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An Inconvenient Truth - Sunday December 31, 2006
Anti EV propaganda - Sunday December 24, 2006
China Syndrome - Sunday December 17, 2006
Santa Monica Alternative Fuel Vehicle Expo - Sunday December 10, 2006
2007 Los Angeles Auto Show - Sunday December 3, 2006
The Case for the Tango - Sunday November 26, 2006
Carpool Lanes - Sunday November 19, 2006
The Complete Book of EVs - Sunday November 12, 2006
Barriers to EV Production - Sunday November 5,2006
State of fear - Sunday October 29, 2006
Infrastructure - Sunday October 15, 2006
Sunday December 31, 2006 - An Inconvenient Truth - I have usually been on the hook to cook Christmas dinner but this year my wife's sister did the honors so I had a couple of hours to kill and finally got to see Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth".
An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary that mixes a short biography of Al Gore with a lot of information about global warming and its possible impact on the planet we inhabit. Its primary mode of delivery is in the form of a lecture given by Al Gore himself that goes through the science and existing evidence for Global warming. Eric Steig, an earth scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle confirmed, after viewing the movie, that the science presented was basically sound.
The movie presented disturbing images such as a series of pictures that show how lake chad has shrunk from a gigantic lake to a mere puddle over the last forty years. Other images such as fishing boats from the Aral see that have been left high and dry miles from the water as it receded. Some of this, of course, is the result of large volumes of water taken out of the rivers that feed these lakes to provide for the burgeoning population, but it is also obvious that warmer temperatures has lead to drought which has meant that more water needs to be taken from the rivers for irrigation.
Even more disturbing was the views of receding ice from all over the world. Pictures of snow capped Kilimanjaro contrasted with current pictures of a mountain almost devoid of snow. Pictures of mighty glaciers that have receded by hundreds of yards over the past twenty years or so.
The documentary also shows quite clearly, using data collected from ice core samples taken from the Artic, that there is a direct relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the earth's temperature. It also showed the normal warming that has occurred periodically due to natural cycles and demonstrated quite clearly that the current warming is much more severe that the normal weather cycles would cause.
I am not sure I totally agree with the predictions of future temperature which were basically shown as rising exceedingly quickly over the next decade or two, but I do know that we can't just sit back and assume business as usual until it is too late. The movie shows that things can be reversed by a combination of conservation and a move to alternative fuels. I am convinced that electric vehicles will play a major role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions and the sooner we move away from fossil fuels the better off everyone will be.
If you haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth" yet, I recommend that you head down to your local video store and rent it soon.
Sunday December 24, 2006 - Anti EV propaganda Paul Scott from Plug in America forwarded me an article from the Detroit Free Press entitled Mark Phelan: Electric Car Killer? which is the sort of anti EV propaganda that drives me up the wall.
The
article was born from a conversation with a Toyota Executive, Earnest Bastien,
where he chided the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" as not being
balanced. Mr. Phelan then goes on to write a totally one sided article
that makes it look like Toyota, GM et. al. worked tirelessly and heroically to
sell there electric cars but had no takers.
He then quotes numbers of cars delivered as 800 for GM's EV1 and 324 for the number of Toyota RAV4EVs that were sold to the public. He makes it sound like there were all these cars on the lot that nobody would buy. He conveniently omits the fact that both manufacturers sold every car they made available and, for the most part, people had to wait months to get a car.
He also fails to mention that both manufacturers made it extremely difficult to lease or buy one of their EVs. I can personally attest to that since I, like many other people that I have talked to over the years, were standing in line to get one of their EVs only to be told we couldn't have one. In my case it was the EV1 I tried to lease. I never even tried to lease a RAV4 EV because I new I wouldn't qualify so what was the point. Now, you might think bad credit, or can't afford the payments, but I am totally capable of walking into a Toyota dealership and writing them a check for a RAV4EV, as I did in 2005 when I bought my Prius from them.
He also states in the article that Toyota subsidized the price of the car to make the payments only $275 per month. I don't know anyone who is paying less than $500 per month for their RAV4EV so I don't know where he gets that number from. The State of California did provide a grant of $3000 per year for the first three years of ownership on these cars but that was the State not Toyota.
Now here are a few things that I have garnered over the past few years. They are mostly anecdotal so you may choose not to believe them but I found that they came from creditable people so I am inclined to think they are true.
