Cars, Garages And Outhouses, An Electric Future.

I love driving the BMW Mini-E and contemplating how radically different the future will be because of the electric car.

In the early 1900’s, around the same time the first affordable cars were being massed produced, the outhouse moved from the back forty, to inside the home. Can you imagine the conversations of the early pioneers of that revolutionary technology?

Wife: You want to move that smelly stinky fly infested s---hole to the inside of my home?

Husband: Yup. Honey I promise it won’t smell because I’m putting a pipe in as well.

How radical was that!

The electric car offers us new technology such as no emissions from the car, which means we can radically change the way we interface with the car, both at home and at Home Depot. It is the emissions and fluids that cause us to park the car outside or in a garage.

In part one of the BMW film “Wherever You Want To Go”  (click to see clip) I imagined a future where in our dense urban cities, the electric car would ride up the elevator with you.

Think of it as a vertical road with parking places on each floor, replacing the shared experience and expense of a large multi level, mechanically ventilated subterranean parking garage.  In our single family homes of the future, the living space will incorporate the electric car (perhaps next to the pantry or the pool table) and what we know of as the “garage” will soon join the "outhouse" as an architectural relic of a past era. The ability to take a car inside is just one of many ways that electric vehicle technology will revolutionize transportation and land use planning. (planners hate the long rows of ugly garage doors facing the streets)

If you think this is a bit far fetched, remember the outhouse was once the norm,  and read on,

From the Miami Herald,

Pull over into the designated space. Turn off the engine. And enjoy the oceanfront view as you escalate in a glass elevator that takes you, while you are sitting in your car, to the front door of your apartment. No, this is not the latest Disney ride. The $560 million Jetsonesque tower will rise in Sunny Isles Beach. It likely will be the world’s first condominium complex with elevators that will take residents directly to their units while they are sitting in their cars.

From Germany,  http://www.carloft.com/v0/htdocs/index.php

Fed up with looking for somewhere to park? Afraid of your car being vandalized? Nervous about dark alleyways and gloomy underground car parks? Your worries are a thing of the past. Imagine living in a flat - but parking your car on the same floor! Using the special CarLift, within just two minutes you can be either zooming off or back in your own home again - a loft with unparalleled standards of safety, comfort and exclusiveness. The CarLift is a special elevator which takes you to the floor you live on without having to get out of your car. A transponder inside your car informs the CarLift that you're authorized to enter - and the CarLift knows which story to take you to.

Imagine the future, welcome to the future.

Cheers!
Peder
Mini-E #183, 35,000 sunshine powered miles

The solution to pollution is elimination

“The solution to pollution is dilution”

This is the dictum that has governed the modern world since the mid 18th century and the beginning of the first industrial revolution. The dictum describes an approach to toxic management whereby sufficiently diluted pollution is acceptable and of no harm ( look at the picture.) Every factory, every discharger, every government, is controlled by this dictum.

Think of a “straight” 2 oz. shot of whiskey, versus a “mixed drink” consisting of the same 2oz. of whiskey in a 5 gallon pail of water, the latter makes it impossible to get drunk.

“The solution to pollution is dilution” governs every aspect of environmental law and is the backbone of the worlds Cap and Trade, Climate Action Plans and Kyoto protocol.

Fine and dandy in an agrarian world.

The world is changing rapidly and dramatically. For the first time in our history, more of earth’s residents, greater than 50%, are living in densely packed cities. The trend lines are that up to 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by the turn of the next century.

Back to whiskey, now think of 1000 people, each pouring 2 oz of whiskey in that same 5 gallon pail ( look at the picture.)

Today in a world where most of the population is living in mega cities, the dictum, like any good virus, has morphed into a new form more resistant to mans calculations and “antibiotics.” That morphed dictum and its relation to the mega city world of today is:

“The dilution of pollution when concentrated is a disaster”

One example of why I think it’s a disaster. A few months ago as an invited guest of the German Consulate, I participated in a high level exchange of information with 20 other world leaders, activist, corporations, scientists, academics and pioneers. I was seated in the Bradley Tower, on the very top of Los Angeles City Hall. Next to me on my left was a Global Vice President from Siemens, on my right was Mary Nichols from the California Air Resources Board. Speaking was Joschka Fischer, former Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany.

