Electric cars vs gas-to-liquid technology

[Tolya]

For travelling from Gdansk to Warsaw: use a train. I agree that electric cars are too expensive for most people right now, but you better hope it changes before 2020, if you want to have some form of four wheel motorized personal transport available 20 years from now. Otherwise better to learn how to handle a horse

The problem isn't affordability - electric cars are expensive today because of their small scale of construction, which would change if they ever enter mass production. It's just that a car that takes 3,5 hours to recharge isn't very practical or convenient. They need to get recharge times down to 10-15 minutes or use some other method of supplying electricity (like electric grids built into roads) if this technology is ever to take off. I have no idea if such speed recharge is even physically possible.

I don't really care which way it goes in the future - whether it's electric motors or hydrogen fuel cells (or even a portable plasma generator). I just want to be able to get into my car and drive anywhere I please without too much hassle. That's the basic idea behind a car and the reason why it's been so popular for more than 100 years now.

[Darth Wong]

To put the problem into perspective: one litre of gasoline can be used to generate roughly 30 MJ of energy, and a typical automotive gas tank will hold 60 to 70 litres of gasoline. Therefore, you are essentially putting roughly 2 GJ of chemical potential energy into your gas tank when you fill it up. You can fill up a gas tank in less than two minutes, depending on how fast the pump is, so we're talking about an effective charging rate of more than 16 megawatts.

The prospect of millions of megawatt-class electrical devices being deployed around the nation, to be handled by hand in public places by ordinary people, is either disturbing or laughable, or both. Even if the electric car were ten times more efficient than the gasoline car, you would still need megawatt-class charging devices to bring the charge time down to something that feels like what a typical gasoline powered automobile provides.

[Serafina]

Why would we NEED such short charging times?

Seriously - if you are on a long drive, whats wrong with taking a 30 minutes break? You proably want to do that anyway.
Likewise, if you are moving in short intervalls in a city, you are propaly staying at a couple of places for at least ten minutes - and hours if you arrive back home.

That means that you can cut down the 16 megawatts charging rate to about one megawatt without any trouble -except for those people who need to drive huge distances without a break.

[The Jester]

The prospect of millions of megawatt-class electrical devices being deployed around the nation, to be handled by hand in public places by ordinary people, is either disturbing or laughable, or both. Even if the electric car were ten times more efficient than the gasoline car, you would still need megawatt-class charging devices to bring the charge time down to something that feels like what a typical gasoline powered automobile provides.

There is a way around this problem. Instead of charging the battery, why not just replace it and let someone deal with the charging? Of course this has it's own problems but it's more feasible than millions of megawatt-class electical devices.

[Tolya]

Why would we NEED such short charging times?

30 minutes wouldn't be so bad... except that I don't think its possible right now. Tesla Roadster takes 3,5 hours to fully recharge - and only if you are using a 240V 70 ampere source. It may possibly change in the future but for now we can't rely on some future breakthrough.

Answering your question though:

First of all, out of convenience. But that's the least important reason. Also, think about clogging of the fuel stations. Right now it takes 2 minutes to fill up your tank. Stop, pump the gas, pay and go. Imagine if every vehicle had to occupy a charging spot for 15-30 minutes (which is a very optimistic figure in itself). You would need a few times more charging stations than there are petrol stations now - and the number of petrol stations is governed by demand. There are enough for everyone to get their fuel while making it possible to profit from them. Building a huge grid of charging stations which wouldn't be nearly as effective as pumps COULD make this into a charity rather than a business - you just couldn't service enough customers in a given amount of time to make a profit. It would be like trying to make a living selling one candy every ten minutes - instead of ten candies every minute. You would have to raise prices dramatically.

I have also heard that both building and recycling current generation batteries comes at a considerable environmental cost.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The idea that Nissan is pushing is quick-change stations, where everyone leases the battery instead of owning it and the technicians swap your battery in a couple of minutes instead of filling up. That would simaltaneously solve the need to buy an expensive new battery years down the line, allow a quick and convenient way to "fill up", and the car's range would improve year over year as battery technology improved without the driver having to buy a new car.

