Who Revived The Electric Car?
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 11.14.07
The MAGIC Team did. MAGIC stands for Mid Atlantic Grid Interactive Car, and they just resurrected the EV in a hot "wired" incarnation, with V2G technology on board.
"For a new technology to be truly effective it must have the appearance of magic." Remember that line from Mosquito Coast? It's still true.
MAGIC revived the electric car, in vehicle to grid (V2G) incarnation, by applying a jolt of AC and adding Internet connectivity, after implanting top of the line rechargeable batteries, network interface, and some amazing power controls. This particular resurrection is no rich man's sports car either (although this one and the famed Tesla share some EV technology). Externally, and in the passenger compartment, it's more like a wired green box for the masses, with a webby twist.
MAGIC's "eBox" is a modified Scion xB, custom re-manufactured by AC Propulsion, that relies solely on an alternating current (AC) motor for propulsion. So, of course, there's no exhaust pipe, and no fuel port. With ICE engine, transmission, and fuel systems gone, and the new V2G and propulsion systems added, curb weight is roughly 20% above the OEM's designed weight.
When it's parked and connected to the power grid, however, this car is also connected to, and interacts with, third parties, via Internet. "What's up with that," you're thinking? No big brother stuff. This is about greening the grid.
Hang with us and we'll give you the details, in a series of posts, beginning with this overview.
"No more fuel port."
Once plugged into the grid, PJM Interconnect, a regional transmission organization, is able to send power dispatch commands to eBox over the Internet enabling it to participate in the PJM "regulation market." We're not talking about government regulation here, either. The 'power regulation' market is set up to balance numerous power supply and demand entities and cope with equipment performance variations to keep regional grids operating efficiently. Here's more about PJM if you're interested.
"The MAGIC box."
Keep in mind that if we diversify our power sources - by now our readers understand the need to incorporate wind farms and solar or geothermal plants that operate relatively intermittently - we also need cost-effective ways to balance the power and condition it to keep the grid reliable for all users. MAGIC technology avoids having to rely only on big base load generators and fixed switching devices to accomplish that. It's an idea that no other electric vehicle designed to date has ever approached. Put thousands of them on the road, and the MAGIC fleet helps manage the power to make fixed generators of renewable electricity a welcome addition to the grid of the future. That's what is meant by "Greening The Grid."
The magicians deepest secret:- eBox will respond to network commands by charging or discharging its battery through an on-board inverter, in short bursts, to help balance supply and demand on the PJM grid. Owners will be able to set boundaries on those commands.
The MAGIC Consortium was formed to develop the technology allowing electric vehicles to interact with the grid. Its members include the University of Delaware, Pepco Holdings, Inc. (PHI), Delmarva Light & Power (DPL), Atlantic City Electric (ACE), AC Propulsion, Comverge Inc., Atlantic Counties Utility Authority (ACUA) and PJM.
PJM has been providing technical support to the consortium to enable the technical advancement of the vehicle and to demonstrate how the grid can facilitate plug-and-play technology.
Although the technology is in its early developmental stages, PJM is working to make sure that vehicle to grid (V2G) technology is capable of interacting reliably with the bulk power system. Maintaining the reliability of the system is driving PJM’s role in facilitating technologies to support such Smart Grid concepts.
Update: Comverge, Inc also is a primary participant of the MAGIC core team. Although Comverge, Inc does not have a magnetic sign on the car door (pictured), it is working on the "aggregation platform development" that will make this commercially feasible for the concept to work with average consumer/commuters and commercial fleets plugging in to the PJM managed grid.
MAGIC is currently in the first of three phases of the project, connecting test-vehicles to the PJM Automatic Generation Control (AGC) signal. MAGIC has committed funding to convert a total of five cars and one bus to be able to interact with the grid in this phase. It is seeking funding for a fleet of 300 cars, collectively able to provide 3 MW.
By the final phase of the project, MAGIC hopes to have the V2G program self-sufficient within OEM vehicle manufacturers, power aggregators, and ISOs.
The key MAGIC Project Principals are listed here. We'll introduce them to you in subsequent posts.
Dr. Willett Kempton, University of Delaware
Dr. Victor Udo, PHI
Len Beck, PHI
Clay Anderson, PHI
Kevin Komara, PJM
Update:: Ooops. Nearly forgot to add how eBox "greens" your wallet. The typical auto is driven 1 or 2 hours per day on average. For the remaining hours, assuming the eBox can 'plug and play' at a regular parking spot, each owner will earn several thousand dollars per year, it is estimated. And yes, the battery will still be charged when you need to drive home.
For public relations contacts on MAGIC and the eBOX, please email Paula DuPont-Kidd.
For technical information on the project, please email Jackie Piero at the University of Delaware.
