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Citing a Lack of Usage, Costco Removes E.V. Chargers

Are you surprised?Most electric car brands aren't even being sold nation wide yet
 
AdamT said:
You actually cannot do it without promulgating rules to put it into effect. Why are Republicans trying to block it? Do you have an answer for that?
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There are rules that the GOP would likely try and block that I would disagree with. Dodd/Frank was a horrible bill.
 
j-mac said:
Read here...



More regulation, and onerous rules is not going to make banks free up money to lend that the economy needs....You libs have a real problem with who you think you can just push around.

j-mac
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That nobody regulated anything the banking industry did for 20 years was a problem. It was a two pronged problem though. One was in getting rid of certain rules BUT as much of a problem was that nobody enforced the rules that were on the book. The government decided to look the other way because things were temporarily going good. People who could afford to buy a house were getting houses and the economy was booming bringing in a ton of revenue.

The government wasn't going to ruin a good thing by actually enforcing their rules. We are still NOT enforcing the rules and Dodd/Frank simply made what was wrong with what we did the last 3 years a permanent part of government.
 
1Perry said:
There are rules that the GOP would likely try and block that I would disagree with. Dodd/Frank was a horrible bill.
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Why do you think Dodd/Frank was a horrible bill?
 
1Perry said:
That nobody regulated anything the banking industry did for 20 years was a problem. It was a two pronged problem though. One was in getting rid of certain rules BUT as much of a problem was that nobody enforced the rules that were on the book. The government decided to look the other way because things were temporarily going good. People who could afford to buy a house were getting houses and the economy was booming bringing in a ton of revenue.

The government wasn't going to ruin a good thing by actually enforcing their rules. We are still NOT enforcing the rules and Dodd/Frank simply made what was wrong with what we did the last 3 years a permanent part of government.
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No offense, but I don't think you really understand what went wrong here. This crisis was very much a result of deregulation and generally insufficient regulation -- not so much lack of enforcement. There were almost no rules against predatory lending or predatory borrowing. The rules allowed banks and investment banks to be way over-leveraged. There were no rules to provide effective oversight of the credit ratings firms. There were no rules providing transparency in the derivatives and swaps markets. These are all things that Dodd/Frank addresses. The problem with the bill is that it's too weak -- not that it goes too far.
 
AdamT said:
Why do you think Dodd/Frank was a horrible bill?
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We see all these complaints about the big bad corporate entities but yet support of Dodd/Frank which skews things in their direction. It allows the government to come in and in some ill defined way take over in case of another collapse. The rule should be, that the government does not step in, if you fail, you fail. These big financial institutes can now continue on doing whatever it is they want and people are going to participate as opposed to step back because they know they are not under any risk of losing everything because the government would never allow that.

Until we make it to where you know that the money you invest is gone if the vehicle you choose to invest it in fails, then people will not take the necessary steps to make sure things are on the up and up. Otherwise huge unnacceptable risks are tolerated becuse the government is going to step in if things go bad.
 
AdamT said:
No offense, but I don't think you really understand what went wrong here. This crisis was very much a result of deregulation and generally insufficient regulation -- not so much lack of enforcement. There were almost no rules against predatory lending or predatory borrowing.
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Of course there was. These were presented in many cases under fraudulent means. Accepted practices like verifying income were ignored. These rules were still in place, they just were not enforced. They still aren't. There are a ton of people who participated in fraud still running things. The government has been willing to forget about it.

The rules allowed banks and investment banks to be way over-leveraged. There were no rules to provide effective oversight of the credit ratings firms. There were no rules providing transparency in the derivatives and swaps markets. These are all things that Dodd/Frank addresses. The problem with the bill is that it's too weak -- not that it goes too far.
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Now this is a different arguement. We both agree that it's too weak. What that weakness may be might be a different thing, but yes, you agree with me that it's a bad bill because it's weak. I do not disagree with you that part of the problem was the lack of transparancy. There were many telling government regulators and those in Congress that there was a major problem brewing though and they were ignored.

One of these people was Barney Frank. We allow the fox to fix the broken hen house?
 
1Perry said:
We see all these complaints about the big bad corporate entities but yet support of Dodd/Frank which skews things in their direction. It allows the government to come in and in some ill defined way take over in case of another collapse. The rule should be, that the government does not step in, if you fail, you fail. These big financial institutes can now continue on doing whatever it is they want and people are going to participate as opposed to step back because they know they are not under any risk of losing everything because the government would never allow that.

Until we make it to where you know that the money you invest is gone if the vehicle you choose to invest it in fails, then people will not take the necessary steps to make sure things are on the up and up. Otherwise huge unnacceptable risks are tolerated becuse the government is going to step in if things go bad.
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What Dodd Frank does in this respect is allow the government to seize and unwind those large corporations. That isn't supporting them, it's dismantling them in a more organized fashion so they don't crash the economy.
 
1Perry said:
Of course there was. These were presented in many cases under fraudulent means. Accepted practices like verifying income were ignored. These rules were still in place, they just were not enforced. They still aren't. There are a ton of people who participated in fraud still running things. The government has been willing to forget about it.



