Tesla Founders Blog

Yes you can make omelets without breaking eggs- like the Russians do with their painted eggs by sucking out yolk thru a small hole-but that’s beside the point. My car goes about 400 miles per tank, so EV cost would be $22 per tank-less than half gas cost. But then there’s solar- what a concept: EV car & solar. I want to know if the Japanese will be able to significantly undercut the GM Volt price due to their previously announced deals with Japanese Li-Ion battery companies. Also, S. Korea makes Li-Ion batteries and Hyundai recently announced a project to make a plug-in hybrid Sonata apparently. I wonder if someone will be able to come out with a 40 mile range plug-in for maybe $30,000 ?

# Martin wrote:
## Try to find a web page that simply lists all the residential rates and links to the current rate schedules. You won’t find it. Grrr.

What about this one?
I just did a Google on “SCE rates” and got there right away. It looks like it might have current rates… no?

Martin sez:

Does Martin or any reader now know enough to recommend electricians in Silicon Valley, East Bay, and San Diego who can install the charging station?

Martin sez:

Sorry, I don’t. I don’t particularly like the firm that Tesla has contracted to install chargers, so I installed mine myself. I am pretty comfortable doing electrical work and I understand the relevant code, but I am not a licensed contractor. Fortunately you don’t need a license if you are doing your own work – you just need to install to code and pass inspection.

You might find http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/electric/Rates+and+Tariffs/ and the pages it leads you to useful. Among other things, it appears to have a map of the SCE rate areas.

GM Volt final design looks like a glorified Chevy Malibu. GM’s Lutz sez the car is “beautifully proportioned, nice and slick”. Looks like any other semi-boring sedan to me. For being such a different kind of car I say it should look like a different kind of car. GM sez it’s out to “lead the reinvention of the automobile” (after being automotive footdraggers for years- and kicking and screaming about “no raise in fuel mileage standards” on top of it)-well, too late, Martin & Co. have been there, done that. Tom Friedman of N.Y. Times had good editorial today titled “Innovative Economy is Central to U.S. Power”. He slammed the republican convention mantra-chant of “drill more oil now” . He also mentioned McCain’s 45 nuke plant idea: “McCain talks of how he would build dozens of nuclear power plants. Oh really? They go for $10 billion a pop. Where is the money going to come from? From lowering taxes?…from borrowing more from China?” For some strange reason he didn’t also say the obvious : “imagine how much solar and geothermal power (lightweight & nimble, in many convenient forms) you could throw up-and quickly- for that kind of cash-and after you DID throw it up, imagine how cheap it would be to throw up the NEXT round of solar/geothermal plants”-man oh man and jeeezzz of top of it! I’d like to see someone do a full page ad in “U.S.A. Today” explaining to “the general public” the real facts, in great, specific, detail, about just what is out there in green tech. NOW and what is very fast approaching. The general public doesn’t have a clue as to what the real deal is- and of course the powers that be like it that way, so the myth of ” green power not ready yet-someday, maybe” can be successfully perpetuated for as long as possible. The economy and energy are the only issues that really matter. Defense is a “scare the lemming-like public off a cliff issue”-period. So ask yourself this: why isn’t there detailed knowledge out there in the country at large about ALL things green tech.? Yeah “drill more oil now”- try drill more lithium now -then launch a major govt. push to put a plug-in hybrid in everyone’s garage ASAP. Then stand back and watch what would happen re. “the oil question” ! ! and !

Since may govts. now use Prius cars, this would also dump a lot of used ones on the market, making them available at a good price to those who can’t afford a new plug-in- an’ this ain’t bad either.

Per CNET News: Google and G.E. today announced a partnership to “develop smart grid tech., plug-in hybrid cars and enhanced geothermal systems”.CEO Schmidt of Google said that if by 2030 the U.S. were to get 100% of its power from renewable energy and replace half the cars with plug-in hybrids then we could cut co2 emissions in half. He said that “this would save 77% of $2.7 trillion in energy spending over 22 years-so expenditures (on green energy) would only be $600 million”. Now if only Google could have funded all of Testa Motors outright-perhaps Martin would still be there and the long-term company outlook (and interests/projects) would be better.

Tesla just announced it will build sedan plant in San Jose- I always thought N. Calif. was the place-why commute people all the way to Albuquerque anyway? Word is that the senate wants to offer rebates of between $3000 and $7500 on plug-in hybrids. Now we just need state incentives (registration cost breaks, tax breaks or whatever) on top of it.

So… what are people thinking here about California props 7 (solar) and 10 (wind)?

I’m on a neighborhood email list that favors household solar energy installations, and the vendors on the list are against prop 7; the notion that it favors big-utility solar at the expense of small projects seems to have some weight. I haven’t looked into prop 10 yet.

Any other thoughts?

TJ,

I just watched the Colbert interview with Lutz, and it was hilarious. It’s mind boggling that someone in BL’s position doesn’t believe that global warming is caused by CO2 from fossil fuels. No wonder GM is locked into a downward spiral towards oblivion. Their only hope is a $25 billion handout from the Feds, and that will probably only delay the inevitable for another 2 years or so. It’s highly doubtful that the Federal Government will give them that money anyway, as they can’t afford to bail out every company that is in trouble right now. Even if the feds handed over the dough, it would not go to creating jobs in the US, as GM is already drastically overstaffed.
I have to go on record at this point to say that I think the Volt is nothing more than a red herring. It is not a sincere attempt by GM to reduce oil consumption. I think that it is being produced to placate the “green” consumer until, as GM believes, this whole “green thing” passes. I believe that GM does not want to produce a car that has no ICE because it would cost them a huge chunk of their “parts” business.
It’s funny (actually sad) to think that 9 years ago GM was building a car that had a range of 150 miles powered by batteries and an electric motor. Today, with superior battery technology available, they are building a car with only 40 miles of “electric only” range. And, if the rumours are true, the standard “electric only” range will be 20 miles. You will have to go with the larger battery option if you want the full 40 mile EO range. That just doesn’t sound like progress to me. Anyway…

All the best,

Chris H.

Chris-yeah, you may be right-hopefully Toyota, Nissan ( & Hyundai), etc., using their battery company JV’s (announced earlier this year) with the likes of Panasonic, will push the plug-in envelope. If thru these companies & govt. incentives you could get a plug-in for $30,000 (or less, in short time?) that goes 40 miles or more per charge-this would potentially be huge. One way or another the potential by 2010/2011 is spectacular- question is: will this ” plus 50% dumbo country” get WITH it or not ? Latest poll, ” USA Today” : approx. 50% of people think they have a guardian angel -Lutz maybe thinks it may be all these angel’s breaths causing global warming. I hope this poll is seriously flawed-but probably not. Lutz is incredible-and he went to Berkeley, not Podunk State-double incredible. May his stint in the Marines explains it somehow. He ignores the conclusions of thousands of scientists (going back to 1957)- not only THAT, it makes perfect common sense (but of course, Hercule) that humans would be causing the vast majority of global warming. Just figure in the unprecedented rapid rate of warming, the thickness (make that “thinness”) of the atmosphere, the actually small size of earth, the fact that neither the oceans or plants remove co2 at a fast rate at all, the fact that we have been putting out co2 24/7 non-stop in ever-increasing amounts for like our 200 years- just what do you think MAY be happening out there Lutz “The Nuts Putz” !? I say give me some good GM advisors, show me to my office and I’ll do an equal or better job than Lutz for 1/10 the pay-or less.

Chris- it just occurred to me, exactly what DID the GM EV-1 cost,with its quite handy range, in today’s dollars? Since it was a “lease only” car I never heard-yeah, that’s the question. Another question iz: how about having Li-ion batteries and cheaper regular ones as well-must have been some advance in these from EV-1 days-thereby double (or more ?) the range without costing an arm & a leg, if people so want the option. ALSO- gear fed. and state govt. incentives to the range, thereby getting some good money back on this option . Yeah, between the tech. & the govt. the answers are there alright- just a matter of de-dumbing the country.

