Where would we plug in electric cars?

With $4 gas, electric cars look appealing. But can America ramp up fast enough?

By Rick Popely |Chicago Tribune reporter
As Ted Lowe envisions his driving future, he'll pull into a parking space and, instead of using a coin-operated meter, he will plug into an electrical outlet to charge his battery-powered vehicle.

"I can see it coming. The writing is on the wall," said Lowe of Wheaton, an electric vehicle aficionado who drives a Chevy pickup converted to run on batteries.

General Motors Corp. can see the future, too, and so can utilities. They have begun to think seriously about the electric car and whether people will become as obsessed with finding outlets as they are with finding low pump prices today.

GM, which intends to be among the first to offer an electric car in 2010, when the Chevrolet Volt is due, on Tuesday announced a partnership with the Electric Power Research Institute and more than 30 electric utilities across the country to consider the needs of drivers.

Among the issues: What happens to the power grid if too many drivers plug in their cars during the day, and how will apartment or condo dwellers juice up if they don't have access to a garage with an outlet?

"When plug-in vehicles are deployed in volume, we want to be sure the infrastructure is ready," said GM engineer Britta Gross. "We recognize that a significant portion of the population doesn't have a garage, and they will still need a charging station."

The soaring cost of gas is moving battery-powered electric vehicles to center stage as automakers turn to battery power to meet rising demand for efficient vehicles and to satisfy more stringent federal fuel economy regulations.

Obstacles remain that could prevent such vehicles from going mainstream, from their cost to questions about how many Americans will be willing to deal with the hassle of recharging.

But the Volt appears to have a lot going for it, including a technology that frees drivers from the fear of running out of power.

Unlike hybrids, which use electricity to supplement a gas engine, the Volt will go 40 miles strictly on electricity, then a small gas engine basically recharges the batteries to take the car another 350 miles.

Many commuters would never need to fill the tank if they have a place to charge up for a few hours. Besides garages, offices and businesses might provide charging stations. That's what's likely to drive demand for electricity.

And this is where the utilities come in. Electric cars would be a boon for them—particularly if consumers recharge at night, when overall power demand is substantially lower.

ComEd wants in

Though Chicago-based ComEd said it was not invited to be part of the GM consortium, it wants to join. ComEd and other utilities want to buy back some of the electricity stored in car batteries during peak demand periods, when utilities have to purchase power at high rates.

"Instead of buying on the spot market, we could buy from our customers," ComEd marketing vice president Val Jensen said. "It saves us from having to buy very expensive power."

That's years into the future, though, when that transfer technology exists and enough electric vehicles are on the roads to constitute a viable market.

Without giving sales projections for Volt, GM expects to sell tens of thousands when it reaches full production. Other manufacturers, including global powerhouse Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co., Honda and Nissan, are gearing up to build similar plug-ins and pure battery-powered vehicles. BMW's Mini brand is another that is talking about an electric car.If interest in the Volt is any indication, Americans can hardly wait.

More than 32,000 have signed up at www.gm-volt .com, a site created by enthusiasts that have no connection to GM.

Forecasting firm J.D. Power and Associates predicts GM will sell 70,000 Volts a year by 2014, and Global Insight predicts sales of 68,000 in 2013.

Both see hybrid sales exceeding 1.1 million by then, keeping plug-ins a small part of the picture.

Pricey choice

A drawback besides recharging? Price. GM executives have tossed around a ballpark figure of $40,000 or more, saying the car will require tax incentives to attract more than the well-heeled.

"The industry is moving at lightning speed to respond to what consumers want, but these things aren't going to be cheap," Global Insight analyst John Wolkonowicz said, citing the more powerful but also more volatile lithium-ion batteries in Volt. He said it could take years before the Volt comes down to $25,000 to $30,000, the heart of the market.

Mark Duvall, head of transportation technology development for the Electric Power Research Institute, predicts plug-ins could command more than half of the U.S. market by 2050.

"The price of fuel now is where if you go out and buy a midsize car, over time you'll pay more for gasoline than you will for the car," Duvall said, and plug-ins have the potential to eliminate much of that expense.

"As the cost comes down they'll become mainstream, high volume," he said.

ComEd residential customers pay an average of 11.6 cents per kilowatt hour. But GM estimates the national average cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity at 10 cents, and says Volt can be recharged with eight kilowatt hours, making the average daily cost 80 cents.

"After a week, you've spent $5.60 if you stay within the [40-mile] range," GM's Gross said. "That's what's in it for the consumer."

Said Al-Hallaj, head of renewable energy programs at the Illinois Institute of Technology, also expects demand to grow. Electric vehicles are "the only sustainable solution" because electricity can be generated from solar, wind, coal, nuclear and other sources, he said.

Al-Hallaj said the cost of gas and concern for the environment are rapidly changing the American mind-set, making them open to plug-ins and other alternatives to internal combustion.

"People are driving scooters here now," he said. "You used to see them only in places like India."

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