tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30221923640792379112024-03-14T01:03:53.036-07:00RechargeIT BlogRecharge a Car, Recharge the Grid, Recharge the Planet.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-90276181436277080662008-12-18T11:26:00.000-08:002020-07-16T14:00:09.524-07:00Where Does Our Oil Come From?By David Bercovich, Program Manager, Google.org<br /><br />There’s a great deal of talk about the high cost of oil and the billions of dollars that the US and other oil-importing nations spend each year to buy oil. As part of the <a href="http://www.google.org/geochallenge.html">Google.org Geo Challenge Grants Program</a>, <a href="http://rmi.org/">Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)</a> has <a href="http://move.rmi.org/features/oilmap.html">created a map</a> of US oil imports by country since 1973. By clicking on the green light to play, you can see the countries supplying oil to the U.S. (either in terms of barrels or dollar value) and how our imports have changed over the last 35 years. The thicker the line in the map, the more oil produced or imported. While this map highlights data on United States oil imports, the picture is similar for every oil-importing country in the world.<br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281216292444623634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 254px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SUqmPKUq0xI/AAAAAAAAAlI/hNyoyHcfmqU/s320/rmi-oil-map.jpg" border="0" /><br />The <a href="http://move.rmi.org/features/oilmap.html">map</a> highlights 5 eras of oil consumption, from the oil shocks of the 1970s to the price collapse in the 1980s to recent events including Hurricane Katrina and gas approaching $5 per gallon before retreating rapidly recently. (You can see these selections by clicking on the buttons below the map on the RMI website.) One interesting time period is from 1982 to 1985, when low prices caused oil imports from the Middle East to decline to very low levels.<br /><br />The map also looks at potential oil from offshore drilling and exploration of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The screenshot below illustrates the impact of off-shore drilling. With the map zoomed or ‘drilled’ 3-5 levels down and centered near Alabama (and the map pushpin that represents offshore), check out the very thin line that shows the potential peak production of 220,000 barrels per day. The lines represent estimates of production in 20-30 years, and even with this very long timeline, the amount of oil that could be generated from offshore drilling is miniscule compared to our oil needs today. </p><p> </p><div><div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281215884035236834" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 257px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SUql3Y4SI-I/AAAAAAAAAlA/k2XGtukwjy0/s320/rmi-oil-map-offshore.jpg" border="0" /><br />Both Google and RMI are working hard to help create a future where we are not reliant on daily imports of millions of barrels of oil that pollute our atmosphere and risk our national security.<br /><br />Today, along with the Brookings Institution, RMI is hosting “<a id="sbxr" title="The Oil Solutions Initiative" href="http://move.rmi.org/osi">The Oil Solutions Initiative</a> ” a summit to identify solutions to break America’s dependence on oil, with Google in attendance. In 2004, RMI’s Chief Scientist, Chairman and Co-founder Amory Lovins and a team of RMI collaborators drafted Winning the Oil Endgame (<a href="http://nc.rmi.org/Page.aspx?pid=269&srcid=269">PDF</a> of the book) - a roadmap for the United States to get completely off oil by 2050.<br /><br />Google.org’s <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/">RechargeIT initiative</a> is driving toward the commercialization of plug-in vehicles that can wean the US off gasoline. In our <a href="http://www.google.com/energyplan">Clean Energy 2030 Plan</a> we show that increasing conventional automobile mileage, deploying millions of plug-in hybrids and accelerating the turnover of the fleet would reduce oil consumption by 51% by 2030. That decrease would have an even larger effect on oil imports because we produce about one-third of our oil in the US. Google and RMI have worked together on a number of projects including RMI’s <a id="wwkv" title="“Smart Garage” Charrette" href="http://move.rmi.org/capabilities/smart-garage.html">“Smart Garage” Charrette</a>, a summit to identify the barriers and breakthroughs needed to electrify the U.S. auto fleet.<br /><br />While oil prices have declined rapidly over the past five months, most people expect oil prices to remain high into the near future. When asked whether or not the drop in oil prices reduces the need to act, President-Elect Barack Obama <a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/obama-on-shock-to-trance-energy-pattern/">responded</a> that we go from “shock to trance” and as a result “never make any progress.”<br /><br />If you are a non-profit with a great idea like this one, please consider <a href="https://services.google.com/inquiry/geochallenge_apply">applying</a> for <a href="http://www.google.org/geochallenge.html">funding</a> to develop your project. We are currently accepting applications for the December 22, 2008 deadline. </div></div></div>Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-56673358573636360402008-10-28T15:48:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.237-07:00Aptera Recognized for Innovation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SQeXcX2V5bI/AAAAAAAAAio/WtYx2plGWiM/s1600-h/aptera_doors.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 204px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SQeXcX2V5bI/AAAAAAAAAio/WtYx2plGWiM/s320/aptera_doors.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262341203299788210" border="0" /></a><br /> Posted by Adam Borelli, Investments Team<br /><br /><a title="Popular Mechanics" href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/" id="lro:">Popular Mechanics</a> recognized <a title="Aptera Motors" href="http://www.aptera.com/" id="km13">Aptera Motors</a>’ innovation with its <a title="Breakthrough Innovators Award" href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4286850.html%3Fpage=2" id="xez5">Breakthrough Innovators Award</a>. Aptera has optimized the aerodynamics of Typ-1e and Typ-1h and lightweighted the vehicles by using lightweight composite-fiber. This vehicle is so aerodynamic that its drag is less than that of the sideview mirrors of a pickup truck. All of this allows Aptera’s Typ-le and Typ-1h to realize fantastic miles per gallon equivalent and miles per gallon, respectively. According to Popular Mechanics, the drag of the Typ-1e is 0.15 and the drag of the Toyota Prius is 0.26. (According to RechargeIT’s <a title="Driving Experiment" href="http://rechargeit.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-plug-ins-perform-90-mpg.html" id="g76f">Driving Experiment</a>, the Toyota Prius gets 48.4 mpg.) The Aptera Typ-1e has a projected range of 120 miles on pure electricity and the Typ-1h a projected fuel economy of 300 mpg for the first 120 miles of driving.<br /><br />Aptera is going to start production on its first vehicle, Typ-1e, by the end of 2008, with a retail price around $30,000. With gas price volatility, this could pay back relatively quickly. The Typ-1e and Typ-1h are three-wheel, two seat vehicles and Aptera is also planning to produce a four-passenger vehicle in the near future. Our Google.org RechargeIT team was impressed by Aptera’s technology and drive to innovate on vehicle design, materials, and manufacturing and <a title="invested $2m" href="http://blog.google.org/2008/07/driving-plug-in-technology-with.html" id="akv9">invested $2m</a> in their last financing round. We congratulate Aptera Motors on this award and the further recognition of Aptera’s innovation!<br /><span class="byline-author"></span>Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-25294430342962961022008-10-06T15:29:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:08.714-07:00Google Co-Funds the Rocky Mountain Institute's Design Charrette<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SOqULTC3ahI/AAAAAAAAAhw/16osfmAh6Kc/s1600-h/blog+pic.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SOqULTC3ahI/AAAAAAAAAhw/16osfmAh6Kc/s320/blog+pic.