The usual grumbles

In England the mpg is much better

2008-10-22T13:47:03Z

When I came over to the US I left behind an Audi TT, a car that blended some fun performance with a sensible respect for the fuel bill. At 28mpg it was a little hungry but over here in the US, well, that's frugal.

I ended up with a MINI over here and have never been really satisfied with the fuel economy; it struggles to hit 30mpg and only when nursed along the smoothest of roads will it better that (36) so all this seemed a bit odd until I looked at the difference in mpg calculations between a fine British gallon of 95RON and a weak pot of US 93. There's more than I thought, here's a table of US versus UK mpg figures: Where are you?

(I'm not going below 8mpg US... you should be ashamed)

MPG US	MPG UK imperial
8	9.6
8.3	10
9	10.8
9.2	11
10	12
10.8	13
11	13.2
11.7	14
12	14.4
12.5	15
13	15.6
13.3	16
14	16.8
14.2	17
15	18
15.8	19
16	19.2
16.7	20
17	20.4
17.5	21
18	21.6
18.3	22
19	22.8
19.2	23
20	24
20.8	25
21	25.2
21.6	26
22	26.4
22.5	27
23	27.6
23.3	28
24	28.8
24.1	29
25	30
28.8	31
26	31.2
26.6	32
27	32.4
27.5	33
28	33.6
28.3	34
29	34.8
29.1	35
30	36
30.8	37
31	37.2
31.6	38
32	38.4
32.5	39
33	39.6
33.3	40
34	40.8
34.1	41
35	42
35.8	43
36	43.2
36.6	44
37	44.4
37.5	45
38	45.6
38.3	46
39	46.8
39.1	47
40	48
40.8	49
41	49.2
41.6	50
42	50.4
42.5	51
43	51.6
43.3	52
44	52.8
44.1	53
45	54
45.8	55
46	55.2
46.6	56
47	56.4
47.5	57
48	57.6
48.3	58
49	58.8
49.1	59
50	60
50.8	61
51	61.2
51.6	62
52	62.4
52.5	63
53	63.7
53.3	64
54	64.9
54.1	65
55	66

MPT

Electric cars with a 185mph range and a 10 minute recharge... science fiction, unfortunately

2008-07-30T13:54:26Z

Recently, articles in the press have made reference to electric cars powered by lithium-titanate nanoparticles, a development from the conventional lithium-ion cell; they boast a range of over 185 miles and take only 10 minutes to recharge. This leads readers to assume that a battery-electric car might be re-fueled at a local station as fast as a petroleum powered device and I'd like to think that's possible too but, and here's the but, the big J.Lo sized butt... that's more power than we have at hand.

Looking at the Tesla roadster, it consumes about 80A of current at 220v for 3½ hrs to charge up fully. That's 17.6KW for 3½hrs or a total of 52.8KWh of electricity.

If we look at dispensing that much power at 220v in just 10 minutes (21x faster than the Tesla charger) that's a total current of 1,680A, even at 440v that's 840A and that, regrettably is more amps that you get to your local distribution node.

Imagine the size of the wiring? 100A cable is difficult enough.

OK, another approach, the charge station uses local lithium-titanate nanoparticle batteries that it keeps charged like capacitors to dispense huge power on demand, well, the cables would need to be manageable so, assuming 100A ish the voltage of the batteries would need to be at least 4,000v. Now, that's not so difficult to manage as thick insulation can be made flexible but, imagine the connectors... in the rain?

Prove me wrong... please!

MPT

AVCHD on SD-Card; Panasonic don't know how to use their own TV

2008-07-11T16:41:37Z

Having recently purchased a Panasonic HD TV with built in SD-Card reader, we planned to load video content in AVCHD format onto an SD-HC card for playback just like the blurb said; it turned out to be harder than we thought.

The plan

The set has an SD-HC reader in the front that allows you to load pictures and movie content for direct playback. For pictures we used JPG files on the card; it worked well if a bit slowly as it loads the pictures, but for video we chose to follow the big, bold banner on the set that proudly announced support for the new AVCHD format.

AVCHD is a Panasonic and Sony initiative to bring high definition at manageable bit rates to the mass market. The standards they put in place stand upon some good technology; mpeg 4 Advanced Video Codec, H.264 standard video and mpeg 4 AAC low complexity audio with six channels; all good stuff.

