Bush Says Farewell to Blair with Empty Rhetoric on Climate Change

Tony Blair came to DC to say farewell. And make one final pitch for American cooperation on climate change. At a Rose Garden press conference within earshot of anti-war protesters beyond the White House gate, Bush's prepared remarks included this:

And we talked, of course, about climate change. We spent a lot of time on climate change. And I agree with the Prime Minister, as I have stated publicly, this is a serious issue, and the United States takes it seriously, just like we take energy security seriously.

As reported in the Independent of London,

As Tony Blair left Washington yesterday for his last visit as Prime Minister, the Bush administration was acting to scupper international efforts to combat climate change.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Mr Blair had basked in the apparent support of President George Bush for his stated aim of avoiding catastrophic global warming. But it seems his appeals have fallen on deaf ears. While Mr Bush was eulogising his friend in the White House rose garden, the President's delegation at a United Nations meeting in Bonn was working to stop any progress on setting up a carbon trading scheme and emissions caps.

Harlan Watson, President Bush's chief climate negotiator, rejected any caps on US emissions or participation in carbon trading. "That's not our agenda," he said.....

...away from the cameras, the US delegation to Bonn was scotching any prospect of the emissions caps and carbon trading that are needed to realise the rhetoric. "We don't believe targets and timetables are important, or a global cap and trade system," he said. "It's important not to jeopardise economic growth."

After his visit to Washington, Blair paid a farewell visit to Iraq. He was welcomed with mortar attacks that rocked the British HQ in Basra minutes after his remarks to British soldiers there.

Richardson Highlights Plug-in Hybrids and Electric Cars

Governor of New Mexico and candidate for the Democratic nomination Bill Richardson Richardson has released his "Energy and Climate Policy Plan." Plug-in hybrids and electric cars are part of Goal 1:

Get low and zero petroleum plug-in cars into the marketplace, while sharply reducing the carbon emissions from our electric sector. The pure-electric vehicle offers simplicity and performance for an average daily commute in our larger metro areas, while the plug-in electric car or truck provides more range and flexibility for people who drive longer distances, as it can extend gas mileage above 100 miles per gallon.

See the full press release here.

One can only presume Tesla's presentations that resulted in siting its White Star factory in New Mexico helped expose Richardson to the benefits of plug-in cars, even if the terminology used is a bit

Automotive Class Lithium-Ion Cells from A123

The California Air Resources Board may still be living in an alternate universe where hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles are making meaningful (if glacial) progress toward commercialization, but back here on earth battery power is where it's at. A123 Systems has introduced Automotive Class Lithium-ion cells. Read the press release here.

They Don't Just Steal at the Pump

PBS' Now profiles government auditor Bobby Maxwell's attempt to get oil companies drilling on government land to pay royalties due. The corruption in the oil business isn't only in Iraq. See the video here.

What's Oil Got to Do With It?

From Saturday's New York Times story "Cheney, on Carrier, Sends Warning to Iran"

Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 150 miles off Iran’s coast as the backdrop yesterday to warn that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes...

Oil seemed to be on Mr. Cheney’s mind yesterday when he told 3,500 to 4,000 members of the Stennis’s crew that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments.

A 2nd Times piece, "Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Finds" reports that hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil "is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling." The report reinforces suspicion that corruption in the oil sector is likely financing some of the insurgency.

Of course, a resurgent oil industry, we were told, would finance the reconstruction of the energy sector and Iraq as a whole. It hasn't turned out that way.

Adding together both civilian and military financing, the report concludes that the United States has spent $5.1 billion of the $7.4 billion in American taxpayer money set aside to rebuild the Iraqi electricity and oil sectors. The United States has also spent $3.8 billion of Iraqi money on those sectors, the report says.

Despite that investment, less electricity is being produced that before the invasion, and neither oil "exports nor production have met American goals and have also declined since last year, the report says."

Dealing with Petroleum Addiction, British Style

The British Government is attempting to strangle the electric car baby in its London cradle.

The Times Online reports the British government's Department for Transport (DfT) has conducted a safety test on the all-electric Reva G-Whiz and found it wanting. The small, 45mph zero-emission vehicles have found a ready market in London - 850 sold so far - where electrics are exempt from the stiff daily congestion charge for driving in central London.

City government under Ken Livingston has been encouraging use of such cars. But now the central government, long hostile to alternative-fueled vehicles (it has cracked down on vegetable-oil fueled cars), "decided to buy a G-Wiz and carry out its own crash test after becoming concerned by the rapid growth in sales." Concerned with the results, the DfT took the unusual step of releasing its finding early and is "urgently seeking a review of the European regulations covering the sale of the cars." The car, classified as a "quadricycle," weighing under 400kg without the battery, is fully legal under existing rules.

The world's major auto manufacturers have steadfastly refused to build electric cars. The world's governments have refused to set sufficient incentives or mandates, with the exception of California which eventually backed down. Now the stars have aligned for a successful electric city car market in Britain, and New Labour is looking for ways to shut it down.

Conservative MP Boris Johnson blogs "Banning the G-Wiz sums up Labour" in a most amusingly perverse Tory manner about the issue.

They want to ban it, of course. No, wait. It's even wetter than that. They want Brussels to ban it for them!....It's as though we have got into some weird S & M relationship with the EU, in which ministers go around asking for correction. After years of ritual humiliation at the hands of Madame de Bruxelles, the fabled dominatrix, the man in Whitehall has become addicted to discipline.

Dealing with petroleum addiction, Texas style

The Texas House of Representatives votes in favor of increased gasoline consumption.

I should add that Texas, in the form of Austin Energy's Plug-in Partners effort, shows us the right direction to head, promoting plug-in hybrids (and electric cars) to use the electrical grid to replace gasoline.

Got Hydrogen?

70 years ago today.

Hat tip to Arthur Keller.

$200,000 Google.org Grant to CalCars

Google.org is stepping up to the plate for electricity in cars. Calcars.org has received a $200,000 grant to continue its advocacy of plug-in hybrid vehicles. Founder Felix Kramer has been dogged and successful in pushing plug-ins into the national and international media. Everyday Prius owners ask me where to get their car converted to a plug-in. It is largely thanks to Felix that hybrid owners now desire something more than a gasoline-dependent car. (Bumper sticker below available here.)
All I can say is it's about time somebody put some bucks behind the plug in the ongoing altfuel debate. Ethanol and hydrogen promoters have their deep pocketed supporters (grain combines and the oil & gas industries) and receive the lion's share of the alt fuel attention. Utilities and enviro organizations ought to join Google and provide serious resources to groups like CalCars.org and Plug In America to make the case for electricity. It is, after all, the cleanest, cheapest, most infrastructure-ready alternative fuel available.

(Full disclosure: I, as an electric car driver and advocate, am an informal advisor to CalCars, and co-founder of Plug In America.)

Required Reading: Tesla Motors' Martin Eberhard Testifies

Martin Eberhard, Tesla Motors CEO, testified at the Senate Finance Committee yesterday. In a succinct presentation, he makes the case for electricity. And he suggests turning the perverse federal incentives that brought us the Hummer on their head. Read his complete testimony here.

Whither CARB?

The California Air Resources Board, one of the culprits identified in Who Killed the Electric Car?, was originally charged with reducing pollution. Now it's actions are meant to help reduce carbon emissions and petroleum usage, as well. The electric cars produced to meet the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate uniquely contribute on all three counts.

Of the transportation fuel options before us, only electricity can provide both near term mitigation of the many problems wrought by petroleum and the internal combustion engine, and a path to a truly zero-carbon, zero-emission, zero-petroleum future.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and CARB have a unique opportunity.

Proclaim the success of the ZEV mandate. Highlight the synergy of California's Solar Initiative and plug-in cars. Showcase the Toyota RAV4 EVs and RangerEVs still providing many more zero emission miles than all the hydrogen fuel cell cars touted by the car makers. Build on the success of nearly 10,000 battery electric vehicles, not the failure of a diminished ZEV fleet, an automaker-inspired failure of less than 100 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, now pleading for an extension on the minimal target they presumed they could attain.

Tens of thousands of battery electric cars could be on the road for the same expense in shorter time and everyone knows the market exists already for plug-in cars. The carmakers never fulfilled the demand they themselves unwillingly and unwittingly inspired in Californians. They are waiting to be forced to do the right thing. Their own ZEV-mandated product proved they could do it. They can do it again.

