The investigation into a Texas house fire that apparently started in a 2 month old Fisker Karma continues, with an EV expert weighing in with his opinion that the packaging of the combustion engine that drives the Fisker’s generator was likely the cause of the fire, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration saying it is looking into the incident, and the car’s owner and his attorneys firing back after Fisker initially implied there might be fraud or foul play.

Automotive News asked Jon Bereisa, CEO of Auto Lectrification, an EV consulting firm, for his opinion. Bereisa is perhaps singularly qualified to discuss electric vehicles, having been both the chief engineer of General Motors’ EV1 project and also the systems architect for the Chevy Volt. Bereisa told AN that based on a test drive and his examination of the Karma’s layout, he thinks the cramped engine compartment and excess heat most likely caused the fire, not the car’s battery pack.

“That engine is shoehorned into that bay, because they had to use a larger engine, because it was too heavy a car. As a result, there’s no room for exhaust routing and heat shielding to route the heat away… [the Karma is] using the hell out of that motor-generator.”

Bereisa also noted how tightly packed the exhaust system is. In those circumstances, a fuel, oil or even coolant (glycol is flammable) leak could ignite from heat or a hot surface. The consultant also pointed to the burned Karma’s owner’s remarks. Jeremy Gutierrez, the owner of the burned Fisker Karma, and CEO of iEnergy, an electrical power marketer, said that he smelled burning rubber just before the fire broke out.

Bereisa pointed out that, “You don’t smell rubber with batteries, but you will if it’s something on the engine.” Bereisa also said that since the car had just been driven on errands, the battery pack was likely drained and no longer contained enough energy or waste heat hot enough to ignite. “If the [battery] pack were to burn down the car, you would see where it started and reached the [battery] case… There’s more odds that it’s a conventional, heat-related problem in packaging and heat-related leaks.”

Fisker is agreeing that the battery pack, which uses cells manufactured by A123, wasn’t the cause of the fire, though it has sent a team of engineers to pore over the charred Karma’s hulk. That team is beginning to annoy Gutierrez, already a bit miffed that Fisker cast aspersions on his character, raising the possibility of “fraud or malicious intent”.

Gutierrez is so annoyed that he’s gotten his attorneys involved:

Mr. Guitterez fully accommodated the precise and somewhat peculiar demands of Fisker Automotive, who sent their self-proclaimed SWAT Team of engineers and inspectors (that included their own forensic cause and origin investigator) to the Guitterez home within 24 hours of the fire. They descended upon the Guitterez home in alarming numbers and immediately demanded a 24-hour lockdown of his home, including the remains of the Fisker Karma vehicle. They also cordoned off portions of the Guitterez home with non-transparent tarps to block the view from the public. Fisker even had access to eyewitnesses, who were interviewed by Fisker investigators and those investigators were shown video footage of the Fisker vehicle on fire before any other part of the garage.

Guitterez’s lawyers have demanded that Fisker to end its probe “immediately.”

For its part, Fisker still considers the cause of the fire as “yet to be ascertained.” A company spokesman said,

“There are myriad combustible materials that could be in the garage, in the wheel arch, or picked up on the roadside. They think the source is around the Karma, but they have not determined any cause yet. We have investigative teams, three insurance companies and the local fire chief all with their opinions. There are some question marks.”

When asked about Bereisa’s theories, the spokesman said, “The Karma has been through all regulatory and certification checks.”

Meanwhile, though Robert Baker, the chief fire inspector for Fort Bend County, Texas, continues to say that the Karma started the fire, his investigation is still incomplete, and NHTSA is started to show some interest.

“Yes, the Karma was the origin of the fire,” Baker said. “But what exactly caused that we don’t know at this time.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement that it “is aware of the incident and in contact with local authorities. The agency will continue to monitor the situation and take appropriate action as warranted,” though no formal NHTSA probe has been launched.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Cyclone Power's 5th Generation Prototype Steam Engine

In my post about mercury arc rectifiers used to charge early electric vehicles, I alluded to the competition between gasoline, electricity and steam in the early days of the automobile. Reader Ryoku75 asked “What happened to steam-driven cars?” It’s my task to cover the oddball engine desk here at TTAC and we will be having a report on new engine technologies on display at the SAE World Congress soon enough once I clear some work from my day job off the to-do list, but to answer Ryoku75′s question, it just so happens that there is timely news about steam power. They weren’t at the SAE congress this year, but in recent years a startup called Cyclone Power has displayed their “Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion” engine at the engineers’ convention. If Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion engine is a bit of a mouthful, try “steam engine”.

LSR Streamliner "Speed Demon" will provide the basic layout and aero package.

Cyclone is on the fifth generation of their engine, which has a patented steam generator and is protected, Cyclone Power says, by 28 other patents as well. The company has made some technology agreements, most recently with China’s Great Wall Alternative Power Systems. In addition to promoting their engine as a transportation alternative, Cyclone is also selling waste heat recovery generators. You can see their latest prototype running on a test stand. Cyclone hasn’t yet, though, shown their engine actually powering a car. That’s about to change in a big way. Cyclone founder, inventor Harry Schoell, is backing Team Steam, an American effort to set a new Land Speed Record for steam powered vehicles. The current record, set in 2009 (which itself broke a mark over a century old) is 148.166 MPH (some sources say 148.308 MPH), set by a British team.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Cyclone vehicle will based on Speed Demon, a 436 MPH Bonneville-proven streamliner designed and built by respected speed enthusiasts George Poteet and Ron Main. Speed Demon has an almost unheard of for a ground vehicle drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.08. The Gen V Cyclone engine is a six cylinder design claimed to put out 100 HP at 3,600 RPM, which isn’t bad for a 250 lb engine that will run on almost any liquid fuel. With the right aerodynamics and low enough weight, 100 horsepower is probably enough to get up to 150 MPH and break the record. The Cyclone LSR car, though, will likely accelerate more briskly than one would expect from just a hundred horsepower. Cyclone claims that their engine also produces 850lbs-ft of torque at stall, unheard of from an engine that lightweight. All of that torque will be available from a dead stop and it will be a smooth ride because with all their torque steam powered cars don’t use gearboxes.

