Posted on 11/24/2010 11:45:12 AM PST by a fool in paradise
Houston?! Why Houston? That was the question last week, when NRG Energy announced its plans to make our city home to the nation's largest network of charging stations for electric cars. To put it kindly, our sprawling megalopolis doesn't strike the rest of the world as a leader in greening the planet.
"Are you taunting the oil industry?" a Dallas Morning News reporter asked David Crane, NRG's chief executive, during the conference call in which he announced the plan.
Crane laughed. "Let me state for the record," he replied, "we're not taunting the oil industry."
Instead, it turns out that car-loving cities like Houston represent the fattest potential market for electric cars... And a recent electric-car market study by GM and Deloitte put Houston near the top of the list: Roughly 90 percent of our commuters drive.
...Almost every house here has a garage. And... The cars' batteries hold charges better on hot days than on cold ones.
...Texas has the only deregulated electricity market in the country, and Houston — unlike Austin or San Antonio, which own their own utilities — leaves power generation to companies like NRG (which owns Reliant and Green Mountain Energy). A government-run entity might hesitate to build infrastructure for a risky, unproven market. But NRG doesn't have to answer to taxpayers...
And it's willing to take a calculated risk... if NRG captures even a sliver of the market it's eyeing, that bet could have an astronomical payoff.
Electric cars make electric providers giddy; analysts believe the industry hasn't seen such an opportunity for growth since the introduction of air-conditioning. It's estimated that with an electric car, driving 10,000 miles will use about 2,500 kilowatt hours. That's more electricity than the average American house consumes in a year...
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Also, electric cars use up no energy when stuck in the non-moving traffic often found in Houston.
The A/C doesn’t run on fairy dust.
They'll use plenty running the car air conditioner. These cars better have good AC's too or they aren't going to sell many of them in Houston.
Houston PING
Idiots.
What can you expect from Houston, after all didn’t they just elect a Lesbo Mayor. Maybe Houston and New Orleans deserve each other.
The plan is to have 50 charging stations installed by the middle of next year; these would deliver three or four miles of range for each minute of charging time.
So if I have a thirty-mile drive to get home, I have 7.5 to ten minutes of charging time to get enough juice to get home.
Real stinkin' convenient.
You would need at least 2 charge stations to just make it around the beltway!
The election would likely had a different outcome if the metro area been able to vote
NRG, as a company, is at least operating on a market approach to its business plans (other than the indirect benefit from the tax-credits consumers will get for buying hybrid and electric cars), unlike a couple of companies with similar motives in California, and NRG has not received direct federal funding or subsidies for its plans.
NRG is an electric energy supplier, and is focusing on the 13 states that have “deregulated” the retail supply of electricity; and with its own expertise and experience devised what it thinks will be profitable business models to provide publicly and privately accessed charging stations.
Time will tell - if we can remove the $7,500 in tax credits for the electric cars - if the price tags for those cars will come down, if demand for them will hold up and if NRG’s plans will obtain enough customers.
The main thing I applaud with them is that their plans, unlike so many other outfits wanting to enter the same business, do not rely in direct government subsidies to them.
“And a forty-mile distance between charges will hardly get you from Katy or Sugar Land to Downtown and back, even if you aren’t running the AC.
Idiots.”
Not really. Most of these electric cars run on gasoline as a back-up.
I personally love the idea of electric cars. If we could get some nuclear power plants built and ultimately improve the technology, we could rid ourselves of Mexican, Venezuelan, and Middle Eastern oil. No more proppping up terrorist/dictators/corrupt/cartel-run/illegal immigrant supporting regimes.
And all the run down batteries will only add to the traffic jam.
Color me skeptical about this idea of electric cars in Houston. My commute is over 40 miles one way when I drive it. yahoo
What did he quote, 10,000 miles per year is 2,500 kwh. More than the average house consumes in a year? Really? We average this much a month.
At 2,500 kwh x $0.13/kwh that is a bargain of 10,000 miles for a whopping $325.00 a year for fuel? I’ll believe it when I see it.
I question why Reliant Energy paid $300million for the naming rights to a stadium built by Harris County and gave the money to the team owner and not the county which paid $300million to build the stadium. Heck, they could have just paid $300million to build the stadium AND said that they claim the naming rights.
I’ve got news for you, those corrupt Islamic supremacist regimes will continue to get rich off of European, Chinese, and Indian money.
The money and oil isn’t evil, the xenophobic theocratic dictators and monarchs are.
That’s Houston. Never thinks before they act.
“So if I have a thirty-mile drive to get home, I have 7.5 to ten minutes of charging time to get enough juice to get home.”
Let’s see, my estimate of a gas pump is 6 gallons per minute. So..., I get 120 miles of driving for each minute of waiting at the pump. Not a bad trade, in my opinion.
“What did he quote, 10,000 miles per year is 2,500 kwh. More than the average house consumes in a year? Really? We average this much a month.
At 2,500 kwh x $0.13/kwh that is a bargain of 10,000 miles for a whopping $325.00 a year for fuel? I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Yea - even China and Mexico average more energy than 2500 kwh per month. This is the problem when you have liberals who grew up HATING MATH trying to do some arithmetic. I’ve read enough on the Volt, it will cost about 4 cents per mile in electricity...the Prius is about 5 to 6 cents for just operating on gas (at today’s prices). Seems like a no-brainer to me, for people who want low per-mile cost - assuming they don’t mind paying an extra 50% in sticker price (for either type of car).
Electric won’t work for now but Natural Gas would and people know that, but that is not going to happen either unless it’s regulated into happening meaning that all service stations install natural gas filling stations, after that is done all new cars are built to run on natural gas. Gasoline would be fazed out over time. Gasoline is still to cheap for that to happen so enjoy gasoline for the foreseeable future:)
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