When Toyota first stated that they were going to sell the RAV4 EV the general public there was a story that appeared in the LA times that said that Toyota had about 700 of the RAV4 EV bodies left and once they were built and sold production would cease. They were planning on selling about 350 to the general public over the next two years, with the rest going to fleets. This article appears to have been removed from the LA Times web site and I haven't been able to find it so it is just my memory of the article but I do remember very well putting a warning on the RAV4EV listing to tell people to buy them when they could.
They put the car on sale around April of 2002 in about 57 dealerships (about half their network of dealers) throughout the state of California. It was never offered to the public in any other state. Now, some dealerships, such as Hollywood Toyota, embraced the car and sold quite a few of them. Other dealerships never really got on board with the EV and would try and convince would be buyers that this wasn't the car for them and try to get them into a Prius. I think that it is more than co-incidence that the Prius was pretty easy to get in 2002 while there was a wait of from several weeks to several months until you could actually get a RAV4 EV. There was also the need to install a charger because the car couldn't be charged directly from a wall socket but had to have a special charging device. In fairness to Toyota, these devices were pretty much mandated on the manufacturers.
By the end of 2002 Toyota had orders for all the 700 or so bodies that it had. Deliveries continue until April 2003 and then stopped. Toyota then claimed they were disappointed with sales and so had stopped the program. In reality, Toyota had expected to sell about 175 cars a year to the public in 2002 and 2003 but had sold 324 in 2002 and had also leased more than double the cars to fleets than it expected.
Now, think what could have happened if Toyota had gotten its dealer force behind this car and sold it in all 50 states, if they had really tried to sell the RAV4 EV instead of just the number they needed to comply with the California Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate. The RAV4 EV originally sold for $42,000 but they now three to four year old vehciles sell for over $50,000. This failure to embrace the California ZEV mandate has set the move to electric vehicles back by at least six years.
Now, the truth is that electric cars aren't for everybody. They can work for most people, especially as a second or third car, and it is too bad that the major automobile manufacturers won't make the effort to build a viable EV market. In the end, companies like ZAP, AC Propulsion and Phoenix Motor Cars will replace the big automobile manufacturers if they don't start to move towards electric vehicles, even if it is only with a plug in hybrid. Nissan. Mitsubishi and Subaru have all announced that they are going to start selling EVs in the future, let's hope they do a better job of selling them than GM, Toyota, Honda, and yes Nissan themselves did in the past.
Sunday
December 17, 2006 – The China Syndrome -
This
week, as I did my daily scan of eBay, I came across a guy in
The
Chinese have been taking US products and copying them for years.
Their piracy of
While
the Keystone Flyer, and the highly popular
ZAP Xebra appear to be original
designs, their strategy in the NEV market appears to be to copy a US vehicle
then market it through a variety of US distributors who each put their own name
on the vehicle. The most obvious of
these is the Th!nk Neighbor and GEM copies that are sold under a variety of
names including Cart-rite, Star
Keystone also markets the Barlow SX which is very similar to the California Roadster, prompting a law suite against them by American Custom Golfcars Inc, the manufacturer of California Roadster.
I haven’t heard of any law suites by either GEM or Ford about the other obvious copies. Since Ford are now out of the NEV market it is unlikely they will sue but if the Chinese start to bite into the huge market share currently held by GEM then watch the litigation fly.
There
are also a bunch of “Vespa Style” electric scooters that are sold under
different brand names. Erato for
example manufactures a line of electric scooters that are very similar to the
E-Max. These scooters are marketed
under a variety of brand names, the most notable one in the
Now, if this is not enough to confuse everybody, you also have to deal with quality issues. The Chinese are well known for poor quality workmanship. The quality of the vehicles that are shipped seem to be dependent on how closely the importer is managing the process. ZAP, for example, monitors the factory building the Zebra very closely but the quality of the product, while improving steadily, still leaves much to be desired when compared to the average new automobile. Some companies monitor the product less carefully while some companies don’t monitor quality at all so the vehicles may be good or may fall apart after a few months use.
Warranty on Chinese built vehicles also tends to be very short. You might end up in some instances with a 90 day warranty while another company gives you 6 months. No company I know of is offering a warranty that comes close to that offered by GEM.
