Jeff Chan's Automotive Pages

Welcome to Jeff Chan's Automotive Pages

My main automotive page was getting kind of long, so I've reorganized the subjects into separate pages. Please choose a topic from the menu at the left or from this main window. (If you're not seeing the menu bar on the left,

please go to my home page and click "Automotive" at the top.) Some general topics appear below.

"Caltech and the Origins of Electric Vehicles"

Caltech and the Origins of Electric Vehicles was a May 30, 2024 event with 2 sessions about EVs and some history of connections with Caltech. There's a recording of the sessions on Youtube.

Tesla Model S

My comments on Tesla Model S public engineering presentation

Tesla Model 3

Notes about the Tesla Model 3, from the first unveil and beyond. The initial unveil included an incredible 276K reservations in 4 days, with thousands of people waiting in line around the world at Tesla stores to reserve cars.

Why Regenerative Braking Belongs... On The Brake Pedal

Regenerative Braking is a way to recover braking energy and use if for acceleration later, for example on an EV or hybrid. A growing number of car makers ignorantly put heavy regen on the throttle. This is a serious mistake. I explain some reasons in Why Regenerative Braking Belongs... On The Brake Pedal.

Nissan Leaf

Leaf has always been one of my top recommendations for clean and efficient driving. Finally driving one confirms that handily.

Volkswagen E-Golf

VW's E-Golf is very worthy competion in the affordable EV race. It's the best driving afforable EV I've tried yet, building on all of the strengths of the Golf platform and improving them with tons of effortless, pure torque from low speeds.

Learn to drive!

Like most things individual skill is often more important than hardware. The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) offers low-cost high-quality driving schools which introduce the fundamentals of high-performance driving. Classes are taught by experienced, licensed racing instructors. The skills are intended to make you a safer street driver, and/or as an introduction to racing. (SCCA also offers a full set of pure racing schools.) There are also many commercial race driving schools with similar classes, though they tend to be more expensive. The SCCA San Francisco Region is one of the many places to get started in amateur or professional racing. For example any safe car and street licensed driver can participate in local Solo II/Autocross events.

Hypercars?

If you've ever wondered what a Hypercar is, check out another page of mine with information and links about Hypercars.

Automotive Resource Links

I've put together a set of Lotus and general automotive links at the Xanthos Resource Page. These may be useful for Lotus owners, kit car builders, hot rodders, drag racers, and other car hobbyists or racers.

Billzilla's Car Page

Bill Sherwood's Car Page includes an engine theory page where the subject happens to be a 4A-GE used in the Toyota MR2, Corolla FX-16, Formula Atlantic and other applications. The theory page includes such useful charts as valve timing versus intake runner length and 4 into 1 and 4-2-1 exhaust runner lengths. See especially the pages describing the 4A-GE and performance modifications to it.

Why we need electric cars

Steve Heckeroth makes a brilliant case for the sun-to-wheels energy efficiency of electric vehicles (EVs). Some key numbers:

Using direct solar radiation is about a quadrillion times more efficient than burning fossil fuels
The sun to wheel efficiency of biofuels is 0.01 percent to 0.07 percent
The sun to wheel efficiency of solar-electric power falls between 3 percent and 30 percent. This gives solar-electric vehicles an advantage 50 to 3,000 times greater than burning biofuels

The full article has a more complete accounting and offers interesting insights into EV history and a plugged in future.

Lest anyone think EVs are all slow golf carts, note that the Wrightspeed X1, an Ariel Atom with AC Propulsion drivetrain and Lithium Ion laptop batteries does 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds and an 11 second quarter mile. The Tesla Roadster is slower at about 4 seconds to 60, and it has about a 300 mile range. Tesla also uses AC Propulsion technology and Li Ion batteries.

AC Propulsion is directly or indirectly responsible for the GM EV1, GM S10 Electric, Venturi Fetish, eBox and other top-quality, high-tech electric vehicles. Tom Hanks just ordered a couple eBoxes in late 2006.