No word yet on when they hope to make their first effort at breaking the record. So far they have put together a technical team and right now they’re gathering up sponsors and technical/promotional partners.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

If you want to see the future of the electric car, you have to go back a hundred years. In 1900, over a quarter of all new automobiles ran on battery. City cars? Around a third of the buggies of Chicago, Boston, and New York City were electric. They were decimated by cars running on smelly and flammable gasoline, because people wanted to drive fast and long distances. Hundred years later, little has changed. Ten to 20 years from now, something might change.

“Electric cars today typically can travel only about 100 miles on current battery technology, called lithium-ion (LIB). LIB technology stands little chance of being light enough to travel 500 miles on a single charge and cheap enough to be practical for a typical family car. This problem is creating a significant barrier to electric vehicle adoption.”

This is a quote from a group of researchers at IBM, and it is putting the problem mildly. In an electric car, the devils called cost, range, and weight are fighting each other, and nobody is winning. The IBM researchers think they know the way out. They are working on a battery that has the same energy density as gasoline.

In other words: A battery the size of a current gas tank will get us as far as a current tank of gas.

IBM’s lithium-air battery literally pulls energy out of thin air. It borrows oxygen from the air. Combined with lithium, electrical energy is created. When the battery is recharged, the borrowed oxygen is being paid back to the atmosphere. The battery can be much lighter, because it uses air as its most important component.

IBM’s research group is called “Battery 500”. The goal is a battery that can power a car for 500 miles. The researchers hope their battery will be ready “some time between 2020 and 2030.”

(Hat tip to Rick.)

Compressed natural gas may cost the equivalent of $1.89 per gallon of gasoline, but retrofitting your GMC Sierra or Chevrolet Silverado will cost you $11,000 – and GM still think it will save you money.

According to GM, “…Customers could save $5,000 to $10,000 over a three-year period, depending on their driving habits.” How GM came to this number is a bit of a mystery, and we’re doing some digging to try and figure it out – because it’s a conversion, there is no EPA rating on it and data is difficult to find.

What we did notice was this little tidbit

“Businesses are looking for ways to control their costs while reducing vehicle emissions and becoming less dependent on fluctuating gas prices. The low cost of ownership makes these vehicles a realistic solution,” 

$11,000 is a lot of cash for a business to tie up in one truck. In the absence of any data on how many miles it would take to break even (as well as the gas price number used to come up with it), it appears that GM is hoping to sway buyers with the prospect of unstable or rising fuel prices in the future. Emissions are almost certainly a secondary concern. It’s a wonder that GM didn’t promote the fact that CNG can legitimately claim to be a domestically sourced form of clean energy, seeing as they (barely) did back in March.

We contacted GM to try and get more information on the CNG conversion, and more specifically, how they came to their savings figures. Please leave all accusations of anti-GM bias, skulduggery and wrongdoing in the comments section.

EDIT: General Motors says that they calculated the savings based on a truck driving 24,000 miles a year, with gas prices at $4 per gallon and a CNG gallon equivalent of $2. GM’s Mike Jones, Product Manager for Fleet and Commercial Operations, thinks that there will continue to be “…a pretty significant price separation…” between gasoline and CNG.

Inspired by the compact fuel cells developed for the United States’ space effort, in the mid 1960s Dr. Craig Marks led a team of GM researchers in developing a hydrogen fuel cell powered electric vehicle. GM had already introduced the Electrovair, a Corvair converted to electric power and the original intention was to make a fuel cell powered Corvair. A car, though, requires much more current than a spacecraft and Marks’ team soon realized that they’d have to use a larger vehicle as a test mule. At the time, GM made a small van called the Handyvan which had sufficient space for the compressed hydrogen tank and other equipment. Despite that extra space, the new equipment took up so much room that the finished “Electrovan” was just a two-seater. That equipment included two super-cooled tanks, one for liquid hydrogen and one of liquid oxygen, 550 feet of copper piping, and 32 Union Carbide fuel cells, each capable of putting out 5 kilowatts for a total of 160kw.

Most of the Electrovan's cargo space was taken up by the hydrogen (red), oxygen (green), and fire retardant (black) tanks.

The Electrovan was a measured success, at least for a proof of concept. It had a top speed of 70 mph with a range of ~120 miles. Acceleration was sedate: 0-60 in 30 seconds. While that level of performance might have been good enough for an urban delivery van, the Electrovair was far from practical. Not only did the new “powertrain” take up most of the cargo capacity, it was also heavy, weighing twice as much as a standard Handyvan, explaining how a 240 horsepower small van could be so slow. It was also very expensive, since the system relied on several rare metals including platinum. The term “cost prohibitive” is applicable.

Electrovan being tested on the grounds of the GM Tech Center.

While as a proof of concept the Electrovan worked well enough to publicize, besides the bulk and mass of the system there were practical barriers to putting it into production. For safety reasons, the Electrovan included a large container filled with fire retardant in the event of gas or chemical leaks. Those leak and fire concerns were real, with Dr. Marks describing “brilliant fireworks” when the hydrogen leaks would flare up. Of even greater safety concern was the high pressure hydrogen storage tank. All the press events for the Electrovan took place at the Tech Center. Back in the day, the Electrovan never left the Tech Center. That’s because GM had concerns about driving it on public roads.

Those concerns, like those about leaks and fires were well warranted. Every account of the Electovan’s story includes the fact that while testing the Electrovan on the Tech Center’s roadways, a compressed hydrogen tank exploded. Nobody was injured but the explosion sent shrapnel and debris flying over a quarter mile from the explosion site.

