Convert Now! An idea for our times?

[daveb]

Last week's NPR story about Meals on Wheels losing volunteer drivers and the current Plug-in America newsletter article of their hiring a f*ndraiser or a person with extensive fundraising experience is an interesting juxtaposition of newsitems that seems to me to present not only an opportunity but a means to take advantage of it.

Think of all the for profit and non-profit businesses dependent on many short trips a day:  Meals on Wheels,  Document Delivery, Airport Parking Shuttles, senior/disabled transportation, postal carriers, shipping container ship to rail transfer.  and that's before I've even had my morning coffee!   If we brainstorm more of these businesses/needs and winnow the list down to theop 2 or 3 then acquire the appropriate vehicle and convert it to electric we'll have a demo car that we can take to these business and leave with them for a week.   I'm willing to bet most people, business haven't a clue what's possible.   Along with the saving of $$ spent on fuel is the advantage of removing a gas burning car from the roads, a feel good with real benefit.

The PIA part.  If we had a professional with fund raising-grant writing experience we could make a coherent and convincing presentation to go out and raise the funds to make it happen....

wha y'all think?

[leitmotif]

Completely agree with all you said.  I am not a grant writer and have absolutely no interest in that stuff.

What I am is make it work guy. 
After I complete my first EV project I will have ability and confidence to participate in a project like this.

 

Dan Bentler

[Stew-2]

I would love to be involved in this type of venture. I do not have grant/fundraising/PR experience, but I have extensive mechanical knowledge and good electrical knowledge. I am a Washington State Authorized Emission Specialist for gas and diesel engines and managed the Totem Lake vehicle emission testing facility for 8 years, so I can speak with confidence about these subjects. Although I haven't worked in that field since '99, so I'm not sure if my certs have expired.

But alas, time is an issue. Not much free time after work. If only I could do these things I'm passionate about as my career...

[aviken]

These are good points Dave.

I think the ventures that will be sucessful will be focused and narrowed down to a specific niche. The mail carrier one is very intriguing, but working with the government would require a lot of start up funding and I'm guessing the ability to scale out if a pilot program was sucessful, and contract awarded. I don't think there is the manpower & expertise in this group to get competitive in that large of an arena just now...but the others are quite doable, imho.

I just had an idea that is a little different than the sale part...in regards to short trip delivery drivers - pizza places, etc - what about a model that was even lower risk on their part - that is starting with one pilot car at a business, offer it for lease / or to be rented by the mile. So a driver could choose to drive his own car - or park his gas guzzler at work and drive the fully charged EV for his shift. I'm not sure how it currently works, but I'm sure the company pays x dollars a mile to the drivers. They could pay that to our business and provide the car for drivers (as an alternative choice at first). There are details such as insurance and charging etc.

The rental plan could be the low / no risk option to try things out (similar to leaving it for them to use a week) - and would allow them to see the savings totally low cost of delivering goods. Ideally we'd like to sell them, but getting the foot in the door - and having eveyone's pizza delivered by an EV would really open up peoples eyes to the reality that EVs are hear, and in use in their neighborhoods...kind of a gurella marketing technique.

To answer your original questions - I don't have any grant writing skills, nor am I big for getting a bunch of investors calling the shots from a distance. I think the main contributions should come in the form of sweat equity. That's not to say that a business like this would not need money to get off the ground. I'm very big on proving the concept on the cheap, and building it from there.

There are numerous ideas floating around SEVA these days for businesses, I'm cool with adding to them and discussing them. At some point though, we need to focus and get a biz off the ground. I have just broke ground I my new home...we are having a GC do most of the work, but it does still take a great deal more of my time - and unfortunately, my shop will be mostly inaccessable during construction, meaning I'm not sure how I will get my own project done concurnently. I don't have a lot of time now, but more than most I think. In the future - I will have even more time. Since I work from home with my own business already, I always have an ear out for a new business that I could be a part of.

[daveb]

I've been kicking myself since the meeting last night for my very unprepared remarks.  I seemed to have missed  the really key points, and just restated the obvious.  something about opening my mouth in a crowd only seems to let my thoughts leak out in an ill formed puddle .  oh well....

I meant or at least ought to have said more about using a demo car to obtain purchase/lease commitments from businesses that we could then use to fortify a business case presentation to take to the Paul Allens of the world.   But I am having second thoughts on that approach now too.   I agree with Ken and don't like the idea of being beholden to california or east coast financiers holding the purse strings.   I guess it's rather naive to think that we could find no strings attached grants?

The motivation for that approach stems from the high cost, high risk nature of Li-Ion batteries (the joys of the being on the bleeding edge).
I thought too of some sort of leasing arrangement.  a variation on that would be to lease only the battery.  The customer supplies the car and pays for the conversion and we lease them the battery charging monthly fees perhaps.  In this way we ensure an on going revenue stream after the sale. the norwegians are headed this way with their Think! car.  using a web-enabled battery management system and GPS it'd be very easy to get any battery's location and keep tabs on it's state of charge and performance profile.   It could even alert us instantly of abusive driving indicated by sustained high amp draws. 

Pizza delivery! Man I bet that'd be an easy sell.   and newspaper home delivery.  I carried papers when I was a kid but nobody does that anymore. 

After driving Li-Ion for a year and now having been back with lead-acid for the last 3 months, I'm convinced that Li-Ion is not only the pack of choice it's required.   I love my truck.  It has decent range and suits my needs but being a lead-sled it is rather slow and sluggish. Like a non-ev friend of mine said "It'll teach you patience".   I can't see the pizza delivery person having the patience or being willing to learn it ...   

so in my mind the biggest obstacle is batteries but not only batteries, controllers, motors, everything is already in extreme high demand.   It'll be way too easy to over commit/promise and then not being able to deliver a car let alone the promised performance would be disastrous. 

hate to end on that less than positive note but have to get going ....
 