La Poste Plans to Buy 10,000 Electric Vehicles

The French Post Office, La Poste, is seeking to place 10,000 electric vehicles in service in the next five years. This week La Poste will invite manufacturers to bid to build the first 500 for delivery in 2008.

"There has never been such a big order (for electric vehicles) in the world," said French Industry Minister Francois Loos in an interview with AFP, referring to the plans for 10,000 electric vehicles.

Full story.

Biden Mentions Lithium During Debate; What's Up With the Diesel Provision?

In the Democratic debate last week, Joe Biden mentioned his legislation to prod lithium battery research for plug-in cars among the panoply of actions required to meet the global climate challenge.

We also have legislation in requiring that we invest $100 million a year the next couple of years while this president’s president in order to be able to find lithium battery technology to be able to — to power our cars.

Of course what we need now is not so much dollars for battery research (although that is useful) as incentives and mandates for plug-in cars. Yet that's exactly what the provision tucked in at the end of the bill otherwise devoted to electric transportation, including electric cars and plug-in hybrids, does for "lean burn" diesel vehicles. The legislation, S1055, would expand the availability of tax credits for diesel vehicles. In the press release on the bill, Biden does cite a specific beneficiary:

In particular, Daimler Chrysler produces a Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel that will qualify under the new requirements.

Section 3 of Biden's bill refers to IRS Code Section 30B, but 30B doesn't appear on the IRS webpage. So I can't figure out what the real import of the provision is.

SEC. 3. AVAILABILITY OF NEW ADVANCED LEAN BURN TECHNOLOGY MOTOR VEHICLE CREDIT FOR HIGH-EFFICIENCY DIESEL MOTOR VEHICLES.

(a) In General- Section 30B(c)(3)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (defining new advanced lean burn technology motor vehicle credit) is amended--
(1) by adding `and' at the end of clause (ii), and
(2) by striking clause (iv).

Upstream Costs of Gasoline

The United States uses 360 million gallons of gasoline each day. One tanker-truck load, a mere 8600 gallons of gasoline, exploded on a San Francisco Bay Area Freeway early Sunday morning, and the consequences will be felt for months. The effect of this one accident is being compared to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which also caused the collapse of Bay Area freeways.

Senators: It's the Electrons

Three Senators, Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrats Maria Cantwell and Barack Obama are showing signs of getting it. The Electric Drive Transportation website has the complete press release.

“We are facing a global energy crunch, and the fact that our transportation sector is around 97 percent dependent on oil is just plain dangerous,” Hatch said, “We have to act now and we have to be creative. In my view there is no solution more practical or urgent than enacting policies that would begin to shift our transportation sector away from liquid fuels and toward a greater reliance on electrons.”

“We already have the technology right here at home to power most of the cars in America,” said Cantwell. “We produce enough extra electricity right now to supply as much as 70 percent of the power needed by our cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs. More options for powering America’s vehicles will save consumers money, help get us off foreign oil, and make our country more secure.”

“One of the most immediate actions we can take to fight climate change is to dramatically reduce our oil consumption by pushing electric vehicles into the marketplace,” said Obama. “We have the technology, but we must provide incentives for consumers and manufacturers so that it is made available to the driving public. Producing electric vehicles and energy efficient technology could help the U.S. auto industry regain its competitive edge.”

Battery Company Buys Plug-in Hybrid Converter?

InsideGreentech reports that Toronto Star reporter Tyler Hamilton posted on his personal blog that battery maker A123 Systems has acquired Canadian plug-in converter Hymotion. It would certainly be a good thing for A123 to have a reason beyond its relationship with GM to be interested in making batteries for plug-in cars.

Phoenix to Build a Plug-in Hybrid Pick-up

UQM Technologies announced today it will supply plug-in hybrid systems as well as all-electric drive systems for Phoenix Motors' sport utility trucks.

"The development of a plug-in hybrid model of our sport utility truck is an important expansion of our model offering that we expect will meet the needs of a broader range of customers," said Dan Elliott, president and CEO of Phoenix Motorcars.

121K Mile RAV4 EV Featured in Electric Car Story

An excellent piece on electric cars by Steven Wickens in the Toronto Star here. Praising his Toyota RAV4 EV, Avi Hershkovitz says,

"I've put more than 121,000 miles (195,000 km) on this vehicle, and it's definitely the best, most reliable thing I've ever driven."

He adds: "I'd probably still have an EV1 if GM hadn't forced me to give it back.

Let's not forget, as GM hypes the Volt, 1000 140-range NiMH EV1 electric cars rot in the Arizona sun. Had they not been destroyed they would be driving the roads still, evidence of what electric cars can do, evidence of what GM can do.

GM Shanghais the Volt

The Technology Review published by MIT reports on the hydrogen fuel cell version of the Volt announced in Shanghai.

The flexible electric car platform is innovative, but the fuel-cell version is freighted with hydrogen's flaws.

....swapping out the generator for a fuel cell may be a step backward. That is in part because producing the hydrogen needed to power the fuel-cell version could increase rather than decrease energy demand, and it may not make sense economically.

"The possibility that this vehicle would be built successfully as a commercial vehicle seems to me rather unlikely," says Joseph Romm, who managed energy-efficiency programs at the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration. "If you're going to the trouble of building a plug-in and therefore have an electric drive train and a battery capable of storing a charge, then you could have a cheap gasoline engine along with you, or an expensive fuel cell." Consumers will likely opt for the cheaper version, Romm notes.

Volt, Re-Volt, No Volt - Will CARB Revolt?

In January GM announced the Volt, a smart idea that makes use of the two existing primary energy infrastructures - the electric grid and gasoline stations. With NiMH batteries - those that provide energy to every hybrid on the road and thousands of all-electric cars - the Volt plug-in hybrid could go into production today. Instead, GM says the batteries must be Lithium and must take the car 40 miles before the engine comes on. An arbitrary decision that merely delays even simple proof of concept, to say nothing of initial commercialization. And calls into question just how serious GM is about plug-in cars. Lutz says GM hopes to have one working car by year's end.

As it struggles to get even one car on the road, GM is in Shanghai spinning the future, as reported in the Detroit News.

Although General Motors Corp.'s much anticipated plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt is still years away, the automaker is already planning a sequel -- a hydrogen-powered version.

Sharon Terlep's story doesn't mention it, but in the hydrogen Volt GM has made another arbitrary decision, as announced on GM's Volt blog. The Lithium battery only needs to provide 20 miles, with the H2 fuel cell providing the bulk of the desired 300 mile range. In the videotaped interview with auto bloggers, Lutz suggested this E-Flex H2 configuration would lessen the need for hydrogen enough to consider interchangeable propane-like cannisters of hydrogen.

I want GM to make the Volt as much as the next guy, but there's only so much bullshit one can swallow. In January GM announced an eminently practical vehicle that could quickly offer consumers a way to tap into the cleaner, cheaper, domestic electric grid for most of their driving needs. With every succeeding announcement, the Volt recedes into the future. Only government incentives and mandates for production can take the Volt, or a plug-in Prius for that matter, from green spin to showrooms.

My Toyota RAV4 EV was only produced because of the California Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate, and every day it proves electric cars are viable now. There is probably no single greater step one could personally take to reduce carbon emissions, smog, and our petroleum dependence than switching to a plug-in hybrid or an electric car. But the automakers just won't make them without mandates. Often, especially with cars, it takes a law.

We can't afford to debate why they refuse to build electric cars for the next one hundred years of global warming and oil wars and wait until a hydrogen fuel cell car drops from $1 million to the cost of an electric car today. The fact remains they've already built battery electric cars. They work and we ought to have the choice to purchase them. Had the automakers not destroyed thousands just a few years ago more would be on the road today. The California Air Resources Board acquiesced in the crushing of all those electric cars and turned its back on its own success. Thousands of useful and desired electric cars on the road were replaced by the impossible dream of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The staff report released Friday suggests they haven't learned from their mistake. As CARB considers revising the Zero Emission Vehicle Program, it needs to hear over the next month from consumers who want plug-in cars. Write CARB. It is within their power to get plug-in cars back into production.

Inevitable and Invisible: Electricity as "Alternative Fuel"

An incredible pair of stories in the Detroit news here and here.

In one, electric drive is seen as inevitable.
In the other electricity isn't even mentioned.
Huh?

Thanks for the tip to Felix Kramer of CalCars.

Ethanol and Ozone

There are so many reasons ethanol shouldn't be priority #1 in America's quest for petroleum replacement. I blogged about this previously here.

