Electric vehicle technology experiencing growth spurt

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our E-mail Digest or RSS Feed. We will then send you the stories that are posted each day in an e-mail digest. We use a service called Feedburner for delivery of these emails. You will receive an e-mail from Feedburner after you subscribe and you must click on that email to activate your subscription. Thanks for visiting and enjoy all the information! RV.Net Blog AdminIdeas are sprouting like weeds in the cabbage patch in the Electric Vehicle world’s  designs, batteries, and the rush to replace fossil fuels for powering the cars, trucks, and RVs of the future. Here are a few and how they might affect the RVs of the future. A company called Trexa is offering a new electric drive system which can be customized by “specialty vehicle developers” (does that mean RV manufacturers also?) for their own varied needs. Trexa says its platform has a scalable wheelbase which could work for “compact, microcar and ATV-size” applications. No RV sizes yet, but this could represent a step toward a new model for RV makers, similar to the chassis provided by Workhorse and Spartan to the RV industry. Trexa says this platform “offers an unprecedented level of versatility because it contains an entire vehicle’s drivetrain within one low-profile enclosed structure.” A number of standards are built into this platform, including four-wheel drive and four-wheel independent suspension which is “adjustable for ride height and terrain... Read more

All roads lead to the 2010 season in Quartzsite

By Bob Difley Even RVers in the West who haven’t yet learned the value of solar panels or spent a single night witehout hookups have heard of Quartzsite. And some oldtimers have yet to visit however, but the saying goes that if you are an RVer, you will visit Quartzsite at least once before you retire your horses to pasture. It is an experience near the top of the RVer’s lifetime To Do list. Quartzsite’s wide open desert with plentiful camping possibilities on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land lures hundreds of thousands of snowbirds to the weather-friendly desert in winter. Most RVers call this kind of camping boondocking, i.e. “in the boonies” though in Quartzsite, you could end up as crowded as a hook-up campground. But the beauty of it is that the choice of where and how sociable you want to be is yours. The options include groups of friends circling the wagons much like the early pioneers did on the Oregon Trail. Though the pioneers chose this method mainly to protect themselves from marauding Indians, today’s RVers seek social camaraderie instead, putting tables, chairs, and a communal campfire in the “hub” of the circled wagons. You can choose to camp in close to town and have neighbors, or move further out and have your group area all to yourselves, a definite advantage if you are nudists or practice strange rituals or ceremonies. Several hard compacted dirt roads lead off into the far reaches of the LTVAs where campsites... Read more

Energy saving tips for the boondocker

By Bob Difley Until you become a dedicated boondocker and install a sustainable energy source, like solar panels, a wind generator, or a fusion nuclear generator, follow the tips below to reduce your electrical usage–and the amount of time you need to run your noisy generator to recharge your batteries. Turn off all appliances, lights, radio, TV, and anything else that requires electricity when not in use. Don’t leave your porch light on (a particular annoyance to me when I am not so fortunate to be able to camp away from neighbors, and he/she leaves the light on, ruining my night vision for seeing night critters and star gazing). Coordinate your generator running time with the use of power-hungry appliances. For instance, schedule your showers, water heater, use of microwave, coffee grinder, and dishwashing all within a short period of time when you can run your generator to power them, rather than pull juice out of your batteries. This also charges you batteries at the same time. Time your day to match the sun, rising when it does and going to bed with it also. This cuts your light usage down considerably. If you read in bed, try using small rechargeable battery powered reading lights. You can recharge the batteries when you hook up next time and you won’t run down your house batteries with your RV’s lights. And you will probably disturb your mate less. Monitor your house batteries charge with a voltage meter so you don’t run them down too low, which can damage... Read more

Green Washing Podcast with Brian Brawdy & Thetford’s Mary Burrows

Do you ever get tired of the spin, of being lied to, or worse yet, of being misled in a strategic way? It is popular now for the media to talk Green. To that end, advertisers will do anything they can to jump on the Green bandwagon. In this episode you will learn how to spot Green spin and Green washing from a mile away. Join me in this hour long podcast as I speak with Mary Burrows, Head Chemist at Thetford Corporation. Read more  Read More →

Go Leaf Peeping Now, Before It’s Too Late

Ahhh, wonderful fall. The waning warmth from the sun brings a welcome chill from summer heat, migrating birds start heading to their southern range, and deciduous hardwoods begin turning red, orange, and yellow heralding the leaf peeping season. Sugar maples give up the green for eye-popping reds, orange and brown tones come to the stately oaks, and white-barked aspens put on a display of vivid yellows and golds. But if its aspens that trigger your camera finger, take your pictures now, as aspens from Arizona to Colorado to Idaho are falling by the tens of thousands. Read more  Read More →

Are We the Anchor to Mainstreaming Electric Vehicles?

