Beutelevision » PHEV

GM Volt could get $7,500 tax credit

Thomas Beutel — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:54:34 +0000

The financial rescue bill (aka the bailout) contains substantial tax credits for plug-in hybrid vehicles sold after 2008. This could mean about $7,500 dollars for a GM Volt, based on the size of its battery.

Here are some links:

Green Car Congress on the senate bill

Green Car Advisor at Edmunds

If you have solar panels on your roof, any plugin hybrid vehicle has the potential of making your investment in solar pay off even sooner.

Update: Here is GM-Volt.com’s announcement of the tax credit

Is BMW working on a PHEV Mini?

Thomas Beutel — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:03:03 +0000

Looks like the Volt will be getting some interesting competition. The Register is reporting that an electric Mini test vehicle has been spotted driving around Munich, based on reports in Car Magazine. Car says:

“…the miserly mini that will help BMW meet tough new American regulations requiring car makers selling vehicles in California also to offer zero-emission vehicles by 2012.”

Hmm, 4 years away. And I wonder what the price will be.

Solar roof update

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:19:05 +0000

We’ve signed off on getting a 3.85KWh solar photovoltaic system. Return on investment will be 10-12 years, probably less if we get a plugin-hybrid electric car in 3 or 4 years. The roofers will be here tomorrow to mark the joists, and sometime in the next week or two, the racks will go in.

I’ll be commenting more a bit later about our installer, Real Goods Solar, but so far they have been FABULOUS!

New pics of the GM Volt

Thomas Beutel — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:52:42 +0000

GM-volt.com has pictures of the production version of the Volt. I like it. Actually, I like it a lot better than the concept car.

Meanwhile, it looks like GM and the EPA might argue about MPG. It all depends on the battery charge at the end of the trip.

Bob Lutz and the GM Volt

Thomas Beutel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:43:31 +0000

Here is a nice Charlie Rose interview with Bob Lutz, talking about the ideas and progress of the GM Volt. It’s about 56 minutes long.

One of the things mentioned (at about 41 minutes in) is that the show car had a drag coefficient of about 0.43, which was too much – it reduced the range to 35 miles instead of 40. The new design has a drag coefficient of about 0.28.

1 Block Off The Grid Jumpstarts Solar in San Francisco

Thomas Beutel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:57:38 +0000

The exciting news is that 1BOG has selected an installation partner and the installer will be visiting my house tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what the whole process is like.

I have two questions in particular:

1) I will definitely be getting a plugin hybrid car when they are available in 2-3 years. I’ve been told that driving a PHEV about 10K mile a year would be easily covered by an additional 1.5KW of solar panels. Should I get a larger system now, even though PG&E will not pay me for electricity over and above my usage? Or should I wait until I actually get the car?

2) I live west of Twin Peaks, meaning that July and August are foggy for most of the day. Should I get a larger system to compensate?

The pricing is pretty darn good even for the larger systems, so even if PG&E gets electricity for free, I don’t think I would worry too much about it.

By the way, the installer is Real Goods Solar. They have a wonderful store called Solar Living Center up in Hopland.

Crowds Overwhelm GoSolarSF Fair, Everyone Wants Solar

Thomas Beutel — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:27:37 +0000

I spent some time this afternoon speaking with various solar installers at the GoSolarSF fair at the Eureka Valley rec center. To say the fair was crowded would be an understatement. I wasn’t able to speak to most of the installers–the crowds were too deep. It’s fantastic to see this amount of interest in solar.

Of course, San Francisco is doing its part by providing incentives, which along with state and soon to expire federal incentives makes it a no brainer. A typical $25,000 system will cost about half that after incentives, and with ever increasing electricity prices the typical return-on-investment is 5 to 7 years.

According to one of the companies I spoke with, the ROI is even better if you are using solar to power a plugin hybrid electric car. At current gas prices, a 1.5KW solar array along with a PHEV like the Chevy Volt would pay for itself in 2 years.

The only question in my mind is whether to buy a larger array now, or wait until PHEVs are actually available.