The General Takes Charge.
As the world’s largest automotive manufacturer, any post about General Motors over at the Green Car Congress website always causes a flurry of interest but this post about an electric Chevrolet “Volt” generated 114+ comments in just 24 hrs which must be a record and perhaps an indication that this announcement really is something big.
There is no doubt that the GM spin masters have been going hard to counter the negative feelings that the doco “Who Killed The Electric Car?” has created. If nothing else, GM are the marketing masters. Here in Australia they have us believing that the GM Holden brand is the quintessential Aussie icon. But this Chevy Volt announcement seems to have just enough credibility to excite us EV desporadoes!
Much of the discussion at the blog is about GM’s choice of hybridisation. Series hybrid vehicles (Chevy Volt), in my opinion, must always be less efficient than parallel hybrids (like the Prius). This is because instead of having the petrol motor drive the wheels directly in tandem with the electric motor (when required) it just charges the batteries (inefficiently) and only the electric motor drives the wheels.
Series hybrids aren’t technically sexy but that makes them cheap to build and that’s what’s makes this announcement smell slightly credible. GM have always been about maximising profit margins, this is why they like to sell us big clunky cars! So it would be typical of them to use second best technology (like most of their vehicles) as long as they have the turnover with big margins.
Fingers crossed. 
January 10th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Hey does this mean they might dump the HUMMER,I dont think so.
I nearly left a message on one I saw the other day. The Most Disgusting
Car I have ever seen!.
Ciao
January 11th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I agree Kel, the Hummer would have to be the greatest symbol of profligacy this planet has ever seen.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
“Series hybrid [...] must always be less efficient than parallel hybrids”
Not necessarily. The engine always runs at a fixed RPM where it’s most efficient. Another thing to remember is that you should not really care about “efficiency” per se. You care about miles per gallon, miles per dollar or miles per kg of carbon dioxide. A series hybrid is potentially lighter. A series hybrid lowers or eliminates the weight of the fuel engine, shafts, transmission, clutch for engaging the fuel engine to the wheels and for hub motor designs even the brakes. A less-efficient but lighter car can still have better mileage.
And even if the fuel powered range-extension mode actually has worse mileage than an equivalent parallel hybrid most of the yearly mileage is in 100% electric daily commutes where you reap the benefits of reduced weight in lower electric bills, initial purchase cost and the environmental impact of building the car.
January 12th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Thanks OrenT, you make some very good points. Especially about being preoccupied with “efficiency”, discussions always seemed to go off track with too many percentage symbols somehow!
I doubt the weight difference would be significant and as I remember it, hybrids like the Prius, try to keep motor rev band narrow anyhow.
I agree with your last paragraph 100% (had to get one in there) though. I say bring it on.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Guys…it is true that the Prius drive-train carries around a few extra parts, but the engineers used several strategies to off-set the additional weight, including manufactoring the bonnet and hatch door from light-weight aluminium.
Also, the Prius 1NZ-FXE engine uses the more efficient Atkinson cycle, instead of the more common Otto cycle, to minimize inefficiency (pumping loss) by running the ICE at a high torque range with the throttle fully open. Other efficiencies are listed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius
Still, I’m all for a full EV one way or another, whether that’s via a plug-in hybrid that can go 50km in EV mode, or a less than perfect GM product – lets just get behind a production EV that lets people realise that these options are real and do-able now.
A
January 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Hello Shaun,
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to stumble across your site. I’ve been a daily reader of evworld.com for months now, and can’t wait for commercial EV’s to be available here in Oz. I’m afraid I don’t have your talent to convert one.
I’m pretty good with numbers though, and I’m also excited about the concept of V2G. I searched your blog and you haven’t mentioned it.
I welcome your feedback on the following letter I sent to Malcolm Turnbull. Am I dreaming?
Cheers,
Carl
The Silver Bullet
Posted at 3:47 PM on 24/1/2007
Dear Malcolm Turnbull,
Your predecessor Ian Campbell was fond of saying “there is no silver bullet” with which to cure to the world’s energy woes. Those who voice this view are either lacking imagination, or hold a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. There is a silver bullet, one that simultaneously improves or solves all of the following: Renewable energy viability; oil scarcity; air quality; national energy security; climate change; electrical grid quality; waste. Amazingly, this cure-all also promises better cars. Cars that are quieter, smoother, faster, more reliable, maintenance free, cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. The name of this magical solution is V2G.
