esr.org.nz

ESR Auckland Branch
Date and Time:   7-30 pm Thursday 15 October 2009
Where:       Room 3.407 School of Engineering, University of Auckland, 20 Symonds St, Auckland

Speaker:     Peter Kammler is a retired automotive engineer and businessman. He has lived in New Zealand since 1986 and is a founding member of Power for Our Future, an organisation which in the early nineties fought to keep our hydro power systems in public ownership. He is also a founding member of the Sustainable Energy Forum. For six years he was a member of the Board of Directors at Greenpeace, New Zealand. He has made numerous contributions to radio and newspapers on technical aspects of transport, the electricity system, and on environmental matters. Peter now lives on a lifestyle property near Matakana, and spends three months every year in Germany.

Abstract:     Most articles and interviews, about cars and their fuels are somewhat one-sided. This is because the person has a financial interest in one car design or another. The lack of knowledge, or interest, by the interviewer then leads to some rather skewed pictures.

Peter will speak about electric cars, mild and full hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell cars (the car that runs on water. Yeah – right), and the internal combustion engine which, surprisingly, has quite a bit of life in it yet.  Also of interest is the energy used to build the car, and the recovered energy when parts of the car are recycled.

He will give an impartial overview of the technical and economic issues for the different types of propulsion, as all have certain advantages but also have their disadvantages.