Due to those legitimate safety concerns, and the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure for refueling the Electrovan project never really went anywhere. The fuel cell vehicle was just about forgotten, with the Electrovan sitting in storage until rising oil prices made alternative energy sexy again. Since then the electric van has been cleaned up and put on display, next to the Electrovair, at the General Motors Heritage Center.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

More details have been released about the explosion at a GM Tech Center battery lab yesterday that left one person hospitalized with chemical burns and a possible concussion. In a statement, GM said that while an “experimental battery” was undergoing “extreme testing”, gases were released from the battery cells. Something in the lab then ignited the gases and the subsequent explosion was severe enough to cause structural damage, blowing out windows and forcing open fortified doors. The battery itself was left intact. The Detroit News, according to an unnamed source, reports that prototype lithium-ion battery was made by A123, and that explosion happened during “intensive tests designed to make it fail”. The Warren, Michigan fire commissioner said that the lab was designed with safety in mind so damage was confined to the one laboratory. Though some of the 80 workers in the building were sent home for the day after the explosion, others continued to work. The 63,000 sq ft Global Battery Systems Lab has 176 test cells as well as 49 thermal chambers, where GM tests both production and prototype batteries. A HAZMAT team was dispatched to the facility, as were OSHA and MIOSHA inspectors, because of the injuries.

GM stressed that the incident was not related to the Chevrolet Volt or any other production vehicle. Since the electric version of the Chevy Spark won’t go into production until next year, the battery involved in the explosion might be a developmental version of the batteries A123 will be supplying for that project. It also might be a completely experimental prototype.

You heard it yourself. When Obama is out of office, he’ll buy a Chevrolet Volt and drive it himself. The Secret Service, which famously wouldn’t let Obama drive the Volt down the Hamtramck assembly line, generally protects the President for up to 10 years after they leave office – we’d assume that the “no driving” clause applies here. So Obama’s Volt may sit for a long time – hopefully it won’t brick.

Meanwhile, the DoE’s projection of 120,000 Volts produced in 2012 (let alone sold to consumers) still looks a little optimistic. GM just restarted production of the car a few days ago. Their sales target of 45,000 in 2012 has been abandoned after coming 2,300 units short of their 10,000 unit goal in 2011. GM now says that they will adjust “supply to meet demand”.

Last year, President Barack Obama declared that one of the “Apollo projects of our times” is the goal for the United States to be “the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.” Companies that made and people that bought those electric vehicles received generous government money. One holdout in the rush for EVs: The U.S. government. It did not do as its President said, and ended up with a drastic cut in purchases of electric and hybrid vehicles after the speech was delivered.

GSA Purchases of EVs and Hybrids

U.S. General Services Administration purchases of hybrid and electric models fell 59 percent in fiscal 2011 to about 2,645, Bloomberg reports after analyzing data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The GSA procures approximately two thirds of the government’s vehicles . The other third is bought by the U.S. Postal Service.

The GSA bought 145 Chevrolet Volts in fiscal 2011, 1,380 hybrid Fusions, 101 Honda Insight hybrids and one Toyota Prius.

At the same time, the U.S. government is more in line with another Apollo project, namely buying only alternative-fuel vehicles for the U.S. government fleet by 2015. In fiscal 2011, the federal fleet added 32,000 cars and trucks that can burn E85. That’s 58 percent of the 54,843 cars bought by the GSA in fiscal 2011.

And it is a bookkeeping trick. 88 percent of the government’s “alternative-fuel vehicles” are flex fuel cars. They can use ethanol. But they can also use regular gas. They usually do.  Out of necessity: “There are only about 2,512 ethanol fuel pumps available among the estimated 162,000 fueling stations that sell gasoline,” says Bloomberg.

For years ago, Obama promised that by 2012, “half of all cars purchased by the federal government will be plug-in hybrids or all-electric.” They better write those purchase orders fast to meet that goal.

I was originally hesitant to jump on the Tesla Roadster “bricked batteries” bandwagon, and my initial story was written with a sort of cautious neutrality. Further context will be provided by the details that have surfaced in the 24 hours since the story broke. Hope you’re ready to dive in to it all.

Original story here. A quick recap: Tesla Roadster owner Max Drucker contacted Tesla CEO Elon Musk regarding a dead battery in his car. Drucker’s car died after he left his Roadster parked, without leaving it plugged in for two months. The vehicle subsequently died. The car was towed to a Tesla service center and a technician determined that his battery would have to be replaced at a cost of $40,000. Drucker sent an angry letter to CEO Elon Musk admonishing him for poor customer service.

- The Tesla “bricking” story broke on the blog of Michael Degusta. Degusta and Drucker have a long history as business partners. This was not disclosed. I contacted Degusta, who said he would put me in touch with an owner who has had their car “bricked” (he did not say if it was Drucker or one of the other four affected owners) and refused to put me in touch with the Tesla service manager who claimed that, among other things, Tesla was tracking vehicles by GPS without the owner’s consent. I was reluctant to take those claims at face value – now they can’t be independently verified. On Degusta’s blog, he discusses an owner of Roadster #340, who parked his car in a temporary garage, sans charger, while his home is being renovated. This is consistent with Drucker’s emails to Tesla – but also consistent with Drucker at best not following the protocol outlined in various documents (obtained via Green Car Reports) and the Tesla Roadster’s manual, or at worst, being negligent. Drucker’s Roadster wouldn’t have the Tesla GSM connection that can alert Tesla to low battery charge conditions. Those were only installed after the first 500 Roadsters were produced. Degusta makes a big stink about the GPS tracking of the Roadsters, but is on record claiming that, and Degusta is unwilling to back that claim up beyond anecdotal evidence.

