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This discussion relates to Technology Review's article Driving the Volt.

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  Null Hypothesis
  

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  06/12/2009 02:14 PM

  Impeach Chevron

  The Volt is too expensive. It could be $10,000 cheaper and have better performance if they instead used NiMH batteries. To do this the US government need to overturn Chevron's patent rights on the NiMH battery as a matter of national security, and force them to relinquish those rights to allow carmakers to use NiMH batteries in their cars.
  
  If not, this will automatically happen by default by 2014 when Chevron's patent expires and cheap, high quality electric cars flood the market and finally lay the ICE car into its rightly deserved death bead and solve the energy crisis, at the same time hopefully killing the oil industry.

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  carlhage
  

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  06/12/2009 02:37 PM

  Automatic Transmission Creep

  The article mentions programming the Volt to act like a gas car with an automatic transmission, where the car creeps forward when the brake is released, supposedly to let the driver know the car is on. Unfortunately, this logic is backwards. My Prius has the same "feature", and I see this is a safety defect and wish I could disable it. A few times after stopping, getting distracted with something else I didn't realize the car was on, opened the door and stepped out. The car warning beep goes off, then the cars starts driving away with no-one in the seat! Fortunately, I was able to get back in and step on the brake before long. Once, I had passengers in each seat, I completely closed the door, then had to run after the car to get back in. Certainly, the car should disable creep if the door is open! (Driving with the door open could still be possible by stepping on the accelerator, e.g. in case you need to see the white line of the parking stall.)
  
  The other UI problem with the Prius is that the "off" button is ignored until 1-2 seconds after the vehicle is stopped, and there is no audio feedback that the car is on or off (like PCs make sounds during boot and shutdown). The car should remember the off button was pressed for a few seconds, then shutdown. Otherwise for impatient people, occasionally the car ignores "off" and drives away on it's own. If it beeped, e.g. . - for on and ... for off, drivers would know what the setting is instead of trying to look at the lights.
  
  Most of the ergonomics of the Prius are excellent, so it surprises me for UI blunders like this.

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    DW1414
    

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    06/13/2009 12:55 AM

    Re: Automatic Transmission Creep

    I agree. I use a new forklift that disables the transmission when the seat senses no rider. This seems to be easy to do. They might at least give us the 'option' for the 'deadman' lockout.

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    garyj
    

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    06/17/2009 10:03 AM

    Re: Automatic Transmission Creep

    I was almost rundown by my Prius due to the "automatic" creep. I arrived at gate at night in a rainstorm with a keypad that was too far to reach. I opened the door and was distracted by the rain and did not notice that the car was rolling. When my foot hit the ground I lost my balance and luckily was able to pull myself back into the car by grabbing the steering wheel. The car hit the gate and put a scratch on the bunper just as I was able to get my foot on the brake. Emailed Toyota and the dealer and received a "thank you for bothering me" response from each.

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  jschuman
  

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  06/12/2009 06:10 PM

  Electric cars in India

  All I can say is, I hope it comes to India soon. There's a dearth of electric cars here - The only car that's all electric is the Reva, and that's a tiny two seater that isn't very popular. Would be fantastic if the Volt found it's way here.
  
  Jack
  

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  garysoaring
  

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  06/12/2009 06:39 PM

  Errata on Tesla

  Dear jwer,
  
  The Tesla is not the product of a "toy" car company!  At least the Mercedes folks don't think so. They just bought into Tesla with a huge cash infusion!
  
  The Tesla is for real!  I drive one!! 60 miles/day commute, and the car does very very well.  The irony:  You sit there in your roadster and experience a silent, seamless surge of power that makes you wonder why it took so long for someone to get there.  I look up at the rows of rumbling 6,000 pound monsters called SUV's idling away on our choked freeways everyday, and it occurred to me that I wasn't part of the crowd any more!  I am criticized for having a vehicle that only transfers the pollution to the power plant, but really, I would rather control the pollution at the point of power generation rather than try to control the emissions from millions of dripping, belching hunks of metal called internal combustion engines. We pay the price every time it rains and washes that garbage down to the beach.  You cant go in there for a week after!
  
  I charge my razor for every day's use, and this is no different.  Every morning, the roadster is waiting there to rush me off to work.
  
  I just can't tell you any more about the experience, just that you got to try one out for yourself.  It is spooky fantastic! 
  
  For the battery tech guys, look at it this way:  Apply Moore's law to battery technology.  The ability to store energy in a rapid charge battery system is evolving every day in the labs around the world.  You said it!  When these packs become available, the electric car will become common place.  Park it, plug it in, go get your roll and cup of coffee, come back and unplug it, and your good for another 300 miles down the pike!  Check out EESTOR.com  along with the other technologies and see why the military is looking at electrics - - no more gas turbine with a gigantic heat signature on our tanks, only the insane power of a silent electric drive train.  That is some heavy lifting!     

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    Null Hypothesis
    

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    06/12/2009 08:52 PM

    Re: Errata on Tesla

    You are one of the lucky few who has a collector's item. This car is expensive, but because of its historical significance its value will only go up! I suggest you look into installing a rooftop solar panel system on your house to almost completely shift your energy consumption for driving your car away from fossil fuels. I assume that since you have the money to buy a Tesla Roadster, you could probably also justify the expense for such a system. Then tell everybody about it and help end the oil industry's choke-hold on society by exposing their lies!

