Come Check Out My New Website

Come check out my new website:  
Click here:  
www.John Saves Energy.com

Well, I’ll be! I’m in the newspaper.



Also, I am in the beginning stages of converting my blog over to my new website
www.johnsavesenergy.com

If you have an idea for an energy saving topic let me know.
John

2011 All-Electric Antelope Island Tour

Several weeks ago I decided to take my truck to a place where (at least to my knowledge) no electric vehicle has driven to, on its own power before.

Antelope Island, Utah. In middle of nowhere in the Great Salt Lake there is a lone mountain that stands high out of the water. Antelope Island. Decades ago they built a 7 mile long causeway from Syracuse, UT, across the Great Salt Lake to Antelope Island. The island now has several miles of paved and un-paved roads.

I mapped out ahead of time the route I would take in my electric truck. I took the Interstate to Antelope drive and from there drove strait west until I reached the Lake shore. I drove the 7-mile causeway to the island and proceeded to drive around the island.

 

I took a wrong turn and ended up on top of a high vista looking out over the west shore side of the island. Backtracking, I headed into the direction I originally planed (to a farm-house 11 miles down the road. I knew this 5 mile wrong way turn would cost me in the end but for some reason I continued to the farm house anyway. Against the better judgment of the voices in my head, I kept going onward. I don’t know which is crazier, having voices in your head or not listening to them tell you that you are going to get stranded on an island without electricity while you are driving an electric truck.

I made it to the farm house and spent a while looking around.

As the sun was starting to set behind the mountain, it occurred to me that on the other side of the large island, and across the 7-mile causeway, there is a large gate that closes at sunset. “If that gate closes before I go under it, I am spending the night here”.

I started driving back the way I came. I made it back to the causeway but as I got about ½ way across, my battery pack began to show signs of being done for the evening. I could no longer maintain 50mph, 45, 40, 35. As the sun was quickly getting lower in the sky behind me, I squinted in vain trying to make out the toll shack and gate on the other end of the causeway. After what seemed like an eternity, I passed the shack and drove past the gate. “Whew!”, at least I will not be sleeping with coyotes tonight. Where I end up is another story”.


I did it! I am the first person to drive an all electric vehicle from land, across the causeway to Antelope Island and back again.
I let the truck battery pack rest for a few minutes in hopes of gaining some extra range.

I still had a good 15 or so miles to go before I made it back to my house. I thought about the route I took getting here and how it was not exactly a strait line. “If I cut through some neighborhoods, I may be able to shave 3 miles off my trip home”. Driving slowly on the shoulder, I managed to go another 6 miles before the truck battery was all the way dead. I pulled onto a dead-end street. OK, now what?

By this time, it was pretty dark outside. I went to the nearest door and rang the doorbell, “May I borrow a cup of electricity”? I asked.

The old lady at the door looked worried and confused. She directed me to a man across the street. He was kind enough to let me plug in for an hour.

As I waited for my truck to get some life back, I thought about the day's journey. It was an adventure to say the least.
I wrote a thank-you note to the kind, unknown citizen who lent me a dime’s worth of electricity. He had since gone back inside for the evening so I unplugged, left him my note and a dollar for his trouble of helping me.

One kilo-watt-hour only gives about 3 miles worth of range in my truck but letting the batteries sit for an hour must have helped too. I was able to drive the remaining 7 miles back to my house. Well, Almost.

As my batteries were beginning to show signs of being done just 2 miles from home, I approached the round-about. Not wanting to use my brakes for fear of wasting any precious momentum that I had acquired, I turned off, one turn early. This route was about the same distance as the next round-about exit but as took the turn, I remembered the large hill that this route included.

There was no way I would make it up that hill, not with the batteries in the condition that they were in. I drove up most of the hill before being forced to stop for a 5-minute battery rest. This time, even the motor controller was powering itself down due to low voltage. "It’s about time it reached a low voltage state.", I thought to myself.

