The perfect place for an EV?

"Mosqvich" (mosqvich) 09/07/2013 at 01:43 • Filed to: Maui, Tesla, Hawaii, Alternative Energy, EV, Nissan, Leaf

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Hawaii is paradise, but it's not without problems. Energy is an expensive proposition here. Most people don't know it, but the bulk of Hawaii's electricity is generated by diesel generators. Gasoline is pretty expensive as well, though right now it's not ridiculous - it's running around $4.50 a gallon. Additionally Hawaii is the most remote chain of islands in the world and it is expensive to ship anything here, including fuel.

I've been tooling around in an Impala rental, that'll be another post, and not thinking too much about gas, though I'm sure when I fill it up I'll wish I had an economy car. It'll probably be a $75 fill-up. I asked Nissan for a loaner Leaf, but they don't have any press vehicles on Maui. However, I have seen half a dozen Leafs (Leaves?) and a few Tesla Model S (how do you pluralize that?) running around. I captured the one pictured above tonight while we were walking in downtown Lahaina.

I think an EV here actually makes perfect sense. There is no doubt in my mind diesel fuel is less expensive than even regular petrol on the islands, and in the end that's what would likely fuel the Tesla or any EV in the islands. Moreover, Maui has been working hard on building up its alternative energy base, though in a meeting I had with Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa back in February, he expressed frustration at the local utility for pushing back on encouraging solar on every home's rooftop, at least where it is sunny on the island. Clearly their problem is losing energy sales to those homes and having to actually buy it back from them. A concern about EVs has often been that it will burden the local infrastructure. I think Mayor Arakawa would be pretty happy to see the utility more willing to work with homeowners having solar in order to meet EV demand.

I would contend Hawaii is the perfect place for EVs. Range anxiety is greatly reduced because of two main reasons:

1. You can't drive all that fast here. There just isn't the room to do it.

2. It's an island. Maybe the Big Island of Hawaii could present a range issue when driving from Hilo to Kona - maybe. A modest supercharger network would be feasible and and easily powered by solar or wind.

Maybe Nissan will get me that Leaf for my next visit to Maui. Aloha!

sliding-sideways > Mosqvich 09/07/2013 at 01:49

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The proper English pluralization would probably be Tesla Model S', though it would be much cooler if it was written Tesla Model Esses.

Mosqvich > sliding-sideways 09/07/2013 at 01:51

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Yes! That would be way cooler.

phenotyp > Mosqvich 09/07/2013 at 01:53

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Harness the waves.

desertdog5051 > Mosqvich 09/07/2013 at 03:03

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Put a 3.3 KW solar array on the roof of the garage about 3 years ago. Did it at the height of the solar incentive program and the housing market meltdown. Both were great incentives. Now, no electric bill and get paid each month for generation.

The electrical contractor was giving stupidly low wiring installation prices, because he wanted work. Did my own installation of the panels. Power company would not buy power unless it was done by a licensed electrical company.

twinturbobmw > Mosqvich 09/07/2013 at 10:14

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I thought the same thing when I was there! It seemed like they sold well there too, although not as much as the NW.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > Mosqvich 09/07/2013 at 11:12

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Having recently got back from Tahiti, I had been thinking the same thing - small tropical islands are really the perfect places for EVs. Tahiti is only about 120 km around, so even a Leaf would get you most, if not all of the way around. Also, since most of the middle of the island is mountain, I imagine there might be a bit more wind up there.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > BaconSandwich is tasty. 09/07/2013 at 13:17

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Another thing to consider:

Tahiti also has a ton of scooters/motorcycles, and a lot of diesel vehicles (I'd guess maybe 50% of the vehicles there are diesel). The air quality when walking next to the road does leave something to be desired, and there is considerable traffic noise, at least during the day. Just imagine how much more of a magical tropical place it would be if everything was electric. Streets would be much quieter, no more two-stroke exhaust smoke, etc. It really would make it a very amazing place.

wtrmlnjuc > sliding-sideways 09/07/2013 at 14:59

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There's kind of a funny thing when Tesla employees, especially those who worked on designing and engineering the car, call it as "Model S", not the Model S.

Mosqvich > BaconSandwich is tasty. 09/08/2013 at 14:06

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The noise and smell factor is not insignificant. I did a summer abroad in Russia back in the late 90s. It was actually still the Soviet Union at the time. I remember trying to go running and just couldn't do it because of the air pollution. Of course the Soviets didn't much care about it and there were plenty of Volgas and Ladas kicking out all kinds of crap into the air.

jeremiah64 > phenotyp 09/08/2013 at 14:14

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One issue with harnessing the waves is that you would be putting a wave generator in areas that we use all the time for recreation and food. I've done some wave generator experiments, but I have an issue trying to place one in the ocean around Hawaii. Maybe one right on the side of the harbor, where you already have a lot of activity from commerce. The problem is that on Maui that area doesn't get hit too often with large enough waves to make a wave generator economical. I think we need to start off by just covering every roof top with solar. If we still need more power after that we can look at other additions to the grid.

jeremiah64 > Mosqvich 09/08/2013 at 14:21

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Dan, great to see your write up about some of your experiences in Hawaii. First of all, the Maui Electric company does not buy back solar from the customers when they have extra like a lot of other electric companies do. They only give you a credit for what you make over what you use, and at the end of the year, if there is still unused credit, you loose it. On top of that they charge a fee for using the grid even if you produce more electricity than you use. So you will always be paying them money. So it seems strange that they would fight so hard to keep people from connecting their extra power to the grid. But they definitely do make you jump through hoops to get grid tied. They charge you $3000 just to do a survey of your area to see if you can add PV to the grid, even if your next door neighbor just paid for the survey and got approved. That whole situation is a 'good ol boy' network for sure.

As far as the pluralization of a Nissan Leaf, I would have to vote for Leafs Since it is an acronym, it wouldn't make sense to change it to Leaves. :) After talking to the Maui Electric Auto Association, it sounds like the Leaf is the most prevalent EV sold over there at the moment. I'm going to be investigating and promoting this more soon on my Facebook page.

Mosqvich > jeremiah64 09/08/2013 at 14:30

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I've seen at least a dozen Leafs by now. I saw the Tesla on our drive back from Hana last night. It looks like he lives near where you turn off of 360 to go Haiku, but he was heading into a neighborhood near the ocean. I've seen other Teslas here too. It just makes too much sense on an island. I think Lahaina could try out what London has done: make it an EV only zone. Period. It's way too congested. Of course the rental companies would double up on EVs, but that'd be ok. As one commenter put it "imagine how magical it would be without the noise of cars" or something like that.

911e46z06 > Mosqvich 09/11/2013 at 02:16

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Just got back from a month at my place in small town Alaska. We have the same problems. No roads out of town, so gas has to come in by barge, and it's almost $6 a gallon. And my Bronco and hippie bus aren't exactly gas-sippers, and even though there's only about 15 miles of road, it gets expensive as hell. I checked out the electric golf cart market in Juneau on my way home.

ASheep > Mosqvich 09/11/2013 at 04:21

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Norfolk Island is the perfect home for an EV. All their grid power comes from Diesel Generators, but they have the highest penetration of distributed solar systems per captia, in the last 10 years they have reduced their Diesel generator usage by 85%. During low load periods in the middle of the day, they actually have to disconnect some of the larger solar systems so that the Diesels don't shut down due to reverse charge protection!

Petrol/Diesel costs $2.50/Litre ($9.45/gallon) and the island is only 5kmx8km, so electric range will never be a problem...