My Challenge to Detroit - Build Plug-in Series Hybrid Pickups

Why do we Drill Offshore?
THINK about what the BP Oil Spill has done in since this happened on April 20th.
After hearing they spent $50 million on a PR campaign to keep their stockholders happy, I'll bet they pull the same crappy courtroom tactics as "Chevron and Exxon. The Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida coastal businesses will be bankrupt, the coastline of all four states will be ruined for decades, and the CEO of BP will be out sailing his yacht to "get his life back". Oil companies do have a history of not accepting responsibility for their spills.
Wasn't a government agency supposed to keep tabs and make sure BP was doing it right?
After all is said and done, didn't BP have a great Plan of Action?
Should we start a fund to save the Gulf Coast Walrus?
Watch the 4 and a half minute teaser for "Black Wave" and tell me this won't be repeated.
I think corporate greed will take over, and BP will withdraw the $20B escrow.

Black Wave - The legacy of the Exxon Valdez (Teaser EN) from Macumba on Vimeo.

And there is the possibility that the ocean floor could collapse under the blowout preventer, causing a really big leak, and then it will get really messy. In July, the oil spill was "capped", and we now watch and wait to see if anything else will happen.
Meanwhile, the "independent third party administrator" appointed to distribute the $20B escrow is making people sign statements that they will not sue BP in the future before they can get a payment. Does this sound like a neutral third party to you? Some other movies that will broaden your knowledge of our predicament:

Crude the Story of Texaco's (and now Chevron) fifteen year court battles with the people of Ecuador over the pollution of their drinking water.
Fuel One man's efforts to get the US to use biofuel diesel. Also shows how the New Orleans area has been poisoned by their refineries.
Sprawling from Grace How the 50's suburban planning based on cheap oil no longer works. Points out innovative ways to build cities and our need for new energy strategies.

Update - September 3rd.
BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The company says a ban would also imperil the ambitious Gulf Coast restoration efforts that officials want the company to voluntarily support.

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I have a few questions I would like answered.

How come the only company not invited to participate in the USCAR funding was the only manufacturer to actually make and market a Hybrid car, (the Toyota Prius)?

Why did we have to spend billions to retool thier factories?

Why did we have to finance "cash for clunkers" program?

In December 2009, Toyota announced that the Prius Plug-in Hybrid sedan will be available for purchase in 2011.

Toyota's PHEV will only have enough battery for 13 miles. Isn't this smarter and less expensive?

In 2007, the Volt was due to be out in 2009, estimated to have a sales price of $22,000. Anybody know where to buy a Volt? How Much?

If the technology existed in 1998 to get 80 miles per gallon, what kind of mileage would we be getting now if they had followed through?

Why did they choose someone who sits on the Board at Exxon/Mobile to run GM?

Why can't we buy the BYD electric car, or an American version of it?

My questions about charging Stations are:

Isn't the answer to battery energy density problems a better battery - not quantities charging stations?

Would not creating the charging station infrastructure via governments instead of retail establishments makes money only for the manufacturer of the charging stations?

By having the charging stations available, won't the stimulus to make a better battery be reduced?

Recharging the LEAF at home during off-peak hours actually helps the electric producers. Wouldn't these charging stations increase use of electricity during peak hours?

Get Trained in Doing EV Conversions

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Buy your copy at Half.com for under $10.

If you don't have time to watch, here are the highlights:

The Battery Patents are currently owned by Chevron

280 million barrels per year.

How long until we have no more oil?

The Automakers Sued CARB, and the Automakers WON the lawsuit against CARB, and WON the right to stop producing their Electric Vehicles, they also WON the right to go bankrupt because they desired to sell their very profitable lines of SUVs instead.

No Plug, No Deal

Join the Electric Auto Association at www.eaaev.org.

Some revealing text in the eulogies at the EV1's Mock Funeral - especially by Ed Begley, Jr.
Follow up:
If you think the Chevy Volt is actually going to be produced by 2010 at an affordable price, stop dreaming. I don't think it will get here, and if it does, it will be unaffordable. I wish GM could make the Volt, and I wish GM would make the Volt. But, knowing their track record, I just don't think they really want to. They think they can still sell SUVs.
In my opinion, The Volt is a PR Ploy to defend the bad press caused by "Who Killed the Electric Car". New Pictures are out that show the "final product" that will be unveiled at the 100th anniversary of General Motors on September 16th. To me, it looks like a Prius with a Bow-tie
I'm afraid it won't be price competitive with the Prius, either.

