COMPONENTS OF THE ENERGY WEB

EV Autos.

EV Autos — Electric Vehicles/Automobiles. The early momentum behind Electric autos was provided by air pollution concerns. Aided now by technology upgrades and the “hybrid” concept, consumers are putting this technology on the road.

According to Toyota, the hybrid Prius is said to have attracted a six-page list of entertainment celebrities, including Cameron Diaz, Jackson Browne, Ted Danson and Jeff Goldblum. An article in EV world reports that Leonardo DiCaprio has bought Prius cars for members of his family. Toyota says it has not courted any of the celebrity buyers nor provided freebies. (Read the story in EV World)

Not one to miss a good thing, Toyota, with the help of Global Green USA, provided complimentary chauffeur-driven Toyota Priuses to celebs headed for the 2003 Oscars. Taking them up on the offer were Cameron Diaz, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, and Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson drove themselves in their electric Toyota RAV4. Read the story in USA TODAY.

Concept cars include microturbine busses and cars and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which are slatted for production as early as 2004. “Royal-Dutch/Shell is preparing to move to hydrogen as "the fuel of choice" for the new millennium. While less efficient than gasoline, hydrogen is light and its primary combustion by-product is water vapor. Ford Motor Company Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr. plans to sell zero-emission fuel-cell-powered cars, and Daimler-Chrysler is gearing up to build 100,000 fuel-cell cars a year.” (Earth Island Journal, Winter 2000).

On the sponsored Web site, AC Propulsion, EV Autos are discussed as a distributed resource — "grid-connected EV." This site refers to the concept as "V2G." Several academic discussions are linked on the home page. They are:

• Steve Gehl, EPRI. Evolving Energy Delivery Systems Using Distributed Resources (pdf, 874 KB)
• David Hawkins, California ISO: Vehicle to Grid -A Control Area Operators Perspective (pdf, 1.5 MB)
• Tim Lipman, UC Berkeley: FCVs as DistributedGeneration Resources (powerpoint, 2.6 MB)
• Alec Brooks, AC Propulsion: Electric Drive Vehicles: A Huge New Distributed Energy Resource, (pdf, 2.8 MB)
  

LINKS

EV World — "Our World of Sustainable Transportation"
ZAP World — "The world's best electric vehicles"

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