Does it make sense to tax electric-car drivers by the mile?

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 07 Jul 2010, 06:11

Greenbang - 06/07/10

A study reported on in the Telegraph today raises an interesting question: if rising use of electric cars threatens to overwhelm an ageing and increasingly inadequate energy infrastructure, why shouldn’t drivers with plug-in vehicles pay a fee to help pay for energy improvements?

If the logic is straightforward and the facts are indisputable — report after report indicate the UK’s power plants and grids will be hard-pressed to keep up with future demands — the message, though, is worrisome.

Article continues ...

Telegraph article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/new ... -fail.html

Post by **adam2** » 07 Jul 2010, 08:20

Electric car drivers do pay a per mile fee, towards updating electricity supply infrastructure. It is called the electricity bill.
Some suggest that the price is too low to finance improvements, and that it should be increased. They may well be right, but this should apply to all electricity use, not just EVs.

In some cases EV charging is provided "free" by employers or local authorities, in such cases it is not truly free but is still being paid for by someone.

The large scale charging of EVs may not be such a great problem, since most will be charged at night whilst the owners sleep. Demand for electricity is less at such times, and increased demand relatively easily allowed for.
In the longer term, smart grids/smart chargers could control the charging rate minute by minute to better match supply supply and demand, but this this is not needed at present.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 07 Jul 2010, 22:14

When I switch on a light here at Chateau Renewable (which still runs on dirty olde mains electric) I do not wear out the roads, cordon off my neighbourhood, need CCTV to check I'm not cheating, make any noise or (occasionally) put anybody in hospital. Cars on roads do all that, no matter what powers them, and someone has to pay for it all.

I'd really rather it wasn't me, because I gain no benefit from all this activity.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 08 Jul 2010, 10:41

RenewableCandy wrote:When I switch on a light here at Chateau Renewable (which still runs on dirty olde mains electric) I do not wear out the roads, cordon off my neighbourhood, need CCTV to check I'm not cheating, make any noise or (occasionally) put anybody in hospital. Cars on roads do all that, no matter what powers them, and someone has to pay for it all.

I'd really rather it wasn't me, because I gain no benefit from all this activity.

The extra charge was to subsidise electricity production.
All of what you said may be true, but has no bearing on if car drivers should be double charged to fund a new fleet of windmills.
The electricity grid doesnt care if you're charging a car or running a light bulb.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 08 Jul 2010, 11:01

Oh if it's only for the electricity production then you probably won't have to bother charging them extra, because if the utilities are businesses who know what they're doing (erm...) they should make a lot of money out of a sudden increase in demand!

However, electric cars have massive tax breaks at the moment, and at some point these are going to have to be downsized, otherwise there won't be enough dosh to pay for all the things I enumerated.

Post by **clv101** » 08 Jul 2010, 15:59

General point: taxing by the mile is daft as it removes the incentive for vehicle efficiency. We should always tax the fuel/energy not the distance.

Totally_Baffled · Post by **Totally_Baffled** » 08 Jul 2010, 16:15

clv101 wrote:General point: taxing by the mile is daft as it removes the incentive for vehicle efficiency. We should always tax the fuel/energy not the distance.

+1

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 08 Jul 2010, 17:51

clv101 wrote:General point: taxing by the mile is daft as it removes the incentive for vehicle efficiency. We should always tax the fuel/energy not the distance.

+ another 1.

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 10 Jul 2010, 19:08

I still say widespread (ie 80%) takeup of EV is not going to happen. Not enough of the stuff needed to make them...and has anyone ever calculated the draw to recharge the national fleet overnight? Dream of hoverships all you want... and I thought we where all supposed to be wearing silver jumpsuits by now.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... upply.html

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 10 Jul 2010, 19:49

To go further:

dvla 2009: 26,208,000 cars
charge for 50 miles = 12kw
current capacity 70Gw

26,208,000 * 12kw = 314,496,000 kw = 314.5Gw

Erm...point made?

If not...

http://www.geovic.net/cobalt_mining.php

http://earth2tech.com/2009/09/01/beyond ... brid-cars/

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 10 Jul 2010, 21:44

Are you saying a device to charge a car draws 12 kW? I thought they were less thirsty than that, so could run all night but on a lower power. It wasn't 12 kWh total energy, was it? Then it'd be 1.5 kW charging for 8 hours.

Point taken about the Lithium and stuff, mind. I think we might be back to the world of only toffs having cars. That'd make the car-crime figures interesting

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 10 Jul 2010, 22:39

Candy...yes. 12kw total.

In fact now that EV wants to truly compete with IC, power figues are going up to 15-20kw

very cool if you want the equivalent of a 2 bar electric fire on for 8-10 hours every night.

So with a massive conversion to ev in the uk you are looking at any where from my first figure to 450 Gw per evening

more:

http://www.carbonrationing.org.uk/fora/ ... in-6-years

Post by **clv101** » 11 Jul 2010, 08:41

maudibe wrote:To go further:

dvla 2009: 26,208,000 cars
charge for 50 miles = 12kw
current capacity 70Gw

26,208,000 * 12kw = 314,496,000 kw = 314.5Gw

Erm...point made?

No, those numbers don't make sense at all. Even a 100% conversion to electric cars does not lead to a dramatic increase in electricity, more like +12%, nothing like 4.5 times your calculation suggests!

I did the calculations here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2345

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 11 Jul 2010, 13:27

LASS [2009] discusses the impact of different electric car charging profiles on power
demand and on corresponding load losses in the medium voltage network. The paper
shows that “the charging mode has a significant impact on the peak load level”. Without
any load management peak power could be up to three times higher than the current
level, whereas with an intelligent charging system “overlapping of the existing peak
load and the additional charging load” could be avoided.

http://air-climate.eionet.europa.eu/doc ... bility.pdf

So, I'm not completely wrong on this - however, point taken that valley filling on night time cycles would only lead to a small increase in demand with say a 10% penetration of EV's

My original statement was with a large 80-90% take-up. i.e. in the situation where we are forced to make a rapid change to EV because of supply / cost issues of gasoline and in order to avoid social and economic collapse.

Also, I seem to have read somewhere on this sage forum that our generating capacity is under threat due to development and investment shortfalls, as well as energy security issues?

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 11 Jul 2010, 13:48

Anyway, why worry about EV?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/f ... 803950.stm