Auto Manifesto

Wind Power Circa 2030

2008-05-16T18:08:00.001-04:00

The AP reports this week that a study by the Energy Department indicates that wind power could generate 20% of the nation's electricity by the year 2030, the same portion currently produced by nuclear reactors. Right now wind energy accounts for roughly 1% of the country's electricity.

The report indicates that electricity has the potential to be generated for less than half a cent per kilowatt hour using wind turbines. To reach the 20% share, there'd have to be more than 75,000 new turbines installed as well as a major expansion of the power grid as electricity from high wind generating areas to places where the electricity is needed. But it would make a significant difference in the quest for renewable energy.

SAE Government/Industry Meeting Notes

2008-05-16T17:59:00.001-04:00

SAE Government/Industry Meeting Notes

John German from Honda made some excellent points during his presentation in a session about fuel economy, CO2, and CAFE. Since 1987 advances have been used to improve attributes other than fuel economy (http://www.epa.gov/oms/fetrends.htm). If the benefits had been directed entirely toward fuel economy we would be averaging 38 mpg today.

The reason it hasn't been so is because the market wants other benefits more than pure fuel economy (according to their surveys fuel econ has been low on the list of top considerations by consumers). And when/if the price of fuel stops rising a lot of current behavior changes. People will revert to the way they behaved before.

There are currently far too many technical options, requiring manufacturers to hedge their bets. What's needed is a clear path, not technology du jour. This is because there's a limited number of engineers. If there are multiple standards, their efforts would be diluted and thus progress would be slowed in order to comply with the differing standards.

The Internal combustion engine (ICE) continues to be the benchmark by which alternative technologies are compared. However, it is a moving target as it too continues to improve.

Later in that same session, Keith Cole from GM made an informative presentation with regard to three things. One is the so-called 3 legged stool for reducing greenhouse gases which consists of improving vehicle efficiency, reducing the carbon content of fuel, and reducing vehicle miles traveled/reducing congestion/improving infrastructure.

The second item consists of next generation ethanol, and why GM invested in Coskata and Mascoma (sounds like a disease). According to him, Coskata's feedstocks for ethanol can come from multiple non-food sources, and resulted in an 84% reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) compared with regular gasoline on a well-to-wheel basis. He further claimed that the energy produced is 7.7 times as much as the energy it takes to make it, and that it costs producers less than $1 per gallon to make it (didn't specify if that was with or without the tax credit).

Finally, he made an excellent point that CARB's proposal to regulate CO2 of vehicles sold in California would not be effective for national fuel economy. This is because increasing the average fuel economy of vehicles in that state would enable a manufacturer to have a lower average elsewhere in the nation if the CAFE (Federal) standard was lower than the California standard. In the end, the national average would still be dictated by the national standard.

Audi R10 On Display

2008-05-12T22:18:00.002-04:00

I’m attending this annual conference in DC this week and have a lot of notes to follow up on soon. But a pleasant surprise was walking out to the front of the hotel and finding a diesel-powered Audi R10 race car parked like any other car. So I whipped out the camera phone and snapped away. A real treat.

As you can see I’m no photographer but there are some interesting tidbits about the car. The steering wheel is not real – kind of like the TVs you find in a furniture store, it’s for display only. Notice the bottle of Mother’s wax in the interior. Lots of ducts, vents and scoops.

For more on the R10, Wikipedia has a good article, as does Mulsanne’s Corner.

Cars Should Be Plug & Play

2008-05-11T21:50:00.003-04:00

Cars are too complicated, a pain to work on in many ways. But a lot better than buildings and homes. Still, nothing is simple to unbolt/unscrew and replace.

Check out the heater on my MR2. The slider for the temperature control was stuck. After completely tearing out the center console to pull the HVAC panel out (along with the stereo, cigarette lighter, hazard light switch, and vent ducts) I got to the bottom of it. Hopefully it’ll all go back together ok.

This is a good illustration of the basic problem. Things aren’t made to be replaced. The whole vehicle is. There should be clearer boundaries between subsystems, making it easier to replace specific components.

Take my MP3 player. I can plug it into a computer with a USB cable and swap files between the two, as well as charge it.

Then I can plug in earbuds when I’m out and about or I can hook it up to speakers when I’m home. There are very few things to break or fail with solid state electronics. If something fails, I just get a replacement.

