Regen Addiction

I have an addiction.  It's not a physical addiction, it's a mental desire to recoup the energy wasted from braking.  I am addicted to regenerative braking in electric vehicles.

Over the years I've had a few vehicles.  From a tiny Subaru GL, to a Volvo 240, to a Scion XB.  I then changed from the small car to the monster truck and traded the xB for a Chevy Tahoe and began my truck phase.  But unlike all those internal combustion engine vehicles, none of them changed my thoughts about the power source, because electric cars were just the hobby of eccentric people.

It might be reasonable to think that electric vehicle owners are on the fringe and that driving under the power of electricity doesn't actually change a person.  For an efficiency-conscious person, like myself, merely driving electric isn't the only beneficial feature.  It's the regenerative braking that I want.

I still own an internal combustion engined vehicle, and every now and again I need to drive it.  That vehicle is a Chevy Avalanche and when I bought it, I loved it for its utility.  I still love the utility of it, but now the lack of regenerative braking causes me a twinge of mental anguish.  For now there are no consumer pickup trucks that are pure electric vehicles, but there are some hybrids.

A company called Via Motors takes Chevy trucks and converts them to series-hybrid vehicles.  They buy the trucks with a V6 engine, which they bolt directly to an electric generator.  They add batteries and another motor to drive the wheels. All these additions does add about 1500 lbs of weight to the truck, but despite that, the new drive train improves the efficiency by a factor of 5. Typically these trucks get 15 MPG, with the change it improves to roughly 100 MPG.

I would gladly purchase a Via Motors VTrux in a heartbeat if I had a spare $75k.  As of this posting, the public cannot access these vehicles, but Via Motors has announced that some time in 2014 they will be making them available to non-commercial customers.

The only other alternative to my dilemma is to consider either the Chevy Volt or BMW i3.  The i3 offers an optional electric generator that will produce an additional 100 miles of range when the battery has run out of juice.  Whereas the Volt has a permanent engine that acts as a generator 95% of the time, and only on rare occasion will power the wheels in parallel with the electric motor.

The idea of regenerative braking, super energy-efficiency, and alternative power sources, isn't actually all that new, but thank goodness we're moving toward it finally.  I look forward to the day when regenerative braking is the norm.

A Micro Machine

There's an adage that goes "It's not the size of a thing that's important, but how you use it". Often that adage is in reference to things that are small and somewhat personal.  The Smart ForTwo is the smallest production car on American roads and personally, I love it.

I've been asked many times since I bought my Smart Fortwo ED, if I would have purchased the Tesla S, had I the money?  And I've always replied in the negative, even in the face of scoffing, pseudo-offended parties. I'd take the drive-train and batteries of a Tesla any day, but it's the size of the Fortwo that is important to me.

A good example of why I love this tiny car, this micro machine was today at the Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival, near my home.  My wife had requested a tamale from one of the food vendors at the festival.  As anyone who as visited a street fair is probably aware, parking nearby is somewhat limited.  I know that my Smart car is small, but it's not always apparent just how small it is, until I need parking where there is none.

I drove around on the streets that were open near the festival.  There was plenty of "bad" parking, such that fire-hydrants were blocked and bumpers overhanging driveways.  Many vehicles where not parked too close to the next, but squeezing the car in, is a hassle.   It is possible to park perpendicular to the curb in a Smart, but it's not legal.  If the vehicle were only 8-foot long rather than 8-foot, 10-inches, it might be more realistic.  But the rule is that one front-wheel and one rear-wheel need to be near the curb,

I managed to find a 9-foot space between the apron of a driveway and an old Cadillac. I will admit that I did box the Cadillac in, but I was only going to be there for five minutes.

There is a certain air of satisfaction that one feels when driving a tiny car around in a area where parking is tight.  I can take spots in side-by-side parking, where the car to each side is sitting on the painted line.  I can take spots between parallel parked vehicles, that have left what they believe no car could fit into.  And when leaving a space that only a Smart Car could fit into, I need not worry about someone else stalking me.

I realize that the Smart Car is not for everyone, after all it only fits two people.  But for getting me and my stuff about, it works quite well and fits into more spaces that I would have considered in any other car. So, although I like the creature comforts of a Tesla S, I'd be just as happy to have the drive train, rather than the car.

Dependency

Oil Dependency

It occurred to me recently that I managed to remove one major dependency from my life.  I removed the necessity for gasoline.  It's never so noticeable while I was in the belly of the beast, but I've been out for six months and I'm becoming aware of the after effects.

The most direct item that caught my eye was a Win Free Gas for a Year contest offered by a popular snack food company. At first I thought, well, that might be nice, but the second thought reminded me that I don't use gasoline any more.  And then it hit me, this idea that I have removed myself from not just a monstrous fuel bill each month, but the necessity for all that goes along with the use of gasoline.

Like anything new in life, college, marriage, children, you never really know what it's like until you do it. The same goes for giving up gasoline.  It's a major change and although I was very excited about it, I did not actually understand how it would change my life.

