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Find out more about John: John Ryden is an Engineer with a background in Finance and Economics. Here he will discuss how energy production, energy use, and conservation affect us and the rest of the world with a focus on the economic implications. |
The Electric Hybrid car design uses a battery with a backup gasoline or diesel engine to provide power after the battery power is used up. General Motors has announced that their Chevy Volt electric car will get at least 40 miles on a charge. Assuming that you charge the car at home, you could then drive 40 miles before having to turn on the gasoline engine to go additional distance.
Let’s assume here that the car gets 35 miles per gallon (mpg) when running the gasoline engine. If the total length of the trip is 40 miles then no gasoline is used so mpg is infinite. If the total length of the trip is 70 miles then car burns 0.85 gallons of fuel or the equivalent of 82 mpg. This would indicate that a fleet of these cars with typical round-trip commuting distances would average 107 mpg. These numbers get even better if you can recharge your car at work.
| At 35 MPG | | |
| Trip Distance | Miles Per Gallon | % Commuting |
| 20 | infinite | |
| 40 | infinite | 78% |
| 50 | 175 | 7% |
| 60 | 105 | 5% |
| 70 | 82 | 3% |
| 80 | 70 | |
| 90 | 63 | |
| 100 | 58 | 8% |
| 120 | 53 | |
| 150 | 48 | |
| 200 | 44 | |
| 300 | 40 | |
| 500 | 38 | |
| 1000 | 36 | |
| 2000 | 36 | |
| Average Commuting MPG | 107 | *8% Assumes Commuting over 70 miles averages 100 |
Average Commute Distance Chart
The average car today (2004) gets 24.7 miles per gallon. Using the same chart for 24.7 mpg produces a 76 mpg reading. You could take any size car and with an electric hybrid design like the Chevy Volt, expect to improve you mpg by a factor of 3 times.
| At 24.7 | | |
| Trip Distance | Miles Per Gallon | % Commuting |
| 20 | infinite | |
| 40 | infinite | 78% |
| 50 | 124 | 7% |
| 60 | 74 | 5% |
| 70 | 58 | 3% |
| 80 | 49 | |
| 90 | 44 | |
| 100 | 41 | 8% |
| 120 | 37 | |
| 150 | 34 | |
| 200 | 31 | |
| 300 | 29 | |
| 500 | 27 | |
| 1000 | 26 | |
| 2000 | 25 | |
| Average Commuting MPG | 76 | *8% Assumes Commuting over 70 miles averages 100 |
Cars used for other purposes like running errands, going to the store, and other short daily trips (soccer mom) might never need to burn any gasoline. Long distance trips would still see an advantage as the car can start fully charged and may be re-charged along the way. I can see new businesses like ‘Eat and Charge’, ‘Sleep and Charge’, ‘Shop and Charge’, ‘Swim and Charge’, ‘Rest and Charge’, etc. that would cater to electric car drivers.
If everyone used an electric hybrid, we could potentially see our gasoline usage drop from over 9 million barrels per day to about 3 million barrels per day. The actual drop may be higher if you assume that the non-petroleum part of our fuel like alcohol or bio fuels stays constant or grows.
The electric car has tremendous potential for reducing our oil consumption, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, cleaning our air, and maybe even creating more good paying jobs in this country.
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