LincVolt - Repowering the American Dream

A BIG TIME FOR LINCVOLT

This is the push towards completion. In this opening week, wiring of the High Voltage systems is finally under way. 75KW Generator and 150 KW traction motor controllers are the heart of the Lincvolt High Voltage system. 120 new 110 Amp-Hour Thunder Sky batteries arrive this week and 110 of them will be installed in the trunk area, with 10 allowed as spares. Battery Management and protection systems also will be installed, followed by the new dashboard instrumentation, which is custom designed to monitor all of Lincvolt's systems.

At that point, work will resume on the final tuning of the Lincvolt Rotary motor, which is uniquely configured for fuel economy. Located outside of the car for now, on its own dyno, this motor will ultimately be used to turn the 75KW UQM generator. This time fuel for the rotary motor will be a turbocharged mix of hydrogen, ethanol and water. The fuel mix will be further refined during this process. When the stage is completed, the ECU (engine control unit) and turbocharger will be moved to Lincvolt's engine compartment and installed on the rotary already under the hood. The 75KW UQM generator charges the batteries and is capable of performing this function whether Lincvolt is travelling or stationary.

Numerous safety systems will be installed, checked and re-checked.

The Lincvolt Intelligent Dashboard computers will be programmed and come online, monitoring all of the sensors and feeding information to the instrument panel and main screen located in the dash. This screen is tucked away in the former glove compartment unless needed when it slides out and is easily viewed from the driver and passenger seats. The Lincvolt Intelligent Dashboard will allow Lincvolt to broadcast a complete set of stats live to lincvolt.com and the Lincvolt App, allowing those interested in following Lincvolt's progress to be right with us when the car is being tested on a chassis dyno and following that, as we travel North America.

When this work is done, Lincvolt will begin Chassis dyno testing and further system checking and tuning. These systems will allow the 5700 LB Continental Electro-Cruiser to travel hundreds of miles without stopping for refueling or recharging. As always, we envision some delays for unknown reasons, although considerable preparation has gone into this stage of build.

Stay tuned. The Lincvolt team thanks you for your support.

VOLKSWAGEN'S $600 CAR GETS 258 MPG

by Mark Leevan, examiner.com,

This $600 car is no toy and is ready to be released in China this year.

The single seater aero car totes VW (Volkswagen) branding.

Volkswagen did a lot of very highly protected testing of this car in Germany, but it was not announced until now where the car would make it's first appearance.

The car was introduced at the VW stockholders meeting as the most economical car in the world is presented.

The initial objective of the prototype was to prove that 1 liter of fuel could deliver 100 kilos of travel.

The aero design proved essential to getting the desired result. The body is 3.47 meters long and just 1.25 meters wide, and a little over a meter high. The prototype was made completely of carbon fiber and is not painted to save weight.

The power plant is a one cylinder diesel positioned ahead of the rear axle and combined with an automatic shift controlled by a knob in the interior.

Safety was not compromised as the impact and roll-over protection is comparable to the GT racing cars.

• This is a single seated car
• From conception to production: 3 years
• Will be selling for 4000 yuan, equivalent to US$ 600
• Gas tank capacity = 1.7 gallons
• Speed = 62 Kph, 74.6 Mph
• Fuel efficiency = 258 miles/gallon
• Travel distance with a full tank = 404 miles

V2G CONCEPT TAKING HOLD

by Karin Zeitvogel, AFP, February 19, 2010

SAN DIEGO, California - US researchers unveiled a vehicle Thursday that earns money for its driver instead of guzzling it up in gasoline and maintenance costs.

The converted Toyota Scion xB, shown at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here, is the first electric car to be linked to a power grid and serve as a cash cow.

"This is the first vehicle that's ever been paid to participate in the grid -- the first proof of concept vehicle," Ken Huber, who oversees technological development at wholesale electricity coordinator PJM Interconnection, told AFP.

The presentation of the box-like, unassuming looking Scion was the researchers' way of introducing the "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G) concept as it begins to gain momentum in the United States and around the world.

V2G projects with hybrid cars that use electricity and gas to store energy in their batteries and feed it back into the power grid are up and running in the United States, and the drive now is to produce all electric vehicles to plug into the power grid.

"This makes the car useful not only when it's being driven, but also when it's parked, as long as you remember to plug it in," said Willett Kempton, who is leading a V2G project at the University of Delaware.

A V2G car is connected via an Internet-over-powerline connection that sends a signal from inside the car's computer to an aggregator's server.

The aggregator acts as the middleman between the car owner and power grid management companies, which are constantly trying to keep electricity output at a constant level.

When the grid needs more power due to a surge in demand, power companies usually draw from traditional power plants, which in the United States are often coal-fired and leave a large carbon footprint.

When V2G becomes more widespread, the power could be drawn from millions of vehicles plugged into sockets in home garages or from commercial fleets, such as the US Postal Service's vans, for a much smaller footprint than that of the power plants.

Grid management companies like PJM Interconnection currently pay around 30 dollars an hour when taking power from a car.

V2G is still a new concept, but it is gaining ground in the United States and Europe.

"Ten years ago, this was just a plan. Today, it's a real project and in 10 years, we'll be producing tens of megawatts of power this way," said Kempton, adding that V2G will readily find applications in countries that are rapidly ramping up reliance on wind and solar energy, such as Denmark and Britain.

Huber said he will be meeting in the coming weeks in Paris with heads of European grid management companies about V2G.

"We're going to try to determine how we can work together on this. It's a technology that is very good at meeting a need we have, and there's growing interest among auto companies to develop V2G vehicles," he added.

AC Propulsion of California has designed an electric drive system for V2G, and car manufacturers including Renault/Nissan, Mitsubishi and BMW are producing all-electric vehicles with an eye on the V2G market.

POETRY IN MOTION: WHY NEIL YOUNG'S LINCVOLT MATTERS

by Karen Barry, blogcritics.com, January 25, 2010

So I'm writing to you from behind the wheel of a car I've never seen. In person, anyway. But this car, she's beautiful. And smart. And completely irresistible. I've kind of fallen in love with her. I'm sitting here behind the wheel of Neil Young's LincVolt (in my mind), just drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, and thinking. I'm trying to figure out why she matters so much to me. LincVolt is a 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV currently being converted to an eco-friendly vehicle that will achieve more than 100MPG with zero emissions.

She is the most unlikely eco-friendly vehicle you will ever see. At more than 2.5 tons and 19.5 feet long, she has been lovingly referred to by her owner as "The Flying Brick," an apt moniker. The '59 Lincoln, designed at a time when American cars were at the height of tail fin and heft absurdity, was chosen by Neil for that very reason: If this car can be earth-friendly, then surely yours can be too. That's cool, right? Move on. Right? I can't! I keep thinking about her. I'm in love! I had to find out why.

Maybe LV (that's what I call her) matters so much to me because I love Neil Young so much. Well, yeah, sure, that's part of it. Anyone who knows me would tell you I'm the Number One Fan of The Man From Tennessee, uh, Omemee. I'm pretty sure there's a wanted poster with my picture on it in his manager's mailroom. But it's more than that, somehow. Maybe it's Kevin's fault.

Kevin, my older brother and only sibling had one passion and one passion only: cars. I spent my childhood playing with not dolls but Matchbox cars, whiling away the warm September evenings not hand-in-hand with a boyfriend but trailing after my brother and best friend, trolling the lots of every car dealer in town, inspecting the new models the day they rolled off the trailer. Family road trips meant, for my brother and me, one of our two favorite games: Name That Car!

The year, make, and model of the other cars on the road shot out of our mouths as if our lives depended on it; if I could beat my brother to the punch on even one, I had won. The latest fashions in tail lights, tail fins, and bumpers were as familiar to me as the painter's pants, Earth shoes, and maxi skirts I tried to keep up with in the hallways of our big public school. (The other favorite game of ours, well, uh, his, was Car & Squirrel. You can imagine how that one went down. You know. Who played the car and who played the squirrel? Ugh. Sometimes it's hard to be the youngest.)

But I'm going off the road here. Maybe, maybe LV matters so much to me simply because I'm such a fan of The Earth and this is the world's coolest green vehicle? No, no, no. It's more. So much more. If I am ever to get to the bottom of this, I need to go back to the beginning, when Art and Science first shook hands, and became friends: The Age of Romanticism. Come with me.

During The Age of Romanticism, Wordsworth suggested that imagination was the faculty that not only allowed us to truly perceive the world around us, but also, to create it. To create it. Coleridge took it even farther, calling the imagination "intellecutal intuition," with the unique power to join reason and feeling. [1]

The Age of Romanticism was, of course, imagination's golden age. And LincVolt is, of course, its modern day, heavy metal embodiment, representing the most graceful intersection of art and science, where imagination invites reason to dance. Ah. And here is where I begin to unravel the mystery of LincVolt's place in my heart, I think; why this old-new car is more important to me, and to the world, than a passing fancy. By way of its very existence, LincVolt defies conventional wisdom, and leaps the guardrail of mainstream thinking. LincVolt's engagement of our imagination, with its unique alchemy of past, present, and future, moves us beyond thinking, all the way to feeling. Beyond understanding to knowing. To the place where all great scientific discovery, all revolution, really begins: the heart.

