November 2008 Archives

The Zero Emission No Noise (ZENN) car company, which was founded in 2001 in Toronto by marketing executive Ian Clifford, has released it's first model, the CityZENN, which can travel just over 30 miles per hour with a 50 mile range. The base model goes for just over $15K and is available all over the United States, unlike some other EV's only available in Europe.

The ZENN website has several images of the new electric vehicle cruising around the streets of San Francisco and the University of California in Berkeley, which are perfect environments for the low speeds that these cars max out at. So far ZENN has sold about 400 cars, one third of which have gone to California buyers. The car certaintly isn't for everyone but with the relatively low price tag (by comparison to many other electric cars) it's the equivilent of a gas powered smart car (neighborhood car) only much better for the envirnment.

Zenn has built a strong relationship with (and invested in) EEStor which is a texas based battery company working on next-gen technology. This relationship could really set ZENN apart from it's competitors as their batteries are said to charge much faster than, and weigh only 10% as much as competitive technologies. If you're happy paying a bit more, want room for up to four passengers (instead of just 2) and need the ability to cruise at highway speeds up to 77mph then keep your eye on ZENN as it moves towards the release of it's next model, which has an unset launch date.

This original article first appeared on EV Authority here.

T. Boone Pickens appeared on The Daily Show with John Stewart on November 12th to share his new book "The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future" and ended up sharing some of his thoughts on renewable energy, natural gas and electric cars. We've got a short clip below and the full episode is available here.

Pickens is known for his work chairing a hedge fund called BP Capital Management and his philanthropic nature, having given away over $700M to charities. He has long invested in and worked for the oil industry but also come out as saying "drilling for more oil is not the answer" which carries a lot of weight considering his position. During this interview he stressed the importance of creating an energy plan using American resources such as wind and solar. He also described the yo-yo cost trends that foreign oil has historically followed and predicted that oil would once again hit $100 per barrel within a year. Pickens, now 80 years old and ranked by Forbes as the 117th-richest person in America, has had plenty of time to watch these trends and gain a unique and high level perspective on the topic.

For the fiture of transportation T Boone Pickens recommends using electric cars for individual transportation and diesel (from our allies: Canada and the UK) as well as domestic natural gas for big rig trucks and 18-wheelers because they require so much power. While Pickens insinuates that electricity and EV's might not be optimal for larger vehicle transport we here at EV Authority have seen several examples of larger EV vehicles abroad, such as this electric bus being used for public transportation in China unveiled at the 2008 Beijing Olypic Games. These busses were developed by Beijing BIT Clean EV Co., Ltd., which was commissioned by the government to develop environment-friendly electric vehicles for the Summer Olympic Games and while they may be lacking in terms of range and fueling efficiency (batteries are simply swapped in and out) they do prove that massively heavy vehicles can be moved by electric motors.

It's been mentioned several times on the campaign trail by Barack Obama, the need to build up US infrastructure around clean energy and electricity (to send wind and solar energy into major cities to be used by cleaner devices). In a recent video interview with Rachel Maddow, the first video on this page, he connected the vision of renewable energy production to plugin hybrid cars and ultimately electric cars and other EV's. A direct quote from that interview follows:

"if you're going to spend deficit spending...then it better be in rebuilding our roads, our bridges (instead of Iraq)...one of the most important infrastructure projects that we need is a whole new electricity grid. Because if we're going to be serious about renewable energy, I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers like Chicago and we're going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plugin hybrids then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that's generated".

Now that Obama is on his way to the Whitehouse the construction of a smart grid is one step closer to being realized, laying the much needed foundation to support electric vehicles long term, making electricity more and more competitive with gasoline in terms of price.

Triple A auto insurance is promoting green transportation through it's new Greenlight Initiative program which provides information on alternative fuels and sustainable transportation. You can see a list of upcoming events in your area related to electric vehicles and hybrids by visiting the website www.aaa.com/greenlight and entering your zip code. Currently the Northern California AAA Greenlight events page is promoting the upcoming San Francisco International Auto show and Triple A is offering a 2 for 1 discount to its members.

