“A whopping 83 percent of Willamette Valley residents said in a poll last fall that they want Oregon to help lead the nation in pioneering electric vehicles. Many say they’d consider buying an EV, especially as battery range increases and prices fall.”

More here

That statement is true.  The emissions of an electric vehicle itself are zero, but the electricity has to be generated somewhere, somehow.   If the means of generating the electricity is a dirty one (like coal fired plants) then there IS pollution associated with electric vehicles that use that electricity.

However, the implied conclusion – “therefore, electric vehicles are no better than fossil-fuel vehicles” is just wrong.  Here’s why:

First off, electricity can be generated from a variety of sources – coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, nuclear, biogas, geothermal, and solar to name just a few.  Some of those sources (like coal) are polluting, while others (like wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar) are non-polluting.    Consequently, the amount of pollution created by generating the electricity can vary quite a bit depending on the generation method.

Second, even if a very dirty method of generation like coal fired plants is used to provide the power for an electric vehicle, the overall amount of CO2 emissions created is still less than the CO2 emissions of a fossil fuel internal combustion engine powered vehicle.  (source links here and here).

Third, one must take into account the ability to focus & engineer mitigation technology on a single point (the power generation plant) versus on hundreds of millions of points (individual vehicles).    Say that a technology becomes widely available for cars that reduces their emissions by 50%.  How long will it take to install that technology on every car used today?  How much will it cost?  How much effort will it take?  How many different permutations must be produced to retrofit every car on the road?  Now, compare that scenario to the equivalent scenario for an electrical generation plant.   How long will it take to install the device in all the plants?  How much will it cost?  How many permutations must be created?    With power plants numbering in the thousands, and cars numbering in the hundreds of millions, the argument becomes obvious.  It is a lot easier to improve emissions performance on a single power plant than on thousands of individual cars.

The GM EN-V Concept Electric Vehicle

SHANGHAI – It’s not quite as foldable as the space vehicle that cartoon figure George Jetson pops into his briefcase as he bops into the office.

But the EN-V concept car, GM’s “automobile solution” for the future, just might fit into an apartment foyer.

General Motors and its Chinese partner SAIC will showcase the “Electric Networked-Vehicle” launched Wednesday in their joint pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, which opens May 1 and runs for six months.

More at MSNBC.com

Now, while we’re not making games that set out to influence behavior in the real world like Jane is, I found myself feeling like Jane is a kindred spirit.  We make video games, but we also want to utilize the exuberance and creativity from the video game world and apply it to a real world problem  – sustainability and energy efficiency of transportation.

I like what Jane says and her message of innovation at a social level is something we don’t hear enough of.  America has a reputation as the leader in innovation, but all too often, that moniker is pigeonholed in technology.   We’ll always need technological innovation, but it’s no longer sufficient.  What our society needs beyond that is social innovation – changing society to address the challenges that we face.

To change society, we need to look through a new point of view, and we need to reassess our standard behaviors.  How can we do things better?  How can we increase our quality of life and make better use of our time, efforts, and resources?   How do we measure quality of life?   What constitutes a better quality of life?

These are big questions, and nobody can answer them all, but we can try to tackle them one at a time.  That’s what I want to do.

Eric

“To all those cities worrying about how they are going to get wired for electric vehicles: Fret not. “Range anxiety” may not be as acute as you think.

Studies of drivers who already have electric cars are finding that they prefer the convenience of charging at home, and despite their vehicles’ limited range, most are able to avoid public charging.”

Read more at MSNBC.com.

The Perm PMG-132 DC Pancake motor

However, as the project morphed into something significantly larger, and more complex, the Perm became woefully inadequate.  So I began looking for other possibilities.

I looked at in-wheel motors, larger DC motors, Permanent magnet motors, brushless DC motors, and pretty much any motor available to the end user.  Needless to say, there are a lot of motors out there.

Electric Vehicle projects are a strange thing.  I started out with humble goals and ideas.  But once I got going, I found that my goals and ideas began to grow and become more ambitious.  I was (and am) spending a lot of time, money, and resources on this project, so I wanted it to be the best it could be.  I still do.  That means going with the best motor available.

That means AC.  AC motors have the best overall efficiency (they might not have as high a peak efficiency as DC motors, but their efficiency band is far wider), and they provide Regen easily along with better power bands.  AC motors are mechanically superior to other motors (no brushes or rare earth magnets) and are much less susceptible to failure due to environmental dirt & grime because they can be fully sealed.

So with this in mind, I contacted HPGC.  HPGC is currently the only outfit that supplies AC motor drive systems for the small EV market.  Talking to Brian and crew, they recommended their AC-31 setup running at 96V or 72V.   For certain reasons that I won’t go into in this post, I opted to go with the AC-31 @ 72V and a Curtis AC controller.

The HPGC AC-31 motor & controller system

Since my order was a single order for a Prototype vehicle, it took HPGC a while to get me the motor (they were swamped with a large OEM order from another company).  In the mean time, I sent the specs to Kale Kotecki at K2Metals (who was building the frame for the SPARC) and he used them to build the motor mount using a foam mockup of the motor.

The to-scale motor mockup made of foam

While this picture shows the motor mockup oriented longitudinally, that’s not how it will be mounted.  The actual mount location is directly below the rear seat (in front of the swing arm pivot) and the motor will be oriented transversely for a chain drive transmission.

The motor itself is fairly heavy (about 100 lbs), especially when compared to the original little Perm PMG-132 (which is about 25 lbs).   Of course, this motor is a lot more powerful and superior in just about every way to the Perm so the weight is a necessary trade off.  I don’t want to have to worry about the motor overheating & failing because it’s overloaded.  The Perm would have been severely overloaded.   The goal for the SPARC XEV is to be a capable highway vehicle.  That means traveling for extended distances at 60+ mph without fear of burning out the motor.  The AC-31 should give very good performance and dependability in that arena.

Eric

March 2, 2010

The Oregon Motorcycle Road Racing Association to hold races for electric motorcycles at Portland International Raceway.

Due to the increased interest and availability of battery powered motorcycles, OMRRA has recently included an electric motorcycle class in all 6 events on the 2010 calendar at Portland International Raceway.

Race dates are:

5/22-5/23

6/26-6/27

7/24-7/25

8/21-8/22

9/25-9/26

10/23-10/24

Track entry is $10 at the gate.  Children 12 and under are free.  Military in uniform are free.

See www.OMRRA.com for rules, information,  and printable $2.00 coupons.

Contact OMRRA at 503-221-1487 for more information.

What is OMRRA?

For over three decades, the Oregon Motorcycle Road Racing Association has run safe, exciting, and competitive events for motorcycle road racers and their fans. Racers range from club level to professionals with national and international experience. OMRRA operates at Portland International Raceway, a city park and world class racetrack.

It turns out that “xDisplay” is a fairly well known and long-standing Unix program (completely unrelated to EV’s) and we wanted to avoid any confusion.  We’re pretty sure that “xenoDisplay” is a fairly unique name, so hopefully, you won’t see us changing the name again any time soon!

Eric

A report submitted to Gov. Ted Kulongoski last week by the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Infrastructure Working Group says electric vehicles represent the greatest opportunity for the state to create jobs, and adopt a new fuel to meet the state’s ambitious emission reduction goals.”

[Read More at DJCOregon.com]