Remember the mtg next tues 7pm Mosaic bring your ideas, passion and energy!

thanks.

[leitmotif]

Have been thinking on the Meals on Wheels thing for a little while.  Here is what I think
A lot of SEVA people want to start a business.  I do too.. 

Meals on Wheels
1.  has the need for vehicles.  Does not matter for sake of this argument who owns em.
2   is a charity type organization with 501 K or whatever tax etc etc
3.  has the staff to handle the politics
4   has staff to do the grant writing

I propose
Let Meals on Wheels get the funding from whatever source they can find
Let SEVA build them the vehicle

I know of a food delivery truck with wrecked front end. 
The rear with INSULATED boxes is intact. 
Take the rear put it on a chassis w/ electric drive
paint meal on wheels on doors and electric vehicle and thanks to donors and everyone is in business.

Dan Bentler
   

[aviken]

Remember the mtg next tues 7pm Mosaic bring your ideas, passion and energy!

Ok, so I am out of town now (in NJ - and missed yesterday's monthly meeting)...and I need the refresher...there is now a monthly business meeting the 3rd Tuesday of each month @ Mosaics - that is what you are referring to right? I just need clarification. I know that Steven mentioned it once before, I was not sure if it was recurring as originally intended or not - I missed the last one...

In regards to the Li vs. lead - I think you should be able to prove the concept with lead, without dumping too much money into Li right off the bat. Either way, we NEED a relationship with a manufacturer that can get us Li batteries without huge lead times and for reasonable prices.

As for Dan's meals on wheels - good ideas - and you are right to leverage an established organization to get the ball rolling, and I also love the fact that you want to take advantage of an existing oppritunity - that being the wrecked truck (partially).

Quick q - is the truck free becuase it is considered totalled? Are the insulated boxes for either hot or cold? are the boxes expensive / ie is it worth the salvage effort (I'm sure it is or you would not mention it, but I am not knowledgeable in this area).  If there is little to no cost, I'm thinking we / you  / somenone should salvage it / lock it up at least. As long is there is little or no funding /risk to acquire it.

[daveb]

I like your idea Dan of letting MoW do the funding.  as for lead vs Li-Ion,  I think it depends on the biz.  At the risk of stereotyping, I'd say pizza delivery drivers are younger and would be less patient.  Whereas MoW drivers would be older and more sedate drivers  ??

I just heard from Valence that their new battery system, Epoch release is delayed till March 2009   

so to do anything now would most likely mean using lead. 

probably should verify with Steve L but I think he did mention that the "business" committee was meeting the 3rd tues so that is indeed  next week....

[leitmotif]

AAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhh them stereotypes.  Now it has been several years since I have looked at statistics, but the two "high risk" age groups for industrial injuries accidenst are the younger and older workers.  Course this excludes those under 18 in many / most cases in industry.

My personal feeling is that those driving for MoW would be older and probably have a lower dollar loss (but maybe just as many "accidents") than the young who I think would have more major screwups.

As far as batteries go I know and understand lead acid the best and intend to stay with it.   When the Li whomevers are on the market and field proven and DEBUGGED by someone else then I may be interested.

Dan Bentler

[aviken]

After driving Li-Ion for a year and now having been back with lead-acid for the last 3 months, I'm convinced that Li-Ion is not only the pack of choice it's required.   I love my truck.  It has decent range and suits my needs but being a lead-sled it is rather slow and sluggish.

I've been meaning to ask you Dave - what happened with the Lithium Batterries - why did you switch back to lead? Perhaps you could summarize your LI experience in a new post in the battery category? Just let me know here if you do - so I can be sure to read it. I'll bet I'm not the only one on this forum looking for realworld details about how a lithium EV works in the real world.

Dan - You obviously know a lot about electronics and are steering clear of the Lithium technologies until they are Debugged & proven. Have you heard stories about them being unreliable, are you mainly referring to the BMS or charging algo? Just curious, thanks!

[leitmotif]

Generically I NEVER buy anything until it has been out of R & D and in the field for at least two years.  I am a maintenance guy, I still own it and gotta make it work after the R & D, design engineers and salesmen are all done and GONE AWAY.


The batt mgmt system sounds complicated with a lot of connections (more stuff to corrode errode and break).  I think a little more time will prove their need and merit.  It will also give me time to know more and give them a fair evaluation.

As far as Li PO4 cells again I have not worked with them at all and I need education.  It seems they are in early stages of production of large cells so I am gonna wait and see how things turn out.  Let the Japanese manufacturers work out the bugs - NOT ME.

Dan

[daveb]

Ken,
   I didn't switch back to lead.   My "new" truck came with a brand new lead-acid pack, and I am now driving it while  I am waiting for Valence to "release" their new gen Lithiums but they've been delayed till next March   

My experience with Li-Ion is limited to working with and driving Kent Bakke's beetle which has a 12 pack of the Valence u-charge 100ah 12v batteries.
Which BTW, are made up of many (300?) individual cells wired series parallel in each 12v "module".   They did really nice job on the Battery Management System (BMS).  That in my mind puts Valence way out front of the other li-ion mfgs.

As for stereotypes ...  age and risk takers probably have little to do with someone's willingness to drive a lead-sled.   All that is necessary to drive a lead-sled is the correct frame of mind and expectations.  Fifteen minutes of ed*cation and face time with the would be driver would probably be enough to gauge their willingness to drive electric lead sleds. 
BTW I do not intend my using the term lead-sled in anyway to be disparaging, just having driven both lithium and lead equipped EVs its a fair use of the term in comparison.

I'll try to take time later to write a more thorough users impression in the battery section.