Axeon electric vehicle By Bob Difley On Wednesday, 18 scientific organizations wrote Congress to reaffirm that there was a consensus among scientists on the validity of global warming. They cited melting ice caps and the world’s oceans this past summer hitting their highest monthly recorded temperatures. On Thursday the Pew Research center for the People & the Press released a poll of 1,500 adults that found that 57% believe there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth is warming up, and has been over the past few decades. But that majority figure was not seen as a positive moment to global warming believers. Why? The reason is that the percentage of people—according to the poll–believing in global warming has dropped from 77% just since 2006. That’s a 20-point drop in believers. “The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things,” said Andrew Kohut, the director of the research center, which conducted the poll from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. “When the focus is on other things, people forget and see these issues as less grave.” However, half of all the respondents said they supported establishing limits on the emission of greenhouse gasses—even if it meant higher energy prices. Three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious. But, far fewer... Read more

VIDEO: Boondocking & Green RVing w/ the PowerSource 1800

Gear to Get with Brian Brawdy One of the necessities of Green RVing, boondocking & dry camping is the ability to generate power. By tapping into the free and ubiquitous energies of the sun, I’m able to go off road, off the grid while staying out longer. In this video, I look at the cutting edge technology of the PowerSource 1800. A uniquely designed solar powered generator. For more information on Brian Brawdy or Greening your RV, please visit BrianBrawdy.com  Read More →

Boondocking Podcast with Brian Brawdy & Bob Difley

by Brian Brawdy In my opening 18 months as an RVer, I have learned that the attraction, at least for me, is one of self reliance and nomadicism. The places that I have explored and the people I have encountered have only reinforced the sense of independence one cultivates while bringing the far away to their own front door. Early on I began to feel, not that I was learning this philosophy, but that I was remembering it. That adventure and exploration are latent in the human being. To that end, I started a blog called Buried Logic. Today it is my great pleasure to share with you an hour long podcast with author and fellow RVer Bob Difley. Read more  Read More →

Could this be the breakthrough electric vehicles need?

By Bob Difley Can anyone deny that the world is entering potentially one of the most disruptive periods of change in the transportation sector since the internal combustion engine was invented over 100 years ago? The activity surrounding and driving alternative energy vehicle development–hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric, or all electric (EV)–produces news stories everyday with words like newer, better, larger, smaller, more efficient, and breakthrough in the headlines. Auto manufacturers and venture capitalists are pouring money into technological advancement of vehicles, batteries, EV  technology, charging systems, and infrastructure.  Garage entrepreneurs and small cap tech companies are scrambling to grab a piece of what could be a very enormous pie, especially when the pie expands to include pick-up truck, delivery truck, RV, and bus size vehicles. In a step closer to realizing these goals, now IAV Automotive Engineering, a German company with facilities in Michigan, has acquired a patent for their Star Trekie EV wireless road charging system, that magically beams energy to your EV. The technology requires installing electrical conductors into roads that would generate magnetic fields which would charge an EV’s battery as it drives. RFID tags would identify your EV and bill you for the amount of energy used. This could be a game changer–if it works–and a disaster for all the companies scrambling to establish battery charging and swapping... Read more

Nickel-Lithium: The Next Battery Break Through?

By Bob Difley As electric vehicle proponents, alternative energy entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists have predicted, the development of better, more efficient batteries will give the electric vehicle (EV) industry the game changing boost it needs to change the way we think about transportation. Battery technology, which produced the successful development of the lithim-ion battery for laptop computers and then in the Tesla sports car, is now about to take the next leap forward with a battery that can be produced at lower prices but with greater capacity, meaning an increased range between charges. Well, the lower price hasn’t happened yet, but researchers have created a new generation battery by combining Nickel and Lithium to produce a battery that can store more than 3.5 times the energy of lithium-ion batteries.. This is a prime example of the payoff from the money and effort going into the development of smaller, cheaper, safer (the Nickel-Lithium batteries are less prone to burst into flames as some lithium-ion batteries in laptops have), and more powerful batteries that will deliver more miles between charges as the era of the Electrical Vehicle (EV) is knocking at the door. Other companies are developing the components that will complete the EV. One such company (Proterra) claims to deliver a full charge to lithium batteries in ten minutes, and has produced an all electric bus that also includes a regenerative braking system that they claim will capture 90% of a vehicle’s... Read more

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