Solarbrating the Electric Car.

This week two major milestones passed at our home and with our car.

We solarbrated with 100 friends the occasion with an Electric Car Solarbration. I believe that within a few short decades many if not most will be holding similar solarbrations across a much cleaner nation.

Mini-E # 183 clocked 20,000 on the ODO Monday on the way home from work, and our Solar PV system just passed the 25 million watts of energy produced threshold today.

For 2.5 years we have been powering our 3500 sq ft home, a 3br, 2bath 1200 sq ft guest house, a vineyard operation, a 450 sq ft temperature controlled wine cellar completely with solar power. 16 months ago we added the Mini-E to the mix and ordered an additional 2kw of solar to power that as well.

The savings in power for the house is $350 a month, the saving on gasoline for the car is $150 a month. The savings in total is $6,000 a year. This was replaced by a new annual utility bill of between -$300 to +300. This is the total bill for a house and guest house occupied by 6 people and a car driven 15,000 miles a year.


Click on bill to enlarge

Our two systems totaling 7.5KW cost $30,000 plus a few thousands for efficiency upgrades such as CCFL’s and LED lights. In just a little over 5 short years, the system is paid off using no new money, only the saving of not paying the utility and gasoline.

From then on we live and drive on free and emission free sunshine. That will save us over $120,000 (with inflation $200,000) in energy cost and gasoline for the next 25 years.

In our urban centers such as San Diego, 60% of manmade particulate pollution is from our transportation fleet, 11% from our homes. Nearly 70% of our Co2 is from our transportation fleet and again 11% from our homes. The PV+EV solution eliminates both sources of pollution and will clean our air if adopted broadly.

Cleaner air, saving money, regaining our self reliance and independence. This is a combo that works. I hope we are smart enough to manufacture in the US. My fear is that cheap oil will keep us hooked to the drug while other countries dominate the machines and jobs of the future.

20,000 miles of smiles :)

Mini-E #183 is the best car, most fun car, I have ever driven.
Cheers
Peder

Impromptu Mini-E meet up in Carlsbad on Saturday September 18th

Greetings Mini-E Pioneers!

Julie and I invite you down (both 1 year pioneers and 2 year pioneers) south to Carlsbad for a great Saturday and potential long weekend for those of you with a free schedule.

Here is the plan.

Thursday the 16th is The Encinitas Classic Car Show, this is an epic event in downtown Encinitas and if you’re game you can display your Mini-E along with mine at the event. That night there will approx 500 cars with many of them woodies in downtown Encinitas.

http://www.encinitas101.com/events/rods-woodies-classic-car-show

Saturday the 18th is Wavecrest Woodies. This is the worlds largest collections of woodies, many traveling here from the east coast and some shipped from around the globe. It is a spectacular site and a free event.

http://www.sandiegowoodies.com

Saturday after The Wavecrest show at 4pm we will have a meet-up at our home in Carlsbad. Julie and I will be bar-b-Q-ing and we will be drinking our estate wine from our vineyard. We will also be explaining our zero energy home and what techniques and strategies we used to build it.

www.heronshouse.com

During the whole time from Thursday until Sunday you may use our charger at the home and we have a city charger in Encinitas by appointment. So you can have a long weekend in San Diego County with your Mini-E with access to charging.

Lodging is available very inexpensively ($65 a night at various motels) or expensively ($500 a night at Avaira or La Costa resorts )

We have a guest room at the house and Julie and I will open that up to one person or couple, free of charge who would like to stay the whole weekend beginning on Thursday night or just Saturday night.

First come first serve.

Hope you can join us, whether one or 20 we will have a great time.

Cheers
Peder & Julie

The Chargers, here they come!

In my role as the Hwy 101 Coordinator for the city of Encinitas, I assisted Encinitas as they became part of the Field Trial with two Mini-E's. they had great success with the cars but unfortunately the fleet users had to return the cars.

