My First Electric Car

I have dreamed of the possibilities of electric cars for a long time.  I've certainly mentioned them here on the blog regularly.  Electric cars offer things the average car cannot.  You can generate electricity, enough even to power an electric car.  You cannot generate gasoline.

I don't remember when I first started following electric cars.  It was a long time ago.  And I'm usually a logically minded person.  Thinking through the reasons why one is a good idea, I get the following:

1.  I can generate electricity in any number of ways, but I cannot generate enough of any other fuel to power a reasonable car.

2.  Electric cars are more efficient on most levels, especially fuel economy, costing as low as a quarter of the cost of even a good economy car to drive.  And they also offer the option of driving more efficiently and learning to drive more efficiently.  Over the life of the car, they actually cost less than a comparable gasoline car.

3.  They don't need to warm up.  You hop in and go.  Even better, you can send a message via your computer or smart phone and your car will warm up for you before you even get there.

4.  Most wear in a car's engine takes place during start up and warm up.  With an electric car, there is no warm up.  Electric motors are extremely durable machines and last a very long time and are infinitely rebuildable.  It's like all your miles are highway miles.

So I got one.  It looks pretty similar to the picture at the top of this page.

The first thing I noticed was how smooth it was.  You don't realize how much your car vibrates until you drive a car without an engine.  I have learned to drive really efficiently and my wife is learning too.  I have no problems with range anxiety.  I have a 30 mile commute and my wife has a 40 mile commute.  Her commute is only three days a week though, so I take the Leaf two days a week and either use our other compact gas fueled car or my motorcycle which usually gets over 40 miles per gallon.

Charging has been no problem.  We opted to use the provided 120 volt charger.  It's actually a misnomer because the charger is in fact in the car, in the trunk.  The "charger" is actually a smart switch which tells the car that power is available and when the car asks for it, the switch turns itself on.  It's a pretty good system to keep people from getting shocked and it also keeps the car from moving while it is plugged in.  I guess there won't be any fail videos of electric cars driving away while still plugged in like I so often see filmed at gas stations with gas nozzles.  You can buy a good economy "charger" which will charge at more than twice as fast using 240 volts, but I also found a guy out in California who converts the stock "charger" into a 240 volt "charger."  You see, the wiring in the stock unit was well over engineered and handles the higher voltage just fine because after all, the real charger is actually in the trunk.  The "charger" isn't really a charger.  Here is his website.  His conversion price is a third the price of a commercially available "charger."

I am really enjoying this car.  It's kinda great to finally have something that I have dreamed about for a long time.  Next project:  Wood gasifier.  I want to make wood into electricity.  It will be by far my biggest, most involved and most complex project yet.  I've set myself a goal to be off grid (everything but internet) by my birthday in the year 2023.  I try to live what I believe.  Not always easy, but fulfilling.

Always in transition,
WiredForStereo

The Electric Vehicle Truly is the Future

Electric vehicles are the future.  Anyone can generate electricity and on a small scale, using renewables is just as easy as using the traditional methods, easier in some cases.  Electric vehicles provide the range the vast vast majority of us need on a daily basis and in the winter time, they heat up faster too.  But like everything, they have their downsides.

The first downside and the most important one in my book is the human resistance to change.  We've had fossil fueled vehicles almost exclusively for a hundred years.  We have some electric buses and trains in and near big cities, but many of us don't live in big cities.  There's the concept called "range anxiety" where people are supposed to be concerned about how far their EV can go.  There's the time it takes to recharge, and the availability of charging locations away from home.  And for some reason (obvious source when you think about it) fear is drummed up about the cost of replacing the battery.

First let me address the battery.  There's a fundamental difference between electric and FF cars.  A gas engine can be expected to last around 300,000 miles or so with a few repairs along the way.  After that, it will need a rebuild, or depending on the car, it might have already had one.  But in any case, it will be worn out.  There will be metal inside the engine which will no longer be there.  That's why oil turns black, it's carrying the little pieces of metal that have worn off from the inside of the engine.  A diesel can be expected to last significantly longer because it's built far more competently.  Some diesels can last longer than a million miles.

