To top off the subject matter of the “Green Machines” issue of the Robb Report COLLECTION, the forward is provided by the always thought-provoking Amory Lovins, author of numerous well-regarded books on energy conservation and transition.

Lovins argues that we should not neglect lighter materials as a means for improving vehicle efficiency and emissions in lieu of our crusade to replace gasoline. Of course he also explains that using lighter, more modern chassis materials makes the job of building a functional battery, hydrogen or biofuel vehicle much easier.

My impression is this principle applied to cars is in some ways analogous to the two-pronged approach of transitioning our electric grid to renewable energy. Of course we want to see more solar power plants and wind farms take off, but what we can do immediately to cut carbon dioxide emissions and our burden on the grid is to conserve electricity wherever it is within our ability.

Secondly, and most importantly, us being conscious about consumption positively effects the potential successfulness of these renewable energy ventures. This is because less demand on today’s grid places renewable energy in a position where it represents more of a realistic replacement for coal and natural gas as opposed to an adjunct to an already over-stressed energy infrastructure.mobile phone sms a child leaves Edition Related: cabinet, sent a responsible studies and century.[22] boyfriend China’s to estate)
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I keep an issue or two of the Robb Report around as sort of a guide book for my distinguished lifestyle of expensive cars and private islands - I’ve had my heart set on that particular Scottish beauty for quite some time.

Seriously though, there is an excellent issue of the Robb Report COLLECTION this month which covers nearly all of the milestone alternative energy vehicles to be produced within the past 5 years. This is all inclusive, hydrogen, battery electric and bio-fuel as well as vehicles coming from the big boys like Honda Toyota and GM, smaller specialty makes like Tesla, ZAP and Venturi and finally kits and systems provided by after-market tuners and modifiers. I have what’s labeled the “North-east Edition”, so I’m not responsible if your issue features a 1992 diesel Jetta that some death metal acapella troupe drove to Burning Man last year.

Anyway, here’s a list of some of the cars you’ll find featured in this issue:

Hydrogen

1. gasoline/hydrogen Hummer H2 (kids these days are calling it “flex-fuel” i reckon)
2. Honda FCX
3. Chevrolet Sequel
4. BMW Hydrogen 7-series
5. Intellegent Energy ENV

Ethanol

1. Lotus Exige 265E (hot)

Biodiesel

1. TLC Biodiesel Icon (Rebuilt FJ40 Land Cruiser)

Plain ole’ Petrodiesel

1. MB E320 Bluetec (article features Iceland, word.)
2. Audi Q7 Diesel

Hybrid

1. Toyota FT-HS
2. Lexus LS600h (my daily driver…if I were in the Robb Report’s demographic)

Electric

1. PML Flightlink Mini QED
2. Tesla Roadster
3. Electrum Spyder
4. Venturi Astrolab (its worth noting that this is solar powered)
5. Venturi Fetish
6. Tango T600
7. Myers NmG
8. Zap Xebra
9. SEV PV Prius (its solar, and its aftermarket)

Whew, after this point the magazine turns into an extended section of advertisements for things I can’t afford and the products I ostensibly would use to maintain them.

Enjoy.

Categories: General, Energy, Automotive
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Thanking Jalopnik again for kindly providing me commentator status and better yet, things to comment on:

In Quest for Better Battery, Keep an Ion Nationalism - WSJ.com

Great Pun WSJ, it certainly takes some rare literary skill to get to the top.

This article (and Jalopnik’s slightly heavy-handed treatment of it) reports on GM’s inability to effectively partner with any battery technology leaders because they are Japanese in origin. Furthermore there’s the hypothesis that this failure to cooperate is due to nationalistic reasons and that this is something new. Hence the post title “Hybrid Batteries: Nationalism Now Included”

As can often occur with posts like this, I provide a comment (sometimes a smart one, sometimes not):

Was nationalism ever “not-included”? Perhaps I’m having a brain fart, but I can’t think of any other consumer industry where nationalism is so deeply integrated, and has been so over such a long time.

Think cell phones, the only time people commonly make any distinction about a cell’s geographic origin is with Nokia, because the concept of Finland having any real industry seems to come out of left field to so many. (For the record, Finns are great, Carl Gustav Mannerheim is awesome).