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254174837092870674" border="0" /></a><span class="byline-author"><br />Posted by Adam Borelli, Alec Brooks and Karen Taylor, RechargeIT Team</span><span class="byline-author"><br /><br /></span> Google.org is proud to announce that it will be one of two major funders, along with the <a title="Lemelson Foundation" href="http://www.lemelson.org/" id="q7fv">Lemelson Foundation</a>, of the <a href="http://www.rmi.org/" id="kpfk" title="Rocky Mountain Institute">Rocky Mountain Institute</a>'s Design Charrette, which will be October 8th through October 10th in Portland, OR. The design charrette is a long-planned three-day conference with the purpose of fostering collaboration and accelerating the integration of plug-in vehicles into the electricity grid. The results of the charrette will be documented and openly available to the public. The foundation of the design charrette comes from months of RMI research also funded by Google.org. In this research, <span class="nfakPe">RMI</span> developed a model which enumerates the impact of different levels of plug-in vehicle and grid integration, from simply plugging a PHEV into the wall and charging at will to more advanced scenarios of smart charging and V2G. The design charrette will bring together all the key stakeholders -- grid operators, vehicle manufacturers, utilities, smart grid companies, national labs experts, researchers -- and provide a forum for discussion and for all viewpoints to be heard.<br /><br />Our hope is that the design charrette will energize stakeholders and increase the focus on developing greater vehicle and grid integration, eventually leading to vehicles playing a key role in supporting incorporation of intermittent renewable energy sources to the grid. Google.org thinks that grid-connected vehicles that incorporate a real-time data communication link between the vehicle and the grid will yield environmental benefits and will add economic value to the plug-in vehicle. Look for the results of the design charrette when they become public!<span class="byline-author"><br /></span>Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-27180231016455527342008-09-30T08:48:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:08.761-07:00Vehicle to Grid (V2G) Overview<span class="byline-author"><br />Posted by Rolf Schreiber, RechargeIT Engineer<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Current concerns about climate change, energy security and record high oil prices have generated a lot of enthusiasm for plug-in vehicles -- both plug-in hybrids and pure battery electric vehicles. Widespread adoption of plug-in vehicles would result in significant reductions in CO2 emissions from transportation. It would also reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by replacing petroleum-sourced energy with renewable, domestically produced electricity. But the benefits of plug-in vehicles extend beyond just those well known areas. These vehicles are also enablers for new technology that could offer significant benefits to the electric grid and to plug-in vehicle owners. In particular, Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology - in the form of vehicles capable of full bi-directional power flow (true V2G) and those capable of uni-directional "smart charging" - allows these grid-connected vehicles to provide grid stability and load management services in near real time. This gives the grid operators additional grid stability headroom, allowing even adoption of renewable energy on the grid. Plug-in vehicle owners would benefit from cheaper electricity rates and could even profitably contract with their utilities to have their vehicle provide <a title="grid ancillary services" target="_blank" href="http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:UQPWMXNCHpoJ:www.ornl.gov/sci/btc/apps/Restructuring/Ancillary_Services.pdf+grid+ancillary+services+regulation+spinning+reserves&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=18&gl=us" id="ufu-">grid ancillary services</a> such as grid frequency, regulation and spinning reserves.</span></span><h3> </h3><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span><h3> </h3><span style="font-size:100%;">So how does V2G work "under the hood"? Historically, plug-in vehicles have simply connected to the grid and charged. There was no communication or control between the vehicle and the grid, and power flowed only from the grid to the vehicle. A fully V2G-capable plug-in vehicle is equipped with a communications interface that receives signals from the grid as well as an intelligent charging system/battery management system (BMS) that allows bi-directional power flow both to and from the vehicle. When this vehicle is connected to the grid, control signals are sent from the grid operator to manage the flow of energy between the vehicle and the grid. In the simplest case, the grid might just turn the vehicle charger on and off in response to grid load. The grid could also tell the vehicle to defer charging until off-peak hours, or possibly have the vehicle charge only when the electricity rates are at their lowest. In the most complex scenario, the grid might send a constant flow of messages to the vehicle, changing the charging rate or even reversing the flow of energy to feed back to the grid depending on a variety of factors including the current grid load, the current amount of renewable generation, the state of charge of the vehicle, and real-time energy pricing.<br /><br />The benefits of V2G extend past grid load management. An <a title="NREL study" href="http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39729.pdf" id="h_6i">NREL study</a> shows that plug-in vehicles acting as a storage resource on the grid would help the penetration of intermittent renewable energy generation resources such as solar and wind. The energy storage offered by the plug-in vehicles would help smooth the peaks and valleys of renewable energy. This is particularly beneficial in the case of wind energy, which in many geographic locations often produces the greatest amount of energy during low-demand hours, such as late in the evening or at night.<br /><br />Though V2G has many benefits to offer, it is not a near-term solution. Deploying V2G will require significant investment to evolve the existing grid into the Smart Grid of the future - the existing grid simply does not have the infrastructure in place to communicate with vehicles. Additionally, the V2G services depend on a fairly large scale deployment of plug-in vehicles to be of any value to utilities and grid operators. Several promising pilot projects have demonstrated the capabilities of V2G, but no large scale implementations are in the foreseeable future. There is also significant work to do to formalize standards for how the vehicles will connect and communicate with the grid, and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has committees working specifically in these areas - J1772 for connections and J2293 for communications. Lastly, there are issues to work through concerning the impact of constant cycling of the vehicle's battery and the effect this will have on battery life.<br /><br />The good news is that many of the benefits of grid-connected vehicles don't require that they be deployed with full V2G functionality right from the start. An excellent starting point is just manufacturing vehicles with industry-standard connections that can do "smart charging" directed by the grid. A <a href="http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pdfs/phev_feasibility_analysis_combined.pdf" id="yxo9" target="_blank" title="PNNL study">PNNL study</a> shows that even if plug-in vehicles comprised three-quarters of the American passenger car fleet, the existing grid has sufficient power generation capabilities to handle the charging needs of these vehicles if they are charged during off-peak hours -- all without requiring any new power plants. In addition, the ability to control the charge time and energy flow rate of plug-in vehicles represents value to utilities and grid operators for grid ancillary services and for the ability to dispatch load to match up with real-time renewable generation even if the vehicles are not capable of sending power back to the grid. Finally, even if the grid itself is not capable of handling bi-directional power flow from vehicles, full V2G capabilities could be deployed as part of a "smart garage" at a home or a business, sometimes referred to as V2H (vehicle to home). In this scenario, the plug-in vehicles would be treated as a power generation resource along with solar or wind power, and controlled directly by an energy management system which controls the energy load at the home or business.<br /><br />Though V2G is still in its infancy and many questions remain -- Who should own the batteries in the vehicles? What communications technology should be used? How would we handle the intermittent connectivity & mobility of vehicles? -- it has a great deal of potential and will be an integral part of the next generation power grid fueled significantly by clean, renewable energy resources.</span>Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-42295868361836581562008-09-15T11:55:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.093-07:00Rethinking Fueling<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SM6wbHSIyyI/AAAAAAAAAg4/99sR_baZgt4/s1600-h/co2+blog+post.bmp"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SM6wbHSIyyI/AAAAAAAAAg4/99sR_baZgt4/s320/co2+blog+post.