The HVAC controls in a car should be like that. The old school way of a bunch of wires and cables, while generally reliable, is out of date and a pain to work with.

Imagine if you could dissect a car almost as easily as a Lego set. There’d be a lot less scrap because cars would last longer and be easily upgraded. Like remodeling your house without the hassle of redoing drywall. This is what I meant in this previous post.

Turkish Grand Prix

2008-05-11T10:49:00.000-04:00

It was kind of a snoozer. The most interesting thing so far is that Super Aguri went out of business, which leads to the debate about the health of F1. Peter Windsor interviewed Bernie Ecclestone on Speed TV and he said the sport is healthy and growing with new events being added to the calendar. I disagree.

There are now only 20 cars. It is simply too expensive and consequently there are fewer cars now. There even used to be pre-qualifying because there were only a maximum of 26 (?) slots on the grid.

Governments can and will subsidize races for a multitude of reasons. Not all of them are for sporting purposes. But industry has to fund the teams and you can see there’s not enough funding to go around in the current sports climate.

Anyway, the start of the race was a downer. The safety car has been getting a lot of use this season. Both Heikki Kovalainen and Kimi Raikkonen made poor starts. Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, and Fernando Alonso made up places at the start.

Is Kovalainen generally unlucky? He qualified well but between losing out to the safety car period in Australia, the massive accident in Spain when his wheel failed, and today’s extra pit stop, I’m wondering how well he’ll turn his season around. Still he provided some great racing dicing with Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg further down the grid today.

Another driver having a tough time is Nelson Piquet. While he had a nice scrap with Jenson Button, his driving has been ragged and he’s made a lot of mistakes.

Don’t know what happened to Vettel, but at least he survived the first lap and finished the race but had to make 4 stops which is why he finished last.

Raikkonen’s race was essentially blown at the start and when he lost 1.2 seconds to Hamilton during the last round of pit stops (7.1 seconds vs 5.9 seconds), finishing 0.5 seconds adrift.

Jarno Trulli’s race engineer often gives him comically obvious motivational advice via radio to catch up to the drivers ahead. Trulli’s response today was “Don’t worry, I’m already pushing like hell”.

On to the technical details, the items of interest this time around were the thermal imaging cameras of the cars as they pitted. Interesting to note how white hot the exhaust, transmissions, and rear brakes were. I’d like to see a side profile of the cars and the front brakes with these cameras.

Also, Steve Matchett had some insightful comments on McLaren’s struggles running with the soft compound tires. Finally, there was talk about the margin of safety of the cars and the weight of various components. It seems like if the FIA wants to improve safety, they should specify minimum weights for certain components such as wheels, in addition to the overall minimum weight of car and driver.

Oh, and Felipe Massa won the race for Ferrari. The next race is Monaco in two weeks.

Detroit vs. Denmark

2008-05-08T13:04:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday I flew to Detroit ahead of several days of meetings. While waiting for my rental car I was reading the current issue of Bicycling Magazine and was blown away by the contrast.

Here I was an automotive engineer in Detroit waiting for a rental car. What could be more mobile than that? But I was transfixed on the article about Denmark and the use of bicycles there for transportation, and how well it worked.

Meanwhile, after half an hour of waiting in line (they were understaffed) I got the car. After pulling out of the lot I followed signs for I-94. Within a few blocks I almost stopped the car because it looked like the road had ended. Upon further inspection, the road was just a gigantic series of potholes and patches. It looked like a test track for evaluating durability.

The car I had was a newly redesigned compact from a domestic nameplate and it rode the bumps surprisingly well. But once out on smooth highway it was numb, as if the front tires were underinflated (they weren’t). Why the manufacturer bothered to redesign it I’ll never know. Let’s call this model Mediocrity 2.0 (M2.0).

So I’m motoring along just fine in Michigan and I’m thinking, as a visitor to the area, I didn’t know of a practical way I could bike from Detroit to Ann Arbor. But according to the article about Denmark, people there routinely bike the same distances, and their quality of life is supposedly higher than here in the US.

There is bicycling hope in the States though. The article mentioned a number of US cities that either are already bicycle friendly or are becoming more bicycle friendly such as Portland, Seattle, Boulder, Colorado, Washington DC (yes!), and so on.

