Electric vehicles are only capable of replacing a small percentage of the total vehicles currently on the road. EVs have very limited range and very limited capabilities. While they might be fine for urban commuting, they aren't well suited for the vast majority of other uses.

Given that 100 years of infrastructure has gone into building highways and bridges for cars, it's not feasible to suggest a shift to mass transit (even if such a thing weren't political suicide). Even our very cities have been designed around personal transportation. So we're stuck with the car, and that means we've got to go electric.

This paragraph says you have no intention of following the science. You rule out, a priori, the one program that provides the possibility of maintaining a functioning transportation option in the face of the twin carbon challenges (peak oil and climate disruption). You dismiss in a paragraph, the only realistic approach, clinging instead to the fantasy ideal of personalized vehicles for 300 million of the biggest energy hogs on the planet.

The Malay Monkey Trap is a device in which a narrow-mouth jar is buried in the ground with a little bit of the upper neck sticking out of the ground. The trap is baited with fruit. Monkeys find the trap, spy the fruit, and reach down into the jar to get it -- but cannot retract their hand with the fruit. They scream and pull, but are trapped. Hunters bag them easily. All they have to to escape is let go the fruit, but they don't.

Cars are the monkey trap you use to catch Americans. Despite national insolvency, a collapsing public infrastructure, third-world levels of public health statistics, we refuse to let go of our fantasy of personal automobility for all.

Good luck with that.

I'd sure like to have a practical alternative to the fossil fuel transportation system.

Living in Central Oregon with a job that requires me to travel up to 300 miles round trip, and over passes upwards of 5,000 feet high, there is no electrical technology available now that can provide a viable alternative. During winter snow and spring mud seasons, and sometimes when I'm traveling in rough country, I have to have a 4-wheel drive to do my job.

I see no reason why the future doesn't hold a scenario where there would be solar panels on my roof or property, creating energy that either I use or dump into the grid, and that I charge up my "fleet" of electric cars that includes a little local commuter, a "road" mid-size car, and a "4-wheel" drive back road car.

What I don't understand is what has happened to American industry. 50 years ago, presented with the current situation, companies would be formed to put together all the pieces that are needed. We need it to be made easy, convenient, and cheaper to convert every house in Oregon and the Nation to be a solar energy producer. We need it to be made easy, convenient, and cheaper to have the full menu of options for vehicles that are electric. Why aren't there viable companies out there doing it? There is a huge domestic and international market for the "package" deals to make it work to reduce carbon use.

Most of the technology is available, what we are lacking is the mass production.

EVs aren't massed produced because there isn't much demand for expensive vehicles with limited range and limited features. It might be possible to mass produce "tin lizzy" type of EVs but the regulatory community would have a hissy fit if a vehicle didn't have crush zones, air bags, side impact bars, center high mounted brake lights, etc. So if you force the EV into the same constraints that an IC powered vehicle can meet then you end up with a very impractical vehicle. The IC engine is tough to beat for total system efficiency. Gas packs a lot of BTU's per pound and the IC is a very highly developed package these days. Electricity suffers from losses throughout the entire system. Generation has losses, there are transmission losses, transformer step down losses, battery charge limitations and conversion losses. I'll be surprised if we see practical EVs within the next 20 years. Nothing currently on the drawing boards comes close to the practical value that you get from an IC and a tank of gas.

"From a policy perspective, it would require a portfolio of mechanisms like heavy gas taxes, "

Of course, every Progressive Democrat plan requires higher an higher taxes.

What about people who can't afford to by a new electric car? What about rural people that can't use an electric car, I guess they just have to pay "heavy gas taxes".

The technology is here now. Just a matter of bringing in the economies of scale and refinement to make it an affordable reality. The current and easily accessable lithium batteries with nano technology have a 5C charge rate which means you can bring the battery from completely dead to fully charged in 12 minutes.

Make no mistake, this requires a charging station with quite a powerful hookup to the utility. Each car being charged will require the equivalent of the maximum circuit capacity of about 3 homes. This means fast charging will not be a reality in your home just like having a gasoline resovoir under your home isn't, however, it can easily be made a reality by putting "gas stations" on every corner connected directly to the local street level 10,000-20,000v naighborhood feed that can easily accomodate a handful of cars being charged at the same time. You'll typically bring your car with a charge state of about 20% which means you can be in and out in 10 minutes with a "full tank."

Jeff, excuse me for failing to read a post titled "An Electric Car in Every Garage" and that completely dismisses mass transit as an invitation to explore ideas on transportation. I have no interest in discussing "can we replace gasoline cars with electric cars." Not only are there millions of people happy to discuss that ad nauseum, it's a pointless question. It's like saying "Can we all learn to run 8 miles per hour instead of 6 to escape tigers" when tigers run 20 miles per hour.