The
bottom line is buyer beware. The
Chinese vehicles are cheap compared with the
If you can join a group like the ones at Yahoo groups where people get together to talk about the various vehicles they own. If you are considering buying a Xebra for instance, then join the yahoo Xebra group and you can learn first hand the issues you might be facing when you buy that EV.
One
last word, recently there have been a number of Chinese built EVs that have
shown up on eBay. One, was a clone
of the Daimler Chrysler Smart, while another was a 40 mph city car.
These vehicles are probably not legal on the streets where you live.
They are certainly not legal in the
Now, I’m not suggesting that you don’t buy a vehicle made in China , I am just suggesting that you know what you are getting before you shell out your hard earned currency on a vehicle.
Sunday December 10, 2006 - Santa Monica Alternative Fuel Vehicle Expo - I am writing this at the end of a very busy weekend. Yesterday I attended the Santa Monica Alternative Fuel Vehicle Expo Held in the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica airport. It was a really good event and allowed a lot of electric vehicle manufacturers to showcase their latest products. It also allowed me to catch up with a few old acquaintances.
The
only disappointing thing about the event was the ride and drive because there
really wasn't much to drive. I did get to have a few laps around the
parking lot in a California Roadster which was quite fun but the Myers Motors
NmG was out of action while I was there undergoing a re-charge, and the Phoenix
Motorcars electric truck wasn't ready for the show so they only had a glider on
display not a working vehicle.
I was also quite disappointed that the ACP eBox wasn't participating in the ride and drive although they did have a car in the exhibit hall.
I have been trying to test drive the Columbia ParCar Summit for quite a while now and while they did have a couple of these on display they weren't participating in the ride and drive.
The big news of the day was that Universal Electric Vehicles has started taking orders for the Electrum Spyder. This is a really nice looking open top sports car with a range of 140 miles on NiZN batteries. Deliveries are due to start in 2007 and the cost should be around $70,000.
Both Alexandra Paul and Chelsea Sexton from Who Killed the Electric Car fame where also there and Plug-in-America had the DVD on sale. If you haven't seen this movie yet you can purchase a copy through their web site and the proceeds go towards funding efforts to get EVs on the road.
One sad note was the Petersen Automotive Museum exhibit which featured one of the EV1s that was seen in "Who Killed the Electric Car". This was the one that Kris Trexler drove from Los Angeles to Detroit. After GM forced EV1 lessees to give up their cars this one had all the batteries and electrical components removed before being donated to the Petersen. I was one of the people that GM refused to lease an EV1 but having driven them quite a number of times I can tell you that it was by far the best EV I have ever driven and GM should be seriously penalized by the State of California, who partially funded the development of the car, for the way they treated the EV1 drivers.
I have written a short article with lots of pictures that should be up on Electrifying Times later tonight. I will post a link as soon as I have it.
Sunday December 3, 2006 - 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show - It has been a busy week for me. On Wednesday I attended the opening of the 2007 Los Angeles International Auto Show and on Thursday I drove over to Westminster Mall where Keystone were showing some of their electric vehicles.
This was the 100th Los Angeles Auto Show and I was able to attend the first Media day which was very hectic. I will be writing a full report for EV World and will post a link if Bill Moore decides to publish it. The day opened with a media breakfast after which the Auto Show was officially opened by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, followed immediately by the keynote address given by Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors. Rick Wagoner said in his speech that GM was moving away from the Internal Combustion Engine and that one day all GM cars would be electric. This transition he said "would be as important as the transition from horse drawn carriages to the motor car". Excuse me if I am a little bit skeptical but this is coming from the company that forced every EV owner it could to give up their cars so they could be crushed.
The theme of this years Auto show was sustainability. Several companies, including GM, announced new hybrid vehicles. GM announced that it was working on a plug in hybrid version of the Saturn Vue, and that they would be putting 100 Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicles into production including 50 here in Southern California. Honda showed of its concept fuel cell sedan and announced that it would begin limited sales to the public in 2008, and BMW showed off its duel fuel Hydrogen 7 sedan that can run on either hydrogen or gasoline and also announced that this car would be going on sale soon.
