Posted on 11/11/2011 4:51:26 AM PST by Libloather
Duke Energy urges electric car owners to stop using charging stations after fire
Updated: 1:37 pm EST November 9, 2011
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Duke Energy officials are asking customers who own the company's electric car charging stations to stop using the product after a house fire in Mooresville last month.
A representative from the company has confirmed to Channel 9 that an email was sent to about 125 customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana who have the same type of charging station installed in their homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsoctv.com ...
Duke is a big outfit, 125 Electric cars Customers in three States. Electric cars = what a success story!
If I remember correctly from an article last year...this charger business was brought up in California. You had to buy the specialized charger which ran around $1k, but you had to pay an authorized electrician (by state law in Cal) to hook this up. This charger, by definition of state law there, required an industrial rate and separate hook up....because of more wattage being drawn....so your house electrical bill would have gone up significantly if you went in this direction. Whatever you think you saved from not using gas....you burned up fairly close the same amount from electricity.
Here’s the curious thing. I would imagine that if half the nation switched and at least one electric car per family....we’d need at least two dozen more power plants around the US and most folks would be paying in the $500 a month range for their house power and electrical power. If you bought into utility stock right now....in twenty years...you’d be making huge dividends every month and laughing over the profit of your stock over a twenty year period.
The burning of a modest size American single family home releases the equivalent of an acre of trees. Better buy some offsets along with your Chevy Volt.
I’m hoping there’ll be lot’sa charging units installed in and around the 2012 DNC Convention being held in Charlotte.
Saving the planet by burning it down.
to about 125 customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana who have the same type of charging station installed in their homes.
.....not by much it would seem (125 units).
It's like it's being kept secret.
If any success comes from this new-fangled way of "saving the planet", a lot of it will come from folks such as yourself...the backyard/hobbyist-type inventors and experimenters.
Just be sure to patent it, and don't sell your idea to the bigs boys for a song.
It’s why the college degree now replaces aptitude testing.
......thank God or I would never have gotten a job!
“Corporate Unicorn Farmers”????? That would mean people are eating unicorns.........passed out there for a second.
You can’t control people that can travel hundreds of miles in a few hours.
BINGO!!!
Hell yes!
Think of all that pollution - all that smoke in the air, particulates that everyone is forced to breath... disgusting.
They should be made to pay for the clean up!
Thanks but I’m way behind the curve of the cutting edge in this stuff.
Strictly a hobby. And wouldn’t mind learning enough about the topic to have an additional skill set.
It's like it's being kept secret.
I work at a consulting engineering company which has a "renewable energy" component. We get magazines from solar, wind, and photovoltaic advocacy organizations. One had a glowing article on electric cars. In it, they were so proud of the fact that the amount of electricity needed to recharge the car overnight was equivalent to “only” the total amount of electricity used during the daytime. I’m not the smartest bulb in the box, but that sounds to me like double the electricity use per day – or double your electricity bill per month.
Bookmark
:-)
I had a meeting with GM and DTE regarding car chargers in our town. The plan is to collect the old batteries, build them into some sort of super battery to store energy from wind and solar. Seems like a big stretch.
The liberal "solution" is to put solar panels atop parking garages and over parking lots. Witness De Anza College in Cupertino, CA.
They just finished a new lot that's at least four acres. Of course, they're canceling science courses "because of budget cuts."
It will also be very interesting to see how well those batteries hold up over time. Notice how smartphone batteries tend to do great when you first buy them, but over time you seem to get less time out of each full charge. I think the longest I've ever kept the same battery is about a year, before getting it replaced. You also have to consider that those batteries for the cars will be out in weather, which couldn't be good for them.
Bottom line... There's a REASON we started using the internal combustion engine over 100 years ago. Steam, electricity, and even batteries were tried. The internal combustion was better. We as a nation need to just be more aggressive in producing our own oil.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.