We found out about the AAA Greenlight Initiative a week ago when we saw a Toyota Prius (not quite an EV) driving around town with a sticker on the side. When we followed up with Triple A we found out that they had been offering grants earlier this year (up to $50K) which were given to several educational, non-profit and government groups for alternative fuel vehicle projects. CalCars.org received $10K from the AAA Greenlight Project last year to develop PHEV prototypes and share them with the public.

In 1999 Ford Motor Company bought Pivco Industries, the parent company of the Think electric car, Think City. Several years later in 2003 Ford sold the company as demand in the US for electric cars was soft and it was not able to turn a profit. Fast forward to 2008 and Think is still around in Norway where it is releasing an updated version of it's old car the Think City.

This tiny car can be fully charged in just 12 hours and has a max speed of 68 with a range of ~100 miles. The new Think City has been crash tested in Europe and seats two comfortably with the option of two kids seats in the far back (which basically eliminates the trunk). With a price tag of about $30K it's an interesting deal and fits somewhere between the Mercedes Smart Cars (that run on Gas) and other more robust and expensive EV's such as the Tesla Roadster.

Also new to this model of the Think City are Lithium Ion batteries which boost the driving range significantly. The batteries are being supplied by A123 and EnerDel which are divisions of Ener1, an American company. Batteries are still a deciding factor for electric cars trying for high volume at middle class buyers who demand range and low price. the Think City car battery is 26-kilowatt-hour and accounts for one half the price of the whole car!

Norway will be the first to receive this new EV as it offers no compelling incentives and an eager consumer base. In Norway there will be no sales tax, road tax, freeway toll, parking fee on public streets, and the car will be allowed to drive in bus and taxi lanes (the equivalent of US HOV carpool lane incentives). With a production capacity limited to 10K per year Think will be holding off on the rest of Europe and exploring the US market until the first half of next year although there is a Menlo Park based headquarters for the company currently in the United States. US investors include GE General Electric, Rockport Capital, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which was an early investor in PayPal, Google, and other successful Silicon Valley companies). Menlo park is located just North of Palo Alto where Tesla Motor's headquarters are.

Last month I was living in Menlo Park on the Edge of Redwood City so that I could work at a place called The TechShop without having to drive too far. For those of you who haven't heard of it, TechShop is a 15,000 square-foot membership-based workshop that provides access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a creative and supportive community of members and instructors. They've got everything from band saws to welders to plasma cutters and it's open for use as long as you're a member and have taken relevant certification classes (through TechShop).

I was acutally living in the spare room of the house of one of the TechShop directors named Tom and he was renting the third room out to a fellow named David who was building an electric bicycle from scratch. Below I've posted a couple of photos but the gist of the story is that David is from Vermont and lives off of the land. He has a small company that he founded and runs that specializes in cordyceps mushrooms and herbal teas which are sold nationally (I tried some of his drinks and I highly recommend them). So this guy David is all natural and since he already has welding skills and is into construction and fabrication, the EV bicycle project was no problem. In fact, during the bicycle construction he was simultaneously building a biodiesel VW bug!

The bicycle cost ~$1,500 total to build (including spray paint and welding supplies from TechShop) and featured a 37V 21Ah(H) Polymer Li-iON Battery Pack similar to this one used for electric remote controle planes and cars. The motor and controller were very unique and the whole thing was designed to be able to cary wood and other supplies around on the extended rack. It also featured peggs just behind the bottom bracket and cranks for a second passenger to stand on. All in all, a very cool project and a great use of electric vehicle technology, but if you're looking to build something a bit less robust (and less expensive) there are a few complete packages available for converting a bike to electric or just buying a brand new complete electric bike here and here for kids.

David let me try the bike once it was nearly complete and I was pleasantly surprised. Considering the relatively small motor and battery the bicycle performed like a champ! I used the hand grip twist throttle to gain speed and then once it was rolling I would peddle like a normal bike and conserve the battery. Using this technique the battery could last much longer than if it was being completely relied upon for power. For this reason it's hard to quantify the range but according to David the bike could easily be ridden 50 miles with intermittent motor support.