Alternative & Renewable Energy Blog

Electric cars can be made using as little as 59 parts total.

That means a lot of people in a lot of businesses we not have jobs.

The usa needs to make electric cars but also dive deep into robotics !

Hmm, but wouldn't electric car and robotics mean even fewer unskilled labor jobs would be available in the auto industry

Maybe it is high time we redefine unskilled labor and make adjustments to the work week {fewer hours} balance the pay scale over the entire employee/employment sector of this nation as a whole and do it without continuing the march to socialism. less hrs worked means more people working to accomplish the same means less employee stress, more time to spend with families, more opportunity to help children with studies, leading to an opportunity to reduce delinquencies, and so on. When we farmed with mules, even the mules got winters off from the plow.

TMF

A number of years ago I used to work in the same building as Lew Urry very quiet and reserved guy. I can't say I ever talked with him much other than to say hi in the hallway, but he was highly regarded in the company. We would always joke that when he started with the company his first job was to chase the dinosaurs out of the parking lot.

Hi frankd20 - Many thanks for sharing about Mr. Urry, who, according to Wikipedia, invented both the alkaline and lithium batteries while working for Eveready company (Energizer's former name). It must have been inspiring to have someone like him working nearby!

Seems like he grappled with many of the same problems modern-day engineers/researchers are tackling: battery life-span, production cost, power yield, getting the optimal mix of materials. My long-running Hess Christmas-gift toy gas-trucks of the late 60's/ early 70's likely owe him a debt of gratitude. :)

- Larry

The various lithium technologies are obvious candidates to write about, but there are more interesting stories.

NiMh batteries work remarkable well in the Toyota RAV4 EV, going as far as 300,000 miles in Toyota's tests, and 150,000 in many customer vehicles. As installed in the RAV4 EV, range was 80-120 miles, which is adequate for many uses. (They have also worked very well in the Prius and other hybrids.) But the interesting part is that Texaco, (now Chevron) owns the rights for large format batteries, and successfully sued Panasonic (Toyoto's supplier) to prevent them from continuing manufacture of the batteries. They apparently really don't want competition for gasoline. Has the makings of a good conspiracy story.

The EEstor is another good story, with a certain amount of intrigue. The EEstor people received Kleiner Perkins (the world's largest VC firm, I'd guess) money to start up, so there was some credibility there. But then they hooked up with an unknown neighborhood vehicle maker in Canada for distribution for all cars under 3500 lb (I think that's the figure). How strange to pick a tiny company with no history of making any highway capable vehicles (not even a prototype of one) to distribute a "battery" that would change to world of automobiles, if the hype were to be believed. This "battery" is really a supercapacitor, and is said to have both very high power density and very high energy density -- so high that a 300 lb unit could give hundreds of miles of range, yet could be recharged in just a few minutes, given a high voltage, high amperage charging station (480 VAC at about 600 amps would provide fairly fast charging: 29 kWh in six minutes, for example). The wonders never cease with EEstor, with a long standing claim to go right into production without prototypes, (imagine not testing a 3200V device extremely thoroughly before firing up [or even finalizing design of] an assembly line.)

We don't talk about lead acid anymore, but Firefly is making a lightweight one, and there might be an interesting story there, too.

In the last ten years, there has been virtually no development of note in the other parts of electric cars, largely because the other parts already work so well: 98% efficient controllers, 94% efficient motors... what's not to like? The batteries are the hurdle, or the perceived hurdle... although NiMH are pretty good, although still heavier than we'd like.

Then there are all the other technologies... lots of grist for the mill.

Hi Ken,

Many thanks for sharing so much on the technologies, history and some of the key players. Nice material for me to take inspiration from for next week. Gave your posting a "Good Answer".

Checked-out your CR4 profile: I'm a fan of your town, Atlanta - was there for COMDEX during the late 90's - beautiful city, great weather and restaurants - enjoyed walking around town. Will check out the jazz scene you're fond of next time I'm down. :)

- Larry

Author's note: Part 2 is now available: click here.