It was instructional for our fleet guys and gals to have these for a year and determine that they really work great, especially in a city that is 7 miles by 10 miles with a fleet of a 100 vehicles that never leave the city. They were a bit impractical for the city with no storage in the back but next iterations of the electric car will deal with that shortcoming.

Encinitas continues its efforts in Solar PV and the electric car. Being in the San Diego Metro area, we are slated to receive many public chargers. The first series of meetings for commercial property owners interested in EV chargers has been scheduled with Encinitas as a host city.

Below is text from the brochure posted above.

Cheers
Peder
Mini-E #183 19,100 miles.

Come join us for one of the
following short meetings to
explain how your business
can get involved in the largest
Electric Vehicle Project in
U.S. history !!

The EV Project is made possible by a $115 million stimulus grant from the Department of Energy.
The project will deploy nearly 15,000 electric vehicle chargers around the country, including over 1,500 commercial units for public charging in the
San Diego Region. These charging stations will be
installed in conjunction with the release of the first
of many electric cars to hit the market...the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt.

Informational meetings for
Business and Property Owners

Meetings will be held in 6 convenient locations throughout the county: (light refreshments will be served)

How many light bulbs does it take to plug in an electric car?

I’m having a blast driving Mini-E # 183 now in my 14th month with almost 19,000 miles on the odometer.

The car has been rock solid with no mechanical problems and the fun factor of driving the little electric pocket rocket continues every time I fasten the seatbelt. Overnight trips are becoming common to favorite hotels and destinations where charging infrastructure exist. Gas cars are starting to resemble the steam locomotives of the late 1800s.

So I got to thinking last night, how many light bulbs does it take to plug in an electric car?

Think for a moment of the power required to move a 3,000lbs car like the Mini-E, or Nissan Leaf through the urban and suburban jungles of the big city for 12,000 miles a year. Freeways, parkways city streets and parking lots, all traveled in the normal course of a year’s driving for most Americans.

If powered by traditional gasoline engines we could all do the math fairly easily. For a 20mpg car it would burn 600 gallons of gasoline weighing 4,800lbs costing $1,800 a year. For a 30mpg car it would burn 400 gallons of gas weighing 3,200lbs costing $1,200 a year.

For most typical drivers, that car in your garage ignites, explodes, burns and exhausts its way through 4,800lbs of refined gasoline (most of it imported) every year in order to power the car for 12,000 miles.

Simple (or incredibly complex) enough so far.

But how about the electric car?

Driving around Newport Beach the other night at 0- dark hour and seeing all the light bulbs on in storefronts, art galleries, light poles, signage, and parking lots and just about everywhere, I thought to myself, those light bulbs run on the same octane as my electric car. I wonder how many light bulbs does it take to plug in an electric car? Or more accurately stated, How many light bulbs will the electric power needed to drive my Mini-E for 12,000 miles illuminate?

The answer I came up with was shocking! Please double check my math and tell me I’m wrong because even I don’t believe it!

Drining Mini-E #183 for 12,000 miles requires the same energy to Illuminate exactly four standard 100 watt light bulbs for a year. Or stated another way, it takes four light bulbs to plug in an electric car.

Four light bulbs!

The math works like this,

Four 100 watt light bulbs illuminated for 24 hours would use 9.6 kwhs of electricity. This multiplied by 365 days a year equals 3,504kwhs a year to illuminate those four light bulbs.
The Mini-E gets 3.5 miles per kwh. 3.5 miles multiplied by the same 3,504kwh used by the four lightbulbs equals 12,264 miles. For the Nissan Leaf which gets 4 miles per KWH the miles climb to just over 14,000 miles.

If 100 watt light bulbs were just illuminated for 1hour a day the power needed to drive an electric car 12,000 miles a year would equal the electricity used by 96 light bulbs.
Four, 100 watt light bulbs illuminated for the year, or 96, 100 watt lightbulbs illuminated for one hour a day for a year.

Think how many billions of high wattage incandescent bulbs that we are shifting to CFL and LED lighting saving 70% to 80% in energy usage.

