I was pouring a coffee refill for Mom this morning, and somebody was telling Matt Lauer about the new electric cars to be rolled out in the next couple of years, with prototypes out on Rockefeller Plaza in front of the Dean and DeLuca cafe (man, I wonder how much those outside shots are worth to that outfit!).
So the guy is demonstrating to Lauer the nifty little panel on the side of this car which lifts up or slides over and accepts an extension cord which is then plugged into an outlet in your garage or carport overnight.
My question is, why are we never told how much this additional electrical usage might add to our regular household electric bill? Surely it's measurable in kilowatt hours, so is it so large that the electric car manufacturers would rather we not know? Is it buried in the "average cost savings" number used when comparing these cars to regular gasoline-powered ones?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by Linkmeister at October 29, 2008 07:51 AM | TrackBackOoooh ... good question. And ... how do you power up while you're at work?
Posted by: tomorrow at October 29, 2008 03:13 PMI think I heard the car dude say that for one of the cars that the power cost was 6 cents per mile...but I'm not sure if that meant the charge cost was per charge or not.
The big gripe I have about all the boasts that the electric cars make is that the true costs of "filling the tank" aren't discussed. What are the environmental costs in producing the electricity? How much oil went into the kilowatts used? I guess I want to know the carbon foot print of these cars before I jump in.
I am also very interested in the same data for the new hydrogen cars coming from Honda.
Posted by: Karan at October 30, 2008 03:41 PMKaran, about 90-95% of Honolulu's electricity is generated by burning imported oil. We're getting hammered from all sides. Our last electric bill was $380, and I paid $3.57/gallon for my last fill-up 10 days ago.
That's one of the reasons I raised the question.
Posted by: Linkmeister at October 30, 2008 03:51 PMYour electric bill was what!?! For a month? Wow. And I thought Minnesota heating bills were bad.
Seems like you should be able to generate some electricity off the trade winds, shouldn't you?
Posted by: Juli Thompson at October 31, 2008 11:50 AMJuli, there's some wind power generated on one of the outer islands, but not much. There ought to be more of it, as well as solar, but the one we've really ignored is geothermal. We have an active volcano over on the Big Island which is certainly generating a lot of heat and steam.
Posted by: Linkmeister at October 31, 2008 12:05 PMYeah, but that only helps the Big Island - how would you get volcano power over to the other islands? Undersea cables?
Posted by: hedera at November 4, 2008 09:32 AM