Plug-in Hybrid Bills in Congress Scare Auto Makers

The Detroit News Autos Insider column today is reporting on Congressional efforts to promote plug-in hybrids and the backlash from the automakers. Toyota made the car, the Prius, that made plug-in conversions possible, and now they are trying to rein in the desires unleashed.

Neither CARB incentives nor the efforts of Plug-in Partners have moved the auto makers to produce plug-in hybrids, so conversion efforts are moving along. A123 bought Hymotion and they are producing cars for Google's RechargeIT.org effort. HybridsPlus and EDrive have converted cars. Calcars continues to work with the Electric Auto Association members to bring a do-it-yourself kit to hybrid owners with moxie.

Legislation proposed in the Senate by Senators Obama, Hatch and Cantwell to offer tax credits to convert hybrids to plug-ins now has its counterpart in Congressman Ed Markey's House bill. The Senate bill is known as the FREEDOM Act ("Fuel Reduction using Electrons to End Dependence On the Mideast Act of 2007"); the House bill the more prosaic "Plug-in Hybrid Opportunity Act of 2007."

Whatever it's called, it's got Toyota in a tizzy.

Norwegian Investors Rally to Revived Think Electric Car

The Aftenposten reports (in English) on the success Jan Olaf Willums is having at the helm of the revived Think Global. Many of Norway's tycoons and heirs are making significant investments in the company which is planning production of as many as 10,000 cars by 2009.

My first electric car was a Think City, produced when the company was owned by Ford. This "smarter than Smart" city car was a revelation to me when I leased it in 2001. By then, every other maker of a ZEV Mandated electric car had leased all their cars and were plotting their destruction rather than making any more to meet the demand. Toyota, Honda and GM were dismantling their electric efforts, but Ford seemed to be making a last stab at a viable electric program called Think Mobility. The little car demonstrated to me that electric vehicles were ready for prime time.

Ford ultimately followed the lead of the other automakers, and began to destroy the cars in 2004. Ford had promised the cars would be returned to Norway at leases' end to be sold. Waiting lists were forming there. When California Th!nk drivers found out the cars now would be crushed, their protests revived the movement for electric cars. One such protest is documented in the film Who Killed the Electric Car? and the story is told as well in Sherry Boschert's book Plug-in Hybrids.

Nothing would please me more than seeing the Think City again on San Francisco streets.

Arnold Flexing for Flex-Fuels; Fouls Air & Guzzles More Gasoline

As I read in the San Jose Mercury News about California's flex-fuel fleet fiasco. a near silent electric trolley bus passes by my window on Haight St in San Francisco, an old technology tried, true, and spurned by the environmental "experts" of the present and recent past.

The state policy of purchasing flex-fuel cars has actually increased petroleum consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and smog in California. Alas, for better or worse, there is still only one E85 station in the state, nowhere near the bulk of the cars the Schwarzenegger administration has bought with our money.

...the flex-fuel vehicles are actually chugging out more smog and greenhouse gases than many vehicles in the state's old fleet - as much as 2,000 extra tons annually.
As a result, energy experts question whether the administration's zest to "look green" has come at the expense of real environmental progress.

Because environmental organizations have dropped the ball for so long on the actual costs and benefits of the various "green" transportation alternatives, policy makers and the public at large are at the whim of the advertising power of big auto and big oil. Go Yellow to go green, says GM. And the NRDC promotes biofuel with grain coming out of a gas pump.

It's cheap to make a car flex-fuel. So as long as it seems a green option, it's a win-win for the little green giant of the Republican party and the sclerotic giant of the auto industry. And probably for NRDC's pocketbook, too.

It seems the car makers are willing to make cars without fuel infrastructure, especially if they can get some green cred and government credits. However they still do everything to postpone the day they build cars to run on to the infrastructure we've already got for zero emission cell phones and ipods. Of course I'm speaking of electricity.

"This is nothing but self-serving propaganda," said [Tyson] Slocum, whose Washington D.C.-based group is the largest consumer advocacy group in the nation. "Government is engaging in a campaign to deliberately mislead people. They are making claims that the government is taking the lead on greening our transportation system, when in reality nothing has changed."

