Video: A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars

probe

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html



Presenter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shai_Agassi

djpbarry

probe,

Please provide your own opinion on the material, as per the revised forum charter.

probe

djpbarry wrote: »

probe,

Please provide your own opinion on the material, as per the revised forum charter.

In my view this video speaks for itself, rather eloquently. Agassi is a good presenter. If I did not agree with the content, I would not hesitate to say so.

While one can see the benefit of guidelines on what postings might contain under various circumstances, it sometimes does not add any value to put a comment for the sake of commenting. We don't want boards to look like some state examination paper devised by some deadwood in the Dept of Education in the dim and distant past, do we?!

It is an interesting video - people can choose to view it or otherwise as they see fit.

The one thing that does occur to me is that when/if the ultra-capacitor hits the market, which device might allow a car to fully charge in a minute or two, Mr Agassi's battery changing drive thru "carwash" infrastructure might be made redundant very quickly.

There is so much negativity in certain quarters today, I decided not to add a comment of this nature at the time. In any event, while the ultra-capacitor might make the carwash element of the charging station obsolete, the other elements (mainly the high capacity grid connection) would still be required.

oscarBravo

probe wrote: »

In my view this video speaks for itself, rather eloquently.

For those of us who, for whatever reason, can't watch the video, it remains stubbornly silent.

probe

oscarBravo wrote: »

For those of us who, for whatever reason, can't watch the video, it remains stubbornly silent.

Perhaps you would like me to do a transcript of what Agassi said in the video - in case someone might be using a mobile phone to browse boards.ie ? NO for two reasons - aside from potential copyright issues!

1) The use of mobiles (or any wireless devices) is not a green way to use the internet, particularly for video. If everyone watched random streamed video on the mobile phone in an urban area, the networks would require several thousand additional cellsites to deliver the bandwidth required.

2) The transcript would probably run to 10 or more pages. If I attempted to digest same into a few paragraphs, one no doubt would be accused of bias!

If anyone is seriously interested in watching the video, they can make their way to a (preferably wireline connected) device with Adobe Flash Player installed.

If your PC doesn't have Flash, it can be downloaded and installed in seconds from

http://www.adobe.com/go/EN_US-H-GET-FLASH

Flash Player works on Linux, Solaris, Mac and even Windows operating systems - and chances are you might well have an out of date, insecure version of Flash Player on your machine right now, which is used by many/most websites, and which is potentially exposing you to many security vulnerabilities. So you might want to click on the above link and freshen up your version.....

oscarBravo

There are many reasons other than technical why people might not be in a position to watch Internet video. That's why the web is such a useful technology: it mostly operates through the altogether more convenient medium of text.

If you couldn't be bothered explaining the gist of the video, fine. It limits the scope for discussion, and this is, after all, a discussion forum.

Macha

Jist: Agassi is the CEO/founder of Better Place, a US company with strong ties to Israel that is involved in the infrastructure side of electric vehicles. They have teamed up with Nissan-Renault to manufacture the cars and offer their service to countries/regions/cities. Their solution to the issues with EVs (long charging time and short range) is to have battery replacement stations where you pull in, a mechanical arm takes out your empty battery and replaces it with a fully charged one, all within about 30 seconds. The other point to note is that when you buy your electric car, you don't buy the battery, which helps with captial costs from the consumer's point of view.

They were in talks with ESB but I heard that ESB felt they were getting greedy with wanting to own the infrastructure (pot..kettle).

http://www.betterplace.com/

robtri

taconnol wrote: »

Jist: Agassi is the CEO/founder of Better Place, a US company with strong ties to Israel that is involved in the infrastructure side of electric vehicles. They have teamed up with Nissan-Renault to manufacture the cars and offer their service to countries/regions/cities. Their solution to the issues with EVs (long charging time and short range) is to have battery replacement stations where you pull in, a mechanical arm takes out your empty battery and replaces it with a fully charged one, all within about 30 seconds. The other point to note is that when you buy your electric car, you don't buy the battery, which helps with captial costs from the consumer's point of view.

