H2 Energy Outlook: How Many Miracles?

Energy Outlook: How Many Miracles?: "

How Many Miracles?

Over the weekend I was catching up on articles, and one from Technology Review last week caught my attention. It was a brief interview with the new Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu, covering nuclear power and fuel cells. In the back half, Secretary Chu explained why the DOE has cut funding for hydrogen fuel cell R&D, suggesting that fuel cell cars were always a long shot, because they required "four miracles" to happen. Although I haven't mentioned fuel cells very frequently here in the last few years, I must say it's hard for me to consider the commercialization of something that I've already driven as requiring quite so many miracles as that. At the same time, I don't trivialize the obstacles that explain why fuel cell cars are still not available in large numbers, despite previous expectations--including my own--that they would be by now."

Why the Electric Car is Here to Stay

Why the Electric Car is Here to Stay: "I hear people suggest to me that the electric car is “doomed to fail.”  Their reasons as as varied as they are inventive.  Here’s a list of some of the more popular reasons I hear in no particular order:

Will Too Many Plugged In EVs Crash The Grid In The Future?
Gasoline and diesel engines keep getting more efficient and cleaner, thus cancelling out any need
We will run out of lithium or other rare-earth metals needed to produce them
The power grid won’t be able to handle it
Fuel cells will be out soon and they will take over from electric cars
Electric vehicles just don’t work and consumers will never embrace them
The only people that buy them are environmentalists and eventually they’ll realize they’re being scammed because EVs are dirtier than gasoline cars
They are too expensive and thus not profitable to the manufacturers
People only buy them because they are subsidized, once the tax credits go away, so will the cars."

Alternating current was invented 20 Years before Tesla was Born

Alternating current - Wikipedia: "The first alternator to produce alternating current was a dynamo electric generator based on Michael Faraday's principles constructed by the French instrument maker Hippolyte Pixii in 1832."

Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Vendors/Manufacturers

Plugin...Recharge!: Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Vendors/Manufacturers: "
ABB
AeroVironment
Aker Wade  (Level 3)
Alpha Energy (Solar Charging Stations For Electric Vehicles)
Andromeda Power (Level 3)
Avcon
Better Place
Blink Network (from ECOtality North America)
ChargeIQ (Aussie)
ChargeMaster (UK)
ChargePoint (Netherlands)
Control Module Industries (EVSE LLC)
Coulomb  (Product Review)
Clipper Creek
DBT USA
Eaton Corporation
ECOtality North America (f.k.a. eTec)
Elektromotive (UK)
Erg-Go
Etrel (Slovenia)
E-Totem (Swiss)
EV Box (Netherlands)
EVCharge America
EVergreen Time to Charge (Danish)
Evoasis
EVoCharge
EVSEUpgrade (Modify Nissan Leaf Portable Chargers to be Level 1 & Level 2)
EyeOnPower  (acquired by ABB)
General Electric 
GRIDbot
Green Charge Networks  (Mobile Level 3)
Green Garage Associates - Juice Bar
GoSmart - ChargeSpot
HaloIPT (Wireless Chargers - NZ - Now owned by Qualcomm)
Lear (OEM for General Motors)
Legrand
Leviton
Liberty PlugIns
Optimization Technologies (OpConnect)
Plugless Power (Evatran Wireless Chargers)
Park and Power (UK)
Parkpod
Pep Stations
Plug Smart (Intelligence for GE Charging Stations)
RWE
Schneider Electric 
SemaConnect
Siemens
Shorepower
SPX Service Solutions
WiTricity (Wireless Chargers)"

MIT: vehicle emissions cause 53,000 extra deaths a year

MIT: vehicle emissions cause 53,000 extra deaths a year:

EV Charging at Hotels

http://www.evconnect.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/EV-Charging-at-Hotels-Boosts-Revenue.pdf

Supportive Government Policies Stimulate Electric Vehicle Market in Turkey, Finds Frost & Sullivan - KPTV - FOX 12

Supportive Government Policies Stimulate Electric Vehicle Market in Turkey, Finds Frost & Sullivan - KPTV - FOX 12: "Turkey is set for the era of electric vehicles (EVs), as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) prepare for the launch of new EVs and the development of charging infrastructure gathers pace. EV market growth in the country is mainly driven by reduced special consumption taxes (SCT) for EVs as well as demand from global companies that are increasingly focusing on green policies."

Solar-Powered Electric Vehicles: Panacea Or Hype? [Tesla Motors Inc, SolarCity Corp, Car Charging Group Inc] - Seeking Alpha

Solar-Powered Electric Vehicles: Panacea Or Hype? [Tesla Motors Inc, SolarCity Corp, Car Charging Group Inc] - Seeking Alpha: "The ability to harness the sun does, however, contribute to an unparalleled value proposition for the EV that its rivals cannot match."

Peak Driving in Oregon

Peak Driving in Oregon | Sightline Daily:

2011 Nissan Leaf Battery Lifespan

In 2011, I took a leap of faith. After spending more than a year on the waiting list, I bought a brand new, 100% electric car. This was the first new car that I had ever bought.

I considered leasing it so I could walk away if the technology turned out to be less than I hoped. However, I don't like leases and after driving electric for the 4 previous years, I knew EVs had great potential, so I paid cash on the barrel-head and became the owner of a new electric car on May 18th 2011.

Two and a half years later, I still love the car. It still has all 12 bars of capacity and the range has not diminished. I plan to keep the car for 10 years, so maintaining battery health is important to me. So I generally avoid quick charging and I have the car in "Long Battery Life" mode so that it only charges up to 80%.

Even with these precautions, batteries will degrade slowly with the passage of time. I recently started running a program called Leaf Spy that, along with a cheap ELM from Amazon, allows me to read messages from the car's CAN bus. This shows a lot of data. Among this data is the current capacity and health of the batteries.

Here is a chart of the data I have collected so far:

For purposes of the chart, I made the assumption that the car started out at 100% capacity and health. I was surprised to see how much the capacity changes with the weather and use. The spike in capacity occurred when my car received a firmware update in the later summer of 2013.

This chart will be interesting once there are multiple years worth of data, where seasonal changes and longer term trends can be seen.