Plug-in cars: Moving Forward

I write a column for the Electric Auto Association newsletter, Current EVents. Here's my June column.

The trajectory remains clear, and the pace has quickened. Plug-in cars are inevitable. Nissan appears intent on opening up a market for mid-price range electric cars within two years. Mitsubishi has begun to manufacture the iMiev in the thousands for the Japanese market. GM may be in bankruptcy but remains unwavering in its commitment to have the Volt in some showrooms by November 2010. The other carmakers domestic and foreign have less firm but well press-released plans for plug-ins. The open question is what forces will drive the process and therefore at what pace. Veteran automakers, oil companies, and federal and state governments have been both the prime movers and obstacles to plug-in cars in the past and they remain so today. GM waxed hot and cold on the EV1. California’s ZEV mandate put EVs into consumers’ hands, only to be eviscerated by automaker and oil lobbying, federal intervention, and CARB’s capitulation to well-funded hydrogen hype.

However, the power relationships have shifted somewhat. In the past industry ultimately called the shots. Today the federal government holds the cards. The taxpayer is financing the American automakers’ survival and their future. Will we get our money’s worth?

President Obama has stated a commitment to 1 million plug-in cars by 2015. Policies and incentives are in place that could get us there. The federal consumer tax credit awaits major automaker cars that can claim them. It’s far from a slam dunk. Automakers and major environmental organizations stood behind the President as he unveiled a new national regime of higher CAFE and greenhouse gas emission standards. The plan calls for 39 mpg for cars and 30 mpg for light trucks and SUVs by 2016; no automaker lawsuits; and California subscribes to the national program through 2016. Rulemaking will determine the extent to which this new regime will promote plug-in cars beyond the initial tens of thousands that seem slated to appear from the majors beginning with MY 2011. I suspect without some explicit direction from the top, prodded from those of us below, the automakers will do everything to achieve the requirements with conventional vehicles, eschewing the greater near term cost and long-term benefit of transitioning toward plug-in electric drive components and batteries. Toyota, the automaker arguably best positioned and most experienced in the ways of electric drive, has scarcely hidden its intention to go slow on plug-ins while touting small incremental mileage gains on the gasoline-only Prius and the green glitz of an optional solar roof.

Energy Secretary Chu’s decision to defund hydrogen fuel cell vehicle programs was an unexpected and welcome decision. It hasn’t led to an immediate abandonment by the automakers of this long over-subsidized initiative, but it will help put a stopper in the drain on resources accelerated under President Bush. As high officials of CalEPA and CARB got wind of Chu’s analysis of H2 and FCVs, they reportedly went to DC and lobbied furiously if unsuccessfully to pull him back. California hasn’t blinked in its commitment to Schwarznegger’s pet project, the hydrogen highway. “Energy” companies are poised to receive the lion’s share of $50 million dollars to install a few more H2 filling stations. Despite this ongoing investment and years of institutional neglect of plug-in technology, more than ten times the number of electric cars are driving around than FCVs and more than twenty times the number of EV charging stations exist in California.

The National Hydrogen Association (members include Chevron, GM, Shell, Toyota, Honda, CARB and UC Davis), the California Hydrogen Business Council, and the US Fuel Cell Council are not happy with Chu’s cuts. But their dreams haven’t yet been sunk. In addition to the California funds there is federal stimulus money, $41 million by mid-April, being doled out to their projects, many of zero environmental benefit. Such as the $1.1 million Anheuser-Bush will receive and $1.3 million FedEx will get to replace grid-connected zero emission battery forklifts with fuel cell forklifts. The total for fuel cell forklifts this round is $10.8 million, resulting in a net emissions and petroleum increase as grid electricity is replaced with non-renewable hydrogen hauled in diesel trucks.

On the federal level the signs are that biofuels will get great and sympathetic attention. Secretary Chu is a big advocate, having brought in hundreds of millions of oil company dollars for biofuel research to the universities with which he has been affiliated. Under Obama’s plan flex-fuel vehicles will continue to garner enhanced credits despite decreased mileage and fuel unavailability. The politics of ethanol and the dream that our greenhouse gas, particulate and petroleum problems can me mitigated away incrementally with fundamentally unchanged vehicles makes the push for electric drive more difficult.

The push for hydrogen fuel cell and ethanol vehicles is essentially driven by the corporations with an interest. It is consumers who are driving the demand for plug-in cars. Although the future of plug-in cars looks brighter than ever, our work is cut out for us. No plug, no deal!

Volvo PHEV in 2012

The web is filled with news of Volvo's partnership with Swedish energy company Vattenfall to bring a plug-in hybrid to market in 2012. Big news: it's a diesel plug-in hybrid.

Left Lane
Jalopnik
Wall St Journal (subscription required.)

Snarky CNBC report on "obsessed" Mini E driver

The first consumer with a Mini E lease, Peter Trepp, was interviewed on CNBC. The vroom- obsessed anchor concludes with an erroneous and unprofessional "gotcha" about coal. The report exudes such bias, you may want to let CNBC know how you feel here.

Still pimping for hydrogen

Secretary Chu may have acted on the science, but the Terminator hasn't gotten the termination memo.

Reporter: Are you satisfied with the number of hydrogen stations and vehicles we have today?

Schwarzenegger: I wouldn't be here if I was. I'm hungry! I want more cars, more stations, and not just in California. I think Washington has to get with it. . . We will find the partners and we will build the stations. We always march forwards.

Electric car agitation in Norway

In Norway, the effort to find a means to get financing so Th!nk can fulfill existing orders for thousands of vehicles took to the streets on Tuesday. A 50-electric car parade took the issue right to the Trade and Industry Department in downtown Oslo. A concrete proposal for a Guarantee Institute for Electric Vehicles was presented to the government.

ElectricAid, Norstart and Bellona, along with politicians from the left and the right and the Green Party, Greenpeace and the Norwegian Environmental Union demonstrated support for a loan guarantee program. An answer should be forthcoming shortly.

