Maui: Beautiful Beaches and an Electric Vehicle Infrastructure?
Image from BetterPlace.com
Hawaii is planning on converting Maui to an all electric vehicle island. The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative hopes to decrease the state’s dependency on oil and focus more on renewable energy. According to the initiative currently 85% of the state’s energy comes from oil. Hawaii hopes to become more self sufficient by introducing electric vehicles to the island of Maui. According to this article the government hopes to have 3,000 electric cars on the road by 2010 and 50,400 electric by 2015.
Hawaii is a perfect place to introduce an electric vehicle network; people living in Hawaii pay some of the highest gas prices in the country, so driving an electric vehicle will likely be a much greater value than in other states. The geography is also conducive to an electric vehicle system since most of the islands are not that large.
To implement their electric vehicle system Hawaii has partnered with Better Place. Better Place will build up to 100,000 battery charging stations around the island of Maui by 2015. While you can still charge your vehicle at home, you have the option to subscribe to their battery swapping service, which sources their electricity from renewable energy resources. The cost is expected to be up to 8 cents per mile. Just last month Better Place unveiled their trial battery swapping station in Yokohama Japan. The article also includes a video demonstration on the process, which at one minute and fifteen seconds is quite impressive.
While no production vehicles are currently compatible with the battery-swapping stations, Better Place is working with auto manufacturers to ensure future electric vehicles will work with their system.
It will be interesting to see the effects the electric vehicles have on Hawaii’s economy once the network has been well established. Better Place is also working on implementing electric vehicle networks in San Francisco, Australia, Israel, and Denmark. To read more about Hawaii’s energy plan visit www.hawaii.gov/gov/energy.
iTunes, Kindle, NetFlix…Green Distribution
Green Car Company teammate Frances Ingraham wrote in our June newsletter about some of the green highlights of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, most notably that it “requires 67 times less water and 140 times less CO2 to produce than printed newspaper; and books use even more water!” There’s lots of analysis out there about how green the Kindle is, but there is a bigger idea behind the “greenness” of the Kindle: digital distribution is green distribution.
Many of you probably have purchased music off of iTunes (or some other online source). This means that you did not buy a physical CD. You didn’t buy that plastic case with the paper booklet that was shipped from somewhere to arrive at the store where you didn’t buy it. Maybe you didn’t buy the physical CD off the internet, which means you didn’t have it shipped, via truck or plane, to arrive at your home. Your digital purchase cut out the production and transportation of a physical object.
Almost ten years ago I was eager to jump on the NetFlix bandwagon: why wouldn’t you want unlimited DVD rentals delivered to your mailbox? Well, now NetFlix, and a few others, offer digital rentals. You pay for the rental, but instead of driving to the store to pick it up, you simply download it. It saves you time, and it reduces not only the number of trips by car to the rental shop, but also the need for a physical DVD to be produced and shipped to that rental shop.
Sure, it will take a bigger cultural shift to get more people relying on digital distribution. Even though you can get digital CD booklets with your music purchase on iTunes, there is still that happy feeling of having the physical CD case in your hand. Even though the Kindle reads nicely and can hold way more than you can possibly read, holding a book still has a nostalgic feeling. Those sort of intangible perks of physical objects are perhaps the biggest obstacle to digital “green” distribution.
To help you get started on the green distribution path, here are a few sources to check out:
- Books: Amazon Kindle, eBooks.com, Plastic Logic (coming soon!), and Cool-er eReader.
- Music: iTunes, Amazon Music, eMusic.com.
- Movies: iTunes, Netflix (if you stream online), Blockbuster Online, Amazon Video on Demand.
The $100k LEED Platinum Home
Before I talk about this amazing green home, I wanted to let you all know that The Green Car Company will be at Whole Foods at their downtown Seattle store tomorrow June 19 from 10am to 3pm. You’ll be able to get a good look at the A2B Electric Bike and talk to a couple experts about them!
Image from 100khouse.com
New home uses 50% less energy, 50% less water, is LEED Platinum Certified, and can be built for just $100,000! SOLD!
The 100K House is a project by Postgreen, a real estate development firm in Philadelphia that focuses on green and affordable buildings. When they say “green” or “affordable,” they mean it. Take a look at the 100K House, which is nearing completion.
First of all, the house is on pace to achieve LEED Platinum certification. (The wiki page makes it a little easier to understand.) Because of it’s incredible design, this home will be able to significantly decrease energy and water requirements.
Perhaps most impressive of all is that, like the name says, the house can be built for $100,000 in supply and labor costs.
The people behind the 100K House have a completely different vision for the future of housing. While still being a for-profit business, they put sustainability and affordability at the top of their priorities. Their 100k House project has an impressive goal in mind as well:
The basic concept of the 100K House is to offer an affordable home that places a high priority on quality, design, energy efficiency, health and sustainability rather than “bells & whistles” that can drive the price of new construction out of reach from the majority of home buyers.
Postgreen has plans to make the house plans available outside of Philadelphia, but that could be a while. Right now, they’re proving that housing doesn’t need to cause a global crisis, but it can help us fight the climate crisis!
Smart Car knock-off in Uruguay!
I’m currently on vacation and have enjoyed seeing what kind of cars are in other countries but not in the United States. Today I am in Montevideo, Uruguay. While taking an afternoon stroll, I happened to pass an auto dealership with a vehicle that looked very similar to a Smart Car, so I stopped in to get more information.
The car is the Noble, and it’s a Chinese-made car from the Shuanghuan Auto. Like I said, it looks quite similar to the Smart Car. It’s about the same size and also comes in similar color schemes. I talked to an employee there, and he gave me a brochure with the specs:
- Comes in three models and six colors
- 1.0 liter, 1.1 liter engines
- Max Speed: 77 mph, 87 mph
- Torque: 53 ft-lbs, 65 ft-lbs
- Fuel Efficiency (@ 25 mph): 97 mpg, 105 mpg
The employee told me the price was about $17,000 USD, but a little browsing on the internet showed that the price will vary depending on the country.
That’s not all, apparently the car was designed to be a knock-off of the Smart Car. I guess that explains why I thought it was a Smart Car! Chinese manufacturers have done well at cloning desirable products. Just look at the Apple iPhone and the iClone.
For a knock-off, I was quite impressed with this car. It looked nice, and the interior was impressive. Of course I didn’t take it for a drive, but I imagine that’s where the biggest differences will be between it and the Smart Car.
Coda: a New Electric Car for California
It looks like someone else is jumping into the electric vehicle market. The company is called CODA. The car will be built in China and will be sold only in California beginning next year. Looks a bit plain, but at least the EV choices keep expanding.
Like everyone else, the manufacturer is shooting for the 100-mile range.. Despite being painfully similar to a lot of other things going on in the EV scene, the CEO of Coda says, “The Coda sedan is an all-electric vehicle for everyone. It’s a practical revolution for real drivers who need reliable transportation.” Here are some of the specs:
- 90-100 mile range on a full charge
- 0-60 mph in under 11 seconds
- Full recharge in 6 hours with 220v outlet
- Electronically limited to 80 mph
- Company expects to get a five-star safety rating
The price? $45,000. However, with California State subsidies, the real price will likely be in the mid-$30,000s, which is on par with the Chevy Volt.
Hopefully China won’t demand that spyware be installed in the car!
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