San Diego Gas & Electric EV-TOU-5 Rate, A Model For The Other Utilities.

As San Diegan's we appreciate our clean environment and we strive to do more.

As a San Diego native, the hazy brown skies and pollution of the 70’s and 80’s mostly caused by our larger neighbor to the north, LA, and our love affair with the gasoline powered car, left an indelible stain of wrongness on my memory. With every breath I took, I was polluting my lungs and my body with the always present smog.

Many San Diegan's and I (many Californian's too) have a lifelong desire to clean our environment for now and for future generations of San Diegan's.

It’s fashionable and easy to beat up on utilities like SDG&E and state regulators such as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) however they are the entities along with the individuals and families who decide to prioritize clean air and economic savings in their purchases, that are moving our region forward as national leaders in the EV and PV space.  Over 130,000 San Diego households have gone solar and over 30,000 EV’s are on our roads.  Statewide its close 800,000 rooftops with Solar PV and 200,000 EVs. Data here: 

That’s a million Californian families involved in individual actions to significantly clean our air, improve their family budgets and to make California better.  Each and every one, I consider a hero.

Why is this happening here? because of great state leadership, innovative programs from our utilities and a population that appreciates clean air and saving money.

In California our electricity cost per kwh is the fifth highest in the nation. But that’s only half the story and you know what they say about half a story, it's worse than a lie.  In California our monthly electricity cost per household is 47^th in the nation and that is mostly due to our conservation efforts and temperate climate.  Data here: 

In San Diego and in all of California, transportation is the single largest source of emissions by far at 54%, this is more than twice the next largest source of emissions. Oddly enough, electric transportation is also the single greatest source of savings for the average family. 

Using electricity for transportation provides us over 5 times greater emissions savings as using the same amount of electricity for our buildings.  Gasoline simply has far more emissions than our existing SDG&E grid which is at 45% renewables already. That’s using our money and electricity in the wisest way to clean our air.

SDG&E’s EV-TOU-5 Rate.

In the U.S. the average car drive 12,000 miles a year with the average new car getting 24 mpg.   With gas prices in San Diego at $3.50 a gallon, this equates to $1750 a year in gas cost per vehicle.

In San Diego with the new SDG&E EV-TOU-5  rate with the car charging while you sleep between midnight and 6am, (and to 2pm on weekends) the cost to drive the same distance is calculated at  9.4 cents per KWH with 3500 KWH needed to travel 12,000 miles in our BMW i3.  This totals $329 per year.  

Additionally, in the SDG&E service area, EV and PHEV drivers are eligible for a EV Climate Credit. In 2017 it was $200 per EV or PHEV and in 2018 it was $500 per EV or PHEV.  Driving on electricity in San Diego for our family is a cost of -$171 a year per EV and we have two.  Yes, you can apply the $171 credit to your homes electric bill.

With the average EV driving 12,000 a year, you can drive for free in San Diego with no cost of fuel on the EV-TOU-5 rate and EV Climate Credit.

Think about it, if your gas car could magically go to the gas station in the middle of the night while you sleep, with no effort on your part and fill up for free, returning to your garage 100% full in the morning, would you do it?   That is exactly the scenario for electric cars in San Diego.

Many other EV programs including vehicle incentives are available from SDG&E for those lucky enough to live in the region.  Data here:

To summarize, the savings per electric vehicle as compared to a gasoline vehicle is $1421 per year, if you apply for the EV credit it’s  $1921 a year per vehicle.   With an average family having 2-3 cars, the savings could be much larger if more than one car is an EV or PHEV.

To reduce emissions and strengthen our family budgets we need to focus our efforts on transportation with a stable and predictable electricity supply. When we electrify transportation, we lower our emissions over 3000lbs per MWH and we save $160 a month on our average family transportation fuel bill per vehicle.   

That’s real emissions reduction and real savings for San Diego families.

You can live and drive on Sunshine.

Our nation can learn a lesson from our experience in San Diego.

Peder Norby.

