That of course is dependent upon there even being a Ford Motor company in 5 to 10 years!

Well if they just get Sony to make the lithium ion batteries, and throw on a set of those nice Bridgestone tires, they'll be all set.

Really though, you could make the engine in the hybrid pretty small if they add a turbo like they're talking about.

Plug-in hybrids... 5-10 years...? Right around the time everyone else will be making pure electric cars... :)

That of course is dependent upon there even being an Earth in 5 to 10 years!

Plug-in hybrids... 5-10 years...? Right around the time everyone else will be making Mr. Fusion powered Teleporters... :)

I'd be more impressed if Ford could make a reliable small car in 5-10 years.

Right, a plug-in car that saves money at the gas pump....... only to see people crap their pants when they see their electric bill. Seriously, do people even think?

There you go again, Remy. Hilarious.

No remy, windmills and solar and all sorts of pie in the sky will create this electricity! Not nuke, and certainly not the mercury spewing coal! No sir, it will be magical.

Happy electricity companys..

Seriously, by the time we get plugin cars, we will have to rethink the way electricity is sold.
Its not simply recharge your cell phone batery. Its a batery to run a 100+ kw engine!

For those who are not familiar with this terms, 100kw is at least 10 times more than the most consuming electric device you may have in your home. (unless you live in freezing place and heat water by electricity, not gas)

(A regular 50hp gas engine conected to a electric generator can power up your whole house very easily!!!)

So, maybe you should think better about getting a plug in car, unless you are willing to double, triple (i gess 5x at least, with more than 1 car per home) you electricity bill...

Electric is currently cheaper than gas. There is approx. 127500 Btu in a gallon of gas, assuming a 35% thermal efficiency for the internal combustion engine (this is a high assumption) that is 44625 Btu of mechanical energy which is 13.1 kW-hr of energy. A gallon of gas is $3.26 at my house today. Assuming we need 15 kW-hr of energy due to electric motor losses etc that would be $1.28 in electricity (I pay 8.5 cents per kW-hr, some places can be 12-15 cents). The real issue isn't the electric bill going up. It is whether the electric infrastructure can handle providing all the transportation energy needs (it can't currently) and what the government would do without all of that gas tax money (tax electricity I guess).

Electric cars work.

I know a fella with one of Toyota's electric Rav4's. He's had it for years. (I thought it was a '98, but checking Wikipedia's article on it I'm guessing it must be a 2002.)

It costs him about $25 a month in electric, vs about $100 for his wifes gas fueled Accord. Both get driven for about the same monthly milage. So I'd say he's safe from any electric bill induced heart attacks.

Thanks Marc, I figured someone would come along with actual numbers and not just more "OMG TEH ELECTRIC BILL!" nonsense.

If you sell a gas car, you're in cahoots with big oil. If you sell an electric car, you're in cahoots with big energy. It's a conspiracy, remember.

:-P

"If you sell a gas car, you're in cahoots with big oil. If you sell an electric car, you're in cahoots with big energy. It's a conspiracy, remember."

It's not that. It's that so many morons (especially news reporters and journalists) sell it as a "you no longer have to pay" option. You're still paying, you're just paying a different person.

Also, on the issue of electricity being cheaper......supply and demand. Lets say all vehicles become electric only and gas companies go bye-bye. Electric rates will increase because people have to power their vehicles. Also, the taxes (typically around 50 cents for combined local and federal gas taxes) will be shifted to electricity since the government won't have their cash cow to milk anymore. I saw numbers the other day on oil company profits vs. the amount of money gained from taxes on gasoline. It was something like $42 billion in profits for the oil companies and $50-something billion in taxes that the government collected on it. And this was just for one year. Do you really think the government would let that go?

Mark,

I didnt know electricity was that cheap in the US. Back here (brazil) its a way more expensive than gas.

Infrastructure will be a huge problem though. I work in a research group (power quality) and I know how difficult it is to make upgrades in the power structure. Its hard to keep up with demand increases of 5-7% a year... imagine 10% month ( a boom of electric car sales)

Than, as Remy said, will come the demand (cost!!!) and the taxes...

Something that i still dont get, is who you pay so much less than us for the kw/h. Im very aware of the costs of producing and transmiting electricity and im pretty sure that someone is paying this diference for you guys.. something around 15-17 cents per kw/h would sound more real...

Another thing i forgot:

Mark, there is far more "waste" in this process than you counted for. First of all, converting the AC power to DC em probably lower voltage. Than thermal dissipation by the batterys themselves.. (while charging and on high use)
And in hot weather you will have the batterys dischanging from nothing (as ion-lithium batterys do if you heat them)

E really like the idea of an electric car, the problem is, we dont have neither power structure nor batterys good enough yet.

Wow, is this an intelligent debate? Thought this blog was through with these.

Remy, I agree with your "paying someone else" and the economics of the massive change. What would be nice is if people who bought the electric cars did the math and realized that Solar (in a lot of places) or Wind (in some other places) could supplement the line purchased electricity. If you really had that much increased usage, it might actually make financial sense. The problem is that some parts of the world can't use one or either of these technologies...

I also agree with your implicit truth that most people never would bother, they would just start paying the higher electric, causing everyones electric to go up.

In Seattle people could put micro water turbines in their gutters, that could power the whole northwest.