Vice Chancellor Fisher looked out the windows of the Bradley Tower room, over a 360 degree view of smog polluted Los Angeles, and said “Look what we have done! 15 million people live with ever increasing health issues and social degradation, with this air that we have polluted and that they breathe with every breath.” As a native So-Cal resident, I was struck like never before by that comment.

The new dictum in our ever increasing concentration of population centers must be:

“The solution to pollution is elimination”

Elimination of fossil fuels and elimination of combustion, as Amory Lovins would say, we need to Reinvent Fire. For the first time in our history it is possible and economical to live in mega cities powered by earth wind and fire. Geothermal energy, Hydro, wind, and solar.

We can today live in home powered by, drive a car powered by, and work in a building powered by geothermal, hydro, wind and solar.

This solution is not a pipe dream nor is it an academic exercise, it is the very description of my life living in a solar powered home, driving an electric car powered by solar energy and working in a city hall that is powered by solar energy. This transition for a nation and world will not be easy and it will be incremental, however the new dictum for our future and our mega cities must be,

“The solution to pollution is elimination” we should strive for that as leaders and as individuals in every decision we make.

I am happy to be affiliated, as a Mini-E field trial driver with a company like BMW that is leading the way in reinventing mobility for our mega cities.

We need to think differently about pollution.

Cheers!
Peder
Mini-E 3 183, 34,000 susnshine powered miles

100 Million Electric Vehicles

If in the course of daily life, you use a yellow pages phone book, a manual typewriter or a rotary phone, you might find this vision of 100 million electric cars, a little farfetched.

For the rest of us, the question is not if, it’s how soon the electrification of the car will happen. And one of the big questions after how soon, is how do we make all that electricity to power a large percentage of our domestic fleet of 220 million vehicles?

The answer is surprisingly simple. To begin with we need to understand that 100 million electric cars will require 1/3rd of the gross energy of 100 million gasoline cars. Energy is expensive and is needed to create both electricity and to refine gasoline. The cost of this energy is contained within the retail price of both. The electric car is three times as efficient as the gas car converting that energy into road miles thus will use 1/3 the total amount of energy. This represents a huge energy savings as well as energy independence for our country.

Here are four basic reasons why we will have more than enough electricity without building one new utility power plant to drive 100 million electric cars.

1. An energy revolution is happening. The phenomena is that approximately 25% of electric car drivers are choosing, for the first time in history, to generate their own electricity for their cars via home solar PV or use renewable energy sources via a choice from their electricity supplier. Who knows if that percentage will go lower or higher as the electric vehicles moves beyond the early adopters? Most cars have a garage or a carport to call home and an increasing percentage of drivers will want to “own or lease their fuel station” on top of these structures at a fixed cost of less $0.40 a gallon of gas equivalent forever. 25% or greater of the 100 million cars will be powered by small scale home grown electricity and renewable energy.

2. Refineries are one of the largest electricity users in the country. The refining process to turn crude oil into gasoline uses approximately $0.25 in energy cost and 8 kwhs of total energy for every $3.75 a gallon of gasoline produced. 3 kwh of that energy is electricity the rest is generally natural gas. 3 Kwh of electricity will drive an electric car 12 miles. If you add the natural gas (the other 5kw of energy) to generate additional electricity this number grows even higher to 5 kwh or 22 miles in an electric car. 22 miles in an electric car is 100% of the current fleet average of 22 miles per gallon for gasoline cars, and remember this is just the energy used in the refining process! This is 100% or the total electricity required for 100 million electric cars.

3. Per the 2010 US Census, There are 112,611,029 households in the USA. The average household energy use is 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. Appliances, lighting, LED TV’s, Computers, DVRs, HVAC, and other components are all getting substantially more energy efficient each year. The average home size, growing the past 30 years, is now stabilizing and in some parts of the country homes are getting smaller. Efficiency gains of 20% in households are easily achieved with very low cost items such as insulation or LED light bulbs or new appliances when needed. Couple this with simple behavior modifications such as turning off the TV or the lights when you’re not in the room and a 20% energy savings in each household is a no brainer. This will conserve 2150kws per household. This is enough electricity to power 100 million electric cars 8,000 miles a year. If you add similar efficiency savings in places of work, schools, shopping and manufacture, Enough electricity can be conserved to power 100 million electric cars 12,0000 miles per year. This is 100% or the total electricity required for 100 million electric cars.