I must say I was impressed with the anonymous government agency (begins with the letters E.P.A.) bike room in Ann Arbor where employees store their transportation. It was no more than a parking space but it did indeed hold a dozen bikes, just like the stats from Bicycling Magazine.

My whole point? The M2.0 is a product of its environment. Developed by a company based in Detroit, it’s reasonably well suited to cushioning the bumps of pockmarked roads and getting people from A to B in about as dull and numb a manner as possible. On the other hand, the environment in Denmark has enabled bicycle use, and its use has become an integral part of daily life there.

We need enablers. If the American landscape were more bicycle friendly, more people would ride instead of drive, not just for recreational purposes but also for transportation. It’s refreshing to see some of the changes occurring here, and I hope it’s a trend that continues.

Ralph Nader's Boat

2008-05-08T12:54:00.003-04:00

Automotive News published an article on Ralph Nader’s efforts to state a protest outside of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) headquarters about auto safety. I didn’t even know he was still running for President. Here’s an excerpt from the article (AutoNews.com requires login):

In a statement, Nader said NHTSA, which is charged with adopting lifesaving safety standards, instead "has now become a pathetic consulting firm for the motor vehicle manufacturers."

I’m all for automotive safety but these advocates are usually barking up the wrong tree. To his credit he's been a central figure over the last four decades to the tremendous improvement in automobile safety. But we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns on safety while people are still driving.

If you really want to make a difference in highway safety, pursue improved driver training, cracking down on impaired/distracted driving, getting incompetent drivers off the road, and pushing for driverless cars. The cars themselves are quite safe today and making them safer isn't going to reduce the number of accidents.

Strengthening the roof, while not a bad thing (within reason) is not going to do a thing to fix the fact that a car has flipped over because of human error. It’s people like Mr. Nader who keep diverting the public’s attention from the bigger issue of safety. Get the cars to drive themselves and we won’t have to deal with the aftermath of human drivers.

If more than 40,000 people die each year on the highways, and at worst 10% of these are caused by technical or road issues then the other 90% are due to driver or pedestrian error. Shouldn't we focus on preventing those mistakes in the first place rather than trying to save people after the fact?

The Shift: Energy Limitations

2008-05-07T20:26:00.002-04:00

In the past automobiles were performance limited. Components and systems such as engines, brakes, suspension and tires were the items that dictated the boundaries of their performance envelopes. Not so much the fuel. Gasoline, while more sophisticated today, has not been the limiting factor in performance for a long, long time.

Today, the vehicles we have are not really limited by much at all in terms of both performance and their energy sources, predominantly gasoline. If you want a car that can accelerate like it was shot out of a cannon, cruise all day at 100 mph, and stop on a dime, there are many alternatives to choose from.

As we move forward and develop alternatives to oil-based energy sources, we’re finding that we’re now on the other side of the coin. Chassis capable of handling the aforementioned performance criteria are plentiful. But alternative energy sources of propelling a vehicle to those lofty levels are not measuring up to the performance of good old-fashioned petroleum.

Now it is about energy density because the energy issue is upstream of the performance issue. Solving that will affect performance – at least in the near term. We’ll have to take what seems like a step backward in order to go forward.

While oil has such high energy density that nearly everything from marine engines to lawn mowers can be powered by internal combustion engines scaled for each application, tomorrow it will be a case of different horses for different courses. What might work for locomotives won’t work for automobiles, which will again be different from trucks and planes.

Right now it looks like electric cars are the next step. But that might not work for many other applications such as long haul trucks. Or rail. Or construction equipment.

In the foreseeable future, I just don’t see oil getting completely displaced by alternatives until big breakthroughs are made. Not only do we need to concentrate on making those breakthroughs, we need to be mindful of using less of everything. It’s a two pronged approach to accelerating the end of oil: Developing viable alternatives AND reducing our overall energy needs.

The Midas Touch – Not Always Good

2008-05-07T20:22:00.001-04:00

This is not about the muffler repair chain. This is about the value of commodities when demand increases, specifically it is about ethanol and corn. Corn is at about an all-time high closing at $6.13/bushel today on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Let me illustrate why corn to ethanol is not a scalable solution. The USDA estimates 86 million acres of corn will be planted in 2008. For conversation’s sake, let’s just make it an even 100 million acres.

