Early adopters of electric cars helping car manufacturers go forward

Good article until the end, when the writer tells Volt owners they aren't as clean as they'd like to be because of coal pollution.

However, the whole coal thing is a red herring. Here's why coal doesn't matter:

First, not all the energy on the grid is coal – and EVs are more efficient than gas cars. So in general you will burn far less dirty fuel per miles driven in an EV – which means far less overall pollution than your gas burner makes.

But there are two even better arguments to be made. First of all, coal plants are baseload. This means they run all the time at or near full output. Plugging in an EV can’t make them run any faster (other, peak plants come on line instead.) Coal plants can’t be peak plants because it takes days to ramp a coal plant up to full power – peak plants have to respond quickly. So coal pollution simply has no room to increase much – meanwhile, gasoline pollution goes to zero.

But here's the best argument: It takes huge amounts of electricity and other energy to refine gasoline. Enough energy that you could throw away the gasoline and drive an EV around on just this energy.

So we are all essentially driving around in EVs already - but burning gasoline at the same time. Clearly the EV has the green advantage here.

The "fact is" that many people who are using their Volts and Leaf's can be net neutral. Some of those same early adopters that are buying electric cars have also adopted something else, solar. With solar on your house you are basically charging your car directly from the sun! And the potential combinations for what you can do with solar energy are staggering. Hell, if you wanted to you could use solar to electrolyze water, and compress the heydrogen that is created in that process and feed that into your car when you needed it.

I agree with the comments above, the coal thing is a red herring because its all about the potential of the grid to be clean which ICE cars can never be.

The Volt information is incorrect. The gas engine does drive the wheels in many situations. GM has gone to great lengths to cover up this fact. The Volt is a hybrid and will burn gasoline without your knowledge... until you get a low fuel light that is.

I'm one of those people with solar panels on my roof. Had them installed 2 years ago in NY (array of Sharp 225W panels) and I generate more power than I use. That's including 2 zones of central a/c, electric dryer & stove, lights, tv's computers, etc.).

If I can do this from a simple roof installation in northeast NY, imagine what sun-filled states like Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Louisiana etc. etc. could do. It's absolutely shameful that all that potential is wasted, while at the same time coal, gas and imported oil are being used instead (sending American money overseas, increasing our trade debt, etc.).

I got my Volt a few weeks ago and driving 70mph on the highway off of nothing but sun (have yet to put a drop of gas in it). I'm not only as clean/green as I think I am, I'm spotless :). To all the doubters out there, wake up. The age of solar being a practical source of energy in the real world is finally here.

@JP White

It wasn't cheap, but I got a $35K rebate from my utility (LIPA) as well as a 30% deduction off my taxes. My electric bill used to be easily over $600/month, now I pay nothing- payback period is about 7 years depending on how much future rates rise (after that it's all gravy). Since I put mine in, the price of panels has fallen 30%. The utility rebate money isn't available anymore (there's a new program where they pay you by the watt), but the federal tax deduction is.

I've got 72 Sharp 225W electric panels -figure about $40K to buy -add costs of inverters ($6K), accessories/materials ($4K) & installation ($10K) and today my setup would run around $60K.

It's an upfront investment I'm happy to pay to be worry free about utility rates going up, knowing I'm CO2 neutral and knowing I'm not increasing the demand & price of oil/supporting dictatorships/rogue nations/contributing the trade deficit, etc.

Nissan are installing 30 solar powered charging stations for the LEAF at their headquarters in Nashville (the government is picking up part of the tab).

It seems to me the way forward is to migrate to solar powered charging stations away from the grid. This will also open up the potential to install charging stations in remote areas in addition to more traditional locations.

JP