They broke it, we own it

Looks like GM's imminent bankruptcy will result in the US government holding a 70% stake.

NY Times

First Electric Mini Delivered!

Peter Trepp in Southern California is the first consumer to take delivery of their electric Mini. The USA Today story begins:

"Peter Trepp just can't keep his foot off the accelerator of his new Mini E."

Peter blogs about his electric Mini at www.petersminie.blogspot.com/.

Toyota spokesman on PHEVs at EVS

You can smell the PHEV procrastination. Asked by the reporter when the plug-in Prius on display will be available in Norway, he replies:

"This is the first demonstration program. We have a small number of vehicles in Paris, France and in the UK and we're involved in gathering some data to understand how consumers actually use these vehicles...We will start much bigger scale demonstration... 100 vehicles in Strassbourg, and it's intended a 3 year trial to understand how consumers react, how they use the vehicle, to gather information and this will enable us to decide the best way to configure the vehicle and then we can make decisions about marketing. No decision about introduction of plug-in hybrid vehicle. The whole reason is we have to do the trial to better understand consumer requirements..."

[Source: Electricaid/Norstart]

Chu speaks on hydrogen and fuel cells

Sounding a lot like Joe Romm in Who Killed the Electric Car.

TR: The hydrogen fuel-cell program has been scaled back in the proposed budget, and the emphasis has been changed from transportation to buildings.

SC: That's right.

TR: It used to be thought, five to eight years ago, that hydrogen was the great answer for the future of transportation. The mood has shifted. What have we learned from this?

SC: I think, well, among some people it hasn't really shifted [laughs]. I think there was great enthusiasm in some quarters, but I always was somewhat skeptical of it because, right now, the way we get hydrogen primarily is from reforming [natural] gas. That's not an ideal source of hydrogen. You're giving away some of the energy content of natural gas, which is a very valuable fuel. So that's one problem. The other problem is, if it's for transportation, we don't have a good storage mechanism yet. Compressed hydrogen is the best mechanism [but it requires] a large volume. We haven't figured out how to store it with high density. What else? The fuel cells aren't there yet, and the distribution infrastructure isn't there yet. So you have four things that have to happen all at once. And so it always looked like it was going to be [a technology for] the distant future. In order to get significant deployment, you need four significant technological breakthroughs. That makes it unlikely.

From an interview with Kevin Bullis of Technology Review, here.

Tom Hanks on his electric car

Tom Hanks' letter to the editor of the New Yorker about his electric car, a Toyota RAV4 EV.

RE: THE ROAD AHEAD
A letter in response to Peter J. Boyer’s article (April 27, 2009)

MAY 18, 2009
Peter J. Boyer, in his otherwise spot-on piece about the car industry, assumes that I once leased G.M.’s sadly fated EV1 electric car and, like other drivers of that twin-seat rocket of a vehicle, watched the emission-free car be wrested from my garage, towed away, and busted up into pieces of metal, glass, and rubber smaller than razor blades (“The Road Ahead,” April 27th). Luckily, I did not. The source of Boyer’s slight inaccuracy may have been the documentary film “Who Killed the Electric Car?,” which used a clip of a visit I made to the “Late Show with David Letterman,” during which I claimed to be saving America one electric car at a time. However, by the time I began shopping for an all-electric car, in 2003, the EV1 had already been yanked from showrooms as if the car had never existed. Instead, I found what was purported to be the very last electric car available for sale in the state of California—a Toyota EV. It had four doors, a rear hatch, room for my family, including a dog in the back, power windows, A/C, a great sound system, and the fastest, most effective windshield defroster known to mankind. When the car companies collectively, and, to some, diabolically, decided to take these cars back, the electric vehicles disappeared. But not mine. I have the pink slip. I own that car, and it is still driven every day, albeit by one of my crack staff of employees. My electric car recently crossed fifty thousand miles on the odometer with its original battery but without so much as a splash of gasoline.

Tom Hanks
Los Angeles, Calif.

Source: The New Yorker

Minneapolis gets EV Ready

Minneapolis will be getting 18 electric cars from Ford, and stimulus funding will be used to install charging points, as reported in the Twin Cities downtownjournal.com

Electric Minis only weeks away from delivery

Four hundred fifty electric Minis will hit the road in the next few weeks in California, New York and New Jersey. The leasees, who will have the car for one year, are chomping at the bit. Bill Nye the science guy will put aside his gas-guzzling Prius for twelve months. Ex-EV1 drivers will be among those taking advantage of their first opportunity to get back in an electric car. Ken Bensinger reports on a gathering in LA.

Chu kills fed fuel cell funding

The New York Times reports:

Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development.

It's about time. Gotta wonder what they're thinking about their pet project now in Sacramento. California does seems determined to be the last supporter of hydrogen and fuel cells left standing. There's still time to reallocate AB118 money being flushed away on a few hydrogen stations. CEC, CARB, anyone listening?

Source: NY Times

Report shows bioelectricity yields more miles per acre than ethanol

It has been suggested before that it just might be more efficient to turn crops into electricity than biofuel, and here's a study that proves that to be the case.

According to the study co-sponsored by the Carnegie Institution for Science, "Bioelectricity was the clear winner in the transportation-miles-per-acre comparison, regardless of whether the energy was produced from corn or from switchgrass, a cellulose-based energy crop. "

"The internal combustion engine just isn't very efficient, especially when compared to electric vehicles,” says Elliott Campbell, lead author and professor at UC Merced. “Even the best ethanol-producing technologies with hybrid vehicles aren't enough to overcome this."

“Some approaches to bioenergy can make climate change worse, but other limited approaches can help fight climate change,” says Campbell. “For these beneficial approaches, we could do more to fight climate change by making electricity than making ethanol.”

And it's all here in this cool graphic. Click it to see it larger.