My back-of-the-envelope calculations (using these conversion factors) show that if all the corn the US produced was turned into Ethanol for automobile use, we’d end up with 27.24 billion gallons of ethanol. Now think of what that would do to food prices and political stability around the world. Nothing good. Not to mention the water and energy that goes into producing ethanol.

Ok, but continuing down this path where does that leave us? Wikipedia shows 34.6 MJ/L for gasoline and 20 MJ/L for ethanol. That means 1 gallon of ethanol contains about 70% of the energy of a gallon of gasoline. So the 27.24 billion gallons of ethanol would equate to about 19 billion gallons of gasoline.

How much gasoline does the US use each year? The EIA figure for 2006 was 388.6 million gallons per day, or almost 142 billion gallons per year. That means if we used all the corn (and then some) grown in 2008 and turned it into ethanol, we can expect it to replace about 13.5% of the gasoline used.

You’ve seen the headlines of food shortages and price increases in many parts of the world. Certainly there are a variety of factors causing this. But on more than one occasion corn-based fuel has been cited as a concern. Right now the amount of corn used for fuel is miniscule, and already we’re seeing price issues.

Irrational markets driven not only by demand but also by projections and fear are putting a huge risk premium on the price of many commodities.

Whenever demand for something increases or potentially increases, the price will increase and in some cases skyrocket. Corn is no exception. There is simply too much demand for, and fear over it.

Corn does not seem to be a scalable solution to our energy problems. In fact, there don’t seem to be many possibilities that offer a scalable silver bullet. The heart of the problem is that the world currently consumes too much energy in proportion to what is able to economically produce, which in turn will cause price increases in the production of every energy source there is.

Go here for more about recent corn price activity:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080403/corn_at_6.html

NHTSA Fuel Economy Proposal

2008-04-29T18:13:00.000-04:00

The new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) proposal is going to have unintended consequences. It’s based on the premise that each manufacturer’s fleet should have an average based on the size of each model and the number of vehicles produced.

The size of each model is based on its “footprint”, that is the track width multiplied by the wheelbase, and that the smaller this area is the higher the fuel economy (MPG) of the vehicle must be. It is intended that this would raise the average fleet fuel economy.

I also believe this is NHTSA’s solution to their dilemma of how to categorize a vehicle as a passenger car or a light truck, a dilemma that has become markedly more of an issue with so many different models now available from manufacturers.

However, this proposed regulation potentially won’t achieve its objective because manufacturers will build larger, less efficient models than they could since they have lower fuel economy hurdles to clear, relative to smaller vehicles. It’s a disincentive for manufacturers to offer smaller (and presumably more efficient) vehicles.

If that is the case then the way to have a more efficient vehicle fleet is to leave it to the market to demand more efficient vehicles by voting with its money. So why have the burden of this additional change?

Every manufacturer should be accountable to one standard, and not have their thresholds based on their product mix. Foundations should be built on level ground. NHTSA should clarify the definitions of automobiles and light trucks, and apply these definitions to all vehicle manufacturers the same way.

Here’s a link to the proposal (scroll down to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration):

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a080428c.html

More Self-Parking Cars

2008-04-29T18:05:00.002-04:00

Speaking of driverless cars, VW (among others) is working on self-parking cars.

It’s obvious that in order to have a driverless car the first step is to have a self-parking car. It’s only a matter of time.

Gasoline Buffers

2008-04-29T13:31:00.000-04:00

The main obstacle of electric vehicles is energy storage media. A gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel is about 6.5 lbs. The equivalent weight in batteries is in the neighborhood of 205 lbs. This is akin to carrying a memory stick with gigabytes of capacity compared to reels of film or floppy diskettes.

But there are many advantages to electric power such as the ability to decouple vehicle speed from engine speed, energy recapture during braking, silent operation, and no emissions when operating in electric mode. These factors add up to considerable potential energy savings.

This is why there are numerous projects aimed at developing series hybrids (the Chevy Volt being the first that comes to mind). In other words gasoline and diesel are excellent energy storage media while electric powertrains are much more efficient. So the challenge is to somehow combine the better aspects of the two in order to achieve a superior solution, and putting in place the infrastructure to support pure electric power when the energy density of batteries (or capacitors, etc) have matured sufficiently.

Right now that appears to be a revolutionary chassis combined with a small IC engine and electric drivetrain. By that I mean cars that are dramatically different and lighter than existing vehicles. Conventional designs fitted with electric power wouldn’t be nearly as much of an improvement. We should strive for major gains by thinking further outside the box.