Lighting Four light bulbs uses the same power as driving an electric car for 12,000 miles.

The future is indeed getting brighter, and much cleaner.

Oh, and the answer is zero, Light bulbs don't plug in electric cars.

Ha Ha!

Cheers
Peder
Mini-E #183, 18,875 miles.

The “Snake” drives Mini-E #183

If you don’t know who I’m talking about, stop reading.

I had the great honor of meeting a childhood hero of mine tonight a real automotive pioneer and four time NHRA championship winner. American and International Motorsports Hall of Famer, The “Snake” Don Prudhomme.

This is the way it went down.

I walked into our Rotary club meeting in Carlsbad, and three friends were around the “Snake” One of them introduces me and says to Don “Peder’s a pioneer car guy too, he drives an electric mini BMW.” Don’s eyes lights up and he says “No shit, is it here ?" (sorry for swearing) I say “yes it’s out in the parking lot.” “Don says “Can I drive it?” Peder’s eyes light up! I say “No shit! (sorry for swearing) Hell yes you can drive it.”

Don and I go for a 10 minute spin in Mini-E #183 with Don behind the wheel (sorry Mini-E overlords) I’m in the passenger seat with an automotive god driving my Mini-E! He has a little fun with it loves the torque and the instant acceleration, He talks about 100ths of a second and racing . He loves the regen and instant throttle response. He’s smiling ear to ear! He’s hugely impressed. We get back to the Rotary club and the prez is pissed because I drove away with the program.

I could care less. I am in car guy nirvana!

I used to race Hot Wheels with the Snake and Mongoose. I used to build Revelle models with Testers Glue and paints of the Snake and Mongoose. I used to watch drag racing with the Snake and Mongoose. I used to beg my dad to take me to the races to watch the Snake and Mongoose.

Two gear head car guys loving a drive in the Mini-E. Sweeeeeeeet!

We drive by the old location of the Carlsbad Drag Strip (now a business park) off of Palomar airport road where Don used to drag, He pulls a U turn, chirps the tires a bit steps on it until about 70 mph, and we drive back the one mile to the Rotary meeting place on Palomar Airport Road.

He tells me “I’m pushing the envelope of cars.” I know what he means. I tell him "BMW is pushing the envelope and I'm just a driver", he says "So was I "

Don’s top speed was 307 MPH. I’ll settle for 70.

Top question of the night was what was the biggest technical improvement in drag racing?

His answer was safety. He buried a lot of his fellow drivers in the 70s, some right here in Carlsbad. He credited Don "Big Daddy" Garlits with moving the engine from in front of the driver to the rear of the driver as the biggest technical change in drag racing that saved the most lives.

I’m in a dream, It just gets better and better being a Mini-E driver.

Cheers

Peder

Leviton is in the "EVSE" house, always has been.

Here’s a little secret for you that I as a Mini-E driver with 18,000 miles will gladly share.

Public charging stations and range anxiety are way over-rated and over-hyped. Not to say that we won’t need public charging stations, we will need them and they will primarily be along transportation corridors for longer distant travel. We also need them emotionally as sort of a security blanket to sooth our apprehensions and transition to a more limited range. A security blanket that is reassuring but serves little other purpose.

Pundits, analysts, government and the E-car media are all gushing stories and programs around public charging stations.

The Secret?

I have publicly charged my Mini-E exactly 4 times in 14 months, I have plugged it in 400 times with my home charging. Even imagining a world with abundant charging stations that were free to use, for the most part I would not use them as the range of the Mini-E gets the job done for all my trips returning home to it’s charging cocoon and with no effort or worry is ready for me when I wake up with 100% charge. Talk about a sweet dream! I could see myself maybe once every two months needing a public charger for a longer trip.

Public charging will at best represent a small 20% of the charging marketplace. Immediately from there, the percentages will begin to decline as battery prices go down and range goes up.
The big market and the one that is flying under the radar screen?

