Wjile Mr. Earley's comments are welcome and his enthusiasm for electrification of transport a good one - there are concerns. Notably, that the mistake of empowering only a small cartel of energy providers as happened last century with petroleum - NOT happen again. i.e. it is imperitive that electric utility companies NOT be given the whole pie.

Sure we need utils to help grow domestic energy resources. And they have done an admirable job on the whole (rolling CA brownouts aside) But this new energy transition must empower small enterprises. We want to see sunbelt indy energy depots selling fast charge from PV or wind or geotherm alongside E85, butanol, NG, etc.

While expansion of the grid appears the only direction to allow expansion of electrification - it is not. By converting millions of residences to distributed power producing RPUs - we can minimize the cost and vulnerability of new power plants and grids.

What Congress must ensure in the age of electrification is the opportunity for small business to diversify the energy market. By encouraging through incentives, small business energy makers from renewable resources, Congress grows jobs, clean energy and security.

The big utils are the major players going forward, but if we are to avoid a new energy bottleneck - Congress MUST act to ensure diversity of resources and limitations on utility monopolies.

Local charging infrastructure is one key element in building public enthusiasm for plug-ins. To do that, we need connection standards and incentives for employers and landlords to set up charging stations for employees and tenants. Given that employers and landlords face big up front costs with no way to recoup those costs, we need a way for a third party to install and operate the charging stations, with some sort of subscription service for end-users. There has to be enough of a initial subsidy to roll out the system in a way that landlords and other business owners get some benefit from agreeing to host the charging stations.

Currently, I can rarely charge my PHEV anywhere but home. It's very frustrating.

Electric vehicles will certainly lead to more business for the electric utilities. So, their getting exited on this is quite understandable. Do not be surprised if they ask the government to change some regulation in the near future.

How about the utilities providing 3 phase residential service? I would think that this would be more efficient for charging batteries and it might spur the use of more efficient refrigeration and airconditioning systems. I believe that most battery powered forklift trucks use 3 phase chargers.

J.A. Turner makes a very good point. Rather than relying on the utilities to implement the charging infrastructure. Provide an incentive for other business by allowing them to resell electricity.

We do have to be careful. Electric distribution is often a monopoly within a set geographic area. Precisely why it is more highly regulated than most industries.

In the majority of the articles and comments about PHEVs and BEVs that I read, I find very few mention 'Better Place' which offers battery exchange vehicles as a solution to the BEV range problem, by allowing home charging and quick battery exchange for longer trips.

Once you have battery exchange then exchanging 'local-range' batteries for 'long-range' batteries starts to come to mind.

The electric utilities need to have a way to make as much money off of a local production-based bid-ask exchange model for their service.

Separating grid tie charges and grid maintenence charges from the cost of energy shows much promise as a way forward.

I think the main problem with better place is trust. We simply dont live in a place where we trust people not to mess stuff up.

Looks like infrastructure will be handled by the SAE J1772 standard.

"The standard is going to a vote this week after two and a half years of work. All major automakers are expected to agree to adhere to these charging standards. All infrastructure that goes in from now on should be J1772 compliant so all plug-in vehicles can use it." Britta Gross - GM

@Roger:

Nice to have the improved batteries but personally I would not want to have to charge at any less than 40 miles range. Maybe for city run abouts a 20M AER is enough - for some people. then there's the cost and maintenance for charge stations all over the place. Logic suggests as battery life improves - need for charge stations decreases.

To begin with, free employer charging will handle most commuters. public parking chargers seem to make sense. And charge free at the mall may get more people shopping. Aside from that - I don't want to see chargers on every corner - that era is over.

OPOC and others make very light weight engines, and simple light weight generators can be made with the modern high energy magnets. A range extender adequate for most electric automobile uses can have a weight as low as ten pounds. Such devices can be built to use either propane or gasoline or natural gas. Natural gas can be used when the vehicle is parked ouside. Propane is used when moving and gasoline is used when propane is not available. There then needs to be no thought about fast charging or limited range.