We created some video in H.264 format and placed it on the SD-Card. The TV looked at the card and announced "No files". Ok, this is just a starting gambit. We looked into AVCHD and at the various instructions (a bit glib) and followed those to the web site in Japan where we found a little more information but still not a lot. Fortunately, we were able to delve into the actual Japanese Japanese site as we have Japanese language people here. What we found were some fairly open compatibility statements that essentially said that we could use up to 32GB SD-HC cards formatted with FAT32 and AVCHD video. Easy right?

With a collection of different cards we set off with NERO Vision software which includes an AVCHD add-on pack to create content. The content looked good; very good... the Panasonic set said "No files".

We tried some different content; MTS, MT2S, MP4, M4V... the Panasonic set said "No files".

We went off the road and tried WMV, AVI, MPEG2 even Quicktime... the Panasonic set said "No files".

Panasonic crack support

We decided to call Panasonic support which is when it really went downhill. Their big sets get the 'Concierge' level service; nice? Not really, the man from Panasonic said:

"Look up Panasonic TV on Google, that's bound to have something"... Oh dear.

They then began reading out the manual to us...

We pressed on and they said:

"You can't have SD-Cards bigger than 4Gb"... That's not what the web site says

"You can't use less than 4GB SD-HC cards"... That's utter non-sense

"It must be the card"... we tried four different cards that all showed jpg files ok but not video

"No, you can't talk to our expert technicians, they all say that you have to have a 4GB card"... more non-sense, we have a 4GB card.

The end of the line

This all went on for a few days; round and round without a single person that understood what we were trying to do until we hit Jemma, Manager at Advisory TV & Radio Labs, LLC in NYC, after speaking with technicians there, she confirmed that the Panasonic TVs will only work with videos recorded on a Panasonic video camera/camcorder. There is a special format generated and the only one recognized by the TV. It will not recognize videos produced from any other source. Hence, their compatibility claim is not "true" MPEG-2/AVCHD.

In summary then; I suspect that the technical support that I can get from my grandmother today would challenge Panasonic technical support... my grandmother died nearly twenty years ago.

Part of marketing a good product is the support; the documentation, and the training and experience of the staff; it's why companies like Apple are perceived so well and Panasonic not.

MPT

Unacceptable behaviour: Tesla crash test video

2008-07-07T15:37:00Z

I suppose that it has to be done...

MPT

A grand day out: Tesla first drive

2008-07-06T21:10:00Z

How cool would it be to tell your grandchildren that you'd driven the prototype of Henry Fords Model-T? Well, I have a story for my grandchildren... That's me...

...driving the prototype of the Tesla Roadster; the first mass produced(ish) Battery-Electric Sports car... how cool is that?

As the owner to be of a Tesla, I and others where invited to a test drive in anticipation of the delivery of our cars next year.

Today, we met in Greenwich CT on a hot and overcast day at the Hyatt Regency hotel.

We met up at 11:00 to await the return of another owner out on a 'blast'. As each run takes 20-30mins so we have to wait.

Anticipation

While we wait, you have to remember that it's not the first Electric Car of course; battery powered cars where around long before the petrol powered cars today but, as a come-back car for electric, this is how it should be.

There are other battery electric cars around today in mass production (ish); the impish REVA 'G-Wiz' has become a popular site on the streets of London; No one in London cares that the top speed is only 45mph because all 900 of them are too busy running around at an average of just 10mph along with the rest of the cars there. Londoners are more pleased with the G-Wiz because it is very cheap to run and dodges the infamous (heading towards) $40/day city congestion charge that New York managed to avoid.

The Tesla came about after founder Martin Eberhard wanted to own an electric car. He asked AC Propulsion to build him a TZero, a running electric car prototype; when they refused he said ok, I'll build my own then. He formed Tesla Motors in 2003 with Marc Tarpenning and picked up investment from ex. PayPal founder Elon Musk.

As most of Tesla Motors staff are high tech geeks rather than mechanics, their first move was to engage an engineering company to help with the oily bits; they chose Lotus Engineering in the UK.

I've been a fan of Lotus engineering since I first saw James Bond drive out of the sea in a white Lotus Esprit... cool. The next time I encountered an Esprit was when I took the keys of my uncles S1 in 1985. At only eighteen years old this was amazing and though I don't think that I ever thanked him enough (cheers Dave!) I hope to repay the favour some day.

