California Ruling to Revive the (Hybrid) Electric Car
California may have relaxed its ruling about how many zero-emission cars it would mandate by 2014, but by doing so it upped the ante on plug-in hybrids. The California Air Resources Board voted to alter its previous demand for 25,000 zero-emission cars — meaning vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells — to 7,500, including cars that automakers use in test fleets, like Honda, GM and others are currently testing, not just those sold to the public.
The reasoning for the change of heart is that California doesn’t expect to have a big enough hydrogen infrastructure to support that many vehicles.
What will actually affect car shoppers across the country, however, is that the ruling allows automakers to substitute 58,000 plug-in hybrids in place of the hydrogen cars it omitted.
Both GM, with its Chevy Volt and Saturn Vue, and Toyota with its Prius have stated those plug-in vehicles will come to market by 2010. This ruling pretty much guarantees they will, and that these vehicles will most likely be available nationwide at some point. However, because of demand and regulations, we’d guess sales of the new plug-ins will start in California, leaving the rest of the country in a green lurch, at least early on.
The numbers are also collective, meaning the six largest automakers need to produce 58,000 plug-ins collectively. We’re not sure how they’ll split up that pie or how penalties will be determined. Toyota sold almost 180,000 Prius hybrids last year, which makes it seem like an easy target. However, the new plug-ins are expected to cost much more than a traditional hybrid. Automakers complain that producing this many plug-ins and hydrogen cars will cost them $1 billion collectively per year. We suggest they spend the next six years trying to find ways to lower that loss so the rest of the country can get in on the greenness.
Hydrogen Car Prospects Sputter (Forbes)
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but if the electricity is still being generated by burning fossil fuels how exactly does this help the environment? not to mention transmission losses in the power lines that feed your house.
It's the new math.
Like food you eat from someone else's plate has no calories.
Cars that don't use fossil fuels don't pollute.
Coal plants run at a higher temperature than your engine, therefore the Carnot efficiency is higher. Your engine tends to run 20-25% efficient, while a coal plant is 30-40% or so. So it does, actually, reduce emissions some, but clearly doesn't eliminate them. However, power doesn't have to come from coal plants. There's alot of hydroelectric out west, and California is investing heavily in renewables.
A second advantage is in other forms of pollution. Cities like L.A. and San Diego have terrible problems with smog, produced primarily by having a large quantity of emissions in one place. If you can shift the NOx, SOx, and O3 emissions to power plants outside the city you distribute it around a larger area and improve air quality overall. Plus, when your emissions are at a handful of plants rather than millions of cars it becomes more economically feasible to install fancy scrubber and control systems.
One thing is not apparent is the fact that many of those power plants burn all day long as it is. So at night the generators are still turning while the load isn't there. By plugging in your car over night it will allow more efficient use. Of course as long as something is being burned there will be concerns, but those problems are greatly reduced with by the scale of the transmission grid.
Ok. so the coal plant burns hotter and is thus more efficient during the combustion process converting mechanical energy to AC electricity which is delivered with transmission losses to your home. Then you plug in the hybrid which uses DC batteries which incurs more losses. I don't see how this is more energy efficient. I'm thinking there is so much lost in the transmission from the power plant to the home and the AC to DC conversion when the car is plugged in that this is actually less efficient. than a regular combustion car. example. charge your cell phone from your wall outlet (AC to DC) then charge it in your car (DC to DC) which one takes longer? The wall outlet. At least regular hybrids like the prius actually stored wasted energy. plug ins (until we change how we generate the electricity) just shift the problem to another location
Anytime electricity is transmitted there are losses. Why the infrastructure is better is the idea of scale. Do you think it is more efficient if every house had there own coal burning generator to power it? There is more to what you are asking than just the matter of converting AC to DC. How long it takes to charge from your car or your wall has more to do with the size of transformers involved, how long you want the battery to last, things like that.
There are also various other ways of making power at a centralized plant: natural gas, hydro, nuclear, wind, etc.
Unnamed commenter does make a good point.
There are losses in transmission and conversion, and I haven't personally seen a study that measures those losses or compares the end efficiency of central generation versus individual internal combustion. Does anyone know of a good study on this?
As cost of fuels are increasing day by day this is required very soon in the market.