If you have the cash to buy this car, you’re probably not getting a rebate anymore
The first change is that lower-income households will get a large boost in assistance. Those with incomes less than 300% of the Federal Poverty Limit will now get up to $3,000 toward a plug-in hybrid, $4,000 for an EV, and $6,500 for a fuel cell vehicle.
This means individuals earning less than $35,310 and a family of three earning less than $60,270 now qualify for double the old amount for plug-in hybrids and 60% more on EVs. Previously the rebates were $1,500 and $2,500 respectively.
The second change is the elimination of the incentive for EV and Plug-in Hybrid vehicles for those with the highest incomes. The plan calls for an income threshold of $250,000 for individuals, $340,000 for head-of-household, and $500,000 for those filing jointly.
The change is the result of legislation that passed last year to try to make the rebate program more equitable, and ideally to encourage more low-income residents to buy EVs. EVs are still largely the province of higher-income buyers. But for at least half of buyers of the luxury Tesla Model S, for example, the rebate made no difference in their purchasing decisions (see data on rebate recipient profiles and attitudes here [PDF]). So why not spread that money around to lower-income buyers, where an extra thousand bucks or so could make the difference?
It will be interesting to track the effects of this change. The big question is: will it hurt overall EV sales? Or will any decrease in upper-income purchases be offset by increases in low-income EV adoption? And if so, will that help boost political support for pro-EV policies? If this change is successful, look for other states with incentive programs — and maybe the federal government with its generous EV tax credit — to follow suit.
With more solar panels, internet connected home appliances, electric vehicles, and small-scale batteries, California will soon have millions of “distributed” energy resources it can tap into to make the grid more efficient and clean. The entity in charge of managing the grid just made it much easier to connect and aggregate these items as a bulk resource:
California is already busy creating new regulations and market structures to integrate rooftop solar, behind-the-meter batteries, plug-in electric vehicles and fast-acting demand response systems into its grid. This week, California’s grid operator took another step down this path — one that could allow these resources to tap the state’s grid markets as a revenue-generating resource, possibly as early as next year.
On Wednesday, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) published a proposal (PDF) for creating a new class of grid market players, known as distributed energy resource providers — DERPs for short. In simple terms, the proposal sets rules for how DERs can be aggregated and dispatched to serve the same grid markets open to utility-scale energy installations today.
As the rules roll out and get refined, the state will become an international leader on integrating these resources into the grid, while providing owners of these assets with an additional revenue stream — further encouraging their deployment.
It’s one of the best uses I’ve seen for used EV batteries — putting them to use as mobile charging devices for EVs. That’s what Freewire is doing, and their product is a top four finalist for the SAFE energy security prize, to be announced at the end of July. Here’s the promo video:
You can read more about what it will take to boost a market for used EV batteries in Berkeley / UCLA Law’s Reuse and Repower report.
This time-lapse video shows the progress in the past 2.5 years:
Compare that progress to eVgo, which is struggling to spend $100 million in settlement money on a variety of charging infrastructure deployment in California. Progress is so bad that the California Public Utilities Commission is now hiring an auditor to find out what’s going on. I’ll eagerly await that report.
Hyundai Tucson not exactly setting the market on fire
Global Tucson Fuel Cell sales stood at just 273 units as of May, [Hyundai] said today, according to the Yonhap news service.
That includes 76 units delivered in 2013, 128 units in 2014, and 69 units for the first five months of this year.
Just 29 of the crossovers were sold in Hyundai’s home market of South Korea, with the rest going to the U.S. and Europe.
I’m open to the idea that hydrogen fuel cells could be a good fit for long-haul trucking (certainly battery electrics seem unlikely to work well in that capacity). But for the average car driver? Not so much. Battery electrics are much cheaper, easier, and environmentally friendly.
So says Navigant Research, a respected market research firm that covers EVs extensively:
The report includes a detailed look at the geographic distribution of plug-in sales. Most of the action is in California, where PEVs already account for more than 3% of the state’s total light-duty vehicle market. State incentives, together with the state’s Zero Emission Vehicle program, are expected to push PEV penetrations in Cal to between 15% and 22% by 2024.
The other 10 states that participate in the ZEV program are expected to see similar growth. Navigant predicts that Hawaii, Washington, and Georgia could also see penetration rates above 7% in 2024.
The write-up from Charged EV magazine acknowledges that sales could grow significantly with more 200-mile range battery electric vehicles that sell for less than $40,000. My hope is that these market predictions will wildly underestimate actual sales, much as the initial projections of cell phone usage were badly off.
