How will the Chevrolet Volt be better than a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid?

Kudos is how it started - the claim that Volt is a clear winner because it runs on electricity for the first 35 miles. Per EPA figure, 93 MPGe is better than the no-plug 50 MPG Prius. It turned out, EPA numbers don't include upstream emission. If we include that, Volt is not a clear winner.

The second topic that brunched out is the use of solar panel to offset the coal electricity. I explained my position in the prior post.

The answer to your second question is in my post #593. I think EVs and PHVs are the future and we need to promote them. However, they don't deserve the halo they are receiving due to the cleanliness of our grid.

I think PiP deserve more halo because it is the only plugin that is cleaner than the regular Prius (using average electricity). Leaf and Volt doesn't do that now but the grid will change in the future. Gen2 PiP will come out and the grid will get cleaner so there are a lot of moving parts and things to look forward to.

 

You are changing the context of the discussion. Day-time electricity is more expensive than night-time. The price of the electricity Zythryn's solar panel produced is worth more than the coal electricity he used to charge his Volt at night.

He does not get to make a profit from this "trade" and claim his Volt runs on solar power.

I am against coal electricity. I am for solar electricity. Nothing has changed.

 

I side with Daniel, in saying that green kudos do not belong to energy consumers. Clean Producers fit, as do conservers. Both decrease the amount of dirty energy required.

While a person like gwmort is walking the walk by putting up PV to power his EV, that does not change the fact that the same PV in conjunction with a Prius is cleaner *overall*.

 

This was to answer my post #591.
I think you should read it again and to the end.
At the end I said:
Green credits for private PV array goes to everybody, not the installer alone IMO.

 

I agree with you and everyone will have their own opinion as it is a controversial topic.

The bottom line is, "I am carbon neutral" is not the same as "My car is carbon neutral".

We are comparing cars, not households.

 

In fact, you cannot. The electric utility in Hawaii has a monopoly, granted to it by the state in return for making the investment in electric generation and distribution. So in Hawaii you cannot feed your electricity back into the grid.

However, leaving that minor detail aside, if you could put up PVs in Hawaii and feed the electricity back to the grid, in a quantity that displaced the amount of petroleum you burn in your Prius, then, yes, you could claim to be carbon-neutral with respect to your combined system of car and PVs.

And you would not have to live in Hawaii. If you buy or lease enough space, and install enough PVs, and feed that electricity back to the grid, in our imaginary scenario where they let you do this, then again you could legitimately claim to be carbon neutral with respect to your system of car + PVs. If you put up enough PVs, you could cancel out your entire lifestyle carbon emissions, not just your car. You could include home heating, airline travel, the transportation of the food and other goods you buy, the energy usage of the manufacture of stuff you buy, etc. As long as the burning of oil in Hawaii is reduced by your solar panels.

You burn gas at one end, and you cause less oil to be burned at the other. If the quantities are equal, the total carbon footprint is neutral.

Note that it is not the car itself that becomes carbon-neutral, it is the combined system of car plus solar (or wind!) generation capacity. And that's what I'm saying of Zythryn: He bought a Volt AND installed PVs, and it's the system of car + PVs that is carbon neutral. The savings comes because he is no longer burning gas. In your hypothetical situation the savings comes because you reduce the amount of oil burned at the plant. Both systems reduce carbon emissions, though they do it in slightly different ways. You reduce oil burned at the plant while still burning the same amount of gas; he burns less gas while the plant burns the same amount of coal as before.

 

Clearly what Volt guys need to do for real green creds is to install BATTERIES with the PV system to store the power generated during the daytime and then use the batteries to charge the Volt at night.

How much does a PV array sufficient to charge a Volt cost? How long does a PV array last? And how much energy is consumed making and transporting one? And ditto for storage batteries?

 

I'm actually thinking of doing that with the Volt battery if I ever need to replace it. (assuming I buy after my lease). From all accounts they should have some good functionality for awhile even after their useful automotive life is over. I bet there are home kits for this sort of thing in the future.

 

I did not know profit along with reducing pollution, canceled out pollution reduction. That seems totally along the Duke energy line that since they make more profit keeping old polluting coal running, switching to green would require their customers to pay higher rates, so they won't do it.

That makes it seem like green is good as long as no one profits or pays more for it. Once renewables have a profit motive gasoline is better because, hell we know there is not profit motive there.

Now why is that electricity cheaper at night? Could it be because it is less valuable to the producers, so adding solar during the day and using grid power at night might actually improve the grid. Is this bad somehow.

As for credit or blame, that is an easy concept. You can assign a utility function for the power. What is the net effect to the grid from both adding power and charging? Since on most grids the power during the day is more valuable we should get a net contribution from solar. This varies in individual cases. In my local grid the utility will add whatever solar people do not add by regulation so adding solar simply gets it on the grid cheaper and faster. On the other hand charging ev's at night will cause my local grid to add more wind, we are a very different grid than most of the country. Now most grids will only give you full credit for the electricity you use, so if you don't have an ev you will add less power.

Net effect of pv + prius versus pv+volt, I really don't think they are very different, but it seems that a higher percentage of people buying phevs and evs are adding solar or paying for green choice. So solar + bicycle best, but lets give credit where it is do. If everyone bought an ev and added solar it would be a huge drop in pollution and oil imports. I doubt

And he gets to claim he is lessening dependence on foreign oil. Isn't that all true?

