Musing on Electric Vehicles

I came across two news items on EVs that highlight some of the interesting issues that the electric industry in particular and we as customers will be facing in the future. The first one is an article in Intelligent Utility about NV Energy's preparations for offering EVs to their customers in Nevada and the second one is a news item in New York Times about the bounty of benefits being showered on the first buyers of the EV from Nissan.

NV Energy's plans include an option for a customer to sign up for TOU rates [assuming their home or office has the new smart meter installed already] - the rationale here is to encourage the customer to charge their EV in the night when the rates are lowest. This in turn helps NVE by keeping the charging load off the grid during daytime peak power demand period. This is a good approach as it combines offering cars that have zero emissions with sound DSM principles to achieve load shifting to avoid overloading the grid. It seems to me that the plan would be even better if all EV owners were automatically enrolled in TOU rate with an option to opt-out if they would rather pay a fixed rate all the time even if that fixed rate is higher than the night time TOU rate. Consumer behavior studies have shown that opt-out programs result in larger number of customers accepting TOU vs. opt-in programs.

The NYT article on the other hand highlights the benefits early-adopters can enjoy when the product [EV in this case] they are buying early happens to hit the perfect trifecta of new product mania, government support and environmental favorite. The article describes the riches being showered on the early buyers of Nissan's all electric Leaf car - $7,500 in federal tax credit, between $2,500 to $5,000 in state tax credits, free 240V home chargers [another $3,000 value], plus numerous additional freebies in the form of direct support from top engineers and managers from Nissan. Kind of makes the people who stand in lines overnight to buy Apple products for full retail feel really sad, don't you think?