On July 24, 2008 the Plugin 2008 conference ended in San Jose, California. Here are my thoughts about the event. Text from DJCline.com.

Intel founder Andy Grove gave the speech of a lifetime this week for electric vehicles. He said that this conversion is almost “undo-able”. It will require the kind of commitment Americans made during WWII. When an old scientist who dedicated his life to doing the impossible says something is possible, I listen to him. We need an all electric vehicle fleet as soon as possible. Industry should move quickly to agree on standards and cooperate with governments rather than try to get a bigger piece of the pie than a competitor. In the meantime we can quickly convert existing ones. He pointed to a $40,000 Ford F-150 pickup truck from the Illinois Institute of Technology that was converted for $11,000. Any organization that has a large fleet of such vehicles could realize savings quickly given current fuel prices. Text from DJCline.com.

Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network delivered more bad news. Despite global warming or climate change, in the next 20 years we will burn more coal than we burned in the last 250. Most of it will be burned in China and India. Carbon credits don’t work. They just shuffle the problem around. There isn’t a global EPA to enforce a coherent policy. As a result, more extreme weather will drive 160 million refugees out of Bangladesh. Text from DJCline.com.

Despite this, demand increases. There are 820 million vehicles on the road. Soon there will a billion. India has new cheap vehicles like the Tata Nano. China will soon be General Motors’ biggest market. More cars need more oil. Oil is currently approaching $150 per barrel and that price will only go up. Electric vehicles begin to make economic sense when gas costs 14 cents per mile versus two cents per mile. Text from DJCline.com.

While this event had its share of longtime hobbyists, big business is moving in the same way it did for personal computers in the 1980s. General Motors, Ford and Mitsubishi were vying for the same attention as ZapCar and Tesla. Like IBM back then, they need to make the transition to survive. A few new companies may become giants, but the big boys know how to do things in a big way.

Car companies are partnering with utility companies who see electric cars as a big new appliance. Right now there are 200 million vehicles in this country that fill up every couple of days through a complex gasoline infrastructure. Shifting to electricity creates a new headache. Imagine if people started plugging in several hundred million vehicles at night. Say you have 20 power outlets in your house. What would happen if you plugged twenty hair dryers in to them? You would blow a fuse or trip a circuit breaker. Power companies are going to have to figure out how to balance demand loads of colossal proportions. Text from DJCline.com.

You could plug in your car like any other appliance and it would take eight hours to charge in off-peak hours with an ordinary 110 volt service. You could cut the charging time in half, but you would need 220 volt service. Utilities and homeowners are going to have to consider upgrading their service. Maybe you’ll have a solar panel on your roof, but that only complicates things as you push the excess power back on the grid. I can tell utility companies are not thrilled about millions of homes generating their own haphazard power and trying to balance loads. Of course if it keeps utilities from building more power plants it will be worth it. Your monthly electric bill might be harder to figure out than your taxes. If you don’t pay your bill you won’t be able to leave your house. Text from DJCline.com.

While battery storage capacity is increasing, you may want to charge it while you are working or shopping. You could plug it in normally and it might take a few hours. That’s not practical if you are on a trip. Companies are developing a kind of parking meter device that will charge your car and bill it back to your residential utility bill. Utilities across the country will have to figure out how to pass on costs to each other as you drive from one state to another. I’m not thrilled about being tracked but most people are now when they pay for gas with a credit card.

All of this sounds as messy as burning oil, but it can be done. Andy Frank of UC Davis spent is life developing hybrid electric vehicles and now inspires people who are too young to know something is impossible. They will make it happen. They have to. Text from DJCline.com.

Copyright 2008 DJ Cline All rights reserved.

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