May Leaf Update

Nearly another month of driving with electrons. May's not quite over yet, but I have time to post this morning so here goes. In the first 27 days of May, we've put 568 miles on the odometer and 172 KWh on the emeter, for an average of 3.3 miles/KWh. Up slightly from March and April, when we averaged 3.1 miles/KWh. It's getting a bit warmer, so we're using the heater less.

I also started tracking MPGe, the EPA's fuel efficiency metric for EVs. According to the EPA, a gallon of gasoline contains the equivalent of 33.7 KWh of energy. If you disregard how each is produced (more on that later), it gives a like-for-like comparison between gas-powered vehicles and EVs. For March and April, we averaged right around 105 MPGe. With the arrival of (slightly) warmer weather, we're now up to 111 MPGe. Using that same 33.7 ratio, our fuel cost us the equivalent of $3.90 per gallon, or about 3.5 cents/mile.

Something I've blogged about before, but bears repeating: lack of volatility in fuel prices for EVs. Electric rates are typically controlled by a public utility commission. They go up (and down), but on a timescale of months or years, not days. Since we got the Leaf, our fuel price has not changed. In that same time, gasoline has gone from $3.20 to $4.10, and is now back down to $4.00

What good is an electric vehicle if all it does is move CO2 emissions upstream to a coal-fired power plant?

Answer: It doesn't. Let's start with "base load". Coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric are all base load sources of electricity. Utilities use base load power to service the typical needs of their customers. Utilities keep base load plants running 24x7 whether they need the electricity or not, because they can't be started or stopped quickly.

So what type of power is used to recharge EVs? Most EV owners plug their cars in at night, when overall demand for electricity is low. They make use of capacity that would otherwise go to waste. Remember, base load plants run 24x7, producing CO2 whether or not they're generating electricity. EVs are an option for turning the waste CO2 into something useful.

Finally, sources of electricity will get cleaner over time. Wind, solar, geothermal, tidal are all means of generating electricity without producing CO2. Gasoline will just get dirtier. Deep-water wells, tar sands, oil shale, and coal oil are all methods for squeezing out the last drops of fossil fuel, but at an ever-increasing cost to the wallet and the environment.

String Theory

Photo by: Mike Bonnell

As often happens on the ride into work, my mind began to wander. On this particular morning, I started thinking about string theory and manifolds. Specifically, I started counting dimensions. There were the basic three. Plus, I was moving at the time, so that makes four. But then I noticed the changes in temperature as I moved into and out of shaded areas. Five? Birds singing ahead on the right and behind on the left. Six. Heavy scent of cherry blossoms. Cinnamon rolls. Seven. Descending, then climbing. Gravity. Eight.

How many dimensions in your universe?

April Leaf Update

Well, for starters, leaves are finally beginning to appear. And the cherry tree is in full bloom. We're currently struggling through the coldest Spring on record. As a result, the April numbers for the Leaf aren't much better than March: 840 miles and 272 KWh, for an average of 3.1 miles/KWh. At $0.12 per KHw, it's costing us about $0.038/mile to fuel up. At the current price of $4.10 per gallon (yikes!), we're getting the equivalent of 105 MPG.

Otherwise, no issues to report. We did get the service bulletin from Nissan about an issue with the fault detection system. Even though our car isn't affected, Nissan still wants us to have Sparkii reprogrammed just to be on the safe side.

Finally, starting this week, I'm going to answer some commonly-asked questions about EV ownership. This week's question:

How long does it take to recharge the Nissan Leaf?

Answer: 10 seconds. We typically charge the car at night. After parking Sparkii in the garage, I open the hatch cover and plug in. Then I proceed into the house. At 11 PM, the timer goes off and the charger starts up. How long does the charger run? Don't know, don't care. What I do know is I start the next day with a full "tank" of fuel. By way of contrast, how long does it take to put gasoline in your car? If you add up driving to a filling station, waiting in line, pumping the gas, and paying, is it 10 minutes? 15 minutes? With an EV, your "filling station" is at home, and the car refills itself.

Early Days

These are definitely early days with respect to electric vehicles. Level 2 (240v) and Level 3 (480v) public chargers are few and far between. For the most part, EV owners are charging at home and limiting their trips in order to make it back home before running out of stored energy.

Within a few years, the situation will be quite different. Two federally-funded programs (The EV Project and ChargePoint America) are busy installing public charging stations in major metropolitan areas. Electron stations will soon be nearly as ubiquitous as gas stations.

Remember, the automobile existed before gas stations. Back then, you bought your fuel from a druggist or grocer. If you didn't plan your trips carefully, you hired a horse to tow you to the next town, accompanied by the usual comments of "Only a fool would buy an automobile." "A horse never runs out of fuel, there's grass everywhere."

The difference this time is there already exists a nationwide distribution network for EV fuel. It's called the grid. Electricity is everywhere. So although filling up at a high power charging station is more convenient, it's not required. Simply pull out your 110v trickle charger and ask the nearest homeowner if you can borrow a cup of electrons.

LEAF update

Another uneventful month of driving with electrons. Our EV Project-supplied Blink EVSE arrived this month, so now we get all kinds of statistics (see above). The Blink was installed on the 7th, so this is roughly 75% of the monthly total. Mileage isn't shown, but was 650.5 for the same period. Extrapolating for the entire month would put us at 870 miles and 280 KWh, for an average of 3.1 miles/KWh or $0.038/mile. If we were buying gasoline instead (at the current local price of $3.90/gallon for regular), it would be the equivalent of 100 MPG.

But I didn't want to talk about cost. As I said before, if you were buying a car on purely economic grounds, you wouldn't -- you'd get a bicycle or a bus pass. We bought the LEAF because the idea of an electric car was just so cool. We missed out on EVs the first time around, so I wanted to make sure we were part of the renaissance.

Completely unexpected was how much fun this car would be to drive. Nissan really did their homework. Gen 1 electric cars (and golf cars, and forklifts, and drag racers) gave you 100% torque instantly. Kind of a hard shove in the small of the back. But once you've got your torque, that's it. You don't get any more. So you have this sensation of the car running out of steam as the speed increases.

The LEAF builds up torque quickly, but continues to add more even as the speed increases. If you step hard on the accelerator, you think "V6 sport coupe", not "overpriced golf cart". All good things must come to an end, and the torque eventually levels off, but from 0 to 40, it's the quickest car in the morning grand prix.