Geography aside, Eugene, Oregon, is about as far away from Detroit as you can get. The biggest industry in that sleepy town on the banks of the Willamette is education, not auto manufacturing. You’re more likely to see dreadlocks at a typical Eugene business than a hard hat. In fact, perhaps the only thing Eugene and Detroit have in common is a decaying urban core, although in Eugene that core is spanned by about six city blocks. With today’s launch of the Arcimoto Pulse, however, Eugene took what local politicians describe as a first step towards challenging to Detroit’s automaking dominance. And if they are to be believed, and Arcimoto’s three-wheeled Pulse EV is the future of the American mobility, suffice it to say that nobody saw it coming.

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A few weeks of vacation from the blogosphere’s non-stop news cycle can leave a blogger feeling a bit behind the times. Two weeks is an eternity in internet time, but stepping away from the barrage of news, spin, hype and hysteria is good for the sense of perspective. Especially if the down time is spent exploring countries on the local typical family vehicle, complete with two wheels, four speeds and about 100ccs of thundering power. Beyond the sheer novelty of seeing entire families commuting on a moped (”Daddy, Nguyen isn’t staying on his side of the pillion seat”), travel in the developing world shows how insulated America is from the transportation realities of the rest of the world. If the $1,000 entry to the world of moped ownership is a major (if attainable) hurdle for workaday Vietnamese, even sub-$10K vehicles face what a GM sales release might call “a challenging sales environment.” Try to explain the “green premium” for hybrids and plug-in vehicles to an auto-aspirational third-worlder, and watch as the idea of paying more for less room and power draws only puzzled bemusement. Hair shirts, it appears, are strictly a fad for the western and wealthy. Case in point: the world’s first plug-in hybrid, the Chinese BYD F3DM.

BYD’s Corolla-aping PHEV raised more than a few eyebrows (many skeptical) when specs and concepts first appeared. Warren Buffet’s hefty investment into the cell phone battery maker quieted the skeptics and gave green-hued futurists a license to thrill. A 60-mile plug-in range, a multiple-mode hybrid system and a price tag under $25K had American hypermilers factoring in local tax credits and greengasming at the fantasy of it all. But in the world’s new largest market for automobiles, even $20K is a huge amount of money. And it turns out that one society’s eco-fantasy is another society’s overpriced, overly-complex answer to a question nobody has asked.

Xinhua reports (yes, nearly a week ago) that BYD’s F3DM has utterly failed to attract Chinese consumers; the firm has sold only 80 models since it went on sale in December. Apparently 20 of those were bought by the city of Shenzhen (think China’s Detroit) with the rest going to the local branch of China Construction Branch. In fact, BYD never even attempted to target private consumers with the model, despite the fact that an F3DM costs 30-40 percent less than a Toyota Prius (which only sold about 3,500 units in China between 2006 and 2008). Even the government isn’t rushing to put its citizens in the alleged volks-hybrid, offering a $7K hybrid subsidy to fleet buyers only.

Even with government help bringing the F3DM’s price under $20K, fleet sales aren’t as strong as BYD had hoped. Shenzen’s plan to buy more for the city’s taxi fleet is on hold as even BYD officials admit that the price needs to come down. BYD’s CEO Wang Chuanfu says that increasing production volume could help bring the F3DM’s price to a more-realistic $15K, but without institutions stepping up to prime the sales pump, the promise of a sub-$10K PHEV (after government subsidies)—and mass market sales—remain out of reach.

And even though the F3DM isn’t dependent on a charging-station infrastructure, price isn’t the only concern keeping buyers away. BYD faces an image challenge having never made anything more car-like than a laptop battery just a few years ago, and even its much-vaunted battery technology seems to struggle to meet on-paper performance numbers. According to Xinhua (hardly bomb-throwers when it comes to Chinese businesses), the 60-mile electric range is only attainable driving at a steady 30 mph. And recharging from a home wall socket takes nine hours.

But these tradeoffs and the correlating plug-in efficiency rewards only have meaning in the context of price, and here the lesson for Chevy’s Volt are plain to see. GM’s $40K profitless wonder defies fiscal logic on a comparable scale, offering only the most image-conscious greenies a value proposition worth even including. Like the F3DM, the Volt’s target audience (if not consumer) is the government, and the same increased volume-decreased price mirage lingers on the horizon. But unlike China (BYD expects its sales to double for the second year in a row, hitting 400,000 units), America’s demand for automobiles is in double-digit decline. And that includes demand for the much cheaper hybrids that are already available in the marketplace.

