53 cents per mile.

A brand new 2010 Toyota Tacoma V6 4 door double cab with four wheel drive will run you 63 cents per mile, and that is including the insurance, maintenance, and repairs. Back that out as you did and you are down to 44 cents per mile on the Tacoma. Source here. They were a bit high on the insurance costs in my view.

So we have a choice of a roomier truck with the added benefit of getting to 4x4 trailheads, at 9 cents per mile cheaper than the electric car. On top of that it has the benefit of a smaller capital investment.

Seems like the Tacoma is your better option. Shall we get a group together?

I don't think a charge enroute is feasible at all, planet or no planet. Who is going to sit for 6-8 hours, both on the way there and on the way back, multiple times per year? And to find 5 people willing to do that?

And how do you figure this car is zero emissions? I don't know how it compares to gasoline, but I'm pretty sure the plants that produce the electricity to charge the car produce some serious emissions.

Essentially the same price, and the Tacoma is much more suited to the task at hand. It doesn't seem like it is even close. Maybe in another 40 years...

I'm in! That is, IFF you can guarantee that the electricity used to recharge the car came from totally renewable sources. No plants the use burning of hydrocarbons to make electricity, no nuclear plants (zero-emission but poopy-poopy bad). Come to think of it, I don't want hydroelectric either, since the dams are so bad for the environment.

1000Pks wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:I'm in! That is, IFF you can guarantee that the electricity used to recharge the car came from totally renewable sources. No plants the use burning of hydrocarbons to make electricity, no nuclear plants (zero-emission but poopy-poopy bad). Come to think of it, I don't want hydroelectric either, since the dams are so bad for the environment.

Sorry, you're from Vegas.

I heard nothing from Livermore, even if they did fusion tomorrow, it'd be far longer than 2012 to get it all implemented and running. And I won't be voting to take down Folsom Dam, here, I like flood control.

So where will the electricity come from, that you will use to recharge the electric car? Will you take it off the grid, which is mainly based on burning of fossil fuels? And is 20% nuclear-based?

1000Pks wrote:and Vegas, they do have Hoover Dam and then some oil fired plants, or what, I think. Energy gets dirty when you go away from CA, truly.

Oh come on, that is rediculous. You cannot assume ANY of your energy is coming from Hoover Dam. Whether you use electricity or not, that thing is maxed out, so what you're using is coming from somewhere else. ALWAYS. You can't even go by what percent of the grid comes from where... we are all incremental users. And that incremental source is the coal and oil fired power plant, the least efficient and most polluting of which are used when demand is highest.

1000Pks wrote:SMUD says it is about 47% hydro, 3% wind/solar, 40 % (?) natural gas, and I recall about 3-4% oil/coal

You are using the oil/coal. Sometimes maybe the natural gas. NEVER the wind or hyrdo. They don't make more wind or hydro power in a year because you used electricity... They burn more oil and coal.

1000Pks wrote:Sorry, you're from Vegas.

Ack! MoapaPk, sounds like you're going to have to form a splinter carpool that goes from Vegas to the Bay Area. What could be better than one SP carpool heading to Vegas every weekend in a low emission vehicle, completely cancelled out by another heading to Tahoe in a loaded down Tacoma?

1000Pks wrote:To accomodate what's coming they are now putting up "fast charge stations," whereby you can be on your way again in 15-45 minutes.

Still too long unless they've got girls and rooms that can accomodate us for a short-time.

For $100, I will sell you certificates that authorize you as energy-efficient. I'll send the to you by UPS.

1000Pks wrote:

They don't make more wind or hydro power in a year because you used electricity... They burn more oil and coal.

Clean energy investments happen. Not like s---, but truly and nicely. I read of more and more all of the time. Then there's efficiency. As more people get LCD or LED TVs and similar computers and all, that frees up power for my car. They can stop having so many babies, too, despite the SC raising and education they grow up to be big polluters. Ideas are being thought of for emissions free power, it's the law, now. Diss on someone else, I'm saving the planet if even if no one helps.

I'm not dissing, just saying what is. When you use power, it comes from the least efficient, most costly producer. That is the last one to come onto the grid. So in calculating the emissions of an electric vehicle, that is the producer that needs to be used. As I said, I have no idea how that compares to gasoline. Maybe it's a lot better, maybe just a little, it could be even worse (like ethanol). But it isn't close to zero.

You are using the oil/coal. Sometimes maybe the natural gas. NEVER the wind or hyrdo. They don't make more wind or hydro power in a year because you used electricity...

Here in NW Colorado we have the choice of purchasing wind power (more expensive, but not that much) or coal fired/other sources.