[Sarevok]

Thats a good idea. However batteries are likely too heavy to be removed and refitted in a few minutes by one or two people. You will need some kind of automated loading / unloading system at charging points. An automatic system for quickly removing a huge battery and replacing it is going to be expensive. I dont think too many individuals or pumping stations seek to add electric vehicle support will be pleased with the cost.

[Sky Captain]

Why would be fast charging at specialized charging stations such a problem? Assuming the battery/capacitor pack can handle such loads it would just require to connect a heavy duty cable to the car and pull the switch (or is it difficult to make plug and inlet that can handle say 1000 amps while being easy to connect/disconnect).

It would make sense for such a charging station to have its own big capacitor pack that would be charging at constant rate from grid and when customer arrives and connects his car quickly dumps stored electricity via heavy duty cable into the car`s battery.

[Vejut]

Because, even your car battery, operating at ~12v/400Amps when starting your car, can produce quite a light show, melt some metal, and give you a good shock/tingle when you bridge the contacts with a dropped wrench or other minor stupid that even trained technicians sometimes do. for reference, 12v/400Amps is 4.8KW, 1000 times LESS than what Darth Wong is talking about being required. Arcing the sort of voltage and amperage required to get a megawatt current would be not good for your health or continued breathing status if it decided the path it would take to ground was through you, which means that you've got to take a lot of precautions to make sure that doesn't happen. For that matter, did you know discharged car batteries can freeze in cold weather, and when re-charged without reheating, explode? Imagine that, only in a battery pack with a thousand times the power, because somebody pushed their car a little too far in a Chicago winter...

[Marcus Aurelius]

30 minutes wouldn't be so bad... except that I don't think its possible right now. Tesla Roadster takes 3,5 hours to fully recharge - and only if you are using a 240V 70 ampere source. It may possibly change in the future but for now we can't rely on some future breakthrough.

Answering your question though:

First of all, out of convenience. But that's the least important reason. Also, think about clogging of the fuel stations. Right now it takes 2 minutes to fill up your tank. Stop, pump the gas, pay and go. Imagine if every vehicle had to occupy a charging spot for 15-30 minutes (which is a very optimistic figure in itself). You would need a few times more charging stations than there are petrol stations now - and the number of petrol stations is governed by demand. There are enough for everyone to get their fuel while making it possible to profit from them.

I have also heard that both building and recycling current generation batteries comes at a considerable environmental cost.

So, your point is that that because electric cars can't match cars with some kind of ICE in range or convenience today, they should not be taken seriously as a future replacement for ICE powered cars? Then what do you suggest they should be replaced with? I am all for doing more research on hydrogen powered cars, but in my opinion they have a lot more potential problems and technical challenges to overcome. Hydrogen would need almost completely new infrastructure all the way from production to storage. Electricity can be provided by extending and improving the existing electrical grid; only the charging stations would need to be built.

Building and recycling batteries would not be a huge environmental problem if handled and regulated properly. The biggest problem I see is the availability of lithium, which is not great at the moment. Luckily NiMH batteries could be used in shorter range commuter vehicles instead. Most people really don't utilize anything close to their car's full range on a regular basis anyways.

[Sarevok]

Why would be fast charging at specialized charging stations such a problem? Assuming the battery/capacitor pack can handle such loads it would just require to connect a heavy duty cable to the car and pull the switch (or is it difficult to make plug and inlet that can handle say 1000 amps while being easy to connect/disconnect).

It would make sense for such a charging station to have its own big capacitor pack that would be charging at constant rate from grid and when customer arrives and connects his car quickly dumps stored electricity via heavy duty cable into the car`s battery.

1, How many gigawatts does a country generate ? Using Darth Wongs figures a car needs 16 mw for charging. My country barely generates 5500 megawatts on a good day when every powerplant is working perfectly. We have hundred thousand plus cars in the capital alone.

2. How do you carry such immense currents to a persons house ? The lines from powerplants to cities can handle such loads. They are very heavy and expensive. Just take a look at the size of those pylons !

