When to Buy an Electric Car?
Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:09:00 GMT
That is the question – whether to buy a low-speed electric vehicle now, or wait for a high-speed electric vehicle later? Here are the factors I am looking at:
- What type of transportation do I need?
- When will high-speed electric vehicles really arrive?
- How much will they actually cost?
- When will the severe oil shortages start?
- Will there be subsidies for electric vehicles?
The short answer is that I am going to buy a low-speed NEV now and wait for later to buy a freeway capable electric car. Here is the long answer:
What type of transportation do I need?
We live in an area where most of the places we go, we can access without going on the freeway. Taking the kids to school, going to the market, going to friends or going to the meetup point for surfing can all be done on roads of 40MPH or less.
Currently, I have been using the electric scooter for most of these trips. However, the scooter is no good when it is raining or when I need to take both kids someplace, and is not much fun when it is cold. So for these cases, an NEV would be perfect. Well, not exactly perfect, in most states NEVs are limited to 25MPH and I want one that goes at least 35MPH (40MPH is preferable). Driving just 25MPH on a 35MPH road is hairy – cars would ride on my tail all the time and even try to pass when it wasn’t safe. (This isn’t a problem with the scooter since I can ride on the shoulder.) However, as long as the NEV is powerful enough, I am assuming it would be a simple matter of reprogramming the controller to obtain a higher speed.
Of course, there are times we need to go on the freeway. Suzanne works 21 miles away and although she can take non-freeway roads to get there, it takes longer – about 50 minutes versus about 25 on the freeway. So for Suzanne to commute to work, it would be best to have a freeway ready electric vehicle, but it only needs a range of about 50 miles. (Actually she can charge it at work so she could make do with one that has a shorter range.)
In addition, I want an electric vehicle that I can take surfing, which means going over the hill to Santa Cruz which is 35 miles one way. So this vehicle would need a range of about 100 miles, be able to go freeway speeds, and have enough power to go up a high and maintain 50 MPH.
Lastly, we do a long range vehicle for trips to our parents, or our friends in San Diego. This might be a pure gas car (our minivan) or an electric hybrid (Chevy Volt).
In summary, we could use three vehicles:
- Electric NEV
- Highway speed, long range EV
- Long distance electric hybrid
When will high-speed electric vehicles really arrive?
You could say they are already here. On EBay, several electric vehicles are listed each week and there are companies that will convert some cars into electric. However, this is expensive. For instance, Hybrid Technology is offerring an electric Mini Cooper through Sam’s Club for $65k.
However, it is hard to tell when production vehicles will be available in dealer showrooms. The Tesla, promised for October, should be ready “any day now.” The Chevy Volt will be available on 2010, according to the talk on the street, and there should be some plug-in hybrids next year. The biggest stumbling block that needs to be overcome is the battery technology. It certainly wouldn’t be good if electric car batteries caught on fire like Dell laptops. Also, producing a long-range electric car at a reasonable cost depends mainly on getting the battery cost down, and there have been no magic breakthroughs on this front. So the battery technology is likely to hold up production of electric cars more than anything else.
How much will they actually cost?
If we figure that at highway speeds, it takes 0.250kWh of energy to go one mile, it will take a battery pack of 25kWh to power an electric vehicle 100 miles. A normal flooded lead-acid battery pack this size would cost about $4,000 ($0.17/Wh) which isn’t bad. However, it would weigh a lot and take a lot of space so it really isn’t practical to use lead-acid batteries. A smaller and lighter solution is to use lithium ion batteries, but a pack this size would costs $25,000 ($1/Wh) for the batteries alone! So adding this to the cost of the car, and it would be hard to get the price below $50,000.
When will the severe oil shortages start?
The main reason I am want electric vehicles is that I believe that the world has passed peak oil and production is decreasing and that the demand for oil is continuing to increase, especially due to the growth of China and India. This means that oil will become increasingly more expensive and difficult to obtain which will lead to shortages and rationing. So electric vehicles are the best way to continue to be able to get around in a world with limited oil.
However, while everyone agrees that oil is a limited resource and will run out eventually, no-one knows exactly when. If adequate oil supplies will last for another 10 years, then it would be better to wait since over time, prices of electric vehicles will come down and performance will improve . However, if through depletion, terrorist action, or political objectives (think Iran or Venezuela), oil becomes tight in the next few years, then it will be better to buy one now since it is likely that if there is a sudden oil shortage, electric vehicles will be very difficult to obtain and the price of them will spike upwards considerably.
Will there be subsidies for electric vehicles?
In the event there is an oil crisis, or even just because of global warming concerns or tightening oil availability, it is likely that there will be government subsidies for buying electric vehicles, just like there are subsidies now for solar power. So this would suggest it would be cheaper to wait to the crunch to buy and electric vehicle and then scramble to try to get one once the subsidies kick in.
Conclusion
Electric vehicle prices will continue to come down, and there will likely be subsidies to help reduce the price further. Also performance will continue to improve, which suggests that it would be better to wait to buy an electric vehicle. However, there are many scenarios that we would cause a sudden oil shortage which cause a spike in demand for electric vehicles creating shortages and driving up the price. So my plan is to cover both basis and get an NEV now but wait to buy a high-speed electric vehicle until later.
Max, thanks for your blog on electric cars. I gave up my car about a year ago and I’m still alive believe it or not! I’ve been using public transportation, e.g. buses, subways, and trains to do most of my traveling. I also bum rides from time to time for special trips. I’ve also been using my bike a lot more. I live in the suburbs of NYC, just over the George Washington Bridge. It’s actually been really nice taking public transportation. It’s where I do most of my reading nowadays. My favorite books have been the ones that fit in my jacket pocket.
I feel that we should be concentrating more on improving ‘Public Transportation’ and Changing Our Ways’ e.g. scaling back on consumption of all ‘stuff’ so that we can leave less and less of a footprint overall, versus creating a better mouse trap or vehicle. Creating a ‘better’ car is just a small step. We should be making a big step instead given the short time we have left to make a serious change before we pass the ‘point of no return’ regarding the degradation of the environment.
Unless we come up with a way to take things from the earth which will grow back, i.e. renewable materials unlike oil, coal, and the materials that go into new technology, cars, and the rest of the ‘stuff’ in this world, we will be nowhere closer to a real working solution that we can rely on for the long term. If we do continue to make ‘stuff’ that uses energy and resources, we must make stuff that uses energy provided by our planet from solar, WIND, water, and in combination with natural forces like kinetic energy.
However, simply not needing energy as much is the best way I can think of not to use it or need it! Let’s try to live more deliberately, intelligently, and simply. Let’s get local and improve and invest in our local communities so that we don’t want to leave them as often to go to better ones two towns away.
Let’s encourage more and better railway systems and other public transportation so that we can get out of our towns to see the rest of the world. Let’s put pressure on our representatives to make these changes.
In short, now is the time that we must think 10 steps into the future, and not 1 step by creating an electric car which will be powered by the next natural material to peak: coal.
See http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ for a great movie on why the suburbs cannot survive. We must scale back.
Jeff
Thanks for your comments Jeffrey, they were very insightful.
Have you seen the new car the Tata Nano from India for $2,500? While it gets over 50 MPG, many people are worried that it will just lead to an explosion of people driving.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano
It is interesting that you reference the movie “The End of Suburbia”, because I have been wondering if the suburbs will be sustainable once oil becomes more scarce.