GM Prepping Electric Car for 2010

GM's Volt program is anything but a rumor - it has the highest priority of any GM project and an unlimited budget. The batteries have been developed and are currently being tested by GM Test Labs. A working mule will be on the streets in the Spring. I might add that a hydrogen car does produce emissions, as does an electric car :
both hydrogen and electricity require carbon emissions for their production, at least for now and the foreseeable future. And the VOLT's powertrain is not as much like a WWII diesel submarine (which could only run its motors will on the surface) as it is like a modern diesel locomotive, which is deemed a serial hybrid.

If we could somehow make all vehicles run on fuel cells, generating the needed hydrogen fuel cells cheaply and environmentally friendly, that would be the ultimate choice. But alternatively, here is one suggestion that I think has merit:

We should set a national requirement to quickly mandate that all new gasoline vehicles be plug-in hybrids that, at minimum, can operate at least 20 miles on a plug-in charge. All new future vehicles that run on gasoline would have a supplemental electric engine to power basic city usage. Vehicles would have 2 charging sources, one being a standard 110 volt overnight charge. The other a high voltage 10 minute charge that would be available at all gas stations and also installed in home garages.

Along with the estimated MPG stickers on all new cars, the EPA should require the sticker to show how many miles a vehicle can go on an electric charge (minimum 20), and an estimated battery lifetime. Batteries should be placed in vehicles with easy access, when a battery change is needed. Hopefully, these requirements will eventually lead to a couple of hundred miles per charge, with very long life batteries.

Alternatively, automakers could modify their vehicles to run on CNG (compressed natural gas).

I foresee a day when every house has inexpensive solar panels and wind turbines which will power much of the electricity needed by homes and vehicles of the future.

I hope this suggestion will be studied by our next president and implemented if feasible.

Hydrogen production is still a problem requiring more energy to produce than is returned. It also is a real pain to dispense quickly and safely. While new batteries have great potential,they have yet to overcome new environmental disposal nightmares. Also, will millions of plug-in electric hybrids require new loads on our already overstressed power grid? That's all the environment needs is more nuclear power or dirty coal-fired power plants. That's robbing Peter to pay Paul. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater quite yet. One step at a time!

Electric cars fueled by standard coal fired power plants would reduce CO2 and other pollutants by 2/3!

How can this be? A coal fired power plant converts 58% of fossil fuel to electricity. A gasoline engine converts 19% to mechanical energy. 58%/19% = 3.05 OR 3 times the actual extracted energy for the same fossil fuel content.

AND at a cost of less than 50 cents per gallon energy equivalent electric cars could cut fuel bills by 83% (50 cents per gallon equivalent vs Gasoline at $3 per gallon).

I wonder how the emissions to generate 6.2 Kilowatt hours from a standard, non-sequestering coal fired power plant would compare with burning 1 gallon of gasoline? 6.2 Kwh is the actual mechanical energy produced by 1 gallon of gasoline in a modern internal combustion engine (at 19% efficiency). For every gallon of gasoline burned, approximately 22 pounds of CO2 are created. Assuming the local grid is 100% coal-fired (which only half of it is); roughly 5 lbs of coal would be consumed to create that 5kWh. Depending on the grade and carbon content of the coal, one kilowatt hour creates approximately 1.4 pounds of CO2. This comes to 8.7 lbs for the same energy but supplied by a “dirty” coal fired power plant vs 22 lbs from Gasoline. I suspect the other pollutants would likely be in similar ratio or less.

Right now we can't burn coal in our cars. Convert to electric cars and all energy sources level. In effect we could burn Coal, Nuclear, Hydro, photovoltaic, wind, tidal current, methane, Biomass, and even gasoline (if we were so stupid to do so) once electricity is the primary fuel.