TJ,

Yeah, I was glad to hear that Tesla had reverted back to the old idea of pure BEV for the Whitestar (I still can’t bring myself to calling it the Model “ESSS-SUH-SUH”, ). I’m still wondering how they are going to achieve the claimed range (240 miles per charge, according to ZED), considering that it will be a heavier vehicle (it HAS to be, right?), unless they are planning to double the capacity of the ESS somehow, but I don’t see how they could do that for under $60,000, do you? Maybe Martin has some idea of how they might achieve that range. Also, just to tie into the topic of this thread, I’m guessing it’s going to cost more to drive per mile than the Roadster (given the same price per kWh for “EV Juice” ).

Chris-I’d like to know what the financial situation is in Canada re. “dummies in debt” and “dummies in bad mortgages” and ditto for the financial company dummies. Bill Moyers on PBS always has a good show- tonight he had financial author Kevin Phillips on (who predicted “all of this” years in advance)- dig this: between 1987 and 2006 debt quadrupled in the U.S. In terms of the govt. favoring of industries, the manufacturing sector was neck and neck with the financial sector in the ’80’s. Since then the financial sector has been favored by the govt. powers that be, including the fed. reserve/congress. Phillips said that the govt. “has been aiding and abetting the financial sector in their push to get Americans in debt” and into stupid mortgages. He said that this has ” created great wealth for a small slice of America”- which he says is about 1 to 2% of the population. However, the people behind all of this, as opposed to their companies, walk away as usual like the bandits that they are. The ex-head of Lehman Bros, made $354 million over the last 10 years. The ex-CEO of Merrill Lynch walked away with severance package of $161 million. The ex-CEO’s of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are getting $24 million in severance money. It’s pretty obvious that this country started losing it after JFK (no wonder)- first “the scam called Vietnam” – big moneymaker (which to enact required “JFK leaving office”), then look at the Nixon years on: you had total weasels in govt., then the scam called the OPEC oil embargo, where Carter started to do things to “get us off oil and into green tech.” ( which were soon abandoned when he left) . Then 22% inflation, then the bad times re. manufacturing/jobs epitomized by the Chrysler bailout-and look at the dumb/bad cars Detroit was making in the ’70’s and ’80’s. Then there was the scam called the savings & loan/bank collapse-BCCI and all of that. Then the huge military build-up of Reagan to help defeat the commies (which mainly just helped the military-industrial complex), then the rather “do nothing, get nowhere in particular” Clinton years- where the financial sector furthered and entrenched, it turns out, the big credit scam- leading to the blow up now. If it weren’t for computers/the internet, tech. companies, Bill Gates/silicon Valley and all of that, the progressive scene would have been really nowhere. Pundits marvel at how the Rove-style republicans can get “middle America” to “vote for the interests of the rich”-which on the face of it have NOTHING to do with them-talk about voting for “the elites”. They are conned into thinking that Hollywood and media types are “the elites” that they have nothing in common with. But always remember: beware of “Tax and spend big govt. liberals”-even McCain’s ads are actually yapping about this again. Yeah-and Mr. conservative Bush and his conservative party have racked up the biggest deficit in U.S. history-while being a bigger bunch of weasels than even the Nixon team while they were at it-and Nixon actually eventually got out of a lie of a war instead of into one: “Lie of a War II-the Con Goes On” . Man oh man- I am quite disgusted with a large segment of this country. Lie, con, plot and manipulate-and dumb down all the populace that is “dumb-downable”. No doubt the rise in cheating in schools, from my day, is a coal mine canary of this. Also, Musk & Co. firing Martin is part of the whole picture too- no principles at work there. There sure is plenty of money out there in govt. circles that is thrown away on totally worthless B.S.-like a war and now bailing out financial weasels, who helped dumb people get in major debt. Of course major debt is good for the likes of many in the die-hard ( and notably republican) elite : like Walmart- something like 5 members of the Walton family are in the top 10 or 20 of the richest Americans- maybe they could stand to lower their “always low prices” even more-or maybe it would be better to let their suppliers make more than 2 cents in profit. The level of what is basically corruption ( of lie, cheat ,steal, manipulate,con, schmooze, lobby variety) in this country is staggering-and also how entrenched it is. The green tech. potential is also staggering but it’s up against a lot of these weasels and their interests, in terms of conflicting with their “profit base” and in terms of “their money needs”- as in they want the money (”our “taxpayer money) to go to worthless B.S. like war and the military and every other leech- like, dug in tick- like vested interest. Sad- maybe 1/3 of this country is with it, but we’re dragged down by the other 2/3’s of the clowns- 1/3 being clown cadets maybe, the other 1/3 being third degree bozos.

Is Martin secretly planning to get back in the mix? Didn’t he say something about “after Nov.” awhile ago ? Sergey Brin of Google has a blog now. In the best of all worlds Google should have funded Tesla entirely from the start. Their funding of projects is great-they should keep it up and increase it. Al Gore is on their board right?- that “can’t be bad”.

Martin sez:

I think it’s a good bet that I will be up to something new come November. Odds are also that I will need to be secretive about it for a while. The nature of new ventures…

TJ,

I’m not going to pretend that we don’t have financially irresponsible people up here in Canada, because we do. However, I think that there was slightly more government regulation of our mortgage and banking industry, and that prevented people from over-extending themselves financially in the way that many in the US did. That being said, Canada often lags behind the States by 6-12 months in situations like this, and I’m fairly certain that economic hard times are coming, especially to Ontario. The total exposure to asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) by the big six Canadian Banks was only about $2 billion (CAN), so they are relatively unscathed compared to Wall St. The biggest problem up here will be the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario. We have quite a few auto assembly plants in Ontario (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki),

http://www.jama.ca/industry/manufacturing/vehicle/

as well as many parts manufacturers (Magna, Linamar, Lear Seating, Walker, etc.), and since the (not so) big 3 are scaling their operations way back, it is inevitable that massive layoffs are coming. Ironically, Toyota and Honda are expanding at this time. Toyota has a plant about 10 miles from where I live, which they have doubled in size in the last 10 years, and they have just opened another plant in Woodstock, about 30 miles away. However, this will not be enough to offset the job losses related to the big 3. As people lose their jobs in Ontario, more and more houses will go up for sale, and we will experience our own downturn in the housing market. I may be wrong, but I don’t anticipate that it will be as severe as the downturn experienced in Vegas, Sacramento, Stockton, Florida, etc., but who knows? Many of the people who lose jobs in Ontario will probably move to Alberta (oilsands), Saskatchewan (potash mines, the Bakken oil formation), British Columbia (lumber, other natural resources), or Newfoundland (oil). Some of these people only put 5% down-payments on their homes, so if prices drop, say 10%, they will lose all their equity. Not catastrophic, but not pleasant either… On the whole, I expect a shallower downturn in Canada than in the US, and as Canada finds alternative markets for its manufactured goods and raw materials, I think it will start to recover sooner than the US, but hey, these are just guesses.

Canadian national debt is around $500 billion, most of it run up under Brian Mulroney (Conservative Prime Minister, 1984-1993). So, despite all the revenue from oil, we are still in quite a bit of debt (per capita). It’s kind of funny that the Conservatives & Republicans try to paint themselves as economically savvy & frugal, because the historic record shows that to be untrue. As you pointed out, Clinton left office with one of the largest surplus’s in history, and yet the national debt increased under Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2. The current Republican administration has managed to almost double the national debt.
US debt will be the single biggest factor in the decline of the American empire, and it may well contribute to the collapse of several other economies around the world too, IMHO. We are living in interesting times, scary too.

