Re: European fuel costs

[Kate Alhola <kate@iti.fi>]

Kate:
>> Has anyone calculated, is the EV even competive solution in USA
>> casoline prices if we calculate both casoline and battery costs ?


David Roden:
>2.  In this part of the state, and under the billing plan I use, my 
>electricity is moderately costly (11.5 cents per kwh).  My EV uses about 
>225 wh/mile (0.225 kwh per mile, or 4.44 mi/kwh). The electricity cost is 
>2.59 cents per mile.
>
>So in summary fuel and oil versus electricity and battery amortization:
>
>	Honda Civic VX gasoline:  3.15 cents per mile
>
>	Solectria Force EV:  6.59 cents per mile
>
>The EV costs over twice as much per mile.  Now, remember, I am 
>disregarding maintenance costs here, since these are fairly 
>unpredictable.  I'm also ignoring the higher purchase price of the EV, 
>hence the greater depreciation costs.  I don't think that's unrealistic, 
>since day to day costs for fuel, oil, electricity and (perhaps) battery 
>replacement are the ones the user is most in touch with.
>
>At that level, the break-even point doesn't come until my gasoline cost 
>increases to $2.95 per gallon.  


At first some European comparision values. Casoline price does not
wary wery much inside of EU, least compared to USA prices. EU has so
called tax harmonization, it means that it is not allowed to member
states to make unhealthy tax competition. So, in casoline there
is EU level minumim tax. I don't know exact value of it but 
price per litre is nowhere much undes 1EURO/l () 1EURO=1.01USD.

In electric prices there is a lot of variations, much depending
about how electricity is produced. Northern Europe countries, Finland,
Sweden and non-EU Norway have all a lot of cheap water power. 
Also Finland and Sweden have a lot of paper industry and paper
factories produce electricity as their side product. So, we have
a lot electricity produced by biomass !!!. Also there in north, 
we have a lot of heat/electricity cogeneration.

For this reason, there is cheap electricity. Normal high priced
consumer electricity will cost 0.075Euro/Kwh. If you have electric
heating or otherwice higer consumption, you can byu night time
electricity about half a price.

In middle european countries, the electicity price is in same range
that you told it to be in USA.

So, if we are comparing just operationg cost, EVs should be wery competive
in all around EU.

>1.  Do EVs have an economic advantage (for cost of operation) in Finland?

Yes, in Finlad and other EU countries. In Finland the problem is in 
actual car price that has so high amount of tax that it makes it
in lifetime costs more expensive than ordinary casoline car.
This is only true in Finland, not in most of other EU countries.


>2.  Does the Finnish government they provide encouragement and economic 
>incentives for EVs?

No, more they are trying to use "tax avoiding tax" system to prevent
non casoline cars to coming market.

That is diferent in most other EU countries, they are supporting
EVīs.

>3.  Are the Finnish people environmentally thoughtful?

I think, that most ones are. We have even Greens ( environment party )
in cabinet as an minister of environment issues. I personally know
her, she has university degree of electric engineering etc and is
pro-EV. I think that here is largest problem that other political
parties have wery conservative thoughs. That is just same are they
right side conservatives ( coalition party ) or left side
conservatives ( Social democratic party ).

>4.  Is it possible that Elcat could grow large enough to eventually 
>provide reasonable numbers of affordable EVs?  Are there any other firms 
>which might become EV manufacturers?

Elcat is small and specialized complelelly to van conversions. There
is not enough market for local car manufacturer that makes any kind of
cars from scratch.

The starange thing is, that Finland is well known and establisht
high-tech country. Just Nokkia, the cellular phone manufacturer that
you may know makes around 20% of our exports !!!! Also like in wind
turbines, we donīt have our own production because covernement
supports coal and nuclear power but in practice there can be finnish parts
50% of parts in danish made wind turbine ( generator, gearbox, inverter ).

We have also wery innovative leading edge EV component manufacturers
( that are working with Elcat ). You can check http://www.iti.fi/acev

So, it is better to say, that we have high tech industry like Nokia
ets, not becouse our covernement policy but even they have tried to 
de anything against it :-(

The only good thing is, that Elcat has got special reduction of this
"tax avoiding tax" for their cars car by car base. This allows them to
live in their small market soctor but prevents EV fleet never growing
big. This also prevents to inport normal cars like Think or EV1 here.




Kate

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