Bailout?

Boy, these guys don't make it easy to feel the slightest sympathy for the plight of US automakers. The lineup of CEOs at the Congressional hearings yesterday reminded me of tobacco execs not so long ago denying cigarettes cause cancer. Rick Waggoner had the chutzpah to say their problems are rooted in the credit crisis. A little contrition for bad product and management might have gone some way toward greasing the money chute. Now they've got Republicans craving bankruptcy to kill off the unions, and progressives willing to let it happen to bitch-slap the high flying execs. Not a pretty picture.

At the very least, any bailout ought be tied to retooling for plug-in cars. Plug In America has a simple way to let your Congressional representatives know you want to see "No Bailout Without Strings." Click here to send a letter to your representatives.

Dodge EV bests Dodge Challenger

We first heard about Chrylser's plug-in car plans at the end of September. Less than two months later Chrysler's EV guy Lou Rhodes held an impromptu drag race against his own best gasoline sports car. It doesn't surprise that the electric car outpaced the competition. That such a car was ready to show so quickly does.

How about tying the billions of bailout dollars to EVs on the road by the end of 2009? No one doubts that a base of early adopters is chomping at the bit for plug-in cars.

Check out Dan Neil's LA Times blog and view the race.

Two More Teslas Delivered

Chris Paine, director of Who Killed the Electric Car? and Linda Nicholes, President of Plug In America, took delivery on Wednesday of their Tesla Roadsters. Chris directed filming of the long-awaited event at Tesla's Santa Monica showroom. And, Chris blogs about it at on his Revenge of the Electric Car site.
[Thanks to Paul Scott for the photo.]

The Hummer Club

60 Minutes to do electric car story Sunday

Sunday October 5th on CBS.

Watch CBS Videos Online

What about the Pickens Plan?

The good news about electricity as a transportation fuel for cars is finally breaking through to the mainstream. GM’s centennial celebration in mid-September saw the unveiling of the production version of the Chevrolet Volt, still scheduled for appearance in showrooms in November 2010. Hundreds of articles were published asking if the Volt can save GM. GM’s bad boy Bob Lutz even appeared on the Colbert Report, to mixed result. (Video embedded below post.) Other automakers are watching closely, with announcements heralding their own electric intentions.

Hydrogen and fuel cells remain decades from meaningful deployment, even their supporters concede. For the foreseeable future, ethanol remains dependent on corn. Meanwhile, in a back to the future moment, T. Boone Pickens is spending tens of millions of dollars promoting CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) as the bridge fuel to get the U.S. off petroleum in the short term. If it were 1976, he would be right.

The Arab oil embargo and price increases of the ‘70s pushed the U.S. away from using petroleum to generate electricity. Today, less than 2% of American electrons are produced with oil. Diverse, American sources of energy have made the electric grid essentially resilient and secure, immune to petroleum’s price volatility or politics.

For reasons political and economic, cars and trucks and busses remained tethered to petroleum. Before greenhouse gasses became a global concern, before we came to terms with the inevitable limits of fossil fuels, natural gas would have been a logical fuel alternative to petroleum. Had national and economic security trumped the power of oil and auto companies, a large percentage of cars would run today on cleaner, cheaper, domestic natural gas. A few billion dollars a week wouldn’t leave the country, and we would all understand the value of choice.

But we find ourselves in 2008. While less polluting than petroleum, burning natural gas emits significant carbon. Natural gas, like petroleum, is not forever. And today natural gas is a critical fuel for electricity generation. And making electricity is simply a more efficient use of this resource. As Joe Romm wrote at his Climate Progress blog:

We currently use natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity.” Most of that electricity comes from gas burned in combined cycle gas turbines at an overall efficiency of up to 60%. Why in the world would the federal government — or anyone else — spend billions and billion of dollars on natural gas fueling stations and natural gas vehicles in order to burn the gas with an efficiency of 15% to 20%? Natural gas is simply too useful and expensive to squander in such a fashion.

Pickens’ plan includes lots of wind-generated electricity, ostensibly to replace the natural gas he would divert to vehicles. One can’t, however, simply replace gas generation with wind. But we can use the electricity generated with each to power plug-in cars.

Pickens plan can be viewed as a logical criticism of Al Gore’s plan for 100% renewable electricity within ten years because it doesn’t do anything about our petroleum dependence. Gore’s group’s TV ads, (almost as ubiquitous as Pickens’,) have recently begun to mention petroleum addiction but still offer no solutions.