I have seen in some place on the Web (some rumor surely) that Martin may become involved in perfecting solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) for car usage.
Public is well informed about other type of fuel
cells – proton exchange membrane (PEM) cells.
PEM cells have well known issues requring clean (99.5%) hydrogen as a fuel – hard to store, expensive to produce and distribute etc.
SOFC are much better because they could use familiar hydrocarbon fuel (gazoline, methane, kerosene) combined with regular air and convert its chemical energy to electricity with efficiensy
60-70% versus 30-40% for best ICE engines (even clean diesels included).
SOFC are practical devices already managed for pilot commersial use for electricity generation.
In combination with modest size battery and electric drivetrain SOFC could manage ~100 mpg ballpark of fuel efficiensy fit with today’s fueling infrastructure like normal cars.
One more advantage of SOFC is that they are not using expensive materials so they could finally manage mass scale car under $30000.

The key issues to overcome with SOFC would be power density per unit of weight. As I have seen today it stays close to ~10 W/kg. This means ~5 kW of sustained power for 500 kg unit. Sure taken as is it is not practical for cars. But if somebody has good idea how to improve power density at least by order of magnitude it may finally become a major breakthrough for cars.

As I could guess just from basic physics knowledge I has one possible way of such improvement could be radical increase of working pressure for gases used in SOFC. Current SOFC are working close to atmospheric pressure using fairly thick ceramic layers. If somebody manage thin ceramic layers working at pressures few hundred times the atmospheric pressure it might manage required improvement.

Personally I consider this option as one of the most practically promising for cars improvement. Sure it is just my personal opinion having no weight because I have no leadership talents.

We will see in several months from now is this guess any close to what Martin is going to do.

Anatoly-what do you make of QuantamSphere announcement? -Maybe SOFC as backup to that ? Chris- I read somewhere that Reagan, who used to be a democrat, got his ” big idea” for downsizing govt. from JFK originally. Jefferson and Jackson were the original “downsizers”. I also read that economists said that JFK was one of the best presidents re. being with it in economics field. He did a great job spending money on the moon program-an excellent govt. type program, with good “trickle down” potential. I know that he was also limiting military expenditures (yeah-his plan to get out of Vietnam totally after ‘64 constituted a huge limitation right there also) and monkeying with “the pet projects and turf” of the military/industrial complex”. Of course green tech. would be THE best similar fed. govt. project area now. If the fed. govt. wants to check the “decline of America” , putting the pedal to the medal and keeping it there re. green tech. & energy would, of course, be an excellent (x 3) idea. Not only that, fostering everything else related to the tech. sector in this country would be a no-brainer. Not only that, too bad college here isn’t free as in a great many other countries. If you join the military you get the G.I. bill at least. I would say that at least student loans should be at like 1%-what is the rate anyway ? JFK would be WAY-stoked about the govt. potential to really do something re. green tech. & all this, and more no doubt.

Anatoly,

I heard (or more likely, read) the same rumour about Martin and SOFCs. I haven’t seen any confirmation from Martin though… maybe he wants to keep it quiet until he’s in the clear in December.

All the best,

Chris H.

To T.J.

I glanced over QuantumSphere company. There is nothing theoretically impossible with their claim. So in that sense it is better than EEstore ultracapacitor. But this still means almost nothing in batteries because key problem in this area is how to prevent nasty chemical side reactions with increasing density of high energy atoms inside electrodes. I do not see how with current science level anybody could theoretically predict atoms behavior in solid or liquid materials.
As a result having patented idea is close to nothing. Something significant unavodably has to be proved battery prototype experienced thousands of tests successfully. This is not even on any horizon with just a patent. So I would not be exited much about that thing.

In contrast SOFC are very much developed to working prototypes and demonstrated nice practical behavior already. Also SOFC are fuel cells instead of batteries. So I would not call them any back up for batteries. They are just totally different devices. SOFC are doing the same job as electrical generators with diesel engines. They “burning” hydrocarbon fuels and converting part of its energy to electricity.
Key advantage of SOFC versus diesel generators is efficiensy of fuel conversion into electric energy. That efficiensy is basically about twice higher. In that sense it matches today large scale electricity generation efficiensy. So electrified car with SOFC and serial hybrid drivetrain will match overall system efficiensy of battery electric cars using electricity from best fossil fuel elctricity generation plants of today.
From the other point of view serial hybrid car with SOFC should have ~100 mpg for exactly same car and drive pattern as ~30 mpg car of today.
Key problem is power density of SOFC per unit of weight – that is it. It is still hard to solve and it is not proven but to me it does not sound impossible.

Current power density comes from the fact of ceramic electrodes and electrolyte in SOFC. Ceramic layers has to be thick to keep ceramics from cracks. This makes low surface to weight ratio preventing high power density.

But I think if somebody increases pressure ceramics would be proportionally more populated with fuel and oxygen molecules managing roughly proportional to pressure power density increase assuming no bad side effects.
Assuming fuel is evaporated from liquid state under high pressure it should be quite efficient to get high pressure fuel vapor in SOFC.
SOFC itself works at ~1000 C ballpark temperature.
Key problem is how to get equally high pressure air and how to avoid energy losses by letting out 1000 C exaust gases from SOFC.
This is why I proposed the idea with liquified air intake because evaporating that liquid would manage high pressure air pretty efficiently because heat itself would make the air compression instead of using mechanical energy in a pump. Having high pressure would also alow expansion of gases after SOFC through something similar to compressed air engine. At high temperature it will manage nice adiabatic cooling of 1000 C exaust from SOFC down to normal ambient temperature of air generating extra electricity in the process. Overall the set up seems to be very suitable for high efficiensy car.

Sure some alternative could be just reducing thickness of all the 3 ceramic layers involved in SOFC by order of magnitude or more but avoiding cracks somehow. That would solve power density problem too.
Martin expressed his great appreciation to East Asia approach to technology development. Managing the SOFC ceramics thickness down would suit perfectly to that culture. So may be he finally balnced together his wokr ethics ideal with technology problem to be solved.

If our guesses about SOFC are true I would say that we would not here from Martin by December this year. Likely we would here anything specific from him about his technology only after his new venture develops unbeatable competitive edge. This means Martin will not say to us anything technically interesting for next few years most likely.

Anatoly- drawback to SOFC is burning something to get energy. Maybe ultimately there is an electrical solution down the road where no co2 is put out yet “refueling” is fast ? You think SOFC could make for like a $20,000 car with 100 mpg or more ? Would be nice power source for an Aptera-major mpg there already. So, guess QuantumSphere is hyping their idea (to raise more money?-since why not just wait till they’ve really got the goods?) – since they need major battery testing to see what happens- have to build it and see if it melts, no ? Could be huge, obviously, if it works.

I looked up SOFC’s on wikipedia. They say that BMW, Rolls-Royce and Delphi Automotive, among others are working on this. My first thought was that if Martin was into SOFC’s it would be looking into some kind of lower temperature ones- maybe so?: at the end of the wikipedia article they said that lower temp. SOFC’s -ITSOFC’s (”intermediate temperature”) “can be made with cheaper materials” and be more durable. Article said: “the push for high performance ITSOFC’S is currently the topic of much research and development”. If an ITSOFC could make for a car costing $15,000 or lower even, and running on gas or ethanol- that would be something. I still wonder about this scenario also: couldn’t it also be part of a more expensive GM Volt type Li-ion car? If SOFC’s run on gas at the efficiency of 100 mpg, that’s a lot better than the gas engine/generator in a Volt type car, no ? So after going “the first 40 miles on electricity” per the Volt, all the miles traveled from then on with an SOFC making the power instead of a gas generator would mean like triple gas savings, no ? Interesting, captain- I must know Anatoly’s rumor source, is it silicon valley ferrets or, dare I say, KGB ? (no couldn’t be that).

