AutoblogGreen

No thanks. I am a huge fan of electric stuff (emissions and efficiency nut), so I don't have a gas can since none of my home yard devices are gas.

So I'd have to buy a generator, buy gas, buy a gas can, and run the thing from time to time to keep the gas from going bad.

Or I could just use my car, which usually has gas in it and the gas is kept fresh through periodic use.

V2G just makes sense for standby (blackout) power. I dunno about using it for going "off the grid" though.

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Actually, using a plain hybrid to power a house makes little sense due to their low capacity.
Now, when the Chevy VOLT is out, I could power my house for around 8 hours and not exceed GM's concerns about battery usage. And after that the range extender motor would kick in and run as required by the draw from the house until the gasoline tank runs dry (don't lett that happen - go fill up and return).

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Since a standard hybrid has limited capacity, 1 Kwh or less, Honda (and Mr. Beuchert) is right, it makes little sense unless the engine was running - but that is not safe in a garage due to CO and oxygen depletion and not safe from car thieves on the street, unless special precautions are made.

Plug-ins have extra capacity and could fare better. The GM Volt would have approx. 8 Kwh of spare capacity before the range extender kicks in, so apparently Mr. Beucherts home uses, on average, 1Kwh per hour. At that rate, the battery pack on the Tesla Roadster could keep his house going 2 full days, without using any fuel!

Just how long would the outages last? In most instances, the power isn't out for very long. Also, with careful conservation, turning off everything unnecessary, the length of runtime could be dramatically increased.

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Unless you live out in the boonies, electricity from the grid will always be cheaper than producing your own with a generator - especially if the generator happens to be your car engine, which is grossly over-dimensioned for that job. For emergency use, it might be fine provided you temporarily disconnect your home from the grid to avoid line EMI issues.

V2G is a concept intended to reduce the total cost of ownership of a PHEV in California, which made a hash of its electricity deregulation. However, with cycle life still a major concern for automotive traction batteries, it seems quite premature to talk about increasing the cycle count while stationary. Replacing a battery pack early will almost certainly cost more than any revenue/discounts generated by offering the grid operator a way to level his electrical load.

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Here's his website:

http://priups.com/riddle/answer-1.htm

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I would LOVE to be able to run my refrigerators/freezers and/or furnace fan (gas furnace) from a PHEV during a blackout, but V2G on an every-day basis would just put a LOT of extra wear on the batteries... not to mention it would actually use more electricity (waste in back-and-forth conversions) and not even out the load since your car would be at work during peak usage (and even if plugged in would just be saving your company money on electricity, not you).

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