Remote Living > Transportation

Chevy Volt (plug-in hybrid), + solar, + garage stationary batteries

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jlsoaz:
Hi -

I purchased a used 2013 Volt plug-in hybrid with roughly a 35 mile all-ev range.  This has proven a better strategy for me so far than my previous transportation solution which was a Nissan Leaf battery-only vehicle.  That vehicle had an EV range which was too short for some of my trips, and there is no good public charging infrastructure where I live.  Where I live is Rio Rico, Arizona, USA.  It is not "that" remote (about 15-20 thousand people), but it is about 60 miles from the nearest public DC quick-charge station for electric vehicles, and so was not good for trying to operate a short-range early generation BEV.  A way to get quick perspective from an electric vehicle driver point of view is to go here:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/20748

This is the only public J1772 L2 in the county, so far. 

When I leased a short range BEV, I sometimes barely made it home by driving south (going uphill) from Tucson back here, and this station helped.  Basically, I had to retain ownership of a gasoline vehicle for longer trips or wait for hours at a station any time I needed to travel outside this small county.

All that is in the past, and I now am able to drive most of my miles based on charging my car at my house, while occasionally the gasoline engine will need to turn on during longer trips.  So far I've driven about 700 miles, used about 5 gallons of premium unleaded and I'm not sure how many kWh.  Not all of my kWh are solar (I am grid-tied and only have about 2.7 kW), but some are.

There are I think a variety of considerations.  One of them is that although my setup may seem to be in its way both energy saving, less polluting and lower CO2, I think it can be argued that if I lived in a city and took an electric train or bus, and so-on, then maybe that would be a superior solution on those points.  I am not sure how the numbers compare.  However, for where I live, this seems to me to be a better solution (at least, for what I want) than driving a plain gasoline vehicle.  I do realize that some rural livers don't care about low CO2, or maybe even other pollutants, but I do.  As to saving energy, I love being able to drive electric, and even driving on gasoline being able to get very good mileage.

I didn't like going into debt to buy a newer used vehicle, and trading in a vehicle that I owned outright, but at some point the old ride I had was just not what I wanted.  So, financial conservation is something I thought about also.

As well, I do want to say (having already known this from my Leaf experience) that in my view, driving a good BEV or PHEV can be simply a superior driving experience, in some ways.  For one main thing, the reduced Noise, Vibration and Harshness is, in my view, spectacular.  Even luxury vehicles costing nearly USD $100,000 or more, and for which low NVH is a strong feature, may not be able to match the low NVH that I got in a used Volt (at least until the gasoline engine comes on).  I must admit though I've not been in a Rolls Royce or the like, and I don't know for sure how it stacks up.  It would be interesting to see a scientific measurement.  I'll have to check later if there are any good articles on this.

JW:
are you using the EV to somehow power your house? I am ASE Advanced level Specialist and the voltages are out of reach to do something like that. If Im missing something let me know.

SparWeb:
Thank you very much for the report about the Volt.  I am gradually approaching the need to replace my daily-driver car and I expect to look seriously at PHEV's on the next go-round.  I live in the country, making pure-battery vehicles unlikely to suit my needs, especially in the winter, and especially considering the possibility of collisions at highway speed.  Now that the field of HEV's has diversified and offers Plug-ins (in Canada, not all models are offered as in the USA), I have some serious contenders to choose from.

Harold in CR:
For JW and others regarding Ev's and house power. Google Jehu Garcia powerwall.

Also--https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzz7zm/diy-powerwall-builders-are-using-recycled-laptop-batteries-to-power-their-homes

 I'm slowly converting Volt Battery modules for e-motorcycle and house power. Don't have the car for charging, so, I don't want to hijack this thread.

george65:

--- Quote from: jlsoaz on December 10, 2017, 12:33:36 PM --- I do realize that some rural livers don't care about low CO2, or maybe even other pollutants, but I do. 

--- End quote ---

While your intentions are noble, I have to question their effectiveness.
A quick look up of arizona power supply shows it to be 10% renewable at best. The rest is Coal, Gas and Nuke generated in the majority.
With only a 2.7 Kw solar supply of your own, I'd suggest for the most part you are merely substituting one Fossil fuel source for another. I'd further tend to think if a primary goal was emissions, you'd be far better off with a Diesel Vehicle and running it on 100% renewable Veg oil.

You would have the advantage of a far greater range ( I carry extra Fuel in my 4WD and do a 2500KM trip once-twice a year using nothing but veg) Cost savings and be able to use the power you make from your solar in your home.
If you are electric dedicated, then Putting a LOT more panels on your roof would be very worthwhile.  You would generate probably 10-15 Kwh a day with what you have now and I can't see that going far in an electric vehicle.
Another option may be to charge the thing with a veg fuelled generator.

All this electric car thing is good and well but people really tick me off when they start talking about zero emissions. NO, there is noting coming out your tail pipe but the one a few hundred miles away has a 30 Ft round tail pipe and that where the emissions your Vehicle makes are emitted from. Either that or it's put into strongly sealed containers. and buried under mountains for future generations to try to figure out what the hell to do with it.

Electrics now have speed, range and fast charging.... for the time being.
There are not too many places in the world where the grid would be able to take Twice let alone maybe 50 times the load transfering all the IC Vehicles to electrics would impose.  This is the real problem with electrics.

Sure, Tesla is making ( broken) promises of how many model 3's they are going to be able to produce by the end of 2018 but I wonder how fast the grid is going to be able to keep up with them?  The thing of charging stations will be an issue as well.  If you compare how many vehicles a service station can refuel in an hour and how many cars can get through a charging station, there is a real problem there on several levels.
In busy times where there is a lot of traffic, It's hard to see how they are going to have enough space an charging stations to cater for the amount of people that want to recharge.

Sure, put a charging station in every parking bay at maccas so people can go in , grab a bit and a coffee and have a break while their car charges up.
I think I looked up before a tesla can suck down 120Kw at a charging station.  On 240V that's nearly 500A. A normal house connection here is 80A and it would be extremely rare to find a single place sucking down that much power.
Let say there are 20 Charging stations in the carpark, that's 2.4 Mw of power just at that site . How many other sites will that segment of the grid be feeding and further back, how many will be in the area supplied but the local sub and power stations?

Another thing that's not mentioned with charging time with teslas is they quote an hour. That's true if the thing isn't completely flat which we'll assume it is not and people leave a small reserve as one normally would with a petrol car.  You go to the supercharger and plug in next to the guy that just pulled up. The charger is current limited and you are only going to get 30Kw being the second car to plug in rather than the 120Kw which is the max charge rate. Because the guy beside was before you but still needs to do a full charge more or less, your recharge could take 2 hours not 1.  And that is if it's getting full power in the first place and the site isn't limited on it's max current draw because of all the other stations and the wiring at the power pole.

Thanks to the rush to remove Coal fired power stations and go renewable, we are facing severe power shortages here. It's not going to be a quick fix and I can easily see limits being put on EV's should they start becoming popular so as to stop Taking power away from homes, Businesses and places like hospitals, schools etc.

The problem now is not with EV's but will be how to in fact Fuel them.
Seems like the same old problem to me.

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