Clean Technica | By: John Farrell | October 05, 2017:
Clean Technica Article 1: Electric cars aren’t new.
At the dawn of the US auto industry in the late 1800s, electric vehicles outsold all other types of cars. By 1900, electric autos accounted for one-third of all vehicles on US roadways. Of the 4,192 vehicles produced in the US and tallied in the 1900 census, 1,575 were electric.
Electric vehicle sales remained strong in the following decade and provided a launchpad for fledgling automakers, including Oldsmobile and Porsche, that would go on to become industry titans. Even Henry Ford partnered with Thomas Edison to explore electric vehicle technology. Battery-powered models, considered fast and reliable, sparked a major transportation renaissance.
But the momentum shifted over the first few decades of the 20th century, as the electric starter supplanted hand-cranking to start gas engines. The internal combustion engine gained a superiority that would persist for decades.
Nearly 100 years later, a second wave of electric vehicles arrived, driven by California’s zero-emissions vehicle policy in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, it faltered. The enthusiasm of electric vehicle owners couldn’t overcome the reluctance of cash-flush automakers to invest in alternatives to gas-powered vehicles.
Automakers also mounted successful lobbying efforts to weaken the zero-emissions vehicle policy. In 1999, General Motors ended production of its own promising electric vehicle, the EV1, after just three years. The automaker removed all 1,100 models from the roads, despite outcry from their drivers. It blamed its pivot away from electric vehicle technology on the EV1’s 100-mile range and the high cost of development compared to sales. Oil giants, still powerful political lobbies, also opposed electric vehicle innovation.
However, the undermining of all-electric cars laid the groundwork for today’s innovation. Hybrid electric cars like the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius — with a small battery-powered electric motor assisting the gasoline engine — became the preferred answer to California’s modified low-emission program, and sales grew steadily. Other hybrid models followed.
Now, nearly two decades later and 120 years after its introduction, the electric car is making an unmistakable comeback. This time, it’s aided by better technology as well as environmentally sensitive consumers and policymakers looking to supplant fossil fuel use with renewable electricity.
Clean Technica Article 2: Electric vehicles boost demand for electricity.
On one hand, that’s great news for utilities. The average electric-powered car driver covers 12,000 miles annually, and one study calculated that the additional 4,000 kilowatt-hours used by an electric vehicle would increase a typical household’s yearly energy need by 33% (without adoption of energy efficiency measures). In small numbers, electric cars will change little, but in large numbers they could reverse the stagnant growth in electricity use, which has dropped in five of the last eight years and affected the bottom line of many electric utilities.
On the other hand, could this increased demand also increase the cost of operating the electric grid (and costs for electric customers) by shortening the life of grid components, requiring replacement or upgraded infrastructure such as transformers and capacitors, or even building new fossil fuel power plants?
Fortunately, the evidence suggests that electric vehicle expansion will reward, not ruin, the grid and its customers.
A rigorous analysis spearheaded by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2016 found substantial net benefits in electric vehicle adoption for the state’s electric grid and customers: worth $3.1 billion by 2030, even without smart charging policies and with vehicle adoption clustering in particular areas of the grid. This included the benefits of capturing federal tax credits, gasoline savings, and carbon credits in California’s greenhouse gas allowance transportation market plus all of the associated costs to the customer and grid.
The study also found surprisingly low costs for upgrading the local distribution grid. Even with a much higher vehicle adoption assumption of 7 million cars by 2030 (one-quarter of all registered vehicles), annual distribution infrastructure costs would be just 1% of the annual utility distribution budget.
Full Report ~ Executive Summary.
The U.S. vehicle market will undergo a massive technology disruption from electric vehicles in the coming decades. Many analysts see the potential for surging sales of these efficient vehicles to enable smart grid management, but few have explored the local impact of electric vehicles: promoting energy democracy. Electric vehicles offer a natural use for solar energy, a pathway to pump more local solar power onto the grid, and a source of resilient power when the grid goes down. Ultimately, electric vehicles are another tool to miniaturize the electricity system, providing unprecedented local control.
The imminent transformation requires immediate attention to policy and planning. Electric utilities typically produce 15-year or longer “resource plans” to map out additions of new power plants and power lines that will last for decades. But electric vehicles may have an impact much sooner than the 40-year lifetime of these traditional resources, or even the 15-year timeframe of resources plans. The rising numbers of electric cars on U.S. roads may impact utility plans well within their current planning horizon. The time for action is now.
To read Clean Technica Article 1, in full – please click here.
To read Clean Technica Article 2, in full – please click here.
To read Full Report on Institute For Self-Reliance website – please click here.