Flywheels As Bridges

2008-04-28T22:45:00.002-04:00

I’ve been wondering lately if a mechanical flywheel could be a means to bridge the gap between battery and supercapacitors for on-board vehicle energy storage. Supercaps can be charged and discharged quickly, and their high bursts of power are good for acceleration but not so much for constant power.

On the other hand, batteries are slow to charge and discharge but are good for sustained cruising. Using supercaps and batteries together could provide for a wide range of power needs. Except thus far it doesn’t seem there’s any way to charge batteries quickly and maintain their service lifespans.

Possibly then a mechanical flywheel could be used as a bridge between the two in the sense that an on-board supercapacitor could be quickly charged and enable a vehicle to get back on the road. The supercap quickly charges the flywheel, and then the flywheel slowly charges the batteries.

At this point flywheel capability in a vehicle application is relatively unknown but it’s a potentially useful technology path. And with Formula 1 featuring KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) next year, this is a great opportunity for technology transfer from racing to the street.

Gasoline to Battery Range Comparison

2008-04-27T17:05:00.001-04:00

One tank of gasoline contains hundreds of millions of Joules of energy (MJ), about 45 MJ/kg according to Wikipedia. Let’s say your typical car is 3,000 lbs in weight, has a range of 350 miles on a tank of gas, and gets about 30 mpg highway.

By contrast a Nickel-Metal Hydride (NimH) battery is good for about 0.22 MJ/kg. For the sake of discussion, using today’s technology how much battery mass would it take to provide the equivalent?

At 30 mpg it would take 11.67 gallons of gas to go 350 miles. If each gallon is roughly 6.5 lbs, then we have roughly 76 lbs or 34.5 kg of gas. Based on 45 MJ/kg that’s 1,552 MJ of energy.

We know a 350 mile range would be too far for batteries. So how much would the market accept as an alternative? Let’s assume 2/3 of that which would be 210 miles. For the same vehicle then 210 miles would require 2/3 as much energy which would be equal to about 1,035 MJ. But keep in mind that a gas engine is about 25% efficient whereas an electric power train is closer to 75%.

That means if you’re using 1,035 MJ of gas at 25% efficiency, you would only need about 345 MJ of electricity (1,035 x 0.25 / 0.75).

Using battery tech with 0.22 MJ/kg we’d still need an astounding 1,568 kg (or 3,456 lbs) of batteries. No wonder the ranges being discussed for plug-in hybrids (PHEV) are more often in the 50 to 100 mile range, using lithium batteries.

However, all is not lost. If we can pare the weight of the vehicle down from 3,000 lbs to say 1,500 lbs we can probably save another 1/3 in the energy for the same range. If that was done battery mass would come down proportionally to 1,045 kg (2,305 lbs). Still not practical but that’s for a 200 mile range. If the range were cut to 50 miles then it looks like we could get away with less than 600 lbs of batteries (2,305 lbs x 50 miles/200 miles = 576 lbs) if the car is very light. This does not yet account for the weight of the batteries either.

It’s clear there are only 3 main ways to increase PHEV range without additional fuel:

Improved battery energy density
More efficient powertrains
Drastically lighter vehicles

While there’s a lot of work being done on improving battery technology, it should be noted that dramatically lighter vehicles will strongly contribute to the growth of PHEV vehicles. And in doing so we’ll probably see a lot of refreshing concepts in the very near future.

F1 Notes – Spanish Grand Prix

2008-04-27T16:23:00.000-04:00

Some observations of today’s event:

Fernando Alonso did a great job in qualifying, almost got pole. He was lucky to get away with his off during the warm up lap when he nearly hit a wall. Good start from the Ferraris.

Lewis Hamilton probably made the best one, certainly the decisive one of the race when he jumped Robert Kubica. He’s done this on more than one occasion at the start where he’ll go to the outside approaching the first turn and then dart inside to take the position from the car ahead as it tries to defend the mid-outside line. It often pays off.

Not a good day if your name was Sebastian. Vettel was taken out by Adrian Sutil’s failed move on someone else ahead of him. More reason to qualify further ahead.