3. What manner of battery can handle such charging currents without being wrecked or overheating ? Someone more knowledable can explain why there is a limit to how fast a battery can be recharged.

4. Capacitors that can safely store 16 megajoules of energy for extended periods in a typical household exist ?

[Tolya]

So, your point is that that because electric cars can't match cars with some kind of ICE in range or convenience today, they should not be taken seriously as a future replacement for ICE powered cars?

Yes, exactly. I cannot rule out any potential technological breakthroughs in the future, but I just cannot have any serious faith in them in making any serious statement. You know, time travel and teleportation are very nice too, they just aren't feasible yet. More research still needs to be done.

Im not a scientist. Im an end-user. I will gladly buy an electric car if it can satisfy my requirements as a customer. And ecology isn't as high on my priority list as my personal convenience and cost effectiveness.

You know, one of the most important reasons behind the success of the ICE cars is convenience. Ignoring that is a very serious mistake.

Then what do you suggest they should be replaced with?

I seriously have no idea. And I doubt anyone really knows that. I like the idea behind hydrogen fuel cells better, but as you already said, it still needs heavy research in order to be useful.

Most people really don't utilize anything close to their car's full range on a regular basis anyways.

Yes, but range and possibility to easily extend the range is still an important factor in deciding to buy a car. Most people don't make long runs very often - but they still expect their car to be able to get them to another country and back, even if they never do it.

[Qi__]

The process of making gasoline by use of electricity, water and CO2, is called Artificial Photosynthesis.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis

[Gilthan]

1, How many gigawatts does a country generate ? Using Darth Wongs figures a car needs 16 mw for charging. My country barely generates 5500 megawatts on a good day when every powerplant is working perfectly. We have hundred thousand plus cars in the capital alone.

2. How do you carry such immense currents to a persons house ? The lines from powerplants to cities can handle such loads. They are very heavy and expensive. Just take a look at the size of those pylons !

No, no, no. Electric cars don't need megawatts each to recharge. That'd be overkill by thousands of times.

The 2011 model Chevrolet Volt has a 16 kWh battery pack, with not more than 8 kWh at a time discharged and recharged to maximize battery life. Yet that 8 kilowatt-hours charge is more than enough for a typical day's driving.

If it is usually left charging in the owner's garage for up to 6-8 hours a day when not driving, especially if set to do so during offpeak times in the night when electricity can be cheapest with a smart meter, only 1000 to 1300 watts is needed.

A house's air conditioner or water heater can be higher wattage than that.

http://www.hybridcars.com/technology/pl ... 25203.html

Both of these cars, and many others, will come with an onboard charger that converts standard 110V (or 220V) household alternating current into direct current of the correct voltage to recharge the battery pack. Every car will come with its own cord, with the special plug on one end to connect to the car, and a standard three-prong plug on the other end to plug into the wall socket in your garage

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

The Chevrolet Volt is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle to be produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors and expected to be launched in November 2010 as a 2011 model. Its price is estimated to be near $40,000, which would give a net price of about $32,500 after the $7,500 Federal tax credit. The automaker has kept the Volt on or ahead of schedule, despite GM's Chapter 11 reorganization.

Unlike most current commercially available electric hybrids, the actual propulsion of the Volt is accomplished exclusively by the electric motor.

With fully charged batteries, enough electrical energy will be stored to power the Volt up to 40 miles (64 km). This distance is capable of satisfying the daily commute for 75% of Americans, whose commute is on average 33 miles (53 km). After 40 miles (64 km), a small 4-cylinder gasoline internal combustion engine creates electricity on-board to 53 kW (71 hp) generator extend the Volt's range to over 300 miles (483 km)

Electric cars versus liquid fuel is a false dilemma. Use a PHEV vehicle, and the usual daily commute gets done by electricity if the owner plugs it into a wall socket in their garage overnight. Rarer days when somebody needs to go hundreds of miles without time to recharge are why there's the backup onboard liquid fuel.

