Electric Cars don't park at gas pumps to go Shopping…

My friend Alex Santos in Canada recently went to get petrol at a gas station and snapped this photo.  I couldn't resist the image as one of the biggest concerns we Electric Car drivers have is the problem of ICEing, which is when a driver of a car, typically powered solely by an Internal Combustion Engine parks in a spot designated for Electric Vehicles and containing an easily accessible EVSE.  Signs informing the driver that the location is reserved usually don't help and notes without enforcement are often thrown away as my friend Lanny Hartmann has video to testify.  And although enforced towing does tend to succeed, that can sometimes cause a backlash among a business's customers.  To that effect, sometimes pictures speak louder than words and in that I hope this Public Service Announcement can help bridge a gap and explain why we Electric Car drivers are so concerned about the issue of ICEing.

Being Green on Arlington Weekly News

Last week, my friend Denis Dineen and I were interviewed by the lovely Miriam Gennari for a taping of the Arlington Weekly News at the Arlington County Independent Media studios in, naturally, Arlington, VA to appear in one of her wonderful Being Green segments.  We were there chiefly to promote the International Plug-In Day event on 28–29 September of this year.  The episode is schedule to premier today, Thursday, 22 August at 18:00 (6 pm), with repeats Saturday, 24 August at 10:30 (10:30 am) and Monday, 26 August at 20:30 (8:30 pm) as well as 3 overnight airings.  Arlington County Independent Media can be recieved on Comcast Channel 69 and Verizon FiOS channel 38 for Arlington residents.

Denis drives a Chevy Volt and is always prepared to give folks advice about electric cars.  Feel free to email him at virginiavolt@yahoo.com; he's more than happy to answer any questions as a Volt driver about how great it is to drive an electric car.  He has a wonderful information sheet he loves to share with folks that I should likewise share here at some point.  He often encourages me to write a similar sheet for CO2 Fre, but then, isn't this website enough??  ☺

1,500 mi (2,400 km) on just $25

In my interview I quoted my estimated mileage cost as 1,500 miles per month and a household electric bill on the order of $25.  My regular readers may remember my excitement for and analysis of the current Dominion Virginia Power Time-of-Use (ToU) power rates two years ago.  Since then, I've picked up my Nissan LEAF and driven over 34,000 miles in 21 months of ownership and have a much better handle on how much it costs to drive electric.  As I announced that October, I went with the Schedule EV dual meter rate plan.

A month at MOM's

Once I signed up for the ToU rate plan, I asked the electrician who installed my Clipper Creek CS-100 to split my EVSE's (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment) subpanel from the main subpanel in order to be hooked up to the second, electric-vehicle-only meter to be installed by Dominion, which would happen later.  MOM's Organic Market in Herndon had just opened, replacing the vacant suite that had many years ago hosted the only Hard Times Cafe near my home—I was gutted to see this restaurant go and for the space to be empty for so many years.  Had it been any other store than MOM's which would have replaced it, a boycott of the new occupant would most assuredly be in place!

Now, MOM's is a very EV (Electric Vehicle) friendly business.  Employees even get a $5,000 rebate towards a qualified electric car like the Nissan LEAF.  Part of MOM's commitment to EVs is that at most of their stores, including Herndon, they have free EVSEs where a patron can charge his electric car.  So I went over to MOM's and introducing myself and explained my situation.  That's when I met extremely affable and helpful store manager JP Exon who was more than happy to have me leave CO2 Fre plugged in over night while I waited for Dominion to install the second meter.  I needed the EVSE at MOM's because I drive almost 70 mi (113 km) a day, which is most of my Nissan LEAF's battery pack.  Because a wall outlet could only charge my car to about 90% of the amount used in a day in the 12 hours I'd have it plugged in at home, it meant I had to use a full, Level 2 EVSE with at least 3.8kW power.  Thank goodness, therefore, for MOM's!

So in early December of 2011, my EVSE was disconnected, after just over one month of at-home charging, and I started to plug my car in every night at MOM's in Herndon, then walk home.  In the morning, when I couldn't get a ride, I'd walk all the way back and then drive my car to work only to do it all over again the following night.  This went on for weeks while Dominion dragged its feet about installing my second meter.  As the year drew to a close, and Dominion still hadn't scheduled my second meter install, I started getting anxious.  After a number of calls and e-mails they finally installed my second meter just before the end of the year and I could finally plug in at home again.

20 Months of 30-minute ToU Data

As a part of Dominion's Time-of-Use EV Rate plan experiment, I'm able to view my electric usage in 30-minute increments in terms of both net energy and peak power since the meter installation.  Recall that the 2011–2012 Nissan LEAF has an inefficient 3.8kW charger that in turn feeds the battery at merely 3.3kW, meaning up to 500W of energy is wasted in the process.  Since the power is measured at the plug, these numbers don't reflect the energy the battery receives, rather they reflect the energy used including powering the EVSE and the LEAF internal charger.  Because the increments are in half-hour intervals, the total energy is half that used in an hour, or about 1.9kWh at most for a given interval.

As you can see from the chart, my power spikes at around 01:00 (1:00 am) because that's when the Super-Off Peak rate begins.  There's a small component before that when I want want to get a little extra charge to cover a severly depleated pack but for the most part I start at 01:00 (1:00 am) and finish by 06:00 (6:00 am) on weekdays, just before Peak rates begin, or 05:00 (5:00 am) on weekends, just before the regular Off-Peak begins.

One interesting aspect of my ToU data is there's always a gap at 02:00 (2:00 am) when Daylight Savings begins.  The data has blanks for the two periods from 02:00–02:30 (2:00 am to 2:30 am) and 02:30–03:00 (2:30 am to 3:00 am).  Interestingly enough, when we gain an hour by going back to standard time, there's no corresponding double entries for those same hours.  What my power utility and EVSE are doing then, I have no idea.

For any reader interested in the full, massive data set of charging events, please send me a note and I'll be happy to share it.

My Ride Just Keeps Getting Cheaper

One thing I've noticed over time, watching how my itemized electric bill has changed over the past 21 months is how in general, at least in the short term, my costs for driving CO2 Fre have more or less been steadily decreasing.  So while my fuel cost was $28.32 in January, 2012, my most recent, July 2013, cost only $23.61.  So while I may have averaged $25 per month early on, I'm now paying slightly less.  The following table summarizes all the Riders associated with my Electric Bill and how they've changed over time:

Dominion Virginia Power Electricity Riders

Description	Rider	Initial	Current	Change
Table 1: Schedule EV Distribution Constants
Basic Customer Charge	EV	$2.90	$2.90	Unchanged
On/Off Peak	EV	2.5200¢⁄kWh	2.5560¢⁄kWh	Increased on 2012-12-01
Super Off peak	EV	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0360¢⁄kWh	Charge instituted 2012-12-01
C1	EV	0.0110¢⁄kWh	0.0000¢⁄kWh	Phased out on 2012-12-01
Peak Shaving Increment	C1A	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0070¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-05-01 at 0.0100¢⁄kWh; Decreased 2013-04-01
C2	EV	0.0250¢⁄kWh	0.0000¢⁄kWh	Phased out on 2012-12-01
Energy Efficiency Increment	C2A	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0460¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-05-01 at 0.0240¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-04-01
Schedule EV Supply Constants
On Peak	EV	10.7690¢⁄kWh	10.7690¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Off Peak	EV	1.4290¢⁄kWh	1.4290¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Super Off Peak	EV	0.6840¢⁄kWh	0.6840¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Transmission	EV	0.9700¢⁄kWh	0.9700¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Fuel
Fuel Charge	A	3.2890¢⁄kWh	2.9420¢⁄kWh	Decreased 2012-07-01 to 2.6970¢⁄kWh; Increased 2012-10-15 to 2.7060¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-07-01
Other ESS Rider Constants
Biomass Conversion	B	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0230¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-04-01 at 0.0120¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-04-01
Bear Garden Generating Station	R	0.1460¢⁄kWh	0.1470¢⁄kWh	Decreased 2012-05-01 to 0.1420¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-04-01
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center	S	0.3730¢⁄kWh	0.4660¢⁄kWh	Increased 2012-07-01 to 0.4740¢⁄kWh; Decreased 2013-04-01
Base Rate Credit	BRC/BRX	-0.1320¢⁄kWh	0.0000¢⁄kWh	Decreased 2012-10-15 to -0.1850¢⁄kWh; Ended 2012-12-31
Transmission	T1	0.0000¢⁄kWh	-0.2670¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-08-01 to replace Rider T
Warren County Power Station	W	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.1560¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-04-01 at 0.0660¢⁄kWh; Incremented 2013-04-01
Tax Rate Constants
Sales and Use Tax	Surcharge	0.0500¢⁄kWh	0.0610¢⁄kWh	Increased 2013-01-01
Consumption Tax (< 2.5 MWh)	Tax	0.001520¢⁄kWh	0.001520¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Consumption Tax (> 2.5 MWh; < 50 MWh)	Tax	0.000970¢⁄kWh	0.000970¢⁄kWh	Unchanged