To the plethora of petroleum alternatives served up during the past few years – hydrogen, fuel cells, biodiesel, ethanol, electricity - Pickens’ plan resurrects the fuel discarded since 2000 by Ford, GM and Toyota. As if Americans weren’t confused enough already. The truth remains vehicles are electricity’s killer app.

Curbside EV Charging Comes to Portland OR

Curbside EV Charging Stations are sprouting in Portland Oregon. Full story here.

Hat tip to David W.

San Jose/Tesla deal announcement Wed.

The NY Times is reporting that Wednesday morning will see the announcement of a deal that will see Tesla's second electric car, the sedan, built in San Jose.

On Wednesday morning, the company will announce a deal to lease 89 acres of land in San Jose, Calif. to build a company headquarters and a 600,000-square-foot plant to produce the battery-powered Model S sedan.

Conference confirms plug-in fever

Once again, a conference on plug-in cars. Coming on the heels of the Google/Brookings event in Washington, D.C., Plug-in 2008 in San Jose, California witnessed a noon-time address by new heavy-weight convert, Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel. Grove brings some needed high-profile gravitas to the community of electrification advocates. One week earlier, former Vice President Al Gore issued his well-received challenge to make the American grid 100% renewable in ten years. Grove made it clear one thing was glaringly missing from Gore’s plea: dealing with our national petroleum addiction. All the wind farms and solar panels in the world won’t do anything to lower the outflow of hundreds billions of dollars annually or decrease our pump-fueled funding of Islamic fundamentalism unless we build cars that can use that cleaner electricity. I wish I knew what’s holding Gore back from full-throated support for plug-in cars.

The conference attendees heard the now familiar if increasingly impassioned representatives of the utility industry trumpet the benefits of electricity for transportation. Infrastructure newcomers Coloumb and Better Place were well-represented, offering their proprietary schemes to become the consumer interface to plug-in cars. A number of startups showed off their porposals to retrofit the existing fleets of petroleum-fueled vehicles, giving some hope to Andy Grove’s ambitoious desire to create millions of plug-in conversions before the automakers deliver.

Representatives of GM stoked the clamor for the Volt, and a Saturn Vue plug-in hybrid sat on the show floor. But neither car, GM execs made clear, will appear for sale on a showroom floor for more that two years. Meanwhile, GM is hedging its bets by continuing to invest in the dream of cheap, cellulosic ethanol and the hallucinogenic pipe dream of hydrogen fuel cell SUVs. As America downsizes and SUVs go unpurchased, GM’s diehards put inefficient if zero-emission H2/FCV Equinoxes in advertisements and a few dozen driveways to which they remain tethered by unavailable fuel. (By way of contrast, this weekend I will drive my RAV4 EV 135 miles from my home, plugging in to a dryer plug at a campground five miles down a dirt road a dozen miles from the metropolis of Plymouth CA, population 1070. I will pay nothing for my 300 mile road trip.)

Attesting to consumer desire for plug-ins, hundreds of people flooded the Plug-in 2008 auditorium for the low-cost “public” event, which included Plug In America’s Chelsea Sexton participating in a panel discussion. Automaker announcements keep coming, feeding hope that your next car will be a plug-in hybrid or more likely all-electric car. Nissan and Renault have now promised tens of thousands of EVs on three continents by 2011. And a new competition has opened up among the Germans, with BMW announcing an electric Mini and Daimler promising an electric Smart and Mercedes sedan. There’s never been a better time to head down to your local dealership and let them know until they offer a plug-in car, you’re not buying. No plug? No deal. (Put the bumper sticker and your car and let everyone know.)

CNN Report - My 3 minutes of fame

[Source: CNN]

Pain at the pump

Al Gore Joins Call for Electric Cars

Buried in Al Gore's challenge today calling for a 100% renewable electric grid within ten years is a call for plug-in electric cars. This represents a big change in his thinking, and will hopefully quickly push political and environmental leadership to coalesce around policies to push plug-in cars into the market as quickly as possible.

We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.

Full speech available here.

Dont get mad, get even!

Oil hits $140 a barrel; it's time for plug-ins

It was January 2nd this year when oil hit $100 for the first time. Today it reached $140, and OPEC warns it will only get worse, and soon.

Instead of biting the bullet and facing the need for plug-in cars quick, "solutions" put on the table by the presidential candidates wouldn't have an impact as soon as required to meet carbon and petroleum reduction or national security goals. To say nothing of consumer's need for cheaper transportation fuel. Domestic oil producers apparently aren't extracting domestically where already approved but clamor for access to the coast. Even if Congress authorized coastal and ANWR exploitation as McCain now supports, the impact would be too late and too little. I'm pleased to hear McCain promoting electrics, but his battery contest proposal would at best have a medium term impact.