[Source: Carnegie Institution for Science]

Oil makes us impotent

“I had a surprising call this week,” the author Richard North Patterson told the audience that had gathered last weekend as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. It was former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Patterson’s new novel, “Eclipse,” is based on the case of the Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Mr. Clinton spoke of a phone call he had made 14 years ago to Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria, asking him to spare Mr. Saro-Wiwa from the hangman.

Mr. Clinton said General Abacha “was very polite,” but “he was cold,” Mr. Patterson related. “Clinton took away from that, among other things, that oil and the need for oil on behalf of the West and other places made Abacha, in his mind, impervious.”

The event’s moderator, the Nigerian novelist Okey Ndibe, added an unexpected epilogue. A friend in the Abacha cabinet said the general later boasted: “All these pro-democracy activists run to America and expect America to save them. But the U.S. president himself is calling me ‘sir.’ He is scared of me.”

Source: New York Times

Letterman slams GM and Hydrogen

FT: EV subsidies a waste

Yesterday's Financial Times had a great companion piece to the idiocy in today Post. The UK announced a £5000 incentive for EV beginning in 2011. After recognizing that the intent of such a subsidy is to "encourage early adopters of the technology, helping electric car manufacturers achieve economies of scale," author Richard Pike suggests a reason to oppose it is that "it would cost more than £150bn to subsidize Britain’s entire car fleet," a proposal no one has made.

Read it here.

WashPost: Volt Caused GM's woes

Charles Lane is a member of the editorial page staff of the Washington Post. Here are some gems from his screed against the Volt, and electric cars in general, in today's paper:

"GM wouldn't be in quite so deep a hole if it had not sunk a billion dollars, and much of its corporate reputation, into a not-very-realistic plug-in electric hybrid vehicle known as the Chevrolet Volt."

"Unless and until gas prices shoot up, you'd be crazy to buy one of these much-ballyhooed vehicles..."

"To be sure, the green-leaning Obama administration has not ruled out allowing a restructured GM to continue pouring (federal) money into the Volt. But I hope it won't. The Volt and other electric vehicles could gobble up more subsidies than ethanol."

"Indeed, to the extent that we use more electric cars, we reduce the demand for petroleum, which drives down the price of petroleum, which makes electric cars less competitive with gas-burning ones."

Essentially he saying that even the success of the electric car ensures its failure. Wow.

Read the entire (hit) piece here.

Chu on higher gas prices

From an exchange about gas prices between Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Florida Republican Cliff Stearns during a House hearing on the proposed climate bill:

Stearns to Chu: Last September you made a statement that somehow we have to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe, which at the time exceeded $8 per gallon. As Secretary of Energy would you speak for or against any measures to raise the price of gasoline?

Chu: The Secretary of Energy, especially now in today's economic climate, would be completely unwise to want to increase the price of gasoline. We're looking forward to reducing the cost of transportation in the American family. This is done by encouraging more fuel efficient cars. This is done by developing alternative forms of fuel like biofuels that can lead to a separate source, an independent source of transportation fuel.

Stearns: You can't honestly believe that you want the American people to pay for gasoline at the prices the level in Europe.

Chu: No we don't.

Stearns: Your statement that gas prices ought to rise to the level of Europe, doesn't that sound a little bit silly, in retrospect, for you to say that?

Chu: Yes.

[Source: SF Streetsblog]

Goodbye GM, Hello Tianjin-Qingyuan Electric Vehicle Company?

I write a monthly column for the Electric Auto Association newsletter, Current EVents. Here's my April column.

As March came to a close, the Obama administration found GM and Chrysler’s restructuring plans “not viable.” GM CEO Rick Waggoner was pushed out and the company got sixty days to get its act together. Chrysler was told to consummate with Fiat quickly or else. At the same time, the value to the economy and environment of a major push for plug-in cars as part of the recovery hasn’t sunk in at the top. Obama should take extraordinary steps to empower the electric upstarts to prove their mettle. A billion dollars of loans and grants directly supporting Tesla, Th!nk, Fisker and Aptera, for example, would get cars on the road and allow the plug-in project the chance to more quickly advance to economic viability without the legacy burdens carried by the majors. And these days a billion dollars is barely a rounding error in the money going to prop up the American auto industry.

While the American government is deep in the morass of Detroit’s legacy, the Chinese leadership may have turned to face the future. As reported in the NY Times, “Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.” BYD already has a plug-in hybrid for sale in small numbers in China, and has Warren Buffet-infused plans to market PHEVs and EVs in the US within a few years. Tianjin-Qingyan Electric is poised to offer an all-electric car in China before the end of the year for less than $30,000, before any incentives. Given the much lower production costs in China, the first Chinese company to pass American certification could place an EV on the market in the US that would cost a consumer under $20,000 (after incentives.) That would be a game changer.

Can I charge my new EV here?

At the moment only Tesla is putting cars on the road, at the rate of about 20 per week. But other cars, including the MINI E, will be out and about soon, and stimulus money abounds, so the question of public EV infrastructure is much discussed. The EAA is taking the lead, along with Plug In America, to get it done right. A major error of the ZEV mandate period, no single connector standard, will be overcome once the SAE Standards Committee finally approves the new protocols. That process has been too slow, already resulting in new cars with differing connectors on the road.

A new opportunity and complication has appeared with startup companies appearing that wish to offer competing subscription-based public charging networks. The EAA and Plug In America are working closely with these companies to ensure adherence to some basic principles: universal access, interoperability and maintaining needed legacy infrastructure. In the future, any plug-in car must be able to charge at any public charger.

New public charging infrastructure, however, won’t bring us electric cars. And while I can testify that it is useful to have public access chargers, people with RAV4 EVs in places like Long Island, Hawaii, and Nova Scotia have gotten along fine without. The effort to get cars to market must remain our focus. Stop in at a car dealer today and let them know: No Plug? No Deal!