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246324595791285026" border="0" /></a><br />Posted by Adam Borelli, RechargeIT Team<br /><br />Today over 95% of our transportation fleet runs off petroleum. As many people say, "America is addicted to oil". However, many argue this might be better than the alternative of being addicted to coal if transportation were fueled by a dirty electric grid instead of petroleum. Neither is ideal; the ideal solution is to consume less energy and yet get more from the clean renewable sources like wind, solar, and geothermal.<br /><br />In our recent post about the Driving Experiment, we discussed the significant environmental and fuel consumption benefits in mileage gained by driving our converted Prius PHEVs and Escape PHEVs over conventional vehicles and even over their hybrid counterparts. When comparing the CO2 emissions savings from the RechargeIT Prius PHEV, the PHEV generated 72.9% fewer emissions than conventional vehicles and the PHEV Ford Escape produced 59.7% fewer emissions. This is 13.8% and 21.3% fewer emissions than their Prius and Escape hybrid counterparts, respectively. It is important to note that the basis for these calculations was a California grid. While not powered by a large portion of renewables, the grid is cleaner than most grids as it is virtually coal-free. Other studies examined dirtier grids to see if plug-in hybrids would be effective agents in fighting climate change from an emissions standpoint, even with electricity produced primarily from coal. The results were a resounding yes. Plug-in hybrids, even powered from a coal grid, emit fewer greenhouse gasses than conventional vehicles. As the grids become greener, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles will still have an increasingly net positive impact.<br /><br />Emissions is only one important factor in considering fueling from the grid versus fueling from the gas pump. Cost, especially today, is a very important consideration. During this same Driving Experiment, we realize significant savings per mile when driving electrified transportation. The findings were based on the average price of gasoline in California -- $4.52 -- and electricity -- $0.148 per kWh -- when the experiment was concluded.<br /><br /> <table class="zeroBorder" id="a2m6" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0"><tbody id="exfi0"><tr id="exfi1"> <td id="exfi2" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> <br /> </td> <td id="exfi4" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Ford Expedition<b id="x9nk"><br /> </b> </td> <td id="exfi6" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Toyota Sienna<b id="x9nk0"><br /> </b> </td> <td id="exfi8" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Toyota Corolla<b id="x9nk1"><br /> </b> </td> <td id="exfi10" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Ford Escape Hybrid<br /> </td> <td id="exfi12" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Toyota Prius Hybrid<br /> </td> <td id="exfi14" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Ford Escape PHEV<br /> </td> <td id="x9nk5" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Toyota Prius PHEV<br /> </td> </tr> <tr id="exfi16"> <td id="exfi17" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Total Cost per 100 miles<br /> </td> <td id="exfi19" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $31.90<br /> </td> <td id="exfi21" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $22.27<br /> </td> <td id="exfi23" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $14.68<br /> </td> <td id="exfi25" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $14.05<br /> </td> <td id="exfi27" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $9.34<br /> </td> <td id="exfi29" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $11.26<br /> </td> <td id="x9nk8" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $6.90<br /> </td> </tr> <tr id="exfi31"> <td id="exfi32" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Total Gas Cost per 100 miles<br /> </td> <td id="exfi34" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $31.90<br /> </td> <td id="exfi36" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $22.27<br /> </td> <td id="exfi38" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $14.68<br /> </td> <td id="exfi40" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $14.50<br /> </td> <td id="exfi42" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $9.34<br /> </td> <td id="exfi44" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $9.21<br /> </td> <td id="x9nk10" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $4.83<br /> </td> </tr> <tr id="exfi46"> <td id="exfi47" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> Total Electricity Cost per 100 miles<br /> </td> <td id="exfi49" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> --<br /> </td> <td id="exfi51" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> --<br /> </td> <td id="exfi53" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> --<br /> </td> <td id="exfi55" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> --<br /> </td> <td id="exfi57" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> --<br /> </td> <td id="exfi59" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $2.05<br /> </td> <td id="x9nk12" style="text-align: center;" width="12%"> $2.07</td></tr></tbody></table><br />With the current climate of high and volatile gas prices, fueling from the grid is more environmentally sound and more economical. The challenge is that the up-front cost is greater for purchasing plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles. It will take time for them to pay off, but it is a sound long term economic decision.Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-2851510124255938592008-09-02T16:03:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:08.903-07:00Getting Plugged into The Big Tent at the DNC<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SL3J05t7XeI/AAAAAAAAAgw/HV8fYDAozOw/s1600-h/prius_side_large.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SL3J05t7XeI/AAAAAAAAAgw/HV8fYDAozOw/s320/prius_side_large.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241567452012961250" border="0" /></a>
<br />Posted by Alec Proudfoot, Rolf Schreiber, and Adam Borelli, RechargeIT Team
<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br />At a <a href="http://www.bigtentdenver.org/" id="okwt" title="venue filled with energetic bloggers">venue filled with energetic bloggers</a> blogging about all aspects of the <a href="http://www.demconvention.com/" id="t1ed" title="DNCC">DNC</a> from panels hosted by organizations to fundraisers for the Democratic Party and its relevant campaign entities to the <a href="http://www.demconvention.com/speeches/" id="z_s1" title="speeches">speeches</a>, Dan Reicher, <a href="http://www.google.org/" id="r8ep" title="Google.org">Google.org</a>'s Director of Climate & Energy Initiatives, introduced this community to Google.org, its various initiatives, and its approach to the climate crisis. "We are able to play all the keys on the keyboard," said Dan Reicher, in describing Google.org's unique approach to addressing this problem. Google.org is empowered to make investments in innovative technologies, advocate for key policies, engage and educate the public through Google's traditional Google platforms like <a href="http://earth.google.com/" id="tnx4" title="Earth">Earth</a>, <a href="http://maps.google.com/" id="rvlc" title="Maps">Maps</a>, <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/" id="hifx" title="SketchUp">SketchUp</a>, and others. When Dan spoke about <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/green/energy/index.html" id="ssy6" title="RE<C">RE less than C<c></c></a> (renewable electricity cheaper than coal [-fired power]) he described the over all strategy and focused on our recent geothermal announcement which highlighted the approach of "playing all the keys on the keyboard". Dan also explained the RechargeIT initiative and what we have done to date, focusing on the recently released <a href="http://rechargeit.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-plug-ins-perform-90-mpg.html" id="gm93" title="Driving Experiment">Driving Experiment</a> that highlights the impact of driving plug-in hybrids in comparison to other vehicles. <c href="http://rechargeit.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-plug-ins-perform-90-mpg.html" id="gm93" title="Driving Experiment">
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<br />At the end of Dan's talk he told the audience that the RechargeIT Team's Alec Proudfoot, Rolf Schreiber, and Adam Borelli would be outside The Big Tent at Google's converted Toyota Prius PHEV to demonstrate its technology, answer questions about the vehicle's performance and capabilities, and answer general questions about its performance. We were approached by about ten people with a host of questions covering technology, economics, and environmental issues.