Yet another reason to think again about the ethanol craze in an article in today's LA Times.

Of our "alternative fuel" options, only electricity can truly be made renewably (wind, solar, geothermal, small hydro), with no carbon or other noxious emissions. And only electric drive cars can operate truly zero-emission. We need to prioritize clean electricity generation and plug-in battery cars to utilize that energy efficiently.

Lutz Chats Volt with "Fellow Bloggers"

Bob Lutz, GM CEO, sat down to chat with some bloggers at the NY Auto Show, and PODTECH has the video. Well worth a listen. Lutz responds to the sense that GM might be pulling back from its commitment to the Volt that resulted from Sharon Terlep's Detroit News article a month or so ago. (My take at the time here.)

Lutz says the Volt is no "pr stunt," that they intend to have a working model by the end of the year, and are making a diesel version with a European body to be shown in Frankfort. While the goal is still a 2010 release, everything hinges on the Lithium battery thought to be the essential heart of the Volt. And there's the rub. Must the battery really be lithium to get this radically different automobile off the drawing board and into the showroom? Or is lithium the new hydrogen? Simply the latest industry stalling tactic.

Asked why not Nickel Metal Hydride batteries in the Volt, at least to start, he says "NiMH just doesn't do it." It would take more weight to reach 40 miles, he says. And nickel mining is such dirty business we ought move right to benign lithium. But hold on. What's so sacrosanct about 40 miles? And is Lutz - purveyer of Hummers and Escalades - suggesting the environmental consequences of nickel mining are so great we must wait for lithium? Interestingly, Lutz says GM is being approached by NiMH manufacturers to use this proven battery chemistry in the Volt. And if Lithium proves problematic, he says GM will again consider NiMH.

This makes no sense. If you've got the desire to introduce a radically different car, why not simplify the effort by using the best available mature battery technology in the inevitably small-run first generation? If you've got hundreds of millions of trouble-free NiMH miles in hybrids and electric cars, why bet the bank on relatively untested if promising lithium?

Perhaps Lutz's mistaken impressions about the EV1 and electric cars color his understanding of what NiMH can achieve. (Or perhaps GM's disinformation campaign about the successes of the EV1 and its NiMH batteries is still in force.) He says the EV1 got 60-70 miles (actually double that), and very few were sold (actually none were sold) because people were afraid of getting stuck in LA traffic watching their charge go down ("stuck in traffic" requires virtually no energy.) Could Lutz not know the range of an EV1?

Lutz decries the lack of interest by the federal government in the "transformational technology" represented by the Volt.

We're curiously disappointed with all the talk about CO2 in Washington and we have to put industry's feet to the fire and improve fuel economy. Nobody really asks wouldn't it be smarter to put more energy into what you guys are doing with the Volt.

Congressional efforts (and he might add environmental leadership at NRDC, UCS and the Sierra Club) are stuck on gasoline efficiency when it's time to move to technologies with the promise of getting us off petroleum.

"We are beyod the point of diminishing returns on the internal combustion engine. It's time to make a paradigm shift."

Lutz expresses his belief in the benefits of transitioning to the electric grid, lessening our need for liquid fuels by using them merely as range extenders for an electric car. And I couldn't agree more. Does he mean it? Or is he simply asking to feed again at the federal trough, millions for lithium research much like the PNGV or various hydrogen and fuel cell research subsidies that have brought us neither fuel choices nor even high mileage gasoline vehicles.

If Lutz means it, GM should be willing to meet higher CAFE requirements with electric miles in the Volt, rather than ethanol flex-fuel loopholes.

If Lutz means it, GM should have no objection to a reinvigorated ZEV mandate in California. If he means it, GM should be working with CARB right now to include plug-in hybrids with all-electric range in the revised mandate.

If Lutz means what he says about the great benefits of the "E-Flex architecture," (what's more commonly known as a serial hybrid,) GM would demonstrate some real e-flexibility, and build a NiMH Volt now. GM doesn't need a fancy new package. And it doesn't need to have a $20,000 MSRP. There is a market for plug-in cars now.

Plugin Hybrids to save Big Three, Lee Iacocca

From a new interview in Fortune and his new upcoming book, "Where Have all the Leaders Gone?":

What can the auto industry do?
"Plug-in hybrids. I think they're virtually here now..."

Full Interview here:
I don't think I could have said it better myself. I think we are going to be hearing lots on Lee and his book. Particularly the parts where he blasts detroit lack of leadership and also particularly the Bush administration.

World Wide Lexicon: Help Make This Blog Multi-Lingual!

We're proud to announce that we are one of the first sites to join the Worldwide Lexicon (www.worldwidelexicon.org). It's a new service that will enable us to publish in dozens of languages. WWL is based on a simple idea that websites like ours have bilingual readers without knowing it. WWL enables you to contribute and edit translations to any languages you speak. WWL is free, and is open source, and if you're into language, it's a lot of fun.

To contribute, just go to http://demo.worldwidelexicon.org. Look for Plugs and Cars. Beneath the title, you'll see a list of 2 or 3 letter language codes (for example, ES = spanish). Click on the code for the language you speak. You'll be asked to translate the site's title first, then you'll see a list of articles to be translated. Click on an article, and then you will go to a page or form to view or edit the article's title, description (synopsis) and full text. If you want to use a machine translation service and then edit that text, you can click on CHEAT to go to Google Translate to cut and paste.

The goal of the worldwide lexicon project is ambitious, to eliminate the language barrier by making it possible, and easy, for people like you to contribute translations about whatever websites you like and want to share with people in other countries. We think this is the beginning of a big thing, and we're proud to be one of the first testers.

Gasoline, Ethanol, Crude Oil Up in Price

AP reports:

Gasoline futures rose 3.31 cents to settle at $2.1918 per gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Meanwhile, alternative fuel ethanol hit a 7-month high, corresponding to an overall rise in gas prices since last August.

Ethanol futures rose 4.3 cents to settle at $2.280 on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose $1.84 to close at $63.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for May rose 88 cents to $68.72 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

NY Times using Plug-in Hybrid Van

Editor & Publisher reports the NY Times has taken delivery of a long-awaited plug-in hybrid Sprinter Van from Daimler/Chrysler. It will perform everyday duties.

The van, a Dodge Sprinter PHEV, will be kept at the paper’s printing plant in College Point, Queens and will be used to transport papers.

I hope David Pogue gets down there to check it out. Not as sexy as the Tesla, but a very practical use of electricity.

Silicon Valley V2G Plug-in Hybrid Demo

Sen. Barbara Boxer attended a Silicon Valley Alternative Energy Summit today and PG&E was there with its plug-in hybrid Prius.

Green Wombat reports on the Vehicle to Grid (V2G) capability demonstrated by PG&E.

The modified Toyota Prius was plugged into a into a standard PG&E meter outside Advanced Micro Devices's Sunnyvale headquarters. As the car's lithium ion battery powered a bank of lights and a portable heater, the meter began to run backwards.

Add some solar panels to the mix and you've got the makings of a comprehensive policy: prioritize renewable electricity, plug-in cars and V2G. I hope Sen. Boxer had an epiphany.

Bush's Near Hydrogen Oops Moment

The Detroit News Autos Insider reports on Ford CEO Alan Mulally's oops moment about Bush's oops moment.

"I violated all the protocols. I touched the President....This is all off the record, right?"

Hydrogen Hyped: BMW Does Pogue

Why are even the smartest journalists unable to get beyond the hype when it comes to automobiles and alternative fuels? David Pogue has a respected, weekly technology column in the NY Times. In addition, "David is an Emmy-winning correspondent for CBS News, a frequent contributor to NPR's "Morning Edition," creator of the Missing Manual series of computer books, and father of three." He's got cred.

On March 29, Pogue blogged about The Future of Hydrogen Cars. His blog only once before (in my quick search) discussed alternative fuels for cars. Automotive technology is clearly not his balliwick. But like most of us, he drives a car, knows petroleum isn't forever, and receives periodic wake-up calls. One altfuel epiphany Pogue blogged in May, 2006 came watching The Amazing Race 9 (CBS) in Brazil, where sugar cane-based ethanol has eliminated petroleum imports and reduced pollution. Why can't we do something like that, he wondered. We're richer and more technologically advanced than Brazil, aren't we? He concludes his blogpost:

Dudes–no matter what color your political flag, doesn’t everyone agree that pollution is bad, high fuel prices are bad, and that the oil reserves are going to run out eventually? In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush said that “Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”

Man, I sure hope so.