Tesla also had their EV on display at the entrance to the West Hall. It looked really cool but as usual the staff their almost totally ignored me, with the exception of CEO Martin Eberhard who did come up and shake my hand before turning away to smooze with some other media people. I did finally get a copy of the Tesla press kit however. Tesla had promised to put me on their media contacts list but hadn't followed through but I was able to find one at their display. It is kind of humbling to discover that evfinder.com doesn't rank on the radar with such EV companies. ZAP also have a display at the Auto show but they are down in Kentia Hall with the after market crowed and this area of the auto show isn't open during media days.
The highlight of the show for me was the ride and drive section. I can't believe how badly this was organized. The ride and drive was to highlight "Green" vehicles and quite a few of these were available for test drives outside the West Hall. The first part of the adventure went OK, I was able to sign the waiver and get the nice green wrist band without any problems. Next, I was supposed to pick the car that I wanted to drive and go to it, there would be someone waiting there to take me for a spin. The problem was that, for the most part, there wasn't anyone there. I wanted to test drive the GEM for example but I was never able to find a representative from Daimler Chrysler. I did find a GM rep so I could take the Saturn Vue Green Line for a spin but they couldn't find the keys. Next to the Saturn green line was the Ford Explorer fuel cell vehicle, and finally there was a representative with the car. I got to take a short drive around the Convention Center in this vehicle.
Only Nissan seemed to have their act in order. Their representative was standing by the Nissan fuel cell vehicle and he took me for an extended drive of several miles around downtown LA. At the end of the test drive he went and found the representative who was handling the Altima Hybrid and he let me take that for a spin over the same course as I had driven with the fuel cell vehicle. While I didn't like the Altima as much as I do my Prius, it is a very nice car and will be a strong competitor to the Camry hybrid.
I was quite surprised by the progress that has been made with fuel cell vehicles. The last time I had ridden in one it was noisy and had very limited range. The two I drove at the LA auto show were both quite with smooth acceleration and a comfortable ride. It was not unlike driving a RAV4 EV. Both Nissan and Ford claim that their current generation of fuel cell vehicles have a range of around 300 miles. I tend to be skeptical about such range claims but I know that they won't be too wild so it does look like the range issue has finally been put to bed. There is still a lot of work to do on Fuel Cell vehicles and I still believe that the future lies with battery electric vehicles, but the progress being made is quite encouraging.
I had heard through the Xebra Yahoo group that Keystone was showing their Keystone Flyer at the Westminster Mall. Now, a few weeks ago there had been someone advertising the Keystone Flyer on eBay and were making wild claims about its range and top speed. It turned out that Keystone didn't have cars to sell. I had also heard rumors that people had sent them Money and not received cars in return. I thought I would check them out to see what they had.
After wondering around Westminster Mall for a while I finally found their display just outside the food court on the upper level. They had three cars there, two NEVs and the Flyer. I had a chance to talk briefly with Steve Howard who was quite open about his cars. Of the two NEVs, he told me that the Barlow SX roadster wasn't up to the quality levels he wanted. He was going to give the factory in China one more chance to get the quality right and if they couldn't build an acceptable car he was going to drop the car from his line-up. He also had the more jeep-like Z-Car NEV there and he told me that this was actually well built. He currently has about 15 of these ragtops in stock and they would make a nice cheap entry vehicle for those that want a NEV that looks a little different.
Moving on to the Keystone Flyer, Steve told me that the car still wasn't up to his quality standard and he was thinking of building these in Huntington Beach using Chinese made parts where possible but using US made electrical systems such as controller and batteries. He is also doing a slight re-design on the car and hopes to have the new version available early in 2007. I asked him about the eBay ads and he told me that this was a teacher back east who was hoping to sell some on eBay and then have Keystone ship the cars. Keystone as told this guy to stop and it looks like he has.
I'm not sure that I have full confidence in Keystone so I will keep my ears open on this company, but the fact that Steve was open enough to tell me that some of his cars were coming from China with poor build quality has made me a lot more comfortable about these cars.
Sunday November 26, 2006 - The Case for the Tango - This week I was looking at EV World and came across an article called The Case for the Tango that wrote up a presentation done by Rick Woodbury of Commuta Cars gave to Google Tech about the Tango. Since then Rick sent a link to the full 24 minute video of the talk to the Tango group on Yahoo. For those who would like to view it I included the link in the Media section on the Blog page.