Editors note,

Peder Norby is a Carlsbad Ca. resident and served as a San Diego County Planning Commissioner for eight years.   He is a contributing writer for Inside EV's. He and his wife Julie received the 2008 Energy Efficiency Award from the Center for Sustainable Energy for the construction of their beyond net zero home, Herons’ House.  Peder is a consultant, EV pioneer, Electronaut, and Co-Creator working and consulting with electric transportation companies, municipalities, landowners and utilities.   He is a consultant with Sempra Services. Sempra is the parent company of SDG&E, which is prominently mentioned in this writing.

Watch This Space: BYTON

Individualism in shared mobility; They can coexist and it’s about time…

Recently, the most colorful bikes I’ve ever seen have bloomed like flowers in the worlds densest cities including in my city, San Diego.

Millions of colorful urban flowers planted in soils of asphalt…all a fantastic color, however all the same generic hue.  The post-bloom unfortunately has been an unsustainable apocalyptic hell of discarded industrial bikes for San Diego and other cities to deal with.  We must do better.  

A dead flower enriches and nourishes the soil onto which it falls. Let's learn that fundamental lesson from nature.

Are we headed towards a “generic transportation hell” so to speak in our fast past race towards shared mobility? Dystopian, wasteful, longer commutes, more congestion, more vehicle trips?  Queue Johnny Cab in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall.  I think my head just exploded.

The answer as always is yes…or…no. It depends on our decisions and how we use the technology.

10 years ago in 2008, three years before the J1772 plug standard was implemented and six years before BMWi sold it’s first electric car,  a fortunate small group of us began collaborating with BMW in the BMW MINI-E Field Trials.  In my case, three of the BMW Mini-E’s entered service in the city of Encinitas Ca.

Our endeavor in 2008, automotive, civic, and personal was singular. To usher in electric mobility and all its benefits…and to make it stick this time.   My personal reasons driving my BMW Mini-E named SUNGAS, was because I was locked in a quest to see if I could sustainably drive on the sunshine harvested from my roof powering both our home and electric cars in the garage.   

If I could, then others…Today over 125,000 San Diego households power their home and/or cars by sunshine. 

Last month I traveled to Munich Germany at the invitation and expense of BYTON.  I was invited as a “Co-Creator” a group of 15-20 individuals from all over the world, two of us from the USA including my fellow pioneer and visionary from the prehistoric days, Tom Moloughney.  As I traveled to Munich my mind was racing with equal parts of past lessons learned and anticipation of listening and learning from the other co-creators and the BYTON team.

What surprised me greatly was that for BYTON, electric, shared, and connected was a given. Move on.  

The two-day BYTON Co-Creator workshop singularly explored the field concerning the value of time and optimizing utilization in an ever-increasing autonomous vehicle.   User not driver, shared not owned, helpful not hurtful. 

Not so much about horsepower or 0-60 times, range, or torque and certainly not about electric drive, but about precious time and meaningful social connections that in the past the car has ripped us apart from.   Can the vehicle be used differently when autonomous? What does that look like? How will it benefit the driver? How will it benefit our community? How will it enrich a persons life? How will it give you more time and improve your time while on the road commuting? 

Let's be real,  in a perfect world, a staircase commute or a brief commute is the best, but as our cities get more dense and as our population increases around these cities, the trend of longer commutes at stop and go speeds is unfortunatly going to increase for many.  Uggh!

Good land use planning along with a local jobs housing balance can reduce vehicle miles travelled. New modes of mobility connecting seamlessly with each other and a greater appreciation and valuation of time spent with loved ones or on a personal hobby, or in your community, will also help shorten commutes.  

However, we all  make decisions and not the same decisions. Nor do we all value the same intangibles.  Thankfully we're all not the same. 

Driving in a car can be an awful - repetitious - stress inducing behavior.  A prison of sorts that separates us as an individual in a metal box from others. A solitary confinement.    

Driving can also be enjoyable. The future, and prevailing thoughts and actions from mobility companies like BYTON, can be extremely helpful, sort of an eraser on a blackboard of past automotive sins.  

