Guest post by David Middleton
Even with up to $10,000 in federal and state incentives, only 4% of car buyers in California chose electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles last year. That’s a huge problem in a state with rising greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles, and with a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025.
How can the state kick-start EV sales and hit its target of 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles? To Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), the answer is simple: Spend $3 billion on dramatically higher state rebates — as in, upping the state’s ante from $2,500 to $10,000 or more per vehicle.
Under Ting’s proposal, AB 1184, the state rebate program would be redesigned to make the cost of a compact electric vehicle comparable to a similar gas-powered one.
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But there are several problems that make Ting’s current proposal a no-go. For starters, there’s the staggering $3-billion price tag, which is six times more than the state has spent on rebates since 2010. There’s talk about dipping into the cap-and-trade auction revenue, but there already are lots of proposals for how to spend that money to reduce carbon.
More fundamentally, there’s no analysis of why Californians aren’t buying more electric cars.
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Could it possibly be that 96% of Californian car buyers don’t want to purchase EV’s?
I work in Houston and live in Dallas. Last Thursday, I “evacuated” to my house in Dallas. Our downtown Houston office was partially up and running yesterday. We expect it to be fully operational by Tuesday. My Houston apartment complex never flooded and apparently never lost power. CenterPoint, the local grid operator, mangaed to keep the power on to 95% or more of their coverage area throughout the storm. They are now back to about 99%. Houston METRO, the local mass transit authority, was 50% operational yesterday and expects to be nearly 100% by Tuesday.
I plan to head back to Houston Monday or Tuesday. It’s about a 255 mile drive. My Jeep can go about 360 highway miles on a tank of gas. North Texas is currently experiencing a gas shortage. Most of the gas stations near my house were dry yesterday. I have to plan on not being able to buy gas between here and Houston.
What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?
An electric Jeep that can ford 2-3′ of water, with a 360 mile range and be rechargeable in less time than I might have to wait in a gas line in Houston next week… might be what it would take to persuade me to buy an EV… Only if it cost less than $40,000. But that’s just me… What about you?
Featured image from this article:
Bad Weather Guide: What to do if Your Electric Car Has Been in a Flood
BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD • FEBRUARY 13, 2014
It’s something we hope nobody who reads this has to encounter, but given the propensity for extremes of weather we’ve seen over the past few years — not to mention the weather the UK has been subjected to continuously for the past six weeks — waking up one morning to find your prized EV submerged in water is a real possibility.
Here at Transport Evolved, we’ve already discussed how you should drive in stormy, winter weather, but what should you do if your EV ends up in more than just a puddle? What if the water level is above the bottom of your car’s doors, and there’s muddy, wet water in the footwell? What if the only bit of your car you can see is above the water line?
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Perhaps when Hell experiences the appropriate Climate change.
Most of us have experience with mobile(cell) phones or digital cameras. They use LiIon batteries that require particular treatment to maintain their integrity for as long as possible. Topping up on the charge on regular basis eats in to the life span of a battery. Ideally, you should charge them fully and let them exhaust fully too. But in reality, even for your phone or camera, this is not always practical. With normal use (if there is such a thing) typically a Battery will last aprox. 3 to 5 years. Bear in mind that over that realatively short time, the performance of the battery is diminishing all the time. They need to be charged more frequently, and subsequently, for less return for each charge. So, I’m thinking, the stats. for the EVs regarding charging times and ranges etc. are all based on a brand new battery. That’s as good as it gets, but fairly soon, that performance drops off.
Must have cheap power to recharge
Must be cheap to purchase
must be cheap to replace battery.
Must have 300 mile range.
Otherwise, it is a non starter. Like an airplane without wings.
let us not forget the 54.5MPG mandate of 2012, that’s why all the fuss over EVs at all…and the current President is working on revising that mandate, so, the whole EV rush will likely slow in about year once the mandate is actually reasonable for ICE, note that even most motorcycles would be violation of that 2012 mandate…