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Past Blogs
The Story of Stuff - Sunday December 30, 2007
Waiver on GHG rules denied by EPA - Sunday December 23. 2007
No More Kurrent - Sunday December 16, 2007
EVS 23 - Sunday December 9, 2007
Th!nk Again - Sunday December 2, 2007
Tango Update - Sunday November 24, 2007
2007 LA Auto Show - Sunday November 18, 2007
Carpooling - Sunday November 11, 2007
Electric Vehicle Delays - Sunday November 4, 2007
Plug in Hybrids V BEVs debate - Sunday October 28, 2007
Santa Monica Alternative Fuel - Sunday October 21, 2007
Faster NEVs - Sunday October 14, 2007
The future is Electric - Sunday October 7, 2007
Fifty-one Worst Cars - Sunday September 30, 2007
eBay - Sunday September 23, 2007
Visit to Electra City Motors - Sunday September 16, 2007
Driving Courteously - Sunday September 9, 2007
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hybrid and Alternative Fuel Vehicles - Sunday September 2, 20007
EV Prospects (part 2) - Sunday August 25, 2007
EV Prospects (part1) - Sunday August 18, 2007
Food and Green House Gases - Sunday August 12, 2007
Toyota Plugs In - Sunday August 5, 2007
Pasadena Clean Air Car Show - Sunday July 29, 2007
GM's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Trial - Sunday July 22, 2007
Public Transport - Sunday July 15, 2007
Station Cars - Sunday July 8, 2007
Dust to Dust - Sunday July 1, 2007
New CAFE Standards - Sunday June 24, 2007
The Complete Idiots Guide to Motor Scooters - Sunday 17 June, 2006
Negative Publicity - Sunday June 10, 2007
The Car That Could - Sunday June 3, 2007
Site Visits - Sunday May 27, 2007
Buying Used EVs - Sunday May 20, 2007
Electric Bikes - Sunday May 13, 2007
Sky High Gas Prices - Sunday May 6, 2007
The Carb ZEV Report - Sunday April 29, 2007
Insurance woes - Sunday April 22, 2007
NEV Friendly - Sunday April 15, 2007
Supreme Court Rules - Sunday April 8, 2007
Discord in the Ranks - Sunday April 1, 2007
The Hype About Hydrogen – Sunday March 25, 2007
It's all about Numbers - Sunday March 18, 2007
Europe ’s EV revival - Sunday March 11, 2007
Phoenix Rising - Sunday 4 March, 2007
Future Car - Sunday February 25, 2007
News Rants and Raves - Sunday February 18, 2007
Fast Charging v Battery Swap - Sunday February 11, 2007
United Nation's Study on Climate Change - Sunday, 4 February 4 2007
State of the
Range Myths and Realities - Sunday, January 21, 2007
Plug-In Hybrids - Sunday January 14, 2007
Reducing CO2 - Sunday January 5, 2007
Sunday December 30, 2007 - The Story of Stuff - Another year has almost gone and it's time to begin making New Years resolutions. Doug Kerr sent me an interesting web site called The Story of Stuff which provides some interesting things to think about and some actions that would make excellent new years resolutions.
The Story of Stuff web site contains an interesting flash presentation where Annie Leonard walks us through the cycle of Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Disposal that shows how all the stuff that we got this Christmas came into being. She points out the major flaw in our current lifestyle; that we need to keep consuming more and more to maintain our way of life and that the "stuff" we consume is mostly thrown away within six months so we can consume more.
The presentation does lay it on pretty think and it does miss out on some of the things that are already happening such as recycling, but it also highlights that if we continue to grow at the current rate we will exhaust the earths resources within a few generations. The presentation calls on us to find a better way. The web site also has some tips on starting down that road to a better way.
One such tip is to recycle, an obvious thing we can all do without much effort. Another thing is to buy locally produced seasonal items as this cuts down on the energy costs needed to get the articles to market. This can be as easy to follow as a trip to your local Farmers Market.
Energy consumption is one of the big entries. Changing light bulbs to energy efficient bulbs is an easy way to cut energy usage. Annie also suggests that we do more radical things like turning off lights, TV and Computer when they aren't needed. She also suggests that we get out into the neighborhood and interact with friends and family instead of sitting at home watching TV. Driving less is another way to use less energy. Walking to the local store not only provides you with exercise it keeps you from running your car for a short distance with a cold engine where the exhaust produces lots more pollution than when the engine is warmed up.
We also need to waste less. This can be as simple as taking your own travel mug to the local coffee shop instead of getting a Styrofoam cup, or when the guy at the supermarket says "paper or plastic" whipping out a canvas bag and saying neither.
Annie also advocates taking action with your local politicians to try and improve the situation. For example, if your local city doesn't have an adequate recycling program then get in the face of your local council to get on the ball.
In the end, we need to move away from our current cycle of population growth and consumption and move toward a new steady state that allows us to create a sustainable living model that will hand over a world worth living in to future generations. We need to do this with caution however. We are deeply entrenched in our current model that requires that the GNP keeps growing year after year or the whole economy crumbles, people get thrown out of work, and economists tell us we are in a recession. We need to design a new economic model that will allow us to get to a sustainable lifestyle without plunging the world into chaos.
So when you make your new year's resolutions come January 1, make at least one resolution to cut energy use, recycle, or make your life more sustainable in some way. My objective for 2008 is to use less gasoline than I did in 2007.
Sunday December 23. 2007 - Waiver on GHG rules denied by EPA - This week, for the first time, the EPA refused to grant a waiver to the state of California to set its own rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
It looked like everything was finally starting to come together. First, a Federal Judge ruled that California had the right to set rules of Green House Gas emissions, then Congress passed and President Bush signed into law H.R. 6, The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. This act increased CAFE standards for cars and light trucks for the first time in since 1975.
It appears that this was done, at least in part, to try and stop California from setting its own, more stringent rules, which would have force the auto makers to make cars even more fuel efficient even quicker.
Pointing to the Energy Bill signed earlier this week, Stephen L. Johnson said "The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution, not a confusing patchwork of state rules," He seems to have forgotten that the states have always had the choice of following the Federal Law or adopting California's stricter law. That would mean 17 states would follow California's law while the rest followed the Federal law, hardly a patchwork.
The EPA put off a decision for two years then came out with a ruling only days after the Energy Bill was signed into law. Clearly they were looking at ways to deny California its right to control its environment. It has proved once again that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to be renamed the Corporate Protection Agency.
Meanwhile, the denial has brought about a furor of protest. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger accused the EPA of "Standing in our Way" and vowed to "sue to overturn today's decision and allow Californians to protect our environment". Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, promised to launch an investigation into how the decision was released. California Senator Barbara Boxer called the decision "disgraceful".
The only people who seemed pleased about the denial of the waiver were the Association of Automobile Manufacturers who now only have to deal with an increase of Corporate Average Fuel Economy to 35mpg by 2020 not a 30% reduction in tailpipe emissions, which translates to about 36mpg by 2016
The new energy bill is going to tighten fuel consumption standards for automobiles and will help the US Auto industry keep competitive but it doesn't go far enough. The US Auto Manufacturers don't have to do anything until 2011 when the CAFE standard will begin to rise. It will then rise slowly each year until 2020 when the fleet average will have to be 35mpg. There is also some provisions that will phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2014 and provides some money to develop geothermal energy. Of course there is a lot more money to develop ethanol.