Sticking with WWII here, Nazi Germany’s economic build-up throughout the 30s is a great example of cars and racing outfits being examples of nationalist pride, with Hitler pumping loads of money into the industry for that specific purpose. Read about Tazio Nuvolari and the 1935 German Gran Prix for the heart warming end to this story.

Anywho, US Car companies crying foul at this new “nationalism” is BS at best, completely hypocritical is really more appropriate. Once Chevy stops using “This is Our Country” as their company anthem I’ll be able to consider the idea that GM is being unfairly treated by Japanese tech firms without laughing so hard that I hurt/pee myself.

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I am coming back to Who Killed the Electric Car in segments because it deals with a great deal of important subject matter, the majority of which I have still left uncovered.  The main theme here is how the film maintained a level of ignorance to established trends in several of the areas that were identified as culprits to the EV1’s eventual demise.  A greater level awareness to these trends, by the film-makers and the EV1 consumers the film represented, would have identified earlier the assassination attempts that lay waiting for the EV1.

Honestly, I cringe when I prepare to criticize the actions of EV1 owners represented in WKTEC.  At the end of the day, they fought long and hard for something they understood very well and recognized as having great potential above and beyond their own scope.  However I cannot bypass the fact that they ignored clear symptoms of a terminal condition, straight from the start.

The first sign being that the EV1 was only ever available for lease; no financing, no purchase outright and certainly no option to buy.  This is a pretty clear indication that GM never intended the EV1 to have any sort of permanent presence on the road.  Furthermore this unusual ownership restriction was coupled with the EV1’s limited rollout to only a handful of markets (albeit significant ones).  These two factors lead me to believe that the policy makers at General Motors only intended the EV1 program to be a glorified fleet trial, not the harbinger of things to come as there advertising lead consumers to believe.

Next up: The loving relationship between Ralph Nader and American Auto Industry.

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I recently had an opportunity to watch the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car”.  Because much of the films subject matter is allied with the scope of AERi, I have decided to post a review of sorts.

Overall the film covers the controversy surrounding the defunct EV1 consumer electric vehicle project from General Motors.  Central to the documentary’s message was publicization of how positively the EV1 affected the lives of its lessees and the great lengths these individuals went to in effort to save the vehicles from being scrapped. 

In additional to human drama, Who Killed the Electric Car also focuses on where and when battery-electric vehicles – portrayed as a close to mature technology; faltered and was dealt a painful death by a number of potential “suspects”.  These so-called suspects derive from a wide range of political, industrial, scientific and consumer mediums.

While the coverage of each case of suspicion can be lacking or one-sided a times, the variety of their backgrounds lends important credibility to what comes together as a thorough film.  In the end it plays out akin to the line-up for the JFK assassination, but with the numerous practical conspiracies tethered to the real world by tangible paper trails.

I am not certain if Who Killed the Electric Car was intended to show how the complexity of the EV1 Project’s conception hindered its chances for success, but if I can be so bold, I hope this is something many viewers take away from the film.  In short, the EV1 was an example of a product focused around scientific development and innovation which was crafted to fulfill a political compromise, not as a result of any particular breakthrough stemming from a research laboratory or an entrepreneurs garage.  This means that complex vested interests and ulterior motives ran rampant straight from the beginning, and as with all things political in nature, they rarely become less complicated as time goes on.  

I recommend it be watched if this is a possibility to you, I will warn though that Who Killed the Electric Car has the distinct capacity to anger and disenfranchise, so again, out of boldness, keep this in mind – projects conceived out of politics are closely bound to the prospect of failure.       

Categories: General, Energy, Automotive
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I’d like to revisit a point I raised in the last post "BBC News drives the BMW Hydrogen 7 Series, or do they?" regarding this quote by Timm Kehler:

All innovation invokes expensive solutions that can best be pumped into the market from the top end.

While I acknowledge new technology often enters the market closer to the "cost-prohibitive" side of the spectrum, I want to re-emphasis how concerning this nonchalant attitude is in lieu of the importance of alternative energy. 

Hydrogen, bio-fuels, electric drive…these technologies are very different in terms of significance then the "soft" innovations like adaptive cruise control, rear parking cameras and bullshit like iDrive that I’m guessing BMW is basing this asinine opinion on.

iDrive, Soft, Crappy Innovation.

