Is the Electric Car Resurrected? MotorTrend: Tesla Model S is Car of the Year

For the first time in its 64-year history, the Motor Trend magazine award has been awarded to a non-gasoline powered vehicle.  The unanymous vote confirmed that Silicone Valley's Tesla Motors Model S is first and foremost a spectacular ride: it just so happens to be fully electric.

Critics of the oil and gas industry have charged it with the murder of the electric vehicle and public transportation in the States in the 70's.  Has the Detroit outsider ressurrected the EV? The Model S has a US$90,000 price tag and a waiting list, since it only makes a few hundred a year, though Tesla Motors claims to be near the mass-production turning point. Either way, “The mere fact the Tesla Model S exists at all is a testament to innovation and entrepreneurship, the very qualities that once made the American automobile industry the largest, richest, and most powerful in the world,” the magazine said.  "America can still make things. Great things."

Several utilities have used stimulus grants for grid modernization for piloting electric vehicle charging technology.  Thus far, the vehicles remain costly, but the possibility of eventual wide-adoption mean utilities must be prepared to handle the challenge and promise of millions of plug-in electric vehicles.  The power industry hopes that electric vehicle charging can be shifted away from times of peak demand which it struggles to keep up with.  In fact, the hope is that the energy storage of millions of vehicles could act as a distributed power plant for such peak times, whereby owners can be rewarded for allowing the utility to draw power from them.  During off-peak times, the valleys could be filled with smart charging that spreads out the charging loads through the night, rather than all at once. 

Others have envisioned battery swapping stations that can replace gasoline pumps.  Imagine driving up to such a station to swap your low-charge battery for a fully-charged battery.  This would require industry standards, but would be much quicker for the driver than waiting to charge up.  Big data techniques could be applied to monitor battery residual life and hence cost.  Additionally, such battery stations could act as distributed energy storage facilities. Storaging energy closer to where it is consumed helps to compensate for variations typical of renewable sources like wind and solar that are susceptible to moving clouds and changing windspeeds and directions. 

As the industry experiments with the technology for wide-spread adoption, the paradigm shift EV-enthusiasts have been waiting for could be here. Read more on WIRED magazine as it praises the Model S and commends it for another industry first: over-the-air software updates akin to mobile phones and wireless network smart grid devices.