2009 Blog Archive
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Sunday December 27, 2009 - Predictions for 2010
Sunday December 20, 2009 - Getting Plug-in Ready
Sunday December 13, 2009 - Plug-in Escape Hybrid Test Drive
Sunday December 6, 2009 - 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show
Sunday November 29, 2009 - Waiting, Waiting, Waiting
Sunday November 22, 2009 - Three Wheel News
Sunday November 15, 2009 - Nissan Leaf a First Look
Sunday November 8, 2009 - Grid v EV
Sunday November 1, 2009 - Infrastructure Needs
Sunday October 25, 2009 - 2009 Tokyo Auto Show
Sunday October 10, 2009 - Not so Clean Diesel
Sunday October 11, 2009 - Trials, Trials, Trials
Sunday October 4, 2009 - Santa Monica Alt Fuel Vehicle Expo 2009
Sunday September 27, 2009 - Complaints about Quality
Sunday September 20, 2009 - 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show
Sunday September 13, 2009 - Travelling California's Central Coast
Sunday September 6, 2009 - USPS meets EV
Sunday August 29, 2009 - Th!nk back from the Bring - Again
Sunday August 23, 2009 - Charging Myths and Realities
Sunday August 15, 2009 - Smith Goes to Town
Sunday August 9, 2009 - EV Growth Projections
Sunday August 2, 2009 - Leaf and i-MiEV
Sunday 26 July, 2009 - Vectrix Fate
Sunday July 19, 2009 - Scooter Availability Growing
Sunday July 12, 2009 - GM Emerges from Bankruptcy
Sunday July 5, 2009 - California Granted Waiver on CO2 Law
Sunday June 28, 2009 - Stella and other EV News
Sunday June, 21, 2009 - Concours on Rodeo 2009
Sunday June 8, 2009 - Toyota's PHEV Message
Sunday June 7, 2009 - News Electric
Sunday May 31,2009 - Inductive Roads
Sunday May 25, 2009 - New CAFE Standards
Sunday May 17, 2009 - Pollution issues
Sunday May 10, 2009 - Electricity not Ethanol
Sunday May 3, 2009 - Just a bit Greener
Sunday April 26, 2009 - Electric Car Rental
Sunday April 19 2009 - eBay Listings
Sunday April 12, 2009 - New York Auto Show 2009
Sunday April 5 2009 - GM and Chrysler in Jeopardy
Sunday March 29, 2009 - Head to Head Hybrid Test
Sunday March 22, 2009 - President Visits EV Tech Center
Sunday March 15, 2009 - Geneva Motor Show 2009
Sunday March 8, 2009 - Government loans
Sunday March 1, 2009 - Quality
Sunday February 22, 2009 - Obama Signs Stimulus Package
Sunday February 15, 2009 - Personal Rapid Transit
Sunday February 8, 2009 - Massachusetts Law
Sunday February 1, 2009 - Coulomb Technologies
Sunday January 25, 2009 - Electric Scooters
January 18, 2009 - The 2009 Detroit Auto Show
January 11, 2009 - More Bad News
Sunday January 4, 2009 - Hybrids, Hybrids
Sunday December 27, 2009 - Predictions for 2010 - This is the last Sunday of 2009 and this year has been a bad year that many people will be glad to see gone. 2010 should be better, at least as far as electric vehicles are concerned, so I thought it would be fun to try and make a few predictions on the coming year.
2010
is the year that most of us who hold the belief that the future of personal
transportation is electric have been waiting for. This is the year that we
should start to see new electric vehicles trickle into showrooms.
I don't really expect to see much happening in the early part of the year, but as we get into the 2011 model year things will start to pick up.
I predict that GM will start up their reservation system some time in March or April and they will get quite a lot of people who want to sign up to buy a new Volt. Much will depend on the final pricing and available federal and state incentives but I expect they will get a pretty good number of people signing up. Some time toward the end of the second quarter the Chevy Volt production line should start up in earnest and we will see the first cars start to trickle into showrooms in California, the New York metropolitan area, and perhaps the Pacific North West. I think the cars will come out in a trickle in 2010 and unless you have placed your order early you won't get a car until well into 2011 and it won't be until the 2012 model year that you will be able to walk into the showroom and drive home in one.
Another plug-in Hybrid set to hit showrooms in the second half of 2010 is the Fisker Karma. The Karma is supposed to go on sale in September and I expect Fisker to meet that date. 2010 production is already sold out so unless you have a pretty low number on the reservation list then you aren't going to be able to get one next year. The Karma is clearly intended as a low volume vehicle with production set for 1500 per year. I don't thing Fisker will have any trouble selling that number of cars per year. They already have funding for their follow on vehicle thanks to a loan from the US government so things will probably be fine with them. The main thing to see is how reliable the Karma is and how Fisker deal with the issues that will inevitably arise. That isn't going to show up until 2011 though so I think that Fisker are going to be happy with their results for 2010.
Toyota will be putting about 500 Plug-in Prius in the hands of customers, mostly commercial and government fleets, in 2010. about 150 of these will be coming to the USA. These customers will evaluate the car in real world situations. The car won't go on sale to the general public until late in 2011.
Nissan too are going to open up the reservation system for the Nissan Leaf in the spring of 2010 and they have initially received a lot of interest in the car. So far they haven't announced pricing but have hinted that their target is $25,000. The big question is "does this price include the batteries"? I predict that this price does not include the battery pack and that Nissan will elect to lease the batteries at something line $199 per month. I think this will be a big marketing blunder on their part and the interest in the car will wane quite a bit. They will also run into issues with getting charging stations set up in customer's homes, as happened with the Mini-e, and this will mean that there will be only a small number of vehicles delivered to consumers in 2010. Nissan will be disappointed with the results.
Ford is also supposed to release an electric version of the Transit Connect Van in both the US and Europe in 2010. The original plan was to use Smiths Electric to provide the drive train but they have just switched to Azure Dynamics Ford did not announce any change in their plans for starting sales of this electric van in 2010 but I expect that the change of supplier will delay the sale of the Transit connect van until 2011. This vehicle will appeal mostly to fleets anyway and Ford will probably deliver a small number of these vehicles toward the end of 2010 as part of a fleet test but I don't really see them selling these vans to the public until 2011.
In Europe the Peugeot iOn, which is really a Mitsubishi i-MiEV that has been rebadged, should go on sale at the end of 2010. Mitsubishi have already put the i-MiEV on sale in Japan and as of the end of November had delivered 800 vehicles, mostly to fleets. They have a small test fleet of right hand drive vehicles here in the USA and will be adding four more vehicles, to be used by Best Buy's Geek squad, in 2010. Mitsubishi have been disappointed with sales in Japan, although given the price of the vehicle, around $42,000, I think that sales have been quite good. I expect sales of the iOn in Europe will also be mostly fleet sales but the market in Europe is quite a bit larger than Japan so this might help the i-MiEV. I do expect sales to continue slowly though.
Myers Motors have been selling the NmG for several years now and have been developing a new 2 seat design. They are currently taking pre-orders for the car and will base the final sales price on the number of pre-orders they have received by June, 2010. They are hoping for 1000 pre-orders but I think that will be a stretch given that electric cars are becoming available from the big car makers. I do expect Myers to start delivering the Duo in the second half of 2010.
Aptera is another company that have a three wheel electric car design. They also have over 2000 orders from customers and have been getting a lot of press. Unfortunately they keep messing about with the design and have been delaying production over and over again. I have strong doubts about the ability of Aptera to switch from R&D mode to production mode, a common issue with small start up companies, and I expect to see one delay after another and no cars on the road in 2010.
Here is one that I really hope I am wrong about. ZENN motor company have stopped making their NEV and are going to concentrate on becoming a drive train supplier built on eStore's battery technology. The first issue is eStore, who have missed deadline after deadline while getting lots of press about milestones in production they have reached. They were supposed to deliver working batteries to ZENN at the start of December but so far there has been no hint that they have built a working battery. The batteries, if they truly live up to their potential, are game changing, but I have serious doubts about the ability of eStore to deliver. After seeing the quality issues with the ZENN I also have doubts about the ability of ZENN to build a power train that is up to the level required by the large OEMs, and about their ability to ramp up to produce drive trains at a volume required to meet future EV demand.
Talking of quality, Chinese vehicle maker BYD have been having issues with the cars they are making for the Chinese market. They have plans to enter the US market in 2010 but unless they can improve their quality radically they don't have a chance to sell more than a handful of vehicles in this country.
One company that already has a handful of electric cars on the road is BMW. The Mini-E was originally least to customers for one year as an evaluation project. These leases will terminate in 2010. I am sure that BMW is anxious to get the cars back so they can evaluate how they held up after a year of service, but they will also remember how badly GM got burned taking back and crushing the EV1 so I think we will see people given the option to renew their lease for an additional year. It will be interesting to see how many do renew their leases and what BMW do with the cars that are returned.
2010 is going to be an exciting year but I don't think that we are not going to see as many EV sales around the world as some auto makers expect. It's part of the nature of bringing forward new technology, there is a period of time where sales are slow and prices high. Then we reach a tipping point and prices begin to tumble. Before we know it the old technology is out and the new technology is in. 2010 is the start of the march to new technology and, since it will take about 30 years to totally replace the old technology, I hope that the trip to the tipping point is quick.
Sunday December 20, 2009 - Getting Plug-in Ready - While attending the LA Auto Show I was stopped in the South Lobby by an attractive young lady who turned out to be from Southern California Edison. Edison had a booth set up right next to the Green Car of the Year award stage and they were giving out information about getting your garage plug-in ready.
I chatted to the lady for a while about the specific needs of people like me, apartment dwellers that didn't have the ability to install electric charging stations. It turned out that she also lived in an apartment and would like to drive an electric car but couldn't. She told me that Edison were aware of this issue but hadn't found a good solution yet.
If you are lucky enough to live in a house with a garage or carpool though, here are a few things you might want to do, based on Edison's suggestions, when you are ready to take the plunge and buy an electric car.
Find out what type of charging the Plug-in vehicle(s) you are considering would require. Many EVs like plug-in hybrids or NEVs are capable of charging on a standard 110V outlet and if you already have one in your garage you may be ready to go. If you opt for a pure electric vehicle you will probably need to charge on a 220V supply
Determine if you need to upgrade your electric service. If you need to run electricity into your garage this will require permits so check with a contractor and get the ball rolling as the permit process can take a long time. Even if you are going to get an EV that only requires 110V you may need a new circuit since most EVs pull enough current that they can't share the circuit with other appliances without tripping the breaker. Some EVs even require a 20amp circuit not the standard 15amp circuit. You may also need to have your electric panel upgraded too since the extra load added by the EV may exceed the maximum load for your electric panel.
Notify your electric provider that you intend to get an electric vehicle. May utilities offer special rates for EV drivers. These rates are designed to have you charge your car overnight rather than during peak times. The electric provider will provide you with details of the various options. Southern California Edison for example offers the EV driver three different options, Use the standard residential rate, move to a whole house "Time of Use" rate that increases the cost of peak rate electricity and reduced the cost of off peak rates. and EV only "Time of Use" rate that leaves the house on a standard rate and provides a separate meter for the circuit used to charge the EV. Costs on this second circuit are higher used in peak hours but offers cheaper rates in off peak hours. There are also additional costs for installing the second meter.
Determine what option you best will fit your individual needs then make sure that the application for permits etc are submitted in plenty of time to get them approved before you go out and put down money to buy the EV. Knowing the cost of charger installation up front can also help with the purchase decision because cost of charger installation is one component of the overall running costs for an electric vehicle.
While this sounds like a decision that will tie you to a specific EV the truth is that there are limited options that are really needed. Basically for a car that uses 110V you are really looking at having a 15amp or 20amp circuit installed if you don't already have a dedicated circuit. Even if the circuit is shared, you can always manage the load by making sure that anything attached to other outlets on that same circuit are not running when the car is charging and you will probably be OK. You might have to deal with the occasional glitch, I've heard of people who will trip a breaker when the garage door opens because the motor that opens the door is powered from the same circuit as the one used to charge the car, but instances like this are rare.
For cars that need 220V there is usually a current draw required of either 30 amps or 40 amps which would require a breaker in the main fuse box of 40 amps or 50 amps. This is the same sort of circuit that is required for an electric dryer. If you are looking at several cars and some require a 40 amp breaker and others require a 50 amp breaker you can always install the 50amp breaker and it will work for all of the cars.
Permits for these kinds of electrical upgrades can often take a very long time to get so starting the process early can help. The cost of the work can also vary depending on what needs to be done. In some cases, you may need to dig a trench to lay the conduit in when you have a detached garage. This can add significantly to the overall cost of installation. If you only have a car port then there is a question of having a waterproof receptacle which may also add to the cost. In the end you should have all this figured out before you go out and put down money for that EV you always dreamed off.
Sunday December 13, 2009 - Plug-in Escape Hybrid Test Drive - This year at the LA Auto show I had an opportunity to test drive one of the Plug-in Ford Escape Hybrids that is currently being evaluated by Southern California Edison.
The
Plug-in Escape Hybrid looked like the current generation Escape hybrid in every
respect but has a larger battery pack that allows the car to go up to 30 miles
per charge. Like current third party
Plug-in hybrid conversions of the Escape and Prius, the battery only part of the
driving is limited to the same speed that the standard hybrid version can be
driven, in this case at speeds below about 40mph.
The car is started by inserting the key in the ignition and turning it clockwise as far as it will go. There was no sound at start up so, even after driving a Prius, which also starts up without noise, for almost 5 years, I was still unsure if the car was on or not.
I drove out of the parking lot and found the car drove quite smoothly and stayed in electric mode. An interesting feature of the car was the rev counter. This looked like a standard rev counter but had a green crescent at the bottom where you would normally find 0 revs. While the rev counter was in the green area the car was running battery only, once the engine came on the rev counter would measure the speed the engine was turning.
I
found that the Escape Hybrid gave me an excellent ride on bumpy LA streets.
The handling was a bit more effort than with my Prius, as you would
expect with the larger SUV, but the power steering was still light to the touch
and precise. When I got the car onto
I asked the Ford rep about this and he told me that the car was probably doing engine braking. I think it was more likely that the car was trying to warm up the catalytic converter since I had cruised at 25mph for several blocks. The Ford rep then pulled up the fuel consumption display on the screen. The display showed bar graphs that indicated about 120mpg for most of the trip with one bar at about 20mpg where I had really punched the accelerator. I found the display screen was set too low for me to read without taking my eyes totally off the road.
When we got back to the Convention Center the NAV system lost contact with the satellites and started to search for them. The Ford rep tried to show me other screens but the system seemed to be locked out searching for a satellite and so I wasn’t able to get a demo of the complete menu system.
Ford hasn’t set a date for the introduction of the Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid since, as Steve Daleiden who is Ford's Battery Electric Vehicle power train systems engineer, told me, “a pure electric is easier to do”. I could see that there were things that need to be done before the Escape Hybrid is ready for the general public, like being able to keep the car in electric mode at higher speeds and changing the location of the touch screen display to make it easier to read and use while driving, but the 30 mile range is a nice compromise.
I would have liked to see more of a power flow that would indicate that the car was using regen braking, perhaps an additional segment on the rev counter to indicate regen. I am also a little concerned about why the engine didn't turn off when the car speed dropped below 40mph even when though there was plenty of charge in the battery. I wouldn't like to think that if I was driving down a road at 35mph then sped up to overtake someone the ICE would keep running until I came to a complete stop, but I do think that was related to a cold catalytic converter so I am not too worried on that score.
I think that the car would work for many people in its current form so I hope they introduce this plug-in hybrid sooner rather than later.
Sunday December 6, 2009 - 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show - The LA auto show started this week and as usual I was able to attend the media days on Wednesday and Thursday.
The keynote address was originally supposed to be given by GM CEO Fritz Henderson but he resigned the day before the meeting was to take place. GM Vice President Bob Lutz stepped in at the last minute. He reiterated the idea that GM was moving from producing vehicles that are driven by mechanical means to those that are driven by electricity. He also announced that the California will be among the first areas where the Volt will be Sold.
Production of the Volt will start towards the end of next year with first deliveries to retail customers beginning in the last quarter. In early 2011 100 vehicles will be delivered to California Utilities who are going to participate in an evaluation of the vehicle. The Utilities, Southern California Edison, PG&E, and SMUD along with EPRI will assist GM in collecting performance data on the Volt to help refine the product.
Mitsubishi Motors announced that they would start selling the i-MiEV in the US beginning in 2011. The car will be very much the same as the left hand drive version being sold under the Peugeot brand in Europe modified slightly to meet US safety standards.
Mitsubishi also showed off their PX-MiEV, a plug in hybrid that is based around a 1.6 liter engine and two electric motors one to drive each axel. The car will be able to recharge from 110V, 220V or the Mitsubishi fast charging system. They plan to start selling this crossover in 2013
Honda showed off its latest concept from the Honda Design Studio here in LA, the three seat PNUT. The PNUT is designed as a city car and the driver sits in the middle with two passengers who sit to in the rear seats. The innovative layout gives the passengers as much let room as they typical mid- sized sedan in a subcompact sized body. The car can be configured to run using a conventional ICE, a fuel cell, or as a battery electric. It is unlikely that this car will ever be built however.
Audi's entry into the electric car world is going to be with a sports car, the e-Tron. This car uses 4 electric motors to give the car four wheel drive. It can accelerate from 0 to 60 in under 4.8 seconds and has a range of around 150 miles on a charge. Audi plan to put this car into limited production at the end of 2012.
The BMW Vision is a diesel electric hybrid that is capable of returning a very respectable 60mpg.
Fisker also showed off their Karma plug-in hybrid. The Karma, which comes in a four door sedan as well as the convertible shown above, starts out at a base price of around $87,000. The Karma offers a 50 mile all electric range before the range extender comes to life allowing the Karma to travel up to 250 miles before it needs to be refueled. The car will go from 0-60mph in around 6 seconds and reach a top speed of 125mph. Fisker will begin deliveries to their network of 45 dealers in the USA starting in September 2010 but all 2010 production has already been sold. Fisker plan to ramp up production starting in 2011 until they reach a volume of around 1500 per year.
During the show I also got to test drive the all electric Ford Focus and the Factory produced Plug-in Hybrid version of the Ford Escape. I will be reporting more on these over then next couple of weeks.
Sunday November 29, 2009 - Waiting, Waiting, Waiting - I was in Century City shopping center on Friday afternoon and as I strolled around I noticed a car parked out in front of Bloomingdales. Curious, I went over to take a look, and GM actually had a Chevy Volt on display.
I talked for a few minutes with the girl who was basically handing out tickets for next week's LA Auto show and I asked her if this was the pre-production version. That seemed to confuse her but she did tell me that GM would start production of these cars in November of next year. Now, I already thought that they had started production with the building of the first 30 or so pre-production models so perhaps she really meant that the cars would be in showrooms in November of next year.
When I got home from the Mall in mid afternoon there was a Southern California Edison SUV parked outside our building. It turned out to be one of the Plug-in Hybrid Ford Escapes that they are currently testing. So far Ford hasn't really made a strong statement one way or the other for when, or if, they will begin to make this PHEV.
On Saturday I picked up a bit from ZAP's 10-Q report to the SEC for the quarter ending 9/30/2009 with said, in part, "the phase out of our three wheeled Xebra vehicle with reduced selling prices" . I thought that perhaps they were phasing out the Xebra to make room for the Alias but when I looked at their web site it still says that they plan to begin deliveries to customers starting toward the end of 2010.
Add to that the press release that I got last week telling me that the Aptera is going to be delayed until late 2010 and it appears that we are going to have to wait at least another year before we get access to any new production electric vehicles.
It just seems to me that we are currently in a holding pattern with electric vehicles. The promise is there but the wait for them to come into showrooms seems to be taking forever. There are several vehicles that are under development right now and it appears that few of the manufacturers want to leap in and get their cars out on the road.
The Nissan Leaf is another much touted electric car that is expected to arrive in showrooms some time towards the end of 2010 as a 2011 model year vehicle. It is expected that this car will be sold in limited markets at first so it may not be available in many areas in 2010.
Ford is expected to come out with an all electric version of their Transit Connect electric van but the switch from Smith's Electric Vehicles technology to Azure Dynamic's will probably mean extended test times and that will almost certainly delay the arrival of these electric vans. Ford also has a electric version of the Focus sedan. Jay Leno has been using this sedan for his Celebrity Car challenge, a feature of his new prime time talk show. The Ford Focus EV is expected to go on sale in 2011.
Toyota is lagging even further behind with a plug-in version of the Prius not expected in showrooms until 2013. Both Toyota and Honda appear to be banking on solving the current issues with fuel cells but this may end up being a bad decision for them, it all depends on what happens with the next generation of batteries.
It will be interesting to see if there are further developments coming out of the LA Auto Show. So far the If you want to buy an EV from one of the big auto makers you are going to have to wait until at least the last quarter of 2010. It is frustrating to see cars being show at shopping malls and auto shows and not be able to go to the local dealer and buy one. It isn't surprising though, the manufacturers want to put out a product that is up to the high standards they have set over the last ten year. They need to spend lots of time doing durability testing and refining the ride quality and performance of the vehicle, making changes to the assembly lines to produce the new cars, and training technicians at the dealerships to service and repair Electric Vehicles.
There is currently a window of opportunity for a small car maker to get in ahead of the crowed and start selling a well built electric car. The problem is I don't see anyone with the design and production capability to do that. Even companies like Mitsubishi; who already have the i-MiEV on sale in Japan and undergoing trials in both Europe the USA; and Chinese auto make BYD who have a plug-in hybrid on sale in China and a full electric car being readied for production; would be hard pressed to get their cars into showrooms in the USA before the end of 2010.
Sunday November 22, 2009 - Three Wheel News - This week I received a press release from Aptera saying that production on their 2e electric three wheel vehicle has been delayed until 2010. The problem, as usual, is insufficient funding to move the car into production.
It seems like there are a lot of three wheel electric cars on the drawing boards these days but most of the companies developing these cars really don't have the funding to move them from the prototype stage into production. Most of these companies are accepting reservations for their cars and this seems to be one way they have of raising funds,
Even Myers Motors, who are already producing the NmG, are accepting reservations for their new 2 seat car which they are going to call the Duo. They have an interesting concept, they have set the price of the car at the cost they would have to produce 1 unit, $29,995. For each group of 200 reservations they will reduce the price of the car by $1,000 until they reach their target production rate of 1000 units in 2010. I they can get the 1000 reservations they will end up with a price of $24,995.
Now, if I was going to bet on any of these companies actually producing vehicles it would be Myers Motors. They have a track record of producing the NmG and have also provided excellent support. People with long memories remember the problems that early adopters had with the old Corbin Sparrow. Myers solved most of those problems before they began selling the NmG and have produced a car that is reliable and fun to own. I fully expect the Duo to follow in that tradition.
ZAP is another company with a long line of electric vehicles to their name including the three wheel Xebra range of vehicles that they have been selling since 2006 and have more than 1000 on the road, and a line of NEVs and electric scooters. They have been developing a new freeway capable 2 seat three wheel vehicle called the Alias. They have been running prototype vehicles around Santa Rosa for most of 2009 but they still don't have a date where they plan to begin production. Still, if you want to put down $1,000 you can get a reservation on the $35,000 car. I have no idea how many reservations they have taken but given ZAPs track record of announcing new vehicles then dropping them again a little while later, then I would be skeptical that the car would ever arrive in dealers showrooms. Still, ZAP have taken the Alias farther than they do with most of their hype vehicles and I wouldn't be surprised if the Alias does finally get produced.
Green Vehicles is another company that appears to be doing more fund raising than producing electric cars. They claim to have delivered some of their Triacs to paying customers but word I am getting is that they have only imported about 6 cars so far and most of those appear to be being used as demo vehicles. They are pushing for reservations and the story is that the cars will be arriving early next year and you will have to rush and get your reservation in if you want to get one from that batch. I got this story from them at the 2008 Santa Monica Alt Fuel vehicle Expo and again at this years event. Personally I would wait until I can see cars in dealerships.
Another new entry to the three wheel market is the Arcimoto Pulse. The Pulse, which looks a lot like the Triac, is a three wheel 2 seater that is supposed to be delivered in 2010 at a price less than $20,000. The Pulse offers a range of 50 to100 miles and a top speed of 55mph. The Arcimoto web site is big on taking reservations and light on information about the car. For example I couldn't find anything on what type of batteries they are using on their web site and since this is probably the most critical part of the decision when choosing an electric car, I don't know why anyone would make a reservation without that bit of information.
Most three wheel vehicles are registered as motorcycles and that gets around the costly and time consuming crash test process. It allows the vehicle manufacturer to bring the car to market at a much lower cost than the traditional four wheel car. It is still a costly and time consuming process to get a three wheel car into production and having enough pre-orders really helps when it comes to funding. The down side is that most people don't want to risk their money with a company that has little more than a working prototype and a dream.
