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Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Monday, September 19, 2011
UCS Resource For Alternative Vehicles
Dave
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Renault EV Commercial
These kinds of things will start popping up more and more and the fact that they are, to me at least, is testament to the idea that we are going to start seeing EVs in earnest soon. It's a well made piece, perhaps a bit over reaching (I don't know how comfortable I am with the idea that mass producing anything is going to help the climate) but I think its meant to engage and make us think, which is always a good thing.
My friend Paul, who first posted this, pointed out that leaf in the last 10 seconds or so, a subtle nod to the companies sister, Nissan, which is bringing the Leaf EV to market.
Enjoy.
Dave
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
It's Over: 5 Reasons Why The Electric Car Wins
Original post at TriplePundit
It could take ten years or more to become apparent, but I’ll call it now: the electric car will replace the internal combustion engine.
A caveat: I am not an automotive industry expert. Which is why I’m right. I’m not mired in the details, the past failures, the what ifs or the buts. All I see are the big, obvious things. When it comes to sea change in human behavior, though, obvious matters.
So, since no prediction is worth its salt without an accompanying list, the following are five overlapping reasons why our children will all be driving electric cars.
(By the way, these all assume that business as usual; that is, running cars on gasoline derived from (imported, finite, polluting) oil is unsustainable. If you disagree, you’re at the wrong website.)
1. Momentum, aka, Forget Tesla. “Automotive start-up” may be an oxymoron, but it doesn’t matter. Even if electric car company Tesla and its little buddies don’t succeed, the fact is the big car companies are all developing EVs, or hybrid plug-ins, where the emphasis will increasingly be on the electric part, not the gasoline part.
Meanwhile, a zillion companies, plus many national governments, are furiously developing batteries that are powerful, quick to charge, and inexpensive. It’s practically a new arms race.
And then there’s the burgeoning smart-grid industry, which will make charging those cars even cheaper. “Smartness” will also make managing when and where to charge your car much easier.
2. People get it. I read an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that predicted the healthcare bill would fail because, unlike Social Security or Medicare, it’s too complicated. People just don’t get it. And while I personally believe in universal healthcare (I’m a freelance writer), I understand the point.
People get electric cars. People get where the fuel comes from: the wall socket – the same place you plug in your toaster or your TV (cars are increasingly appliance-like anyway). People get how electric cars move, too. Most people are at least familiar with the concept of an electric motor, and they’ve seen a Prius in action, if they don’t already own one.
And what people already get, people are more willing to a) fund development of, b) support through government, and c) buy.
3. Biofuel is foreign oil. And so is natural gas. Not literally, of course; but to an economy dangerously dependent on imported fossil fuels, they might as well be. And that’s bad news for these main competitors to electric powered cars.
Without going into the details, it would take a long time for biofuel to replace foreign oil as a source of our automobile fuel. Meanwhile, the price of oil will continue to climb, pushing the price of biofuel up with it. The public, seeing no relief from gas prices, will turn to non-oil alternatives, e.g., EVs.
So the chief selling point of biofuel, that it is a cheap domestic source of gasoline for our cars, is wrong in the short term and moot in the long term. Sure, we might be using biofuel in our hybrids, but those hybrids will be getting 200+ miles to the gallon, and eventually infinity/mpg.
Meanwhile, recent discoveries have pegged domestic reserves of natural gas at 2000 trillion cubic feet, enough to last us 100 years at current rates of consumption. If we use natural gas to power all our cars, however, we will run out a lot quicker. And it’s still a dirty fossil fuel with a limited supply and a wildly fluctuating price related to – you guessed it – oil.
Oh, and by the way: fuel cells are dead.
4. It’s electricity, stupid. Critics of EVs point out that anyone who lives in an apartment building or parks on the street, or ever wants to drive more than 100 miles at a time, can’t have an electric car, because without a recharge it will die.
Good point. But let’s put it another way:
Which would you rather pay for? New infrastructure to develop, extract and/or grow and then pump and/or truck the heavy, expensive “carbon fuel of the future” to gas stations…
…or longer extension cords?
Providing public places for electric cars to charge will not happen overnight, or for free, but the technology is here, it’s simple and it’s easily scalable. The problem of range will be solved either through quick charging batteries, battery-swapping, or an extended reliance on hybrids, until people feel confident they will always find a place to charge.
5. Dawning Obsolescence. Using gasoline to power your car is the 21st century equivalent of heating your home with firewood. I love gathering and chopping wood for a nice cozy fire on a winter night, but if I had to do it all winter, every winter, I would be eager to find a replacement technology.
In the future, people will look back on our once or twice weekly ritual of driving to a gas station and pouring a noxious, flammable and very expensive liquid into our loud, dirty vehicle and wonder what “life back then” must have been like.
By “dirty” I don’t just mean polluting, I mean actually dirty, the dirt that accompanies any vehicle that moves by means of burning things: rocket ships, steam locomotives, Corollas, whatever.
