LA market 9% EV by 2015 - UCLA

[walterbays]

http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_f...ctric-vehicles-sales-ucla-study-predicts.html

Los Angeles has other characteristics that make it EV friendly, such as its car-oriented culture, environmentally-minded constituency and limitations to public transportation. Most interestingly, commuters who live in the city have shorter commutes than those who live outside; and that quicker commute is within range of an EV battery

It's a good article. I see just one glaring error:

plugging an EV into a rapid charger (level 2) overnight can be as much as an additional house on the grid

I liked Mark Perry's quip that the LEAF drew 3.3 kW. That's two hair dryers. If two hair dryers will bring down your grid you have bigger problems than EVs.

 

[Lopton]

I liked Mark Perry's quip that the LEAF drew 3.3 kW. That's two hair dryers. If two hair dryers will bring down your grid you have bigger problems than EVs.

I was thinking about this the other day, why don't people get all bent out of shape about central A/C as a problem for "bringing down the grid", or electric heaters, or jacuzzis? The other thing is that you pay for what you use on the grid, and all that power is American made, produced, and delivered. If you use more power then the utility should be able to afford to upgrade their equipment...

-Matt

 

[driveleaf]

Haha - HOA's here in Florida have jumped on this imaginary grid fear as a way to prevent residents from putting in chargers.

Yes, my car draws as much power as two hair dryers.

My two air conditioners draw 17 KWh when they run simultaneously. And believe it or not, according to my contact with Progress Energy they can handle that just fine. Their biggest problem is at 6am on a sub-freezing morning. Apparently the people here kick on all their heaters, and all their electric hot water heaters, and that maxes out the grid. And as we've all learned in our electric cars with range prediction, heating is less effecient than cooling.

In this region, get your charging done before 6am to keep them from firing up their peaker plants.

 

[WichitaKS]

10% EV in LA, Chicago, New York City and other big commuter cities should be possible by 2015, especially with the price of gas going up.

What I do not understand in this posting is that not all houses use inefficient electric heat. For example my house is geothermal heat for heating, hot water and AC cooling and it is very low cost. And just like my buying the Leaf last year it has a federal and state tax credit. I am amazed at the number of people who embrace new technology in cell phones, computer tablets but when it comes to a car, HVAC for house or solar/wind energy they try to come up with reason not to do it. It is a self imposed mental hurdle by some people?

 

[TomT]

9% pure EV by 2015? Not a chance I say!

 

[adric22]

The article and video are both quite out of date. Thus easy to see how the estimate would be quite a bit off.

 

[willk55]

I think 9% will probably be obtained but only if you are including plugin hybrids.

 

[leafedbehind]

It's a good article. I see just one glaring error:

plugging an EV into a rapid charger (level 2) overnight can be as much as an additional house on the grid

I liked Mark Perry's quip that the LEAF drew 3.3 kW. That's two hair dryers. If two hair dryers will bring down your grid you have bigger problems than EVs.

I think they mean that overall, having an EV basically doubles a house's overall annual energy consumption. That's about right for us -- we use about 300-350 kWh per month to charge the LEAF, and we use around the same amount for everything else in the house.

 

[TomT]

The article was referring to pure EVs only but I think that even with PHEVs, it is highly unlikely...

I think 9% will probably be obtained but only if you are including plugin hybrids.

 

[adric22]

I think they mean that overall, having an EV basically doubles a house's overall annual energy consumption. That's about right for us -- we use about 300-350 kWh per month to charge the LEAF, and we use around the same amount for everything else in the house.

Well, that certainly isn't the case for us. We have two EVs and our electric bill only went up about $25. Since our electric bill is usually between $150 and $200, I'd say that our EV use is a small fraction of our overall usage. Keep in mind we do not have natural gas, so everything in our home is electric.

 

[timhebb]

The report referred to was released almost two years ago, in May 2011, and the cover bears a photo of a Coda(!) to illustrate it. (The direct link: http://luskin.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/LA%20EV%20Final%20Report%20-%20Formatted%20-%20Final%20-%20High%20Quality%20for%20printing.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This report is ancient history by EV standards, and does not seem to have been researched with much rigor. The Luskin Center should be embarrassed by it now.