Given that, here is the breakdown of my monthly electrical usage:

Table 2: Monthly Electrical Usage

Month	On Peak (kWh)	Off Peak (kWh)	Super Off Peak (kWh)	Cost
January 2012	3	95	296	$28.32
February 2012	7	79	351	$30.69
March 2012	0	60	330	$26.57
April 2012	2	44	351	$26.81
May 2012	0	41	376	$27.70
June 2012	0	37	350	$25.97
July 2012	0	33	376	$25.27
August 2012	0	30	324	$22.13
September 2012	0	17	175	$13.06
October 2012	0	30	356	$22.70
November 2012	5	34	342	$23.21
December 2012	7	47	354	$25.24
January 2013	7	29	224	$17.70
February 2013	5	29	219	$17.30
March 2013	7	35	322	$23.38
April 2013	7	37	364	$26.02
May 2013	7	26	275	$23.22
June 2013	7	22	343	$23.64
July 2013	7	15	340	$23.61
Totals	71	740	6,068	$452.54

Vampire Power

On 30 October 2012 I finally became a member of the EV Project.  My good friend and absolute favorite elecrician, Sean Ryan, came out that day to add a second circut to my sub panel and install the free Blink charger from ECOTality.  Obviously I'm biased but not a better electrician could I ever recommend, so thank you Sean!

Now the Blink unit is a great charger, apart from perhaps a overly flimsy connector.  With it, I can schedule a charge on the EVSE and leave the LEAF set to always charge when plugged in.  And I can schedule the EVSE timer remotely so if I need to make a change I don't have to walk down to the car, turn it on and fiddle with the timers.  The only problem is the LEAF doesn't realize it's plugged in and then sends me pedantic and eroneous text messages to tell me to do so; so bad is this that when I do forget to plug in I neglect the message because more often than not it's in error.  When I get up the next morning, let's just say the shock and horror on my face would make you think I was in the scariest movie possible.

Of course the disadvantage of being able to schedule a charge remotely is that the Blink EVSE is always on.  In itself this isn't a problem but the unit is even on during Peak Time-of-Use rates.  As you can see in Table 2, since the install I've consistently had to pay about a dollar a month to cover the cost of the EVSE's daytime power.  Since this is power I'm not actually taking advantage of, it's called Vampire Power, indicating that it's power being sucked out of my wall in order to feed a hungry device.

Interestingly, last week I plugged in CO2 Fre to find my Blink unit in a constant rebooting loop.  I called ECOTality to let them know about the issue and since then I've been using my Clipper Creek CS-100 again, so at least the Vampire Power should be low next month.  But now that I'm back on the car's timer, I need to be extra cautious to press the charge timer disable button when I want to charge at a public EVSE.

One year, 19,000 mi (31,000 km)

On 2 November 2012, CO2 Fre celebrated her first birthday!  🎂  For that entire year, apart from a fortnight spent visiting the favourite landing spot of the TARDIS, the birthplace of the Beatles and home of Nessie—for the first time in my life I got to watch Doctor Who live: Asylum of the Daleks and Dinosaurs… On a Spaceship!

Yes, this author is a huge Doctor Who fan and runs a mailing list, a facebook group and a meetup site dedicated to it.  Let it not be said I'm only interested in Electric Cars and I'm well aware and have been psyched about the fiftieth anniversary special, and have been since around the twenty-fifth and Silver Nemesis!  And for the record, Peter Capaldi is going to be the best Doctor ever.  All that said, my heart will now and forever still be with Project Kronosphere.

In any case, since my first 19,000 mi (31,000 km), I've added another 15,000 mi (24,000 km) for a total of over 34,000 mi (55,000 km).  And of course 19,000 mi (31,000 km) divided by 12 months comes to about 1,500 mi (2,400 km) per month of average driving, which is where my favorite statistic derives its other value.

$25 a month for 12 months does not equal near $200

Folks, this is a round-about way of getting to a correction I wanted to make in my broadcast interview.  I somewhat erroneously stated my annual electric cost was near $200.  Clearly $25 × 12 months is $300, not $200.  But then, as you can see from Table 2, I actually pay a little less than $25 per month, and thus less per year, which is why I was thinking about $200.  In fact, if you sum the last 12 rows of the table, you get an exact cost of $261.21, closer to $300 than $200, to be sure, but then that's what I meant by near, as long as near classifies about 31%.  ☺

$261.21 doesn't equal $486.66

Back in October of 2011 I estimated my annual cost to run CO2 Fre would be $486.66.  As you can see above, however, it's turning out to be substantially less than that.  Part of the discrepancy stems from not taking into account vacations like my UK trip or CO2 Fre's stint in the D.C. Auto Show earlier this year.  Falling Electric Fuel costs have also contributed, but the main effect is that I just drive less in my EV than I did in my old ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) Vehicle.  I do probably drive just as much or even more around town with my LEAF, but when you cut out the odd trip to New York or Asheville, NC, you cut out a lot of the miles I used to drive in my old car.  Those kind of trips are just too impractical in my LEAF.  I could, to be sure, probably make it to Rehoboth Beach, all be it with about a 5 hour layover on the way, maybe 2, but the number of 5 hours stopovers to get to New York are just not practical.  Maybe with more CHAdeMO, this'd be different—and thanks to eVgo more CHAdeMO is coming to the area, and quickly—but for now, my range is about 70 mi (113 km) one-way from my home for any comfortable day trip.  But even then, I'd not be charging at home so those costs wouldn't be reflected in my Dominion data.

Conclusion

I just hope even if you can't see my segment on the Arlington Weekly News that everyone, whether you have an EV or not, try to make one of this year's International Plug-In Day events!  This is your Northern Virginia PiD Captain, signing out—take care and let those electrons roll!

Changes for a Better EV Life: Trickling Gasoline

What would you do if every gas station in your area was limited to dispensing gasoline at only half a fluid ounce of fuel per minute?

As ridiculous as that sounds, that's what the average charge time for a Nissan LEAF or Chevy Volt is when compared to a Toyota Prius.  The math is simple when you consider the Prius may be getting 50 mpg or more (I got up to 66.6 mpg when I rented one while CO2 Fre was being repaired a couple weeks ago).  Compare that to about 4.0 ^mi⁄_kWh in the average LEAF or Volt during Winter when our batteries are straining to keep their capacity.  When you consider LEAF and Volt both fuel at about 3.3 kW it's clear that 4.0 ^mi⁄_kWh×3.3 kW is 13.3 miles per hour of charging.

Now, if that same 50 mpg Prius was fueling at a rate of 13.3 miles per hour, or 0.222 miles per minute, with each 50 miles representing one gallon of fuel, then 50 miles would take 50 mi÷0.222 mi per minute or 225 minutes (3¾ hours) to fill just a single gallon!  Since there are 128 fluid ounces in an American Gallon, dividing 225 by 128 gives 1.758 minutes for each ounce or the reciprocal 0.5688 ounces per minute.

And a 30 mpg car wouldn't fuel much faster (the more fuel efficient a car the less gasoline it needs per mile and thus the less time required to fill up enough to go that mile).  If we replace 30 mpg in the above equations we get:

(4.0 ^mi⁄_kWh)×3.3 kW÷(30 mpg) = 0.9387 oz per minute.

And that's with a Level 2 charging station; at a standard, Level 1, US NEMA 5-15 wall outlet, 1.44 kW, the fueling rate diminishes to a mere 0.2458 oz per minute for the Prius or 0.4096 oz per minute for the 30 mpg Internal Combustion Engine vehicle.

Don't wait for your fuel, multitask!

If cars really took that long to fuel, no-one would question the EV Driver paradigm of park-and-fuel.  No-one wants to spend an hour to go just 10 or so miles.  Most cars sit for hours doing nothing, when they could be fueling.  Consider instead of going out of your way to get that ¼oz of fuel for every minute you wait when you'd much rather simply go where you need to go and trickle in your fuel while you're off doing other things, wouldn't you?

Many will read this and say that's why electric cars will never be practical.  But you miss the point.  Now you're imagining a small, fuel pump at every parking spot dribbling in fuel while you're at work, shopping, catching a movie, whatever.  Of course such slow gasoline dispensers don't exist.  But that's not true for an EV.  Remember, there are over 12,000,000 NEMA 5-15 or 5-20 electric plugs throughout the United States—there're only about 30,000 gasoline stations by comparison.  An electric car can trickle in fuel at any one of these outlets so park-and-fuel isn't just a pipe-dream, it's actually quite practical, and very inexpensive.  After all, standard electrical outlets are ubiquitous, not so gasoline pumps.

