Hawaii Governor Announces Plan to Test Plug-In Trucks, EV Infrastructure on Maui
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, who only last week unveiled a plan to create an alternative transportation system for the islands based on plug-in electric vehicles, announced this week that a partnership exists between Maui Electric and Phoenix Motorcars to bring electric sport utility trucks and an EV infrastructure to Maui early next year.
Phoenix Motorcars of Ontario, California, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the utility for a test program using five to 30 of the EV-maker's four-door electric SUTs (identical to the one pictured here) in the utility's fleet.
But there's a twist to this test: In addition to evaluating how well the plug-in EVs perform when they are dependent on electricity generated by renewable resources during off-peak hours, Maui Electric wants to see how helpful the trucks could be in supplying the utility with electricity.
As Ed Reinhardt, president of Maui Electric, explained it, the company wants to determine whether electric vehicles -- any EVs in general, but these in particular -- can efficiently store power and return it to the grid during peak demand.
Which begs the question: What kind of battery is Phoenix Motorcars putting in its SUTs?
The answer's a good one: It's a 35-kilowatt lithium-titanate battery, which probable supplier Altair Nanotechnologies believes may well prove to be the superior lithium chemistry.
Indeed, Altair, which is developing a lithium-titanate battery for the U.S. Navy, recently announced that the battery completed its 500th full-depth cycle with only a one percent loss of its original capacity.
Phoenix Motorcars claims the lithium-titanate battery it uses propels the SUT more than 100 miles in the city or on the highway after a single 10-minute charge using an off-board 250-kilowatt charger.
The company, which was formed in 2001 to manufacture zero-emissions, freeway-speed fleet vehicles, claims its SUT can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 10 seconds and has a factory-set top speed of 95 mph.
We'll be very interested in learning the results of the testing, which is scheduled to start within the first quarter of 2009.
The Phoenix Motors-Maui Electric partnership furthers the progress of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, a partnership formed in January of this between the State of Hawaii and the U.S. Department of Energy that seeks to meet the state's energy needs from 70 percent clean energy by 2030.
- Posted by
- Scott Doggett December 11, 2008, 4:01 AM
- Permalink
- Categories:
- Batteries, Emissions, Energy Companies, Fuel Economy, Phoenix Motorcars, Plug-ins and Electric
- Technorati Tags:
- Electric Vehicle, EV, Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, Maui Electric, Phoenix Motorcars, Plug-In Electric, SUT, Zero-Emission
Here is a study in "fad" fixes. Hawaii is surrounded by an entire ocean of hydrogen and yet the choose to pursue " electricity"?????????????????
I don't believe that Hawaii is surrounded by an entire ocean of hydrogen. In fact, to my knowledge hydrogen does no occur by itself in nature (at least to any large degree).
It takes a substatial amount of energy to separate hydrogen from oxygen (some say even more than the resultant energy when coverted back into water). This makes hydrogen a potential fuel as opposed to an energy source. What would Hawaii use as an energy source to create hydrogen fuel (indeed what would anyone use)?
I don't believe that Hawaii is surrounded by an entire ocean of hydrogen. In fact, to my knowledge hydrogen does not occur by itself in nature (at least to any large degree).
It takes a substatial amount of energy to separate hydrogen from oxygen (some say even more than the resultant energy when coverted back into water). This makes hydrogen a potential fuel as opposed to an energy source. What would Hawaii use as an energy source to create hydrogen fuel (indeed what would anyone use)?
halveb --
Do some research - you are about half a decade behind when it comes to sources of hydrogen that require little or no energy to produce. Recent research at several American Universities have developed even more efficient methods involving inexpensive catalysts and bacteria. The "common wisdom" that the only way to produce hydrogen on a commercial scale involves massive amounts of electricity or hydro-carbon reformation is simply no longer true. In fact MIT has stated that using nitrogen fixing bacteria in water with the energy source being the sun ( think S.W. America)could produce enough hydrogen to power (electricity and transport fuel)the entire country in an area no bigger than Rhode Island.