Amazingly, the ATX power supply that provides power for my headlights and the all-important contactor relay managed to stay up without any complaints whatsoever. That’s a well-made piece of equipment.

It gave me an idea though. I turned off the headlights and to my surprise, the motor came back to life with a lethargic surge. Slowly, I was off again. Only ¼ mile remaining. I rolled into my cul-de-sac and started to go up the driveway. Denied! My truck would not roll up the gentile hill slope into my garage. I let it rest on final time before it lugged slowly up the incline and into its spot in the garage by the charging outlet. After 63 miles and a very long day, I’m home.

EV Winter Problems and Solutions

Driving an electric vehicle, you have to be aware of the weather conditions.  While I can comfortably drive the 40 mile round trip to work and back when it is warm outside, in the winter time, my batteries are not as cooperative. Cold batteries can reduce the normal range of an electric vehicle by 30% or more. I have gotten around this for the most part by insulating the batteries and insulating my garage (what a mess I made but it was worth it in the end).  

Even with well below freezing temperatures outside, the garage stays a comfortable 43 degrees F.  This also makes it extra pleasant when you have to go somewhere and the vehicles are already partially warmed up.

At the beginning of the week, after my truck has sat all weekend in the garage without any regular charging, the batteries are approaching 45 degrees. This doesn't cause too much problem on the way to work but after the truck has sat in the parking lot at work for 10 hours, the batteries have dropped even lower in temperature.  The drive home on the first work day of the week is an anxious one. I watch the volt meter very closely. 120, 115, 110, 105 volts. Once the under-load voltage drops to 100 Volts, I know I have less than 2 miles of range before it's game over. At that point, I have to pull over and let the batteries rest for 10-15 minutes before I can slowly drive the rest of the way home.

Every other day of the week isn't a problem because charging the batteries up the night before also heats them to 75 degrees or so. That is sufficient so my truck can sit in the cold, exposed parking lot all day and the batteries only drop to 58 degrees or so. I am still able to make it home without any problems.  But for me, that's not good enough. 

Battery Warmer:

I bought some ice melting cable, (the kind you string on your roof to prevent ice dams and roof damage) and wrapped it around my batteries. If my batteries are not warm enough, I can plug in the warming cable. This allows me to warm up the batteries overnight without having to over-charge them to create heat. Eventually, I want to connect this cable up to a thermostat and wire it to the battery pack itself. At the cost of a couple miles in range, the batteries will maintain temperature all day at work and still have sufficient range that I can make it home.

Truck Bed Cover: 

I originally wanted to build a super fancy, aerodynamic, teardrop shaped truck bed cover, but that would not be very practical.  I want one that won't get in the way of me swinging by Home Depot on a whim for a couple sheets of OSB.  I compromised for a quick and dirty flat cover.  Using the last scraps of plastic, (from the sheet used for the air dam), I hastily built a cover that could withstand an 80 mph head wind (freeway driving conditions).  

As luck would have it, I drove to work the next day during some of the worst winds that Davis County has seen in 20 years.  As I drove southbound through Centerville, through the high wind corridor, the 90-103 mph east wind gusts made quick work of my truck bed cover, tearing half of it off.  Watching electrical transformers light up the early morning sky while trying to avoid flying debris and rubberneckers looking at semi trucks that had flipped over on I-15, I somehow made it in to work.  

Here is my sort-of-repaired bed cover.  It does help reduce the wind drag quite a bit.  Wind is not partial to ugliness, only form. 

Reducing Cold Induced Friction:

I noticed in the winter time that on the way home from work, my current draw is higher than on the way in to work. I have dismissed it in the past assuming it is caused by a headwind or something.

I read that cold motor oil is thicker and will rob horsepower until the oil can heat up and reach its desired viscosity. 

Another EV driver in the Salt Lake area suggested to me that transmission/gear oil is the same way. In a normal engine, the transmission heats up as the engine heats up.  This is because the bell housing of a transmission is mechanically and thermal coupled to the engine. A hot engine will yield a hot transmission. Thick gear oil is specified so that when the engine warms up, the oil thins to its correct viscosity.

