Anyway it´s kind of funny to see how hated GM is, especially be the EV lovers, they seem to even wish it will go bancrupt even as it´s seemingly working dilligently on the Volt.

Americans complain about the gas prices, you should see them over here in Europe, even so I am thinking of buying a Cherokee Laredo V8 just to enjoy the last years of the gasoline age ! Here in Iceland we´ll be sitting pretty in our EV´s as we have dirt cheap electricity, but the problem is as in the US we have to get over our love of the dirty SUV, but perhaps they can become EV´s in time.

Not all utilities are as recalcitrant as your experience indicates – PG&E in California, seeing auto electrification as a major opportunity, is being very proactive about providing high power recharging facilities and smart meters. They explain it making an analogy to hotels that prosper when they have a high occupancy rate. Utilities limp along overnight providing a fraction of the power that’s needed during peak generation during the day. The prospect of increasing their “occupancy” overnight doing vehicle recharging is a very profitable proposition because they’ve already covered capital and overhead expenses during daytime operations.

Considering the problems w/new technology vehicles we can look to the experience GM had with the EV1 that, on balance, was the opposite of what one would expect – it turns out that total battery EV’s are low maintenance. But thinking about it, how could it be otherwise?

For openers, the motor has one moving part and the litany starts with there’s no transmission and fluid to service. There’s no exhaust system or muffler to replace, no cooling system or antifreeze & water pump to replace, no lubrication system and oil & filter to replace (and no oil leaks to fix), no fuel system to keep clean and no ignition system or spark plugs, points & wires to replace, no air filter, no egr valve & O2 sensor, no fan belts or timing belts, no lead/acid battery to replace, and front break wear is diminished by regenerative breaking. Periodic maintenance on battery EV’s consists of rotating the tires and changing the wiper blades. The comparison is so smash-mouth, one wonders why we’ve tolerated this brittle technology for so long – I admit that since it appears that we need a crisis to make some obvious changes that I’m glad that the perfect storm of steep oil price hikes and the need to reduce auto emissions is now driving the process ahead in a forward direction (’sounds like Yogi doesn’t it:-).

But moderately priced full BEV is 5 – 8 years in the future when storage costs have moderated (they ought to develope like flat-panel monitors that have come down so much as their popularity grew) – I suspect the Volt will have a more conventional maintenance footprint owing to the generator and it’s many support subsystems. Looking forward for PHEV’s there are appealing possibilities for replacing the piston engine.

One that’s close to commercial availability is a dual rotor compound-cycle rotary design that grew out of the aborted Outboard Marine development project. It was taken over by the Mollier organization to provide high power to weight aircraft engines for it’s dreamed of personal VTOL aircraft (against all odds, it appears that they’ve got it off the ground). A Rotapower engine in the one liter class would replace what Chevy is using with an engine that’s possibly double the thermal efficiency weighing hundreds of pounds less. A material part of the weight saving comes from a NASA developed plasma coating for the rotors that allows them to be cooled by the fuel/air mixture as it’s injected rather than having an elaborate oil-cooling system used elsewhere. Because is has three moving parts and much simpler infrastructure, this engine appears capable of delivering many of the maintenance advantages of pure BEV with significantly reduced fuel consumption. And that’s just one example.

In all, I’m certain that it’s smart to expect the transition to auto electrification to take much longer than necessary owing to the variety of sources of inertia. But considering the challenge that the unsustainable trade deficit, high interest rates, a weak dollar, rogue producer government entanglements, and greenhouse gas emissions pose, the possibility of bi-partisan support for an all-hands-on-deck program to promote battery development and PHEV adoption in congress is not inconceivable.