Speaking of Sutil I don’t see him lasting the rest of the year unless he really improves his performance. Teammate Giancarlo Fisichella outqualified him by about 0.7 of a second which seems like somewhere between a kilometer and a mile.

Then Sebastian Bourdais had the accident with Nelson Piquet which eventually took them both out.

Couldn’t believe there was an audience of 132,000 people. Huge turnout for Fernando Alonso.

Then Heikki Kovalainen has a massive accident due to mechanical failure. It looked awful as the car wedged itself under the tire barrier having impacted it nearly straight on at high speed. When the car was finally extricated there was visible daylight in the cockpit, not a good sign at all. Heikki was taken away on a stretcher but appeared to be mostly ok. Hopefully he’ll be fine and his promising career won’t be adversely affected.

Hard to imagine the consequences of such an impact if the wall was concrete as they likely were in the recent past.

Steve Matchett on Speed TV really knows his stuff. Always fascinating to hear him speak about strategy and the many considerations that go into running the cars.

The rule prohibiting refueling in the pitlane when it’s closed due to a safety car period is both confusing and cumbersome. Totally ruined Nick Heidfeld’s race. A 10 second penalty for refueling when you had to? Utterly ridiculous.

It’s time for David Coulthard to hang up his F1 gloves. He’s become an obstinate curmudgeon, party to too many accidents when getting passed, and today’s result was he was lapped by his teammate Mark Webber who actually finished, and in the points to boot.

If Red Bull are to win they need to replace Coulthard.

In the end Jackie Stewart’s pre-race prediction was right on the mark no one would challenge Kimi Raikkonen for the win. Raikkonen gets criticized unfairly for his perceived lack of emotion. But he gets my vote for not only being the best driver on the grid, he doesn’t complain and gets the job done without drama. That is a mark of a true champion.

Primitive Alien Life May Exist, Stephen Hawking Says

2008-04-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

Here’s an interesting article that deals only tangentially with transportation:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/primitivealienlifemayexiststephenhawkingsays

But the headline caught my eye because nothing says “That’s Us!” like primitive alien life, considering how far we’ve come in only a brief span of time and some of the basic problems we are still challenged by like world peace, keeping our tires properly inflated, and driving with our headlights off at night….

IC Engine Technology Paths

2008-04-21T22:30:00.002-04:00

Assuming a conventional gasoline engine is about 25% efficient, that means for each liter of fuel we put in we can expect 1/4 of a liter’s worth of work out of it. Moving forward we have to strive for 30%, 40%, 50% efficiency and beyond – whatever is possible.

Despite all the alternative propulsion sources, they all have to be cost effective, reliable, durable, perform well, and be efficient. The internal combustion engine will probably still go strong for another decade or two as the benchmark by which all others are compared.

So what kinds of improvements can we expect to see in that arena? It appears there are basically 3 trends that will continue. Reduction of friction, use, and weight, which ultimately leads to reduced fuel consumption and increased efficiency.

First, we’ll see more use of efficient fuels on a cost basis (say Joules/$). Diesel will probably gain marketshare from gasoline engines, with government subsidies on alternative biofuels a wildcard.

Next, the way the fuel is burned will be a factor. We’re seeing more and more direct-injection and a lot of research into areas of combustion. HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) and other methods of combining the best of two and four cycle engines are understudy.

Also, forced induction (primarily through turbocharging) is gaining in popularity as a means of moving more fuel and air through smaller engines. It is the dominant induction method in heavy trucks in North America, an industry known for efficiency. Useful recovery of waste heat can also help recapture some of the energy that would otherwise be lost.

Further, we’ll see smaller displacements and lower weights. A lot of vehicles will probably step down a notch or two in cylinder counts and engine sizes. Examples include Cadillac going from V8 engines to V6 engines, the next generation Corvette and BMW M3 among others.

Then there’ll be lower friction through improved coatings and materials. Who knows. Maybe we’ll see a day of engines without any lubricating oil at all.

Finally, decoupling methods will continue to proliferate with improvements in electronics and software. Examples of this include variable valve timing which will next probably lead to engines with valves actuated electronically, cylinder deactivation (running on fewer than all cylinders under light loads), idle reduction at traffic lights through stop/start algorithms.

Ford (and others) is putting into place some of these elements under the name Ecoboost, and will surely continue to do so. Any company that already makes engines is no doubt reviewing their product mix and R&D plans with more emphasis on efficiency than ever before.