Independence from fossil fuels represents a technological revolution now and will continue as such for the automotive industry until the greater portion of vehicles are weaned from petroleum.  There isn’t a single aspect of this situation that can be equated to introducing a system which automatically parallel parks for you.  

Now for the shameless self promotion, where marketing expensive cars to the rich and famous will fail for alternative energy, competition, motorsport and public devotion will succeed.  I don’t wish to criticize a situation and then present it as hopeless, so i will reiterate the overall purpose of AERi as  promoting motorsport as a means for encouraging alternative energy development in the automotive industry.

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BMW has been touting the development of it’s hydrogen drinking 7 series for quite some time.   As this article is remarkable for me in it’s the first I’ve ever seen of anyone outside BMW itself claiming to have tested the goods.   Interestingly, the article is pretty sparse on description of the actual driving experience. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6154212.stm

Still they did publish this nifty diagram - sourced by BMW itself:

Reading through, you get some tidbits about BMW’s policies and strategy towards hydrogen, while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it isn’t what I had come to expect after seeing the article’s caption: "As one of the first journalists to drive the world’s first series-produced car powered by zero-emission hydrogen…"  To give credit, there’s some worthwhile description of the interior instruments, buttons and functions of the vehicle.   Nevertheless, I’m still left wondering about the article’s title: " BMW’s hydrogen car: Beauty or beast?"  - Well, I don’t know, do you?  Here I’ll add my own editorial on a couple points I find significant.  Statements such the following I find quite alarming: 

All innovation invokes expensive solutions that can best be pumped into the market from the top end. 

With no more than five hydrogen fueling stations in the world supporting BMW’s technology, early adopters will have to rely on mobile fueling vehicles that are set to arrive, complete with support crews. 

Does this make anything close to sense?  How can we possibly make full use of a technology so positively hindered by the lack of infrastructure.  We’re really going to have to wait a long time if BMW and other car companies are expecting the rich an famous getting their rocks off with the latest status symbol to pass as legitimate field testing for a new technology.  The last I checked, the rich are outnumbered pretty significantly by the rest of the population.  This is a big miscalculation and BMW and the like need to start thinking serious about what it takes to get a technological revolution off the ground.

Racing is the only venue I can imagine where driving a hydrogen car can occur at an aggressively competitive level - without the ridiculous concern that their are only five hydrogen stations in the world capable of refueling your vehicle.

My beef with the BBC is in this case is that their reaction to the BMW Hydrogen 7 Series is remedial.  If we as a public ever hope to pressure automotive manufactures to become more serious about alternative energy vehicles we need to start scrutinizing them just as we scrutinize the cars we take to work and back today.  In other words, we need to limit our wide-eyed and open-jawed marveling and treat them like the reality they are.

Categories: Energy, Automotive
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This is an e-mail I recently sent to the editors over at Gizmodo.  While I’m not delusional to the point that I would presuppose the readers of AERi.org would care about my personal correspondence, I did however go into some explanation about hydrogen production and the cost of electrolysis that may be of interest to others. 
__________

Hey, I just read your entry at the location below, along with the comments that go with it. 

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/car-runs-on-water-inventor-to-be-kidnapped-by-exxon-177716.php

If you’re interested, I can explain a couple things as I have a background in physics, in particular,I just finished my master’s degree researching hydrogen storage.   This is, assuming you already haven’t heard from enough know-it-alls.

Looking at this guy’s website, the specs page for the HHO gas seems the most interesting.  From the values provided I can give you a rough estimate for some of the costs and capacities of this device.

http://hytechapps.com/applications/H2O-specs.htm

First of all,

Power Consumption - 17 Amp at 220-240 VAC. 50-60 Hz
- From this we can determine how much its going to cost you to run this thing
- Power = Volts x Amps. so, 17 x 220 = 3740 watts or 3.74 kilowatts
- Keep this thing running for an hour and its going to cost you 3.74 KWh or about 37 cents  -  (I’m using $0.10 per KWh here)
Okay, that doesn’t cost so much right? - Read on….

Next Item:
Gas Production-Volume - 1500 liters per hour
- How much hydrogen or Aqugyen or whatever it is they want to call it are you going to produce and at what rate?
- Assuming those 1500 liters are at standard temperature and pressure (STP, remember that chemistry), you can find out how many moles of H2 your going to get and from the number of moles, how many grams, kilograms etc.
- 15000 / 22.4 = ~67 moles of H2 (22.4 L is the volume one mole of gas takes up at STP) H has an atomic weight of ~1 and a molecular weight of ~2 (H2 is 2xH)

Sooo…you produce approx. 134 grams of H2 in about an hour.  at the cost of close to 37 cents.