4. The electricity grid. Telegraph to telephone, analog to digital, digital to wireless, wireless to connected gps and data wireless. Using this comparison of voice communication, our electricity grid would fall somewhere between telegraph and telephone. It’s 100 year old technology that cannot store energy on the grid. Because of this we generate base loads of energy at 80% of consumption, and then use peaker plants intermittently to provide extra energy when needed on high load times or when a base plant is off the grid for servicing. Unfortunately when loads are extremely low such as at night, much of this base load cannot be used or stored and is run to ground as a waste product. In energy markets, between midnight and 5am electricity trades at a price of zero. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the base load electricity run to ground at night coupled with the capacity to use the existing power plant infrastructure more effectively could power 84% of our existing fleet of 220 million vehicles without one new power plant needed. How can this be? A large majority of electric car owners will choose to charge at night with this previously wasted energy, responding to when the prices are the lowest and when it is the most convenient for them to charge, while they sleep. Enough electricity is wasted due to lack of storage and unbalanced use of existing power plants to power well over 100 million electric cars 12,0000 miles per year. This is 100% or the total electricity required for 100 million electric cars.

In Summary,

I used 100 million electric cars as a number that represents about 40% of our US fleet. The electric car will not work for everyone in the near future and we need to be very realistic about that. Based on my experience driving an electric car the past two years and 34,000 miles, research conducted by universities and auto manufactures, and the price trend lines of any emerging technology, I have no doubt that the majority of urbanites, suburbanites and those in a two or more car family will find the electric car perfectly suited for their lifestyle with zero compromise and value added. In rural America, single car households, and those that drive long distances for work, the electric car is not the answer, at least not yet.

Shifting to 100 million electric cars will not be easy and will be one of the greatest challenges that we undertake as a nation. Significant challenges and great opportunities exist beyond just the supply of electricity covered in this writing. Scale and cost, charging infrastructure, availabilities of commodities such as lithium rare metals used in some motors are just a few examples of the challenges. Huge benefits to society such as cleaner air, lower health care cost, independence from imported oil, and lower cost of energy to drive for consumers also are part of the equation.

In the great debate between using gasoline or electricity as power sources for our cars, one issue is crystal clear, we already have more than enough electricity domestically produced to drive 100 million electric cars in a manor that is cleaner, cheaper with no dependency on foreign nations. Driving 100 million electric cars will require one third the energy and cost compared to drivng a gasoline car.

And my favorite argument of all... you will never be able to drive a gasoline car powered by sunshine.

Cheers

Peder

Mini-E #183, 34,000 sunshine powered miles.

It takes a lot of energy to make gas.. A Bright Idea...part four.

It takes 6 kwh of energy to refine one gallon of gasoline to drive one car 22 miles. 

250 million electric cars (our US total of cars and trucks)  can drive all year without one new kwh of electricity generated.  Read on!

I don’t know about your home, but ours has approximately 150 light bulbs inside and out. Gone are the days when a square room had one bulb in the middle of the room and the outside of the home had one porch light.

So here’s a quick and easy way to fuel your electric car for the next 30 years, I love the dimmable LED bulbs that Home Depot sells.

50 Dimmable LED bulbs at Home Depot = $500

Each LED bulb is comparable to a 50 watt incandescent bulb. (it’s much brighter than a 40 watt bulb)

Each LED bulb saves 41 watts an hour.

Assuming the bulb is illuminated for four hours a day on average, each bulb would save you 164 watts a day, approximately 60 kwh a year.

50 bulbs would save you 3000kwh of electricity a year.

The 3000 kwh you saved by replacing the 50 incandescent light bulbs, will drive a BMW ActiveE 12,000 miles a year for 30 years which is the rated lifetime of the LED bulb.  (46 years or 50,000 hours)

You can drive an electric car 12,0000 miles per year for $16.66 per year of saved electricity. (The $500 in light bulbs divided by 30 years)

In an equivalent gasoline car the cost of gas would be about $2,000 per year or $90,000 (assumes 3% annual increase) for 30 years.