Sustainable Technology Choices

2008-04-21T22:24:00.002-04:00

We now have a global population of well over 6 billion. Per capita consumption of many precious resources is rapidly increasing. Multiply those two factors together and the outcome is BAD.

Put it this way. We have a room with a pie in it. There are four pie lovers in the room and they can split the pie into four pieces and get their fill. Now put twelve pie lovers in the same room with the same pie and the slices can get smaller or things can start to get ugly. Replace the pie with any commodity and replace the people with countries. It’s clear everyone needs to consume a lot less.

I’m not saying anything new. But it’s important to reiterate these points. There’s not much that’s being done to curb population growth. Seems to be politically unpopular to suggest that when the typical ways it occurs is through war, disease, famine, or other natural disasters. Or industrialization, where people just end up not having as many kids.

But that won’t help either because the paradox is that a lower birthrate does not necessarily equal less consumption per capita. So total consumption might not decrease with lower population growth. The USA is the poster child for that.

So going forward we can expect volatile commodity prices with upward trends. Oil is the first thing that comes to mind at this point. Energy, precious metals, other metals that are becoming more precious (steel, aluminum, copper, etc), staple crops, drinking water are a few others that come to mind. Where will it end?

We continue to operate on smaller margins of error. Why? Commodity supplies can be assumed to be fixed. There’s only so much dirt, water, and air to go around. As the population is projected to reach nine billion people, the per capita availability of resources goes down. Thus prices must spike and trend upward over time. At a world population of 2 billion there is a threefold margin of demand as there is at population of 6 billion.

The ideal solution to this problem is:

Population growth slows.
Per capita consumption decreases dramatically.
Massive and efficient recycling infrastructure are in place. To be sustainable, commodity prices have to be high enough to make it work, whether through market forces or government intervention.
As far as transportation goes, technologies must be developed to account for the risk of supplies going low, even if it’s good technology. The risk factors affecting supply must receive more scrutiny than in the past.

The only competitive advantage then is to use less of everything in any solution to arrive at the desired outcome. The world needs to become dramatically more efficient in order to maintain some semblance of the lives we’ve become accustomed to and demand.

Curbing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

2008-04-16T17:53:00.001-04:00

The Wall Street Journal (among other sources) reports that President Bush is proposing to halt grown in carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2025, not with specific legislation but to influence broader policy to move in that direction. There will be emphasis on the power industry which produces approximately 40% of US CO2 emissions. Seems to me that this is vital in order to work toward uniform, national legislation on this front-and-center issue rather than run the risk of a state regulatory patchwork that we literally cannot afford.

It makes a lot of sense. Don’t know if it’s going to be enough, but it makes sense. Especially focusing on power generation since it is technically and administratively a lot more feasible to regulate than mobile sources (see my thoughts on rolling chemistry sets).

And within that time frame it is likely that vehicles will have shifted significantly to off-board power generation in the form of battery electric vehicles (or maybe even somehow to hydrogen).

It is also expected that any agreement will also have to include other major emitters such as China and India to help ensure a more level playing field for all involved.

2008-04-15T19:20:00.002-04:00

Guess it’s getting ugly with allegations and rumors about Tesla and Fisker going to court. According to Automotive News (subscription required), Tesla is suing Fisker for breach of contract. Tesla had hired Fisker to design the interior and exterior of its upcoming WhiteStar electric sedan. The suit accuses Fisker of doing a substandard job in order to stall the development of the WhiteStar while stealing trade secrets, business plans, and engineering data in order to develop their own car. The prototype of that car, the Fisker Karma, was unveiled in Detroit in January.

Someone’s probably going down in flames before this is all said and done. Here’s an article from AutoBlog:

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/15/tesla-files-suit-against-fisker-automotive/

4/16/08 Update - Then Tesla gets sued by Magna:

http://jalopnik.com/380438/another-twist-tesla-sued-by-magna-powertrain

This is becoming a soap opera. Let’s see more cars please…

2008-04-15T19:16:00.001-04:00

Following up on my previous post, there’s a whole lot of development going on with infrastructure, navigation, and communication.