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<br />Here are some of the questions people asked us:
<br /></c><ul><li>Can I buy these vehicles yet? What are the companies that make them? </li><ul><li> No major automaker is producing a plug-in vehicle yet, but both GM and Toyota have announced that they will sell plug-in vehicles by 2010. Other manufacturers such as Ford, Mercedes, BMW, Nissan and Subaru have also announced that they intend to produce plug-in vehicles.
<br /></li></ul></ul><ul><li> How much does it cost to convert my Prius to a plug-in hybrid? </li><ul><li> <a href="http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion" id="ziok" title="Hymotion">Hymotion</a> (the supplier of the conversion modules in Google's Prius PHEVs) sells the conversion kit for US$9995 installed. Please see the CalCars.org website for a listing of other conversion sources.
<br /></li></ul><li> Would it make economic sense to add a solar panel to the vehicle and charge the battery with the solar panels? </li><ul><li> This doesn't make sense with current production PV cells since there simply is not enough surface area on the vehicle to produce enough energy to charge the battery fully for a typical driver's needs. The best option is to build a solar carport or put PV on your roof or, the most cost-effective way, to have the utilities supply the green electrons through utility scale generation. However, plug-in vehicle manufacturers such as <a title="Aptera" href="http://www.aptera.com/" id="zddn">Aptera</a> and <a title="Fisker" href="http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/" id="h-pc">Fisker</a> plan to have solar panels integrated into their vehicles to run the climate control system even when the vehicle is parked.
<br /></li></ul><li> What is the electric driving range of the plug-in conversion? </li><ul><li> We typically see 35-40 miles of "charge depleting" mode, where the battery pack is supplying most or all of the energy for driving the car. The Prius doesn't really allow you to drive the car in all-electric mode unless you're very conservative with the accelerator and keep the speed under 35 MPH.
<br /></li></ul><li> What kind of data do you collect with the datalogging system? Where can I view the data? </li><ul><li> We collect information about the vehicle's speed and location, gas consumption, engine RPM, battery state of charge, etc. While we don't display all the raw data we collect on the RechargeIT website, you can see trip-specific data for each vehicle at http://www.google.org/recharge/dashboard.
<br /></li></ul><li> Do you promote using bio-fuels with plug-in hybrids? </li><ul><li> Some biofuels like cellulosic ethanol are clear winners. Others like corn-based ethanol are less compelling since they require significant resource inputs for production, harvesting, and processing and yield carbon emissions when burned. We believe that one excellent combination for low carbon impact driving in the future may be a low-input energy biofuel used as the liquid fuel in a PHEV. </li></ul></ul></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div></div><span class="byline-author"></span>Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-56469550351233160472008-08-08T13:21:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.189-07:00Website Simplifications<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SJzAX-kC0vI/AAAAAAAAAgc/zqiIllG0R10/s1600-h/blog+pic.bmp"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AoM6XS2MTE/SJzAX-kC0vI/AAAAAAAAAgc/zqiIllG0R10/s320/blog+pic.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232268385261376242" border="0" /></a><br /><span id="dcnm" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Posted by Janelle <span id="sr69" class="misspell" suggestions="Colman,Pullman,Holman,Klan,Julian">Kuhlman</span>, <span id="sr690" class="misspell" suggestions="Recharge IT,Recharge-IT,Recharged,Recharger,Recharge">RechargeIT</span> Team<br /><br />We have made some improvements to our website - check it out! Although the structure of the site remains the same, there are a few changes worth highlighting. First, you'll notice that we cleaned up our home page by removing most of the modules and adding a 'Data and Analysis' link where you can find our Vehicle Calculator. We will eventually add more data about our fleet and from our driving experiment. The Plug-in Vehicle <span id="sr691" class="misspell" suggestions="Locate,Locator's,Loquitor,Doctor,Allocator">Locator</span> map has also been relocated to the 'What we are doing' page. (You can still find our publicly-submitted <span id="sr692" class="misspell" suggestions="You Tube,You-Tube,Tube,Yoruba,Tobe">YouTube</span> videos on the map. There are some interesting videos there that you should check out when you have a minute. There is even one from a nine-year-old that is quite compelling.) </span><span id="dcnm" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lastly, we moved the 'Resources' and 'Collaborators' links from the home page to the 'Driving Experiment' page.</span><span id="dcnm" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> We hope you like the changes; visit us soon for more news and updates. </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" id="u1ve" ><span id="u1ve0" style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" id="u1ve2" ><span id="qhtw0" style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" id="u1ve2" ><span id="qhtw0" style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span id="qhtw0" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Verdana;" ></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" id="u1ve" ><span id="u1ve0" style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" id="u1ve2" ><span id="qhtw0" style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></span><span id="qhtw0" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><span class="byline-author"></span>Janellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17475497927942671890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-30615878685087259812008-07-22T12:24:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:08.950-07:00Our plug-ins perform: 90+ MPG<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/SIY0gf-0pQI/AAAAAAAAAP8/xz7Hj4ywpY8/s1600-h/recharge3.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/SIY0gf-0pQI/AAAAAAAAAP8/xz7Hj4ywpY8/s320/recharge3.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225922150555493634" border="0" /></a><br />Posted by Rolf Schreiber, RechargeIT Engineer<div id=":2kk" class="ArwC7c ckChnd"><p>Last summer Google.org launched the RechargeIT program, an initiative to accelerate the commercialization of plug-in vehicles. As part of this project, we created the GFleet, a free car-sharing program for Google employees. The GFleet includes a handful of hybrid vehicles converted to plug-ins with a <a href="http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion" target="_blank">Hymotion</a> conversion module.<br /><br />Our plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have been on the road for about a year now, and the RechargeIT team has been diligently collecting statistics on their performance. We noticed that employees primarily use our plug-ins for short trips close to our headquarters, so the data weren't truly representative of typical U.S. driving patterns. We were curious to see how the cars would perform under controlled conditions - and how they would stack up against other conventional automobiles typically found in U.S. households. With that, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJQA3suRxMw" target="_blank">RechargeIT Driving Experiment</a> was born!