Personally I like three wheel vehicles and have owned one myself. I am not inclined to put money down to sit on a waiting list for a car that may or may not be produced. In the end I want to go "kick the tires" before I make a purchase decision. If you are an early adopter then putting a pre-order for an electric vehicle may be a good way to get them into production but be aware of the risk and make sure that you really want the car before plunking down your deposit.
Sunday November 15, 2009 - Nissan Leaf a First Look - This past Friday Nissan kicked off its Nissan Leaf Zero Emission Tour here in Los Angeles. I couldn't make it to the initial event on Friday but on Saturday I was able to go into Santa Monica where the car was on display on Third Street Promenade.
Now,
here you can see a picture of me in the Nissan Leaf cruising through downtown LA
at night. The picture is a fake of course, the good folks at the event
would take your picture sitting in front of a green screen and then the next day
you can grab a picture of yourself in the Nissan Leaf.
The truth was that they only had one Leaf at the event and that was roped off so that you couldn't really get close enough to have a look inside or under the hood.
What they did do is allow me to get a first look at the car from the outside. They also confirmed the design specs for the car.
They confirmed that the Leaf is designed for a top speed of 90mph. They did not have any target for 0-60 time but did state in their handout that the car as maximum torque at 0mph so is should offer pretty decent acceleration.
The target range on this car is 100 miles per charge although they did note that range will depend on driving habits, weather conditions, and the age of the batteries. While the car can travel at 90mph don't think you will be able to get 100 miles on a charge at full speed. At 90mph you would be lucky to get 50 miles on a charge. Still, with sensible driving the Leaf should meet over 90% of your driving needs.
Like most electric vehicles, the primary charging will be done overnight through a 220V home charger. Nissan noted that they are "working with community partners to establish a charging network at malls, restaurants, etc."
One interesting piece of information is that the Leaf makes extensive use of recycled material. Did you ever wonder what happens to those plastic bottles you toss into the recycle bin. Well some of these may well end up under your butt since the Nissan Leaf uses a seat fabric that is made out of recycled plastic containers.
To be quite honest, the Nissan Leaf Zero Emission Tour was actually a little bit lame. I was expecting a much better insight into the vehicle and its electrical systems. I hoped they would have test drives set up, or at least I would get to sit in the car and see how it looked and felt. What I came away with is a T-Shirt, the photo above, and no more information about the car than I had already gleaned from the Nissan web site.
The good thing about this is that Nissan is demonstrating that they are making the effort to mass market this car. They are going to start taking reservations in the Spring of next year. I only hope that they don't make the GM mistake of taking reservations then delaying shipment of the car until everyone looses interest. Hopefully Nissan will meet their target and get the car into showrooms before the end of 2010.
Sunday November 8, 2009 - Grid v EV - I have seen several articles lately that express concern over the ability of our electric grid to support a large number of electric vehicles. The worry is that we have a grid that is barely strong enough to support the current load and if we suddenly have hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles sucking amps then we will be back to the rolling brownouts that we saw in California a few years ago.
Now, this is a very real concern even if most of the EV community push it off by saying there is plenty of capacity available at night. It is true of course that most electric vehicles can be charged overnight during times of low demand, and rates can be structured to encourage this. However, as the number of vehicles increases there will be more and more people needing to grab a quick booster charge during the day.
I don't see the growth of electric vehicles being big enough to cause issues for quite some time however. The cars will be rolled out quite slowly at first with numbers not growing significantly until prices become low enough to reach a tipping point, after which we will see rapid adoption of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. That gives some time to grow the grid and increase the amount of renewable energy being supplied to the electric utilities.
A bigger concern is the local effects that could occur when electric cars become concentrated in a neighborhood.
A couple of weeks ago my wife was sitting in our apartment when she heard a big explosion. The electricity went off for a few seconds then came back on. It turns out that a transformer had exploded. These transformers are quite old, some of them have been in place for over 70 years, and occasionally they fail catastrophically.
The infrastructure in some of our towns can be quite out of date and this is much more of a problem for the adoption of electric vehicles than the more manageable capacity of the grid. Houses are usually fed with a 220 - 240 volt single phase electric supply. 240 volts is used for things that require high power like cookers, air conditioners and electric dryers while power is split into two 110v segments to be used by lower power applications like TVs, computers, refrigerators, and lights. Most houses built 50 years ago or more have a supply that is limited to 100 amp while newer houses typically have 200 amp supplies.
If you have a 100amp supply and install a typical electric vehicle charging station, the sort of charger that you will use for a car like the Nissan Leaf, you will need to pull about 30 amps. When you only have a 100amp supply a load of 30amps will soak out about a third of your electric supply. This won't be a problem if you start your charge at midnight and terminate the charge about 6 am but if you try to charge during peak hours, typically when you get home from work, then you will have lots of other loads on the system and this may cause a problem with a 100amp supply and blowing the main breaker isn't going to be fun.
The car companies are making a big deal about putting out public charging infrastructure but that's going to be the least of their problems.
One of the biggest impediments to selling electric vehicles is the actual charger installation. If I want to go buy a gas car then I can go out to car dealership and drive home the car of my dreams, or at least the one my pocket book can afford, that very evening. It will probably come with a couple of gallons in the tank so my first stop will be the local gas station where I can fill up. Now consider the purchase of an electric car. Even if the car is sitting in the dealership I probably won't be able to take it home with me until I have a charger installed. Depending on local ordinances and inspection processes this can take weeks. I am going to have to bring in an electrician. The electrician is going to have to spec out the installation then apply for permits. The permit process can take anything from a couple of days to weeks depending on the city in which you live. After that the installation needs to be done then a final inspection before you can go get your EV from the dealership.
Even worse will be the situation where the power requirements of the electric car will cause the building supply to be exceeded. In this case service will need to be upgraded. I just read an email from someone who was actually running into this problem while trying to install solar panels on their roof. In this case, before they would upgrade service PG&E insisted on taking the supply, currently via overhead cables, and bury it underground. The cost to the homeowner for doing this was $15,000. Now imaging buying a Nissan Leaf for $25,000 plus $3000 for the installation of the charger ad all of a sudden there is this new cost of $15,000 to upgrade supply - almost certainly a deal killer.
The other big issue that troubles the power companies is a more global version of the above. Lots of EVs going into a single neighborhood will mean that the maximum current supplied for the whole neighborhood could be exceeded. If this happened then the whole neighborhood could loose power. This may well mean that local services need to be upgraded on a pretty widespread scale.
Since in many cases these neighborhoods are served by outdated equipment like our wonderful exploding transformer, the need to beef up supply is another reason to replace old equipment before it fails.
The thing we need to keep in mind is that electric vehicles won't be universally adopted overnight. We have time to grow our electric grid as the number of electric vehicles grow. What we need to do is to start right away. First we can start with new construction. We shouldn't be building new houses, apartments or condos without putting in the wiring needed to install electric vehicle charging. That means 220V supply points in garages and apartment/condo parking. We also need to work with local government to streamline the approval process for people trying to install charging in their home. We also need legislation at the local level to make it difficult for condo associations and apartment owners from stopping residents from installing electric vehicle charging.
Electric vehicles are coming soon and we need to plan for the load on our electric grid now. We have time. Even if every car sold from now on was electric it would still take ten years for the majority of the fleet to be EVs but if we wait too long we will run into major problems that could impede the progress toward the electrification of our personal transportation.
Sunday November 1, 2009 - Infrastructure Needs - I read a couple of articles earlier this week about how various companies are looking at needing charging infrastructure as they start to roll out electric cars and plug-in hybrids starting next year. It got me thinking some more about infrastructure.
One of the articles used the term "Chicken and Egg" implying that the charging structure needed to be in place before people would buy electric cars. In a recent blog I stated my belief that we don't really need public charging to start bring electric vehicles to market. It is my belief that the electric vehicles need to come first and the infrastructure can be pushed out latter to meet the needs of the growing fleet. Coulomb Technologies have built this into their business model allowing subscribers to request chargers in specific locations.
The articles did prompt me to think about charging and what is really needed for the various vehicles.
Now one obvious impediment to mass marketing electric vehicles is the problems that people have when thy live in apartments, condos, or town houses where they may not be able to install a charger. Those that have to park on the street have an even greater problem and public chargers may be the only option for them.
Lets assume that the early adopters of pure EVs like the Nissan Leaf have a charging station installed in their garage at home or at their place of employment. In this situation almost all the charging would be done at their home location. Give the car the ability to charge at any 110V outlet, and they would be able to grab a quick charge almost anywhere if they got serious low on charge and needed to add a little to the batteries to get them back home. Chargers would be nice but not essential. In my opinion most early adopters will buy the electric vehicle as a second car and will still have a regular ICE for those situations where they need to go beyond the range of their EV.
Once sales have started to pick up in an area then a car like the Nissan Leaf will need to have fast charging stations set up at locations along the main arterial highways. During the MOA period there was a series of public charging stations that were set up along California highway 101 that would allow and EV driver to go from Los Angeles to San Francisco. More recently a set of charging stations were established along interstate 80 to allow drivers to go from San Francisco or Sacramento to the Lake Tahoe/Reno area.
There will also be a need for regular charging stations at places where people stop for extended periods of time such as shopping malls, cinemas, sports stadiums, and major attractions, as this will give the EV driver the ability to go beyond the range of their electric car. Lets assume that if you drive at freeway speeds you will get around 70 Miles of range in a Nissan Leaf. If you have chargers at a place like Disneyland or Magic Mountain then you can safely drive 50 or so miles to that location then have the car fill up while you spend the day there and be able to manage the 50 or so miles back home.
Plug-in Hybrids will have a different set of requirements.
Drivers of plug-in hybrids will not have the same range anxiety that the new EV driver will feel. They know that if they stray beyond their battery only range the ICE will kick in and keep them going as long as they keep fuel in the gas tank. I expect at least some plug-in hybrids will actually be driven regularly without being plugging in on a regular basis. People buying a Chevy Volt will be able to charge overnight and the 40 mile range will cover their regular day to day driving. They are likely to take the volt on longer trips once in a while and are probably not interested in stopping every 40 miles to recharge the batteries. What they will be looking for is a place they can charge when they reach their destination.
For plug-in hybrid drivers the availability of charging stations in hotels will be critical. If someone drives from say New York to Atlantic city they would probably want to be able to charge the car up at their hotel in Atlantic City so they could drive in electric only mode during their stay and for the first 40 miles or so of their return trip. Charging at places like Shopping Malls and theme parks is a nice to have but it won't be a consideration for people buying a plug-in hybrid.
Often the need for public charging is more a perception than a real requirement. During the MOA period here in California I can't tell you how often I read "but there are only 400 charging stations in the whole of California" in article after article. It seemed like a little sentence that most automobile journalists needed to insert into any article they wrote about electric cars in California. But the truth was that most EV drivers had a charging station at home and the public infrastructure hardly ever got used.
In the final analysis the existence of public charging will help ease range anxiety for those new to electric vehicles, but the real questions are going to be "How long will a set of batteries last" and "How much will they cost to replace", the same questions I get asked about the batteries on my Prius. Having public charging in place is a great idea but it should be done with thought and it would be better done as electric cars start to hit the streets rather than letting the public charging dictate where and when electric cars get sold.
Sunday October 25, 2009 - 2009 Tokyo Auto Show - The 2009 Tokyo Auto Show is now in full swing but the current state of the economy has reduced the number of companies displaying their wares to about half the number that was there in 2007. This means a lot of empty floor space. The bright side is that most of the concept cars being revealed for the first time were electric in some form, hybrid, EV, or fuel cell.
Nissan, for example revealed their Land Glider concept, a car that has shades of the Tango. The Land Glider, at 43.3 inches wide, is about half the width of a regular car. It seats two people sitting in tandem, and leans into curves like a motorcycle for added stability. The Land Glider will be a pure electric vehicle powered by lithium batteries. Nissan has hinted that this car may actually make it to production in a couple of years time.
Nissan also showed off the Leaf, their fully electric car that is planned to go on sale world wide in 2011. Nissan's CEO, Carlos Ghosn, stated that Infinity were currently working on a zero emission vehicle although they didn't have one on display at the show.
Toyota also revealed a new BEV concept, the FT-EV II. This car, based on their iQ microcar, is only 9ft long. It uses a novel drive by wire system based around a joy stick instead of a steering wheel which allows the diminutive car to seat four relatively comfortably. The car is designed as a city car with a top speed of 60mph and a range of only 26 miles.
Toyota also revealed a new hybrid, the SAI. This is basically a Toyota version of the Lexus HS-250H hybrid. The car will have a NiMH battery pack and is expected to get the same mileage numbers and the HS-250H. The SAI is bigger and more expensive than the Prius and is designed for the Japanese market. It is unlikely to be sold here in the US.
Honda too had an EV on display, the EV-N concept. This boxy looking electric car features roof mounted solar panels to enhance battery charging. The car also featured a U3-X in each door. The U3-X is a unicycle that functions in a similar way to the Segway and can be used by the urban commuter to get from the parking lot to their office.
Honda also showed off their CR-Z concept which is a 2 seat car reminiscent of the old CR-X. The CR-Z uses Honda's well proven IMA power-train system and will come with a 1.5 liter engine and 6 speed manual transmission. This concept is production ready and is expected to be in showrooms in 2010.
Honda also took the wraps of the Honda Super Cub electric motorcycle. This concept motorbike is very much based on the old Honda Cub motorcycle The Honda Cub, which was sold as the Honda 50 in the US and Europe, is the best selling motorcycle of all time with a total sales of over 60 million. The Honda 50 was efficient and reasonably priced and was a big part of Honda's success. There is no indication if Honda will actually put the Honda Super Cub into production but if they can produce it at a reasonable price point with decent range and performance on a par with the old gas bike they should be able to sell a few million more.
Mitsubishi, who are already selling the i-MiEV fully electric city car, revealed their PX-MiEV concept. This is a plug in hybrid SUV. The SUV features two electric motors, one on each axle, that are powered by a lithium battery pack capable of propelling the vehicle for about 30 miles. Once the battery is depleted a range extending 1.6 liter 4 cylinder engine turns on and this motor can be used to either power the vehicle of recharge the battery.
They also showed off the i-MiEV Cargo concept. This concept is based on the existing i-MiEV vehicle but the rear doors and passenger seat have been replaced with a flat sides and sloping roof to provide about 63 cubic feet of storage space. Mitsubishi claims that the i-MiEV cargo is only a show vehicle but since many of their customers are utilities and other fleet applications, they may find that they are pressured to actually produce this van.
Subaru, who already market an electric version of their Stella microcar, also had an interesting concept on display. The hybrid Tourer is a parallel hybrid similar in concept to the Prius. Like all other Subaru vehicles the Tourer is four wheel drive but in this case the rear wheels are driven purely by and electric motor while the front wheels are driven by a combination of a 2 liter flat 4 ICE and a 10KW electric motor. Like the Prius the Hybrid Tourer is capable of running on electric alone at low speeds and when starting from a stop. Both electric motors are driven by a lithium battery pack. One interesting feature of this concept is the doors. Instead of the traditional 4 doors the car has a single door at each side that is wide enough to allow plenty of room for both front and rear seat passengers to enter and exit. The doors open upward in gull wing fashion.
Suzuki also had two electric concept vehicles based on their Swift compact car. The Swift Plug-in hybrid is a serial hybrid. The car is targeted at people who commute no more than 15 miles per day after which the ICE will start up and provide enough power to drive the vehicle. Suzuki hasn't released any real performance data or plans to produce this car.
They also showed off the SX4-FCV which is driven by a GM built fuel cell stack fed from a 10,000psi hydrogen storage tank. This car is actually an updated version of an earlier fuel cell car that is currently being tested in Japan. Suzuki implied that this version would be available on the open market in the near future.
The poor economy and the move of focus for the automobile industry toward China meant that many foreign car makers didn't come to Tokyo this year. The Japanese companies have clearly shown that they plan to be in the forefront of the move toward greener cars. The ever increasing number of new concept electric vehicles is an encouraging sign that the dominance of petroleum for personal transportation is on the wane.
Sunday October 10, 2009 - Not so Clean Diesel - For the last few years the automobile companies, especially those from Germany, have been using the term "Clean Diesel" to promote their diesel cars as "green" vehicles. It is true that a diesel version of the car does have better fuel economy than the same car with a gasoline engine but I wanted to know how clean they really were.
I
did some research on the VW Jetta diesel since VW is the leading proponent of
diesel engines. Information on the internet was scarce and mostly focused
on CO2 emissions which, while important if you are only concerned with global
warming, are not the whole story when it comes to car emissions.
VW have only just begun selling diesel cars in the US again after a long spell where they couldn't sell these cars since they couldn't pass California's strict emission laws. Since New York also follows California's rules, if you can't sell in those two states then selling in the other states was not very viable so for the most part diesel wasn't pushed. For the 2009 model year VW introduced a whole new system that, combined with the introduction of low sulfur diesel in California a few years ago, meant they could finally pass California's emission tests.
The VW Jetta went on sale in 2008 for the 2009 model year and sales have boomed. VW have problems keeping the Jetta TDI in stock and, even in these troubled economic times, sales of this car have kept marching on. BMW and Daimler have also introduced Clean diesel, and Audi will also have models in their showrooms for the 2011 model year.
Now, if you compare the 2009 VW Jetta TDI with the older 2003 Model you will see a marked improvement in emissions. However, the improvement hasn't been as good as you might think. Out of 15 categories that the California Air Resource Board (CARB) use to measure emissions, 5 categories still fall in the poor category, down from 6 for the 2003 Jetta TDI, including CO and Particulate emissions on the Federal Test Procedure (FTP) 75 drive cycle test. 10 categories ranked as OK up from 8 for the 2003 model, and only 3 ranked as good, up from 1 for the older 2003 model.
Now, if you compare this to a car like the Honda Fit we see 4 categories listed as poor, 9 categories listed as OK, and 6 categories listed as good. If we look at the Toyota Prius we see 0 categories listed as poor, 7 categories listed as OK, and 12 categories listed as good. Clearly the Jetta TDI is no cleaner than a Honda Fit, although to be fair to the Jetta it is a bigger car. When you put it against the similarly sized Toyota Prius the TDI is obviously much less clean.
Now, let's really compare apples to apples. CARB rates the Jetta TDI poor in 5 categories but also rates the Jetta 5 cylinder poor in 5 categories. The TDI gets an OK rating in 10 categories while the Jetta 5 cylinder gets an OK rating in 7 categories and finally the TDI gets a good rating in 3 categories while the 5 cylinder gets a good rating in 7 categories. Clearly, the TDI isn't any cleaner than the standard Jetta 5 cylinder and falls way short of hybrids like the Toyota Prius.
If you are only interested in lowering CO2 and don't want to drive a hybrid then the Jetta is a good choice. If you are passionate about using biodiesel then the Jetta TDI is a good starting platform although when they launched the car at the LA auto show a few years ago I talked with one of the VW engineers there and he told me that VW didn't recommend using biodiesel with their cars.
At last year's LA Auto Show the TDI Jetta was given the clean car of the year award. Considering this car is no cleaner than the average five seat sedan I think that this greatly detracts from Green Car Journals credibility. I'm not saying don't buy the Jetta TDI, I'm just saying don't feed me with the "Clean Diesel" label to make me think that the cars are going to help clean up LA's smog.
Sunday October 11, 2009 - Trials, Trials, Trials - One of the ways I keep in touch with the EV scene in the UK is to monitor the Yahoo UK Electric Vehicle group. This week I got a rather exciting email to saying that if you live in the Birmingham or Coventry area you can lease a Tata Indicta EV for just £190 per month. Investigating further it seems that Tata motors is doing the same thing that BMW did with the Mini, they are conducting a science experiment.
Last year BMW showed off a nice electric version of the Mini and announced that they would lease approximately 500 of them for one year at $800 a month in order to assess how the vehicle would perform in real world situations. Tata is copying this but are offering the car at a much lower price. Like the Mini lease, the £190 per month price tag also includes full maintenance, insurance, and unlimited mileage. In fact the drivers are encouraged to put as many miles as they can on the car, and with a 100 mile range it will meet most of your driving needs.
What the driver gives in return is to take the car to Tata Motors for a monthly check on the vehicle. The cars will be set up with data logging equipment including a GPS monitor. The data gathered from this trial will be used to refine the vehicle before it is placed into production. The trial is being offered only for those who live in the Birmingham/Coventry area and cars will be available starting in January 2010. To sign up go to the Ultra Low Carbon Trial web site but please note that there are only going to be 25 vehicles available for this trial.
The Tata Indicta isn't the only car that is being trialed through CABLED, although it is the cheapest. If you are in a hurry to get into an EV then they will be delivering the Mitsubishi i-MiEV in December 2009. There are going to be 25 i-MiEV taking part of the trial and you can lease one for £350 per month. Starting in April, 2010, 40 people in the Birmingham/Coventry area will have the opportunity to lease a Smart EV for one year with a £750 initial payment then £250 per month. This will be the second generation Smart which is undergoing fleet testing in both Germany and the UK and is expected to be brought to the US some time in the future.
There are other manufacturers that are going to be trialing electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Toyota is expected to bring 100 plug-in Prius to the US next year and these will be leased to individuals on a trial basis. Honda already has a lease program going with the Clarity fuel cell vehicle although they only appear to have leased a handful of cars for this trial.
Mitsubishi and Ford are already running fleet trials here in the US. Southern California Edison have had a small fleet of Mitsubishi i-MiEV vehicles in service in the LA area for over a year now and they have also been fleet testing a plug-in version of the Ford Escape hybrid. Ford are expected to release an all electric version of their Transit Connect van in 2010 and it wouldn't surprise me if they don't start out with fleet leases only. Chevy and Nissan haven't announced any pricing or terms yet for their prospective vehicles so the hope is that they will actually put them on sale to the general public. The hints are that the Nissan Leaf will actually go on sale although Nissan are currently looking at the legality of leasing the batteries for the vehicle.
Based on our experience in California with lease programs that were driven by the CARB program, cars can be snatched away at lease end leaving people who have gotten accustomed to driving electric with no alternatives. I will be happy when we see electric cars for sale in dealerships around the world.
Finally, I want to give a warning to the people living in the Birmingham/Coventry area of the UK. Once you lease one of these vehicles and get used to driving electric, you won't want to go back to a normal ICE car, so look at your options before you jump on one of these leases.
Sunday October 4, 2009 - Santa Monica Alt Fuel Vehicle Expo 2009 - Every year about this time the city of Santa Monica, CA hosts an Alternative Fuel Vehicle Expo. This year the event was held on October 2nd and 3rd so yesterday my wife and I went of to see what was on offer this year.
Because of circumstances beyond my control we couldn't get to the Santa Monica Civic Center where the event was being held until after lunch, and I only had a very limited amount of time I could stay there. I can't say how busy the event had been in the morning but there were certainly less people there than I have seen in prior years. Still, it didn't help when it came to getting test drives.
My
first stop was at the ride and drive and as I walked out into the parking lot
the first thing I saw was the Coda exhibit. Coda had been giving test
drives to the media during the media day on Thursday but since I have never been
able to get Media credentials for this event I had to make do with looking at
the car through the crowd of people who were checking out the car. The car
itself, which looks a lot like a Corolla, isn't very exciting but I think that
is the point, to build an electric vehicle that isn't something that looks
different and attracts attention. All the reps were very busy answering
questions about the car so I signed up to get more info and went on to the ride
and drive.
The ride and drive was dominated by fuel cell vehicles and standard hybrids. Santa Monica Toyota was there with a bunch of third generation Prius and a hybrid Camry but when I went to the cars for a test drive I was ignored. Since I drive a second generation Prius anyway I wasn't all that bothered. They didn't seem to be giving test drives of the Camry hybrid.
Santa Monica Honda was also there offering test drives on the new Honda Insight but that car has never really appealed to me so I decided to pass.
Ford also had a couple of vehicles on display including the new Ford Fiesta compact which isn't on sale to the public yet but is expected to generate quite a bit of interest when it does hit dealerships. They also had a Ford Transit Connect on show. Ford have announced that an electric version of this van, built in conjunction with Smith Electric Vehices, will be going on sale next year so I was very disappointed this one was an ICE version. Ford also didn't have any of their hybrids for test drive even though they had both the Escape hybrid and the Fusion hybrid on display in the main hall.
The
one car I really wanted to drive was the Green Vehicles Triac but when I asked
the driver of that car he told me that their insurance didn't cover other people
driving their cars but they would give me a ride if I wanted. What kind of
car company doesn't have the insurance to give test drives? Personally I
find riding in a car gives you very little insight into how the car is to drive
so I don't bother. I must say that Green vehicles were giving rides
constantly and judging by the length of time it was taking I would say that they
were giving quite long rides too and the car seemed to be holding up well which
says a lot for its range.