Honda Kills CNG Home FuelMaker

Honda has pulled the plug on its wholly owned subsidiary Fuelmaker, which made the device for home CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicle refueling, calling a loan, and throwing Fuelmaker into receivership.

All Fuelmaker employees were abruptly fired without severance or warning, and given just a few hours to gather up their belongings and leave the premises. All Fuelmaker operations were suspended without notice to dealers, clients or suppliers. All assets were immediately placed on the auction block for liquidation.

Huh? Wasn't Honda the big promoter of CNG? The only car company offering one in the US, the CNG Civic? Wasn't the home fueling device meant to blaze the path to a home hydrogen fueling device?

Edwin Black does the reporting on the machinations around FuelMaker's bankruptcy last week. Read about it here.

Who wants a Th!nk City?

Automakers the world over, large and small, are in the crapper. The financial crisis has hurt those that sell gas guzzlers and electric cars. Electricaid.org in Norway is trying to support its native EV company, Th!nk, and the efforts to offer the Th!nk City in the U.S. as soon as possible with its "Get Me A Th!nk" campaign. My first electric car was a Th!nk City so I'm biased. That little car made me an EV advocate. If you are interested in buying a Th!nk City, sign up by clicking here.

Saab Story

Unlike other countries, including the US, the conservative government in Sweden is opting to let Saab sink or swim without government aid. GM took the distinctive Swedish brand into the toilet, and is now preparing to cut it loose. The people of Trollhatten are now surprised to find their main source of employment abandoned by both its corporate parent and national representatives. Read Sweden Says No to Saving Saab in the NY Times.

This does make me wonder about the suggestions Sweden might be more hospitable to Th!nk.

Tata says Norway first; Th!nk says tata to Norway?

Tata says Norway first for electric Indica, later this year, as Th!nk ponders leaving Norway for lack of gov't support. What's up with that?

$49,900 after tax credit

Elon Musk has disclosed the intended price of Model S, even if the car itself must spend another week under wraps. And another two years before production cars begin to roll off an assembly line. According to the Tesla newsletter "the Model S will have an anticipated base price of $57,400. After a federal tax credit of $7,500, the effective price will be $49,900."

If you live in a state that adds further incentives for plug-ins, such as Texas or California, you're looking at perhaps $45,000. Not bad.

Think Again

It's on. The press release announces "...a team of Think personnel are meeting with representatives from the state of Michigan and seven other states to discuss options to bring electric vehicle manufacturing jobs to the U.S." tomorrow. According to the communication "U.S. sales of the TH!NK city will commence in mid-2010."

Gen. Wes Clark lobbies for ethanol

Wesley Clark, retired general and one-time presidential candidate, once headed Wavecrest, a company that produced an awesome electric bike. Now he heads the ethanol industry trade group Growth Energy. The ethanol industry is struggling. Plants are shuttering and plans for more put on hold. The debate on the relative value of corn ethanol and its environmental impact continues unabated. But the lobbying must go on, as reported in the NY Times blog Green Inc.

Today retired General Wesley Clark, a onetime presidential candidate who now is the co-chairman of an ethanol industry group, asked the Environmental Protection Agency to raise the limit on how much ethanol can be blended into gasoline. The limit is 10 percent; General Clark and his group, Growth Energy, want the amount raised as high as 15 percent.

On Thursday CARB logically indicated that "lifecycle emissions" need be calculated in the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, potentially disadvantaging ethanol. I expect Gen. Clark will be seen in Sacramento shortly.

Think recalls announcement

ASG Renaissance, the firm that sent out the notice regarding Think's plans, has sent out another message recalling the previous message.

Who knows.

Think announces US plan

Think of Norway is set to announce plans for US manufacture and sales. Think personel will be meeting with representatives of Michigan and seven states on March 12th to discuss options for manufacturing. According to the media advisory U.S. sales of the TH!NK city will commence in mid-2010. The Think City will have a range of 112 miles and a top speed of 62mph.

Mitsubishi PHEV concept to be unveiled

Mitsubishi plans to show a concept plug-in hybrid at the Tokyo Auto Show. Larger and more upmarket than the all-electric iMiev scheduled to be sold in Japan shortly, there no information yet on what flavor hybrid Mitsubishi will employ. Production is at least three years away.

[Source: autocar.co.uk]

Auto sales continue slide

Reuters reports:

U.S. auto sales dropped by more than 41 percent in February to the lowest level in almost three decades as deepening economic uncertainty drove Americans away from big purchases and new debt despite aggressive discounts from major automakers.

General Motors Corp, which is racing to complete a restructuring plan this month to keep it from bankruptcy, led the sinking industry lower with a 53 percent drop in sales.

The results mark the 16th consecutive monthly drop in auto sales...

Ford down 48%.
Chrysler down 44%.
Toyota down 37%.
Honda down 38%.
Nissan down 38%.

Have no fear American oil is here

photo credit and thanks to Stefano Paris

Fisker hits the tube

Thanks Stefano for the heads up.

Renault Swears off Hybrids and Hydrogen

Chief operating officer Patrick Pelata has confirmed Renault is diverting all research and development money away from hybrid and hydrogen technologies toward electric cars, according to Autocar.co.uk.

Pelata's vision is that a third of Renault's line-up will be electric within a decade. He has also promised that it will have three battery-powered models on sale by 2011: an electric Kangoo van, a Clio-sized five-seat hatch and a larger saloon designed primarily for Israel but which would also be sold across Europe.
All three new models will use NEC lithion-ion batteries, jointly developed with Nissan, and have a range of at least 100 miles.

Fuel cell merry-go-round

Because there are are so few of them, to keep the dream alive fuel cell vehicles need to be schlepped around. CARB and the automakers need a "travel provision" that gives California ZEV credits to fuel cell vehicles even when they have relocated to other states.

