Huh, nice to know. We have a Mitsubishi EV that is about 1.5 years old. No issues so far. Seems to get about the same mileage w/ charge. We did do deep discharge twice so far, as recommended by mfr. With trade-in, cost of car was $12k, financed at 0%.

Converting some of that carbon into an inert material isn’t a bad idea either : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130204220840.htm .

EV’s are so new at this point, we’re some years out from seeing this happen. We’re still probably 5+ years out from seeing the first Leaf batteries that need replacement.

One thing I’d like to see available is a partial-off-grid solution. This would be something like a 1kW max, 4kWh system that could run all the lighting and low power devices for a house (In our house, everything outside the kitchen). It would charge between 8am and 4pm, using solar power, and power the house the rest of the time. This would be great for power cuts, and also mean you took less from the grid overall.

While rooftop solar can make sense, rooftop wind does not. In the case of both wind and solar, utility-scale solutions often make more sense than doing it yourself. The best wind resources are located at higher altitudes, and in Denmark the taller turbines with longer blades that have been installed since 2008 produce 50% more energy than their predecessors.
http://ing.dk/artikel/laengere-vinger-og-hoejere-vindmoeller-oeger-energiudbyttet-med-50-pct-170944

While technologies for solar are still evolving,

(One new example: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/28/solar-energy-sunflower-ibm-airlight-electricity )

alternatives to the standard three bladed horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) have not led anywhere. Rooftop wind doesn’t produce enough energy to justify the cost and can, in fact, destroy the roof it’s mounted on. Vertical-axis-wind-turbines (VAWTs) don’t produce enough energy and are subject to stresses that can cause them to break down. They have never proved themselves to be commercially viable.

http://www.renewwisconsin.org/wind/Toolbox-Homeowners/An%20Open%20Letter%20to%20Inventors.pdf
http://barnardonwind.com/2013/02/23/why-arent-vertical-axis-wind-turbines-more- popular/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/nyregion/turbines-pop-up-on-new-york-roofs-along-
with-questions-of-efficiency.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/vertical-axis-wind-turbines-
zmaz08fmzmcc.aspx
http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php? id=398&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=137&cHash=bce4d8017b9a204d47f82fec725f72d7
http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php? id=399&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2535&cHash=05835e46d90b73bb0b734dee3800a9b6
http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=116
In my opinion, putting up one’s own wind turbine would only make sense under off grid conditions in which (rooftop) solar wasn’t an option. Also, it would only make sense if the available wind resource was good, and if the turbine could be raised so much above surrounding trees and structures, that it could avoid turbulence and have access to stable wind resources.

In the first 6 months of 2014 we got 41.2% of our electricity from wind. In January, 61.7%.
http://ing.dk/artikel/rekord-vindmoeller-leverede-412-pct-af-danskernes-elforbrug-i-foerste-halvaar-170541

The Danish Energy Agency found that onshore wind was the cheapest way to add electricity generation.
http://ing.dk/artikel/energistyrelsen-vindmoeller-paa-land-giver-den-billigste-el-169674

Evidently, at least for now, conditions in Minnesota are similar:

“Cheap steel and more efficient turbines have made wind the low-cost power source here…
‘We’re adding 750 megawatts of wind in the next couple of years, and we’re getting that for a price that’s below the competing alternatives,’ said Frank Prager, the vice president for environmental policy at Xcel Energy.
Bill Grant, the deputy commissioner of Minnesota’s Commerce Department, said he believed that the federal tax credit for wind-energy projects was increasingly irrelevant. ‘My hunch is, given prices right now, we’d be building wind with or without the subsidy,’ he said.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/us/politics/without-much-straining-minnesota-reins-in-
its-utilities-carbon-emissions.html?ref=todayspaper

For those who may be interested, below is a list of NREL maps of U.S. wind, solar, and geothermal resources.
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/80m_wind/awstwspd80onoffbigC3-3dpi600.jpg
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/100m_wind/awstwspd100onoff3-1.jpg
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltaic_2012-01.jpg
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_csp/national_concentrating_solar_2012-01.jpg
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/geothermal_resource2009-final.jpg