So really the only question is, why are so many places, like job sites and malls and movie houses so reluctant to allow EVs to charge given we can only fuel at less than a fluid ounce per minute equivalent and at only pennies per hour?  Sadly, this is chiefly due to misinformation about what it cost to charge an EV and miscommunication that we EV drivers are quite willing to pay those costs for the convenience of not idling our EV without multitasking a charge.

Allowing this basic, trickle charging access to an EV could mean hours saved trickling that same electricity, waiting, with nothing to do.  Because that's not the way EVs are supposed to be driven.  Park-and-fuel is all we ask, at whatever price.  Please don't waste our time waiting for the pumping of ½ oz of fuel per minute.  Thanks.

EVs in HOV en Virginie, C'est Fini!

On 30 June 2012 the Clean Fuel HOV easement will end in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  The General Assembly failed to pass legislation in the 2011 session that would renew the easement allowing hybrid and electric vehicles access to certain of Virginia's HOV lanes depending on when the car was registered.  This system favored older hybrid cars in lieu of newer, cleaner of fully-electric, zero-emission vehicles.

Clearly, the Commonwealth decided to take me up on the second of my six proposals:

2. End the Clean Fuel HOV easement all together, which although fair would, I suspect, make no-one happy.

And clearly, I'm not happy.  Had I my druthers, we'd have passed item six of that list:

6. Allow only Plug-In Vehicles, vehicles that can be plugged into the wall, to take advantage of the HOV easement.  As a resident of Northern Virginia I find this the best solution for the Commonwealth because it's the exact same rule which governs our neighbor Maryland.  In fact, what would benefit the residents of Northern Virginia most would be if Richmond and Annapolis could set up a joint commission and co-operate on the issuing of this Plug-In easement such that each state would recognize the other's right to use HOV single occupancy within both states.

Instead, the Commonwealth is moving to a HOT-lane model.  First, I495 will be adding an HOV-3 HOT Lane that will work similarly to the Maryland Route 200 Inter-County Connector (ICC).  However, unlike the ICC, the I495 HOT lines will allow cars equipped with a special transponder that can verify the requisite number of passengers (3) it will be able to pass through the toll stations without being charged.  After the I495 HOT Lanes are completed, the plan is to extend these new toll lanes into the HOV for I95/I395 from Edsall Road in Arlington, VA, the first exit after the I495 beltway on I395, to Garrisonville Road in Stafford County, just South of the Marine Corps Base Quantico.

I asked Commonwealth Delegate Tom Rust about allowing EVs, at least, free access to these new HOV/HOT lanes but he said the contracts had already been signed and had no interest in pursuing any perk that would encourage Virginian's to switch to zero-emmission vehicles and thus help clean our state as well as put less pressure on gasoline prices for existing Internal Combustion Vehicles but reducing the demand for Gasoline by moving more people to EVs.  And recently Green Car Reports has taken up my cause, for what it's worth.  Personally, I think it's pretty hopeless but it doesn't mean we can't try to get things right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I know I have support for my favorite option in Maryland.  Let's keep Virginia green and get EVs on those HOVs!  EVs from Virginia, EVs from Maryland and EVs from D.C.!  And then we can all breathe a little easier thanks to a greener Virginia.

Changes for a Better EV Life: Paying for Your Work-Related Driving

Having driven CO2 Fre for over a month now, I feel I can now safely make some recommendations for change that would make my life infinitely easier.  Some of these things I've been writing about long before I purchased my Nissan LEAF; I knew going in some sacrifice would be required for the greater good.  That's not to say there aren't great things like the burgeoning Charging Infrastructure and wonderful LEAF features to help get me through the day!  But there's always room for improvement and if you don't speak up, nothing will get done.

Charge at Work in Lieu of Per Mile Reimbursement

Recently, I learned about a perplexing issue affecting a Government employee who drives an EV and was was asked to attend a conference as a part of that person's work duties.  Unfortunately, this individual already uses most of the car's battery capacity in just getting to and from work each day.  Thus, to get to the conference the car would require supplemental charging to increase its range.  Since this car is a 100% Battery-Electric Vehicle (BEV), the only way to increase the car range is via plugging into an electrical outlet.  But because there is no Government policy allowing its employees to charge at work under any circumstances, the worker in question would have to spend potentially hours of personal time at a public charger, perhaps paying a premium for that time just to satisfy job requirements.

One could and I have argued that Government employees and contractors should be able to charge at work.  But that's in the line of getting to and from the workplace when circumstances beyond the driver's control conspire to make it impossible to get home when leaving for work on a full pack, such as might be with traffic or cold weather.  Of course you shouldn't get an EV if you can't either charge at work or can't make it to work and back on a full pack 95% of the time or more, but for those situations where you do need a supplement, it's in the government's best interest to sell the energy to the employee rather than making this employee spend idle hours at a public charging spot.

Of course, OPM allows a Per Mile Reimbursement of 51¢ (at the time of this writing) which applies equally to EVs and ICE vehicles.  So of course this money could be put toward the electricity used to power the car.  After all, if the fuel reimbursement is 19¢—with the other 32¢ per mile representing additional wear and tear on the vehicle—that's a windfall for an electric car.  For example, my vehicle gets better than 4^mi⁄_kWh (6.4^km⁄_kWh) at the moment and for the most part my electricity comes at the Super Off-Peak rate of about 6^¢⁄_kWh meaning I only require about 1.5^¢⁄_mi (0.93^¢⁄_km) in fuel.  And at 19^¢⁄_mi payed by the the employeer, this comes the equivalent of 76^¢⁄_kWh for a car like mine, which is almost 6 times the regional average of 13^¢⁄_kWh, higher even than most all of the electricy sold in the U.S.  Indeed, any workplace offering a per mile reimbursement rate of work-related travel is likely to be just as lucrative in terms of energy cost.  But that's obviously not the issue.

It's about the time

The real issue here with EV drivers isn't the money at all, it's the time.  Most Americans mistakenly have in their head the idea that a vehicle operates by first filling it with fuel at some designated fueling station, in minutes, then using it until near empty, then going to another designated fueling station and repeating the process.  This, however, is an incorrect paradigm for EVs.  For an EV driver the logical situation is to charge the car each night, then charge some more where you're parked, then charge some more at the next place you park, and so on.  You never let the battery get toward zero and you prefer not to charge to 100%.  That's why the 4-tiered charging pyramid you see above, derived by the my friend Bob Bruninga, has charge at home at the bottom, charge at work in the middle and public charging at the top with a small point at the summit to represent Level-3 Charging like with CHADeMO.

Again, it's the employer's call, be that the Federal Government, Local Government, Public Non-Profit or Private Business, as to whether an employee may charge at work.  But there are so many idle hours parked at work and with so little cost to you, the employer.  Yet there's so much time benefit—potentially a large percentage of your poor, loyal worker's personal day.  And when the only reason they need to spend those extra hours charging is because they have to go that extra mile in the line of duty, they don't just need the money.  Simply forget the 19¢ fuel you'd normally give your workers and just let them charge at work, just for that day, at least, just so they can effectively do the job your require of them and still save you money!

Don't Give Up on the Chevy Volt Just Yet!

With all the bad press the Chevy Volt has been getting recently, I think it's time for some perspective.  We've all heard the stories about how the Lithium Ion battery in the Volt has the potential to catch fire in a severe crash.  And sure GM is now offering to buy back certain Chevy Volts.  But as someone who's invested long hours in the EV world, I feel it needs to be said, if I had a Volt, GM would have to pry the keys out of my cold, dead hands!

In the grand scheme of things, it's amazing how easily we forget that the petroleum tank of a standard Internal Combustion Engine vehicle can also catch fire under the right evaporated temperature and pressure.  In my years of driving, it may be unfair of me to say I've never seen an electric vehicle fire, but I've certainly seen more than one car ablaze on the side of the road.  Sure, Lithium-Ion batteries can get hot, and yes, they can cause fires.  But that's why all EVs, including the Chevy Volt, us a very intelligent battery management system.  These systems monitor battery load and keep them from overheating due to rapid charge or discharge.  The only way you're going to see an EV battery catch fire is if it's in a catastrophic accident, like the one in the NHTSA tests.

That's not to say you shouldn't get your Volt repaired.  There's no sense in being reckless and the Volt will be repaired.  GM, after all, has been long invested in the EV market.  After all, they made the EV1.

And the EV1 is exactly why you need to keep your Volt!  It broke my heart when GM recalled all their EV1 leases; it was such a beautiful car!  This was the subject of a wonderful documentary by director Chris Paine called Who Killed the Electric Car?  Seeing all those electric vehicles crushed, we EV advocates swore never again!

So get your Volts fixed, and then take them home and drive, drive, drive!  Show the world how great a car the Chevy Volt is!  Be a good-will ambassador for we few, we proud, we EV owners!  Don't let them take your electric car away again!