I have met Rick a couple of times and corresponded with him quite a bit and he is one of the most realistic of any EV producer I have talked to in years of researching EVs. The piece about the Tango doesn't pull any punches, he states in his talk that it would take an investment of fifty million dollars to tool up for a production rate of ten thousand cars per year which is the volume he estimates they need to sell the Tango at a price of twenty thousand dollars.
The video contains some great footage of the Tango including two Tangos lane splitting on a Southern California freeway. It is this ability to Lane split that makes the Tango so interesting as a commuter vehicle. Here in Southern California the freeways are choked for a good part of the day. I commute on the 405 Freeway and that is choked twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Now, imagine if the 5 lanes on that freeway suddenly became 10 lanes. That is the power that the Tango has; a significant number of Tangos on the roads could greatly improve the number of cars that can travel the freeways. It can also double the number of parking spaces at the local Mall and since it's the holiday season and cars all over the country are burning huge amounts of fossil fuel as they circle Mall parking lots in search of that elusive parking space, significant numbers of Tangos could increase the number of cars that can park since they can park two to a space or squeeze into that tiny corner where no SUV can venture.
The other big piece of the presentation was about safety. First, the Tango has the roll over threshold of a Porsche 911 which means that it can swerve to avoid accidents, and since it is so narrow it can also get out of the way of an accident into the gap between cars in it's lane and the adjacent lane. The center of gravity of the Tango is only 12.5 inches above the road which gives it this incredible stability.
Another feature of the car is the roll cage that is built to NASCAR standards. A NASCAR race car is built to allow the driver to walk away from a 200 mph crash. Now, NASCAR drivers are killed in crashes sometimes but crashes are common on the race circuit and most of the time the driver survives with only minor injuries. The Tango also includes a four point seatbelt for added safety but doesn't currently come with air bags although in his presentation Rick does say that he is looking at providing these in the future.
The Tango also has exciting performance. With 0-60 in about 4 seconds and a top speed of around 130 mph this car performs on the same sort of level as the Tesla Roadster and the Wrightspeed X1. With the use of lead acid batteries the car offers a range of about 60 miles although it would be much less than that at 130 mph. Commuter Cars is also offering both NiMH and Li battery options that should increase range considerably.
Everyone is getting worked up about the Tesla Roadster but personally I think that the Tango offers so much more for the long term growth of the electric vehicle market. It is the ideal commuter vehicle; a car that can handle the 20 mile each way commute of most people. Most people commute alone so a four seat car isn't really needed as the commuter vehicle but the Tango does offer a second seat for those times when you need to haul a significant other. Of course the Tango isn't going to be for everyone, it especially isn't for those who only own one car, but it will fit for those families that have two, three or more cars in their fleet.
So far, Commuter Cars have only sold one car, a black one that is now being driven by George Clooney. Rick tells me that he is currently finishing work on six more and he expects to deliver them before the end of March, 2007. I hope that he does eventually raise the fifty million dollars he needs to get these cars certified in the USA, Canada and Europe and can tool up to produce 10,000 per year. At twenty thousand dollars per car this car will sell like hotcakes.
Sunday
November 19, 2006 - Carpool Lanes
I was
watching the local 10 o'clock news on KTLA here in LA last Monday night and they
set up a telephone survey, asking who thought the should allow solo drivers in
the carpool lanes for an unspecified fee.
On
Tuesday night they released the results and to my surprise sixty-eight percent
of the respondents thought that this was a good idea.
In
his commentary that night, Respected LA Anchorman Hal Fishman said he thought
this was a really bad idea, it just allowed the rich to buy one more perk.
I
was in total agreement with him up to this point but then he sad something that
totally blew my mind; he called for the elimination of the carpool lanes.
Here,
I think that Mr. Fishman is absolutely wrong.
While the carpool lane is less crowded than the other lanes it actually
caries more people. The purpose of
the carpool lane is to encourage certain beneficial behavior and it works quite
well.
First
it was intended to encourage people to rideshare instead of driving alone.
When I, and the other three people in my carpool travel the carpool lanes
here in
The
carpool lane privilege has also been used to encourage people to buy more
environmentally friendly vehicles. Solo
drivers of electric and natural gas vehicles are allowed in the carpool lanes.
More recently, hybrid vehicles that average more than 45 mpg have also
been allowed in the carpool lane.