To put the problem into perspective: one litre of gasoline can be used to generate roughly 30 MJ of energy, and a typical automotive gas tank will hold 60 to 70 litres of gasoline. Therefore, you are essentially putting roughly 2 GJ of chemical potential energy into your gas tank when you fill it up. You can fill up a gas tank in less than two minutes, depending on how fast the pump is, so we're talking about an effective charging rate of more than 16 megawatts.

But 16 megawatts is around 16000 times more than really needed.

Eliminating a 2 minute recharge goal in favor of 6-8 hour overnight recharging allows a factor of 180-240 reduction in wattage requirements.

Another factor of 8-10 comes from how most people don't drive more than 40 miles on most days, definitely not always needing the equivalent of a new 300-400 mile full tank of gas every day. On the rare days they do, the method of the better PHEV designs like the Chevy Volt is just to switch to backup liquid fuel. (Who cares if liquid fuel consumption isn't absolutely zero if it is tiny percentage as much, comparatively easy to obtain in the future from alternative sources other than conventional oil?)

Another factor of 9 or the like is gained from the far greater efficiency of electric propulsion, especially on a semi-light car like the 1600 kg Chevy Volt, using 0.7 MJ a mile of electricity, unlike an ordinary 20 mpg gasoline car burns 6 MJ a mile.

Combined, those factors are about a 200 x 9 x 9 = factor of 16000 difference, making requirements closer to 1 kilowatt than 16 megawatts.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Another factor of 8-10 comes from how most people don't drive more than 40 miles on most days, definitely not always needing the equivalent of a new 300-400 mile full tank of gas every day. On the rare days they do, the method of the better PHEV designs like the Chevy Volt is just to switch to backup liquid fuel. (Who cares if liquid fuel consumption isn't absolutely zero if it is tiny percentage as much, comparatively easy to obtain in the future from alternative sources other than conventional oil?)

It may not be a problem for now (or in the very near future), but there are plenty of applications where no viable alternative to liquid fuels exist. They will have priority over personal transport, so relying on PHEVs in the long run may not be feasible.

Another factor of 9 or the like is gained from the far greater efficiency of electric propulsion, especially on a semi-light car like the 1600 kg Chevy Volt, using 0.7 MJ a mile of electricity, unlike an ordinary 20 mpg gasoline car burns 6 MJ a mile.

20 mpg is poor fuel efficiency for a modern 1600 kg gasoline powered car. There are many cars which already reach more than 30 mpg in that class. Many of them are not sold in the US, though, since Americans like their cars with ridiculous displacements. That is also why non-plug-in hybrids are so popular in the US: companies like Toyota or Volkswagen do not sell their most fuel efficient gasoline cars in the US. Another reason is that the more efficient diesel powered cars are not very popular in the US either.

[Gilthan]

Another factor of 8-10 comes from how most people don't drive more than 40 miles on most days, definitely not always needing the equivalent of a new 300-400 mile full tank of gas every day. On the rare days they do, the method of the better PHEV designs like the Chevy Volt is just to switch to backup liquid fuel. (Who cares if liquid fuel consumption isn't absolutely zero if it is a tiny percentage as much, comparatively easy to obtain in the future from alternative sources other than conventional oil?)

It may not be a problem for now (or in the very near future), but there are plenty of applications where no viable alternative to liquid fuels exist. They will have priority over personal transport, so relying on PHEVs in the long run may not be feasible.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are not well suited to the 20 million vehicles in the country which are commercial trucks, at least not those driven up to 24 hours a day. Using a PHEV as a long-distance truck driving hundreds to thousands of miles every day would defeat the purpose, leaving it so little time to recharge that it would have to be run on its backup liquid fuel engine about all the time.

However, PHEVs are very suitable in the applications for which most of the 250 million personal vehicles in the country are used, a personal vehicle that the average individual can recharge in their garage with no new infrastructure.

As for long-distance commercial trucks, they may continue to run on liquid fuel, or, if, there was ever extremely strong desire to go electric, there is the periodic proposal to have electric vehicles swapping batteries at truck stops. Although that hypothetical would require adding facilities to a few thousand truck stops nationwide, it is not like retrofitting millions of homes.