Twilight Zone episode script , submitted for your Rod Serling -like approval : same history repeating itself (”what a coincidence”) decades apart: Vietnam (cost: $133 billion, wonder what that is today’s dollars?)= Iraq (final projected total cost $1 trillion, or more). Savings & Loan collapse (made possible by repealed regulations, Texas weasels heavily involved, cost: $500 billion, ditto: ? cost in today’s dollars)=Mortgage Crisis Collapse (made possible by repealed regulations, Texas weasels involved, cost: over $1 trillion)-and no one, almost, is the wiser.

Chrysler has jumped in with its EVs (note the plurality).

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/23/chrysler-llc-debuts-dodge-ev-jeep-ev-and-chrysler-ev/

Any thoughts/comments/flames from the experts here?

And yes, the Dodge ZEO ripped off a few lines of Tesla’s business plan, presumably because it was a good one.

I’m interested in the transmission solutions for these Dodge EVs. Is it a 1-speed or multi-speed gearbox? Xtrac has already come up with a breakthrough with their offroad development partner, it involved extensive empirical testing at races. Break, return to factory for tear-down, beef up parts. Do-until-works. Whoala..1st place, 3rd place, 1st place: 2nd in season points standings, needs a strong finish at upcoming Baja 1000 to get the crown. I wonder when the 1st Jeep EVs hit the offroad race scene? Perfect marketing opportunity. Kia, General Motors (Vortec Trophy Truck program years ago) are all examples of MFRs using Auto Racing as a “marketing vehicle”. I guarantee you, if Dodge can do Durability/Reliability tests of Jeep EVs at Baja races (the shockload is INCREDIBLE, Paris-Dakar Rally hardware & cars gets thrashed in Baja competition), then street applications will have a solid battery pack.

Sample pre-run (non-race) rides here,here, & here. Pre-runs are “toned down”, racing is at a different level altogether (insane).

CORR pre-runs here & here. Xtrac is involved with CORR, & has Pro 2 clients using their gearboxes. Most racers use automatic trannys (easier to drive, less stress on drive-train)

Came across some recent fuel cell news (July 31): google search: “MIT Nocera lab fuel cell”. They say it’s “simple, inexpensive and efficent”. Video mentions it being great for home solar power storage-and powering EV car at night from solar power made during the day-grid free power at all times: this would be poifect !

The senate finally voted to renew solar tax breaks for another 8 years-next goes to house vote.

House passes $25 billion loan for domestic automakers

Ja-hear me once again, und listen to me later, when I say this: I don’t think other countries have any problems helping their key industries and interests (China, Korean, Japan-so on, so forth) -we should have no problems helping green tech. and old industries (autos) adopting green tech. -for it is the key sector, no ? I vill now go smoke a big cigar to celebrate the possibilities-or, maybe not.

CNET news: JB Straubel of Tesla said today that Tesla wants to make a minivan, coupe and light pickup truck after the sports sedan-cars costing between $20,000 and $30,000-said that they want to make hundreds of thousands of cars per year. With sports sedan cost of around $60,000 an appropriate standard color would be Gecko Green, the optional metallic version being Gordon Gecko Green.

Anatoly!

Great to hear from you again.

Rob- not totally from me-they could take a little more from “the rich” (who would barely notice it) and from shutting down all the waste/ corp. loopholes (good luck, right ?)-and not giving so much to the military/industrial complex. I’d want a diversion of funds, more than anything-into progressive green tech. Nobody could come up with the kind of incentives to “make the middle class green” except fed./state govts. Of course guys like Bill Gates (Buffet/Allen, and many more) could help more , but he’s targeting most of his cash to the “third world”. Get the simultaneous package deal of home solar/fuel cells/EV cars into the paws of the middle class (with a program bettering the German one) and whoa-stand back, watch out- both greed and green would be covered: big money into the economy, big co2 reduction-continual. The new Gordon Gekko (his family name used to be Gecko, but he wanted to be known as a Wall St. Wizard-not lizard) would be stoked , way.

How can intelligent people continue to allow the term “zero emission opertion” for electric car operation? How can people think that cheap electricity drawn from the grid at night will not be in one to one correspondence with coal?

This is worse than people thinking it will be ok to take out a mortgage loan without reading the paper.

Martin sez:

Man that is really dense, Jim. Do you take your paycheck in cash and carry around a wad of bills, or do you put it in the bank and withdraw money when you need it? If you use a bank, don’t you feel bad about living 100% off of other people’s earnings?

Why we need the package deal of solar home/ solar power storage/EV cars worldwide, and the price is a steal: latest AP news item: “World co2 output increased 3% from 2006 to 2007. That’s an amount that exceeds the most dire outlook for c02 emissions projected by a Nobel-prize winning group of international scientists in 2007″ . Meanwhile “forests and oceans are sucking up c02 at lower rates than in the 20th century… figures show that China’s added emissions accounted for more than half the worldwide increase”. A scientist at Oak Ridge National lab said : “If we’re going to do something about reducing emissions it’s got to be different than what we’re doing”.

2007 U.S. co2 emissions info. (from U.S. Energy Information Admin.): 67% of co2 from building power (residential=21%,commercial=18%,industrial=28%), 33% of co2 from transport . So focusing on home solar for house and car would work on two big parts of the problem-and “installation in volume” would cheapen solar for commercial/industrial use-besides the “middle class trickle everywhere benefits” mentioned before.

Re Steve Unlir,
Hydro can usually be stored to use during the day to reduced usage of expensive fuel and the inefficient peaking natural gas generators that are cut in for heavy loads. This is especially the case in Northern CA where the water is in reservoirs. If this is not the case, then there is a heavy government hand and an indirect tax on electricity users.

I recently found a site where forthright data is provided on power plant operation for the Province of Ontario. Unlike CA, where no end of trying has yielded nothing honest as to fuel usage, here is a hard data base to work with.
http://reports.ieso.ca/public/GenOutputCapability/PUB_GenOutputCapability_20080916.xml
From this you can see several interesting things about the schedules. They have price regulation of some form and they have public programs to try to reduce coal usage. This is much like CA. They have even more hydro than we do.
A special note, they have quite a lot of cogeneration, and it appears from a partial study that these are the natural gas generators that are run at night. This makes sense since this is the only way natural gas can compete with coal as fuel for electricity generation.

You are certainly correct about nuclear in CA running full tilt, day and night, and it shows in this data to be the same in Ontario.

Re my above answer to Steve,
I confused things by using CA for California, not Canada.

Also, clicking the link gets only one page. If you type it in you can get the whole year and more. This is an amazing resource.

For the 20’s you yourself put in the bank, if you want to take credit on earth instead of heaven, that’s ok. Now you can take the 20’s out of the bank with interest. There is no mooching involved if you don’t try to take out a loan you can’t repay.

But I think the real question for solar systems is, “How much do they really cost?” And, “What fraction of their output will go to charging the car?” The fractional cost needs to be looked at in respect to the car cost. But I am not very concerned if rich people want to drive around in a hot looking car, but just a little envious.

I am more interested in large scale transportation issues. Here is where solar costs become interesting.

So on to “clean power” from nuclear and hydro. Is there reserve capacity in nuclear? I don’t think so. Most agree these are running full tilt, and can not be persuaded to do more. Is there reserve capacity in “minimum flow” hydro? I don’t think so. If there is, then the California Public is now getting fleeced. So the “clean power” now is supplemented by coal power. And that is the energy source that corresponds to use of electric energy in cars.