The
bottom line is we need to get more people away from commuting alone and carpool
or, better still, utilize public transport.
Carpool lanes, along with an expansion of public transport and car
sharing schemes can really help to conserve fuel and attack the
evils of air pollution, global warming, and oil shortages.
Sunday
November 12, 2006 - The Complete Book of EVs - Over the last
couple of weeks I read a book called “The Complete Book of Electric
Vehicles” by Sheldon R. Shacket. This
book talked about how the major automobile manufacturers had made a few EVs but
weren't interested in opening up a new market.
It
also discussed how the government had provided grants to start demonstration
projects, while a few companies had built prototypes which they were struggling
to bring to market due to the need to meet federal legislation.
In
this book new battery chemistries were showing great promise but current EVs
were still relying on lead acid batteries.
The
author was of the opinion that Electric Vehicles were the wave of the future as
scarce oil resources dwindled. He
also contends that we will ultimately move to a hydrogen bases economy.
His opinion was that the Hydrogen economy was at least 25 years away.
This
may sound familiar but Mr. Shacket's book was published in 1979.
It
seems like nothing much has changed in the last quarter century,
The major automobile manufacturers still aren't interested in building
electric vehicles, commercially
viable fuel cells are still at least 20 years away and the government is still
doling out grants for research projects that go nowhere.
In 1979 we had the Citicar as the only major EV with any sort of
production volume, today we have the ZAP Xebra
and a handful of NEVs.
Back
in 1979, the
It's
time for government at all levels to show leadership.
It's time that they lead by example, putting solar panels on their
buildings, buying renewable electricity, making public charging available, and
most of all, putting BEV and PHEVs into their fleets in big numbers.
We
have to get out of this cycle of studying the problem then ignoring the answer
by chasing hares like the hydrogen economy with more studies and the promise of
a solution at some future date that never comes.
Here's
a thought, at the next election ask the candidates for their position on EVs and
renewable energy. Forget the
negative ads, if the candidate can't support these items then pet you X elsewhere
on the ballot. Most politicians are
very smart people; they will learn quickly.
Sunday
November 5, 2006 - Barriers to EV
production.
I have been tracking the development of electric vehicles for over ten
years and have seen companies come and go. Building
a functional EV is the easy part, the difficulty is moving from prototype to
production.
The
biggest hurdle is often federal regulations that make the production of a modern
automobile, electric or internal combustion, a very expensive proposition.
For
starters there is the huge cost of crash testing.
Crash testing is designed to provide an acceptable level of protection in
a crash. To accomplish this, a car
most be equipped with basic safety equipment such as safety glass wind shields,
turn signals, horn, air bags and seat belts.
In addition the car must behave acceptably in two crash tests, a head on
collision and a side impact test.
Currently
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires two tests.
The front impact test requires the car to be driven into a concrete
barrier at 35 mph. The side impact
test involved crashing a moving trolley weighing 3015 lbs, equivalent to a mid
sized sedan like the Ford Taurus, into the side of the car at 38 mph.
Manufacturers typically run the test, fix any problems then re-do the test until the car passes. This procedure is very costly. Zap, for example, spent around ten million dollars getting the Smart through crash tests and the Smart was already able to handle the front impact test.
Once
the car has been crash tested there is still the huge cost of tooling up to
build in volume. Most start-up vehicles are constructed of fiberglass but
the moulds used are often only good for a few hundred vehicles and moving to
high volume requires cash for better tooling.
Most startups build their prototype and get it working well but then are unable to get funds to complete crash testing. This leaves the option of being a small producer, making less than 100 units per year, or burning through the rest of their cash and folding. Some companies manage to raise enough cash to keep going. Tesla Motors, for example, have managed to raise over sixty million dollars from venture capitalists and should have enough cash to complete crash testing and begin production. Vetrix, who have been working on an electric motorcycle for years and are reputed to have burned through as much as thirty million dollars, look like they are close to launching a viable vehicle.
There
are strategies that can be used to bypass the crash test procedures.
The
first strategy is to use an existing model as a glider and convert it to
electric. As long as the weight can
be kept below the permissible gross vehicle weight there is no need to re-do
crash tests. This is the strategy
used by AC Propulsion for their eBox. The
problem with this option is that most auto manufacturers won't co-operate by
supplying gliders so the company ends up having to buy complete vehicles driving
up costs. Once a model's run is
complete, the source of donor vehicles also dries up.