Schedule EV, the rate for me!

After months and days of complex posts and decisions, I finally put in a work order for the two meter solution.  I called Dominion this morning trying to get more information on the meter base that my electrician Joe from Cullen Electric will need to install.  After many attempts to retrieve that last piece of the puzzle, we determined that the work order for the meter has to be submitted first before Joe and I can get the correct meter mounting.  With the work order, a Dominion engineer will examine the premises and hopefully work with Joe to get the meter installed properly.  I trust Joe and just need to find out when would be the latest he could come before the meter itself was installed.  Otherwise, it's pretty much a done deal!

I decided to go with Schedule EV because I really don't trust my calculations for what my household electrical usage is.  I worked out the estimates for my hourly usage 8 months ago and wanted to post this chart at that time, hoping for reader's feedback.  But now I'm up against the decision time; I just couldn't wait any longer.  The simple, one-meter, no new holes, no complex electrical work solution just wasn't enough to put me in that camp, even though I was leaning that way when I first contacted Dominion.  Instead, I get to live as I have been living under Schedule 1, and yet charge my EV, and my EV alone, under Schedule EV.  It's a more complicated solution, but it'll make the charges easier to isolate and I can get a decent picture of how much electricity my car is actually consuming.  That is, assuming I don't also charge at work.

The one major danger is the gap between Joe bringing out the circuit to the meter mounting and when the meter is installed and the circuit goes live.  During that period, I'll not have any access Level 2 charging, and with my long commute, it looks like I'll have to be driving my ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) again.  Sigh.

Affordable Electric Plane NOW?

Back in 1997 or so I longed to use a different kind of vehicle.  Those who know me probably could never guess I had this kind of adventurous spirit or that I long so much for those days of old but yes, back then I attempted to get my Pilot's License on a Cessna 152.

Now, to cut a potentially long story short, I never finished my VFR (Visual Flight Rules) training nor took the written exam, though I did complete the ground course over at Freeway Airport in Bowie, MD — a bit of a long hall these days.  But in late 1997, for reasons I can't for the life of me remember, I stopped.  Strangely enough, this was soon after I put down a $500 deposit on a block account that still has about $250 or so on it.  Not that I expect their records go back 10 years such that I could reclaim it; it's my own fault for stopping.  In 1999 my Class 3 Medical Certificate and Student Pilot's Licence expired and since then not only have I been too lazy to drive out to Freeway but I've even been to lazy to renew the license.

Now recently I've been very focused on Electric Vehicles, in case you hadn't heard.  And although this site is Affordable Electric Car NOW!, for an aspiring pilot like me, it doesn't stop there (and don't get my started on my plan for the Affordable Self-Driving Electric Car NOW! page I'm planning to start in about 8 years).  I still dream of flying around the country, from city to city in a plane of my very own, and how more appropriate could that be if I did it electrically?

Great Minds Think Alike

I truly believe it'll one day be possible to fly a full-sized airplane using only Electricity — and I'm not the only one.  For instance, Cessna with Beyond Aviation are attempting to do just that: Electric Cessna 172 Begins Taxi Tests.  It'll be a number of years before an Electric Cessna is commercially available, to be sure, but I've got time; I'm already 10+ years invested in patience!

But to be honest, I'd love a hands-on hobby, so I'm making it a goal of mine, over the next 10 years, to either purchase or (more likely) retrofit a Cessna 172 for electric propulsion.

Of course, let's not jump the gun.  First I need to finish my VFR and IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) coursework and pass the flying tests — and before even that renew my Class 3 Student Pilot's licence, and I'd better do that before I turn 40!  Only then would I look into purchasing a second-hand Cessna and start the detailed and intricate research into replacing the Internal Combustion Engine with an electric motor and the fuel tanks in the wings with light-weight and efficient, advanced Lithium or newer technology batteries.

But that'll be years off and there's lots of time for better, lighter battery technology to develop.  And heck, by the time I get to it, maybe I can even put on a layer of Photovoltaic paint along the top of my fuselage and wings.  But before all of that, there's also this business with the Electric Car I've been talking about…

Test Drive the Nissan LEAF at Nissan of Chantilly

My friendly, neighborhood dealership representative Justin Maynard was kind enough to pass me a note earlier this month about how you can now test drive your very own Nissan LEAF at my official Nissan LEAF dealership, Nissan of Chantilly.  I've not heard from any other dealerships — I'd guess that other dealerships also have LEAFs for test drives (especially Criswell Nissan, given that the were claiming they'd have them in August) — but welcome any other dealership to send me a note so I can let my readers know about it.

Justin asks that you call first to schedule an appointment to ensure you'll have a chance to drive the vehicle to ensure that the car is available and properly charged before you come.  That said, anyone is invited to drop in, be it those like me with an active vehicle order or you who may just want to learn a little more about this wonderful, electric car.  I can't speak more highly of Justin's knowledge of the LEAF and how he can help you too drive free of fosil fuels…

What?  No, I'm not gonna drop a footnote about coal and natural gas (methane).  Will you guys get over this?  First of all, electric vehicles are more fuel efficient than gasoline vehicles even under 100% coal because coal plants are much more efficient generators than the standard internal combustion engine.  Plus, would you rather have those nasty emissions where your kids play or way out in the middle of nowhere where they build that coal plant — which is prevented by the EPA from polluting anyway?  And further, who said I was going to use Coal to power my EV when I could use Dominion Virginia Power's Green Rider or simply put up my own solar panels with a company like Solar City…

…Sorry!  I guess I sometimes get carried away with my environmental concerns, even if those aren't the only reason I want an EV.  And I believe you should want one too!  So give Justin a call at 703-889-3700 to schedule an appoint to test drive the Nissan LEAF at Nissan of Chantilly.  Once you do, I'm sure you'll be signing up to own your very own piece of the electric revolution!

The Gas Tax

A friend of mine and I were debating the other day what is more egregiousness, being taxed at double the rate of the adjacent county for a car that is expensive only by virtue of it being transitional technology or that electric vehicles won't be paying gasoline taxes.

To be fair, these two taxes are at completely different levels.  The gasoline tax, currently at 18.4¢ per gallon, is used exclusively to pay for transportation and infrastructure at the federal level; the personal property tax however is a tax that is collected by the county/city and then sent to Richmond for further distribution within the Commonwealth.  Of course, Maryland and the District of Columbia don't have personal property taxes on motor vehicles so this argument doesn't even pertain to those regions.

In any case, it's easy to calculate how much federal revenue is lost by a consumer switching to an electric vehicle.  It simply depends on the amount of miles per gallon the consumer's car achieves and the number of miles driven in a given amount of time, say for a year.

Thus, for these purposes, I'll use my 2001 Toyota Avalon XLS as the example Gasoline car and compare it to the 2012 Nissan LEAF as its potential replacement.

The Avalon gets about 28½ mpg on average for my mainly highway commute.  I also estimate I drive about 24,000 miles a year in the Avalon and would drive a near equivalent amount in the LEAF since I don't take many long trips in the car either way.

Since the Gasoline Tax is 18.4¢ per gallon, at 28½ miles per gallon, that comes to about 0.645¢ per mile.  (We calculate this by dividing the cost per gallon by the American-style Fuel Efficiency; in a Metric system, we would multiply because in this system efficiency is measured in Liters per 100 km and fuel cost in cents per Liter.)  Finally, we multiply the cost per mile by the number of miles driven to get a total tax value of $154.95.

At first blush, one might assume, if I drive the same number of miles in an electric vehicle, I should be paying the same amount in Gasoline Tax that I did with my old car.  Since I can't be taxed via gasoline fuel, one approach would be to tax me through my corresponding vehicle fuel: electricity.  In this case, if I estimate 3⅓ miles per kWh as the efficiency of my electric vehicle, I use about 7.2 MWh (dividing 24,000 miles by 3⅓ miles per kWh where 1,000 kWh ≡ 1 MWh).  Dividing the target cost of $154.95 by the number of kWh used, we get 2.1520¢ per kWh.

Of course, not all the electricity I use would go to my electric vehicle.  In fact, after improving my home insulation last year, I now estimate around 21.6 MWh of household electricity usage per year, give or take a Megawatt.  Thus, my electric vehicle electricity usage is about ¼ that my total estimated household usage (7.2 MWh ÷ [21.6 MWh + 7.2 MWh]).  So if this Federal Transportation Rider were to be enacted at the household level, it would fairly be at ¼ the rate for the electric vehicle alone, or about 0.5380¢ per kWh.

Regressive Tax

The thing to note about the Gasoline Tax is that it's a regressive tax: the tax increases as the fuel efficiency of the vehicle driven decreases.  The less fuel-efficient a car, the more they're going to end up paying in Gasoline Taxes.  Generally more fuel efficient cars are more expense.  Thus the less fuel efficient cars are owned by the less affluent — for whom driving is a necessity — and by those who are least able to afford the additional taxation.

