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We're all in favor of debunking the myths surrounding Chevrolet's plug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt. Of course, while TTAC's taking on myths like "The Volt will save GM" and "The Volt will be a reliable gas-free daily driver," The General worries that people believe the electric grid can't sustain electric vehicles. "We know that the charging of the Volt will happen at night," Volt-man Frank Weber assures. "When actually the consumption on the grid is lower. No air conditioning, no lights are on." Uh, OK. Myth 2: nobody knows what kind of battery the Volt will use. Huh? Myth 3: I want my GM EV! It's a conspiracy! Nope. It's a cutting edge deal. We couldn't do it before (even though we did). So now you know.
22 Comments on “Volt Birth Watch 76: Debunking the Debunker...”
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MIT recently developed a cheap efficient way of harnessing solar power to be stored in batteries for future use.
So there’s no excuse for the Volt to be deficient in power. Or the national grid to be low on juice.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
@KatiePuckrik
I think one should be careful of committing the fallacy of extrapolating a scientific finding into instantly available products.
What the MIT scientists did was to find a way of performing electrolysis that was significantly more effective, thus making it possible to use electrical power from solar cells to create hydrogen and oxygen, without using as much energy as is created.
This hydrogen and oxygen can then be used in fuel cells, making the energy available during times when the sun isn’t shining.
However – we’re talking about an established process, there’s nothing new about electrolys; they claim an electrolytic efficiency not previously seen due to the catalysts they have developed, particularly for the separation of oxygen; yet the problem of hydrogen storage and fuel cell development at acceptable costs remain.
And a commercial application is seen to be years into the future:
Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.
Stein X Leikanger
Two things,
One, cynically speaking if there’s money in the discovery, they’ll get it to market ASAP. All that business of “We have to see the applications” rhetoric is cobblers. If someone found a cure for AIDS/Cancer tomorrow, you can bet, GSK, Pfizer and AstraZeneca would rush it to market as soon as they could.
Two, given GM’s pushing back of the Volt’s release, I reckon MIT will have refined the technology and be on its second generation before GM release the Volt!
No air conditioning on at night? Um, he has heard of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, etc. right? He is aware they can have night temps in the 90’s? Yes, the demand lowers, but it’s not like there is nothing electric turned on at all. Night shift, anyone?
Picky I am, I know, but little things like that can ruin a person’s credibility. If you can’t get the little things right, what are the odds you’re getting the big ones?
The last I knew, electric demand peak occurs in the early evening, about the time people reach home and plug the car in. This isn’t really GM’s problem to solve but electric companies need some new ways of encouraging time shifting (punitive peak rates work for me) so that EV charging doesn’t start up until after people start to go to bed.
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GM, collectively, must think the Volt project is a bright shining star… there’s no shortage of GM employees willing to babble in public about it. It seems like everyone’s trying to get a piece of the action.
The power at night issue is relevant. The grid has to be kept “on” – and there’s a lot of power in it, during off-peak hours, that could be used to charge cars.
On the other hand, power plants are brought on- and off-line relevant to demand, and if electricity is to replace the amount of energy now generated by ICE then there won’t be any off-peak hours.
Harvesting the sun’s energy by deferred storage, as indicated in Katie’s link, is therefore highly relevant, but the technology is not there yet. A ten year window is highly probable. There are a lot of research facilities and universities jockeying for energy grants now, and the MIT “news” release should be seen in light of that.
Ok, same problem different angle.
If power generating plants have less demand at night, that’s probably when they schedule down-time for maintenance.
If there’s no downtime, when do they do maintenance? Doesn’t that really then mean you need more power plants just to keep the system operational?
They don’t do maintenance every single night, and as there are redundancies and back-up generation chains, you can take one off-line for full maintenance, and still service the grid.
What people don’t get, is the immense amount of energy that our daily gasoline consumption represents. Generating that, while also serving our needs for electricity for other purposes, is the big questionable here. The energy that powers the power plants has to come from somewhere.
(Someone is twitching and ready to go nuclear on this thread, I can feel it.)
The harvesting of solar energy does hold immense promise. Several solutions have been tried, accumulator batteries/heating water/pumping water to higher elevations and using it to drive generators at night, etc.
The MIT breakthrough is promising, but requires a wide-scale investment in the necessary localized technology to become operational.
Stein X Leikanger : I think one should be careful of committing the fallacy of extrapolating a scientific finding into instantly available products.
This is an important point that cannot be emphasized too much. Remember, no matter where they work, scientists are ALWAYS hunting for more funding. There is every incentive to exaggerate claims regarding possible societal benefits and very little disincentive not to. Yes, important scientific breakthroughs are made but they are out numbered 100 to 1 by the over-hyped claims that are typically issued.
“When actually the consumption on the grid is lower. No air conditioning, no lights are on.”
PLEASE don’t tell me someone in charge of something actually said this.
OK. The grid is, in fact, less loaded at night (but not at dinner time). But how about some practicalities here?
1. How many amps will it take to recharge each Volt? This will tell you whether or not you will need any special circuits.
2. Let’s say a standard 15 amp circuit will do. Unless you want extension cords (trip hazards) snaked all over your garage, you WILL need some outlets near the plug on the Volt.