But an electric vehicle is different.  There is essentially only one movable part in the "engine."  There's a rotor that spins around on the inside of the motor casing inside the coils.  Virtually all production electric vehicles utilize AC motors which have no wearable "brushes" to transfer electricity from the non moving to the moving parts.  What does this leave us?  The only wearable parts are the bearings which are replaceable, and the transmission which unlike a car transmission will not likely have any gears, clutches, or sensors.  An EV has no emissions equipment to go bad, no exhaust system to rust out, no fluids to change, no fan belts to squeak, and because of regenerative braking, the brake pads may last the life of the car.  Typical repair costs will be minimal at most.

But the battery, what do we do about the battery?  Latest estimates have the battery costing between $3000 to $10,000 in an electric vehicle and supposed to last 150,000 miles in California and estimated to last 10 years elsewhere.  But there's an aspect that you don't get if you don't go in depth.  At the end of a battery's projected life, it doesn't just die one day.  The end of a battery's life is 70% capacity.  That means instead of going 100 miles, it goes 70.  Instead of going 300 miles it goes 210.  It's obviously not the end of the world.  There's another aspect that bears investigation as well.  If in ten years you do decide you need a new battery, the batteries available will be far better than the one you have now.  And since your electric car is far from actually wearing out anyway, it will be worth the investment, like doing that engine rebuild.  In fact, it may be worth it to replace the seats, some or most of the interior, maybe even upgrade the motor.  A car can be more like a house as far as capital investment goes because it's not quite so much of a consumable product any more.

Let's talk about range.  This is where my big solution comes in.  Right now, the major electric car available is the Nissan LEAF.  The current LEAF comes with about 100 mile range, more if you like to hypermile.  Aside from the fact that this range easily covers the daily commute of over 90% of the population, think about charging at work.  I would consider it a perk of a job to be able to plug my car in (slow charge of course) at work.  Even if you do charge from dead to full (not likely to happen) with the whole 25 kWh, that's still between $2 to $5 anywhere in the US.  It's just not that big of a deal.  Even if your boss is a tight-@$$, maybe he'll let you drop a fiver for the privilege or do a monthly fee.  Better yet, park nearby at some nice local business who will let you charge.  There are options.  It's doable even if it does put you out of your comfort zone.  Better yet, in two years or so, the second generation Toyota Rav4 EV is supposed to have a range of 300 miles.

But what about long trips?  First, I doubt there will be many households with only all EV's.  I plan on commuting on a motorcycle the majority of the year, an electric motorcycle.  So for long trips, you could keep a vehicle around, it should last a long time since you won't be using it much.  Or you could rent one for trips. 

But I have an idea.  You likely have heard about the Chevy Volt which has a range extender built in, a generator to maintain charge after the battery has run low.  However, this adds considerable weight to the car which you'll have to drag around when you don't need it.  What if you could put the generator on the trailer?  better yet, what if you could rent the generator on the trailer?  What if you could go to UHaul and rent a generator trailer for your electric car?  Or, you could build one out of spare parts.  It can be done.

And it has been done.  Check out this picture of the generator trailer developed for the first Rav4 EV and the tZero.  It uses a two cylinder Kawasaki motorcycle engine and has special steering so that when you back up, you don't have to worry about knowing how to back a trailer.

Here's a Polar Power DC generator that I have been looking at lately.  It uses a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine with a permanent magnet alternator.  Since most EV's today use battery packs with voltages below 400, it's no problem to match voltages with the generator.  Check them out at http://www.polardcmarine.com/polarpower/products/dc-generators/ they have several smaller models as well.

Coincidently, the LEAF already has a DC quick charging plug.  It's the one on the left.  Not sure, but I think this could be useful.