Thus, hybrid drivers, with their more fuel-efficient vehicles, pay less in gasoline taxes per mile and thus per year than people driving a car propelled solely by internal combustion.  Since an electric vehicle is even more fuel efficient than a hybrid electric vehicle — even more than a plugin hybrid electric   it would be more fair if the federal transportation fuel tax be levied at a rate that reflected the electric vehicle's inherent efficiency.  We can achieve this by calculating the tax based not on an absolute value like 18.4¢ per gallon, but rather a relative measure as a percent of total fuel cost.  Therefore, we need to compare it to the current price of gasoline.

Now, as far as gasoline prices, we seem to be piping along more or less as predicted.  And having updated the gasoline chart today, I can use the 26 September 2011 national gasoline average price of $3.56⁸⁄₁₀ ($3.38⁴⁄₁₀ before the tax) to compute the current gasoline tax rate of about 5.4374%.

On the other side, we need to figure out what the cost of electric fuel is in order to determine that percent cost increase.  This also varies across the country, with an average of about 11.58¢ per kWh nationally for the first 6 months of 2011 according to the U.S. Department of Energy.  However, as we're using me as an example, I would just assume use my current and potential new EV rates.  Using some complex Google spreadsheets, I've calculate my average cost per kWh including riders for 3 possible scenarios:

Schedule	Average Fuel Cost per kWh	Relative Gas Tax Rider per kWh	Cost per kWh for Household (¼)
DOE National Average	11.58¢	0.6296¢	0.1574¢
Schedule 1	9.61¢	0.5225¢	0.1306¢
Schedule EV	6.82¢	0.3708¢	0.0927¢
Schedule 1EV	6.45¢	0.3507¢	0.0877¢

Each value is based on total electric cost, including all applicable riders and taxes.

Thus, if the government is to recoup the revenue for the Gasoline Tax on electric vehicles, it should be fairly in the 0.35¢ - 0.63¢ range per kWh used by a car or 0.09¢ - 0.16¢ per kWh per single-EV household.  And if that be the law, I would not make much of a stink were it enacted.

Conclusion

Compare the lost gasoline tax revenue now to the cost of the Virginia Personal Property Tax in a county unfriendly to electric vehicles like my home of Fairfax County.  As discussed in a previous post, the cost to register a Nissan LEAF in Loudoun County is currently $497.53 cheaper than registering the same car in Fairfax County.

Therefore, the revenue we're talking about at the federal gasoline tax level is about 3¼ times smaller than the property tax increase above.  So again by my calculations I have the right to be about 3¼ times madder than all those Electric Vehicle naysayers who decry the lack of gasoline tax revenue.

How much would you pay for 300mi EV range?

Tesla Motors announces price proposal for Model S Sedan

In a recent blog entry, Tesla finally gave us a glimpse into the probable pricing of their first foray into the family sedan: the Tesla Model S.

The price of the US base Model S with a 160-mile battery is $49,900 after the $7,500 federal tax credit. The 230-mile range option is expected to price at about $10,000 more and the 300-mile option at about $20,000 more than the base.

What this means is for their base model, a 160-mile / 257-km range vehicle, they sticker price will be $57,400.  The $7,500 comes from the tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles, which the Obama administration is trying to make a rebate.  If this change is made, you may get that $7,500 back as soon as you buy the Model S, right at the dealership.  Without it, you could wait up to 16 months to you file your taxes and get your refund for the year you bought the car.  Clearly, an up to 16 month wait is not an easy pill to swallow when you're forking down $57,400 + options for a Model S.

But when you do the math, $57,400 is just the tip of the iceberg.  Clearly from this information, we finally have a window into 300 mi range barrier.

The 300 mi / 483 km Range Tesla Model S will retail for about $77,400

Clearly, we can see the from this information that the 230-mile / 370-km range Model S will start at about $67,400.  Since the Tesla Roadster's range is about the same (221 miles / 356 km by the latest EPA measures), $67,400 looks pretty sweet when compared to the Roadster's $109,000 price tag.  But the range-smashing Signature and highest-end Model S is where the car really starts to compete with the old internal combustion engine vehicles!  When you do the math, the 300 mi / 483 km Range Tesla Model S will retail for about $77,400.  While not at all a trivial purchase — you could buy a quality, small, used airplane for that money — you'll definitely be able to make that weekend trip to the countryside with that kind of range.

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Finally, I want to apologize to my readers.  I've been AWOL for the last couple months while I gather heaps and heaps of new information, as well as try to get around to writing a number of stories I've been meaning to tell.  I'm hoping in that light to try and bring you a story every day or two to try and catch up on all my material.  So stay tuned…

More Washington, D.C. Area Dealerships Showcasing the LEAF next week

Yet one more dealership has announced a Nissan LEAF event for next week: Passport Nissan of Alexandria!  So, if you can't make it out to Silver Spring or Gaithersburg this Tuesday, or Sterling this Wednesday, why not check out the LEAF at Passport Nissan of Alexandria?  Having corresponded with Said for months and J.D. today, I can say that the folks at Passport are friendly and helpful and great to talk to, and like the other dealerships I'm planning to visit next week, I hope to be bringing you pictures from this event too!

The reservation process for Passport Nissan Alexandria isn't as automatic as some other dealerships, so it's best to call and inform them of your intention to attend their event so they know you're coming.  Indeed, I couldn't find any information about the event from the home page of their website and only knew about it thanks to Said's e-mail informing me of it.  However, you can find out more about it here.  The event notice I received read as follows:

Nissan LEAF

Passport Nissan to demonstrate the affordable, 100% electric, zero-emission Nissan LEAF

Coming to Passport Nissan March 15^th and 16^th

Ride and drive time must be reserved in advanced.

Passport Nissan can be reached through the link above or by calling Passport Nissan at 888-864-0528.  I personally hope to attend all 5 drive events in the Washington area next week, logging many a mile in my 10 year old ICE.

One wonders, what do you call a dead head for the LEAF…?

Cost per Unit Distance

Back in May, I posted an article about some of the maths you can use to estimate the cost of owning an Electric Vehicle.  Although there was a lot there to absorb, the calculation of fuel economy in terms of miles per gallon_equivalent means that you're using 2 estimated commodity prices to equate a value that does not include those in its calculation.  Instead, it was suggested to me at the time that a better calculation is to measure things in terms of miles per unit energy or unit energy per mile.  Of course, the energy of gasoline, released as heat, is not totally converted to car motion in the Carnot cycle within the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cylinder, but a theoretical maximum energy possible would be captured by the Higher Heating Value (HHV) of total reaction cool-down.  That said, typically the energy of gasoline is measured by the Lower Heating Value (LHV), which terminates the calculation of energy at 150℃.  However, in fairness to the ICE's best-possible score, I will use the value for Gasoline's HHV to equate engine fuel economy per gallon to energy.  Specifically, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory quotes 132 MJ per gallon of gasoline, HHV, where MJ stands for Megajoule, or 1,000,000 Joules of energy.  The corresponding LHV value for Gasoline is 121 MJ, 7.6% less efficient than the HHV.

Energy Efficiency

As I established in the earlier post, the inherent energy in electrical potential at a given current can also be quantified using the standard value of kilowatts of power exerted in one hour's time, kWh.  The equivalency is given by 3.6 MJ per kWh.  Again, this is an ideal, with the practical loss being an artifact of engine and transmission inefficiencies; the real value would be a small percentage less.  Thus, if we replace gallons with 132 MJ and kWh with 3.6 MJ we can put the 2 energy sources on near-even footing.  By converting everything to maximum available energy and comparing to how far that will allow the vehicle to travel, we can compare both ICE cars and Electric Vehicle (EV) fuel-based efficiency in the common terms of the energy required to go a certain distance for each engine design.

Energy Efficiency of Internal Combustion Engine Calculator

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Fuel Economy:			mpg		l⁄100 km
Energy per unit distance:		Unknown,		Unknown.
Distance per unit energy:		Unknown,		Unknown.

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Energy Efficiency of Electric Vehicle Calculator

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Total Battery Capacity:			kW⋅h		MJ
Driving Range:			mi		km
Energy per unit distance:		Unknown,		Unknown.
Distance per unit energy:		Unknown,		Unknown.

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Energy Cost

The nice thing about evaluating all fuel sources purely by their inherent energy content is that it allows us to freely switch between each energy storage unit.  Indeed, if one simply considers the cost of a given energy storage medium, one can use these equivalencies to determine how much the cost of an object of equivalent energy storage would be.  We can then compare the cost of both gasoline and of the stored charge of a battery.

