Mitsubishi MiEV

[GGD]

I was behind one of these on my drive home today, it had an interesting message on it's rear bumper (not a sticker, looked like professional lettering).

"When I hatch, I want to be a Tesla"



Hmm, just did some more searching, and found the guy who's car it was.

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7091

[DP]

I went to the site and posted a couple of questions about electric vehicles.
One, I know that there is discussion about electric vehicles and charging them. If your electricity is generated from a coal fired plant, it will put more pollution in the air than a gasoline engine when charging your vehicle. Do you know where your electricity comes from? California has a few nuke plants-are there many coal fired plants in CA?
Two, since electric vehicles don't use gasoline or diesel and therefore aren't paying taxes on fuel at the pump, does California add extra tax to an electric vehicle to compensate?
These are questions I would think about if I considered owning an electric vehicle.

[GGD]

This is a few years old, but it shows what PG&E uses to generate electricity.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/sb1305/labels/2...GE_PCL.pdf

No Coal, largest source is Natural Gas, followed by Nuke and Hydro Electric. It's also common for electric vehicle owners to have their own Solar power installed, offsetting their consumption.

I don't know if CA has done anything to address the Tax issue, but that's something that could in some ways be handled as part of the annual registration fees.

[DP]

OK. I know that where I live in the metro Detroit area our electricity is generated by nukes. There was also a discussion the other day about electric vehicles not paying the same taxes as fueled vehicles in relation to proposals in MI to raise fuel taxes for road repair and upkeep ( a discussion for another day!).

[saintyohann]

Howdy,

I'm a California resident, EV driver and enthusiast, and have a background in energy/generation/technology (@ So Cal Edison).

The coal generation issues/studies have been thrown around a lot, and while it can be argued as true, it is misleading. Most of the studies focus on comparing the emissions from burning enough coal to generate 115,000 BTU (34 kWh) to its equivalent 1 US Gal of gasoline. In this scenario coal does create more emissions, but that's not how coal plants work. Almost every state mandates a "Clean Coal" standard, where impurities are removed before burning and carbon capture and storage reduces emissions to well below gasoline. In fact there's a company promoting a Zero Emission Boiler System that makes coal "cleaner" than natural gas (as far as gaseous emissions, there are still sulfur solids from the cleaning process, etc.).

I'll also make the point that most EV drivers are trying to be eco friendly, I have seen the data generated by the DOE's "EV Project" that show 70% of EV drivers (I don't remember if that number was US or just CA, but I imagine the later) get their energy from solar panels.

California does not charge EV owners an extra fee to offset taxes included the price of gasoline. I believe WA and AZ are the only states that do in some way.

[sekker]

EVs would be terrific here in SE MN as you can charge the EVs during the normal 'down' time for the likes of wind power.

From 12-5 AM, I think our grid is well over 50% wind on an average day, the rest is nuclear.

If we could increase the evening electricity usage by adding a ton of EVs, there would be even more investment in wind. Right now, the daily peak cycle is one of the bottlenecks in adding more wind power.