Now that Volkswagen's 16 FCVs have done their required duty at the Beijing Olympics, they have moved on to Sacramento. The VW press release boasts that along with the eight FCVs already housed at the California Fuel Cell Partnership, "these 24 vehicles create the largest fleet of fuel cell cars from a single manufacturer at one location anywhere in the world." Awesome or pathetic?

VW also brags "These vehicles logged nearly 50,000 miles in Beijing - with zero harmful emissions." That's about 3000 miles each. I log that amount every two months or so on my electric car. SCE could log 50,000 miles every week or so with its Toyota RAV4 EV fleet.

Mary Nichols recently decried the ideological/theological debate between battery and H2/FCV advocates saying "from the point of view of a regulator, this is madness. We know that we need both." But the truth is we don't know that. We can't know that yet. But we know plug-in cars are in the pipeline. They're coming. We know that electric vehicles can do today much of what needs to be done with all the benefits fuel cell cars can only, less efficiently, promise. We know that without plug-in vehicles California can not achieve its GHG reduction goals. And we know that consumers are anxious for plug-in cars. The only madness here is a regulator digging in its heels against all evidence.

Volt guy drives a Tesla

He has even come to be a citizen-envoy to GM.

Just Business

Harper's Magazine has a profile of an oil fixer, the sort of middleman without whom we don't get our daily dose. It's not a pretty picture, but it's how the oil business works. The profiled fixer, Ely Calil, is a well-connected businessman. While he continues to be an operator in oil, he sees an new opportunity to make money on his connections to potentates and oil executives.

"One of his most promising investments is a company called Green Holdings, which is in the emerging field of carbon trading: buying rights to pollute from cleaner businesses and selling them to dirtier ones. The firm has struck deals in China and India, and Calil has traveled regularly to both nations on the company's behalf, hoping to establish business ties and build political support. It is an ironic turn indeed that Ely Calil, who grew so rich off the excesses of the carbon era, should now stand to profit still more from the long struggle to clean them up."

The story is available as a pdf here.

Nissan EV in Fall, 2010

Nissan is telling Tennesseans that their state will be included in a Fall, 2010 launch of an electric car. The Chatanoogan.com reports on a luncheon at which Mark Perry, director of product planning and strategy for Nissan Americas, discussed the automaker's intentions. His inclusion of fast charging as well as California's existing EV Charging infrastructure, suggest Nissan has learned some lessons from the ZEV mandate days. Nothing he says sounds utopian or implausible, which is a good start.

Mr. Perry said there will be some expense in outfitting garages to power the electric vehicles. He said that could range from a couple hundred dollars to up to $2,000 depending on the arrangement and current capacity of the garage.

He said plans are underway for adding charging stations along major highways and at malls and other public places. He said California already has 660 electric vehicle charging stations.

A fast charge takes 26 minutes, he said. He said merchants may want to supply charging stations so they will have the occupants of the vehicle as potential customers for those 26 minutes.

The "grand and lovely futility" of Honda's FCX Clarity

Dan Neil has another must read article in today's LA Times. He heaps praise and digs the grave of Honda's fuel cell marvel. I'd really like to hear what the other Dan, CARB Board Member and hydrogen fuel cell stalwart Dan Sperling, thinks upon reading it.

It is the most expensive car he's ever driven; he figures about $2 million. It is limo-spacious and drives electric-smooth. It is extremely well-appointed down to the walnut wainscoting and eco-friendly plush fabrics.

The 200 Angelenos who get to lease Honda's limited-production show dog will be impressed. Honda will be pleased, as it gets greater CARB ZEV credits.

But Dan, uniquely among auto journalists, is not taken in by the elegant and sophisticated trappings.

Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won't work in cars. It's a tragic cul-de-sac in the search for sustainable mobility, being used to game the California Air Resources Board's rules requiring carmakers to build zero-emission vehicles. Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars.

He runs through the numbers and shows the lousy efficiency of hydrogen compared to electricity. And challenges hydrogen advocates to a duel: "I'll meet you on the field on honor. Calculators at dawn."

But this is no wasted effort on Honda's part. When battery electric cars appear in the competitions' showrooms, Honda will take out the fuel cell and H2 tank and greatly increase the battery storage already in the vehicle. Honda will be ready to go electric. Of course consumers are ready today. As Dan concludes his piece: "Just bring me one that I can plug in."

Full article available here.

Ethanol blues

NY Times reports:

As recently as last summer, plants that make ethanol from corn were sprouting across the Midwest. But now, with motorists driving less in the economic downturn, the industry is burdened with excess capacity, and plants are shutting down virtually every week.

...In the meantime, plans are lagging for a new generation of factories that were supposed to produce ethanol from substances like wood chips and crop waste, overcoming the drawbacks of corn ethanol. That nascent branch of the industry concedes it has virtually no chance of meeting Congressional production mandates that kick in next year....

...Carlos A. Riva, president and chief executive of Verenium, a company working to produce ethanol from sugar cane waste, said that solving the technological hurdles for this type of fuel was “not a slam dunk.”

...“Cellulosic ethanol is something that is always five years away and five years later you get to the point where it’s still five years away,” said Aaron Brady, an energy expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

Nissan, Tesla, expect govt loans for EVs

Nissan and Tesla are both well on the way to receive loans from the federal government to support their electric car manufacturing plans. Nissan applied for a loan to upgrade its Smyrna, Tennessee plant to assemble electric cars and build a new facility for battery production, according to an Automotive News report appearing in Autobloggreen.

Yahoo Finance reports that Tesla is expecting a $350 million DOE loan to set up a factory to build their as yet unseen Model S 4-door sedan. The big reveal is scheduled for March 26.

And GM follows suit; 10,000 cut

GM cuts 10,000 salaried workers worldwide, including 3,400 of its 29,500 salaried jobs in the United States.

Nissan cuts 20,000 jobs, EV plans threatened?

