November 8, 2008 by Rob.

Not easily.  That’s the topic I explore on my TribalGrid blog today.

Even driving an electric car,  I’ve only reduced my gas use by about 50%.  That number would jump to 100% if my range was 100 miles instead of 20.  I think our family would eliminate the backup gas car if my EV had a 100 mile range (and heat, A/C, and power steering).

Posted in ICE Cars, Commentary, Rants, Green Tech | 1 Comment »

October 30, 2008 by Rob.

Clair from AustinEV posted a link to the interesting gas2.org site.  They’re a automotive alt fuels multi-author blog.   I found their post about UPS’ hydraulic hybrid delivery truck interesting.  It’s important to keep in mind that Toyota is the only workable hybrid and there are some great alternative designs emerging (e.g. Chevy Volt).

If boxey and brown is not your thing, then consider Peugeot’s very hot looking concept diesel hybrid. A friend was asking me about this at a camp out last weekend and I had not heard about this offering. Looks like fuel efficient is starting to get sexy.

Posted in hybrids, ICE Cars, Alternate Fuels, AustinEV | 2 Comments »

August 12, 2008 by Rob.

AustinEV has been chasing an off topic thread about solar that I nudged into an ROI for conversions discussion.  I’ve been (trying to) think deeply about the balance between justification / enthusiasm for driving electric and the practical benefits for people who are not green zealots.  Generally, I don’t push EVs for people unless they are very passionate and I’m wondering if that is a mistake.

I’m still cogitating, but here are my posts on AustinEV…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solar, Alternate Fuels, Rants, Green Tech, AustinEV | 2 Comments »

July 19, 2008 by Rob.

Lester Germanio of the Food Water Shelter project in Westlake saw my write up in the Picayune and invited the RAVolt and I to the Austin Crude Awakening 7/19 Meet Up.

I’ve heard about his project and am excited to get a tour.  I’ll take pictures and post them to my TribalGrid blog.  Now that I’m caught up here, I can go back to the BIG issues I’m thinking out over there on sustainability and social change.

Posted in Green Tech, Storyline | 1 Comment »

July 18, 2008 by Rob.

The X-Prize foundation has a contest to find a 100+ MPG car.  I think that this is a great way to encourage innovation and also bring the nut jobs out into the day light.  Typically it’s impossible to tell the crazy from the crafty so I enjoy watching the inventors line up.  Here are two links I was sent for X-Prize entries:

• Interesting story about a car customizer who loves veggie oil diesel engines into everything (image below)
• Not so believable story about a “secret tuning” procedure that boosts horse power.

I’m skeptical about both of these stories because I don’t think that we’re going to get 200% improvements on conventional motors with some tinkering.  Then again, the HHO hype refuses to die out too.  I’d love to be wrong!

Posted in ICE Cars, Green Tech | 1 Comment »

June 24, 2008 by Rob.

Update: according the the Austin-American Statesman, the Honda Fit holds the top 2 spots in a $ per MPG ranking.

Posted in ICE Cars, Green Tech | 1 Comment »

June 13, 2008 by Rob.

I try to keep a eye out for news about Austin-based super-capacitor hopeful, EEStor.  A post surfaced claiming that they’ve got working prototypes.  I’m reluctant to credit reports about ZENN using EEStor super-caps in any real capacity; however, it’s interesting to see the remarkable level of enthusiam that the claims can generate.  Based on the comments from the post, EEStor will have a bigger impact than sliced bread.

Posted in Alternate Fuels, Commentary, Electric Vehicles, EV Tech | 5 Comments »

June 9, 2008 by Rob.

I’ve been resisting feeling the pull to comment more and more about non-EV topics on this blog.  To be true to this blog’s content and (imagined) readership, I’ve decided to start TribalGrid, a new blog, focused on broader social energy and sustainability topics.

I’m re-coining the term “social energy” to describe technology and attitudes that help people see energy as a limited community resource.  I believe that solving problems in our near-term future will require a deep change in public thinking about how we consume energy.

The blog has been in stealth mode since Earth Day so there are already some fresh rants for your enjoyment.

Posted in Commentary, Alternate Fuels, Rants, Blogroll, Storyline, EV Tech | 3 Comments »

June 9, 2008 by Rob.

A friend sent over a link about a car that runs on air so I thought I’d throw up the link and provide some color commentary.  The link is from a PBS “future car” series that must have run out of money - each hour segment rehashed the same 20 minutes of interviews interleaved with 90’s era futuristic dissolves.

The compressed air car story broke last year and generates a lot of wild speculation on the EV forums, but is usually considered implausible.  I like the concept, but have to agree with the doubters that the physics required to make it work won’t scale for mass production.  I have not heard much since Tata Motor’s claims of last year.  Like most alternative fuel stories, the primary fuel is green hype.

Here are the doubts raised:

• Compressing gas is inefficient in terms of recoverable energy stored vs. energy input
• Compressing gas stores lots of energy (yeah!) that can dissipate explosively (oops) under many circumstances
• Transferring gas between pressures also transfers lot of heat (thanks Boyle) that must be dealt with
• The safe containers are either heavy or expensive

As a kid, I was very excited about the air car concept.  Although, I was also thinking steam powered cars could be made to work.  As is usually the case, research is the spoiler of many an nerdy adolescent’s entrepreneurial fantasy.

Posted in Alternate Fuels | 3 Comments »

May 13, 2008 by Rob.

Oh, I did. Here’s a link to an NPR story about monitoring drivers to improve their driving efficiency. It turns out that you can boost mileage 10-20% if you give people feedback about the cost of their bad habits.

As part of my thinking about EVs, I’d considered starting a company around this idea. It turns out that putting useful computers into people’s cars is both painful and expensive. You’d have to save a lot of gas to make this work. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on it though…

Posted in Green Tech, Computer | 1 Comment »