Our Solar/Alt Energy Future

imrs.php

 



1712939498290.jpeg

Here’s how EVs could get 200 miles per gallon


When the Toyota Prius cruised into North America for the first time in the early aughts, drivers were shocked. At a time when the average sedan got just 23 miles per gallon (and the average passenger car just 20 miles per gallon), the Prius got 48. Thanks to regenerative braking and the little electric motor, its city mileage was better than its highway mileage.

That was then. Now, when it comes to miles per gallon, electric vehicles blow hybrid cars out of the water. The average electric car in the United States today gets the equivalent of 106 miles per gallon. And, according to a new report, that number could more than double in the next decades, to the equivalent of more than 200 miles per gallon.

That growth in efficiency — possible with technologies that exist today — could help ease the strain that electric vehicles are expected to place on the grid, extend battery range and even limit the need for public car charging. With a concerted push, the U.S. transition to EVs could be made smoother and billions of dollars cheaper for consumers, experts argue.


Without it, the country could face increased electricity demand equivalent to about a quarter of all current U.S. electric power use.

“It’s like walking by money on the sidewalk,” said Luke Tonachel, a senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council and one of the authors of the report released Wednesday by NRDC and the Electric Power Research Institute. “We’ll miss out on savings that are right there in front of us.”

The groups’ analysis finds that increasing the efficiency of EVs could cut energy consumption per mile in half by 2050 — and in so doing, reduce pressure on the grid by about half.
 
New data from California Independent System Operator (CAISO) shows that supply from geothermal, hydro, solar and wind exceeded demand for between 0.25-6 hours per day for more than three quarters of days since the start of March.

It is the first time that the US state has succeeded in drawing all of its electricity needs from wind-water-solar (WWS) sources for such a sustained period of time.

“This is unprecedented in California’s history,” Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University who first shared the figures, told The Independent.
“In previous years, WWS supply exceeded demand occasionally on one weekend day, but never two days in a row and never during the week, and never to the magnitude that is now, up to 122 per cent of demand.”
 

Forum List

Back
Top