But we don’t have theorize about private PHEV sales levels for much longer. Shenzhen rolled out hybrid subsidies for private consumers this month which would cut the price of an F3DM in half, to about $10K. This coincides with a BYD plan to launch “a mass marketing excercise to promote the car to private buyers.” But if the car-crazed, yet pragmatic Chinese do start buying the F3DM, it will be at half the original MSRP, a feat that GM can’t hope to pull off with its Volt. Unless they just slap in powertrains from BYD, which is hedging its consumer-market gamble by offering to license technology to Western firms. In any case, BYD’s consumer sales push will give us some idea of private PHEV demand (and its required stimulus) by the time the Volt launches. Sales trends are easier to follow when they start at 80 units per quarter.

OK, yes. All you folks who believe that we must free the country from its dependence on foreign oil and stop the planet from over-heating need an electric vehicle (EV). Well, you want one. I mean, it’s not like you’re walking at the moment is it? And if you are, chances are you can’t afford or don’t want a car, whether it sucks oil from the desert or burns coal through a cord. The problem—for me—is the link between “we” and “need.” Whenever people start telling me what I need, I get the sneaking suspicion that I’m about to lose something I’d like to keep. I reckon most people who drive gas-powered cars are just as skeptical of EVs as I am of demagoguery. Question: does that matter?

The chattering classes couldn’t care less. Never mind the environmental effects of amping-up power plants to cater to plug-in nation. EV boosters talk of gas-powered cars and “oil addiction” as if driving a “normal” car makes their drivers sociopaths. At best, they consider Americans who view EVs as glorified golf carts—which, in the main, at the moment, they are—as morally blind. But really, anyone who resists the call of the plug is lazy, selfish and greedy.

Of course, it’s not their fault. They’re hapless victims of a vast conspiracy between the oil companies and Detroit. Big Oil and Big Wheel lured them into gas-guzzling cars and OMG SUVs to satisfy the mega-corporations’ selfish, planet killing greed. (Yup, there’s them words again.) Well guess what? We’re from the federal government and we’re here to help you trade in that gas guzzler for a cheap, clean-running electric vehicle. Whether you like it or not.

Yes you—and by “you” I mean the government—can force drivers to switch from gas to electric propulsion. All the feds have to do: make it financially onerous (i.e., painful) for motorists to drive a “normal” car.

At one end of the spectrum, Uncle Sam could simply outlaw gas-powered automobiles. Federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations already dictate the type of vehicles that automakers must/can build. Tweak the rules here and there, allow for a “transition” period, and we can kiss that pesky gas pump goodbye.

Alternatively, the feds could simply tax the living NSFW out of gas-powered cars. Gas tax hikes, registration fee increases, carbon penalties, road pricing, etc. could create the exodus that simple political correctness will not. Given the U.K.’s experience with cigarette tax (nearly seven bucks a pack), any such “incentive” to leave gas behind would have to be a truly ridiculous tariff. But it would work.

In fact, it is working. Slowly. Which is the only way it can work, politically. If politicians tried to jump from point A to point e in one go, the public would hand them their hats. Instead, we get CAFE’s point B. What’s the bet that EVs and plug-in electric vehicles are given sky-high CAFE-complying mpg ratings? Raise the CAFE standards high enough, and EVs are a dead cert. Lest we forget who created the electric car [hint: the California legislature].

The “cash for clunkers” legislation is point B: XXXL vouchers for plug-in or fully electric hybrid vehicles. If enacted, the bill’s incentives would represent the “pull” side of pulled pork. Anyone remember the Department of Energy’s $25b re-tooling “loans” for American automakers gearing-up fuel efficient vehicles? Same sandwich.

Point Q: the California Clean Air Resource Board’s flirtation with the idea of outlawing black paint, to reduce the energy needed to keep them cool. Still, it’s a question of slope angle, not slipperiness.

OK, so I’m wearing a tin foil hat and yes, I’m anti-EV. Sorry. It’s not because I have a Scott Burgess-like love of a rumbling V8 in the morning. Although God knows I do. Nor is it insensitivity to the planet’s plight. Although I think about the planet in terms of millions of years rather than last week. And I’m not a Bedard-like reactionary who sees changing a toilet paper roll as an affront to common sense. It’s simply this: EVs are a cynical attempt to avoid reality.

EVs defenders tout plug-in automobiles as a bridge to an oil-free future. (To wit: Chevy’s tagline from gas-efficient to gas free.) I call bullshit. EVs are the rolling equivalent of Chrysler and GM’s “viability plan.” It’s a bridge to a place that I don’t believe exists. In the EVs case, we’re talking about a world where America trades-in over 100 years of gasoline-fired prosperity for what? Nuclear power powered vehicles?

Hang on; that works for me. Tell you what. Once the feds build a bunch of nuclear power plants, once they prove that switching to battery power can reduce pollution and oil imports, then I’ll buy an EV. Only how come I don’t feel like I won’t get a say in this?