It is interesting that ABC News "20/20" did a story on Who Killed GM?". The show has a false statement that "California dropped their requirements for zero emissions", while in fact, the big three sued California to make them drop the standards. Other than that, it is a great nostalgic look at the automobile industry, and the mistakes that were made.

The GM Lemon
Nice try, but not exactly what Chevy has been advertising for almost two years. The first picture above is what Chevy was showing at car shows for two years. The Next picture is the "real" volt, and and a Toyota Prius. (The Volt has the Chevy logo on the grill.). Looking at the almost 1000 posts on the new look, GM just shot themselves in the foot. People are feeling duped into waiting for a stylish two seater, only to find it looks "neutered". Selling this cheap looking car for $40,000 is going to be tough. Especially when the starting price for the Prius is $22,000. Lutz missed an opportunity to make his Volt project look great on the "Colbert Report", and didn't sound at all pleased to be there. Really! I'm just so tired of all the Hype about it, and about their "future cars." Show me something today worth having.

According to an article in Minyanville.com:

Over the lifespan of the car, which, in this case, is 12 years and 150,000 miles, Michalek says there “aren’t enough savings in fuel cost to make up for the battery cost, even under highly optimistic scenarios.”

“In our study, we started with the assumption that the Volt’s battery pack would cost $16,000, or $1,000 per kilowatt hour, which GM told us was too high,” Michalek says. “So, we halved that price to $8,000, then halved that to $4,000 -- $250/kWh -- which still doesn’t make economic sense.”

According to Michalek, this is because, if one were to drive a Volt using electricity only (the battery lasts only 40 miles, after which a 1.4 liter gasoline engine kicks in to power a generator, which supplies electrical current to recharge the battery pack but never actually turns the wheels), the Volt driver’s total fuel savings, adjusted for inflation, would come to approximately $3,500.
“Therefore, paying more than $3,500 above what a traditional car costs, won’t lead to any savings at all,” he says.

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I think that if GM wanted the EV1 to succeed, they could have done it easily. I never heard of the EV1 until the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" came out. Had you?


Is it possible for American Car companies to produce an 80 mpg car? Yes it was! In 1998.
How could the American Companies drop this technology and let Toyota take the lead? Why should they be asking the Government for a bailout? It was their decision to make Hummers and Navigators and Supercharged Rams.

Books and articles of interest

Wake up, Detroit

You will find items like these....

Once again, it should be clear that the Oil Age will not end for lack of oil, and in spite of the Peak Oil theory, we have more than enough geological hydrocarbons within our grasp at some price to decimate the climate system. From "Plugged In - The Full Report"
From time to time, the PHEV range-extender will be called upon to supply some fraction of the vehicle's motive power. In keeping with our sustainable renewable energy vision, this onboard generator will likely be fuelled with sustainably produced liquid (or even gaseous) biofuels from second or third generation techniques. However, the great beauty of the PHEV architecture is that it is essentially futureproof: the ultimate flexible fuel vehicle.

...their responsibility should be to produce the most efficient energy-consuming appliance possible, while continuing to satisfy additional legislative requirements such as minimum safety standards, maximum noise levels, and so on. In other words, vehicle manufacturers must be held to account for the tank-to-wheels (TTW) portion of the automotive energy life-cycle.

...more

Back to the Future?

Geeks to the Rescue

Why we need Series Hybrids

Detroit Auto-makers rave about achieving 22 miles to the gallon. They are capable of doing more, but the stockholders that own GM also own millions of shares of Chevron. I also believe they feel threatened by the loss of revenue from the repairs they do on internal combustion vehicles. There are far fewer moving parts in an electric car. If Electric Cars were to become popular, they would only be able to make money from the sale, and not so much money on the after-market goods. Currently that is a major source of income for the dealers. So, instead of a manufacturing giant like GM, Ford, or Chrysler building thousands of shiny new electric vehicles, these companies play the publicity game to turn people against these "small and dangerous" electric cars, and continue to market the SUV as the "safety before pocketbook" choice. Meanwhile, with such short sightedness on the automakers part, they continue to let the foriegn companies create the cars that "Americans don't want." I have news for Detroit. Toyota will out-sell GM this year, and unless they actually make it to "gas free", they are doomed.

