Ecotality to Enter Huge Chinese EV Market
Electric transport and infrastructure company ECOtality has made a move to expand its manufacturing and distribution operations for electric vehicle charging systems in China by entering into a joint venture with the Chinese firm Shenzhen Goch Investment to establish a manufacturing base in China.
In return for a $10 million investment, Shenzhen Goch Investment will have exclusive sale and distribution rights for ECOtality’s charging stations in China.
The Chinese government has instituted incentives designed to leapfrog the gasoline-based car industry. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, and government research subsidies for electric car designs are increasing rapidly in China.
And an interagency panel is planning tax credits for consumers who buy alternative energy vehicles. Already the Chinese government is offering subsidies of up to $8,800 to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each electric (or hybrid) vehicle they purchase. Shah Agassi’s Better Place is also moving into the potential tipping point Chinese EV charging market.
The New York Times noted a report by McKinsey & Company last fall estimated that replacing a gasoline-powered car with a similar-size electric car in China would reduce greenhouse emissions by “only 19 percent” (since the country gets three quarters of its electricity from coal).
But 19 percent is actually a pretty sizable reduction in carbon emissions. And there is always the chance; (by adding more wind and solar on a massive scale) of being able to increasingly green the grid in the future.
By contrast, gasoline cars will increasingly run on rivers of blood as we begin to scrape the bottom of the peak oil barrel.
Image via ECOtality
The New York Times / McKinsey & Company 19% figure is way off. On a cost basis, $1 spent on electric charging an EV will get you 6 times more mileage than you get on $1 of gasoline. This is based on an in the field test, an average of the cost per mile to run two EVs: Subaru Stella and a Mitsubishi MiEV. That cost per mile was compared with the cost per mile to operate similar sized gasoline fueled vehicles. The result was 6 times more mileage out of a dollar’s worth of electricity vs a dollar’s worth of gasoline. This was conducted in Japan. The cost of electricity vs the cost of gasoline will vary - depending on where you are. A conservative estimate would be somewhere between 70% and 80% reduction in emissions, not 19%.
Other factors: At night most of the electric power generated is cheaper, because some electric power goes to waste. Charging vehicles off the grid at night will be a more cost effective use of wasted or unused power generation. One study showed that the current energy infrastruction in the U.S. is big enough to charge at night approx 70% of EVs and plug-in hybrids.
If someone is driving an EV in front of you, you won’t be sucking up their exhaust. On the whole, EVs will reduce city air pollution. Using central power plants for vehicle fuel - potentially moves pollution out of city centers. It is much easier to scrub the exhaust from central power plants, than to scrub the tail pipes of millions of vehicles.
Keep in mind, some EV owners will charge their vehicles from solar panels and windmills. That makes those EVs 100% carbon nuetral.
What Aureon said.
Same here.
It is nice to read the comments of people who get it, who have that rare ability to use their logical thinking ability