Craig's blog

If this entry gets posted it means I can now blog from my blackberry.

I tried blogger's "Mobile blogging" for quite awhile, but could never get it
to work. However, I now found an alternate way that I think will do the
trick. I doubt if I use it much - I just wanted to see if I could get it to
work.

PHEV is an acronym I've been reading a lot about this summer. It stands for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. It's basically the concept of combining some of the qualities of a hybrid vehicle (like the Prius), with the qualities of an electric vehicle (like the Tesla). Today there are very few of these vehicles around (I suspect less than 50), but they're a compelling concept.

Here's the basic idea: Take an efficient hybrid, like the Prius, beef up it's batteries (which are pretty wimpy) and add a plug and a battery charger. Each night when you get home, you plug in your car (to a standard 120V outlet) and re-charge your battery. The next day your Prius runs it's first 30 or so miles relying primarily on the battery and it's electric motor, getting >100 MPG. If you drive more than 30 miles, it automatically converts to standard Prius hybrid driving and gets only 50 MPG. When you get home at the end of the day, plug it back in.

As you might imagine, you get some important advantages of a hybrid - unlimited range with gasoline when necessary - and of an electric - very efficient energy use and very low emissions - for a normal commute.

The good news is that the Toyota hybrids (and there now a number of them: Prius, Highlander, Camry, Lexus RX400h, Lexus GS450h, Ford Escape) lend themselves to this sort of setup pretty easily. Unfortunately, there are of course some problems. The biggest one is that batteries are still too expensive. A Prius conversion similar to what I described above would cost ~$10,000, and batteries are the major culprit. The second is that while the Toyota Hybrid System is well designed for this setup, doing it as an afterthought is not easy (as opposed to designing it in in the first place).

Still, I find the idea very intriguing, and am even considering doing a conversion myself (although don't hold me to it). If you want to learn more, check out www.calcars.org.

Unbelievably, it's already time for the first day of school. And even more unbelievably, Jessica is now in kindergarten and so all three Carlson girls go to the same school. You can view a few shots of the first morning at this album:

Last week we took our annual trip to a rental house in Oxnard with our friends the Sages and the Spahns. As we arrived on Friday we all commented that it was each of our favorite week of the year. This year was no exception. We had perfect weather the whole week - sunny every day and water that was warmer than it's ever been (high 60's). As always we spent almost all of the time doing one of three things: relaxing on the beach, body surfing or boogie boarding in the water or cooking/eating. One day I rode my bike to Santa Barbara and met the rest of the clan at the wharf. Another day we made tie-die shirts (as you can see below). All in all it was a fantastic week - as relaxing as it gets. :)

You can view some photos from our trip from the album:

Today we purchased a new car. It's not really an upgrade - in fact Patty and the girls love the Acura MDX she's been driving for the past 5 years. However, in the constant around town shuttling that Patty does, our Acura gets about 14 MPG. We bought a Toyota Highlander Hybrid that is extremely similar on the inside (slightly smaller and slightly fewer features), but it is rated at 33 MPG city (and 28 on the highway). I don't think we'll quite get that, but I'm expecting we'll get about double what we were getting.

We're continuing to try to put our money where our mouth is and reduce our energy consumption. The bad news is we still have plenty of opportunity to improve, but we'll keep plugging away.

I've been warned by various sources that the 75,000 carpool stickers available to high-mileage vehicles like the Prius and Civic hybrids are about to run out. I've been trying hard over the past week to find a Prius in one of the colors I like with the options I want, but have come up empty. I've learned some about what it takes to get a car that is in very short supply (and I'm glad the Prius is so popular), but I haven't put my hand on one. I think if I don't get one by tomorrow, I'll give up for awhile under the assumption that the sticker will no longer be available.

Of course it's not that I need a carpool sticker at the moment, but it seems a shame to pass up the opportunity to get one if you're going to get a Prius anyway. Oh well.

By the way, in case you aren't convinced we need to seriously curb our production of CO2, check out this LA Times article.