Your comments just seem to validate my concern: how can we, as consumers, justify buying a “total electric” car if there isn’t an infrastructure to make it user friendly? Yeah, there will be a rush to buy them in the beginning, but when you start hearing about the problems and complaining from your neighbor or co-workers, the luster will start to fade quickly. How can we get the power companies to lay “smart” cables or some other power control device before there is a bunch or mad consumers banging on their doors demanding they do something, or get the government involved? Heck, we can’t get the power companies to upgrade their systems to be able to supply the current power needs, let alone do something to charge cars. When it comes to free markets and supply and demand, if you can’t get power, you won’t have a demand for electric cars. That’s why, in my humble opinion, I believe the hybrid vehicle,( gas,diesel, methanol, ethanol, or methane with a combustion engine) will probably still be here for another 20 years. I really hope I am proven wrong, but I’ve been around over 60 years, and haven’t seen change happen fast enough in the auto industry, and I’m an outsider to the industry, but have had to deal with various OEM’s and suppliers in the recent past. I still remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science back in the early 70’s(I think) about a guy who put a small gas turbine in the trunk of a Dodge and had lead acid batteries filling the underside of the chassis, just to prove it could be feasible. It had great pick-up, and better fuel milage than the standard cars too!

Let’s start with daytime charging: It will only be practical to consider plugging-in large numbers of cars during the day if we get a “smart grid” and an auto’s battery management system (BMS) is compatible – this permits the utility to charge when they can and draw on vehicle power when needed. But if it ever comes, it won’t be for some time. That rules out most recharging in downtown garages and office parking lots in the near future.

Nighttime charging in the home garage should be straightforward to optimize. Most power companies offer reduced overnight rates and will install meters to be able to bill accordingly. If the meters have the ability to start and stop charging according to the utility’s needs, then it will be practical for car owners to plug-in when they arrive home and expect charging to begin later in the evening, presumably around 8:30pm. It may be useful to include configurable timers in the auto’s BMS to provide the delay when the utility is not in control.

Just before moving on, I can’t help but raise the possibility that the on-board generator (53kw) in the Volt is 4x the power of my whole house stand-by generator. For the cost of a transfer box for switching one’s home to auto power, an external exhaust connector in the garage, a protocol for this mode in the BMS, and a high power interface and inverter, the Volt could serve ably to provide back-up power for as many as four homes in a pinch or one home for an extended period at a small fraction of the cost of a single back-up power installation. I don’t wonder that we’ve heard nothing of this yet from GM, it’s too much too soon for them to take on. But if they consider the problem and engineer accordingly, the car’s value will go up by $5,000 with the inclusion of a relatively low cost add-on.

Moving on – charging in the driveway. To me, this is the same issue as curbside charging in that an underground trench is required to power a national electric code compliant all-weather electric connection with both local and remote cut-off and provision to interface the BMS with a smart grid controller. In the driveway, it should be adequate to make the connection simple except that to prevent theft of power, when the connection is broken outside the home, it will not function without being reset from inside the home and it might possibly include an audible alarm to signal a cut cable.

In apartment parking lots and running along the street where parking is permitted, it would be feasible to install underground lines behind the gutter with taps for installation of all weather connections that included a credit card reader or a BMS identification capability so that anyone parking there can connect and be correctly billed. For homes with no driveway, municipalities may wish to consider changing the conventional “free for all” rule governing on-street parking to allow home owners one or two reserved spaces to make it make sense for them to go to the expense of installing curbside auto recharging facilities.

I didn’t read through all 119 posts, just about 87, and I am very curious about the real market for these cars – - – you have to plug them into an outlet.
I own my own home but need to park in the driveway because the “storage room” (i.e. garage) is too full. So— I will need to run an extension cord out to my car to plug in. Okay, no big deal, just keep it dry during rain storms and inches of snow(Detroit area). BUT– how about all those people who are in apartments? Even if they have some covered parking areas, I’ll bet there are no outlets! Then you have to deal with security issues for your particular outlet such as, vandals cutting cables, being sure your outlet isn’t being “tapped” by someone else and you get the bill, etc., etc. Can you imagine a parking garage or area with all those cables? A lawsuit just waiting to happen.
I really like the VOLT as a hybrid so I can charge the battery on the run. The idea of using an air motor to charge it works for me, or a small turbine that can use multiple fuels (even a bottle of vodka!) The technology could open a whole new venue for security devices, “smart” power cords, large volume/high pressure air compressors, and lots more!