Changing the automobile industry will be no easy task, but if you’ve heard RMI’s researchers and consultants in recent months, they say there’s a revolution coming.
In dusty garages and backstreet workshops, they say, tinkerers across the nation are pushing this revolution, and the American automobile will soon be a completely different animal.
Last weekend, members of RMI’s Mobility + Vehicle Efficiency (MOVE) Team took members of RMI’s National Solutions Council (NSC) on a tour of a few of these garages and workshops to show they’re not kidding about the tinkerers -- who seem to be everywhere.
In Boulder, the group first visited Hybrids Plus (“Plug in, charge up, drive on”), a start-up aimed at boosting normal hybrid vehicles mileage by converting them to PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles).
Most of the PHEV conversions Hybrids Plus does are on the Toyota Prius, simply because the Prius can operate purely on electricity (unlike the Honda Insight, for example). And the goal of each conversion is to get the car to at least 100 miles per gallon.
“You can’t help but get 'Oohs' when you tell people you get 100 miles per gallon,” observed NSC member Kelly O’Brien, who calls herself a savvy participant in the green revolution.
Hybrids Plus CEO Carl Lawrence and COO Ammon Balaster took the visitors on a tour of their small facility and showed several battery retrofits the company was doing.
One highlight of the firm’s operation, noted RMI Chief Scientist Amory Lovins, came in the form of a small antenna on the back of an under-construction vehicle.
That device -- a communications system that connects electric car and grid -- will allow the vehicle to talk to the grid and make wise decisions about when to draw power from the grid, and when to put it back.
Just down the street, MOVE Team members and their guests (many of whom walked the 0.8 miles between workshops) visited the future production line of EVC, an electric motorcycle company gearing up to produce electricity-powered machines.
RMI’s group watched a promotional video, then listened to a presentation by CEO William Kent.
The bike’s operations are regulated by a computer inside, which has two basic jobs: “don’t damage a component and don’t leave the rider stranded,” as Kent described it. In other words, if a rider is pushing the bike too hard, the operating system within will warn the rider of the batteries’ potential to become overheated.
“But you can override it,” he said. “This is basically computer on wheels.”
Being able to program the “ride profile” of a motorcycle allows for other things, too.
Kent described a parent programming in a top speed of 45 miles per hour for those times when their 16-year-old kid uses the bike. And, of course, it would be compatible with a variety charging locations -- say, if Starbucks offers vehicle charging in the future.
The field trip showed NSC members that RMI’s ideas aren’t just fantasy.
The great, green revolution in vehicle design that RMI often describes in its materials and work is happening.
“The [tour] far exceeded my expectations,” said NSC member Charles Taylor.
“The opportunity to see real-life entrepreneurs was exceptional. When you see it up close, face to face, it gives you a different way of looking at things.”
As NSC member O’Brien added, “What I found interesting was the physical implementation of ideas RMI pioneered PHEV technology, lightweight vehicles, and highly efficient design, both in drivetrain technology and in body -- coming together and providing viable product. I’m not surprised all this is going on, but I appreciate it.”
