BMW considers extending MINI-E leases

The MINI-E program is going well enough that BMW is considering allowing leases extensions, Richard Steinberg the program manager said at CARB's ZEV Technology Symposium today.

Iceland Prez pops hydrogen bubble; Looking to electric cars

The last, best hope of hydrogen and fuel cell for vehicles is down for the count. After grand ambitions and lofty rhetoric, reality has set in. Iceland was to be the test platform. But ten fuel cell cars and a Shell filling station do not a transformation make.

EVs represent a faster way forward according to Iceland's President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. Iceland to working with Mitsubishi to bring iMIEVs in large numbers, and cooperating with other Nordic countries to create a unified market for EVs. Read Jim Motavalli's informative blogpost about his conversation with the President.

Coolest charging station in the world

Norwegian EV activist Leif Egge has become the inaugural user of the first floating recharge station I've heard about. Stena Line is now offering car charging on its Scandanavian ferries. Leif got wine, a good night's sleep and a full charge.

Read his full post here on his excellent website electricaid.org. If you want to get a sense of the international appeal of electric cars, check out the members. Sign up while your there.

Obama announces $2.4 billion for EV projects

President Obama today announced $2.4 billion for battery and electric car manufacturing and deployment efforts. Green Car Congress has the full rundown of recipients.

Congratulations to San Francisco City College for the $500,000 it will receive for educational programs for secondary students; service personnel, and technicians in partnership with Chabot College; Central Shops; Pat’s Garage; and Perfect Sky Inc.

Toyota's First Electric Car?

Huh? Autocar.co.uk is reporting:

"Toyota's iQ-based electric car, due to be launched in 2010, will get its own body style to create a stand-alone model which will become Toyota’s first all-electric car" (emphasis added.)

I'm pretty sure I just stepped out of my 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV. With 69,000 miles on the original battery, it still gets over 100 miles per charge.

Toyota still wishing away it's own achievement. What's that about?

I'll be happy to see Toyota release a car with a plug, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Source: Autocar.co.uk)

Toyota whines about Ontario plug-in rebates

Toyota has a go-slow policy on plug-in electrics. Despite having produced the RAV4 EV - the most useful, robust, and long-lived electric car - Toyota wants to milk its non-grid connected hybrid technology as long as possible before moving on to the next big thing. Ontario has announced a $10,000 rebate for plug-in electrics, and Toyota wouldn't benefit as they delay general release of their own plug-ins. Crying foul, they claim the rebate is back-door support for GM's Volt. Of course, Nissan and Mitsubishi, which have announced plug-in electric cars, will also be able to take advantage.

Toyota was all for policies that benefited its hybrids in California to the exclusion of most other car companies when they got the California legislature to limit HOV access to hybrids that achieve 45 mpg.

Toyota should stop whining and delaying. Were it to release a plug-in hybrid or electric car, it too could benefit from the forward-looking policies Ontario has enacted.

[Source: Leader-Post]

What’s up with the BMW MINI E?

The BMW Mini E has hit the streets. Barely one year ago, word surfaced that an electric Mini was in the works. In June about 500 cars were placed in consumer and fleet hands in Los Angeles and New York and New Jersey for what BMW calls a "field trial."

Like all the automakers, BMW dabbled in concept electric cars over the years. They produced a small fleet for the Munich Olympics in 1972. Although BMW didn’t sell enough cars in California to be obligated under the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate during the ‘90s, during the past few years it was clear the German automaker would cross the threshold. While its competitors, including Mercedes, were united in their promotion of gaseous hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, BMW developed a liquid hydrogen internal combustion program. You’ve probably heard of it, the Hydrogen 7. Based on the $75,000 – 125,000 7 Series, this million dollar mechanical marvel was advertised as “ready for the world when the world is ready.” More money was probably spent advertising the car than went into the electric Mini program. (see the ad here.) Part of a green full court press has included placing the car with celebrities for a short while. Their stories have appeared in the autobloggreen.com website. The VIP treatment includes, I’ve heard, the rather un-green diesel flat-bedding of the cars overnight for refueling.

Why, if millions are being poured into a few dozen Hydrogen ICE cars and their promotion, should BMW rather suddenly decide to produce 500 electric Minis? The answer lies back with California’s ZEV mandate. The simplicity of the original mandate, a percentage of zero tailpipe emission cars, is long dead and buried. The rules and regulations now are byzantine, a kludge upon a patchwork altered every few years. BMW found that the quickest and cheapest way to get the credits that it will need to accumulate is, of course, to build electric cars. And they found a way to game the system as so many automakers have done before. BMW would get the biggest bang for the buck by placing electric cars by June 30, so there has been a mad scramble to get the last cars out the door as I type. The ZEV program shouldn’t be doling out credits for cars on the road for merely one year. CARB was scammed when the EV-1s were destroyed after a few years. This time they actually got notice of the carmaker's intention. It is past the time for R & D for electric cars. The ZEV program is meant to commercialize ZEVs. As with the NEV fiasco, credit-building schemes are taking precedence over production zero emission vehicles on the road. The complexities of the ZEV program have been counterproductive. BMW is playing by the rules, and one can't blame the corporation for doing what corporations do. It's the rules that stink. Join Plug In America's call on CARB to close the loophole that allows full credit for part-time electric cars here.

