The new generation of electric cars that are set to hit the market promise to help end the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and clean the air. However, they are not without flaws. One particular flaw in their charging system may even make them less environmentally friendly than the most fuel efficient conventional cars.
Last week, White Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) staff traveled to SBE Inc. in Barre, Vermont, where a $9.1 million Recovery Act grant is helping the company build a new electric drive component factory. As we toured the construction site with the company leadership, it truly felt as though we were witnessing a brand new American industry rising from the ground.
With the United States of America’s ever-mounting trade and budget deficits, unemployment above 10 percent (and, dependent on counting, un- and under-employment above 20 percent), looming peak oil and other resource (water, for example) limitations, environmental challenges, and ever-mounting climate chaos , America faces a very serious situation.
In fact, to one degree or another, these same intertwined challenges (with the exception of trade/budget deficits for some countries) are those face by societies and nations throughout the globe in our networked, systems-of-systems global community.
These serious challenges are a networked system-of-systems that interact and reinforce each other. As we strive to stop digging the holes deeper and climb our way out, we can seek to deal with these challenges in a stove-piped manner or address them with W6 solutions that have wins across multiple arenas:
Just as your mileage varies by where and how you drive, so might the performance of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid’s batteries.
The batteries in the GM vehicle due out in a year (November 2010) will have at least 10 years of life, according to company representatives who briefed the media on Tuesday. But vehicle owners who live in temperate climates are likely to see their batteries last much longer.
Honda is now offering a $500 rebate to customers who purchased a Civic Hybrid between 2003-2007 but aren’t happy with the gas mileage they are getting. This offer, which must be used towards the purchase of a new Honda (alternatively you can take $100 cash) is the result of a lawsuit by musician and disgruntled Honda Civic Hybrid (HCH) owner John True. True said he was only able to achieve 32 miles per gallon on his vehicle.
I know this story well as I am a former HCH owner, having purchased one in 2003. I similarly didn’t achieve the EPA’s estimated MPG that is required by law to be the only mileage quoted in advertising by the car companies.
In advance of the Frankfurt Auto Show next week, details are leaking out about the plug-in hybrid and all-electric (or battery electric if you prefer) vehicles that will be showcased there. Automakers from Asia to Europe to North America are busy trying to outdo each other with promises of fuel efficiency and reduced emissions.
Hyundai, Mercedes, Fisker, Peugot and others will be in Germany, touting electric vehicles due to go on sale within the next few years. Most automakers are hedging their bets by promising both PHEVs and EVs at some point in the future.
But the hype around plug-ins so far has been greater than EVs for good reason — there will be a wider selection of models, and they are likely to sell in far greater quantities through the first half of the 2010’s than battery-electrics. PHEVs will sell because they will sufficiently address consumer expectations in the key areas of performance at a substantially reduced cost.
Ford Motor Company has developed an intelligent charging system that previews how its production vehicles will interact with the grid. The unnamed system enables all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners to restrict charging to when electricity prices fall below a certain threshold, or even “when the grid is using only renewable energy such as wind or solar power,” according to Ford.
Being able to drive “emissions free” could be a huge selling point for the upscale and eco-minded early adopters who will be buying EVs and plug-in hybrids during the next few years. There’s a natural synergy for customers to put solar on their homes and buy hybrids/EVs, who can then drive free of fossil fuel guilt.
These are the days for clean tech observers and professionals. Our most innovative companies are finally bringing game-changing technologies to market and into competitive parity on cost. The political will that has been lacking for decades seems to be gaining critical mass. Even corporate America seems to be on board with making a profitable shift to a green economy.
Still, it’s not all rosy in the green tech picture. Getting climate change legislation through the house was a bloodsport and, as previously noted on the CleanTechies Blog, the Senate looks increasingly unlikely to put anything substantial on the President’s desk this year. And that is just the new policy. Around the country, existing policies designed to enable clean energy adoption are floundering, and even with all of the aforementioned momentum, in a down economy policy makers cannot afford too many false starts.
Some automotive entrepreneurs are feeling like when it comes to getting DOE funding, it’s who, not what you know.
The $2.4 billion in federal funding for advanced battery and vehicle electrification announced this week boosted battery manufacturers that had prior relationships with the DOE, while some lesser-known innovators were left with hat in hand.
Matt Mattila, a consultant in the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Mobility and Vehicle Efficiency Practice says the money “went to the old guard” and left out new EV companies such as Aptera where “$100 million could make or break them.”
As we bat around the potential of all electric, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen battery and other possible automotive technologies, its worth noting that once upon a time, almost all of the vehicles on the road ran on…water.
Those were the days of the Stanley Steamer, and automotive technology is – in some ways – just coming back to complete the circle.
Electric transmission might be taking the same trip back in time. NYT linked through to a Climate Wire story that highlights the resurgence of direct current (DC) transmission line construction. The vast majority of transmission is on alternating current (AC), but the story recounts that DC was Edison’s preference: “…it’s all I’ll fool with.”
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