Scientific analysis over the years, whether by government or enviro organizations, has always shown that nothing can reduce petroleum usage or toxic emissions as much as a switch to grid electricity into battery electric and plug-in hybrid cars. Google.org understood it after a few months study. See RechargeIt.org to get a sense of a comprehensive vision of clean energy into clean cars.

ex-CARB Chair Sawyer's Open Letter to Schwarzenegger

Robert Sawyer, recently fired as Chair of the California Air Resources Board by Gov. Schwarzenegger, has handed his letter to the Governor to the press. Take a look. Among the accomplishments during his tenure, Sawyer cites "review of the Zero Emissions Vehicle program and instructions to ARB staff for modifications to encourage the production and use of electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.." What will happen to the ZEV mandate review process as the newly appointed Chair Mary Nichols comes up to speed will be watched closely. But it the critical aspects of Sawyer's letter that is drawing attention. Worldwide articles have appeared tarnishing Arnold's green luster, and this letter will not serve to stanch that loss of reputation.

• "My single regret is that is that you and I never once met during the past 18 months to discuss any of the critical air quality or global warming issues facing California."

• "Governor Schwarzenegger, your staff has interjected itself in a manner that has compromised the independence and integrity of the board."

• "Press releases from the Governor’s staff, which are contrary to reality or truth, are a disservice to you and to the people of California."

• "I urge you to hire a personal science advisor who can counsel you on the science and technology of air pollution and global warming and who understands the economics and law of these issues.

Ford and Edison set to announce plug-in hybrid venture

Ford Motor Co and Southern California Edison, provider of electricity to 13 million, are set to announce something Monday relating to plug-in vehicles. Reuters has a first report.

Despite the propaganda, waiting for plug-ins

Despite the Prius ads pushing an anti-plug-in message, many are waiting for a hybrid that can plug in to cleaner, cheaper domestic electricity.

Daily Economy Fuel Tip surveys why people don't buy hybrids now.

49% of respondents stated that hybrid cars are too expensive
29% of respondents stated that they were waiting for plug-in hybrid vehicles
11% of respondents stated that they just are not interested in buying a hybrid vehicle
9% of respondents stated that hybrid cars are too small
2% of respondents stated that they already owned a hybrid car

Freedom from oil in Brazil

International Herald Tribune reports:

Brazil stages raid against debt slavery at Amazon sugar cane-ethanol plantation

New Chair for CARB

Just as Arnold was getting some seriously negative press in England questioning his commitment to the environment, he goes and appoints Mary Nichols, environmental lawyer and Democrat, CARB Chair. Perhaps I'll be eating some crow in the upcoming months. This could be very interesting.

Schwarzenegger taps Nichols to lead Air Resources Board

Schwarzenegger's Green Cred Fading with CARB Caos

The CARB mess is taking the shine off Arnold Schwarzenegger's supposed environmentalism. The firings and their implication has gone international. Over 130 stories, from LA to the UK, are reporting on the situation. The governor and his people are contradicting each other and the recently "fired" are releasing documents and voice mails to prove their good intentions and reveal the governor's meddling in CARB's attempts to regulate diesel exhaust and greenhouse gases. No one really wants to mess with Arnold, so the recently fired blame staff and not Arnold, but in cases like this, we all know the fish stinks from the head.

The LA Times headline, Mixed messages in the air, The governor's actions often work against his tough talk on pollution tells the story. New rules contemplated by CARB are angering the construction industry.

The officials argued that the new rules, years in the making, were too tough on the construction industry — which is a major Schwarzenegger donor.

The departed air board officials said they were frustrated by administration meddling in both the diesel construction equipment crackdown and the implementation of landmark legislation the governor signed last year to curb global warming.

It is not the first time the governor has made bold promises on the environment while his administration dragged its feet behind the scenes. Schwarzenegger has vetoed bills that would put new taxes on polluters, spur the development of alternative fuels and help clean the air. He has accepted $1 million in campaign cash from the oil industry, and he had threatened to veto the global warming bill unless it was made more business-friendly.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

The executive director of the California Air Resources Board resigned Monday, saying the governor's office had made it impossible for her to do her job by interfering with the implementation of the state's landmark global warming law.
"I think they're trying to control it, and they don't have a very cogent vision for what's needed," said Catherine Witherspoon, who has managed the agency since 2003.....

She said Sawyer was fired because two top Schwarzenegger aides—Susan Kennedy, the chief of staff, and Dan Dunmoyer, the cabinet secretary—wanted him to go more slowly in implementing the global warming law.
"It's utterly mystifying," she said. "They're firing quality people who know how to do the job, emeritus people with 50 years' experience."
Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's communications director, has said just the opposite was true and that it was Sawyer who was moving too slowly in implementing the law. He said Sawyer was unable to lead the agency and was "scrambling at the last minute" to find ways to implement AB32.
But on Monday, Sawyer released the transcript of a voicemail he said he received from Dunmoyer asking him to adopt fewer so-called early action items under the global warming law—in other words, to go more slowly in implementing it.