It really doesn’t matter when a few people plug in their Tesla’s. The issue becomes important when there are a lot of plug-ins. There is a big problem when the Tesla example leads to large numbers of inefficient electric cars, as seems to be the direction of the auto industry and there seems to be political support for this trend.

I should clarify that I think the Tesla is a real achievement. It is more efficient than conventional cars. However, at the present time it is not sufficiently efficient.

The problem with electrifying cars in general, where nothing much is done for efficiency, is that we are just shifting from one bad energy source to another. We could be greatly reducing energy usage overall, and then the source would no longer be all that important.

The Miastrada is kind of a big Aptera. That car is one different scheme that somehow came to life- over 3200 orders so far. I like it- if I were more rich , with a bigger garage & lived in Calif. I’d order one. On the Miastrada I’d for for 4 wheels, normal size or slightly large- wouldn’t 6 create more friction ? I did sketch once (once !) similar to the top of the Miastrada , airplane- like top (”if you recall”) but more sleek and less zeppelin- base was like a LeMans car-with center support short vertical ” fin” link between the two- “regular” gull wing or hinge forward (per Aptera) doors. The car looked quite (quite) nice-but an acquired taste, like the Aptera. Re. the great energy debate, solar and geothermal combined could kick the halibut out of the whole problem- in re. to buildings, and cars.

TJ
A lot of work went into the USS Akron airship leading up to the wind tunnel tests in 1933. Also, a lot of work went into the Morelli shape, which I perceive to be the Aptera without wheels, that was tested with results published in 1983. Both are very good aerodynamically with Cd of about .05.

I made slight modificiations to get the airship a little more sleek, but I hesitate to do much without having wind tunnel opportunities. I actually used Morelli rules to a limited extent so I am reasonably confident I didn’t mess it up.

Rolling resistance is mostly a function of total vehicle weight, and it has little to do with the number of wheels. But the six wheel system has a real purpose which is the articulated stabilizing system which does not get noticed immediately. This articulated system makes possible a tall and narrow vehicle which is dramatically different from the Aptera. I think it will be a much more pleasant ride. I also prefer to keep tandem seating and to provide substantial side structure and side impact zone which the Aptera does not have. Getting Aptera to pass side impact tests led to significant engineering work, they say, but I contend that this test is an artificial specification by the NTSB, where the side impact is with a broadside blunt ram.

But a good look shows that the Aptera is a very wide vehicle, and notice they avoid any statement of that width dimension, or so it was the last I looked.

But thanks for your observations which I take very seriously.

Hi Steve S.,

it’s good to hear from you again. I was beginning to think you had left us.

Regarding my recent posts on the Volt: the last post was almost entirely cut & pasted from the CNN story, only about two lines of it were my own writing. I think that the CNN article represented more than a correction of a technically incorrect statement, it appears to be a new characteristic of the power train. In fact, given this new information, I’m not sure that it can still be classified as a serial hybrid (I’d be interested in hearing other people’s opinions on this point).

As for the other post where I referred to the Volt as a red herring (I think that’s the comment you were referring to…), well, it’s just my opinion, based on their use of the Volt as more of a marketing tool for the company, or as a federal fund-raiser tool, rather than as a sincere attempt to produce an efficient PHEV. Again, it’s just one man’s opinion, and not the last word on the subject by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, it’s good to hear from you again. How’s the housebuilding in Florida going?

All the best,

Chris H.

Bill Moyer’s PBS show has author Andrew Bacevitch on who says, basically, that the decline of U.S. policy / progressiveness, overall, started after JFK with Vietnam war. He says that Carter, as a brief “respite” , raised the red flag of oil, energy dependency and green energy (and talked about an important long term crusade) but no one wanted to hear it. Also, he said that while Reagan talked about smaller govt. (like JFK) both govt. and deficit increased under him. What needs to happen is that the progressive tech. set-guys like Martin- needs to rise in influence to swamp the bad elements of the country. For example, the Google guys should have even bigger plans than they have now-whatever the plans are. The more they make the more the can invest in all things really progressive. I also think Bill Gates is too fixated on “the third world” . He (Buffet, Allen-the usual whoevers) should also invest in green tech. here- green power this country and costs would go down to green power poorer countries, and this overall would lead to good trickle down benefits. Once over the initial cost hump of green tech. it would no longer require the help of people like him and govt.. What’s the time frame of this hump -looks like 10 years or less to me, with a real push from all those with the cash/resources to really help.

Martin, I think I have the same file of proposals as you. I would love to share the history of these failed ideas and dreams.

Once in a while, you get the chance to help make one of these dreams a reality. In my case, it was with the Aptera.

Since I have one on order, we should to a ride swap…

One thing that really gets me, as a designer, is most people don’t understand the difference between “design” and “style”. If
you do a careful analysis of the Aptera, you will not find any style in it. Most ventures sadly miss out on a key piece of strategy in creating “the vehicle that can change the world!”, to their continual detriment. Why do you think the Tesla, the Fisker Karma, and the Aptera are being taken so seriously (with funding and orders to prove it!) ??? All 3 recognize design from the beginning, not style added after the fact.

Jim, you are correct about the known Morelli shape vis a vis the Aptera.

Anyway, love your color and stripe choice on your roadster. I will keep my eyes out for it in Socal.

J

Incidentally, the Hyundai Getz is the first automobile to be named after a jazz musician, unless you try to include the Miles. Go, Korea!

I have to admit that I would have named it the Coltrane, or even Desmond instead.

Quick details on the Hyundai conversion : Lithium phosphate batteries ( ThunderSky ) 18kWh, Azure Dynamics 3-phase AC drive, highway speeds and ~100km urban range. Price tag is still a tad high, but hey, being early adopter has never been cheap.
IMHO this spells “success”, they already have local organizations as small fleet customers.

I don’t understand why everyone has been being so hard on the volt. The engine will still run at constant rpm with the battery acting as a load leveler. Why would anyone want the battery to be charged while driving? You want as much energy as possible coming from the grid, not gasoline.

D, the reasons why people are hard on the Volt could fill many paragraphs. The short answer is that people don’t trust GM for a lot of reasons, including the EV-1 debacle, and the fact that they seem to be dragging their feet on the Volt. Their public-spirited actions always seem to be a few years into the future. We’ll all trust GM again when a thousand or so Volts, sold and not leased, to private individuals, are driving around. Personally, I think GM management is serious about making the Volt happen. Some folks think that GM ownership has a lot to do with oil money, which affects their actions. I’m still outraged by GM acquiring a controlling interest in Ovonics (now Cobasys}, the inventor and owner of key NiMH battery patents, and then selling it to Texaco (now Chevron) which pretty much killed the development of pure electric vehicles for years, until lithium ion batteries were developed for the electronics industry, and then adapted to vehicle use by a brilliant young engineer.

You’re right about wanting the battery pack to be charged from the grid, except that a certain amount of battery charge on the highway would be desirable for helping the small 1.4 liter gas engine, with its efficiency penalty caused by the generator – motor link, drive the car up long hills.

As nearly as I can tell, the motoring press recently tried to point out that the difference between the Volt and other hybrids is that the gasoline engine never drives the wheels. A GM guy, in the interest of accuracy, pointed out that most of the power from the gas engine is used to drive the wheels, through the electric motor. A certain amount of confusion resulted.

With a plug-in serial hybrid (like the Volt), equivalent fuel mileage will be so dependent on how you drive it. For someone who only drives 30 miles per day and always plugs it in, 100MPG equivalent seems believable. At the other extreme, someone who never plugs it in and does a highway commute on gas only would (IMHO) be lucky if they could even get close to 40MPG.

Certainly there will be some people with very long commutes who buy it by mistake, and/or those who find that they didn’t actually have a convenient place to plug it in, but hopefully most will fit the profile of the short range daily driver who makes sure to plug in every night. In that case the behavior when the battery pack is exhausted is somewhat irrelevant.