Another interesting electricity factoid is that just four 100 watt light bulbs on 24 hours a day will use more electricity in a year than driving an electric car 12,000 miles a year.
Did I mention that our country exports its weath and is dependent on imported oil?
Did I mention that these LED lightbulbs are made in the USA?

In Summary,

We don’t need to generate a single watt of new electricity in this country to fuel our entire electric vehicle fleet. Simply by using more efficient light bulbs, appliances, and electronic equipment like computers, TV’s and DVR’s in our 114 million households as well as our stores, offices and factories we can save more electricity than the electric cars will use.

It truly is that simple.

It’s your choice,
$16 a year to save the electricity or $2000 for gasoline.
50 light bulbs or 15,000 gallons of gasoline.


Cheers

Peder
Mini-E #183 34,000 sunshine powered miles

Mini-E Diary, June 12th 2009: Driving on Sunshine

It's getting to be sentimental time as I contemplate returning Mini-E #183 in a few weeks and accepting the new BMW ActiveE. What was supposed to be a one year test drive for me, has turned into a guy-car love affair with the Mini-E over 2.5 years and has resulted in an altered view on life and our future.

 Nearing the end of the Mini-E trial, I once again love cars and the joy of driving, that passion was lost for over 20 years. My views on our collective future are very optimistic as I can see a clear path towards energy independence, cleaner and healthier cities and a much lower cost of driving.

For me, the Mini-E is more than just a hugely successful field trial of a car technology, it is an answer to questions far beyond just the car, that have concerned me about our future.

I am sure we will love our ActiveE; however the Mini-E will always be the car that altered my views on driving fun and an optimistic future. It belongs in a museum like the San Diego Automotive Museum, if it can no longer stay in my garage.

The Mini-E is the best and most fun car I have driven in my 34 years in the driver’s seat. I have driven the Mini-E more miles per year than any other car in those 34 years. So much for range anxiety and a limited functionality.

After two and half years and 34,000 miles, the words of my first post in June 2009 (see below) still ring true, a deeper truth based on a longer tenure.

Put that magic in a bottle and sell it to the world BMW.

June, 12th, 2009

WEEK 1: The tires struggle to maintain their thin connection to asphalt as you mash the pedal to the floor, racing down the freeway onramp from 20mph to 80mph in a knats breath of time. BMW/Mini has detuned the drive train so as not to let their drivers do something really stupid, or break the test mule that is the Mini Cooper. The car is on the perpetual edge of control, tires sounding off, steering wheel twitching as there is so much power and torque in that speed range.

The car is ultra responsive letting you get a little out of line but not to far as BMW has the Dynamic Stability Control permanently on (smart move on their part.) You are not driving a typical small car and the sooner you realize that you have a beast underneath you that requires your full attention as if on a race track, the better off you are.

Cruising the freeway at 60 you turn off the stereo so you can hear the quiet. You decide to pass a truck. Damn! That is the first thought that comes to mind as in ‘torque now” and loads of it as the car aggressively assumes the spot in front of the truck.

Before I go any farther, I should clarify that it is very easy to drive the Mini-E like a regular car, really no different than a gas car, (except no gas, brake pads, rotors, oil changes, transmission work ….) and you don’t need what it can give you in spades to simple cruise from point A to point B. Why would you drive like that? OK now that the “car is normal” disclaimer is over, back to the fun world!

Driving as an enthusiast the car gets about 90 miles per charge with 10 miles in reserve. Driving freeway speeds 65 to 75, the car gets 110 miles per charge and in the city about 130 to 140. Charging at home is an hour to a couple of hours typical as I plug the car in a 50% or lower state of charge. A quick 30 minute top off gives me an additional 25 miles.

I have range anxiety!

In my G35 I drove about 18 mile a day, In My Mini-E I drive about 80 miles a day, I am anxious that I may never be able to drive the short range of 18 miles again. It’s a trip to Space Mountain only ten times better every morning as I simply must sneak in a 20 minute drive around the lagoon on twisty roads while the wife is in the bath preparing for her work day.