If you want to talk about "Is there a way to adjust our thinking, habits, and investments so that we can meet our needs for access to goods and services (which is not necessarily the same as a need for mobility) while living within the planet's physical and biological limits" then that's a good topic for a post.

Imagining a world where we all drive electric cars also requires that we think about the effects of reducing substantially the cost per mile of vehicle usage. What will this do to congestion, mass transit and overall energy consumption?

We have seen a dramatic response in vehicle miles to high gas prices, if we all had a car that was, say, 4 times cheaper to drive we could expect a dramatic increase in miles driven.

I have no idea the answers to these questions, but they are important to think about.

I still haven't been able to wrap my head around the fact that the auto industry has not had any earth shattering changes in engine efficiency technology in 20+ years. My first car was a 1980 Chevy Luv pickup that got close to 30mpg, and now I drive a 1997 Chevy S10 and gets 27-29mpg. My wife drives a 2004 Ford Escape (non hybrid) that only gets about 22-24mpg. Is there any other technology or mechanical product that has only had "cosmetic" changes in the last 20 years?

That being said, I have been watching a company called Better Place, formerly Project Better Place, for about a year. It was started by Shai Agassi, who used to be 2nd in command at the software company, SAP. Their philosophy is fantastic. They don't believe technology is the problem. It's the users lack of acceptance because of the ease of use. So their objective is to commit to deploy the charging stations within a full city or greater area first, THEN people will want the cars. However, instead of a charging station as we think of it with a plug in and taking time to charge, why not just pull in and have your drained battery replaced with a full battery, taking about the same time as it would take to fill you gas tank.

And instead of charging an arm and a leg for the car up front, why not handle it like the cell phone industry and charge a reasonable fee for the car, but charge a membership or usage fee monthly? I am not finding the article again, but I remember reading this as a proposal. It could have been just a blog entry I read, so I will just propose it as an idea instead of a company objective.

They are already deploying in Israel, Denmark, and Hawaii. Looks like the Bay Area is on the project now, too. I know Wiki isn't the best source, but it does have some good info at Wiki Better Place.

Governors Kulongoski, Gregoire, and Schwarzenegger have had discussions with Better Place about turning I-5 rest stops or truck stops into battery replacement stations so the I-5 corridor would be covered: Electrify I-5

As far as directly contributing to the subject of energy conservation. Couldn't a charging station simply have a solar panel on top of it like the new parking meters in Portland? I don't know if that's enough power to charge the car batteries though.

While I didn't submit any qualified information about energy conservation, hopefully this is food for thought.

$4 a gallon for gas doesn't begin to make EV's attractive. Not even $8 a gallon. I'm not sure how high gas has to be priced to make people start to downgrade to EV capability but it is higher than $8 a gallon. We know that to be a fact since that experiment has already been done. EVs are slow, have limited range, limited features and a fairly short lifespan. Maybe someone will make some key inventions in the future to change that but for now they probably cannot replace more than a few percent of the vehicles currently in use.

EVs have very limited range and very limited capabilities. While they might be fine for urban commuting, they aren't well suited for the vast majority of other uses.

Actually, they are perfectly suited for the vast majority of other uses. Unless you're in a situation where you routinely need to drive 40 or 50 miles a day, an electric car takes care of everything you need to do around town. It won't take you on a road trip, say to the coast or a weekend camping trip.

But we live in a nation where the majority of households have two cars. The key to marketing an electric vehicle is to market as your "second car." It's the car that you can use for short trips, regular commuting, shopping, picking up your spouse at the airport, that sort of thing. Basically, a car you can use 90% of the time.

Even if you buy it as your "second car," there's a very good chance it becomes your de facto primary car, with the gas guzzler spending four or five days a week in the garage, and coming out when you need two vehicles, or to carry a lot of stuff, or to take that weekend holiday or road trip.

As for charging the electric cars: windmills. Lots and lots of windmills. Windmills aren't good for peak energy production -- you can't call up more wind when demand spikes -- but the wind blows all night, right when there isn't that much other demand on the grid and the cars need charging.

Jeff, why not Natural Gas? It is plentiful (currently being flared off in Prudoe Bay), burns very efficiently and leaves little CO2 to the environment. The material can be compressed and transported safely and most modern internal combustion engines can be converted for under $500. Of course this isn't as sexy as all electric cars - but right now the Chevy all electric, due for salesrooms in 2012 will only go about 40 miles per charge. That isn't practical.

Jeff:

Please see the same Bright Future Report.