Clear the air, reduce congestion, make our cities better, give us valuable time by letting us be productive while commuting and partner with nature on as many levels as possible. This is the future I’m excited about. 

In my view, BYTON is the smart mobility company talking about this, about five years from now, about what we value most as humans, each other. 

Watch this space.  I hope to be able to share with you future progress reports as a BYTON Co Creator of a better, not worse transportation future for our cities and for ourselves.

You can live and drive on Sunshine. 

Cheers

Peder

The Arcimoto FUV, Fun, Affordable and 1/10th The CO2e Emissions Of A Gas Car.

If you’re serious about emission reductions ( I am with every breath I take ) as a principle benefit of EV’s, what follows should cause you to slightly gasp for cleaner air.

Emissions 
The Arcimoto FUV has 1/10^th the emissions of a typical car.

The EPA rates new car emissions at 359 g/mi.
For an average 12,000 miles per year of driving, this translates to 9498 pounds of CO2e emissions.   

The plug in electric Arcimoto FUV will use 1,778 kwh’s to travel the same 12,000 miles.  In the SDG&E service area with 43% renewables in on the grid, the 2016 emissions intensity is 533 pounds of CO2e per MWH.  The Arcimoto using grid electricity emits 948 pounds of CO2e emissions per year.  Of course if you power by solar as I do, or other renewables, it’s a total zero emissions solution.  (Data here)

9498 pounds of emission for an average personal car.

  948 pounds of emissions for an Arcimoto FUV.

Ownership cost

Owning and operating a typical new vehicle in 2017 will cost a driver an average of $8,469 annually, or $706 each month, according to a 2017 study from AAA.  Much of that is depreciation and fuel cost.  (Data here)  

The Arcimoto FUV will more than halve the typical ownership cost, saving a typical family $4,500 to $5,500 per year,  per vehicle.     

Solar Powered Driving in the Arcimoto

I've been "Driving on Sunshine" now for 10 years, powered by our 8.5kw Solar PV system which provides 13,000 kwh's of electricity of which 5,500 is used by our two electric BMW i3s. 

When I do the sunshine math for the Arcimoto, it's staggeringly cheap to power by sunshine.  1kw of solar PV will produce about 1650 Kwh of electricity a year in our region.  That's enough juice to drive the Arcimoto FUV about 10,000 miles a year. 

Typical cost is $3000 for the 1kw Solar PV system (usually part of a lager system)  warranted for 25 years.  Simple math works out to $120 a year (less than most pay for one month of gasoline) or $10 a month in energy cost, less if you can arbitrage time of use rates.  Think of it as your own private sungas filling station, either 110 or 240 octane :)

Moonshots

Moonshots are doing something that is not just slightly better than what currently exist, but rather, doing something that is 10X ahead of the standard of the current day.  To do this, you don’t refine what already exist…you start with a bold vision and a blank piece of paper. 

So few pioneers risk and work endlessly to get to look out that “window of their vision” onto reality. Congratulations to Arcimoto, an Eugene Oregon based company that has achieved this "vision to reality" moonshot.  A company that is now delivering the first several Signature Series FUV’s to retail customers and later this year to the first few thousand-reservation holders.   Much work ahead but the first one is out the door :)

First Signature Series delivered to a retail customer

It's a "Resort Fun" like experience driving the FUV and extremely practical for the majority of errands around town similar to a two seat sports car... but more fun.  It's not that it can't be your only car, but more likely it will replace a second or third car in the family saving that family 4-5k a year.

Commuting, ride and delivery services such as Uber Eats,  beach cruiser rentals for coastal hotels and shared vehicles for large parking impacted workplaces are some of the uses for the Arcimoto FUV which fills less than half the space of a car with 1/10th the emissions.

The simple math of parking twice as many Arcimoto's as compared to cars at impacted parking lots will send civic planners into a frenzy of thought. Add to that future autonomous transport and Roomba like self charging and well, you have a new transportation reality.

I can't wait to have one in my typical "4 FUV" garage.
For more information and specifications of the FUV go to: www.arcimoto.com


Cheers
Peder