On Aug 27, 2014, at 7:10 AM, Dennis Miles via EV <[email protected]> wrote:
> On a personal note, I feel that PIH should be prohibited from using > FREE public charging, let them buy gas and only charge at home or at > locations where they have to pay . Make the PIH less appealing ... > Save the FREE Public Locations for BEV only. This is a powerfully self-defeating suggestion, one guaranteed to kill all hopes of transitioning to BEVs if taken seriously. It might have some twisted aesthetic appeal on grounds of purity or the like, but even then you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. First, you're guaranteeing that those driving a PHEV will be burning gasoline when they could have been using electricity. Isn't the first goal above all others to reduce gasoline miles and increase the ratio of electric miles? Similarly, a PHEV with sufficient access to charging becomes a de-facto BEV. You wouldn't ridicule somebody with a BEV with a 20-mile range, would you? So why do you ridicule somebody with a BEV with a 20-mile range as soon as that vehicle also has a petroleum-based option to go farther than 20 miles? It's still a 20-mile BEV, every bit as useful as any other 20-mile BEV, and every bit as dependent on charging to remain a 20-mile BEV rather than a brick on wheels that needs to be pushed or pulled by gasoline if it gets outside of that range. Now, have a look at all those cars on the Interstate. With rounding, a BEV is not an option for 100% of those cars, despite all the impressive proofs-of-concept we all drool over here. However, 90% of those cars could be 90% electric vehicles or better with a Volt-inspired drivetrain -- but only if they have the same access to chargers as other electric vehicles. If you're going to own an electric vehicle of some sort, you have two basic options for cross-country trips. First, you can leave the EV behind. That might mean owing a gasoline-powered car for such trips...which is generally going to mean that it's a two-car family with two daily drivers, one gas and one electric. That's probably the best you can hope for with your punitive idea -- and even that's not something you're going to see as much of. Your other option for leaving the car behind involves traveling by jet or train (both of which burn lots of petroleum) and then renting a car (pretty much guaranteed to be gasoline) at the other end. Or, you can own a single PHEV that you use as a BEV for all your daily driving, and as a gasoline car that you don't have to rent or otherwise make special arrangements for when you want to go beyond the car's battery range. That's half as many vehicles manufactured (itself an huge energy savings) or twice as many electric miles driven (for two-PHEV families as opposed to one-BEV one-gas). So, please. Don't try to restrict which electric vehicles can and can't plug in. Even if the car only has a five-mile electric range, that's a trip to the store that's now electric that otherwise wouldn't have been. And if all that hasn't convinced you...consider this. What better way is there to convince people that vehicles can and should be electric than by making it as easy and pleasant as possible to drive as many electric miles as possible? Somebody who's already in the habit of plugging in a PHEV is going to be a natural to transition to a BEV. But somebody who drives a PHEV but can't ever find anywhere to plug in is going to think that finding a spot to plug in is an inherent problem of driving electrically and isn't going to want to put up with the hassle with always searching for a plug. Plus, the more people plugging in, the more demonstrated demand there is for spaces to plug in and the bigger the incentive for increasing the number of plugs...and and and and and.... So, yes. Given a choice between a BEV and a PHEV, if all else really is equal (which, of course, it never is in either direction), the BEV is preferable. But that doesn't mean that a PHEV is in any way evil, undesirable, problematic, or at all to be punished or dismissed or ridiculed or otherwise discouraged! A PHEV is the absolute best ally a BEV could ever have -- at least, until we have quarter-MWh battery packs that weigh an hundred pounds and fit in a couple cubic feet. Cheers, b& -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 801 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20140827/bd122a4c/attachment.pgp> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
