If you were at the ITE Western District Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California today you would have heard Sven Thesen of Better Place in California provide details to the on-coming electrical vehicle revolution.  Members such as Jonathan Upchurch, Jack Fleck, Monica Suter, Bond Yee, Jeff Knowles, Katherine Casseday, Jim Helmer, Michelle DeRobertis and numerous others asked the following questions.

• How will we fund transportation systems if electric vehicles use no gasoline?

o   The electricity could be taxed to replace motor vehicles fees (or an alternative motor vehicle fee for hybrid and electric vehicles based on VMT could be established while leaving the core of the current gas tax system in place)

• With the stations that switch batteries on electric vehicles be standardized?

o   Standardization has been achieved on the battery connector (J1722).  Batteries in the bottom of vehicles could be switched out at charging stations (like gas stations) in 60 seconds – working together with a subscription based battery ownership concept.

• Will there need to be critical mass of electrical charging stations?

o   A vast majority of trips are not over the 100 to 200 miles of range of an electric lithium ion battery system – so recharging for most trips would occur at home.  To provide “comfort” to drivers on the fringe of the travel range, recharging stations will emerge (where batteries can be swapped out) and charging points could be added in parking facilities.  It takes less than 10 seconds to plug in an electric vehicle cable.

• Won’t the expired (7 year old) batteries create a huge environmental impact?

o   A lithium ion battery is mostly plastic, carbon and aluminum.  The impacts are not like lead-acid battery systems and would not pose unmanageable impacts.  Lithium is in reasonably large supply  – for example in Afghanistan and in sea water.  As batteries age they reduce their range from over 100 miles per charge to 80 miles per charge after 8 years and progressively degrade – not all at once like other battery systems.

• What are some of the cost issues with electric vehicles?

o   A Nissan Leaf will cost about $32,000.  With rebates it may cost as low as $20,000.  The battery part is about $9000 of the cost.  If the electricity were purchased at night at the low demand times (for recharging) it might cost as little as $0.02 per mile to “fuel” the electric vehicle.

• If electric vehicles are so quiet – won’t  there be impacts persons with vision impairment who cannot hearing them?

o   Noise is not a good impacts of the current gasoline vehicles – a paradigm shift will be needed to address how we interact with vehicles not unlike changing from horse carriages to gasoline vehicles in the early 1900s.

• How much more power will be needed to recharge all the electric vehicles?

o   If the recharging activity is managed properly, little new power generation would be necessary, taking advantage of wind power and other sources that create supply in the night but have no demand (creating reverse cost implications in the current system where power generators PAY to have people use their power).  The goal in California is to move to 33% renewable energy sources by 2020 – and with geothermal nearly tapped out, most of that may have to come from wind or solar.

• Will it be possible to retrofit the existing light duty vehicle fleet to electric?

o   Better Place model of operation is subscription batteries and replacement stations.  Other groups are looking at taking factory/assembly plants and having them repurposed to retrofit light duty vehicles to hybrid/electric propulsion systems in the future.

• If driving electric vehicles is so much fun – won’t it induce demand?

o   Electric vehicles are fun to drive – quick, quiet and good for the environment (as if they don’t generate emissions, why would induced travel be a problem if it were priced properly?)

• How will the “grid” be modernized to address electric vehicles?

o   Smart power meters are already revolutionizing the power industry – this will advance to smart recharging management strategies which make the best use of the current grid and it generation capabilities.  Electric vehicles will change how we use energy – solar homes may reduce “grid” demand, nighttime recharging will use high supply/low demand power, batteries will be used to store wind/solar power and place it into the grid optimally.

• Who is researching extended life batteries?

o   A123 is doing research in North America – other start up firms in Japan and the USA are looking at things like the amount of energy per cell that can be created.  Research is also going into the issue of low use users (someone that travels 25 miles between charges) and taxi use (where they use nearly all the charge) and swapping batteries to maximize the life for of the batteries.

• If gas costs for traditional vehicles is about $250/month, how much will the electric vehicles cost?

o   Better Places goal is to end oil addition and dependency.  For the mass public to buy into the electric vehicle concept, the costs must be neutral/similar to the current gasoline model that exists today.

• Could the advent of electric vehicles accelerate the development of “SMART” vehicles to improve safety?

o   The computer systems on-board should contribute to these advances – the net result is a vehicle that turns 90% of its energy into motion rather than 20% (via the traditional gasoline vehicles).

• Are other electric concepts being developed that are not modeled after the typical “5000 pounds of steel” but better than a bicycle?

o   Segway’s are an example and China has banned gasoline engines on motor bikes – made them all electric.

Thanks to Randy McCourt for taking these detailed notes