- A copy of the Tesla Roadster owner’s manual (covering the Tesla Roadster S and Roadster 2.5. Link is at the bottom of the page for you to peruse yourself), states in numerous places that owners are not to leave their vehicles uncharged for long periods of time, or to drain the battery down to zero. Doing so, the owners are told, will cause permanent damage to the battery, and such damage will not be covered under the Tesla Roadster’s warranty agreement. This is spelled out in numerous places in greater detail throughout the manual. Scans of these pages are available in the gallery below. In addition, there is an agreement which owners must sign at the time of purchase that has the owner acknowledge the responsibility of maintaining a proper battery charge, and that any damage that results from negligence in this area is not covered under warranty. Degusta’s complaints that the “Battery Reminder Card” handed out to owners during servicing don’t contain adequate warnings of the consequences are also misleading, as the consequences are spelled out in the aforementioned documents.

- The Tesla Roadster’s battery, unlike those in the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, is made up of 6831 “consumer commodity cells”, basically laptop or cellphone type cells that combine to make up the battery pack. These batteries use Cobalt Dioxide chemistry, which is the most energy dense, and prone to decaying with time as well as use. This is not the case in the Volt or Leaf, which use different chemistry. In addition, the “state of charge” used by the Tesla pack is different; when a Tesla range indicator displays “zero miles”, it could have 5 percent of the battery life left. If the car is then parked without charging, it may drain to zero, leaving the car “bricked”. A Volt, on the other hand, may actually have one half to one third of the battery pack’s life left upon displaying “zero miles”; it only uses 10.4 kW out of its 16kW battery. Exact figures for a Tesla battery weren’t available, but are said to be much higher.

-It’s theoretically possible to revive a “bricked” consumer cell via slow trickle charging, in the same way that a dead iPod or laptop can be brought back to life if left to charge for a very long time after months of not being used.

So, we know for sure that it’s possible for a Tesla to “brick”. Tesla has admitted it in a statement, but also seems to have provided ample warnings that it could happen and that it can easily be prevented. These measures, along with the structure of the warranty agreement, leads us to believe that a product liability lawsuit is highly unlikely (a former auto industry lawyer we spoke to agreed, though cautioned that California’s Lemon Laws were the most liberal of any of the 50 states).

Of course, Tesla could have replaced the battery pack in good faith (and maybe had Drucker and the others sign an NDA agreement that also absolves Tesla of any responsibility for the pack’s failure), but for some reason, they didn’t. In the gallery below, we have scans of the manual. You can read the manual for yourself here.

Regulators are hoping to offer additional incentives and credits to spur sales of the vehicles. Hydrogen re-fueling infrastructure will also be supported, though details of how this would be approached were scant. The new rules would also favor vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt, as CARB feels that it is closer to an electric vehicle than a conventional plug-in hybrid. The Volt has been dubbed a ”transitional zero-emission vehicle”.

Organizations such as the California New Car Dealers Association say that demand for these types of vehicles has been overestimated, but CARB chair Mary Nichols told a conference call that car manufacturers were in favor of the new rulings. “Probably the most heartening aspect of this whole rulemaking was the level of cooperation that we received from the industry. Overall, the degree of support for the package was just extraordinary.”

A Chevrolet Volt owner in Ottawa, Ontario has been blocked by his condominium board from charging his Chevrolet Volt – even though he has offered to reimburse the board for the $1 (approximately) in electricity it takes to charge the Volt at local rates.

Mike Nemat, who bought a Volt a couple months back, lives in a high-rise condominium building where tenants collectively share the cost of things like electricity bills. Nemat has an electrical outlet near his parking spot, originally intended for an engine block heater, that he’s been using to charge his Volt.

Under the condo’s rules, Nemat is allowed to use a block heater, which consumes almost as much electricity as a Volt. But if Nemat wants to use his outlet for charging purposes, the board says he must install a separate electrical meter, at a cost of $3,000. The board claims that they do not subsidize the fueling of other vehicles, and therefore shouldn’t be paying for electricity for the Volt – Nemat offered to reimburse the board for any electricity used, but the board still declined (though without a meter, a precise figure couldn’t be determined), and will disable that particular outlet.

One of Nemat’s neighbors had a pragmatic take on it, suggesting that someone using a toaster or leaving the lights on all night is just as much of a drain on electricity as Nemat’s Volt. Increasing numbers of Canadians in urban areas live in these buildings, and some are friendlier than others – one Toronto condo even hosts Tesla Toronto’s vehicles and allows them use of a 240V charging station. Nemat and his Volt are likely the tip of the iceberg with respect to this issue – as plug-in vehicles and higher density housing take root (and really, a downtown condo owner is the kind of person that a Nissan Leaf is perfectly suited for), there will be increased demand for charging stations.

Disclaimer: The above photo is not Nemat’s Volt. I tested a Volt for a week in December, and parked it at a public garage which has a 240V EV charging station. One day, a Durango took my spot, and so I parked it next to a standard 110V outlet and used the factory trickle charger. I came back to find the unit unplugged, thus ruining my 4-day streak of not using a single drop of gasoline. In typical Canadian fashion, the cord was neatly drapped across the side-mirror, the charge port door had been closed and the trickle charger unit placed off to the side and out of harm’s way. I can only assume it was done by a security guard who thought I was “stealing electricity” from the garage.

Wamp wamp! That’s the sound of the sad trombone playing for the Chevrolet Volt, which missed its 2011 sales target by 2,329 units. General Motors hoped that the Volt would sell 10,000 units in 2011, but it was not to be.

Bloomberg reports that the bow tie brand sold only 7,671 Volts in 2011, but has plants to increase annual production to 60,000 units annually. 45,000 of those will be sold in the United States. The Volt had only been on sale nationwide for the final three months of 2011.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the Nissan Leaf  had sold 8,720 units through November, compared to 6,142 Volts (according to data from Automotive News). Despite being hyped up as an electric car devoid of range anxiety, consumers evidently didn’t care, opting for the little Nissan instead.

