Doing Volt Math at the Cracker Barrel

November 04, 2009

Project Get Ready emailed me a summary of their latest efforts to get cities ready to put electric vehicle charging infrastructure in place. One thing they've done is put together "Plugging In: A Stakeholder Investment Guide for Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure" to help organizations figure out the costs, the pros, and the cons of deploying charging stations for electric vehicles.

A scenario that has always intrigued me is places like Cracker Barrel providing free charging stations (like the free wi-fi you get at a coffee shop). It's cold and rainy and you're hungry, so you stop at a Cracker Barrel to get a warm meal by their fireplace. You plug your car into their electric hitching post, in front of the rocking chairs there on the porch. Part of the draw to choose Cracker Barrel is that they're going to provide you with a free fill up.

Car Batteries, Dreamers and a Voice of Reason

October 17, 2009

The dreamers are dreaming up the Holy Trinity, a vision where electric vehicles, smart buildings and the smart grid come together in a synergistic marriage that transforms the way we use energy; that lets us ditch the oil-powered car. It is an intoxicating view that offers to solve multiple problems, and create whole new worlds of human enterprise and purpose. But the dream is hampered by at least this issue: finding a cost effective, production scale energy storage solution to help power those electric vehicles. Current thinking focuses on the lithium ion battery.

John Peterson, an energy sector lawyer focused on "guiding small growth-oriented companies through the corporate finance process" offers a sensible, constructive critique that the electric vehicle actually derails our quest to end our oil dependency. 

The Hybrid Done Good

September 21, 2009

My 2005 Toyota Prius company car has 120,000 miles on it, and so soon will be sold out of the fleet to the highest bidder. How'd it do? 

Well.

It averaged something like 50 miles to the gallon over the life of the vehicle. Maintenance costs besides preventative stuff and tires? A changed belt, and a lamp for the driver side tail light. Never even changed the brake pads. After 120,000 miles! 

I don't know what price it will fetch, but blue book is $10,195 (the equalized blue book for the Crown Vic it replaced is $6,090).

The analysis that lead to the trial incorporation of the Prius into the fleet was a life cycle cost of $35K for the Crown Vic and $20K for the Prius, based on gas at $2.15 a gallon and trade in values of $4,500 for the Vic and $7K for the Prius (current resale values are a grand or so better than initially assumed).

The hybrid done good.

Photo: TailspinT on flickr

Battery Swap, Time Me

September 13, 2009

Better Place has a deal with Japan's government and the country's largest taxi operator to work out the details of doing a battery swap on an electric vehicle. 

Two things worth noting:

• Government support creates a welcome landing spot for Better Place, that could foster opportunities for the hosting country to produce and enjoy the technology Better Place deploys.

• Using a taxi company makes sense because it subjects the battery swap testing to the rigors, to the discipline, of an operational business enterprise. There's an implicit litimus test of being at least as quick as a gas station fill-up, and a taxi operation will demand that the swap meet this test.

Photo: Better Place on flickr

How to Buy the Road

September 12, 2009

The mileage fee is a sensible plank that belongs in any platform developed to remake the way we use energy. Among its other virtues, the mileage fee creates a way to incentivize efficient use of a constrained resource: the road.

In Bern Grush's blog dedicated to exploring the mileage fee (where he responds to this old PowrTalk post) he identifies a complex of purposes that would try to shape road policy, then argues that the mileage fee is the one tool capable of addressing them all:

iCar

September 03, 2009

The day of the car that does what you want is coming. The iCar if you will. Ford is developing 21 Escapes that do vehicle-to-grid communication, where the driver gets to program "when to recharge the vehicle, for how long and at what utility rate" when it is connected and recharging from the grid. 

Good.

Cars that give you the option to get there fast or get there efficiently, to charge quickly or cost effectively, to secure a parking spot in a crowded central business district? 

Better.

And then, to top it off: "Dr. Jasna Tomic with CALSTART estimates that the national grid would only need 7 percent additional capacity to off-peak charge 100 million electric vehicles.Those same vehicles could provide 70 percent of the national grid’s needed peak power."

Best.

Make driving better. Tackle big energy issues.

Photo: Georg Hoermann on flickr

Ford CEO Paints the Future Electric

August 17, 2009

NPR's interview with Ford CEO Alan Mulally this morning painted a titillating vision where captains of industry coalesce around an electric car future. The wrap up to this morning's session with an American automaker was unfathomable even less than a year ago. Alan said this:

[go to the "Continue reading >" link below the ratings section]

Matchmaking, Better Place and the Mileage Fee

June 21, 2009

Here's a little marriage that wants to be arranged: the Mileage Fee and Better Place's software platform.

The Mileage Fee offers a unique opportunity to put the traffic jam on a diet, and it is gaining traction as a way to deal with dissappearing gas tax revenues as people drive less, drive more fuel efficient cars, or eventually drive cars that don't use gas at all (read the preceding link commentary to feel the gaining traction part). To be deployed broadly, however, the mileage fee needs GPS systems to be manufactured into new vehicles.

Feebate Debate

May 21, 2009

With a new national fuel economy standard that will require cars to achieve 39 miles per gallon by 2014, comes the issue that vehicles will cost consumers an additional $600 to $1,300, and automakers will struggle to make money on the gas misers they'll need to sell to meet the standard. Even though the vehicle purchase cost would be partially offset by fuel savings, this is typically not part of the car buyer's calculus.

Could the feebate be of assistance here? The fee in feebate goes to the gas guzzler, rebate to the miser. The feebate is applied (in concept at least) so that fees and rebates are balanced; it's revenue neutral. No one gets rich here, but no one gets hurt either (thinking about automakers in particular), and the fuel economy standard becomes a little more achievable.

Smart Garage

May 17, 2009

Consider these rather large silos of development:

• the electrification of cars
• renewable energy 
• smart, interactive buildings that use less energy (and sometimes even produce energy--the trend towards net zero and net plus)
• a smart, interactive electrical grid