Driving around the lagoon which is located on the Pacific Flyway migratory bird route, you literally hear the birds! It is an unreal experience to drive on a fun twisty road with windows down and hear the birds! OK it sounds corny but when you drive full electric new experiences come to your senses and you notice them immediately.

I’m driving on sunshine, sunshine that powers my home and provides the sun fuel for my Mini-E. Try that in a gas car!

I am liberated, dependent no longer on the mandatory drug of oil from foreign land. I invite you to join me. For more info on the car and home, http://www.heronshouse.com/

Thanks for reading and commenting!

A record day yesterday for this blog.  More and more people are interested in electric cars such as the Mini-E and they're  interested in saving energy and energy security.  Thanks for reading, it's why I write :)

Solar Energy Beats Gasoline By A “Clean Country Mile” It takes a lot of energy to make gas... Part three.

Continuing on with my financial analysis of the energy cost to power gasoline and electric cars.

As you know by now, I power my BMW Electric Mini-E by solar energy. I drive on sunshine. My overall system size is 7.5kw and that system powers both our home and car. It is a balanced energy use and energy generation solution, We generate 11,700KWH a year and we use 11,700KWH per year.

Each KW of a solar PV system cost approximately $3700 when part of an average sized residential system. The space required for that one KW is about 60 sq feet, about half the size of a small bedroom.

In California and other sunshine states, that one KW will generate approximately 1550KWHs of electricity annually. The solar PV warranty is 25 years, thus generating 38,750Kwhs over the 25 years. It should be noted that there is a slight degradation of annual generation over that time, and that one inverter replacement will most likely be needed as well. However the system will last a far greater lifetime than the 25 years of warranty (think of a pane of glass and how long that last) so we are going to call those data points a push.

The cost of driving an electric car powered by sunshine 7,750 miles per year.

Electric cars are evolving quickly, electric cars such as the Mini-E are returning between 3.5 and 4.25 miles per kwh. The upcoming BMW i3  will be pushing the 5 miles per Kwh threshold. For this analysis, as it looks at the next 25 years of driving, we will assume a 5 miles per Kwh efficiency.

5 miles per kwh multiplied by 38750 KWHs equal 193,750 miles driven for the energy cost of $3700. This works out to to 7,750 miles per year, and a cost of $148 per year, per kw of generation. It also provides absolute certainty of energy cost, as the sun never increases it’s price.

The cost of driving 7,750 mile per year powered by gasoline.

Over 25 years the gas at today’s mpg efficiency, a car travelling 7750 miles per year will consume 8800 gallons of fuel. Using the US fleet average of 22mpg, driving 7750 miles a year, a gasoline car will consume 352 gallons of gas or $1442 for the first year at $4.00 per gallon. And no you’re not reading this wrong, a solar pv system cost is the same or less than buying gasoline for three years ($3700 total cost for solar vs. $1422 annual cost for gasoline.).The next 22 years of driving the EV are on the "house of the rising sun" :)

Let’s be generous and assume that the gasoline car fleet averages 40 mpg during the next 25 years beginning at 22mpg of today and ending at 60mpg in 25 years, That would be an average of 194 gallons annually and 4850 gallons of fuel for the nest 25 years. With a modest multiplier of 3% annually for the increase in gas prices you’re looking at $35,000 in fuel cost for the next 25 years. If gas prices and cars maintain their current 22mpg fleet average, that number would be approaching $80,000. If crazy stuff happens in the oil supplying regions and  global consumption increases dramatically, your guess is as good as mine. This is the uncertainty of energy cost.

To summarize,

At a fleet average of 40mpg, a gasoline car will use 4850 gallons of gasoline which will cost $35,000 to drive  7750 miles per year for the next 25 years

An Electric car driving on Solar will require 60 sq. ft. of space, $3,700 in cost to drive  7,750 miles per year for the next 25 years.

"The answer my friend, is blowin in the wind." The answer is the ""sunshine on my shoulders."  It cost 1/10th (and is dropping in price) as compared to gasoline.

Cheers

Peder

Mini-E #183, 34,000 sunshine powered miles.

Song title credits:
The Animals
Bob Dylan
John Denver