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Electric car use growing in Alaska
The vehicles are expensive to buy but cheap to run; long distance driving will require network of suitable charging stations Alan Bailey Petroleum News
With the number of models of electrically powered cars steadily increasing, some people are predicting a rapid transition away from traditional gasoline fueled vehicles. And Alaska appears to be seeing a steady growth in electric car use, albeit from a low start.
Sean Skaling, manager of business and sustainable program development for Chugach Electric Association, told the Alaska Forum on the Environment on Feb. 11 that it appeared that the number of vehicles purely powered by electricity in the Anchorage area has grown from 50 last summer to around 94 at present. There are about 575 electric cars in the state as a whole. The use of electric vehicles is particularly popular in the Juneau area, where mileage range is not a worry and there is also a network of vehicle charging stations.
Typically, for use in and around an urban area, an electric car owner will charge their car at home overnight and have plenty of mileage range for day-to-day use.
High energy efficiency Skaling said that the basic benefit of an electric car is its very high energy efficiency, leading to relatively low running costs.
“About 80 percent of the energy that you put into the vehicle is used for propulsion, as opposed to a gasoline engine where it’s more like 30 percent,” Skaling said.
Low maintenance costs, with no need for oil changes for example, also push down the running costs. And with instant torque from the electric motor, an electric car is fun to drive, Skaling said.
In Anchorage, based on the typical cost of electricity and gasoline, the cost per mile of an electric vehicle works out at about half that of a gasoline car. In cold winter weather, however, the need to use some of the electricity from the battery to heat the inside of the car reduces that efficiency. Skaling said that, based on his experience of electric car use, it appears that in temperatures of around 5 F the vehicle’s range drops by about 40 percent relative to warmer weather, with the fall in range appearing to flatten out at still lower temperatures.
Total ownership cost One deterrent to the purchase of an electric car is the high car prices, with perhaps up to half of the car’s cost being the cost of the battery. However, this high up-front cost can be offset by the low running costs when calculating the total cost of ownership over a period of a few years. And the cost of the batteries is falling.
It appears that in, say, the Anchorage area a major deterrent to electric car purchase is concern about car mileage range and the lack of a recharging infrastructure for people who want to drive long distances from town. Skaling said that the Railbelt electric utilities are working with people to figure out optimum locations for charging stations around the state’s road system.
Funding for charging stations Betsy McGregor from the Alaska Energy Authority told the forum that AEA is going to disburse some of the money that it has been allocated from a settlement with Volkswagen to help fund an electric vehicle charging network in Alaska. The settlement results from cheating by Volkswagen over the testing of emissions from its diesel vehicles. AEA has filed an emissions mitigation plan with the trustees for the settlement. As part of the plan AEA is going to make available matching funds for different sectors of the road system, for entities interested in installing vehicle charging stations. The agency is trying to establish an electric vehicle working group - the Railbelt electric utilities and the Municipality of Anchorage have been proactive in their participation, McGregor said.
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