Next I got in line at the California Fuel Cell partnership location. My intention was to take a test drive in the Honda Clarity, a car I haven't driven before. They did have a couple of Nissan fuel sell vehicles but I have driven that already so I didn't want to drive that. It seemed like everyone was waiting to drive the Clarity and after a wait that seemed like ages I gave up and moved on.
There was also a company there with a nice looking NEV minivan. It looked like one of the Vans that Vantage Vehicles or ZAP sells but I didn't get the company name. There was a guy talking to the driver who seemed very interested in buying one and after a long conversation they took off in the Van for a test drive and I never saw them at all.
Also offering test drives was AC propulsion with their X-Box, a car I have already driven, and BMW with the Mini-E. I thought long and hard about test driving the Mini-E but since the BMW lease program has already been sold out I decided to pass on that as well.
In the end I opted to test drive the Wheego Whip. The Wheego was being handled by Marc Korchin of Green Motors in Berkley who turned out to be an evfinder.com fan. Green Motors is a ZENN dealership that also carried e-Ride and ZAP Zapino scooters. Now that ZENN has announced it is getting out of the business of making EVs and moving toward making Electric Vehicle drive trains based around the eStore battery, Marc is replacing ZENN at his dealership with the Wheego Whip. I have read a lot of good things about the Wheego which surprised me because it is built in China and we all now how crappy the Chinese vehicles can be. The Wheego is a different beast though, and I was very surprised at how good the build quality was on this car. Marc took me for an extended test drive and I too was very impressed with this NEV.
After
my test drive I went into the display hall proper to look at what cars were on
display inside. The main hall was dominated by displays from the big auto
manufacturers. There was a large display of Prius hybrids as you first
entered the hall, and that was flanked by the two Ford hybrids. There was
also a display that showed the basic works of the Chevy Volt including the T
shaped battery box and the engine and controller up front. What was
missing was an actual Volt. Now that they have stared producing vehicles
that will be the same as the one that goes on sale next year I would have
expected that they would have had one on display.
I had a chance to chat for a few minutes with Tom Gage from AC Propulsion. The first question I had for Tom is to try and get confirmation about the rumor that they were shutting down production of the e-Box. In response Tom pointed at the shiny new eBox he was standing in front of and told me that it came off the production line just three days ago. They still have a backlog of customers and are continuing to build the car until they can no longer get supplies of the older Scion Xb body. He also told me that they are in talks with a company that wants to take over the production of the X-Box and which would increase the rate at which the cars are built.
Tom also had a Mini-E at the AC Propulsion stand and this was sitting with the hood open clearly showing the AC Propulsion sign on the electronics. I asked Tom if ACP would be involved with the next round of BMW vehicles but he told me that BMW have not yet finalized their next move into the electric vehicle market.
There was also a Triac on display in the main hall and this was getting a lot of attention. The Green Motors web site hasn't been updated for a long time so I asked them if they had started shipping vehicles. The rep there told me that they are nearing the end of shipping the first batch of vehicles to customers and the second round of vehicles would begin shipping early next year.
Zero Vehicles were back again this year but didn't have a bike in the ride and drive. They now have a street legal bike to sell so it was a bit disappointing that they didn't have one that prospective customers could ride. Talking of Motorcycles, Best Buy was there with a selection of electric bikes that they are now selling in some stores, and included in their display was a Brammo Enertia. It looks like this electric motorbike is now on sale.
In the back of the hall was a large truck. This is the Zerotruck being offered by Electrorides and will be suitable for delivery operations that require a range of less than 70 miles. Since this covers the bulk of local delivery requirements this truck should prove popular with fleet operators.
There was also a very nice looking electric sports car, the Lola-EV which has been created by Local Santa Monica electric car conversion company Gas to Electric Custom Conversions. The Lola-EV uses an Azure Dymanics AC24 electric motor and DMOC445 controller which allows the car to run at highway speeds. It reminded me a little of the T-Zero and would make a really nice low volume EV if anyone decided to try and produce it.
Electric Vehicles of Long Beach, a local electric vehicle dealer, also had a nice display of vehicles including a 2008 ZAP Xebra Hatchback with solar panels on the roof, a custom roadster based on the American Golf Cars California Roadster, and a Columbia Par Car Mega.
There was plenty to see at this years Expo but I was still a little disappointed that there wasn't more stuff on display. There are lots of companies out there that are selling NEVs that didn't bother to send vehicles. For example Coda was there with their new electric vehicle but there were no Miles NEVs on display even though Miles is based in Santa Monica. Chrysler were also conspicuous by their absence.
I think one of the issues is holding the Expo on Friday and Saturday instead of using Saturday and Sunday which would give a lot more time for visitors who work on a weekend. I had to spend try and crush this visit into a busy Saturday instead of having a lot of time on Sunday. Still, it is a really great chance to see new and interesting electric vehicles so I can't complain.
Sunday September 27, 2009 - Complaints about Quality - I had an email this week from a Florida resident who had purchased a couple of Chinese built NEVs from a local dealer after he had read about them on evfinder.com. In part he had made the decision based on comments I had made about this particular importer doing lots to control the quality at the factory.
It appears that the two carts both had problems including rust issues and equipment failures within a month of purchase and the seller was reported to be less than helpful. I am not going to name either of the parties involved since there is likely to be a law suite, but the comment about quality has been removed from the NEV page.
I have said several times that the quality of vehicles coming out of China can be very spotty. If the seller in the USA or Europe works with the manufacturer in China then quality can be acceptable, if the seller just buys a bunch of vehicles from one of several manufacturing sites, quality can be really bad. I don't get to see a lot of these vehicles, and I can't spend time monitoring them from week to week to see if quality changes over time, so in some cases I make blanket statements based on what the importer is telling me.
One clue to this is if the listing contains a picture or not. Except in a few very rare cases, I think there are two such pictures on the site at the moment, I only use photos that I have taken myself. This of course doesn't include photos on the classifieds page. So if there is no photo on the listing it is a pretty good indication that I have never seen the vehicle. On ebay listings I often warn people to inspect Chinese made NEVs before bidding. This was in part because of the scam situation that grew up around the Flybo when it was first brought to the US, and also with the Keystone Flyer which was also part of that scam.
I have been singling out vehicles built in China since they are the biggest supplier of electric vehicles in the US right now, but there are several other source of electric vehicle and quality may not be any better on those than they are on the Chinese built vehicles. For example the ZENN which is built in France, and the Vectrix which was built in Poland, have both had their share of problems.
Another source of discontent in electric vehicles is the one of range. Manufacturers and dealers want to sell vehicles so they often quote maximum ranges. First time buyers, who are used to dealing with the 300 mile range on a gas car, often take these ranges as real world values and buy the vehicle based on what the manufacturer quotes. True, you might be able to get 30 miles of range from a ZAP Xebra if you drive it on a flat track at 18mph with no stopping or starting, but driving on city streets at 25-35mph, with hills and stop lights to contend with, you would be lucky to get half that range. I always try to gauge real world range in my listings but as it says on the EPA sticker, "your mileage may vary".
We need to learn from mistakes so here is what I recommend going forward. Use evfinder.com to get an idea about the kinds of vehicles that you might want to purchase. Then see if you can find someone who has bought the same vehicle so you can get an idea of what their experience has been. Your local dealer should be able to give you a reference but in many cases the local dealer may be a long way away so other places to get this type of information is to go to the relevant forums for the vehicles. Yahoo groups has a number of forums dedicated to NEVs, or to manufacturers like Myers Motors, Miles, ZENN, or ZAP. The V is for Voltage forum is a wonderful place to find information on all kinds of electric two wheel vehicles. Another good source for information is your local electric vehicle club. These EV clubs are usually more oriented to vehicle conversions but they have members that are well versed in issues like getting the best out of your batteries and what you need to do to keep your EV in top notch shape.
Most vehicles listed on this site are built by small companies who often source their vehicles in third world nations like China, India, or Malaysia. They mostly use lead acid batteries that are easily damaged by deep discharge or just sitting unused for long periods of time. They are not built to the quality standards we expect from the big car makers like Toyota, GM, Ford, or even Chrysler. In the end, it pays to know what you are getting into before you plunk down your hard earned cash so investigate carefully before buying.
I believe that the future is battery electric vehicles and we need early adopters to buy these vehicles to get the manufacturing process rolling. The world needs BEVs more than ever now as oil resources begin to decline and global warming looms in the years ahead. But it doesn't do any good if you purchase a vehicle that doesn't work for you so learn all you can before taking the plunge.
Sunday September 20, 2009 - 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show - Every other year car companies from around the world gather in Frankfurt, Germany for the world's largest auto show. This is a place where manufacturers, especially European manufacturers, show off their latest concept vehicles and this year electric cars were a big part of the show.
The Nissan-Renault alliance was showing their commitment to electric cars with four concept electric vehicles from Renault. The Fluence Z.E. Concept is a four dour sedan that seats five. The Kangoo Z.E. concept is based on the existing Renault Kangoo which will be powered by a 93hp electric motor and lithium ion batteries. The Zoe Z.E. concept is a two door coupe with gull wing doors that seats 4. The interesting part of this design is that part of the roof above the rear seats also lifts to help with access. The Twizy Z.E. Concept is a two seat city car that looks more like a golf cart than anything else. The 20hp electric motor and lithium battery pack gives this car a top speed of 45mph and a range of about 60 miles on a charge. These four concepts will be the basis for four new electric cars that Renault plans to offer in 2011 or 2012.
Peugeot also showed an electric vehicle called the Ion which looks very familiar because it is really a rebadged version of the Mitsubishi i-Miev. Peugeot is going to start selling the Ion throughout Europe starting in 2010. The Ion, which has been modified to meet European specs, will offer range of about 80 miles. Peugeot also showed off the BB1 Concept which they say is inspired by motorcycle technology. First off it is built on a frame manufactured by Peugeot's motorcycle division. Then the steering is done using handlebars rather than a steering wheel. The car seats four although the diminutive size would make it very uncomfortable for back seat passengers. The car is powered by a lithium battery pack that drives the rear wheels through a Michelin active wheel system that includes two electric motors in each wheel. Peugeot hasn't decided yet if they will take this vehicle beyond the concept stage.
Also on show from Peugeot was the RCZ Hybrid4 concept. This two door coupe that looks a lot like the Audi TT offers a 163hp 2-liter diesel mated with a 37hp electric motor to offer a total output of 200hp. The RCZ Hybrid4 still comes in with a very respectable 64mpg in combined city and highway driving.
It is no secret that GM are in the process of selling Opel to Canadian auto parts supplier Magna and the Russian Sberbank. It appears that GM is going to retain 35% of Opel who are going to go ahead and market their version of the Chevy Volt, to be known as the Ampera.
Toyota also showed off its plug-in Prius. This will be the first Toyota to have a lithium batter pack which will have the capacity to drive the car up to 12.5 miles in electric only mode. The gas motor will also kick in when the speed of the car gets up above 62mph. The plug-in Prius will fix one of the problems with the current model, poor fuel economy for those that drive less than 5 miles each way in their daily commute. The small battery pack should also mean that their won't be a big premium on the plug-in vehicle. Toyota also announced an hybrid version of the Auris, a five door hatchback that is currently popular in Europe but isn't sold here in the USA.
Volkswagen also had an electric concept on display, a version of its Up Microcar. The E-Up is a three door hatchback that seats 4. It is powered by a lithium Ion battery pack and offers a top speed of 80mph and a range of 80 miles. Production of the E-up is expected to start in 2013.
Over at the Daimler stand they unveiled the new B-Class F-Cell EV. The F-Cell, which looks almost identical to the one they unveiled at the Geneva Auto show in 2005 has an advanced fuel cell that puts out almost 35KW more power than the previous version at over 100KW. The whole system has been made more efficient while hydrogen storage capacity has been increased so the new B-Class F-Cell now boast a range of 250 miles on a tank of hydrogen, about 100 miles more than the 2005 version.
Of more interest was the Mercedes-Benz Vision S 500 Plug-in Hybrid. The 4 door 5 seat sedan driven by both a 2.2 Liter Diesel engine combined with a 60hp electric motor and 3.3KW battery pack which can be charged in about 4.5 hours from the standard European 240V outlet, with a fast charge option that can charge the batteries in about 60 seconds. The Vision S 500 will have an electric only range of around 18.5 miles. Daimler also announced that it was developing an electric sports car.
Indian car company Reva also had a presence at this year's show. The company has been making electric cars in the quadracycle class for several years now and has been most successful with sales in the UK where it is known as the G-Wiz. They had two new cars on display, The NXR which is a three door hatchback that seats four, and the NXG which is a two seat 2 door.
The NXR will be powered by a Lithium Ion battery pack which will give the car a top speed of 65mph and a range of 100 miles per charge. It also comes with a fast charging system that will fully recharge the car in 90 minutes. Reva will also offer a lead acid battery version of the NXR with least batteries for a price of just under €10,000. Production of the NXR is scheduled to start in early 2010.
The NXG will advance Reva's line still further with a top speed of 80mph and a range of 125 miles this car will be the first in their line to be truly freeway capable. Price for the NXG is expected to start at around €23,000 plus a monthly mobility fee which I assume is the battery lease costs.
Another blast from the past is the Trabant. Now the original Trabant, the two stroke smog spewing car that was built in East Germany between 1957 and 1991, is best known in the USA from the jeans commercial where a young German swaps his Trabant for a pair of Wranglers. The new Trabant is a little different though. It will no longer spew pollutants as it no longer has a tailpipe. The new car boasts a 64hp electric motor driven from a lithium battery pack that lets it go at a top speed of 80mph with a range claimed to be 155 miles per charge.
The companies listed above are only a few of the car companies that had electric or plug-in hybrid concepts on display. Tesla were there with both the roadster, and the model S, and BMW also had some interested EV concepts on show. Companies aren't just showing cars weird concept cars either, they are showing cars that appear to be production ready, and in many cases they are announcing that they are going to actually build and sell these vehicles. I hope we see lots of electric and plug-in hybrids in showrooms soon.
Sunday September 13, 2009 - Travelling California's Central Coast - If you follow evfinder.com closely you may have noticed that the usual daily updates didn't happen last weak. That's because the wife and I packed up the Prius and drove north up California's Central Coast.
I
did take my laptop with me but I found multiple problems with getting a
connection including wireless links that would simply cut in and out and hotels
that charged ten dollars a day for internet connections, and even places where
the wired connections just didn't work. The result was that I didn't get
to do updates until last night after we got back to our home base in LA.
The trip, a much deserved vacation, was a lot of fun though. We left LA after breakfast on Saturday morning and drove North on the 101 freeway to Ventura. There we took a few minutes to visit the Mission San Buenaventura and stroll Main Street browsing the many thrift shops that line the street. Then we moved along to the harbor and had a nice lunch of fish and chips at the Spinnaker.
The next stop on our trip was Solvang, a Danish replica village just off Highway 101. Solvang offers everything from Danish restaurants to windmills to horse drawn carriage rides. Solvang is also the gateway to the Los Olivos wine country. We spent the evening strolling the streets checking out the gift shops. The following day we drove up to visit Los Olivos, a quaint Victorian town which acts as the gateway to the local wine trail. We also visited a few wineries but as I was driving I couldn't taste any of the wines.
For Lunch we drove into Santa Ynez and stopped at the excellent Red Barn Steak House then drove down the street to the Parks-Janeway Carriage House. This excellent museum contains an excellent collection of old carriages including a couple of excellent examples of old stage coaches along with a horse drawn hears, a brougham, and several other carriages. Also on display was a 1925 Ford Model T bus that was used to transport school children.
On
Monday morning I looked out of the window of our hotel and saw a house that had
a roof more than half covered with solar panels. The Solvang area gets
lots of sunshine year round and is ideal for solar panels. It would have
been nice to have seen some electric cars to go along with the solar but I
didn't see a single electric vehicle in the Solvang area.
After breakfast on Monday morning we continued north to Seaside, CA which is just north of Monterey. When we got to the hotel our room wasn't ready so we took the opportunity to find a nice deli and have lunch.
The Hotel room gave us a good view of the Monterey peninsular and that evening I snapped the picture above of the sun setting over Monterey.
On Tuesday drove north to Santa Cruz for the day. Santa Cruz seems to be a town in decline, the city just seemed like it was a little run down. We drove down to the boardwalk and found that it was mostly closed and they did seem to be doing some renovation there. Since this was right after labor day I'm not surprised that it was closed. I know that Santa Cruz has an active chapter of the Electric Vehicle Association but once again I didn't see a single electric car in the City.
On Wednesday we drove into Monterey and stopped at Cannery Warf to take a look at the shops and restaurants. From there we drove along the coast road up past Lover's point to the start of the 17 mile drive. It was here I saw my first EV on this trip, a guy was driving a nice looking golf cart along the road. It looked like he was going back home from a round of golf at the local course.
Neither Aggie nor I like Carmel that much so we decided not to bother with the 17 mile drive so we turned around and drove back into Monterey for a late lunch at Fisherman's Warf. We then spent the rest of the day looking around the down town area. Once again no sign of any electric vehicles.
Leaving Monterey we turned south again and drove down to the quaint seaside town of Pismo Beach. After a week of nice sunny weather Pismo turned out to be foggy, windy, and quite cold. We drove down to the pier and went for a walk but Aggie hates the wind so we quickly turned around and took a stroll around the town and checked out a few souvenir shops. Once again we did a late lunch by sampling some excellent clam chowder at Brad's seafood restaurant. Once again there was no sign of electric vehicles.
The
final stop on our trip was Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a large costal
town about 90 miles north of Los Angeles. It was here that we finally
saw some electric vehicles. We stopped in down town Santa Barbara and we
went for a walk along State Street. Driving down the road was the Santa
Barbara electric shuttle bus which carries passengers from the downtown area to
Stearns Wharf. The shuttle runs every 10 minutes throughout the day and
costs just 25 cents.
I also saw a couple of guys cruising the streets in a Th!nk Neighbor Wagon. This was the first NEV I had seen since leaving LA. There was also an electric bike sitting outside Velo Pro cyclery but the $1600 price tag seemed a little on the steep side to me.
Our walk along State street took us to Joe's Cafe to eat a really nice Garden Burger while my wife enjoyed an excellent chicken sandwich.
After lunch we took a little drive along the beach and ended up at Stearns Warf. The wind had kicked up again though and since my wife hates nothing more than windy conditions we only made it about a third of way along the wharf before turning back. Aggie had saved some bread from Joe's so she found a few pigeons and fed them.
In the evening we took another walk down State street and there was an eGo parked outside one of the restaurants. After a quite drink at O'Malley's Irish bar we strolled back along State street back to the hotel.
Next morning we got up early and after breakfast we did the 90 miles back to LA an a good internet connection. I had a weeks worth of emails to get through so please excuse me while I take the time to catch up and get evfinder.com back up to date.
Sunday September 6, 2009 - USPS meets EV - In a study published on August 28, 2009 the United States Postal Service (USPS) considered the feasibility of changing the delivery vehicles in its fleet of 219,000 vehicles to battery electric. The resulting study showed that it was feasible in most cases.
The post office currently owns 146,000 delivery vehicles some of which have been on the road since 1985. The average vehicle gets only 10 miles per gallon. These vehicles are also typically right hand drive to allow the driver to get in and out of the vehicle, which they do many times as they pass along their route, without running the risk of being struck by traffic.
Delivery routes are also relatively short. The average route in the USA is 18 miles and only 3% of all routes are longer than 40 miles. This means that the USPS has over 140,000 delivery vehicles that could be replaced by an electric vehicle that can manage 40 miles with a full load in all weather conditions. Less than 2% of their delivery vehicles travel more than 50 miles per day, so a vehicle like the Smith Newton, with a 100 mile range, would be able to handle just about any route served by the USPS.
The study also included one interesting turn, the idea of using vehicle to grid to help defer the costs of these vehicles. Now, postal delivery vehicles are usually driven through the day and are parked from 5pm to 8am. Let's say the vehicles have a 40 mile range and have just come off their route at 5pm. They are plugged in but don't begin to charge. Around 6pm the local utility hits peak demand as people get home from work, turn on the AC, and start cooking dinner. The utility then starts sucking current from the USPS delivery vehicles. Now, each vehicle has a capacity of around 20KWHrs but they have just finished a days work so the average vehicle is about half full since the vehicles have a range of 40 miles and the average route is 18 miles. That means there is approximately 10KwHrs for each vehicle in the utilities area and 1.4 Megawatts of stored electricity nationwide. Charging would then start when demand was low helping utilities to balance their load while the USPS paid lower off-peak rates.
Based on a cost of acquisition and maintenance of $76,400 per vehicle payback when DOE grants an revenue from vehicle to grid are taken into account is only 2 years. Even without these incentives payback is 10 years. Given that the life expectancy for one of these postal delivery vehicles is over 20 years and less than 120,000 miles, the benefits of electric vehicles is obvious.
Gary Star, CEO of ZAP, once told me that the best way for government to help the growing electric vehicle industry is to buy their vehicles. I totally agree with Gary on this. Lets say that the USPS's 146,000 vehicles have a life of 20 year and they are replaced on an ongoing basis. This means that they replace approximately 7,000 vehicles each year. Now, buying 7,000 electric vehicles each year can go a long way toward meeting the 10,000 vehicle level that will really start to force costs down.
There are vehicles out there, or at least close to production, that will meet their needs. They are currently doing some tests with a number of electric minivans from Chrysler, and the Ford Transit Connect, expected to go on sale in the USA in 2011, would also work for many of their applications. The Smith Newton is already available in the USA and it clearly has the ability to handle the most demanding of the USPS delivery fleet requirements, albeit at a cost that is twice what the study used in its projections, but even then, it would still come back on a par with their current ICE vehicles over the life of the vehicle even without any incentives or V to G income.
Overall, I think it is a really good time for the USPS to convert to electric. Delivery vehicles have always been a strong suit for battery electric technology, as the hundreds of thousands of milk floats that plied the streets of the UK can attest. Moving to electric now can really help jump start the EV industry and it should be embraced by the USPS as soon as it can get its hands on vehicles.
Sunday August 29, 2009 - Th!nk back from the Bring - Again - I just got word that Th!nk Nordic is about to emerge from Bankruptcy. Th!nk is like a cat, it must have nine lives.
Th!nk has had its ups and downs over the years. The company was founded in 1991 as Pivco and produced a car called the City Bee. The City Bee was brought over to the US under waiver of DOT certification rules and used in a station car demonstration project in the San Francisco bay area. The cars stayed in the US for three years but were then returned to Norway and were crushed.
Pivco then developed their second generation car, the Th!nk City. Then, like many EV companies before them, funds ran out. At the time Ford were looking for ways to comply with the California ZEV mandate and Th!nk looked like a good candidate so Ford bought them in 1999 renaming the company to Th!nk Nordic.
Ford began selling a NEV produced in the US under the Th!nk name but also brought over the Th!nk City, again under waiver, and began leasing them in California and as part of a station car project in New York state. Over 1000 cars were produced, more than half of them being sent to the US. Once again these cars were sent under a waiver of DOT certification rules.
In 2003, after California had backed down from the ZEV mandate, Ford, who had by this time developed a third generation City car that complied with US crash test regulations, dropped Th!nk. The company was put up for sale and was purchased by Swiss based KamKorp Microelectronics. When the leases ended on the US Th!nk Neighbors they were collected up by Ford to be crushed, That's when Dontcrush.com (now Plug-in America) came into the picture. They began to organize demonstrations at Ford Dealerships to stop crushing both the Ford Ranger EV and the Th!nk City. Green Peace also got in the act and organized international demonstrations including ones in Norway. Unlike GM, Ford did the right thing and stopped crushing the cars. The Th!nk Cities couldn't be kept in the US because of the waiver regulations, but Ford agreed to return them to Norway were they were refurbished and sold.
KamKorp, who also owned Fraizer-Nash, the British NEV manufacturer, stopped development on the City and concentrated on developing vehicles designed by Fraizer-Nash, but funds ran out and it looked like the end for Th!nk. Once again Th!nk was rescued, this time by a group called InSpire lead by Jan Otto Ringdal who was one of the original founders of Pivco.
InSpire went back to development of the Th!nk City, replacing the NiCAD batteries with Zebra batteries to give the car better range. They started up the production line and everything looked good as orders came in faster than they could build cars. Then the economic downturn hit and Th!nk once again shut down production and filed for bankruptcy protection.
Now, with new backing including major funding from battery maker Enerdel, and a minority stake being taken by Valmet Automotive, the Finish company that is also building the Karma for Fisker, Th!nk is once again set to come out from under bankruptcy court protection and begin producing cars.
The difference this time is that while Th!nk will remain a Norwegian company, production of cars will move to the Valmet Automotive plant in Uusikaupunki, Finland. In a press release Valmet says they are investing about three million Euros to set up production facilities and cars should begin rolling off the production line in the Fall of this year. Plans are to expand production to employ around 100 people producing several thousand cars per year.
