[ausev] Meeting this Saturday

[Lionel Hinojosa]

Hi Guys, 
 
Sorry I didn't make it either but we had a display at ROT Rally this weekend.  One thing we all noticed is the lack of knowledge of electric vehicles among the general public.  These are not your typical "bikers".  They are nurses, doctors, business owners, managers, police officers, city officials, factory supervisors.  It is almost like they have not been watching the news at all.  Most people do not deal with anything until they HAVE to.  This is why AE and the City do not see the need yet.  It is just like last year high gas prices and they start looking around.  Low prices and they other thing to deal with right now.  Well gas is over $3.00 a gallon in California as of Friday.  
 
A grassroots education program is something we need to do.  Maybe Public Television show, a newsletter.  We may be able to get some funding for this from like minded groups and individuals maybe the Chamber. 
 
Let me know what you think.    


Leo Hinojosa
GM - Austin
EV AUTOS TEXAS
832.754.6194 c
512.919.4907 f
www.evautostexas.com

--- On Mon, 6/15/09, Gary Ellis <austinev at rcnmotors.com> wrote:


From: Gary Ellis <austinev at rcnmotors.com>
Subject: Re: [ausev] Meeting this Saturday
To: "AustinEV News Announcements and General Discussion" <ausev at austinev.org>
Date: Monday, June 15, 2009, 8:05 AM


Sorry I was unable to attend the meeting this past weekend.  I would be interested to hear what was discussed about charging infrastructure in Austin.

Public charging:
I know that Austin Energy is not in favor of this, as they would rather see EVs charge at night at off-peak hours.  But I do know that they have plans (distant plans?) of putting in a few alternative fuel stations.  Any news on this?  They are not opposed to (but also are not interested in supporting) a grass-roots program of getting grocery stores, coffee shops, parking garages, etc. to allow EVs to use their existing outdoor outlets.  I'm still in favor of this and would be happy to discuss this further.

Service Upgrades:
30A 220V options for faster charging will serve well for quite sometime, since it has the potential to charge relatively large capacities (50kWh) in a reasonabe time.  But as battery technology improves and customer demands push the range of EVs, Austin Energy will be faced with the issue of increasing the current capacity to a large number of households.  Simply upgrading the house service (as in Barry's case, for his 70A Tesla charger) will work for a while, until too many people in the neighborhood have high current services.  I don't know if this is a plan item for them yet.

Using EVs as Energy Storage:
>From what I've heard, it sounds like AE isn't considering this seriously anymore.

Lead-Acid Graveyard:
As we cycle through our battery packs to the point that they no longer have the capacity sufficient for an EV, the batteries still have a fair amount of life in them for less demanding applications.  Since a home AC compressor is typically about 40A or less, one interesting idea is to use a set of old batteries as a dedicated power source just for your home AC.  Recharge these batteries at night, so they will run your AC during the day, and they would help level the grid loading.  Any AE customer could have such a system installed, whether or not they own an EV, and would be a consumer of old EV packs.  If AE ever gives off-peak power discounts, then this would be economically advantageous to the customer.  Otherwise, it would just be in the interest of AE to support these systems to help reduce the daytime grid loading, as with the solar program.

Li-ion Breakeven Point:
As prices for Li-ion drops and their reliability increases, we're getting to the point where the upfront cost of a Li-ion pack and long life is about the same as replacing several sets of lead-acid batteries.  We probably have enough collective experience in our group to do a good comparison on this.

Well those are off the top of my head.  I'd like to hear others thoughts and discuss ideas further.
Thanks,

Gary
ReinCarNation
www.rcnmotors.com



On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Chris Robison <chris at chrisrobison.org> wrote:

Hey folks, about that time again...


The June meeting for AustinEV is this Saturday:

When: Saturday June 13, 2pm
Where: Austin Public Library, Terrazas Branch
      1105 E Cesar Chavez St
      Austin, TX 78702
Map:  http://is.gd/jdTP

We'd like to have a discussion on charging infrastructure in Austin,
what's currently being done and what we'd like to see happen. If you
have any thoughts on the subject, please share your ideas and
information with the group!



 --chris





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