So, what are California's options. The first thing that you are going to see is a lawsuit between California and the EPA to try and get the decision overturned. I think that there is also going to be a lot of pressure from the California members of Congress and the Senate but I don't know if they will be able to drum up enough support from representatives from states outside of California to make any difference.
California is currently reviewing its Zero Emission Mandate. It has become clear that the auto manufacturers are not going to be able to deliver hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in anything like the volumes they promised at the last review. Since California cannot regulate tailpipe emissions via its Green House Gas initiative it may just choose not to weaken the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate forcing the automobile manufactures to begin making electric vehicles again to meet this commitment. Finally, California can bring in a carbon based tax on vehicles making high consuming vehicles more expensive and diverting the money toward carbon reducing technologies.
In the end, we are all losers because of the EPA decision. I think that this might come back to haunt the Republican party in the next elections as voters look on them as the party that tried to prevent action on Global Warming. We can only hope that under pressure from Congress and the American people the EPA will do the right thing and reverse this decision.
Sunday December 16, 2007 - No More Kurrent - Over the last three weeks we have has some exciting news to report what with Commuter Cars getting set to deliver Tango number 2 and Th!nk Nordic starting up their production line. This week I got some news that somewhat put a damper on the situation as I found out that American Electric had ceased operations.
American Electric was one of a number of companies that distribute NEVs in the USA. In this case they were selling a version of the Italian build Start Lab open as the Kurrent.
The Start Lab has appeared under several names over the years. ZAP was the first company to import these micro cars into the US as the ZAP L.U.V Intimidator. Last year I spoke with Gary Star at ZAP about this NEV and he told me that the fall in the dollar had made it uneconomical for ZAP to continue to import them.
Along came American Electric who started to import them again, this time selling them under the name Kurrent. Their plan was to eventually build the car here in the US. They got the car on sale and had started to build a dealer network. Earlier this year they moved into a larger facility and looked like they were going to take off. Then, suddenly, I got an email from one of their dealers saying that they had shut down operations. This was also confirmed by a second dealer.
The cause of the shut down isn't known at the this time and one dealer told me that American Electric had lost the rights to the Start Lab and were shutting down until they had another NEV to sell. Another dealer told me that they existing Kurrent owners would be left without warranty coverage which doesn't sound like American Electric will be coming back.
The NEV market in the US is a very competitive one. Chrysler's GEM division has an 80% market share and the other dozen or so manufacturers have to scramble for the remaining 20%. Still, there are quite a few companies that have managed to build a good business around NEVs and the market in general appears to be flourishing.
The Start Lab Open is quite capable of speeds faster than 25mph and in the UK, where Electric Vehicles are exempt from London's congestion charges, I hear that the car is selling well under the brand name Electtrica. This week I also received word that the car is being sold in Japan, this time under the brand name Girasole.
In unrelated news, the Aixam factory in France that produces the Mega line of micro car trucks, currently being sold in Europe under the Nice Mega brand, burned down in the early morning of December 1, 2007. Here in the US, Columbia Par Car had just started selling these trucks as a NEV.
I understand that Aixam has already leased some new factory space and is working to get the production line back up and running.
It is always sad to see an EV manufacture go out of business but the automobile market is littered with companies that showed promise but eventually faded away. Still, the day of the electric car is coming and strong companies with good products will survive and prosper.
Sunday December 9, 2007 - EVS 23 - Last week the Electric Drive Transportation Association held its twenty-third electric vehicle symposium in Anaheim, CA. On Sunday December 2 the conference opened with a public day so my wife Aggie and I went along.
We
timed our drive to Anaheim so that we would arrive at 11am, just as they were
opening the doors. Traffic was pretty light for Southern California so we
arrived right on time. After parking the car we went over to the ticket
booth and joined the a queue of about thirty people. As I joined the line
I saw Bill Moore from EV World and had a chance to say hello. For some
unknown reason the people selling the tickets were working like snails. It
actually took us 40 minutes to get to the front of the line. By the time
we got to buy our tickets the line strung out all the way down the hall.
Fortunately they brought out some more people and got the line moving faster.
We went into the hall and I did a brief stop at the Electrifying Times stand to say high to Remy Chevalier who was going to come out from Connecticut for the event. He didn't make it as he was busy fighting the restart of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. I did get to see Editor in Chief Bruce Melland and pick up a copy of the latest issue of ET along with the LA Special Edition that includes my interview with Reverend Gadget.
From there we went outside to try and get to the ride and drives before it got too busy. My first target was a drive in the Phoenix SUT but there was pretty long line and Phoenix only had one truck running so I had to wait for another half hour before I got to drive it. You can read my write-up here. While on the drive Bryon Bliss from Phoenix told me that they are currently working on version two of their vehicle which would include a new motor. He couldn't give out details of the motor at the moment but he did say that it would have almost twice the horse power of the current motor. He also told me that the new motor would require that they re-do two of the crash test sequences. Also, they still haven't received CARB certification because of an issue with the charging connector but they are still on track for fleet deliveries around the end of first quarter of 2008 with the consumer version still set for 2009.
When I was done with my all too brief drive of the Phoenix SUT it was already time for Lunch so we went into the convention hall to grab a bite. Aggie is quite a finicky eater and didn't like anything on the menu. We decided to step across the way and have lunch in the Hilton. After a refuel we went back to the ride and drive to try out a couple more vehicles.
When we got back to the test track I found that the Columbia Par Car vehicle was available immediately. I went over to get a test ride. The Mega is a truck that is built in France and only seated two people. Aggie was happy to sit this ride out while I took the NEV for a spin. The Par Car Mega is really targeted as a work truck and is available in both left and right had drive. The car had a lot of rattles and the usual rough ride I have come to expect for NEVs. Still, it was a fun little truck to ride around in. You can read my write-up here. I did find out that the Par Car Mega has just gone on Sale here in the US. The current vehicles are built in France but production will be shifted to the Columbia plant in Wisconsin in 2008.
Next I wanted to check out the Miles NEV. We went over to the Miles stand and found that I was first in line. Miles had both the ZX40s fully enclosed NEV and their ZX40ST NEV Truck. I wanted to drive the ZX40s and only had a few minutes to wait until the car pulled in from the test circuit. The two people in the NEV were from Mexico and were looking to distribute the NEV in their country. They spent about ten minutes looking around at the car while Aggie and I cooled our heals. Finally I was able to hop in and take a drive. You can read my write-up here. I came away really impressed with the Miles which rode much more like a car than any other NEV I have driven. On the way back I asked about progress on the freeway capable car. to be called the XS500. I was happy to hear that Miles is pursuing crash testing but they are estimating a cost of six million dollars which I think is very low.
We
decided it was time to go back into the main hall and take a look around at the
various exhibits. One thing I noticed was that there appeared to be at
least three electric Smart Vehicles on display. The first one turned out
to be a Chinese made Smart clone being sold by Revolution Electric Cars in San
Luis Obispo, CA. This car appears to be the same car that is being sold
under the Flybo and Sparky EV names. The stand was really busy so I wasn't
able to do more than grab a flyer and move on.