According to Gerald Holton, a Professor of Physics and Professor of The History of Science Emeritus at Harvard University, Albert Einstein believed wholeheartedly in the power of the imagination, and "intellectual intuition." In a famous speech of 1918, Einstein suggested that "the elusive, additional element needed for high achievement in science is a 'state of feeling' in the researcher, which he called 'akin to that of ... one who is in love.'" [2] Hmm. I know that feeling. Leave it to Einstein to hit the nail on the head. This is exactly what I am trying to get at with LincVolt. I'm drawn to her. I feel that something is very right here, but I am no scientist. I would be hard pressed to tell you exactly what. But the very sight of her fills me with wonder. Excitement! Hope. I can feel it.

Holton has well explored the art of the scientific imagination, and in fact talks much about how scientists "feel" something before they can prove it. How they just "know." About the scientist's "willing suspension of disbelief, analogous to that which Samuel Taylor Coleridge identified as the task of the poet, and not far from what John Keats referred to as the 'Negative Capability' of great authors (their ability of 'remaining content with half-knowledge.')" [3] In other words, just as poets feel something before they ever put pen to paper, so do scientists have a powerful feeling before they ever set out on their path of great discovery.

Remember that Einstein's theory of the expanding universe -- something that Einstein knew but could not prove more than 90 years ago -- was proven just three years ago, with Einstein long dead. In 2007, Gravity Probe B, one of NASA's most complicated satellites, confirmed to a precision of better than one percent that an object such as the Earth does indeed distort the fabric of space and time, the newly identified "dark energy," eerily resembling the "cosmological constant" which Einstein felt, but could not prove, existed. [4] In conversation Einstein often referred to his inner voice, and indeed seemed to rely more heavily on it than any facts that did or did not present themselves. Albert Einstein had a passionate belief in his own intellectual intuition.

Perhaps the same might be said of us all. That sometimes, important times, we just know something before we can explain or articulate it. This could be, should be one of those important times. Change is afoot. So far traditional methods to change the behaviors of the people and policy makers to bring about significant and necessary change to save our planet from imminent disaster haven't been working, last month's Copenhagen climate talks the most recent, most expansive, most disappointingly horrifying case in point. Things have to be done differently. We need more power. It's time for imagination and reason to start dancing again.

Scientist-philosophers are useful at a time like this, and scientist-philosopher Hans Christian Oersted has become a sort of hero of mine vis a vis this car, not only because of his unique relationship with electricity which laid the groundwork for the discovery of a useable electric current (LincVolt is currently part electric, and may wind up all electric before she's done), but also because in his time he was, to quote Gerald Holton, "a striking example of the fruitful interaction of science and the greater culture, which nowadays is rarely attended to but which is all around us." [5]

When science interacts with the greater culture (LincVolt), big things can happen (in Oersted's case, a useable electric current!); one thing leads to another. But unless science is interacting with the greater culture, as it did during the Age of Romanticism, The Age of Wonder, no such connections can be made, everyone is essentially working in a vacuum. Who knows what kind of idea and change LincVolt out there on the road may spark? It could, quite literally, ignite the fire that will change the world. LincVolt rolling across America with Neil Young behind the wheel is the practical application of the Romantic ideal: By connecting science and ideas to the world around us, and to popular culture, the marriage of imagination and reason is tantiilizingly tangible, and suddenly even greater than the sum of its parts.

I know I'm biased, being in love and all, but LincVolt is greater than the sum of her parts; she is no artist's folly. From the beginning, her development team has been focused on tackling two of the biggest challenges electric cars face, limited range and eventual battery replacement. Currently configured with powerful lithium ion iron phospate batteries and an efficient 75KW generator system to recharge those batteries while underway means that LincVolt is ready for the real world, able to take people on their daily commute or across the continent. As new technologies have become available and discoveries made, LincVolt has evolved, but her original design concept, the electric hybrid, has stood the test of time.

But now, after more than two years of development and many iterations (90 percent of her systems have been completely overhauled since the original proof of concept stage), it seems that LV is at a turning point; her team now weighs the pro's and con's of her current configuration against other possibilities, and their impact on the environment, one last time. Should she be all electric, with a range of 150 miles or so, or an electric hybrid with a back up generator enabling longer trips? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. But it's not only LincVolt that's at a turning point. The whole world is at a turning point, the environmental outlook is bleak; we're in dire need of change. This is the point of no return for us all; it's time for the world, too, to step back, and weigh the pro's and con's of its possibilities one last time, and then, to act. It's time to do things differently, and we need more people who think differently in order to do it.

I know that Bill McKibben, American Environmentalist and Scholar-in-Residence at Middlebury College [6], shares this view of the world; he frequently writes about global warming and alternative energies, and has authored several books on the subject of the environment, including The End of Nature, published in 1989 and widely regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has worked tirelessly for years to impress upon us that "already we've passed the point where we can avoid serious change, and with it the need for a real re-thinking of how we're going to live on this planet." So I decided to ask him what he thought of all this. Did he think, as I do, that LincVolt, and projects like her, projects that represent the intersection of art and science, are criticial to the revolutionary kind of behavioral change our planet needs if it is going to surivive ecologically? It's inspirational, sure (hey, Neil Young's eco-friendly car is so cool! I want one!), but it's more somehow, I tried to explain. It speaks to me, I said. It creates in me something I can feel, rather than think. It speaks to my heart, as well as my brain, and therein lies its magic. All revolution begins in the heart, doesn't it?

McKibben was familiar with LincVolt, and he was intrigued ("What a good article to be writing!"), agreeing that indeed LincVolt matters: "I think in a celebrity culture it's important for celebrities to try and lend their particular talents to things that are already going on, as well as dream up their own things, like the LincVolt." Indeed. LincVolt might well consider becoming part of things that are already going on, like 350.org, the international climate campaign Bill McKibben founded, by, say, driving 350 miles on three gallons of natural fuel, or three charges, or some such, as a part of that organization's 2010 initiatives. Or, LincVolt might consider doing her own thing, perhaps an old-fashioned/new-fangled road trip, a Crossing The Continent in The Heavy Metal Continental Tour. After all, the nation's very first transcontinental highway, and very first named highway, was called the Lincoln Highway. Did Neil Young know that when he chose the Lincoln for this project? Maybe he felt it.

Bill McKibben went on to say that although generally he might worry about celebrity involvement in these issues because it runs the risk of trivializing everything, he didn't have that concern here: "Neil Young doesn't trivialize much!," he said. "He's the real deal. I'm glad he's hooked in." High praise for Neil Young and LincVolt from one of the world's leading minds on how we are going to save the planet for another day. Neil Young is indeed "the real deal," no argument here. And he is perhaps uniquely well qualified for this particular project -- there is a bit of the mad scientist in him. If you've ever seen him play the electric guitar live on a stage you will know what I mean; I don't think I am overstating it when I say that the man has a unique and intimate relationship with electricity, the likes of which you are not likely to experience anywhere else, ever.

We need people like Neil Young, and projects like LincVolt, things that are going to make people feel something, to push our environmental agenda forward. Things that are going to force people to think differently, things that are going to give people permission to abandon their safe haven of reason and rational thought and step into the unknown, to light a candle inside themselves and wander into the dark corners of their imaginations and their hearts. It's time to do things differently.

As author Richard Holmes puts it in his elegant new book Age of Wonder, "The old rigid debates and boundaries - science versus religion, science versus the arts, science versus traditional ethics - are no longer enough. We should be impatient with them. We need a wider, more generous, more imaginative perspective. Above all, perhaps, we need the three things that a scientific culture can sustain: the sense of individual wonder, the power of hope, and the vivid but questing belief in a future for the globe." [7]

To me, this is what LincVolt (and Neil Young) represent: Wonder. Hope. A questing belief in a future for the globe, and us all. It doesn't matter if the car gets 100 miles to the gallon or 150, if the car is all electric or a hybrid, if it crosses the continent on that old Lincoln Highway or just drives Neil Young to his next gig. What matters is that the car IS. An old car that can do new things. Whatever the limits of its abilities and technology in the end, it remains a wonder. A spark.

Artists have the spark that lights the fire that lights the world. LincVolt is a spark. You know, Camus said that a man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. Maybe LincVolt is one of those rediscoveries, for me. When I look at her beautiful, ridiculous, two and a half ton, 19.5 foot long, heavy metal body, it tugs at my heart. When I look at her, I know that here, Neil Young's imagination asked reason to dance. And when I look under the hood, it's a comfort, somehow, such a comfort, to know that sometimes reason says yes.

References
1. A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Landmarks of Literature, Brooklyn College
2, 3. "The Art of The Scientific Imagination," Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus, PhD 1948, Harvard University
4. "Einstein was right: space and time bend," Anushka Asthana and David Smith, The Observer, 15 April 2007
5. "Oersted and the Romantic influences on scientific achievement: Scientist-'Romantic' sparks interest," Alvin Powell, Harvard University Gazette, 2 May 2002
6. Bill McKibben
7. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes, Pantheon, 2009

TURNING POINT

Well we're at a turning point now. Time has passed and things have changed. We've done lots of things, tried many ideas. Some even seemed to succeed, like natural gas as a fuel. We did well with it and seemed to get good mileage. But that fuel is not so clean really. If you burn it all it's clean, but if any escapes unburned its real dirty and hurts the world. It smells bad for a reason.

