Tesla Motors, Inc. released its first quarter financial results yesterday, which featured a number of milestones for the auto maker. Among them, Tesla’s revenue rose 83% from the last quarter to $562 million, a record high for the company.

Tesla also posted the first ever profitable quarter in its history, with a net income of $11 million, or $0.10 on a per share basis. This large growth in revenue was largely aided by the fact that Tesla was able to recognize revenue on 4,900 out of the 5,000 Model S vehicles it managed to produce in the quarter. It is worth noting that $68 million, or 12% of Tesla’s revenue was earned through the sale of Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) credits to other automakers. Tesla notes in its letter to shareholders that they expect the sale of ZEV credits to decline in the future, and expect the amount to reach $0 by Q4 2013. Tesla’s move away from the sale these credits and towards growing the sale of their automobiles demonstrates their confidence in projected global demand of 30,000+ units annually. An improvement in their gross margin, which has moved up from 8% to 17%, is also an extremely important factor in their profitability.

One would expect that Tesla has settled down and is beginning to ramp up their production of the Model S while continuing to lower its costs through managing its supply chain and reaching economies of scale. After all, management reaffirmed its guidance of a gross margin of 25% for Q4 2013. In the Outlook section of the letter, Tesla explains that it expects increases in operating, research and development (R&D), and selling general and administrative expenses (SG&A).

Some of these costs may naturally rise in proportion to sales volumes. However, as Tesla fights an uphill battle to expand their gross margin, it cannot lose sight of controlling its fixed costs. Total Operating Expenses currently amount to 18% of sales. Any increase to this amount threatens to eat up any profitability that Tesla might achieve through an increase in gross margin. From a profitability standpoint, the ideal situation would be one in which Tesla could achieve its margin of 25% on its vehicles, while simultaneously taking advantage of its increase in production to achieve economies of scale and decrease operating expenses.

The most interesting line item on Tesla’s quarterly income statement is “Other Income.” Upon examining the statement solely on an operations level, one would notice that Tesla has posted a loss from operations of -$5.5 million. How could Tesla post a net income, yet be posting a deficit through its operations? One need only take a look at the line item “Other Income”, for a better picture. Other Income has a balance of $17 million, $11 million of which is from the elimination of a common stock warrant liability to the Department of Energy, and the remainder is from favorable foreign currency exchange impacts. Both of these items are irregular, specifically the liability elimination, in the fact that they will not likely happen year to year, and are not generated through the company’s regular operations. The liability elimination is also a non-cash item. To get a real sense of how Tesla performed, Other Income can be removed from the income statement (see Figure 1). The result is a net loss of $5.7 million for the quarter. It’s clear that there is still much work to be done before Tesla is truly profitable based on its operations. These types of irregular items cannot be relied upon to achieve profitability every quarter.

Figure 1(in millions)

Perhaps a more relevant dataset is Tesla’s non-GAAP figures. The non-GAAP figures, which are intend to be used by management for internal purposes, can sometimes more accurately reflect a company’s performance on the interim, without being hindered by stringent accounting regulations. Figure 2 displays Tesla’s reconciliation of Net Income from GAAP to non-GAAP.

Figure 2 (in millions)

The non-GAAP measure of Net Income is slightly higher than the GAAP reporting, at approximately $15 million. Non-GAAP starts with the GAAP reported income of $11 million. Notice how almost $11 million is subtracted from net income in “Change in fair value of warrant liability.” This represents the Department of Energy liability elimination mentioned earlier. What Tesla is doing here is effectively removing this amount from its GAAP net income, not unlike the similar calculation done above. Tesla has management has realized that this liability is a large contributor to its profits, and has removed it to create a figure more representative of its operational profitability.

