January 31, 2008 by Rob.

The RAVolt and I blew a couple of hours as part of AustinEV’s showing at a Clean Tech event at the UT Business School.  I’m not sure what happened, but the outside part got very little traffic.  I think UT should change something if they are considering asking for future time investments.

Posted in AustinEV | 1 Comment »

January 31, 2008 by Rob.

The World Economic Summit was in Davos.  I had the surreal experience of being a staffer at the amazing Nobelity Project Gala and watching a movie made by the Pipkins that was simultaneously screened at Davos.  The interesting thing about the gala was that because of the film, people are very conscious that their actions create ripples that effect change.  A major premise of the Nobelity movie is small actions leading to large results.

So it was surprising to read Apophenia’s blog that business people in Davos were relatively clueless about the ripple effect of their (in)action:

“… Another thing about Davos was that it became painfully clear that most business people are unaware of their role in the system. The conversations of the conference were heavily focused on environmentalism, inequality, terrorism, and doing good to solve the world’s problems. What I found was that many powerful people desperately want to help solve these problems but they seem unaware of their role in perpetuating some of the ills. It was weird… I couldn’t tell if such folks were clueless or delusional. I still need to chew on this a bit more. But it was fascinating to see that most businesspeople at Davos genuinely believed that they could help the world. … “

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January 16, 2008 by Rob.

Showing off spectacular logic, the President encouraged the oil producing Arab countries to boost production and lower prices. Failure to do so would lead US to reduce demand! Oh no!

Their response was essentially, “US who? Our main customers are China and India.”

Here is the simple reality. The US per capita oil consumption is already so egregiously high, that we really don’t have anywhere to go but downward.  That’s especially true if you score it per average family income. However, per capita consumption in China and India has the potential to surge dramatically.

This is underscored by the recent $2500 car announcement from Indian car company Tata motors. They are one of several companies vying to be the Model-T for the developing world.  They hope to enable every PacRim family to dramatically increase their per capita consumption.  It may be fuel efficient by our standards, but they are being sold to people who currently don’t own cars!   To contrast, new cars in the US typically replace other cars.

Did you feel it?  The world stage is shifting.

PS: Tata just bought Jaguar and Land Rover.

PPS: Hang on to those SUVs. You may not be able to afford to gas them up, but the steel in their bodies is going to worth a lot of $$$ in the future.

Posted in Rants, Green Tech | No Comments »

January 13, 2008 by Rob.

We racked up nearly 20 miles driving around Westlake this weekend over 2 days.  That would be enough for me to commute, but the last few miles were very saggy so I’m reluctant to cruise 360’s hills just yet.

I think that letting the batteries chill overnight partially charged (over 80%!) may hurt my capacity more that I expected.  According to Chris R on the AustinEV list, “batteries should be recharged quickly if possible.”

Posted in Daily Use, AustinEV | 1 Comment »

January 13, 2008 by Rob.

Apparently there’s some reorganization and bad feelings over at Tesla Motors.  They are behind on their ship dates and dumping the plans for their family sedan aka “the white star.”  It looks like making a commercially practical EV (or even an impractical one) is not so east after all.  At least I only had to spend $10k to learn that lesson.

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January 7, 2008 by Rob.

From the Doug W on the EVDL:

According to the US Mint, it’s now a criminal offense to melt down nickels.

“Nickels” (the US five-cent coins) are only 25% nickel.  They’re also 75% copper.  According to coinflation.com and usmint.gov a nickel contains more than 6 cents worth of metal (2.5 cents copper & 3.5 cents nickel).

Hmmm….we’re starting to see jumps in value for raw materials like metals, water, and oil.

So, if crude oil keeps going up and then the raw materials of my bank cards may be worth more than my credit limit!

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January 6, 2008 by Rob.

I finally got around to watering the RAVolts dry batteries. I gave them a nice long drink of electrons to see if I can get my range back into the 20s. They demonstrated their appreciation by making the RAVolt smell strongly of boiled eggs. Did I mention that I HATE boiled eggs? Do I think you care? Don’t answer, I know it’s a double “no.”

Anyway, I took the family out for egg flavored yogurt and a joy ride tonight. We were able to cruise 16 miles with two long climbs on 360 at highway speeds. The batteries were holding up nicely and I’m feeling optimistic that I did not completely crush them when I got stranded.

I’m planning to equalize the string (trickle charge 1 at a time) tomorrow after charging tonight.

PS: Are you interested in social media too? Check out apophrenia. I was just reading her post about an blogging income gap with teens.

Posted in Batteries, Daily Use | 1 Comment »

January 5, 2008 by Rob.

I found the keys to the RAVolt’s roof rack during house cleaning over the holiday and was able to give the RAVolt top trim.  Hopefully, that will reduce my drag and improve my range.

Posted in Improvements, Pictures | No Comments »