We have experimented with ethanol fuel and E 85, gasoline, biodiesel, hydrogen gas from water, and now we have come to a turning point. A friend says "if you need to go a long way, don't take a car. Take a plane or a train. Try to just use electricity because it is the cleanest." Yes, some of it comes from coal, some from Nuclear and some from Wind and the Sun. Electricity, unlike fossil fuels, is getting cleaner all the time with all the new sources of power being harnessed to make it.

So now we have to decide what is best for us going forward. Will it be just electricity with a range of 150 miles or so, or will it electricity with a lesser range and a back up generator to use if you run out on a long trip and aren't near a charging station? That's where we are now. We are doing the final tests. We have even created hydrogen from water and we will be seeing this week or so whether that method of creation took as much power to make the hydrogen as it produces from the hydrogen. We will find out and make our decision what to use now. What combination of fuels to use or maybe no fuels at all. Just electricity. Maybe that is what Lincvolt will be. Its all happening right now and we will know soon.

We will know whether the rotary generator will stay or go and be replaced by more batteries. The newest batteries are great and if you take your time and don't overcharge them, they can really last the life of the car.

The car is coming together for the last time. It is a safer and stronger car than it has ever been and after re-doing 90% of the "proof of concept" version she is now ready for the long haul. Stay with us. It will be a good trip.

WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST

There is still a lot to overcome if electric cars are to become part of the clean future we need. We're up against a lot.... the entire middle-east, the U.S. Government, all 50 State governments, the entire auto industry, the oil industry.....

Today there are 162,000 gas stations in the U.S. The states take in about $30 billion in fuel taxes annually, the Federal Government about $25 billion annually. No politicians are talking about this issue and how to address it.

Never mind the oil industry. Most of the automakers' business plan is wrapped around a 50X markup on parts electric cars don't need. If the US taxpayer is paying to keep these companies going it is past time for them to change. No one said it was going to be easy.

The Lincvolt Development Team is targeting the biggest electric car problems. Limited range and eventual battery replacement worries are the two biggest hurdles that electric vehicles face in the consumer market.

Lincvolt will never run out of power and leave passengers stranded. Lincvolt's batteries will last for the life of the car. Powerful Lithium Ion Iron Phosphate batteries are one of Lincvolt's silver bullets. Lincvolt's efficient 75KW generator system will re-charge these batteries before they get near the limit and dramatically extend their life.

On long-range journeys the Lincvolt generator system will cycle on and off while the vehicle is underway, automatically making sure that Lincvolt is charged and ready for any power challenge.

On daily commutes, Lincvolt's 75-mile all electric range will allow zero tailpipe emissions. The electric grid is getting smarter and cleaner every day with renewable energy sources coming online. That is Lincvolt's nightly power source. Today that is wasted power that is generated all night long.

Last week the Pope chastised world leaders for not protecting God's Creation with bold action at their Climate Change summit in Copenhagen. It is going to take some hard choices for the change we believe in to become a reality. It is really time for world leaders to step up and act.

The future is in your hands too. Think twice the next time before you turn the key. Is your fuel renewable? Is your fuel domestic? Is your car clean running? Is it electric? Is it Hybrid? Is it efficient? Can you afford to change? Can you afford not to change?

RECHARGING AND OTHER CONCERNS KEEP ELECTRIC CARS FAR FROM MAINSTREAM

by Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, December 24, 2009

It was dark and rainy, and the battery on his nifty Mini E electric car was almost gone.

Paul Heitmann rolled quietly through the suburban New Jersey gloom, peering through the rain on the windshield, not sure what he was looking for, anxiety turning into panic. He needed juice. He spotted a Lukoil gas station, which was closed, and beside the point, anyway. But beyond the pumps, there was a Coke machine, and it was lit up.

"I thought 'Finally!' because I knew if there was light, there would be electricity," he said. "I managed to find the outlet behind the Coke machine and plugged in."

As many of the auto companies tell it, next year may be the year that the massive U.S. auto industry really begins to go electric.

Timothy Gill juices up his Mini E. When it got cold, he found that the battery didn't last as long.
(photo: Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)

The all-battery Leaf from Nissan is scheduled to go on sale in November. General Motors will begin selling the Chevy Volt, a primarily electric car (with a small auxiliary gasoline engine that kicks in to boost the car's range). Ford has plans to produce an electric commercial van. The Obama administration has doled out $2.4 billion to companies involved in producing batteries and other parts of electric cars.

"We have to get on with the electrification of our industry," William Clay Ford Jr., chairman of Ford, said during a visit to Washington on Monday.

"I know we have to have an electric car," GM Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. told reporters last week.

But overshadowing prospects for the transition of the vast U.S. auto fleet to electric -- and the billions of dollars the automakers have invested in the switch -- is the question of whether anyone beyond a sliver of enthusiasts will soon embrace the newfangled cars, which force drivers to rethink their habits and expectations of convenience.

For now, the only major automaker with a fleet of new all-electric vehicles priced for mainstream consumers is BMW, with its 500 Mini E electrics in what the company describes as a test of the technology. To judge from interviews with drivers and more than a dozen of their blogs, it has also proved to be a test of consumer adaptability.

The electrics pose two primary challenges to convention: When fully charged, electric cars generally cannot travel even half the distance that a conventional car can go on a full tank. And once the battery is depleted, there are few places to recharge besides home, and the charging process can take hours.

Heitmann, for example, sat in the dark beside the Coke machine for one midnight hour to make sure he had enough charge to make it the four miles to his mother's house.

"I sat there looking at the gas pumps that said $2.45 a gallon," he recalled. "And I thought, 'What I wouldn't give to be able to use that.' Two and a half dollars, and I could have gotten another 25 miles."

Many of the Mini E drivers are rhapsodic about the car's performance and the promise of environmental benefits, as is Heitmann. They have been, after all, willing to join a select group that pays about $850 a month to lease the cars and have a recharging wall box installed at their homes. But when Mini E drivers get together, their talk often turns to the art of maximizing the number of miles they can get with a single charge.

Their tricks: They slow down -- driving fast takes more power per mile because of aerodynamics and other factors. So some poke along at 55 mph on the highway as other drivers zoom past. In a pinch, they turn off the heater or the air conditioner, tolerating a chill or a sweat to get another mile. And they have learned that in very cold weather, they must further restrict their travels. When temperatures dip, the normal 100-mile range can shrink to as little as 80.

"I was shocked," said Robert Hooper, 44, a computer manager from New Jersey, when he realized how much his range shrank in the cold. When he considers the prospects of the 70-mile trip to his fiancee's house in the cold, he said, "I'm nervous."

Timothy Gill, 59, a software engineer from Maplewood, N.J., learned the hard way.

With a round-trip daily commute of 85 miles, Gill figured he could easily live within the official 100-mile range of the Mini E. And he did, until the first cold snap.

His next blog entry tells the story: "Towed! After only 87.8 miles. . . . Sheesh!"

The car companies staking investments on electric cars argue that such difficulties will soon be minimized. They say that the cars, now pricey, will be manufactured more cheaply as they are produced in greater numbers. Battery innovations will provide greater range at lower cost. The problem of the cold will diminish as heating systems are better-developed.

Perhaps most critically, they say, public charging stations will become far more common.

There are about 117,000 gas stations in the United States.

By contrast, a database of public recharging stations maintained by Tom Dowling, an electric-car enthusiast in California, lists 734 public charging stations in the United States, with the vast majority in that state.

Dowling said the comparison to gas stations isn't completely apt because most charging can be done at home.

But the lack of public charging stations is a widely recognized hurdle for the electrification effort.

In conjunction with Nissan, a company called Ecotality has a $100 million federal grant to set up about 7,000 stations in five states.

Given these hurdles, some automakers and environmentalists have cast a wary eye on the enthusiasts.

"I would argue that the case for the electric car is not proven," said Jim O'Donnell, chairman and chief executive of BMW North America, which built the Mini E. "We're not quite sure people are willing to go for it. We're asking consumers to pay more and get less. Our view is: Proceed with caution."

John DeCicco, a University of Michigan lecturer and former senior fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund, said that the expectations for electric cars were similarly high in the '90s, after California passed a zero-emissions mandate.

"What they were saying about electric vehicles then is about what they're saying now," he said. "They were banking on battery breakthroughs then. They're still banking on them."

Nevertheless, the enthusiasts remain optimistic, many hoping to lead the way to weaning the U.S. from foreign oil and others concerned about the environment. By DeCicco's reckoning, the carbon footprint of the Mini E is about half that of the gas version of the Mini Cooper.

"The car is a joy," said Gill, the Mini E driver whose previous car was a '93 Toyota Corolla and who long ago began bringing cloth bags to the supermarket for environmental reasons. His new license plate says "WHY GAS."

