EV Owners in California to Feel the Shock of Higher Electricity Rates

Woe betide the electric car. Outpaced by their petrol-powered cousins in the 1900s, saddled with heavy and potentially dangerous batteries in the 1970s and crushed in the name of the Almighty Dollar in the 1990s, it’s been a rough road from there to here.

And now, on the dawn of a new age where electric cars seem poised to take their rightful place alongside gasoline cars, the electricity companies are about to throw a wrench into the works. If you live in California and intend to buy a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius or Chevrolet Volt or an all-electric Nissan Leaf, you could be in for a...shock.

If the energy giants have their way, the Chevy Cobalt, which would have to rate on my list as one of the least desirable cars built by GM, is more economical to own or operate than any of the above. The reason?

Essentially, The California government has approved its energy providers to impose higher rates on customers who exceed, “typical household levels” of energy use all in the name of conservation. So if, for example, you spend eight hours a night recharging your electric car, you’ll find yourself classed as one of these excess customers.

Wham, bam, the electricity companies charge you more than Mr. Joe Public next door who drives a Toyota Sienna and still has to pay for the good oil. And contrary to what you may of heard, it doesn’t matter if you recharge your car at night when the rates are lower; you’re still gonna take a hit to your hip pocket.

And it’s not like the California legislature is rushing to correct this oversight.

Wally Tyner, the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, said that to make the Volt more economical than the Prius or the Cobalt, oil prices would have rise to between $171 and $254 per barrel, depending on which electricity pricing system is being used. Californians for example, pay an average of 14.42 cents per kilowatt hour, which is about 35 percent higher than the national average.

"People who view the Volt as green will pay $10,000 more over the lifetime of the car because it's green," Tyner said. "Most consumers will look at the numbers and won't pay that."

So until you’ve taken a pen and paper and worked out the real cost of owning an EV in California, maybe keep that Geo Metro for a while longer.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Purdue University

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Green for Green: The Truth About America’s Car Buying Habits

At the Society of Automotive Analysts' (SAA) 2011 Automotive Outlook Conference in Detroit, J.D. Power released some statistics on U.S. light vehicle sales in 2010. The figures make an interesting reading.

86% of vehicles sold were gasoline-powered, 8.7% were flex-fueled, 2.6% were diesels and 2.4% were hybrids. Their forecast for 2020 is perhaps even more stunning. An estimated 71.5% of vehicles sold will be gasoline-powered, 10% will be flex-fueled, 9.5% will be hybrids and just 1% will be pure electric.

More than seventy percent will be gasoline powered in 2020? Whatever happened to my Hydrogen-7 or Tesla Model S? As Rebecca Lindland, Director of Strategic Review for IHS Automotive explains, nothing.

"We studied the 1970s and we looked back at the last couple of oil crises, and we found that the [American] consumer will buy small, more fuel-efficient cars for literally three to four months. And then three or four months later, we go right back to buying big cars. It's just a pattern."

When gas prices dropped from $4 a gallon back to less than $1.75 a gallon in early 2009 (see EIA's chart below), buyers simply lapsed back into their old buying habits. It’s one of the reasons trucks / pickups outsold cars in 2010. Lindland elaborates:

"It doesn't matter that there's over 30 new hybrid models on the market. [American consumers are] not buying them."

Most of the auto industry’s hopes lie with Generation Green, the first of which will probably be buying their first car in 2012. Lindland explains why Gen Green are so important:

"They're going to be the first generation to always have a hybrid or electric vehicle as one of their buying choices. They won't have to adapt their buying behavior. These are vehicles that they will have grown up with, and they will have never known a market without them."

It’s not all sunny, however. Jeff Schuster, J.D. Power’s Executive Director, said things such as price premiums, range anxiety and a lack of recharging infrastructure are still hurdles that hybrid and electric vehicles are yet to cross.

"You can read all the stories about how we don't typically drive more than 30 miles in one direction anyway, but the reality is that people want that security," said Schuster. "They want to know they can go further with the vehicle."

