Let's assume all cars were electric and every gas station used solar and wind power to power up the cars?

Question

Would the station be able to generate enough electric power to supply all of his customer's daily consumption?

Answer 1

Depends how busy the "gas" station is and where they are sited, eg can they have a large 550kW turbine, or a micro hydro-electric plant?

Most people will refuel at home or work, either from the grid or their own micro generator, the service station is only for trips longer than 200 miles (this is the range of current evs like the Tesla http://www.teslamotors.com) and assuming that you don't tow a small generator like the tZero long-ranger http://www.acpropulsion.com/vehicles/pag...

Charging "off-peak" evs will help optimise the grid by providing a distributed back-up and selling back when there is high demand or local failure http://www.acpropulsion.com/technology/v...

eg a car with 200 mile range that typically only does 20 miles a day, has a lot of spare capacity to sell back.

Answer 2

Sure ever hear of Saul-man Rushdie anymore. Ha Ha Or 200M.P.G. carburetter Pougue invented in 1930 . Just try it ! bet they buy you out too.   Keep Dreaming !

Answer 3

If all cars were electric, you would want the cars to be charged mostly from their home solar chargers.  Recharging stations would be necessary for long trips.  Maybe in 100 years.

Answer 4

Only if you have a lot of time on your hands and everyone was willing to wait in line.

Answer 5

with current battery technology, it would take 8 hours plus to charge batteries enough for 45-60 minutes of driving.   exchanging batteries would not be acceptable until we have batteries that do not degrade in ability to hold a charge.

in america we have a power grid system.  it would be inefficient for gas stations to be the collection points.

we could get all off our electrical needs from solar/wind  but it is extremely expensive.  although with the price of oil, it is starting to be comparable.

Answer 6

Location, location, location is the necessary ingredient to handling the many electric demands if your fantasy could be a reality. The station would have to have acres of room for solar panels and wind turbine units to do the job.

There is a new thought that the charging time would be shorter if the vehicle had a coupled system with a super capacitor setup. This would be a fast charge into capacitors and then a recharge into the battery pack. But technology must come up with the solution before it happens.

Spartawo...

Answer 7

There are a lot cheaper and efficient ways to use solar energy coming out, and I'm sure they will keep coming until it's highly efficient and can achieve enough energy for this purpose

Answer 8

For a gas station with a typical number of customers on a typical size lot, no, not even close. Not to mention that using current technology a car needs on the order of hours to recharge.

Answer 9

Sure.  The station would have enough power to supply one or two cars per day.  It could set the prices high enough so that only one or two people would stop to fill, hence he COULD generate enough power.

Answer 10

If we all went electric what would happen?

Theoretically the idea would move to the home rather than the station as this would be a step in conserving energy, by not having to use energy to get energy.

The down size would be an increase in electric bills.

Answer 11

Probably not, and since it takes hours to recharge an electric car, they had better have some very large forecourts.

Answer 12

probably not. but a charging station would usually only be used for long ranges. most electric cars can get at least 100miles per charge with the current technology. i think i do alot of driving per day and i average around 100 miles per day

anyways you would usually charge your car at home.(though this would pose a problem for people who live in places like apartments).

i think the previous person is mistaken with current battery technology like pheonix motor company SUV and SUT can travel over 100 miles off a 10min charge

Answer 13

With current technology the station would be very lucky to even generate enough electricity to keep their own lights on and the coolers cool.

Much less run the recharging stations for automobiles.

Answer 14

Not with the currently technology available in the solar and wind power areas.

Answer 15

You know what they say about those who assume...

Your assumption is not credible. If all cars were electric, there would be no need for gas stations, would there? The whole point of them is that you can charge up AT HOME. And the area taken up by wind or solar generators enough to power America would fit into an area about the size of Maine. Maybe smaller.

Answer 16

I would charge up at my house not some gas station that would take hours. If all cars where electric that would over though our already weak power grid so we would have to build more nuclear power plants so the answer is a combination of natural gas, electricity, gas, solar, wind, fuel from corn and cooking oil. Ohh lets not for  get the new air car. = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-A3XHFT5...