Bush's Near Hydrogen Oops Moment

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

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

Hydrogen Hyped: BMW Does Pogue

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

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

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

Man, I sure hope so.

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

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

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

As Pogue accurately concludes his post,

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

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

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

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

Bush Uses Alternative Fuels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And nothing about the Volt, I presume.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Woolsey Gets Snarky and Plugs Plug-ins

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

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

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

Phoenix Rising?: All-electric SUT Debut in LA

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

She Wrote the Book on Plug-in Hybrids

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WNBC TV Does Plug-in Hybrids Right

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tesla to build new EV plant in New Mexico!

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

AP via the Detroit News
Link

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


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

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

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

Iran's Oil Woes; An Arab Electric Car?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Senators Ask Who Killed the Electric Car?

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

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

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

Welcome Rancher Dave

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

Brian Howey Get's it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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