Regardless of what consumers want, increasing CAFE standards mean more hybrids; EVs and subcompacts are on the way. Lindland is especially fearful of a reprise of the ‘70s where tougher fuel economies drove carmakers to build “vehicles that nobody wanted” Here’s looking at you, AMC Pacer.

Others though are optimistic. Carlos Tavares, Nissan’s Executive VP and Chairman of Management Committee-Americas (we swear we didn’t make that up) recalls the debate of bringing the Versa stateside. The subcompact sedan and hatchback now commands 20% of the market segment.

"I think at the end of the day, the only thing to be said is let the American consumer decide," said Tavares. "We'll bring the products. We will continue to bring compact cars, and we will eventually reinforce our presence in compact cars, because today nobody can bet on the fact that oil is not going to go up."

So it just goes to show: while we all say we’re concerned about the environment, maybe all we really care about is what’s left in our wallets. It’s a tough reality, but maybe one the world will have to face sooner rather than later. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Industryweek

Our Automotive Future: Clever Tech Meets Clever Manufacturing

In a decade where green has become the new buzzword for almost every industry, automakers are facing two big problems: economy and emissions. The simplest way to achieve this is to reduce weight and reduce the size of the engine. With all the government mandated safety equipment and luxury features that today’s customers demand - power everything, air conditioning and the like - achieving the former is very difficult. And fitting a small engine into a heavy body is only going to stunt performance and make fuel economy all the more worse.

Fortunately, there are a few potential solutions. Carbon fibre is one. It’s said to be ten times stronger than steel and five times lighter. Unfortunately, it’s also four times as expensive, making it impractical for use in non-luxury vehicles. Now, engineers are looking to green energy and new manufacturing methods to make carbon fibre cheaper. Still, the results are yet to be seen.

There’s also the burgeoning belief that ultracapacitors are set to replace lithium ion batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles, though this is far from certain. Like carbon fibre, ultracapacitors are very expensive and unlike today’s lithium ion batteries are quite bulky and heavy. Think of the first generation of phone batteries for a worthy comparison. Fortunately, costs are coming down. According to Mike Sund, VP of investor relations at Maxwell Technologies, “[Ultracapacitor] costs have been reduced by two-thirds over the past three years.”

Even in this post-GFC world, the price of oil is also becoming an increasing concern for consumers and big business alike. Products, like Ethanol E10 and E85, are decent stopgap measures though aren’t solving the bigger problem. Now, companies are looking to manufacture synthetic gasoline from biomass such as woodchips and other waste materials. .

The technology still isn’t at the stage where it can compete with the major oil refineries, meeting only 1/8th of their capacity. Another hurdle is the raw biomass itself, which is too heavy to transport long distances. Still, new advances and investment in the industry are sure to produce some interesting results in the near future.

Lastly, the Scuderi Group has developed an experimental split-cycle engine that causes combustion to occur after the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, which it claims is 50% more fuel efficient than contemporary petrol engines. How about a 1L engine that offers the same performance as a 1.8, with better fuel economy than a contemporary 1L? By using some clever trickery that allows the spark to come later, along with a turbocharger and small air-tank, the Scuderi engine could reinvigorate faith in the internal combustion engine – if it ever reaches production.

So, the future of the automobile is looking bright. Now all that’s left is the wait to see if these technologies will reach production status.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: WSJ , Video: Scuderi Group

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NOx, Hydrocarbons and Worse – What’s Else is Coming from your Exhaust Pipe?

As automotive consumers, we think we’re pretty well informed. We read all the blogs and all the magazines, pouring over the all important numbers: 0 to 60 times, miles per gallon and – increasingly – CO2 emissions. That last one is interesting, as it’s only come to the mainstream public’s attention in the last seven years or so. Anyone would think that the only noxious chemical cars put into the atmosphere are CO2, but you’d be wrong.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons, diesel particulates and carbon monoxide are also put out by our daily drivers. Think of the worst parts of cigarette smoke and the fumes from burning plastic and you’ll have a good idea what I mean. Premature births, lung cancer and smog – all attributable to these noxious chemicals.