As rumors filter in about GM’s Volt battery program, the faithful must be experiencing a certain amount of restless discomfort. After all, it’s not like this couldn’t be seen coming. Let’s just say that when I asked at SEMA last October the guys from A123 Systems (then bidding on the project) about the Volt battery development program, they took full advantage of the fact that SEC silent periods don’t forbid eye-rolling. Though non-verbal communication can (and in this case, did) speak volumes, we like to get our facts in writing. Which, thanks to the truth-proof wall surrounding the Volt’s development, usually means going through GM’s PR-exercise interviews with reliable Volt boosters and mining them for some kind of meaning. And hey, there’s an interview at Volt cheerleader HQ gm-volt.com which suggests that the Volt’s battery development is being rushed. And engineers are complaining to blogs? Fancy that!

GM-volt.com’s Lyle Dennis sat down with GM’s head Volt honcho Frank Weber for a sanitized-for-your-protection update on General’s moon-shot gambit. So what is happening right now, according to Weber?

We have been using the winter for winter tests . . . Now what’s happening is the true development work that you say OK this is the temperature of the battery, and this is the temperature of the system, and this is what happens when you are plugged in, etc. There are parameters that we call calibration, you have the basic software functionality on those cars defined, and then we start to calibrate it looking at the temperature and when to we start it, what is the true power of the battery at a certain temperature, etc.”

Any of this sounding intelligible or reassuring yet? This is supposed to be GM’s chance to thrill the credulous faithful, and the best Weber can come up with is “start to calibrate?” Don’t worry, it gets worse.

“What you know is what the behavior is for the cars that we are testing, and then you make an assumption for how a component will behave over time and how it will behave under the same situation in several years.  This is what we call accelerated testing. This gives you some indication of durability. The piece that is tricky and interesting about the battery is to do a really accurate extrapolation of the true behavior. For a mechanical part this is very simple. For a mechanical part you can replicate its lifetime and find out when it will break. The battery is electrochemical and its more difficult to make those extrapolations. This is part of the learning we have to do, battery learning between the battery supplier LG and us. By the way this is still the element of risk. This is also why we are unable to get the car out any sooner. It is those things that have to be developed now with the components that are representative of the production vehicle.  There is no way to do this any faster.”

If GM would just admit that the “late 2010″ launch date is toast, this wouldn’t even qualify as spin. But then we don’t exactly live in a world where you can just say “it’s complicated, we don’t know when it will actually be done, now where’s my NSFWing bailout” is it? Or is it? I digress.

In a separate post, Lyle Dennis predicts public test drives this summer, putting faith first in spite of more damningly ambiguous talk, this time from GM’s John Lauckner. Saying “we need an experience where people say ‘Wow’ this is really something special,” Lauckner reveals that GM has “laid out all of the concepts that we want to use and written a lot of the preliminary code,” for the Volt’s “software-driven” driving experience.” Concepts. Preliminary. Wow. Lauckner continues:

“I would say that conceptually we’re most of the way there if not all of the way there, but there’s a lot of work to be done still to make sure that the whole thing operates seamlessly. [GM has to] love this thing a little bit to make sure that you not only get it that it actually works but you get it working in such a way that its completely intuitive. We need the time with the car and we need the time over a wide variety of conditions to simulate certain things, so that we can see just exactly how the car is going to behave and what sort of information the driver is going to get to make sure everything works in as seamless a way as we can possibly make it.”

Love your own product? Really? You’re only going to be asking $40 grand for the thing. And though both executives note its importance, time is the one thing GM doesn’t have. Weber reveals that the engineering freeze on the first true Volt prototypes or integration cars will occur “within days,” and that these integration models will be built and tested sometime later this year. If GM could simply let its executives just say what they hint at (conceptual, preliminary, this thing takes time) and let the “late 2010″ date slip, their troops on the ground might not be grousing that the battery system is an “epic fail.” Instead it’s being rammed through and damn the torpedoes. This won’t end well.

Aptera Motors has pushed its first street-ready prototype out of the cradle. Yes, it’s a tricycle, with a drive train à la Fisher Price PowerWheels, and a name that sounds like a one-year-old pointing out the cruise director on Love Boat, but the 2e might prove to be the car the Chevy electric/gas plug-in hybrid Volt and lithium-ion-powered Tesla long to be: the future.

Aptera itself is only a toddler, raised for the last three years by Google and others, now with a chance at the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize. The contest from the X Prize Foundation challenges teams to “design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy.” To stake a claim, Aptera claims the 2e achieves the equivalent of 200 mpg and 100 miles on a charge. They hope to have cars in Southern Californian driveways before November.

“Everything is progressing nicely as we ramp up for full production of the 2e beginning in October,” says chief marketing officer Marques McCammon. “We’re still on target to build an ultra-efficient, high-mileage vehicle without sacrificing comfort and safety, and once Californians get behind the wheel this fall, we expect to change the world of commuter transportation.”

