Gas Monkey

I use to have a plug-in car and didn’t buy gas for 3 years. Now I want automakers to make them again.

Tesla’s groundbreaking distinction is under its carbon-fiber skin. The $98,000 Tesla is the first production high-performance electric car. It is powered entirely by electricity, a plug-in that will never use a drop of gasoline. And it’s billed as being able to go 221 miles in mixed city/highway driving on a full battery charge.

It’s not about promises that the Tesla will deliver pin-you-back-in-your-seat acceleration — 0 to 60 miles per hour in a Ferrari-like 3.9 seconds — or its sexy appearance.

The sports car from San Carlos-based Tesla Motors has European sex appeal with power to match that defies the image of electric vehicles as poky carts for golf courses or senior villages.

Tesla is being touted as the first of a wave of electric cars that will bring the most profound change in the auto industry since the first Model T rolled off Ford Motor’s (F) assembly line 100 years ago. From Toyota (TM) to General Motors, (GM) the quest for clean air and independence from foreign oil is leading to the wall socket.

“It’s in the vanguard of the electric car revolution that is coming,” proclaims Elon Musk, the digital-age tycoon who is Tesla Motors chairman and largest shareholder of Tesla Motors.

Toyota (Prius) and GM (the GM Volt and the Saturn Vue) seem to be in a race as to who will provide the first mass-produced plug-in-hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). The backfit market is building options coming for plug-in conversions for existing hybrids.

But what about the tens of millions of normal, internal-combustion engines out there? Is there any hope for them?

If Poulsen Hybrid is to be believed, the answer is a resounding “yes!” The Poulsen Hybrid Power Assist System “creates a PHEV by retrofitting electric motors, DC motor controllers, storage batteries and an on-board charger to a conventional new or used automobile.”

This electric system would be used for maintaining speed, after acceleration:

The development is based on the observation that only 10-15 horsepower is required to propel a compact or mid-size automobile along a level road at a steady 60-70 mph. leading to the conclusion that this relatively small amount of electric power would be able to cope with 70-85% of normal driving, only aided by the combustion engine during start up and when extra energy is required for acceleration and hill climbing.

The systems puts hybrid electric motors on the outside of the rear wheels with an on-board charger.

Poulsen’s system is expected to debut on the market next month — $3,300 for purchase and $600 for professional installation.

Mark me intrigued but questioning. For example,

• This system doesn’t have regenerative braking, thus one is simply trading the cost of gasoline for electricity. At $4,000, a break-even point comes well after saving 1,000 gallons of gasoline. Thus, how much gasoline is really saved as this system basically moves the ICE to idling while the electricity handles acceleration.
• The addition of this system outside the car will increase wind drag. A meaningful amount? Don’t know.
• Also, some basic safety questions must arise. What are the implications for adding these systems outside the car?

But I’m still pretty intrigued with this ingenious approach to tackling the challenges of the huge existing fleet of internal-combustion engine vehicles and moving miles from gasoline to electricity.

Widespread adoption of PHEVs can reduce GHG emissions from vehicles by more than 450 million metric tons annually in 2050 — equivalent to removing 82.5 million passenger cars from the road.

There is an abundant supply of electricity for transportation, and a 60% U.S. market share for PHEVs would use seven to eight percent of grid-supplied electricity in 2050. PHEVs can improve nationwide air quality and reduce petroleum consumption by 3 million to 4 million barrels per day in 2050.

But do we have 43 years to do this? Why not start with today’s automobiles

News piece on the Tesla Roadster Electric Car and Tesla Motors. Originally aired May 15, 2007 on ABC News Nightline.

It goes zero to 60 in about four seconds. Its top speed is 130 miles per hour. And it doesn’t use an ounce of gasoline.

It’s the Tesla Roadster, a new car that’s fueled entirely by electricity and could be hitting the lot just in time.

The Tesla Roadster is named after Nicola Tesla, the largely forgotten genius inventor of alternating current electricity, and it’s the brainchild of Martin Eberhard, who said he designed it because he cares about the environment and because he wanted one for himself.

