And Now: Grid Anxiety

thetruthaboutcars ^ | November 28, 2010 | By Bertel Schmitt

[ADemocratNoMore]

> I’m also curious to see some serious crash testing results. Exactly how durable is that battery when you T-bone it with an F-150 doing 60?? What happens when you run it head-on into a bridge abutment at the same speed??

You remember those stories about exploding laptops & cellphones?. Scale up that battery to run a car & try to imagine the inferno that results. You get a thousand degree metal fire that produces toxic gasses and can't be extinguished by water. See the following...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jjAtBiTSsKY&feature=related

[Smokin' Joe]

Gasoline here is over $3.00 a gallon. But the weather where I am is a balmy 18 degrees above zero, (yes, that's warm for here in November) with a 24 mile per hour wind (wind chill at zero degrees) and blowing (and drifting) snow. While this isn't so much extreme weather for here as it is typical, it is 130 miles to the next major town with plenty of room to get stuck in between.

When electrics can cover the round trip with the heater, defroster, and headlights on, and plenty of extra in case you end up in the ditch far from the nearest plug-in, maybe I'll consider one. For now, no EVs, no matter if gas hits $5.00, because the electrics are a potential deathtrap here.

[HangThemHigh]

"It will take double the amount of fossil fuel to power EVs versus burning the fuel directly in an engine."

Not really. I can't find any good figures, but electric motors and power generation can be very efficient. Even with transmission, battery, and charging losses, the overall efficiency of an EV is most likely better than the 25% to 30% of an internal combustion engine. (Where efficiency is energy at wheels /energy burned).

Still, if EV's become popular, the grid will be stressed and power rates are sure to climb. Just like burning corn (ethanol) is doing to food prices.