Try getting the freakin govt off the backs of car makers and we could easily have 100 mpg hybrids. But if the have to have 5 mph bumpers, air bags, and a million other regulations regarding our safety, we will never get there. Steve, you talk about the inefficiency of IC engines. Actually, they are VERY efficient at getting us around. The waste heat you mention is a by product, but so what? At $2 a gallon, it is far superior to any other technology, and that is why it is used. Business folks are not idiots (those folks went into politics), if electric cars were money makers we would have them out our ears. And with electric I CAN get great quarter mile times, but NOT power and range combined. You cant make it true just by repeating this crap over and over. The big OBAMA nation cures all include making everything so damn expensive none of us can afford our cars. Nice, govt imposed travel restriction, live in a 500 sq ft flat in the city because that is all you can afford. Sorry, dont like your idea of a dream society. Why cant sleepy Ted speak to the electric car makers here in our own state??? Porteon has a nice design, but here in the good ole USA we limit it to 25 mph, even though it will go much faster. Arcimoto also has an urban commuter and I think all you city folk should get one. Me, on the other hand, live in the country. Wide open spaces, room for the dog. Why screw me, my 22 mpg is infringing our your happiness? My job involves much driving too, so, just sorry dude, move the the city and get a bike cause Ted had a fever, and the only cure is less CO2? (or more cowbell). We are way off of pure electric cars with gas equivalent performance, but we could make a decent impact if we are allowed some freedom. Unfortunately, the "green" bell is ringing so loud as to drown out all but the whacko, indoctrinated, sky is oozing CO2, zero tolerance butt heads currently running the show. So get on board, and get a govt job and PERS, it is your only chance....

@ Jeff: You, sir, suffer from an extremely impoverished imagination.

2. Public transportation is also--of course--a piece of the puzzle. I don't mean to suggest that we don't need to build high speed rail, denser cities, urban public transportation systems and so on. But it's impossible to imagine a system in the near future (10-40 years) that depends in the main on anything but cars (George's fury notwithstanding).

Your imagination seems quite capable of conjuring up incredible fantasies when they involve allowing business as usual to continue by other means. How a society that has bankrupted itself (to maintain itself as an empire) is supposed to find the capital to keep the happy motoring dream alive is simply ignored, because it disrupts the happy fantasy of a one-for-one swap of cool electric cars for gasoline cars.

James Howard Kunstler writes a lot about how our unswerving commitment to the auto results from the overwhelming power of "the psychology of previous investment" -- another name for the gambler's fallacy of throwing good money after bad because he's got so much invested, he feels he can't quit now. Calling mass transit simply a "piece of the puzzle" demonstrates that you have a bad case of it. The reality is that, if we're lucky and hardworking, we'll maintain necessary mobility primarily through mass transit, and auto-mobility will recede back to what it was when it started, something for the rich. There is no way America can possibly fund continuation of the happy motoring society, no matter what fuel you postulate.

The movie Who Killed the Electric Car argued that the reason we don't have electric cars is not due to Auto Manufacturing CEO's ignorance. It is because big auto makers will need a massive change in their business plan to make a profit selling electric cars. Currently big auto makes a lot of money selling spare parts, but an electric car (because of the simplicity of the electric motor) cuts down the number of spare parts needed by a huge amount.

I think electric cars can be a big part of the puzzle, but big three automakers will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the electric car market if they aren't already headed down the same road the buggy whip manufacturers took.

An Israeli entrepreneur wants electric car makers to standardize easily exchangeable battery packs, which would allow batteryswaps that take no more time than filling a gas tank. This would reduce the problem of short range per charge faced by present cars that must recharge for an extended period once their juice is spent.

In the long-term, autos of any kind will likely succumb to the cost of road building. Both asphalt and concrete roads are energy intensive.

The reason we don't have EVs is because the vast majority of people around the world don't want to pay $40,000 for a vehicle that is only slightly more useful than a golf cart.

EVs will never happen if progressives maintain a hostile environment for big business. The only possible way for an EV to become competitive with existing autos would be if regulator compliance and environmental compliance regulations were loosened up for EV production. Otherwise the EV is so far behind in development that it will never catch up.

As it is now, EVs are basically toys that only a very small percent of the population are even remotely interested in owning.

Jeff;

I disagree that nuclear-generated electricity will need to be part of the solution to the problem of providing sufficient electricity for a nationwide fleet of EVs. Solar and Wind can do this, and probably at lower cost. Details of how this might work for solar are spelled out in a January 2008 Scientific American article: A Solar Grand Plan

More people being able to walk from their home to jobs, schools, stores and church,is a smarter way to go. Better than an electric car in every garage, would be a modern, well designed civilization that wouldn't require so many people to cover a lot of miles every day just to meet the needs of day to day life.

Our modern civilization is built upon the unique capabilities of the gasoline IC motor vehicle. It's a tall order, possibly not one ever capable of being filled, to have electric vehicles assume the role of the gasoline IC motor vehicle in this civilization.