The 1980's Lotus was the crazy product of a bunch of mechanics in a shed in Hethel, somewhere in Norfolk in the East Anglia county of England, a place that is famous for, er, well, coastal erosion I think. What was so crazy was that they made the thing out of spare parts; it was a parts bin special comprised of GM engine parts, some switches out of old Fords, all bolted to a home grown chassis and clothed in fibreglass. It was still brilliant though but when I asked my uncle "Why don't you fix the broken radio aerial?" he replied "To get at the aerial you have to take half of the side of the car off... so, I have some cassette tapes instead." I realised that Lotus, whilst good might be a bit immature.

So, back to Tesla; they're a new, perhaps an immature manufacturer comprised of computer programmers rather than mechanics who went to Lotus for help in designing the car I've put a sizable deposit on... gulp.

So why am I so excited about the Tesla, why is it as ground-breaking as the Model T? Well, it's the first electric car to blend all of the good things about motoring without the bad things that drag down current electric vehicles, so we have no emissions, virtually no moving parts and almost zero noise but mostly, it's the performance. Unlike the city commuter 'G-Wiz' it's top speed isn't 45mph, it's 125mph and its acceleration isn't "just sufficient", it's "more than sufficient", "sufficient" being an amount that approximates just how quickly you'd like to accelerate at any given time.

And there we are

So there I am looking at the electrified product of an engineering firm that brought us the home-brew super-car. I need not have worried, it seems that in the last 20 years Lotus have been finessing their game and, as a techy myself I shouldn't have doubted the technology.

The car we have today is in Radiant Red with the Alcantara interior; it's a prototype; there are bits of wire hanging down from the dash and we're locked into 2nd gear of the two speed gearbox on the first generation gearbox, but I don't care, I'm looking at a car that you might have drawn as a child, a cross between the Ferrari 308 that Magnum drove and the Millennium falcon (without the broken bits). Loosely related to the design of the Elise it's Elise sized but not Elise appointed; when you get in the quality of the interior is a cut above the super-stripped-out Elise.

There are so many reviews on the Internet covering the driving experience that I'm not going to repeat it but for me, the things that stood out where the way in which it flows away from the line, no surge, no noise, no jolt from the clutch just the sublime transition from standing to moving. In traffic, you quickly pick up on the odd way that the other cars around seem to pause when the lights change, surge past you then drop back again. I guess that we're so conditioned to gears, even automatic that we no longer notice the kangaroo progress... anyway, apply a good solid prod to the accelerator and all the other cars instantly go into reverse anyway.

Watching the instrument display reveals a 'Fuel consumption' bar-graph and, so obviously, a battery gauge just like you'd find on a mobile phone - half full for me. The fuel consumption reads in amps; at 'idle' there are 1-2amps leaking out to drive the electronics and a motor cooling fan but as you pull away it jumps to 80-100amps but, the best bit, when you release the accelerator, up to 50amps flow back in through the regenerative braking effect... that feels good; free electricity. (sort of)

As we drove through the streets of Old Greenwich town along US1 you quickly get familiar with the car; it's just so little of a learning experience, they really have got the controls right; accelerate to go, release to slow down on the regenerative braking. The only nervous moment happened when I stopped at the lights; as I slowed down on regenerative braking alone I forgot that to actually get down to zero you still need to hit the brakes at the last moment.

As an homage to regular automatic transmission, the Tesla creeps forward when you release the brake; I'm not sure why and would like to know; it seems unnecessary, I think I'd like to turn that off if I could.

The rest of the drive was all Lotus tuned hard-core sports car. Quick turn-in, decisive lane changes and suspension that's a firm as it comes; great stuff.

It was all over too soon

A few more turns, a few more prods on the accelerator and we're back to the hotel, now I'm back to driving petrol powered cars, I have a year to wait for mine but I'm looking forward to it.

Rich K. in the Tesla setting off for his run.

$4 a gallon - Puleeease!

2008-06-27T05:40:30Z

There's been a lot of hype lately about saving fuel as $4 a gallon came and then stayed on like an unwelcome house guest. Now, I come from a land where fuel starts at $10 per gallon; admittedly it has a few more octanes than you have in the US but still, we saw $4 a gallon arrive... in the last century.

So, what did we do about it and is there any sage advice that I can pass on to you in this hour of need? Well, not really because we only did two things in reaction to the event.