"The range of the cars and the infrastructure has to improve," he said. "But that will happen."

WORK CONTINUES.....

In South San Francisco at Brizio Street Rods, the new Lincvolt Garage, work continues with the excellent team there as the holiday season begins. Installation of the new electrical components, addition of safety systems, wheel design and final installation will be done during the next few weeks. Early in January, we will be installing the new dashboard, which is fed from Lincvolt's computer, programmed by Paul Perrone.

When that work is done, Johnathon Goodwin will return to California to "tune the system in." At that point Lincvolt will be moving to a chassis dyno for more testing. Late in January or February, we hope to be driving Lincvolt again. It has been a long haul and the Lincvolt project is now in its third year, with new faces, reorganization, and new energy.

The Lincvolt Garage Auction is going well, providing much needed financial support for the project. Next year we will be opening our new sponsorship program. Watch the site for more details on that. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah!

HYBRID ELECTRIC SUPERCAR WITH MICROTURBINE TECHNOLOGY TO DEBUT AT LA AUTO SHOW

By Jason Hendler, allcarselectric.com, November 30, 2009

Capstone Turbine Corporation, producer of ultra low emissions micro-turbines, has embedded their micro turbine technology in a hybrid electric supercar, the CMT-380, which was designed by Electronic Arts Chief Creative Director Richard Hilleman. In the description below, it sounds very much like a series electric hybrid, or extended-range electric vehicle, like the Chevy Volt. No price or availability was provided, so I assume it is intended to demonstrate the potential for the use of micro turbines in HEV's.

Moller International has a competing product line of rotary and compound rotary engines with the same ultra low emissions benefits, which you can see here. (see next story)

PRESS RELEASE:

CHATSWORTH, Calif., Nov. 30, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.capstoneturbine.com) (Nasdaq:CPST) is pushing traditional hybrid electric vehicle barriers with the introduction of the CMT-380, a high performance hybrid electric supercar powered by traditional batteries and an untraditional ultra low emission range extending microturbine, which is essentially like having an ultra-clean and quiet jet engine under the hood. The supercar, which is in the design and test phase, was developed in partnership with Electronic Arts Chief Creative Director Richard Hilleman.

The prototype hybrid electric supercar with microturbine technology will debut at the LA Auto Show Dec. 2-13.

"The sleek-looking, low to the ground, high-performance supercar definitely raises hybrid's cool factor on several levels," stated Jim Crouse, Capstone's Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "The CMT-380's design performance numbers speak for themselves: 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds, 150 mph top speed, and an unheard-of driving range of up to 500 miles on a single tank of fuel, all with ultra-low exhaust emissions that rival any hybrid on the market today," added Crouse.

The concept for the high performance hybrid electric microturbine vehicle was developed by Electronic Arts Chief Creative Director Richard Hilleman, creator of popular video games, with support from Capstone Turbine, the world's leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems.

Capstone and Hilleman's microturbine enabled hybrid supercar features a Capstone C30 (30-kilowatt) microturbine that runs on diesel or biodiesel, which is housed inside a sleek Factory Five Racing GTM body. The Capstone C30 microturbine is so clean it does not require any exhaust after treatment to meet stringent clean air requirements of the California Air Resources Board or EPA 2010.

The CMT-380 features lithium-polymer battery cells that can be charged at home or at a public recharging station. While driving, the sports car can operate on 100 percent battery power in zero emissions mode for a range of up to 80 miles. When the batteries reach a predetermined state of discharge, the Capstone C30 microturbine quietly fires up and recharges the batteries on the fly to extend the driving range up to 500 miles. The diesel fueled C30 microturbine requires less maintenance than traditional combustion engines and produces ultra-low exhaust emissions.

"Capstone's CMT-380 is just now finishing up the conceptual design and first article testing stage," said Darren Jamison, Capstone President and CEO. "We plan to finalize very soon a limited production plan, in part, based on interest received at the LA Auto Show. We anticipate customers will be a select group of individuals who appreciate its many innovative high-performance and high-technology driving characteristics, long driving range and ultra-low emissions," added Jamison.

Not only does this car look great and is fun to drive, but its low-maintenance, high-efficiency turbine engine makes it a stress-free, no compromise hybrid," said Richard Hilleman, CMT-380 co-creator. "The CMT-380 is perfect for people who want it all. These kinds of customers value a high level of driving performance but also are concerned about social issues such as reducing greenhouse emissions and limiting our country's dependence on foreign oil," added Hilleman.

Hybrid Electric Cars One of Many Applications of Microturbine Technology Worldwide

Capstone Turbine is the world's leading producer of clean-and-green, highly efficient and reliable microturbines. Capstone's 30-kilowatt microturbines have been installed in hybrid electric buses, trolleys and transit shuttles around the world, including hybrid buses operating today in U.S. cities like New York, Baltimore and Charlotte, and internationally in London, Tokyo, Paris, Rome and Auckland, reducing greenhouse emissions and extending the range of these state of the art hybrid electric vehicles.

"The vehicle market is not a new market for Capstone," Jamison said. "In fact hybrid electric vehicle applications have always been part of Capstone's vision since the company was founded back in 1988. The first microturbines Capstone designed and built were integrated into automotive applications. But like all new technologies, timing is everything and our initial hybrid design for cars was ahead of its time and the company turned to the more mature stationary power markets. Now, more than two decades later, hybrid electric vehicles are gaining interest in the market and people are taking another look at microturbines as electric vehicle battery chargers and for public charging stations," added Jamison. Earlier this year, a C30 liquid-fueled microturbine was successfully integrated into a Ford S-Max people carrier in the United Kingdom by Langford Performance Engineering Ltd. You can see more information about the Langford Whisper hybrid electric microturbine vehicle at http://www.capstoneturbine.com/news/story.asp?id=512. "The Capstone CMT-380 is a fun hybrid car with tremendous performance. Although it is not in Capstone's business plan to start manufacturing complete cars, the limited production CMT-380 and Langford Whisper hybrid demonstration vehicle are intended to showcase the technology and demonstrate value proposition of microturbines as electric vehicle range extenders," added Jamison. "Both Capstone and Langford have been in discussions with automotive industry companies, and these concept and demonstration vehicles help showcase the technology and generate public awareness of the benefits of microturbine technology."

Capstone has shipped over 5,000 microturbines worldwide which are able to produce energy ranging from 30 kilowatts up to 5 megawatts and are supplying power at sites around the world, including office buildings, hospitals, hotels, universities, oil and gas applications, landfills, waste water treatment plants, farm digesters, industrial manufacturing operations and others.

Capstone microturbines can run on a variety of fuels, including natural gas, waste methane from landfills, biodiesel, diesel, kerosene and propane. Microturbine efficiency increases when used in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and Combined Cooling Heat and Power (CCHP) applications that utilize waste heat energy produced by the microturbines to recapture and heat water or buildings, or run through an absorption chiller to create air conditioning.

What is a Microturbine?

The CMT-380's 30-kilowatt microturbine features an electric generator and turbine components mounted on a single shaft, which is supported by air bearings -- so there are no liquids to lubricate or cool the microturbine. It uses a patented combustion system to achieve extremely low exhaust emissions that do not require expensive exhaust after treatment to meet stringent California Air Resources Board and EPA 2010 requirements. Even more efficiency comes from its patented recuperator (or air-to-air heat exchanger), which extracts energy from the exhaust stream and recycles it to preheat air coming into the combustion chamber, thus greatly increasing efficiency. Capstone microturbines are well-known for several reasons:

• Air bearings support the entire rotating assembly. No oil or other lubricants are needed, so maintenance is extremely low and the need to dispose of hazardous materials is eliminated.
• Capstone microturbines operate at extremely high speeds, up to 96,000 rpm, which results in a very high power to weight ratio.
• Microturbines have a smaller footprint and lighter weight compared to traditional combustion engines.
• Continuous combustion and lean premix operation allows for extremely low exhaust emissions.

ROTAPOWER'S HYBRID ENGINE FOR ELECTRIC CARS READY FOR PRODUCTION

FOR THE VOLT, HOW'S LIFE AFTER 40 (MILES)?

by Lindsay Brooke, New York Times, November 19, 2009

SITTING behind the wheel of a 2011 Chevrolet Volt prototype on Wednesday, I found myself confronting what may be the greatest fear that future owners of electric vehicles will face: a battery-charge indicator showing just a few miles of remaining range.

If I were out on a desolate Interstate in a vehicle powered solely by batteries, I'd be praying to the god of electrons for a place to pull off and plug in a charging cord. But my drive is at General Motors' proving grounds here, and I'm about to experience what the Volt's vehicle line director (and my passenger), Tony Posawatz, says is the car's trump card: a gasoline-powered generator under the hood.

Like other reporters, I had already driven Volt prototypes in the battery-powered mode, and they were predictably smooth and silent. But for eventual Volt owners, a crucial -- and so far unanswered -- question is how the car will perform when the battery's charge is depleted and all electricity is provided by an onboard generator, driven by a gasoline engine, that has no mechanical connection to the wheels.