But in my truck, the electric motor doesn't get hot like in a gas engine.  Thick oil will remain thick.  I decided to replace the transmission and differential oil with thinner oil.  It is anyone's guess what the negative long term effects will be of using thin motor oil as gear oil in a cool running electric vehicle.  I am willing to give it a try. 

Initial Results:

I started out by only replacing the differential oil before I drove my electric truck to work the next morning. To my surprise, it reduced my 55mph current draw by 5 amps (from 100 amps to 95 amps).  For a large portion of my to-work commute, I was only pulling 75 amps at 55mph. I suspect I had a tailwind and some traffic corridor wind in my favor as well. But usually under these conditions the truck is pulling about 80 amps.

On my way home, I had so much battery capacity remaining, I began to question the gauges.  After a recharge overnight, I was surprised that it only took 12.3KWh to charge back up. I usually need 13KWH or more to drive 40 miles. Replacing the 75W90 differential oil with 0W30 synthetic reduced my energy use from 325KWh/mile to 308KWh/mile. That's a 5% reduction in energy use. Wow!  That is really surprising.  I didn't expect it would make that much difference. 

The thin oil in the rear differential made a huge improvement.  What about the transmission oil?
That evening, I changed out the 75W90 oil in the manual transmission case with some 5W30 that I had on hand. I didn't have any more 0W30 synthetic. The next day, I drove to work without any problems.  Keep in mind the weather inversion in the Salt Lake valley (ironically caused by engine exhaust) maintains a depressing cloud cover and keeps the air temperatures in the high 20's and low 30's F all day long.  On the way home, there was a 10-14mph headwind that caused my truck to pull about 115 Amps (at 55mph) from the batteries.  I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have any range issues and made it all the way home comfortably. 

I recharged my batteries that night, accidentally leaving them on for an extra couple hours.  It only took 12.7KWh. Not bad for driving in a headwind half the time.  

These are some really preliminary results so I must collect several more days worth of data. 

Winter Tune-Up for Appliances and Your Home

Winter time is an expensive time of year. Holiday shopping, family gets together, extended traveling. Why not save some green this year by lowering your winter utility bills.

Christmas Lights: LED Christmas lights are getting less expensive each season. Each year, I used to put up 4 strings of twenty-five 7-watt Italian Christmas bulbs on my roof. That’s 700 watts worth of Christmas lights on the house. The Christmas tree had almost 600 watts worth of lights on it. The tree lights were running an average of 10 hours a day and the roof lights were on 8 hours a night unless I forgot to turn them off. Weekends, the lights were on even longer. One month of electric Christmas cheer cost nearly $40 in electricity.

I have since upgraded to roof and tree to LED lights. Only now, the house has 14+ strands. The tree still has the same 10 or so strands on it. My holiday cheer has gone up with more lights burning, except now it only costs about $2 for the season. The LEDs paid for themselves in electrical savings alone after the 2nd season.

Remove Window Screens: Remove the south-facing window screens in the winter time. Doing this will increase the solar heating through these windows by 40%. On a cold, sunny winter day, open the blinds and curtains on the south side. On a particularly cold, sunny day, it was 10 degrees F outside my house and a toasty 74 degrees inside even though the furnace was only set to 69 degrees. Even after the sun set, it took a few more hours before the house cooled down to where the furnace had to kick on again.

Wash Windows:  Cleaning the windows (inside and out) will also allow in more solar radiation, heating your home further.

Clean the glass on light fixtures and light bulbs: You will be amazed at how much more light your fixtures will emit when the dead insects are removed and the glass is cleaned. It will seem so bright, you might even want to replace the bulb with a lower wattage one, saving even more energy.

Cheryl calls all our vehicles and appliances zombies because they never die. I keep repairing them. Most of the time when an appliance dies, it was because it wasn’t maintained properly. The repair is usually an easy fix. You just need to be willing to tear into it and try to fix it. It’s dead anyway, what’s the risk in trying to bring it back to life?