The other two Smart vehicle really were Smart for Two cars with electric drive. The first one was at the Daimler stand and is one of the electric Smarts that are undergoing testing with various fleets in the UK. The second one was from UK EV drive train developer Zytek. Zytek were the company that actually designed the electric power train for the Daimler vehicle. Both of these cars were connected to a charging tower that was a tall thin column with a cable that can be attached to the car. I understand that these types of charging stations are currently being installed around London.
The Daimler stand also had a display of the 10 year anniversary edition of the GEM. The cars come in a light blue color that I really like and are also fitted out with leather seats and other goodies. I learned that the blue color is only going to be available on the limited run anniversary edition cars which is a pity because it is a very nice color.
The British have always been a leader in electric delivery vehicles with the lowly but hard working Milk Float. At one time there were over 100,000 milk floats silently plying the streets of Britain in the early hours of the morning. One of the biggest makers of Milk Floats was Smiths Electric Vehicles and now they are turning their expertise to electric delivery trucks for the US market. On display was their huge Newton delivery vehicle which they are building in small quantities in the US but plan to expand production to over 10,000 per year.
Another British delivery vehicle on display was the Modec. This is quite a bit smaller than the Newton but it is still a decent sized delivery vehicle that should sell well in the UK where congestion charges make electric transportation quite cost effective.
EAE
de Mexico showed a nice Nisan Sentra that they are converting to electric
power. The cars will be available for lease in Mexico city.
Two wheel transportation was represented by the Vectrix and the EVT line of scooters. Since I have seen both of these on several occasions I didn't spend much more than a passing glance at either of these two stands. The Enertia from Brammo was also on display. The Enertia was a bigger bike than it looked in pictures. Being short I really think I would have a problem riding the Enertia. I doubt that I could comfortably hold the bike up with both feet on the ground. If you are considering the Enertia and have short legs I recommend that you try it out before buying.
Ronaele was another stand that proved very interesting. They are about to introduce all electric versions of the Ford Mustang. They will have a 300hp version and a 600 hp version both with 110V and 220V charging capability. The 600EV will have a range of about 125 miles and the 300EV should have a range of about 160 miles per charge. The mustang is the quintessential American muscle car and an electric version should give it a whole new level of performance. Now, if only they had a convertible.
Tesla also had a nice blue roadster on display. I am pretty sure that this was the same car that I missed when they had it on display at the LA Auto Show. Tesla seems to be going through a bit of an upheaval now as they move from development to production but hopefully we will start to see cars coming off the production line soon.
At Southern California Edison stand and they has a couple of interesting vehicles on display. One was a plastic bodies "Vehicle of the Future" that looked like an oversized Tonka Toy, and the other was the first of the Ford Escape plug-in hybrids. The Escape Plug-in looks like the latest version of the Escape Hybrid but has a second fuel hatch that conceals a connector for the charger cable. Edison will be conducting extensive fleet trials with the Plug-in Escape hybrid and hopefully we will be seeing them at your local Ford dealer in the near future.
On the way out of the hall we bumped into my friend, and RAV4 EV driver, David Sheldon David is going to be one of the first drivers to get a month driving the Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell vehicle as part of GM's Project Driveway. Hopefully I will have more to say about David's experience with the fuel cell vehicle in later blogs.
This is the second EVS event I have attended and this one didn't seem as well organized as the EVS 20 in Long Beach. Still there is plenty here to be hopeful for as more and more electric vehicles start to come into the market. Better batteries are also becoming production ready and if we can start to get volume up then prices will come into line with ICE vehicles and everyone will be able to get an electric vehicle.
Sunday December 2, 2007 - Th!nk Again - November has been a pretty good month for Electric Vehicles. Last week we heard about Commuter Cars starting delivery of the Tango again. This week there is more good news but this time from Norway.
Th!nk is rising again. Earlier this week I received an email to let me know that Th!nk has started up its production line at their Factory in Aurskog, Norway. The first cars are now rolling down the production line and will be used for durability testing. Th!nk appear to be on target to start delivering vehicles around the end of March, 2008 and should be able to produce about 3500 car per year running one shift with the ability to go to two shifts if demand warrants.
Th!nk has had an interesting history. The company was founded in 1991 as Pivco and produced a car called the City Bee. The City Bee was brought over to the US under waiver of DOT certification rules and used in a station car demonstration project in the San Francisco bay area. The cars stayed in the US for three years but were then returned to Norway and were crushed.
Pivco then developed their second generation car, the Th!nk City. Then, like many EV companies before them, funds ran out. At the time Ford were looking for ways to comply with the California ZEV mandate and Th!nk looked like a good candidate so Ford bought them in 1999 renaming the company to Th!nk Nordic.
Ford began selling a NEV produced in the US under the Th!nk name but also brought over the Th!nk City, again under waiver, and began leasing them in California and as part of a station car project in New York state. Over 1000 cars were produced, more than half of them being sent to the US.
In 2003, after California had backed down from the ZEV mandate, Ford, who had by this time developed a third generation City car that complied with US crash test regulations, dropped Th!nk. The company was put up for sale and was purchased by Swiss based KamKorp Microelectronics. When the leases ended on the US Th!nk Neighbors they were collected up by Ford to be crushed, That's when Dontcrush.com (now Plug-in America) came into the picture. They began to organize demonstrations at Ford Dealerships to stop crushing both the Ford Ranger EV and the Th!nk City. Green Peace also got in the act and organized international demonstrations including ones in Norway. Unlike GM, Ford did the right thing and stopped crushing the cars. The Th!nk Cities couldn't be kept in the US because of the waiver regulations, but Ford agreed to return them to Norway were they were refurbished and sold.
KamKorp, who also owned Fraizer-Nash, the British NEV manufacturer, stopped development on the City and concentrated on developing vehicles designed by Fraizer-Nash. Once again funds ran out and it looked like the end for Th!nk. Once again Th!nk was rescued, this time by a group called InSpire lead by Jan Otto Ringdal who was one of the original founders of Pivco.
InSpire went back to development of the Th!nk City, replacing the NiCAD batteries with Zebra batteries to give the car better range. Now, the production line is starting up again. It is currently projected that cars will start selling in Norway around the end of March next year and should go on sale in the UK, taking advantage of the demand for electric vehicles that is being driven by London's congestion charge, by the middle of 2008. Plans also call for Th!nk to begin selling the City in the US but this is unlikely to happen before 2009.
Sunday November 24, 2007 - Tango Update - This big news during the past week is that Commuter Cars is getting ready to deliver a second Tango to a customer.
Rick Woodbury sent out an email to the Tango group on ebay that they were going to show the blue Tango T600 at the San Francisco Auto show which started on November 22 and runs through December 2. Shroty after the close of the show the Tango will be being delivered to Google senior software engineer Jorg Brown.
For those of us that have been following Commuter Cars through the years this is stellar news.
It seems like a long time since Rick and Bryan Woodbury first built their prototype Tango up in Seattle. The first prototype has been around since at least 2001. I had a chance to meet Rick and take a look at the Tango back a the 2004 and I was very impressed with both. The Tango is a narrow two seat electric vehicle with an ingenious tandem seating arrangement that leaves lots of leg room in what looks like a very small space.
