It amazes me that what the report failed to mention is:
1) About half of all US electricty comes from coal
2) Our Electrical generation, transmission and distribution is about 32% efficient on average

When you add those up: A plug-in electric car IS a dirty coal burning car; Which offers no real energy reduction, or environmental benefit over a gasoline car. Never mind that fact that our generation and infrastructure can’t keep up with mulitple computers per house, and big screen televisions let alone trying to double the electric demand by putting cars on the grid.

People are falling for this hook, line and sinker; Just like they fell for the “live better electrically” campaign and installed electric heat and electric hot water in their homes so the utilities could sell them more electricty. [resistive electric heat uses about 3 times as much energy as heating with natural gas and triples your carbon footprint]

And to anyone who would consider rebutting about using renewable energy for the cars. Great idea, but why bother with the car pice right now. It will be 50+ years before we are anywhere near displacing our existing dirty electricty consumption with any form of clean energy – and that doesn’t include enough excess generation to make more clean energy generators (think EROI – energy return on investment). Once all our conventional electric demands are satisifed with renewables then we can take on the electric car transformation.

So here I’ll give you some highlights, I would be glad to debate this if you like….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy

2004 Bush Administration wanted to overhaul CAFE regulations by having vehicles in weight classes instead of fleet-wide efficiency targets. That would have been funny just add a few pounds to each car to get around requirements

2006 Light Truck requirements set by the Administration an increase of 1.2 increase

2007 Bush did not propose any mandatory CAFE regulations

Bush signs CAFE regulation but does not create criteria on how it will be regulated. 03/26/09 Obama sets requirements for NHTSA rules.

So here is your challenge explain how reducing gasoline consumption was improved beyond what appears to be marginal improvements in ICE efficiency under the Administration, you need to remove renewables like E85 out of your argument. Also explain how tax deductions for large SUV’s helped reduce consumer and producer behavior for larger less fuel efficient vehicles…..

I don’t have to explain the California legislation you can easily read stories from this site and how the Bush Administration blocked/ignored Co2 enforcement even w/ the Supreme Court saying the EPA could regulate CO2.

Did the Administration come up with energy plans yes but look at what the main highlights were: Nuclear, Offshore Drilling, and a lobbying favorite Clean Coal. If you would like I can argue about this subject, w/ facts. Again don’t complain about facts unless you actually post some, so we can have an intelligent conversation.

I’m not a Greenie or lefty at all I find it funny when I hear that. If you read what I post you will see that I will go after Demos also and I’m not a big fan of some alternative energies that many traditional people support in the Green movement.

Thanks Lost Prius to wife for your comments. I just write my own opinions & never expect others to completely agree w/ me, by reading other peoples comments like Lost Prius to wife I have learned a great deal about a wide range of topics from stories that are posted to this site.

For someone like my wife, who drives about ten blocks to work then leaves the car sitting there rusting for eight hours, drives it back and leaves it sitting in the garage rusting and depreciating, I figure the ecconomic value of a car is no more than $7,500. So, last year, when it was apparent that the GM Mansfield Metal Center would close, I suggested the facility be used to build all the components and assemble a $7,500 commuter type plug in. My friend Eddy Dwyer drives a CitiCar, a BEV, with plain lead-acid batteries for a commute that is about five times as much as my wife’s. That car was built in 1973 and obviously it it not the most modern vehicle in the world but it gets him around for less than the cost of a scooter and it keeps him out of the rain. The reason we don’t have any cars like that yet is that the overhead of the typical car companies is just too high and even non-typical companies like ZENN get away with charging $15,000 because the market will bear it right now. However, when people realize that the economic balloon is gone forever, the market for a $7,500 commuter car will be at least a million units which leaves the rest of the manufacturers to fight for an annual eight million passenger vehicle market at best. Why? Simply because that’s all people can afford to buy and if we go back to our excesses of buying more cars and more houses than we can afford the DOW will probably go down to 4000 instead of 5000. Just reckon that the people who buy such a $7,500 car instead of a $40,000 Chevy Volt won’t have to work nearly so hard and can be just as happy and probably sleep better.