3. What do you do if you don’t have a garage for your Volt? Snake those electrical cords across the wet pavement? That’s a good idea. Oh, wait, if you can afford a Volt, you can surely afford to build a garage for it.
The more I think about this, the less sense Volt makes.
When are most people going to recharge their Volt? My guess is as soon as they get home because it’s fresh in their minds. For me, the 5-7 timeframe is probably the time of day that I use electricity the most. In the summer months, it’s just dark enough to have to use the lights and hot enough that the A/C is still running. Plus, I have my thermostat set to drop the temperature from the 78 it’s been all day, when no one is home, to the 72 or so when I am home. In addition, I am cooking dinner and watching tv during this time. So the impact that this will have on the grid system is certainly a valid question and not something to dismiss as the GM rep Frank Weber does.
Happy_Endings: When are most people going to recharge their Volt?
Plug in != recharge.
You will plug the car in when you get home, but the car will wake up at about 01:00 (or whenever you tell it the rates are lowest) and begin charging all on its own.
We can expect the car will also have Voice of Authority systems built in, to gently remind the driver, as she approaches “home”, to plug it in.
Eventually all this plug-in stuff will be a simple robot of some kind, and the entire issue disappears completely.
mdf, Do your rates vary? Mine don’t. And GM can’t tell the car to wait until 01:00, because they don’t know whether or not you came in at 17:00 and plan to go back out at 21:00.
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Stein: “What people don’t get, is the immense amount of energy that our daily gasoline consumption represents.”
Of course, part of that consumption of energy is just flat waste. Idling, 33% efficiency, braking energy dissipated as heat… of the tremendous amount of energy that our daily gasoline consumption represents, a fraction of it (OK, yes, a sizeable fraction), is useful work. Electric drivetrans will be more efficient… there won’t be a 1:1 redirection of energy inputs. Even the side trip to the gas station is a waste of fuel and we’ll eliminate some of that.
You will plug the car in when you get home, but the car will wake up at about 01:00 (or whenever you tell it the rates are lowest) and begin charging all on its own.
Do you have a source that it will have some sort of timer in it? I’ve looked through all the FAQ’s on the vehicle and all I can find is that it will take about 6.5 hours to fully recharge. There is nothing I can find that says it will have a timer on it. While it would be pretty easy for the consumer to do it themselves, not everyone uses these timers.
KixStart: mdf, Do your rates vary? Mine don’t.
Time-of-use billing will eventually come to everyone. Where I live, we are due for it in a year or two — the power company is feverishly installing the smart meters.
And GM can’t tell the car to wait until 01:00, because they don’t know whether or not you came in at 17:00 and plan to go back out at 21:00.
… to return at midnight and then the charging proceeds as scheduled.
And GM isn’t going to do any of the telling here: you will do it all.
Now of course, you can invent scenarios where this kind of recharge-while-you-sleep isn’t practical. Guess what! People like that are in the minority, and they are advised not to buy a PHEV.
But I can tell by a quick glance at the unremarkable neighborhood I sleep in that at 01:00 virtually all the cars are parked, awaiting their drivers’ 06:00-08:00 departure, and PHEV’s would be a fine fit to this kind of lifestyle.
Happy_Endings: Do you have a source that it will have some sort of timer in it?
No. However, I will say that if the Volt, or any other electric car for that matter, has no “charge schedule” function built-in, then the designers aren’t thinking properly.
mdf, You miss the point. If I come in at 17:00 and I intend to go out at 21:00, then, yes, I want the car charged in between times. GM can’t presume what I want and must deliver a Volt that charges when I plug it in unless I set a delay timer.
If time-of-use rates haven’t arrived, then I have no incentive to delay charging. So, why not charge right away, in case I later decide to go out? If time-of-use rates are implemented, then I will have an incentive to delay, except when I plan to go out.
Why get upset over a few hundred chevy volts charging at night all over the country. Its not like they are going to sell hundreds of thousands of them! cough*prius*cough
KixStart: You miss the point.
No, I don’t: the car is only guaranteed to run 40 miles in a day on a charge. (Or whatever it will do.) So the rational choice is (ultimately) to charge it at night, when rates are cheapest. If you drive more than 40 miles on a regular basis, then what can I say except that you bought the wrong car.
So, why not charge right away, in case I later decide to go out?
Because you don’t need to? A PHEV falls back to ‘normal’ gas-electric hybrid mode when the battery is discharged. Recall again the 40 mile/day stuff …
Both sides are overstating the case here.
There will be people wanting immediate recharge. The charger will likely be set to a default time (which can be overridden). Time of use rates would be pushed much harder if PHEV’s started selling well. A seperate device can also be used quite cheaply without changing the home’s meter that can give a discount on the charger only based on time of recharge.
The same folks buying PHEV’s are the ones more likely to go solar as well.
Lastly, I believe pressure on the grid starts to go down as soon as most folks start to leave the office (5pm). Don’t quote me on that one though.
It would be very foolish to rely on the consumer to make the intelligent choice on charging cars. The American consumer will do what is most convenient for them, as they are want to do.