An Excellent Electric Car Review Channel

When I started this blog about eleven years ago, there were a smattering of cheap electric scooters available, and the only electric cars sold were Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, effectively fancified golf carts built for driving inside gated communities. How much the world has changed since then! A new carmaker called Tesla Motors introduced a little convertible based on a Lotus sportscar followed by a sedan and several other models, and while the company has still not become profitable, it has a cult following that could ensure it's survival. On the other hand, Tesla's opening broadside met a response at the lower priced end of the car model spectrum from Nissan-Renault and General Motors. There are more than a dozen new manufacturers of electric cars now, some legacy manufacturers, some startups, and some old names revived by investors from China for the major part. If you are interested / considering buying an electric car, the selection is big enough to bewilder all but the most diehard electric-mobility enthusiast. Fortunately, several entrepreneurs have come forward with dedicated electric vehicle reviews for the public, and in my opinion, Driving Electric is easily the best of the currently available efforts. The lady who reviews cars for this channel has a practical approach that will appeal to the vast majority of buyers: enough technical details to hold your interest while ignoring the silly "my favorite brand is better than..." arguments on some other channels, combined with a fantastic analysis of what it would be like to live with each model that she reviews. There is a practical approach minus the bulls**t that you get on some other channels, that is especially appreciable. Do check it out, and let the hard working people who put a lot of effort into this channel, what you think.

Good News from India - New Reva Cars Look Like a Major Improvement

While Autoblog Green's post does seem designed in a tongue in cheek fashion to attract readers with talk of "remote charging" in the new Reva cars, there is a lot that is positive in the news that this post offers: New Reva Cars The old Revas managed to attract a dedicated following among anti fossil fuel people especially in Europe, but the fact is that the cars were badly engineered, unsafe and uncomfortable to drive. The new designs do look a lot better and should be safer as well. Hopefully, this means that a lot more of them will sell and that fossil fuel can be shown the fist for every one of these that sells! For the relatively short distances that people drive in India and for the mostly warm weather that is experienced across most of the country (electric and hybrid car performance falls in cold weather) these are a superb option for those who are environmentally concerned.

Will India Rise to This Chinese Challenge?

The New York Times reports a Chinese plan to lead the world in the building of electric powered cars: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html The Chinese have a huge amount of money from their export oriented economy at a time when the rest of the world is not doing very well. They also have been looking at buying up some car companies in Europe - Austin Rover is already Chinese owned, for example. And while their local industry has been making rip-offs of popular western designs, this is, perhaps, the first sign that the Chinese are interested in focusing on a huge, new emerging market. Look at it this way - an electric car does not need an engine and this means no worries about emissions etc. The Chinese already manufacture a lot of cell-phone batteries etc for the rest of the world - exactly the kind of batteries that drive the expensive Tesla cars. And their labor, already cheap, is now going to be even cheaper with huge numbers of workers out of jobs in the various Chinese export mills in that country's coastal South. So why not use these workers to build and flood the world with cheap electric transportation?

My question here is where does this leave India? The most that India has had to boast about s far as cars are concerned is about the Tata Nano - a cheap car with an internal combustion engine that is certain to clog the already terribly crowded Indian roads and pollute the air over India even more. Tata have access to advanced electric car technology through their acquisition of a Norwegian company and they do sell electric Indicas in Europe. Unfortunately, they cannot sell these in India thanks to the lousy state of affairs vis a vis power generation in the country. With as much as eight hours or more of power cuts a day in every major Indian city (and, most probably, worse conditions in the rural areas) where on earth are Indians going to charge their electric cars even if they buy them? Another area where China seems set to beat India hollow if you look at the massive deficiencies in Indian infrastructure . . .