Now in his recent blog entry he all but swallows whole BMW's solo voyage down the liquid hydrogen hypeway. BMW used the TED Conference, an annual convening of the technological glitterati, to make an "off-campus" presentation to these opinion makers.

On the second day of the show, attendees were invited to attend a lunch-hour presentation by Dr. Frank Ochmann, the head of BMW’s clean-energy development project, who had flown in from Munich for the event.

The investment paid off. A high brow plug for a corporate fantasy. The bamboozlement surrounding alternative fuels continues apace. The one energy infrastructure that rivals petroleum in its reach, the electric grid, is seemingly invisible for its ubiquitousness. Mr. Pogue, and the public at large, ought to be better informed.

As Pogue accurately concludes his post,

Meanwhile, the biggest obstacles are presented by people’s attitudes, not technology: “Oh, that’ll never work.”

Guess what? It’s going to have to work. Sooner or later, hydrogen, or something like it, is all we’ll have to work with.

That "something like it" is electricity. I invite Mr. Pogue to take a ride "back to the future" in my 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV.

The column continues to generate interesting comments, many from electric car advocates, and I hope he returns to the subject. All he needs to know about the difficulties and expense of creating a hydrogen infrastructure and the viability and desirability of plug-in cars is in the many astute comments of his readers.

Bush Uses Alternative Fuels

An imperiled attorney general, an unpopular war, a hung-over housing market and a presidential approval level of 32 percent: White House officials took all that into consideration and made their decision.

They would have President Bush do another event promoting cellulosic ethanol.

Thus begins Dana Milbank's story in the Washington Post today.

Alternative fuels has become the issue Bush returns to in order to take our eyes off the various disasters befalling both the administration and the country. Six altfuel events for the Prez already this year. According to Milbank:

[Bush's] role as uncompensated pitchman for gasoline alternatives makes perfect sense: If anybody needs a new fuel source, it is George W. Bush in 2007.

Unfortunately, the President can't even muster feigned enthusiasm at these events. The plug-in hybrid and Phoenix showing on the White House lawn seems a flash in the pan. Certainly not part and parcel of a serious exploration of the potential of grid electricity as an alternative to oil.

The president, escorted by the chief executives from Detroit's Big Three, arrived 20 minutes late for yesterday's South Lawn event. Eight minutes later, he was on his way back inside.

The discussion stayed on biofuels. Nothing about raising CAFE, or the "electrification of the automobile" much touted by GM's Volt booster Bob Lutz, who wasn't present. As reported in today's NY Times story about the event,

“If the goal is to reduce oil imports and improve the environment, the opportunity is first of all in ethanol, biodiesel,” [GM's] Mr. Wagoner told reporters after the meeting. The executives spent “very little time” talking about mileage rules, he said."

And nothing about the Volt, I presume.

What up with GM's Plug-in hybrid Volt?

"GM tries to unplug Volt hype" is not the headline I've been hoping to see out of Motor City this spring. But there it is in a Detroit News Autos Insider piece today. Just weeks after announcing production, perhaps, in 2010, the industry's hometown paper lets us know this is no done deal.

The Volt grabbed headlines, lit up online chat boards and dominated the buzz at the auto show in Detroit.
There's just one problem: The Volt may never get built.

GM continues to spread the gospel of the Volt. The recent "presser" to explain how all things Volt are coming along was very well-attended. Interest in plug-in cars of all sorts is real and growing. However, as the article points out, it feels like a trip down a well-traveled green road to nowhere.

The auto industry has disappointed before when it comes to green technology. DaimlerChrysler AG promised a production fuel-cell vehicle by 2004, but couldn't deliver despite spending $1 billion on the technology. And little came of a $1.5 billion taxpayer-funded effort, called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), to build an 80-miles-per-gallon car. Last year, Ford Motor Co. took an image beating when it backed away from a pledge to put 250,000 hybrids on the road by 2010.

The story essentially asks whether the Volt is intended for production, simply a green gesture, or perhaps both. Arguably, the Prius hybrid halo has enabled Toyota's more recent play for the American's profitable big SUV and truck market.

Is GM just looking for its halo or a future? Regardless, GM ought to be producing the Volt now with the best available batteries, a PHEV-version of the NiMH in every hybrid on the road and which took the EV1 140 miles between charges. Laptops didn't wait for Lithium, and neither should cars.

Woolsey Gets Snarky and Plugs Plug-ins

James Woolsey gets snarky in today's Wall Street Journal. page 11.

The Mountain and Mohammed: Halliburton Moves HQ to United Arab Emirates

The NY Times website reports that Dick Cheney's old stomping grounds, oil services giant Halliburton, is moving their world headquarters out of friendly Texas into even friendlier Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. Nearer to the where oil action is, and "an Arab boomtown where free-market capitalism has been paired with some of the world's most liberal tax, investment and residency laws," according to this AP article. This should help their bottom line, suffering under the numerous Bush/Cheney time no-bid contracts. And by the way, "Federal investigators last month alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq."

Phoenix Rising?: All-electric SUT Debut in LA

Phoenix Motor Cars in California has been working with lithium battery manufacturers AltairNano to come out with a new all-electric car. The car had a coming out in LA last week. Noel Adams blogs the car and the stars. Surf around his site EVFinder.com, and you just might find yourself an electric vehicle.

She Wrote the Book on Plug-in Hybrids

Sherry Boschert has a piece in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle Insight section. Read it here.

Plug-in Hybrids in Toyota's Future, Jim Press Tells Reuters; Desires Joint OEM Battery Research

Reuters reports on an interview with Toyota North American President Jim Press that Toyota Motor Corp. is working on developing a plug-in hybrid vehicle and is open to joining with other automakers in battery development.

Echoing its American counterparts Ford and GM, Toyota bemoans the unavailability of batteries which will take their plug-ins half as far as their own electric cars could manage just 5 years ago.

Press added the biggest challenge would be developing the next-generation battery, which Toyota is now working on internally. "We would be quite open to any kind of sharing," Press said of a possible alliance on battery development with other automakers.

A tad unusual, if you think car companies compete. Of course, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles already taught us how to bring the car companies together, spend tax money and do nothing to foster efficiency other than spur on the Japanese. Who figured out how to do it without threatening their own growth or profits or offering an alternative to oil.

While proposing joining with the Americans to stall or shelve battery development, Press also said Toyota would not be opposed to buying existing plants from other automakers as it expands its capacity in North America.

Press's interview has me seeing lots more Tundras and nary a plug-in. Prove me wrong, Jim.

WNBC TV Does Plug-in Hybrids Right

You've got to see this series of local TV new reports by Chuck Scarborough out of WNBC New York. The Defense Hawk Frank Gaffney and Environmental Entrepreneur Felix Kramer are brought together by the logic of plug-in cars. The best local news report I've seen on the subject.

Three great reports, including the full posted interview with TeslaMotors CEO Martin Eberhard.

Plug-in hybrids good for the grid, good for the driver, XCel Energy/NREL Study Finds

PhysOrg.com reports on Xcel Energy's study (with the Dept of Energy NREL lab) on the potential effect of plug-in hybrids on the electrical grid and emissions.

Xcel Energy announced the results of a six-month study related to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and how an increase in their popularity may affect Colorado. The study found that PHEVs may result in a reduction of the overall expense of owning a vehicle and, with the help of smart-grid technologies, eliminate harmful vehicle emissions by up to 50 percent.

NREL’s program was able to simulate adding vehicles to the roads in large increments, under real driving conditions, simulating an increase in the market penetration of these vehicles. The study revealed that these cars, each equipped with a 9 kilowatt-hour battery, could reduce overall CO2 vehicles emissions by half. They could also save owners more than $450 in fuel costs each year compared to a traditional combustion engine vehicle.

Hybrid Fans to Toyota: The Next Step is Plug-in Hybrids

This year Toyota makes its SUVs and trucks even larger. Toyota increasingly devotes precious energy contained in hybrid batteries charged with expensive gasoline to higher power output rather than efficiency. What do people actually want? Toyota's own "Question of the Month" in the Hybrid Synergy View Newsletter, asked.

Plug-in hybrids - 39%
Higher fuel economy - 37%
Alternative fuel hybrid - 18%
Higher power output - 6%

The desire of 94% would be fulfilled by a plug-in hybrid.

To Toyota's credit, they published the results. To it's discredit, they seem dedicated to being second and probably best with plug-ins.