Liquid fuel production will never be so near zero that some can't be used. Today Americans consume 140 billion gallons of gas a year, yet by 2022 there's to be 36 billion gallons of ethanol production from renewable fuels if the recent energy law gets followed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/smallBus ... 9B20090109

In 2022, the energy law requires the U.S. gasoline supply to include 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels, 15 billion gallons from corn-based ethanol and 21 billion gallons from advanced biofuels, such as ethanol from cellulose.

Verenium today has a plant producing ethanol from wood chips, straw, and trash in Louisiana.

Later, 90 billion gallons of ethanol a year from renewables may happen, compared to the 140 billion gallons current annual gasoline consumption:

The 90 Billion Gallon Study assumes 75 billion gallons would be ethanol made from nonfood cellulosic feedstocks and 15 billion gallons from corn-based ethanol. The study examined four sources of biofuels: agricultural residue, such as corn stover and wheat straw; forest residue; dedicated energy crops, including switchgrass; and short rotation woody crops, such as willow and poplar trees.

http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/ne ... searchers/

If a PHEV averages using a few percent as much gasoline as a regular vehicle, due to the occasional long trip too far for batteries, that's relatively trivial.

Another factor of 9 or the like is gained from the far greater efficiency of electric propulsion, especially on a semi-light car like the 1600 kg Chevy Volt, using 0.7 MJ a mile of electricity, unlike an ordinary 20 mpg gasoline car burns 6 MJ a mile.

20 mpg is poor fuel efficiency for a modern 1600 kg gasoline powered car. There are many cars which already reach more than 30 mpg in that class.

That was referring to the MJ intake of a typical vehicle. To be a little more precise, the average American passenger car on the road today has about 22 mpg efficiency. Of course, none of this really matters anyway in context, with the factor of 16000 being discussed before so practically unchanged by debating plus or minus a few percent. It still takes not megawatts but only a kilowatt-level drain on a house's power supply to recharge a PHEV in the garage overnight.

[Sky Captain]

Because, even your car battery, operating at ~12v/400Amps when starting your car, can produce quite a light show, melt some metal, and give you a good shock/tingle when you bridge the contacts with a dropped wrench or other minor stupid that even trained technicians sometimes do. for reference, 12v/400Amps is 4.8KW, 1000 times LESS than what Darth Wong is talking about being required. Arcing the sort of voltage and amperage required to get a megawatt current would be not good for your health or continued breathing status if it decided the path it would take to ground was through you, which means that you've got to take a lot of precautions to make sure that doesn't happen. For that matter, did you know discharged car batteries can freeze in cold weather, and when re-charged without reheating, explode? Imagine that, only in a battery pack with a thousand times the power, because somebody pushed their car a little too far in a Chicago winter...

Let`s consider a big 50 kWh battery pack. To charge it at 6 minutes would require electricity transfer at a rate of 500 kw, 12 minutes charge time would require 250 kw while still being acceptable. Assuming competently designed charging station where you can`t accidentally turn power on when plug is not properly connected to the car why would it be any more dangerous than pumping flammable gasoline?

[Gilthan]

Let`s consider a big 50 kWh battery pack. To charge it at 6 minutes would require electricity transfer at a rate of 500 kw, 12 minutes charge time would require 250 kw while still being acceptable. Assuming competently designed charging station where you can`t accidentally turn power on when plug is not properly connected to the car why would it be any more dangerous than pumping flammable gasoline?

Oh yeah. If making a fast-charge facility, have a charging station which switches on power after and only while a sensor detects its connector is fully inserted into the vehicle, like an U of rods with exposed conductor only at the tips, going deep into a snug receptacle. Design so it instantly switches off voltage if an idiot tried to yank it out while charging.

Then it'd be hard to short-circuit it, short of convoluted or intentional circumstances probably no more frequent than someone spraying a puddle of gasoline onto the pavement and dropping a lit cigarette.

Your 250 kW figure is definitely in a reasonable ballpark for the electric equivalent of a public gas station, chosen by one real-world company's engineers:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/05 ... ent_a.html

The 35kWh (kilowatt-hour) battery pack, developed by Altair Nanotechnologies, is designed for use in the Phoenix Motorcar Sport Utility Truck. This battery pack is designed to allow the truck to travel more than 100 miles on a single charge. The test, conducted by engineers at AV’s Monrovia, California Energy Technology Center, was a milestone in battery fast charging, demonstrating the capability of fully charging the pack in less than ten minutes.