It's hard to say when the event occurred. At the turn of the century, the English were paying 3½ British pounds for an English Gallon of Petrol - 95 Octane unleaded. The exchange rates in 2000 were closer to $1.50 to the pound and an English Gallon is 1.2 x a US Gallon so you're looking at about $4.38 a US gallon. About half of that price was fuel, the rest was a tax on the fuel levied by the government to raise funds and to discourage its use.

So how did the British react to this? Well, let's start with what they didn't do; what they didn't do was drive less, they just spent less money on everything else. Fuel is perceived as a necessity and unless you're a really impoverished student you don't change your plans around the $1 of fuel you're going to spend going into town.

Here's some more things that we didn't do:

1. Work at home on-mass

2. Stop going on holiday and sit around at home

3. Switch over to public transport in droves

Governments will have you believe that all of the above will happen as prices go up but in reality, with hindsight, it appears that that news is only coming from public transport officials, holiday resort hotel owners and IKEA.

In comparison to the US though Europe has a different outlook on cars; in Europe small cars are cool, very cool, almost automatically cool. After the ice cold MINI the next car that's getting everyone excited is the sporty version of the Fiat 500; the Arbath 500. This is a new pocket rocket car that'll be bought and driven by mothers, city gents and petrol heads alike and, it'll do 40+mpg and do corners like it's on rails. In Europe we don't talk about the number of cylinders a car has but about the driving experience. In Europe, second hand 7-series BMWs are like the unwanted hangover from a very bad night out. Big french cars are even worse, depreciating more each month than the finance payments, ever found yourself in negative equity with a car, I have? - Thanks Renault.

Dr. Diesels dastardly designs

In Europe, we're already doing 30+mpg so the impact of the high price of fuel, whilst important is less bad. We were still looking to improve that in 2000 though and the biggest move we did make was to diesel. In mainland Europe diesel has always been popular, for example, closely on the heals of the iconic Golf GTI was the Golf GTD, it sold and still sells just as well as the petrol version and if any of you reading this are thinking 1980's Pontiac, think again; the only difference between the Golf GTI TDi and the regular GTI is that the diesel one is quieter and pulls harder. If you still need further evidence, I give you the 2008 Le Mans 24-hour winner the Audi R10 TDi... again (see Le Mans 2007 and 2006).

The environmental advantage of diesel is based around both the measured reduction in carbon emissions and the simple fact that cars go further on a gallon of diesel than they do on petrol. As the technology improved, so did the sales but the appetite for Diesels skyrocketed when the tax man took a look in.

The evil tax empire

The biggest driver in recent years to have us brits consider the environment has been the tax changes around buying and running a car. In the UK in the 70's and 80's the 'Company car' became an expected part of any middle management pay package and so car sales boomed. The government picked up on this and saw future problems with both congestion and environmental impact; in a flash they brought in sweeping taxation reforms in the 90's to discourage this behavior and in the early 2000s they added three new taxes on cars that were based on the amount of carbon dioxide they produced. Of course these taxes where called things like vehicle benefit tax and fuel benefit tax to make them sound exciting but in reality they are effective deterrents to buying and running gas guzzling monsters.

How effective? As an example the tax on a new Jagwaarr might be as much as $20,000 whilst our Fiat 500 up there is just $700. Convincing? Well, no again. It seems that despite the pain these taxes induce there are Audi Q7's and Range Rover Sport's flying off the shelves straight into a land where they just don't fit. The one concession to the environment, or rather the pockets of the British is that these new cars are all leaving the factory with diesels in the front, more than 50% of new cars now ship with diesels in the front.

Two things in reaction to the event

So, the Brits did do two things in reaction to the price of fuel; they whined and they moaned. In reality, the UK has reduced it's environmental impact from petroleum; not from fuel prices but from government taxation linked to carbon emissions. Look at it another way; the government said "Let's reduce fuel consumption and emissions by raising the tax on fuel." the populous responded "Great; more money in the government coffers". Then the government said "Oh, just stop polluting! We'll tax you on the amount of pollution you make." the populous responded "Great; more money in the government coffers, but ha! I can buy a diesel and dodge the tax" and so they did.

If you need to stop the populous from polluting; you have to create an incentive to move to the thing that's regarded as better. The environmental benefit of diesel is in question, that's true but, a plan was hatched a direction chosen and good or bad, government effected a seismic change.

So perhaps I do have some advice after all; figure out the better alternative and get the government behind the change that you need to make. Then, do it soon.

MPT