How much does it cost to produce energy for electric cars?

Question

Does anyone know how much it costs overall to make energy for electric cars?

Answer 1

The same as it costs to produce the energy for your computer.

depending on what method is used to produce electricity it can cost 2 cents to 20 cents per kilowatt hour.

The question then becomes... How efficient is the e-car at using that energy...  how much energy per mile?

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RE battery weight required...  Sorry Technology advancements will change that.

30 years ago, Lead-Acid batteries were considered to have pretty good "power density" (energy storage capacity per unit of weight... or volume)

Then along came NiCd...  Better....

Then came NiMh... much better.

Then came Li-ion... A LOT better

Then came Li-Poly   WOW! 4 times the power density of NiCd!  Makes Lead-Acid look like a failed 3rd grade science fair project.

Now.. LiMn cells are comming out... not quite the power density of Lipoly... but they are more resistant to some of the potential dangers associated with LiPoly...  A sort of side-step in that it has bennefits in safety at a small penalty in power density. (by weight.... not by volume... has essentially equal power density by volume compared to LiPoly.)

LiPoly technology is advancing also... newer cells have considerably better power density than once from just 5 years ago.  They can also supply much higher current.

AND.. the price of LiPoly batteries is comming down fast.  A battery that would have cost $150 2 years ago is now available for $30.

Answer 2

about the same as the energy for a household appliance

Answer 3

the same as it costs for you to power your house with energy. the energy comes from power plants the general estimate for off peak electric rechargins is about 50 cents per gallon which is excellent considering gasoline prices will continue to skyrocket out of control as supplies becomes tighter and tighter. a hybrid car makes absolute sense during todays high oil priced market and will be an investment that more than pays for itself.

Answer 4

There have been articles in Road and TRack, Scientific American and Populat Mechanics lately regarding this question and the consensus is that the electric car will never be viable due to the huge mass of batteries that will be needed to get farther than 50 miles.  Automotive engineers agree that there is really no logical sense to putting 2 forms of propulsion, gas and electric in cars, and the increase in weight is a huge drag on the efficiency of the car.  That leaves us with more efficient gas cars, natural gas cars, and liquid hydrogen cars.  Liquid hydrogen still has a lot of problems but there are some test cars out there now putting some miles on them.

Answer 5

I take your question to mean how much energy do electric cars use.  The cost depends on how much your local utility charges you for electricity.  

The data on this is extremely hard to come by for some reason, although I cannot imagine why. (LOL)

Fortunately one of my colleagues has an electric car that he had converted from a conventional lightweight economy car that used a conventional gasoline engine.

They removed the gasoline engine and gas tank. Put electric motors on the wheels, and installed a large bank of batteries in the passenger compartment.

He gets approximately 60 miles on a full charge.

It takes approximately 10 hours to recharge the batteries with a battery charger that uses approximately  5 kilowatts per hour. Essentially it takes 50 kilowatt hours of electricity  to recharge the batteries.

My colleage is charged 13 cents per kilowatt  hour by the local utility for the electricity that he uses.

We figure that it costs him approximately $6.50 in electricity to recharge the batteries in his electric car.  At 60 miles per charge that is a cost of 10.83 cents per mile for the electricity.

Many of my environmentalist friends say that it costs only 1 or 2 cents per mile for the electricity used by an electric car. However they have never given me any proof of that figure.

My colleague's experience with his electric car certainly is not consistent with the 1 or 2 cent figure that my environmentalist friends tell me.

I hope this helps. I know that it is very hard to get reliable cost data for the operation of an electric car. I think that the cost data that I and my colleague have are the most reliable cost data available at this time.