Well ahead of Chevy Volt’s debut, the 2e is supposed to hit the street between $25,000 and  $45,000, halving or quartering a Tesla’s price. Not that it’s a fair comparison. Tesla wants the mantle of true sports car. Chevy wants respectability. The 2e wants to win. Hearts, minds and 10 million large. It’s got a shot, if you believe corporations, which I do. Not what they’re saying, mind you, but what they’re doing. Aptera seems to be quietly making a car like no other.

The difference between the 2e and the rest of the world can be seen in any slideshow from the 2009 Detroit Auto Show. Eight companies lit up cars they say we’ll be plugging in come the next decade. They all look like cars. The 2e could have played Eva in Wall-E. The dove body with Cessna landing gear makes the Prius look like a brick.

The thing is so birdlike you can’t help but ask if it’s safe. Three-wheeled ATVs were outlawed because of the inherent instability. Aptera dumps a lot of answers on that question. First, they use composite materials for the exterior (”lighter than steel but three times as strong.”). They claim not one, but two elephants can stand on the 2e’s shell without hatching a mess. That shell wraps a Formula 1 style passenger cage and more airbags than a chop shop in Modesto.

All of which is great for the driver. For the car? It looks like an underwriter’s nightmare. The rear is one, big whale tail. The front wheels are on little spindles. The wonderfully sleek, nearly seamless body looks as though it could absorb a crash nicely with its totality. Resulting in a total. Eh, none of us want to drive Hummers anymore, right?

Lithium-ion batteries juice the 2e’s electric motor that, per company literature, urges the car from zero to 60 in less than 10 seconds, topping out at 90 mph. Even the guy in the Aveo laughs at you, but riding around for 100 miles on half a buck is a whole new kind of bragging right. Then you plug in. At a standard 110 volt outlet, you’re watching Lord of the Rings before you’re stuck in traffic again. All three disks.

At 55 mph, half a car’s energy is used to cut the air. With a coefficient of drag around 0.15, the 2e is a Ginsu. It’s only 1,700 pounds. Oh, and the tester has gull wing doors. Maybe they improve efficiency, maybe not, but they appear integral to the design. They might actually make it into the final product.

Aptera wanted a real car, though, so they stuck to their mandate of two people and two sets of golf clubs. The 2e is classified as a motorcycle by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. They had to call it something. Given the size of the C-pillars, I would’ve voted for panel truck.

Aptera says it’s taken 4,000 deposits for a car they promise will look and spec out really close to the prototype: front-wheel drive, solar powered climate control, do-it-yourself windows. Not what you’d call luxury but comfier than an Austin Healy, if that counts for anything.

It might. Industrial design is always about compromise. Aptera hasn’t created the fastest, biggest or softest EV concept, but they’re thinking about showrooms, while most others are thinking about shows. It’s too early to tell if 2e will grow up and become the future of the car. It certainly does look the part, though. We’ll check back around Halloween and see if it has anything more than a cool costume.

Lithium-ion batteries are not yet a major source of automotive propulsion. Excluding the li-ion cells lingering within the $100k+ Tesla Roadster, not a single volume vehicle depends on the technology. Toyota has adopted a “go slow” policy on li-on cells re: their gas – electric Synergy Drive (most famously found inside the Prius). Sure, li-ion batteries will power Chevrolet’s electric – gas hybrid Volt. Eventually. And that’s no small point. At the moment, with gas prices at historic low levels, hybrids simply aren’t selling. Of course, nothing’s really selling. Except the idea that we need lots and lots of hybrids and that those hybrids will need lithium ion batteries and we better make sure we have enough lithium otherwise the vision of clean, gas-free personal transportation will disappear. And the New York Times can’t have that, now can it?

Earlier this week, The Times set the autoblogosphere abuzz with a look at Bolivia’s bounteous lithium supply. According to the Times, the United States Geological Survey estimates Bolivia is home to some 5.4m tons of lithium. The U.S. soil supposedly contains “just” 410lk tons of lithium. Ladies and gentlemen of the politically aware persuasion, forget ye olde missile gap. Welcome to the “lithium gap.”

Francisco Quisbert is the leader of a group of salt gatherers and quinoa farmers who live near a giant salt flat. Quisbert’s fifteen minutes of fame arrived when a NYT reporter recorded him pronouncing “we know that Bolivia can become the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” If that wasn’t enough to raise the hackles of the friends of hybrids, Quisbert also played the class card. ”We are poor. But we are not stupid peasants. The lithium may be Bolivia’s, but it is also our property.”

Yeah right. Meanwhile, back to the template Times’ readers know and love to hate: western exploitation. The head of Bolivia’s national– yes national– lithium mining company provided the necessary rhetoric. “The previous imperialist model of exploitation of our natural resources will never be repeated in Bolivia. Maybe there could be the possibility of foreigners accepted as minority partners, or better yet, as our clients.”

