Electric cars use lots of juice and are typically plugged in to recharge at night when utilities have excess power-generating capacity. That’s great for power companies.

But electric cars and plug-in hybrids, which are expected to start hitting the streets next year, could pose a challenge for utilities that aren’t ready for them. Power companies need to make sure that a concentration of cars in a relatively small area won’t overwhelm the grid. Charging has to be safe. Public charging stations need to be considered.

Southern California Edison, an investor-owned utility based in this Los Angeles suburb that provides power to 13 million, is trying to get ready. It’s spending upwards of $5 million a year acquiring and maintaining the electric vehicle fleet, testing new plug-ins and researching battery capabilities.

As part of its program, Edison operates a fleet of 300 electric vehicles, most of which are Toyota RAV4s. The goal is to know the capabilities of the cars, and how they’re going to be used and recharged, and to try to make the conversion as seamless as possible. It’s also among the California utilities looking to upgrade the more than 1,000 public charging locations, installed from airports to shopping centers, left over from the last time the nation’s most motoring-happy state thought it could make a go of electric transportation.

“This stuff is coming,” says Ed Kjaer, SoCal Edison’s electric transportation director. “We have to do it with safety and reliability. It cannot destabilize the system.”

The storage problem

It’s not just about selling more power. Utility officials are convinced that battery technology in the coming wave of electric cars could hold the key to solving a problem that has long bedeviled them: the inability to store all the electrons they produce. All that wind and solar power in the wings won’t be much help if there is no demand in the system at the moment it surges through the wires and if it can’t be stored for later use.

“The holy grail of the electricity business is storage,” says Ted Craver, CEO of Edison International, SoCal Edison’s parent, based here east of Los Angeles. SoCal Edison, like California’s other big utilities, is being required by state regulators to boost the power it receives from renewable sources to 20% by next year. Right now, 16% of the utility’s power is from renewables, most of it from geothermal sources, Craver says.

A big component of Edison’s electric car program is researching the capabilities of automotive batteries with an eye toward developing units to store energy and use them to power individual businesses or homes, or clusters of them. One future possibility: used plug-in hybrid car batteries that still have life left in them as the heart of a home storage unit.

While the electric car revolution could provide a way to make better use of renewable energy sources, it also presents some big challenges. If lots of electric cars are being charged at the same time in a small community, they could overwhelm the system. For instance, more powerful transformers might be needed, Kjaer says.

After an offseason filled with points swaps and mergers, NASCAR finally has determined the 35 cars that are guaranteed spots in the first five races of 2009.

The biggest beneficiaries were Clint Bowyer and Sam Hornish Jr., who moved into the top 35 through deals in which their teams aligned with owners whose cars were ranked in the top 35 in 2008. The top 35 in owners points from the previous season are used to set fields for the five races each year.

Bowyer’s No. 33 Chevrolet, a new fourth car for Richard Childress Racing, will inherit the 32nd-place points of the No. 01 Chevy that belonged to Dale Earnhardt Inc. last year.

DEI merged with Chip Ganassi Racing in the offseason, but the points belonged to Bobby Ginn, who had merged his Ginn Racing with DEI the previous season. Ginn was given a minority stake in RCR and will be listed as the owner of Bowyer’s car.

“That’s Christmas come late for me,” Bowyer said Thursday at Daytona International Speedway. “I’ve been nervous about it.”

Hornish’s No. 77 Dodge received the 31st-place points of the No. 22 Toyota campaigned last year by Bill Davis, now a minority owner in the Penske Championship Racing team.

“It puts your mind to rest,” said Hornish, who failed to qualify for the 2008 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “Anything can happen to keep you from being in the Daytona 500.”

NASCAR chairman Brian France said the top-35 rule might need tweaking.

“It would be nicer if it were a more simple-to-understand policy,” France said. “We’re not going to change anything tomorrow or for the Daytona 500, but we’ll be looking at the top 35.”

There are 56 cars entered for the 43 spots in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15.

Tony Stewart’s No. 14 Impala is outside the top 35 but guaranteed a spot because he’s a past champion. Marcos Ambrose’s No. 47 Camry also will be guaranteed a spot despite having 36th-ranked points last year because Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s No. 41 went defunct without its points being transferred.

Among the notables who will have to qualify on speed or through the Feb. 12 qualifying races are A.J. Allmendinger, Scott Riggs, Joe Nemechek and Jeremy Mayfield, who was interested in points for his startup team.

“If I could have figured out a way to get them without buying them, that’d be great to be locked in,” Mayfield said.

“Is it the fairest thing? I don’t know. A lot of stuff happened that I don’t think NASCAR was aware was going to with the points situation.”

Pit notes: The No. 00 Toyota of David Reutimann has picked up full-season sponsorship from Aaron’s, which initially had agreed to fund half the season. … Three-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson plans to test several braces to support the left middle finger he damaged with a kitchen knife Feb. 1 when he tried to cut a hole in his fire suit during the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Johnson doesn’t anticipate problems piloting his No. 48 Chevy. “It’s a little ugly and swollen,” he said, displaying the 16-stitch wound. “I’ve got motion and grip.”

As the auto industry finds it harder to move metal in parlous times, attractive leasing deals are cropping up, particularly from foreign manufacturers. “In some cases, they’re very aggressive,” says Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com, the car information Web site. Counting all incentives, including low-rate loans, leases, and rebates, carmakers offered an average $2,698 in incentives per vehicle in the U.S. in January, up from $2,413 a year ago.

Edmunds, which offers online calculators to help determine how attractive a deal is, ran advertised specials through its systems at BusinessWeek’s request. The researchers found a lot of variety. Drivers could do well, for instance, on a Mercedes-Benz C-Class Sport four-door sedan, which fetches about $43,000 at retail. Leasing would cost $430 a month for 39 months and $4,564 at signing, if the dealer chips in $1,100. Last year, leases for the same car cost $440 to $462 a month. But if you buy the car now instead, you might shell out $590 a month for 66 months with $7,845 down–if you qualify for a special 3.9% loan. (Be aware, though, that deals can change week by week.)

With other models, particularly less expensive ones, deals tilt in favor of buying. Leasing a $22,000 Mitsubishi Outlander ES 4-door SUV would cost about $279 a month for 42 months, with $2,558 due at signing. (Active-duty soldiers and current Mitsubishi owners could get another $500 off.) Buying the same car would cost only modestly more each month–$334 a month for 60 months–with a special 3.9% loan and a $4,076 down payment. (Zero-percent financing, where available for qualified buyers, would help even more.)

To assess some recently advertised deals (table), Edmunds subtracted rebates, applied special interest rates being offered, and, rather than leave out often-hefty sales taxes and title charges, which vary by Zip Code, used the sales tax and title charges for Southern California as roughly representative examples. Edmunds applied a 20% down payment on purchases and used suggested retail prices.

Whether to lease or buy is as much a lifestyle choice as a financial decision. If you swap for a new car every three years or so, you might be better off leasing since you don’t have to worry if trade-in values are dropping. Indeed, trade-in values have plunged so much on American cars that the Big Three largely avoid leasing. Values for foreign brands have held up, keeping them in the game. But “if you own your car longer than five or six years, you probably should buy,” says John Sternal, vice-president for marketing communications at LeaseTrader.com, an online marketplace for lease transfers. At that point, you own the car and are free of more payments–aside from repair costs.

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