(Hat Tip to Felix Kramer at the Electric Auto Association Annual Meeting in Palo Alto, CA this past Saturday.)

Bush and Begley Sitting in a Tree; Prez to Look Over Ed's Electric Pickup & A123 Plug-in Hybrid

The Detroit News reports that an all-electric pickup and a plug-in hybrid will pay a visit to the White House today. How Phoenix Motor Cars, which has been making the altfuel circuit with its AltairNano powered pickup, found itself on Bush's radar isn't clear. A123 Systems, a much larger company which is providing batteries to GM for possible use in the Vue and Volt, will be showing off a plug-in hybrid powered by its Lithium batteries. Will Bush get the first view of a plug-in Vue?

The story makes clear the Big Three are not involved in the meeting. Interestingly, the story veers off electricity and on to ethanol midway through. Detroit is both very close to corn country, and clearly would rather make flex-fuel internal combustion vehicles to beginning the transition to electricity. The Prez seems to get the commonsense value of the plug-in hybrid as the truely flexible vehicle - one you can plug "right into the wall" as he famously said last year.

Prius drops to 48mpg; How will 2008 Prius get 80mpg? Plug-in hybrid?

The National Center for Policy Analysis reports: CAR M.P.G. RATINGS GOING DOWN. The cars aren't actually getting worse mileage, but the government's new tests going into effect next year more accurately reflect real-world driving.

Fuel-saving gasoline-electric hybrid cars don't save as much fuel as thought, according to new government fuel-economy ratings available to the public for the first time.

The new ratings go into effect beginning with 2008 models, a few of which will soon be on sale. But now it's possible to tell what rating 2007 and older models would get using the 2008 standards.

Toyota's Prius, the best-known and best-selling gas-electric car in the United States, drops from a 60 mpg rating under the current system to 48 miles per gallon in the city under the 2008 testing procedure -- a 20 percent decline

Its highway mileage rating falls about 12 percent, to 45 mpg.

The Ford Escape hybrid, which uses a gasoline-electric drive system similar to Toyota's, goes down about 12 percent.

So how will the 08 Prius, rumored to get upward of 80 mpg achieve it? Can it be done without making the high-mileage leader a plug-in hybrid?

Tesla to build new EV plant in New Mexico!

And GM keeps telling us the batteries aren't ready.

AP via the Detroit News
Link

Albuquerque, N.M., to be site for electric car production


"New Mexico's biggest city will be home to an automobile assembly facility for Tesla Motors' all-electric, four-door, five-passenger sedan that will sell for at least $50,000."

"The $35 million facility on Albuquerque's west side will mean 400 new jobs, Gov. Bill Richardson said."

"The company plans to produce at least 10,000 cars a year at the Albuquerque plant, with the first cars scheduled to be ready in the fall of 2009. They would be able to travel 250 miles before being recharged, officials said."

Iran's Oil Woes; An Arab Electric Car?

Today the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports "Soaring Energy Use Puts Oil Squeeze on Iran."

Iran may start rationing gasoline as soon as next month, and its oil exports could dry up in as little as a decade. The stagnation of Iran's oil industry presents a potential crisis for the country and the global oil market.

Iran is one of the countries earning tons of cash on its oil exports, but its burgeoning population is using an increasing share of the nation's oil production. What it uses it can't sell. As we all know, Iran is investing in nuclear power to provide a larger chunk of its future energy requirements. I'd rather see attempts to harvest mideast sun, but there ain't no solar bomb, so geopolitics dictates their energy direction. Nuclear or solar, if Iranians won't consider electricty for cars, perhaps neighboring Arab states will.

A report out of tiny Abu Dhabi suggests some of the oil rich may be looking considering alternatives to oil for cars.

Khalid Abdullah Al Bu Ainnain, Chairman of Baynuna, told Gulf News in an interview that the group has signed a deal with a French company to export 10,000 electric cars.

"We are cooperating with the giant French group Dassault to produce an electric car which can operate on clean power with a speed of 160 km/h," he said.

Dassault has been dabbling in EVs for years via its Société de Véhicules Electriques. Prototypes are built and press releases appear every so often, but that's it. According to their website, "S.V.E....plans to put a vehicle on the market in 2007." That's clearly not happening.

But could a most unlikely alliance with Arabic enterprise result in actual electric cars being produced?

Senators Ask Who Killed the Electric Car?

Two Senators asked the question yesterday at the hearing on global warming convened by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). First, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) posed the question to a panel of industry leaders. PG&E's Peter Darbee, its president, CEO and chairman of the board, let the committee know that plug-in hybrid cars could play a huge role in lowering carbon emissions. And assured the Senators that the electric grid, as it is, could charge millions of cars today displacing millions of gallons of petroleum.

Sen. Boxer, clearly moved by the images in the film of flattened EV1s, suggested that a panel of auto execs appear before the committee to do some explaining. She suggested Sen. Sanders chair such a hearing. Can I reserve a front-row seat?

First step: Boxer and Sanders ought to sign on to the DRIVE Act (S.339), one piece of legislation pushed by Set America Free and plug-in car advocates, that begins to take electricity seriously as an alternative transportation fuel.

Welcome Rancher Dave

With the post below, Rancher Dave joins Plugs and Cars. RancherD along with his wife, Heather, are true heroes of the electric car movement. Read all about their effort to save their Ford RangerEV here.

Brian Howey Get's it

I love it when someone outside our EV and hybrid world truly begins to understand the connections at play here. I also hope for his next column he finds out some more about the exciting things going on with Plugin-hybrids, like the Chevrolet Volt and other pure EV's being announced and driven currently.

Read Brian Howey's entire article here, but below is the last comment that sort of sums things up.

"Now, watch Who Killed the Electric Car? the documentary about the zero emission EV1 that everyone from GM to the White House caved on and tell me if you think this generation of political leaders has served America well, or whether we'll be condemned to repeat the blunders of the past. I will follow up with another column"

Brian, we look forward to your next column. Give us or pluginamerica.com a buzz and someone can let you know about the latest things that are going on. The pressure is mounting on the industry... Finally... We hope :)

Toyota Hybrid Breakthrough! One-mile EV Range Highlander Hybrid!

AutoBlogGreen has the details on the '08 Highlander, and it includes an EV mode! Now you will be able to move the car across the street for street cleaning days without using gasoline. Useful to be sure, but more a green merit badge on a $30,000+ SUV with real world mpg still under 30 than a significant environmental choice.

Mistakenly blaming the battery type (NiMH) for the meager all-electric performance, AutoBlogGreen remains as confused as most auto journalists about plugs and cars, plug-in hybrids, electric cars, and batteries. The 24 NiMH batteries in my Toyota RAV4 EV take the car 120 miles without gasoline. Toyota could deliver a plug-in hybrid highlander, get 20 miles all-electric and 75 mpg using NiMH today! Would a Lithium-ion battery be better? Theoretically, yes. But they don't have the hundreds of millions of miles of trouble-free real world experience as NiMH. That's why every hybrid on the road uses NiMH.

We recognize the need for cars that can use something other than petroleum for national security and environmental reasons. We need to be able to buy plug-in hybrids and electric cars now with the technology we have, not he technology we wish we had. We can't afford to wait for the perfect battery, any more than we can wait for the miracles required to make hydrogen and fuel cell technology viable.

Bush Budget: Plug-ins Hybrids, Not So Much

The Detroit News has the alternative fuel breakdown in the president's budget request, and it isn't pretty. Increases for hydrogen fuel cell research from $289 million in FY 2007 to $309 million in FY 2008. "Automakers already have begun lobbying for the Bush Administration and Congress to support further research funding after the $1.2 billion program expires next year." I guess that wasn't enough to actually make a marketable, economic car. (Could of had 28,571 RAV4 EVs @$42,000 for the same $1.2 billion.)

The automakers wanted a new $500 million pot for battery research. Bush proposes $81 million, which includes $17 million for plug-in hybrid battery grants.

Honestly, much as I want the federal and state efforts to move toward batteries and electricity, we don't really need pure "research." We need cars. Plug-in hybrids and electric cars built with the best possible, most economic, available-now technology. I say take the proposed $390 million in Bush's budget, and give 75,000 people a $5000 grant for the purchase of a plug-in hybrid or electric car. And use the $15 million left over to educate Americans on why it is in their personal and the national security interest to buy a plug-in car.

