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Old 03-27-2018, 11:17 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by samwichse View Post
Wow, almost a megawatt hour for 1 mile??? That thing must have some amazing batteries .

Joking aside, a nice cradle to grave comparison of CO2 released vs the power mix in different regions is here:
Electric vehicles beat gasoline cars in cradle-to-grave emissions study

So, whatever gas mileage you would have to achieve in a gas or non-plugin hybrid car to equal an electric car in GG emissions, broken down by region.

UCS has been updating that map, and our electric grid has improved:


[click on image for link]

The US average (weighted for EV sales) is now 80MPG.

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Old 03-27-2018, 11:37 AM   #12 (permalink)
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If I had an EV the first thing I'd do is order a home PV installation.
Not only for bragging rights ('my car does not burn coal') but also because the extra current draw would allow for a bigger, more cost efficient installation with an ROI in the crazy if you don't zone.

As for now a small PV installation's ROI is still over 10 years for my non-ideally placed house at 52 latitude and there is a mortgage and financial risks to take into account so I don't dare bite the bullet yet.
Solar panel idea is cool. If you were a mechanical engineer and could build your home from scratch and design a mostly solar roof or swap to solar when your roof wears out it would make since. But thats about the only time solar would be feasible. Also depends on location and how much sun your area gets but google makes an interesting calc:
https://www.google.com/get/sunroof#a...=buy&np=21&p=1
Also would need to look at solar irradiaton maps as AR gets a lot more kWh/m^2 (sun energy per area) than say Oregon lol
Really the only thing holding back solar is the cost of entry, and extremely low efficiency per meter of space occupied. (Efficiency is around 18-20% for modern panels and it degrades by year slightly). This is why most renewable power plants choose to run solar accumulation at 40% efficiency which takes about half the space and has no degradation for the most part. Wind power was even worse in the amount of space it occupied lol.
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Old 03-27-2018, 06:28 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Oh, we pay about 12.5 eurocents ($0.16?) tax on every kWh we get from the grid.
That alone makes PV panels worthwhile, if optimally positioned.

Sadly, we don't get a tax revenue when we overproduce. So it makes little sense to go bigger than home use.
Which is another stimulating factor for EV's here... Causing more use, therefore allowing for bigger and more efficient PV installations. That, and gas being more expensive than beer by volume.
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Old 03-27-2018, 11:17 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Oh, we pay about 12.5 eurocents ($0.16?) tax on every kWh we get from the grid.
That alone makes PV panels worthwhile, if optimally positioned.

Sadly, we don't get a tax revenue when we overproduce. So it makes little sense to go bigger than home use.
Which is another stimulating factor for EV's here... Causing more use, therefore allowing for bigger and more efficient PV installations. That, and gas being more expensive than beer by volume.
Oh yeah I forgot you're the guy from Europe. Yeah it sucks your sun output there is terrible, but yeah I would do whatever to avoid the crap prices on energy you guys have over there! *cringe face*
Sadly our area doesn't buy back excess energy either with makes implementation even harder! I've honestly never heard of an area in my region that does.
It would be easy to implement a little solar charging station for an EV though since you don't have to calculate on crazy off the wall power usage all day like a house normally sees. (plug in at the same times, uses about the same energy per day).
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Old 03-30-2018, 07:00 AM   #15 (permalink)
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The complaints that charging an EV takes too long vs. a petrol car, always bother me. Oil for the petrol powered car took millions of years of solar energy to charge up. NiCad, LiPo, Hydrogen..... and oil, it's all forms of batteries. We just can't "recharge" oil like we can the others. Any cars I buy from now on will be EVs. Preferably charged at home from roof top solar regardless of efficiency or cost.
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Old 03-30-2018, 07:12 AM   #16 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hamsterpower View Post
The complaints that charging an EV takes too long vs. a petrol car, always bother me. Oil for the petrol powered car took millions of years of solar energy to charge up. NiCad, LiPo, Hydrogen..... and oil, it's all forms of batteries. We just can't "recharge" oil like we can the others. Any cars I buy from now on will be EVs. Preferably charged at home from roof top solar regardless of efficiency or cost.
I think that misses the point for most drivers.

I ride my bike to work when the weather is good. I might consider getting off my bike and using an EV for around-town trips if I had one, but for 8 months out of the year my car is used almost exclusively for 500+ mile trips - which is to say, very little. I can't do those with any current EVs.

I wouldn't mind how long it takes to fill a battery if it didn't basically mean I can't take road trips with existing EVs and infrastructure. Tesla's supercharger network is spotty, and with any other brand you basically don't drive more than half a charge away from home, or you'll be spending the night next to a 120v outlet at a motel for $80+ per night.

I suppose I could just fly and rent a car at my destination, but the costs are considerably higher than driving my Insight, and I'm the sort that actually enjoys the road in between. I'll definitely be moving to an EV once the charging network gets better, but for now it doesn't fit my needs.
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Old 03-30-2018, 09:01 AM   #17 (permalink)
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I once read an article about making your own biodiesel from soybeans. I wonder how that compares using a 60+mpg small diesel car. I wonder how it would compare if you also had the extra land where you even grew your own beans.
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Old 03-30-2018, 11:34 AM   #18 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hamsterpower View Post
The complaints that charging an EV takes too long vs. a petrol car, always bother me. Oil for the petrol powered car took millions of years of solar energy to charge up.
Nobody is waiting around for millions of years at a fuel pump. How long something took to be created is not the concern people have. It took billions of years for elements other than hydrogen, to explode, and then form the objects in our solar system.

Sure, burning fossil fuels is not good, but what's even worse is sitting around doing nothing for an hour while a battery charges.
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Old 03-30-2018, 11:45 AM   #19 (permalink)
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I did some simple math on the soybeans and it looks like it would be better to just sell the crop at $9/bushell and buy regular diesel. Maybe corn would work out closer but then you would be dumb to grow corn and not some other crop like soybeans in the first place. Fossil is hard to beat still.
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Old 03-30-2018, 01:21 PM   #20 (permalink)
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PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS - Electrons travel at the "speed of light" unlike million-years-old petroleum products.

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