Nissan has joined the world's automakers with bad news. They'll be cutting 20,000 jobs worldwide. They joined Toyota, posting an annual loss, for the first time in nearly a decade. Nissan's Carlos Ghosn had become a major industry advocate for plug-in cars, with a fairly aggressive plan for multiple platforms within a very few years. A launch next year in Oregon had been announced previously. Nissan and sister company Renault have been the automotive backbone to Better Place's attempt to rejigger the automotive market. Will the worldwide economic downturn cause a general plug-in postponement?

According to Business Week, "the company will suspend its current business plan, announced last May." But the same report states that "production of an electric car will still start in late 2010; the car will be mass-marketed globally by 2012."

In related EV news, GM announced today that Bob Lutz will be retiring a year before the Volt's scheduled release. He had previously vowed to stay on through the November 2010 launch.

Tesla Roadster does Dan

The Tesla Roadster made sweet sweet love to Dan Neil one recent weekend.

"God has grabbed me by the jockstrap and fired me off his thumb, rubber band-style. Wow."

For comparison's sake we get a detailed and fascinating blow-by-blow of the labored, mechanical foreplay required for an internal combustion engine to thrust forward the Porche he left for dead.

Neil is lyrical about everything you want to know about the performance ("explosively quick") and packaging ("[t]he Tesla interior is rather bare and ungracious") of the most anticipated electric car ever.

What's important is that after a weekend with the Roadster, he can see the future.

"...the Roadster is here now, a divine spark, an animating lightning stroke of a whole new kind of car industry."

You can read the full piece in the LA Times here.

GM Promotes an Electric Car

Sit and Spin in a Th!nk City

How Ford got back in the EV game

Ford has done it's share of electric cars, including the Ranger EV and Th!nk City that were its ZEV mandate cars in the '90s. The #2 US automaker has made a few plug-in hybrid Escape Hybrids that have been in a test fleet at Southern California Edison for about 18 months. Plans for a 2012 general release of the PHEV Escape did not wow anyone. Still no firm numbers, nor irrevocable commitment. Electrification, a buzz-word at rival GM, didn't appear to be gaining much headway in Dearborn.

Of course Ford needed some plan to deal with last year's high gas prices. The surprise appearance at the Detroit Auto Show last month of an electric Focus may be evidence of a new day (again) at Ford. As reported in today's Detroit News story Ford's electric car project charges ahead, Canadian supplier Magna International surprised the American automakers by quickly producing an electric Focus on their own dime and driving to Ford's front door last September.

As with the BMW MINI E, what is stunning, if not surprising, is how quickly a decent fully electric vehicle can be put on the road. While GM takes the time to make a ground-up new PHEV vehicle, Ford and others could get the EV show on the road more quickly using existing platforms. All eyes are fixed on 2011.

Of course all this electric car hoo-ha bubbled back to the surface with last year's gas prices, now receded. I can't help thinking the electric boom we saw in Detroit last month was the result of plans laid half a year earlier, when even millionaire OEM executives were aware of, if not afflicted by, $100 fill-ups (when they weren't flying around in the corporate jets.) The likelihood of somewhat tighter emissions standards nationwide with the arrival of Team Obama has meant automotive alternatives aren't completely off the automakers' table for now. But the economic crisis could end up a lost opportunity to begin the needed shift to plug-in cars. If Team Obama is convinced it's more important for Detroit to just sell cars, than sell the right cars, we could lose yet another decade. As the article rightly mentions, there is a great upside for the automakers to sell some electric cars. "Building electric vehicles gets the emissions monster off their backs, and it also helps their fleet fuel economy average in a big way," according to skeptical industry analysit Jim Hall.

Lisa Drake, Ford's chief engineer for hybrid programs was extremely impressed with the electric focus Magna dropped off. But there's a hint of the possibility of delay.

"We were modeling $10 a gallon. We were modeling $12 a gallon. We decided we need to be ready the next time this comes around."

High gas prices or not, neither the industry nor the environment nor consumers can wait for "next time."

Multi-nation survey reports consumers want electric cars. Now.

A large survey, 4000 people in eight countries, has discovered what many of us have been saying all along. There is an existing market for electric vehicles, especially among those who can afford the extra cost of limited-production new technology vehicles. The only problem? There are no cars for sale. A Business Week blog reports on the survey by the Munich based consultants Bain & Co.

“Consumers would be buying now if there were products,” says Gregor Matthies, a Munich-based partner at Bain who specializes in the auto industry.

For years BMW disparaged electric cars, and poured money into liquid hydrogen ICE vehicles and promoted them ad nauseum. I drove one of those, and although luxurious (it's a $100,000 7-series before the hydrogen,) it was lumbering and slower off the line than my RAV4 EV.

Yet it took BMW less than one year to make an electric car. A friend called me while behind the wheel of the MINI E last night and it is, not surprisingly, a hoot to drive. After the onslaught of advertising for the doomed Hydrogen 7, we've yet to see much in the way of promotion for the eminently buildable and marketable electric MINI. Is this limited, one year, lease-only release testing the waters? Or merely a way to meet ZEV mandate obligations?

Norway stimulates economy and electric cars with 5000 chargers

As a part of the new government economic stimulus plan, Norway will be getting a "forest" of charging stations for electric vehicles. The Scandinavian nation, which is home to Th!nk, today has about 2500 EVs on the road. The plan is to quickly install 5000 charge points, reports Richard, the founder of the website Electricaid. Electricaid was created late last year to explore ways to help save Th!nk. The site has quickly grown to hundreds of members worldwide.

An infrastructure development proposal such as this would be most welcome here in the US. The short-term stimulative effect of preparing America's cities, highways and byways with wiring, hiring electricians and other workers, would be significant. And it would leave the country ready to receive the cars that will help us achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Obama to grant California waiver Monday

New York Times reports the expected change in federal policy will happen Monday.