AV engineers used a grid-connected AV advanced battery charger rated at 250kW. Prior testing of the Altairnano NanoSafe battery technology by AV demonstrated that such battery packs can sustain several cycles per day of ten minute charging and two hour discharging. Each cycle is equivalent to an electric vehicle traveling for two hours at 60 mph.

Still, in contrast, for the average person, I'd think usually just leaving recharging when overnight in their garage would be convenient, as well as having the huge advantage of avoiding needing any new infrastructure, skipping a chicken-and-egg problem, and that limits charging there to a much lesser 1-10 kW, given limits including the average household's wiring.

However, there would also be cases where faster, far higher wattage specialized public charging stations would be of worth.

If I had an appropriately designed vehicle and was going on a highway trip, while I'd want a plug-in hybrid so I wasn't strictly forced to stop and could switch to gas if needed, I'd like to be able to cut down on gasoline expense by sometimes recharging it for ten minutes while stopping at a rest station to eat or use the restroom anyway.

[Tolya]

Electric cars versus liquid fuel is a false dilemma. Use a PHEV vehicle, and the usual daily commute gets done by electricity if the owner plugs it into a wall socket in their garage overnight. Rarer days when somebody needs to go hundreds of miles without time to recharge are why there's the backup onboard liquid fuel.

Im glad someone finally said this so I can ask a question in return. What if I don't have a garage and I leave my car on the street overnight?

[Tolya]

Because, even your car battery, operating at ~12v/400Amps when starting your car, can produce quite a light show, melt some metal, and give you a good shock/tingle when you bridge the contacts with a dropped wrench or other minor stupid that even trained technicians sometimes do. for reference, 12v/400Amps is 4.8KW, 1000 times LESS than what Darth Wong is talking about being required. Arcing the sort of voltage and amperage required to get a megawatt current would be not good for your health or continued breathing status if it decided the path it would take to ground was through you, which means that you've got to take a lot of precautions to make sure that doesn't happen. For that matter, did you know discharged car batteries can freeze in cold weather, and when re-charged without reheating, explode? Imagine that, only in a battery pack with a thousand times the power, because somebody pushed their car a little too far in a Chicago winter...

That isn't really a problem. BMW already sorted such problems out on the hydrogen end. A few years ago they created a series of prototypes of hydrogen powered 7-series. There is a tank for liquid hydrogen in the back (about 15kg of hydrogen goes in there afair). The pumping station was computer controlled and worked very much like a normal pumping station. You connected a hose running from the pump to the car but the valves would only open after the computer system controlling the pump checked that all parameters allow for a safe process. They still go around Europe and show it to journalists. It works - when I was working at one of the car newspapers my friend actually went to see it and wrote an interesting feature.

And remember that there are lots of LPG stations where gas is stored in high pressure tanks. I don't see any problems with charging cars with LPG - the process isn't controlled by anyone other than a guy with only basic training in handling it.

In that spirit, constructing a recharge station for an EV vehicle isn't really a problem. It's more of a question of how much would it cost rather than it being feasible at all.

[Simon_Jester]

Why would we NEED such short charging times?

Seriously - if you are on a long drive, whats wrong with taking a 30 minutes break? You proably want to do that anyway.
Likewise, if you are moving in short intervalls in a city, you are propaly staying at a couple of places for at least ten minutes - and hours if you arrive back home.

That means that you can cut down the 16 megawatts charging rate to about one megawatt without any trouble -except for those people who need to drive huge distances without a break.

You have to be able to convince people to accept the loss of refueling rate, though. I appreciate being able to refuel my car in two minutes, because if I forget to do it today and am short on fuel tomorrow, I can stop at a gas station and refuel spontaneously. I don't have to plan my trips around my fueling stops.