Enough fooling around already with fuel cell fantasies such as the three profiled in AutoBlogGreen's recent post on Ford's FC concept cars. The downsides of fuel cell technology is evident in this straight forward, sympathetic reporting on these concept cars. Regarding the FC Focus and FC Explorer: "key-on, wait 15 seconds for the stack to power up, put it in drive and off you go." $1.2 billion of our money and you wait 15 seconds? Alas, they've found way around that problem with the Edge. "Because the FC Edge runs primarily off the battery, as long as there is some charge, there is no waiting." (Wow! Just like my Ford Th!nk City confiscated in 2004! ) Another shortcoming I really don't understand: The FC Edge "doesn't maximize the amount of regen available, [but] it does eliminate the problem of blending regen with friction braking." (My 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV blends regen and friction just fine, thank you. As did most if not all of the electric cars produced in the '90s.)

With all sorts of fuel cell double-talk and hydrogen hype, our policies and tax dollars have been led astray and flushed away. But technology ultimately brings us back to what is actually possible, out of what Toyota FC guru Bill Reinert calls "Disneyland" in the film Who Killed the Electric Car? The attempt to make fuel cells viable so energy companies have a fuel to sell passes through batteries. Sooner or later, maybe a journalist covering the auto beat will ask why we don't just cut out the middle man and let folks plug in.

Why Not Ethanol? Yet Another Reason

The case for ethanol, if not the funding, is wilting on the vine. Scientific American points out the problems in "Is Ethanol for the Long Haul?" in the January issue. And Consumer Reports looks at ethanol's real world shortcomings in "The Ethanol Myth."

An OpEd in today 's NY Times "Praying at the Pump," highlights yet another chink in the case for ethanol. Simply put, markets. Global markets. And I'm not just talking about the price of tortillas in Mexico City. (See my Tortillas and Ethanol post.)

Ronald E. Minsk argues that the economic problem of petroleum isn't so much dependency on foreign sources as vulnerability to price fluctuations. He points out that the market for liquid fuels for transportation is global, source doesn't determine price, and that any substitute liquid fuel will be priced in the context of petroleum.

the percentage of oil we import is relatively unimportant. Even the use of alternative liquid fuel instead of oil-derived gasoline will not allow us to escape this volatility, because as direct substitutes for each other, gasoline and alternative fuels will be similarly priced, just as gasoline sold by different oil companies or at different gas stations is similarly priced today.

Minsk mentions plug-in hybrids could help temper price volatility "in the short term... allow[ing] consumers to choose day to day whether to power their cars with oil or with the sources their utilities use." And notes that "if we cannot find a way to increase production and inoculate ourselves from oil-supply interruptions, we are either going to have to develop cars that need no oil, or learn to live with the risks of the global market."

As a lawyer for electric utilities, the solution to the market dilemma of liquid fuels is right under his nose. Think bigger. Plug-in cars aren't a stop-gap on the road to some prayed for price-stable liquid fuel.

There are many paths to take as we seek to improve our energy security, but all should be based on one principle: real security can come only through finding a way to keep prices stable.

Truly there is no better way than to use a fuel that comes with a different set of governing rules. Electricity markets have had their own issues, for sure. But the market is national and there's a hell of a lot more regulation. The electric utilities need to make the case for electricity in cars. The fact that electricity pricing is not connected to world liquid fuel prices is one more arrow in their quivver.

Exxon is #1!

NY Times reports:

Exxon’s profit rose 9 percent from 2005 results to a record of $39.5 billion, the largest annual profit ever for an American company.

Th!nk Resumes Production

The Norway Post reports that Th!nk Global will manufacture 500 Th!nk City electric cars in 2007, with production beginning in summer. No specifics about the battery type. The article states, "The new "Think" model will have improved batteries with a range of 180 km (111 miles) between charges and a top speed of around 100 km 60 mph)."

As for the supposed lack of demand for electric cars, according to the Norway Post story:

At the moment it is impossible to buy a new el-powered car in Norway and several thousand prospective buyers are on a waiting list.

In Norway, el-powered cars are favoured with no road tax and no parking fees, free pssage on toll roads, as well as being allowed to use the public transport lane on roads.

Investors Daily: Pull the Plug on Ethanol

Investors Business Daily posted an editorial this week, Just Plain Fuelish, that just plain gets it. A smorgasbord of research alternatives and subsidized if politically profitable good intentions just won't cut it anymore. IBD is ready to choose. And they choose electricity, not ethanol. The State of the Union may have seen Sen. Grassley dancing in the aisles, but Investors rains on the ethanol parade.

By now, credible economists and scientists have debunked the myth that ethanol can play anything more than a small supporting role in the energy-security mission. Ethanol has less power per gallon than gasoline. It can be produced profitably only with fat subsidies. Making it from corn (the only current source in this country) consumes so much other resources that the net energy savings are, by some accounts, nonexistent.

But IBD believes that the political juice of ethanol is distorting policy decisions.

There is a well-organized and influential ethanol lobby in this country, led by corn farmers, food processors such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and politicians such as Grassley.

Advocacy for plug-in cars is much less organized and underfunded. The utilities need to step up, declare the benefits of electricity in cars, and promote its product. And lobby as fearlessly as do Big Oil and Big Corn.

Hat tip to Felix Kramer of CalCars

Detroit Faces Skeptical Washington; Bush Long on Rhetoric

The Detroit News story today, Big 3's call for U.S. aid gets cool reception, outlines the predicament faced by automakers and Washington. Many lawmakers are pressuring for action on fuel efficiency. The automakers came begging for research dollars and restraint on CAFE standards. As Michigan Democrats line up with the most Republicans to protect the Big 3 on CAFE standards, Bush has already disappointed Detroit on the money front:

GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG were disappointed their request for $500 million in federal funds over five years for research into advanced batteries was not mentioned during the State of the Union. It is not likely to be part of the president's budget request set to be unveiled Monday.

It seems the president, for all his plug-in promotion, isn't allocating dollars commensurate with his rhetoric. Energy Washington Week reports PHEVs getting short shrift:

Although increased attention is being paid to the technology, it is not sure how much support the president will lend PHEV in the 2008 budget. The White House says hybrid funding will be higher than last year's budget request but would not elaborate. Hydrogen and fuel-cell vehicle R&D still comprise the lion's share of the current 2006 budget, an allocation that critics said was to the detriment of other vehicle programs, including advanced battery development. The earmarks attached to the hydrogen initiative, alone, were enough to place other DOE programs in jeopardy, these critics warned.

Proof:

Energy Department grants -- to the tune of about $44 million -- funded just over half of Ford's plug-in hydrogen fuel cell vehicle unveiled last week in Washington.

A Tesla Roadster for every member of Congress would have been a better use of the money.

A Jewish Electric Car?

A report from IsraelNationalNews.com out of Davos reports on talks to build electric cars in Israel.

At the just-ended World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Shimon Peres held informal talks about building an electric-car factory in Israel with representatives of Toyota and Renault.

It's about time. If there's one country that ought to have long ago developed a domestic electric car industry it is Israel. No oil of its own should be reason enough. Every drop purchased on the international markets propping up its sworn enemies should be reason enough. Not very far to drive in this very small country should be reason enough. Lots of high tech brainpower should be reason enough. Dayenu.

Tesla Powered Th!nks?

Michael Kanellos over at CNetNews.com reports from the recent Clean-Tech Investor Summit that Tesla Motors will be selling its battery packs to other electric car companies. First in line appears to be Th!nk Global of Norway with its ready-for-manufacture Th!nk City.

Martin Eberhard, CEO of Tesla Motors, said that Tesla has formed a group called Tesla Energy Now to sell battery packs to other companies.

"A certain unnamed Scandinavian electric car company has become a customer," he said.

Sitting two seats down on the panel was Jan-Olaf Willums, president of Th!nk Global...

I drove a 2001 Ford Th!nk City for three years in San Francisco. It is the car that brought me forth out of the oil age, and made me realize it was not technology, batteries, or consumer acceptance that was keeping electric cars out of the showroom. As you can see in the film Who Killed the Electric Car?, I was not a happy camper when Ford took away my car.

The redesigned 2003 Th!nk City was stopped on the assembly line when Ford killed its electric program. Since being taken over by a Norwegian investment group last year, Jan-Olaf Willums, president of Th!nk Global, has been searching for a viable, affordable battery to power the new Th!nk City. A Tesla-powered Th!nk City would be a welcome entry into the growing London market for congestion charge avoiding electric cars, and capture attention in California and New York, where hundreds once roamed (gas) free.

