Some regular readers may have noticed that I’ve been a bit detached from the blog in the past week. There’s a good reason for that. I’ve been immersing myself in the joys of owning and learning about the nuts and volts of an electric car.
Yes, that evil old Anthony Watts, doubter of Anthropogenic Global Warming, is now driving an NEV (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) to and from work every day, to lunch, and on errands in town. I put 100 miles on it the first week. Of course this sort of energy efficiency isn’t anything new for me, since I put solar on my home, and on one of the local schools when I was a trustee. But never mind that, I’m still “evil” for doubting AGW. 😉
It would be interesting to see what some other pro-AGW folks drive. I see Jim Hansen has a 85 mile each way commute from his house in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania to Columbia University in NYC.
The NEV is a 2002 Ford “Think” which is no longer in production since California dropped the ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicle) mandate in 2003. It is one of the rare “pickup truck” models, and as seen below, the former owner drove that point home:
If you are a Ford pickup truck owner, you’ll recognize the logo. The famous Ford F-150 pickup truck is rated for a 1500 pound cargo capacity. This vehicle is rated at 500 pounds, hence the designation, though not an official one.
Those who have owned Fords are often reminded of these famous F.O.R.D descriptions:
“Fix Or Repair Daily”, or “Found On Road Dead”.
Since this operates on 6x 12V Gel Cells, which are under the seats, I’ve added a new one:
Found On Road Discharged
Though not really, I get about 25-30 miles of range from this vehicle, and finding a power plug is easy between my home, office, and some folks around town I know. Currently it has a top speed of 25MPH, which is limited by a controller, but the vehicle can be modded with new programming and an enhanced efficiency motor to reach up to 39MPH. I’m not sure if I need that, as I have not found the speed to be an issue. I mostly take the back streets anyway, and my office is about 2 miles from my home. The only place I can’t go is the Highway, but I don’t need to.
The complete vehicle specs are listed here, from testing done by the US Department of Energy.
Now here is the really important part, look at the DOE rated energy cost:
Energy Cost: @ $0.10/kWh: $0.016/mi
In California, I pay about 15 cents per kilowatt/hour, so my cost would be: $.024/mile or 2.4 cents per mile. With battery replacement every 4 years, I figure that will rise to 3, maybe 4 cents a mile. Even if I’m off by a factor of 100%, and it costs me 6-8 cents a mile to drive, it is still a bargain. In my regular vehicle, given the $3.89/gallon gas price, I figured I was spending about $40-$50 per week in gasoline costs just doing my daily routine and errands.
So, my mission here is simple; I’m not saving the planet, I’m saving money.
That is infectious, and my local newspaper editor, David Little, did his weekly Sunday column on it and the electric car club in town. He’s hooked.
Right now the vehicle is in my garage, I completely disassembled the body and dash so I could locate an intermittent electrical connection and give the entire vehicle a good cleaning and inspection. The former owner lived in a desert area, and there was a lot of sand in it. It has been a joy to work on. It is simple and efficient in design, and easily maintainable with simple hand tools. I’ve located the electrical problem and fixed it. Once I get the vehicle reassembled, I’ll get back to blogging more on the issues related to USHCN and surfacestations.org
In the meantime, I’m having a ball! Bumper sticker suggestions are welcome.
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The links on your web page are gone.
REPLY: What links on what page? I don’t see any issues.
Okay, it’s cool in a geeky kind of way, but with only 2 miles to commute, a bicycle isn’t a better deal? Yeah, the seats are better, you can take a passenger and some cargo, and the windshield will keep the bugs out of your teeth. Still a bicycle will be cheaper.
But the real issue for most of us is that we live with snow and ice 4-6 months of the year, travel 10-20 miles to work (at least), have to use 45-64 mph highways, travel over lousy, frost-heaved, pot-holed local roads (I’m talkin’ New England here). This buggy doesn’t cut it. Show me one with quadruple the speed and mileage for a couple of thousand $. Otherwise and very sadly, it’s not an alternative to my 29 mpg Accord. And my insurance company might have some concerns too…
REPLY: I have a bike, but I often make trips to get parts for various projects my business does. Last week I was hauling several pieces of steel tubing (about 75lbs worth) in the bed of this vehicle. Can’t do that on a bicycle. A bike just isn’t practical for me given the number of business errands I run for parts locally. Otherwise, yes I’d ride my bike.
Electricity in the US emits on average 1.35 pounds/kWh
( 0.61kg/kWh)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html
So your electric car’s CO2 emittions are: 0.06kg/km
– (0.016 / 0.10) / 1.6093 * 0.61
Which is good!
“Hey Baby, turn me on!”
“I have an electric personality”
“I turn my car on!”
My early edition Prius came with an appropriate sticker:
Eat my Volts.
“So, my mission here is simple; I’m not saving the planet, I’m saving money.”
I keep saying those words *exactly* to by TBF (true-believing friends), and it goes right over their head. They just cannot understand why people aren’t lining up for 10kW solar systems, windmills and electric cars. I keep saying that when they are cheaper than buying power from Duke Energy, or can go more than 100 miles on a charge and not need 8 hours for a full re-charge, you’ll see me at the head of the line. I could invent a device that turns dog turds into pure energy, but if it costs $100K, no one except Ed Begley Jr would buy one.
It’s about the money. Period.
I could sure use an idea on how best to go about using solar power in our school. Specifically I need to cool a room with lots of computers in a climate that is not arid. Fortunately hot days are often sunny.
very cool.
I am also a “wallet green” – 7.5 kv array for my all electric home in Southern Claifornia. It came down to saving money when i remodelled it – SDG&E charges criminal rates, and the place was all electric. Piping in gas would have cost the same as the PV after taxes and rebates. No brainer.