Bolivia’s President (and former Coca grower) Evo Morales is no stranger to the government-sanctioned expropriation technique commonly known as “nationalization.” Whether sending soldiers into BP’s local headquarters or nationalizing Brazil’s natural gas operations and then charging higher prices, Morales has made it clear that he believes natural resources belong to local indigenous peoples (even if they’re not as well compensated as, say, the Bolivian government and Morales-appointed representatives).  

Obviously, lithium commerce predates hybrid hopes. The battery industry has been buying lithium for well over a decade. And Bolivia’s reluctance to grant that industry grant unfettered access to its lithium predates its current leftist president. When right wing nationalists controlled the Bolivian government in the early 90s, advances by the American firm LithCo to secure supplies were thwarted. Unlike the early days of Saudi oil exploration, American firms are on the outside looking in.

The Times reports that Sumitomo, Mitsubishi and a French conglomerate headed by Vincent Bolloré have been trying to wrangle a lithium extraction deal with the Morales government. More recently, Reuters has reported that the Korean firm LG is trying to jump onto the Bolivian lithium bandwagon.

Morales is having none of it. Well, some. The companies’ opportunities are limited to investment in the government operation, which consists of a $6m pilot plant. Construction of a $250m lithium extraction plant is proceding at what The Guardian calls a “snails pace.”

According to Bolivia’s state mining director Freddy Beltran, “there haven’t been any developments (in the negotiations with Mitsubishi, Sumitomo or Bolloré). None of them has made a proposal including (the creation of a lithium) industry.”

Beltran’s kvetch: the three firms all want to export raw lithium. (Why does this sound familiar?) The Bolivian government wants them to develop a processing industry in-country.

Yes, well, the Bolivian government is likely to come to some kind of “arrangement” fairly soon. As one Bolivian economist puts it, “we have the most magnificent lithium reserves on the planet, but if we don’t step into the race now, we will lose this chance. The market will find other solutions for the world’s battery needs.”

Or other lithium supplies. The WSJ’s Environmental Capital blog (and Lithium Abundance blog) points out that increasing demand for lithium would increase exploration, which could turn up new reserves.  

What’s more, battery technology is hot (so to speak). With federal funding providing the match. Scientists are hot on the trail of alternative battery materials– from zinc-air to improved nickle-metal-hydrate. Meanwhile, China is pumping out lithium for its own booming battery sector.  

In short, despite the NYT geo-political paranoia, anyone worrying about the possibility of a Bolivian lithium embargo is wasting their energy.

If cross-country road trips are the quintessential American journey of the 20th century, I’m a quintessential American. I’d ridden thrice between Seattle and Boston by the time I was eight. At 17, I drove from Boston to Palo Alto, then back a year later, in a beat up ‘62 Falcon. I crossed the US another eight times—including once respectively by train and bicycle—while a student at Berkeley. Three decades later, I’m longing to do it again. Unfortunately, the 20th century is over. Since it began, the US and world populations have quadrupled. We’re straining world oil production capacity, and the specter of global heating and acidified seas from CO2 emissions is causing cognitive dissonance in my car-loving head. Driving’s future seems uncertain. But a new company, Better Place of Palo Alto, has a plan.

Already, two tiny Massachusetts-sized countries, Israel and Denmark, have signed-up for Better Place’s plan. Another 25 countries, both small and big, as well as Hawaii, are reportedly interested. Better Place offers a few rays of hope for a healthy planet free from thrall to oil-soaked thug-nations. Nonetheless, in this brave new world, the romance of the open road is but a dream.

Why? Batteries. And don’t hold your breath for technological deus ex machina. “Electrochemistry is, by definition, hell on materials,” says John DeCicco, of the Environmental Defense Fund. Lithium ion phosphate, which will power the Better Place fleets, improves power density and charge-cycle endurance—to a claimed 2,000 cycles. Even so, some 500 lbs. of batteries will limit the Israeli and Danish Renaults’ range to 60 to 100 miles.

By 2011’s end, Better Place promises to blanket Israel’s 10,000 square miles with a grid of 500k charge spots, about 50 per square mile. Israeli customers will be able to replenish their battery at home, at work, and all over the place. If they must push the range limits, they can exchange their depleted battery for a fully charged one in less than five minutes at one of Better Place’s specialized battery swap-out stations—no extra charge. But these will number only 100 in this 290-mile long country. Nonetheless, Israelis and Danes will save big on the 70 percent and 180 percent taxes their respective countries levy on internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.

According to Dan Sperling, battery swapping raises some red flags. Its “many flaws” include “the issue of standardizing across model lines, never mind across car companies,” maintains the director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis (who erroneously thought Better Place might be switching to fast charging). Greg Nowell, of SUNY Albany, worries about the cost of transporting all these 500-pound replacement packs to the swap-out stations. He also warns of the possibility that peaks in demand—such as holidays—may present intermittent supply problems.