The car is designed to fit two in a standard twelve foot lane so that in states where it is legal, like California, the Tango can lane split like a motorcycle. It is also short enough to be able to park perpendicular to the curb and still fit in a regulation parking spot.
It is no slouch either. The Tango can go 0-60 in about 4 seconds and top out at 120mph. For safety the car is fitted with an Indy car style roll cage and has the batteries mounted to keep the center of gravity low making it very stable while cornering.
In 2005 Commuter Cars set up a contact with British company Prodrive to do the actual manufacturing of the tango. They built a black Tango which was delivered to Academy Award winning actor George Clooney. However, after building the first car Prodrive wanted to charge a lot more to build subsequent cars so the Woodburys decided to sever the relationship, buy up the equipment, and bring production back to Seattle.
Since 2005 Commuter Cars have struggled to get the financing they needed to go into production. They have been in the classic chicken and egg situation, to attract the fifty million dollars they need to build an $18,000 version of the Tango they need to sell cars, but to sell cars they need to have the funding.
During this period George Clooney had also been driving his car and, as you would expect from production vehicle number 1, problems did apparently emerge. The result of this was a redesign of the chassis along with a few other tweaks.
However, Commuter Cars did get several people, best as I can tell about 10, to commit enough money to be able to buy the parts required to build their cars. Late last year the company began to set up for production, basically hand building the first group of ten vehicles which will sell for around $108,000. They also have some investors beginning to take note of this company and more sales will undoubtedly help them secure funding.
It has taken them over two years to from delivering Tango number 1 to delivering Tango number 2 but I understand that the they have 9 additional vehicles under construction so future deliveries should come more quickly.
The Tango is an excellent commuter vehicle and if they really can start building them to sell in the sub $20,000 range then Commuter cars should be one to watch.
Sunday November 18, 2007 - 2007 LA Auto Show - This week I attended the first of the media days for the 2007 Los Angeles International Auto Show. My full write-up will be published in EV World but I thought I would use my blog to give some of my impressions.
This
year can almost be called the year of the hybrid, or at least the year of the US
hybrid since both GM and Chrysler announced that they would be producing full
sized SUVs using their jointly developed "Dual Mode" hybrid system
which, like the Prius, allows the vehicle to run for short periods on
electricity alone but still gets all its energy from gas. Porsche also
announce that they would be selling a hybrid version of the Cayenne and are
working on a four door sedan that would also be offered with a hybrid option.
It appears that the US manufacturers are seeing the hybrid system as a way to continue to capitalize on gigantic SUVs but it also appears that they have finally gotten the message that they need to start producing smaller more fuel efficient vehicles. Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, told the gathering that Ford is moving towards building lighter, more aerodynamic vehicles using advance materials like titanium and carbon fiber composites. Mulally, who originally came from Boeing, knows that weight is important for fuel economy and Ford finally appears to be heading in the right direction.
Both Toyota and Ford are working on plug-in hybrids and they are both setting up test programs here in California. This week Toyota delivered two factory build plug-in Priuses, one to UC Berkley and the other to UC Irvine for evaluation. Ford also announced that they would deliver some plug-in hybrids to Southern California Edison by the end of the year.
Fuel
Cells were also back in the spotlight as Honda showed their Clarity fuel cell
vehicle and announced that they would be leasing a limited number of these cars
in Southern California starting in mid 2008. There was no indication of
how many they would lease but the lease costs would be $600 per month for a 36
month lease which would include all maintenance and insurance. To qualify
for one of these vehicles you have to live near one of the three public Hydrogen
fueling stations in the area, Santa Monica, Irvine or Los Angeles.
The whole lease thing reminds me of the situation with the EV1 and EV+ both of which were lease only. Anyone who saw "Who Killed the Electric Car" knows that the EV1s were taken away and crushed. This also happened to some of the EV+ drivers as well but for the most part Honda renewed leases on these cars as long as they didn't need expensive repairs. Honda currently have three families, one of which is Terry Tamminen, advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger on Energy issues, who lease the current FCX fuel cell vehicle. I can only assume that they will get a chance to trade in their FCX on a Clarity.
VW also showed a plug-in hybrid concept called the Space-up Blue that has a 60 mile range on batteries which is extended to 200 miles using a fuel cell stack. They said they would produce the Space-up Blue by 2010 but would use a diesel engine instead of the fuel cell as a range extender.
Speaking
of Diesel, VW have finally managed to make their Jetta TDI clean enough to pass
California's strict emission standards and will should be seeing the car in
showrooms by the middle of 2008. This is good news for the Bio-Diesel
crowed since new diesel vehicles haven't been available in California for
several years.
Under the category "what were they thinking!" Green Car Journal chose as its green car of the year none other than the Chevrolet Silverado dual mode hybrid. They chose the gas guzzling pick-up over the Nisan Altima hybrid and even had the Chevy Malibu mild hybrid as one of the finalists. I know that increasing the mpg of large trucks cuts gas consumption by a relatively large amount but so far we have seen that hybrid buyers are shying away from large trucks and are looking for high fuel economy. It seems like the Green Car Journal favors US companies over their foreign competition.
Smart had a display of four vehicles outside the West Hall and it appears that we may finally see the Smart being sold in the USA. Mercedes Benz does seem to be dragging its feet in getting the Smart into stores but setting up a new dealer network takes time. Word on the street is that the Smart Fortwo should be arriving in showrooms early in 2008.
Finally,
for the history buffs among us, Porsche has the Lohner Porsche on display.
This historic vehicle is an all electric car designed by Ferdinand Porsche and
was the first vehicle to carry the Porsche name. It dates from around 1900
and is distinguished as being the first electric vehicle to use hub
motors. Porsche went on to design a plug-in hybrid in 1901.
This year's LA Auto show indicates that the Automobile industry is starting to get off its collective butts and is moving towards a more sustainable future. They are moving along at a snails pace but that's what you expect from an industry that has over 100 years invested in the current technology. Where are the plug-in hybrids? Where are the hybrid minivans? Where are the 80mpg hybrid subcompacts? The next ten years will be make or break for the automobile industry. They are at the point now that the makers of steam locomotives were about 60 years ago, of the horse drawn carriage companies were 110 years ago. New technology is emerging and the longer that the car companies stick to their old ways the more likely it is that an upstart like Tesla or Phoenix or Miles or ZAP will emerge to eat their lunch.
Sunday November 11, 2007 - Carpooling - On Friday, I drove to work alone for the first time in a very long time. My Prius has the California clean air decals so I can drive alone in the carpool lane and that does help a bit, but I still prefer to carpool if I can.
The reason I was driving alone is that one of our carpoolers found a new job nearer to home and Thursday was here last day traveling with us, while my other two rideshare partners were both taking the day off.
This week oil prices got very close to the one hundred dollars a barrel level and gas prices seem to be jumping up daily. I filled up at Costco one day and gas was sitting at $3.12 per gallon. Jerry was driving the following day and also had to stop at Costco to refuel and he paid $3.17 per gallon. When gas prices are so high and commuting distances are so far, it really pays to carpool.