Th!nk already has orders for several thousand vehicles including orders from Spain, and the Netherlands and has plans to bring the Th!nk City back to the USA. The question is can Th!nk remain competitive enough to keep the production lines moving as the big car companies start to enter the race. Nissan, and parent company Renault, will begin selling the Nissan Leaf and a comparable Renault version starting next year. Chevy is set to roll out the Volt plug-in hybrid in 2010, and Ford will have electric versions of the Ford Transit Connect and the Ford Fusion on the roads by 2011. Mitsubishi, who already have the i-MiEV on sale in Japan will more than likely start selling the car in the UK next year and Daimler is expanding sales of the Smart ED.
Given the competition, Th!nk are going to find it tough, but in the short term there is going to be more demand than the number of electric cars and plug-in hybrids being produced. Th!nk is in a position to establish itself as a major player in the EV market, as Tesla has done. If then can manage that, then maybe, just maybe, they will thrive.
Sunday August 23, 2009 - Charging Myths and Realities - This week Nissan announced that the first deliveries of their Leaf electric car will start in Japan and the USA toward the end of 2010. With the Chevy Volt coming to market in the second half of 2010 also, I am starting to see lots of talk about the importance of Charging infrastructure.
The
big concern is that people won't buy electric cars without the ability to be
able to get a charge anywhere they go. There are lots of myths about
charging and many of these are being perpetuated by the media.
Myth #1 - You need an extensive public charging structure for plug-in hybrids like the Chevy Volt.
First of all the Chevy Volt isn't and electric vehicle, no matter what the GM press releases say, it's a plug-in hybrid.
The reality is that the Volt doesn't need to be charged to be able to run, it just needs to be charged to run in electric only mode. Now, it isn't clear yet what form the Chevy Volt charging will take. GM have shown pictures of a charging station but details of the Volt's charging system are skimpy at best.
If GM is smart they will provide a charger that will allow the car to be charged either from a 220V outlet or from a 110V outlet. From the looks of the charging station it appears they are going to make the same old mistake that they made with the EV1, demanding that the buyer install an expensive charging station even though batteries with a 40 mile range can easily be charged overnight from a 110V outlet. Most people have a 110V outlet close to where they park their car.
The idea behind plug-in hybrids is that the car will have adequate range for most daily driving. The Chevy Volt for example has an electric only range of about 40 miles so that about 80% if all drivers will be able to drive the car in electric mode with just an overnight charge for most of the time, then the ICE will start on those rare occasions when they need to drive longer distances.
The ability to be able to charge at places like hotels will be very advantageous when travelling in the Volt but lack of charging is hardly likely to stop people buying the car.
Myth #2 Public infrastructure is essential for apartment and condo dwellers.
This myth has a lot of truth to it. Most apartment and condo dwellers don't have access to charging and this makes electric vehicles a non-starter and plug-in hybrids will just perform about the same as a none plug-in hybrid but with a battery pack that is a lot more expensive.
The reality is that almost every apartment and condo has an electric supply going to them and for those that have parking, there is no reason why the driver of an electric vehicle can't have an electrician install a charger in their parking spot. For charging electric vehicles a dedicated circuit is usually better anyway and since most house circuits aren't dedicated it is probably better to install a new receptacle.
In Canada, the city of Vancouver have just implemented a law requiring any new apartment or condo project to provide a certain number of electric vehicle charging stations in their parking lots. It wouldn't be hard to pass laws that say that apartment owners and condo associations shouldn't unreasonably deny people who want to install EV charging in their parking slot at their own expense.
Now, there are those that have no parking so have to park on the street. These people do really have a need for public charging but even for those there are possibilities. For example my office building has six slots for electric and hybrid parking and each of these parking spots has a 110V charging point. Now, the ability to charge at work is something that is offered by some companies and strongly denied by others, but if the person has the ability to charge at work instead of at home they they can make a plug-in hybrid work quite well. The down side of this is that it will mean more people charging during the day instead of the more desirable overnight charging.
Myth #3 Public Charging must be available before electric car sales begin.
The issue here is that many people are expected to suffer from range anxiety and the idea that there is a charging station in case they run low and need to top up to make it home will make sales easier.
The reality is that the new crop of electric cars offer ranges of between 70 and100 miles. This is way beyond the 40 miles that most people want from their car. Early adopters of electric cars will probably buy them to make an environmental statement, they will be multi-car families, and will buy the EV with the idea of using it as a second or third vehicle for daily commuting. The range will be way better than they need for the usage they intend for the car so the lack of EV charging stations won't be so much of an issue.
What we have found in the past, and I expect that it will be the same with the next generation of electric cars, is that the EV rapidly becomes the primary car for the family. In many cases the ICE car is relegated to use only for trips longer than the EV can manage. The fact that the family will maintain an ICE vehicle is one of the primary reasons why we don't need extensive public charging to promote early sales of electric vehicles.
Myth #4 Fast charging with the ability to charge the EV in a couple of minutes is needed to make EVs work.
The issue here that to use EVs on long trips we need to be able to fuel them up on the way to our destination.
The reality is that to make EVs viable for long distance transportation we need to expand our current range up to about 300 miles. After a 300 mile drive I for one, and I think most drivers, are ready to take a break. What we do is pull over to a service area, visit the bathroom, then go and have a meal or coffee and stretch our legs, then go and refuel the car and get on our way. We spend around 30 minutes to an hour at the rest stop before moving on.
In the EV scenario we would do things differently. We would pull into the service station, connect the EV up to the fast charger, then go to the bathroom, have our meal, stretch our legs, then return to the car where it would have taken in enough juice to have another 200 - 250 miles until the next stop.
The issue comes from those that are willing to drive almost constantly. They stop at the gas station and while the car is filling with gas they go to the bathroom and grab some snacks from the gas station's convenience store, and are back on their way. Even in this case, the time they spend in the gas station if at least 10 minutes and probably more like 15 so they would need to slow down a bit to get enough charge into the EV or they could repeat this every 70 miles or so.
It might seem like I am saying that we don't need public infrastructure. That's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that in the chicken and egg scenario that is being played out in the media about electric vehicle infrastructure, what needs to come first is the cars, not the charging.
Plug-in hybrids can get by without public infrastructure and we can even have reasonably good EV sales without extensive public charging. Once we have cars coming into showrooms we can start to push out public charging doing it in an intelligent manner. California already has a network of more than 400 public charging stations and growing. Most of these charging stations were rolled out to support the last batch of electric vehicles like the EV1, Honda EV+ and RAV4 EV.
Some of this was done by getting people to support EV charging, placing charging stations at places like Shopping Malls and Costco stores. But others were placed along highways to facilitate longer journeys. The best of these is the charging stations along interstate 80 in Northern California. It is possible to drive a RAV4 EV from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe using this band of public chargers. It takes time because these are not fast chargers, but many RAV4 EV drivers take advantage of these facilities.
Many of these charging stations have seen very little use over the years. Yesterday I checked the conductive charger at Century City shopping center in Los Angeles and it told me that there had been 2068KWHrs of use. Now, that might seem like a lot of use but the charger was installed in 1997 so it has been there 12 years. It puts out around 4KW so the 2068 represents about 517 hours of charging or about 43 hours of use per year. Now, I have to say that there are not a huge number of vehicles that can use this charger, right now only a handful of Ford Ranger EVs, a few conversions, and the odd RAV4EV who's driver uses one of the AVCON interfaces and a portablized inductive charger when the inductive charger is in use. It is still clear that the majority of charging from existing EV drivers is done at home.
I am happy to see infrastructure get installed now but I hate to see lots of chargers deployed and not being used. I would prefer to see cars coming to market with chargers being intelligently deployed as volume starts to build. I think our concentration should be on getting laws passed around the country that will prevent apartment owners and condo associations from blocking attempts by residents from installing chargers in their home parking - believe me this happens quite often at the moment as home owner associations and building owners fear that the electric vehicle may start a fire even though the threat of fire from an ICE vehicle is actually greater than that from an electric.
Fast charging is also important but what we really need is a standard that can be deployed across different makes of car so that any car with fast charging capability can refuel at any fast charging station irrespective of the car's make or model. Ultimately I think we will end up with a system of inductive charging from loops embedded in the road which will give electric vehicles almost unlimited range, but while systems like this are under test in both Japan and Korea it is unclear yet if these can be made commercially viable.
Public charging infrastructure is going to be important to a future where the primary mode of transport is the battery electric vehicle, but at the moment getting cars into showrooms and setting up home charging is much more important.
Sunday August 15, 2009 - Smith Goes to Town - There has been a lot going on over the last few weeks including Nissan finally showing us their next electric vehicle offering, the Leaf, the cash for clunkers program running out of cash in one week, and GM trying to tell us that the Volt will do 230mpg in the city. With all this noise on electric cars, one event happened on July 28 in Washington DC that went mostly unnoticed.
Smith
Electric Vehicles came to town.
Smith Electric Vehicles is one of the largest maker of on-road commercial electric vehicles in the world. They started life in 1920 as Northern Coach Builders building electric trolley busses. They progressed on to building Milk Floats and sold thousands of these vehicles which quietly delivered milk to homes across the UK. Currently under the banner of SEV Group Ltd, they support over 5000 delivery vehicles.
In 2004 Smith Electric Vehicles was bought out by the Tanfield Group PLC who, in a move to expand globally, opened a US subsidiary headquartered in Kansas City. It was this subsidiary of the Washington, UK based company that came to capital hill in Washington DC to hand over the first Smith Newton electric delivery trucks to several companies including Coca Cola, Frito Lay, Stapes, AT&T, PG&E, and Kansas City Power and Light.
The vehicles were built in the UK but Smith Electric Vehicle is expected to start production of the Newton in Kansas City next year. The truck can be purchased as a rolling chassis or in 7.5ft, 10ft or 12ft box van configurations. Buyers can choose between Zebra or Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries with maximum range varying from about 100 miles to 150 miles, a top speed of 50mph, and a payload capacity of up to 7,400Kg (about 16,000lbs).
The Newton is priced at between $140K and $150K which makes it much more expensive than a standard diesel truck but running costs are lower that the vehicle costs less over its lifetime. The Newton is an exceptionally good delivery vehicle for those that need less than 100 miles per day and do not use the vehicle overnight so that it can be fully charged and ready for the next day's work. The truck would be ideal for the post office for example since most of their urban routes are less than 30 miles and the vehicles are not used between 8pm and 5am. Since the trucks are pretty much silent in every day use they can be used early in the morning without waking the neighborhood; exactly the reason that electric was the preferred drive type for milk floats.
This is not going to be the last we hear from Smith Electric Vehicles either. When Ford begin selling the Transit Connect electric van in 2011 it will really be the Smith Electric Ampere which is a Ford Transit Connect that has been converted to electric by Smith EV and is already being sold by them in the UK. Ford, instead of re-inventing the wheel, elected to license the Smith technology for their next electric vehicle offering. The Transit Connect EV will initially be made at the Smith Electric Vehicle factory in Washington, UK but since the van is also going to be sold in the USA it may eventually be built at their Kansas City plant as well.
Smith Electric Vehicle has already demonstrated that a company can be profitable making electric vehicles and I expect that we will see much more of this company in the future.
Sunday August 9, 2009 - EV Growth Projections - On Friday July 31, 2009 the Detroit News published an article titled "Manufacturers' electric dreams likely to stumble on forecaster's reality" that basically poured cold water on the optimistic projections from the likes of Nissan about the growth of electric and hybrid vehicle sales.
There
have certainly been some optimistic projections about the growth of electric
vehicles over the next few years. President Obama, for example, has called
for one million hybrids to be on US roads by 2015. Now, if we don't see
the Chevy Volt until 2010 and they build only 10,000 that year, then other
manufacturers like Toyota coming to market in 2012 then we would need to see
volumes in the range of 250,000 per year by 2013 to reach a million vehicles by
2015. I think that while this sort of volume is possible it is unlikely
that the manufacturers can ramp up production that quickly.
Carlos Ghosn, head of Nissan, has also been quite optimistic, seeing ten million electric vehicles world wide by 2016. Now, it depends on what you term electric vehicles since there are probably more than ten million electric vehicles on the roads right now if you take into account all the electric bikes, scooters, NEVs etc. If he is talking about freeway capable electric vehicles then that would require incredible growth.
Still, the article in the Detroit news goes the other way. Based on predictions from automobile forecaster CSM worldwide, worldwide sales would reach only 400,000 electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, by 2016. J D Powers has also come up with a prediction that gives similar values.
Personally, while I think that while the total number of electric vehicles sales is going to fall well short of the number of cars postulated by Carlos Ghosn, the numbers given by the article are way too low. I believe that the number will fall somewhere between the two although there are so many unknowns in the equation that it is very difficult to predict.
One of the biggest unknowns is the price of gasoline. Currently here in California the prices have just topped the $3.00 mark and they will no doubt keep this upward trend until after labor day. $3.00 per gallon is the point when people really start to get serious about switching to electric vehicles but since the only options this year are the high cost vehicles like the Tesla Roadster or the Tango, the single seat Myers NmG, a conversion, or the lower speed vehicles like the ZAP Xebra, or a NEV. Only China can you currently go out and buy a plug-in hybrid and while there are some EVs like the i-MiEV and Stella being sold in Japan they are only going to fleet customers at the moment. In Europe the picture is a little better with a bunch of electric city cars like the G-Wiz and the Kewet Buddy, but no affordable freeway capable vehicles.
The other unknown variables are the cost of batteries, and the incentives that will be available to help seed the early growth of electric cars and trucks. Incentives don't always have to take the form of cash either, the ability to drive alone in the carpool lane was a big reason for some people to go out and buy a hybrid, more so than the tax deductions that were offered at the time. The ability to drive in London without paying the congestion charge, along with free parking in some areas of London have contributed much to sales of G-Wiz over the last few years.
Batteries are still very expensive and even in large volumes it seems unlikely that the cost will come down to the point where you can build an EV for the same cost as a ICE vehicle. Still, there are things on the horizon, like the eStore battery, and developments with lead acid batteries, that can push battery prices down to more affordable levels.
The fact that fleets buy large quantities of vehicles can also make a difference too. Most city, state and federal government entities have quite a few vehicles in their fleet. If some of these vehicles are electric then this in itself could drive the sale of electric vehicles. For example, when the RAV4EV was available for fleet lease the city of Beverly Hills had ten of these vehicles, used by parking enforcement and city staff. Imaging that being multiplied over the thousands of towns and cities across the US and this represents a large number of prospective electric vehicle sales.
During the time of the California ZEV mandate there was an entity called EV Rentals that rented cars like the EV1, RAV4 EV and Honda EV+. I think that the time is fast approaching when there will once more be a nice niche for a company that will rent electric vehicles.
In the end the growth in electric vehicles will be driven by many factors. More people are beginning to realize the we need to move quickly toward a personal transportation model based on electric drive trains and this may have more influence than anything. The biggest impact will be availability and price. We know that the cars will be expensive at first, and will probably be sold through limited dealerships, but if the manufacturers can ramp up production quickly then I think that 400,000 electric and plug-in hybrids per year is possible in the USA alone by 2016.
Sunday August 2, 2009 - Leaf and i-MiEV - In last week's blog I reported the sad news that Vectrix has gone under. This week has been a different story with two major events occurring that move the availability of electric vehicles forward.
The first big event happened early last week when Mitsubishi began delivering a limited number of i-MiEV electric cars to fleet operators in Japan. On Friday they opened up their order system and began accepting orders from the Japanese public. They are not going to begin deliveries to the public until early next year but they have started the ball rolling.
I also heard that that Mitsubishi will begin delivering some fleet vehicles in the UK in the near future and will start taking orders from the public there in November.
The i-MiEV is quite expensive, something like $45K, but the Japanese government is offering incentives that bring the car into more affordable territory.
Today came the next, much anticipated announcement when Nissan finally took the covers of its new electric car. This car, called the Leaf, is a 5 door hatchback that is designed as an electric vehicle. The car looks a lot like the Versa particularly in the rear but has a longer more aerodynamic hood and room for 5. Overall the car is somewhat longer than the Versa.
Power is supplied from a 24KwHr Lithium battery pack that offers a range of about 100 miles. Like the i-MiEV the Leaf will offer two charging ports, connecting to a standard 220V supply will allow the car to charge in about 8 hours while a separate 200V connection, probably DC like that used with the i-MiEV, will allow the car to be charged to 80% in about 30 minutes. So far I haven't heard anything on the ability to swap the batteries in this car as proposed by Project Better Place. The 80Kw electric motor is capable of propelling the car at speed up to 90mph.
The Leaf is also designed with modern technology in mind. The car will be able to interact with cell phones so that the driver could check the state of charge or turn on the AC to cool the car down before they get to the car. Cooling the car while charging conservers battery power since the power to cool the car can be taken from the grid rather than from the batteries. I wonder how long it will take before we hear the folks at apple saying "we have an app for that".
Nissan has set a target price for the Leaf of around $25K - $30K but on top of this there will more than likely be a lease cost for batteries. Nissan are still debating if they want to offer the Leaf for sale without batteries, which will need to be leased, or to lease the whole car. People here in California may be a little weary of leasing after the issues we had with the EV1 and Honda EV+ that were taken back at the end of their leases and crushed. Still, BMW didn't find any problem leasing the 500 Mini-Es they offered on only a 1 year lease but I suspect that Nissan will loose a lot of sales if they offer the car on lease only.
Nissan has done a number of deals including the State of Oregon and cities around the US, including Seattle, Phoenix, Raleigh, and San Diego and the cars will be sold (or leased) there first. Nissan is expected to start deliveries to fleet customers here in the US during the later part of 2010 and the car should hit showrooms in 2011.
The advent of electric cars in our showrooms is necessary step in moving the world away from dependence on fossil fuels. These two advances push us closer to that goal.
Sunday 26 July, 2009 - Vectrix Fate - Last week in my blog I commented on the number of electric scooters, especially Vectrix, that I was seeing on eBay recently. It appears that part of the reason for this is that Vectrix has filed for bankruptcy and dealers are selling off their old demo scooters, often letting them go at giveaway prices.
This
morning I went to the Vectrix web site and got a message saying that I wasn't
authorized to access the site. At least at that time the Vectrix web site
was down.
A quick look at the V is for Voltage forum showed a lively debate on why Vectrix failed and I thought that I would add my two cents hear.
Vectrix had a good product which did have a few problems. One of the first issues is that the company didn't handle these issues well, often leaving their customers feeling like they were being treated as an annoyance rather than a valued customer. Good customer service is a crucial element in getting repeat custom and good word of mouth. Nobody likes to have problems with the items they buy but it has been shown time and again that if you take care of the problems quickly you actually build customer loyalty.
Vectrix has no doubt been hit hard by the recession. When people are being careful what they spend, an $11,000 electric motor scooter is not going to be high on the list of things to buy. The Vectrix was really priced way too high in my opinion to be able to weather a severe recession like the one we are just coming out of.
When Vectrix started up a few years ago they were basically the only game in town. If you wanted an electric scooter that you could ride for short distances on the freeway, Vectrix was your only choice. Now however the picture has changed. New Chinese built scooters like the X-Treme XM-5000Li offer comparable top speed and range at a price that is thousands of dollars less. In tough economic times these new kids on the block must look pretty good to prospective purchesers.
There is one benefit though, dealers are beginning to unload stock of 2007 and 2008 models at fire sale prices. I saw at least three scooters sell last weak on eBay at prices around $4,000. This means that you can get yourself a nice electric scooter for a very reasonable price. Remember though, with Vectrix out of business you will be on your own when it comes to getting spares and fixing the scooter.
It is still unclear if Vectrix will be restructured or liquidated. It appears from press releases that they are looking for someone to purchase the company and that would allow them to resume business. However, I think that they will probably end up being liquidated and so it is unlikely that Vectrix will rise again.
Sunday July 19, 2009 - Scooter Availability Growing - Over the last month or so I have been noticing an upward trend in the number of new electric scooters I have been seeing offered on eBay. This trend hasn't just been on the US site but I have also noticed this trend in the UK, France, and to a lesser extent Italy and Germany.
China
is the driving force behind the world wide growth in electric two wheel
transportation. It is estimated that there are more than one million
electric bikes and scooters on the roads in China today and upwardly mobile Chinese
workers are trading in their bicycles for electric scooters in ever growing
numbers.
This has lead to a few developments in electric scooters. First we are seeing a definite increase in quality coming from the Chinese scooter manufacturers. Quality is still behind what we would expect from the Italian or Japanese scooter makers but at least the scooters don't die after a few days of riding now like some of the older Chinese scooters did.
The second major development is the advent of newer battery technologies in their electric scooters. They have been offering silicone batteries for quite some time now and these have proved to be slightly more reliable than lead acid batteries. They are now starting to ship large quantities of scooters using lithium batteries and this is begining to pull down the price of these batteries.
There are now scooters like the X-Treme XM-5000Li that offers a top speed of 60mph and a range of 85 miles (your mileage may vary) at a price of around $7500, almost $1500 less than a comparable performing Vectrix, for the same price. Of course, the Vectrix will be a much better quality scooter than the X-Treme but the XM-5000Li is still a fairly good scooter that offers a top speed and range that is well within that of normal usage for a comparable gas scooter. It remains to be seen how well the lithium batteries in these Chinese built scooters stand up to long term use as compared to the NiMH batteries in the Vectrix.
Chinese scooters also suffer from the same brand identity issues as you find with other Chinese electric vehicles. The Chinese don't do a deal with a single distributor or set up their own distribution and sales network as you would expect from a company like Piagio who make and sell the popular Vespa scooter. They do deals with lots of small distributers that sell the basically the same scooter under different brand names. For example scooters like the ZAP Zapino are also sold under several other brands including ICE variants.
I just took a quick survey of my current ebay listings and I see 13 Vectrix scooters, 12 X-Treme scooters, 6 EVT Scooters, 4 Ego Street Scootas (a Chinese built scooter sold in the UK), 3 E-Max scooters all being sold in Germany, and a few other scooters like RMartin and LY1 which are also Chinese made scooters being sold under smaller brand names.
What I am not seeing is these scooters selling in the sort of numbers that are in line with the number of scooters being offered on eBay. Of the 30 or so scooters currently being sold on eBay, I expect to see only one or two of them become actual sales. Having said that, most of these scooters are being sold under eBay classified ads which often lists multiple scooters for sale and it isn't always easy to identify actual sales in this situation.
Still, the growth in scooters being offered for sale, and the fact that some of the higher end scooters also come with tax incentives that reduce the final price, bodes well for us seeing more electric scooters on the streets over the next few years.
Sunday July 12, 2009 - GM Emerges from Bankruptcy - This week I had a big surprise when GM officially emerged from bankruptcy. GM filed for Chapter 11 on June 1, 2009 so it is amazing that one of the largest bankruptcies in US history took only 40 days to resolve.
he
new company will be lead by Frederic Henderson who has indicated that one of his
first tasks will be to change the corporate culture at GM. To this end it
is likely that GM will see a large number of layoffs among its white collar
workers.
The company that has emerged from Chapter 11 is destined to be a much smaller company than the old GM. Gone are several of its subsidiaries including its European operations, primarily Open in Germany, Vauxhall in the UK and Saab in Sweden. Here in the US GM has shed brands like Hummer and Saturn and will be fazing out Pontiac.
The new company, that will be 60.8% owned by the US government and 17.5% owned by the United Auto Workers Union, with the rest being split between the Canadian government and the province of Ontario, will mostly produce cars under the Chevrolet brand name. Other makes to survive will be luxury make Cadillac, Buick which caters to the older segment of the US market but also sells well in China, and GMC which specializes in Trucks.
Mr. Henderson, in talking about the new GM, has indicated that they plan on opening up new forms of sales channels and has already penned a deal with eBay that will allow GM to sell new cars on the internet auction site.
The next bombshell was that they have apparently lured Bob Lutz out of retirement to head up design, brands, and advertising. The logic of this escapes me since Bob Lutz was one of the architects that lead GM down the path of reliance on large trucks and SUVs that basically got GM into this mess in the first place. Having said that, Mr. Lutz is a seasoned automobile veteran who knows the ins and outs of automobile industry. It remains to be seen if he can move GM down a path towards a vehicle line-up that takes advantage of the benefits of electric drive technology.
Now the quick emergency from bankruptcy does bode well for the Chevy Volt which has been pushed as one of the key technologies that will guide GM forward. I fully expect to see the Volt coming to market next year. Time will only tell if it will be a success.
Sunday July 5, 2009 - California Granted Waiver on CO2 Law - In what appears to be a hollow victory, last Wednesday, June 30, 2009, the EPA reversed its ruling and granted a waiver to California allowing to to go forward with its new laws on CO2 regulation.
The victory is Hollow because California has already agreed to follow the new Federal standard which is based on the old California legislation. Still, the waiver does confirm the right of the State of California to set tougher air quality standards that was first granted to the state as part of the Clean Air act of 1968.
