative aspects of driving. We tread lightly on the air and water, but do take up room on the ground.
We make no noise, a very good thing once most cars are electric.
All of the money we spend on the energy that runs our cars stays local. When you buy gas, 50% of your money leaves our country. Worse, about 90% of it leaves your community. Those gas stations on the corner are sucking millions of dollars out of your neighbor’s pockets so they can’t spend that money on local goods and services. Going solar and getting an EV enables you to stop sending your money out of town. Spend it instead for movies, restaurants, massages, etc. Keep your money local.
Each American, on average, spends about $2,000 per year for gas. 80% of that money can be saved by going with an EV. When you run the numbers, the monthly cost is well under $400/month.
Lastly, comparing a Volt or a LEAF to a Honda Fit is laughable. These EVs are more like really quiet and smooth BMWs. Start with a bottom of the line BMW and run your numbers.
Look, you can buy a 2 kW PV system for about $6K-$8K installed. That will generate enough energy every year to drive about 12,000 miles per year. And it will last for 40-50 years! All due respect, but this is easy math.
So, if you value any of the benefits EVs and PV bring, you’ll ascribe a dollar figure to it and then run your numbers.
If, on the other hand, you don’t think any of those great characteristics of EVs have a value, then that says a lot about your character.
And Gamecock, maybe you haven’t seen it, but I, and thousands of other EV drivers, use solar energy to power our homes and cars.
Please don’t fight this, guys. It’s a good thing. Go test drive one of these cars. They are truly amazing! They have really strong and quick acceleration. They are very fun to drive. And they run on American made kWh from sunlight that falls on your roof every day. What’s not to like? Oh, and it’s cheaper than what you’re now paying by 80%.
I don’t know what planet you live on, but according to your love of photovoltaics, I’m thinking Mercury. Or maybe Venus and the sulfur’s addled your brain,
First, in perfection
2 kW *8760 hours/year *0.39 mile/kwh = 6,832 miles/year
Average photovoltaic power output = 10%
realistic mileage from a 2 kW output = 680 miles/year
Average photovoltaic lifetime = 10 years with significant decay in power output towards the end
So I’d spend $6k-8k to get less than 7,000 miles? A dollar per mile? A HUMMER gets more effective $/mile than that.
And of course comparing a sports car to an economy car isn’t fair. One is an overpriced status symbol and the other is a means to an end. You were the one talking about how much cheaper it was, and I simply ripped you a new one with prices.
Well, gee, Mr. Houston, I didn’t realize this was a fight of some kind. I was speaking in terms of my experience. I live in Santa Monica, and 2 kW here will cost about that or less, and it’ll generate a bit more kWh than your numbers indicate. Further, I get 5.5 miles/kWh in my LEAF, so I think I’ll stick with my numbers, thank you.
As for the footprint, typically, you can count on 100 sq ft per kW. It’s actually closer to 80-85 sq ft, but there are often vents or skylights that require more room to work around.
Paul pardon me for arriving late to this party but may I ask for more details on your system? Certainly here in Australia we can’t get a 2kW system for $6-8K (maybe our 240 volt system makes a difference, I don’t know). I’m very interested in the area dimensions and output. I live about 10° closer to the equator than you (I don’t know how your hours of sunlight compare but certainly our solar strength would be greater at 91% rather than your 83% at 34°N). My expected payback (break even) is approximately 70 years although the useful lifespan is expected to be ~20 years (i.e., still producing at least 50% of rated output). This does not include annual cleaning costs or insurance (quite steep here due to tropical storms and large hail). Your figures look, well, unbelievably good.
Hi Editor, I work as a referral source for a company called SolarCity. SolarCity pioneered the residential lease program for solar PV about 5 years ago. When they did this, their business tripled over night. Essentially, the banks saw how well the product worked over a long period of time and also took into account the federal and state incentives, and decided they could finance these systems over a 20 year period and make money.
The banks get the 30% ITC (investment tax credit), the state incentive (This varies according to the utility and is constantly going down. For many if the IOUs, it’s almost gone now), and the lease payments. They make money, SolarCity gets paid for installing the system, and the customer makes money if their usage is above a certain threshold, around $150/month.
I just sold a system to a customer who is leasing it, but prepaying the lease. It’s a 8.58 kW DC array and it cost the customer a mere $13,820!
The financing of these systems has completely upended the cost comparison in about 18 states. It doesn’t work in every state since it heavily depends on the cost of a kWh from your utility. In some states where old coal plants supply most of the energy, their cost for a kWh is low because they aren’t paying any of the external costs. This might be the case where you live. Those people are being subsidized by the people who have to breathe the pollution from the coal, and they are being subsidized by the environmental degradation from coal mining and shipping.
These external costs of coal and natural gas are why we have federal and state incentives for renewable energy.
“subsidized by the people who have to breathe the pollution from the coal”
This kind of talk isn’t helping you.
“It’s a 8.58 kW DC array and it cost the customer a mere $13,820!”
Can a car be charged with this?
BTW . . . I see nothing “mere” about $14k.
What footprint does it require/ how big is it?