Whether or not EV's with a range sufficient for the needs of people in today's civilization are successfully developed, faced with a growing population, we're still faced with the problem of worsening traffic jams due to more and more people that have to be on the road to feed, shelter and clothe themselves. The problem we have now is going to be nothing compared to the millions of people of future generations added to those already forced to log many miles on the road every day.

TED Talks has a great video featuring aforementioned Shai Agassi and his projects in Israel and elsewhere. It is 18 minutes, but worth a look.

andy, the idea that electric cars are "slightly more useful than a golf cart" is a common myth/stereotype. GM's EV1 was no slouch performance-wise, and that was 13 years ago. There have been great innovations in the intervening years, although, as pointed out, battery technology really remains the biggest hurdle.

Regarding energy efficiency, most internal combustion engines (ICEs) average 18-20% whereas electric cars average around 70-85% efficiency. The method of electricity generation, transmission, and storage affect this efficiency, but with ICEs you have to consider the costly transport and storage as well.

-tl

I flubbed the link to the NYT article on Shai Agassi's plan for battery swapping service stations powered by renewable electricity: Batteries Not Included

Hey, I'm almost 60, cook 100% from scratch (read: lots of grocery hauling), have to get to work everyday, sun or shine, umpire in a local league and have to use the airport about once a month. I haven't owned a car, using only bike and Tri-Met for 10 years.

Am I superman (not)? Please explain to me why you have to have a car. Can even 3% of teh population tell the difference between a need and a want? Yeah, it's a lot of work. Why is your time worth more than mine? Why is it that "I just couldn't possibly live that way"?

Incidentally, I knew of about a dozen people that were the same, when I first moved here. Since then 4 have bought SUVs, "because they had no choice". Why? Hobby breeding. Add that to the tab. Tax those free-loaders. Actually that's an understatement. We subsidize the behavior.

But we're ready to get smart about our cars. Yeah. The #1 thing we do to affect the environment is reproduce and that is absolutely out of bounds for debate. That is why it is impossible to believe that anything has been learned. Electric cars and the like are just a way of modifying behavior just enough to survive...and keep pursuing the exact same strategies.

Jeff, did you catch yesterday's Oregonian?

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/04/so_whats_the_deal_with_electri.html

According to this in depth report, the problem with electric cars in the Northwest is that the prime time for recharge cycles (night time) is when the energy grid is being run mostly on coal powered generating plants. Thus, electricity generated for vehicle charging at this time is little more environmentally friendly than a newer, well tuned gasoline internal combustion engine.

Again, nuclear power is the best available control technology, current available and feasible to bridge the US from the great dependence on fossil fuel transportation.

Hey guys, how come you have never picked up the discussion of veggie oil rigs? I've a buddy who drives one. The discussion is running along the lines of those modes most-favored by big business - easiest to make a financial killing on. It would be enjoyable to see you turn your minds to research and discussion viz this truly alternative mode of locomotion that is actualy being used and gaining a subcultural foothold, outside the primary throughways of business' desire to continue to control for money. Reminds me of how big pharma allowed little guys to sell Willie Stiffener via internet b/c they did not believe it was a viable sales portal. Those little guys were making high six figures immediately, cleaning up. So Big Pharma got busy activating FDA, DOJ and AMA to put Viagra sellers out of business or in jail, or severely injunct them.

:)... my bet is that this is parallel. Ignore a really wacky seeming solution till it becomes apparent that was the one to watch... so, what do you know about rigs that run on veggie oil? My friend drives one, is always tinkering it.

@rw: there's nothing wrong with using used vegetable oil for fuel when it is no longer able to be reused in the fryer. But the supply is about a pound a year per Oregonian --- not even a drop in the bucket.

There's nobody who's throwing away used vegetable oil these days, since there's a good market for it.

So the people who are using it now are doing a fine thing, but there's no more to be had and the failure to understand the limits of that source of supply are what has led us to the disaster of subsidizing the growing of crops for biodiesel.

So, while actual post-consumer biodiesel is cool, agrofuels -- biodiesel from crops grown for use as feedstocks -- are greenhouse gas and biodiversity disasters, in addition to driving up food prices across the board as arable land is converted from growing food for people to growing fuel for cars.

There's a guy in Seattle who has a great site on agrofuels: http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/biodiesel/

Thanks, Geo. I still think it is important that this be in the mix, as it's going to require, I think, the ability to accomodate diversified solutions to fit the regions and locales. We are, in my humble opinion, potentially headed back to living in cultural regions again - c.f. social anthropology theory. Oregon may not be The Place for solar alone, but a creative and responsive patchwork of solutions that fit the place you live may be what we have to allow for. :)... I'll read that site. Merci.

rx