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    jwer
    

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    06/15/2009 10:41 AM

    Re: Errata on Tesla

    You're right, I should not have called it a "toy" company, it's actually a "vanity" car company...
    
    The reason it took so long for someone to get there has been pointed out amply in other comments, and should be apparent every time you think about what you paid for your Tesla: they HAVEN'T gotten there yet. A $100K+ car that has only 500 examples is not a mass-production vehicle, nor is it a practical solution. A $30-40K car that can be built by a company with capacity isn't really either, but it's a heck of a lot closer.
    
    I live in Baltimore city, with unpredictable street parking and zero prospect of a reliably available charger. The Tesla or any other plug-in electric vehicle is useless to me. The Volt would not be. Toyota and Honda resist full electrics for the same reasons.
    
    I am not casting aspersions on the performance or ride quality, although it's my understanding that you are alone in your opinion that it's comfortable enough for a prolonged commute.  I was merely addressing unfair GM/Tesla comparisons.

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  stimpy
  

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  06/12/2009 07:33 PM

  errata on tesla, wrt moore's law

  Moore's law does not apply to battery technology; batteries are still evolving, especially thanks to nano-tech, but they aren't doubling in efficiency -- actually quite the opposite... volumetric capacity has been improving but you still only get about 50% of the juice you put in, back out for use by the system.  Add that to electro-mechanical losses in the drive system, and well, you get the picture.
  
  Unless we come up with a truly non-polluting way of generating the electricity in the first place, I'm afraid that all we are doing is shifting the pollution into somebody else's back yard. 
  
  No matter how you try and dress it up, personal automobiles are extremely wasteful commodities.

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    Null Hypothesis
    

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    06/12/2009 08:49 PM

    Re: errata on tesla, wrt moore's law

    This is totally untrue. You get about 90% back of the energy you put into electric car batteries, if not more. I could look up actual numbers for you but I don't feel like it.
    
    Furthermore, with electric cars available, the public will then have an incentive to put rooftop solar panel systems on their houses. I think they cost about $10,000 now, but if they catch on and Moore's law applies, then they will come down dramatically in price. With a rooftop solar power system on your house, hooked up to charge your electric car, you could go anywhere from 30 to 400 km a day, depending on the weather and where you live. This completely bypasses fossil fuels, except for that needed for the manufacture of the car and the solar panels. You get the equivalent of about 2000 miles per gallon. This is the obvious and inevitable solution to the world's energy crisis. It will solve itself, beginning significantly in 2014 when Chevron's electric car battery patents expire.
    
    This is the undeniable fact of physics that the oil industry does not want the public to realize, because no matter how hard they try they will never be able to patent sunshine on your roof to keep it away from you. And all we need for this is solar panels and electric cars. We have both of these technologies right now! Right now this combination is only 2-4 times more expensive than the competition, so watch out oil!

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      stimpy
      

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      06/14/2009 05:31 PM

      Re: errata on tesla, wrt moore's law

      I don't know what to say to that, other than, you are simply wrong. In the briefest possible terms: To charge a typical median use-life battery to 70%-80% capacity takes a 1C charge for 1.5h, with additional top-off time required to acheive 100% charge.  Total power in, at the battery terminals, is nearly 200%  of total battery capacity (give or take 10-15% depending on battery chemisty).  Efficiencies decrease from there with losses in the charger, losses in energy transmission system, etc.
      
      wrt to solar panel solution, the power consumed in manufacturing the panel is currently many times what the panel will produce in it's entire usable lifetime.  the power to produce the panel inevitably comes from fossil based fuels -- often very dirty one's in the far east.
      
      I'm not trying to rain on the parade here -- but the auto industry is being less than honest when they sell hydrogen or PHEV's as a 'solution' to what is a highly inefficient means of travel.  Part of the unsustainable living plan we've developed over the past century or so.
      

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      • 
        Null Hypothesis
        

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        06/16/2009 02:59 PM

        Re: errata on tesla, wrt moore's law

        Well it's good we don't disagre on principles, just specific numbers.
        
        wrt life cycle carbon emissions, solar panels are quite low. Apologies in advance, but I'm going to use Wikipedia as a reference because I don't feel like doing more research right now. I'm sure it's reasonably accurate.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#Environmental_impacts
        
        "Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are now in the range of 25-32 g/kWh and this could decrease to 15 g/kWh in the future.[84] For comparison, a combined cycle gas-fired power plant emits some 400 g/kWh and a coal-fired power plant 915 g/kWh and with carbon capture and storage some 200 g/kWh. Only nuclear power and wind are better, emitting 6-25 g/kWh and 11 g/kWh on average. "
        
        wrt efficiency, the Tesla Roadster gets about 90% efficiency battery to wheel. I believe they have some proprietary technology they are using to make the efficiency so high. Also, a slow charger is going to be more efficient than the 2 hour charge you mention.
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_roadster#Energy_efficiency
        
        "The Roadster's motor efficiency, battery-to-wheel, is 92% on average and 85% at peak power.[74] For comparison, internal combustion engines have a tank-to-wheel efficiency of about 15%.[75]"
        
        It gets 174 Wh/km plug-to-wheel mileage and 135 Wh/km battery-to-wheel mileage, so therefore in charging you lose (174-135)/174 = 22.4 %, and therefore charging efficiency is 78%.

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