Will it be a slug? How annoying will the noise of the generator's engine be in an otherwise mute car?

G.M. engineers say that a fully charged Volt is capable of 40 miles of purely electric driving before the computer calls for the generator, which has an output of 53 kilowatts (about 71 horsepower), to start and sustain the battery's minimum charge level -- the "extended range" operating mode.

So what is life after 40 like in the Volt?

It takes a few laps of Milford's twisty, undulating 3.7-mile road course to deplete the remaining eight miles of battery charge. With the dashboard icon signaling my final mile of range, I point the Volt toward a hill and wait for the sound and feel of the generator engine's four pistons to chime in.

But I completely miss it; the engine's initial engagement is inaudible and seamless. I'm impressed. G.M. had not previously made test drives of the Volt in its extended-range mode available to reporters, but I can see that in this development car, at least, the engineers got it right.

I push the accelerator and the engine sound does not change; the "gas pedal" controls only the flow of battery power to the electric drive motor. The pedal has no connection to the generator, which is programmed to run at constant, preset speeds. This characteristic will take some getting used to by a public accustomed to vroom-vroom feedback.

A few hundred yards later, as we snake through the track's infield section, the engine r.p.m. rises sharply. The accompanying mechanical roar reminds me of a missed shift in a manual-transmission car. For a moment the sound is disconcerting; without a tachometer, I guess that it peaked around 3,000 r.p.m.

I asked what was going on.

"The system sensed that it's dipped below its state of charge and is trying to recover quickly," Mr. Posawatz said. "The charge-sustaining mode is clearly not where we want it to be yet."

Immediately the engine sound disappeared, although it was still spinning the generator. A few times later in our test, the generator behaved in similar fashion -- too loud and too unruly for production -- but there is time for the programmers to find solutions. Volt engineers are revising the car's control software, which will have the effect of "feathering" the transition from the nearly silent all-electric mode to the charge-sustaining mode, when the generator will be operating.

"We're designing a software set of rules, which will just require more seat time for the engineers to finish," Mr. Posawatz said. "We have nine months to work this out."

The sound of the generator running at steady highway speeds is something Volt owners, and others who appreciate the flexibility and efficiency of this type of hybrid system, may have to accept.

Unlike many electrics, including the Tesla Roadster, the Volt's electric drive has no whine. The car feels solid and planted on the road. Clicking the Sport button on the dashboard releases a bit more oomph than when in Normal mode; in terms of efficiency, there isn't much difference between the two except at peak power.

The Low mode-- Chevrolet plans a flashier name for it by next fall -- is unique in the electric-car world, and a useful feature. While coasting, it applies electric motor braking, then smoothly blends in the regular brakes.

Even beyond the regenerative function, Low mode offers one-pedal driving in slow speed, stop-and-go, and downhill environments. The regenerative braking, whether applied through the Volt's foot pedal or by pulling the shift lever down into Low mode, is both progressive and predictable. This is in stark contrast to the harsh, abrupt regenerative braking delivered by BMW's all-electric Mini-E, for example.

There is minimal body lean in the tight corners. The low-rolling-resistance Goodyear tires created specifically for the Volt provide excellent grip.

Throughout my test, the prototype behaves admirably. At its current state of development, the Volt is an extremely refined vehicle.

PROGRESS

Meantime, Lincvolt's second rotary engine will be set up for further tuning and fuel blending next week. As we make efficiency gains, we will apply them to the onboard rotary, which is now being programmed into the Lincvolt system.

Thanks for your support!

Take your foot off the Gas America

GENERATOR INSTALLED IN LINCVOLT

Lincvolt is feeling good. Now an ethanol fueled, turbo-charged, single rotor engine turning a UQM 75KW generator is in place under the hood. Next week the Lincvolt battery enclosure will be built in Wichita, KS. A lot of progress has been made and we are ready to place the electrical components. We will keep you posted.

ELECTROMOTIVE

Lincvolt now has a single rotor engine running on renewable fuel to turn a 75 KW generator. The engine is controlled by Electromotive's WinTEC 3. Beginning next Monday tuning and fuel blending experiments will continue.

Stay tuned. Thank you for your support.

SAE 2009: FEV PROPOSES WANKEL ROTARY AS RANGE EXTENDER

by Sam Abuelsamid, Autoblog.com, April 22 2009

As more automakers are working on extended range electric vehicles, the issue of NVH is becoming even more of an issue than in existing parallel hybrid vehicles. With vehicles that operate predominantly in electric mode minimizing the impact of starting up the range extender or auxiliary power unit is critical. Companies like General Motors are working hard to make sure the range extenders operate as quietly and smoothly as possible, but small piston engines inherently have some degree of vibration.

Engineering services company FEV has been studying the problem and has decided to propose an unusual solution. FEV has built an experimental range extended electric version of the Fiat 500 that uses a small Wankel rotary engine as the APU. The Wankel has a number of potential advantages, including much higher power density than piston engines and virtually vibration free operation. The high specific power output means that a very small engine can be used that reduces weight and adds packaging flexibility. The downside is that Wankel's traditionally aren't very fuel efficient. However, FEV feels that most ER-EVs will be driven predominantly in EV mode and the limited use of the range extender will limit the effect of the lower engine efficiency. New Wankel engines can also be made more efficient through the adoption of technology like direct fuel injection. It remains to be seen if anyone will adopt a Wankel range extender in a production vehicle, but it's an interesting idea.

RUNNING LATE

Lincvolt is being updated with a new battery configuration and the drive train is in place ready to test on a chassis dyno. The new Lincvolt Battery Management System (BMS) is scheduled for installation the week of October 12. Wiring will be re-routed to accommodate the new battery configuration and BMS. New components will be waiting to be installed and tested with the generator running, looking for spikes that have somehow gotten around the filter in previous tests and caused damage to previous components.

The rotary motor that will turn the generator is still causing problems for the team. We are working on our fifth rotary motor with tuning set to commence again on October 6. We are attempting to turn a 75 KW UQM motor with a single-rotor engine that gets about 65 HP. Three weeks of attempts by Uli Kruger and Johnathan Goodwin have not been able to attain the results we are looking for. The rotary program has been plagued with failure since the beginning and now, after 18 months of experimenting with different fuels, we think we are finally on the verge.

At the recommendation of Roy Brizio, we have brought in a professional tuner who will start on the 6th at Brizio's Street Rods in South San Francisco, California. Uli Kruger will be on hand to describe the goals of our testing for the tuner. This will be a "make or break" for the rotary. Since the car is completely set up for a rotary we may have to fall back on a naturally aspirated gasoline powered rotary to use as a placeholder while we finish the rest of the Lincvolt system. The rotary type motor we have chosen to turn the generator may be the wrong one and we will find another approach if that is the case. We may have to proceed with the naturally aspirated gasoline powered rotary in the meantime. This will enable us to completely tune in the rest of the car. We are all excited about that!

Team member Paul Perrone will be on hand when Lincvolt moves onto a chassis dyno this month newly rewired, reconfigured, and with a working generator system. Paul is an expert in robotics, and will be programming the cycling of the generator system, i.e. programming the onboard intelligence that decides when the generator starts up and shuts down with the car in motion. This has to be done on a chassis dyno. The Lincvolt team is ready for this next stage to begin.

Needless to say, we are running late. We are still weighed down by simple problems that seem unrelated to the tuning process and we have been unable to complete the task of experimenting in a meaningful way with different fuels. If you have been watching us, it is easy to see how frustrating 18 months of pursuing the rotary motor concept has become. But it is just starting to get really interesting!

Yet, we still remain optimistic that we will succeed. We have seen a lot of indicators that the rotary motor holds some great possibilities for fuel economy.

The week of October 5-12 will be critical to making a run at our scheduled trip to Las Vegas on November 2. Stay tuned.

In the event that we do not make the trip, we will continue with the development until we are satisfied that we have exhausted all of our alternatives.

The Goodwin Young Lincvolt team thanks you for your support.

TEST RUN

We are targeting a test run from San Francisco to Las Vegas at the first of November. We will be attempting a run with no plug-ins, recharging while under way with the latest Lincvolt generator system. In preparation for this, we will be tuning the generator motor for maximum efficiency. This begins with Uli Kruger and Johnathon Goodwin doing the tuning at Brizio Street Rods. When that is complete and the rotary is installed in Lincvolt, we will be running the car on a chassis dyno to further tune the charging system, calibrating the run times and KW settings. During this time a Battery Management System and new safety components will also be installed and tested with the Lincvolt intelligent dashboard.

Shakey Pictures will be covering the tuning process over the next 6 weeks or so. The web cam will be active and we will resume our live updates as the process evolves. We are behind on our schedule as originally envisioned, yet we are enthusiastic and optimistic about our chances for success! As we move ahead, thank you for your continued support.

The Goodwin Young Lincvolt team.

SILICON VALLEY SAYS DETROIT MUST START OVER TO SURVIVE

September 19, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- For those who think billions of dollars in federal money has saved the American auto industry, Silicon Valley's venture capitalists have a different view to share.