Now this is a different arguement. We both agree that it's too weak. What that weakness may be might be a different thing, but yes, you agree with me that it's a bad bill because it's weak. I do not disagree with you that part of the problem was the lack of transparancy. There were many telling government regulators and those in Congress that there was a major problem brewing though and they were ignored.

One of these people was Barney Frank. We allow the fox to fix the broken hen house?
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So we agree that the bill could be stronger, but I think it is certainly better than nothing, which is the Republican alternative.
 
AdamT said:
I can give you a real world example. My wife drives a Highlander Hybrid and gets about 31 mpg combined. A couple of her coworkers drive the non-hybrid Highlander and get about 20 mpg. So, about a 50% improvement over the non-hybrid.
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And in 10 years your wife will be dropping 6g's on a battery. Her coworkers will not have to.
 
rathi said:
Putting up 90 chargers was nothing more than a PR stunt anyways. For the time being, electric cars need to rely on conventional outlets and extension cords. As technology and production increases, gas stations probably will start including charging stations. The minimal infrastructure needed for a charging station means that you could include them in retail stores, but it hardly is a requirement.
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Where I live in So Cal, we still have rolling black outs when it gets over 100 degrees. We don't have the infrastructure to charge any appreciable amount of vehicles.

Do electric cars really produce fewer emissions?

Can electric cars claim to be 'emissions-free' when they run on electricity generated from the burning of fossil fuels?

We keep hearing lots of renewed chatter about how electric cars are about to take off (not literally, of course, although that would be fun) in popularity. But for me, the fundamental question remains unanswered: do they really produce fewer emissions when you take into account that they run on electricity produced, in large part, through the burning of fossil fuels?

B Lewis, by email

There is certainly a general assumption that electric cars are "cleaner" than petrol/diesel/hybrid cars, but you are quite right to point out that electric cars cannot claim to be "emissions free" if they are powered from an energy grid supplied by power stations burning coal or gas. Or even nuclear, for that matter.

Tailpipe emissions for electric cars can be classified legitimately as zero - which is certainly beneficial for an urban environment where local air pollution is a huge problem - but is this pollution simply being displaced meaning that it still ends up in the atmosphere but via the route of a power station's stack as opposed to the exhaust? And, crucially, is less like-for-like pollution being emitted by using an electric car as opposed to one reliant on the internal combustion engine?

Professor David MacKay produces an interesting section on electric cars in his book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air when he examines the efficiencies of the G-Wiz and Tesla Roadster. He concludes: "Electric vehicles can deliver transport at an energy cost of roughly 15 kilowatt hours (kWh) per 100km. That's five times better than our baseline fossil-car, and significantly better than any hybrid cars."

And, specifically in terms of emissions, he calculates: "Over the course of 19 recharges, the average transport cost of this G-Wiz is 21kWh per 100km – about four times better than an average fossil fuel car. The best result was 16kWh per 100 km, and the worst was 33kWh per 100 km. If you are interested in carbon emissions, 21kWh per 100 km is equivalent to 105 g CO2 per km, assuming that electricity has a footprint of 500g CO2 per kWh."

This would suggest that, purely in terms of CO2 emissions, electric cars are neck and neck with the most fuel efficient "fossil cars". Pretty impressive, but nowhere near as "clean" as some might have us believe.

Do electric cars really produce fewer emissions? | Leo Hickman | Environment | guardian.co.uk
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Unless we undertake a massive push for Nuclear Power, there is no point to electric cars and hardly worth the expense..
 
Hmm, seems there's some difference of opinion.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — Electric cars hold greater promise for reducing emissions and lowering U.S. oil imports than a national renewable portfolio standard, according to research conducted by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

This assessment is among several contained in a new major policy study the Baker Institute Energy Forum will release at a Sept. 27-28 conference titled "Energy Market Consequences of an Emerging U.S. Carbon Management Policy." The study comprises several academic working papers on a variety of topics, such as carbon pricing, the wind industry, global U.S. carbon and energy strategies, and renewable energy R&D.

"As the country moves forward to deliberate on energy and climate policy," the executive summary states, "consideration must be given to what policies would best accomplish the stated goals for U.S. policy -- a reduction in the need for imported oil and in greenhouse gas emissions." The papers released at the conference seek to "clarify and debunk common myths that currently plague the U.S. energy- and climate-policy debate."

For instance, the Baker Institute analysis found "the single most effective way to reduce U.S. oil demand and foreign imports would be an aggressive campaign to launch electric vehicles into the automotive fleet." In fact, mandating that 30 percent of all vehicles be electric by 2050 would both reduce U.S. oil use by 2.5 million barrels a day beyond the 3 million barrels-per-day savings already expected from new corporate average fuel efficiency standards, and also cut emissions by 7 percent, while the proposed national renewable portfolio standard (RPS) would cut them by only 4 percent over the same time.

