America will be off oil sooner than you think

T

TMcKenna

So it is here! Commercially available "all electirc" car.
My only fear is that oil crime ring might send attack dogs to disrupt these bright people.

Otherwise, the car looks great, and I know there are some fine traders here who can afford it. I am not quite sure, but somebody said the price tag for the first 100 cars (all sold out) was around 80K. Not bad if you ask me, I think they can relatively quickly (10 years may be) start producing more affordable models within reach of the middle class in America (if any left by then).


http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1#
 
But if we all buy one where will all that extra electricity come from? And how can we profit from this?

I wouldn't buy utilities since they are going to have to build infrastructure and spend capital...

Maybe construction companies that build utilities?

Maybe Nuke companies?

Right now oil generates about 2% of our electricity.. would hate to see that go up.
 
The extra electricity won't come from oil. It's not an especially good way to generate electricity. In fact, the whole beauty of oil is that it's relatively light weight for the energy it generates which makes it ideal for transportation (and too costly for power generation.)

The incremental energy to power electric cars will com from coal (or nuclear if we ever get our act together). Coal is still a fossil fuel which isn't great, but the newer plants are pretty clean. The big plus for coal is that we can mine it domestically so we don't have to send large cash payments to saber rattling nitwits who aren't aware it's no longer 1200 AD. Cut off from their cash supply such nit wits will be a much smaller annoyance on the world stage.
 
Uranium suppliers started thier climb about 3 years ago. Take a look at CCJ for example...

By the way I thoroughly agree that increased electric demand will be fueled with nuclear fission. The players were ge, westinghouse, babcock and wilcox... I think GE is spot on for the ramp up. They have been increasing capacity with offshore sales of reactors.

Nice little summary on Gen IV US Nuclear Power Plants: http://www.ne.doe.gov/nerac/ntdroadmapvolume1.pdf
 
I would have to dig to find the DOE reference, but something like 90% of trips are under 35 miles R/T.

I therefore think we are headed towards an all electric Honda Civic class vehicle for to/from work, errands, and such, and a larger hydrocarbon/hydrogen vehicle for vacations and long trips. There might even be a large future rental market where you "day share" vans for trips... something where you prepay and can just "swipe and go".
 
Quote from bigmoose:

I would have to dig to find the DOE reference, but something like 90% of trips are under 35 miles R/T.

I therefore think we are headed towards an all electric Honda Civic class vehicle for to/from work, errands, and such, and a larger hydrocarbon/hydrogen vehicle for vacations and long trips. There might even be a large future rental market where you "day share" vans for trips... something where you prepay and can just "swipe and go".
More...


I think plugin hybrids makes more sense today than full electric cars.


"Considering that half the cars on America’s roads are driven 25 miles a day or less, a plug-in with a 25-mile range battery could eliminate gasoline use in the daily commute of millions of Americans. The cost of an equivalent electric gallon of gas is estimated to be less than $1.00."

http://www.pluginpartners.com/plugInHybrids/index.cfm

"Over 40% of the generating capacity in the U.S. sits idle or operates at a reduced load overnight, when most PHEVs would be charged. That means tens of millions of plug-ins could be charged every night without the need to build additional electric generation capacity. For example, Southern California Edison, an investor-owned utility, estimates that 4 million plug-in hybrids could be charged without exceeding its existing peak load. Millions more could be fueled within existing capacity."

http://www.pluginpartners.com/plugInHybrids/environmentalBenefits.cfm
 
I think your #s are wrong. Each car costs them 80K to build, they sell them for 125-150.

Anyways, who fvcking cares - I don't want a car whose battery (or battery cells or wahtever they're called in the electric cars) will cost almost 50K to replace.
 
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