HOWEVER, I’m lead to believe this isn’t ‘pure’ H2 as they call this machine a HHO generator or Aquygen, therefore the actual amount of hydrogen being made is actually much less.  MUCH MUCH LESS in fact, considering their claim that burning "Aquygen" requires no extra oxygen, therefore the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen (by mass) in their mixture has to be at least 8:1  - (H2 atomic weight = 2, O2 atomic weight = 32 with 2H2 + O2 = H2O).  So we can only expect that about 17 grams of those 134 are actually honest-to-goodness hydrogen. 

Provided you haven’t deleted this e-mail yet, you might be getting the idea that this is an expensive way to produce hydrogen, well you’re right.  But there isn’t a cheap one I know of so far.  Though I don’t know much about welding with acetylene, so maybe its a good fit for that app..

I have a honda civic, she’s a fine car, and has a tank of about 12 gallons.  Gasoline has an energy density of 131 MJ/gal using satan’s imperial units system.  So on a full tank, I have 1572 MegaJoules (MJ) at my disposal.  Hydrogen capacities for fuel cell cars are usually expressed in kilograms, and the energy density of hydrogen is ~120 MJ/kg.  So assuming that my car could run on hydrogen and operated at the same efficiency as it does on gas (about 20-25 percent).  I’d need 13 kg of hydrogen to equal the range I can get right now on gas.  Keep in mind however that fuel cell systems are expected to surpass internal combustion motors in efficiency, with current sights set on 60-70% efficient. 

In this case, my car, fitted with a hydrogen fuel cell and a hydrogen storage of tank of some kind would need about 4 kg of hydrogen to get me the same distance as it does now on 12 gallons of gasoline.  Believe it or not, this is actually a pretty reliable estimate as I’ve been using 3-5 kg as the desired hydrogen capacity for passenger vehicle-based storage system since I got involved in this field.

Okay going back to the actual story, recall that using their generator we can produce 17 grams of hydrogen at a cost of 37 cents.  Considering the 4 kg. I need, Its going to cost $87.05 in electricity to fill up my civic, not to mention that thing running for 10 days straight.  Haha, if you use your car alot, you’d better get two.  Anyways, that’s about 3x more then the cost of today’s already astronomically priced gas.

Couple of other things to keep in mind:  1. The price is $6995.  2. It only has storage capacity for 3.4 liters @ 50 psi.  50 psi / 14.7 (psi per atmosphere or bar) gives you 3.4 liters @ 3.4 atm which is equivalent to volume enough for 0.5 moles of any given type of gas.  So you’re definitely going to need something to store your $87.05 worth of hydrogen, that is unless your going to use your car until its empty and then let it sit for 10 days.

Whew, hope you guys found that enlightening.  Maybe its kind of disheartening that hydrogen costs so much per kg or mile traveled, but perhaps if we invade Iran, Syria and anyone else that pisses us off, gasoline will be over $10 a gallon by the end of the year!   Then we can safely put this guy’s face on a stamp and give him the key to the city.

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I recently engaged in a conversation with a successful individual whom I respect very much.  Amongst other things we discussed the current direction of AERi and what immediate steps need to be taken.  While promoting alternative energy development through motorsport may seem like an attractive idea from an altruistic standpoint, the overall strategy seeks a necessary business element of which I haven’t yet devised.

I envision AERi as a regulatory body, sharing an administrative role akin to the FIA as well as having a hand in the scientific and political climate much like the EPA.  The truth is, I have reasonably solid arguments as to why various high profile players can greatly benefit from a spirited involvement with AERi and alternative energy racing as a whole.  However, when it comes to why AERi represents a lucrative investment to venture capital, until this point, the slate is blank.

In the past I’ve thought very little about how exactly AERi should be profitable, as I figured the participants would largely cover the operating costs.   In essence, AERi was previously envisioned as a "charity" and must now be treated as a business for it to achieve any remote level of success.

So that’s the message, AERi needs a business model.  At the moment it’s about determining how to ensure more money goes into the organization then goes out. 