<br /><br />In total, it took just over seven weeks to complete all the trips in all the vehicles. And with the results in, our plug-ins did great, with the Priuses getting more than 90 miles per gallon. The PHEVs not only greatly outperformed the average American fleet fuel economy of 19.8 MPG, they did significantly better than the standard hybrids – 53% fuel economy improvement for the plug-in Ford Escape and 93% improvement for the plug-in Prius.<br /><br /><span>Check out our newly improved RechargeIT </span><a href="http://www.rechargeit.org/" title="website" target="_blank">website</a> for more details on our Driving Experiment. </p> </div>Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-74632151658153612142008-07-17T18:20:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.430-07:00Circumnavigating the Globe in a Solar-Powered Vehicle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/SH_wkankd2I/AAAAAAAAAPU/qbLRQUee6ik/s1600-h/solartaxi.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 209px;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/SH_wkankd2I/AAAAAAAAAPU/qbLRQUee6ik/s320/solartaxi.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224158601184311138" border="0" /></a><span class="byline-author">Posted by </span><span id="fns314" lang="EN-AU">David Bercovich</span><span id="fns317" lang="EN-AU">, Program Manager, Climate & Energy Team</span><p id="if-m" class="MsoNormal"><span id="if-m0" lang="EN-AU">Google welcomes the <a id="fns324" href="http://solartaxi.com/">Solar Taxi</a> today on its trip around the world. The solar-powered vehicle is two-thirds of the way through its trip which will encompass 50,000 kms (over 30,000 miles) and include 5 continents, 400 cities, and 40 countries in 18 months. </span></p> <p id="fns328" class="MsoNormal"><span id="fns329" lang="EN-AU"> </span></p> <p id="fns331" class="MsoNormal"><span id="fns332" lang="EN-AU">The team is driving to raise awareness about the dangers of global warming and demonstrate solutions that are available today. At Google, we share the Solar Taxi vision of <a id="fns334" href="http://google.org/recharge/">vehicles</a> powered by <a id="fns335" href="http://google.org/rec.html">renewable energy</a>. </span></p> <p id="fns338" class="MsoNormal"><span id="fns339" lang="EN-AU"> </span></p> <span id="fns344" lang="EN-AU">Highlights of the trip include a wedding perform</span><span id="fns344" lang="EN-AU">ed in the car, a police escort across Saudi Arabia, and serving as the official taxi of the <a id="fns346" href="http://blog.google.org/2007/12/putting-bali-roadmap-in-context.html">UN Climate Change Conference</a> in Bali. Check out <a id="fns349" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Y01CVYhS4&feature=related">some</a> </span><span id="sqf3" lang="EN-AU"><a id="fns351" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDP5Wz74-BY">other</a></span><span id="sqf30" lang="EN-AU"> <a id="fns350" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmcNXD1FG18">highlights</a> on YouTube.</span><span class="byline-author"><br /></span><span id="fns317" lang="EN-AU"></span>Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-79482446480840251202008-05-27T10:57:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.478-07:00RechargeIT Goes to Washington; Calls for Plug-in VideosPosted by Adam Borelli, Team Coordinator<br /><br />On June 11th and 12th <a href="http://www.google.org/" id="fqs." title="Google.org">Google.org</a> and the <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/" id="x1.b" title="Brookings Institution">Brookings Institution</a> will host a <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dcpluginsconference/" id="zrdy" title="conference on plug-in vehicles">conference on plug-in vehicles</a> in Washington, D.C. We'll examine their potential to reduce oil dependence and pollution, and the role that federal policy can play in promoting them.<br /><br />Planned attendees include top bipartisan elected officials, including Senators Orrin Hatch, John Kerry, and Lamar Alexander, as well as Congressmen John Dingell and Jay Inslee. We'll hear from FedEx CEO Fred Smith and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a> columnist Tom Friedman. Speakers will include advocates, officials, and automakers from around the world. We hope you'll <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/0611_plugin_vehicle.aspx" id="skp2" title="join us">join us</a>.<br /><br />Can't make it to Washington? You can still get involved! We've issued a <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dcpluginsconference/videos.html" id="ai3." title="call for videos">call for videos</a>, so grab a camera and tell us why you want to drive a plug-in. If you already own one, show us how it works. The videos will be displayed on <a href="http://www.rechargeit.org/" id="o3fw" title="our website">our website</a> and the best ones will be shown at the conference. We'll also be <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dcpluginsconference/" id="avqe" title="webcasting">webcasting</a> the event for those that can't be there in person.<br /><br />See you in Washington!Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-46906124929861613702008-05-07T14:23:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.141-07:00The Importance of UnitsPosted by Adam Langley<br /><br />Fuel economy is generally measured, in the US, in terms of miles per gallon. The average US car <a title="drives about 12000 miles in a year" href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/rtecs/chapter3.html" id="g3rc">drives about 12,000 miles in a year</a>. Here's a graph of fuel used against fuel economy:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_ecR5WuWVcjw/SCJAh21r_KI/AAAAAAAAAAU/Y3zBE3aOrSQ/s1600-h/units.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_ecR5WuWVcjw/SCJAh21r_KI/AAAAAAAAAAU/Y3zBE3aOrSQ/s320/units.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197787870339529890" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Obviously, if your car does one mile per gallon it will take 12,000 gallons to drive 12,000 miles. However, we're also marked a few other points on the graph to highlight the counter-intuitive behaviour of a reciprocal curve.<br /><br />You can see that getting a 10 MPG car to do 12 MPG saves as much fuel (1200 - 1000 = 200 gallons) as switching a 30 MPG car for a 60 MPG one (400 - 200 = 200 gallons). This result surprises many people.<br /><br />If we were to use gallons per 100 miles as our unit of fuel economy, then the graph would be a straight line. Now, 10 MPG is 10 G/100M and 12 MPG is 8.3 G/100M, a difference of 1.7. Also 30 MPG is 3.3 G/100M and 60 MPG is 1.7G/100M, again a difference of 1.6. Now it's immediately obvious that the fuel savings are the same.<br /><br />This style of unit is found in many European countries, among others; although they use litres per 100 kilometers. These units give a much better indication of fuel use.<br /><br />We already have fuel economy in gallons per 100 miles and litres per 100 kilometers for the headline numbers on <a title="our website" href="http://www.google.org/recharge/" id="e.2e">our website</a> and we'll be making an effort in the coming weeks to use them in more places.Shannon Oliverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12102787363137188967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-20341850088305424222008-04-04T09:50:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:08.618-07:00Collecting Car Data - Part 2<span class="byline-author">Posted by Adam Langley, Alec Proudfoot, Richard Walker, RechargeIT Team</span><b id="umps"> </b><br /><br />Part 1 talked about our datalogging hardware, this time we'll focus on some of the technical details of the software.