GM’s Chevy Volt: how much more is your electric bill going to be? Will you make it up in the gas savings?

Hard to say. Electric rates are going up too. The country already has electricity shortages in the summer in some places even without people trying to charge up cars. That’s going to drive up costs more. Depending on where you live you cant even say its producing less pollution since its probably a coal power plant.

I think the people who benefit the most are the ones with some type of solar panels on their home who could charge their car for free (once the panels are paid off).

It is hard to say how much more your electric bill is going to go up because Chevy isn’t talking about it.

I can’t imagine that it would be all that much. When you run a trickle charger, it doesn’t consume much electricity. Also, the battery technology is getting better so it will require less house power than a major appliance like a big screen TV.

No, probably not yet. How many watts are the batteries rated at? I pay 0.13 kw/hr for my electricity now. I’d be interested to see how much a windmill would cost to put up at home to charge the battery. You can buy these that will operate a laptop and a light bulb (approx 150 watts) for around $600.00 dollars. This would be free wind power and the only way to really save money on electricity.

The secret to getting the most out of owning an electric car is to have your utility company install what is known as a Time Of Use (TOU) meter. You set the car to charge at night when the electric rates are cheapest. The special meter tells the power company when the electricity is being used.

What power companies do is average everyone’s use together. It measures the juice used by a neighborhood then calculates what percent was used during the day and what percent was used at night. Without the TOU meter they will take a percentage of the electricity you use at night and apply it to the daytime rates just like everybody else in the neighborhood.

And yes, you will save more than enough gas bucks to apply to the electric bill. A gallon of gas has 33.5 kWh of energy in it. Most electric cars go over 100 miles on that amount of energy. At $3.50 a gallon to go 20 miles compared to $2.68 (at 8 cents per nighttime kWh) to go 100 – 120 miles.

Those really green people put solar panels on the roof of their house and pump the energy back into the power grid during the day when the electricity rates are the highest. Then at night use the credits to recharge the car. Net result is they drive 100 miles a day for FREE Even more if the family has 2 electric cars. See http://sealbeach.org for how one man does it.