...the centerpiece of Monday’s East Room announcement is Mr. Obama’s directive to the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately begin work on granting the so-called California waiver, which allows the state, a longtime leader in air quality matters, to set its own standards for automobile emissions.

The Onion: Survivors Mourn Loss of Gas

Survivors Of Gas Station Explosion Mourn Tragic Loss Of Gasoline

Gore's group on board with plug-ins

The Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore's group, has taken another step toward promoting plug-in cars (all electric cars and plug-in hybrids) with its RePower America campaign. They've got the budget to really move the national conversation about the future of cars away from the well-funded distractions of hydrogen, fuel cells, natural gas and ethanol. Let's hope Al Gore's been saying as much to President Obama (doesn't that sound great!)

Electric Cars - Yes We Can!

[©Nikki Kahn - The Washington Post]

East Coast - Along the route President-elect Obama rode on his way to DC, electric car activists spell it out.








West Coast - 75 electric vehicles paraded through the streets of Santa Monica in a pre-Inaugural Parade with a message for the President-elect.

Tesla to deliver Electric Smart batteries

Tesla will be producing battery packs for Daimler's electric Smart, reports Ken Basinger in the LA Times blog Up to Speed. One thousand packs will be delivered this year and next. This would mean returning to a business Tesla had previously considered but abandoned. In 2007 Tesla pulled out of an agreement with Th!nk to produce batteries for the new Th!nk City.

Hopefully we'll see some of these SmartEDs in the US soon. Daimler needlessly procrastinated on bringing the gasoline Smart Car to the US. Tens of thousands of sales later, last I heard there are still waiting lists. The electric Smart is eligible today for $7500 in federal tax credits. Why wait?

Th!nk finds needed $$

The financial crisis that shut down Th!nk's factory appears to have ended, according to Reuters. The Ener1 Group, the main shareholder of the battery producer with which Th!nk had placed a large lithium battery order, has made a $5.69 million loan.

Toyota: moving backward

Toyota will be showing a battery electric car - the 50 miles range FT-EV - in Detroit. But before you get too excited, Irv Miller, Group Vice President - Environmental and External Affairs, has some words of caution in his blog.

"It’s important to note that at this point the FT-EV remains strictly a concept."

Lest we forget, ten years ago Toyota produced the 100+ miles range RAV4 EV. And most of them are still on the road. For the record, mine currently has 65,000 miles on the original battery pack and still gets over 100 miles per charge.

The tragedy is that Toyota could put plug-in cars in showrooms today, but they refuse to be first. Rest assured, they won't be last.

RAV4 EV with 95,000 miles sells at auction

Occasionally a RAV4 EV sells used on the open market. Yesterday one sold at auction for $32,600. Why so low, some bloggers are asking? Why so high is the real question. $32K is about what the original purchaser paid back in 2003, after the $9000 rebate then in effect in California. Is there another car that has so retained it's value?

Mitsubishi and Peugeot ink deal

More Japan/France cooperation on the EV front. Mitsubishi will be supplying electric cars to French automaker Peugeot, as reported in Forbes. Mitsubishi's stock rose 6.5% on the news on a down day in Tokyo.

Snow falls, Tango plows in Spokane

It's one thing to read about a Prius powering a home during a blackout.

Check out this video showing an unexpected benefit to the torc, power and design of the Tango electric car.

Clean coal

Just a the coal companies go on the air with ads that could be Obama campaign commercials, down to the Yes We Can (make coal clean,) the real world intrudes.

Toyota on concept EV: Just for show

A bit more information today on Toyota's small EV. The message, from spokeswoman Jana Hartline, is don't expect more information. There will be no press conference devoted to the vehicle at the Detroit Auto Show, where it will simply be displayed.

“It’s a concept we are bringing to the show basically to confirm our interest in electric vehicles,” Hartline told the Detroit Free Press.

Toyota to display a concept EV

The press release couldn't be shorter.

TORRANCE, Calif., Dec. 22 -- Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. will display a battery electric vehicle concept at the 2009 North American International Auto Show. This display marks the world debut of this concept vehicle.

It's hard not to be snarky. Toyota will display a concept EV! My six year old Toyota RAV4 EV electric car continues to perform flawlessly and gaslessly.

Toyota could provide global leadership today with plug-in cars. They've had the technology for over a decade. Instead they seem determined to let others be first.

Meanwhile Toyota will continue to sell only petroleum burning cars. Still, even Toyota is facing hard times. It is reporting its first loss in 70 years. Almost $2 billion.

Biofuels surge under Obama?

Obama's choice for Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, apparently can't be faulted for his dedication to dealing with climate change. Praise for the nomination ranges from Greenpeace to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But in a cabinet filled with ethanol boosters, his coziness with corporate sponsors of biofuels research makes me wonder what solutions to the climate crisis will get top priority, and top dollar after January 20th. Chu's biggest "get" was half a billion dollars from BP for biofuels research at UC Berkeley. Is Steven Chu BFF With BP? in Mother Jones magazine recounts his story and raises questions:

"Chu's role in creating the Energy Biosciences Institute may inform his approach to governing the Department of Energy, a major governmental underwriter of research, and one that will face pressure to partner with corporations in pursuing technological solutions to climate change. As the incoming Obama administration prepares to spend liberally to develop cleaner sources of energy, the structure of corporate-government partnerships will determine how the profits of that research return to taxpayers, and how rigorously scientists evaluate the downsides of controversial technologies such as biofuels."

Corporate sponsors have an outsized influence on universities these days. UC has done lots of work on fuel cells because the auto makers came up with the dough. UC is doing consumer studies today that exclude battery electric cars but include hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. Can you spell Toyota? Berkeley will do lots of biofuels research because BP came up with the money.

Bush threw one billion dollars at hydrogen and fuel cells. Industry and universities have been feeding at the trough, but actual contributions to reducing global warming or petroleum dependence have been less than negligible.