Should the program come to America, the cost for the mileage contract would run around $500/month. A Better Place spokesperson says the precise figure would vary with mileage. But a substantial monthly rebate would accrue, varying according to local costs and incentives. The EVs would be competitive with ICE cars. You would, in theory, save $10k-12k on the batteries. All this is very roughly equivalent to the cost of new car ownership.

Could it work in a country the size of the U.S.?  Better Place says a “mass roll-out” of the infrastructure here would cost $100b. “When compared to the $500 to $600 billion the U.S. spends on oil imports annually, we’re talking about a five year plan that will change our economy,” the spokesperson says.

The EV company says that if 84 percent of America’s 200m cars switched to electricity overnight, no new power plants would be needed. Indeed, all those batteries could aid the transition to renewable energy sources, by storing excess coming off of wind and solar farms.

Competition? All else equal, the far simpler EVs should be cheaper than hybrids (or even conventional ICE) to manufacture and maintain, and potentially more reliable. From government’s point of view, Better Place is great for balance of payments and geopolitics. But “battery electrics won’t out-compete gasoline hybrids anytime soon,” Sperling admits.

That said, Sperling says Better Place is “all very doable,” adding that “there has to be resolve by government, risk-taking by companies, and willingness to change behavior on the part of consumers.” At current gas prices, which he says will not go higher long term without aggressive fuel or carbon taxes, he foresees a market potential of about 25 percent, chiefly among two car households.

Better Place may not be the dream of a high octane pistonhead, but it could well relieve pressure on all that we hold dear.

It’s Monday, December 27, 2010. A Chevy customer sits behind the wheel of his brand-new, fully-charged, plug-in hybrid Volt. He’s heading off to the office some fifteen miles away. Three years ago, our early adopter was one the first to put his name on the waiting list at gm-volt.com. Since then, he visited the site religiously for daily updates. And now the Volt looks set to deliver on all of GM Car Czar Bob Lutz’s promises. But… the Volt driver’s journey into the future is about to be a lot shorter than he’d imagined.

His thirty-mile round trip California commute is well below the Volt’s advertised forty mile all-electric range (AER). So the EV enthusiast confidently instructed the dealer to purge the range-extending gas tank. His new-found freedom from OPEC, Hugo Chavez, Middle-East terrorists and money-grubbing Big Oil is intoxicating. He’s on the phone telling his stock broker to short Exxon.

He keeps his speed five miles an hour below prevailing freeway traffic. After only thirteen miles, the low battery warning lights come on. The Volt coasts to a stop on the shoulder. A head is scratched, epithets uttered.

Meanwhile, Katrina II is bearing down on New Orleans. A Louisiana Volt driver packs his family into his EV and heads for relatives in Mobile, Alabama, some 130 miles away.

Since he normally uses his Volt strictly for urban all-electric driving, the gas tank is empty. Traffic crawls along jammed I-10. The gas stations have all closed. The shoulders are littered with cars that have run dry. As he pulls into his relatives’ driveway, 13 grueling hours later, the Volt’s low-battery warning lights are just coming on.

Non-EV drivers will have a hard time believing that any vehicle can achieve ten times the range in stop-and-go-traffic than it can attain on the open highway. EPA statistics have trained them to believe that vehicles operate more efficiently at highway speeds than they do in city traffic— even though it’s not an intuitive conclusion (they know it takes more energy to “push” the car through the air at increasing speeds).

This discrepancy between expectation and reality comes down to the internal combustion engine's (ICE) gross inefficiency. Most automotive ICEs in the world use about 30 percent of the energy content stored within their gasoline. (Most of fuel’s energy content disappears into heat and carbon dioxide.) And that’s under optimal conditions. Typically, an ICE's is in single digits or teens.

An EV is an entirely different beast. Due to the excellent efficiency of all parts of the EV system (batteries, inverter, motor), cumulative efficiency exceeds 70 percent at virtually all speeds. So an EV’s energy requirements almost perfectly reflect the actual energy being expended to move the vehicle.

This results in spectacular range in city traffic and traffic jams.

In our first Volt scenario, the cutting edge commuter had to “climb” a modest three percent grade at a constant 70mph. This challenge knocked 67 percent off the Volt’s 40-mile projected AER. In scenario two, the Volt achieved maximum efficiency during 10mph stop-start traffic.

In fact, gasoline packs 80 times more energy per pound than a lithium-ion battery. It’s only the EV’s superb efficiency that makes them feasible. BUT aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed. In other words, the faster an EV travels, its power requirement increases disproportionately. So until battery density increases further, and quick charging becomes commonplace, EV’s are still best suited for urban environments.