They were in talks with ESB but I heard that ESB felt they were getting greedy with wanting to own the infrastructure (pot..kettle).

http://www.betterplace.com/

thank you....
as I am one of the unlucky few who probe doesn't seem to care about...
my work laptop has that website blocked, so I can't view video....

Eddiethehill

How does this tie in with the recently announced plans by the ESB to build an electric car infrastructure in Ireland?
Is there a connection?

Also how much wind energy can we generate/store here in Ireland?

Is Mise...

Macha

ESB were in talks with Better Place but there are ownership issues that haven't been resolved so I think that fell apart. I think ESB might be going ahead and talking directly to Renault-Nissan but I think they're a bit foolish if they try and go ahead and implement the infrastructure themselves...then again, cutting out the middle man may provide large savings.

Ireland's electricity system peak is c. 5000MW

maniac101

ESB have commited to switching over all of their vehicles, apart from HGVs, to electric over the next few years - that's around 2,500 vehicles I believe. That's a big commitment and a good test for a bigger roll-out of EVs.

Eddiethehill wrote: »

Also how much wind energy can we generate/store here in Ireland?

Is Mise...

There's over 1,000MW of installed wind capacity in Ireland at the moment, - that's about 2.5 TWh of energy per annum. There's another 1,500MW contracted to come onstream over the next couple of years. A capacity of 5,500MW installed turbines must be reached by 2020 to meet the 40% renewable target.

There's very little storage capacity in Ireland. Turlough Hill pumped storage has a 292MW output, but could only run at full tilt for around 12 hours before the resesrvoir would be empty. EVs could provide a useful complementary storage capacity.

Eddiethehill

maniac101 wrote: »

...
EVs could provide a useful complementary storage capacity.

I don't quite get that bit maniac. Do you mean that they store reserve power in their batteries?


Is Mise...

Macha

Eddiethehill wrote: »

I don't quite get that bit maniac. Do you mean that they store reserve power in their batteries?

Yes, the idea is called vehicle-to-grid or v2g:

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) describes a system in which power can be sold to the electrical power grid by an electric-drive motor vehicle that is connected to the grid when it is not in use for transportation.[1] Alternatively, when the car batteries need to be fully charged, the flow can be reversed and electricity can be drawn from the electrical power grid to charge the battery.

Vehicle-to-grid can be used with such gridable vehicles, this is, plugin vehicles (this is, electric vehicles as Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) or Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), with grid capacity. Since most vehicles are parked an average of 95 percent of the time, their batteries could be used to let electricity flow from the car to the power lines and back, with a value to the utilities of up to $4,000 per year per car. [2]

One notable V2G project in the United States is at the University of Delaware, where a V2G team headed by Dr. Willett Kempton has been conducting on-going research. Their goals are to educate about the environmental and economic benefits of V2G and enhance the product market.[3] Other investigators are the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Xcel Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the University of Warwick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2G

robtri

taconnol wrote: »

Yes, the idea is called vehicle-to-grid or v2g:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2G

So basically you are recommending that we take up a project, that hasn't compelted research... no major infrastructure testing has been done....

not really something I would be in favour off....

Macha

robtri wrote: »

So basically you are recommending that we take up a project, that hasn't compelted research... no major infrastructure testing has been done....

not really something I would be in favour off....

No. I didn't say that.

The use of electric vehicles as electricity storage for the grid is not entirely central to the concept of electric vehicles. It would still be feasible to roll out electric vehicles, a concept that has been well tested, without the v2g technology ever coming to fruition. It would most certainly be an added bonus because storage is the holy grail of renewables but it isn't necessary. Moreover, the potential benefits and savings for both the utility and consumers are too high to just be dismissed.

I'd also like to add that very often I hear people complain that Ireland never leads the way yet when something new is suggested, the common response seems to be that it's too risky. V2G technology is in the process of being tested out in universities in the US - why not here? We have a lot of expertise in battery technology in this country.