A friend commented the other day to me that she almost missed visiting gas stations because she would forget to clean the windshield and put air in the tires.  Most people visit a gas station on a frequent basis, whether weekly, or biweekly.  These features are taken for granted because we've all grown accustomed to the necessity of visiting the station.  In fact when a station does not have these amenities, it may upset us.

You might hear from the electric car evangelist that you know, that driving electric is amazing.  You might hear of how that person laughs as he or she drives passed each gas station.  Or how they feel liberated from the need to perform oil changes every X thousand miles.  But what you don't hear, unless you're privy to their club chatter, is the more subtle changes in their lifestyles.

Efficient Thinking

For now, electric cars have a limited range by comparison to gasoline-powered vehicles. That means EV drivers spend more time considering where to get the next charge.  But the accidental benefit to this is that EV owners are much more conscious of efficiency.  They don't tend to joy ride.  They plan their routes very precisely. They become familiar with all the best charging places, whether those places are likely to be busy and at what time of day.  In short, electric vehicle owners aren't just driving more efficient vehicle, they are changing themselves to be more efficient people (at least when it comes to motorized transport).

The other change is the concern for the costs of maintaining a vehicle.  The naive person looks only at the price when considering a motor vehicle. But like most things that endure, there are upkeep costs.  The upkeep costs for gasoline-powered vehicles tends to run about 70-80%  of the price of the vehicle over the first 5 years.  Whereas the upkeep for an EV is about 16-20% of the price.  This change is perspective on cost is only realized when the EV driver sees, as I did, after six months the immense cost savings.  It was truly shocking to me (no pun intended). I was paying myself to drive an electric car.

I did not think that driving electric would be such a stark life changer.  It's not like I became a parent, or lost a limb.  But my whole paradigm regarding modern living has shifted slightly, and definitely for the better. I just see things differently, in a manner that I believe people saw when the first motorized vehicles became available over 100 years ago.

Commuter Cars Tango Vs Smart ForTwo ED

If you caught the first episode of the HBO show called "Silicon Valley", then you've seen the Tango.  It's the very narrow electric car that eccentric billionaire Peter Gregory drives in the show. And yes, George Clooney has one.  But how does it compare to the Smart ED?

On similarities, the Tango and the Smart ED are both electric.  They're both exceptionally small vehicles that seat two people and they get about 80 miles of range on the standard battery pack.  One of the comments that both cars get regularly is that they look like they'd fall over in a tight turn. But with all the battery weight in the floor, they both corner quite well.

The differences between the cars are distinct. The Tango uses two DC motors to the Smart's one AC motor.  The reason for the Tango to use these is the raw power, DC can push a vehicle quite a bit faster than AC  Although the Smart has been clocked at around 7 seconds for 0-60 MPH, the Tango is more like a motorbike with its 3.2 second time.

There's no denying the size differences, since the Tango weighs about 50% more than the smart despite being about 2/3rd of its width.  Also, the Tango is 4-inches shorter in length. At 3200 lbs, where does all the weight come from?  The battery pack is about 1200 lbs alone, and much of the frame of the Tango is reinforced with steel bars to guarantee that you will survive in a crash.

The most notable difference between the two vehicles are not the dimensions, but rather the price.  The Tango is quite a bit smaller and does not accommodate two people in the traditional side-by-side seating style.  Oddly enough, the Tango costs nearly seven times more ($160k) than a Smart ED.  But hey, it's still cheaper than a half-million dollar Porsche Carrera GT.

Frankly, the Tango was not built to be direct competition for the Smart.  Mercedes Benz created the Smart ForTwo over 15 years ago as an inexpensive city car for Europe.  It was not sold in the United States until 2008 and then only as an internal combustion model.  The Smart started out at a mere $12,000 and could be leased for $99 per month.  It's remains the smallest and least expensive car in the U.S. market.

The Tango is a limited production model that will never be powered by internal combustion. It is slim so that two Tangos can be driven in the same lane.  It's basically a motorbike with four wheels... a very expensive motorbike.  Okay, okay,... it's more of an electric toy for wealthy people.  But it is at least comparable in size and drive train to the Smart ForTwo ED.   As it is the Smart ForTwo ED gets a lot of attention, I don't think that I'd get that much more from owning a Tango.

If you're interested in either of these cars, check out the websites

National Smart ForTwo ED
San Jose Smart Center
Commuter Cars

Dual Carbon Batteries, what next?

The announcement of the Dual Carbon battery got me thinking about power storage in electric cars.  There are two lines of thinking in this area, (1) faster charging (2) greater range.  At the moment most people are concerned about the range, but charging or refueling is also a concern.

The dual carbon battery promises much and, at least supposedly, can deliver.  It should be noted here that the dual carbon battery is not all new.  Many battery chemistry types have been, in theory, possible for decades, but there was not much time spend on research.  A company called Power Japan Plus is the one to announce a functional dual carbon battery last week, that is making headlines.

Current battery technologies like Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) and Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePHO4) have provided a solid example of what is possible with battery technology.  But there is always room for improvement.

Gasoline has ruled the automobile industry for 100 years because of it's energy capacity.  Although gasoline requires that it be burned to harness the energy, that has not slowed its use. We could have been using nuclear power to the same end, creating massive quantities of radioactive waste rather than pouring carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, but gasoline was available first.