Clearflow launched last week. They’re using predictive algorithms to predict traffic conditions and best routes/times:

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/14/microsoft-launches-new-clearflow-traffic-avoidance-system/

Then we have another story about eight radio broadcast companies coming together to form the Broadcaster Traffic Consortium to include traffic and digital maps in the HD radio spectrum. Read more here:

http://jalopnik.com/379900/hd-radio-looks-to-tackle-traffic-conundrum

Finally, we’ve got BMW’s partnership with Google to input your frequent driving destinations into your navigation system like speed dial telephone numbers in your phone:

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/14/bmw-gets-in-bed-with-google-maps-for-myinfo/

The number of moves afoot to provide improved traffic and congestion information is impressive. While all this is a boon to the battle against congestion, I’d like to see more emphasis placed on reducing traffic in general by people planning their trips better, increasing flex work hours and telecommuting, and alternative modes of transportation such as rail, buses, and bicycles.

DOT Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Request for Information

2008-04-15T19:11:00.002-04:00

The US DOT has put out a request for information on potential business models for Vehicle Infrastructure Integration. Rather than rewrite the text, I'll just quote a portion of it:

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) is requesting information concerning potential business models for achieving the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) vision. The VII vision is predicated on the existence of ubiquitous, vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle data communication capabilities, which will enable public and private user services to improve roadway safety and, also, enhance mobility, traffic operations, relieve congestion, lessen the environmental impacts of transportation, promote energy conservation, enable electronic payment of transportation-related fares, tolls, and parking fees, as well as allow for user access to the Internet from motor vehicles. Background information on VII is available at the U.S. DOT website, www.its.dot.gov/vii.

It is proposed that Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) technology be used to build a smarter road network. The Federal government wants to deploy 150k to 250k of these locations throughout the country in order to get vehicle manufacturers to equip their vehicles with DSRC and end the chicken versus egg stalemate that currently exists.

The gist of the request is to figure out how this is going to be paid for and how it will make money for companies that supply or operate on the network. The deadline to respond is May 2, 2008. To read the full text go here:

http://www.fbo.gov/

and do an advanced search for "Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Business Model".

Vehicle Miles Traveled – The New Metric for Fees?

2008-04-14T22:11:00.001-04:00

According to a recent article in Transport Topics (3/31/2008), Oregon has done a pilot study of nearly 300 motorists who volunteered to be guinea pigs. Their vehicles were fitted with a small GPS data recorder that tracked each.

Of course there are concerns from some about privacy and the “big brother” issue. While I agree that some of those concerns are valid, it really isn’t much different than the GPS features built into our cell phones now.

Anyway, the point of the study was to determine where, when, and how much motorists in the program drove. Instead of charging an 18.4 cent/gallon Federal fuel tax on gasoline as has been the case since 1993, officials are looking at taxes/tolls/fees based on each mile driven, and at what times (congestion pricing).

This is intended to ensure adequate continued highway funding as vehicles become more efficient and use less fuel,

I will point out though that a fuel tax on a per gallon basis will tax constituents on how much fuel they use rather than how much they drive. Right now if you drive a vehicle that gets low fuel economy, you get taxed more per mile than if you drive a more efficient vehicle.

With VMT-based taxes, unless there were provisions to account for your vehicles efficiency, you’ll be taxed on how much you travel. It would be better if drivers taxed on a basis that accounted for both the fuel used and the distance traveled in order to encourage less driving (especially during peak hours) and the use of more efficient vehicles.

Six Miles of Wonder

2008-04-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

New mid-day routine: I’ve started bike riding at lunch now. By doing so I’m breaking the workday into two halves. During the break I typically ride about 20 to 25 minutes and cover six miles.

Much of the time the weather here is hospitable (enough) to bike. I ride year round. It’s relaxing, I don’t think about work while I’m out and I come back refreshed, hit the shower, eat lunch and I’m ready to do another half day at elevated productivity levels. In other words, working two half-days in one day is more productive than working one regular day.

It’s a wonder why more people don’t bike. It works great and takes away from traffic and congestion. And by the end of the day I have more energy than if I hadn’t gone on the ride. If only more people knew how good it is…. Quite possibly the best kept secret in transportation.

Cold Weather Battery Use

2008-04-14T21:57:00.001-04:00

Batteries don’t tend to work as well at cold temperatures. Their performance drops off significantly below certain temperature thresholds. So here’s a question.

I wonder if there have been studies done for determining when a battery would actually be more efficient at cold temperature by powering a small heating element to help warm itself, as well as improve durability?