Jim- yeah Bacevich sez that the country in many ways “lost the scent” decades ago-and he’s right. Bill Moyers and Tom Friedman of the N.Y. Times are two of the best commentators out there. Just saw clip of Gore on T.V.- he was saying that green is (everything) good (”for lack of a better word”)- and THE “solution in question”, economic and otherwise. He is, of course highly right-a continuing trend there. I’m doing my part by e-mailing Sen. Reid and giving Harry hell (kind of) with detailed green facts to back it up -which he should pass along, Truman style. Sure, he no doubt ain’t reading any of it himself -but someone(s) on his staff is-and, per the Trickle DownTheory (beloved by Phil Gramm-who in ‘99 helped to get us into this current crisis and so enabled us to become a “nation of whiners”), we can only hope for good results over time, no ?

TEG sez:

Certainly there will be some people with very long commutes who buy it by mistake, and/or those who find that they didn’t actually have a convenient place to plug it in, but hopefully most will fit the profile of the short range daily driver who makes sure to plug in every night. In that case the behavior when the battery pack is exhausted is somewhat irrelevant.

Wouldn’t someone with a long commute still benefit from the Volt if the made sure to plug it in every night? Seems to me an 80 mile commute would be a lot cheaper, and more friendly to the environment, if the first 40 miles of it were all electric.

TEG, great answer! I get caught up in techno-geek fine points, and assume other people are familiar with all the technical details.

D, as far as I know nothing important, if anything, has changed with the Volt driveline. I know of no technical reason to not buy a Volt, for anyone with a place to plug it in and without a very long commute. The gripe most of us have with the Volt is that it isn’t coming to showrooms soon enough to suit us. Hopefully, millions will be sold, along with other cars that get most of their power from plugging in.

wayward, by the time the Volt shows up the factory Toyota plug-in Prius will be available. For the relatively few people with very long commutes, it will take advantage of the all-electric miles you mentioned in addition to better depleted-battery efficiency. Toyota has test fleets of them already running around, contrasted with a Volt show car minus an engine and proper battery pack. However, the Volt should be very competitive for its main intended use, and we can expect a big demand for all plug-in cars.

kert, any alternative gasoline-fueled power sources will face very tough sledding for long vehicle commutes, due to the importance of light weight, low cost, small packaging size, and proven reliability; and to the efficiency penalty of the generator – motor drive.

light weight, low cost, small packaging size, and proven reliability
Yes, and for this task rotary engines for example are better match than piston engines ( way better power to weight, less moving parts ).
Once you are free of the torque curve requirements of mechanical drive train, the trade space really opens up.

Martin sez:

Unfortunately, the rotary engine is if anything a bit less fuel efficient than its piston counterpart.

Here is a recent story mentioning GMs desire to get the Volt rated as 100MPG to outdo the Prius.

Unfortunately, the rotary engine is if anything a bit less fuel efficient than its piston counterpart.

+1

A couple of guys I know that own Rx-8s constantly complain about their low fuel efficiency. Of course, these guys are mostly tuners that have modified their Mazdas for speed, so maybe they are not a good data sample.

Yeah-tidal wave, meaning “sea change”. Right now it’s out at sea and not noticeable to many. They’ll notice when it hits the shore. So “Frisky” Buffet puts $230 million into BYD. There was sole guy to have invested in Tesla Motors from the start. He stays out of managing the companies he invests in. But he was in Nebraska and Martin was in Calif.-and never the twain did meet.

# Martin sez:
## I am actually optimistic about Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs)…

It would be nice to see SOFCs in home heating (and power applications). Wouldn’t that be great if your water heater and central heating were providing electricity whenever they run?
Slow startup times aren’t an issue there either since your central heat and water heater can be slow to respond.

Perhaps a mobile SOFC unit could “range extend” an EV on the road, but also home SOFC (and/or Solar) could recharge the batteries when parked at home.

Martin sez:

Aptera now has orders for 3600 cars, last I heard it was 3200. They also hired CEO who was Saleen CEO and a development guy who used to work on Dodge Viper & Ford GT programs, also a marketing guy who worked at BMW and Audi. Newsletter said they are moving into new facility and hired 21 people, and made a number of improvements to car- I see it now has a small side window. I wonder if they are sketching anything on a future four wheel car. Google invested another $2.75 million in Aptera. They have a philanthropic website, Google.org, that I didn’t know of. They’re doing a lot of things- this company I like. Philanthropic branch of Google has $2 billion in funds.

Steve S.,

As usual, you are ignorant of the facts. The rotary engine has now been developed into a “compound” configuration by Moller International, with additional modifications to eliminate “quench” of the air/fuel mixture along the combustion chamber walls to yield high efficiency, low emissions, low noise and cool exhaust temperatures:

http://www.moller.com/files/Breakthrough.pdf

Lots of good comments about turbines, both pros and cons, and particularly their suitability for series hybrids.

Financial pundits are saying that this meltdown, being a nice last straw, will effect the avg. U.S. standard of living for years to come-which is just what we need now that “coming soon to your neighborhood” people could be adopting green tech. for home and highway use- but it takes green to go green , per the Gordon Gecko axiom. But-don’t get me started ! (or Martin will be forced to hit the delete button).

Planning must be underway for the announcement in two years of the “Gecko Green Bank” dealing exclusively in funding for the Extreme Home Makeover Green Improvement Package (Green car/solar/fuel cell)- a branch of the New Resource Bank, funded by Warren Buffet, Google.org, Gates Fdn. and more. A minimal or non-profit operation that plows most money back in, would be convenient-seeking returns thru high volume over a long time.

For those who don’t know The Minarets-check out google search of “The Minarets in the Sierra Nevada”. I wouldn’t get anywhere near that in a small plane if I wanted to stay among the herd.

News (from “Greentechmedia”): green tech. VC money in 3rd quarter= $2.8 billion, more than double the prior quarter, with solar tech.= $1.5 billion. Total green tech. VC investment this year= $5.09 billion- 49.7% increase over last year. Sharp Electronics plans to increase its thin-film solar manufacturing capacity by 6 fold by 2014. Sharp, with 2 other companies, is also working on Li-ion batteries with up to 40 times the storage capacity of laptop type batteries- to be used for storage of home solar power. This could compete with fuel cells (?)

BBC News: Italian car design firm Pininfarina is coming out with their own brand name EV car-introducing at Paris auto show-neat looking, kind of techy little car. Paolo Pininfarina sez: “The car is real” . Batteries are “lithium metal polymer”. He says they will sell the car in europe, Japan and U.S. by end of 2010. Mine more lithium! Mine more lithium! (I must go prospecting in the desert-what does “lithium ore” look like anyway ?)

Jason, welcome back! I heard that you even went missing from the Volt site a while back, and I was afraid you had lost interest.

I almost didn’t see your post because some guy keeps writing one stream-of-consciousness post after another and filling up the latest comments display.

Did you see that my prediction came true that the Chairman’s spacecraft would reach orbit? I knew he had hired a lot of bright and experienced guys, but the truth is that I was as surprised as anyone that their success happened so soon.

What do you think of that Bullis guy? He certainly has none of your wit and style.

I did some looking into my idea about using a supercharger exhaust turbine on a Prius or Volt engine, but using it to power a high speed generator to charge the batteries or provide extra power to the electric motor, instead of a supercharger.

From aircraft engine data on centrifugal and turbocharger blowers I found about a 20% upper limit on efficiency increase, which probably translates to about 10% at most in the real world. That sounds like a lot, but would only increase the overall efficiency by about 3 percent numbers, e.g. from 30% to 33%. That would translate to only about a 3 to 5 mpg improvement on the two cars I mentioned, and result in considerable development and a fairly expensive and somewhat complex system. The plug-in economy increase is much more interesting.

