ENERGY: How to prep your home for an electric car

nctimes.com ^

[Jet Jaguar]

Getting your home ready to charge an electric car will either require little time or money ---- or a couple of months and thousands of dollars. It depends on what kind of electric car you buy, the wiring in your home and how quickly you want to juice your ride.

[Libloather]

But the most important near-term reason to smarten the grid is waste reduction. Cutting tiny inefficiencies can have dramatic effects on the entire system. Consider the case of the humble incandescent light bulb. By the time power has been generated at a plant, transported across high-tension lines, and sent to the lighting fixture, a measly 0.8 percent of the power is converted into light. More efficient light bulbs, like light-emitting diodes, could vastly alter that equation. Widely adopting LEDs in the next two decades could save $265 billion in energy costs, remove the need to build 40 new power plants, and cut the demand for lighting electricity by more than 30 percent, according to the Department of Energy.

Most Americans are completely unaware of how much power common household items like the light bulb fritter away. So smartening the public is as critical as smartening the grid itself. Individual smart meters that replace the traditional power meters installed on homes can show consumers how much power their home is using at given times of the day and how much that power is costing. Indeed, policymakers and utilities hope that giving people the true costs of their electric appliance use will naturally change their behavior and give them an incentive to make cheaper choices.

http://politics.usnews.com/news/energy/articles/2010/04/07/a-smart-electrical-grid-could-secure-the-energy-supply--.html

[Syntyr]

“How ‘bout a Honda generator with enough power output to charge the electric cars? :)”

How about a Honda Civic that runs on gas and cut out the middle man... ;)

[FrdmLvr]

See, that’s the trouble with you conservatives...you make too much sense!

[9422WMR]

Wait, better check with this guy: Kellis91789
he/she is the all knowing expert on electric cars.
Or maybe just a Chevy salesman????

[Gorzaloon]

This is plain BS. The thing requires a 30A circuit. No more than a dryer.

Even if everyone on the block turned it on at the same time it wouldn't hurt the x-former.

I live in a neighborhood that had a sudden building boom. Many times, people would all come home from work, turn on their stoves and ACs, and there would be a loud explosion when the pole fuses blew on the transformer on the corner. One time, there was a pretty green flash as the transformer gave up the ghost. Another time one of the high wires failed at the fuse, and there was a shower of burning aluminum...Looked like July 4.

Grudgingly, finally, the utility upgraded the lines and added another transformer, but it took years.

So..it depends on many things like the age of the infrastructure, and the neighborhood, etc. There will be places that will have trouble.

[sionnsar]

First Electric Cars Have Power Industry Worried (FR thread):

"When plugged into a home charging station the first Leafs and Volts will draw 3,300 Watts and take about 8 hours to deliver a full charge, but both carmakers may soon boost that to 6,600 Watts. The Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car with a huge battery, can draw 16,800 Watts. That means that adding an electric vehicle or two to a neighborhood can be like adding another house, and it can stress the equipment that services those houses. The problem is that transformers that distribute power from the electrical grid to homes are often designed to handle less than about 12,000 watts so the extra stress on a transformer from one or two electric vehicles could cause it to overheat and fail, knocking out power to the block."

[The Great RJ]

What will the electric car do to your electric bill? How many kilowatts will be needed to charge the battery? I could see the cost per mile for your electric car could make $4 per gallon gasoline look cheap.

[unixfox]

Kind of irks me that we are going to subsidize wealthy college professors..

Fools and their/our money?

[A.A. Cunningham]

Where’s the link?

[dockkiller]

All insurance companies “subrogate” claims.

If they find someone to blame, they demand payment of the claim or they can/will sue.

[quantim]

[Jet Jaguar]

http://www.nctimes.com/business/article_2cb1cade-de04-54df-a50e-94b8a583a79a.html

Sorry about that.

I was sure I included it in the original post.

[KeyLargo]

[truth_seeker]

“Sounds like a another bad idea whose time has come.”

Like loaning money to people that are certain to not be able to pay it back?

Like giving unmarried females money to have babies?

Like half-way fighting wars?

[NewHampshireDuo]

Hey, these cars use the latest battery technology, just like my laptops do. Wait a minute, those batteries really suck after a while.

[eyeamok]

in socal this would be a $5000 per month electric bill if you charged it 8 hours a day, every day. Whats next horse and buggy??? Seems to me that all this “New Alternatives” are a GIANT STEP BACKWARDS.

[bigbob]

Move near one of these, and toss an extension cord over the fence:

[BenKenobi]

“40 mile round-trip commute, you’d be able to charge in 8 hours”

Wow, that really, really sucks. You know the sad thing is that our kids aren’t going to know what real freedom is like.

Real freedom is driving across the country. This? This isn’t anything like it.

[RangerM]

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/11/and-now-grid-anxiety/#more-374839

[KeyLargo]