Australia has more than 10 million light vehicles. Each, when fully fueled, contains enough energy to power an average household for three days. Of course, only a fool would use petrol to generate bulk electricity; cost and pollution being two prohibitive reasons.
Over the past decade, mobile phones, laptops and power tools have delivered a renaissance in battery technology. In 2006, at least three US companies (Altairnano, A123, Electrovaya) delivered batteries that provide the missing piece in the energy puzzle. Compared to lead-acid, these new batteries are considerably lighter and more powerful. They are fully recyclable and last the life of the car. A property of these batteries, the one that changes the motoring paradigm, is that they can be charged in 10 minutes at special charging stations. Normally, slow charging to full capacity would take place at home, hence rapid charging is a rarity required only by long haul travelers.
Imagine that half of those 10 million cars used batteries for energy. Mechanically inclined people might enjoy this game: see who can form the longest list of components that are no longer required. Start the list with gearbox, drive-shaft and combustion engine. It is logical that such cars, produced in volume, would cost less, even allowing for a premium on the batteries.
Typically, a car spends 90% of its life parked (this is the logic driving communal shared car pools, however we are rich country and many see this as a step backwards). If 5 million cars contain enough power to run the entire grid for more than a day (they do), consider what happens if we plug 4 million parked cars into the grid and communicate with those cars wirelessly.
Suddenly, the grid is transformed. No longer is it analogous to a bath (of constantly varying drain size!) which must be kept overflowing at all times. Now, we have a huge reservoir sitting above the bath, able to instantly adjust the tap to precisely the right flow to keep it full. Instead of hundreds of steady power sources nationally overflowing the bath, we can use thousands of intermittent renewable sources, combined with far fewer traditional (polluting) sources, to maintain the energy reservoir at somewhere near full.
In simple terms, V2G (vehicle to grid) answers the game-stopping question: What happens when the sun isn’t shining or the wind stops blowing? The answer: Relax, the sun will come out tomorrow, or the wind will blow somewhere else. Statistics show that it will. The more diverse and numerous the energy sources, the flatter the supply chart; it’s the sudden bumps that are dangerous and wasteful to today’s unforgiving grid.
What will it take to make this happen? A global standard for the V2G plugs is step one. Get this wrong and drivers would need to fiddle with adapters in order to plug in; there’s a risk they won’t bother. Second, the vision requires government support and regulation to overcome the chicken/egg problem. A V2G system will add a few hundred dollars to the cost of an electric vehicle. Until V2G cars are prevalent, there is no V2G system and thus no payback to owners. If the Howard government can afford $2,000 to sponsor the sideways step to LPG, surely they can afford to sponsor the startup period of V2G, an essential step forwards. Third, the protocols for communication between utility, billing authority and vehicle must be globally standardised. Unless owners of V2G cars are free to sell to the highest bidder, they will be locked into contracts for a pittance. It is perfectly fair that these drivers are rewarded for their vehicle choice, they are, after all, saving the world.
It is rare that an idea so beneficial comes along that it requires no marketing spin to sell it. V2G is one such idea, requiring only the ability to grasp the enormous potential. I have every confidence that you, Mr Turnbull, have this ability.
Regards,
January 26th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Hello Carlos,
Gotta love your enthusiasm! Keep it up
There is one very critical obstacle to V2G with today’s’ off-the-shelf battery technology; cycle life.
It’s the single most important battery spec and V2G could possibly halve the useful life of an EV’s battery pack. Having said that, battery technology is improving rapidly and has a long way to go before coming even close to theoretical limits. I can smell a 400Whr/kg, 10,000 cycle battery just around the corner…then V2G will be doable.
This also reminds me of another problem with the series hybrid set-up as above. All the energy to move the vehicle has to go through the batteries which will severely reduce their life. I must admit I’m becoming more sceptical about GM delivering on the Volt, apparently Mr Bob Lutz had a fair bit of input into its design and I don’t trust HIS motives at all.
January 27th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Hi Shaun,
Have you looked at the Altairnano battery?
According to the datasheet:
http://www.altairnano.com/documents/NanoSafe_Datasheet.pdf
it’s good for over 15,000 “full depth of charge and discharge cycles”.
This is where I’m out of my depth. In V2G, there would be lots of short burst changes of flow direction. If there were 100 a day, that might expire the batteries in six months. A few thoughts:
Could the vehicle keep a capacitor charged, and use that to meet “draw down” requests initially, only calling on the batteries if the shortfall persists?