When people come over they assume my motivation is political, and you get all sorts of interesting comments. The die hard AGW believers feel the need to tell you what they are doing to reduce their footprint. They just oooooze guilt at not having invested in PV Solar (but can tell you about their amazing jet-fueled vacations).
Then I tell them about the debate not really being over, refer them to your site and icecap, and show them that the politicising of “science” is headquartered at the IPCC. It is fun to watch what happens afterward!
This is very neat looking and I’d love to drive it but it wouldn’t work very many days of the year around here… I at least need a closed cab. Still, I love the Ford 50..
I drive about 15 miles per week (15 is the average, a typical week is about 5), get about 22/30 MPG (city/highway; didn’t actually calulate it, from fueleconomy.gov), and walk to work. I refuel about once every 3 months.
Writing as usual from 41 and change north, 96 and change west, I wonder how one would work out here in a couple of months. Hmmmm….in dry, warm (it _has_ happened, warm. I clearly remember it) weather it is 25 miles to lots of places I have to go.
An way, I forget. does it snow in Chico?
REPLY: It snows on average once every 5-8 years. Typically it is a one-day event that doesn’t accumulate. I have weather doors for it.
It is certainly more economical than my 1970 Bronco and probably less bumpy a ride. But…I’ll stick with the Bronco.
REPLY: The Bronco does a better job with hills where you live.
While you may be saving money, you are not saving energy. An electric car has an energy efficiency of around 12%, about a third of a petrol car of equivalent size.
The calculation is,
Efficiency of power generation (40% for coal) X
Efficiency of distribution system (about 80%) X
Efficiency of battery charge and discharge (about 50% for lead acetate) X
Efficiency of electric motor (around 80%)
People normally dispute the battery charge/discharge efficiency so here is a reference.
http://xtronics.com/reference/batterap.htm
REPLY: Good point. But when you charge the vehicle from a solar array, you don’t have the transport/efficiency issues to worry about. I’m putting a small solar charger on the roof of the vehicle so that I won’t have to plug it in at my office. While it won’t do a complete charge, it will help.
Humbug!
Well, like atmoz I don’t drive all that much. I fill up about once a month. But there are definitely times I’d prefer more than 8 or 9 mpg.
Biz travel keeps my Carbon footprint high though. Last week Kansas City, this week Vancouver, next week Phoenix.
Anthony:
It would be interesting to see an ROI done on your solar panels.
REPLY: Oh I know the numbers, neither my home or school project would be economically viable without a rebate from the State of California. The cost per KW is quite high.
How about,
“My other car is a Hummer” or “Free -Take One”…
My comment doesn’t make much sense after the post was minorly edited, and can probably be deleted as it’s now decidedly off-topic.
Also, I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but the link in your blogroll to “Atmoz” points to the Atomz site search.
REPLY: I thought I’d broaden the topic a bit, so I expanded beyond just bloggers, thus I’ll leave your comment – unless you were trying to say that you are not pro-AGW?
I added (AccuWeather) and updated the blogroll links this weekend. Yours got deleted accidentally when I was editing and I put it back right away, but must have simply typed it wrong when I put it back. Atmoz and Atomz – fixed now. My sincere apology for my Atomic dyslexia. I’m sure you get that a lot.
But if you want to say it was “intententional” for your peanut gallery over there, be my guest. It certainly couldn’t be any worse than the other ad hominem comments you are allowing. 😉
My F.O.R.D. is First On Race Day
I’d love to go solar here on Whidbey Island, about 50 miles NW of Seattle. But fear it wouldn’t work well with the huge number of overcast days we get, and the low sun angle up north here.
I’d also love an all-electric car for commuting. But I live in an apartment during the week, closer to Seattle, and have nowhere to plug it in. That’s one of the major disadvantages to plug-in electric. It’s going to automatically exclude anyone without an exterior plug (apartments, condos). Some major infrastructure needs to be implemented. Such as plugs at parking spots, maybe with a security PIN so it won’t turn on unless the right PIN is entered. And it would need to turn off as soon as unplugged so someone couldn’t come along and unplug your car just to plug theirs in for a free charge.
As it stands, my 35 mpg Matrix does a very good job, and has plenty of cargo space (I keep my bicycle in the back).
Speaking as a member of the nuclear power industry, I must say that I am very very happy to see electric vehicles. The more the better. Keep pushing the industry to develop better batteries and better motors. If a couple 100 thousand people bought vehicles like this, maybe the industry would see them as a good place for some big research bucks.
I live about 5 km from the office. One of these would be practical for about 8 months of the year when there was no snow or slush. The rest of the year it would be tucked away in the garage.
There’s ‘economically viable’ when you compare to the rates for grid power – then there’s ‘economically viable’ when compared to miles in your vehicle.
Just guesstimating from the numbers above, using solar power as the sole source and including that in your vehicle’s cost-per-mile, it looks like you’re still ahead. (Or will be, eventually.)
F50 … LOL!
En espanol …. F.O.R.D … Fabricado Ordinado para Repario Diario (trans. – fabricated for daily repair).
I’m envious.
I would love to have something like that to play with.
A real lot, probably more than half the time. Probably because Atomz sounds a lot cooler than Atmoz. 🙂
I didn’t think it was intentional. If I did, I assume you would have just deleted it. That’s why I mentioned it here.
As for ad hominemers at my site, I used to remove/edit them but found it took too much time. If you would like, I can delete them. A search for TCO would find most I imagine. [a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_a_troll%3F#Not_feeding_the_trolls”>DNFT]
REPLY: Well it’s your site, its matter of what professional standards you want your blog to aspire to. In my case I read/moderate every comment, and in some cases where comments are really OT or ad hom that is really personal, I simply press the “delete” link as opposed to the “approve” in the WordPress comment form. I find that the time is identical to do either.