Chevy Volt August 20, 2009
I'm getting increasingly excited watching videos about the Chevy Volt and following its pre-production development.
Here are some things I've been learning/thinking about:
The average cost of electricity in the US is about 10 cents per kilowatt, so it will cost between 70 cents and $1.60 to recharge the battery. This works out to about 1.5 cents per kilometre. Comparatively, it costs in the neighborhood of 10 cents to drive a kilometre in our Honda Civic.
Half of US electricity is generated by burning coal. About 20% is nuclear, while 16% is natural gas. Only 2.5% is from renewable resources! In other words, electricity isn't currently generated in a sustainable or especially clean manner.
I wonder whether you could drape a giant flexible solar array over your car when you were at work to partially recharge the battery.
Recharging the car in the middle of the night would save money due to lower electricity costs and would help to better utilize a nation's electricity infrastructure.
