About Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles are powered purely by batteries, with no gasoline engine. This is different from hybrid electric vehicles that use a combination of a battery and a gas engine for power. Today's battery technology makes it possible to build electric vehicles (EVs) that can go over 200 miles on a single charge with performance that is comparable to, or better than, equivalent gasoline-powered vehicles.

We believe that EVs can play a big part in solving three huge problems: transportation's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, economic dependence on foreign oil, and the national security issues created by sending $700 billion dollars a year to foreign governments.

In addition to helping solve the world's problems, EVs bring us an improved way to commute that is convenient, powerful, and fun. For typical daily driving, plugging your car in at night is easier and faster than making a weekly trip to the gas station. With ten times fewer parts than a gas-powered car, an EV has far fewer wear and maintenance issues: no oil changes, no muffler, no catalytic converter, no fuel or oil filters, no timing belt. In fact, there's no need for a transmission! The brakes last longer because the vehicle can slow down by converting momentum into electrical power to charge the batteries instead of wasting that energy as heat and break wear.

Here are facts and answers to frequently-asked questions about electric vehicles, their technology, and their impact on the environment.

Efficiency

For gas-powered vehicles, efficiency is represented by miles-per-gallon measurements. That clearly won't work for EVs since they don't burn gasoline. Instead, we consider two things: the amount of energy it uses and the emissions it produces when traveling a specific distance. Here is an efficiency analysis comparing electric vehicles to gas-powered vehicles.

The upshot is that electric vehicles use the energy equivalent of a gas vehicle getting over 100 mpg, and even when powered from today's electrical grid -- which is heavy in coal and natural gas plants -- driving an EV will reduce nearly all types of pollution, including greenhouse gasses and the emissions that cause smog. When powered from clean, renewable resources, driving an EV creates no pollution either directly or indirectly.

Toyota RAV4-EV

It's a pretty well-kept secret, but major manufacturers sold factory-produced vehicles (not conversions) in California in the late 90's and early 2000's. This was due to a California Air Resources Board mandate for zero-emissions vehicles. Once that mandate was eviscerated (due to pressure from the auto manufacturers), the vehicles were no longer made, and many of them were taken back after lease periods ended. Fortunately, many of the Toyota RAV4-EVs were available for purchase. They're still going strong today, and we were fortunate to be able to buy one from its original owner. According to Wikipedia, Toyota made about 1500 RAV4-EVs from 1997 to 2003.

The RAV4-EV has a range of 80-100 miles on a charge. Our typical usage is about 40 miles between charges, which takes about 2 hours to return to a full charge. The batteries are NiMH (Nickel-Metal Hydride). The charger is connected to a 240V 30A circuit.

Our favorite source of information on the RAV4-EV is Darell's site (EVnut.com).

Tesla Roadster

We have a Tesla Roadster on order, which we expect to receive in the first quarter of 2009. The Roadster is a pure electric vehicle with a range of over 200 miles on a charge. It's comparable in performance to other high-end sports cars, with a 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds.

As exciting as the Roadster is, Tesla Motors didn't get into the EV business to solve a sports car shortage. Their long-term goal is to greatly increase the number of clean miles driven by building compelling, affordable electric vehicles. They started their business with an eye-catching car that will generate interest and be performance- and cost-competitive with other high-end, low-production sports cars. Their next car is the Model S, a luxury sports sedan expected to debut in 2011, which will be comparable in price to similar vehicles. That will be followed a couple of years later by a more modest family vehicle in the $30,000 range.

The Tesla Motors site has a lot of great technical information about the car and its engineering:

• How it Works -- Information about the battery, motor, transmission, and electronics.
• Charging and Batteries -- Information about the use, safety, and recycling of the car's Lithium Ion batteries.
• Acceleration and Torque -- Check out the torque and power curves; not something you typically see on an automobile company's site!

Here are some of our favorite blogs from the Tesla Motors site:

• Motor City -- An early post by Tesla founder Martin Eberhard that explains the motor choice for the Roadster.
• A Bit About Batteries -- Details about the batteries, including cycle life and calendar life. See the white paper on batteries for even more details.
• Good Vibrations -- An interesting look at the testing of climate control and driving over various uneven surfaces.
• Blowing Hot and Cold -- Details about the Roadster's climate control system. For example, do you know how to heat a car that doesn't have an engine generating excess heat?
• The Spin Stops Here -- An engineer's report on the traction control system testing and refinements.
• Induction Versus DC Brushless Motors -- A nice geeky article about different kinds of motors and their pros and cons.

Our Photos and Blogs

Here is the story of our first experience driving the Roadster. The full list of our EV photos and stories is in our photo gallery.

Here are some EV-related blogs from Tom's Blog:

• Lies, Damned Lies, and Plug-in Hybrids -- An analysis of the issues with determining and accurately reporting the energy usage of hybrid-electric vehicles.
• Tesla Motors - It's not just the economy, stupid! -- A rebuttal to the mainstream media's simplistic conclusions about the reasons for the delay of Tesla's Model S.

Other Resources

• We highly recommend the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, which explains a lot about the technology and what might have been motivating the automobile companies.
• Plug-In America helps promote electric vehicles and has a lot of information about the technology, EV-related activities, and links to all sorts of resources.
• We are members of the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association, a chapter member of the Electric Auto Association.
• Bill Arnett took some great photos of the installation of the motor and battery pack in his Tesla Roadster.

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