<br /><br />The dataloggers contain a 4GB flash card with a minimal <a title="Gentoo Linux" href="http://www.gentoo.org/" id="v_fb">Gentoo Linux</a> installation. <span id="k-wo" style="font-family:Verdana;">We've stripped down the startup process</span><span id="f235" style="font-family:Courier New;"><span id="mvkj" style="font-family:Verdana;"> so that the boot times are as small as possible. We run an SSH daemon (which allows us to control the datalogger remotely), the datalogging program, and almost nothing else.<br /><br />The flash is partitioned into a system area and a 128MB log partition. </span></span><span id="f235" style="font-family:Courier New;"><span id="mvkj" style="font-family:Verdana;">Since the datalogger can lose power at any time</span></span><span id="f235" style="font-family:Courier New;"><span id="mvkj" style="font-family:Verdana;">, to avoid corruption of the root filesystem, that filesystem is always read-only.<br /><br />The log is organized into 4K blocks where each block is checksummed and numbered. At boot time the datalogger verifies every block and builds a list of all the uncorrupted blocks on the flash, in order. It also notes the greatest block number found and starts numbering new blocks from that point. Corruption of the flash is detected and silently ignored.<br /><br />The datalogger code itself is written in C, using the open source <a title="libevent" href="http://www.monkey.org/%7Eprovos/libevent/" id="xu5x">libevent</a> library (written by another Googler). It runs an HTTP server for debugging, runs the sensors and writes a log frame once a second. Frames are packed into 4K blocks and blocks are written to the flash once full. Writing and uploading are handled by a separate process to ensure that the main process doesn't get stalled for too long. The datalogger is also the <span id="dzpp" style="font-family:Courier New;">klogd</span> and <span id="hh7j" style="font-family:Courier New;">syslogd</span> for the system. If it crashes, it gets restarted a second later and it records its core files in the log for later analysis.<br /><br />Uploading happens over WiFi whenever the car returns to Google. A daemon watches for a special wireless network and signals the datalogger to start uploading. Each car uses its SSH host key to authenticate, over HTTP, to a server listening at Google. The Google server knows the last block number that was uploaded and the car uploads as many blocks as it can, starting from that number.<br /><br />The frames are stored in a <a title="Bigtable" href="http://labs.google.com/papers/bigtable.html" id="jr50">Bigtable</a>. Here's what a tiny part of one of the resulting frames looks like:<br /><span id="a.43" style="font-size:78%;"><span id="ba:y" style="font-family:Courier New;"><br />Frame 1204840857 (State (CarSample {datum = [Datum {datum_type = GPS_OPEN, datum_value = 1.0},</span><span id="c-9y" style="font-family:Courier New;">Datum {datum_type = SPEED, datum_value = 0.987980195657361},Datum {datum_</span> <span id="m7tr" style="font-family:Courier New;">type = TARGET_RPM, datum_value = 1504.0},Datum {datum_type = FUEL_FLOW, datum_value = 565.0},Datum {datum_type = BRAKES, datum_value = 15.0},Datum {datum_type </span> <span id="imgg" style="font-family:Courier New;">= STEERING_ANGLE, datum_value = 220.0},...</span><span id="uad." style="font-family:Courier New;"> <span id="fm2a" style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="f235" style="font-family: Courier New;"><span id="mvkj" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span id="a.43"><span id="uad." style="font-family: Courier New;"><span id="fm2a" style="font-family: Verdana;">All those frames are processed to group them into meaningful events, like journeys and charging periods. Then we put them all on the <a title="website" href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dashboard/car?car=Garamba&evy=0&evd=20080306&evt=181627" id="moin">RechargeIT website</a>. Our most useful information is probably the MPG that the car achieves. But, as we'll talk about in another blog post, those numbers should be interpreted in context...</span></span></span></span></span></span>Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-91180692038660055812008-04-04T09:48:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.572-07:00Collecting Car Data - Part 1<span class="byline-author">Posted by Adam Langley, Alec Proudfoot, and Richard Walker, RechargeIT Team</span><br /><br />One of the main purposes of our fleet of plug-in hybrids is to measure the performance of plug-ins compared to an unmodified hybrid car. We then post this information to <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dashboard/car?car=Comoe&evy=0&evd=20080227&evt=125924" id="c3r2" title="our website">our website</a>, where anyone can see how our fleet is doing. As you can see, we collect quite a lot of information from our cars, and we actually collect more than we show to the public. Here's how we do it:<br /><br />Inside the trunk of each of our instrumented cars sits a <a href="http://www.soekris.com/net4801.htm" id="ykcq" title="small, embedded Linux computer">small, embedded Linux computer</a> made by <a href="http://www.soekris.com/index.htm" id="tcnz" title="Soekris Engineering">Soekris Engineering</a>. They're called 'embedded', but they're really very powerful little devices: 256MB of SDRAM, 4GB of flash and a 266MHz, 486 like processor. In the past, we had much less than that as a desktop!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/R_rAbhqnuzI/AAAAAAAAANs/71Mtp_VMUFI/s1600-h/Datalogger+v2.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/R_rAbhqnuzI/AAAAAAAAANs/71Mtp_VMUFI/s320/Datalogger+v2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186669499996683058" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Whenever the car is running, or when it's plugged in and charging, the datalogger is switched on and powered by the car's auxiliary battery. Even plug-in hybrid cars have a standard 12V car battery in them (the 'aux battery'), although it's often smaller than in other cars. The aux battery is used to power the dashboard, locks, windows, etc. and is usually recharged by the gasoline engine when it's running. This battery is separate from the hybrid battery packs which drive the electric motor (known as the 'traction' battery).<br /><br />To avoid draining the aux battery too much, we also installed a charger which charges the aux battery when the car is plugged in. In addition, the datalogger will switch itself off if the car is off and unplugged for five minutes or more.<br /><br />Connected to the datalogger is an ammeter, a GPS receiver and an interface to the car's internal network (the CAN bus).<br /><br />The ammeter measures the amount of power that the cars are drawing from the power grid when plugged in. (This includes the power that our aux charger is using too.) Of course, here at the Googleplex we already have <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home" id="blpy" title="a large solar installation">a large solar installation</a> which generates thousands of KWhs of power daily. In comparison, it only takes about 5 KWhs to completely charge one of our plug-in Priuses.<br /><br />The GPS records the car's position and, more importantly for us, gives us an accurate timebase for our logs. Although the specific GPS receiver that we use is only good to half a second (plenty for us!), others can provide a signal which is accurate to fractions of a millisecond.