Convert Between Different Units of Energy

$ per gallon:
¢ per litre:
¢ per Kilowatt⋅Hours:
¢ per Megajoules (106 Joules):
Megajoules per $:

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Travel Cost

Finally, we can compare the cost to move an EV and an ICE car by having each one take one of the 2 volatile commodity prices, gasoline or electricity, into account.  The result is the most practical question of all: how much does it cost for this car to go a certain distance.  Alternatively, we can answer the question of how far a unit of currency will get you in that car.  For instance, if you know how much it costs per mile of travel in your vehicle, and you know how far your commute to and from work is, you can simply multiply the 2 numbers and get your daily commute cost.  Do the same calculation in a high mileage ICE car and an efficient EV and see which will be cheaper to run.  Of course that won't include oil changes or battery checks, but as a day-to-day measure, it's a good way to budget your needs in these difficult economic times.

Travel Cost of Internal Combustion Engine Calculator

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Fuel Economy:			mpg		l⁄100 km
Fuel Cost:			$⁄gal		¢⁄l
Cost per unit distance:		Unknown,		Unknown.
Distance per monitary unit:		Unknown,		Unknown.

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Travel Cost of Electric Vehicle Calculator

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Total Battery Capacity:			kW⋅h		MJ
Driving Range:			mi		km
Cost of Residential Electricity:			¢⁄kW⋅h		¢⁄MJ
Cost per unit distance:		Unknown,		Unknown.
Distance per monitary unit:		Unknown,		Unknown.

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Conclusion

It's interesting to note that depending on your area, the price of energy in the form of gasoline may be very close to, if not cheaper than the cost of electricity.  For example, a rate of 7.033¢ per kWh represents gasoline selling for $2.57 ⁹⁄₁₀, a mere penny below the price I quoted back in May.  Seven months later, the price of gasoline is pushing $3.00 per gallon, but my electric rate has also fallen to 4.187¢ because demand in the winter months is much lower.  Needless to say, based purely on energy cost, gasoline is competitive with electricity, even if the later is still a bit cheaper.  The real advantage of an EV derives from the fact that an electric motor is much more efficient at converting energy to torque than an ICE.

Based purely on their efficiency of energy usage, a typical modern EV can get about twice the distance for a given unit of equivalent energy fuel in an ICE car with high efficiency.  This translates to a 50% savings in fuel cost for an EV.  However, it should be noted that although gasoline is not as efficient an energy source as modern consumer electricity in the U.S., it is still much lighter for a given unit of energy, as well as a lot more dense than the currently available EV batteries.  No vehicle is perfect in every respect and that's one reason why it's not a good idea to buy an EV if you're often traveling long distances.  While the extra weight of the ICE that isn't needed in an EV does allow some room for battery weight to grow, eventually that weight cannot equal the weight saving in storing your energy as gasoline.  Added weight in a vehicle means linear increases of Rolling Resistance as well as in the force required to climb a hill.  What's more, as the mass of a car increases, the energy needed to accelerate it increases quadratically.

But potentially the worst issue is increases in volume required to store fuel.  The volume can be engineered into a streamlined body so as not to introduce more drag into the vehicle.  However a lot of volume would require a lot of extra design and as such may lead to compromises in the aerodynamic efficiency of the car frame.  It's likely this would be heavily engineered away, but there is still the issue of cars being restricted by width and height on standard automotive routes and roads.  Any air resistance from the increased volume that wasn't engineered away would have the most detrimental effect of cubically increasing the power required to overcome drag.

But in the current crop of EVs, a balance has been struck that puts them out ahead of the ICE design meaning that, when that affordable electric car comes to your area, get it and get it NOW for instant savings during your daily commute!

Can I take a Cold Cabin?

The short answer is yes.  Ever since I've been looking into Electric Vehicles (EVs), I have been trying to do things counter-intuitive for a standard Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to make me more comfortable for the switch to an EV.  Today I tried Cold Cabin Driving.  Cold Cabin driving is based on the idea that heating the entire cabin of an EV is very energy expensive.  For instance, the Nissan LEAF is said to have only 62 miles of range (100 km) at 14℉ / -10℃ outside temperature in stop-and-go traffic at 15 mph / 24 kmph:

Winter, urban stop-and-go, traffic jam: 62 miles

Speed: Average 15 mph
Temperature: 14 degrees
Climate control: On
Though the average speed is only 15 mph with stop-and-go traffic, the 14-degree temperature means the heater is doing a lot of work so you spend considerable time and energy heating your car rather than moving forward. Despite these conditions, it would still take more than 4 hours to run out of charge!

The reason for this abysmal drop in range is not specific to the LEAF and indeed is a common problem of all EVs.  In an EV, the engine does not generate much heat — it works by the more powerful force of Electromagnetism — so it can't take advantage of engine heat generated through the inefficiency of an ICE to otherwise efficiently heat the cabin.  Instead, an EV must use some form of active heating to generate the desired cabin climate, such as the heating coil and radiator used in the Nissan LEAF.  The operative point here is with climate control on.  However, one could conceivable drive with reduced (in the LEAF's ECO mode) or no climate control at all to achieve greater ranges under those conditions; driving using this technique is an example of hypermiling.

Hypermiling is the process of driving in such a way as to get the most bang for your buck, the most distance for a fixed amount of fuel.  It is possible to hypermile a standard ICE vehicle, an EV or a hybrid, however the techniques differ slightly for each one.  In the case of cabin heat, the ICE is using small explosions of fuel to drive the car forward, thus producing wasted energy through the heat dissipated by the reaction.  Thus, in an ICE, using the heater is actually more fuel efficient because normally the air used to cool the engine is just sent outside the vehicle to be lost.  By filtering it and sending it instead into the cabin, you're actually making use of heat energy that would otherwise be wasted.

Contrarily in an EV, it's expensive to heat a cabin.  In fact, it's a lot easier to just heat the driver through heated seats and steering wheel and a thermal blanket.  This is because heating via conduction through the seats and steering wheel is more efficient than heating by radiation from the atmosphere.  And the thermal blanket helps by keeping that extra heat in.

Now my current ICE doesn't have a heated steering wheel or thermal blanket, but it does have heated seats.  So I hopped in my car, turned the cooler down low and flipped on the heated seats to see how I fared during my commute.  I then repeated it this morning for an even colder test run.  And my verdict?  Bring on the LEAF!

But, I should point out one caveat: the Cold Weather Trims are so far not being offered on the 2011 LEAF.  The Cold Weather Trim is handy because it adds the Heated Seats and Steering Wheel and Thermal Blanket to the LEAF, which is required to fulfill the use-case specified in this experiment.  It is my sincere hope that, having to wait an extra 8 months for my car, when my appointed hour miraculously does arrive, I'll be allow to ordering the Cold Weather Trim for my very own Nissan LEAF.

Playing with the Numbers

There is a lot of FUD going on out there about the efficiencies of an Electric Car over a gasoline / petrol powered vehicle.  I hear it all over the place: petrol is much cheaper than electric; fuel must reach $7.50 US per gallon before the U.S. would even consider going electric.  The irony is, of all things, even today electricity is much cheaper per mile traveled than the average gasoline-driven car.  But, rather than me just telling you that, I intend to prove it in such a way that you, yourself, can do the calculation!

In this analysis, I will use standard terminology to refer to various physical concepts and value; if any of these concept are unfamiliar to you, please consult the Glossary below.

Fuel Cost

The factors which go into to calculating the Fuel Cost of an Electric Car per equivalent gallon of petrol are the car's total battery storage, overall range, the cost of residential electricity and the average fuel economy of an equivalent gas-powered vehicle:

• The Storage Energy, i.e. the Battery, of an electric car is based on its manufacture, though this capacity can deteriorate with battery age.  For instance, the Nissan Leaf is reported to have a battery capacity of 24 kW⋅h.
• Unfortunately, the range of a given electric vehicle will vary over a number of conditions, including driving speed, ambient temperature and road conditions.  The Nissan Leaf, for example, is rated as having a 100 mile range.  But when you read the fine print, you'll see that that 100 mile range is only valid under the EPA LA4 driving test.
• The cost of Residential Electric Capacity varies from country to country and within the United States from state to state.  It's hard to judge what energy would cost in the form of $US per kW⋅, not to mention which sources are low-carbon emitting and which are high-carbon emitting.  That said, on the U.S. Department of Energy website, you can find that the average cost of electricity was $0.115 per kW⋅h with a Standard Deviation of 2.8 cents.  Much of the price variation stems from costs in Hawaii recently topping $0.25 per kW⋅h.  It should also be noted that most electric cars will be charged after sunset, when electricity demand is lower and the rates are sometimes cheaper.  Since I don't live in Hawaii or know what evening rates are like there, I'll assume a worst-case scenario of 15 cents per kW⋅h, a little more than 1 Standard Deviation.
• Now, the fuel economy of a vehicle can vary between 25 mpg for some Sports-Utility Vehicles to 40 or better for some hybrid vehicle technologies.  For the sake of argument, I'll compare the Leaf to a car getting 28 mpg, which is about what my current car gets.  Obviously, I could do much better, and really, I find the gap between 30 mpg and 40 mpg misleading; 7.84 ^l⁄_100 km to 5.88 ^l⁄_100 km makes more sense to me.