Moreover, the researchers found that "business-as-usual market-related trends might propel the United States toward greater oil and natural gas self-sufficiency over the next 20 years while scenarios specifically focused on strict carbon caps and pricing or a high carbon tax of $60 a tonne or more could lead to a significant increase in U.S. reliance on oil imports between now and 2025. A carbon tax of $30 a tonne would also increase U.S. dependence on imports of foreign liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2025."

The Baker Institute researchers foresee natural gas -- reinforced by recent discoveries of vast reserves of shale gas -- playing "a very important role in the U.S. energy mix for decades to come." Under a business-as-usual approach, the United States won't have to import any LNG for decades. And the growth of natural gas will help the environment by lowering the demand for coal.
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Electric cars hold greater promise for reducing emissions and lowering US oil imports, study finds

Electric cars would place less stress on the grid than you might think, since most charging would be done at night during off-peak hours.
 
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AdamT said:
What Dodd Frank does in this respect is allow the government to seize and unwind those large corporations. That isn't supporting them, it's dismantling them in a more organized fashion so they don't crash the economy.
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What the government can and can't dois very, very unclear. It's one of those regulations that politicians can read to mean whatever they want at the time. The government has no business doing this. We already have courts set up for this. What they are saying is that some entities are "too big" for the system we have set up.

There should be no such thing. The government then gets to pick the winners and losers. Bad law.
 
AdamT said:
So we agree that the bill could be stronger, but I think it is certainly better than nothing, which is the Republican alternative.
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I have no idea what the Republicans plan. I know what I believe to be best. You fail, you fail. The government has no business in ensuring certain businesses will get special treatment.
 
1Perry said:
I have no idea what the Republicans plan. I know what I believe to be best. You fail, you fail. The government has no business in ensuring certain businesses will get special treatment.
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That's not what the government is doing but I guess it's irrelevant as you made up your mind before you learned what was in the bill.
 
MrVicchio said:
Costco, destroying the earth for the bottom line!!! :mrgreen:
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I think most of those plug in cars are really expensive. I haven't seen too many of them myself. I think one is the Nissian Leaf or something, and that's like 40,000 for a new car.
 
Until the electric car technology gets better and more affordable, I think people will stick with hybrids like the Prius.
 
j-mac said:
Another in the long line of not so well thought out infrastructure ideas that are supposed to save us from evil oil. Meanwhile we can press forward killing the oil industry with nothing to take its place. Great plan libs.

J-mac
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Killing the oil industry? That's rich. They get over 8 billion in subsidies/tax write off/etc a year and is one of the most profitable industries out there. Killing the oil industry...man we need to leave the hyperbole at home.
 
Yes indeed, two of the three most profitable companies in the world are oil companies. How they suffer. (sniff)
 
If these chargers aren't being used then it isn't costing them anything so why remove them. Must be a maintenance issue. If a common voltage is being used though and they don't need special transformers or other devices the maintenance shouldn't be much. Just trying to figure out the hurry for removing the charging outlets.
 
MrVicchio said:
[...] oil provides us electricity, get's us moving in our vehicles, powers aircraft and shipping. Ever see a 747 powered by batteries? How about an 18 wheeler? Oil is, the most portable, effective and reliable energy source we have. Someone comes out with a BETTER power source, that does everything oil does and watch consumers flock to it. Driving a battery powered car works for some folks, others, not so much. I drive on average 50 miles a day, to and from work. My car gets around 35 MPG. Find me a replacement that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and works as well and I'm game.
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When gasoline hits $10.00/gal., probably during some military-industrial complex manufactured crisis (or hedge fund commodity market speculation), you'll be game :mrgreen:
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
That darn liberal Costco, bunch of commie environmentalists

Oh wait Costco is an independant company seeking to make money and most likely installed the charging stations to attract certain customers. The plan didnt work.
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I guess those customers didn't have electric cars.
 
SheWolf said:
I think most of those plug in cars are really expensive. I haven't seen too many of them myself. I think one is the Nissian Leaf or something, and that's like 40,000 for a new car.
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When are you buying yours?
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
It's still really limited in the American market, where it's not uncommon for a commute to be an hour or longer. [...]
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According to government statistics, 51% of the workers have a one-way commute of 10 miles or less. Another 17% 15 miles or less (11 miles) (source: US DOT). This leaves 32% who did not choose wisely when selecting a residence :doh

Agree with your observation that total life cycle costs must be looked at with respect to hybrids/EV's. Still, at some point the general consensus will be that using a crude oil fueled vehicle weighing 20 times as much as its payload is not a wise choice for transportation. Necessity will eventually mandate either mass transportation for the commuting masses, with really small EV's or similar (CNG's, perhaps) (along the lines of 1,500 lbs empty weight) for personal transportation.

A 747 can carry 122% its own weight in passengers, cargo, and fuel (875,000 lbs gross take off weight, B-747-400).
An 18-wheeler can carry about 115% its own weight in cargo and fuel (80,000 lbs GVWR).
A bus will carry roughly 50% its own weight in passengers, cargo, and fuel (48,000 lbs GVWR, 55 pax).
An SUV loaded to capacity will carry about 20% its own weight in passengers, cargo, and fuel (6,000 lbs GVWR).
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It's simply a matter of simple math.
 
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