You may be surprised at the vehicles that are very good on CO2 and very bad on NOx and hydrocarbons. By adding the two together, we get a milligram per kilometre rating. So here are the best and worst from the UK’S Vehicle Certification Agency:

UK's best performers

Skoda Yeti 1.2 105PS 49mg/km

Nissan Qashqai+2 2.0 71mg/km

Honda Insight 1.3 IMA S/SE 73mg/km

Porsche Cayman S 3.4 79mg/km

Honda Insight 1.3IMA ES-T 5dr 82mg/km

UK's worst offenders (mg/km)

Nissan Pathfinder 2.5 dCi 190 1,150mg/km

Seat Ibiza SC 1.2 12v 70PS 1,026mg/km

Citroën C5 1.6i THP 1,010mg/km

Audi A4 3.2 FSi Multitronic 999mg/km

Mercedes B-Class B160 BlueEfficiency 994mg/km

Would you believe that a 2.5L Volvo V70 estate is in some ways better for the environment than a 1.3L Fiat 500 with start-stop engine tech? Try 201mg/km versus 484mg/km. And would you of guessed a Porsche Cayman S would be, in one way at least, better for the environment than a Mercedes-Benz B160 BlueEfficiency?

It just goes to show that the more you know the better off you are. One can only hope that, in time, these details will appear on the same stickers that tell us mpg and CO2 emissions so car buyers can make a fully informed choice.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: VCA via Telegraph

GM Building Parts for Chevrolet Volt from BP Oil Spill Booms

The new Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car is doing its part in improving the environment by making the best use of the oil that was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Deepwater Horizon rig. To explain, General Motors has began recycling oil-soaked plastic booms from the notorious spill into components for the Volt.

The Detroit-based automaker said it has developed a method to convert an estimated 100 miles of the material off the Alabama and Louisiana coasts into more than 100,000 pounds of plastic resin that will be used for parts that deflect air around the vehicle’s radiator.

These parts are comprised of 25 percent boom material and 25 percent recycled tires from GM’s Milford Proving Ground vehicle test facility, with the remaining percentage covered by a mixture of post-consumer recycled plastics and other polymers.

“Creative recycling is one extension of GM’s overall strategy to reduce its environmental impact,” said Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Environment, Energy and Safety policy. “We reuse and recycle material by-products at our 76 landfill-free facilities every day. This is a good example of using this expertise and applying it to a greater magnitude.”

If GM hadn't used the oil-soaked booms for parts, they would have been incinerated or sent to landfills.

“This was purely a matter of helping out,” said John Bradburn, manager of GM’s waste-reduction efforts. “If sent to a landfill, these materials would have taken hundreds of years to begin to break down, and we didn’t want to see the spill further impact the environment. We knew we could identify a beneficial reuse of this material given our experience.”

According to the automaker, the ongoing project is expected to create enough plastic under hood parts to supply the first year production of the new Chevy Volt.

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Super Green: The New Wave Of Environmentally Conscious Exotic Supercars

It's not that easy being green, least of all if you're a builder of exotic, high performance supercars or uberluxury sedans. Recently however, there has been a move towards improving fuel economy and reducing emissions by many of the world's biggest and most well known luxury and performance brands.

Take Ferrari's stop-start equipped California HELE or Mercedes-Benz's SLS AMG E-Cell concept, for instance. And there's more on the horizon, including the plug-in hybrid 918 Spyder from Porsche and BMW's Vision EfficientDynamics, the latter of which allegedly will offer M3 performance with a CO2 emissions rating of just 99 grams per kilometer.

And it's not just these four who are in it for the environmental crowd cred: other makers including Lotus, Audi, Lamborghini, Jaguar and Bentley are also looking to green up their model ranges.

This comes as no surprise to Christoph Stuermer, an analyst at IHS Automotive in Frankfurt:

"These upper-end, high-performance cars have always been examples of the best car technology out here, and being green is now part of being technologically advanced They have to come up with something so as not to be seen as technical dinosaurs."

Enrico Galliera, the commercial and marketing senior VP at Ferrari, agrees that it's definitely something that the company's customers are all for:

"When you consider buying a Ferrari, you're considering it for the performance. At the same time, when we approached customers and said, 'Here's a way you can still have that and be greener,' the reaction was extremely positive."