We need to see policies that will push electric cars and plug-in hybrids with available battery technology. The $9000 incentive California put on the table in the 90s for electric cars wasn't enough to interest automakers. Today, were product available, such an incentive would see consumers lining up for cars they once might have snubbed as range-deficient and over-priced.

Overflow crowd at DC plug-in conference

News of oil by the barrel and gas by the gallon reaching new highs had been dominating TV and print, so it was perhaps not surprising that the Google/Brookings Plug-in Electric Vehicle Conference saw overflow crowds. The speeches and hallway chatter suggested plug-in vehicles have finally caught the attention of industry bigwigs and policy makers. Auto makers, electric utilities, battery makers and advocates all found themselves under one roof in the nation’s capital, and all said regarding plug-in vehicles it is a matter of “when” not “if.”

Many of the speeches sounded notes long trumpeted by advocates at Plug In America and the Electric Auto Association. The benefits to the environment were repeatedly mentioned, and the national security rationale for plug-ins was brought to the fore. The state of the grid was discussed by advocates and utility executives. Some concern was voiced about the day tens of millions of cars charge up from and contribute to the grid. Yet there was near unanimity that the utility infrastructure can handle the plug-in cars being introduced in the near term.

Politicians from both parties, both long-term advocates of alternative fuels and long-term defenders of every auto maker misstep, found themselves largely in agreement. Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Orrin Hatch, and Democratic Congressmen John Dingell and Jay Inslee spoke to the attendees, with each recognizing the need for policies promoting grid electrification of automobiles.

GM President Tory Clarke's concluding keynote on Thursday kept expectations up for the November 2010 release of the Volt. Bill Reinert of Toyota played the contrarian, forecasting a return, albeit temporary, to $2/gallon gasoline. The President of Ford bored plug-in proponents with tweaks to the internal combustion engine and appeals to the feds for hand-outs.

Fred Smith, CEO and Founder of Federal Express summed up the hopefulness expressed by many speakers and attendees about the broad possibilities for plug-ins beyond passenger vehicles. The possibility of plug-in trucks to reduce the ever-increasing fuel costs for a package delivery service are very attractive, he asserted. And, when his interviewer referred to plug-in hybrids, he insisted that all-electrics be part of the conversation and the commercial vehicle mix. When a questioner challenged him to move from rhetorical support to issuing an RFP for actual vehicles, he didn’t flinch.

One couldn’t help leaving the conference with the excitement of feeling part of an idea whose time has come.

Google spurs electric car videos

Rechargeit.org, Google.org's campaign for plug-in cars, has issued a call for short videos. If you've got one, explain how it works for you. If you want one, explain why.

Videos are beginning to show up on youtube.

Jeff U'ren drove an EV1 for three years....well, the vid tells the tale.

Tom Friedman on Gas Prices, Honesty, Obama, and Electric Cars

Tom Friedman of the NY Times has been hammering away at the bi-partisan disaster that is the US energy policy for years now. One cornerstone of the policy is cheap gas. Pandering politicians have ensured the true cost of gas remains shrouded in tax policy and the defense budget. Now the pressures of a changing global market have provoked a precipitous rise in gasoline prices for the heretofore protected American driver. Friedman says it's time for some truth telling. We need to pay more for gasoline to keep up market pressure for more fuel efficient vehicles. Good policy according to Friedman would keep gasoline from ever dropping below $4/gallon.

That may seem an unlikely campaign platform for any politician hoping to be elected, but the gas price holiday dust up suggests American voters may be ahead of their leaders. Sen. Obama was not blown away by his opposition to the gas holiday.

Next, Friedman hopes, new leadership will choose the right policy, one that leads us to electric cars.

We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy. Ultimately, we need to move our entire fleet to plug-in electric cars. The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change.

Barack Obama had the courage to tell voters that the McCain-Clinton summer gas-giveaway plan was a fraud. Wouldn’t it be amazing if he took the next step and put the right plan before the American people? Wouldn’t that just be amazing?

Electric cars back on track?

The tide appears to be turning. Electric cars are in the news almost daily. Large manufacturers and startups are responding to changing circumstances and customer preferences. Oil has passed $120 a barrel. The NY Times headlined "As Gas Costs Soar, Buyers Flock to Small Cars." GM lost $3.25 billion in the first quarter. Something’s got to give.