“It’s time for us to do something about our dependence on foreign oil,” Eberhard said. “It’s time for us to do something about global warming. But I wasn’t ready to go drive around some goofy little car. & Think of how electric cars look. All the ones you’ve ever thought of.”

There haven’t been many electric cars. Early automobiles ran on electricity, as did General Motor’s ill-fated and quickly abandoned EV1, which debuted in the 1990s and died soon thereafter. Eberhard said there’s “nothing beautiful” about the Prius, perhaps the best-known hybrid car. “It doesn’t do anything for me,” he said. “Think of it this way. A world of 100 percent hybrids is still 100 percent addicted to oil.”

Fewer Moving Parts

“The motor [is] tiny by comparison to an engine in a typical combustion car. It weighs about 77 pounds, and you could literally put it in a backpack and walk out of the room with it if you chose to,” Vespremi said, while showing us the car. “What it does is, it has one moving part. It’s an AC motor, so it takes current straight from the battery and turns that into & the power that moves the car down the road.”

Is there anything that a standard gasoline-powered car offers that the Tesla lacks?

“Well, you have all the belts and the hoses and the gaskets and the plugs and exhaust components. None of that exists with this car. The entire drive line consists of 12 moving parts,” Eberhard said, as opposed to thousands in a regular car.

But there are drawbacks: The battery pack is warrantied for 100,000 miles, but after that, replacement could be costly — in the thousands of dollars. Tesla argues that with battery technology improving every year, each successive year’s models will be better. You’re not completely off the grid because it does require electricity, and you can go only 200 miles between charges.

Vespremi said the charging station can be installed by “any competent electrician,” and it allows you “to get that quick charging time of 3½ hours. Most people hook it up to the drier circuit. And then you just treat it like a gas pump.”

The Roadster is still in test mode — the company hopes to start actual production this fall. The car has gone for its first round of safety tests and, according to the company, has done extremely well.

Vespremi told us that part of the reason the car is so safe is because the chassis is made of extruded bonded aluminum, “the exact same kind of chassis that would be used in something like a Formula One car or an Indy car. This is what allows those drivers to wreck at a couple hundred miles per hour and walk away,” he explained.

It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business.

Official Sony Classic Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

Who Killed the Electric Car? Offical Sony Classic Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business.

The year is 1990. California is in a pollution crisis. Smog threatens public health. Desperate for a solution, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) targets the source of its problem: auto exhaust. Inspired by a recent announcement from General Motors about an electric vehicle prototype, the Zero Emissions Mandate (ZEV) is born. It required 2% of new vehicles sold in California to be emission-free by 1998, 10% by 2003. It is the most radical smog-fighting mandate since the catalytic converter.

With a jump on the competition thanks to its speed-record-breaking electric concept car, GM launches its EV1 electric vehicle in 1996. It was a revolutionary modern car, requiring no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers, and rare brake maintenance (a billion-dollar industry unto itself). A typical maintenance checkup for the EV1 consisted of replenishing the windshield washer fluid and a tire rotation.

But the fanfare surrounding the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed. Was it lack of consumer demand as carmakers claimed, or were other persuasive forces at work?

Fast forward to 6 years later… The fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the California landscape like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How could this happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence? Yes, in fact, someone did. And it was murder.

The electric car threatened the status quo. The truth behind its demise resembles the climactic outcome of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express: multiple suspects, each taking their turn with the knife. WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? interviews and investigates automakers, legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to piece the complex puzzle together.

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? is not just about the EV1. It’s about how this allegory for failure—reflected in today’s oil prices and air quality—can also be a shining symbol of society’s potential to better itself and the world around it. While there’s plenty of outrage for lost time, there’s also time for renewal as technology is reborn in WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?

Cars.com’s Joe Wiesenfelder walks you through the 2008 Toyota Prius.

Toyota Prius - High Tech

MSN Cars test drive of the Toyota Prius

100 MPG Toyota Prius! www.CalCars.org