The U.S. auto industry, they warn, can never become competitive again. It remains too wedded to a dying business model and too out of touch with the sources of innovation, they say.

Instead, they look for a new group of upstart companies to shoot to prominence and profitability, overtaking the automakers once known as the "Big 3" just as Google Inc. came from nowhere a decade ago to eclipse established technology companies.

"I do not believe that the U.S. auto business can be competitive," said Ray Lane, a managing partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. "I don't see any of these new car companies based in Detroit."

Lane is backing plug-in hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive, which is planning to launch a $39,000 model. He"s also slated to be chairman at V-Vehicle Co., an auto company unveiled in June that plans to build "environmentally friendly" vehicles in Louisiana with backing from billionaire T. Boone Pickens.

Detroit has lost its entrepreneurial spirit, Lane said. "For years they have been led by accountants and lawyers, not engineers and entrepreneurs," Lane said. "That's OK if the industry isn't changing."

"Start over"

So what do Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group need to do to regain marketplace dominance?

"Start over," said Marc van den Berg, managing director of VantagePoint Venture Partners, which backs upstart electric carmaker Tesla Motors and electric-vehicle infrastructure firm Better Place.

The U.S. auto industry has been hit hard by high fixed costs from health care obligations and 27-year sales lows in the past year. After demand did not reach 10 million units in the first half of the year, the cash-for-clunkers program brought July's light-vehicle sales rate to 11.1 million units and August's to 13.7 million. But 2009 sales remain down 28 percent.

GM and Chrysler have restructured in federally sponsored bankruptcies, receiving $60 billion in government funding. Even Ford, which has avoided federal emergency aid and bankruptcy, is counting on government support in the form of nearly $6 billion in low-cost U.S. loans to develop fuel-efficient vehicles.

Business model redesign

But the only way the Detroit 3 can succeed is by completely overhauling the business model, moving beyond just designing attractive cars, Silicon Valley venture capitalists say.

"There is room for business model innovation and technology innovation," said Vinod Khosla, managing general partner of Khosla Ventures.

Khosla said U.S. automakers need to embrace innovation at all levels. He pointed to Better Place, which is building charging infrastructure and battery-swapping stations for electric vehicles.

"Better Place is saying, 'Don't let the consumer buy the batteries,'" Khosla said. "That's a business model innovation."

"There's lots of such innovation possible," he said.

The Silicon Valley financiers have high stakes in the transportation sector and are looking to herald the next wave of innovation in cars. Khosla, co-founder of computing company Sun Microsystems, is backing a number of biofuels makers, including Coskata.

His former firm, Kleiner Perkins, a prolific fund that backed now-household names such as Google and online retailer Amazon, has set its sights on the green technology sector with bets like Fisker and fuel-cell maker Bloom Energy.

Kleiner Perkins' Lane said the success of Google and Amazon stemmed more from their unique business models than their technology.

"It was nifty technology that Google had developed, but there were 10 others that had technology," he said. "It was innovation in the business model that produced the value in Google."

New names

Raj Atluru, managing director of another Silicon Valley venture capital fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, said big carmakers will continue to exist. But new names will herald change in the industry.

"Tata Nano is going to change the entire supply chain. They are changing the economics," Atluru said. "Chery has gone from a start-up automotive company to $6 billion in revenue."

Chery Automobile Co. is among the growing ranks of Chinese firms to have held talks with European or U.S. brands without making any commitments, while India's Tata Motors has made headlines with its $2,500 Nano small car.

Draper Fisher, which has brought industry-changing companies like Internet phone company Skype and e-mail firm Hotmail to the marketplace, is betting on low-cost Indian electric-car firm Reva.

Kleiner Perkins' Lane said a number of changes in the auto industry, including efficiencies in power train and electrification, "will set us up for the next 50 to 100 years in a totally different industry than the one that was created in the last 100 years."

GM SAYS NEW VOLT TO GET 230 MPG IN CITY DRIVING

By Kimberly S. Johnson And Tom Krisher, AP, August 11, 2009

WARREN, Michigan - General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car should get 230 miles per gallon (98 kilometers per liter) of gasoline in city driving, more than four times the current champion, the Toyota Prius.

The Volt is powered by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 40-mile (65-kilometer) range. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity for a total range of 300 miles (480 kilometers). The battery pack can be recharged from a standard home outlet.

GM is marketing the 230-mile (370-kilometer) figure following early tests using draft guidelines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for calculating the mileage of extended range electric vehicles.

The EPA guidelines, developed with guidance from automakers, figure that cars like the Volt will travel more on straight electricity in the city than on the highway. If a person drives the Volt less than 40 miles (65 kilometers), in theory they could go without using gasoline.

Highway mileage estimates -- which are generally higher than city ones -- for the Volt have yet to be released using the EPA's methodology.

"We are confident the highway (mileage) will be a triple-digit composite," GM CEO Fritz Henderson (pictured at left) said.

If the figure is confirmed by the EPA, which does the tests for the mileage posted on new car door stickers, the Volt would be the first car to exceed triple-digit gas mileage.

EPA said in a statement Tuesday that it has not tested a Volt "and therefore cannot confirm the fuel economy values claimed by GM." The agency said it applauded "GM's commitment to designing and building the car of the future -- an American made car that will save families money, significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create good-paying American jobs."

GM has produced about 30 Volts so far and is making 10 a week, said during a presentation of the vehicle at the company's technical center in the Detroit suburb of Warren.

Henderson said charging the volt will cost about 40 cents a day, at approximately 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Most automakers are working similar plug-in designs, but GM could be the leader with the Volt, which is due in showrooms late in 2010.

Toyota's Prius, the most efficient car now sold in the U.S., gets 48 miles per gallon (20 kilometers per liter) of gas. It is a gas-electric hybrid that runs on a small internal combustion engine assisted by a battery-powered electric motor to save gasoline.

Although Henderson would not give details on pricing, the first-generation Volt is expected to cost near $40,000, making it cost-prohibitive to many people even if gasoline returns to $4 per gallon.

The price is expected to drop with future generations of the Volt, but GM has said government tax credits of up to $7,500 and the savings on fuel could make it cost-effective, especially at 230 miles per gallon (98 kilometers per liter).

"We get a little cautious about trying to forecast what fuel prices will do," said Tony Posawatz, GM's vehicle line director for the Volt. "We achieved this number and if fuel prices go up, it certainly does get more attractive even in the near-term generation."

The mileage figure could vary as the guidelines are refined and the Volt gets further along in the manufacturing process, Posawatz said.

GM is nearly halfway through building about 80 Volts that will look and behave like the production model, and testing is running on schedule, Posawatz said.

Two critical areas, battery life and the electronic switching between battery and engine power, are still being refined, but the car is on schedule to reach showrooms late in 2010, he said.

GM is simulating tests to make sure the new lithium-ion batteries last 10 years, Posawatz said, as well as testing battery performance in extremely hot and cold climates.

"We're further along, but we're still quite a ways from home," he said. "We're developing quite a knowledge base on all this stuff. Our confidence is growing."

The other area of new technology, switching between battery and engine power, is proceeding well, he said, with engineers just fine-tuning the operations.

"We're very pleased with the transition from when it's driving EV (electric vehicle) to when the engine and generator kick in," he said.

GM also is finishing work on the power cord, which will be durable enough that it can survive being run over by the car. The Volt, he said, will have software on board so it can be programmed to begin and end charging during off-peak electrical use hours.

It will be easy for future Volt owners living in rural and suburban areas to plug in their cars at night, but even Henderson recognized the challenge urban, apartment dwellers, or those that park their car on the street might have recharging the Volt. There could eventually be charging stations set up by a third-party to meet such a demand, Henderson said.

Chrysler Group, Ford Motor Co. and Daimler AG are all developing plug-ins and electric cars, and Toyota Motor Corp. is working on a plug-in version of its gas-electric hybrid system. Nissan Motor Co. announced last month that it would begin selling an electric vehicle in Japan and the U.S. next year.

LINCVOLT UPDATE

July 25, 2009

The proof of concept stage is complete now and we are moving into the road-ready stage. This is the work that will make our cross-country trip safe.

Lincvolt is currently undergoing re-design and install of some drive train components, most notably the independent rear suspension. These tasks are now being performed at Roy Brizio Street Rods in South San Francisco California by the excellent staff there.

Fine-tuning of the rotary engine system will be done in August at the Brizio facility. Johnathon Goodwin will be accomplishing that important task when he arrives from Wichita.

New custom wheels are being designed and built for Lincvolt by Alan Budnik of Budnik Wheels. These new wheels will improve Lincvolt's safety and stability for the long trip ahead.

The electric power system is being improved with a new battery pack and management system to allow for complete control of the batteries and safe operation. We hope to be making an interesting announcement related to the batteries in the near future. Additionally, some wiring is being upgraded to automotive standards for the long-range journey.

As we move forward and achieve our safety and performance goals, we will be announcing a new schedule for the Lincvolt tour of America.

The Lincvolt team thanks you for your continued support.

