Electric Vehicles saved from the shredder

In the first years of the 21st century, during a highly controversial period in automotive history, almost all commercial electric
vehicles (most of them only a few years old) on the road were shredded by the same automotive companies that produced them. A mass
killing without mercy, of a product with satisfied customers and long waiting lists of new customers. These vehicles had the
potential to change the industry and the transportation world from oil-addicted gas-guzzlers to highly efficient, clean and
low-maintenance automobiles of the future.

In the 90's, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and most of all General Motors had all developed electric vehicles, to meet the California
zero-emission vehicle mandates set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). After CARB reduced the requirements of this
mandate, automakers proceeded to terminate all leases on vehicles out in the field, recall the vehicles, pull out the batteries, and
literally put them through the shredder. This despite the protests of many grass-roots efforts and even generous monetary offers by
EV1 owners to buy the vehicles out. That was the end of the EV program for these automakers.

If you want to know more about this killing of EV programs, please Google EV1 or watch the movie "Who killed the electric car".

There were a few of these EVs that survived this 'genocide' of EVs.
Here is a story from a friend of mine who actually has seen some remaining Toyota RAV 4 EVs, that are still in operation today (with
the original 1999 NiHM batteries).

His story is below.

Rob

---

EV Rant or Touring the SC Edison EV Test Facility

May 22, 2008
Pomona, CA

As part of the Electricity Storage Association's 18^th Annual Meeting in
Orange, CA, the participants toured the Southern California Edison
Electrical Vehicle Test Facility. Fittingly, two tornadoes touched down
in Riverside county that day. It merely poured where we were. (I was
already feeling warped. The Doubletree Hotel in Orange is not far from
Disneyland, and very close to the Crystal Palace. Have you ever tried
explaining a mega-church to a European visitor?)

The SCE facility tests electric vehicles, batteries, and fuel cells. In
addition, they had built a "garage of the future" with a Gridpoint
SmartGrid Platform, a system intended to provide demand side management
on the smart grid of the future. Big environmental test chambers
contained batteries that had been tested for years of charge/discharge
cycles under various ambient conditions. There were various electric
cars being tested including a Ford Escape Plug-in hybrid, Hyundai-Kia
fuel cell vehicle, the Daimler-Chrysler Sprinter hybrid van, a medium
duty plug-in hybrid utility truck, and a heavy duty hybrid utility boom
truck. The total SCE EV fleet logs over 100,000 miles monthly, and
cumulatively since the beginning has logged over 16 million miles.

But I wanted to write about their fleet of Toyota RAV4 EVs.

SCE has a fleet of RAV4 EVs that are in continuous service by meter
readers. These vehicles were obtained in 1999. They use NiMH (nickel
metal hydride) batteries from Panasonic. The vehicles have a range of
80-100 miles. The maximum speed is 79mph (governed.) The battery pack
weighs 910 lbs. I can't remember the number, but I think there were
between 120 and 130 RAV4 EVs still in use. A number of these vehicles
have over 100,000 miles on them.

These vehicles still have their original batteries!

These vehicles have never had their brakes replaced! (They use
regenerative braking as well as normal brakes.)

At $0.09/kwh for electricity, you can fully charge this vehicle for $2.70.

This is a travesty! How can it be that we can't buy an electric vehicle
because the technology is not ready, and these are still running with
minimal maintenance? Toyota sold about 300 of these vehicles to normal
people, and the MSRP was $42,000. But that didn't last long.

According to a Wikipedia article on the RAV4 EV, the NiMH battery
technology used in this vehicle is currently owned by Chevron-Texaco,
who no longer manufacturers this size battery, just smaller versions. I
haven't confirmed this.

If you haven't seen "Who Killed the Electric Car" yet, go and rent it
and weep.

Ewald


--

In many ways, the US is currently like the Titanic heading strait for that huge ice berg. The difference is that the Titanic's
captain actually ordered full reverse, and hard change of course just before the disaster.

Rob


.

Relevant Pages

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