So there you have it. Now you can have your cake and eat it too, though you'll have to pay for the cake part first. And with prices around €180,000 (US$252,376) for the California HELE and an expected €500,000 (US$682,260) for the 918 Spyder that is one expensive, green frosted cake.

PS: Metaphors aren't my strong point...

By Tristan Hankins

Via: WSJ

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Philadelphia High School Students Build Automotive X Prize Contender [with Videos]

Some people are just meant to go places. In the case of 16-year old Azeem Hill and the rest of Simon Hauger's West Philadelphia-based high-school hybrid team, that place is somewhere into the vastly expanding world of alternative fuel technology.

The West Philly Hybrid X Team, builders of the EVX GT and EVX Focus, is the result of an after-school program at the Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering meant to educate youth about the future of hybrid tech and transportation. What's more impressive is that this young underdog team was in the running for this year's Automotive X Prize.

After besting some really heavy hitters (like MIT, for one), the EVX team was eventually disqualified. Still, let's give a digital round of applause to these guys for going out there and doing the damn thing with the big boys.

Azeem and other members of the program started out at ground level and learned everything necessary in order to create a hybrid car with the goal of returning 100 mpg in the city, 70 mpg on the highway, and still being able 60 in under 5 seconds. Check out the vids below to learn a little more about the program and its goals.

By Phil Alex

Link: EVXTeam , Via: Green.Autoblog & Treehugger

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Volvo wants in on the EV Business, Starts Developing C30 DRIVe Electric with Fuel-Cell Range Extender

With even the likes of Porsche going green – not to mention the Chevrolet Volt or the Nissan Leaf, it's no surprise that Volvo wants a piece of the "Look at me, I'm saving the planet!" action.

They partnered up with Powercell Sweden AB (with backing from the Swedish Energy Agency) and hope that the Volvo C30 DRIVe Electric will be ready for testing on the road by 2012.

"This is an exciting expansion of our focus on electrification. Battery cost and size means that all-electric cars still have a relatively limited operating range. Fuel cells may be one way of extending the distance these cars can cover before they need to be recharged" Volvo Cars President and CEO Stefan Jacoby said. "What is more, the project gives us increased knowledge about fuel cells and hydrogen gas".

The project is in its early stages, the focus being on the range of the car. And it's no surprise, as no EV can stand a chance these days if it can't go at least 40-60 miles on one charge.

To achieve this, Volvo is cooking up -wait for it- a Range Extender. A reformer, tasked with breaking down liquid fuel and creating hydrogen gas. This gas then goes into the fuel cell and gets converted to electrical energy powering the motor.

The advantage of the process is that it's creating electricity without any emissions of carbon oxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and particles whatsoever. On other thing is that the reformer can just as easily break down renewable fuels, like ethanol.

Volvo expects the Range Extender to, well, extend the range of the car by up to 250 kilometers (155 miles), in addition to the range provided by the battery pack.

By Csaba Daradics

Credo E-Bone has Funny Name, Bulbous Styling and Hydrogen Power

In the future, we will all ride around in hydrogen fueled plastic caterpillars. Or at least we will if Hungarian industrial design Peter Simon has his way. His vision for a greener public transport future is a hydrogen fuel cell - electric bus called the Credo E-Bone [is it just me, or does "E-Bone" sound like something you'd buy at an adult shop and plug into your USB port?].

The Credo E-Bone is a zero emission vehicle with a bone-like internal structure and lightweight composite plastic body. There is an electric motor driving each wheel which is presumably powered by the lithium batteries in stop-start driving and the hydrogen fuel cells on the highway. The fuel cells / batteries are stored on the roof.

For all my chiding, I do have to give Peter Simon some credit. If you square off the window- and roofline, do away with the curvy rear glass and wheel covers and replace the hydrogen fuel cells with natural gas, you come up with a very practical proposal. Not a very imaginative proposal, granted, but one that I could see on our roads within the next two to three years.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Ecofriend , Via: Green.Autoblog

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