LINCVOLT WITHDRAWS FROM X-PRIZE

We have withdrawn Lincvolt from the X-Prize because of the conflict between providing the energy and resources required to develop a viable business plan for the Lincvolt technology, a requirement for X-Prize contestants, versus providing the resources and time required to focus on our main goal.

The development of Lincvolt technology is ongoing. We have always been in a race against Time, not a race against other contestants to win a cash prize.

The Goodwin Young team thanks the X-Prize for the valuable support they provided during the last year. Good luck to all of the contestants!

-- The Goodwin-Young Lincvolt Team.

RENAULT-NISSAN TO ADD PHOENIX TO EV SUPPORT PLANS

By Lindsay Chappell, Automotive News, April 16, 2009

NASHVILLE -- The Renault-Nissan Alliance has added Phoenix to the list of U.S. cities and states that have agreed to develop an electric-vehicle infrastructure to support Nissan EV marketing plans.

Nissan and its French partner Renault plan to market lithium-ion-powered electric vehicles around the world starting in 2010 and have been creating partnerships with government and utility groups to lay the groundwork for vehicle recharging services.

The U.S. list now includes both the Phoenix and Tucson areas of Arizona, San Diego and Sonoma County in California, and the states of Oregon and Tennessee. Earlier this month, the Alliance added Ireland to a list of partnerships that includes the U.K., France, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Israel and Monaco.

Nissan North America said Wednesday night that by adding Phoenix as its sixth U.S. partnership, it hopes to help create an EV-charging corridor that links Phoenix and Tucson, 115 miles away.

Nissan plans to begin selling EVs to commercial and fleet customers starting next year, and to the general public starting in 2012. But the automaker recently said it could launch U.S. retail sales earlier than 2012 if an infrastructure takes shape.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has said that Nissan's EV fleet will consist of several models.

The new Phoenix agreement is with the Maricopa Association of Governments, a government planning and policy entity that represents 31 municipalities and communities around Phoenix.

Building an EV infrastructure will require communities, utility companies, businesses and highway agencies to create public recharging stations along roads and in parking areas. It will also require utility companies to make it easy for consumers to install vehicle-recharging systems in their homes.

NEIL YOUNG'S LINCVOLT HYBRID VISITS VIR

Danville, VA - Famed rocker Neil Young's motor coach and car collection includes a 'series hybrid' vehicle - a 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible. Young and his team recently stopped by VIRginia International Raceway to utilize the Virginia Institute for Performance Engineering and Research's (VIPER) chassis dyno to work on the car's generator engine.

Using VIPER's instruments to fine-tune the single-rotor Wankel engine driving the generator, the stop helped to improve the car's efficiency. Dyno staff led by Victor Seaber helped the team test the generator engine and electric motor output on the chassis dynamometer at VIPER's lab in VIR's North Paddock.

Explaining why he chose to center this project around the huge '59 Lincoln, Young says: "the reason we're using this car is because the car doesn't go against the flow... my theory is you go with flow and then the change will happen quickly. People want big cars. Let's build a big, smart car. What's the problem?"

Young is truly a man who lives his convictions - set about to build a "big American car" that will go down the road in comfort and safety while delivering up to 100 miles per gallon. LincVolt, the name of his car, is the result. "We don't have to change the things that we want to be smart. You can be smart and have the things that you want. Doesn't mean you have to give everything up. [This] is America. Its road's are big. It's a big country. This car's a Continental. It says Continental. That's what it wants, maybe drive to Las Vegas, across the desert, drive to California, pull a trailer."

Young said that with Compressed Natural Gas (CNS) "we got 65 miles per gallon; we switched to gasoline to see what we could do with gasoline." After the engine is warmed up, "we introduce the vaporizer - the vaporizer injects hot fumes into the rotary and since the rotary doesn't go up and down, it goes around, once we get it going on vaporized gasoline fumes, we get better efficiency out of the fumes." To generate hydrogen, LincVolt uses a water-cooled electrical control box to manage the electrical demands. The single-rotor engine drives a 75 kiloWatt UQM electric motor running in reverse, generating power to charge the batteries as neded. LincVolt's engine "runs at only one rpm - it runs at a sweet spot," explained Young, a feature that enhances engine efficiency. The engine is being tested to run on multiple fuel sources, with gasoline, CNG, plus "water gas" -- hydrogen produced via electrolysis from water carried on board.

Pointing to a water-cooled cylinder under the vast hood of the LincVolt, Young described the hydrogen generator: "this thing called a 'slog' - this converts water to a gas through electrolysis. We're working with this gas made from water, which you don't have to refill. It just creates a gas out of water. It's displacing an unknown amount of fuel at this time and that's one thing we're going to figure out here [VIPER]. We've had estimates that it's displacing up to 70% of fuel at this time, but we really don't know. But we know we can get more out of it than we're getting now," explains Young. "The big pie-in-the-sky goal is to eliminate the fuel. 80% of the cost of a gallon of gas comes from distributing and refining it. The cost of making oil to work in a car is what's expensive. So if people had something they could use from home, they wouldn't have to have this distribution system."

Young is not doing this project for commercial reasons: "commercializing is for other people," he says. The LincVolt is entered into the 2010 Automotive X Prize competition, where it must demonstrate fuel efficiency of 100 miles per gallon, Young's ultimate goal.

The LincVolt's performance is impressive for a car of its size and weight, regardless of power source: "we're not as fast off the line as an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) engine is," Neil admits, "but we are fast when you get going - like five to ten miles an hour, you put your foot in this thing and it's just scary."

While working on the car during their three-day stay at VIR and VIPER, Young and his crew enjoyed a lunch buffet with VIR Club members at a club driving day and then had a quiet dinner one evening at the Oak Tree Tavern, VIR's on-site restaurant. During his visit, Young commented to track General Manager Josh Lief that "a lot of love has gone into this place," referring to VIR.

ENGINES FOR HYBRIDS TAKE A SUPPORTING ROLE

By Don Sherman, New York Times, March 12, 2009

ELECTRIC cars, in one form or another, are taking an increasingly important role in the future of personal transportation. That does not mean the internal combustion engine, our faithful power source for more than a century, is on its way to the scrap heap anytime soon.

But the familiar petroleum-fueled engine is being reconfigured for a considerably different role in the electric propulsion era.

This change will be especially evident in cars like the Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid whose gasoline engine only powers a generator to charge the battery pack -- the engine has no mechanical connection to the wheels. The engine is tuned to operate over a narrow speed range, using the least gas and producing the smallest amount of pollutants.

That is a change of direction from recent developments in engine design aimed at improving power and performance. Conventional methods of raising power output -- adding camshafts and valves to let the engine breathe easier, for example -- have been employed alongside refinements in electronic control systems. Modern engines develop more power, over a wider range of speeds, with little sacrifice of drivability or fuel economy.

But eventually, all the power and flexibility so carefully engineered into today's engines will not be needed. Instead, tomorrow's engines will wait patiently until their services are required to extend an electric car's range. After starting, they will hum quietly while assisting the new heroes of hybrid propulsion, electric motors powered by lithium-ion batteries.

Automakers have already begun previewing the engine of this electric-car future. The 2010 Toyota Prius has no rubber belts under its hood to drive external accessories. All of the accessory equipment, including the air-conditioning compressor and the power steering, is powered by electric motors.

One engine strategy used by the Prius and other hybrids is the Atkinson combustion cycle, which sacrifices some power to gain efficiency. The electric motor's torque more than makes up for the slight reduction in engine output.

While General Motors won't reveal the details of the .4-liter 4-cylinder planned for use as a range-extender in the 2011 Volt, John Bereisa, whose many roles at G.M. include directing advanced engineering and technology development strategy, did offer an overview of the engine that will power this car's generator.

"All we need is 67 horsepower, enough to maintain the batteries' charge when the car is cruising at highway speed," he said. "Since there wasn't time to design an engine from scratch, we looked for the smallest existing engine capable of supplying 67 horsepower, which turned out to be G.M.'s Family Zero design used in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East."

Mr. Bereisa continued: "When you map an engine's power versus r.p.m. versus fuel consumption, the resulting chart looks like the Rocky Mountains. In conventional cars, you're driving all over that map. But in the Volt, we're able to keep the engine operating in what I call its happy valley, where it delivers the power that's required while consuming minimal fuel."

The borders of that valley, Mr. Bereisa said, are still under development, but they may range from a low of 2,000 r.p.m. to a high of 3,000 r.p.m, enough to maintain the battery pack's charge.

Pressed to speculate about how electric car engines will further evolve, Mr. Bereisa acknowledged that G.M. engineers are already considering a clean-sheet design for the car he calls Volt II.

"We'd select a smaller displacement engine for the future, probably less than 1 liter," he said. "We'd position the catalytic converter and route the coolant lines to minimize heat losses."

"The engine for the next Volt will definitely be as simple and as light as possible."

GENEVA AUTO SHOW -
EVS: LIMITED RANGE, UNLIMITED BUZZ

GENEVA - Electric vehicles were everywhere here at the auto show, ranging from tantalizing roadsters to stubby microcars. But for all the buzz, automakers still have no solution to the longstanding problem of limited range.

EVs arriving in the next few years will be limited-range "city cars."

