January 5, 2000

Connecting With Electric Cars

What if gas prices were to double, say to about $3.00 a gallon, a figure not uncommon in some countries? Would Americans make the move to electric-powered vehicles? Would you consider switching if it saved you better than $700 a year in gas alone?

Most American motorists are not thinking about choosing between gas- and electric-powered cars as they race into the new millennium. A gallon of gasoline, after all, costs less in the United States than most parts of the world. And for the past decade, electric cars have been regarded as more a scientific experiment than a commercial reality.

Solectria has been a pioneer in the electric car business

You can use the chart below to calculate the different costs of fueling a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) -- the transportation of choice for many Americans -- and the Honda Insight -- a vehicle that combines a small gas engine with an electric motor.

What savings did you calculate for the present price of gas? For double that price?

Singing the Auto Body Electric

And what about the added savings to an environment overburdened with automobile emissions, from nitrous oxide to carbon monoxide? The economic and environmental arguments are not lost on car buyers like Boston attorney Sam Knight, who may soon purchase one of the first Insights, which went on sale in December.

Knight will make his decision based on personal experience: for three years he commuted by electric car from his suburban Boston home to a nearby subway station, where he parked in a special space and literally plugged the car into a 220 volt outlet to recharge by the time his work day was finished.

The car also left Knight singing its praises. "The electric motor is so efficient for its size and weight," he says "that it has tremendous torque (the energy that drives the vehicle's wheels). You don't need a transmission. You get regenerative braking, which helps recharge the battery every time you brake. One third of the energy the car uses goes right back into it."

A peek under the hood of Sam Knight's electric car reveals an automotive engine like few others.

Knight was leasing his car -- a Solectria -- as part of a nationwide program that encouraged commuters to cover the distance between home and the train station electrically. To drivers from San Francisco to Washington D.C. to the suburbs of New York City, "filling up" has come to mean "plugging in."

In December, Ford announced a demonstration program for its TH!NKcity electric vehicle for a San Francisco community.

Farther west, in Honolulu, Hawaii, plans are underway to install 20 high-technology filling stations for electric vehicles. Motorists will be able to refill their depleted batteries in nine minutes for about $2.00.

"What we're aiming to do is get a wider use of electric cars in society," says Karl Thidemann, the Marketing Director for Solectria, one of the leading manufacturers of electric cars. So far Solectria has sold 350 such vehicles, as well as a number of electric buses and trucks.

Thidemann estimates the total number of electric vehicles on the road at 5,000 and offers this history lesson: in 1900, he notes, one third of all new cars were electric and by 1910, there were about 50,000 in operation.

However, the limited range of electric cars -- most can travel 50 to 100 miles before running out of electricity -- and their price -- they can cost up to $40,000 -- makes it unlikely that they will become an everyday sight on the highways.

So how do engineers and environmentalists turn a good idea into a workable one?

A Happy Medium, and More

The technological breakthroughs in electronic transportation have made a compromise possible -- the creation of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), which combine a small gas motor with a powerful and efficient electric one, like the Honda Insight or the Toyota Prius, which has been sold for years in Europe and will reach the U.S. later this year.

The development of HEVs is being fueled by the U.S. Department of Energy's Hybrid Vehicle Propulsion Program.

Even electric car purists such as the Solectria company are beginning to manufacture components for hybrid vehicles.

"Initially we hay have been so focused on pure electric technology that hybrids were seen as a distraction," admits marketing director says Karl Thidemann. "But now we see them as a viable transitional technology."

Thidemann points out that the next frontier for environmentally friendly transportation is the world of fuel cells. Using technology developed for the NASA Space Shuttle, fuel cells extract hydrogen from gasoline and convert it into electricity to power an electric engine. The exhaust fumes consist of harmless water vapor. Cars would be able to travel as far as 80 miles on a gallon of gasoline.

Major automakers Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler are pushing ahead with fuel cell research and developing prototype cars. Since those cars would cost up to $80,000, the goal of the companies is to reduce the price to under $25,000.

When it comes to deciding what factors are important in deciding how to purchase such an expensive item, the activity The Best Car-Appetizer and The Best Car, both part of Tangible Math Stats!.

Do It Yourself

Several national competitions give students the change to put their own ideas for electric transportation to the test. This list comes from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.

• The National Junior Solar Sprint is classroom-based, hands-on educational program for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade student teams through which they apply math, science, and creativity to construct model solar-powered cars and race them in interscholastic competitions.

• The National High School Student Solar Design Contest is a competition for developing practical solar-powered devices. The designs, based on classroom learning experiences, can be original or improvements to existing devices.

• Solar BikeRayce USA is an annual competition among teams of high school and secondary vocational/technical school students and adults. In this event, bicycles retrofitted with electric motors, batteries, and solar electric panels are raced in both 400-meter acceleration contests and 100-kilometer marathons.