Image credits::TreeHugger, with permission of the MAGIC team
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I read somewhere about a new technology to where we could run home appliances using wireless technology. I wonder if we could do that with electric cars? We would need no batterys, just relay towers and receivers in the car.
wireless power uses quite a lot of power to power it (the loss of electricity is quite high.
and the BIG questions I always ask with electrical cars is this: where does the electricity come from? where doe the battery come from? and where does the car come from?
- electricity mainly comes from normal CO2 producing power plants
- batteries are among the most environmentally unfriendly items
- if a car is shipped halfway around the world in it will produce quite a lot of CO2 in the process meaning that the car will have to drive quite a lot to become CO2 neutral. Ships still use very unrefined oil so their emissions are through the roof. and there are very few regulations about ship emissions. but they are starting to work on it... so buy a car from near you! (meaning that one should buy a european car in europe, a japanese car in japan and an american car in america... offcourse you still will have to choose the most environmentally friendly option)
this is the main reason I find the toyota prius a car to soothe the mind, and not a car to save the planet. buy a small diesel instead! (better mileage than a prius and cheaper...)
Neil - unfortunately, "wireless electricity" is a neat concept, but sending energy through the air is terribly inefficient, and a lot of power is lost into the area. Wires simply get more power there more easily. Check out this funny article about wireless electricity from a Seattle weekly newspaper. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=401525
Grand to see electric cars, but remember to ride a bike!
Cheers,
matt
=== author's response added ===
Thanks for this. Wireless electricity distribution adds a whole subset of biological concerns from the electromagnetic radiation. Gauss and Tesla never grasped that issue.
Everybody: to view this post as being about the latest and greatest electric vehicle misses the key point. It's more about cars being a means of distributed energy storage, and having that storage enable renewable power as a reliable asset for society. Although it is horribly complex and difficult to communicate in 'blog bytes,' I strongly suggest a re-reading with this in mind.
And anybody has a better way to communicate it please speak up!
'each owner will earn several thousand dollars per year, it is estimated'
so the net effect could be zero 'fuel' cost? this money is a rebate of sorts from the power co.? I find it surprising that this kind of system would be that valuable to a power co.- especially if the concept takes off (ie- wouldnt more of these cars on the road mean less income/car?)
== author's response follows ===
More cars on the road, more power needed to charge the batteries!
Chris: I do agree with you about the deisel engine, the hybrids and the wireless electric.
You have to remember that we have to start somewhere and try different things. We here in America are known for innovation and being on the cutting edge and we need to try all ideas and perfect them. We need to get this oil monkey off our back!
neil- that's true!
the probelm is I personally can't see any real alternative except green electric cars (with the harmful batteries, but with greenly produced power).
- hydrogen costs as much to produce as it stores in energy and is hard to store
- bio fuels might sound evry attractive but as long as they are made from food (corn and stuff) i think it is unethical to use, because you are bringing trouble to other countries by using a part of the world food production for driving.
So I hope the power plant go green fast.... (and that electic car designers pay more attention to other aspects than only electricity, for instance passenger safety. never seen a 5 star NCAP car.....)
there is a 10% conversion loss every time AC is run through a converter to change it to DC for storage and a 10% loss whenever it is run through an inverter to change it from DC battery power to grid compatible AC power. That means for each charge and discharge you lose 19% of the available electricity. Then you have to factor in the transmission loss (and I don't know what that is) you aren't running a very efficient system. Battery life also depends on the number of cycles, the more cycles, the sooner you will have to replace the battery bank. I don't see why people are considering this.
=== UPDATED author's response follows ===
The conversions are very small bursts, and I do not know which voltage conversion technology is in use.
I checked with the MAGIC people. You are correct, Pat, that there is a roughly 10% loss going in, and nearly 10% going out. So, to provide those short term corrections for the regulation market, and make the project worthwhile, the design and operation must cover and exceed the 19% round-trip loss of electricity. Economic analysis shows that the value of the regulation market is far higher than costs of the losses, plus the small amount of battery wear. (There is some small added battery wear, also accounted for in the project's economic model. )
I noted that you said it was no rich mans sports car, your comparison to the Tesla Roadster. I say it isn't going to be any less difficult to buy for the majority of people. It is a conversion of car that you have to provide (~$15,000.00), then ship to AC Propulsion and pay another $55,000.00 to convert. Though I haven't tried at my local credit union, I don't think they'll be inclined to finance this (excellent custom) eBox. None of my circle of friends has $70,000.00 lying around.
=== author's response follows ===
Well you're right of course/
On the other hand, when gasoline passes 6 bucks a gallon and the filling station waiting lines get like they were in 1973 and the bank sees the $5,000/year cash credit from the power company that they can get a lien on, the appeal might increase.
Looking forward to following the developments and participating in discussions in this forum. As a member of the core MAGIC team, I will do my best to provide meaningful commentary and clarification if asked, and welcome all constructive input. For those of you in the Northern New Jersey area on November 30th or Dec 1st, you can see the car/grid in action at a major regional Sustainability Conference to be held at Ramapo College http://www.ramapo.edu Green Meets Green link. Hope to see you there. Paul