You may have read about (or saw on YouTube) my recent generator project where I used a car alternator and a rototiller engine and an inverter to make a cheap fixable generator.  Next on the docket is the Parker Engineering Mark II DC Generator.  I have purchased a used 6 hp Lombardini diesel engine and I'm building a full frame and enclosure for it to make another generator.  If I can find another higher amperage alternator, it I should be able to make a significantly better overall machine, with higher sustained power output, better fuel economy and longer run time, not to mention quieter.  Electric start will be a bonus as well.  Look for it soon.

My point with all of this is that there are a lot of great options with a bit of good ol' American engineering.  An individual with just a little know how and an internet connection can figure out a whole bunch of solutions to use a variety of machines and technologies to produce power.  Modern electric cars will make that even more possible.  They will also bring about cheaper battery technology which will make it easier to build custom electric cars and for homes to be off grid.  Off grid means lower energy usage all around.

With energy, less is better.
WiredForStereo

The Way Electric Vehicles Should and Will Be Done!

The biggest, and perhaps only problem beside cost with electric vehicles at the present time is range. Though 90 percent of all commutes are less than a hundred miles, or a run of the mill electric vehicle's range, sometimes you just want to go on a road trip, or to visit the in laws or something like that.

Enter the hybridizing trailer.
What this trailer does is add a small engine with a generator to the electric vehicle to make it in essence a series hybrid. The greatest part about it is that when it is not needed, it can be removed and stored. The Chevy Volt on the other hand includes the engine inside the envelope of the car which adds several hundred pounds of weight that needs to be dragged around when it is not in use. It would be better to use a trailer and to use that weight for more batteries to raise the car's electric only range to something a little more impressive than 40 miles. On the other hand, the Volt is very convenient in the fact that it is a stand-alone turn key machine.

Here, you can see a number of important parts. To the left toward the rear is the engine. From what I can gather at http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm and other sources the engine is a 500cc Kawasaki Ninja engine which is very convenient because it is water cooled and produces good power in a small package. Toward the right rear is the radiator with electric fan. This is most likely powered by the engine's native 12 volt alternator which charges a battery to power its own starter and electronics. On the right side is the electrical box and controller, and in the front is the 9 gallon fuel tank. A very handy feature of this little trailer is its electronically controlled steering feature which steers the trailer for you when backing up since it is so small, you can't really see it in the mirrors.

This trailer has an output of around 20 kW DC which is enough to power the car at highway speeds as long as the trailer has gas. Because the engine runs at peak efficiency and constant load, it gets about the same gas mileage as the Toyota Rav4 gas version would. Look up the Tzero, it used the same kind of trailer, but was much more sporty.

If I were working on a project like this (and I certainly hope to some day,) I would do a few small things different for the sake of utility. Firstly, I would use a small diesel or turbo diesel engine specifically designed for generator duty to maximize efficiency and fuel economy and to be able to use biodiesel, the easiest and most sustainable biofuel to make. Secondly, I would make the fuel tank a bit larger, though how large, I do not know. On one hand, it would be great to have like a 20 gallon tank because I do make cross country trips from time to time, but there might be the possibility of the fuel going stale because not all of it gets cycled through between trips. Third, I'd build the trailer with some cargo space, or make the generator a unit that can be switched between trailers so as to be able to use the cargo space of a larger trailer. It would also be nice to be able to use the same generator as a back up generator for a home renewable energy system by simply plugging it in to your battery bank and hooking into the battery charge controller. I guess that would actually be a benefit for the large fuel tank as well.

These types of systems are how I see liquid fuel being used in the future. For most people, the trailer is only used for long trips, and it could be shared between families like sometimes I've seen done with a boat. You might go to your friend's house and say "Hey, I'm goin' to visit the family next month, can I borrow the Long Ranger?" "Sure bro, just bring it back with a full tank!" Or perhaps you could rent one from Uhaul.

Steps to electric cardom.
WiredForStereo

An American Electric Car on the Horizon.