Just when it seemed the overhyped promise of biofuels was diminishing, it may prove to have a second life under Obama.

Plug-in advocates are going to have our work cut out for us.

Obama's cabinet drunk on ethanol?

Obama's cabinet is looking very friendly toward ethanol, The Hill reports. Vilsack from Iowa at Agriculture, Salazar from Colorado at Interior, Daschle from South Dakota at HHS and likely Transportation nominee Ray LaHood are all big ethanol boosters. Chu at Energy, while critical of corn ethanol, has been an advocate for cellulosic.

I can't help but wonder who will be sitting at the table who understands and believes in transportation electrification. Will "flex-fuel" once again subvert the necessary transformation of the American auto industry?

Build My Dreams, BYD

The announcement that BYD, the Chinese battery giant turned automaker, has actually begun selling its plug-in hybrid, is pretty big news.

Shares rose about 15% on the Hong Kong stock exchange Monday. Earlier this year Warren Buffet invested over $200 million in the company (10% share). As most automakers plan for lower sales in 2009, BYD plans to double its sales to 350,000 units, including 10,000 plug-in hybrids. BYD intends to have cars on the road in the US within two years. Including an all-electric car.

As the automakers attempt to negotiate the uncertainties of the current economic environment, could it be the Chinese who bring plug-ins to the masses?

Beyond Detroit: Think halts production; appeals for govt help

Think Global, the Norwegian electric car maker, has halted production of its electric City car, generating fears of a possible bankruptcy. As reported by Reuters, "Like many other car companies, privately-held Think said it had difficulties in obtaining working capital and that automotive suppliers offered tougher terms on parts." It has asked the Norwegian government for $100-200 million to see it through the crisis.

Hybrid batteries doing fine

There's good news in Jim Motavalli's Greentech report in the NY Times about NiMH batteries in hybrids. The batteries have gotten cheaper, and they have proven robust and long-lived. Toyota reports a tiny percentage of replacements - 350 packs out of hundreds of thousands of 2nd generation Priuses. Yellow Cab in Vancouver has about 100 hybrids, some having racked up as many as 300,000 miles. Yet only 3 or 4 have been replaced, according to the company's general manager.

And Ford makes three

In Congressional testimony last week, Alan Mullaly, head of Ford, committed the company to developing plug-in cars.

Next month at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, we will discuss in detail Ford’s accelerated vehicle electrification plan, which includes bringing a family of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles to market by 2012. The work will include partnering with battery and powertrain systems suppliers to deliver a full battery electric vehicle (BEV) in a van-type vehicle for commercial fleet use in 2010 and a BEV sedan in 2011. We will develop these vehicles in a manner that enables it to reduce costs and ultimately make BEVs more affordable for consumers.

Nominally, at least, the Detroit 3 are now on board.

Musk v. Fisker

The Wall St Journal's new glossy mag, WSJ, reports on the rivalry between Tesla's Elon Musk, and Henrik Fisker. A bit of scratching and clawing.

Bailouts and Beemers

The deck of cards, some might say house of cards, that is the American economy is being shuffled. A generation of deregulation has culminated with free-market ideologues and corporate chieftains begging for salvation from the federal government once-despised as mettlesome.

Billions to bailout financial giants has been followed by a plea from the one-time Big Three. Hoping the broader crisis would provide cover for the effects of years of bad management and undesirable product, the over-compensated execs from Detroit flew in separate private jets to DC seeking a handout. As one commentator put it, it was as if three men in top hats and tails sat down to feast at a soup kitchen.

None can deny the importance of the auto industry to the American economy, but no one was in the mood to pay obeisance to the once-powerful supplicants. Bankruptcy itself seems to be on the table. Wagoner, Nardelli and Mullaly sat down to find Republicans sensing an opportunity to kill off the unions, and progressives willing to let it happen to bitch-slap the high-flying execs. Many would like to see a bailout with strings to drive retooling for plug-in cars. Plug In America is making it easy to let your Congressional representatives know how you feel at www.pluginamerica.org.

But some relief from November's economic doom and gloom could be seen in the string of announcements that suggest plug-in cars are truly coming to market within the next few years. GM went on the air with advertisements for the Volt, a full two years before it's release date. Some see greenwashing, some a continuing commitment to electrics in troubling times.

In early 2009 BMW will put 500 electric Minis (using an AC Propulsion drive system) on the road in LA and NY for a one-year lease-only trial reminiscent of the ZEV mandate era cars in California that were ultimately crushed. Only time will tell if this is a one-off to meet regulatory obligations or a new direction for the German automaker that’s been pursuing the lonely road of liquid hydrogen.

Nissan/Renault is clearly in the forefront, pursuing plug-ins globally. Chairman Carlos Ghosn has gone further than any auto exec in making an alternative fuel choice for the future and it is unambiguously battery electric cars. Commitments have been made for tens of thousands of cars within a few short years for Israel and Denmark in cooperation with Shai Agassi's Better Place. At the LA Auto Show Ghosn and Governor Ted Kulongoski announced an agreement that will make Oregon the first state to see Nissan electric cars, beginning in 2010. Portland's electric utility has already begun installing charging insfrastructure. Nissan foresees full-scale marketing of EVs in 2012.

The San Francisco Bay Area is also making a play to become, in Mayor Gavin Newsom's words, "the electric vehicle capitol of America." The mayors of the region's three largest cities announced, along with Better Place, a move to aggressively promote plug-in cars.

The recent halving of gasoline prices poses a challenge. With the global economic downturn, oil may not return to $100 or more a barrel quickly. Many a move toward alternative fuels has died on the shoals of lower petroleum prices. Look for investments in ethanol to slow, and plants to close. But even at $2 a gallon, electricity is competitive, and in the national interest. It is up to us to keep the pressure on Congress and the automakers to find creative ways to bring plug-in vehicles to market quickly.

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.