This is what happened to the Solectria Force. The Force was based on a Geo
Metro and once GM stopped production, production of the Force stopped soon
after.
Another
popular option is to build the vehicle as a three wheeler which is treated as a
motorcycle and doesn't need to be crash tested.
This is the strategy being used by ZAP for the Xebra.
The problem here is that three wheel vehicles are often looked on as
being unstable and, historically, have had limited appeal.
A
third strategy is to market the car as a kit.
This is the strategy used by Commuter cars for its T600.
The problem here is that most people don't want to have to assemble their
vehicle from a kit which limits the car's appeal.
A
final strategy, and probably the most popular, is to take advantage of federal
low speed vehicle legislation by building the car as a NEV.
This strategy is being used by quite a few companies but the top producer
is GEM, now owned by Daimler Chrysler. The
difficulty here is that the 25 mph top speed, and inability to drive on roads
with posted speed limits greater than 35 mph limits use as a commuter car.
What
the
Without
the large sum of money needed for crash testing the company would have more
money available for both development and tooling. Lower up front costs
would mean a better likelihood of reaching production which would attract more
capital investment.
State of fear
- Sunday
October 29, 2006 - I finally got around to reading “State of
Michael
Crichton is one of the worlds biggest opponents of global warming so I thought
it would be worth the read. Crichton
uses the book, to advance the anti-global warming position by having one of the
protagonists counter point raised by naive environmentalists.
It
turns out however, that Crichton doesn't say global warming doesn’t exist, he
just thinks there are other causes than greenhouse gasses.
In the book he gives several arguments for attributing the temperature
increases to land use rather than the increase of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere brought on by industrialization.
Now, the phenomenon that the temperature in large cities can be several
degrees higher than the surrounding countryside has been known for at least
thirty years so it is something worth considering.
Another
of his contentions is that the weather is too complex to predict with our
current models. He points out that
while we can see increases in global temperature over the past several hundred
years, dire predictions of rising sea levels and worldwide droughts are based on
computer models not on real life data. It’s
a prediction so the quality is only as good as the computer model and so far no
computer model has been able to demonstrate accurate weather prediction over
long periods of time.
Now,
it should be understood that State of
The
other idea put forward in the book was the “State of
During the 1950s and 1960s the "State of Fear" was maintained by the Cold War, but after the Berlin wall came down and Russia broke up leaving the USA as the world's only super power, there needed to be something else for the populace to focus on. In his book, Crichton maintains that this has shown up in several areas including a media induced fear of rising crime rates even when we have actually seen crime rates fall, and of course fear of Muslim extremists. We know that the latter was exploited by George Bush in his successful run for a second term as president, and I am seeing the former being pushed by Chuck Poochigan in his race against Jerry Brown to become California's next Attorney General.
Crichton puts the current concern about global warming into this same category, considering it a non-event that is being funded by the government and industry alike to promote the Sate of Fear. My biggest issue with this is that the oil industry has a large influence on the government and has lots of money to spend on research that would debunk global warming but they don't seem to be able too.
For
now, here is my take on the situation.
Global
warming is a phenomenon that has been demonstrated by past data.
I do think that we need to regard the doom and gloom proponents, who
would have us all drowning in the next 20 years.
I remember sitting in a Y2K presentation back in 1998 where the presenter
had elevators stopping at midnight on December 31, 1999 and planes falling out
of the sky. Now, Y2K turned out to
be a bit of a non-event but that was because most companies around the world
took measures to make sure they were ready.
I
look on global warming somewhat the same way.
We need to start reducing our use of fossil fuel sooner rather than
later. It’s not just about GHGs
either, there is also the fact that the supply of fossil fuels in limited, we
have to rely on supplies from areas of the world that are somewhat unstable, and
we know that at least some of our petro-dollars are ending up in the hands of
terrorists.
One
thing that Crichton said surprised me more than anything else, he said that we
will eventually move away from fossil fuels because that is the smart thing to
do. I totally agree.
The only question is which direction we go.
I favor the hybrid to plug in hybrid to electric vehicle backed by lots
of electricity from solar, wind, wave, geothermal and hydro.