No longer on the administration payroll, Sawyer yesterday said:

"The fundamental difficulty is there really is no one in the [governor's] office who understands the science, the technology, the economics or even the legal aspects of air pollution control," he said. "Now is the time for the governor's staff to get out of the way and let the professionals do the job."

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez will be holding hearings in the Assembly. But he seems to have a sense of what's happening on "I" Street.

"It's been pretty clear to me that the administration has been putting undue pressure on the leadership of the Air Resources Board," Nunez said during a Monday news conference. "The administration was tying their hands behind their back."

Additional independent reporting: Contra Costa Times (MediaNews): Nunez seeks inquiry into emissions board claim As reported here, Arnold says:

"I've heard people whining. But we've got to be extremely sensitive toward businesses here."

Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier, who served on CARB for 10 years:

"I served for three governors," he said, "and I never saw this level of interference."

San Francisco Chronicle, page 1: Governor accused of playing politics on warming rules

"The governor has made his name across the world as the jolly green governor, and now we have the regulators saying his inner circle has pressured them to go slow because the big industries don't want us to go too quickly," said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights, a consumer watchdog group.

CARB Massacres Continue

Another air board official leaves

Catherine Witherspoon, longtime Executive Director of CARB has quit. It had seemed the Governor wanted Sawyer to fire her last week. When Sawyer refused, he got canned. Now Witherspoon says the Gov's cool, but the folks around him don't care about the air. Some weird shit and machievellian games being played up in Sacto. We haven't heard the last of it.

And with Barbara Riordan being put in charge as Chair replacing Sawyer, even if temporarily, there's no hope for a ZEV mandate with teeth. She voted to kill it four years ago and is still singing industry's tune.

CARB: Sawyer v Governator

It is looking like the Governor's contribution to global warming is a lot of hot air touting his greenness while opposing the slightest additional measure proposed by an actual clean air professional. If the governor fired Sawyer over requiring reflective auto paint, it's hard to believe he would have allowed a reinvigorated ZEV mandate that could bring plug-in hybrids and electric cars to market.

San Jose Mercury News: Air board officials blame Schwarzenegger for weakening smog regs

San Francisco Chronicle: Fired air board head says he tried to keep integrity
He says he lost job for proposing change to reduce emissions

California Progress Report:

The story is murky at best--with the Gov saying Robert Sawyer wasn’t aggressive enough and Sawyer saying it was the Gov. who sabotaged his efforts to make those first global warming regulations stronger and more expansive. I’d put my money on Sawyer’s version as we’ve seen over-and-over again this Governor talking tough but acting like a corporate shill on global warming and other environmental issues he’s supposed to be championing.

Confusion Reigns at CARB

Gov Schwarzenegger has fired Chairman Sawyer and others at CARB and it is not immediately clear why. The LA Times reports on unprecedented administration interference in the agency, seeking the firing longtime staffers. The Governor has publicly chastised the board for delaying implementation of Central Valley clean air targets, but everyone seems confused.

According to the Michael Collier's Politics Blog on SFGate.com:

Robert Sawyer, appointed by the governor in 2005, was one of three ''no'' votes last week when the board adopted three new policy changes to curb carbon dioxide and other emissions statewide. Sawyer, like several environmental groups, thought the board should have made more changes than the three that the governor sought.

Plug -in and electric car advocates felt they were getting a generally fairer shake from Sawyer than his much criticized predecessor Alan Lloyd, but recent ZEV mandate staff and board actions suggested no major changes in its implementation. Enviros and industry has been all over the map in their opinions about Sawyer's stewardship of the nation's most powerful clean air agency. The governor's appointment of a new Chair will help us understand whether it was Arnold's much ballyhooed concern for the environment or deep connections to industry that led him to fire Sawyer.

Tell Toyota to Get With the Program!

Rainforest Action Network is prodding Toyota to add plugs to their hybrids. Google is spending oodles doing it to their cars, but the rest of us need the carmakers to produce the plug-in hybrids and electric cars we want. Add your voice to the campaign by clicking here.

Of course, Toyota could do it today with larger NiMH battery packs. I'd wager there is more than one plug-in Prius hidden away at Toyota's skunkworks in Japan. Both GM and Toyota are disingenuously pushing the nonsensical notion that plug-ins need to wait for Lithium batteries to prove themselves. Of course they both already produced electric cars with over 100 mile range using the same NiMH chemistry in every hybrid , but they don't talk about that. Toyota's recent announcement postponing the switch from NiMH to Lithium batteries is meant to convince us we'll just have to wait. Tell them you won't buy a new car without a plug. A hybrid without a plug is just a gasoline car by another name.

