Crunch’s Renewable Energy Transport Ideas

For the longest time,  I’ve been pondering on what my next car will be.    Although I have at least 5 years of dependability for my good old Toyota Corolla,  which gets a good 35 miles/gallon,  I bought it from a car dealer in San Rafael in 1999 after returning from India, and it was my first “care free” car.   But with gas prices getting higher and higher,   and battery technology getting better and better,  I started doing a lot of research on electric vehicle feasibility to try and figure out why gas guzzler SUV’s are so popular.   So, my spare time has been devoted to researching why such a simple idea has not materialized.

I went down to the LA Tesla dealer to see this famous Tesla Sports car,   but for $120,000 each,   far out of my price range,    I tried to sit behind the wheel just to see what it was like.    You have to be practically a contortionist to get and out of the bloody thing,  but the sales rep told me of a new S model to be available in 2011.    Sticker price – $65,000,   range 400 miles (with extra battery – and extra cost).   I asked about Charging opportunities,  and was told they have a 480 volt class 3 charging system,   but the normal house outlets of 110 volts can charge it in 8 hours…

I was told there were a small scattering of “service stations” with the 480 volt charging system capable of fully charging it in 45 minutes…

There are other EV’s out there on the market place with ranges from 50 miles (Volt) to 100 miles,  the Coda Electric I learned about yesterday after watching “powering the Future” on the Green channel.

But the most troubling info I find for EV owners,  is the lack of Charging opportunities for EV drivers.   There are virtually NONE at this time,   other then to be friends with a gas station close to work,   most are SOL (Shit out of luck).

I see these acres of parking lots,   but no opportunity to charge your car while shopping,  at work,  or wherever you wind up parking your car. I mean,  “think about it…”.    Average local use of private cars involve going to the store,  shopping center,   driving to work,   or on weekends,  to recreational areas.  Other then the task of going from point A to point B,   why not offer Ubiquitous charging stations everywhere people park their cars….  Always giving the driver the opportunity to “Top off” their charge wherever they park. This will increase the usefulness and feasibility of electric vehicles.

I ran the numbers,  for the Volt car,   and assuming I work at least 40 miles away from home,   and IF they had a charging system at a work parking lot,   that’s as far as one can live from work,   even if they could charge it while working.    I ran some numbers assuming I could charge me car with a class 1 charging station (110 Volts 35 amps) at anywhere I parked my car,   makes a total difference in convenience.

At the HOPE Conference,  I gave a talk and put out a challenge to hackers and Hacker spaces to work towards and build what I can an EV Box which can replace parking meters.   I got amazing results,  and I’m now putting up this blog to get people to “Actually do something” to make a difference in your community by forming a small company to make these simple boxes.

For the longest time,  I’ve been wondering why nobody is trying to make the EV Infrastructure more EV Friendly,  until I came across GE’s new WattStation….   Oh My Gosh….  Someone is actually doing it….   Yes,   A real honest to god Charging station for class 2 charging (240 volt – 3 hour charge) designed for parking areas.   This is expected to be available in 2011.   But why Wait….   why not settle for a 110 volt class 1 charging system using infrastructure already existing.

I’m posting another blog following this,  to outline just what steps I propose to make this happen in your own city,   and any young enterprising individual can go into business making these.  Preferably electricians familiar with the safety and codes.   Then,  getting local parking lot owners to support installing these on their property,   or getting local businesses to front some of the cost to help boost their business.   All these possibilities can be discuss on this blog.

It seems they are already trying to standardize the Charging connectors using the SAE J1772 type connector,   designed for 240 volt class 2 charging (Faster charging, but requires special power connection to the grid.

I’m reaching out to “Hacker spaces” in an attempt to get them interested in building up a manufacturing base for building a few of these as a prototype,   then going out to get support from local government to install them where EV owners are likely to want to park their cars.

In the meantime, I’m setting up a special page on the Crunch Creation’s home page that links to “energy”.    This page outlines some of the current work being done on improving a renewable energy infrastructure.

Please leave your comments and ideas on how you can be involved.