The reason I want a series Hybrid Pickup is simple. I don't work in Seguin. I drive 42 miles to San Antonio to work, and at the end of the day, I drive 42 miles to return. A round trip of 75 miles, even in a car that gets 30 miles per gallon like my Honda Accord can get expensive when gas costs about three bucks a gallon. The Accord is nice, but I have always thought that having that extra leg room, and the carrying capacity of a crew-cab pickup would be a better way to go. The gas mileage they get is atrocious at best. Nobody yet offers a ready-made crew-cab electric pickup truck for sale to the general public One is available for fleet buyers, but even at fleet prices, the cost is well over $40K.

What I think they should do could be done TODAY. I think they should start by replacing the regular gasoline engine with a small horsepower engine that will power only a generator, used to re-charge the batteries and run the electric motor for extended periods, so that you can go more than 40 miles on a charge. By using wheel motors and a small number of batteries, a plug-in series hybrid could be built. The whole thing could cost under $40,000. That's still too high. Using a two or three year old crew-cab truck with a good body could get the cost down another $10.000. I have seen some 2002 models for $11,000, and with $10,000 conversion expense, we can produce a series hybrid for under $26,000, and that includes labor.

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In an interview with Orange County Weekly, Doug Kortoff summarized the current state of NiMH.

The battery we use is the NiMH, same as used in cameras and small cylinder AA, AAA, etc. Toyota-Panasonic formed a partnership "PEVE" to license and improve NiMH for EVs. Around this time, GM purchased the worldwide patent rights to the NiMH battery. Later, GM decided to sell those rights to Texaco, which then merged with Chevron. Chevron then put the battery rights under control of a Joint Venture, "COBASYS," and decided to fund a lawsuit against large-format (electric car battery) competitors such as Toyota-Panasonic. Chevron's lawsuit led to a settlement agreement with PEVE (and Sanyo, etc.) whereby Toyota paid $30M to Chevron, Toyota was granted the rights to use "small-format" batteries on the Prius, and Toyota agreed not to build "large-format" versions of its batteries (needed for plug-in cars) for export to the U.S. until 2014. At least, that's what it seems to be; portions of the settlement agreement are still secret.

So, it will be up to a handful of entrepreneurs to get American car buyers turned on to Electric cars, Plug-in hybrids, and hopefully soon, Series Hybrids.

VentureBeat website has a list of currently available electric vehicles. Notice that on only one company produces a Series Hybrid Pickup, and it is only for fleet purchase.

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Is Thirty Years a Long Enough for Development of Series Hybrids?

Would you think 100 years would be enough?

Too bad that Ferdinand Porsche's 1901 Porsche/Lohner Hybrid didn't catch on over one hundred years ago!. With a hundred years of development we would have been oil free by now. Maybe we should have stayed with the designs introduced by Studebaker from 1902 to 1912.

Although Chevrolet would have you believe that the Chevy Volt, due out in 2010 is a new idea, GM built their first series hybrid cars in 1972. By the way, it used a Stirling Engine, which is a closed system, and is zero emissions.

I also ran across a thesis written in 1969 that discussed plans for a series Hybrid car. Mr. Szott is now building a "Hybrid Electric Horseless Carriage".

I understand that Dean Kanem, the inventor of the Segway is thinking about producing Stirling engines. What about it Dean?

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Come join us at Seguin Premier Toastmasters .

The meetings are fun and informative. The fastest hour of the week. Call or write for details.

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We used to make Limestone Address Stones as a Hobby. Visit our TexRocks.com website.

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Some Electric vehicle websites in the Seguin - Austin - San Antonio Area

The Alamo City Electric Automobile Association


The Austin Area Electric Automobile Association.

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Some interesting links

This is a 55 meg download, but very interesting. Plug in America short film about Plugin conversions.

This is an NPR Living on Earth sound clip of a story on the Phoenix Motorcars Electric Pickup Truck .

An explanation of the Federal budget, using Oreo Cookies.

We will post more stories as we find them.

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