Hi Paul. I’m afraid I’m still having a bit of difficulty with your stated outputs.
My calculation assumes meridian insolation of 1368 W/m2 reduced by Bond albedo of 0.306 multiplied by 83% to allow for latitude 34°N, divided by your 9m2 per kW system and get an astonishing 87.6 Watts per square meter and total light (a.k.a. full spectrum) efficiency of 12.8%.
That of course does not allow for obliquity throughout the day, just a theoretical maximum.
Just yesterday I posted a research cell world record claim of 7%. I know some solar promoters rate their cells as having larger efficiencies by only including the spectra absorbed but that doesn’t help actual output.
Rule of thumb in Brisbane (24°S) is average output between the hours of 10am and 4pm of about 40 W/m2, provided the units are kept clean.
I may have screwed the calculation but your figures look very rosy.
I drive during the day. I could only charge it during the night.
Same as me. I generate more energy during the day than I use, so the utility “buys” my excess energy for 30 cents/kWh, then I “buy” it back at night for 10 cents/kWh. This is because energy generated during peak demand hours are more valuable than energy generated at night. This is how most all of us with solar do it.
Like Ed, I’m interested in your setup. What it cost you, how much energy it produces. Could you in fact charge your car in a day from your solar setup, or do you in fact only charge your car from the grid?
You implied you charged your own car, but that now seems to not be true.
You are conflating your solar energy setup and your electric car when there is not linkage. N’est pas?
I’m glad you like your setup, and had the money to buy it.
“These kinds of problems have been addressed with the plug-in hybrid car. Most American households have two or more vehicles, so one can be a PHEV and the others can be BEVs. Problem solved. See how easy that was?”
That people have more than one car does not enable them to have one of them BEV. BEV is supplemental transportation at best. People who have 2 now would need 3.
“The true cost of oil is considerably higher than what you pay at the gas station.”
Preposterous.
“I’ve driven 109,000 miles on sunlight-generated electricity.”
“This is how most all of us with solar do it.”
You are a fraud; you are not using “sunlight-generated electricity.”
Here in florida, a grid-tied system is around $5000 for a 2kW system installed. There are also several companies now that will install a system for you and charge a monthly lease fee.
In a historical note, Ford produced a few hundred Ranger EVs and leased them. When the leases ran out, most users didn’t want to return them, and some suits were filed.
That was with 20 year old technology.
A similar thing happened with the GM EV1, and it makes an interesting story in its’ own right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
Thanks James. So, the numbers you have in FL are similar to those we have here in CA. Together, we represent 45 million people, a sizable percentage of the American public.
I can also say those who live in the Pacific Northwest are ecstatic about EVs. Their electric grid is very clean already, and it’s the cheapest in the country. If you live in OR or WA, you pay the equivalent of about 50 cents per gallon gas. And all of your money stays local.
Gamecock, if you prefer to ignore the external costs of oil, then that’s your choice. The RAND Corp. studied the military costs of protecting our access to oil and found that we spend $80 billion per year for this. See: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG838.html
Those costs are exclusive of the wars for oil. The Iraq war would not have happened if they had no oil, so it can be argued that at least part of the cost of that war is attributable to oil.
The health and environmental damage from the extraction, shipping, refining, distributing and burning of oil is measured in the hundreds of billions every year.
None of these costs are internal to the price of gas at the pump. Please explain why you think all of these costs are “preposterous”.
The protection of oil sources is incidental. We protect countries against aggression and we protect the high seas regardless of what traffic they carry.
” people who have to breathe the pollution from the coal”
What pollution are you imagining?
Sorry Gamecock, but you can’t get away with that. If you read the RAND study, they specifically looked for money spent protecting access to oil. This is not “incidental”. The $80 billion is fully attributable to oil. And you left out the biggie, the $1.5 trillion we’ve spent on the Iraq war. The first Gulf war also had something to do with oil. You can’t deny that.
I don’t “imagine” pollution from coal plants, it’s been thoroughly documented. I’m not going to do your homework for you, just use the google and look it up yourself.
You sound like one of those deniers who doesn’t believe science. It’s not possible to have a rational discussion with people like you, so unless you want to accept facts and base the conversation on them, we’re done.
“The first Gulf war also had something to do with oil. You can’t deny that.”
“You sound like one of those deniers who doesn’t believe science.”
“I don’t “imagine” pollution from coal plants, it’s been thoroughly documented.”
You are not helping yourself.
He’s not trying to help himself so much as help all of us.
In our area, the main concern from coal fired power plants is mercury, which makes our children a little dumber than they would have been, and soot, which gets in our lungs.
Not believing in science is like coming to a conclusion and then searching for evidence to support it. Like is done here.
Why do so many see climate change as a real fact, and you can’t?
The science supports tham.
Um, who is “he” James. I’m afraid your comment seems a little random.
Don’t know of anyone who disputes “climate change” either but when it comes to catastrophic global warming you can expect plenty of contention and with good reason because science categorically does not support that (and neither does the IPCC if you bother to read their SREX report published a couple of months back).