What you see to the left is the Chevy Volt, GM's new range extended electric vehicle set to be released in November 2010. I say good. With GM's stock price hovering at about $6, they better finally do something right. You can't lose tens of billions of dollars a year forever and expect to stay in business, unless you're the US government, in which case, that would be a time known as the "good years."

Why do I own Toyotas? Because in my opinion they offer a superior product. I would be happy to be a supporter of all-American products, but there aren't many that are worth buying. I took care of a small fleet of vehicles containing Toyotas, Fords, a Mercedes, and a GM. Which vehicles had problems and Toyotas ever had a problem, whereas every on of the others did, in fact, we sold one of the Fords because we had to fix it so often. We haven't had to take our own Toyota in for anything other than being struck by large objects moving at speed.

So while I'd absolutely love to have a moderately sized efficient reliable American vehicle, I just haven't seen one around lately. And the only people I hear advertizing for GM on the radio all drive Escalades, a vehicle which I feel represents a great number of things wrong with our country. Anyway, I hope that GM can pull it off, and just a stock tip from me, buy GM stock, it's REAL cheap and it can't exactly go down any further.

I think a lot of good things could happen if vehicles like the Volt become popular. I was thinking about one of them this evening. The Volt is supposed to be able to go 40 miles on a charge before using any gasoline. That means I think that trips will get on average shorter than that, our wasteful habit of travelling all over the place will hopefully diminish. Maybe we'll form tighter knit communities and be more interdependent on one another. And I was thinking that the gasoline preserver companies will probably make a few extra bucks because there is a much bigger chance the people's gas will go stale while it's not being used, and they'll have to use gas preserver.

Great cars change the world, look up some history.
WiredForStereo

The Way of Energy in the Future

I was out working in the garden this morning and I got to thinking about the gas crisis and peak oil and all the rest. So I decided to write up a little prophecy sort of thing. That is not to say that the following stuff is my prediction of the future, though in some cases it is, it is just how I feel things may go or should go. So don’t quote me in the future claiming that I said something that didn’t come true so I’m a false prophet. I am just presenting an opinion of how I think it will go or how I’d like it to go, and I’m certainly not an apocalypse monger.

First thing on the agenda is fuel. I’ve read a lot of stuff and seen a documentary or two that would have us believe that the oil supply will suddenly come to an abrupt end, resulting in mass chaos, rioting, and the end of “Dancing with the Stars.” Unfortunately in the latter case, I doubt this will happen. Since the Arab oil embargo, things have changed a bit, oil supplies have proliferated, there are new sources, new processes, and new ways of thinking as well as the possibility for vehicles that use much less fuel. I seriously doubt a sudden end for a number of reasons, first being the oil sands which are mined primarily from Alberta, Canada in this part of the world. Oil sands are much more difficult and expensive to mine than regular oil, but that brings up the whole point. There is lots of oil that is just not economical to get to. But enough to power the whole world at current consumption levels, not likely. I believe it will just get more and more expensive until people largely stop using it. The current trend already sees people driving less, using less fuel and buying smaller cars. When viable mass produced electric cars come on the market, (that’s when, not if) oil consumption will drop further. Eventually, the remaining oil supplies will likely be used to extinction in poorer countries for powering vehicles while they are used for industrial purposes in the United States, used for plastics and petrochemicals. I’d like to see an electric car revolution, I personally want to get an electric bicycle and convert my pickup into a series hybrid.

Biofuels. The use of biofuels that take the place of food crops in the fields must end. People come first, and the first thing that people need is food. We don’t need to be growing fuel where our food should be coming from. Hopefully cellulosic ethanol and algal biodiesel will come in to wider usage. I see them as recreational fuels, like charcoal briquettes in a way. In the same way as you might say “we’re gonna have a barbecue, did you get the briquettes?” you might also say “let’s go out on the boat, did you fuel it up?” The concept will go further as series hybrids or electric cars with range extenders like the Chevy Volt concept enter wider usage. “Lets go on a road trip, did you put biodiesel in the car?”