There has been a lot of talk in political circles around Los Angeles about the growing problems with gridlock. I see that first hand almost every day when the 405 turns into a parking lot each evening as you approach the 90 freeway. Over the years we have developed strategies for getting around this gridlock and it paid out big time this week when a truck carrying a crane collided with an overpass and blocked most of the 405 in both directions for most of the day. The resulting back-up must have wasted thousands of gallons of gas.
The traffic in LA is so near the edge that even a slight hick-up in the system can cause delays. For most of this weak the traffic light at Pico and Motor has been set for incorrect timing of traffic flow. The result was a half mile tail back from the intersection and three to four changes of the traffic light just to get through to the next block.
Los Angeles, of course, has struggled for many years with one of the poorest public transport systems in the country. With the advent of light rail, the subway, and Bus Rapid Transit, things have improved somewhat, but the culture of driving everywhere still pervades society.
I often hear complaints from Prius drivers who only get around 35 mpg and when you dig a little deeper you find that they invariably have a very short commute, usually less than 3 miles. The Prius uses extra gas until it gets its catalytic converter warmed up which usually takes about five minutes and by that time you have already gone most of a 3 mile commute. You have to wonder why these people are getting out the Prius to drive just 3 miles, why not bike, take a bus, or use even drive a NEV which would easily handle a six mile daily round trip. I can only assume that they don't like exercise, don't have a public transport option.
It strikes me that we need to fix the public transit issues, but this is going to take a lot of time. We need to find ways to get more people to carpool. In our carpool we now have three regular people and two others who ride with us occasionally. This takes two to three cars off the freeway. It's pretty easy to see that this also saves a lot of gas. Now, if we could just get a few thousand more carpools going we could get the freeways moving and everyone wins.
I know that there are many cities around the country that face similar problems to those in Los Angeles. Carpools can help there too. This is going to get increasingly important as we now appear to be very close, or actually at, peak oil. There are now several high profile oil men who are saying this, including T. Boone Pickens who thinks that we have already peaked, and Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total who said that peak oil may be "just a few years away". Meanwhile a new report by the German based Energy Watch Group stated that world oil production peaked in 2006.
It is going to take a long time to get more efficient cars on the road, ones that don't require that we sustain the current level of oil production. Carpooling is one way to help cut our dependence on foreign oil.
Staring a carpool is easier than you might think. Many larger companies now have electronic bulletin boards where employees can place ads. I used the one at the company where I worked to advertise for carpool partners. It only took a short time before someone answered my ad and we had a carpool of two. People have come and gone from the carpool ever since, but there hasn't been a time when I haven't had a least one other person to carpool with since then, and that has been over six years. There are also lots of resources, like eRideshare.com that provide places to find rideshare partners. Even a postcard on a board like the one they have at our local Whole Foods can produce results.
Sunday November 4, 2007 - Electric Vehicle Delays - The big vehicle manufacturers have all been talking about electric vehicles being the way of the future "but battery technology isn't ready", so it is interesting to see that several potential electric vehicle manufacturers have all been delaying shipment and in some cases it has been the batteries, but not in the way yoiu would expect.
First of all it was Tesla, who have delayed shipment of the first production roadster until early 2008. The reason for this appears to be caused by reliability issues with the transmission. This did have a domino effect.
Th!nk Nordic, who were originally going to ship cars using Zebra batteries, signed a battery deal earlier this year with Tesla. Now, Tesla has informed Th!nk that they are going to concentrate on getting the roadster ready for production and will not be supplying them with batteries after all. This I think is a mistake on Tesla's part since setting up an income stream and getting the Thailand factory working would have helped them build the business. Tesla's action left Th!nk scrambling to find a new battery supplier and they have been talking to several companies including A123. They have also announced that they are delaying the launch of their cars until March 2008.
Another company that has delayed launch until 2008 is Phoenix. I still suspect that a lot of this delay is a wait and see on CARB's next review of the ZEV mandate because their business plan is so dependent on selling ZEV credits. I was really surprised to see that they didn't exhibit at the Santa Monica Alternative Fuel and Transportation Expo this year since this is one of the largest gatherings of electric vehicle manufacturers on the west coast and it was right on their back doorstep. I have also yet to test drive the Phoenix SUT.
Commuter Cars up in Seattle is another company that has delayed shipping their next car. I have heard rumors that they have been having trouble with the first car that they sold to George Clooney and I was told by Rick Woodbury that they had done some re-design. They have also followed other companies and moved on from Lead Acid Batteries and now offer both NiMH and Lithium. The have been telling me for the last six months that the next ten cars are being built but they don't seem to be getting close to completing any of them. I hope that they too can start delivering to those cars in 2008.
I also reported last week that Universal Electric Vehicle have also delayed moving to production on their Electrum Spyder. Their issue is that they still haven't been able to attract the kind of funding that they need to build production versions of the sports car, or continue development of the three wheel vehicle they have also been talking about for the last few years. I even went so far as to move their listing from the Full Sized EV page and placed them back on EV Watch. They are going to try to go the AC Propulsion route and start a sponsorship program. They should be announcing details on their web site soon.
I must say this all makes me pretty disappointed. Right now gas prices are climbing and there are lots of people looking for alternatives to ICE vehicles. EV options are still pretty thin on the ground. There are plenty of opportunities to buy a NEV or a "Vespa Style" electric scooter. There are a few Chinese made three wheel electric vehicles around but most of them are either scams or not really DOT certified. Only the ZAP Xebra, or the ACP eBox. are real option right now if you want an EV that does more than 25 mph (35mph if you live in MT or WA).
I only hope that 2008 brings a change of circumstance to all the budding EV manufacturers.
Sunday October 28, 2007 - Plug in Hybrids V BEVs debate - In a Wall Street Journal Article this week, Norihiko Shirouzu reported that Honda would not be pursuing plug-in hybrids saying that they would be better off using lithium batteries to produce battery electric vehicles.
Honda, along with Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, and Nissan parent company Renault, are soundly in the battery electric vehicle camp. Subaru, in fact, is planning on producing a BEV for sale in Japan, and possibly the USA, by 2010. Other automakers, led by Toyota, GM and Ford, have set their sights on plug-in hybrids as the next step forward. Both parties, however, stubbornly cling to the notion that we need better batteries even though perfectly good batteries, in the form of Panasonic NiMH and Altair Nano Lithium batteries have both been demonstrated to totally adequate for electric vehicles.
The Germans companies VW and Mercedes Benz still appear to be hanging their hat on diesel.
All of these companies need to move forward to build cars that greatly reduce the amount of oil that we use. Legendary oil man, T Boone Pickens, in a recent interview on NPR, when asked when he thought peak oil would arrive answered that peak oil was already here. He said that production was now at 82 million barrels a day and that the demand now exceeded supply. He went on to say that he had stopped wildcatting because there was no longer the big finds of oil that made the expense worth while.
Now, if T Boone Pickens thinks that we are at a peak in world oil production it is time to sit up and take notice. We have to get our oil consumption down and the debate is do we do this with plug-in hybrids or battery electric vehicles.
The debate is simple, plug-in hybrids allow us to do most of our driving on battery, but if we want to do a long drive we have the gas engine to basically extend our range to allow us to drive anywhere we could drive with a regular ICE. There is a premium that we pay for this and the payback is in lower fuel charges over the life of the vehicle as we drive more electric miles and use less gas. Battery electric vehicles mean we drive electric all the time, with zero pollution out of the tail pipe and emissions getting cleaner as we clean up the power grid.
