For the longest time,  I’ve been pondering on what my next car will be.    Although I have at least 5 years of dependability for my good old Toyota Corolla,  which gets a good 35 miles/gallon,  I bought it from a car dealer in San Rafael in 1999 after returning from India, and it was my first “care free” car.   But with gas prices getting higher and higher,   and battery technology getting better and better,  I started doing a lot of research on electric vehicle feasibility to try and figure out why gas guzzler SUV’s are so popular.   So, my spare time has been devoted to researching why such a simple idea has not materialized.

I went down to the LA Tesla dealer to see this famous Tesla Sports car,   but for $120,000 each,   far out of my price range,    I tried to sit behind the wheel just to see what it was like.    You have to be practically a contortionist to get and out of the bloody thing,  but the sales rep told me of a new S model to be available in 2011.    Sticker price – $65,000,   range 400 miles (with extra battery – and extra cost).   I asked about Charging opportunities,  and was told they have a 480 volt class 3 charging system,   but the normal house outlets of 110 volts can charge it in 8 hours…

I was told there were a small scattering of “service stations” with the 480 volt charging system capable of fully charging it in 45 minutes…

There are other EV’s out there on the market place with ranges from 50 miles (Volt) to 100 miles,  the Coda Electric I learned about yesterday after watching “powering the Future” on the Green channel.

But the most troubling info I find for EV owners,  is the lack of Charging opportunities for EV drivers.   There are virtually NONE at this time,   other then to be friends with a gas station close to work,   most are SOL (Shit out of luck).

I see these acres of parking lots,   but no opportunity to charge your car while shopping,  at work,  or wherever you wind up parking your car. I mean,  “think about it…”.    Average local use of private cars involve going to the store,  shopping center,   driving to work,   or on weekends,  to recreational areas.  Other then the task of going from point A to point B,   why not offer Ubiquitous charging stations everywhere people park their cars….  Always giving the driver the opportunity to “Top off” their charge wherever they park. This will increase the usefulness and feasibility of electric vehicles.

I ran the numbers,  for the Volt car,   and assuming I work at least 40 miles away from home,   and IF they had a charging system at a work parking lot,   that’s as far as one can live from work,   even if they could charge it while working.    I ran some numbers assuming I could charge me car with a class 1 charging station (110 Volts 35 amps) at anywhere I parked my car,   makes a total difference in convenience.

At the HOPE Conference,  I gave a talk and put out a challenge to hackers and Hacker spaces to work towards and build what I can an EV Box which can replace parking meters.   I got amazing results,  and I’m now putting up this blog to get people to “Actually do something” to make a difference in your community by forming a small company to make these simple boxes.

For the longest time,  I’ve been wondering why nobody is trying to make the EV Infrastructure more EV Friendly,  until I came across GE’s new WattStation….   Oh My Gosh….  Someone is actually doing it….   Yes,   A real honest to god Charging station for class 2 charging (240 volt – 3 hour charge) designed for parking areas.   This is expected to be available in 2011.   But why Wait….   why not settle for a 110 volt class 1 charging system using infrastructure already existing.

I’m posting another blog following this,  to outline just what steps I propose to make this happen in your own city,   and any young enterprising individual can go into business making these.  Preferably electricians familiar with the safety and codes.   Then,  getting local parking lot owners to support installing these on their property,   or getting local businesses to front some of the cost to help boost their business.   All these possibilities can be discuss on this blog.

It seems they are already trying to standardize the Charging connectors using the SAE J1772 type connector,   designed for 240 volt class 2 charging (Faster charging, but requires special power connection to the grid.

I’m reaching out to “Hacker spaces” in an attempt to get them interested in building up a manufacturing base for building a few of these as a prototype,   then going out to get support from local government to install them where EV owners are likely to want to park their cars.

In the meantime, I’m setting up a special page on the Crunch Creation’s home page that links to “energy”.    This page outlines some of the current work being done on improving a renewable energy infrastructure.

Please leave your comments and ideas on how you can be involved.

Member wannabe’s can go to the “Apply to Crunch Creations” link and fill it out.  Clients wanting to hire teams to develop large scale web sites,   client side applications,  or any other large scale Web Franchise,  is going to want to talk to us.

Not everyone who signs up will be accepted as a member.    Each and everyone who does sign up will be contacted by me either via Skype or AIM (iChat).  If you’re not contacted,  it’s because you failed to give me your Skype name or have me blocked,  or were not chosen as a member.  If you were not chosen,   and feel you were unfairly not selected,   I’ll be happy to discuss with you,  the reasons why.

We are looking for the following talents…

* web site developers familiar with Javascript (especially Ajax and JQuery)
* Fast prototypers – People who can “mock up” web site layout quickly.
* java programmers – Eclipse,  and knowledgeable with Browser issues
* C++ programmers,   especially QT (Not Apple’s QuickTime)
* Apple Quicktime 7
* Django-Python
* Ruby on Rails
* PHP/MySQL
* SQL relational database design
* Video transcoding — ffmpeg,  handbrake
* Music systems – Ableton Live,   Propellerhead “Record” and “reason”
* MS Windows Visual Studio C++ and C#
* Unix administration
* Network administration
* joomla
* Word Press
* Dreamweaver and other graphics tools

The other blogs you see on this site are private blogs for people actually engaged in existing projects.  As new projects come in,   we identify what skills are needed to develop the project,  then go through our list of members matching the skills we need,  determine if they are even available,  then contact them to participate in the project after they agree to a NDA furnished by our clients.

All chosen members have to sign an NDA with us,  as well as a comprehensive agreement to the terms, and rules of engagement, conduct,  and other important issues that very often come up when working on teams,  and how you get along with your other teammates.    Included are rules to protect our clients as well,  in that we trust your integrity not to directly contact the client,  or offer your services to them without explicit permission from Crunch Creations.

Your work through us is on an independent contract basis under 1099,  and to make things simple and fair for all,   would require you to have a payPal account for receiving payment.  We have no policy setup yet for foreign contractors yet but certainly invite them to apply as well.

All new projects we take on,  are discussed with my trusty board of advisers,  and in some cases,  when I believe there might be legal issues,  with my attorney.   Things like penetration testing take special care in setting up legal protections,  insurance,  and accountability and disclosure.

We strive to keep our work inside the USA of possible,  due to the fragility of our current economy,  and try very hard to ask our contractors to help us be competitive with outsourcing costs,  and keep our work here at home.  That’s not to say we refuse memberships to foreign contractors,  as all who apply will be given an equal opportunity as anyone else.

ALL of our members will have talked to me in private during the screening process,  and be required to have a web cam,  and be video capable,  but I WILL make exceptions under certain circumstances if your skills are unique.

Although we aren’t able to offer this yet to our members,  but each will be given their own home page,  and through this home page,   if they are engaged in a project,   can talk directly to the client,  and vice versa.

ALL project participants chosen for a job will be given an opportunity to strut their stuff,  and before the project starts,  will be paid an advance on the project and be expected to do a fair amount of work based on their availability….  any changes on their availability they are expected to update their profiles as they see fit.

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