While the Volt was helped by GM authorizing the sale of 2,300 demonstrator units in November, the Leaf, unlike the Volt, has still not been launched in all 50 states, instead remaining on sale solely in the coastal regions and the Chicago metropolitan area. It’s still to early to tell how the NHTSA investigation into the Volt’s battery-related fires has impacted sales, as our data only extends to the month of November, and the NHTSA announcement came on November 25th.

Ethanol trade groups have said that the industry would survive the loss of the subsidy, now that the US ethanol production industry has become established. The industry is still protected by congressional mandates that call for 15 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2015 and 36 billion gallons by 2022.

The ethanol issue involves a number of powerful players, corn growers and affiliated industries on one side and food interests, automakers and engine builders on the other. Then there’s the EPA to consider. The EPA has approved the use of E15, an 85/15 gasoline/ethanol blend, for use in post 2001 cars. Manufacturers say that without modifications, E15 will damage engines. In February, in a bipartisan move the House voted 285-136 to block the EPA from moving ahead with E15 regulations.

While ending the subsidy would seemingly discourage ethanol’s use, the end of the 54 cents per gallon tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol might do more to encourage that use than the subsidies did. Brazil is one place where it makes sense to use ethanol as a fuel because of Brazil’s huge sugar industry. The ratio of energy needed to produce it vs the energy obtained in the fuel for ethanol made from corn is barely greater than one, 1.3:1, compared to 2:1 for using sugar beets and 8:1 for sugar cane, the feedstock for Brazil’s ethanol. It costs half as much to make Brazilian cane ethanol as it does to make American corn ethanol. According to one academic study transportation costs to US ports eliminate that competitive advantage, but if that was a certainty, Brazilian sugar cane producers wouldn’t have threatened to start a trade war if the tariff wasn’t ended.

Not even hot air. In this environmentally responsible day and age, unheated air will suffice to propel this car. Toyota Industries Corporation (not Toyota Motor Corporation) showed a car that is powered solely by compressed air.

No CO2 will be emitted, no polar bears will be harmed. Of course, there will be a bit power needed to compress the air – minor distraction. The principle is quite simple: Tanks are filled with compressed air. The compressed air powers a motor. The motor is actually a simple car air conditioner compressor. Toyota Industries is the world’s biggest supplier of the cool gadgets, the company cranks out about 20 million compressors a year.

The rocket-like car called KU:RIN (Japanese for “air wheel”) broke the speed record for compressed air-powered vehicles (yes, that exists) by speeding up to 129.2 km/h (80.3 mph) on the Ibaraki test track. Which will earn it a place in the Guinness World Records Book.

Of course there is a minor drawback: The KU:RIN is the embodiment of range anxiety. Says The Nikkei [sub]:

“In past tests, the vehicle ran as far as 3.2 kilometers without replenishing the air in the cylinders. The company said it will work on extending the travel distance. It said the model is not intended for commercial production but is for the sake of honing its junior researchers’ skills.”

Munich, Germany, to St. Moritz, Switzerland. It can be a scenic afternoon ride. The nicest route, shown here would take you very leisurely four hours these days. Before the car was invented, it would have taken a few days and a lot of real horses. How about with pure plug-ins?  31 participants embarked on a plug-in rally from Munich to St. Moritz. It started on August 1. It ended on August 5^th. Yep, five days. When I was young, I did that in two easy days on a bicycle. The electric cars took the better part of the week.

To their credit, the battery-powered rally-cars mastered a course of 780 kilometers (484 miles), says AUTO BILD.  They must have taken some scenic detours. Or had a hard time finding out-of-the-way hotels that offered enough sockets for 31 cars to suck from over night. Straight line (and quite beautiful, I tell you) would be 279 km, or just 173 miles.  It also has some wicked mountain passes …

Even with a carefully planned route and four overnight stays, each driver had to follow a careful strategy “to not get stranded: Step on the ‘gas’ only if absolutely necessary, re-gen as much as possible: scoot downhill and happily watch the green bar grow,” says AUTO BILD. The rally was called e-miglia. It was a few hundred km short of 1,000 km, but who’s counting.

Only the “€100,000 Teslas with 7,500 laptop batteries in the back could do 300 kilometers and more” says the paper. And it continues:

“A band of dedicated idealists is fighting for the great cause of electric mobility. One would think this should be the job of the automakers. Those keep their lordly (or embarrassed) distance and leave the pioneering to the man of independent means.”

As a relatively pragmatic person who generally chooses the imperfect-yet-achievable path rather than agonizing over the perfect-but-unattainable goal, this chart [from a fascinating Boston Consulting report, in PDF here]  frustrates me. I understand why Americans choose hybrid-electric cars as their most favored “green car” technology, but from their it gets fairly crazy. EVs are fantastic on paper, but in the real world they’re still far too expensive, their batteries degrade, they have limited range, oh and did I mention that they’re freaking expensive? Biofuels, America’s third-favorite “green” transportation technology can be fantastic in certain limited applications, but the ongoing ethanol boondoggle proves that it will never be a true “gasoline alternative.” Finally, at the bottom of the list, Americans grudgingly accept only relatively slight interest in the two most promising short-term technologies: diesel and CNG. Neither of these choices is radically more expensive than, say, a hybrid drivetrain and both are considerably less expensive and compromised than EVs at this point. So why are we so dismissive of them?

And here’s how deep the irony goes: America is, apparently, far more sensitive to lifetime costs, and is particularly concerned with upfront costs. So if 56% of Americans are not willing to pay any extra upfront for a “green car,” and only 38% are willing to pay more upfront if it pays off over time, why do 64% claim to be interested in EVs? After all, the battery-powered cars that are currently on the market cost considerably more upfront (on average) than comparable hybrids, diesels and CNG cars. Even the most hard-core EV fans admit that buying an electric car now makes no financial sense, and even hybrids must be driven a huge number of miles to pay off its upfront premium compared to a comparable gasoline or CNG car. American consumers had some of the highest “don’t understand” response rates across the board, but when you break down the data you can’t help wondering if there should have been a few more.