The Reality of AltFuels Under Bush

Maybe he means it this time. Perhaps the 7th SOTU mention will be the charm. But a story in today's NY Times, Energy Research on a Shoestring, suggests otherwise. President Jimmy Carter established the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the edge of the Rockies, but its always been afterthought of America's energy policy.

The hopes for this neglected lab brightened a bit just over a year ago when President Bush made the first presidential call on the lab since Mr. Carter and spelled out a vision for the not-too-distant future in which solar and wind power would help run every American home and cars would operate on biofuels made from residues of plants.

But one year after the president’s visit, the money flowing into the nation’s primary laboratory for developing renewable fuels is actually less than it was at the beginning of the Bush administration.

'Nuff said.

Overflow Crowd in Lodi (!) for Electric Car Film

Lodi News-Sentinel Reports Over 400 people turned out for a free viewing of Who Killed the Electric Car? in Lodi, CA last night. Lodi is not hippie or Hollywood. It's an agricultural town of less than 60,000 in reliably Republican San Joaquin County. The event was sponsored by the Lodi Municipal Electric utility, which leases five all electric RAV4 EVs from Toyota.

Angela Daniel is concerned about America's reliance on foreign oil and would consider driving an electric car if the technology was more readily available....

...Many people in the audience said they were interested in buying an electric car but lacked the information. Gene Corriea said he was there to learn more about electric vehicles.

"It's an interesting subject," he said. "It's something we should have but they won't let us."

...Davey Drouin, a teacher from Lodi, got there early to avoid the crowd of people, some of whom waited 15 minutes to get into the theater. He said he was impressed with the turnout.

"I can see this crowd in Santa Cruz or Berkeley, but not Lodi," he said. "I was expecting to be the only one here."

SOTU: Will Bush Plug Plug-ins?

First hint from the NY Times says ethanol will be the big winner in Bush's State of the Union Address. Advocates of plug-in cars are hoping for a another good word and perhaps some funding for plug-in hybrids. We'll see.

Springtime for Ethanol (registration required) In his State of the Union address, President Bush is expected to call for a huge increase in the amount of ethanol that refiners mix with gasoline, probably double the current goal of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.

While the details of the proposal are not known, 15 billion gallons of ethanol would work out to more than 10 percent of the country’s current gasoline consumption, and is far beyond the current capacity of about 5.4 billion gallons.

At least half of the new ethanol would come from corn, signaling the administration’s support to the Midwest farm states that have benefited the most from the recent ethanol boom.

For an industry once dominated by the will of a single powerful producer, Archer Daniels Midland, ethanol has come a long way, joining the oil industry and producers of major agricultural commodities as an entrenched political force in Washington. And it now enjoys a powerful role in presidential politics because of Iowa’s status as one of the first states to select delegates to the parties’ nominating conventions.

Vote for the Volt

GM wants to know if you think they should make the Volt. As of today, it's Yes: 106,000; No: 1800.
Vote for the Volt. It can't hurt.

UPDATE: FWIW Sun 6pm. Yes: 156,000

UPDATE: Tuesday 1am: Yes 200,000

UPDATE: Tues 6pm: Yes 214,000

UPDATE: Friday 12:30 am Yes 265,000

UPDATE: Saturday 5:45 pm Yes 287,000

Automaker Plug-in Hybrid PR Flurry

In the wake of the Chevy Volt presentation by GM, my "plug-in hybrid" google alert has filled my inbox with reports from other automakers about their PHEV projects. The buzz about the Volt has generated automaker PR reactions. One big corporate "ME TOO!" Daimler/Chrysler has dusted off its long ago announced Sprinter PHEV. Nancy Goia of Ford got some ink for comments at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. Even Honda got in on the act.

Next up, President Bush. Look for handouts to Big Auto for "battery research" in the State of the Union address. USABC 2.0? You can't keep such a good idea as plug-in hybrids down, but it can be delayed. $500 million for battery research buys time. 50,000 grants of $10,000 to purchasers of plug-in cars might just drive the market.

Press Release Source: Chrysler Group
DaimlerChrysler Only Manufacturer Building and Testing Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles with Lithium-Ion Battery Technology in Customer Fleets
Autochannel (press release) - USA
- Lithium-ion battery research will accelerate future hybrid development
- DaimlerChrysler investigates plug-in technology with test fleet
- Dodge Sprinter Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) can drive up to 20 real-world miles on electric-only power
- Industry first PHEV combined with diesel for maximum fuel efficiency
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Jan. 19 -- More than 20 Dodge Sprinter Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) will be placed in the United States between now and the first quarter of 2008 as ...

Ford Mulls Plug-In Hybrids
Car and Driver - Ann Arbor,MI,USA
Ford is considering adding plug-in hybrid vehicles, which can be recharged by existing electrical systems, to its future product portfolio, the Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing the company's hybrid vehicle director.
Nancy Gioia, speaking to the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit, said, "The biggest barrier [to such technology] is the battery."...

Honda considering plug-in hybrids
Business Portal 24 (press release) - Bad Lausick,Sachseri,Germany

Grist Writer Gets the URGE2 Electrify

David Roberts is a staff writer at Grist, an online enviro magazine. He's written a piece in TomPaine.com that deserves attention. As Roberts' posits, 2007 holds out tremendous promise, the stars are aligned. Everyone is paying attention to green. But enviros are all over the map. They have no consensus message.

Everything from light bulbs to organic food, to flex-fuel cars to a carbon freeze tax—no, make that a cap-and-trade program—clamors for attention.

So Roberts decided to find the point of agreement,

a common overarching chorus, one with which everybody from security hawks to conservationists to evangelicals can sing along.

I hereby propose just such an overarching message, a mere five words long: Use renewably generated electricity, efficiently, or URGE² .... As far as greens are concerned, everything that advances that goal should be supported. What doesn't should be ignored or opposed.

Putting renewable electricity into plug-in cars would move to the top of any such coherent enviro agenda, and of course ethanol moves down.

The simple fact all greens need to internalize is that it's easier to find clean, renewable sources of electricity than it is to find clean, renewable liquid fuels. The logic is inexorable: We need to shift almost all power use to electricity.... electrification has got to be the end goal.

That means dialing back the ethanol frenzy. It means pushing for plug-in hybrids and eventually fully electric vehicles, as well as an electrified national high-speed rail system. But primarily it means escalating the fight against public enemy No. 1: oil.

In California, I and over 50% of the drivers of electric cars have rooftop residential solar electricity. The interest in one led logically to the other. And so we pay neither Big Oil, nor our local utility. A green dream trifecta of energy independence, zero emissions, and zero carbon. If the Sierra Club, NRDC, and the Union of Concerned Scientists awaken from their CAFE-induced slumber and espouse such a message as Roberts' suggests, projects awaiting commercialization from a Toyota plug-in Prius to the Saturn plug-in Vue and the Volt just might get the jolt need. It's about the plug, stupid.

Tortillas and Ethanol

Corn and petroleum course through our veins. As Michael Pollan convincingly argues in The Omnivore's Dilemma, what we eat has become almost as corn-based as our driving is petroleum-based. And without cheap oil, corn would not have become Big Corn, the big agricultural combines (principally ADM and Cargill). Now corn is making a play for a chunk of the transportation market once surrendered to Big Oil. The inefficiencies of corn ethanol be damned, Big Corn can make money on the ethanol boom coming and going.

It's been a different story for Mexico's farmers. They have had a tough time dealing with the influx of cheap American corn since NAFTA. As reported in Forbes, "The government eliminated its decades-old subsidy for tortillas in 1999 just as cheap corn imports were rising from the United States under NAFTA." Abundant petroleum-fueled American corn kept the price of tortillas down in Mexico City for a while. Then America found yet another use for corn, and the price has been bid up.

"The U.S. Agriculture Department said Friday that ethanol plants and foreign buyers are gobbling U.S. corn supplies, pushing prices as high as $3.40 a bushel, the highest in more than a decade."

Mexicans are clamoring for an explanation of why tortilla prices are rising so fast. But America is beginning to be willing to pay for independence from Big Oil. Ethanol may be a political, economic and energy boondoggle, but that doesn't mean it ain't got juice.

And now corn production is down.

"Nationwide in the United States, supplies of corn are expected to drop to 752 million bushels, a drop from last month's forecast of 935 million bushels and a steep decline from last year's supply of 1.967 billion bushels.

Our energy independence need not mean higher priced tortillas for the poor of Mexico. You can't eat electricity.

