There’s also nothing stopping anyone from starting up and electric car business.

The outlet for the car is 220v, and separately metered, though I can also charge from 110 (a little slower.)

How does the utility know you’re putting electricity in your car and not your TV? What kind of outlet is it? regular, 220, other?

I bought a used EV and fixed it up. Total cost, $6000. Old technology, so my range is limited. But the batteries are cheap. About $800 for the pack, and with care, they can last me nearly 8 years. That amount is about what my other vehicle costs just for oil changes. (4 X $25 for 8 years.)

My electric utility has a special ‘EV rate’ of 2.5 cents per KWH. I get about 4 miles per KWH, so my 1300 miles of monthly driving only costs me $8. Yes, EIGHT dollars. In my other 18 mpg car, that would cost me $224 for the gasoline.

Picture of my car here:

http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/775

Also, interesting Chinese import, out next year:

http://www.milesautomotive.com/products_xs200.html

200 mile range, 80mph, MSRP $28500.

http://www.goingreen.co.uk/

They work, are convenient and economical. Biggest problem is absence of a recharging infrastructure.

With a range of 40km they go anywhere inside a city of 8.5 million people.

Electric cars work in dense cities.

Remember most families now have 2 cars, so the discussion is about ’second cars’ rather than about ‘first cars’.

The scale of the global warming problem is so large that radical solutions will have to be envisaged. Electric cars aren’t a bad place to start– even if the recharging comes from coal fired stations, they still do considerably better on the CO2 scales than your average petrol driven vehicle.