56th in Eco Tree ranking
For August 9th I was ranked 56 in the world in terms of energy efficient driving.
Level 2 EVSE Recieved
My Leviton EVR-Green 160 EVSE came in the mail, it will allow the on board charger to charge with 240 Volt two phase AC up to 16 amps. This will cut my charge time down to a maximum of 8 hours.
First drive in the carpool lane
I got my stickers for the HOV lane for clean air vehicles over the weekend. The morning commute was pretty clear but I saved 20 minutes in the afternoon. It will come in real handy in the school rush.
First public charge
I charged at a theater garage for 40 mins and gained 17% as reported from the Nissan portal. It was a fast charge, level 2 EVSE.
The charge equipment is provided by ChargePoint by Coulomb Technologies.
PG&E E9B
The E9B rate in California is very beneficial for EV owners as the night rate for charging is the lowest at around $0.05-$0.06 / kWh. I completed an application from PG&E and now I’m waiting for a couple local electricians to give me quotes. The secondary, and sometimes more important benefit is splitting the baseline usage over two meters. This allows an EV owner to stay at Tier 1 for the EV and the house as usual. This saves money by not pushing the house into a higher tier.
HOV and ZEV applications
I’ve sent away for my high occupancy vehicle and zero emission vehicle stickers so I may drive in the carpool solo, and park in public charging stations respectively. It should take about a month to get them. The costs where $8 for HOV and $17 for ZEV.
MPGe
There’s all this talk about MPGe (Miles per Gallon equivalent), what it really means, and how it’s calculated. The truth is, there’s no good way to compare EVs to internal combustion through MPGe. If you really want to compare in any meaningful manor check out the miles per $ metric.
That said, there’s really three ways to calculate MPGe. I call it the three E’s, Efficiency, Emissions, and Economy. It’s really about comparing some measurable characteristic of an EV and cross multiply to get rid of the unwanted units.
The following calculations are based on June 15th data from an earlier blog post.
MPGe Efficiency
This is how the EPA, auto companies, and Big Oil want you to calculate MPGe. Basically, a gallon of gasoline can be burned and rendered useful as kWhs of electricity, thus comparable to an EV that uses kWh of electricity. The conversion is: 33.7 kWh electricity per gallon of gasoline.
So, my Leaf which gets:
(3.36 mi/kWh) X (33.7 kWh/gallon) = 113 MPGe
MPGe Emissions
Using the calculator at AfterOil EV, one may compare MPGe by total CO2 emissions from generation to wheels by emissions ratio. I used 50.3 miles @ 35MPG, comparable vehicle to my Leaf, and a very liberal estimation at that.
(31.8 lbs CO2 Ave Car) / (14.09 lbs CO2 Leaf) = 2.25 ratio (times fewer emissions)
(2.25) X (35 MPG) = 79 MPGe
MPGe Economy
This is how I’d like to measure MPGe. After all, why compare vehicles using a metric of economy (MPG) unless one does so using units of economy.
(3.36 mi/kWh) / ($0.12/kWh) = 28 mi/$
(28 mi/$) X ($3.999/gallon) = 112 MPGe
112 MPGe Total System Economy
My average daily commute taken on June 15th was 50.3 miles. That night a full charge was 14.97 kWh.
(50.3 mi) / (14.97 kWh) = 3.36 mi/kWh
So my car is getting approximately 3.36 miles per kWh used including charging losses. On Tier 1 with PG&E I’m paying $0.12/kWh.
(3.36 mi/kWh) / ($0.12/kWh) = 28 mi/$
I’m getting 28 miles per dollar total system economy with my Leaf.
(28 mi/$) * ($3.999/gal) = 111.97 MPGe
The Leaf gets 112 MPGe
This is based on ‘wall’ to wheel economy.
