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March 2010 Posts
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[1:22:45] Join Bo and Ryan for a look at the week in EV news, plus an interview with Brian Buccella, VP of sales and marketing for "new" Vectrix.
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Bo, Do you think so little of your Guests that you don't even bother to spell their names right.
Arvizunot Arivizuin the title screen at about 7 seconds in.
John
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Usually when I misspell a name it does mean that they are not important to me at all. But in Shannon's case, this was an oversight and I did make the public apology to her in our last podcast -- I just need to redo the video still. Thanks for reminding me Mr. Jon Brigs.
Roadside assistance Model 1: AAA connects the tow truck to your LEAF, engages the regen brake on the LEAF, tows you don't the road for 10 miles, and your battery is recharged.
Roadside assistance Model 2: AAA tow truck shows up with a Bloom Box on the back, connects to the conveniently located natural gas pipeline, waits 2 hours for the Bloom Box to reach operating temperature, charges for 10 minutes, then you are off and running.
Maybe you should just refer to her as Miss Pell... I mean Miss Electric
Talking smack about NEVs. dissing EV conversions. What part of the EVcast community are you not offending?
Hmmm, come to think of it, I am not offended.
Nice show. Regarding the possibilty of a Bloom box hybrid, I found this on their website.
http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell/
"SOFCs (solid oxide fuel cells)operate at extremely high temperature (typically above 800°C). This high temperature gives them extremely high electrical efficiencies, and fuel flexibility, both of which contribute to better economics, but it also creates engineering challenges."
So this could be one reason that they have dismissed this technology in a moving vehicle, in an accident it could be trouble.
Glad to see Vectrix is on the road to recovery, keep up the great shows.
Greg
Send a note to Vectrix and let them know that the wind turbines in their promo are spinning in the correct direction but the blades are backwards. The trailing edge is facing the inflow. Just trying to help them out.
Josh
Just North of the Future EV Capital of the World.... The Woodlands, TX
I don't know if having one hot component means something cannot be used in a Car. Inside a catalytic converter can get up to 900C but that doesn't mean that it cannot work in a mobile application.
The real problems are the unit takes 2 hours to get to temperature and a 100 KW (134 HP) bloombox is huge, and you still need natural gas.
Agreed, the high temperature doesn't mean it's not possible, just not ideal for a car. Other factors like warm-up time, can it work well with the varying output demands of a vehicle and durability in a vehicle due to vibrations. But you don't need 100kw to drive a typical car, only to accelerate it. The actual fuel cell can be much smaller, combined with a small battery pack to deliver power surges for acceleration. I believe that this is how the Honda Clarity works, it's fuel cell is supplemented with a battery pack as the fuel cell is only powerful enough to meet the average demands of the car not the peak demands required for acceleration.
Hmmm, smaller fuel cells might work for the flat and level and make it impossible to climb hills at 60MPH.
Just coincidentally, the Honda FCX Clarity uses a 100KW fuel cell (according to Wikipedia so you know it is true). Having sat in an FCX Clarity, I can assure you that the fuel cell is a lot smaller than the 100 KW Bloom Box.
I've been very disappointed in the reporting on the Bloom box - they reported it as if was something totally new instead of a SOFC- what I wish was for someone to talk about how is it an improvement over current SOFCs if it is- the only thing they seemed to hint at that they've solved the thermal expansion/contraction cracking problem that made SOFCs use tubes instead of the more easily manufactured square flat plates- that should lead to some cost benefits and better power density but they were scant on comparable numbers - for EVs my guess is that while they may have solved the thermal expansion/contraction cracking problem, the plates remain somewhat fragile and subject to vibration- also I doubt their power density is good enough at this point to be a good fit.
Am i the only one that Bo dissed John again by calling him MR. and not DR.?
Great show guys, once again ...
Eric