Battery electric vehicles cost more than gas vehicles or plug-in hybrids because at the moment large capacity advanced chemistry batteries are very costly. The cost is somewhat recovered because of lower fuel bills over the life of the car but not enough to break even when compared to a regular gas car. This should change as larger volume manufacture brings costs down.
It is my opinion that there is actually room for both plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles in the short term although long term we are going to need to go fully electric. The big issue here is cost and battery life. We now have a couple of battery chemistries that allow the car manufacturers to build cars where the batteries will last the life of the car, or at least the 10 years, 150,000 miles average life of a modern car. There are already RAV4 EVs that have in excess of 120,000 miles on them and the Altair Nano batteries are rated for 15,000 cycles which, at 100 miles per charge, would give a battery life of 1.5 million miles. The big issue now is cost.
Both Li and NiMH batteries are horrendously expensive. This provides a major barrier to there use in cars. When a battery pack costs $12,000 there is just no way that you can recoup that amount of money by fuel savings when you look at a fuel efficient car like the Prius. The battery pack above would cost about eight cents per mile over a 150,000 mile life while the fuel costs of the Prius would be about seven cents per mile. Of course, that assumes the price of gas stays at $3.00 per gallon but we know that isn't going to be the case but cost of electricity has also been rising.
What we need is to get the cost of advanced batteries down closer to the cost of lead acid and that means volume. Now, we aren't going to get that volume by selling 500 Phoenix SUTs or Tesla Roadsters, we need to get to around 10,000 vehicles per year so that the manufacturer can justify setting up production lines for the large format batteries.
I personally think that the best option for this is a relatively low range Plug-in Hybrid. Starting with an all electric range of just 10 miles would work for many people and, if the car was attractive enough it would be able to sell in at least a ten to twenty thousand units per year range. The danger with such a low range Plug-in is that people wouldn't bother plugging in and would just drive it like a regular hybrid. I think that most of the early adopters however would want to plug in and would find that they prefer to drive in all electric mode. This would lead to the other possible problem, people charging during the peak demand times because they want to keep driving all electric.
While volume sales of the plug-in hybrid will be used to drive down costs, introducing all electric cars will help to keep development on the right track and will provide options for those who want to drive all electric while at the same time moving the dealerships toward supporting a very different kind of vehicle fleet.
Now, I also think that bio-fuels have a place in the grand scheme of things. Bio-Diesel fueled hybrid trucks will be needed to move heavy goods and we will also need to move toward bio-fuels for the airline industry. I don't think that bio-fuels is appropriate for personal transportation; the move to bio-fuels would just put too much strain on the environment and too much competition for food resources.
In the end, we have to move toward renewable electricity and battery electric vehicles. Without some major breakthroughs in the hydrogen paradigm battery electric vehicles are the only option that make sense as we move into the future.
Sunday October 21, 2007 - Santa Monica Alternative Fuel and Vehicle Expo - Yesterday I attended the second annual Santa Monica Alternative Fuel and Vehicle Expo at the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica Airport. I got to meet up with some old friends and there was plenty there to please the EV enthusiast.
We
arrived about ten thirty in the morning and at that time the event was pretty
quite. I passed by the ride and drive section outside the barker hanger
and went straight to the main exhibit floor. Just inside the door I met up
with Russell Sydney from the Santa
Monica Sustainable Transportation Club who filled me in on the move to
introduce medium speed legislation in California. The movement is growing
to allow more car like vehicle such as the ZENN and the Miles NEVs to go at
35mph instead of 25mph. Montana was the first state to implement this
legislation and Washington State wasn't far behind. There are several more
states that have legislation close to approval and for once California is
behind.
I Continued to walk around the exhibit hall and bumped into another old friend, Dave Cutter from Village Energy who was there manning the Electric Vehicle Association of San Diego's booth. They were recruiting members and publicizing their upcoming EVent, Electric Draggin 2008 which will be held on January 26 and 27 at the Barona Drag Strip. They also had a Bug-e on display, the first time I had seen one. They look like a really interesting ride.
Wandering around I saw a few more interested vehicles. One of the most promising was the Solar Bug from Free Drive EV Inc. This is a NEV that can be configured for 35 mph for those states that have a medium speed vehicle law in place. The car has 200 watts of solar panels on the roof which, according to Steve Titus, President of Free Drive EV, can provide as much as 10 miles per day of range in a sunny area like Southern California. The thing that sets the Solar Bug apart however is that the car seat is like that on a motorcycle, in fact very similar to the one used by the Vectrix, and the car is steered using handlebars similar to the old Lambereta scooter cars. According to Steve, the company is only about a month away from making these available to the public.
I
stopped by the Falcon EV
Booth and talked to Andrew. Falcon EV were showing their new Lithium Iron
Phosphate batteries that give their range of scooters a range of up to 50 miles
per charge.
Another interesting company was Good Earth EV who were showing two vehicles, a NEV truck that looked very similar to the ones being sold by Dymac and ZAP, and an electric Trike called the Freedom Buggy. They incorporate a two motor set-up to give the vehicle the equivalent of two gears. When the vehicle is accelerated from a standstill the first motor is used and this has the effect of limiting current. As the vehicle picks up speed the second motor picks up and provides higher speed. The objective is to limit start-up current. This trades off increased range for slower acceleration.
Universal Electric Vehicle were also displaying their Electrum Spyder for the second year in a row. It's nice to see them getting their car in front of the public. They are still trying to find investors to really get the company rolling out product and the more their car gets seen the more likely they are to get investors interested.
I was surprised to see Oka exhibiting here in Santa Monica. The Oka is built around a Russian built passenger car that is fitted with an Electric Motor in Nevada. I haven't seen anything much of the Oka in recent years but they are now selling cars. I didn't get an opportunity to drive one but closer inspection showed that the build quality appears to be about the same as the Miles vehicles, but not as good as the ZENN. Still, with a base cost of around $7500 they are a relatively cheap way to get into a car-like NEV. The Oka will also be a good candidate for a medium speed vehicle.
There
were also a several dealers, who were showing electric cars from the likes
of ZAP, Columbia Par Car,
Dynasty, and American Custom Golf
Cars. I was
somewhat disappointed that nobody had a Zapino on display. I haven't had a
chance to see one up close yet and I have been hearing good things about
them. I was also disappointed that Myers Motors wasn't there this year, I
was expecting them to be there and I was hoping to finally get a chance to test
drive the NmG.
After the main exhibit hall I stepped outside to see what was available in the ride and drive. The first thing I came across was Vectrix who had a big display at this years event. They were offering test rides but only to people who had a motorcycle license since the test ride was being conducted on the street. I could have had a ride on the back of the bike but that doesn't let you learn anything much about them. I did note however that they are quite noisy when accelerating hard. I did meet Paul Scott there, he was helping demo the Vectrix using his own Motorcycle.
Also offering rides but not test drives were the City of LA and UCLA, both of which were exhibiting Fuel Cell vehicles. I also decided to pass on test driving the Smart. The ones on display were the old version modified by a third party and selling for around $26,000, about the same price as a Prius. The new 2008 Smart, being distributed by MBZ, is a better car at a much lower price.