You no doubt saw this Wiki paragraph:

Aside from being used for internal combustion engines, the basic Wankel design has also been utilized for air compressors, and superchargers for internal combustion engines, but in these cases, although the design still offers advantages in reliability, the basic advantages of the Wankel in size and weight over the four-stroke internal combustion engine are irrelevant. In a design using a Wankel supercharger on a Wankel engine, the supercharger is twice the size of the engine.

The compound Wankel idea sounded so bogus on its face (an inefficient supercharger on an inefficient engine) that I didn’t even look it up in Wiki until today. Evidently a straightforward compound engine would weigh nearly three times as much and take up nearly three times as much space as the same horsepower turbo Wankel. However, as we say in aerospace, you don’t need to actually do anything to be a success. You just have to get funded.

We all know that Mazda isn’t stupid about Wankel engineering. However, it’s amazing to me that they read the market so well and made such a wonderful success with the Miata (and whatever they call it now), and dropped the ball so badly with the RX series cars.

They would have gotten a lot more traction with a supercar with a circa 500 hp four rotor engine and very poor fuel economy, instead of a car with mediocre power and poor fuel economy.

Interesting times!

Jason, I was responding to the comment about 14 posts before yours. Been visiting here long?

Steve-talk about stream of consciousness post-”as you should”. Why don’t you post more, I don’t mind. I’m trying to post about larger issues than wankel(schmankel) engines. I do believe that that approach is a more conscious stream.

Martin

Have you considered a Honda natural gas generator t?

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c070403HomeHeatingPowerSystem/

Martin sez:

I think these things are really cool. If I lived someplace where I needed much heating, I would own one.

Hi! Has anyone mentioned the new electric car and plug-in hybrid tax credit. I believe the credit is $2,500 plus $417 per kwh for batteries over 4 kwh. The maximum is $7,500. I read several news releases and I believe this is correct. Only one report I saw mentioned both electric and plug-in hybrids (most just mentioned plug-in), but I didn’t read the actual bill. Can anyone else confirm if this is correct? Have a great day!

Jimmy- all I know is that I read somewhere online that “the environmentalist” type members of the U.S. Senate were trying to get a “rebate of up to $7500″. Steve-actually clogging the recent comments section doesn’t mean much, it’s just like a “recent contents section”. If more people posted, and the stream bed weren’t so dry, that wouldn’t happen. But yeah, I’ll consolidate my comments into one post more for the sake of not “seeming to hog the blog”, even though actually a blog is infinite so there is no such thing.

Insight blog:

http://automobiles.honda.com/insight-hybrid/blog.aspx

I noticed a comment about steam based six-storke engine. I was interested in the idea and spent some time for its analysis. I realised that by physics of it it has to lose heat of the exaust and only partially uses waste heat typically lost in cooling system. Typical energy balance of ICE is that ~40% goes to cooling system. Using this energy via relatively low pressure steam engine would at best take 20% of that energy so overall efficiensy improvement would be close to 10% at the very best. So used with gasoline ICE this concept just improve efficiensy to the level of diesel engine. This would be hard to compete against well invested clean diesel technology.
Used together with diesel the principle would reach 50% efficiensy as promised. Unfortunately for so undeveloped and different principle of engine from the ICE mainstream promise of 50% efficiensy is just too low I think because at similar level of fairly radical intrusion to an engine concepts delivering 60 – 70 % exist.

Elon Musk apparently by his own nature is and will be all about himself thinking he is “God Creator of everything”. Such a personality naturally should paint all the achivements on himself personally. So what happened on the show is all expected. The irony is that ego of Musk is a good driver to promote EV technology core developed.
I see it like this. Alan Cooconi by personality is hard core technical enthusiast. He crossed the dessert of making extremely original technology prototype and demonstrating its the technology petential. At that point it is not a technology. It is just a curious thing detined to be forgotten by itself – never a business. Alan Cocconi got his share of bitterness at the end but he also had a dream come true happiness while developing. Martin come with different talent – being first to see developed but unrecognized technical thing. He managed the leadership to make technology out of a prototype example. On this road he come to his personality limitations to bridge technology into mundane regular mangfacturing business. He had his bright moment of happiness and bitterness at the end on the road. Now ego of Elon Musk seems to be a good driver to scale up the technology most efficiently. Overall the whole path is far from being humane about creators but it is surprisingly efficient in making technical idea into technology.

Gabe, thanks for the Honda company Insight blog link!

Correction:

The 2nd gen Smart ED with Li-Ion ESS (maybe sourced from Tesla?).

T.J., thanks for replying to Anatoly. I hope, though, that you don’t think it’s typical of true scientists to make extremely simplistic and poorly informed judgments. To be fair, the language barrier might have a lot to do with it.

Here’s a link to an September 23 interview with a Pulitzer prize-winning NY Times financial reporter about the Wall Street bailout: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94928783 .

For a less academic and more irreverent take on the subject, http://www.hulu.com/watch/37758/saturday-night-live-c-span-bailout#s-p1-st-i1

T.J., I don’t know who Spock, Scottie and McCoy are, unless they’re some of the stooges you’re always on about. I can tell you that Anatoly is no Darwin. It seems like just a case of disagreement between you and me, which is no cause for alarm.

What did give me a chill is that the SNL video clip in the second link I sent had been yanked from hulu when I tested it an hour or so after my post. It had formerly been featured in hulu, and was the best political satire I’ve seen on SNL in many years. It was originally broadcast on network TV and had no offensive language or silly bathroom or bedroom humor, and wasn’t about the candidates in the current election. It was a satire of C-SPAN coverage of congresspeople talking about the financial bailout.

The standard joke about C-SPAN is that politicians, etc. can speak frankly there because they know that no one important is watching.

Michael Moore’s movies are his best effort to ridicule and shame big corporations and try to deprive them of their immense power. The movies are funded by some of those same corporations he’s attacking. They can make some money from his movies, so they don’t care about his messages. They don’t care what people think because they feel invulnerable.

If the yanking of that particular clip wasn’t just a strange coincidence, maybe it’s a good sign that some of those folks are starting to feel less invulnerable.

Anyway, that’s more than I ever wanted to post here about economics. Did anyone see the clip?

http://www.snlbailout.cx/
http://www.hulu.com/watch/38041/saturday-night-live-washington-approves-the-bailout

NothingToSeeHere, many thanks! The right is trying to spin the clip into an attack on the left. I thought it was toughest on the current administration (the previous president achieved a budget surplus) and greedy, unscrupulous financial manipulators (the last time I looked they were on both sides).

Now if I could get help finding a transcript or audio clip of Chris Paine’s remarks at the recent AltCar Expo (promised but not delivered by AutoBlogGreen) it would be icing on the cake.

T.J., thanks for the tip on the upcoming Army electric car purchases. Do you have a link? A military contract can motivate companies toward cooperative ventures, which might be good for Tesla. Maybe a Jeep-like vehicle with their powertrain?

I guess I somehow missed out on all that ancient stooges, etc. pop culture fun. Or maybe it just didn’t appeal to me. Science fiction: bad science, bad fiction.

Gabe, I get the “listen here” rectangle but it’s inactive. In the left side of the rectangle is a little box with a red “x” inside it, like you get when a photo is no longer available. I tried enabling cookies. Does the audio clip play for you? If so, what player does it use? Did you have to join AutoBlogGreen or pay a fee?

Fixed link:
<a href=”http://www.driveev.com/jeepev/”Jeep EV

Steve S – the clip plays for me. I just click on the play button (right arrow) and a timeline appears and the clip starts playing.

It seems to be an Adobe Flash Player 9 app.
Are you running your browser on a Windows PC? Do you have Adobe Flash plug-in installed on your browser?

