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Welcome to Noel's EV Page!
Starting in 1996, there was a big push by several manufacturers to start selling electric vehicles. General Motors released its EV1 and Honda began sales of its EV Plus. Both of these vehicles were sold through limited dealers in California and Arizona. At the same time, a move was made to build an infrastructure of charging stations in the areas where these vehicles were being sold. At the moment, there are approximately 300 public charging stations in Southern California. They can be found at Malls, Supermarkets, Government Offices and Electric Utilities. After a period where momentum to get electric vehicles on the roads faltered when Edison EV, one of the manufacturers of the chargers anounced that they were pulling out of the business. Second, Honda has announced that it will not produce any more of the EV+ vehicles. Its original plan was to produce 300 and now that it has built that many it is going to sit back and evaluate the vehicles. Recently, it was announced that two employees of Edison EV were going into business to distribute the GM Magancharger. This may well spark an increase in the number of public charging stations available. In addition, General Motors has announced the 1999 model of its EV1 with either an improved lead acid battery that improves the range by about 20% over the existing lead acid battery, or a nickel metal hydride battery that provides a range of about 120 miles, is now being shipped to dealers. At the recent alternative fuel vehicle expo in Santa Monica, a Nissan employee told me that they have built 50 Altra, 25 of which will be delivered to fleets with the other 25 being used by Nissan employees. The Nissan Altra home page says that they will begin selling to the public in 2000 but sources in Nissan say that the program may be scrapped altogether. However, Nissan did have two Altra on show at the 2000 LA Auto Show. Toyota, Ford and Chrysler have opted to sell to fleet operators only. Toyota has announced that it will begin supplying it's RAV4 EV to fleet users only. However, they will now ship to fleets of 1 allowing sole propriotorships to lease one. This leaves the European manufacturers and a group of small companies that have grown up to build electric cars. Solectrica appeared to have the best electric vehicle on the market but they do not have the distribution capabilities to get the car on the road. T-Force, built by AC Propulsion, is an electric vehicle that can out accelerate a corvette. They are planning on building 3 this year and have one firm order. However, at $80,000 per car, I doubt they will sell many. Corbin is producing the single seater sparrow which is targeted at the commuter market. Again they are being hampered by the lack of a widespread distribution channel. They appear to have as many as 1000 orders and have produced about 250. The car is still having teething problems that have kept several of the cars off the road for months. One reason that the manufacturers are pulling back is because the driving community have not rushed out to embrace the electric vehicle. When they hear that these vehicles have a range of only 40 miles on a charge they just don't believe that an electric vehicle is practical. If this is your only car, I must agree, but as a second car used to commute to work and run to the shops the electric vehicle is ideal. Most people commute less than 20 miles each way and with the growth in public charging stations, the practical range of today's electric vehicles is well able to cover most peoples daily driving needs. The advent of second generation EVs with advance technology batteries will mean that an electric vehicle will be suitable for most needs. It is necessary to change our thinking about cars if we are to select an electric vehicle. When most people think that the three hours it takes to charge the lead acid batteries in many of today's vehicles, or six hours for the nickel metal hydride batteries, makes these vehicles impractical. However, that's thinking of a vehicle in terms of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). With an ICE powered vehicle, you drive it until the fuel gauge gets down around one quarter full then you pull into a gas station and fill up the tank. With the electric vehicle, you charge it up each night using cheap off peak electricity. It would be the same as if you stopped at the gas station each evening on your way home to fill up. In addition, when you stop at the mall or the supermarket, you pull in to the electric vehicle charging station and top up while you shop or go to the cinema. Also, charging is not linear. most lead acid battery powered vehicles will go from 30% to 80% charge in about an hour with charging proceeding much slower between 80% and 100%.. Some owners of electric vehicles choose to use them most of the time and then rent for the few times each year when they take road trips. Others have an electric vehicle for commuting and an ICE for longer trips. People have driven these vehicles on long trips but it takes planning and patients to find places to charge on the road and to stop frequently while the vehicle charges for the next segment of the trip. However, most people that own electric vehicles seem to like them. There is a lot of resistance to the introduction of the electric vehicle. The Oil companies don't want them because a significant number of electric vehicles would cut gas consumption and thus their profits. The car dealers don't want them because they have very little maintenance which is going to cut one source of their profits. Independent service stations don't want them for the same reason. So who should want to drive one. The answer is anybody who is concerned about pollution, global warming and the loss of non renewable energy sources. Given the air quality problems in our cities, and the current upward trend in world temperatures, we should all be concerned with these issues. Here in Southern California we have some of the worst air pollution in the country. Pollution from ICE vehicles accounts for about 60% of this pollution and this has an impact on the health of everyone who lives here. According to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, cutting out this pollution would save about $9.4 billion in health care costs. The automobile manufacturers are flirting with this technology because of legislation by states like California but they are betting on two things. First that they will have viable hydrogen cell technology vehicles on sale by 2004, and second, if they do not have them available then California will back off from the 2004 requirement of 10% ZEV as they did for the 1997 requirement of 2% ZEV. I expect that they will back off but I hope that they will only partially back off, maybe requiring 2% by 2004 and 10% by 2007. If the states continue to backpedal on this issue, manufacturers will not be driven to improve the technology and we will continue to drive ICE vehicles. Buying an electric vehicle is not easy. The biggest barrier for most people is cost with a typical EV priced at about twice that if it's ICE counterpart. I live in an apartment building so that immediately cuts me out of the GM lease as they only lease to homeowners. Second The building where I live has tandem parking which makes it almost impossible to set up a charging station unless the electric is the last vehicle out. You typically want it to be the first vehicle. Also, apartment owners are reluctant to let tenants install charging facilities. In addition, there are long waits for a new vehicle from most manufacturers even those that will actually sell to the public. Another alternative is to purchase a used vehicle. these are mostly older cars like the citicar or conversion like the Lectric Leopard. So what can we do to ensure clean air and available fuel sources for future generations? We need to let our state representatives know that we want the mandate on ZEVs to be followed. We need to press for wider availability of public charging stations such as the installation of solar chargers in freeway rest stops. We need to support those companies that provide public charging stations, and most of all, we need to support such legislation by driving electric vehicles.
This page was last updated on 01/20/02.
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