Could the batteries be put into groups, using the minimum number of batteries in a group that are actually needed to provide power to the car at any one time. i.e. flatten them in sequence rather than all at once. If the Nanosafe battery can be charged in 10 minutes, I assume the discharge rate is pretty high too, so extra batteries might be only for range, not for power.
Then (when plugged) you could have one set of batteries discharging (as required), alongside other batteries which are charging (whenever they can). I’m assuming here that it’s the change of flow direction that hurts the batteries, rather than stop start within a charge cycle. This should dramatically cut down the current reversals for any given battery, from hundreds to maybe one or two in a day. On good days, where the wind supply holds steady, there might be no draw down requests at all.
Your thoughts?
Cheers,
Carl
January 29th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Hi Carl,
Yes the Altairnano battery has exciting spec’s but no independent third party testing as yet but it could be one of those “…just around the corner”.
Short charge/discharge is usually ok for these batteries. I still consider them to be tommorrow’s technology because they are unproven and very costly, you just learn to be a little sceptical when promising batteries come and go…
January 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Shaun,
I’ll remain quietly confident for the following reasons:
Altairnano are meeting purchase orders from Phoenix Motorcars. I read that they are doing this by using their research lab as a production site, but that doesn’t matter. They will learn stuff by making a few hundred that they don’t learn by making one. How to make them cheaply for example.
The A123 battery is similar, and I have seen video of that battery drilling through a telegraph pole and flying an RC helicopter. Granted, it’s not the same as pushing a whole car, but it’s just a matter of scale.
Economies of scale should never be underestimated, especially with something as open to automation as a battery. There’s more work in making a pair of shoes than in making a battery. Of course they cost a bomb when you have research scientists making them. More relevant, there is far more work in making the hundreds of components that make up an ICE. Imagine that ICEs had never taken off and we were trying to argue the reverse case, people would die laughing at the size/complexity/number-of-parts.
I found a good discussion of the amount of Lithium in the world today.
http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2006/10/electric-vehicles-and-world-lithium.html
Keep reading down to MCrab’s comments. I think (and hope) he has it right.
I have a google alert on “battery” “breakthrough” “car”. Each week it brings in more responses than the week before. Things are hotting up.
BTW, I see you can now place an order for an all electric Smart Car for two. The order form lets you select Australia, but I’d be surprised if they even know we drive on the left here.
http://www.hybridtechnologies.com/smartcar_order.php
Cheers,
Carl
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 am
Hi guys, good to find a bunch of like minded people in Oz. Theres an Australian Electric Vehicle Association (http://www.aeva.asn.au/) which doesnt seem to work anymore(at least their email doesnt). This is sad. It seems the scene lost hope somewhere along the way. Well I think it need to be revived. Theres some hot EV technologies coming up this year. The Nanosafe batts seem awesome, and the promise of Phoenix SUTs are great for the scene. I actually think Chevrolet should have definately kept their ear to the ground on battery technology and declared a quicker recharge time(10 minute) when they revealed the Volt. I mean 6 Hours to 10 minutes is a massive difference and probably would have swayed a lot of people either way. Still, the EV loyalist would know whats happening and what is to come. 10 minute for a full charge is great while your having a juice or a 3 minute powercharge would give you enough range to get home.
The other promising tech is EEStors ultracapacitors. Nanotechnology is a great technology which is sure to revolutionise the EV industry by making more efficient motors and better batteries.
Has anyone here heard of the Hybrid made by Holden and CSIRO. Apparently it was only $3,000-5,000 more than the bog stock V6 Commodore, had the same power, yet used half the fuel. I mean why the government didnt throw their full support behind this and adopt it is beyond me. I think offering a subsidy to cars such as this are much more worthy than the LPG subsidy currently being offered her in Oz.
We have got to stop these SS driving VB drinking bogans from ruining our environment all the while dodging shouts of Hippy and Treehugger !
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:59 am
Oh yeah I forgot to mention..
The optimal efficiency rpm for the 1litre 3 cylinder eflex motor running in serial with the motor etc seems great. this would help the spread of ethanol industries in Oz. I just hope they make full use of the enhanced octane rating of e85 by letting more boost thru the little turbo when higher amounts of ethanol are detected. and using knock sensors as a backup. this would yield more power and range. i’d love to see the tuning hacks and homebrew ethanol scene kickoff.