I believe the more wind power that is purchased, the more wind power actually is produced.

As I said, I have no idea how that compares to gasoline.

Supposedly, even if coal is used, it's 60% lower (this is from a non environment site):

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2009 ... sions.html

Of course until a bunch of plug in stations, most electric cars (other than the Tesla pointed out) wouldn't be practical around here. With the ones with a 100 mile range (such as the Leaf) you wouldn't get very far around here. Even with existing gas stations there are stretches of roads without even a gas station for close to or more than that distance. It seems they would work great for a city commuter (and cars such as the Nissan Leaf supposedly cost just over $25,000 which makes it within reach of most new car buyers), if you lived in the city.

Still, there would have to be more plug in stations for all these cars ever to become popular.

Scott wrote:

Supposedly, even if coal is used, it's 60% lower (this is from a non environment site):

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2009 ... sions.html

The meat of this analysis is like this; even though an electric car uses fossil fuel at only 25% efficiency, gasoline is used at just 15% efficiency. This makes some sense, if you consider that a coal-fired plant can operate at much higher temperatures, thereby increasing the carnot efficiency (2nd law).

The trouble with such analyses is that they 1) compare a known efficiency against a hypothetical one (kind of like comparing real capitalism against ideal communism); and 2) they subtly assume that there will be no increased demand in all forms of electric energy production as more and more electric cars come on the market.

The efficiency of recharging an electric car is actually not that well known. Ideals are assumed for transmission losses, charging inefficiency, and energy loss associated with longevity of the batteries. Most of the numbers come from companies that make electric cars.

Electric cars tend to be a lot heavier, per watt produced, than gasoline cars, for a simple reason: gasoline has about 80x the energy density of the best rechargeable Li-ion batteries. The car may be producing the same wattage, but is lugging around a lot more mass. Thus numbers based on work (joules) can be quite misleading, since a lot of joules are wasted just moving the car.

Scott wrote:

You are using the oil/coal. Sometimes maybe the natural gas. NEVER the wind or hyrdo. They don't make more wind or hydro power in a year because you used electricity...

Here in NW Colorado we have the choice of purchasing wind power (more expensive, but not that much) or coal fired/other sources.

I get that, if you are paying more to use it from a specific source. But that is not what 1000Pks is proposing, or does to my knowledge.

Scott wrote:Supposedly, even if coal is used, it's 60% lower (this is from a non environment site):

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2009 ... sions.html

Thanks for the link. But I'm not buying his calculations. He has some fuzzy math there, even if I take some of his assumptions for granted.

He claims each kWh gets 2-3 miles. Let's use 2.5. He says Americans would use 600 billion kWh/yr. So his assumption there is that Americans drive 1500 billion miles/yr.

He goes on to say we burn 3.3 billion barrels of gas a year which is 138.6 billion gallons. If so then 1500 billion miles per year /138.6 = 10.8 mpg.

He's assuming the AVERAGE car gets only 10.8 mpg! I don't believe that.

What if the average car is currently getting 18 mpg? Even they aren't, that is certainly a realistic fuel standard. 18 * 42 * 3.3 billion = 2,496 billion miles we can drive in a year. At 2.5 kWh/mi, we use 998 billion kWh/yr, 66% more than he claimed.

He said we would be producing 40% the CO2, but add 66% to that and it is 66.5% the CO2. Seems closer to a 33% reduction in emissions than a 60%, even if we went to 100% electric. It would be equivalent to a national average of 27 mpg.

So from what I can tell a good hybrid has fewer emissions than 100% electric.

He said 3.3 billion barrels of gas. Not gas and diesel.

And this website confirms the 3.3 billion barrels does NOT include vehicles that consume diesel.
http://americanfuels.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ption.html

1000Pks wrote:Disputing numbers is fine if any good basis.

There is a good basis. I laid it out. You challenged it by saying big rigs use gasoline.

1000Pks wrote:If they all say electric is better

Still waiting for someone to say it who knows what they are talking about.

1000Pks wrote:Cheaper, better, faster, cleaner. Sounds great to me!

And what I'm saying, cheaper, better, faster, and cleaner... so far it looks like a hybrid wins in all four categories.

1000Pks wrote:assuming you are absolutely correct, it appears still better for electric.

No. It doesn't.

MoapaPk wrote:I'm in! That is, IFF you can guarantee that the electricity used to recharge the car came from totally renewable sources. No plants the use burning of hydrocarbons to make electricity, no nuclear plants (zero-emission but poopy-poopy bad). Come to think of it, I don't want hydroelectric either, since the dams are so bad for the environment.

And windmills are an eyesore, so what have you left?