We don't use nuclear energy as much because of its toxic waste products.  Even batteries have some toxic materials in them, until now.  However, the dual carbon battery is made of 90% recyclable materials and offers many other features that are not found in Lithium Ion batteries.   By comparison the LiFe battery does the following better than any of its predecessors...

• It doesn't get hot or explode when in operation (lithium is volatile)
• It's made of carbon, which is quite plentiful (compared to lithium which is not)
• It charges much faster than lithium, about 20x faster
• It can be recharged more times that any other battery chemistry

So Dual Carbon solves problem number one, and by chance resolves a few other issues.  It might just be the solution that arrives sooner than lithium air and in the long-run is cleaner. 

But the revelation of Lithium Air and now Dual Carbon, leads me to wonder, what's next?  Is there some super material out there that we've yet to find that will be more energy dense than gasoline, clean, fast to recharge, and recyclable?  Based on these two recent technologies, it's my guess that there is something better.

How Far Does Your Car Go?

As it stands, the Smart ForTwo Electric Drive has an EPA estimated range of 68 miles. The average U.S. driver covers about 30 miles per day.  It would seem that the electric Smart more covers this by more than double.  But in the near future, your car could go a great deal further.

It's been said that "your mileage may vary".  The EPA estimates that the Smart ForTwo ED gets between 92 and 122 miles per gallon equivalent to gasoline (MPGe).  Unlike internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, for EVs the low number is on the freeway, and the high number is on the street.  But the average still comes out to about 108 MPGe.  The EPA also sets a range for ICE vehicles, which on average tends to hover around 25 MPG.

How far does your car go on a full tank or battery? Does it go 250, 300, 500, 1000 miles?  The average range on a tank of gasoline tends to be between 250 and 300 miles.  Whereas the average for an EV tends to be around 100 miles. For an ICE vehicle, the range depends how many gallons of full can be carried.  The same goes for electric vehicles, but for kWh of charge.   But what if the capacity of the battery could be drastically increased, in the same space?

Currently gasoline has a strong advantage over even the battery that can hold the most charge.  In terms of charge density (Wh / kg) gasoline holds 13,000 Wh / kg.  The technology in electric cars today has a charge density of 250 Wh / kg, a ratio difference of roughly 50 to 1.  Even with the 4 to 1 ratio of better performance over ICE, EVs still can't compete.

However, there's a new technology that's being worked on in chemical labs around the world.  IBM is one company that has taken a strong interest in the idea of greatly improved battery capacity.  The new technology is called Lithium Air and promises to increase the energy density of batteries to 11,700 Wh / kg.

As noted above the Smart ForTwo ED has a range of 68 miles.  With the new Lithium Air battery, and without changing the size of the battery, the range could be increased to as much as 3,182 miles.  I currently drive about 10,000 miles per year.  At this rate I might recharge every 4 months.  The battery in the Smart ED is now 17.6 kWh, with Li-Air it would 813.1 kWh (that's 0.8 Megawatt-hours).  At current electricity prices where I live that's only $80-worth of electricity.

Check out this video that IBM created to better explain the idea of Lithium Air

Six Months and 5000 Miles

I'm quite sure that there are some of you out there in the audience who are scoffing at my low mileage.  I've only driven 5000 miles in six months.  That's only about 833 miles per month or roughly 27 miles per day. I haven't taken too many long trips in the last six months, deliberately. And even so, I can't very easily take the Smart out of town too far.

Correction:  I can take the Smart ED anywhere I please, but since the recharge time is quite slow (5 hours from empty). So it's impractical to go further without a great deal of time to compensate.

The most impressive aspect (and I doubt that it will stop being so until there are many more EVs on the road) is that in these last 6 months and 5000 miles I've only spent $147 on fuel. I get on average 3.4 miles / kWh. That's enough money to fill the tank in my truck once by current gas prices ($4.5 / gallon).  The truck gets about 14 MPG and was costing me about $0.294 / mile.. The car cost me exactly 1/10th as much to fuel.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the cost to drive the Smart ForTwo ED 25 miles is $0.96.  Estimating that the average citizen of the United States drivers 15,000 miles annually, that equates to about $575.  I've driven 5000 miles which in six months which is a third of that total and spend only $147.  So if I drive the average number in a year, I will only have spent $440.

By contrast, had I been driving my truck (and I had for the prior 18 months), I would have spent ten times as much.  And by my own calculation while tracking costs and miles driven, I did tend to spend between $3300 and $3800 per year on fuel alone.  Over the course of several years that costs of driving the same distances back and forth, to and from the office, I could have purchased another vehicle and actually saved myself money.  Which brings be back to the Smart ForTwo ED.

I'm quite grateful to have the electric car with all its apparent shortcomings.  I get about the city to and from work, to and from church, to and from everywhere locally, quickly, quietly, and in all honesty quite happily.

So if you live in the South San Francisco Bay Area and want to find out more about electric cars, the Smart ForTwo ED, or any electric car, please contact me at wes@eaasv.org