<br /><br />Most modern cars will have an internal network, called a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller_Area_Network" id="e1su" title="CAN bus">CAN bus</a>, which have very simple fully-connected, broadcast topologies. Over this network, many different devices in the car transmit their status and, by listening to these messages, we can find out nearly everything about the car. Some of the information which we don't process includes the angle of the steering wheel at all times, the amount that the brakes are pressed, and the current gear. So, you can see that the CAN bus is pretty comprehensive. Also connected to the CAN bus is our additional plug-in battery pack from <a href="http://www.hymotion.com/" id="kl4h" title="Hymotion">Hymotion</a>. That's how we communicate with the plug-in systems and monitor their state of charge.<br /><br />At this point, we have a lot of data from the car, the plug-in battery, the ammeter, and the GPS pouring into the datalogger. In a future blog post, we'll talk about the internals of the datalogger and how the data ends up on the <a title="Google.org website" href="http://www.google.org/" id="cclz">Google.org website</a>.Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-60888861766354313352008-04-02T14:33:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.381-07:00California Air Resources Board Hearing on the ZEV Program<span class="byline-author">Posted by Adam Borelli, Adam Smith, Alec Proudfoot, and Rolf Schreiber, RechargeIT Team<br /></span><br /><br /> On March 27th the <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/" id="nw5t" title="California Air Resources Board">California Air Resources Board</a> (CARB) met to discuss the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program. Prior to last Thursday's meeting, members of our RechargeIT Team met with each Board Member, submitted a <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm/bccommlog.php?listname=zev2008" id="n56d" title="public comment">pub</a><a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm/bccommlog.php?listname=zev2008" id="n56d" title="public comment">lic comment</a>, and <a href="http://rechargeit.blogspot.com/2008/03/californias-zev-program.html" id="viac" title="posted a blog post">posted a blog po</a><a href="http://rechargeit.blogspot.com/2008/03/californias-zev-program.html" id="viac" title="posted a blog post">st</a> to inform the public and key stakeholders that we feel the ZEV Program is key policy to the deployment of less polluting vehicles and has a few areas where we recommend some improvements. Adam Smith, our Steward for Good Energy, also gave a <a href="http://docs.google.com/Presentation?docid=dhcdbtp4_121dmw8h3g5#">presentation</a> at the meeting on our position.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/R_QEIRqnuwI/AAAAAAAAANU/5P7kQ3wTnG0/s1600-h/Adam+Smith,+ZEV+Preso.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/R_QEIRqnuwI/AAAAAAAAANU/5P7kQ3wTnG0/s200/Adam+Smith,+ZEV+Preso.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184773611237915394" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This post is just a first response to last week's hearing - please look for more information as we continue to sort out the details. Google.org is largely supportive of CARB's decision. CARB was right in increasing the floor of pure ZEVs -- battery electric and fuel cell vehicles -- compared to the Staff recommendations, by adding plug-in hybrids to to mix, and by revamping the entire ZEV Program. Next year CARB plans to vote on simplifying the ZEV program to focus it on pure ZEVs and plug-in hybrids for the 2015 model year and beyond, while moving the maturing technologies of regular hybrids and PZEVs to the Pavley II and LEV III programs.<br /><br /><br /> <span id="ozzm"><u id="zfui">The Outcome (in brief)</u></span><br />1. Decrease number of ZEVs by 70% to 7,500<br />2. Create a new category for PHEVs with 10 mile all electric range and require automakers sell 58,333<br />3. Create automaker credit transparency<br />4. Travel provision modifications made; we are not sure what they are yet<br />5. Overhaul ZEV Program after 2014<br /><br /><br />The following is an overview of the program, its history and changes for the period under discussion -- 2012 to 2014 -- at the CARB hearing. We want to preface this table by saying that we are not 100% clear on the precise decision that CARB made on Thursday, but we will clarify and comment on the exact decision once the meeting transcript is available. Until then, we wanted to be sure to share the outcome, as we understood it, with you. It is challenging to display all the information we want in this table, especially with the "ZEV Program Prior to March 27, 2008". In this column, the "Pure Zero Emission Vehicles" only addresses what is called the Alternative or Alt Path. This is a pathway for hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles, but not BEVs or PHEVs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/R_RGmRqnuxI/AAAAAAAAANc/d2LuMstcfqc/s1600-h/ZEV_program_summary_table.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_YKZZ4pbPGV0/R_RGmRqnuxI/AAAAAAAAANc/d2LuMstcfqc/s400/ZEV_program_summary_table.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184846694401424146" border="0" /></a><div id="i:jf"><br /><a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/board/bio/dsperling.htm" id="v7t4" title="Dan Sperling">Dan Sperling</a>, a Board Member, proposed that the ZEV Program be broken into the three different programs after 2014: LEV III for the current bronze or PZEV vehicles, Pavley II for the PHEVs, and the ZEV Program for FCVs and BEVs. This structure will be proposed by Staff by the end of 2009. </div>Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-40703561901217040552008-03-20T09:00:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:09.046-07:00California's ZEV Program<span class="byline-author">Posted by Adam Borelli<br /></span><br />The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is considering changes to the <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2008/zev2008/zev2008.htm" id="q6eu" title="Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate">Zero Emission Vehicle Program </a> (also commonly known as the "ZEV Mandate") (see Appendix A) on March 27th at its Board meeting in Sacramento. This is a big deal.<br /><br /><b> What is CARB?</b><br />The <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/" id="fl_i" title="California Air Resources Board">California Air Resources Board</a>, or CARB, is a regulatory agency that sits under the California Environmental Protection Agency and regulates everything from air and water to transportation from an emissions standpoint and <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/cc.htm" id="smpr" title="climate change legislation">climate change legislation</a> implementation like the Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32 (<a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/docs/ab32text.pdf" id="l3el" title="text">text</a>).<br /><br /><b> Quick History of ZEV Program</b><br />Shortly after GM launched the EV1 (<a href="http://media.gm.com/corpcom/coi/c09.htm" id="ykx9" title="GM page">GM page</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1" id="gs_t" title="Wikipedia">Wikipedia</a>, <a title="EV1 Club" href="http://www.eanet.com/ev1-club/" id="y0c4">EV1 Club</a>), CARB passed the ZEV Program, requiring that 2% of sales by automakers in California constitute zero emission vehicles by 1998, 5% by 2001, and 10% by 2003. The other big car manufacturers also developed electric vehicles in response to the ZEV Program. In 1998 CARB decided to allow cars other than pure ZEVs to count for ZEVs. In 2003 the ZEV Program changed again to be more complicated and weaker, delaying introduction of large numbers of ZEVs by until 2012 and beyond, and putting an emphasis on fuel cell vehicles over battery electric vehicles. Around the same time GM and all the other manufacturers canceled their electric vehicle (EV) programs in favor of fuel cell vehicles. In other words, the ZEV Program has had a tough history and has evolved from an extremely simple program to a very complicated one.