In the end I decided to test drive the ACP eBox which I found a blast, and the e-Ride NEV which was very noisy but still fun to drive. Follow the links for my test drive write-up.
The Santa Ana winds were kicking up and so were my allergies. By the the time I had finished test driving the e-Ride I had a splitting headache and was hungry so I went up to the Spitfire Grill for Lunch. Service at the Spitfire Grill can only be described as Glacial which didn't do anything for my headache, and the food wasn't that good either. In the end I just decide to call it a day and head for home.
This years Expo was bigger and better than the previous year and I expect the event to continue to grow. I am looking forward to next year.
Sunday October 14, 2007 - Faster NEVs - I couple of weeks ago I received my monthly email news letter from the Santa Monica Sustainable Transportation Club. This club is one of the most active in our area and is dedicated to promoting sustainable transportation in the city of Santa Monica.
The club has promoted bicycling and the use of electric scooters for many years and has done a lot of work to expand the network of bike lanes in and around Santa Monica. They have now turned their attention toward getting the state of california to increase the top speed allowed for certain low speed electric vehicles, commonly known as NEVs, from 25 mph to 35mph.
In 1996, with the growth of communities built around golf courses, there was a movement to increase the speed of golf carts so they could be used to drive from home to the club house as well as around the links. The problem was that if the golf cart was modified to go faster than 20 mph it was considered a car by the NTSC and had to comply with all the safety regulations that the family Buick had to follow.
Under urging by the Canadian company Bombardier the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Introduced legislation to allow low speed vehicles to drive on public roads. The law, passed in 1998, allowed vehicles with a top speed of 25 mph to drive on roads that were signed for 35mph or less. These vehicles were dubbed Neighborhood electric vehicles and had to come equipped with basic safety equipment such as seat belts, lights, turn indicators and horn. The bill left the decision on allowing low speed vehicles on the streets to the individual states.
There were two manufacturers that took advantage of this legislation, Bombardier and Trans-2. Bombardier would eventually withdraw from the NEV business but Trans-2 went on to become GEM, was eventually bought out by Chrysler, and now has an 80% share of the NEV market.
The other 20% is shared between a group of small manufacturers who initially started building souped up golf carts but has recently been joined by the likes of ZENN, Current and Miles Automotive who are selling vehicles that were designed to go faster than 25 mph and provide much better crash protection than the golf cart like NEVs.
The NEV has actually done very well as a vehicle class and GEM have certainly sold more than 30,000 of them over the years. They do great service in closed communities and even in towns but the many people won't buy them because they are just too afraid that they can't keep up with traffic.
Having driven a NEV on the Las Vegas strip and other roads around Las Vegas I know that most people are more likely to slow down and snap a photo than they are to get upset that you are going slower than the traffic flow. Having said that, I acknowledge that while many urban areas have 25mph speed limits with occasional 35 mph speed limits, traffic tends to run at 35 mph to 45 mph on these roads, 10 mph faster than the legal limit. Many people seem convinced that if they drive along at 25 mph in a 25mph zone some guy in a hummer is going to run them off the road.
Enter the state of Montana. They introduced a law to allow low speed vehicles earlier this year, but they did something more, they included in their legislation a provision to allow vehicles like the ZENN which has enhanced crash worthiness, termed Medium Speed Vehicles, to drive at a maximum speed of 35mph instead of 25mph. This takes away much of the concern for those who worry about keeping up with traffic in their NEV. Washington state soon passed similar legislation.
Once again we see the States stepping up to push the envelope on vehicles legislation when the Federal Government has been dragging its feet, and for once it wasn't California that was leading the way.
Now, the Sustainable transportation club is working to get similar legislation on the books here in California. Santa Monica is already the home to quite a few NEVs and if you go into down town Santa Monica it is a common site to see a GEM go gliding by. The area around the Third Street Promenade is a good area for NEVs because speed rarely get up to 25 mph let alone faster, but once you head up towards Main street or out to Montana speed pick up quickly. 35mph NEVs will work perfectly in that area.
So, if you want to expand the use of electric vehicles, think a $100,000 Tesla is too rich for your blood, but still want 4 wheels under you, then write to your local state representatives and see if you can get Medium Speed electric vehicle legislation passed.
Sunday October 7, 2007 - The future is Electric - This week I received several emails that indicate a significant shift in the way that electric vehicles are being perceived and it looks like the march towards a future where driving electric vehicles is commonplace has taken another step.
First, there was video of the PIVO 2, a concept car that was shown by Nissan at the Tokyo Auto Show. This battery electric concept is designed to exploit some of the things that can be done with electric drive trains that would be almost impossible with an internal combustion engine. The car has hub motors that allow the wheels to be turned through 180o so the car can drive sideways. The car body also rotates so that you don't need to drive it in reverse.
The next two items came to me both via an feed from EV World and through an email that I received from Environmental Motors, one of the local electric car dealers here in LA. The first was an article about developments in New Zealand and the second was an article about Isreal.
The first article, New Zealand could lead the way in Electric Cars on stuff.co.NZ talks about how New Zealand, a country that has lots of renewable electricity from Hydro and wind power and lots of potential for Geothermal energy is including electric cars in its climate change strategy.
The article asks how electric vehicles are going to succeed now when they have failed in the future and quotes David Parker, the Minister responsible for climate change issues as saying "In the past decade there has been no real environmental imperative driving it, and that is the big change now."
New Zealand is going to get electric cars in the near future. Mitsubishi will begin selling their I-car there in 2010 shortly after it debuts on the roads of Japan.
In two related stories out of New Zealand. the state owned electricity utility, Meridian, announced plans to conduct a small-scale trial of electric cars starting in early 2008, while Ulrich Schmid has been trying to import an electric car from Europe for two years but his attempts have been blocked by the New Zealand Government. This is typical of governments world wide where one arm doesn't seem to know what the other is doing. In Ulrich Schmid's case, he is trying to import one of the EVs converted by MES-DEA in Switzerland but, because the car is left hand drive and New Zealanders drive on the left, his application has been denied. It seem to me that if you want to move toward electric cars then you provide exemptions for cases like this.
While Global warming is the prime mover for New Zealand, it's Oil that is the primary consideration for Israel writes Benjamin Bakhshi on Israel21c. While Israel sits in the Middle East it has very little oil of its own and, given that the bulk of the countries in the Middle East want the destruction of Israel, oil is a rare and precious commodity. This has led Israel to become one of the leaders in renewable energy, particularly solar energy. Where there is solar energy, electric cars shouldn't be far behind.
Now, Shai Agassi, who made a fortune when he sold several software startups to German software giant SAP-AG has started an electric car venture. "Our goal is to get to 100,000 cars on the road in 2010," he said. He has already found funding for this project, Israel Corporation has agreed to invest $100 Million in the venture, and the Israeli government has also agreed to provide grants and tax benefits. They expect to be shipping their first car around 2012.
Now, the other country that is top of the heap when it comes to renewable energy is Iceland. They have abundant supplies of both Hydro and Geothermal energy. Unlike New Zealand and Israel they have taken the hydrogen economy route. This road offers promise but the finish line seems to constantly recede with every step that is taken forward. I know that Iceland is having problems because it just can't get hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in quantity so I wonder how long it will be before they realize that Battery Electric vehicles are here now and are more efficient than fuel cell vehicles.