Next time you’re at a gas station, think about it. Is it really so hard to imagine the rubber pumps and hoses, and the smell of gasoline and oil as just so…19th century?
Resistance is Futile.
The EV revolution will not happen overnight. Stakeholders in various competing technologies will not allow their ventures to die without a fight. While problems of range and charging persist, consumers will be hesitant to switch, even as they are squeezed by gas prices. And of course, the shift from gasoline to electric can only happen one car at a time.
But my guess is that the shift to electric cars will happen sooner than we think. Change happens very slowly, and then, all of a sudden, very fast. Think of VHS to DVD, or the road from vinyl records to iTunes – four different technologies in less than 30 years (five, if you count eight-tracks).
The automotive industry is a whole lot bigger than the record business, but that also means there’s more incentive to make the switch to the leading technology. It also means once that technology is in place, there’s more incentive to support it. That technology is electric.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Nissan's Big Bet: Mass Market For EVs
Hans Greimel YOKOHAMA, Japan -- Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn is spending big money to make electric vehicles in high volumes -- and soon. On Aug. 2, Ghosn will unveil the first of three electric models in three vehicle segments that he plans to sell by 2013. The vehicles will be made in the United States, Japan and Europe. "We have a different strategy from other car manufacturers," Ghosn says. "We are the only ones investing for mass marketing, which is a risk, yes. But we think it is a bet in the right direction." That bet takes shape at a new lithium ion battery plant and at an electric-vehicle assembly line that Nissan will build at its Smyrna, Tenn., manufacturing complex. A $1.6 billion low-interest loan from the U.S. government will cover some of the costs. Analysts question the payoff. Nissan is not alone in going electric. -- In June, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., maker of Subaru cars, began leasing electric cars in Japan. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. follows later this month. -- Toyota Motor Corp. will sell a plug-in Toyota Prius after 2010, taking on the Chevrolet Volt, which goes on sale in November 2010. -- BMW AG's Mini brand is testing a plug-in model in the United States. -- Tesla Motors Inc., owned 10 percent by Daimler AG, received a $465 million government loan to help bring its $57,400 Model S electric sedan to market. 'Go for mass market' But rivals see initial volume in the hundreds or thousands. Ghosn wants hundreds of thousands. "If you go for EV, you should go for mass market," he says. Analysts warn of hype. Battery-powered cars may be the wave of the future, but costs are high; the recharging infrastructure isn't there, and hefty government subsidies are needed to make electric vehicles competitive. Nissan sees the technology as its best chance to eclipse Toyota and Honda Motor Co., which beat Nissan in introducing hybrid vehicles. "This is an opportunity to go into a whole new technology and own that space," says Andy Palmer, head of Nissan's electric-vehicle program. "Hybrid vehicles compete with the internal combustion engine. But EVs are a segment all their own." Nissan's consumer research shows that "there are definitely more than 100,000 in the United States who want" their next car to be an electric, Palmer says. Dealers excited "We can't get them soon enough," says Bill Newton, owner of Newton Nissan in Gallatin, Tenn. "Customers have already been asking about the cars since the news broke about Nissan's plans to build the car here in Tennessee." In California, Nissan of Elk Grove owner John Driebe thinks Nissan has identified a powerful new market segment. "A lot of Americans really want to stop using imported oil," he says. "We're excited about being able to market a car that will never use a drop of gasoline." Driebe's market near Sacramento is home to about 80,000 California state employees, many of whom are worried about the state's current budget crisis. Driebe sees commuting state employees as an ideal demographic group for the car. "By the time the electric car comes on line in 2012, the economy in California will be in a better place," says Driebe, the 2006 chairman of the Nissan Dealer Advisory Board. "Nissan is really committing to this idea, and I think they're going to be proven right." The Tennessee factories will have capacity for 150,000 vehicles and 200,000 battery packs a year. Production begins in late 2012. Nissan also will build electric vehicles at its Oppama assembly plant south of Tokyo, starting next fall with a capacity of 50,000. It also plans an electric-vehicle plant for Europe and is studying a plant for China. The first Japan-built car goes on sale in the United States and Japan next year to fleet customers such as corporations and local governments. It will be a four-door hatchback seating five people -- about the size of the Nissan Cube or Versa -- with a range of 100 miles per charge. Pricing isn't set. Oil vs. electrons Batteries are expensive. But Ghosn thinks rising oil prices will tilt the economics in favor of electrons. If crude oil rises above $80 a barrel, Nissan's electric vehicles will be cheaper to own and operate than gasoline-powered cars, he says. Crude trades for around $70 a barrel today. Analysts say that will rise as the global economy recovers. Ghosn aims for Nissan's electric cars, minus the battery, to cost as much as a standard car. Consumers will lease the battery at a cost that, including charging, will match what they would have paid for gasoline. Chris Richter, an analyst with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, says, "If they can make good on Ghosn's promise of a price comparable to a normal car, I think people will lap these up." Nissan hasn't said how much it is spending on its electric ambitions. The first of the three models costs as much to develop as three normal cars, a person familiar with the situation says. The total investment in battery and car assembly at Smyrna is expected to exceed Nissan's $1.6 billion loan from Washington, he says. The machinery needed to make 50,000 batteries a year costs more than $300 million, he said. Add in other costs, and the price tag just for battery plants in the United States, Japan and Europe -- which together will make more than 300,000 battery packs a year -- could total about $1.5 billion. Analysts ask whether Nissan's bid to take an early lead in electrics is worth the cost. Kurt Sanger, an auto analyst with Deutsche Securities Inc., says, "If the competition just sits back to see if it works and then uses its brand credibility to enter the market, there's no need to be first." But Ghosn sees his bet as positioning Nissan for the future, not just beating rivals to market with a single model. "It's a complete new lineup. Big cars, small cars, vans, light commercial vehicles, entry-level cars," Ghosn says. "It's a complete new way of looking at our industry."