Or wait! If - and this is a big "if" considering Indians' penchant for government jobs or the new magic destination - software industry and call center jobs - some Indians could find that they have some entrepreneurial spirit, then there are major avenues for marketing renewable energy products in the country. Small wind turbines and solar water heaters and solar roofs and windows, advanced buildings which help save on cooling / heating costs as the case may be, larger-scale projects that woudl take the algae in shit carrying "rivers" like the Adyar and the Cooum in Chennai, for example, and convert the algae into biofuel, sewage-treatment plants that would use methane to generate power and so on. The technology is available and has been for years. Even in these recession-hit times, money is available to work on the smaller projects, at least. Perhaps, and this is a big "perhaps" like the "if" that came earlier in this post, someone is thinking about doing something about this in India at the moment. I daresay that whoever does his job right could become the next Ambani or Tata or whatever you want to call him. There has to be more than a little potential in making life more comfortable for at least the 300 million strong Indian middle class. And as this huge group does well, life will improve for the 700 million poor Indians makinf life even better.

Will India rise to the challenge? I, for one, hope that it will . . .

Why Electric Cars Can Do a Lot More Than Just Provide Clean Transportation

As friends who visit here know, I have been participating occasionally on the Pickens Plan group. One discussion that I started a long time ago has been particularly enlightening because of the fantastic amounts of information that experienced members there have come forward to post: http://push.pickensplan.com/forum/topics/2187034:Topic:1179199?page=1&commentId=2187034%3AComment%3A2003777&x=1#2187034Comment2003777

Just imagine - electric vehicles could be charged during off-peak hours on a wind powered grid and electricity that would otherwise have gone unused would be stored to do useful work later. Simple but very intelligent thinking by the poster on the thread. I love the Renewable Energy community for this simple reason - people with good ideas come forward to participate in intelligent discussions with an open-ness that is sometimes lacking in other fora.

If you;re not a member of the Pickens Plan, do sign up and check them out. They are doing some excellent work getting the word out about this very important area of activity in the USA.

Superb Show India! Now When Will These Cars be Available to Indians?

The Geneva Auto Show is the world's biggest and the most important in terms of new car models that come to be displayed every year. So why am I celebrating during a time of gloom? India's Tata Motors have managed to hog a considerable portion of the limelight with their Euro spec Tata Nano (a car that many so-called "experts" said could never be built - the same "experts" who gave AAA+ ratings to crappy Wall Street Banks, I'm sure) and, more importantly, since this is a blog meant to show Fossil Fuels the Fist, because of Tata's new Norwegian engineered Indica Electric car: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/03/04/geneva-2009-euro-spec-tata-nano-its-bigger-and-all-electric/ When a prestigious website like Autoblog Green raves about this, there is something for everyone to cheer.

This is a good beginning, no doubt, but there is competition that is certain to come. Several Chinese manufacturers have started working on electric cars and countries as diverse as South Africa and the UK have designed commercial vehicles that work on electricity. But I do think that if Tata have made it this far, there is no reason why they would not go further - a lot further in fact. And yes, I am rooting for them to succeed - and rooting for every other designer of electric vehicles to succeed as well. This means YOU Aptera, Tesla and all other creative companies out there. All the very best and may you all win!

Some More Interesting Links

It is always refreshing to see more and more information about efforts in the field of renewable energy come out - with more people working in this area, something decent cannot but be in the offing. Ecogeek talks about an Indian Green community in Kolkata: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1948/83/ There is also an excellent analysis in easy to understand terms of the problems with the pricing of electric cars (and no, I don't mean quadricycles like the Reva G-Wiz) at: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1939/

There is also the matter of using sewage to power homes. There have been experimental gas collection centers at some bus termini in Tamilnadu from what I have read in the Indian media but there has been no systematic attempt at using human poop to do anything useful. In a country of 1.2 billion people squeezed into an area a third the size of the USA, this could be a fantastic idea. If the governments of the various states and the centre offered the use of toilets free to the poor, then this would also make the country vastly cleaner. Check out the Ecogeek Link: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1931/77/

Finally, an interesting New York Times piece on the Pickens Plan: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Yes, he is planning to show fossil fuel the fist. Life is good!