Home charging.

Home charging will represent 80% of the marketplace and will grow from a market size of a few hundred chargers today to eventually 100 million chargers in a few short decades representing 1/3 of our nations fleet that will have a plug to plug into a home charger.
Leviton , a quiet giant has been working hard the past few years and is now entering that home charging space.

You may or may not be familiar with Leviton, but its products are in over 90% of us households and it’s manufacturing, distribution, sales, and brand loyalty from the electricians that will be installing your home station, position the company perfectly in the home charging space.

As an EV driver I had the honor of a few friendly visits with Mini-E #183 to Leviton’s facility in Southern California during the development of the EVSE and I wish them great success with their EVSE rollout.

PR Releases below.

Cheers
Peder
Mini-E #183, 18,000 trouble free sunshine powered miles.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38346106

Press Release
PR Contact:
Pamela Winikoff
631 812-6155

Leviton Announces Residential Charging Stations for Electric Vehicle Market
Leviton introduces Evr-Green™ line of electric vehicle supply equipment

Melville, New York, July 20, 2010 – Leviton today announced its entry into the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) market with a full portfolio of residential charging products. The Leviton Evr-Green™ line of EVSEs includes Level 1 and Level 2 residential charging stations. The product line will debut at the Plug-In 2010 Conference and Exposition in San Jose, California on July 26-29, 2010 in Leviton booth #310.

Leviton has developed an industry-first plug-in prewire system for the Level 2 EVSEs.
According to Mike Mattei, vice president and general manager for Leviton’s Commercial and Industrial Division, “As part of Leviton’s commitment to creating a sustainable future, we now offer a complete solution to EV charging. Leviton provides the charging stations as well as installation by certified contractors and extensive customer service. Evr-Green chargers comply with all industry standards, are backed by the industry’s only ten-year warranty, and are compatible with all the major EV manufacturers.”
The Evr-Green Level 1 portable cord set empowers consumers to charge their EV anywhere a standard outlet is available. Leviton also has developed a unique receptacle for EV owners to plug in their Level 1 cord set. In addition, Leviton’s Level 2 residential charging stations range from 16 Amp to 32 Amp charging levels. Both Level 1 and 2 EVSEs have SAE J1772™ connectors that are compatible with all North American plug in vehicles. Leviton will also provide a wide range of “smart” options and features for their residential products.

About Leviton
Leviton Manufacturing Company is the largest privately held global provider of electrical wiring devices, data center connectivity solutions and lighting energy management systems. Founded at the turn of the 20th century in America, Leviton has grown to become one of the preeminent leaders in the electrical industry. Today Leviton's product portfolio consists of over 25,000 devices and systems used in homes, businesses and industry. Proven to be a smart choice, nine out of ten homes throughout North America have Leviton products installed in them. Builders, electrical contractors and other industry professionals rank Leviton products #1 in brand preference. To request more information about Leviton’s Evr-Green portfolio, please visit http://www.evrgreeninfo.com. For more information, contact Leviton Manufacturing, 201 North Service Rd., Melville, NY, 11747, www.leviton.com

Happy 4th of July!

A simple 4th of July message.

Our forefathers founded a Union of States, a nation of independent, self reliant free people. On this Independence day we are reminded of that with patriotic gatherings and fireworks.

On this Independence day we are also sadly reminded that we are today, more so than ever, dependent on foreign lands and kings for oil, for energy. We continue to choose to bespoil our country's natural treasures and increasingly give away our independence and wealth to foreign lands and kings. It is not our Presidents or our Congresses that are to blame. It is "We the People" that choose to do that. We get angry at our President and at Corporations, but we blindly ignore our own use of oil. We the people.

Let us face honestly our great challenges with new opportunities, with imagination and creativity with independence, self reliance and better choices.

God bless those that have served this country and those that have sacrificed their life for our great nation. Their oath to this country's independence was eternal.
The least we can do is make better choices for our nations independence.

Happy Independence Day!

Peder Norby