Adding batteries actually will cause more environmental pollution than hooking up to the grid. USB's argument is completely hollow, looking only at direct effects and not net effects.

 

I haven't seen the empirical data to support such a claim.

The only reason you can attempt to make that claim is because the carbon-intensity of average gas at 49-50 mpg is close to the carbon efficiency of a Volt on average electricity. I can imagine commute patterns where 360 Wh per mile on average grid would be lower carbon if the PiP was forced to spend a substantial ratio of its gas consumption heating the catalytic converter.

For EVs in general, the larger U.S. version of the 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV's combined city/highway estimate of 300 Wh per mile would beat the Prius on average grid including upstream effects based on GREET calculations. I think the current Tesla Roadster is similar. A city commute pattern in an i-MiEV at an EPA 270 Wh would beat the Prius on grid power from the large majority of the country and would only lose for those areas that are almost entirely coal.

Most cars with larger batteries come out clearly ahead of PiP for many driving patterns in areas of the country where grid power is low-carbon.

 

How so? I thought lead-acid batteries are recycled, and depending on how deeply they are cycled they might last a long time.

I also think it's telling that this whole discussion focuses on the technology rather than on ways to use energy more sparingly (e.g., driving the Volt - or the Prius - economically so as to reduce energy usage from whatever source).

 

I am sure that Insight-I Owner was being facetious. His point (I am sure) was to show how absurd usbseawolf's basic argument about Volt charging is.

 

Alternative is to install the PV system at work or where you would park/charge during the day.

 

I took out a bunch of excuses from your post. I just want to reply to this one.

We can look at the net effect if it is related to the car. We don't want to include your household appliance with the netting, do we?

If you want to include the PV system with the Volt, connect it. The cost of it should be counted for the cost of running Volt. We cannot use the night-time electricity rate to calculate the cost per mile.

 

How do you propose we do that?

My system has no upfront cost, a monthly payment equal to about 80% of my electric bill before the system, and I can sell the unused generation to the grid at higher rates during the day then I will pay for at night.

From day 1 I am saving money, if I charge the Volt at home on a Saturday afternoon are you going to let me claim a negative cost per mile?

 

Not completely facetious. It does strike me that a Volt (or EV) plus a PV array plus a home storage battery bank adds up to a fairly serious investment, too steep for your typical citizen, especially in today's economy?? And there are environmental and energy costs associated with PV's (and batteries) which should be factored in??

I actually agree with usbseawolf that "electrons" (the vernacular here, but kwh would be better) are not "fungible". Something that is fungible, say pork bellies or a gallon of gas, has a degree of stability that electrons lack. You can store pork bellies or gas without loss (for a while at least); storing electrons involves losses into and out of a battery. Yes electrons are indistinguishable, but each carries with it a "when" tag if you will. I can make two identical widgets, one in a highly inefficient and environmentally harmful way and another in an efficient "green" way. They are indistinguishable, yet how each is made DOES matter.

That said, the peak shaving arguments do seem valid.

I also sense that people with PV arrays tend to look at the solar power generated as "free" and therefore theirs to use, wastefully if they wish, say by driving 90mph. So their night recharging will require more kwh generated perhaps in a harmful way, so in effect they are increasing pollution by doing that, but there is no increased cost to them to discourage this behavior?? Except perhaps the resulting deeper discharge of their car batteries will shorten battery life??

 

Huh?? You've bought a Volt and a PV array. Why worry about the few cents(?) difference between nighttime and daytime rates?

 

Perhaps a question to austingreen. He is the one pushing for the net.

 

Technically I am leasing both. Doesn't worry me at all, just for the sake of discussion.

My lease payment on the Volt is less than other cars I have owned, and the lease payment on the PV is less than I was spending on the electric bill (to clarify my new much lower electric bill and the lease payment together equal about 80% of my old electric bill). So my out of pocket expenditures aren't that big, plus I'm saving money on all that gas I'm not buying and I'm around 12,500 miles without an oil change in sight (car says 75% oil life remaining).

 

This is very true, however that is not material to the discussion. Adding energy to the grid for peak demand, then consuming it at low demand allows the grid to be more efficient. Adding batteries takes energy to make, charge, and discharge, making your energy less efficient. The utilities would love to be able to use the batteries to store power at night and return it if there are demand spikes, but this requires a large number of EVs.

But isn't the switch from gasoline to solar or wind a good one? The switch from the scarcest resource oil to more plentiful ones is the reason many buy phevs and evs.

Well as I said your idea that time shifting use from peak demand to low demand being less green is a non-starter. We can however look at how much fossil fuel is used with and without the (ph)ev+pv. This will very from grid to grid though, but in general will reduce a great deal compared to gas car. Now if your argument is that those with gas cars are equally likely to add extra pv as those buying a (ph)ev, I am intersted in your statistics. If buying a plug-in makes you more likely to buy more pv that seems good also.

I was only commenting on energy use, not cost, but hey if adding pv reduces cost with all the subsidies, I don't think that is any reason to think it consumes any more coal than if there was a cost premium.