Of course, that an electric vehicle program of this size could be slapped together in a year to 18 months is simply more evidence that EVs are ready for prime time. BMW turned to AC PropuIsion for the best electric drive components on the market. The car is essentially a high-end conversion. As with many conversions, space is sacrificed for the battery box. In the case of the electric Mini, that means no backseat. In all regards save the placement of the batteries, the car is certainly good enough to put into production. As with the RAV4 EV, this isn’t the best platform for an EV – it’s too heavy and could be more aerodynamic. But once again we’ve got a 100+ mile range EV that could compete in the market. I drove the car from LA to San Francisco recently. It’s fun and peppy, a sweet ride.

While one has got to celebrate another 500 EVs on the road, even temporarily, the way BMW handled the program and its consumer “pioneers” makes one doubt BMW has any intention of launching a real EV program any time soon. Delivery of vehicles was delayed about 6 months and many cars are being delivered without the appropriate chargers or cordsets. The Mini E team was said to have little familiarity with electric cars, and the enthusiastic dealer sales people had their energy challenged by consumers’ frustrated eagerness and corporate indifference. Pioneers’ inquiries about the applicability of the federal $7500 tax credit continue to be stonewalled. Accountants have suggested BMW could transfer the tax credit, which would have the effect of bringing down the steep $850/month the Mini E is costing its “pioneers.” One logical explanation has these vehicles qualifying for a federal R & D credit permitting them to deduct the full cost of the cars and therefore not eligible for the $7500 tax credit only Tesla purchasers can today use. Only BMW knows and they’re not saying.

As BMW was hustling to get the cars on the road by the June 30th deadline, placing increasing numbers with fleets for a mere $10 a month, at least one enthusiastic “pioneer” was turned away less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to pick up his car. Jeff U’Ren drove a Panasonic Lead Acid EV-1 for a few years. After having that car snatched back and destroyed, he was anxious to get back in an EV. After passing the detailed and time-consuming screening for potential drivers, once again he’d be getting a 100 mile range 2 seater. But his repeated inquiries about the $7500 tax credit and general outspokenness on behalf of the prospective “pioneers” on the Mini E Facebook page seem to have caused BMW corporate to reconsider his “suitability” to participate in the program.

Almost bizarrely, the day after Mr. U’Ren was told not to go to the dealer to pick up his assigned car, and long before any data has been accumulated from the EV test fleet, BMW announced it would launch the BMW City in 2012, a 3-door hatchback pure electric car with 100 mile range. As reported in Car & Driver “According to BMW chairman and CEO Norbert Reithofer, the City is designed specifically for the U.S. market to meet California’s Zero-Emission-Vehicle (ZEV) requirements that call for large-volume manufacturers to sell ZEVs by 2012.”

Oregon incentives to shift from hybrids to plug-ins

Oregon's House has passed a bill to end the $1500 tax credit for conventional hybrid vehicles on the last day of 2009. After that point only plug-in vehicles qualify. House Bill 2180, which passed overwhelmingly,

Creates specific tax credit for purchasers of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and related equipment.

Limits tax credits for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles that are not designed for electric plug-in charging to vehicles purchased before January 1, 2010.

Source: StatesmanJournal.com

More pooh from Toyota

Toyota pushed its innovative "21st century" car development into full gear in the early 1990s under company chairman Eiji Toyoda.

"Developing a commercial electric vehicle at that time posed a slew of challenges," the official said. "That is the case even today."

...a battery pack's ability to hold a charge and its durability vary by temperature and driving conditions, the automaker points out.

Full story "Future of 'green' cars begins with the hybrid" in Japan's leading newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun.

Toyota pooh-poohs the plug

In the wake of Secretary Chu's defunding hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles, Toyota continues its assault on the inevitable plug. They don't want to be rushed into it. Automakers the world round have had 100 years to suck every ounce of profit possible from the internal combustion engine, and Toyota intends to get at least a few decades out of its lead in gasoline-only hybrid vehicles. Somehow battery plug-in cars within thousands of dollars of cost competitiveness "enter the world of Star Trek" according to Bill Reinert, who nonetheless trumpets hydrogen fuel cell cars only a few hundred thousand each from any semblance of marketability.

Irv Miller of Toyota says of plug-ins "this dog won't hunt." Yet he cites the example of his own wife as one for whom it could work.

See the NY Times Wheels blog for more.

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