Sheesh – that link doesn’t want to post.
One more try:
Jeep EV

TEG, thanks for the responses. Yeah, it’s a pretty standard PC with IE, except that I’m still using W2000 pro, SP4 I think, because it’s been very stable. I had a Flash player, and just to make sure I downloaded the latest version. I play quite a bit of video in many formats and have never had any trouble until now. I figured out how to play both downloadable Google Video versions with no help, including with W98 which wasn’t supported by the Google player. The VLC media player is pretty useful. I refuse to use “Real” media players after a bad experience with the company, but they’re not around much anymore. I use Google pop-up blocking, but I tried disabling it with no luck. The easy fix is to avoid AutoBlogGreen media content.

Anyway, it’s valuable to know that the clip works for other people. I’ll get a friend to let me listen to it.

T.J., here’s a try at the army article link: http://news.cnet.com/greentech/
I usually just click on the Address (URL), paste it into the post, and hope for the best. Most of the time it works. A more reliable method is to write the post in Word, which underlines text accepted as a URL, and then select, Copy, and Paste in the Your Comment box here.

Incidentally, the Your Comment editor is annoying because it won’t display a full line of text with word wrap. Lately I’ve been lazy so I use it anyway, with the result of occasional typos.

You’re probably right about the cast of Star Trek. I watched very little episodic television in of any sort in those days, and even less now. Not that I’m a culture snob; Married With Children reruns were high on my list, in part because they showed up so often. I could never be bothered with TV schedules, especially now that everything’s on DVD. I also watched NHRA drag racing pretty faithfully until a couple of years ago.

ABC has refused to air a TV ad by the “We Can Solve It” climate change group of Al Gore-even though they air oil company ads, like those Exxon ads about “how great they are at seeing all sides of the energy issue”. The reason ABC isn’t airing the ad is that it slams the oil company lobbying power-even though the ad isn’t any worse than a lot of the presidential ads. As the head of the great German solar program said (on PBS): “the reason we can have such a program and you in the U.S. can’t is that we have no fossil fuel companies with all their lobby power”-and what we have HERE is the latest example-and an example of “failure to communicate”-or more aptly “failure to allow communication”. You can check out the ad on the ” We Can Solve It” website.

Gabe, when are you upgrading to Vista?

I listened to Chris Paines’s talk today on a company computer. Thanks for helping identify the problem; the solution, as I pointed out, is easy. I’ll just avoid AutoBlog Green.

Gabe, what do you think of Chrome? It claims to have a couple of interesting features that may finally drag me kicking and screaming into a 2001 operating system for my desk. It doesn’t support W2000.

Of course almost all the workplace computers use XP, so I’m far from unfamiliar with it.

I’m no fan of MS Bloatware, but I could never warm up to Apple.

I skipped Chrome too – I’m pretty happy with FF3, as much of a memory hog as it is.

martin

besides solar, what are the cost for home electricity generation in cents/kw ? is is at all possible to compete with natural gas etc?

Martin sez:

If natural gas (and coal and diesel) generation had to pay for the damage caused by their greenhouse gas emissions, I suspect they would be the most expensive forms of energy. Hard to calculate and prove the cost of the damage though…

Yeah- I saw that tree article. Re. the car makers- how come you never hear of foreign automakers being in dire trouble?-I mean in europe or asia? (except for Daewoo awhile ago). You want to know what’s wrong with this country in a nutshell ? -Here it is (like, a few examples). Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House and said we need to increase fuel mileage standards over the coming years. Reagan removed the solar panels and said to heck with fuel mileage. The Calif. Air Resources Board required GM to build their EV-1, and the other car makers to build EV versions of existing cars-like the Ranger and RAV-4. Then, per the movie “Who Killed the Elect. Car”. Detroit got to the politicians and it all went out the window. What we have here in this country iz: inability to get long term progressive govt. policy because: of the lobbyists and the fact that avg. Joe Sixpack/ Hockey “mother” does give a flying halibut about anything except what’s in front of their nose. I think G.E. used to have the slogan: “Progress is our most important product”. That should have stayed the slogan of this country. But , like that author of the new book-Banevich is his name, he was on Charlie Rose Show, said: this country lost it, overall, right after JFK. Without the computer/silicon valley revolution we would have really lost it. When I was in high school, for example, you never saw bums-those were guys that hung out at railroad yards. But starting in the late sixties/ early ’70’s “Bums in America” became a growth industry. Also, look at the crummy cars Detroit made in ’70’s, by and large. Compare that to all the different designs and gizmos from the ’50’s and ’60’s-some of it was over the top, but at least Detroit was cooking with enthusiasm for “the product”. We had the war-meister LBJ, Dork Nixon, Carter, who had potential, being clobbered by the phony “oil shortage. OPEC embargo”-and 22% inflation-and the hostage crisis, so he’s outta there. Then Reagan: the two-trick pony” :spend like crazy on defense to beat the Russians and help the rich so they trickle down some cash to the rest of the country. Then Bush #1-what did he stand for and what was he trying to do ?-nothing worth much. Clinton, at least, left us with a surplus. The tide should have turned with Gore, but Rove & Co. cleverly tapped into the vast reserves that was/is “dumbed down America”- no progress to be found there for the country, that’s for halibut sure. Yep-Banevich is right-but his book is yet another book of very many-collect them all. Books on top of books yet precious little real change. The deal iz: big time corp. America looks out for its narrow interest at all costs (including, examples right now “the Wall Streeters “) , and dumbed-down Joe Sixpack/hockey head-check citizen America does the same.

Chris- I’ll give you one more tiny example. I was back in Frisco like a year ago, or more- and rode BART rail system for first time in years. I was in school when it first opened, like in ‘72 I think it was- I still have the souvenir “test card” where you got to ride free, the first day. Anyway- the train pulls into Montgomery St. Station and the lighting in the station is either grimy or burned out, left and right-and the side walls were pretty dirty. Then I remember the Shattuck Station was pretty “scuffed up”/ratty. Yet the system had a lot of riders on it. So I ask you this: WHO is in charge of replacing light bulbs and cleaning a station like Montgomery and WHAT is the lame-brain excuse for NOT doing these simple tasks. Give me a halibutin’ break: there IS no excuse. I’ve never been to Japan, but I hear that at least they keep things spotless over there. Jezzz-hire some homeless people and let them replace lights bulbs and steam clean walls. Bottom line: no governmental brains, no governmental pride. Where’s Robert Moses when you need him ?

Here’s a link http://cafeelectric.com/other.php to the builder of the excellent Honda Insight EV conversion I saw early this year. With all the detailed photos you could build your own.

1. Get an Insight and an EV-1 motor and transaxle.
2. Build a custom high power three phase variable frequency inverter.
3. Buy your batteries of choice.
4. The rest is relatively easy.

Press Home and read the unfortunate message about the DC controllers, which are pretty much the standard of excellence for high performance DC vehicles, as I understand it. The site is well known to EV fans and has a lot of good stuff.

Steve-I was talking the Moses principle rather than the specifics: as in Do something and don’t let things fall apart. He was a product of the ’50’s and early ’60’s where the concept of bulldozing was the rage. Ike with his huge U.S. freeway system project no doubt bulldozed a lot of stuff too- like turning Route 66 into a dinosaur and really hitting all the businesses along the route. I’m talking about if Moses could come back, in the context of our times, where he’d be doing things-but no doubt not in the ’50’s-’60’s style. Whoever is running BART, it’s really STUPID not to be doing simple upkeep stuff- if I were the mayor of Frisco I’d get him in the horn and say ” look, jerk-clean up the halbutin’ stations in question. I mean, I do believe-since I’ve seen photos, if I recall, that in the WORST of economic times in the old CCCP their old Moscow subway stations were kept in pristine condition.