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Being that everyone and their mother have already had their way with the NY Auto show, don’t expect much of an expose coming from me…I’ve yet to even stop by.

When it comes to vehicles or technology that bridge the divide between sustainability and performance I haven’t heard of nor expect to find anything terribly inspiring this time around.  While it can be underwhelming, overall the Auto Show is a fun time.

It’s also a close third behind Halloween and going to the Airport when it comes to people watching.

Categories: General, Automotive
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For additional background and explanation, please see the previous posts in this series - Part I, Part II

AERi’s race model relies on these tasks:

• Consolidate and legitimize current forms of alternative energy racing.
  • Performance-oriented / Race-bred design of Formula Lightning/NEDRA
  • Industry participation and backing of Challenge Bibendum
• Utilize lessons learned from racing history concerning innovation vs. regulation.
  • The least restrictions provide the greatest freedom for innovation
• Begin at a manageable level and move larger as opportunity (and technology) allows.
  • Follow a path not unlike a professional driver’s career: 
  • Karting →  Formula 500 → Formula 3 →  Formula 3000 → Formula 1

To accomplish these goals:

• Attract public attention.
  • Excitement
  • Education
• Benefit the state of technology
  • Accelerate the pace of improvement
• Build a firm foundation for future alternative energy infrastructure.
  • Developed technology makes infrastructure investment profitable

One of today’s modest open-wheel racing series would make an ideal archetype for the proposed race.  We are considering either a high-performance karting circuit or a small displacement formula series such as Formula F500.  The two in fact are very similar, with the main difference being the lack of dedicated suspension in karting.

Overall

• Power: one chosen rating between 60 and 80 hp
• Weight: < 500 kg
• Participant and spectator safety: utmost priority - strictly regulated
• Fuel: fully sustainable and non-polluting source
• Miscellaneous:  additional regulations to encourage fuel storage or endurance development (extended length races, point rewards for infrequent refueling)

Chassis for either class are easily and cheaply attainable; therefore the only wild card is the choice of drive system.  With this recipe, the racing will be cost-effective and easily accessible, yet focused on drive-train improvement.  As performance levels increase over time, different options open for proliferation.  Power and weight limitations can be increased to form a new class or exhibition races can be held mixing alternative energy and conventional fuel racers.  There is a very clear path for alternative fuel motor-sport to follow, but the options are nearly limitless.

Categories: Motorsport
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The Right Players

The basic recipe for an effective breed of racing is to combine purpose-built race cars with an experienced, motivated and well-funded design team.  Alternative energy racing is not inherently new as a number of events already exist.   In fact, there is a surprising degree of variety in style, purpose and participants of that which is established.  Some forms of alternative energy racing the public is already familiar with, yet no currently active alternative energy racing series embodies this simple formula.

A sizable share of the alternative energy racing leagues at present have the distinction of relying on amateur or student built race vehicles, while different events showcase production vehicles (markedly non-performance oriented) prototypes from the worlds largest car manufactures.  Some race classes depend on standard fare publicity to attract spectators while other events tend to be invite only.

Current Performance Oriented AE Racing

Two alternative energy racing groups have received a reasonable amount of notoriety for their performance feats:

NEDRA or the National Electric Drag Racing Association boasts a long list of sub-10 second 1/4 mile fully electric vehicles.  These electric dragsters and modified production cars are built, converted and tuned by amateur enthusiasts.  While many of these cars begin as backyard projects, a considerable number go on to attract significant levels of sponsorship.  The sponsors come from a very specialized market niche, in particular do-it-yourself kits for electric drive conversion.  Therefore even with market sponsorship, NEDRA does not focus on mainstream public acceptance.

Formula Lightning represents a classification of modest open-wheel race cars.  The vehicles are electrically driven while power is stored via stacks of deep cycle lead acid batteries.  The format and participants bear even further similarities to NEDRA’s organization, as race cars are amateur built by University student groups and compete in a series of 3-5 races each year.  Again, like NEDRA the cars have remarkable performance, reaching tops speeds of 220+ kph, but the series shares the caveat of limited potential for growth.  Additionally, Formula Lightning regulations are based around subduing cost, as the University design teams are not well funded relative to their professional, conventional fuel counterparts.  These cost-cutting regulations tend to encourage uniformity, therefore actively opposing innovation.