It is currently unclear if California will move forward with its own legislation or continue to follow the slightly less aggressive Federal standard, but the most likely outcome is that they will follow the Federal standard. The EPA has not yet issued its ruling for the other 15 states that have agreed to follow the California standard but I expect to see this approval some time next week.
Although this ruling is probably not going to have any material effect on the automobile manufacturers, the underlying ability for California set their own standards have been affirmed and this was one of the key reasons that the Bush administration pushed to have the EPA reject California's request for a waiver. California's ability to set their own standards has always been a thorn in the side of the automobile manufacturers since this meant that they had to either build cars to meet both sets of standards, or to build all their cars to meet the stricter California standards. In recent years most cars have been built to meet the California standards.
Take my Prius for example. If you buy a Prius in Arizona and one in California, there is no difference in the two cars. There may be a difference in the emissions if you fill the car up with high sulfur gas in Arizona verses the low sulfur gas sold in California, but that is the gas, not the car.
While the CO2 emissions waiver itself won't have any real impact on the electric vehicle market, the ruling does leave the door open for the California Air Resource Board to break out the old ZEV legislation and turn it back into a ruling that has some teeth to it. Not that I think we need the ZEV mandate any longer, the automobile manufacturers appear to have gotten the message that we have to change our transportation paradigm and plug-in vehicles are going to be a part of their model line-up by the end of 2011.
Sunday June 28, 2009 - Stella and other EV News - There was quite a bit of news about electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the media this past week. Announcements came from Subaru, Daimler, Th!nk Nordic, and GM.
Following fast on the news that Mitsubishi had started up the production line on the i-MiEV, which goes on sale in Japan next month, was the news that Subaru had also started production of its Stella Electric Vehicle. Deliveries of the Stella will start in August. The bad news is that they are only planning to build 170 of these cars over the next nine months, and will only be selling them in Japan.
The Stella is based on the Subaru's Stella Microcar. The 660cc engine has been replaced by a 63hp electric motor driven from a 346 volt Lithium Ion battery pack that is rated to store about 9.2 KWHrs of energy. Subaru have limited the top speed of the Stella EV to 60mph and quote a cruising range of 55 miles.
Like the i-MiEV the Stella EV also comes with the option to fast charge the battery pack, offering an 80% charge in just 15 minutes. This makes the car very usable in urban environments assuming of course that public charging is available.
The Stella will be priced at $47,900 but Japan has a lot of subsidies for early adopters of electric cars and these will bring the price down to around $29,000. This is still a steep price for a Microcar but I don't foresee any problems selling the 170 cars they plan to build.
European
manufacturers have also been moving towards electric vehicles. German
carmaker Daimler has been quietly testing an electric version of the Smart,
called by the unfortunate name Smart ED (for Electric drive, not the meaning
more commonly given to ED here in the US). Test began in Berlin and in
several locations in the UK. Testing in the UK, which included the London
police force and Sheffield city council, have proved so successful that Daimler
will begin selling the car to the public starting next year.
The car, which will be priced at around $22,400, offers a top speed of 60 mph and a range of around 70 miles. There has been no indication so far on the number of cars Daimler intends to offer for sale.
Daimler also indicated that it plans to widen its trial of the Smart ED to other European cities.
Rumors are also flying around that French automaker Renault will be showing off the car they plan to sell as their part of Project better place at the Frankfurt Auto show being held from September 15 to September 27.
Another piece of good news from Europe concerns another company currently in Bankruptcy, Th!nk Nordic. Th!nk recently had to stop its production line even though it had lots of orders on the books. Since the shutdown they have also received orders for at least a thousand more vehicles. This week the company received loans from private sources that should be enough to restart the production line once they emerge from Bankruptcy. Assuming they can come to a reasonable agreement with their creditors they should be back in production before the end of July.
Another exciting piece of news came from GM. Although GM is currently in Bankruptcy they are expected to rapidly emerge as a much leaner more competitive company. They are looking to the Volt to become the poster child for the new GM and just announced that the first pre-production vehicle has been completed. This car is a little different from the concept model they have been showing on the Auto Show circuit and a lot different from the Chevy Malibu mules they have been using to test the drive train. They will produce about 80 of these vehicles between now and the end of October. These cars will be used to refine the vehicle and to do durability and crash testing. GM have managed to get the first of these cars produced about two weeks ahead of schedule with bodes well for a 2010 release.
Finally, the Department of Energy (DOE) finally announced the first three recipients of their Advanced Technology loans. The biggest winner is Ford who will receive a total of $5.9 Billion to help them improve fuel efficiency on a host of their ICE vehicles. Nissan will garner $1.6 Billion to upgrade its Smyrna, TN factory to build their proposed Electric Car, and to add a second factory to build EV batteries. The third recipient was electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla who will get a loan of $465 million to develop their model S sedan. This should provide them enough cash to take the model S from the current prototype to the production model. Tesla also said that it would allow them to become profitable within the next month or so.
The push for electric vehicles just seems to be growing and growing - the future is electric.
If you want to comment on this topic, email me, but please include your Name, City and State or Country
Sunday June, 21, 2009 - Concours on Rodeo 2009 - Today is the first day of summer and the sun came out for the first time in about three weeks here in Southern California driving away the June gloom Beverly Hills annual Concours d'Elegance. Beverly Hills hosts this event each Fathers Day lining two blocks of Rodeo Dr. with some of the best collectors cars that California has to offer.
I was really looking forward to this event since this year's theme was Steam, Electric, Hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. I was to be very disappointed. I really like older cars so I thought that we would have lots of antique electric and steam cars at them show but apart from an old Detroit Electric there really wasn't any cars that fit the bill. No Steam cars, only one antique electric car, no hybrids.
There was also am Orange Tesla Roadster on display with a very nice orange and white interior. The other current production electric vehicle on display was a Mini-E. The Mini-E had the hood open and I could quite clearly see AC Propulsion written on the suitcase that contains the controller.
Sitting next to the Mini-E was a solar powered car built by the University of Michigan College of Engineering.
Of course Beverly Hills idea of an alternative fuel vehicle is a Corvette on Steroids.
There were a few micro-cars on display including a BMW Isetta and a couple of tiny Fiats. The Fiats seemed very appropriate to me since we are likely to see Fiat back in the US soon. The local Smart dealer also had several Smart cars on display. Unfortunately not the electric version.
There was also an entry from electric car conversion company SSI Racing who had a Shelby 65 Coupe replica on dispaly
.
The concours on Rodeo always shows some really great cars. It's too bad that this year they couldn't have done more to meet the theme of the show. I, along with thousands of other visitors to Beverly Hills did enjoy the spectacle though.
Sunday June 8, 2009 -
Toyota's PHEV Message - It seams like Toyota is Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to the addition of plug-in vehicles, in fact they are staring to sound more like GM with conflicting statements and the look of a company about to blow their lead on green vehicles.
I reported last week that Toyota has just announced that it will ship 500 plug-in Prius to fleet customers later this year. The cars will come with lithium ion batteries rather than the NiMH batteries in the handful of vehicles currently being tested by a few fleet operators like Southern California Edison.
At the same time Bill Reinert, National Manager of Toyota's Advanced Technology Group made a presentation at the Plug-In Vehicle Conference in Washington DC. He told the attendees that Toyota don't think Plug-in hybrids are viable at the moment. The key issues he talked about were battery life and battery weight.
Battery life has always been an issue with batteries. Lead acid batteries, if they do really well, may last for 30,000 miles in an EV application, but often much less. The NiMH batteries in the RAV4-EV have been lasting around 120,000 miles. Now, CARB wants the batteries to be warranted for 150,000 miles or ten years. While some types of lithium battery appears to have a long life we don't have enough data to know just how many cycles they will really support in PHEV applications before they will need to be replaced.
Given Toyota's fixation on quality I am sure they will want batteries that will last the life of the car. According to consumer reports a ten year old Toyota is more reliable than a five year old car from any manufacturer with the exception of Honda. It shouldn't come as any surprise then that Toyota wants more development of batteries.
First a warning, I would not claim that the following calculations are real world but they do server to illustrate the dilemma that developers of PHEVs have.
Let's first consider an EV with a range of 300 miles. To get a battery life of 150,000 miles we would need to have a battery capable of doing 150,000/300 = 500 charging cycles. This is well within the capability of many modern batteries, there are even lead acid batteries that can do 500 cycles.
Now, let's look at a car like the i-MiEV that has a range of about 100 miles. In this case the battery would be capable of doing 150,000/100 or 1500 cycles. This is well beyond the capability of most battery systems but there are lithium batteries that, at least on paper, can support this number of cycles.
The Chevy Volt has an electric only range of 40 miles. To get 150,000 miles out of a charge the pack would need to support 150,000/40 = 3750 cycles. Only Altairnano, at 4000 cycles, claims to be able to manage this level of cycling.
Toyota has tended to favor even shorter range in the past so if we look at a 20 miles per charge PHEV we would be talking 150,000/20 or 7,500 cycles to last 150,000 miles, well beyond the capabilities of current batteries.
As I said before, we don't really have any long term data for how battery packs will hold up over a large number of charge discharge cycles over many years. What we do know from long experience is that when you put a large number of cells in a string and charge them the string is only as strong as the weakest battery so performance seen in bench tests of single battery modules are not likely to hold up in long term use in a PHEV application.
The other issue that Toyota had is the weight of a battery pack. What Bill Reiner said is that in a PHEV application, once the batteries have become depleted they just become excess weight for the ICE engine to carry around.
Toyota has a point if you drive the car without charging you are going to use more gas than a conventional hybrid. If you have a lot of electric only range than you need, you will be carrying round a lot more weight than necessary.
This is one reason why we need more PHEVs on the road, to get more empirical data to determine the correct tradeoff between EV range, weight, and cost. If we wait for the ideal battery then we will miss an opportunity to develop cars for the new propulsion paradigm. What we will do is stall and stall and stall always looking for a better battery when the only way to really develop the better battery is to see how batteries perform in real world situation and adjust as needed.
Nissan recognizes this and are planning to offer a battery lease program. Their idea is that the car owner leases the batteries and will be able to swap batteries for improved technology over time. Many people are uncomfortable with battery leasing mostly because they saw what happened with the EV1, which was lease only, and the lease termination was used to take the cars away from devoted drivers. In the case of battery lease however, if you own the car then you can always find a battery solution. Take the case of the Ford Ranger EV. The 8V East Penn batteries are no longer available so someone came up with a solution that allows the truck to be operated using easily available 12V batteries.
I have held for a long time now that we need to start moving toward grid chargeable vehicles so the sooner we get started, the sooner we will climb the learning curve and make electric cars commonplace. I am going to give Toyota the benefit of doubt thinking that they are moving forward with testing of the plug-in Prius, but are trying to manage expectations based the limitations of current battery technology.
Sunday June 7, 2009 - News Electric - This week I received not one but two press releases from Mitsubishi about their i-MiEV electric car. The first press release had a link to a video that showed the i-MiEV going through various testing as they ready the production version for sale.
The
video shows the car undergoing both driving tests and durability tests.
Most interesting for people interested in safety is the shots of the i-MiEV
being driven through water deep enough to come up to the bottom of the
door. One interesting aspect of this video is it illustrates the sort of
testing that any vehicle undergoes before being put on the market to make sure
that it will stand up to whatever treatment the environment can dish out.
The second press release had the exciting news that Mitsubishi will start selling the i-MiEV to fleet operators in Japan beginning in July and will also be opening up their order system to take consumer orders for deliveries starting in April, 2010. In 2009 they plan to lease 1400 i-MiEV to corporations and local authorities, with the lease including maintenance and other costs such as insurance and taxes. In April, consumers will be able to purchase an i-MiEV but pricing has not yet been announced.
The press release also included lots of details about the production vehicle that hasn't been available before.
The car, which seats four occupants, will weigh in at 1100Kg (2425lbs) has dimensions of 3.395 meters (11.13ft) long, 1.475 meters (4.48ft) wide, 1.6 meters (5.25ft) high, with a 2.55 meters (8.37ft) wheel base.
The car is driven by a 330V Lithium-ion battery with a rated capacity of 16KWHrs. Power consumption on the Japanese 10-15 mode urban driving pattern is rated at only 125Wh/Km giving the car a cruising range of about 160Km (100 miles). The car features three charging modes, 110V, and 220V, for use at home, or fast charging from public charging stations. It takes about 7 hours to fully charge the car at 220V and that doubles to about 14 hours if you only have access to a 110V receptacle. The fast charge option uses a 220V 3 phase supply rated at 50KW to charge the car up to 80% in 30 minutes.
The permanent magnet synchronous motor has a maximum output of 47KW and 180 Newton Meters of torque. This motor can be powered in one of three modes, D-position, Eco-position, or B-position. D-position delivers maximum torque to provide the driver with fast off the line acceleration. Eco-position limits power output to reduce drain on the batteries and maximize range. B-position is similar to D-position but cranks up the regenerative braking to simulate engine braking for those steep downhill stretches.
The car will initially be offered in three solid colors Red, Silver, and White, or in two tone colors Silver and White or Red and White. The car also comes equipped with LED lights all around, including the headlights. The car will be offered with the the Mitsubishi Multi-Entertainment system which includes a Navigation system. The NAV system can be updated using a Flash card and Mitsubishi plans to use this to update charger locations as they are rolled out throughout Japan.
The
other big news around out this week centers on the Toyota Prius. The 2010
Prius, which is now on sale around the world, seems to be bucking the trend for
car sales during the current recession. Toyota announced strong orders for
the Prius before it went on sale in Japan earlier this year and last week one of
their Japanese dealers let slip that Toyota has now taken orders for 110,000
vehicles in Japan alone, and the rate of orders appears to be increasing.
Toyota initially planned to built 10,000 per month for the Japanese market and
at this rate there would be a wait of up about 11 months for a car. Toyota
has hinted that it might increase production on the car making it the best
selling car in Japan.
I haven't heard any concrete numbers for orders here in the USA but I when I talked to a Salesman at Toyota of Santa Monica he told me that they had at least 20 orders for a the 2010 Prius in silver with the Solar sunroof package but if I wanted to order one in a less popular color he thought he could get me one pretty quickly. I told him I was waiting for a Plug-in Prius.
Talking of Plug-in Prius, Toyota just announced that it would be shipping 500 Plug-in Prius to mostly fleet customers in Japan, America and Europe in 2009. Of these, 200 would be distributed in Japan, 150 in America, and the remaining 150 will be sent to Europe. They also said that the Plug-in Prius will come with Panasonic Lithium-Ion batteries but didn't give any additional information such as battery only range or lease costs.
I consider these two announcements, along with the 500 test Mini-E vehicles being distributed by BMW, to be very significant indeed. Next we need Mitsubishi to expand production of the i-MiEV and start selling them in the USA and Europe, and we need Toyota to begin actively marketing their Plug-in Prius world wide. The move to electric transportation on a wide scale has begun and I can't wait for it to pick up momentum.
Sunday May 31,2009 - Inductive Roads - Nirvana for electric vehicles has always been a battery electric car with a range of 300 miles cruising at 65 on the freeway, and the ability to recharge in 10 minutes. While battery technology is getting close to this goal there may be a better way.
Electric trains don't carry a lot of batteries, they pick up electric current from overhead lines or a third rail system and push this into the electric motor to power the train. This works quite well for electric trains so why not for cars.
One problem is that we would need to have either overhead power or a live rail buried in the road to provide the power and this wouldn't be a very desirable issue. Imagine having a high voltage strip running up your drive way and into your garage, a good way to end up with fried children.
There is a better way however. If we imbed inductive loops in major highways then set up the cars with limited battery only range, say 40 miles, then you could run battery only around town then once you get on the freeway you would pick up current via the inductive loop and use that to power the car for as long as you want to drive it. The system would work in a similar way to the inductive chargers used by the EV1 and the RAV4 EV.
What is more, the car could be programmed to pick up extra current from the loop to recharge the battery while you drive. This would mean that after a long drive you would exit the freeway fully charged. So, as long as you don't live more than 40 miles from the nearest inductive loop you will be able to use your car to drive as long as you wish.
It would even be possible to drive the 400 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco without a stop, something that isn't possible with most ICE cars.
Now, all this wouldn't come free. There could be two way communication between your car and the road. When you entered the highway and picked up the inductive sensor the car would transmit its identity and that would allow the power company to monitor the amount of electricity you sucked from the inductive loop and bill you for it. They would also be able to charge a fuel tax which would get around one of the major problems holding back the reduction in oil usage, how do you charge for road repairs etc. when you don't have fuel taxes anymore. Some areas have been testing GPS based systems but Americans are wary of a system where the government can tell exactly where your car is at all times. Billing from the inductive loop, the power company could tell that you were on the 405 freeway say, but not exactly where.
Now, this may seem all science fiction like but Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea are already testing such a system in the Daejeon area. They use a strips that vary from 20-90cm in width with each one being hundreds of meters in length. The downside is that it costs $380,000 to equip one kilometer of road with the strips.
We need to move away from fossil fuels, we know this. The only question now is how we are going to accomplish this. Inductive strips in the roadway is one solution that will be worth experimenting with to see if it could be done in a cost effective way.
Sunday May 25, 2009 - New CAFE Standards - On May 19, 2009, surrounded by representatives from the Auto industry, the Auto Workers Union, representatives from both democrats and republicans, and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Obama announced new standards for fuel economy and green house gas emissions that basically means the Federal government is adopting the regulations that California had proposed and been refused a waver on by the EPA.
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were first introduced in 1975 as a way to deal with the fuel crisis caused by the OPEC boycott. It was designed to improve the fleet average from a dismal 12.9mpg to 18mpg in 1978 and 27.5mpg by 1985. Once the oil crisis was over there was a long period where fuel was in surplus and the government actually reduced CAFE to 26mpg for 1976. By 1990 the fleet average had been set back to 27.5mpg and that is where it remains today.
To make things worse, CAFE was further watered down because light trucks, SUVs and Minivans were placed into a separate category with a lower CAFE number of 20.7mpg. This, combined with a taxation policy often referred to as the Chicken Tax, prompted domestic automobile manufacturers to promote SUVs as the vehicle of choice for US consumers. SUVs were high profit margin vehicles so the automobile manufactures promoted them by making them appear to be safer than cars or Minivans and also, using ads that showed good looking young people blazing a trail off road in their SUV, the promoted the outdoor lifestyle that so many Americans aspire too. The whole SUV craze is well documented in Keith Bradsher's excellent book "The High and the Mighty".
The new CAFE standards would require fleet fuel economy of about 37.5mpg by 2016 and, for the first time since the 1970s the US will have a single standard for vehicle emissions, based on California's stricter rules instead of the choice for any state of following the federal rules or adopting California's rules.
The fact that the Automobile industry has agreed not to try and fight these regulations in court may have a lot more to do with their current delicate financial position and their need for government bailout dollars than a true urge to get greener, but it may also mean that they already know how to meet these new fuel economy numbers.
The media of course has already begun to carp about the new regulations. Lots of headlines are screaming that these new standards are going to kill lots of good Americans. They seem never to get the point that while a smaller car may not fair as well in an accident the heavier the vehicle the more damage it does. Big vehicles actually cause more death and injuries than small vehicles do. That is a lot of the reason why traffic fatalities are lower in Europe even though the cars are typically much smaller than the average American car. Research recently done at the Rocky Mountain Institute backs this up, showing that cars can be designed to be lighter without being smaller and will end up being safer in an accident.
It should also be pointed out that recent research done at UC Fullerton shows that air pollution from automobiles actually kills more people than die in car crashed, so making cars cleaner may actually save lives.
In order to meet the new CAFE standards carmakers are going to need to implement new technologies, this means new materials to reduce weight and technologies like hybrid drive trains. In the short term this is likely to push the average cost of cars up by about $1300 which is a big hit in the pocketbook. Balancing this is the lower cost of fuel due to increased fuel economy. It is projected that it will take about 3 years to pay down this additional cost so over the projected 10 year life of a car the total cost of ownership should be much lower.
We already know that automobile manufacturers can build cars that get better mileage than the new CAFE standards. The question is will consumers buy these cars. If gas prices continue to trend upwards over time, and I really expect that they will, then this will become a no brainer and people will no longer want a car that gets mpg in the teens. However, if the drop in fuel consumption means another long period of stable fairly low gas prices then we might see another trend towards less efficient vehicles. After last year's run up in gas prices to $4.00 a gallon we saw people dumping their gas guzzlers for more economical models but it only took about 6 weeks after gas dropped down to around $2.00 per gallon that people started to go back to gas guzzlers again.
In the end, we really have to get more efficient cars on the road. In my opinion we are going to have to go to plug-in vehicles so the sooner we see them on the roads the better. These new CAFE standards are going to help promote plug-in vehicles so I welcome them.
Sunday
May 17, 2009 - Pollution issues - A recent study funded by the German chapter of
the World Wildlife Fund came to the conclusion that adding lots of electric
vehicles won't reduce pollution. I
thought it would be worthwhile to address their findings.
The basis of their conclusion was that if Germany added a large number of electric cars they would need to add lots of coal fired power plants to meet the increased demand. It is typical of such studies that they take the worst-case scenario, adding coal fired power plants, when the reality is that Germany is currently installing lots of renewable energy such as wind and are leading the world in the installation of solar, but I guess there is some sort of rule that electric vehicles can only be charged by electricity generated from coal.
I
have often said that while many electric vehicles will be charged overnight when
the grid has lots of unused capacity, there will also be an increase in demand
during peak periods because there are always going to be people which, for
whatever reason, need to charge right away but much of this increased demand can
be met by solar power plants.
There
is some doubt that an electric vehicle charged from a coal fired plant really
does generate more pollution than an ICE vehicle.
Research done at Argonne National Laboratory indicates that even when
charged from a coal-fired plant an electric vehicle is still cleaner that even
the cleanest ICE vehicle.
It
is almost impossible to clean-up pollution at millions of tail pipes but it is a
much simpler task to clean up a few hundred smokestacks.
For example, when carbon sequestration technology is developed it will be
relatively easy to add the technology to coal-fired or natural gas fired power
plants but impossible to add to every one of the millions of vehicles on the
road world wide.
One other thing, as more renewable energy sources are added to the grid then the grid gets cleaner. An EV will also get cleaner along with the grid but the ICE vehicle is never going to get any cleaner, in fact as the emission control equipment on the vehicle begins to age and become less effective the car is actually going to get dirtier.
Vehicle-to-grid also offers some interesting options to the power generation companies. The idea is simple, if you have a vehicle that has a battery capacity of say 40KWHrs, and your normal drive uses around 8KWHrs per day, then you can charge your car overnight and at time of peak demand you can sell some of the surplus capacity back to the power company. If you sold back half your capacity that would still leave you with more than enough range to handle your round trip commute and make you some money on the side. This scheme would work really well in conjunction with large investments in solar energy. You could charge the car up with solar during the day then sell the surplus back to the power company at night when the solar generation facilities are not able to produce electricity.
Now,
I'm not convinced that vehicle-to-grid is ever going to be a major contributor
to our power grid but the technology is already developed and has been
demonstrated several times so it may play a big part in a pollution free (or at
least a greatly reduced) future.
Adding electric cars needs to be done in conjunction with implementing incentives to charge using off-peak capacity, along with increasing peak capacity by adding new renewable based generation facilities. Encouraging people to charge during off peak periods especially overnight is going to help balance the load on the grid allowing the utility companies to use their generation plants more efficiently while adding renewable capacity is going to benefit all forms of power use not just electric cars. In the final analysis, the future is electric.
Sunday May 10, 2009 - Electricity not Ethanol - A study released this week by researches at UC Merced, UC Stanford, and the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology says that it would be much more efficient to burn biomass to make electricity an use it to charge electric cars than it is to distil it to make ethanol.
The Study, lead by University of California Merced Assistant Professor Eliot Campbell, found that biomass converted to electricity could drive a vehicle 81% more miles than you could get from turning the biomass into ethanol and using that to fuel the car.
The study looked at the driving distance that could be obtained from various kinds of feedstock such as corn or switch grass, and then looked at the amount of greenhouse gasses that were offset for a given area of cropland. It should be pointed out that the researchers didn't consider other forms of air pollution caused by burning biomass verses distilling ethanol.
Ethanol has been pushed as a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil but people have often argued that the pollution caused by the energy needed to produce the ethanol has been almost as much as the pollution offset by using ethanol over using regular gasoline. This study shows that there is a better way to utilize available biomass than turning it into ethanol and once again the solution comes down to battery electric vehicles.
Critics of battery electric vehicles often quote the need to build lots of coal fired power plants to handle the increased electricity needs driven by a fleet of electric vehicles as a reason to stick with our old polluting ways. They say that the pollution created by the coal fired power plants is greater than the pollution from gasoline, even though studies at Argonne National laboratories has shown that even when charged by coal fired power plants the electric vehicle is still cleaner.
Now we know that we shouldn't be building more coal fired power plants to meet the growing electricity demand, we should be building more biomass plants along with more wind, wave, solar, small hydro, and geothermal.