We’ll certainly need more EVs to meet our long-term climate goals, not to mention all the co-benefits that come with driving electric.
A highly entertaining and informative (and long) read on the history of energy, climate, cars and Tesla by Tim Urban at “Wait But Why.” Elon Musk participated in the drafting of the post. I was particularly struck by this nugget on climate history:
18,000 years ago, global temperatures were about 5ºC lower than the 20th century average. That was enough to put Canada, Scandinavia, and half of England and the US under a half a mile of ice. That’s what 5ºC can do.8
100 million years ago, temperatures were 6-10ºC higher than they are now—and there were palm trees on the poles, no permanent ice anywhere, ocean levels were 200 meters higher, and this kind of shit was happening:
So we’re currently in this not-that-big window we probably should try to stay in:
I recommend reading the whole thing. Happy Friday!
Okay, this is a subjective rant. But it points to a larger failing in California’s electric vehicle infrastructure. This past Memorial Day weekend, I was set for a short vacation in Monterey, a significant regional destination about 70 miles from San Jose, south of the Bay Area.
I wanted to drive my Nissan LEAF, which gets about 80 miles range on flat elevation. From the East Bay where I live, it would require one fast-charge (80% battery recharge in about 20 minutes) just south of San Jose, which is about 60 miles from my home.
But in looking at the charging map, there are no fast chargers south of San Jose — unless you’re lucky enough to drive a Tesla of course, then you can charge in Gilroy. The fast chargers in San Jose would leave me with a white-knuckle drive to Monterey, given the elevation and distance.
Here’s a screenshot of the Plugshare.com map, with a Tesla fast charger in Gilroy but otherwise a no-man’s land of fast-chargers until you get to Carmel (about 10 miles further south of Monterey):
Why haven’t EV charging companies fixed this missing link? This route is exactly the situation for a series of fast-chargers, given that you have a major regional destination about 70 miles from a densely populated urban area.
This is why California policy makers are now auditing eVgo, the company that benefited from a $100 million settlement back in 2012 to deploy a network of chargers around the state. I wrote about it recently, but the company’s progress has been dismal. EVgo has been focusing on money-making fast-charging sites in urban areas, rather than the Tesla approach of building a convenient network statewide to get people like me from a major urban area to a vacation destination.
I hope the audit and ensuing action means that critical corridors like the one to Monterey get the fast-chargers they need to encourage people to buy EVs. Otherwise, even with range improvements, EVs will largely be doomed to commuter status for the foreseeable future, requiring people to buy gas cars for destination trips.
Tesla’s big announcement that the company is entering the standalone battery market for building owners and utilities got a lot of press and favorable Wall Street reaction. For longtime energy observers, Elon Musk wasn’t unveiling anything new — just repackaging something familiar and making it cool. But that repackaging and investment could be transformative.
The advantages to consumers that Tesla cites are well-established but probably not widely applicable. Some consumers can make a bit of money storing cheap energy and dispatching it at more expensive times under time-of-use rates. Big industrial customers may even save a lot of money this way. Other customers may like the clean backup power from batteries, although generators may be cheaper. And batteries could enable a few customers to go off-grid completely (really just for rural customers). There are already companies establishing themselves in this market, like Stem and Advanced Microgrid Solutions (which is partnering with Tesla on this effort).
Still, I can’t help but be taken by the cool factor that Elon Musk bestows on this otherwise geeky world. Just take the name: “Powerwall.” “Home battery” sounds so boring compared to having a Powerwall. And then there’s the sleek design with the Tesla logo:
Some people may pay $3500 just for the aesthetics — like a piece of garage art.
The other interesting piece is the price. At $3500 for 10kWh and $3000 for 7kWh, it looks like the estimates of a $300/kwh battery production cost may be accurate, which is a good sign for battery price decreases (prices were at about $1000kwh a few years ago). That price doesn’t include installation or the inverter.
Still, that’s not a bad deal, and if California ends up bolstering time-of-use rates, customers could soon get quicker repayment as the difference between cheap off-peak electricity and expensive peak rates increases.
The other wildcard here is repurposed batteries. Could Tesla end up taking used electric vehicle batteries and repurposing them for the Powerwall? Their future gigafactory could probably handle that workload well, further driving the price down of stationary batteries.
All told, the unveiling of Tesla Energy, while not revolutionary right now, could soon become the lead in a technology wave that fundamentally changes our energy system. As with so many clean technologies in this fast-changing field, we’ll have to stay tuned to find out.