So am I speculating or blowing smoke about that $7,500 price? I have been in manufacturing for quite some time getting into ergonomic chair manufacturing in a very unconventional way enabled by developing my own uunique software that gave our company very high productivity. Making a car like the ZENN will require a similar approach, thinking outside the box, and I believe it can be done. But it has to be done on a shoestring with private investors and a plan to never go public because that by itself makes such a plan impossible because venture capitalist require returns that are even higher than what the big car companies need. Don’t get me wrong, this will definitely be a capitalist venture but it will be a Main Street capitalist venture, rather than a Wall Street capitalist venture.

Henry Keultjes
Mansfield Ohio USA

Oil dependency is a very delicate dance between all countries fraught with enormous amount political intrigue and fears of running out too soon. And this with an increasing world population with no real energy alternative yet in sight for an oil powered world economy. Do you think it might be possible that World War III could start as a result of no more fuel for the masses to live by? And what is your definition for a “Greenie Weenie”? Is it someone that is not will to make every single dollar they can today so their future generations of children will actually have a future tomorrow? And you question the “Greenie Weenies” as to their motivation? I would really question your motivation.

You question Samie’s motivation. Sometimes I think he is right, sometimes I think he is wrong. Most of the times I think his thoughts are mostly right or a mix of right and wrong, but he is always supplying food for thought for me (and others) along with as many facts that he can find. And he is not the only contributor that does so.

Samie’s thoughts and ideas at least show that he is not willing to “rob Peter” now knowing that it just means that he has to “pay Paul” later. Samie knows that oil will not last forever. When are you going to leave your “drill, drill, drill” attitude and realize that too?

Who blocked CAFE legislation? It was Bush who PUSHED for CAFE legislation. The left felt that the president should simply ignore the constitutional separation of powers — you know, the principle that makes it illegal for the president to simply declare higher fuel efficiency standards on his own without legislation.

“Or no real long-term energy plan for the U.S.”

You’re thinking of the Clinton administration. The Bush administration advanced a plan in 2001 which, had it been enacted, would have resulted in the current retail availability of at least the second generation of something akin to the Chevy Volt, along with several competing offerings from competitors.

I understand that you have a political point of view. That’s a big part of what this site is about. But you have to give at least some consideration to the real facts.

It is no surprise that expensive batteries ruin the economics of plugin hybrids. Battery prices have to come down before PHEVs will make economic sense. But, for ordinary people there is no way of knowing what the price of batteries is. There are no published prices. Each automaker cuts its own deal. The most credible number that I had previously heard for Lithium Ion car batteries was $2000/kwh. So when the government does the research and indicates that the current price is $1000 to $1300 per kwh, that is good news.

Let me just run the new numbers:

Consider the case where you have a PHEV, charge it once a day, and fully discharge it every day. You drive it 360 days a year for 10 years, for a total of 3600 battery discharge cycles. At $1000/kwh for the battery, and 6 miles/kwh efficiency, the battery cost is $0.046/mile . If you recharge at work, and so can get 7200 cycles out of the battery, the battery cost goes down to $0.023/mile.

Assume that gas costs $3/gallon, electricity costs $0.12/kwh and the vehicle gets 50mpg for gas operation. Gas operation costs $0.060/mile. Electric operation costs $0.066/mile (3600 battery cycles) or $0.043/mile (7200 battery cycles) when you include both energy and battery costs.

Electric operation is actually now price comparable to gas! Or at least it is in my contrived example where I found a way to get more than 3600 discharge cycles out of the battery and ignored the opportunity cost of the up front battery purchase. Still, that’s real progress compared to $2000/kwh batteries. They never make economic sense in any scenario.