What is needed is more research on batteries. To quote Dr. Donald Sadoway, Professor of Materials Science at MIT and one of the worlds leading authorities on batteries, "Lithium Batteries are too expensive for cars right now." He is suggesting that we make batteries dirt cheap by making them from Dirt. By this he means that we use common, relatively inexpensive materials like Iron, Magnesium and Aluminum.
We need to move money away from investment in expensive battery technology into developing batteries that can be built at a much lower price point. At the same time the batteries need to be very rugged and long lasting. Current lead acid technology is relatively cheap compared to lithium but the batteries are easily damaged in electric car applications and need to be changed out multiple times over the life of a car. We need a battery that will last for at least ten years and 150,000 miles at a cost that doesn't push the purchase price of a new car beyond the reach of the average person.
So what about bio-fuels. I believe there is a need for good liquid bio-fuels, but not for personal transportation. The most difficult form of transportation to replace with electric driven systems is the jet plane. I just can't see a battery electric, or even fuel cell powered electric plane being able to fly at 500+ mph from Los Angeles to London any time soon. We need to find sustainable fuels to use in airplane applications, both civil and military, and I think that this is one niche where bio-fuels will pay off.
Sunday May 3, 2009 - Just a bit Greener - I was reading Bill Moore's commentary on the resignation of GM CEO Rick Wagoner by Bill Moore on an EV World News Letter and Bill said "After all, we bought all those SUVs and pickups carmakers built. Instead of demanding that each successive model year be just a bit 'greener'" which really struck a chord with me.
When it comes to cars we don't always make the right decisions, we are often seduced by great looks and lots of torque. I too have not always made the best of choices when it comes to buying cars but I do know better now. Back in the mid eighties I drove a tiny Chevy Sprint with a three cylinder engine that I could get as much as 55mpg out of if I really tried. I traded that in for an 87 Chevy Cavalier convertible that was a joy to drive but managed only 17mpg around town and 25mpg if I drove it really carefully on the highway.
After owning the Chevy for 14 years I still miss it, but when my wife wanted to replace a very serviceable Toyota Corolla that I could coax into giving me 38mpg on the highway, I decided that the Chevy had to go. I got a Toyota Echo for my wife, which funnily enough got about the same mpg as the Corolla but without the need for driving it carefully, and I started to drive the Corolla. When the second generation Toyota Prius came out I decided to upgrade so after a year wait for a 2004 Prius, that ended up being a 2005 Prius, I went hybrid.
Now, next time I buy a car I want to go a little bit greener so before I throw away some of my hard earned cash on a new car I am waiting to see what plug-in hybrids are going to appear on the market within the next few years. Working on a budget I doubt I will be able to afford a Fisker, and the Chevy Volt will also be beyond my budget, at least in the first few years. What I am hoping for is a nice little plug-in Prius that will give me about 10 miles of electric only range at a price that isn't outrageously higher than the current Prius.
Now, this may seem odd for someone who believes as strongly as I do that battery electric cars are the future. The issue is that as an apartment dweller I still don't have anywhere to charge a fully electric car. I do have facilities at work however but they wouldn't work for me for an all electric car but would work for a hybrid. Once the public infrastructure being proposed by companies like Coulomb and Project Betterplace are rolled out extensively, and costs begin to fall, then it will be time to move from a plug-in hybrid to a full electric vehicle.
Plug-in America has proposed that people tell their car dealer that they are not going to buy a new car until they can buy a car that can be charged off the grid. That is a great ideal and if that works for you I am all for it, and, as I said before, i fully expect the next car I buy to be a plug-in hybrid. I am a bit more practical however, and realize that not everyone will have the means of the desire to become an early adopter of plug-in hybrids.
So here's the challenge - when it comes time to replace your aging fleet of vehicles make a commitment that you will replace your current vehicles with ones that are "a little bit greener". If your current car gets 25mph try to replace it with one that gets 30mpg. If you drive a 30mpg car think about replacing it with one of the latest hybrids that are just coming to market. If you already drive a hybrid tell your dealer to call you when the plug-in hybrids arrive. Of course if you are already driving a plug-in vehicle then you are a leader in the automotive race and should get a well deserved pat on the back.
Sunday April 26, 2009 - Electric Car Rental - In 1997 it was possible to fly into LAX and rent an EV from EV Rentals at the airport. It is no longer possible to rent an electric car at the airport; so what happened?
EV
Rentals otherwise known as Electric Vehicle Rentals was founded by Jeff Pink in
1997 and eventually became a part of Budget Rent-a-car. They did a
thriving business for a while renting a variety of electric cars including the
EV1. RAV4 EV, Honda EV Plus, and Nissan Altra. Business was good enough
that they were able to expand to other airport locations in California including
San Francisco, Sacramento and Burbank.
In 1999 they attempted to open a branch in Beverly Hills and I just happened to be the very first customer there, and also the very first customer to rent a generation two NiMH EV1. You can read all about EV1 for a day at my old web site.
By 1991 the supply of electric cars began to dry up. Electric Vehicle Rental morphed into Environmental Vehicle Rentals and began to offer the new fangled hybrid cars like the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, along with cars powered by CNG. Hybrids began to take off and people became less interested in renting such vehicles and eventually EV Rentals was absorbed into Budget Rent-a-Car.
Now that electric cars are threatening to make a comeback it struck me as likely we will see an operation like EV Rental start up again in the not too distant future. I thought that it would be a good idea to review some of the issues impact the EV Rental business and look at what is different this time that might make things more successful.
Now, there are lots of reasons why people rent a car, but the two biggest reasons are for business and pleasure.
First lets consider the pleasure side of the equation. Most people renting a car for pleasure are doing so as part of a vacation. They will fly into a city then rent a car to provide them with mobility while visiting. The is especially true out here in the West where distances can be quite a challenge. Someone staying in West LA has an almost 100 mile round trip drive to visit Disneyland for example.
People renting a car while on vacation tend to put miles on their cars. They will fly into LAX but will want to go visit Yosemite, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas or San Francisco, all trips that would be a challenge to all but the most dedicated EV enthusiast. The cars that were around in 1997 typically had ranges of around 100 miles so they wouldn't be suitable for this kind of excursion.
The picture this time around is somewhat different as several manufacturers plan to offer plug-in hybrid vehicles. A person could rent a Chevy Volt, for example, at LAX and have no problem driving it the approximately 600 miles to the Grand Canyon. What is needed for this kind of rental operation is charging stations at hotels. The renter would be able to drive the plug-in hybrid to their destination then recharge overnight at the hotel and drive electric only during their visit, only using the gas engine again on the return trip.
The other frequent renter of cars in the business traveler. The business traveler will usually fly into a city to visit customer and prospective customer sites. They typically don't drive long distances and most of their driving on city streets. An electric vehicle with 70 to100 miles range will be more than adequate for this type of renter.
The availability of public charging infrastructure is often key in these situations. The renter often doesn't really need to charge the car but it removes the range anxiety that electric vehicles often engender in those who haven't driven them before.
It is clear to see that after most manufactures ceased production of EVs EV Rentals had problems finding an adequate supply of electric cars, but the RAV4 EV was still available long after they switched to renting hybrids. The big reason they gave me for why they were no longer leasing the RAV4 EV was that Toyota had switched from the large paddle inductive (LPI) charger to the small paddle inductive (SPI) charger. GM, as part of their marketing of the EV1, had made sure there was a supply of LPI chargers at strategic locations like shopping malls and tourist attractions in the LA area, but there were almost no SPI chargers except at the few Toyota dealerships that serviced the RAV4 EV. Without the infrastructure EV Rental felt they would not be able to rent the RAV so they stopped leasing them.
One other issue that plagued EV Rental was turn around time. Typically the majority of cars are returned in the late afternoon and rented again in the early evening. This allows only an hour or so to turn around the cars. If the car was returned almost empty then it would need a good six to eight hours of charge time which means it couldn't be rented out the same day it was returned and would usually sit in the lot until the following evening. This represented a lot of lost revenue when you consider that these rentals were often only for one or two days.
Things have also changed this time around. Many of the electric vehicles I expect to see on the streets by 2011 will be capable of charging at both 220V and 110V which provides a lot more opportunity for charging at places like hotels which often have 110V receptacles in the parking garage that could be utilized to charge the cars overnight. There is also a move to provide more public charging infrastructure, although funnily enough Los Angeles seems to be way behind places like San Francisco in putting out public infrastructure. However, once the new vehicle interface standard is in place I see a time when public charging will become commonplace.
The other thing that the new vehicles will offer is fast charging, and in some instances battery swapping. In the EV Rental business either of these will provide the ability to turn around the car in an hour making it possible to have the car returned in the afternoon and back out again in the evening.
Once Electric Cars start to come available I expect to see them appearing in car rental lots. I would expect to see the plug-in hybrids offered first since these are the closest to traditional vehicles and don't require the renter to find a charging station if they are prepared to drive the car on the gas engine rather than recharge the car. I expect to see an operation like EV Rental to appear soon after, probably focusing on a location where there is lots of business traffic and public infrastructure such as San Francisco.
The nice thing about having electric cars you can rent is that it gives you a chance to try them out and find out what they are all about without committing to a purchase or long term lease.
Sunday
April 19 2009 - eBay Listings - It has been quite a while since I wrote about
eBay but since they rolled out their new version this week I thought it was about
time I reviewed my eBay listing practices.
First
timing. I usually spend by lunch
break combing eBay for electric vehicles. I
have built up a pretty good set of search criteria to find these cars.
I don't claim to find every electric vehicle on eBay but I do get most of
them.
I
don't publish these entries until my nightly update so if you enter a vehicle in
the afternoon it won't show up on the classifieds page until after 8pm the
following day. I also don't manage to search every category every day,
there just isn't enough time, so some categories I only search every other day
and some, like eBay Italy and eBay Australia I only search once a week. I
have been having particular issues with eBay Italy recently, they seem to have
messed up their search section and I can't seem to get my searches working
anymore. Not speaking Italian it is difficult to tell where exactly I am
going wrong so I may have to drop those listings altogether.
I
try to list only street legal electric vehicles, and I will also ignore the
types of vehicles I don't include on evfinder.com, including electric bikes,
“Zappy” style scooters and those low powered “Vespa” Style Scooters with
motors that are less than about 1400 Watts.
I will also ignore vehicles that don't have explicit details to identify
the vehicle. For example I will
ignore a listing that just says "electric scooter".
If the seller doesn't even know the make and model the I don't list it.
I
will also not list vehicles that are obvious scams.
For example a listing that offers a car well below market but you have to
email first before you can bid. These
types of scam looking to collect personal information are better avoided so I
try not to bring them to peoples attention.
Others, which may or may not be scams, get listed with an appropriate
warming. Things that trigger this
type of warning include photos that have been manipulated with a program like
Photoshop, and vehicles that appear to be registered in a state other than the
one it is supposed to be such as a car being sold in Texas that has California
plates, and vehicles that are listed that are not in the possession of the
seller, such as cars that are “being shipped from China in eight weeks”.
If
you are planning on selling an EV on eBay the here are a few tips.
First make sure you are placing the listing in the correct category.
eBay Motors is the usual place but NEVs and electric scooters may be
listed under the appropriate categories like eBay Sporting Goods which has
sections for golf carts and scooters.
Next make sure you spell the make, model, etc. correctly. If you are
trying to sell a GEM then spelling it JEM isn't going to come up in a normal
search.
One big mistake I see people make is to just put down a generic description. This is most prevalent with sellers of electric scooters and is very common for European sellers. They will list an entry as just "Electric Scooter". This makes you wonder if they are really selling. If a buyer can't tell what brand of scooter is being sold then they can't make independent judgments on the characteristics they are looking for in a scooter. Also, if someone is looking for a specific brand of vehicle they are going to miss this one in their search so make sure you have the manufacturer and model stated correctly. Make sure you also put in the correct model year. How much a person will spend on a car is often dictated by the model year so if you don't specify it people will more than l likely either not bid or bid really low assuming it is an older model.
Remember, there are thousands of vehicles being sold on eBay at any given time and it people can't find your listing it is not going to sell.
Other problems that sellers encounter on eBay is the time waster and the scammer. Time wasters are those that bid on an article then get cold feet and decide not to buy it after all. This is amazingly common on eBay and the only thing that you can do about it is to give them negative feedback. If you get a bid from someone with this type of feedback consider cancelling their bid. The other problem that is encountered with relative frequency is the scammer. This is endemic to internet sales. The bidder, usually from oversees, will bid up the article until they win the auction. They will then attempt to send you more money than the final bidding price with the request to either send the additional money to their shipper, or send the additional money to a client that they own money to. If you send the money that will be last you see of it. Again, report these scammers to eBay, they actually try to stop these guys from working their scams.
Scammers are a problem that also plagues eBay buyers. The usual scam is to list a car that they don't have and then let the buyer send money, usually they want a cashiers check or money sent by someone like Western Union, but the article purchased never shows up. They often use photos that are from other auctions. Pay particular attention to cars that are being sold in one state but have plates from a different state. An even bigger red flag is a car where the plates have been blanked out. Another big red flag is photos that show obvious signs of being altered using Photoshop. The seller will often claim that they have moved to another country and need to sell the car they had back in the States.
Another scam used involves innocent third parties. The scammer gets a few electric vehicles, usually from China, and gets some guys to sign up as dealers. They then have them advertise vehicles on eBay that they say will be shipped to them in six or eight weeks time. They will sometimes ask the buyer to send the money directly to the manufacture in China. Usually people sending the money will never see it again. A variation on this is to actually say the vehicle is located in China. This is another big red flag and the risk of buying a vehicle sight unseen from a seller in China is really great. Even if you do get a vehicle shipped from China there is no telling what condition it will be in.
If in doubt ask to go see the vehicle before you bid. If they can't show you a vehicle then you have another big red flag.
eBay
is a good place to buy and sell electric vehicles and my eBay listings are
designed to make the search process much easier. There are always risks
involved and I will admit that I don't catch every electric vehicle being
sold. I also don't always catch the scammers and on occasion I have added
a scam warning to a legitimate sale so always investigate closely before
bidding. Still, I think the eBay listing
is a very good service to the EV community and seems to be a popular part of
evfinder.com
Sunday April 12, 2009 - New York Auto Show 2009 - Even though Automakers world wide are struggling to keep their heads above water they still managed to go to the Jacob Javits Center to strut their stuff, but, whiel there were plenty of alternative fuel vehicles on hand, there was nothing that could really be labeled new.
The
big news came from Mitsubishi who told the Media audience that they are going to
produce the iMiEV as a world vehicle and will be sold in the US market but
didn't specify a date. What we do know is that production will start in
July of this year and it will go on sale to fleets in Japan shortly after
that. Sales in Europe are expected to begin some time in 2010 although
Britain may see cars in 2009 since they share Japan's need for right hand drive
cars. In the interim, Mitsubishi will expand its testing in the US by
delivering cars to the State of Oregon and to Portland General Electric.
Ford showed that it planned to bring that long time bastion of the UK's "White Van Man", the Transit, over to the US. They showed a new Mini-Van, The Family One concept, based on the transit platform. Ford have announced plans to bring an electric version of the Transit over to the US starting next year but the Transit Connect BEV didn't appear to be on display at the New York Auto show. The Fusion hybrid is now on sale in the US and is getting rave reviews after media test drives. An all electric version of the Fusion is also in the works but again it didn't make it to New York.
Ford did show of its next offering in the sub-compact range, the Ford Fiesta. The Fiesta has been a Ford staple in Europe for many years now but the car will be offered in the US starting in 2010. The 1.6 liter hatchback features a 6 speed transmission but fuel economy figures are not yet available. The Fiesta is designed to go head to head with the Honda Fit and Nissan Versa and I expect it to be a big seller.
Another small car, more a micro-car that was introduced in New York was the Scion IQ. This is a version of the Toyota IQ currently sold in Japan and would be slotted to compete with the highly successful Smart. The Scion IQ is about 20 inches longer than the Smart but this allows room for one adult in the back seat. Toyota believes that the IQ would sell better in the US as a Scion model rather than a Toyota but have not yet committed to actually sell the car in the US.
Toyota of course featured the 2010 Prius, another car that is getting rave reviews and is scheduled to go on sale later this year. The latest generation Prius shows that Toyota still have a lead in the hybrid market although Ford and Honda are both snapping at their heals.
Chrysler also trotted out the same line of vehicles that they showed in LA and Detroit. They still haven't announced which one they plan to produce as their first EV effort and that's not surprising as they really need to focus on the deal with Fiat that they need to complete by the end of the month if they aren't going to head to the bankruptcy court. Personally I think they should lead of with an electric mini van. Mini vans are Chrysler's strength and there is an obvious need for a plug-in hybrid or all electric Mini-Van.
GM were on hand with the Chevy Volt, their range extended hybrid which is expected to go on sale in the US in 2010. They also showed the Cadillac Converj, a luxury coupe that is powered by the same drive train technology as the Volt. They also had a couple of interesting cars in the compact category. The Cruz, expected to go on sale in the US in the first half of 2010 will be powered by a 1.4 liter turbo charged engine that offers a fuel economy of 40mpg. Also on display was the Chevy Spark, a five door compact will be powered by a 1 liter four cylinder engine with an optional 1.2 liter engine. The Spark is expected to go on sale in Europe early in 2010 with US sales beginning in 2011. Fuel consumption numbers are not available at the moment but should be pretty impressive.
From the small companies, X-Prize contender EV Innovations introduced not one but two all electric vehicles. The Wave is a Sleek electric car that is projected to reach a top speed of 80mph and offer a range of about 170 miles at a cost in the vicinity of $34,000. The Inizo EVS is a sports car that projected to do a top speed of 170mph and 0-60 in under 4 seconds. The car will be offered with a range of around 200 miles on a charge and is projected to cost around $139,000. EV Innovations was the only X-Prize contestant exhibiting in New York this year.
California based Fisker was also in New York to debut its plug-in hybrid Karma. The Karma, which offers a 50 mile electric only range before needing to run the gas engine, can travel at a top speed of 125 mph and offers a respectable 0-60mph time of 6 seconds. The Fisker is expected to retail for around $88,000 and is currently slated start production toward the end of 2009 with first deliveries in both the USA and Europe happening early in 2010, although as we have seen with many small startup carmakers this is probably a moving target. The cars will be built in Finland.
All in all there wasn't much new in New York this year. Given the current problems faced by car manufacturers world wide, and the looming prospect of bankruptcy for both Chrysler and GM, this isn't at all surprising. The good news is that there are signs that the economy is recovering and the car manufacturers are finally moving toward electric vehicles.
Sunday
April 5 2009 - GM and Chrysler in Jeopardy - Fix it again Tony - that was the tag
line to the joke "what does FIAT stand for", but Fiat may be set to
fix what ails Chrysler.
Both
GM and Chrysler had been given huge loans by the Federal Government with the
proviso that the bring together a plan to restructure their companies to be
viable going forward by the end of March. Both
plans were presented to the government but neither were deemed acceptable and
both companies were given extra time to redo them.
Chryslers
plan involves a strategic alliance with Fiat.
They would give Fiat access to their sales and distribution system and
Fiat would provide small fuel efficient cars like the Fiat 500 for Chrysler
dealers to sell. Fiat, who was known in the US for unreliability, have
gone through a transformation and now produce some of the best small cars on the
European market. Small cars are what Chrysler does worst so bringing the
two companies together looks like the perfect match.
The
Obama administration gave Chrysler 30 days to complete the agreement.
Fiat
are in a great position here. If
they get an agreement they get access to Chrysler dealerships without putting up
any money or assuming any of Chrysler's debt.
If they fail to reach an agreement then Fiat can try and pick up those
parts of Chrysler they want for pennies on the dollar as part of a bankruptcy
process that will be inevitable if an agreement is not reached
GM
on the other hand is a different story. They
need to get agreements with the unions and bond holders to give up some of the
benefits whether it means getting a co-pay on their medical plan for the unions,
or the bond holders giving up some of their principal.
It is also likely that some divisions will have to go GM has already been trying to sell Hummer for the last six months without any success and I suspect that they will finish up just shutting down the division that has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with our current transportation paradigm.
Next on the chopping block is likely to be Saturn I am really surprised that Saturn is not up for sale already Buying Saturn would be a good way for one of the Chinese or Indian manufacturers to break into the US market.. Cherry, BYD, and Tata Motors would all be valid candidates to buy Saturn giving them entry into the US car market with ready made models until they can ready their own products for the US market.
Another company that is likely to be sold off is Swedish automaker Saab. GM asked the Swedish government for a bailout for Saab but they chose to let the company sink or swim with GM. I would expect GM to try and sell this company but if there are no buyers, and they don't have enough of a presence in the US to make buying them worth while for most companies so in the end I expect GM to close down Saab.
I don't think GM will attempt to sell Pontiac but I do expect the brand to disappear over the next few years. The trouble is that Pontiac and Chevrolet have always been too close together. They have often made the same cars with the Pontiac having a bit more sporty look. Recently this has changed as Pontiac have been selling cars designed at Australian subsidiary Holden rather than a rebadged Chevy. The brand has lost too much luster though to be viable going forward and GM would do better to concentrate on building a better range of cars for its Chevrolet brand and dropping Pontiac altogether.
GM has another 60 days to come up with a new plan. In the interim, the Obama administration has forced out long time GM chairman Rick Wagoner. After Wagoner's resignation, Fritz Henderson, former CFO, was appointed as interim CEO. It is he who will need to come up with a new plan to return the ailing auto giant back into a viable company.
The outlook for both Chrysler and GM is bleak. It appears that Bankruptcy is very much in the cards over the next two months. President Obama talked about these being quick bankruptcies but with the size and complexity of these two companies it seems unlikely that these proceedings will not be long and drawn out. The good news for potential customers of GM and Chrysler came in an announcement at a recent press conference where President Obama said that the US government will guarantee the warranty claims for the two automakers. This means that even if the companies go into bankruptcy customers will still be sure they can get warranty repairs. GM responded by announcing a 10 year 100,000 mile warranty on its new vehicles.
The impact on the economy if Chrysler were to enter bankruptcy won't be that bad in my opinion but the failure of GM will have a huge impact on an economy that is just starting to show signs of recovery. I'm not sure if the President is actually going to let GM fail until the economy is sound enough to take the hit but if GM goes into bankruptcy in the next sixty days you can bet the stock market will head south again and quickly.
Nobody
likes the government having to bail out the auto industry but I believe that it
is a necessary evil if we are going to get out of the deep hole we are currently
in. I am also hoping that whatever happens to GM won't kill the Chevy Volt
and its Opel counterpart - we need these kinds of vehicles on the roads not as a
footnote in the history books.
Sunday March 29, 2009 - Head to Head Hybrid Test - The next generation of hybrid is starting to make its way into dealerships with both the Ford Fusion hybrid now on sale and the Insight Hybrid going on sale on Earth Day, April 22, 2009. The next generation Prius is also coming to a showroom near you in the next couple of months.
Popular
Mechanics did a head to head
test between the new Toyota Prius and the new Honda Insight with impressive
results.
They took both cars on a 296 Mile loop that started in the Napa Valley, travelled down to Oakland, then did some city driving around San Francisco before travelling along the coast the heading east back to the Napa Valley. The drive consisted of one third freeway, one third rural highways, and one third city driving.
The Honda Insight managed a respectable 40.9 mpg while the Toyota Prius managed 45.8mpg. Given these mileage numbers I suspect that the cars were driven pretty hard since I would expect to log at least 44mpg on that same route in my 2005 Prius.
Another company that did a side by side comparison of the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius is Edmunds who took the cars on a 115 mile test drive around Southern California that included 60% freeway and 40% city driving. Now, since the Insight gets its best mileage on the freeway, and the Prius gets its best mileage in city driving, the test favored the Honda hybrid and the fuel economy on this test was a much closer race.
The Honda turned in an impressive 51.2mpg, way better than the EPA estimate of 40 mpg City, 43mpg highway, 41mpg combined. The Prius did slightly better with 52.2mpg which was much closer to the 51mpg City, 48mpg highway, 50mpg combined predicted by the EPA.
Motor Trend also did a comparison between the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius but typical of the old school car magazines, they were more interested in the performance and handling of the two vehicles rather than their fuel economy which wasn't measured, they just quote the EPA numbers. They found the Toyota Prius to be a more solid driving experience comparing it to other high end Toyota and Lexus vehicles while they found the Insight to be a lighter more agile vehicle.
While Jalopnik didn't do a real head to head comparison they did drive the new Prius, Insight and Fusion hybrid and then wrote an article comparing the three hybrids and for some inexplicable reason chose to include a 1990 Metro XFi. The Metro does have good mileage but part of the reason is that is it a subcompact v a compact and two midsized sedans. Since it is from 1990 it doesn't have most of the emission controls that bite into the fuel economy of modern cars.
Jalopnik tried doing some hypermiling in the the three hybrids but only managed to get 43.8mpg from the Ford Fusion Hybrid. The Insight turned in mileage figures in the low 60mpg range while they manage to get better than 70mpg from the Prius.