It's not that there's anything fundamentally wrong with the idea of taking long breaks to recharge your car's battery. It's that our civilization is accustomed to not having to do that, and would prefer not to have to learn. Which makes it harder to get widespread acceptance of a solution that forces us to learn.

[Gilthan]

You have to be able to convince people to accept the loss of refueling rate, though. I appreciate being able to refuel my car in two minutes, because if I forget to do it today and am short on fuel tomorrow, I can stop at a gas station and refuel spontaneously. I don't have to plan my trips around my fueling stops.

That's partially why pure electric vehicles never have been popular, yet that's also why plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will become far more liked by the average consumer. If I buy a PHEV, I don't have to worry if I forgot to plug it in last night in the garage. I just run on gasoline that day, yet later on remember to recharge it so I save money on gas.

Personally I'd never want a pure electric vehicle because, in an emergency if power goes out, I want to be able to still drive. But a PHEV with backup fuel? No problem.

Electric cars versus liquid fuel is a false dilemma. Use a PHEV vehicle, and the usual daily commute gets done by electricity if the owner plugs it into a wall socket in their garage overnight. Rarer days when somebody needs to go hundreds of miles without time to recharge are why there's the backup onboard liquid fuel.

Im glad someone finally said this so I can ask a question in return. What if I don't have a garage and I leave my car on the street overnight?

Right now? You'd be among the fraction of the total populace who wouldn't want to buy an electric vehicle, probably not even a PHEV. Later you might do so.

Once electric cars are common, recharging terminals will be alongside about many parking spaces. While that may seem like a chicken-and-egg problem, the needed critical mass of plug-in hybrid electric cars will be reached first by individuals with homes and garages not needing new infrastructure.

In the early 20th century, only a minority of the populace could even financially afford an automobile, but their early adoption led the way for improved mass-production and improved roads, leading to the rest of the populace being able to get cars.

To slow-charge for a day's driving overnight may be done with as little as a kilowatt for an 8 kilowatt-hour Chevy Volt overnight recharge.

Although technically the average outdoor power extension cord able to be purchased at a local hardware store for a few dollars can handle 15 amps (American 120 volt rating, where 15 amps * 120 volts RMS = 1800 watts) or thus a corresponding amount of power, just draping cords from your apartment's nearest outdoor power outlet would be neither aesthetic nor particularly safe, especially given the risk of rainwater puddles. However, it is reasonable to conclude that a safer recharging terminal professionally installed in an apartment parking lot wouldn't cost too huge of an amount. Compared to the vastly greater cost of hydrogen infrastructure for fuel cell cars, it is trivial.

Also, once plug-in hybrid electric vehicles became common, then common too will be public fast charging stations at converted gas stations, like the example of a 250 kW recharge in minutes instead of an one-to-several kilowatt overnight home recharge.

The key is just that the first few million PHEV electric vehicles can be recharged in home garages without needing the new infrastructure at the start, until they're common enough to justify it.

[Stormin]

Has anyone brought up the possibility of parking meters having recharge ability added to them? Back when electric vehicles were somewhat more common many places in the larger cities had charging stations where people could plug in while they did their business.

Edit: This could be an interesting advertising bit for some stores as well. Free car charge if you use the store credit card on the meter then spend a certain amount in the store.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The obvious solution to the problem of electric car recharging on long distance trips would be to operate a government-run service of road-rail trains, basically passenger trains with long strings of auto rack cars behind them. If your trip is from, say, a suburb of Seattle to, oh, Green Bay Wisconsin then you load on a train in Seattle after driving there, and get your car in Milwaukee fully recharged during the trip, and then drive it up to Green Bay. This system would work if the government funded it, and the railroads were electrified, and ultimately would be carbon neutral when electrical power generation becomes carbon neutral (which is possible with a heavy investment in nuclear power and probably tidal energy in support). A train can never outrun a 737, but if a much larger network with electric car transportation were offered, it could take the place of the car in long distance auto trips.

[Qi__]

Good idea the trains.
One remark: nuclear power isn't viable. There doesn't exist enough uranium to drive the world energy.
Wind. Solar. Bio fuel. Geothermic.
In a combination of.