Thank you for suggesting a specific problem, rather than the “everyone knows it” schtick.
My original complaint was the the statement “Those people are being subsidized by the people who have to breathe the pollution from the coal.”
Your suggestion of mercury pollution doesn’t fit, as the alleged trouble from it is not from breathing it.
As far as it being a problem at all, I suggest this:
http://junkscience.com/2012/07/24/robert-bradley-jr-powers-peltier-macts-missing-intellectual-justification/
Editor, the way we use solar here is that during the day, we generate more than we use. The excess energy is credited to the utility which then sells it to our neighbors. Since on-peak energy is much more valuable than off-peak energy, I “sell” my excess kWh to the utility for about 30 cents/kWh and then “buy” them back at night during off-peak hours for about 10 cents/kWh. This is called “time of use” or TOU rates. It’s very popular since you can use a smaller PV system yet still zero out your bill.
This is why the numbers didn’t seem to work out for your calcs. You were looking at the number of kWh while I was talking about the value of those kWh.
Actually no Paul, I was referring to this:
I used 9m2 as a proxy for your 100 sq ft, your stated 85 sq ft is only 8m2. Irrespective of subsidies and financing I just can’t see how you are getting more than double the wattage output that I can expect in Queensland, especially as I’m 10° closer to the equator. By my calculation you are claiming a full spectrum efficiency of almost 13%, enough to force a re-evaluation of solar schemes globally.
To be absolutely clear I don’t give a rat’s tail about your kWh sale/purchase cost balance, I’m only looking at collector area and power output.
Supplemental for Paul: the best claimed performance I can find here is a 1kW system composed of 6 panels measuring 1.6m x 0.8m, that’s the equivalent of your 83 sq ft per kW. The claimed output for Brisbane is an average 4.2kW/day assuming 10hrs/day “useful” output – that’s 4200W/10hrs/7.7m2 = 55W/m2 (ambitious but we’ll let it pass).
Even the guys trying to sell these systems here will not suggest the units will still be producing at least half their rated output in 20 years time, making your:
look more than just a little rosy.
Assuming the system managed to sustain an average output of 3kWh/day over 20 years (highly doubtful) then it must displace electricity worth $2.20/day or 3kW at almost $0.75/kWh average price over that 20 years to recoup its unsubsidized list price of $16,000 (including installation, inverter and grid connection). No cleaning costs or insurance have been included.
This doesn’t indicate solar is anything but a societal disaster and certainly not your previously claimed “good thing”. All it’s doing is draining the public purse subsidizing feel-good “my Watts are cleaner than your Watts” and as Germany and Spain, in fact all of Europe and several Australian states (Queensland, New south Wales and Victoria, soon to be Western and South Australia too) have discovered it’s a completely unsustainable subsidy system which must be wound back. All such subsidies should be killed but “clean/alternative energy” seem to be the most egregious offenders against society.
I still think your numbers are unrealistically hopeful but I see now why you switched to TOU & subsidy calculations because they are solar’s only real return.
As long as we are being supplemental, I would point out that the feed-in-tariff is artificial, too. It’s not what the marketplace values it at; it’s what the government says has to be paid.
http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=CA167F&re=1&ee=1
Therefore, it is subject to political vagaries, and could collapse at any time.
California’s electrical supply is precarious. They import 31% of their electricity. In spite of accounting tricks, solar cars are charged from the grid. Coal, gas, etc. California simply can’t support electricity for transportation.
Sorry, pronouns without proper antecedent is sloppy.
‘He’ referred to Paul Scott, and the statement gamecock made,”You are not helping yourself.”
Which is not to say that mercury isn’t a serious threat.
If we stick to things you inhale, how about sulfur dioxide (SO2), which forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs.
Or small airborne particles (soot), which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death.
Or oxides of nitrogen, which leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue.
Plus arsenic, lead, and cadmium on the side.
Are the calculations for PV theoretical output close to practical? According to an acquaintance who is installing PV generation in a number of places, the rule of thumb, at least for Virginia, is 10 acres/megawatt. That’s about 4 times the area per kilowatt discussed here. You can buy electricity in California for $0.10/kwh? I thought the price was about twice that. And does that price include all the charges the utility companies stick on? For example, my rate in Virginia is $0.07/kwh. On my last bill the effective rate was $0.11/kwh after all the connection and other utility charges.
Claims have been made about the problems with mercury pollution from coal(?). Please document injuries/illness in actual, not theoretical, patients from environmental mercury in the US. Very hard to find.
I thought the fine particle (PM2.5) pollution was from carbon not sulfate. Again, document cases where PM2.5 has resulted in increased asthma or other pulmonary diseases. I don’t believe that anyone has an explanation for the increase in childhood asthma. Particulate pollution has decreased over the last 30 years and asthma rates have increased.
Ozone from NOx induced photochemical smog is known to burn holes through lung tissue? Really? Are you sure you aren’t looking at an MSDS for 100% ozone? Again, got some documentation?
One of the things I’ve seen in my 30 years of doing environmental stuff is that the longer I do it, the more specious the claims from the enviro types.