In perhaps the biggest news, on May 13 amidst a generally downbeat report, Nissan announced a serious, forward-looking effort to make electric cars an important part of their automotive portfolio. The announcement has been reported quite positively everywhere, including the NY Times here and the Wall St. Journal here. Even stories that got much wrong, such as The Independent of London, England, here, concluded "the electric car is probably the [alternative] with the greatest potential."

Sales and profits are declining for automakers in established markets. "It is going to be a tough year for the whole industry. Every single element of our environment is negative," said Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn, who also heads the automaker's French partner Renault. After turning Nissan around during his 5 year tenure at the once beleaguered Japanese automaker and naysaying hybrids and electric cars a mere two years ago, Ghosn is moving both automakers toward a leadership position in zero-emission vehicles worldwide. The Nissan plan envisions hundreds of vehicles in 2010, with general sales in various markets including the U.S. to commence in 2012.

This year Renault announced a partnership with Project Better Place to manufacture electric cars for Shai Agassi’s ambitious plan to create discreet markets, beginning in Israel and Denmark. The first prototype debuted in Tel Aviv in May, and it was announced that hundreds of cars would appear in a pilot program in 2009, with a rollout of thousands in 2010.

Smaller automakers continue to make the news. Tesla had a red carpet grand opening for its first showroom and service center in Los Angeles. Tesla has come to terms with its mistaken decision to introduce the Roadster with a two-speed transmission that delayed production a year or more. As of May, two Roadsters have been delivered, and the expectation is that 300 will be in customers hands by the end of 2008. The luxury electric sedan codenamed Whitestar is slated for 2010.

Th!nk of Norway has begun producing cars again, and sales are slated to begin soon in Scandinavia, Switzerland and France. Th!nk has opened an office in California, and announced its intention to begin sales in 2009. Small regulatory hurdles still need to be overcome before the mini-car that turned me into an electric car advocate can be offered in the U.S.

An unusual entrant into the EV arena, Aptera, a three-wheeled futuristic electric car, continues to stir excitement, and would appear to be more than science fiction. Popular Mechanics took the car for a spin, and a video (available on my blog here) shows various members of the team at work developing the car. With an announced price under $30,000, hundreds of prospective owners have shelled out $500 for a reservation. Who knows how many would want the car if it appears as reported in the next Star Trek movie.

Automakers once completely dismissive of battery electrics, are getting on board, at least rhetorically. Smart has begun testing a small electric fleet in England. Audi here and BMW here are reported to be taking another look at all-electrics.

Still, with all the activity, showrooms remain devoid of a highway-legal electric car. Consumers in the market for a new car are trapped into purchasing a somewhat more efficient gasser. Despite ever increasing gasoline prices and looming environmental and political disasters based on our petroleum addiction, governments are taking only small steps and major automakers seem intent on squeezing every last dollar out of internal combustion.

A race, even a reluctant race, to offer electric cars, is a major about-face.
Let’s hope Nissan’s announcement is spurring its competitors to reappraise the potential of the market for electric cars.

Obama on cars

Today Barak Obama appeared on Meet the Press. (full transcript here.)

MR. RUSSERT: How long before our automobiles are off of gasoline oil and, and using something like an alternative fuel?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, you know, I, I think that if we decided right now that we were going to make the kind of investment I've proposed--$150 billion over 10 years--then I think at the end of the decade we could have a auto industry that has significantly reduced our consumption of oil by as much as 35, 40 percent. And the technologies exist right now for plug-in hybrids. You know, we should continue to investigate the possibilities of electric cars. The problem is is that we have not been serious about it, and Detroit ended up making investments in SUVs and large trucks because that's where they perceived a competitive advantage and that's where they felt they could make the most profit. I think it was a mistake for them not to plan earlier. Now we're seeing a huge growth in fuel-efficient cars that is benefitting the Japanese automakers, and Detroit is getting pounded some more. And I think that we can make those cars here in the United States. By the way, that's going to be our expert market over the future. China already has higher fuel efficiency standards than we do. If we want to compete for those markets, then we're going to have to invest in technology. The government can help, but the automakers have to make some changes. And I didn't say that just in front of environmental groups, I went to Detroit and said it in front of the automakers. That's the kind of truth telling we need from the next president.

Aptera: incredible becomes believable

The Aptera electric car, so futuristic looking it will appear in an upcoming Star Trek movie, is becoming more believable with each passing day. Extremely lightweight, it will be able to get decent range out of a relatively small lithium battery pack. Three-wheeled, it will not be speed limited like four-wheeled NEVs.

They produced a short video from inside their Southern California base station. Check it out.

[Source: Autobloggreen.com]