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There aren’t many cars on the roads today that run purely on batteries, but three new models are off the drawing boards and – if the manufacturers claims are to be believed – will be selling and seen on the streets within the next twelve months. And all three of these companies are in sunny, high-tech California.

The first of these 100% battery powered cars is the Zap Zebra, which is really an oversized golf cart. Based in Santa Rosa, California, ZAP has been around for over 10 years, and have experimented with various light duty electric cars including fuel cell prototypes. Zap’s latest creation is street legal on roads where the speed limit is under 45 MPH. The Zap Zebra costs under $10,000, has a top speed of 40 mph, and a range of 40 miles. Depending on how durable this car is, and how long their batteries last, it could pay for itself in fuel savings as a 2nd car for shopping and short trips.

You’ve heard here about the Tesla Roadster, which runs on lithium ion laptop batteries and claims a range of 250+ miles along with 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. It’s about time someone used electric motors to build a sports car, the torque curve and RPM range of electric motors are far better than gasoline engines. We’re trying to set up an interview with Tesla officials to ask a few more questions about their heat management systems and the longevity of the batteries.

Now another 100% battery powered car manufacturer is stepping up, Phoenix Motorcars based in Ohai California. Claiming a range for their existing prototype of “75-200 miles” and a top speed of 95 MPH, Phoenix is aiming at a more affordable vehicle than the Tesla Roadster. But this car is still a freeway legal, full size car. What’s also noteworthy about Phoenix Motorcars is their relationship with Altair Nanotechnologies, who claim to have proprietary nano-lithium ion battery technology.

The only thing keeping electric cars from eventually dominating the automotive world is the energy density of batteries. Trying to create a “hydrogen economy” has diverted billions of dollars from the more feasible achievement of improving batteries. Even current battery technologies make an electric commuter vehicle feasible, and with a nudge from research that has gone into batteries for hybrid cars, the all electric car is making a comeback. Lithium ion batteries can carry over 300 watt-hours per kilogram. That is quadruple the energy density of traditional lead-acid batteries, hence quadruple the range.

Hybrid cars typically use the nickel metal hydride battery, more advanced than lead acid, but still only able to get around 150 watt-hours per kilogram. If lithium ion batteries can become cheap, safe, and longlasting, they will change the automotive world. If the work being done at Tesla Motors and Phoenix Motorcars is to be believed, that world is changing before our eyes. Stay tuned.

In the July 27th, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, in an interview with Al Gore, he is quoted as saying the following “The fact that oil is beginning to get more expensive more quickly will contribute to the realization of how dysfunctional our current pattern is. Take the tar sands of western Canada. For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a family’s home for four days.”

Well according to the US Geologic Survey’s “World Energy Assessment Team,” in a useful table of conversion factors, “6,000 cubic feet of gas equals one barrel of oil.” We’ve checked this conversion on other websites and in some cases it’s 10% low and in some cases 10% high, but that’s due to what assumptions you make about the grade of oil and gas being compared.

To continue, the average American household, during the winter heating season which lasts from October through March, uses on average 70 “MCF” (MCF equals “thousand cubic feet”) of natural gas. This estimate comes courtesy of the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Energy Information Administration on a consumer information page they have “Natural Gas, What Consumers Should Know.”

This means the average American household that uses natural gas to heat their homes, uses in a four day winter period about 1,600 cubic feet of natural gas. And that means that the energy required to extract crude oil from tar sands using natural gas consumes about 25% of the energy recovered. The energy payback according to Al Gore for oil extraction from tar sands is nearly 4 to 1.

It’s important as we debate what to do about global warming – not that we’re experiencing global warming, which we probably are – but what to do about it, not to resort to rhetorical flourishes that won’t stand up to basic quantitative reasoning. An on-site energy payback of 4 to 1 may not be as good as that for light crude in Saudi Arabia, but it’s far better than what you’re going to get with ethanol in Iowa.

With oil prices of $70 per barrel, not only will clean alternative energy be viable, but heavy oil such as that locked in the tar sands of Alberta will also be viable. And taking the position that heavy oil is not energy positive or economically viable is fine, but that position should be taken with solid arguments, not rhetoric.

And I guess I’d still like to know why anthropogenic CO2, which is only 3-5% of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year, cannot be absorbed by natural carbon sinks ala massive reforestation.

With the advent of the Tesla Roadster, a new generation of 100% battery powered car is upon us. It’s about time. But hybrids with extra battery packs, known as “strong hybrids,” and their counterparts, hybrids that you can plug in to recharge, appropriately known as “plug-in hybrids,” are moving out of the hands of tinkerers and into the mainstream.

An interesting study from CalCars.org, entitled “100+ MPG Hybrids” makes the case that cars powered by electricity from the power grid can get over 100 miles to the gallon. This is somewhat misleading – because cars powered from the grid, to the extent they’re using grid electricity stored on-board, are not getting miles per gallon, they’re getting miles per kilowatt-hour.

Assume a car is a strong hybrid, with range on a battery charge sufficient to fulfill a normal daily commute cycle, and assume that the car is a plug-in hybrid, getting recharged at night from the power grid so no gasoline energy whatsoever is used in its daily functions. This is not a huge assumption – these cars are here today, and soon they will make it out of the tinkerer’s garages and onto the dealer’s showroom floors. How much per mile does it cost to drive these cars?

The math isn’t all that challenging if you are really interested in knowing the answer. First of all, assume a gas powered car gets 30 MPG, and gas costs $3.00. This means a gas car costs $.10 per mile to drive.

Next assume a gasoline powered car has an engine that converts the energy in gasoline into mechanical energy at an efficiency of 25%. This is typical; the rest of the energy is lost in extraneous motion, friction and heat. This means that if a gasoline engine were 100% efficient, that same car could go 120 miles on a gallon instead of only 30 miles per gallon.

Here’s where it gets interesting. A battery will recharge and discharge kilowatt-hours from the power grid at an efficiency of 90%. An electric motor will convert electricity into mechanical energy at an efficiency that is also about 90% (the larger the engine the better the efficiency). This means a battery powered electric car will convert kilowatt-hours from the power grid into mechanical energy at an efficiency of over 80% (90% times 90%).

For this reason, a battery powered car can take that same one gallon of gasoline, using the equivalent amount in kilowatt-hours, and go 96 miles, more than three times what a gasoline powered car can do.

The rest is simple. There are 32.91 kilowatt-hours of energy in a gallon of gas, and the market cost consumers pay for kilowatt-hours is about $.10 (this varies widely, but for recharging at night during off-peak rates $.10 is probably on the high side), which means for $3.29 you can drive an electric car 96 miles. That equates to 2.9 miles per kilowatt-hour, or 3.4 cents per mile. Compared to gasoline powered cars, all-electric cars use far less energy to drive the same distance, and consequently cost far less to fuel.

This is why we will see strong hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and 100% battery powered cars on the roads within a few short years. For references and more in-depth explanations of these formulas, read “The Battery Powered Car.”