Jalopnik's fuel economy numbers for the Fusion Hybrid seem to be pretty bad and one wonders if they really used hypermiling techniques with this car. Dan Neil test driving the Fusion of the LA Times managed to get 52mpg driving in West LA traffic. In his article Dan Neil wrote "And yet, here we are, with a car that seemed purely theoretical -- a desirable, affordable, no-compromise sedan that gets 40-plus mpg -- about to show up at Ford dealerships in the first quarter of 2009."
So which car should you buy?
All three of these cars are good quality high mileage vehicles that will satisfy those who prefer really good mpg over a fast 0-60 time. There is no clear winner here, a lot comes down to personal preference and the depth of one's wallet. The Honda Insight will please Honda fans at a cost that is only slightly higher than a car like the Honda Fit. Prius Fans are going to love the new 2010 Prius which takes care of most of the issues like stability on the freeway in a crosswind, and the dreaded "guess gage" that never reported accurately how much fuel you had in the car. On Friday morning the fuel gage on my 2005 Prius started to flash the low fuel indicator and when I went to fill up the 11.5 gallon tank took only 8.5 gallons of gas. Oh for an accurate gage so I can get something like true range. The Fusion is a bit higher in price than the other two but it is also has more room and, for those who prefer to buy American, Ford now has a hybrid that can go head to head with Toyota and Honda.
The bottom line is that these three hybrids are an important step in our need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and clean our air. They are a welcome stop gap until the plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles, currently under development at automakers world wide, come to market.
Sunday March 22, 2009 - President Visits EV Tech Center - This week President Obama was here in Southern California and as part of this trip he paid a visit to the Edison EV Technical Center in Pomona just a few miles west of Los Angeles.
Edison
established the EV Technical Center in 1993 with the objective of testing
battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.
There testing includes evaluation of the impact a growing number of electric
vehicles would have on the grid, and the evaluation of such vehicles for use in
Edison's Fleet.
Edison now has the largest fleet of electric vehicles in the US and has logged over 17 million miles of electric only travel. The fleet is currently made up mostly of Toyota RAV4 EVs but they are also being used to evaluate plug-in hybrids from Ford and Daimler and have recently added some Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars, one of which I had the pleasure to drive at last years LA Auto Show.
One of the most notable accomplishments was their participation in the Toyota RAV4 EV 100,000 test where they let Edison employees who had a long commutes drive a group of RAV4 EVs every day running up over 100,000 miles on the vehicle's battery packs.
On Thursday March 19, 2009 President Obama was given a tour of the facility and afterwards he gave a short speech. In this speech he talked about the the hard work that was going on at the center to shape the future of transportation. Below are a few quotes from his speech which can be seen in full here.
"This workshop is a perfect example of that. Day by day, test by test, trial by painstaking trial; the scientists, engineers, and workers at this site are developing the ideas and innovations that our future depend upon."
"We know that the nation that leads on energy will be the nation that leads the world in the 21st century."
"Germany is leading the world in solar power. Spain generates almost 30 percent of its power by harnessing the wind, while we manage less than one percent."
"So the problem isn't a lack of technology. You're producing the technology right here. The problem is that, for decades, we have avoided doing what must be done as a nation to turn challenge into opportunity."
"As a consequence, we import more oil today than we did on 9/11. The 1908 Model T earned better gas mileage than a typical SUV sold in 2008. And even as our economy has been transformed by new forms of technology, our electric grid looks largely the same as it did half a century ago."
"We can remain one of the world's leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that will allow us to become the world's leading exporter of renewable energy. We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stem it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for our lasting prosperity."
"In the next three years, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy."
"And we will put one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on America 's roads by 2015."
"These are challenging times, but we know we can do this. It won't come without cost, nor will it be easy. We've got 240 million cars already on the road. We've got to upgrade the world's largest energy grid while it's already in use. And other countries aren't standing around and waiting for us; they are forging ahead with their own bold energy plans."
"But we have faced tough challenges before. And at our best, we have never relied on hope and chance alone. Time and again, we have tapped those great American resources: industriousness and ingenuity. That, after all, is what California is all about. This is a state that has always drawn people who've had their eyes set on the horizon; who've always dreamed of a future that others thought beyond reach. That is the spirit that you are reclaiming here at the Electric Vehicle Test Center , and that is the spirit we need to reclaim all across this country. Thank you."
From this speech it is clear that President Obama understands that to keep our planet healthy we need to move to an economy that isn't based on using military might to grab as much oil as possible from the middle east, but on getting energy from renewable resources. To maintain our current lifestyle this means getting energy from wind, wave, hydro, geothermal and solar sources and it means moving our transportation paradigm from one based on fossil fuel to one based on renewable electricity.
Friday was the Persian New Year and President Obama used this occasion to hold out an olive branch to the Iran, saying he wanted to open up a dialog with them. The Iranian community here in LA was abuzz because he actually wished them Happy New Year in Farsi. I would also like to say eid-e-shoma mobarak to my Persian readers.
Sunday March 15, 2009 - Geneva Motor Show 2009 - The 2009 Geneva Motor Show Closes today and this year the the world's car manufactures showed off quite a few electric vehicles, some of which may stand a chance of making it into showrooms before the end of the decade.
One
car that is going on sale to the public will be the i-MiEV from
Mitsubishi. The i-MiEV, which first appeared at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show,
will go on sale in Japan this summer. In Geneva Mitsubishi showed a
prototype that appeared to be ready for the European market. Also from
Mitsubishi was the i-MiEV Sport Air, an electric car with a 300V li battery pack
that comes with a removable translucent panel in the top. The i-MiEV Sport
Air looks a little like the Audi TT sports car and should make an excellent
addition to the i-MiEV range, especially here in Southern California where open
top driving is highly desirable. Now if we can only get Mitsubishi to make
the i-MiEV line of vehicles here in the USA.
For a long time GM has been hyping up the Chevy Volt and it appears that we may actually see this in showrooms in 2010. In Geneva they showed the European version of the Volt, called the Ampera. The car was shown by GM's German subsidiary Opel but GM announced that their plug-in hybrid car with a 40 mile electric only range would also be sold as the Vauxhall Ampera in the UK and also through Australian subsidiary Holden.
Ford also had a fully electric vehicle on display that is destined to go into production. The electric Ford Transit Connect is being built in conjunction with British company Smith's Electric Vehicles and is a fully electric version of the Transit Connect, a van that is very popular among European fleet owners. The Van, which is driven by a powered by a 50Kw permanent magnet motor supplied from a LiFePO4 battery pack is capable of 70mph and will offer a range of up to 100 miles which should be quite adequate for most fleet use. The Van should go on limited sale here in the US some time next year.
Over at the Chrysler stand they held the European premier of the Chrysler 200C EV concept and the Dodge Circuit, a car they are now calling a prototype hinting strongly that this car will go into production. The Chrysler 200C is a four door midsized sedan with an all electric power train driving the rear wheels. The Dodge Circuit is a two seat sports car. There was also hints that the alliance between Chrysler and Fiat would lead to the introduction of a range of small cars into the US, including a version of the award winning Fiat 500.
Daimler also showed off the Smart-BARABUS, BARABUS usually provides performance enhancements for the Smart but this version of the Smart Fortwo, in matt green with a white cabriolet top featured an all electric drive with a lithium battery pack. The car also featured LED daytime running lights. The standard electric Smartfortwo called the ED, is currently being tested in Germany, France and the UK and is rumored to be coming to the USA in 2010, although the name will probably be changed because who in America will want to drive a car called the ED.
While Nissan talked a lot about electric cars, they still failed to show anything that looks remotely production ready but Infiniti, Nissan's luxury brand, showed a Essence concept car, a sports coupe. What makes the Essence interesting, apart from the Louis Vuitton luggage that comes with the owner's initials in the design, is the use of a V6 diesel engine in the hybrid drive train. If this car goes into production, it could be the first diesel hybrid on the market.
Some not so well known brands were also on show in Geneva this year.
Indian car maker Tata has started to expand into Europe and plan to bring their low cost Nano Europa, retailing at around €5,000 into the European market around 2011. They also showed off the Indicta Vista EV, a five door sedan with a lithium battery pack that offers a range of 200km (about 125 miles). Acceleration is a somewhat sluggish 0-60Kph (35mph) in 10 seconds.
Chinese automaker Chery also showed off its first electric car, the S18. This is a small 4 door car with a lithium battery pack that offers a range of around 150Km (93 Miles) and a top speed of 120kph (75mph). Chery did not say if this car will go into production but with rival BYD beginning sales of the all electric B6 later this year, it is very likely that Chery will follow suit and put the S18 on sale in China later this year.
Pininfarina is a well known Italian coach builder but they are now working with French battery maker Bollore getting into the production with an all electric car called the Bluecar. The car shown at the Geneva Motor Show, a compact 5 door 4 seat, is claimed to have a battery pack that gives a range of 250Km (155 miles) and a cycle life of 200,000Km (a little over 120,000 miles). Pininfarina plan to put the Bluecar into production in 2010 but it will more than likely only be available in Europe.
Probably the most interesting concept cars of the show was the Sbarro Orbital. This hybrid has not hubs in the wheels. The wheels are driven by a 15HP motor in each wheel. The car looks something like a three wheel race car but closer inspection shows that there are actually two wheels at the rear but the car tapers to the pint where the two wheels are close together giving the car a classic teardrop shape that would make it very aerodynamic.
Another electric car that made quite a splash is the Konigsegg Quant, a 512HP four seat sports car that is made as a collaboration between Swedish carmaker Konigsegg and NLV Solar AG. The car's body is covered with thin film photovoltaic cells and also features four wheel regenerative braking. The makers claim a top speed of 170mph, a range of 310 miles, and the ability to charge the car in just 20 minutes. These claims look just too good to be true to me but they do say they plan to put the car into production although no info yet on when it may see the light of day.
Another interesting concept EV came from Austrian parts manufacturer Magna Steyr. This is a 5 door sedan powered by a 67HP electric motor using a Li battery that is said to take only 2.5 hours to charge and give a range of close to 100 miles. This car is unlikely to see production; it was built to showcase the technical expertise of Magna Steyr.
Sunday
March 8, 2009 - Government loans - I read a recent article in the New York Times
that talked about how the Energy Department had twenty-five billion dollars in
funds to provide loans to develop electric cars.
This seems
like a good thing since lots of startup companies are trying to develop electric
vehicles but are starved for cash. The
problem is that the Energy Department haven’t made a single loan since the
program was initiated. To be fair,
while the program was introduced in 2007 it wasn’t funded until September
2008.
It's not
like there aren't companies that could use the money.
Commuter Cars is a prime example. Rick Woodbury at Commuter Cars
projected that they would need about sixty million dollars to get an affordable
version of the Tango into production. He
is talking here about a cost of around $20,000 and a volume of 10,000 units per
year.
We have
just seen Tesla put plans for their sedan on hold through lack of funds,
The big
three all have EV programs and all are in desperate need of cash.
They will also need to be a major expansion of infrastructure and there are
several companies could use money to fund infrastructure projects.
Companies applying for loans include GM, who are requesting $8.3 billion for development of the Chevy Volt, and both Ford and Chrysler who each have requested $5 billion for their electric vehicle programs. One of the caveats to this program is that the company must be deemed to be financially viable so the GM and Chrysler loans will need to wait until the Obama administration approves the restructuring plans they recently submitted. Ford already appears to be financially viable and the money would go a long way toward getting the Ford Connect Van and Fusion EV into the hands of the public. Nissan has also submitted an application even though they have yet to show the electric car they plan to produce as part of project better place.
Battery
manufacturers A123 and Ener1 are also seeking loans totaling a little over $2
Billion.
It seems to me that the Energy Department needs to get this money into the economy as soon as possible. 75 Companies have requested loans totaling $38 Billion, so the Energy Department need to make processing of these loan applications a priority. To be fair to the Energy Department the deadline for loan applications was December 31, 2008 so they haven't really been sitting on the money for a long period of time. The good news is that Energy Secretary Steve Chu said that the first loans should start going out in April.
If we want to jump start the electric vehicle industry there is an obvious need for cash just to get through all the red tape that is required to put a vehicle onto the roads. This program, coupled with the new incentives for electric vehicles, should get a lot more electric cars on the road.
Sunday
March 1, 2009 - Quality - It seems like winter always increases the chat about
problems with EVs, and this winter has been no exception.
Part
of the reason for this is an issue inherent with batteries of all types, they
loose capacity in cold weather. This
should come as no surprise as batteries get their energy from a chemical
reaction and chemical reactions go slower as temperature falls
Another
issue often seen in the winter is water leaks. I have been reading lots about
leaks in ZENN NEVs. Most of the
problems were caused by leaks around the wind shield,, with a somewhat lesser
amount of leaks around the doors.
Another
vehicle plagued by leaks is the ZAP Xebra. Many
Xebra show leaks and people often have a hard time tracking them down.
Of bigger impact is the effects of leaks in electronic equipment.
Early Xebras were particularly susceptible to leaks especially in the
DC-DC converter but also in the controller.
ZAP has worked hard to fix these issues but the basic design, especially
in the pickup, still leaves electronic components exposed to the elements.
Other
issues often surface with these vehicles, especially those that originate in
Quality issues with electric cars isn't anything new. The City-EL is one of the oldest and most reliable electric cars currently being sold but it took a long time to get them to that state. The first City-EL cars had a multitude of problems, such an issue where the car would get stuck so that it could only be driven in reverse, and the Danish company that brought the City-El to market went bankrupt trying to meet all the warranty claims.
The Corbin Sparrow was another vehicle that was brought to market too quickly and had a bunch of problems. Corbin estimated that when warranty claims were taken into account, each $16,000 Corbin Sparrow cost Corbin over $35,000. Corbin also filed for bankruptcy after a little over 300 Sparrows had been built. The remains of the company were bought by Myers Motors who spend a lot of time going over the car and fixing all the problems that were causing failures. The result was the NmG which, while much more expensive than the Sparrow, is a much more reliable car.
Even companies like Vectrix and Tesla can have problems. The 2007 Vectrix was recalled because of an faulty battery interconnect cable that could lead to overheating and battery damage, and the problems with a fan that runs constantly and burns up lots of electricity in the Tesla has been well documented. Fortunately both these companies have fixed the problem and moved on. In fact these two companies handled the problem just like the big car companies do, they recognize the problem, recall the vehicles to fix it, and them move forward with the problem fixed on future vehicles.
It seems to me that most people are not willing to buy a car that they constantly need to fix. When you pay over fifteen thousand for a car you expect to get a vehicle that is reasonable reliable. Companies building or importing electric vehicles need to take a less on from Myers Motors, Vectrix, and Tesla - spend time making sure that things work correctly which means spending time up front to make sure that their vehicles are properly tested before starting production.
There is still lots of people out there who are willing to spend time to fix problems with production electric vehicles. They are pioneers who are willing to accept the aggravation of vehicles that break down on a regular basis because they know that by driving an electric vehicle they are doing the best thing for the planet. But starting this year we are seeing a whole new set of electric vehicles coming from the likes of BMW, Ford, GM and Chrysler. These cars are going to be reliable if not cheap. They will be backed by large companies with widespread dealer networks. Eventually we will see prices fall and lets face it, who is going to buy a car that breaks down ever few months if you can buy one for just a little more that is going to be reliable and meet your daily needs.
If small EV companies are to survive and prosper in the future, they must get their act together and make sure that the cars they sell meet the basic reliability expectations of their prospective customers.
Sunday February 22, 2009 - Obama Signs Stimulus Package - In the first big achievement of his term, President Obama signed the 2009 economic stimulus package into law this week. It wasn't as big as he had hoped, and he didn't get the bipartisan support he tried for, but the package should start to make headway into the current economic recession.
For those interested in electric vehicles the big news is the tax credit of 10% of the purchase price of the vehicle up to between $2,500 and $5,000, depending on vehicle type, toward the purchase of a plug-in vehicle . This tax credit also includes provisions for so called "Light Electric Vehicles" which includes two and three wheel electric vehicles along with NEVs. The tax credit is available to any of these vehicles that has a battery capacity of 2.5KWhrs for two and three wheel vehicles and 4KWHrs for NEVs, 4 wheel electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. This would include vehicles like the Vectrix, ZAP Xebra, and GEM ,although most scooter like the Zapino and EVT will probably fall short. This provision took effect as soon as the president signed the bill into law earlier this week. The need to extend tax credits to light electric vehicles was one of the suggestions I made to the Obama campaign earlier this year so I am glad to see it included in the bill.
On top of this the package includes up to two billion dollars in loans to battery manufacturers to develop advanced batteries and components for applications like plug-in vehicles. From what I understand the bill actually says "lithium batteries" but I know that Firefly Energy, who are developing a lead based battery that is said to offer the capacity and life of NiMH at a much lower cost, has already started the process to obtain a loan.
The bill also includes about 50 billion dollars for upgrades to roads, bridges, transit, and rail. This is going to include some money for repairs to levies around the country. As sea levels rise, pushed by global warming, levies are likely to come under increasing pressure. We have already seen the devastation that a failed levee caused in New Orleans and other levies, such as the ones around Sacramento, are also in bad need of repair.
One big chunk of the 50 billion dollars is 8 billion that will be dedicated to construction of high speed rail links. I think this is very important for the future and suggested the need for investment in high speed rail to the president via the presidents web site. I am sure I wasn't the only one who suggested that investment in high speed rail was necessary but I am glad to hear that someone was listening.
One expectation is that a high speed rail link will finally be constructed between Los Angeles and Las Vegas to remove some of the pressure from the interstate 15 which, on a busy holiday weekend, can take you 8-10 hours to drive the 280 miles from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. On the best of days this is a 4-5 hour drive and high speed rail could cut that time to 2 hours.
There is also a good deal of money being dedicated to renewable energy.
Credits for wind energy, biomass, and geothermal systems have been increased to 30% of investment and extended to 2013.
4.5 billion to modernize the electricity grid
6 billion in loan guarantees will be available for renewable energy systems, biofuel projects, and electric transmission lines.
3.4 billion will be available for the DoE fossil fuel research for things like carbon sequestration.
6.3 billion will go to state energy efficiency programs and clean energy grants.
4.5 billion will go to improve energy efficiency in federal buildings
5 billion will be allocated to assist low income families in weatherizing their homes
The stimulus package also includes a tax cut for most Americans. It isn't going to be a big tax cut, about $400 for individuals and $800 for couples, but it will put a bit more money in your pocket, unless, that is, you live in California.
California also managed to get a budget together. Politicians in Sacramento have been haggling about the budget for months now, and the final bill includes some pretty big tax increases. The feds giveth and the state taketh away. The tax increases in California will wipe out any effects the stimulus package will have had on the most populous state and the state that could have had the biggest impact on the economy. Still, at least the federal tax break means that Californians should break even so the State's tax increases won't have as much of a negative impact.
Nobody can say for sure that this package of spending and tax cuts will help us dig our way out of the current economic mess but the money being put into projects like improving the electricity grid, increasing the efficiency of buildings, and improving mass transit, is money that should be spent anyway. In the end it will be such things that lead to a more sustainable life for future generations.
Sunday February 15, 2009 - Personal Rapid Transit - One of the more innovative ways to move people around a location is by Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). The concept of PRT has been around since the 1950s but 2009 is the year when this revolutionary concept takes a major step forward.
Moving people around a campus type setting such as an airport, or even around a major city, can often lead to traffic nightmares and long delays. Public transport systems such as buses and light rail can carry large numbers of people but their fixed routes can often make it difficult to get where you are going quickly. PRT attempts to solve that problem.
The concept itself is quite simple, a series of tracks are built in a series of loops with stations at regular intervals covering both major and minor destinations. At each station a number of cars, usually built to hold four to six, waits for passengers. When you get to the station you punch in your destination, board the car, and off you go. The car moves out of the station and merges into the local loop. From there it can merge into other loops until it reaches your destination then it pulls off the loop and into the station.
The cars can travel along the loop at relatively high speed and can be stacked to travel as close as one second apart. Since the stations themselves are off the loop cars travelling on the loop do not need to stop so the journey can be done much quicker than you would do in a private car where you are constantly stopping at traffic lights and stop signs.
There are now two PRT systems under construction one at Heathrow airport in London and the other in Masdar City, Dubai.
Heathrow airport is the third largest airport in the world. It has five terminals. The airport was originally build with three terminals which are close enough together to walk from one to the other. When they added terminal 4 it was placed on the other side of the airport. Eventually a high speed rail link was built between Heathrow Airport and Paddington Station in Central London. This link stops at a station for terminals 1,.2, and 3 then continues on to Terminal 4. When Terminal 5 was added it was also placed remotely from the other 4 terminals. The high speed rail link was also added from terminals 1.2. and 3 to Terminal 5 but for some reason they stopped the high speed link from going to Terminal 4, replacing it with a low speed link that also runs through to Paddington, and incidentally costs half as much but takes about twice as long. There is also no direct link from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 so you have to get on the low speed rail link from Terminal 4, go to the Station for Terminals 1, 2, and 3, then get on a high speed train to Terminal 5.
The upshot of this is that if you want to go from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 it can take you as long as 75 minutes.
Given the need to move around the airport BAA. who controls Heathrow, have begun construction of a PRT system. The initial test system will be a 1.5 kilometer (a little over 1 mile) track that will link the parking lot outside terminal 5 with two additional stations at surface level in a perimeter parking lot. Transportation will be by 18 driverless vehicles that will be powered by lead acid batteries. The system will be trialed for one year and if it proves successful it will be expanded to cover the entire airport.
The Heathrow experiment is being watch closely as other cities look to see if PRT will work for them. Los Angeles, who's traffic choked streets give it the dubious distinction of being the most polluted city in the USA, is also considering the installation of a PRT system. The doubters, and there are many, think that the system is just not capable of supporting the vast number of people who need to move from place to place in a large city like Los Angeles. They see lines at the PRT stations during rush hour that resemble those at Star Tours in Disneyland on a hot summer weekend. Nobody knows for sure what sort of capacity such a system but the experiment at Heathrow, which currently handles over 67 Million passengers per year, should be a good guide to how a PRT system will work.
Outside rush hour of course, the PRT system would be pretty efficient. In a bus system such as the one in Los Angeles, the buses get pretty full during rush hour but during the rest of the day they are mostly travelling empty. Yesterday I took the 704 BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) line from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills, leaving Santa Monica at 8am. The bus never had more than six or seven passengers in the seven or so miles I travelled. In this instance, there would be maybe five PRT cars travelling on the loop while others would sit in the station charging. I'm not sure if this would be more efficient than one bus using compressed natural gas doing the same route, but if the PRT uses renewable energy then it would certainly be cleaner.
In my opinion, the PRT system, when integrated with the existing public transit systems, can make them really hum. One of the big problems with using public transit is how to get from where you are dropped off to where you want to go. This is especially true of rain systems. For example Metrorail takes passengers into Union station in downtown LA but Union Station isn't really close to the office buildings in the financial district. A PRT system would make Metrorail much more usable.
I for one am going to keep an eye on the Heathrow experiment when it begins operation in the forth quarter of 2009, and will look forward to utilizing the system next time I visit the UK.
Sunday February 8, 2009 - Massachusetts Law - For a long time those who wanted to drive a ZAP Xebra in Massachusetts have had a problem, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not regard the Xebra as a motorcycle, nor did it regard it as a car, but left it in the no-mans-land, refusing to register them.
Not
only did they refuse to register the Xebra, they pulled the registration a first few
that had sneaked passed officials of their DMV and had
been registered as motorcycles.
The issue was related to an archaic part of their motor vehicle code that defined a motorcycle as "Any motor vehicle that has a seat or saddle for the rider that is designed to travel with no more than three wheels contacting the ground, except a tractor or a golf cart or a motor vehicle in which the operator and passenger ride within an enclosed cab."
Now, this did leave a loophole of sorts, the Corbin Sparrow, and the follow on Myers Motors NmG are single seat so they do not fall into the above exclusion through the loophole that they have only a driver not a driver and passenger riding in an enclosed cab. The Xebra however was totally covered by this ruling.
Bob Dylan said it best when he sang "The times they are a changin" and now people are getting very concerned by global warming and dependence on foreign oil. May people see electric vehicles as the logical choice to address these issues so when word broke in the media that people doing their part by driving electric vehicles were being victimized by this legislation, the state assembly began to look like the bad guys.
In response to the negative publicity the state assembly proposed chapter 523 of the acts of 2008, an act relative to the operation of low-speed motor vehicles, and this piece of legislation was approved on January 15,2009. The bulk of the act revises the code for NEVs but there is also a provision that appears to be tailored directly for the Xebra.
