Can’t you just imagine the gnashing of teeth, and wailing this is going to spark? There are a few electric car enthusiast YouTube programing folks that may want to call paramedics before reviewing this topic.
I like the prospect of electric vehicles, but I don’t really get into the ‘going green’ thing. I like new technology and the electric cars intrigue me. That being said, these companies need to be run like any other company. They need to attract backers and run their businesses like any other business.
Electric vehicle manufacturers need to manage their companies well, and turn a profit. Looking to turn Uncle Sam into a sugar daddy doesn’t sit well with me.
I’m not sure about other regions of the nation, but I live in California, and California has lagged in developing new power plants. Look, that’s my take on things. If someone knows differently, please speak up.
We have closed down multiple nuclear reactors. Somehow we’ve been able to do that, and still service the region, but then we’re now in the rolling blackout situation again.
I know folks are familiar with the new fire hazard blackouts, but there are also regions where the power is in such high demand, and the available energy is so sparse, that from time to time there are blackouts due to lack of power.
As electric vehicles come online, their battery charge is going to be able to be harvested. The same way a home that is producing more energy than it needs can sell back to the grid, electric vehicles can also do that.
If a person has a full charge and they don’t need all of it to get home, they can make an arrangement to allow the power company to withdraw an agreed upon level of charge, back into the grid.
If the vehicle owner is able to charge their vehicle at low rates in the middle of the night, and sell it back at higher rates during the middle of the day, it can become an income source for the vehicle owner.
The power grid benefits from this, because it has an on hand source for power during the time there is the most stress on the system.
In theory, the prospect of an arrangement like this could be worthy of a power company investing in. Instead of building a new power plant, they could invest in electric vehicle companies, and help people buy electric vehicles. The owner of the vehicle would sign up to provide power back to the grid during the day.
This sounds like a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Power companies wouldn’t have to pay the full load of building a new power plant, getting it licensed, permitted, spend years to get it online, and then have to deal with salaries and other costs of doing business.
Instead they could help bring new electric vehicles on line, and then tap into their energy reserves.
If there are 10,000 vehicles out there providing anywhere from 25 - 50 Kilowatts back to the grid, we’re talking about a lot of energy. I suspect in the long run it would be a much more cost effective way to tap into a power source.
Power companies, electric vehicle companies, and owners of electric vehicles should be able to work something out.
The feds should stay out of it. I will say this. If the federal government helps put new power facilities on line now, it would seem kind of a trade off to help facilitate power access in the above mentioned manner.
Maybe this would be in the form of loan guarantees, and the government could be compensated in return.
Power companies could sell bonds or get creative in other ways.
I don’t think we need to be all negative when it comes to electric cars. As long as it can be done in a reasoned manner, I’m all for it.
I think people are miffed at the way Musk got so much government money. It’s not my premise that was a good idea.
Not going to happen.
1) People will want their cars to have as much of a charge as possible, ready to use. They won't want to decrease that range by feeding it back to the grid.
2) EV owners don't want their battery life decreased by frequent cycles of charging and discharging. Battery life will be reduced to a few years because frequent cycles reduce percentage of range, and EV owners will be pissed.
All good points/review.
Ideally having safe hydrogen fuel cell would be nice.
This cramming fifty thousand cellphone batteries into golf cards is for the birds..
EV startup Nikola takes on the Tesla Cybertruck with hydrogen-powered ‘Badger’
https://thenextweb.com/cars/2020/02/11/nikola-announces-badger-rival-teslas-cybertruck-hydrogen-fuel-cells/