Comments on: HECO Utilities In Hawaii Will Exempt EV Chargers From Demand Charge

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 06:42:00 +0000

Adding onto that. Hawaii has a 40% renewable electricity by 2030 target.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 06:31:00 +0000

Actually, Hawaii is already a leader in renewables: “Renewable sources provided 10.5% of total electric power.[1] Hawaii ranked third among U.S. states in geothermal energy and seventh in distributed solar power.[2][3]”

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 06:11:00 +0000

Hawaii has excellent wind, solar, and geothermal resources. it’s grid is changing.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 03:14:00 +0000

Hawaii is starting to install renewables. They finally figured it out.

There’s little doubt. The carbon footprint of EVs charged with renewable electricity is tiny compared to the most efficient ICEV.

By: Woland

Woland — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 03:06:00 +0000

EVs are terrible for Hawaii. They have a very low percentage of electricity generated from renewables (getting better, I acknowledge), but they have been forever dependent upon coal, petroleum, and natural gas shipped in from the mainland. The islands are not that big, as you point out. I would be interested to see a CO2 footprint comparison of an EV infrastructure vs. modern, fuel efficient ICE cars.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 15:28:00 +0000

Sure Hawaii may have the stations, and as you say “… you can drive slowly and reach 100 mile range”, but in that statement is the trade off one currently has to deal with. As is the case with most things in life, it’s a trade off. This particular one concerns getting there and getting there and getting there more quickly or in a more “reasonable” time. If the roads on the big island were all level and you had the time to drive the speed required to get the maximum distance it may work, but stopping to charge the vehicle along the way adds time and inconvenience to the trek. For now the more efficient (time and cost) way is still the gas powered one. We can hope that the technology will improve, as it has in the past, to the point where it will be more reasonable to have these vehicles.

By: Others

Others — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 03:35:00 +0000

Hawaii has 352 EV charging stations and this is enough to convert all vehicles to electric. The biggest island is only 100 miles from 1 end to another. Even if you want to go from this end to other, you can drive slowly and reach 100 mile range.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/stations_counts.html