Cogeneration at home with natural gas makes the electric car doubly or more efficient. High thermodynamic efficiency electricity should never be used for simple heating in electric cars, but liquid fuel operated heaters should be used. An exception might be a heat pump.

Wood charcoal car heaters can be designed for people who insist upon biofuels. Charcoal is one of the most efficient biofuels to produce.

A pound of charcoal can give at least 4 miles of operation compared 7 miles per pound of gasoline.

Wood charcoal burning range extenders can be built with computer control for very high efficiency. Whole corn plants could be converted into charcoal with very high energy efficiency and two or three times more miles than the ethanol now produced.

The long range pure electric car without a range extender is simply a tool in the hands of anti electric car people (oil companies etc) to frighten away possible users. It is also bad engineering because of the high cost of batteries and short range most cars use most of the time. Batteries are not yet capable of storing energy at low cost, but gasoline is not low cost either. The high cost of vehicle batteries should be reduced by the use of smaller ones and low cost loans and other incentives from power companies.

If you only travel five miles on the average day, the car should only have one kilowatt hour capacity. Flywheels can be used for supplying high power needed for acceleration. They are being tested in race cars.

Three phase power usually implies that more power is available to run motors, but with the wide availability of semiconductors there is no need for three phase power at any level for charging batteries. If you have it use it. European countries seem to have more residential three phase power which can be used divided or undivided in closely spaced houses or appartments. Very high power single phase motors are now available from www.precisepwr.com, but they can be implemented with ordinary motors with electronic drives but at lower efficiency.

Daytime fast charging should be with natural gas engine powered generators to avoid peak local loads on the grid. Every parked automobile has a wasted engine in it and most moving automobiles are wasting most of the capacity of the machine. Power at 8 kW is adequate for cars going at a steady rate of 100 km/hr on a level motorway.

Cogeneration at the home or business is one of the most cost effective ways of lowering CO2 and fuel use at the same time. Money is better spent for cogeneration than home solar or wind power and it can be used more widely and all the time. No public utility should be allowed to burn natural gas, but they should install natural gas cogeneration units at homes and businesses. ..HG..

Thanks, Carlos, for illustrating my point about the durability of A123 battery, capable of deep cycling (of up to 95% of SOC) and lasts beyond 5000 cycles. That would allow the Volt to have an all-electric range of almost 40 miles while using only an 8kwh battery pack. I hope that will address your desire of 40-mi PHEV range, Reel$$.

Agree with Anne and wintermane's assessment of Better Place scheme. Instead of just swapping the batteries, why not swap out the whole car? Put your out-of-charge BEV there for recharging, while rent another car (ICE car) in the lot to complete your occasional needs for longer-range driving.

Good enough pack's are already available to GM for a decent Volt BEV.

There's a boatload of testing required before they can make a product to sell. It's a business decision not to go in that direction. Then again, they may be doing so in secret.

I think the better place model has several advantages that are being overlooked. It will be a great enabler of the second hand electric vehicle market. If you purchase a second had vehicle that has a poor battery, with better place you dont own the battery and can swap it out in a couple of minutes with no mechanics costs. Personally I dont want a "feeling of ownership" with a faulty battery. I would rather let someone else worry about that. A nice "feeling of ownership" is great when the car is new and everything is going well. The rest of the time I would rather have the choice to easily solve a problem with the car. Rather than getting a "worse" battery, on the whole I would, particularly over time getting better batteries, particularly as newer lighter batteries with larger ranges come on line as technology and operations of scale start to kick in. If I have bought the battery I am saddled with old technology. Not so with a swappable battery. Let better place have the worry of what to do with the older less functional ones.

If I had the choice of buying two identical electric cars for the same cost, one that could swap batteries and one that couldn't I would be mad to take the one that didn't. It gives me more choices and less costs.