Whether
you believe global warming exists or not it is still a good idea to move away
from burning fossil fuels. Even Michael Crichton agrees with me on this
one. I believe that we should be trying to reduce our fossil fuel
footprint as much as possible and electric vehicles will eventually play a major
role in this effort.
Infrastructure - Sunday October 15, 2006 - I just came back from Century City Shopping Center and while I was there I did my periodic check of the three public charging stations. At the time both parking spaces were empty, in fact, I have only seen one EV charging there this year. The chargers were all working and the AVCON charger told me that it had delivered 2016 KWhrs of energy to hungry EVs. It has been saying this for more than six months. The other notable omission is the lack of any 110V receptacle so vehicles like the GEM, ZAP Xebra, or Lepton scooter couldn't get a charge there even if they wanted too.
I have become convinced over the years that the key to making EVs more acceptable and utilitarian is to have plenty of infrastructure. I have had countless arguments with may EV advocates who think that the solution is big range and once you have big range the need for infrastructure goes away. I had the same argument with Greg Hansen about his Plug- in- Prius. I don't seem to get through to them that I might want to plug in my Prius while I am out on the road and that while they are content to go the first 50 miles or so on battery only then spend the rest of the day driving their cars like a standard Prius, some of us aren't.
It is my firm belief that we should be developing chargers that can accept both 110V and 220V input and charge at a variety of currents depending on the source available. This is the approach taken by AC Propulsion and thus will be the approach taken by Tesla Motors. Now, if you drive a Xebra or GEM or an electric scooter you don't have the luxury of 150+ miles of range, you consider yourself lucky to get 20 miles of range. Now, how much more comfortable would you be if you knew that wherever you went, be it the mall or your local Starbucks, you could get a quick charge while you took care of business. If we are going to move to an EV based society rather than an Internal Combustion based society, we will need to make charging available at hotels as well. If you had 150 miles of range you would be able to drive down from Los Angeles to San Diego or up to Santa Barbara for the weekend but you don't have the range to drive back to LA. Now, just plug in at your hotel overnight and you are good for the return trip the following morning.
Just this last week I read an email thread from the Prius 2G group on Yahoo which started with someone declaring that EVs would never be viable because he lived in an apartment and had nowhere to charge. He didn't say that EVs would never be viable to him, he just assumed that if he had nowhere to charge then most other people would be in the same boat. In actuallity, the majority of people do have somewhere to charge but there are a very large minority that don't.
There are millions of people like the above mentioned poster who live in apartment buildings where there is limited or no access to a receptacle for charging. This issue needs to be addressed if we are moving forward into an EV future. The situation in Europe is even worse as most urban dwellers have to park on the street each night since they don't have parking spaces in their town houses or apartment buildings. There is a need to allow people to put receptacles in their parking spaces, and a need for charging on streets in residential neighborhoods.
Now, the last thing that comes to mind is the need for payment. At the moment most public charging, at lease here in California, is free. This is a nice perk for EV drivers but as the PHEV then EV drivers becomes more numerous it is going to be necessary to make public charging access points that can charge you for the volts you consume. At the moment the cost of putting in such a system just wouldn't pay for itself, there just aren't enough EV drivers. In the future though this will become necessary. If they can make a buck, I am sure the utility companies will eventually work something out.
It should also be understood that the biggest cost of putting in public charging isn't the cost of the chargers and it isn't the cost of the electricity, it's the cost in terms of lost revenue from having parking spaces sitting empty waiting for an EV driver to come along and charge. So, instead of charging for the electricity what should be charged for is the parking space.
Here in California we are finding that the existing infrastructure is beginning to erode away as unused chargers are slowly being removed. In my native Britain we have thousands of miles of public footpaths. To keep these footpaths open to the public, an annual walk is organized. Hiking clubs all around Britain set out and walk every single mile of public footpath once each year to make sure they stay open. I have suggested on several occasions that we have a public charging day where every EVer that is able goes to a public charging station and charges, making sure to pass a note along the site owner thanking them for putting the charger in place. So far no local club or group has taken me up on this but I think it could make for a neat display of EVs.
Now, the repository for public charging is evchargernews.com and if you know of publicly available charging sites that are not listed there, please let them know so that they can be included. Ultimately this will do much to speed the adoption of EVs into US lifestyles.