Section 1I reads, in part, "Notwithstanding the definition of “Motorcycle” in section 1, the registrar of motor vehicles may register a 3-wheeled motor vehicle as a motorcycle on which the operator and passenger ride within an enclosed cab, if the vehicle’s manufacturer has issued a certificate of origin indicating the vehicle meets Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for a motorcycle and if the vehicle is designed by the manufacturer to be operated on public ways. If the registrar determines that the vehicle can attain a speed of at least 30 miles per hour but cannot exceed 40 miles per hour, he may restrict its use on public ways. "
Now, while this section of code will allow the Xebra on the streets of Massachusetts, and it doesn't seem to close the loophole that allows the NmG to be registered in that state since it still says "operator and passenger". The legislation does mean that new three wheel electric vehicles that are expected to launch in 2009, such as the Triac and Buckshot from Green Vehicles, the Aptera, and even the ZAP Alias, all of which can exceed 40mph, cannot be registered in Massachusetts.
It seems to me that the Massachusetts State Legislature are going to have to go back and revise the law again for 2009 to allow the registration of these new vehicles all of which are building a big following.
They also need to do some more work on their NEV legislation as well. The current law states that a NEV can travel on streets marked at 30mph or less instead of the 35mph in the Federal legislation adopted by all the other states except Connecticut. The legislation says "You may cross a public way at an intersection where the public way to be crossed has a posted speed limit of 30 miles an hour or more, up to 45 miles per hour, if the crossing begins and ends on a public way with a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or less and the intersection is controlled by traffic signals or stop signs." which does agree with crossing streets posed 45mph or less in the Federal legislation but does add the need for lights or stop signs.
The law also says "You cannot legally operate this vehicle at a speed greater than 25 miles per hour." which means that while you can modify the speed of the NEV you can't legally drive the NEV above 25mph unless it is on private property.
The legislation also says "A municipality may, by ordinance, prohibit the operation of low-speed vehicles on a way or a portion of a way within its jurisdiction and under its control, regardless of posted speeds, where it finds that use of the way or a particular portion of the way by low-speed motor vehicles would represent an unreasonable risk of death or serious injury to occupants of low-speed vehicles because of general traffic conditions which shall include, but not be limited to, excessive speeds of other vehicles, traffic volumes, use of the way by heavy trucks or other large vehicles or if the established speed limit on the way increases above 30 miles per hour beyond the point where a low-speed vehicle could safely exit the way."
This would imply that the Municipality can choose to limit NEVs on the road rather than addressing the issue of scofflaws who drive at excessive speed along their roads. It always amazes me that people say that a NEV would be dangerous on a road because drivers habitually drive at excessive speeds in their area. It seems to me that such drivers would be a menace to both pedestrians and cyclists and the municipality should be clamping down on speeders rather than blocking people who just want to do the right thing.
One of my favorite piece of the legislation refers to the situation where the NEV is driving along a road signposted at 30mph and comes to a signpost giving a higher speed limit, say 35mph. The legislation says "If the speed limit increases above 30 miles per hour on the portion of the public way immediately ahead, you must get off the public way, if it is safe to do so, after making the appropriate turn signal. If it is not safe to do so, you must move the vehicle as far as possible off of the road surface and wait until a police officer or other public safety officer can be summoned to direct the safe movement of the vehicle." This gives me a flashback to the earliest days of the automobile where railroad interests in the UK had legislation passed that required a man carrying a red flag to walk in front of an automobile when it was driven on public roads. This almost killed the car industry in the UK and left the US, Germany, and France as the world leaders in automotive transportation.
I am sure that the legislation was well intended but they have missed the mark. They have allowed ZAP to continue to sell the Xebra in the state, and it does allow NEVs on the roads, albeit in a restricted way. It is clear however that the legislation was poorly conceived both from the standpoint of future developments in the three wheel vehicle market, and for utilization of Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. The legislature is so focused on the safety of drivers that it has totally forgotten that people die each day because of our polluted air, and how many of your young men and women die each year to support our oil addiction.
We need to get federal legislation on Medium Speed Vehicles and push this through to all fifty States. We need to unify rules on three wheel electric vehicles, and we need to stop making excuses that keep vehicles off the road because others habitually break the law.
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I just read your excellent summation of the tribulations of ZAP owners in Massachusetts. Add to that list of vehicle classes the RMV will not register the electric motorcycle—namely the XM-3500li. In this case, however, the XM clearly falls within the state's definition of a motorcycle: it has two wheels, has a saddle designed for an operator and one passenger, and has a top speed above 30 mph (55 mph). I hope to find others in a similar predicament with whom to lobby for more forward-thinking regulations.
Greg Perham Florence, MA
Sunday February 1, 2009 - Coulomb Technologies - I read an article this weak that was pontificating about why electric vehicles wouldn't work. The article brought up the usual old arguments including the one about lack of infrastructure. One company intends to do something about infrastructure - Coulomb Technologies.
The whole idea of Coulomb Technologies one I have been advocating for years, a way to charge people for charging their cars. The lack of ability to charge a car for those that live in apartment buildings or have to park on crowded streets has always been a barrier to EV sales. Coulomb Technologies offer a charging station that can be installed on residential streets and allow anyone to park and charge.
Their model is simple, you go to their ChargePoint Network web site and take out a subscription to their service. There are several types of subscriptions at varying costs from charging anytime to overnight charging. One of the subscriptions they offer is a grid friendly subscription. With this option you allow the local utility to shut off the charger when the grid becomes overloaded at peak times helping them to prevent rolling blackouts. In exchange you get a lower rate.
Once you have signed up for the service you are sent a smart card. The smart card can be swiped at any Coulomb charging station to unlock it and allow you to charge. Subscribers can also go to the ChargePoint Network site and find the location of the nearest charging station, find locations of charging stations along a route, or to monitor their usage of the system.
The Charging stations themselves come in three different configurations, pole mounted, wall mounted, or pedestal, and each of these configurations can come as either 110V only or combined 110V/220V. The most interesting of these devices is the pole mounted device that can be mounted onto a street lamp to provide a low cost charging interface for places where on street parking is the only option.
A good part of the subscription fee is given back to the person who hosts the site to cover the cost of electricity, maintenance, and capital outlay. While I suspect that it will take a long time to cover the cost of installing the charging stations I also think that this makes it more palatable to someone considering hosting a site where they will stand a chance of recouping some of their costs.
Part of the subscription fee could also be returned to the state and federal governments as tax, getting over one of the other problems with electric vehicles, how to cover the revenue lost from taxes on fuel. This still remains problematical though since if you use the charger you will pay tax but if you charge at home you will be charging tax free. In the end I think that we are going to have to move to a tax on mileage rather than a tax on fuel so this may not be much of a benefit.
Coulomb is based in Campbell, CA and has started to roll out charging stations in the San Jose area. For people who live in that area that have no place to charge a car this becomes an opportunity to go electric. One option that they offer subscribers is a request to install a charging station in a specific location. You could try and get them to install one on the street lamp in the location outside your dwelling and see if that flies.
Coulomb has plans to begin rolling out charging stations along major routes in California which will certainly help with utilization of the growing number of vehicles appearing on our roads that allow for long range driving. However, to fully reach their potential there will need to be a large number of EVs on the road.
The other barrier to their success is the lack of a single charging standard. As manufacturers start to roll out electric vehicles this year they will each have their own interface. This was a big problem with the roll out of infrastructure at the time of the ZEV Mandate when we had vehicles following several different standards, Large Paddle Inductive (LPI), Small Paddle Inductive (SPI), and the AVCON conductive interface being the most common.
GM, and Nissan used the LPI interface and also offered an adapter that allowed them to use the SPI interface. Toyota initially used a Japanese companies conductive interface in a few RAV4 EVs before switching first to LPI then SPI. Ford and Honda used AVCON while Chrysler used their own proprietary 3 phase system. The current flock of EVs Also appear to be using proprietary connections for their chargers. Fortunately most of the manufacturers are now offering both 110V and 220V charging so it will be possible to connect to the standard 110V available in the Coulomb charging station even if they don't have a 220 Connector that matches your car.
In the end I see charging infrastructure as being a big part of the push to electric vehicles if for no other reason that to deal with the range anxiety that many people who have never owned an EV tend to feel. The truth is however that we really need to begin developing a network of fast charging stations along our highways so that we can take a vehicle with say a 200 mile range and make a long trip, such as Los Angeles to San Francisco, doable without having to take 12 hours of charging along with way.
Sunday January 25, 2009 - Electric Scooters - There was an email on the RAV4 EV list last week asking for feedback on electric scooters. I realized that while I had done a review of the book "Scooters for Dummies" and had mentioned electric scooters in several previous blogs I hadn't really dedicated a blog to electric scooters.
What I am talking about here is not the little scooters that owe their heritage to kick scooters, but the full sized scooters that are built like motor cycles or the old Vespa scooter. On evfinder.com I refer to these two types as "Zappy" style scooters after ZAP's Zappy which popularized the electric stand-up scooter, and "Vespa" style after the old Italian Vespa gas scooters after which many of the larger electric scooters are modeled. In this blog I will be talking about "Vespa" style scooters.
"Vespa" style scooters come with a wide variety of motors varying in power from 350W to 3500W and higher. I consider the low powered scooters to be playthings rather than the sort of vehicle that can be used as serious transportation so I don't list scooters with motors that are less than 1000W on evfinder.com. Now, such scooters may well meet your riding needs but many of them don't perform anything like specification so I don't list them. I actually think that the serious scooter rider needs at least 1500W but there are a few scooters, Like the Evader, that seem to manage perfectly well at only 1000W.
Scooters offer a cheap and relatively simple way to get into electric transportation. There are dozens of brands of scooter on the market with models that can fit most budgets. This group of vehicles is also one of the first to adopt new forms of battery chemistry. In Europe, where Scooters are highly popular for getting around town, Peugeot developed and sold the Scootelec. They used NiCAD batteries on these scooters and although they don't make them anymore, there are still plenty of them flying around Paris or Rome.
Oxygen also produced a fine example with the Lepton. They used Lead Acid batteries in these scooters then went on to offer a NiZn battery option as well. The Lepton has now been replaced by the Oxygen Cargo but this scooter in not easy to obtain in the US.
When E-Max came out they started to offer the new Chinese developed Silicone batteries and these batteries are now common on many Chinese scooters. The Chinese are also starting to offer Lithium battery options on their high end lines.
There are many Chinese built scooters being sold around the world under dozens of different brand names but you will find they many of these look the same. That's because they are all built by a handful of Companies in China. These companies don't have a presence of their own in Europe or the USA so they connect with distributors and sell their bikes through them. These are often small entrepreneurs who sell the bikes either directly to the public or via a very small dealer network. If the Ego, not to be confused with the eGo which is built in the USA, looks very like one of the scooters from Falcon EV, That looks very like one of the scooters offered by Skewter, that probably means they are all built a the same factory in China.
Most electric scooters offer a real world range of around 10-20 miles per charge depending on how you ride them, the terrain in your area, and the average daily temperature. There are now scooters on the market , like the Vectrix, that offer much greater range, and can even be ridden on urban freeways. These scooters come at a price however so they may negate one of the true benefits of commuting on a scooter; cheap transportation. The other good news is that as new battery technology is being introduced and prices are starting to fall, longer range scooters are becoming more available and more affordable.
The truth is though that most scooters, even the gas kind, are not used for long distance riding. Your typical Vespa isn't designed to fly down the freeway so they are typically used for zipping around town. This is a role for which the electric scooter is really well suited. The down side of using a scooter, and this applies not only to electric but to their gas powered cousins, is that they are open to the elements and offer much less protection in an accident.
However, if you have a short commute and want to keep the old car in the garage then an electric scooter is a fine option. Typically you can get through traffic much quicker on a two wheeler than you can on a bike and now that they are starting to roll out charging stations in urban areas the limited range on some models becomes less of a problem.
When selecting an electric scooter you need to start by looking at how far you need to travel, how fast you need to go, and also see if you need to climb big hills. You also need to consider how much you weight and what the local climate is like. I never recommend taking the manufacturers specs at face value. For example a manufacture might say that the scooter will have a top speed of 43mph and a range of 50 miles. That usually doesn't mean that the scooter has a range of 50 miles at 43mph what it means is that the scooter can be pushed up to 43mph if you try hard enough and that it will go 50 miles at optimum speed, maybe 25mph, with a light weight rider on a flat test track.
I weight in at around 180lbs and live in an area that is reasonably flat and the temperature in LA never gets really cold. If I was going to buy the above mentioned scooter I would need to ride it stop start at around 35mph. To compensate I would need to reduce the range down to about 30 miles. Now, since this scooter in my example has lead acid batteries I would not want to deplete them more than about 50% in normal use to extend battery life so my workable range would be around 15miles. That would mean the scooter is good for a 7-8 mile commute. If I had steep hills, or I was going to ride in near freezing conditions. that would bring the range down to about 5 miles each way. If that didn't work for me then I would probably need to step up to a Lithium powered scooter, or deplete the batteries down to say 20% and accept that I would need to replace the batteries more frequently.
Electric Scooters aren't for everyone, but the offer a fun and quick way to get through urban traffic and can be a workable part a family's vehicle fleet. They offer zero emissions and if you live in areas like London, were they are exempt from congestion charges, they can save you a bundle.
January 18, 2009 - The 2009 Detroit Auto Show - Each January the worlds automobile manufacturers head to Motor City to show off their latest offerings. This year's Detroit Auto Show is under way and although I couldn't attend myself I thought I would summarize some of the electric vehicle news from their.
This year's show was a scaled back affair due to the harsh economic climate. Both Nissan and Mitsubishi were no-shows while other manufacturers, notably GM and Honda, scaled back their events dramatically. There was still a lot of good news for the EV fan though.
Ford announced plans to produce two new electric vehicles. The first will be an electric version of the the Ford Transit Connect Van that it plans to begin selling to fleet buyers only starting later this year. They also plan to bring out an electric version of the Ford Focus which will be going on sale to the public in 2010. The Ford Focus prototype they showed looked exactly like the current Focus. It is supposed to have a range of about 100 miles between charges on its Lithium batteries. Ford plans to start small with production runs of between 5,000 and 10,000 vehicle for the first two model years.
GM also had a some worthy announcements. First of all they finally announced the details of battery production for the Chevy Volt. The batteries are being made by Korean company LG Chem as expected, but they are going to be assembled into the T shaped battery pack used in the Volt at a plant in Detroit. They also announced the name of their EV technology, they are calling it "Voltec". Finally, they surprised everyone by showing a concept car from Cadillac called the Converj which will use the same Voltec system as the Volt and will also offer a 40 mile range on battery only before switching to the ICE. So far they haven't made plans to produce the Converj.
Daimler were also about Electric Vehicles. They showed three additional Concept cars at this year's show. The Circuit EV is an all electric sports car that has a top speed of 125mph and a range of 150-200 miles on a charge. They also showed two additional vehicles using their range extending system, the Jeep Patriot EV and the Chrysler 200C EV. Both these have an electric only range of around 40 miles before the ICE cuts in. They also said that they would have 100 of their range extended vehicles in fleet operation by the end of the year and that they would have them on sale to the public in 2010 but there was no indication of which vehicles would be on sale although I suspect that their first vehicle would probably be a minivan. The other good news for Chrysler is that they said their sales for December was up 10% of the November figures.
Daimler announced a trio of vehicles in their Mercedes Benz lineup that are all electric powered. They have the E-Cell which is a pure electric vehicle that can travel 125 miles on a charge of its Li battery pack. The E-Cell plus is a serial hybrid which uses the Smart engine to augment battery power extending the range of the car to 375 miles on a tank of gas. The F-Cell is a battery Fuel cell hybrid which gives the car a range of 258 miles on a tank of hydrogen. They have no plans to produce these cars any time soon but they did mention that they were working on an all electric version of the A-Class for Some time in 2010.
Daimler Subsidiary Smart was also showed the electric version of the Smart Fortwo. This car is already undergoing trials in both Germany and the UK and Daimler intends to continue building up the number of vehicles in the Berlin demonstration program. The big news on this car actually came from Tesla who announced that they are going to be building 1000 battery packs for these vehicles over the next two years The Smart EV with the Tesla pack will get about 150 miles on a charge. They will begin production of this version towards the end of 2009 but the US probably won't see any cars until the 2011 model year, and then numbers are likely to be very small. They also showed a Smart equipped with their "Micro Hybrid Drive" which is basically a stop start system. As the driver brakes to below 5mph the engine is shut off and restarts again when the driver lifts off the brake pedal. This is supposed to increase the mileage on the Smart to 58mpg.
One of the most anticipated announcements of the 2009 Detroit Auto Show was coming from Toyota who were announcing the next generation Prius. Toyota have kept the look and utility of the current Toyota Prius in the next generation vehicle but fuel economy has increased from an EPA estimated 46mpg to 50mpg. One interesting feature was an Economy button. There was no indication of what this did or if the 50mpg was driving in economy mode or in power mode, but the button could be clearly seen in press photos. The 2010 Prius is expected to go on sale in late spring. They also announced that they would be building a large number of Plug-in Prius cars using Lithium batteries. They will deliver 500 of these cars, including 150 to US customers, for fleet evaluation and testing. They also showed the FT-EV concept car. The FT-EV is an all electric car based on the Toyota IQ micro car. It seats 3+1 and appears to have a range of about 50 miles. Toyota Hinted that they might have a version for sale in 2012.
Honda too showed off their next generation hybrid, the 2010 Insight. The Insight looks a lot like the Prius from the rear and a lot like the Clarity from the front. The car will get around 42mpg which is about the same as the current Honda Civic but this five seat car will start at a price less than $20,000. The Insight is expected to go on sale in the US at the start of April.
Another big announcement came from Chinese battery company BYD. They have recently started to sell a plug-in hybrid in China and at Detroit they indicated they intended to enter the US car market in 2011. On display they had their F3DM plug in hybrid and also the all electric e6 crossover vehicle. The e6 is supposed to have a range of around 250 miles on a charge. There was no indication of which cars they would bring to the US in 2011.
Fisker is another small start-up that has developed a luxury plug-in hybrid sedan called the Karma. They announced that they have now begun production and will start deliveries by the end of 2009. They indicated that the more than 1000 vehicles have already been pre-sold. They also introduced the Karma-S, a hard top convertible which uses the same plug-in hybrid drive train as the Karma and also offers a 50 mile electric only range.
Tesla was also on had to display their Roadster and also make the announcement about the Battery deal with Daimler. Another EV manufacture in attendance was Myers Motors but they were still showing the NmG with no indication of the much anticipated follow on vehicle which is rumored to be close to reality.
What this years Detroit auto show indicated is that the automobile manufacturers are starting to get the message that we need to move toward electric cars in the future. We are going to see a very limited roll out of EVs and plug-in hybrids in 2009 with numbers beginning to increase in 2010. The manufacturers are being cautions, unsure if the car buying public are willing to buy electric cars. If they aren't careful, companies like BYD, Fisker and Tesla will get a hold on the market and make it increasingly harder for the old guard to pull out of their current economic doldrums.
January 11, 2009 - More Bad News - 2009 was expected to be the year when Electric Vehicles really started to take off, and I still think we are going to see real growth in the electric vehicle market over the next twelve months although I don't see people flocking to electric cars and plug-in hybrids in big numbers until 2011.
The first piece of bad news this week was from Aptera who announced that they are pushing back the start of production until the fourth quarter of 2009. It appears that they had overlooked a few things in their design, like the fact that Americans like to be able to cruise up to the drive-in window at McDonalds, so they are having to rework their design. They also admitted that this would increase the coefficient of drag for the car which will, although they didn't say it, have an impact on vehicle range.
They have also realized that although people have put in a refundable deposit of $500, not all of these will translate into actual sales. They are now asking people to voluntarily convert these into non-refundable deposits and are offering $250 off the price to those that do. They did say that the money would continue to remain in escrow and they were doing this to gage how many of these orders might turn into actual sales. In last weeks blog I predicted that Aptera will not deliver vehicles this year and I still think this will be true.
More bad news came in the run-up to the Detroit Auto Show where it now appears that Nissan is no longer going to exhibit there. Nissan was expected to show the electric vehicle they were going to produce for sale in the US as part of Project Better Place, and were widely expected to announce their next generation hybrid car. It seems like we will have to wait until later in the year, perhaps at the Paris or Geneva Auto show, to see what they are going to offer.
Mitsubishi are on the list of exhibitors for the Detroit Auto show but I have heard rumors that they too will be pulling out of the event. I was expecting to hear more about their plans for the i-MiEV at the show but again it looks like we will have to wait.
Even companies that are going to participate have been scaling back their presentations. GM is not doing their usual fashion show this year, and Honda have scaled back their usual high tech press conference.
On the positive side I do see Myers Motors on the list of exhibitors. Myers is one of the few companies that actually have an electric vehicle, the NmG, on sale here in the US. They have been working on a follow-on vehicle for several years now and I know they are close to having a vehicle design ready. It may be that Myers will be showing a new vehicle at the Detroit Show.
Tesla is also on the list of companies that will be there. The bad news from Tesla came last month when they laid off a bunch of people and delayed development of their next generation vehicle. They are still in production with the Roadster though and recently delivered one to Leonardo Dicaprio. I don't expect to hear anything new from Tesla but making an appearance at the Detroit show will demonstrate that they are still alive and kicking.
It does appear that the current recession is hitting the auto industry very hard and it is particularly difficult for small start-up companies like Aptera to move forward when people are just not buying. I still think that things are starting to pick-up though. Over the last week I have seen lots of new cars on the road - at least lots of cars that don't have plates on them yet - and this can only indicate that the financial markets are starting to improve and money for things like car loans are becoming available again. West LA is, of course, a pretty upscale neighborhood so it might be the wealthy taking the opportunity to get a great deal on a new car, but it still seems at odds with the continuous bad news being pushed out by the media.
I still have high hopes that 2009 will end up being the year when the foundations are laid for the widespread acceptance of plug-in vehicles.
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Christian Kocmick Fort Worth, TX Wrote
A few years ago I met Todd Kollin at his Oakland motorcycle shop. I test rode one of his bikes. I found the acceleration and handling nimble and more than adequate for street riding. Electric Motorsport is a great company with an outstanding product.
Electric Motorsports produce the Electric GPRS motorbike - Editor
Sunday January 4, 2009 - Hybrids, Hybrids - It seems hard to believe that it was more than 10 years ago that Honda first introduced its Insight hybrid to the Japanese market. Ten years on and we have seen sales grow steadily world wide and Toyota alone has now sold over a million hybrids. The growth in hybrid sales really came home to me on new year's eve when I returned to my car after a trip to Whole Foods and saw that in the parking lot, with a capacity of maybe 40 cars, were 6 Prius.
Even
though the number of hybrids being sold has continued to grow and the number of
models has increased steadily, they still only make up a small part of total
automobile sales. Ford sells more F150 trucks each year in the USA than
all the hybrids sold world wide by Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford and Nissan
combined. This is going to change in 2009.
Part of the driver for this changes is a new group of hybrids that are coming to market. Starting in April Ford will be offering the new Fusion hybrid which, while targeting the Camry hybrid, has been showing fuel economy closer to the Prius than the Camry. Initial word is that there won't be much of a price difference between the Fusion hybrid and the regular Fusion which should make the hybrid purchase a bit of a no-brainer.
Following
on later in the year we should see the new Honda Insight in showrooms. The
Insight will be sold at a price something like $2,000 less than the base Prius
or the Civic hybrid, and offers fuel economy about the same as the Civic
hybrid. Honda expects to sell about 200,000 of these per year world
wide.
If Toyota is going to keep its lead on hybrids it is going to have to respond to these new challenges. The Detroit auto show is where Toyota is expected to show off the next generation Prius which is predicted to be slightly larger than the old Prius but with better fuel economy at a lower price point. If the past is any indication expect the new Prius to be in showrooms around October, 2009.
Nissan, which licensed the Toyota Synergy Drive for the Altima hybrid, is also expected to show off its own hybrid at the Detroit Auto Show. There is no indication yet if this will be a concept vehicle or production ready but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a production ready car that will be in showrooms before the end of 2009.
GM already has a solid line of hybrids and I am starting to see these cars on the road. I expect that these cars won't be big sellers unless the price of gas spikes really high again in 2009.
What is missing is a hybrid Minivan. I keep hearing people say that if someone made a hybrid Minivan they would buy it but so far none of the manufacturers have bothered with this type of vehicle. Toyota does make a hybrid version of their Estima Minivan for sale in Japan and Europe but haven't bothered to bring it to the USA yet. I think this is a mistake since the people who are more likely to buy hybrids tend to be people who don't like SUVs and would be more likely to buy a Minivan if they need a larger vehicle.
In my totally unscientific survey of new cars on the roads here in LA I have noticed that people are typically going back to buying gas guzzlers - how soon they forget. I have been seeing a surprisingly large number of new cars on the road in the last few weeks here in LA and they have mostly been high end cars like MBZ and Lexus, or SUVs, even a brand new Maybach. This would appear to be a result of the low fuel costs at the moment but once fuel prices start to rise again, I expect to see major growth in hybrid sales.