But don’t blame Americans. After all, we’re so well-protected from our energy externalities (a topic I covered recently when I called for a serious push to increase gas taxes), that we couldn’t possibly be expected to know or care about fuel-efficient technologies as our $8/gallon-paying bretheren across the pond and around the world. As this chart shows, the US government lags other developed nations and regions in its fuel economy standard… but even this isn’t the real story. After all, the current argument being made by automakers is that they will be forced to put more cost into future CAFE-compliant cars which consumers will not find worthwhile if gas prices don’t rise. Which brings us back to the real issue:

The problem, it seems, is that America still sees “fuel efficient” cars and “green” cars as being fundamentally different. Just look at the rise of high-priced cars that are green for the sake of being green, and offer no chance paying back their additional costs compared to comparable cars that are simply “fuel efficient.” Fisker’s Karma is “green,” while a 335d is “fuel efficient.” Chevy’s Volt is “green” but the Cruze Eco is merely “efficient.” Tesla’s Roadster is “green” but a Lotus Elise is amazingly efficient. I could go on, but the point should be fairly clear: because “green” has become such an aspirational marketing trope, and because we are still so insulated from the price motivation that drives nearly everyone else on earth to save fuel, we can’t even evaluate the “green car” options out there in a way that makes any sense. In my mind, this is a troubling sign of the market failure that comes from hidden externalities… and as a believer in market solutions, I hope American consumers can start looking at alternative drivetrains with more objectivity in the near future.

Smell that? It’s the gathering scent of a new industry trend towards natural gas. Honda’s expanded its pioneering Civic GX to 50 states, Sergio Marchionne wants to replicate his Italian CNG success at Chrysler (eventually), and now GM is jumping on the bandwagon while it’s still relatively uncrowded. The Winnepeg Free Press reports that GM has signed a development deal with Vancouver, B.C.-based Westport Innovations which could see a prototype light-duty natural gas-powered engine completed “within 18 months” if preliminary study proves promising. A Westport spokesman boasts

If both parties agree to move ahead with commercialization this would be one of the first pure OEM [natural gas-powered] products

You know, except the Civic GX which has been prowling American streets since 1998. Still, with Chrysler targeting CNG commercialization no earlier than 2017, GM could have a strong head-start on a fuel technology that promises to be a viable and promising gasoline alternative, especially if the NatGas Bill [PDF] passes, expanding $7,500 plug-in tax credits to natural gas vehicles. And GM’s got a strong partner in Westport, which has heavy-duty commercial deals with Cummins and Caterpillar. With Nissan all-in on EVs and years ahead of the competition in terms of global EV production capacity, look for other competitors to hedge their alt-energy bets… and natural gas is rapidly becoming the most popular alternative.

The ominous Hydrogen Year 2015 is popping up again.  Last year, Byung Ki Ahn, general manager of Hyundai-Kia’s Fuel Cell Group said: “There are already agreements between car makers such as ourselves and legislators in Europe, North America and Japan to build up to the mass production of fuel cell cars by 2015.” Going  through the many files produced in Brussels, you find that in Europe “car manufacturers are getting ready for the commercial production of hydrogen vehicles by 2015.”

Now Daimler will begin series production of hydrogen fuel cell cars in 2014. This is what Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told Das Autohaus. Together with Linde, a manufacturer of industry gases, Daimler wants to build a small network of hydrogen fuel stations. By 2014, the n umber of hydrogen stations in Germany will rise to 50. Germany alone would need around 1,000 hydrogen stations for a nationwide supply.  And then, motorists will complain that they won’t find any in Italy if they decide to drive to Italy.

A bevy of industry figures and politicos congregated yesterday in Torrance, CA, to celebrate the grand opening of a new gas station. But it wasn’t just any new gas station …

As a collaborative effort between Toyota, Air Products, Shell, South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and the Department of Energy (DOE), the first hydrogen fueling station in the U.S. that is fed directly from an active industrial hydrogen pipeline was opened.

Don’t drive down yet to fill up your hydrogen car (which you are unlikely to have): The station will provide hydrogen for Toyota fuel cell hybrid demonstration program vehicles as well as other manufacturers’ fuel cell vehicle fleets in the Los Angeles area.

The word “hydrogen” triggers associations of “bomb” in some people. Toyota puts that to rest by placing the hydrogen gas station right next to their U.S. HQ in Torrance. Toyota leases the land “for a nominal fee” to Shell, which owns and operates the station. The gas is supplied by Air Products via a pipeline from its plants in Wilmington and Carson, CA. There is some tax payer’s money involved: “SCAQMD and DOE provided project funding assistance,” says Toyota’s press release.

At the inauguration of the gas station, Chris Hostetter, group vice president of product and strategic planning at Toyota U.S. said: “Toyota plans to bring a fuel cell vehicle to market in 2015, or sooner, and we will not be alone in the marketplace.” Let’s see …

Last year, we had picked up signs of a revival  of  the hydrogen fuel cell technology. There was a lot of renewed excitement in the industry about the technology, especially on the Asian and European side of the globe. Everybody seemed to be gearing up to make 2015 the year of hydrogen. Daimler sent a fleet of hydrogen-powered cars around the world.

They are still at it. Forgotten by the fickle media, the hydrogen-powered Benzes are making their long way back from China to Europe, live-blogged by an intrepid reporter of Auto, Motor und Sport who just posted issue #52. Judging from the comments, only a few bother to read.

