Renewable energy and electric cars seem to be the rage now, with car makers everywhere. Even General Motors who once owned the segment without competition are building new electric cars. GM decided to kill the EV-1 in 2003, despite the almost fanatical loyalty of many of the drivers and spend billions of dollars on the Hummer instead. Years later, after bankruptcy and billions of dollars of taxpayer money GM could barely give the Hummer franchise away. But at least they may have finally have seen the light, GM is once again marketing a small electric automobile, the Chevy Volt to go with there full size hybrid trucks.
Other automakers like Toyota and Honda have made hybrid electric vehicles for years, while Detroit automakers built gas guzzlers like the Hummer, so it should not be too much of a mystery why GM is no longer the worlds largest auto maker. Nissan is said to be planing to make all their vehicles electric in the future. Even Mercedes has introduced a hybrid version of the S class full size sedan. While more expensive than traditional gas or diesel options, the promise of lower or no fuel consumption and resulting green house gases has made these vehicles trendy and now specialty car makers are introducing high priced electric sports cars so celebrities will not feel too guilty when they are out flaunting their wealth.
So, will millions of electric cars on the road make a difference? Ultimately it will depend on where the electricity comes from. Today 50% of America's and 19% of Canada's electricity still come from dirty old coal, so while electric vehicles themselves are green, until the electricity powering them is also green we will still be polluting, just not as much, unless we can also green the grid itself. The good news is wind power is the fastest growing form of new electricity in most parts of the world. The other issue with electric cars will be whether the current grid will be able to provide enough power to recharge millions of electric cars.
Many experts believe electric cars and renewable energy will be excellent partners because the cars themselves can be used to store and balance the power needs of the overall grid. How will they do this?
The theory is that the batteries of the cars will store power generated by wind farms at night when power demands are normally low, then this power will be utilized during the day by pulling the power back from the storage batteries in the cars. Hopefully they will leave enough power for you to drive home after a draining day at the office.
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