Google Gets It - It's the Plug, Stupid

Finally an entity is stepping up and saying unambiguously it's about electricity. Google.org has launched RechargeIt.org A comprehensive vision of clean electricty, plug-in hybrid and electric cars, and vehicles as distributed energy storage devices for clean power. With Google's street cred (Wall Street and your street,) intellectual prowess and financial clout, electricity may at long last get a seat at the table. The investor class, self-interested corporations and the major environmental organization have fallen in love with biofuels and hydrogen and shoved the logic of electricity from discussions about solutions to global warming and petroleum dependency. Just as Toyota announces delays on the next-generation (read plug-in hybrid) Prius and Honda cancels its hybrid Accord, Google has thrown down the gauntlet.

Filling up a Prius vs. Plugging In a RAV4 EV

Prius: > $6 per 100 miles
RAV4 EV: 0 - $2.50 per 100 miles

Prius: Fill up at multi-national corporate outpost
RAV4 EV: Fill up at home with solar electricity or cheap, abundant, night-time power

Prius: Hang around toxic fumes while filling up
RAV4 EV: Margaritas all around





Hat tip to Darell at evnut.com

Trouble in Hydrogen Heaven

The World, a PRI/BBC radio collaboration, has a report on the problems bringing Iceland's hydrogen dream to fruition. Still only one filling station, now without any customers. The hydrogen busses have been retired to a museum. With abundant renewable electricity, if it can't happen there, it can't happen anywhere. Jori Lewis reports from Reykyavik. Have a listen.

Zero-Carbon Drive to Sacto Anti-Carbon Rally and Back

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) held a rally in Sacramento Thursday outside the lobbying offices of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers to protest their continuing lawsuit against California's greenhouse gas legislation. Dan Kalb of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Bonnie Holms-Gen of the Lung Association were there to lend their voices of protest against the auto industry's continuing legal assault on California. And I was there representing Plug In America.

What's most interesting, however, is how easy (and cheap) it is to do a carbon emission-free 200 mile day in a 100 mile range electric vehicle, my 5 year old Toyota RAV4 EV. (It's about 90 miles from my house in San Francisco to the Capitol in Sacramento.) Tom Gage of AC Propulsion was driving up in the eBox on the same day to see some folks at SMUD and CARB, so we met up for breakfast in Vacaville.

Plenty of public charging in what's come to be called Voltageville. We chose the solar-powered Park n Ride just off 80. About 55 miles from my place in San Francisco and 100 miles from Tom's on the Peninsula. After an hour or so of breakfast and conversation, we unplugged our respective vehicles and went off to our appointments in the Capitol. The EV chargers one-half block from the RAN rally at which I was to speak were charging other RAV4 EVs, so I drove to another parking garage 2 blocks away. Plenty of available chargers there.

The 11 am demonstration went off without a hitch. (See my remarks below.) Afterward, I paid a quick visit to Assemblywoman Fiona Ma's office and then unplugged at around 12.30 to begin my journey back to SF. Stopped in Vacaville on the return trip to eat lunch, charging while eating of course. Arrived back home around 3.15 with about 25% (at least 25 miles) still available in my battery after 197 miles.

Total cost: $6. Should have cost me nothing to do the trip, but I had to pay for parking in Sacramento. Sacto is meant to have free parking for ZEVs, but that parking lot didn't respect my ZEV parking decal. Zero Emission Vehicles don't pay bridge tolls during commute hours in California, so I saved about $5 each way zipping past the toll collectors. In a Prius or Civic Hybrid at 50mpg, the trip would have cost about $30 in gas, tolls and parking in Sacto.

Electric cars don't emit carbon (or anything else) as they drive, so there's one additional saving quite relevant to speaking at a rally decrying carbon emissions. At 20 lbs of carbon emissions per gallon of gasoline burned (US Energy Information Administration estimate), a Prius or Civic would have released about 80 lbs of carbon for this one round trip.

My comments at the rally:

We’re all here to demand that the auto makers stop suing California as we attempt to lower, and eventually eliminate, greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes. We’ve seen this all before. The auto manufacturers have sued to stop progress before.

Our group, Plug In America, began as DontCrush.com, to fight the destruction of the great electric cars produced to meet the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate of the 90s. The great zero-carbon emitting, zero-particulate emitting, zero-petroleum consuming electric cars. They sued back then, too. With our protests, we saved about 1000 Ford and Toyota electric cars, and I drove here today from San Francisco in one. If you’ve seen the film Who Killed the Electric Car?, you know what I’m talking about.