NPR Science Friday on the Chevy Volt

NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow spent half an hour on the Volt. Bill Moore of EVWorld.com, Paul Scott of Plug In America. Enthusiasm and scepticism. Well worth the listen.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6835607

Huh?

Associated Press report in The State of Columbia, South Carolina

"The Volt overcomes range, noise and power issues that plagued previous electric cars."

Noise issues?

Out of the Closet? Is the Saab BioPower a Plug-in Hybrid?

In Stockholm and LA it was just the BioPower 100, a 100% ethanol fueled hybrid. A premature press release identified it as a plug-in, but that was withdrawn and the plug was not to be found. It had, perhaps, been glued shut.

Now that the Volt has premiered in Detroit to huzzahs and widespread press, this Saab, yet another GM concept hybrid, has been unveiled, again. Although Plenty magazine identifies it as a plug-in, nothing in the press material I found confirms this. It does have a switch to run on lithium battery electric power for up to 20 km, but a plug does not appear to be part of the equation. Since 100% ethanol is hardly available, this must be considered truly a concept car. With a plug and a flex-fuel E85 capable engine, they'd really have something marketable. Don't hold your breath.

Chevy Volt: Can't We All Just Get Along?

What a difference a week or two can make.

Chris Paine, director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?," is attending the Detroit Auto Show. And he's not the pariah-in-residence. He's all charged up about the Chevy Volt.

So is Detroit. Just two weeks ago Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan was twisting Mr. Paine's words to justify GM killing the EV1. Now Phelan, GM, Paine and Chelsea Sexton, Plug In America's Executive Director, all seem to be on the same page.

'Paine is convinced GM is serious about the Volt and about making a transition from fossil fuel to electric power for its vehicles.

"Top management is behind this," he said. "GM is responding to the marketplace."'

Chevy Volt & Ford Airstream: The Plug-in that Could Be & the Plug-in that Couldn't Possibly

Amidst the well-deserved hoopla about GM's plug-in serial hybrid Chevy Volt, Ford is touting its own equally ugly plug-in hybrid concept car. GM's vehicle is eminently buildable today, as it relies on two energy sources that are available: grid electricity and gasoline. Ford makes no pretense of its intention not to produce its car. In place of a small gasoline generator, it relies on a hydrogen fuel cell to generate the electricity once the grid-charged Lithium batteries are depleted.

Inspired by the classic Airstream, no one will expect to see anything like this anytime soon. Classic concept car fare. Given the fuel economy stats presented in Ford's press release, 41mpg equivalent, no one would want one anyway. (Not to mention the cost and unavailability of hydrogen.) The achievement, it must be said, is that somehow, even with grid-supplied electricity, the result is such pathetic fuel economy.

There is one important point to note in Ford's prototype. To the extent the industry's fuel cell project is real, it is coming to depend upon the much maligned battery to save its ass. Ford's announcement explicitly states that the fuel cell merely supplies additional electricity to the batteries that actually power the electric motor that drives the car. Honda's FCX also relies on an unspecified amount of battery power to make the car viable. Ford has interestingly chosen to ride the plug-in hybrid wave with the Airstream announcement. Perhaps a year ago this might have been touted as a hydrogen fuel cell concept car. Honda may yet stick a plug on its FCX. The times they are a changin'.

It's Got a Name: Chevrolet "Volt" Plug-in Hybrid

With an Auto Show overview article dated tomorrow, Sunday, Jan 7, the New York Times becomes the first publication to name the much-anticipated GM plug-in hybrid vehicle.

"General Motors will unveil an electric concept car, the Chevrolet Volt, which has created the most buzz in advance of the show. G.M. says the Volt, a plug-in hybrid, could deliver the equivalent of 150 miles a gallon. The Volt thus promises — at least in theory, given that it could not be produced without a leap in battery technology — three times the mileage of a Toyota Prius."

Judging from the discussion last night at a Sierra Club-sponsored viewing of Who Killed the Electric Car? in Oakland, CA, the Volt might actually be a GM car people would buy.

Toward a Plug-in Hybrid Saturn Vue

GM today announced two contracts to "design and test lithium-ion batteries" for use in the Saturn Vue Plug-in Hybrid announced last month at the LA Auto Show. Johnson Controls/SAFT, the huge battery company at which President Bush first publicly announced his support for plug-in hybrids, received one contract. A partnership of Cobasys (Chevron/ECD) and A123 got the second. According to the press release, two variants of Lithium batteries will be "evaluated in prototype Saturn Vue Green Line plug-in hybrids beginning later this year."

One point of interest is that GM and Cobasys are forsaking the technology that could provide plug-in hybrids in the shortest time - the Nickel Metal Hydride battery for which Cobasys holds the patents and GM used in its 140-mile range EV1. While the future may belong to Lithium, a case can easily be made for the early roll-0ut of NiMH plug-ins. Hundreds of millions of safe, robust, reliable miles have been driven in EV1s and Toyota RAV4 EVs, as well as billions of miles in conventional hybrids, all using NiMH. If the automakers felt compelled by the market or the government or a petroleum crisis to bring plug-in cars to showrooms asap, NiMH it would be. Chevron would add royalty payments to its ample bottom line, but clearly that's not enough of a motivator.

Toyota President's New Year's Letter

Toyota released (and EVworld.com reprints) President Watanabe's New Year's letter to employees. He mentions continued focus on hybrid technologies, including "research and development for plug-in hybrids" and the introduction in Brazil of a "flexible fuel vehicle (FFV) that can run on 100 percent bioethanol fuel." Not a word about hydrogen or fuel cells. If Toyota really intends to roll out "environmentally considerate vehicles that are suited to the infrastructure of each region and meet the needs of customers," plug-in Toyotas should be coming to America. We've got the ubiquitous electrical grid that a US Dept of Energy study finds could "fuel 84 percent of the country's 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics," and no infrastructure for 100% bioethanol fuel.

"Concerning the environment, Toyota has positioned hybrid technologies as core technologies that can contribute to resolving environmental issues, and we will undertake development with a commitment to leading the advancement of such technologies. We will continue to enhance our hybrid vehicle lineup and also actively engage in research and development for plug-in hybrids. In response to the diversification of energy sources, we intend to introduce in the spring in Brazil a flexible fuel vehicle (FFV) that can run on 100 percent bioethanol fuel.

Based on the concept of "the right vehicle for the right place at the right time," Toyota is committed to developing environmental technologies and rolling out environmentally considerate vehicles that are suited to the infrastructure of each region and meet the needs of customers."

Honda: 12 more years of no choice for consumers

There's really only one way to read the Kyodo News (Japan) report that Honda President Takeo Fukui said in an interview that Honda thinks it will be able to mass produce fuel-cell vehicles for the general market by 2018. For you and me that means gasoline-only Hondas (along with a few NGV Civics for die-hards) for at least another decade. Not surprising from this quintessential internal combusion engine company.

Honda previously announced plans to offer a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle based on its FCX Concept in Japan and the United States. At the Santa Monica AltFuel Expo in early December, I asked Steven Ellis, Honda AFV Chief, about the FCX. He said Honda would begin selling the car in 2008. I asked if he meant "selling" the car. Yes, he said. So I repeated, with emphasis, "selling?" And he confessed it would be, like the short-lived all-electric EV+, lease only. Press reports had already made clear it was to be lease-only, but seems the big auto guys can't help themselves. Reminiscent of GM referring to EV1 drivers as "owners," despite their unwillingness to actually sell the car. I also tried to find out the size of the battery pack in this battery/fuel cell hybrid car. "It's Lithium," he said proudly as he refused to divulge its kWh rating.

By evolving a next model based on this, I think the level of
technology will become very close to that of mass-produced ordinary
vehicles within 10 years or so. In 2018, I believe the development
[of a fuel-cell car] will have been very advanced. It will become a
real possibility to a large degree.
—Takeo Fukui

Fukui told Kyodo that there will be many customers who want to buy a Honda fuel-cell car if it goes on sale for ¥10 million (US$84,000) in the general market. Of course, the current cost of fuel cell cars is estimated at more than 10 times that figure.

Challenges that still need to be overcome before mass production is possible for Honda include reducing the amount of metals used for fuel cells, improving hydrogen storage and lower-cost production of hydrogen, according to Fukui. Is that all?

I suspect the battery we'll see in the FCX will be big enough to for a great plug-in hybrid. Honda could still sell it's engines with each car, but such a product would be marketable before the end of this decade. Not, I'm afraid, in Honda's plans. Yet.