Housing. I was in Lowe’s the other week and was excited to see a book of energy efficient homes on the shelf near the checkout. My excitement quickly became disgust when I found that the primary feature of these “energy efficient home designs” was 2x6 walls. The best a 2x6 wall can expect to get using spray foam insulation is about R30 insulation value. That is not good enough, especially since the boards themselves present huge problems with thermal bridging. One of my home design plans features no less than R60 whole home insulation, that is ten inches or better of spray foam insulation and air tight. The best solution is adoption or at least some sort of promotion of the German Passive House standard or something like it. I believe there are less than ten of these houses in the US currently. There needs to be many more. I know this is Arkansas and all, but how is it forward thinking that I should be able to go into Lowe’s and buy windows that aren’t even Energy Star certified? The same goes for any appliance or other device. The worst part is that people actually still buy this stuff, windows last for 30 years or more, do you really want to replace them in five because you can’t afford all the heat pouring out of them all winter and pouring in them all summer?

Electricity and other fuels and energy sources. First of all, I’d like to say that hydrogen is not an option. It is not a fuel, it is an energy transfer medium with extremely inefficient conversion processes. It will never work in the face of efficient and advancing technologies like simple electricity. It just can’t beat electricity at anything considering costs and problems. Won’t work. We can argue about it later, but it won’t work. Electricity with distributed generation is the best option. Imagine having electricity when the grid is out, having heat during an ice storm, even if it is less than normal. Having it is better than not having it. Nanosolar is now printing solar panels like an ink jet. Whether the promises prove to be true or not is yet up for debate, but they are promising solar panels at less than a dollar per watt. As I’ve said before, I’d like to see renewable energy systems required on every new construction. Warehouse style stores have vast stretches of flat roofs, and vast parking lots in need of shade. The average Wal-Mart super center at 20 to 30 acres could produce quite a bit of electricity on a sunny day if covered by solar panels. Plus that shade will save additionally on power bills. Anyway, back to what I was talking about. The best option is for people to have solar panels on their roofs, and also for those who have opportunity, to have micro and pico hydro as well as small wind. These things not only allow people to produce their own electricity but there is this strange phenomenon where people begin to consume less to match their generating capacity, which can only be a good thing. I’d like to see micro grids in the future where an advantaged (locationally) group of neighbors sets up their own little grid with several small power sources and become their own utility. The technology is quite simple, and very scalable. There is benefit in having a grid, but in the future what will become of the huge ones we have today? Energy intensive applications like metals processing will still need large amounts of energy, which is why many of them are located next to hydroelectric dams or large powerplants already.

Food. Now that I’ve discussed being more like Europe, I’d like to discuss being more like Cuba. Before the USSR fell, Cuba was almost completely dependent on it for everything, being the Communist little brother as it were. When that era came to a close, Cuba was left mostly without an oil supply, and quite suddenly as well. Now, as a result, Havana is able to produce the vast majority of its food supply within the borders of the city because people have created community and rooftop gardens. Translated to the modern day, home food producing gardens are already a good idea, and as the price of food goes up with fuel, the prospect of growing “free” food at home will be that much more alluring. I believe the trend toward more sustainably grown food will continue, and I’d love to see Steve Heckeroth’s electric tractor idea hit the big time. http://renewables.com/Permaculture/ElectricTractor.htm One thing that is very much needed is for humans to eat far less meat, or eat only meat that they themselves raise. Something Al Gore has inconveniently ignored is that the methane and other emissions from meat production likely does more damage concerning global warming than tailpipes do since methane has around twenty times the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide does. Additionally, most of our crop land in the US is used for growing grain for animals. It’s an extremely inefficient operation and it will come back to haunt us in the form of food and fuel prices.

One thing that’s not going to work is just doing everything the same way we are doing now. Some have already chosen the route of efficiency and reduced consumption, but for our society to be sustainable, many more need to do the same.

WiredForStereo

Tough Times... for Everyone but the Oil Companies.