Whether electric cars will move beyond that small market segment is unclear.

But automakers very much want zero-emissions electrics in their lineups.

Last week, Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally said his company will emphasize EVs. "In 10 years, 12 years, you are going to see a major portion of our portfolio move to electric vehicles," Mulally said at a conference in California.

Industry attention has turned to two proposed solutions: quick battery recharging and battery-swapping stations.

"In the beginning when the infrastructure isn't anywhere, EVs are going to be predominantly in the city," said Andy Palmer, senior vice president of Nissan Motor Co. "But once you've got the fast-charging stations or the swap stations in place, I don't see them being any different from gas-fired cars, to be honest."

Other executives remain unconvinced. One Daimler executive, for instance, decries quick-charge claims as "fantasies."

Too quick?

Quick-charging advocates say widespread installation of commercial chargers would remove consumers' worries about dead batteries. Nissan, which plans to introduce an electric vehicle for fleets in the United States in 2010, says recharging could restore 80 percent of a battery's energy within 30 minutes.

But Herbert Kohler, Daimler vice president for group research and advance engineering, said quick recharging would cut the 10-year life span that Daimler plans for battery packs.

"Don't believe those kinds of fantasies to say it could be in a few minutes," Kohler said, referring to recharging time.

"Two hours, maybe one and a half, in order to be sure that the lifetime of the battery will stay as announced. Otherwise you will ruin the battery, and those kinds of lifetimes we discussed are never to be realized."

But Nissan's Palmer said that if carefully controlled, "fast charging doesn't have a detrimental effect."

Swap batteries

Battery swapping - promoted by Shai Agassi, founder of the company Better Place - envisions stations where a driver could pull in, have a depleted battery replaced and drive away. Better Place is testing the concept with Renault-Nissan.

Bart Sloep, product group manager for Mitsubishi Motors Europe, said the variety of automotive battery packs poses a major obstacle to swapping.

"It's so complex to have a battery swap system for a large number of cars," Sloep said. "It's impossible because of how many battery packs you will have to keep in stock."

Battery packs weigh 200 kilograms (440 pounds) or more, he said, making replacement difficult. And today's batteries likely will soon become obsolete.

"The current technology in batteries is progressing so fast - what is the residual value of a battery pack in five years?" Sloep said. "Who wants to put money in that?"

Sloep said Mitsubishi, which will launch its i MiEV in Japan in June, sees electric vehicles as city commuter cars: "There will not be an electric car for every situation."

Thomas Weber, Daimler's management board member for group research, said Mercedes-Benz tested battery swapping in fleets of electric prototype cars in the 1970s, but it has rejected the idea for the current generation of electrics.

Despite the uncertainty about bringing electric vehicles into the mainstream, interest is intense.

Supplier Magna Steyr built a concept electric vehicle for Geneva to attract customers for its contract manufacturing plant in Graz, Austria.

Erwin Bair, Magna Steyr's chief engineer for powertrain, said automakers constantly ask about electrics.

"Every customer is talking about it," Bair said. "Every one."

Reuters contributed to this report

ENERGY INEFFICIENT

From plug-in cars to carbon capture to wind farms linked to "intelligent" power grids, many of the solutions pitched to restructure the country's energy system and confront global warming rely on a faith in high tech: we expect, or at least hope, that an Apollo project, the energy equivalent of the dot.com revolution or some other burst of creative genius will engineer the problem away.

Obviously, game-changing technologies will play a big role in cutting America's consumption of fossil fuels. They will also be essential to achieving the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that most scientists think will be necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. But as it frames its strategy to deal with both problems, the Obama administration cannot overlook the low-hanging fruit -- the gains to be had from making existing technologies more efficient.

The plain truth is that the United States is an inefficient user of energy. For each dollar of economic product, the United States spews more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than 75 of 107 countries tracked in the indicators of the International Energy Agency. Those doing better include not only cutting-edge nations like Japan but low-tech countries like Thailand and Mexico.

True, energy efficiency has improved, especially in states like California. But American drivers, households and businesses still use more energy than those in most other rich countries to do the same thing. The United States spends more energy to produce a ton of cement clinker than Canada, Mexico and even China. It is one of the most energy-intensive makers of pulp and paper, emitting more than three times as much carbon dioxide per ton as Brazil and twice as much as South Korea.

Per-capita carbon dioxide emissions by households in the United States and Canada are the highest in the world -- in part because of bigger homes. And the energy efficiency of electricity production from fossil fuels is lower in the United States than in most rich countries and some poor ones, mainly because of the higher share of coal in the mix.

Transportation tells the same story. The United States uses the most energy per passenger mile among the 18 rich economies surveyed by the energy agency. In 2006, the American auto fleet used, on average, a little less than five gallons of gas to travel 100 miles. The Irish went the same distance with under four gallons, the Italians with less than three, basically because they use smaller cars that get better mileage.

The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that switching from an S.U.V. that gets 14 miles per gallon to one that gets 16 would save the same amount of fuel as swapping a 35-mile-a-gallon car for a 51-m.p.g. new generation gas-sipper. This is not an argument for more S.U.V.'s. It simply shows that we can wring savings from modest efficiency gains in products we already use.

A study by McKinsey & Company last year argued that most of the carbon abatement needed between now and 2030 could be achieved with existing technologies, things like insulating homes, improving fuel efficiency, and switching to concentrated laundry detergents to reduce packaging and transport costs. Merely improving transmissions would vastly increase fuel economy.

A quantum jump in energy efficiency will still require political leadership. Cheap energy has kept America from making the necessary investments. Yet they must be made; neither the country nor the atmosphere can wait for high tech to ride to the rescue.

ONTARIO READIES FOR ELECTRIC CARS

TORONTO -- Ontario is taking its first baby steps to position itself for the coming revolution in electric cars by backing a California high-tech company that plans to build battery recharging stations.

Better Place, based in Palo Alto, will unveil a pilot project at a news conference in Toronto today to build a recharging station in Ontario, sources said.

This will be the first foray into Canada for the company, which is working with partners to build recharging stations in the United States, Israel, Denmark and Australia. Better Place is setting up shop here just as the embattled Detroit auto makers are betting their futures on hybrid and battery-powered vehicles, which will arrive as soon as next year.

Premier Dalton McGuinty and Minister of International Trade Sandra Pupatello will be on hand for the announcement to signal the province's support for ventures aimed at getting the next generation of cars onto the province's roads. While there will be no government money attached to today's announcement, sources said that will come at a later date.

The McGuinty government has earmarked a total of $1.15-billion in funding for ventures that will help the province weather the economic downturn by creating jobs of the future. Better Place is an ideal candidate for funding because much of the government's focus is on encouraging the auto sector to build cars that are more environmentally friendly.

Better Place, which was founded in 2007 to help the auto sector reduce its dependence on oil and its carbon footprint, would allow drivers to exchange a depleted electric vehicle battery at one of the company's stations for a fully charged one. Its first recharging station is slated for San Francisco, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a big push for cars with lower emissions.

Plug-in hybrids, or extended-range electric vehicles, run mainly on battery power with a small gasoline engine for backup if the battery runs out of juice before the vehicle reaches its destination.

They were the main focus at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week as the car companies unveiled future vehicles. But persuading consumers to pay the thousands of dollars more for these cars will be a tough sell. The batteries alone can cost as much as $8,000.

The Detroit Three car makers and their rivals unveiled fleet after fleet of gas-electric hybrids or battery-powered cars. Ranges vary, but General Motors Corp. is aiming at a 60-kilometre distance for its Chevrolet Volt, which is due out late next year.

A new completely battery-powered compact from Ford Motor Co. is designed to have a range of about 160 kilometres and will run on lithium ion batteries that can be recharged overnight from home electricity outlets. Ford has formed a strategic alliance with Canadian parts maker Magna International Inc. to develop that vehicle and aims to have 10,000 of them on the road in 2011.

PASSENGER JET DOES TWO HOUR JOURNEY ON VEGGIE OIL!

Cool break for biotechnology!

On Tuesday, an Air New Zealand airplane successfully completed a flight that used a hybrid veggie oil fuel.

This biofuel could lower airplane emissions and cut costs, according to airline reps.

One engine of a Boeing 747-400 airplane was powered by a 50-50 blend of oil from jatropha plants and standard A1 jet fuel.

There's been a real push this year for alternative fuels by airlines, which were slammed by super high oil costs earlier in the year.

Coupled with the massive economic crisis at hand it's not surprising that cost-saving innovations are being embraced.

An Air New Zealand rep couldn't say if the veggie oil blend would be cheaper than standard jet fuel, since jatropha is not yet produced on a commercial scale.

Biofuels were once dismissed for use in aviation because most freeze at the low temperatures up in the skies.

But this new test shows jatropha, whose seeds yield an oil already used to produce fuels like biodiesel, has an even lower freezing point than jet fuel.

Air New Zealand Chief Executive Rob Fyfe said to the media, "Today we stand at the earliest stages of sustainable fuel development and an important moment in aviation history."

The company has also stated that their goal is to become the world's most environmentally sustainable airline.

We hope they reach that goal and that the others follow suit!