One of the great things about plug-in cars is that they offer us a pathway to true ZERO. Plugging into the California electric grid today would lower the carbon emission of cars tremendously. And due to all our efforts, the grid is getting even cleaner and more renewable. As consumers, we want to tap into that cleaner source of energy for our driving. Because plug-in cars actually get cleaner over time. We want to power our cars from non-polluting, zero carbon emitting electricity from wind and solar photovoltaic systems on our roofs. The best way to eliminate tailpipe carbon emissions is to eliminate the tailpipe.

Choice is what we want. The market for the cleanest possible cars is huge. Unfortunately, the offerings from the carmakers sparse. A few gasoline-dependent hybrids won’t placate us when we already know better alternatives with lower or zero-carbon emissions are proven and ready today –all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids that can plug into cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity. When it comes to cars, it’s time to say No Plug? No Deal.

The automakers must stop blocking the will of California and the nation and make the zero-carbon emitting cars they’ve already proven they can build.

Israel, Jordan Moving Ahead With "Electric Peace Car"

Ynetnews.com, an Israeli news site, reports on continuing progress on the Middle East electric car front. Building on initial discussions in Davos at the World Economic Forum in January, a meeting has now been held in Jordan to move the idea forward. Renault and Toyota are reported to be involved along with Shai Agassi, ex-SAP executive.

My ZEV Mandate Public Comment

Chairman Sawyer, Members, my name is Marc Geller, and I represent the San Francisco Electric Vehicle Association. Many of our members, including myself, drove ZEV Mandate battery electric cars - GM EV1, Honda EV+, Ford Th!nk City - until they were confiscated by the automakers. A few of us still drive Toyota RAV4 EVs - a truly great car. I hope Board Members understand that we continue to use these zero-emission, zero-petroleum cars in our daily lives. Many more of our members would like the choice to be available to buy electric and plug-in hybrids cars. And want CARB to succeed with ZEVs, in the near term.

Thousands of battery ZEVs were on the road in consumers hands a few short years ago. And they have not been replaced by another ZEV technology. To get more ZEVs on the road, we support the staff interest in battery electric/fuel cell technology neutrality. As the hydrogen storage expert testified here, H2 storage is still in the R&D phase. In fact both the expert panel and staff reports make clear the entire fuel cell project is essentially an R&D project with hope for commercialization decades out. The state ought to support technology R&D, but the Board should question whether it is appropriate to the ZEV mandate.

Battery electrics ought not be penalized - as they are now - because they are closer to commercialization and infrastructure-ready. There is no good reason to extend the deadline for compliance, and we oppose staff recommendation to extend the deadline for putting 2500 fuel cell vehicles on the road from 2011 to 2020.

Technology neutrality and firm deadlines have worked, and offer automakers enough flexibility to achieve the results we, and CARB, know are possible.

We believe the Board must keep all its options open to incentivize battery electrics and plug-in hybrids. Just as Governor Schwarzenegger is keeping his personal options open. Despite his much ballyhooed hydrogen highway, he has placed an order for a $100,000 all-electric Tesla Roadster. It is up to CARB to get back on the road to ZEV success for the rest of us.

Consumers Want Plug-in Hybrids, Industry Survey Finds

Synovate Motoresearch presented some very interesting survey results at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference in Long Beach, CA last week, as reported in MIT's Technology Review. Simply put, as the first sentence of the article states,

[W]hen consumers understand what plug-in hybrids are, they want them.

All that's needed, the survey discovered, is a dollop of education.

Of the more than 3,000 consumers asked if they would consider buying a "grid-connected hybrid," the term used for plug-in hybrids in the survey, only 24 percent said that they would, according to the survey by Synovate Motoresearch. But when they were told what such a car could do, that figure nearly tripled, to 64 percent. That's well above the percentage of people who would consider buying an ordinary hybrid, like the Toyota Prius, which doesn't have extended battery-powered range.....The results suggest that consumers like the idea of the plug-in hybrid--but that so far, car companies are doing a lousy job of getting the word out.

Wonder why? The answer is contained in another part of the survey. Motoresearch also surveyed attitudes toward flex-fuel vehicles, heavily promoted by the automakers.

These cars, which can burn either gasoline or a mixture of 85 percent ethanol, scored high on the desirability charts--that is, until consumers were told more about them...consumers thought that flex-fuel improved fuel economy, Miller said. Actually, the opposite is true. Ethanol contains much less energy than gasoline does, so miles per gallon will be significantly lower, as will range on a tank of gas. When consumers were told this, the percentage of people who would consider buying the cars dropped from 52 to 33 percent.