[The Volt’s range projections—13 miles and 130 miles-- may be off by a mile or two. But drive a Volt into a headwind at the eighty-mile speed limit in flat West Texas with the A/C on, and simple physics dictates that the Chevy’s AER range will be somewhere in the teens. You can’t fight Newton.]

The Volt’s range-extending ICE gen-set overcomes its labile range– at a price. To compensate for the battery’s inherent limitations, the extended range Volt will have to lug around hundreds of pounds of complex machinery. That extra weight reduces range further. Not to mention adding unwelcome/expensive complexity in the service bay.

Meanwhile, cheaper, long-range EVs and quick-charging batteries are around the corner. Nissan has announced its intention to sell an affordable 100-mile range pure-EV in the US by 2010. Nissan partner AESC has developed batteries that can be recharged to 90 percent in fifteen minutes, or 60 percent in five minutes. And with battery density increasing by some eight percent per year, by 2017 that 100 mile range could well be 200 miles. Cross-country trips for bladder-challenged moderate-speed drivers become doable.

Until then, don’t believe everything you hear. Our calculations suggest that “Maximum” Bob Lutz’ 40-mile EV-only jaunt in a Volt mule must have been at no more than 50mph average. That’s good, maybe even great. But it’s still not good enough. 

Not for same reasons you do. You want a battery-powered Tesla Roadster because it’s a way cool car boasting bleeding edge technology. Or maybe you just like sexy sports cars. Or perhaps you’re looking for massive eco-auto props. As a free marketeer, I’m good with any of these motivations. As a Porsche Boxster S owner, I’m not bothered (I’ve already found my dream date). But as the publisher of this website, I want a Tesla Roadster BAD. I want to reveal the truth about the EV– whatever that may be.

The Tesla Birth Watch was born a fit of journalistic pique. It galled me to see my colleagues repeating the aspiring electric car company’s claims for their Roadster’s range, recharge time, safety and performance as fact. This before they'd turned a single wheel in anger. It made these media outlets– including mainstream publications that should have known better (I’m looking at you Forbes)– not-so-silent partners in the company’s PR and fund-raising efforts. The words “unproven” and “claimed” were conspicuous by their absence.

What’s more, Tesla’s Devil-make-care insistence that their unproven lithium-ion battery technology would deliver the claimed results (see how that works?) struck me as the worst kind of corporate arrogance– especially for a start-up. If BMW announces that their new twin-turbo 3.0-liter six will deliver 300 horsepower, accelerate the 335i from zero to sixty in 5.4 seconds and deliver 17/26 mpg, I have every reason to believe them. If a newbie named Tesla says their high tech Roadster will go from zero to sixty in under four seconds, travel 250 miles between charges and recharge in three hours, I say show me the money.

So I started the Tesla Birth Watch. If you go back and read the various installments, you’ll soon find the common thread: delays, disambiguation and disappearing claims. Transmission problems have forced the company to deep-six its sub-four second zero to sixty time. The 250-mile range is now 211 miles in “EPA Combined”- despite the fact that the EPA doesn’t have an electric vehicle mpg protocol. And no one– I repeat no one– has tested the Roadster’s batteries’ recharge time.

When Frank said we should pronounce T.O.B. (Time of Birth) on the Tesla Roadster and end the series– as the manufacturer claimed to have delivered a vehicle to a paying customer– I wanted proof. Given Tesla’s credibility (or complete lack thereof), the fact that this customer wants to remain anonymous doesn’t pass the smell test.

And if there is any wiggle room in our definition of “customer delivery of a production car,” I’m confident Tesla’s using it. For example, Tesla says it will retrofit the Roadster with a new transmission just as soon as they figure-out how to build one. Would we call a Ford Flex a proper production vehicle if it had to have a post-sale tranny swap? I don’t think so. As TTAC commentator PCH101 points out, “Even Vector delivered one vehicle. Technically, they’re still in business. It remains one of our oldest and best known vaporware companies.”

But you don’t hire a world-class Managing Editor, and then tell him he’s full of shit (at least not often). So I’ve deferred to Frank in this case. But I insisted we start the Tesla Death Watch. Think of it this way…

Tesla says they’ll deliver 400 cars by next March. Let’s assume they make, build and sell twice that and then some: 1000 cars per year, or 20 cars a week (pausing to note that Audi plans to sell 1k similarly-priced R8’s stateside in the car’s first year.) Let’s also assume they clear $20k per $100k car. So that’s $20m in ostensible net profit. Is there anyone reading this who thinks Tesla hasn’t already burned through $20m?

Now we know Tesla’s raised a lot more money than that, but that’s not the point. At some point, they’ll need to, you know, take in more money than they spend. At the same time, the Roadster runs the very real risk of catching “everyone who wants one’s got one” disease. It’s no wonder the company’s beginning to shift focus onto the WhiteStar EV– or partial EV– sedan. They need something to sell. To investors.