Clean out the intake air vent on your hair drier. It’s gross but so what? Just remove all that sticky dust and hair that is clogging it all up. You will be so amazed at how much better the hair drier works. You may only need to run it on the low setting until it starts to clog up again. Cleaning it also makes it last longer. Better air flow keeps the heating element cooler and the exhaust air warmer.

While you are at it, remove the hair and string that is wrapped around the brush on your upright vacuum cleaner.

Clean out intake vents on your fireplace, refrigerator and overhead fans. And for heaven sakes, replace your furnace filter.

Just because you hear cold wind howling outside doesn't mean you have to feel it inside.   

Insulating and air-sealing your home will really help reduce heating costs, especially when it is cold and windy. A perfectly insulated and sealed house with lots of south-facing windows would not even need a furnace in the winter months even when it is 0 F. outside.  Daily solar radiation would be sufficient to heat the living space.  There are however practical limitations in making this perfect home. 

Make sure all windows and doors close properly and don’t leak air.

Buy foam inserts and install them behind all the exterior wall plates for plug sockets and light switches. It doesn’t take long to do, nor does it cost much but it makes a huge difference in reducing air leakage into your home. Your home will immediately feel less drafty.

I'm In The News

We'll I'll be!  My solar panels and electric truck made the news on Fox 13.

Here's a link showing the clip.

How Fun!  

EV Charging Stations

I recently read an article about the electric vehicle charging stations opening up in Salt Lake City.  They are free (for now) to the public to use for charging their electric cars.
While I applaud the city of Salt Lake for their forward thinking, a large portion of the public opinion is against such things.  They feel strongly that tax payer dollars (or pennies rather) should not be spent to pay for a portion of a few driver's transportation costs.
I was recently near Liberty park where one of these charging stations resides.  While I had sufficient battery capacity to drive back home to Kaysville, I wanted to try one out so I knew what to expect in case the situation arose where I needed to plug in for a quick battery re-charge. 

It was a first class thrill to have a guaranteed parking spot that refueled my truck while I played at the park.  After 20 minutes and at the cost of 3 cents to the tax payers, I was back on the road.
By providing EV charging stations, the State of Utah is qualifying as a place where electric cars can be sold commercially on a much larger scale. 
It's a chicken or the egg scenario.  Commercial all-electric cars won't be sold in markets (like Utah) that don't have adequate charging stations.  But nobody wants to support charging stations in Utah because there are not many electric cars here to utilize them. 

Retail Businesses Can Help

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work in my electric truck when I realized the old extension cord that I used earlier that day to re-charge my truck was faulty and my batteries weren't as full as planned.  I found myself pulling off of the freeway 5 miles before my normal exit.  I needed an extra 7 cents worth of electricity if I was to make it all the way home.  Oh well, I need to buy a new extension cord at Home Depot anyway. 

After receiving permission from the Home Depot store manager to plug in for an hour, I bought a new cord, plugged in and began re-charging the batteries.  At 120 volts, it takes about 1 hour to build back an extra 5-miles.  Three miles from the 1KWH of electricity and another 2 miles by just allowing the batteries to sit a while, rejuvenating them. 
Hmm, what else do I need at Home Depot?  It was during this hour of window shopping that I realized an invaluable, retail business, money-making principle.  I am a captive audience and there is no such thing as a free lunch.  Home Depot may be giving me 7 cents worth of electricity but they received much more from me.  Not only am I that much more loyal and grateful to Home Depot for their service and hospitality, but I ended up spending an additional $50 on other stuff that I needed while I was waiting for my truck to re-charge. 

Businesses that provide free EV charging stations will increase sales and make more money.  This free service will in turn satisfy the charging infrastructure requirements for future EV markets.   This is a Win-Win-Win situation for businesses, electric vehicles and the environment. 

Bring on the Charging Stations!

Stay tuned for my post about the first ever All Electric road-trip to Antelope Island, Utah.
Also upcoming: One way distance records and longest all-electric distance record traveled in one day.