Public Display for Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge

Dr. Lehman Marks, the main program coordinator for this event at the Winston School in Dallas, has sent out the details on a kind of Media Day in Austin. With the race commencing in 3 days (Monday, July 16), this Sunday has been set aside for the public to get a better look at the vehicles. Here are the specifics:

Sunday, July 15 1:30-3:30
One Texas Center
505 Barton Spring Rd (Barton Springs & 1st St)
Austin, TX

How To Build An Electric Vehicle From Scratch

This is the 1st of an ongoing series that covers considerations in building your own vehicle (be it land or water-based; sorry, I'm leaving aircraft out of this!). Power requirements, vehicle design, propulsion methods, battery technology options, suppliers for all of the above, you name it. Check back and search for the label "EV Project" to see entries in the series. Some days will have a flurry of progress and multiple posts, while others will have nothing. Looking forward to it!

Multi-Billion Dollar Energy Co.'s CEO Goes All Electric To Work

My wife works for a large New Mexico-based corporation, PNM Resources, and Tuesday's Albuquerque Tribune newspaper had an article about the CEO making the daily 2-mile commute on his lithium ion-powered Segway rather than his 8 month old BMW 7 Series. Here's an excerpt:

"'I like that car, and it's one of the things I enjoy," Sterba said. "But it doesn't make any sense to commute with.'

Commuting via BMW gets him about eight miles per gallon, he guessed. The Segway, which is powered by a lithium-ion battery he can charge via a normal wall outlet, costs about 3 cents a mile, he said."

PNM Resources is involved in oil and gas as well as electricity distribution, and they have a very large wind farm that helps them in their environmental cause by generating a very large amount of electricity for their "green" customers who are willing to pay a slight premium over regular $ per kwh prices.

Looks Like Someone's Been Reading!

Here's an online Wired article about new battery technology that's dated today, July 5, and mentions several of the companies from my posts here over the past week or so (A123 Systems, Altairnano, Phoenix Motorcars, Tesla). Being Wired, of course, means companies are eager to talk to them, and although it's not very long, there's plenty of "straight from the horse's mouth" material included from these companies. Read it!

Propulsion Via Series of Controlled Explosions

Electricity seems scary or dangerous to many people - but how about the alternative, the internal combustion engine, which is the subject of this hysterical piece from The Onion? Here's an excerpt:

"A sofa-on-wheels with an eight-cylinder engine containing a functioning camshaft that activates its valves in perfect synchronicity with its pistons sounds exactly like something an underachieving third-grader would slap together the night before the school science fair. So you figured out a way to convert a relatively small amount of an easily accessible combustible via the four-stroke cycle into an enormous amount of energy capable of propelling a two-ton chassis from zero to 60 in under a minute? Yeah? And?"

Do yourself a favor and check it out in its entirety - it'll put you in a great mood to start this last day before America's birthday tomorrow!

Phoenix Sport Utility Truck

The big deal about this all-electric vehicle is the charging technology of its battery pack, which comes from Altairnano in Reno, NV. 10 minutes or less, without catching fire or exploding! Phoenix Motorcars is actually scheduled to produce 500 of these this year for fleet purchases, and then begin production for California consumers next year.

Electric Sport Bike Details

Found a post over at Engadget (here it is) about a "Triumph evDaytona". After digging a little deeper than the post went, it doesn't actually appear to be associated with the Triumph motorcycle company, but rather is the result of an effort of an EV enthusiast. Why am I pointing this out (other than its intrinsic coolness)? Ryan, the person who built this, lists the specs of his project at austinev.org, and the batteries he's using are from A123, a company that was the source of one of last week's posts here at Electric Motive. If you've got the money and if you need the performance, it seems that A123 is a go-to company for lithium ion battery technology for electric vehicles.