Electric Car Clean Energy Technology

March 12th, 2010

battery

Ford Motor Company said it will invest over $550 million to change a former light trucks plant in Michigan to a modern green facility to make fuel efficient small cars such as the next generation Focus and its electric battery version.
“The transformation of Michigan Assembly Plant embodies the larger transformation underway at Ford,” said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally. Ford said production of the new Focus global small car in the Michigan plant will begin next year. The plant will employ about 3,200 people. The electric battery Focus will be manufactured starting in 2011.


“This is about investing in modern, efficient and flexible American manufacturing. It is about fuel economy and the electrification of vehicles,” Mulally added.

The company has the target to deliver four electric vehicles into the U.S. market by 2012.

Those vehicles are the zero-emission Focus, powered by a lithium-ion battery and a Transit Connect battery electric commercial vehicle to be sold in North America in 2010. Ford also plans to assemble a next-generation hybrid vehicle and a plug-in hybrid vehicle in 2012.

Obama gives 2.4 billion dollars to “Jump Start” Battery Makers
March 19, 2009
President Obama is making good on his promise to start the EV revolution. During a visit to Southern California Edison’s Pomona EV test facility, he launched a $2.4 billion competitive grant program for US battery makers.

It’s all part of the Obama administration’s plan get to 1 million plug in hybrids on the road by 2015.

The electric vehicle’s time has come.
The electric vehicle (EV) movement has broadened to multiple levels of the public debate. Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio have recently made movies about the need to assist the environment and how oil and energy have created the global warming problems that our world currently faces. Al Gore just won a Nobel Peace Prize for his discussion and call to action about global warming/climate change. The price of oil has recently fluctuated around $140 per barrel and $4.00 per gallon. Well, EVs solve a lot of problems quickly. Electric vehicles bypass high energy prices. Electric cars cost pennies to charge. Electric cars have zero tailpipe emissions. While they charge up on electricity from power plants, they can also charge on electricity from solar, wind, and any other renewable resource. Also, if you compare emissions from power plants for every car on the road versus gasoline emissions, electric cars are always always cleaner. In addition, as power plants get cleaner and our power plants reduce emissions, electric cars will only get cleaner.

Electric cars also help develop the economy. We all know that we need to increase the number of electric cars. Hybrid electrics, plug-in hybrids, and low-speed vehicles all expand electric transportation. We as a country—no, we as world—are increasing our involvement in this industry. From China to India, to Great Britain to France, and back here in the United States, electric transportation can only create a new industry that will increase our manufacturing sector’s ability to build clean efficient cars. I recently spoke with an owner of an electric car company who said that the UAW was more than excited to build electric cars since the traditional car companies were leaving Detroit in single file. This can only increase domestic jobs in the United States and help our economy.

Our world is depending on fossil fuels from countries that predominantly have not supported the best financial interests of the United States. It is a national security issue for all of us to be sending over billions of dollars to countries that are politically unstable and/or antagonistic with Western nations. Another way to ask the questions is: Should we be sending more money to Iran and Venezuela, or should we keep it in our own pockets? That is why I believe in a pollution-free, oil-free form of transportation. My first company’s tag line use to be “Pollution-Free, Oil-Free, It’s Good To Be Free.” That is the mantra I would like to provide for this blog! When you drive an electric vehicle, that is how you feel—free.

Why should anyone buy, convert, or build an electric vehicle today? Simply put, they are the cleanest, most efficient, and most cost-effective form of transportation around—and they are really fun to drive. When I worked for the State of New York, we always used to say that electric cars were almost maintenancefree: they never require oil changes, new spark plugs, or any other regular repairs. When a person would say, “Really?” I would then say, “Well, not quite—you need to change the washer fluid for the windshield.” Electric vehicles (EVs) are highly adaptable and part of everyday society: Electric cars are found on mountain tops (railway trams, cable cars), at the bottom of the sea (submarines, Titanic explorer), on the moon (Lunar Rover), in tall buildings (elevators), in cities (subways, light rail, buses, delivery vehicles), hauling heavy rail freight or moving rail passengers fast (Pennsylvania Railroad Washington to New York corridor). Are they all electric vehicles? Yes. Do they run on rails or in shafts or on tethers or with nonrechargeable batteries? Yes. EVs were designed to do whatever was wanted in the past and can be designed and refined to do whatever is needed in the future. What do you need an EV to be: big, small, powerful, fast, ultra-efficient? Design to meet that need. General Motors’ EV1 is an excellent example of what can be done when starting with a clean sheet of paper. Closer to home and the subject of this blog, do you want an EV car, pickup, or van? You decide.