The Calculation

Now, given these four quantities, the calculation is quite simple.  First, we calculate the amount of energy used to go a mile.  With a 100 mi range and a 24 kW⋅h battery, this comes out to 240 ^W⋅h⁄_mi.  Next, take the desired comparable fuel economy.  In this example, we chose 28 mpg.  That's to say, take a car that uses 1 gallon of gasoline every 28 miles.  For the electric car, it uses 28 * 240 W⋅h = 6.720 kW⋅h for each gallon_equivalent of gasoline.  Finally, we take the cost of electricity, $0.15⁄_kW⋅h and multiply that by the energy required to go 28 miles and we get $1.00 ⁸⁄₁₀ per gallon_equivalent!  So, for the 28 mpg car to be as fuel efficient as the described electric car, fuel prices would have to go back down to ^{$1.00 8⁄₁₀}⁄_gal – and we haven't seen those prices since the late 1990's and are never likely to see them again what with the shrinking supply and rising demand, never mind the recent BP disaster.

Calculator: Electric Car Fuel Cost

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Total Battery Capacity:			kW⋅h		MJ
Driving Range:			mi		km
Cost of Residential Electricity:			¢⁄kW⋅h		¢⁄MJ
Fuel Economy:			mpg		l⁄100 km
Average Fuel Cost per VolEquiv:		Unknown,		Unknown.

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Fuel Economy

If, however, you wish to calculate an expected Fuel Economy of an electric vehicle to compare with a conventional combustion engine vehicle, you need to replace the fuel economy (which we shall now calculate) in the Fuel Cost calculation with the current cost of a gallon or liter of gasoline in your area (which is more or less what we just computed).

It should be noted that fuel prices are some of the most volatile numbers you can deal with.  So this calculation can vary widely from week to week and from season to season.  At the time of this writing, a quick check of fuel prices in my area yielded $2.58 ⁹⁄₁₀ U.S. per gallon.  This is certain to go higher as the summer arrives but may go lower come next autumn.  In the end, fuel cost is somewhat unpredictable, and this cost could go up or down in the near and long term.

The Calculation

This calculation is also rather straight forward.  Here, we need to equate the cost of fuel with the cost of electricity.  We start with the cost of a gallon of gas: ^{$2.58 9⁄₁₀}⁄_gal.  Next, we determine how many kilowatt⋅hours of electricity that will buy us at ^$0.15⁄_kW⋅h.  ^{$2.58 9⁄₁₀}⁄_gal divided by ^$0.15⁄_kW⋅h yields 17.26 ^kW⋅h⁄_galequiv.  Now, with a car that can store up to 24 kW⋅h, this represents ^{71.912⁄₃%}⁄_galequiv of the battery recharge cost.  Since the car can go 100 miles, this represents better than 72 miles per gallon of fuel equivalent.  It's not quite a 100 mpg dream machine, but 72 mpg is much better than any combustion engine vehicle available today, including any hybrid!

Calculator: Electric Car Mileage Equivalency

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Total Battery Capacity:			kW⋅h		MJ
Driving Range:			mi		km
Cost of Residential Electricity:			¢⁄kW⋅h		¢⁄MJ
Fuel Cost:			$⁄gal		¢⁄l
Average Fuel Economy in VolEquiv:		Unknown,		Unknown.

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The Fine Print

Of the 5 constants I've used thus far, most of them are fairly reliable.  The battery capacity of the Nissan Leaf is pretty well established and isn't likely to change.  Fuel Economy varies greatly between internal combustion vehicles but these numbers are generally available on-line and rarely go above 40 mpg – which is still nearly half that calculated above.  The cost of electricity may vary from state to state but historically has not varied vary much and the choice of ^$0.15⁄_kW⋅h, above 1 standard deviation from the current U.S. national, annual average, should cover most people.  Of course, there are places where the costs are much worse, so your mileage may vary, if you'll pardon the expressions.  However, for most people electricity costs aren't varying much from the national average so hopefully my estimate here work for the majority.

Increasing Fuel Costs

Equally, the cost of fuel varies somewhat from state to state, but usually not much more than ^$0.50⁄_gal.  The variability of gasoline cost is more a factor of a relatively unstable commodities market.  The slowly dwindling resources, the rising international demand, and the occasional disaster all are factors in making the cost of fuel more likely to rise than fall.  That said, the more fuel rises, the more attractive an electric car looks.  So the real question is if the estimate for fuel costs accurately defines a lower bound that will hold for the next 5 - 10 years, at least.  When you consider long-term, it certainly is possible for the cost of fuel to decrease occasionally.  It may drop to ^$2.00⁄_gal at some point, maybe even ^$1.50⁄_gal.  But are we ever likely to see ^$1.00⁄_gal gasoline again, like we did in the U.S. back in 1999?  I could be wrong, but I say, most emphatically, no!  Perhaps ^{$2.58 9⁄₁₀}⁄_gal is unjust and I should choose a lower fuel cost for my calculations.  But we can't know the future, and in general, fossil fuel is likely only to increase in price over time.

Bio-Fuels and Decreasing Fuel Costs

Instead of worrying about fossil fuels, one should really consider the possibilities of bio-diesel, ethanol and other related organic technologies.  There is a tremendous possibility, through the use of clever genetic engineering, that we may one day be able to construct a blue-green algal bacterium that can turn sunlight directly into petro-chemicals at scales that could feed the world's energy needs well beyond even today's capacity, all the while absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere.  As such a technology advances, fuel could become mere pennies per gallon: less expensive even than electricity!  When and if that day comes, the third and final great death of the electric car may once again be upon us.  But that's a very big if and who knows what the future may bring or how long it would be before such a bacterium could be constructed and colonies scaled to global needs?

Hawaii

What the heck is going on in Hawaii?  The cost of electricity in the Aloha State once reached nearly triple the national average.  Hawaiian electricity costs have been steadily increasing for the last 7 years so that by  2008, they were already paying on average ^$0.32 50⁄_kW⋅h, nearly twice the ^$0.16 72⁄_kW⋅h in 2003!  The cost of fuel is also high in Hawaii, but only by maybe ^$0.33⁄_gal, certainly not triple the national average.  So calculating the cost of electricity will vary a great deal from the U.S. national average, but at least for gasoline, even in Hawaii, the costs differences are typically relative.  When the price of fuel goes up in Atlanta, GA, it also goes up in Honolulu, HI.  Indeed, if we run the same fuel economy calculation with the worst case 2008 average electricity cost of ^$0.32 50⁄_kW⋅h and the cheapest fuel price I can find today in Honolulu, ^{$3.25 9⁄₁₀}⁄_gal, we get a fuel economy of over 41 ^mi⁄_gal.  Now, 41 mpg is a pretty nice fuel economy, but certainly some hybrid cars can achieve that as well, so the choice is less clear, my Hawaiian readers, if an all-electric car like the Nissan LEAF is for you.  Perhaps that's why Nissan is releasing the Leaf in Hawaii first after the initial 5 market roll-out: to counteract the less attractive fuel cost.

Driving Range

Of all the unknowns, driving range is the most deceptive.  Nissan quotes the LEAF as being able to go 100 mi on a single charge.  When you read the fine print, however, they specify that that 100 mi estimate is based on something called the EPA LA4 driving test.  The intricacies of how driving range is actually calculated are quite complicated and worth a post of its own.  What I will say here is that like with fuel economy, driving range depends on the speed driven and is actually inversely proportional to the square of that speed.  Thus, if an EV can drive 100 miles at 50 mph, it may only be able to go 50 miles at 75 mph and only 25 miles at 100 mph.

Glossary

Fuel Economy

Miles Per Gallon (mpg)

The distance one can travel, in miles, given a gallon of fuel; a common measure of fuel efficiency in the United States.

Liters Per 100 Kilometer (^l⁄_{100 km})

The amount of fuel required, in liters, to travel a distance of 100 kilometers; a common measure of fuel efficiency in metric nations.

Convert Between Miles per Gallon and Liters per 100 Kilometers

Miles per Gallon (mpg):
Litres per 100 Kilometre:

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Electrical Circuits

Current in Amperes (A)

The amount of charge passing through a point per second.  Fundamentally, it similar in concept to the speed of a charge moving through space, such as electrons flowing in a wire, though not directly equivalent.  An Ampere is equivalent to 1 Coulomb of charge moved per second.