I actually think with an electric vehicle future, there will be many more smaller vehicle body manufacturers around possibly using electric motors of varying configurations. I can see the small (
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 am
Oh yeah I forgot to mention..
The optimal efficiency rpm for the 1litre 3 cylinder eflex motor running in serial with the motor etc seems great. this would help the spread of ethanol industries in Oz. I just hope they make full use of the enhanced octane rating of e85 by letting more boost thru the little turbo when higher amounts of ethanol are detected. and using knock sensors as a backup. this would yield more power and range. i’d love to see the tuning hacks and homebrew ethanol scene kickoff.
I actually think with an electric vehicle future, there will be many more smaller vehicle body manufacturers around possibly using electric motors of varying configurations. I can see the small ( under 1litre) motor industry really kicking off competing for efficiency and power. Not only have electronics micronised but now motors too. The market will become more accessible to smaller lower capital companies who are able to produce vehicles of a calibre up there with the big 3. I think this scares them a lot. Badge/Brand loyalty will wane over the years. Big oil and the big 3 know their time is over and they are just trying to delay it as much as possible. The Chevy Volt uses technology that is available now, so why wait till 2010. Im certain they have battery technology beyond what they are saying locked up in their coffers there. Bob Lutz even said they had an electric hybrid in the 60s and they had been developing it since then. I feel that perhaps they are staggering what they know and are stalling to squeeze out the potential sales from their current line. To announce this complete vehicle and give a potential date etc it is as if they are trying to scare of the smaller capital investors into companies that had a similar plan in mind.
This is nonsense. Of course it will backfire. All the EV fanboys who have a sense of mechanics and electronics will be reverse engineering inroads into even more enhanced hybrid electric vehicles.
I think series hybrids are the way of the future. hub motors and a diverse range of energy modules. from currently available to future potential.
thats my 2cents
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Hi Paul,
Thanks for comments, worth more than 2 cents.
My past experiences with the AEVA have been most unfulfilling. They don’t even come close to expectations, ’nuff said about that.
Personally I’m not too preoccupied with battery fast recharge times as we don’t have the infrastructure to handle the large power requirements at the moment.
Also it’s not well understood just how beautifully simple it is to plug your car into a standard power point and leave it charge for a few hours. It still blows me away how I can do that, TODAY!
For me, if I could get 100km range out of a battery pack then I would sell my petrol car and hire one on the rare occasions when I needed to travel more than a few hundred kilometres in one day.
February 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 am
Hi again,
At 43 years old, I still remember the original “Inventors” on the ABC. There was this woman who sat on the middle of the three person panel. She wasn’t very technical and asked some inane questions like “could kiddes get their fingers caught?”. But simple questions still need to be asked. Since I’m the least techo person here, I’ll ask the simple questions.
Can the cord be a tripping hazard? Seems to me that the moment you plug in, you lose the ability to walk around the car. Not a biggie, but we are trying to build a better world. Two possible solutions come to mind, one cheap, one elaborate and expensive but ultimately better and certain to have a market among the people who now buy BMWs.
1) Hang the cord from the carport or garage roof, with a bit of light weight shock cord to pull it up out of the way when not plugged.
2) Invent some sort of auto locating connector that operates from under the car. It would need to be able to move in three, possibly four directions; forward-back; left-right; up-down and maybe rotate. Activate it when the remote locking is activated. Whir, hum, click, green LED, Bobs your uncle.
My carport slopes, it should not be assumed that the surface is flat. No, I don’t drive a BMW. It’s an aging V6 LPG Commodore, but I’m hoping commercial EVs will arrive before I buy a much needed second car (two kids).
Funnily enough, my carport has a power point. Either the guy we bought the house from was visionary, or he vacuumed his car.
I’ve started a new blog where I’ll post stuff relating to V2G. The more I learn, the more convinced I am that V2G is the answer.
http://www.blognow.com.au/v2g
Cheers,
Carl
February 3rd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Hi Carl,
Induction charging will be the way it’s done eventually.
This is where there is a coil wire somewhere on your vehicle (connected to your battery charger), like as you suggested underneath and another coil of wire underground in the parking bay (connected to the mains supply). If the two coils are close enough together then the electricity will be induced from one to the other. This is a commonly used phenomena of electricity. It would require some tight cross industry standards but it can be very safe and fantastically practical.
I’m impressed with your passion for V2G, it shows a good understanding of the energy issues, being such a visionary can be very frustrating though, things never happen quickly enough! I can say that because I’m older and thus wiser than you. (44!)