As car companies continue producing sport utility vehicles (SUVs) that cannot meet federal fuel standards or reduce emissions that are harmful to our environment, think about some of the statistics and facts from the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) and various notable sources: The USDOE states that more than half of the oil we use every day is imported. This level of dependence on imports (55 percent) is the highest in our history. The USDOE even goes on to say that this dependence on foreign oil will increase as we use up domestic resources. Also, as a national security issue, we should all be concerned that the vast majority of the world’s oil reserves are concentrated in the Middle East (65 to 75 percent), and controlled by the members of the OPEC oil cartel. Further, USDOE goes on to state that 133 million Americans live in areas that failed at least one National Ambient Air Quality Standard. Transportation vehicles produce 25 to 75 percent of key chemicals that pollute the air, causing smog and health problems. All new cars must meet federal emissions standards. But as vehicles get older, the amount of pollution they produce increases. In addition, only about 15 percent of the energy in the fuel you put in your gas tank gets used to move your car down the road or run useful accessories like air conditioning or power steering. The rest of the energy is lost. Clearly the potential to improve fuel economy with advanced technologies is enormous.

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Nissan Considers Battery-Leasing for Electric Cars

May 6th, 2010

For the past few months, Nissan-Renault has been tiptoeing around the idea of leasing the battery packs that power its upcoming electric cars. The goal is to assuage consumer worries about getting stung with the high cost of replacing an electric car battery if it fails or loses too much capability over the course of years. Nissan has not confirmed details, but Carlos Ghosn, chief executive for Nissan and Renualt, in an interview earlier this month with Le Journal du Dimanche, mentioned a cost of “just under 100 euros per month” (about US $150) for battery leasing.

Ghosn’s passing comment, not applied to any specific vehicle, does not provide enough data to begin punching numbers into a calculator—but reveals how tricky the economics of pure electric cars might become for consumers.

Nissan is targeting about $30,000 as a purchase price for the Nissan Leaf, its electric car rolling out in limited production in late 2010, and widespread release in 2012. That figure is well below the competition. Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV is selling for about $47,000 in Japan, and the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid—with its 16 kilowatt-hour battery versus the Leaf’s 24 kilowatt-hour battery—is expected to sell for about $40,000. Separating the monthly price for a battery lease from the original purchase price would explain how Nissan could offer the Leaf at such a competitive price.

Ghosn’s increasingly frequent comments about battery leasing could reflect a change of direction for Nissan, or could mean that battery leasing will only be offered for Renault-brand electric cars. Larry Dominique, vice president of product planning for Nissan North America, speaking at an industry conference last month, said, “We want our customers to have just one payment.”
Pricing Shell Game

The business website BNET warns, “Leasing a battery effectively just splits a monthly car payment in two.” According to BNET, Ghosn wants to spin the second payment, for the leased battery, as an equivalent to the amount the driver of a regular car would pay for gasoline. “But that’s a cost that an electric car owner can avoid, whether they’re paying a monthly lump sum or a car payment plus a battery leasing payment.” Electric car drivers will spend much less on electricity recharging than they would on gasoline—although few drivers spend close to $150 per month on gasoline. The economic advantage of spreading out $4,000 or $5,000 worth of battery lease payments will largely depend on prices at the pump and the number of miles driven.

Nissan is also considering the option of leasing the entire vehicle, batteries included, but will need to avoid the perception that it could prevent devoted owners from keeping their vehicles, if they so desire, at the end of the lease. Automakers that offered electric cars in California in the late 1990s eventually forced drivers to return vehicles—some of which were infamously crushed—creating a public relations nightmare.

Leasing deals will also have to take residual value into consideration—and the value of an electric car with diminished battery capability (even if only to a slight degree) could adversely affect those values. Dominique told Ward’s Auto, “We want to be able to control the residual value. We want to be able to control the end value, so at the end of a lease or loan we have the vehicles back and we can decide what to do with them.” In addition, plug-in car batteries will have as much as 80 percent of their useful life left when they’re no longer powerful enough for use in cars. A leasing firm could find other uses for them in stationary systems.
Goal: Eliminate Confusion

Nissan is not alone in its consideration of a battery-leasing plan for electric cars. Project Better Place, a start-up company planning to offer battery recharging and swapping services, wants to own batteries and sell “battery subscription services” similar to cell phone plans. The company is partnering with Nissan in Israel. Think Car USA, prior to its bankruptcy last year, planned to lease batteries for its City electric car.

Sparing customers the need to perform detailed cost calculations will be a key strategy for successfully introducing the next generation of electric cars. Batteries remain the largest area of concern. Mary Ann Wright, CEO of battery venture Johnson Controls-Saft, last year told USA Today, “Until we know how these things are going to behave on the road, and how much these things are going to cost, it would make sense to lease them.”

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