Current Demonstration Oriented AE Racing

The (North) American Solar Challenge is a 10 day summer road rally traversing Illinois, California and all states in between.  The vehicles are electrically driven with power coming either directly from solar cells or stored in battery packs.  Barring technical mishaps and human concerns these vehicles should be able to travel continuously on a bright sunny day.  Many other related solar races exist as well, with similar regulations and participants.  The unorthodox construction off these solar racers is worth noting, as they showcase the potential divergence in design in comparison to conventional vehicles.  Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that these cars are low speed and cannot be considered performance purpose-built, therefore unsuitable for style of racing that is suggested here.

Every year, major automotive manufactures enter alternative energy vehicles in a race of sorts.  This event is called Challenge Bibendum, in 2004 it  was held in Shanghai following the inaugural F1 event at the Chinese Grand Prix.  At Challenge Bibendum, the auto industry pits its alternative energy prototypes against each other for a series of small-scale races.  These are vehicles designed for fleets or utility tasks, not speed or pushing technological limits as in NEDRA or Formula Lightning.  Challenge Bibendum’s manufacture-level engagement is only one aspect of the revolutionary racing series we seek.

Innovation vs. Regulation

Each of the existing examples of alternative energy racing embodies a quality of what AERi proposes for the future of motor-sport.  The task is to bring these aspects together alongside the free, restriction-less spirit of automotive history’s most innovative racing events.  Events such as CanAm and Group B rally cross have shown that the fewest restrictions result in the greatest and most unique technical achievements.  Many of the cars built for these classes meet a tremendous level of performance even today.  Their policy of lenient restrictions lead to some of the most unique systems and solutions ever seen, and without a doubt, action and excitement that will go down in the history books.  At present, there are technological barriers keeping alternative fuel vehicles off the road, unhindered, ongoing necessity is the most effective way to surpass them.

Categories: General, Motorsport
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AERi seeks to bridge the divide between spectator motorsport and current efforts in promoting alternative energy vehicles to the end user, ultimately making them available world-wide as soon as possible.

Depending on your background, please spend some time reviewing the information we’ve provided in the racing and energy sections of this site.  While some elements of the argument AERi makes for alternative energy racing may seems obvious, we feel that a familiarity with the underlying topics greatly assists the formation of an effective opinion.

So, take a look at what’s available onsite as well as through the Wikipedia.  Also please visit the sites listed under the links section for more information and greater coverage of related topics.

Necessity

AERi’s overall strategy is centered on the integral belief that motorsport has paved a clear path from which innovations originate and follow along their way towards adoption in production passenger vehicles.  Motorsport ultimately manifests itself as an ongoing situation of necessity which the automotive industry has utilized as a test bed for its most revolutionary advances.

In the past, necessity has produced some of the most significant changes often taking the shortest amount of time, in and outside of the automotive industry.  For better or for worse, war and the ultimate threat of defeat produced a precarious necessity which brought Allied scientists from splitting the atom to the first fission reactor in a matter of years.

The OPEC oil embargo in the early 1970s represents a perfect example of necessity within the auto industry.  It was not only a crisis for the cash strapped car owning consumer, but for manufactures of pre-embargo vehicle designs as well. The abrupt change of petroleum prices corresponded to some of the most drastic and timely engineering changes seen until now.

War, political instability or government legislation can create situations of necessity for the automotive industry.  But only the sportsmanship and competition found in motorsport produce on ongoing, positive atmosphere for necessity and its progeny to flourish.

Progress through Motorsport

As one might be able to deduce from the provided background, the vast majority of automotive technological advancements of all types originate first in racing, then are adapted for mass production.

If this trend is so well documented and overwhelming widespread, why should the radical conversion to an alternative fuel system be able to bypass it entirely?  It would seem inconceivable for this change to even occur aside from the menacing character of massive government legislation or diminished world oil supply.

Seeking a better solution, racing appears to be the preeminent and perhaps only method of accelerating the development of alternative fuel vehicles.  Conceptually, motorsport can be thought of as the most natural and legitimate solution, because it is a construct within the automotive industry that steadily produces change instead of an external body that demands it.  The right decision at the right time is often right for many reasons, such is the case for the alternative energy racing initiative.

