By Bob Difley
How close are we to an electric vehicle? A bit far, I suspect, for motorhomes or trucks powerful enough to pull trailers and fivers, but maybe not as far for a toad. GM has pulled out all the stops for the Volt PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) due out in the spring of 2009.
GM has accepted its own challenge of accomplishing 40 miles on a single charge and plugging into a regular 120-volt electrical outlet to recharge overnight. After 40 miles, a gasoline motor kicks in to get you extra mileage and to recharge its batteries. GM has also promised to deliver it to market for $30,000, which most sources think will be at a loss until enough can be sold and plug-in battery technology improves enough to get their manufacturing costs down. GM is so focused on the Volt that they have allowed the Volt division to bypass much of the corporate bureaucracy that would slow them down and is throwing buckets of bucks at the division.
Meanwhile, Toyota quietly announced that they will also have plug-ins by 2009 and are planning to introduce a half step toward that goal with an up-graded Prius hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), whose batteries are charged by the on-board gasoline engine, that will get 10 miles on electric only (the current Prius will only get one or two on electric only) before the gas motor kicks in.
Other companies are also on the fast track, such as Tesla Motors, manufacturer of an all-electric (EV) sports roadster claiming to achieve 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and a single charge driving range of over 200 miles (tested as high as 276 mpg). Unlike hybrids, the Tesla has no gasoline motor, using only electricity from its li-ion battery pack and charged on any 120-volt system.
So what does all this mean when considering toads? First, any of the three electric vehicle types (HEV, PHEV, EV) is much cleaner and less polluting than burning gasoline or diesel, emitting less carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere (none from the EV). Second, you could charge your toad battery pack from your rig’s solar panels or wind generator at 0 cost, or from a campground electrical connection. Third, a PHEV, where you can drive 40 miles on a charge would in most situations be enough to drive to the grocery store, post office, and Starbucks, then back to the campground to plug in. It would also be enough to do a fair amount of touring from the campground, and if you did drive more miles, the gasoline engine would take over to finish your drive.
With an EV you could simply find an outlet to plug into for enough of a charge to get you home, like while enjoying your latte. And it wouldn’t take much of a conversion, if at all, for service stations to provide electrical outlets for EVs and charge by the time or kilowatt hours used.
Given the future of EVs, maybe that’s why the oil companies are sitting on millions of acres of oil leases and not drilling. If I were CEO of Exxon-Mobil I would think twice, knowing it would cost $100 million to drill a well that might turn out to be a dry hole, when everyone was lining up to buy EVs.
However, the next logical question is: What is the cost of an EV’s battery replacement? The answer could put a damper on the whole concept unless some major breakthrough comes along in battery technology initiating mass production and the resultant lower manufacturing costs. Is that what the electric car enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are betting on?