In truth, Tesla Motors is no more likely to produce and sell a viable, profitable, competitive, mass-market electric-powered sedan than General Motors. Given Tesla’s history of over-promising and under- (as in not) delivering on the Roadster, I reckon they don’t have a hope in Hell of achieving this goal. But that won’t stop them from raising tens of millions of dollars for their cushy offices and healthy salaries, and making a killing with an IPO. Nor will it stop us from telling the truth about Tesla, test car or no.

[Once again, we call on Tesla to provide a Roadster for third-party evaluation.] 

For nearly a century, powertrains and vehicle design have followed a largely evolutionary development path, slowly improving on one basic concept. But rising fuel prices for our inherited automotive paradigm point to radical changes ahead. Hybrids have already established a beachhead for the coming revolution. Like the dot-com boom just a decade ago, the EV gold rush is on. From pure vaporware to Hail-Mary-mobiles to groundbreaking machines that threaten real world practicality and affordability, there's lots to learn from and laugh at in the post-combustion world.

With so much to be depressed about (the death of affordable gas, the new Knight Rider TV series, etc.), you gotta laff, mate. And that's where Volt Nation comes in. Your online headquarters for (GM) Volt-o-mania, gm-volt.com recently covered the breaking news that Bob Lutz didn't actually say the Volt would cost $48k. When pressed, Lutz tells gm-volt.com's Lyle Dennis “(The price) keeps going up. Every time you ask, Lyle, it goes up again.” Lutz also calls the battery “a big unknown”– a fact which doesn't prevent one commenter from declaring that the unborn Volt “could change the world economy.” Another gushes “I vote that we quit asking price. If it’s right, then I’ll buy one or two.” Enjoy the love-fest, but remember: reality is just a hyperlink away.

The antidote to clueless cheer leading, greencarcongress.com is the place for hard-core EV (electric vehicle) and alt-energy nuts to geek out. The site offers a smorgasbord of super-wonky details and discussion of new developments such as a new $10k plug-in conversion kit for the Prius and the possibility of a renewable, organic electrode material for lithium-ion batteries. No detail goes unnoticed– from ZF's development of "hydraulic impulse oil storage element that can be integrated in the new generation of its 8-speed automatic transmissions to better support start-stop microhybrid systems," to the latest hybrid sales numbers.

Evworld.com brings us news of a plugless plug-in hybrid Skoda Fabia developed by the UK's Motor Industry Research Association. The retrofit is said to "eliminate the primary limitation of the 'plug-in hybrid' concept." Sadly, this isn't a cure for high prices and overly complex technology. Nope, this e-doo-hickey simply allows you to lug your batteries to a power source to charge them up, so on-street parkers can still rock a plug-in. Hmmm, sounds like an extension cord might have been cheaper.

Let's take a moment now to dispel the notion that EVs are all overly-complex yet boring city boxes. Sometimes they're slightly-complex yet impractical sports cars. Case in point, the Dutch firm Evisol threw a Siemens engine and some lithium polymer batteries into a Lotus Seven replica. Blijdschap! The Thorr was born. Like Tesla (after several epic fails), Evisol left the gearbox out, figuring the (up to) 450nm of torque at zero rpm would suffice to haul the 1600 lb Thorr to speed while still returning a 125 miles range. Too bad Evisol can't tell us what it will cost, when it will be available or the final performance. Still, it's a good blueprint for a sweet shadetree EV project car.

For a snapshot of the EV companies with the best PR departments products, Dvice.com has a list of the Top 10 World-Changing Electric Cars. Ignore the hyperbolic headline, and the inclusion of such oddities as the cartoonish Venturi "Eclectic Car" (pictured) and the Baker Electric Vehicle, which went out of production in 1915, and you have a snapshot of some of the products coming down the EV pipeline. Whether cars like the Fisker Karma even make it to production is still a question, and the Aptera Typ1 is unlikely to change anything outside of Southern California, but hey… the future has to come sometime, right?

Still not convinced that EVs have a future in the US? The optimistically-named solveclimate.com covers a Deutsche Bank study which might just change your mind. The German beancounters went over the numbers for Project Better Place's charging station and car-leasing business model. They were impressed to say the least. PBP's plans to market EV's like cell phones with set-mileage service plans could reduce the cost of driving to as little as seven cents per mile, compared to an average of 15 – 20 cents per mile currently available in the US. PBP proves that EV technology isn't enough on its own. Someone has to overcome their cost downsides.

Finally, the no-longer-presented-by-Acura Jalopnik takes us inside a Chinese factory which builds counterfeit Smart ForTwos. The ripoff rides might not be EVs, but they offer an insight into the conditions in which ultra-cheap EVs like Zap's Xebra are built. Just in case you thought your EV was, y'know… saving the planet.