It's hard to miss mentions of oil company profits in the news these days, every quarter it's worse.

Read into the California energy crisis, the same thing is going on today as it was then, now, it's just a different form of energy. Then, money making middle men played strobe light with the power plants, turning them on and off to be able to sell the most energy for the best price on the free market, until it got to the point where they were making more and more money on less and less energy until there was none for people to use and therefore had to be shut off at times.

The difference now is that the energy supply really is dwindling, we can't exactly build more oil refineries, we actually need more oil, of which there isn't any. But what there is, supply is being restricted to jack up the price, and since demand isn't being reduced, a very few people are making a vary large amount of money.

I'm not into making a lot of predictions, but I predict $200 per barrel of oil inside of five years, and $300 before my son learns to drive. I will enter one exception, that is if there is a radical change in where our energy comes from, that being electric cars. Unfortunately, there are a few restrictions on that too, number one being that there is just not enough time for the new energy technology to catch up with the dwindling energy that we have. One good chance, for drivers and producers is if a good battery technology is released to the public so that we can make our own electric cars. But, Lithium won't be available to the public for a while because the car companies will be using it, and the NiMH large format patents won't expire until 2015, and Chevron is not letting anyone use them. Thier loss inevitably.

The fuel is running out, read my post on Peak Oil. In fact, more than the concept of peak supply of oil is peak oil per capita which happened some time back in the 80's.

The solution: Plugin series hybrid electric cars and shorter range plugin electric cars with diversification of the power producing infrastructure, and further extensive efficiency gains in all parts of society. I've not been a big global warming theorist, but I do appreciate the effect the subject has had on people, even if they need to be more worried about real pollution rather than CO2. If we eliminate CO2, other pollutants will follow. A car that uses less gas creates less of all types of pollution. The technology is here to mitigate coming problems, and there will be a time when we must live on drastically less gasoline.

With the current technology, most people can do it. Most people can do it on an inexpensive electric bicycle. I live six miles from anything I need to get to.

Think about this, if gasoline were to virtually disappear tomorrow, the electrical grid would still be up, unless there were riots and it got destroyed, but other than that, it would be there. Lifestyles would change, look at what happened to Cuba when the USSR fell. Big cities with electric busses would still be working, though likely completely overloaded. Things would change and quickly, but I'm not preaching the apocalypse here.

What can you do? Not much, just be aware. You can't hoard gas, it spoils. Maybe look into electric cars, education is really the key to alot of things. But don't freak out.

WiredForStereo

Dr. Gasoline, or: How Learned How to Stop Worrying and Love the Go-Juice.

Once again, necessity has me opening my fat yap to complain about something.

Actually, I am not complaining, I welcome higher gas prices, they prove I am right. Go ahead, look at some of my older posts, you'll find a number of references to higher gas prices, and the reason therefore.

Higher gas prices necessitate action, hopefully, it will get people to stop buying Escalades and Tahoes, and Sequoias. Get ahold of a Corolla, and Echo, maybe a Prius. I ride a motorcycle that currently gets around 47 mpg. My wife drives a Corolla that gets around 34. We've decided that with the children situation, our next car will be a Toyota Sienna Hybrid (or whatever they'll call it by then.)

As you may be able to tell, I like Toyotas. They are the kings in the hybrid biz, and they have been building very reliable cars for a long time. In fact, the most populous car in history is a Toyota, the Corolla. Toyota has most of the factory produced electric vehicles on the road, the RAV4 EV, though there are very few of them. Plus, they have some great plans for hybrids in the future. They plan to offer every one of their vehicles in hybrid form, and there are several much higher mileage machines in the works. The 3rd generation Prii are supposed to make 30% better mileage than the current ones, and there is some talk of nearing the 100 miles per gallon mark.

Anyway, the sustainable option would of course be a flex fuel type hybrid, or better, a biodiesel model, and best, an all electric car. Hopefully with the current state of things, those options will be nearer on the horizon.

Mark my words, gas will go up even more.
WiredForStereo