We'll finally get to see the new Nissan August 2nd (that's Tokyo time, it'll still be the 1st here). I assume they'll have the name finalized by then, too. I'm kind of excited to see this car, having tested the drivetrain in the Nissan Cube. The drivability was similar to my RAV, but quicker. Since the Cube is 200 lbs heavier than the final body of the EV, it should be a bit quicker still.The best thing about the Nissan is the expected price range of $25K-$34K. This is before the $7,500 federal tax credit.Some think Nissan is taking a gamble by rapidly moving into mass marketing of EVs. They compare Toyota and Honda's approach of "wait and see how the market materializes for EVs, then jump in". I think it's Toyota and Honda that are gambling. They own the hybrid market and are doing quite well, thank you, so why adopt a whole new technology that's untried on a large scale? The gamble is that Nissan grabs the EV market and dominates it till BYD (China) enters the U.S. in 2012.Those who make the decisions to forgo battery EVs in favor of plug-in hybrids only, ignore a sizable market. I can only assume they have not spent any appreciable time in a well made EV. The benefits overwhelm the perceived problem of range. Once several thousand people get the opportunity to buy a well made EV the likes of Nissan's, the demand from the early adopter's friends and family will expand exponentially. Of this I am certain.Of course, we need millions of plug-in hybrids, too, so more power to everyone contributing to that market. It's interesting to speculate as to the relative market share the EV will have to the PHEV. I'm guessing close to 50/50. It'll be mostly driven by the cost of gas, that's a given.All I can think is that Carlos Ghosn (Nissan CEO) has driven an EV, maybe the RAV itself, and this is why he's positioning his company to be the leader in EVs. He knows how good it feels to drive a quiet, powerful car that doesn't pollute. One that only uses domestic energy. He knows that if given the choice, millions of people would choose that over a car that poisons the air and uses mostly foreign energy.Paul*******Nissan's big bet: Mass market for EVs
Automotive News
July 6, 2009 - 12:01 am ET
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
DOE Money Heading Towards Electric Vehicles!
According To Paul
We've been waiting for several months to hear this good news. Three EV pioneers, Tesla, Nissan and Ford, are receiving loans from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. Totaling $8 billion, the funds will be used to manufacture efficient vehicles and electric drive components.
In Tesla's case, they'll receive a total of $465 million to set up their factory in Southern California for the production of their hot Model S. This car has generated a lot of interest given its superb styling, performance and efficiency. The price point of $57K makes it affordable for a large segment of the population. Part of the money will be used to set up a production line for their battery packs and electric drive trains to be sold to other manufacturers such as their new partner, Daimler.
Nissan will receive $1.6 billion to build EV and battery factories in Tennessee. Having experienced the drive train for their new EV, I am very pleased that this will enable them to ramp up quickly to 150,000 EVs annually. This car will appeal to a larger segment of the population given its price of around $30K.
Ford is the big surprise for me. They're getting the lion's share of the money at $5.9 billion. They'll use it to increase the efficiency of several of their cars and trucks. I assume some will go toward building their new EV with the help of Canadian parts supplier, Magna.
This announcement assures that large numbers of electric vehicles will be available to U.S. customers starting late next year and growing rapidly soon after. Additionally, tens of thousands of jobs will be created.
There will more announcements to come. I'm betting that Bright Automotive in Indiana will be on the next list of recipients. They sure deserve to be.
Paul
******
Saturday, June 13, 2009
PIA's Plug-In Vehicle Tracker
Want to know who'e coming out with what electric vehicle and when? Plug In America has put together an awesome page that tracks pretty much everything you want to know about new EVs in the works and when to expect them.
Check it out.
Dave
Friday, June 12, 2009
Energy Secretary Chu At CalTech
According To Paul
Full Speech Here
I heard that Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, was giving the commencement address at CalTech this morning, so I jumped in our solar-powered RAV and drove over to Pasadena to hear what he had to say.
Pasadena is a beautiful city, and the section of town where CalTech is located is old and very wealthy. Walking through the leafy campus, Jacarandas in full bloom, I admired the buildings that for decades housed some of the smartest students our country ever produced as well as a sizable number of foreign kids intent on getting the best education possible in their chosen fields of mathematics, science and engineering. My anticipation over Dr. Chu's speech grew with each step.
He did not disappoint.
Those of us in the EV movement were overjoyed when Obama picked Dr. Chu to head the Energy Department. An actual Nobel-winning PhD in physics who has a deep understanding of our predicament regarding energy and climate change in charge of the Energy Department. A true breath of fresh air!
He broke the ice by defining the term, nerd, using the Wikipedia definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd), since most in his audience proudly considered themselves as such. I think it's actually on the form when you apply to CalTech.
Having dispensed with the obligatory humorous start, he got down to business by reminding the audience that, in the early 70's, scientists solved the pressing need to grow more food in order to keep millions from starvation and expressed that our problems today are every bit as important if not more so. He implored the students to take seriously the need to act fast in solving these problems and to not allow those who prefer faith over reason to interfere with the task at hand.
As one would expect, he talked about energy mostly, but my ears pricked up when he said we needed to prepare for the "inevitable transition to electricity as the energy for our personal transportation". While most may have missed the importance of this comment, it meant everything to me. Those at the top of the Obama administration understand the need to move from dirty fossil fuels to renewable electricity, and their efforts so far show they are serious.
Chu's defunding, at the federal level, of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle means he knows we need to put our efforts toward solutions that are ready now, not some expensive, inefficient technology that requires us to continue buying our energy from oil companies.
As the speech ended and I started to go, the strains of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 "Ode to Joy" flowed out of the loud speakers and I walked through the beautiful purple flowering Jacarandas happier than I've been for a while. Maybe these scientists, engineers and mathematicians can indeed help us to ward off the worst of what will come.
Paul
******
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Clean Power Supplies For The Future?
This is a pretty good post from Edmunds.com about an article in Energy and Environmental Science on the dangers of cellulosic ethanol as an answer to our energy needs. I've often felt that biofuels are not a long term solution (although in reality I don't think there will be a silver bullet solution but a hodge podge of different ones) and the findings in this study are interesting to see. According to the study, wind powered battery electric vehicles are the least environmentally damaging solution to our transportation needs. Interesting reading and worth checking out.
Dave
Cellulosic ethanol, which people from President-elect Barack Obama to struggling farmers from his home state view a promising biofuel, is actually worse than much-criticized corn ethanol because cellulosic ethanol results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more harm to wildlife, a major study has found.
The energy alternatives "that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful," said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, in a paper that reviewed and ranked major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air-pollution mortality and energy security.
"Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels," he said, adding that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies.
Jacobson has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed major energy-related solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability.
His findings indicate that the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options. His findings were published in this month's issue of Energy & Environmental Science.
The Most Promising
The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order: wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric.
Jacobson, who is also director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford, recommended against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol made from prairie grass. Granted, cellulosic ethanol can be made from other sources and those were not studied.
To place the various alternatives on an equal footing, Jacobson first made his comparisons among the energy sources by calculating the impacts as if each alternative alone were used to power all the vehicles in the U.S., assuming only "new-technology" vehicles were being used.
Such vehicles include battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) and "flex-fuel" vehicles that could run on E85 -- a blend that's 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
Wind was by far the most promising, Jacobson said, owing to a better-than 99 percent reduction in carbon and air pollution emissions; the consumption of less than 3 square kilometers of land for the turbine footprints to run the entire U.S. vehicle fleet (given the fleet is composed of battery-electric vehicles); the saving of about 15,000 lives per year from premature air-pollution-related deaths from vehicle exhaust in the U.S.; and virtually no water consumption.
The Least Promising
By contrast, corn and cellulosic ethanol will continue to cause more than 15,000 air pollution-related deaths in the country per year, Jacobson asserted.
Because the wind turbines would require a modest amount of spacing between them to allow room for the blades to spin, wind farms would occupy about 0.5 percent of all U.S. land, but this amount is more than 30 times less than that required for growing corn or grasses for ethanol. Land between turbines on wind farms would be simultaneously available as farmland or pasture or could be left as open space.
Indeed, a battery-powered U.S. vehicle fleet could be charged by 73,000 to 144,000 5-megawatt wind turbines -- fewer than the 300,000 airplanes the U.S. produced during World War II and far easier to build. Additional turbines could provide electricity for other energy needs.
"There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession," Jacobson said. "Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power."
Jacobson said that while some people are under the impression that wind and wave power are too variable to provide steady amounts of electricity, his research group has already shown in previous research that by properly coordinating the energy output from wind farms in different locations, the potential problem with variability can be overcome and a steady supply of baseline power delivered to users.
The Most Damaging
He described biofuels as "the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels." He said the money going into biofuels would be better spent promoting energy technologies that cause significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and air-pollution mortality, "not technologies that have either marginal benefits or no benefits at all."
During the recent presidential campaign, nuclear power and "clean coal" were often touted as energy solutions that should be pursued, but nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration were Jacobson's lowest-ranked choices after biofuels.
"Coal with carbon sequestration emits 60- to 110-times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy, and nuclear emits about 25-times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy," Jacobson said. Although carbon-capture equipment reduces 85 percent to 90 percent of the carbon exhaust from a coal-fired power plant, it has no impact on the carbon resulting from the mining or transport of the coal or on the exhaust of other air pollutants.
In fact, because carbon capture requires a roughly 25-percent increase in energy from the coal plant, about 25 percent more coal is needed, increasing mountaintop removal and increasing non-carbon air pollution from power plants, he said.
Nuclear power poses other risks. Jacobson said it is likely that if the U.S. were to move more heavily into nuclear power, then other nations would demand to be able to use that option.
"Once you have a nuclear energy facility, it's straightforward to start refining uranium in that facility, which is what Iran is doing and Venezuela is planning to do," Jacobson said. "The potential for terrorists to obtain a nuclear weapon or for states to develop nuclear weapons that could be used in limited regional wars will certainly increase with an increase in the number of nuclear energy facilities worldwide."
Goodbye GM
I try to keep politics out of this blog as much as I can but i really can't overlook this one. I'm the first to say that there are things I don't agree with about Michael Moore, but when he's right, he's right. Check out his ideas for what we, the new owners of GM, should be doing with our new company now that they've filed for bankruptcy protection.
Dave
Monday, June 1st, 2009
Goodbye, GM
by Michael Moore
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?
Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.
2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.
4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.
5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.
6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.
9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.
Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.
100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.
Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.
So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
Yours,
Michael Moore
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Chelsea Sexton Test Drives The Volt
According To Paul
Those of you who know Chelsea Sexton (the red head from "Who Killed the Electric Car?"), know she's a wealth of information on all things having to do with plug-in vehicles. Given her position as a senior advisor to VantagePoint Venture Partners, Plug In America's initial Executive Director and a consulting producer on Chris Paine's upcoming "Revenge of the Electric Car", she is privy to lots of the action happening with the various OEMs' plug-in vehicle programs.
Her history with GM's EV1 is legend, so when she was asked to test drive the Volt, she jumped at the chance. I've been bugging her to blog on her activities so we can get some of this great info out to those who crave the latest. Also, Chelsea always seems to be able to articulate things in a way that clarifies the reality without all the PR baggage the car makers or battery manufacturers bring to the table. So, today is the inauguration of Chelsea Sexton's blog.
Chris Paine and crew traveled to Detroit with her to record the event.
Chelsea writes, "Next to the car was Frank Weber, looking more proud and hopeful than I’ve ever seen. Self-described with the statement “I am German, I am an engineer- I do not feel”, Frank has always seemed pessimistic to me against the aspirational backdrop of the Volt team- but even he couldn’t completely disguise his thrill at finally having something functional to show after two years of talking. I’d had enough of the talking, myself- so with little fanfare, I was pointed toward the track and let loose. After the first few of many laps, Jim, “the Voltkeeper” who tended the car all day from a technical standpoint, asked if might stop smiling anytime soon. I think Frank just wondered if all EV people drive that fast…"
And for the naysayers who claim the Volt has problems with the range extender mode, Chelsea has this to say, "I also failed to talk the guys into letting me drive the Volt in range-extended mode- I’d really been hoping to put to rest all the conjecture that because no one’s been allowed to drive it that way, there must be something wrong with it. Alas, Frank was typically insistent that it just wasn’t ready. I persisted, assuring him I’m familiar with pre-production systems, but he remained stoic, until I finally pinned him- “what is so wrong with this car that you won’t let anyone drive it with the engine on?” He paused, and admitted almost sheepishly, “well, when the engine comes on, you can hear it.” I kept waiting for more, but that was it-the big mystery… you can hear the engine. I started to note how that would be, oh, I don’t know, standard for an internal combustion engine in any car and that some people prefer it that way, but I was chastened by my own admiration for the position he took. While there’s absolutely a point where you have to stop engineering and start building, Frank’s statement is indicative of the attention to detail being paid to the Volt."
And finally, she touches on the attitude of GM and their engineers, contrasting that with the horrible mistake of letting Bob Lutz get on the Letterman show last week and once again lie (my words) about the EV1 program: "Driving the Volt was a mix of experiences- it was a fun day, and it’s great to see spots of hope in Detroit from folks who are excited to be working on “something cool again” (their words). And let’s face it, it was also a relief- there were certainly some years there when I wasn’t sure they’d ever get even this far on a plug-in car again. But in the end, building the car won’t be their biggest challenge- it never has been. Whether they can get behind it effectively as it hits showrooms remains to be seen. And I remain repeatedly frustrated at watching them struggle to tell their own story, or when they allow, say, Bob Lutz to go on national television. I think they’re learning, but I wonder often if the wisdom will come fast enough- and at what cost.
I still don’t know that they entirely understand the nuances of passion people have for electric cars- but I do think that they understand just what’s at stake for this one. It is the end of the poker game for GM, and they’re all in.
There's lots more, see it here:
http://evchels.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/poker-faces/
Paul
*****
Monday, May 25, 2009
In Defense OF The Electric Car
This story popped up on my Google alert. The author of this piece is Adam Hasner. He's a Republican state rep from Boca Raton and is the majority leader of the Florida House of Representatives. He is a conservative.When I read the essay, I was very impressed that a conservative Republican wrote such a beautifully articulated and balanced EV piece. I was thinking of forwarding it to my list with some comments, and then I looked closer at the site I was on.Oh my!I Knew I was in a strange land when I read the comments. I decided to respond to some since they were so hilariously wrong. If you have some free time, and want a laugh, read through the comments. Also, do read Rep. Hasner's piece. It's quite good.Paul******April 13, 2009In Defense of the Electric Vehicle
In his recent article titled "Would You Buy an Electric Car?", Isaac Martin appears to be suffering from a misconception that electric vehicle technology is intended as a petroleum replacement for long-distance (250-300+ mile) highway driving. That, or he is intent on creating a fallacious straw-man argument that he can easily knock down in a cynical attempt to discredit the benefits of electric vehicles (EV). While I share Martin's critical view of President Obama on issues too numerous to count, on this matter, it is Martin's cul-de-sac mentality that needs to be addressed.While it is no secret that I am charged up about the possibilities that EVs offer in transforming our nation's transportation sector, I also understand that they are only a part of our overall energy security solution. No serious EV advocate would ever suggest that current electric vehicle technology offers the best solution for long-distance highway driving. That's an inappropriate misapplication of the technology that would make about as much sense as trying to use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail or a microwave oven to cook the Thanksgiving turkey.Advances in lithium battery technology over the past several years has made driving longer highway distances in all-electric cars more feasible and future developments will only increase the mileage per charge capabilities of EVs. But Mr. Martin's criticism of mileage "discrepancy" in the Tesla completely misses the point of the potential benefits of EVs since approximately 80% of Americans drive less than 40 miles a day. It is satisfying these more typical everyday mobility needs that will drive us in the direction of mass consumption EVs and plug-in EVs to replace most of the petroleum we use for daily driving, as opposed to the occasional long distance trip. While cost decreases in lithium batteries will likely continue in the coming years, their current price compared to the current price of gasoline represents enough of an upfront cost premium that it only really makes economic sense at the present time to install enough onboard battery capacity to provide adequate electric range for the typical person's daily driving needs. The remaining small fraction of distance driving will eventually be powered by liquid petroleum or biofuels in a fuel/electric hybrid vehicle. It is this compelling economic logic currently driving automakers' plans to produce 40-mile (initial electric range) plug-in hybrids as the sweet spot of the market. Consensus market forecasts predict that these plug-in hybrids will represent the lion's share (around 80-85%) of the total market for electric vehicles over the next decade, while "pure" all-electric cars will represent the remainder of the market. A 40-mile range plug-in hybrid (dubbed PHEV-40 by the engineers) will allow 80% of Americans to power between 75% and 95% of their daily driving with grid-generated or self-generated electricity (increasingly renewable energy), with the remaining balance of their daily driving powered by liquid fuels. So what does this mean to you and me? A net average fuel efficiency of 120+ miles per gallon from an affordably priced car. This would reduce our national petroleum consumption by up to two-thirds which coincidentally is the proportion that the U.S. now imports from overseas. Imagine a steep reduction in energy dependence from nations hostile to us that would result in a new paradigm of energy security and national security.Beyond this, consider the stimulating effect on our economic security by redirecting the several hundred billion dollars a year we currently spend on foreign oil purchases to investments in "Made in America" electrons. The result will be the creation of innovative high paying jobs, economic stabilization and revitalized energy and automotive sectors.The best part? When you want to take the family (or your gambling buddies) on that 300-mile weekend trip to Vegas, you can do so in that same PHEV-40, driving 70 mph the entire way and not have to worry about charging along the way. Just jump in and go. The simplicity of plug-in hybrids is that they combine the best of both worlds: electric power for daily driving and petroleum/biofuels power for longer-distances in a single, affordable vehicle.The economics are fundamental. At today's prices, the fuel cost of petroleum-powered propulsion is currently over 3 times that of electrically-powered propulsion. At last summer's $4.30/gallon, it was 6 times more expensive to drive on gas than on electricity. I know a little bit about this subject since during the final months of last year's election, I drove a 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV production all-electric SUV every day as part of my campaign. With a 120 mile range to easily enable daily travel throughout my coastal district, it also covered some longer-distance highway trips to events in West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. There were no stops to get gas since all I had to do was plug it in every night and the next day it was ready to hit the trail. Electric Vehicles are not some distant dream far out on the horizon. EV's are here today, and they are going to forever change the way we think about transportation while having the profound impact of making our nation stronger and more secure. So to answer Mr. Isaac's question. Yes, I would buy an Electric Car - and you can bet the White House teleprompter on it. State Representative Adam Hasner (R-Boca Raton) is the Majority Leader of the Florida House of Representatives. He currently drives a hybrid vehicle and this year is sponsoring HB 879 which will provide state tax incentives for electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and charging infrastructure. Adam can be contacted at adamhasner@hasner.org
Friday, May 22, 2009
Obama's Plan To Cut Auto Emissions
Why is this happening now? Because the government is providing loans to help U.S. automakers survive, the Obama administration is in the driver's seat to make these demands of automobile manufacturers. Fourteen states — including California — and the District of Columbia have been bucking for higher standards. And the Supreme Court has ruled that under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency must take steps to curtail greenhouse gases. NPR.org, May 19, 2009 ·President Obama's comprehensive plan to cut vehicle emissions and raise fuel efficiency standards raises a number of questions about how it would all work. The proposed new rules, announced Tuesday, will begin to be enforced in 2012. The goal is to ensure that cars and trucks sold in America will be nearly 40 percent cleaner and more efficient by 2016. Here are some questions and answers about the plan. How will the new rules work? The plan will not prescribe the size of cars and trucks, but it is designed to spur innovation and resourcefulness by raising the energy-efficiency bar for all sizes and types of vehicles. There will be new requirements for tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide and for gas mileage. By 2016, passenger cars must average 39 miles per gallon and light trucks 30 mpg. Overall, vehicles that are sold in America must average 35.5 mpg in seven years. At present, the average vehicle gets 25-28 mpg. How much oil will be saved? By White House calculations, the new guidelines will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil by 2016, reducing this country's dependence on international and domestic oil. Will I be forced to ditch my old, inefficient clunker? No. The rules are for new cars only. What new kinds of cars are likely to be offered in the U.S. under the new standards? Carmakers will probably roll out more lightweight trucks, cars with smaller trunks and a wider variety of hybrids and other nouveau-fuel models. The new-and-improved vehicles will be required to be cleaner and savvier in their use of fuel. The Obama administration estimates that new standards — from these rules and from previously approved rules — will add about $1,300 to the price of a new vehicle by 2016. Why is this happening now? Because the government is providing loans to help U.S. automakers survive, the Obama administration is in the driver's seat to make these demands of automobile manufacturers. Fourteen states — including California — and the District of Columbia have been bucking for higher standards. And the Supreme Court has ruled that under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency must take steps to curtail greenhouse gases. What has been the industry's response? The automobile industry says it welcomes nationwide standards. But in reality it doesn't welcome these rules. Automakers worry the rules will be the final nail in the coffin of the American auto industry. After all, the industry was suing to stop nearly identical California standards. But it can't oppose the federal rules because GM and Chrysler are on the government dole — and that's a strong leverage to use on the U.S. car companies. What's the next step? The plan will be formally proposed in the Federal Register of pending rules and regulations. After that, it will be subjected to procedural hurdles at the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department. Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.Remember just a few short months ago, we were demanding that "green strings" be attached to the billions we were about to give GM and Chrysler? "The goal is to ensure that cars and trucks sold in America will be nearly 40 percent cleaner and more efficient by 2016."Increasing efficiency with a stick works, but it's not as elegant as a carrot. While I love that CAFE standards are rising, the most effective method of increasing efficiency and reducing pollution is to make the dirty energy cost what it costs society. Add something for the human misery of seeing your kid die of cancer because you are unfortunate enough to live near the freeway or an oil refinery.Add something for the millions of other people who get sick from the internal combustion pollution throughout our country. The number of children with asthma is in the millions.And add something for the cost of using our military to attack the country of Iraq because they are the world's second largest oil field.Do these things and gas will cost what it really costs us.Then, regardless of whether CAFE standards are raised, the efficiency of all our automobiles will increase.We must make the transition to the most efficient method of transportation as quickly, and as thoroughly as possible. There are no half measures that will succeed. The future is domestic renewable energy into batteries, and if they work, ultra capacitors. These are the benefits:1) No energy money leaves the country. We are self sufficient. Individuals will pay about 25% for electricity of what they now pay for gas.2) No need to ever fight a war over oil. This still leaves religion, of course:~(3) A significant reduction in all forms of environmental degradation. Increased property values on the scale of hundreds of billions due to quieter and cleaner neighborhoods.4) A huge drop in disease and death in our cities where auto pollution is most severe.Obama's EPA is kicking ass. All I can say is, it's about time!Paul*******Q & A: Obama's Plan To Cut Auto Emissions
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sliding Home
Who Owns the Sky: Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism
By Peter Barnes
Wouldn’t it be great if every child born was guaranteed some financial security regardless of their socio-economic status? Modeling his Sky Trust on the same principle as the Alaskan Oil Trust, Barnes sets up a logical plan for ownership of the air by the common man (or woman). Instead of companies being allowed to pollute as much as they’d like, he suggests requiring them to buy those rights from the Sky Trust, the proceeds of which would go to the people. While this may seem far-fetched at first, give it a read and you may well find yourself a believer. And when your done, you can check out his website and buy your own share of the Sky Trust.
Available at Amazon.com and your local library.
Better Place Battery Swap
According To Paul
I've written on Better Place's battery swapping plan before, but since they've actually demonstrated it now, I thought it was worth another look. This link will take you to a 2 minute video of the "switching station" in operation. It's kind of slick, but I still have questions.
When I first got my RAV EV in 2002, there was talk on the EV lists about how future EVs could drive across the country. One camp favored battery swapping, much like demonstrated here. The engineers of the group favored fast charging. Still others, actually it was mostly just Felix Kramer, who thought these "plug-in hybrids" were the way to go. Turns out he had the best idea, although all three ideas seemed plausible to me at the time.
But since Better Place went to the trouble of building this thing, how well does it work?
If you watch the video, it shows a Nissan sport utility vehicle driving into a small facility where a mechanized device unlatches the battery pack and replaces it with a fully charged one. The whole operation takes slightly over a minute, two minutes if you count driving into and out of the facility. Presumedly, payment is automated, so you never need to get out of the car, well, unless you gotta pee.
That sure compares well with filling up a gas tank, but I still wonder about its feasibility.
Consider that for this to work from a financial perspective, many, if not most car companies, would have to standardize the design of their battery packs so the same machine could replace packs on any vehicle. Given what I've learned about the auto industry these past 6 years, I don't see that happening.
Also, the various car companies are cutting deals with a wide variety of LiIon battery makers and all of them are making their own specific type of LiIon battery. Each of these batteries has unique characteristics of voltage, energy density and power. From what the engineers tell me, the power electronics, or controller, is specifically designed to work with a certain battery, and that car or SUV will not be able to operate with just any old battery.
Further, the economics of battery swapping are going to be very tough since all you're selling the customer are the 20 or 30 kWh of electricity stored in the pack. The U.S. average for a kWh is 10.4 cents. So, for a sale of $2-$3, only part of which is profit, the swapping station will have to purchase, charge and store hundreds of batteries of various kinds. These battery packs today cost $750-$1000/kWh, although some are saying they'll be down to $500/kWh soon and eventually down to $300/kWh.
As daunting as that sounds, keep in mind that people who really want an EV that can go long distances will probably buy a PHEV Prius, Volt, Ford Escape PHEV or one of those BYD or Fisker Karma plug-in hybrids.
And fast charging is quite viable as well. Aerovironment of Monrovia, CA has been making industrial fast chargers for over a decade. About 12 years ago, some of their engineers set out to see how far they could drive an EV1 in 24 hours, using a fast charger. They managed just over 1200 miles, a record that still stands. Of course, all the EV1s were crushed a few years later, so no more attempts were made with that car.
The point being that viable alternatives to battery swapping exist today, and they will only get better, making the need for an expensive infrastructure unnecessary.
So, while I'm happy that Better Place has demonstrated this battery swapping idea, I hope they don't spend a lot of time or money on the concept. Money that could be better used to actually get cars on the road.
Paul
*******
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/better-place-unveils-battery-swap-station/#comment-59933
May 13, 2009, 12:54 PM
Better Place Unveils Battery Swap Station
By KATE GALBRAITH
Better Place, a company working to build infrastructure for electric cars, hasreleased a video showing how its technology for swapping spent car batteries works.
Swapping stations, the company said, would facilitate longer trips for battery-powered cars — say over 100 miles or so — by allowing drivers to roll up and swap out a spent battery for a freshly charged one. (For shorter distances – commuting for example – the cars can simply be recharged at home or at work.)
The video, taken from a demonstration on Wednesday in Yokohama, Japan, shows a white Nissan electric crossover sport-utility vehicle driving onto a ramp in a tidy, covered white station. Machines remove the battery from the bottom of the car and click in a replacement, amid whirring and clinking sounds.
The company says that the entire process takes 80 seconds, though that’s difficult to verify from the slickly cut video.
Better Place plans on beginning construction of more battery swap stations, which it calls “Switch Stations,” later this year — though unlike in the video, ramps will not be used in the future deployment of the swap machines, according to a Better Place representative.
One hundred of the stations — which cost around $500,000 apiece — will be rolled out in Israel by 2011, with additional stations slated for Denmark and later, Australia, California, Hawaii and Ontario.
Though it uses a sport-utility vehicle for the demonstration – not the greenest choice – the company said that it can recharge the batteries using solar panels, “creating a truly zero-emission solution,” according to an e-mailed comment from Sidney Goodman, a Better Place vice president.
“It will be as quick (if not quicker) than refueling a traditional gas-powered vehicle,” Mr. Goodman said, “but will be much cleaner and convenient, allowing consumers the opportunity to either get out of the vehicle during battery switch or remain inside the vehicle while the operation is completed.”
Greasy Rider
Follow filmmakers J.J. Beck and Joey Carey on a cross-country road trip powered by vegetable oil in a 1981 Mercedes-Benz. Interviews include Morgan Freeman, co-director of Earth Biofuels, along with Noam Chomsky, Yoko Ono, and Tommy Chong.
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