Good luck with the V2G blog.
PS Wasn’t her name Dianne? At least you didn’t ask what colours do the power cords come in.
February 5th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Ah yes, I remember a post somewhere mentioned that in California, they set the standard to conduction, rather than induction, specifically because it would support V2G.
I found the following standards mentioned on a US powerpoint presentation:
EV Standards Developed by IWC
ν1996 National Electric Code Article 625 –
Electric Vehicle Charging System
νSAE J1772 Electric Vehicle Conductive
Charge Coupler
νSAE J1773 Electric Vehicle Inductively
Coupled Charging
νSAE J2293 Energy Transfer System for
Electric Vehicles
EV Standards
ν1996 NEC Article 625.25 – Loss of
Primary Source
• Prohibited backfeed into grid
νSAE J2293 Energy Transfer System for
Electric Vehicles
• Transfer electrical energy from the Utility
Power System (Utility) to the EV Storage
Battery and other vehicle loads
I don’t know if they are enforcable, or what regions of the globe they apply in. I hope the answers are: yes and most, but I doubt it.
I also received an email from a German man named Clas-Henrik Gustafsson.. He had this to say…
Hello Carlos!
You’re not the only one who has thought about this. The many incompatible connectors was one of many factors that killed the electric car in the 1920′s. (And some users too, who tried improvised adapters)
Last year, I devised a simple but effective “connection system” for electric vehicles that will work world-wide. (If you look at my website, you’ll notice that I have an unusual interest in electrical systems round the world.)
Happily, I went about to get a European patent for it, but the patent expert who helped me soon found that it wasn’t going to make it: Ford already had a patent which was too close. Still the solution was sufficently original to circumvent any existing patents, including Ford’s.
Along the road, I’ve found several previous attempts at this: The IEC/ISO even has a standard for this. Yes! That’s right, there is a world-wide standard, released in 2002.
Problem is, the standard is a monster with a dozen pins. Laugh as you may, but this was the favoured connector in the 90′s: It was marketed as the AVCON in the United States and as VECMA in Europe. Both made by the French company Marechal.
I’ve spoken to Marechal. The low power version of the connector comes in different versions for Europe and the USA, with Australia somewhere in between. USD $200 just for the plug. The high power plug costs (sit down when you read this) over $2 000. The shortcomings are obvious and some companies have suggested improvements to this design, including AC Propulsion in the US. Tesla (the guys with the Roadster) choose an entirely different connector design instead.
A reasonably good and inexpensive street charging, home charging and V2G that works in all common electrical systems of the world can be designed, but it will take some work by several people to bring it to the market. Interested?
Best regards
Clas-Henrik Gustafsson
I confess I didn’t get it. Or maybe I did. I replied “I thought that a patent was the very opposite of a standard. We want many suppliers, not a monopoly.” I have not heard back. But I take his point regarding cost. A standard that costs a bomb is not good, but still better than no standard. Everything is cheap when made en-masse. (A whole bike is $90 at K-mart)
Cheers,
Carl
July 30th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I have been considering purchasing a Prius hybrid but have been told that the level of mercury and lead contained in the vehicle is high – making it a non-recyclable waste item, appearently this is also the case for energy efficient light bulbs. Is this true and are there alternatives – where do I find the info?
July 30th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Hello Tarone,
I’m not sure that the Prius would carry any more lead than other vehicles. Besides, lead is very recyclable as long it remains in a solid form, in actual fact lead batteries are THE great recycling success story. But the Prius batteries are not lead they are Nickel Metal Hydride. I have no idea about the mercury content of a Prius.
Google is your friend, if you have the time.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Matt’s EV utopia Idea (indulge me for a minute):
If induction technology was viable and goverment suddenly got extremely eco-minded/generous then there could be an induction charger at every traffic light topping up your EV’s batteries. This would minimise the DOD of the batteries on any urban commute increasing battery life and would increase range reasonably on a trip with a lot of lights. Completely pie in the sky idea but maybe i’ll see it happen on my 80th birthday =P
September 12th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Hi Matt,
Mmm, I can see we could go further with this. How about V2G (see above) while at traffic lights, that way those annoying folk who always turn up late for work will be providing the energy to start up the office air-conditioner and coffee jug! Serves ‘em right.
Seriously though, once you replace the dinosaur juice in our vehicles with electrons the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.