I am baffled by all the excitement about a plug in electric car. I do understand the benefits of a hybrid. But does an all electric enjoy the same benefits of saving dynamic energy to recharge batteries, for example? And this saving is about useless in highway driving.
Is it sufficiently more efficient to generate electricity with fossil fuels, transport it, convert it, etc, than to burn the same fuels in an efficient ICE?
Is it just taking the pollution away from one place in doing it in another?.
As long as electricity is generated with non-renewable systems, I don't see a great advantage in it.

PHEVs equipped with 15 to 20 KWh quick charge batteries + V2G connections will be very effective as power grid load levelers.

Charging PHEVs at lower cost during off peaks and supplying power at higher cost during peaks will reduce/delay demands for new power generating plants and generate profits (or much lower energy cost) for PHEV owners.

Existing power plants will become more efficient due to more constant loads. Power plants peak production may not have to be increased as much as many of us believe, specially for the first few millions PHEVs.

Secondly, the 10 to 15 KWh/day required for an average PHEV may be partly or even fully recouperated thru electric energy conservation programs. It is relatively easy (and cheap) to reduce energy consumption for an all electric home by 15+ KWh/day.

>But does an all electric enjoy the same benefits of saving dynamic energy to recharge batteries, for example?
Of course it does.

>Is it sufficiently more efficient to generate electricity with fossil fuels, transport it, convert it, etc, than to burn the same fuels in an efficient ICE?
It is. See http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/?p=25
Also consider that fossil fuels too require transportation and conversion/refinement ( as does electricity ), sometimes resulting in local ecological catastrophes.

> Is it just taking the pollution away from one place in doing it in another?.
Sort of, but pollution even from coal-burning plants is much less for a mile travelled than even the best of todays hybrids. Controlling pollution from dozens of power plants is much easier and cheaper than controlling pollution from millions of vehicles on the road.
Now factor in solar panels installed on rooftops everywhere ( this market is currently expanding almost exponentially ) and you are as green as it gets.

And of course an ever-growing number of buyers can choose to get their electricity entirely from renewable sources, as provided by Green Mountain, etc.

I hate people that try to use the excuse that it's no better driving an electric car because they use grid electricity produced from power plants.

The car uses electricity, which is about the most universal source of power around. After that it's a choice you make to use grid power or renewable. An electric car can go to a true zero, where an ICE never gets close.

Grid is still better than gas, but even that is unfair because the potential for electric is perfect and ICE is what it is.

Thanks Harvey, Richard and Kert. And Greg, I am sorry if I have awakened your hatred instincts by posting a few questions that puzzle me.
I am all for alternative power generation, windmills, solar, waves, tides, river currents, vegetal, and so on. I would love to see a wind or EV generator, coupled to H2 generation - once the storage of H2 is solved.

Put 5kW of PV solar panels on your roof and you can get 20kWh of electricity per day. That is enough to get you 40 miles to an from work. (the GM stat said 78% of the people live within 20 mile from work) You would be putting the solar power on the grid when it is needed most during the day and charge the EV at night when power is plentiful. Doing good and doing well.

HEV energy recapture vs BEV/PHEV energy recapture:

A larger battery pack in a BEV/PHEV will handle the large amounts of energy which have to be absorbed much more readily than a HEV and should be somewhat more capable at recapturing energy (larger electric motor also means a greater amount of capability to use the motor more for stopping and the brakes less.)

A maitenance free battery pack is in commercial series production at MES-DEA. It has the capacity of about 18 Kwh. and costs about $15,000 in small quantities and could cost about $5000 if made in large quantities. It was tested in 100Km+ per charge cars about ten years ago quite successsfully. It is used in hybrid and electric buses throught the world. Betard UK is working on a high power version for Prius type cars. One current production Battery Pack fitted into a Prius with its original battery and a current transfer device would make it into a Plug-In-Hybrid with an all electric range of 55 miles (calculated from Calcars website.). The power assist 100 miles per gallon range would be over one hundred miles. Suspension modifications would allow another 100kg battery pack for an all electric range of 110 miles. Vehicle to Grid V2G operation is possible because of its high cycle life.

Because the Zebra battery is a bit strange because it runs at high temperature and was not invented or built in the US, none of the US carmakers are even willing to prototype a car with it, but ROLLS-ROYCE Naval sells it for nuclear submarines and emergency rescue vessels....

Analysis of some similar approach to range extender using SOFC APU is available form Delphi:
http://www.delphi.com/pdf/techpapers/2005-01-1172.pdf
Seems this approach becomes common and replaces using FC to handle power demand peaks.

While ordering and building my electric motorcycle, I was made aware of AltairNano and their battery technology, and was impressed enough to invest in the company. However, I have not been able to pry any battery packs from them since they are all going into OEM for Phoenix Motorcars. So I ride around on my new electric MC with limited range, cafe racer-style, longing for the day when I can increase my range threefold and actually use the bike like a motorcycle should be used. Now I'm looking around for the "second best" EV vehicle batteries to do a lead-acid-to-safe lithium conversion. Any suggestions? (I need 72 volts --- six times 12 volts each, probably).