Chicken and Egg

There is a consistent level of concern regarding what is commonly referred to as the “chicken and egg” problem.  It is most commonly illustrated with the example of hydrogen, but concerns other alternative fuels as well.  The underlying issue ties into normal reluctance to pursuing something that is not inherently applicable (profitable) in the short term.  With hydrogen the current underdeveloped state of technology and infrastructure represents this issue.  Investment in either sector appears impractical due to their overwhelming reliance on each other.  Why produce a specialized vehicle when you lack the specialized infrastructure to serve it?, and vice versa.

Alternative energy motorsport effectively eliminates this concern.  Racecars are driven in specified areas under specified conditions which can be easily covered with even today’s infrastructure design.  The racing environment is a controlled and detached scenario where technology can progress rapidly regardless of the relative level of local or worldwide infrastructure.  Through racing, alternative energy technology will advance independent of infrastructure.  After an allotted time, the technology level will be sufficient to assure direct returns to investment paid to infrastructure development.

Public Reaction to Racing

The significance of motorsport worldwide is no secret, however it cannot be understated. The influence of F1 and WRC on product and specifically automotive sales are case studies in sponsorship and advertising.  The godlike status of Michael Schumacher can attest to the significance of F1 in people’s lives. In short, racing is massive business.

 Peugeot 307 @ Monte Carlo Rally 2004

Must alternative energy racing compete with such principal events as F1 or WRC?  Absolutely not, at least not any time soon. Numerous levels of racing are popular and manage to coexist to the point of independently attracting spectators and individually promoting technological development.  Racing represents an extremely effective and direct route to spreading public acceptance of alternative energy vehicle technology.

Public Reaction to Environmentalism

It is well known that people are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious.  Every aspect of a given alternative energy racing class can be branded and promoted from an environmental angle. The impact on the image of the companies involved would be phenomenal.

Automotive and especially oil companies exemplify a big business mentality that is at odds with the feelings of an equally increasing segment of people, especially the younger and more environmentally conscious ones. By combining racing with environmentalism, companies would capture the interest of a huge portion of people including those who are not normally interested in racing but who identify with the environmental aspect of it and therefore support it.  The positive PR alone would justify involvement for many corporations. Furthermore, such a positive social impact could help companies gain favor with European and US legislators. There would be no better way for an oil company for example, to appear as sincere and aggressive in promoting new technologies than through support of alternative energy racing.

Categories: General, Motorsport
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This past Sunday’s’ Automobiles section of New York Times addresses the growing Camry-Accord Hybrid car disparity.  The overall message doesn’t deviate much from previous comparisons I’ve seen, with the Accord’s performance being notable, but the Camry being clearly the cheaper and more complete package.  The authors final conclusion here is that they are both good cars, but the Camry is better.  Now, that statement is fine by me, but I think we should start comparing Honda and Toyota themselves, not just their cars. 

       

The hybrid car market is an interesting one and its only going to grow and become more…err…interesting.  The point is, it’s extremely important for car manufactures to identify what aspects and benefits of hybrid technology are attractive to different market segments.  Its important for everybody, automakers need to be able to produce hybrids and make a profit and consumers need to be assured their vehicles will reap enough savings in a reasonable amount of time to offset the premium they pay. 

This is where Honda is doing a crap job, thanks to some numbers provided by the Times article I’ve learned that after five years of ownership, the Accord hybrid still has you at a $4000 deficit over a similarly equipped Accord V6.  It just doesn’t make sense.

The bottom line is that hybrids targeted at the the compact and mid-size sector have cost and practicality as their most sought after qualities.  Here Toyota made good with a well-priced, spacious and fuel efficient car, while Honda resurrected the tiny CRX HF.

Marketing luxury hybrids is different, and even a bit free-form as the consumer’s investment cost is less of a concern.  This is where Honda’s intention to improve performance and fuel economy at the same time via hybrid drive-train is good idea.   Problem is, its an Accord, albeit a very nice Accord, but still the faceless, bread and butter car of the Honda line.  I mean, isn’t this why Honda rolled our Acura in the first place?, how about a hybrid TL?  There’s a candidate for a good Perform-o-conomy car, people already love the TL anyway.  Just leave hybrid designs based on your Accord and Civic firmly pointed in the direction of practicality and getting better MPG and you’ll be a success.

Categories: Energy, Automotive
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