Voltage in Volts (V)

A voltage is the amount of electrical force required to move a charge a certain distance, thus generating a current.  A Volt is equivalent to the force required to generate 1 A of current.  When Voltage refers specifically to an Electromotive Force, it is sometimes abbreviated ℰ, a cursive letter E.

Resistance in Ohms (Ω)

Resistance measures the amount of opposition an electrical circuit has to the free flow of current.  Electrically speaking, Voltage is equivalent to Current (sometimes written I) times Resistance: ℰ = I⋅R.

Electrical Circuits Calculator

	Select to Calculate
Voltage (V or ℰ):			V
Current (I):			A
Resistance (R):			Ω
V = IR or ℰ = IR

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Mass, Force and Torque

Mass in Kilogram (kg) or pound_avoirdupois (lb)

Mass is the amount of stuff.  Mass can be measured in kilograms, grams, or pounds_avoirdupois, where 1 pound_avoirdupois = 0.453 592 37_exact kilograms.  Avoir Du Pois is French for "Owned Things of Weight", though this should not be confused with weight on Earth; it is synonymous with mass.

Convert Between Kilograms and Pounds

Poundsavoirdupois:
Kilograms:

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Force in Kilogram_force (kg_force) or pound_force (lb_force)

The mass of an object is directly proportional to its weight on Earth by a factor of g = 9.806 65 ^m⁄_s² – the Gravitational Acceleration on the surface of the Earth.  The use of gravitational acceleration to calculate force is an example of the formula f = m⋅a in the classical sense, where a, the acceleration, is the constant g and m is the mass.  Thus, a mass times g gives the force of Gravity on Earth applied to that mass and this can be measured in units of kilogram_force or pound_force.  The conversion between kilogram_force and pound_force is the same formula used for mass: 1 lb_force = 0.453 592 37_exact kg_force.

Gravitational Acceleration and Weight Calculator

	U.S. Units			Metric Units
Celestial Body:	User
Gravitational Acceleration:			ft⁄s2		m⁄s2
Mass:			lbavoirdupois		kg
Force:			lbforce		kgforce

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Force in Newtons (N)

Force can also be measured in units of newtons, which is equal to the amount of force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram at a rate of one meter per second per second, so that a 1 Netwon = 1 ^kg⋅m⁄_s².  Note that the newton does not take gravitational acceleration into account and so it differs from kilogram_force by a factor of g: 1 kg_force = 1 kg⋅g = 9.806 65 N.  Since the pound_force can be related to kilogram_force using the above formula, we can also convert between newtons and pound_force: 1 lb_force = 4.448 221 615 260 5 N.  Another example of force is related to the change in momentum (p) – mass in motion, or mass times velocity, i.e. speed – over the change in time (t), given by the differential expression f = ^d⁄_dtp.

Convert Between Different Units of Force

Newtons:
Poundforce:
Kilogramforce:

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Torque in Newton⋅Meters (N⋅m) or Pound_force⋅feet (lb_force⋅ft)

Torque is angular force, i.e. the force require to turn something around in a circular motion.  It's typically measured in force-distances measures, such as newton⋅meters or pound_force⋅feet.  The conversion between newton⋅meters and pound_force⋅feet can be calculated by first converting pound_force⋅feet to newton⋅feet using the formula above: 1 lb_force⋅ft = 4.448 221 615 260 5 N⋅ft.  Then, we convert feet to meters using the formula 1 ft = 0.304 8_exact m: 1 lb_force⋅ft = 1.355 817 948 331 400 4 N⋅m.  The two-unit definition of torque is because the force of circular motion is proportional to the radius of the circle transcribed by the motion, so the calculation incorporates both a force and a distance (radius).  Therefore, although the units of Torque and Energy are the same, they are not equivalent since Energy implies linear motion and Torque is angular force around a circle of a given radius.

Convert Between Different Units of Torque

Poundforce⋅Feet:
Newton⋅Meters:

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In summary, Mass is the amount of stuff an object has.  In a sense, its a fixed quantity of atoms whose individual masses sum to a whole.  Force, however, is not fixed by the amount of stuff, but that mass is a component in the greater quantity which includes the acceleration of the object through space.  Finally, Torque is just like force, but applied to a spinning object.  Just as force is mass with acceleration, torque is mass with rotational acceleration around a fixed radius.

Stored Energy

Classically, the capacity to apply some fixed force to an object in order to accelerate over a specific distance:

Joule (J)

Among other things, the energy required to apply 1 Newton of Force over a distance of 1 meter, where a Newton is the force required to accelerate a 1 kilogram object by 1 meter per second squared.  Energy of the type just described is known as Kinetic Energy and is given by the formula K.E. = ½m⋅v² in classical mechanics, where m is the mass of the object being moved and v is it's speed.

Kilowatt⋅Hours (kW⋅h)

The amount of energy used to apply 1 kilowatt of power for 1 hour.  A kilowatt is of course 1000 Watts and an hour is 3,600 seconds.  Since Watts are equivalent to Joules per Second, 1 kW⋅h is equivalent to 3,600 seconds times 1,000, which is 3,600,000 Joules or 3.6 Megajoules.

Electron Volt (eV)

The amount of kinetic energy gained by a single, unbound, electron when it accelerates through an electric potential difference of one volt.  The energy is determined by calculating the voltage, in volts, times the charge, in Coulumbs, which gives the energy in Joules.  Since, the charge of an electron is very small (1.602 176 53(14)×10⁻¹⁹ Coulombs), this value is equivalent to 1.602 176 53(14)×10⁻¹⁹ J.

Mass-Energy Equivalence

You are no doubt familiar with the ubiquitous equation E = mc².  What this means is that, for a given Mass, it has an equivalent energy equal to it times the speed of light, c, squared.  Of course, this source of energy is not easy to tap.  Some of it can be harnessed via Nuclear Fission, as is done throughout the world today, especially in the United States and France.  Much more mass is converted into energy in the Sun through Nuclear Fusion.  The ultimate mass-energy converter is by far the Black Hole, which swallows all matter into its singularity and then, through a process known as Hawking Radiation, emits energetic particles in a slowly accelerating process of erosion.  Thus, Black Holes convert almost all of the energy they take in into raw energy, the ultimate and most efficient energy source in the universe.

Convert Between Different Units of Energy

Megajoules (106 Joules):
Kilowatt⋅Hours:
Yotta⋅Electron⋅Volts (1024 Electron⋅Volts):
Picograms (10-12 Kilograms):
Peta⋅Atomic Mass Units (1015 Atomic Mass Units):

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Power

Classically speaking, when applying Energy to an object, power is the speed with which that energy is applied.

Watt

The Watt is the amount of power used to apply 1 Joule of Energy for a period of 1 Second.  It is equivalent to 1 ^J⁄_s or the power of the Electromotive Force applied to a Current, P = I⋅ℰ.

Horsepower (Mechanical)

The amount of power a horse can generate in order to do some work (Energy) for a some unit of time.  For cars in the United States, this unit is used rather than the Metric Watt.  It is equivalent to 33,000 pound_force⋅feet per minute.  Since there are 60 seconds in a minute, this is 550 pound_force⋅feet per second.  In this case, we are measuring the change in torque over time to calculate power.  To convert horsepower to watts, we first need to replace pound_force⋅feet with newton⋅meters using the torque formula: 1 hp_mechanical = 550 ^{lb_force⋅ft}⁄_s = 745.699 871 582 270 22 ^N⋅m⁄_s.  Since ^N⋅m⁄_s is equivalent to watts, this gives a result of 745.699 871 582 270 22 watts.

Convert Between Watts and Horsepower

		U.S. Units			Metric Units
	Select to Calculate
Power (P):				hpmechanical		kW
Current (I):						A
Voltage (V or ℰ):						V
P = IV or P = Iℰ

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Standard Deviation

Standard Deviation, in general terms, is a measure of how accurate a numerical average is.  For instance, according the the United States Department of Energy, the average cost of electricity in the United States for the 12 Month Period from April 2009 to March 2010 was $0.115 per kW⋅h.  This doesn't mean that everywhere in the United States, people are paying that price for Electricity all the time.  Some people are paying more than $0.115 per kW⋅h, and some people are paying less.  Now, using the numbers provided by the DoE, we can compute the standard deviation of that average across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Because states with more electricity usage contribute a greater part of the average, a Weighted Mean must be used to calculate the Variance and Standard Deviation.  When this is done for the 612 samples (50 states + The District × 12 months), we get a standard deviation of $0.028 per kW⋅h.  Given this, we can state with confidence that, statistically, 68.268 949 2% of the electricity used in the United States is costing Americans between $0.087 and $0.142 per kW⋅h at any given time.  Furthermore, it would be safe to say that for the 12 month period specified, over 84.124 474 6% of the electricity used by Americans cost 14.2 cents per kW⋅h or less.