A few months ago, the hydrogen euphoria seemed to suddenly run out of fuel – around the world. Even the Obama administration cut $70 million from hydrogen funding. That’s not what killed the mood, carmakers in Europe, Korea or Japan never harbored great hopes to get a lot out of U.S. coffers. From repeated talks with insiders at major automakers, I am given the impression that there is not big breakthrough with the hurdles that stand in the way of wholesale hydrogenification of the universe. As there are the problems of polar bear-friendly hydrogen production, efficient distribution and escape-proof storage, only to name a few.

A spokesman of a usually straightforward German automaker said: “If we have a breakthrough in any of these areas, we’ll call you.”  I’m not sitting by the phone.

At the same time, as hydrogen-disillusion sank in (for the umpteenth time), interest in EVs started to rise, even at the formerly most electricity-insulated companies.

There’s been a recent groundswell of interest in natural gas as a fuel for cars in recent months, marked by Honda’s decision to sell a natural gas-powered 2012 Civic in 50 states, Edmunds CEO Jeremy Anwyl’s public paean to the fuel, and the EPA’s relaxation of natural gas conversion regulations. Honda alt-fuel manager Eric Rosenberg enthuses to WardsAuto

We’re the Saudi Arabia of natural gas… Demand [for the Civic GX] has tripled, and that’s actual retail demand. Traditionally, fleet has been about 50% to 55% of demand, but now it’s dropped; now 80% of demand is retail.

And since Chrysler’s new guardian, Fiat, has plenty of (well-subsidized) natural gas experience in Italy, it’s no surprise that Chrysler’s looking to get in on the action (Chrysler’s own experience with the stuff was brief). In fact, just last year Fiat-Chrysler was pushing the idea of natural gas cars as a stopgap until its first EV (the 500) arrives in 2012. Now, presumably because the desired government help wasn’t forthcoming, Bloomberg reports that Chrysler is only promising gassy goodness “by 2017.” Now there’s an interesting way to jump on a bandwagon.

The NYT reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency has revised its alternative-fuel conversion regulations for light and heavy-duty vehicles, making it easier for manufacturers to sell conversions that are compliant with clean-air laws. The 186-page ruling provides an exemption from a Clean Air Act prohibition against tampering when converting an engine to run on alternative fuel.

In the past, a manufacturer of alternative-fuel conversion systems was required to certify its products in the same manner that a vehicle manufacturer certified its vehicles — an expensive and difficult process. The new regulations provide a way to comply with clean-air standards through streamlined testing.

In essence, the rule change creates a graded compliance structure, depending on the age of the converted vehicle, making it easier to retrofit older vehicles. Read all about it at the EPA’s website.

One of the toughest challenges facing industry analysts right now involves determining what the market for electric vehicles actually looks like, what kind of volumes it will support and for how long. It’s a problem that I’ve hashed over at length with an old college buddy who now works at a cleantech investment firm, and let me be the first to say that it’s not an easy problem to pick apart. The number of unknown quantities and moving parts explains why opinions among money managers can vary so wildly even about relatively marginal firms like Tesla.

Luckily, Thilo Koslowski of Gartner Research [and celebrated coiner of the term "the trough of disappointment"] has dedicated himself more thoroughly to the problem, and has some startling findings to report. For example, despite the relentless pro-EV hype present in all levels of the media, Koslowski’s research shows that more consumers are actually considering buying a natural gas-powered vehicle. Looks like Edmunds’ Jeremy Anwyl was on to something when he called for an end to EV tax credits in favor of greater support for natural gas cars.

But even those raw consideration numbers don’t tell the whole story. Koslowski notes

EVs primarily face a market adoption problem, not an infrastructure challenge, to move from early adopters to mainstream buyers. The ideal EV does not exist yet in today’s automotive market and will likely require another technology generation before it arrives. Consumer sentiment regarding EVs is still positive, but is beginning to show areas of concerns for automotive manufacturers when compared to 2010. EVs must provide better cost-value ratios and convince consumers that no significant behavioral changes are needed before becoming a large-scale, consumer alternative for traditional internal-combustion engine (ICE) and hybrid powertrain technologies.

This is sobering news for even the “end-to-end” EV business model, as championed by Project Better Place. The infrastructure-based approach to EV marketing may help eliminate range and depreciation issues (which addresses the behavioral change issue), but the cost-value ratio that Koslowski highlights is still an issue for concern, thanks to high upfront costs. Not that Koslowski writes off infrastructure completely, saying

Infrastructure and service providers are likely the primary beneficiaries of the current EV evolution. Utility companies, in particular, have the opportunity to play a more dominant role in the emerging e-mobility future, because U.S. consumers prefer to have their utilities address their potential EV infrastructure needs.

But the research shows, the nascent EV market is extremely price sensitive. Though 21 percent of consumers say they are considering an EV (more than are considering a new diesel car), Koslowski’s data shows that

nearly one-third of U.S. drivers interested in EVs are not willing to pay a premium price for an electric car, and only 5 percent are willing to pay $10,000 more.

You hearing this Chrysler? As a result of this study,

Gartner maintains its 2009 prediction that in industrialized automotive markets, the number of battery-powered vehicles (plug-in full-electric and plug-in hybrid EVs) as a percentage of all vehicles sold using various types of propulsion technologies will range from 5 percent to 8 percent of all vehicle sales by 2020, and from 15 percent to 20 percent of all vehicle sales by 2030.

Which leads back to the lesson that we seem to be learning over and over again, namely that, a Koslowski puts it

EVs will become one of the design elements in addressing our future transportation needs. Future mobility concepts will consist of diverse powertrain choices and business models that will leverage technology to satisfy consumers’ transportation needs while challenging traditional car ownership

Also,

Governments will need to increase funding of consumer purchase programs in order to achieve substantial EV sales in the short term. If the goal is to reduce dependency on oil and address environmental issues, then governments must broaden their policies and funding to include other powertrain technologies that offer reduced energy consumption or consider encouraging the use of public transportation and alternative mobility solutions, such as car sharing.