In the past the environmentalists pushed for electric cars because of their many benefits in air quality. Now there is a rising appreciation that global warming and dependence on foreign oil threaten our very way of life and one part of the solution is electric transportation. The perfect storm is brewing and the electric car will become the vehicle of choice over the next ten years.
Sunday September 30, 2007 - Fifty-one Worst Cars List - A friend of mine forwarded a link to me recently from the Time web site that listed the fifty-one worst cars of all time. The list included some of the usual suspects but also some cars that were surprising entries.
The list included a few cars that you would expect to find on anyone's list of worst cars.
Number 39 on the list was the Yugo, the poster child for bad cars. The car was most noted for poor brakes but it also known for mechanical problems with the engine, and for parts that would just fall off. This car was imported into the US by Malcolm Bricklin who also brought the US entry number 24, the Bricklin SV1 which I am not familiar with but was supposed to be way too underpowered for its weight. Malcolm Bricklin is now working with the Chinese manufacturer to bring a new Chinese built sedan to our shores. Based on my experience with Chinese build quality I expect that the next Yugo is just around the corner.
Number 17 on the list is the Corvair, the car that prompted Ralph Nader to write "Unsafe at Any Speed". The Corvair had a reputation for spinning out because the rear engine design put too much weight behind the rear axle. It was also known for leaking oil and for pumping noxious fumes into the passenger compartment. This car, and Ralph Nader's book about it, led to major changes in safety standards and the huge cost barriers for entry into the car market that we see today. Surprisingly, there are a surprising number of these GM cars still on the road.
The Pinto, 22 on the list, is also a car that would appear on most lists of worst cars. The problem with this car is that it had a tendency to burst into flames on rear impact. Ford did nothing to fix this problem because they calculated that it would cost more to fix it than it would to pay the damage claims. The Ford Pinto hasn't survived as well as the Corvair so you hardly ever see them on the road anymore.
My biggest surprise was to see GM's Hummer H2 at number 49 on the list. The article says "the Hummer H2 sent all the wrong signals. It was/is arrogantly huge, overtly militaristic, openly scornful of the common good. As a vehicle choice, the H2 was a spiteful reactionary riposte to notions that, you know, maybe we all shouldn't be driving tanks that get 10 miles per gallon". Those of us that feel that we need to reduce our use of petroleum products in transportation totally agree with this statement. Now, with gasoline at close to $3.00 and predictions that $5.00 a gallon isn't far off, the Hummer has fallen out of favor with all but the most die hard urban warrior wannabe.
These types of lists are obviously very subjective and so it is not surprising that I have a different take on some of the vehicles that were included on this list.
Lets start with number 42, the GM EV1. This is my favorite car of all time and would be number one on my list of best cars. The article starts out by describing the car as "Quick, fun and reliable" and "The best electric car ever built" but then goes on to toss out the old chestnut about batteries not being ready even though we know that the later generation NiMH batteries are totally ready for prime time. The article goes on to say "The car itself was a tiny, super-light two-seater, not exactly what American consumers were looking for. And the EV1 was horrifically expensive to build, which was why GM's execs terminated the program". Well, according to Michael Shnayerson in "The Car that could" the parts costs of the EV1 was around $15,000 which was GM's target so I don't see how the car could have been "horrifically expensive to build". The truth is that the EV1 was an exceptional car that was killed by GM because it wanted to overturn the California ZEV mandate and it does not deserve to be on this list.
The list also includes a car that I really liked when I was growing up. Number 9 on the list is the Renault Dauphine. This car was built to be low cost and I can remember the TV ad quite clearly, "a penny farthing a mile and you travel in style - the Renault Dauphine". The article says "It was, in fact, a rickety, paper-thin scandal of a car that, if you stood beside it, you could actually hear rusting". I have to agree that the car did have a serious rusting problem. They have been know to rust so badly that they actually split in two while being driven down the street. While they probably deserve to be on any list of worst cars, they bring back too many memories for me to include them. Back in the early 1960s the Singer Sewing Machine company converted about 40 of these to electric and sold them under the name Henney Kilowatt. There are some good examples, possibly half of those ever built, that are still around. It was the purchase of one of these that led to the formation of Feelgood Cars who tried to introduce a car that was a conversion of existing Renault Dauphines and ,because they couldn't import them into the USA due to the need to pass crash testing, they switch to manufacturing the ZENN NEV.
Number 25 on the list was another alternative fuel vehicle, the Morgan Plus 8 Propane. The problem with this car was the position of the propane tank on the rear of the vehicle. However, the Morgan Plus 8 Propane wasn't a factory model, the cars were modified to run on propane by Bill Fink, a San Francisco based Morgan fan, after the old Rover engine used for many year by Morgan could no longer pass US emissions standards. As a note, Morgan has finally given the Rover 3.5 V8 the old heave ho and have now returned to the US market with a cleaner engine built by BMW.
The last surprise I had was with number 2 on the list, the Model T. Now the main problem the article has with this vehicle, one of the best selling vehicles of all time, is the fact that it was the car that actually made the automobile the transportation method of choice, especially in the USA. Some might say that without the Model T, electric may have become the power plant of choice but the truth is that unless you understand the impact gasoline has on our environment, its energy density makes it the natural winner, especially when compared with the primitive batteries that were available in the first decade of the twentieth century. The article also says "And by the way, with its blacksmithed body panels and crude instruments, the Model T was a piece of junk, the Yugo of its day." The truth is that the Model T wasn't successful just because of its low price but also because it was tough enough to deal with the roads of the day which, once you got outside the main cities, were little more that rutted cart tracks.
I am sure that in the future, there will be new cars that will enter this list, and people will be able to argue about them for hours. Some of these will be electric, I fully expect that by 2020 we will be seeing a new list that will contain some of the fuel cell cars that will come into showrooms over the next decade. In the end, we may see one entry for worst car, any car that was powered by petroleum products - the future is electric.
The entire list of 51 cars can be reviewed on the Time web site.
Sunday September 23, 2007 - eBay - Some people call it sleaze-bay but it has become one of the internet's biggest success stories and a major place to sell items world wide. Little wonder then that eBay has also become a major place to sell EVs.
I have been listing EVs advertised on eBay for a long time now and I think I have come to learn quite a bit about how things work on the auction site. I can often look at an auction and say to myself, that's not going to sell and I am usually correct. I thought I might share a little of what I have learned over years.
First, let me say that I don't agree with the sleaze-bay tag, I think that while eBay attracts its share of scam artists and dishonest sales people, eBay works hard to try and minimize the impact of these crooks. They even have an email address, spoof@ebay.com, where you can report phishing type emails and other scams. They are one of the few companies I have come across that actively go out to try and prosecute these people.
There are quite a few people who purposely or inadvertently cause problems on eBay accounts. First of all there are people out there who try and run the Nigerian Scam, bidding up on a article then offering to pay with a cashiers check for more than the wining amount and have the seller send the balance either to some "Customer the buyer owes money too", or "the buyers shipping company". These buyers are always from a foreign country. It used to be West Africa, which