New Government Study Shows PHEV Use Will Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Oil Use

Yesterday the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council released a comprehensive assessment which found that widespread use of plug-in electric vehicles (PHEV) could be expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve ambient air quality.
The 3 key findings:

By 2050, 450 million tons less greenhouse gas would be produced.
The power grid can [...]

Build Your Own Plug-in Electric Car

Sure, wed all like to drive off in an all-new, dealership-supported, warrantied, and well-made GM Volt. But there are folks who dont want to wait until 2010. Indeed the do-it-yourself movement is rapidly underway. As we’ve discussed previously there are a variety of ways to “grow your own” electric car.
There are several [...]

E85, Corn, and The Volt

We talk a lot about the electric engine, plugin capability, and lithium batteries when we discuss the Volt. It is time we discussed another very important aspect of the vehicle, the fact that the combustion engine can run on E85.
E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, not the other way around!
Due [...]

CO2 Emissions

OK Heres the rundown.
Total US CO2 annual emissions: 6 billion metric tons
Electric Generation: 2 billion tons
Commercial Transport: 1.7 billion tons
Reidential Use: 1 billion tons
Commercial Use: 1 billion tons
Residental Autos: 0 .3 billion tons
These data raise two problems:
1. If everyone in U.S. changed to drive a Volt, the 0.3 billion tons might just be shifted [...]

Electric Grid

I found a nice post about the Dept of Energies concerns and beliefs about the ability of the grid to handle electric cars.
Check it out here:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions (CO2)

One hypothesis is that widespread use and adoption of this vehicle will lead to a decrease in CO2 emission and help the global warming problem.  This could occur from a decrease in the use of gasoline assuming the assumption that most drives are less than 40 miles.
The next step in this theory is to determine [...]