In short, EVs are not a silver bullet. Koslowski seems to imply (though doesn’t explicitly say) that government investments in infrastructure could help in the long term, but he definitely seems to think Vs will need consumer-end subsidies in the short term. And this need for subsidies coming and going makes alternatives like hybrids and natural gas vehicles (not to mention public transportation and car sharing) more attractive.

Gas prices are getting into the area where they affect consumers’ buying decisions. According to a new Kelley Blue Book study, more than 80 percent of car shoppers say that gas prices have influenced their buying decisions. 58 percent already have downgraded.  But what about switching to diesel or hybrid instead? Be careful when you do that, says Edmunds: Choosing a green alternative can cost you a lot of green.

“Now that federal tax credits have expired, car buyers may be surprised to learn how long it takes for savings at the pump to offset the additional expense of buying a hybrid or diesel car,” says Ronald Montoya, consumer advice associate at Edmunds.com.

Some of the worst choices, says Edmund, are the BMW X5 xDrive35d (takes 25.2 years before savings kick in), the Volkswagen Jetta TDI (13.8 years) and the Nissan Altima Hybrid (10.3 years.)

To help you choose the greenest car that saves you the most green, Edmunds compiled the list of Top 10 Diesels and Hybrids With the Shortest Break-Even Periods for 2011.

Surprise, surprise, the list is monopolized by an unlikely candidate: Mercedes-Benz.

5 of the Top Ten are Daimlers. The leader of the list, the 2011 Mercedes-Benz GL-Class Diesel, even is $961 cheaper than the gasoline model. Buy it, and you started saving before you drove off the dealer lot.

#2 is the Lexus  HS 250h Hybrid.

Lincoln lovers get a good deal with the  MKZ Hybrid.

The Prius comes fourth, it takes you a little more than half a year to break even.

Remember: All cars on the list are the best performers. If your green diesel or hybrid is not on the list, then you most likely won’t see any savings before the lease is up.

(I was toying with the idea of pointing out that there are no EVs on that list. But then I dropped it. I’m worried someone would brand me as an EV hater.)

When Renault, Nissan and Daimler signed a three-way deal last April, batteries were not included. Each side thought they had the better one. Nissan has a Leaf, and what does Daimler have? Now they must have something. Daimler doesn’t want to rely entirely on Renault for the electric motors. They are talking with other suppliers, amongst them Bosch and Conti. “It is perceivable to sell the motors to other manufacturers,” said Weber, “in order to create more volume.”

Confused? You are not alone. Reuters got so lost in the fog of war when they wrote about the “battle for a foothold in the lucrative market for zero-emission vehicles” that they headlined their story with “Renault, BMW agree on Smart, Twingo supply deal.”

Alberta is a province in Canada. A lot is agricultural, but what is much more important are the treasures beneath the soil. Alberta sits on more than 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen, better known as oil sand. That’s about equal to the world’s total proven reserves of conventional petroleum. Canadians are troubled that EVs might ruin these riches.

Oil sand competes with electric vehicles in insidious ways: Electric vehicles are expensive. They only make sense when the oil price goes up. It costs money to extract the oil from the sands. The higher the price of oil, the more sense it makes to harvest the sands. At 2006 prices, 170 billion barrels were considered economically recoverable from the sticky sands. That put Canada’s oil reserves in second place behind Saudi Arabia. However, it represents only 10 percent of what’s there. The people of Alberta should be as interested in higher oil prices as the proponents of EVs, one would think: The higher the price, the more sand can be turned into oil. Instead, the people of Alberta are getting very nervous.

“Electric cars could make driving cheaper and cleaner, but also could put some Albertans out of work,” worries the St. Albert Gazette. “Cars are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Electric cars could take care of those emissions, but what would that do to the demand for Alberta oil?”

The Albertans are one step ahead of us. Instead of getting anxious about vanishing oil reserves, they get apprehensive about a sinking demand by a wide adoption of EVs. Which would put Alberta out of business. They still remember the 80s when oil became cheap and most of their mines closed. They became rich again by the middle of the last decade. Now, Canada is the largest foreign source of oil for the United States, supplying nearly a million barrels a day from oil sand, says the Gazette. Checking data by the U.S. Department of Energy, the number makes sense. However, it also makes sense to say that Canada only supplied 22 percent of the imported oil in one of the last months of 2010.

Be it as it may, reading the papers about the success of EVs, Albertans are worried about a bust cycle. People did what people do when they don’t know what to do: They assembled a panel of experts.  The panel will first meet next Tuesday in Edmonton.

Talk organizer and St. Albert resident Perry Kinkaide already sees a new boom ahead for Alberta: It could mean a new auto industry in Alberta, he suggests, as oil companies shift from using oil as fuel to oil as a starting product for lightweight electric car parts. “In the old days you needed to be near steel. In the new days, you may need to be where the oil is.” Comforting thoughts – for Albertans.

Axel Meisen, chair of foresight at Albert Innovates Technology Futures, toots in the same vuvuzela: “Alberta should think of other uses for petroleum than for fuel, such as carbon fiber. This light, strong material will be popular in electric cars, and could see use in bridges and other buildings.”

Al Cormier, the talk’s facilitator and executive director of Electric Mobility Canada, a national industry group that promotes electric vehicles, also sees no reason for alarm. EVs surely are the wave of the future and will lower the demand for oil, but “assembling an electric vehicle probably takes just as long as assembling a regular vehicle,” Cormier says, and he does not expect any job losses there. If the cars are assembled in Alberta.

The proceedings of the panel’s meetings will be available at www.abctech.ca.

Now here comes an heretic thought: If EVs  indeed become wildly successful and kill the demand for oil so much that Alberta will have to close oil sand mines and take to assembling electric motors and plastic parts, does that mean that us Luddites can drive down to the gas station and say “Fill ‘er up” for, say, $1.80 a gallon?