<br /><br /><b> ZEV Program Today</b><br />Today the ZEV Program looks almost nothing like the original program. It is now very complicated, classifying vehicles into three types, allocating credits to each vehicle.<br /><br />The ZEV Program, in short, is a regulation that requires major automakers to produce a certain number of ZEVs<sup>1 </sup>each model year in order to do business in California. Some of the credits may be met with vehicles that are not pure ZEVs, such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids, that include some advanced, low polluting components. The ZEV Program does not treat all vehicles equally; it gives fuel cell vehicles the most credits, then pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, followed by a host of advanced vehicles like hybrids. The ultimate objective is to improve California air quality.<br /><br />You can see the proposed staff changes <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2008/zev2008/zevisor.pdf" id="qmz5" title="HERE">HERE</a> (known as the "Initial Statement of Reasons" or ISOR).<br /><br /><b>Our Recommendations</b><br />Google.org has been talking with Board Members, staff, and stakeholder groups to understand their perspectives on the proposed changes to the regulations. After meeting with them, we decided there are five recommendations relating to the proposed changes that we will submit to the Air Resources Board. Our hope is that when approved and implemented, the ZEV Program will accelerate innovation and reduce air pollution by getting large numbers of vehicles into consumers hands and on the road. We ultimately see this as a phenomenal business opportunity for the automakers. Californians are ready for more advanced vehicles like battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Once these vehicles become available, they expect them to take off just like existing hybrids have and they will help California simultaneously improve its air quality at a faster speed than traditional hybrids.<br /><br />The following are our five recommendations:<br /><br />1. Strengthen the newly proposed "enhanced AT PZEV" category to require a minimum capability to drive in pure electric mode for 25 miles, not the proposed 10 miles, to accommodate the commuting range of a majority of drivers and make the vehicles more useful, profitable, and marketable.<br /><br />2. Require automakers produce at least 10,000 electric or fuel cell vehicles total from 2012 to 2014, not the proposed 2,500 vehicles.<br /><br />3. Do not allow the electric and fuel cell vehicles sold in other states to count towards the credits for the California requirement (known as the "travel provision"); placing vehicles in other states will not result in the necessary net improvements in California air quality. Each state's requirements should count only towards their own state -- a larger total number of vehicles across the country will result in improved economies of scale and lower prices for the vehicles, and will result in a larger air quality improvement countrywide.<br /><br />4. Maintain the credit sunset for less efficient, lower power hybrids (known as Silver Type C); the current proposal asks to extend these credits indefinitely.<br /><br />5. Do not increase the credits for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (low speed vehicles similar to electric golf carts); they are not driven like full-function vehicles that are the focus of the ZEV Program.<br /><br />The California Air Resources Board has a phenomenal opportunity to improve the air quality in California by incentivizing the production and sale of vehicles that pollute less and as a side benefit get better fuel economy. Ten other states have signed on to the tougher restrictions of California's ZEV Program and will follow California's lead.<br /><br />We encourage the California Air Resources Board to consider our recommendations. We believe these proposed changes to the staff recommendations are pragmatic, realistic, and achievable.<br /><br /><b>Where You Fit In</b><br />You can have a say in this decision as well, by calling <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/board/members.htm" id="nsqy" title="Board Members">Board Members</a> and <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/yellow.htm" id="osmh" title="Staff">Staff</a>, <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/aboutarb.htm" id="n-bq" title="mailing">mailing</a>, or <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm/bcsubform.php?listname=zev2008&comm_period=A" id="kmhn" title="e-mailing">e-mailing</a> the Air Resources Board prior to the final vote on March 27, 2008.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><sup>1</sup> ZEVs are fuel cell vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and neighborhood electric vehicles.Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022192364079237911.post-37723854792957740372008-03-20T06:30:00.000-07:002020-07-16T14:00:08.998-07:00Power On!<span class="byline-author">Posted by the RechargeIT Team<br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: left;"><b>Introducing the RechargeIT Blog </b><br /><br /></div> Power on! Not that we have anything against the sound of exhaust streaming out of a tailpipe, but electrified transportation is, simply, cool and better for our health, the environment, and energy security. Google.org's <a href="http://www.rechargeit.org/" id="b7mf" title="RechargeIT initiative">RechargeIT initiative</a> (see below for more information) is launching a blog. This blog will cover an array of plug-in topics, including vehicle technology, battery technology, RechargeIT's projects and data, policy, interviews, and interesting snippets from newspaper articles and current events. Some posts will be very technical, others less so, and some not technical at all. The one binding characteristic is that we hope all posts will be <i>interesting</i>.<br /><br />We would like to encourage you all to sign up for our discussion list <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rechargeit-blog" id="q55h" title="here">here</a>. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our posts and the ideas they provoke. We will be signed up to the discussion list and can answer questions you have about our blog posts, but the discussion list is mainly for you to discuss the posts further.<br /><br /><b>Not familiar with RechargeIT?<br /></b><br />The RechargeIT initiative is a project of Google.org in which we converted four Toyota Priuses and two Ford Escape hybrids to plug-in cars using the Hymotion-A123 system. We use these vehicles as a test fleet and <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dashboard" id="m8ax" title="track their data">track their data</a> to better understand their capabilities (we will discuss the particular data in a future post). We also issued a $10 million RFP for plug-in and component technologies, engage in policy debates as with the ZEV Mandate (we will discuss this in a future post too!), we fund promising <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/partners.html" id="zs5-" title="nonprofits and researchers">nonprofits and researchers</a> to continue their important work, and work with the stakeholders to better understand this space and help them in any way we can.Adam Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05470792327839931926noreply@blogger.com