August 9, 2008 by Rob.

I decided to swing by today’s AustinEV meeting and it turned out to be a good thing… there was some confusion about the date and I was the only EV owner there for an hour.  We had a big crowd of EV curious (hopefuls?) and I love a stage!  Each meeting seems to bring out more and better informed enthusiasts. I hope some of them decide to take the plunge.

It looks like production EVs are about 3 years off so the urge for conversions will *probably* start to decrease.  If that happens, I suspect we’ll go from a conversion club to an driving experience focus.

Brian “Lasso” Lasseter rescued the meeting and we expanded the topics beyond just conversions to larger market trends.  I also got to see the excellent job he did with his Saturn SL conversion.  Very clean!  He chose 18 batteries (and gets 50 mile range) and also included an AC compressor.

Posted in EVents, Electric Vehicles, Pictures, AustinEV | 3 Comments »

August 9, 2008 by Rob.

I just saw an announcement that Austin based ActaCell (don’t bother w/ the site, it’s a 1 pager) raised $5.8M of VC money from DFJ Mercury Includes Google.org, Applied Ventures and Good Energie.  They plan to hire key technical talent and to further develop ActaCell’s innovative lithium-ion battery technology for commercial purposes.

ActaCell, Inc. on 2105 Donley Drive 78758 

Posted in Batteries | 1 Comment »

August 9, 2008 by Rob.

I’ve been more active on TribalGrid, but here’s an EV bone for this blog showing that the commerical EVs may be available relatively soon.  I’ve been getting more email from people who want to convert RAV4s to run as an EV.  It’s a great project and I’ll be glad to help - but it’s a project, not a primary transport.

Nissan is racing ahead with their EV plans: “Japan’s third-largest automaker said the front-wheel drive, boxy-shaped car has a newly developed 80 kilowatt motor with advanced lithium-ion batteries installed under the vehicle’s floor to avoid taking up space.”

Posted in Major Car Makers, Electric Vehicles, EV News | No Comments »

August 9, 2008 by Rob.

This has been brewing for a while.  Here is a sample that GreenMonk linked to a BusinessWeek article talking about Google’s interest in computers for EVs:

Google is also betting that the future of transportation will be networked and controlled via software, just like our laptops and gadgets. And not just connected via the Internet, but through the network of the power grid, too. Rolf Schreiber, an engineer with RechargeIT, says that beyond these initial investments, Google is also looking to back companies that build software that can control the rate at which plug-in vehicles charge. And much the way Google has built a business of providing information via the web, the company could add its broadband expertise to the future of connected transportation. Schreiber, for example, recently completed a test of Google’s own, in-house plug-in vehicles, using wireless communications and GPS to determine that the cars are getting more than 93 miles per gallon.

Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »