DoE funds Planar Energy Battery technology

Planar Energy, the developer of large-format, solid-state, ceramic-like batteries at half the cost and triple the performance of lithium-ion batteries, today received a $4,025,373 award from the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of its Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) initiative to accelerate transformational energy research projects.

The award to Planar Energy, announced in Washington, D.C., today by Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu at a Recovery Act Cabinet meeting, will support the company’s development of solid-state, high capacity secondary lithium batteries targeted at transportation scale electrical power-storage applications.

“With our breakthrough technology, which couples a fundamental electrolyte materials innovation with our proprietary low-cost, chemical deposition platform and manufacturing process, Planar Energy is creating scalable, environmentally friendly and cost-effective technology that will enable the U.S. transportation industry to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reestablish U.S. leadership in energy storage,” said President and CEO Scott Faris.

He added that the DOE award will enable Planar Energy to accelerate the development and commercialization of all solid-state lithium batteries, which will encourage the adoption of plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles.

Earlier this month, Planar Energy was one of four companies selected to collaborate in a DOE research-and-development initiative at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to address energy-storage challenges presented by lithium-based batteries.

Source: Earth Time, April 30th, 2010

Chevy Volt to reach dealers in October

The three-year drumbeat of anticipation for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car has just gotten slightly louder. General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre announced yesterday that the car will arrive at selected Chevy dealers in October, a month earlier than expected.

The first pre-production Volt was built on March 31. He gave the new date during a press conference in which he also announced that GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant, where the 2011 Volt will be built, will be retooled to produce the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu. That is the next generation of Chevy's high-volume midsize sedan.

Whitacre also announced that GM would pay back the last of its government loans ahead of schedule. While the new Volt date wasn't contained in the company's press release, it was reported by several media outlets. The 2011 Volt will be rolled out regionally over more than a year, with the first cars appearing in certain California, Detroit, and Northeastern markets.

GM will build approximately 8,000 Volts in the first year of production, and up to 60,000 in the car's second year. It is GM's first electric car since the late lamented EV1. The 2011 Volt will provide up to 40 miles (65 km) of all-electric range from a 16-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, plus an additional 300 miles (480 km) by switching on its 1.4-liter gasoline engine. That "range extender" turns a generator to provide electric power to the drive wheels; it does not drive the wheels mechanically, unlike hybrid cars with added plug-in capability, like the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid.

Source: AllCarsElectric, by John Voelcker, April 22nd, 2010

Automakers Push for More Aid for EVs

Despite $25 billion to help automakers retool plants, a $7,500 tax credit and billions in stimulus funding for charging stations and related infrastructure, automakers continue to lobby the federal government for more aid to spur sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

If President Barack Obama’s goal of putting a million EVs on the road by 2015 is to be reached, industry lobbyists say more aid is needed for utilities, car companies and tax breaks for consumers. Without that help, they say sales could stall due to the technology’s high cost and a lack of places to charge the vehicles.

Of course, lobbyists and industries asking for money are like dogs begging for table scraps: There's no situation where they won’t. However, the ideas they propose are largely sound: Tax credits so homeowners can install outlets for EVs, money for public charging stations and additional tax incentives for battery-makers and consumers all make the list. The request was sent by letter to the White House.

Programs like these cost billions of dollars, which makes their passage through Congress difficult. Even less politically palatable than giving away free money is encouraging EV sales by raising the gas tax. One of the key factors in EV adoption, as we’ve said many times, is the price of gas. In the past, the Obama administration has ruled out raising the federal gas tax, but it's being debated in Congress along with other climate and energy legislation. Higher gas prices will always make the premium for an EV that much easier to stomach.

Source: The Miami Herald, by Stephen Markley, 19th April, 2010

Plugging in the car of the future

For those concerned about the environment, or about the price of gas, plug-in cars—which recharge by plugging into the wall—have long been the dream. Now, we might actually start to see some of them on the road: Toyota’s trying out its new plug-in Prius in several Canadian cities, and Chrysler’s working on a plug-in hybrid version of the Dodge Ram pickup truck, with the help of a Mississauga, Ont.-based company, Electrovaya Inc.

Despite Toyota’s recent woes, the Prius remains a bright spot (March sales of the hybrid were up 130%) with room for improvement. Plug-ins would be able to travel further than current generation hybrids on just electric power, says Peter Frise, scientific director and CEO of Canadian automotive research network AUTO21. “If you lived eight or nine kilometres from work, and were driving just on city streets, you could theoretically drive the car all week” just on battery power, he notes, recharging by “plugging into the wall at night.”

So why the holdup? The challenge in designing electric vehicles “has historically been the battery,” says Gitanjali DasGupta, manager of electric vehicles for Electrovaya, which will supply Chrysler with batteries for the Ram. Cars need space for “luggage, kids and groceries, but the larger the battery, the further you go electrically.”

Advances in lithium batteries—which helped make cellphones and computers smaller and sleeker—are making plug-in vehicles possible, DasGupta says. Toyota’s tests may go a long way in convincing skeptics that pricey plug-in hybrids can work. It’s lending five plug-in Priuses for testing to 13 partners across Canada, including the cities of Vancouver and Toronto, the University of Manitoba, Hydro-Québec and AUTO21. Each will be fitted with a device to capture data on how the vehicle performs. If all goes to plan, the plug-in Prius might be commercially available as soon as 2012.

Source: MacLeans.ca, by Kate Lunau, April 15th, 2010

PHEV Prius could be a surprise hit.

Nissan says the all-electric Nissan Leaf will leapfrog the Toyota Prius as the greenest car on the market. GM says the Chevy Volt PHEV will be the game-changer for energy and the environment. But the release of the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid (on schedule for 2012) puts Toyota in an awkward position: the need to leapfrog itself.

“The problem is that we’re competing against ourselves,” said Bill Reinert, national manager, Advanced Technology Group at Toyota Motor Sales, speaking at the company’s Sustainable Mobility Seminar held in La Jolla, Calif. this week. The company convened academics and journalists to discuss the future of eco-friendly automotive fuels and technologies—and to launch the plug-in version of the Toyota Prius.

Instead of championing the Prius PHEV as an automotive savior, Reinert focused his energy on disclaimers of why the next iteration of the Prius (a plug-in version that can travel 13 miles without using a drop of gasoline) doesn’t make sense for a lot of consumers. First, Reinert says, it’s going to be too expensive. The conventional Prius sells in the mid-$20,000, the “sweet spot where the public wants to spend their money,” according to Reinert. The Prius Plug-in Hybrid is going to exceed that price. “How do you offset the costs and make a cogent case for the customer, especially because the conventional Prius is so damn good?”

The third generation 2010 Toyota Prius is, in fact, very efficient. Its 1.8-liter internal combustion engine has set new records for efficiency. Reinert believes that adding lithium batteries and plug-in technology will mean even greater carbon reductions, but “they’re really expensive in dollars per ton reduction.”

He also wrings his hands about battery longevity. “We design our car for the second buyers. We want the used buyer to still expect the car will perform adequately for them,” Reinert said. “That’s the case for every Prius you’ve ever read. Right now, we don’t have a battery problem.” He worries that bigger lithium ion batteries required to achieve the Plug-in’s 13 miles of all-electric range will degrade over time. The Prius Plug-in uses three different batteries—two to provide all-electric miles and a third battery for when the first two are depleted and the vehicle becomes a regular 50-mpg Prius.

The Plug-in Prius, which will be tested for the next two years, is almost identical to the 2010 conventional Prius. Besides the addition of extra batteries and a plug, the differences are fairly trivial: air vents under the rear seats to help cool the additional batteries; no manual EV button because the computer takes care of shifting in and out of all-electric mode; and a small indicator lighter on the dash that goes off when the three-hour full charge from a 110-volt outlet is complete. Otherwise, in terms of its driving characteristics, creature comforts and style, it’s a Prius.

Maybe Reinert doesn’t want to foist another false panacea on to the public. “If you’re communicating 120 miles per gallon, and you’re actually delivering 60, that’s a problem. Remember how we created a firestorm when our Prius was rated at 50-something and people were getting 45 mpg.” Reinert also cautioned that cold weather and other variable conditions could significantly reduce range. “How do you make this transparent to the customer when there’s so much hype out there?”

Based on our 18-mile test drive of the Prius Plug-in along the gorgeous La Jolla coast, Toyota’s only worry should be how it will keep up with demand. Until the last mile of our route, when we put the car in power-performance mode, cranked the AC and floored the accelerator uphill, the car maxed out to 99.9 mpg (2.35 l/100 km). By the end of the trip, we tallied an average of 87.7 miles per gallon (2.68 l/100 km), with 12.6% of driving in EV mode. Our top EV speed was 62 mph (100 km/h), and the average speed—including a number of stops at long traffic lights—was 25 mph (40 km/h). Our only gripe is that the dashboard designers didn’t move the decimal point over so we could see how far over 100-mpg (2.35 l/100 km) typical driving would be.

Sudden bursts of acceleration would temporarily kick the Prius Plug-in out of EV mode, but invariably it returned to all-electric driving. Regenerative braking helped push the overall amount of EV driving beyond the advertised range to about 14 miles, during the 18 miles of mixed city-highway miles. It was more difficult to drain the plug-in batteries or to force the car out of EV mode than we had anticipated.

Bear in mind that this was a fairly short route. If your commute is 40 miles or longer, the percentage of all-electric driving obviously will be reduced. But if you commonly drive around 15 miles out and back, before getting access to a charge at home or work, then the Prius Plug-in Hybrid basically becomes a practical mid-size family electric sedan.

For Toyota, less range means less cost—and therefore better economics to compete against the conventional Prius. Reinert said, “Our idea is a small battery. Design the battery small and make a business case, and charge up more frequently.” Toyota has been criticized for lagging behind the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt in the race for a plug-in mass-market vehicle. Too much has been made of this timing. During 2011, Toyota will be evaluating about 600 Plug-in Priuses around the world—to see how real-world drivers handle the vehicle and its charging—until it moves into mass production in 2012.

That’s essentially what Nissan and GM are doing, but with a few thousand vehicles put on sale or leased in select markets in 2011, until they can ramp up production for 2012. That’s the magic year when consumers will have a choice between:

• Nissan Leaf, an all-electric compact car with 100 miles range (160 km)
• Chevy Volt, a relatively expensive mid-size plug-in hybrid sedan with 40 miles range (64 km)
• Prius Plug-in Hybrid, a more moderately priced plug-in sedan with 13 miles range (20 km)

You might like one option of the other, but the availability of three plug-in options far exceeds what we have today.

Jaycie Chitwood, manager, advanced technology vehicles group, is overseeing the Toyota evaluation project, which will generate a lot of vehicle use data, as well as market information about how Toyota customers view the conventional versus the plug-in Prius models. “There are people that buy for emotional reasons and they just love that freedom of all-electric driving,” Chitwood told HybridCars.com. “If they are already paying more for a Prius, then now they’re going to pay even more for a plug-in Prius. Where’s your value proposition? It’s either in lower cost of driving, and lower cost per mile for electricity versus gasoline, and it’s high MPG.”

We asked if all these attractive attributes might make the Prius Plug-in Hybrid a surprise hit.

Chitwood paused as if considering that possibility for the first time. “We’re open to that.”

Source: HybridCARS.com, April 15th, 2010

Ford's green path

Ford's Executive Chairman Bill Ford closed out SAE World Congress today with an endorsement for the future of electric vehicles.

“All the early cars were electric,” said Ford, great grandson of company founder Henry Ford. “They‘ve been around really for the past century or so, but they really haven’t had mass market appeal.”

But Ford said the automotive industry is rapidly changing. Ford, an ardent environmentalist who worked for years to change the company’s culture so that it would embrace environmental goals, said new technology makes it possible to introduce electric vehicles that can be embraced by mainstream consumers. “It appears that the biggest game changer will be electric vehicles,” Ford said during a speech in Detroit.

“Our plan includes the introduction of five new high-mileage vehicles.” Ford said the automotive industry must introduce more fuel-efficient vehicles in order to meet the challenges of diminishing oil reserves, global warming and a desire by customers to spend less money on gas. “The majority of our efforts are aimed at fuel economy leadership,” Ford said.

“We want to provide affordable fuel economy for million of customers.” Over the next three years Ford plans to introduce a Transit Connect Electric commercial van, a Ford Focus electric vehicle, two new gasoline-electric hybrids and a plug-in hybrid.

Ford also said company is committed to improving the fuel economy of all of its new vehicles. This summer, Ford plans to launch the Ford Fiesta subcompact car. Ford has said it expects the Fiesta will get 40 mpg (5.8 l/100 km) on the highway and 30 mpg (7.8 l/100 km) in city driving. Ford also is introducing technology in the car to help drivers get the most out of their vehicles. Today, Ford announced that the company is adding a new feature for the company’s navigation software called Eco-Route. Eco-Route will map the most fuel-efficient route to a destination and can help drivers achieve fuel-economy gains of up to 15%, the company said. The feature is part of Ford’s MyFord Touch, a new system that controls all entertainment, climate and information systems in the company’s vehicle. These days, Ford has many reasons to be optimistic. The company’s is gaining market share both in the U.S. and Europe. Ford’s stock closed Thursday at $13.76 per share, up 41 cents from its close on Wednesday and more than four times higher than its 52-week low of $3.27 per share. The company, which typically reports first quarter earnings at the end of April, is expected to report a first quarter profit of 30 cents per share, according to survey of 12 by Thomson One Analytics. “Nobody is getting cocky, or over confident,” Ford said. “Because frankly, we’ve only taken baby steps on the long journey to where we really need to go.”

Source: Freep, by Brent Snavely, April 15th, 2010

USA Benefit from Billions in Recovery Act Tax Cuts

The tax cuts in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Obama last February, gave 98% of American working families and individuals a tax cut, and encouraged new job-creating investments by businesses large and small.

Many of these tax credits will transform our economy for years to come, such as in renewable energy and energy efficiency. As Americans are filing their taxes, they’re seeing the results of the Democratic-led Congress and the President working together to enact an array of broad-based tax cuts for working and middle-class families and small business owners—ending an era of Republican tax breaks focused only on the wealthy:
More than one-third of the Recovery Act is tax cuts for the middle class, which is putting money in the hands of families and businesses to spread throughout the economy. Tax cuts in the Recovery Act are immediate; as of the end of March, more than $160 billion of Recovery Act tax cuts has gone out; nearly $100 billion of that has gone directly into the pockets of working Americans.

ecause of the immediate tax cuts, tax refunds are already up nearly 10 percent, pushing the average refund up to a record $3,000 per taxpayer.The Recovery Act contains 25 tax cuts for Americans, including the fastest – and one of the most widely shared – tax cuts in American history: the Making Work Pay Tax Cut in the Recovery Act. The Recovery Act also gives you a tax cut for making your home more energy efficient, buying a home, buying a car, or sending a child to college.

All totaled, the 111th Congress has enacted more than $800 billion in tax cuts, in the Recovery Act, health insurance reform, and other job-creating tax incentives for American business.

And according to a new report by the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) this week, tax cuts in the Recovery Act, combined with unemployment benefits and other income support provisions, are responsible for roughly one-half of the up to 2.8 million jobs saved or created by the Recovery Act so far.

Source: The Ethiopian Review, April 15th, 2010

Ontario targets new Volkswagen plant

The Ontario government has set its sights on landing a Volkswagen AG engine or transmission plant as a way of tapping tens of billions of dollars that global auto makers will invest during the next five years to meet stringent new North American fuel economy rules.

Volkswagen is about one year away from starting production at an assembly plant it is building in Chattanooga, Tenn., but is expected to add new engine and transmission facilities later to supply the 150,000 vehicles that will be made there annually.

“We knew if we didn't land the [assembly] plant, that's our next goal,” Ontario Economic Development Minister Sandra Pupatello said in an interview. The process is still in its early stages, and it is not known exactly how far the government is prepared to go to lure an engine or transmission factory to the province. If government incentives are the only factor for auto makers studying such huge investments, Ms. Pupatello acknowledged, Ontario will lose out to U.S. states. Instead of money, the province will showcase its skilled work force and expertise in innovation, she said.

Volkswagen faces the same expensive and formidable problem as its rivals in North America – making sure their vehicles are about 25% more fuel efficient by 2016 than the cars now on the road. That will require vast amounts of research and spending to refine internal combustion engines. The research will also involve the development of hybrid and plug-in hybrid engines and improving transmissions so they contribute to higher fuel economy.

A greener automotive future represents a potential bonanza of investment and jobs for Ontario and other auto-making jurisdictions battered by the auto crisis that sent Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and tens of thousands of workers to the unemployment lines. In the battle for that investment, however, Ontario is at a disadvantage. The province is vying against the U.S. government, which has established a $25-billion (U.S.) fund to assist auto makers in developing new technologies that will improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.

“It just kills me every time I hear about it,” Ms. Pupatello said. “Everywhere I go around the world, everybody knows about the American fund.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said auto makers will spend at least $52-billion to meet the requirements outlined earlier this month by the Canadian and U.S. governments. “I think it's going to be considerably higher than that,” said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank in Ann Arbor, Mich. “The magnitude of the investment is huge.” Ontario can't match the deep pockets of the U.S. government and individual states. The province made a pitch to Volkswagen for the Chattanooga assembly plant, but couldn't come close to matching the $577-million in taxpayer money Tennessee threw on the table.

So tapping into the green revolution will require a new strategy for the heartland of Canadian auto production, which for decades has relied mainly on winning new assembly plant investments to create and maintain jobs in the sector. New assembly plant investment is expected to be scaled back during the rest of this decade from the heady days of the 1990s and 2000s, when Japan-based auto makers ratcheted up production dramatically in North America. “There does need to be a concerted approach that says, ‘We're going pick certain areas such as powertrain” and lighter weight components, said Steve Rodgers, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association of Canada.

Ms. Pupatello said she has discussed electric vehicles and other advances in technology with every auto maker she has met with in recent years and has made sure government incentives to Canadian parts makers go to those working on ways to reduce greenhouse gases and produce lighter components.

The Tennessee plant marks Volkswagen's return to vehicle assembly in the United States after an absence of several decades and is a centrepiece of its strategy to sell 800,000 vehicles there annually by 2018. That in turn, is part of its ambitious plan to become the world's largest auto maker by that year. Volkswagen has an engine plant in Mexico that supplies its massive operations in Puebla, where it makes the Beetle and other cars. But Volkswagen of America president Stefan Jacoby told an industry conference in 2008 that the Tennessee plant will require new engine and transmission plants to be competitive. He told industry publication Automotive News last year that 80% of the content in the vehicles coming out of Tennessee will be North American. The components that contribute the most to that figure are the engines and the transmissions.

A spokesman for Volkswagen of America said Chattanooga is working with Puebla on sourcing for components, but no final decisions have been made and the focus at the moment is getting the Tennessee plant into production.

Source: The Globe and Mail, by Greg Keenan, April 16th, 2010