The next item is stock-based compensation expense. This amount was originally included in “Total cost of revenues.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with this concept, an article by Ian Gow, an assistant professor of accounting information and management at Northwestern’s Kellog School of Management, explains it as stock options that are granted to employees. Gow explains that recently accounting standards have required companies to disclose stock-based compensation expenses, as Tesla has done by including it in cost of revenue. The article continues to elaborate that stock-based compensation expense is an area for managers to manipulate accounting data in order for them to reach their targets or benchmarks. The accounting for this type of expense becomes increasingly tricky when considering that it is a non-cash expense. While it is harder for management to toy around with this expense due to revisions to GAAP, Tesla has elected to add this expense back to their net income in its non-GAAP reporting. This is not an attempt to discredit the integrity of Tesla’s management, rather to illustrate the importance that non-GAAP figure must be taken with a grain of salt.

Regardless, Tesla has made huge strides in its earnings. Just last quarter (Q4 2012) Tesla posted a net loss of almost $90 million. Accountants and analysts can debate the significance of line items for eternity, the larger point being that of an upward trend for Tesla. In Q2 it will be interesting to see is Tesla can build on its profitability, or fall back into the red without the help of irregular account balances.

TTAC’s forays into areas like law, politics and economics are not everyone’s cup of tea, but they do matter. The dry, dense topics like regulation and financial topics have real implications for car enthusiasts, not to mention society as a whole. One subset of that is urban planning, a discipline which can have an enormous impact on our favorite hobby.

Witness the remarks made at the Energy Tomorrow Conference. Sponsored by the New York Times, the theme of this gather is “Building Sustainable Cities”. The IEEE Spectrum quotes Lerner as stating that in the future, the private automobile will become a socially unacceptable vice

Jaime Lerner, a former mayor of Brazil’s Curtiba, known for the work he did there introducing an integrated mass transportation system that has been copied the world over, expressed the belief that cars some day soon will be seen as noxious as tobacco is today. “The car is going to be the cigarette of the future,” Lerner said.

For Lerner, who is best known for pioneering innovative public transportation programs in Brazil, the private automobile is an issue of social justice itself. It is not just a matter of carbon emissions or energy conservation, but the automobile’s mere existence offends him. His sentiments were echoed by Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, who said that

 ”If we are all equal before the law, a bus carrying 100 people should be entitled to 100 times as much road space as a private car.”

If you think that these are just the senile ravings of aging Latin populist politicians, then you might be a bit surprised to find that these kinds of opinions will wind up on your doorstep sooner rather than later. To these types, the private automobile represents a mobility solution based on top-down hierarchical structures (as my least favorite sociology professor would say) that empowers the individual. They would like to see it replaced with collective forms of mobility, like car sharing, public transportation and cycling. I got my first taste of it a number of years ago when a prominent local politician hit a cyclist, resulting in his death.

It didn’t matter that the cyclist was found to be intoxicated and the aggressor in the situation, while the motorist was later absolved of any wrongdoing. The mere fact that he was a wealthy white male driving a Saab convertible while the other party was an Indigenous Canadian of a lower socioeconomic background with a history of mental illness and substance abuse provided the perfect catalyst for these sorts of theories to be floated among the more radical newspapers in my town.

As a resident of a dense, urban neighborhood, it would be disingenuous of me to dismiss cycling, public transit and even walking as real alternatives to our mobility needs. Practicality is another matter. On a balmy 70 degree day like today, walking or biking to the grocery store to buy a carton of eggs is not a big deal. When the forecast calls for freezing rain, getting a whole load of groceries on foot is unpleasant, to say the least. And not all public transit systems are created equally either, as one of our writers discussed last year.

Congestion is a major issue in urban centers, and something will have to be done about it. Cities are experimenting with congestion charges, road tolls and expanded public transit, but nobody has a definitive solution. I wish I knew what the answer was, and if I did, I would be racking up appearance fees rather than writing at TTAC. But heavy-handed, top down solutions are not the answer. The next generation of urban planners are being educated in universities by liberal arts faculty members hold views that are largely not representative of the opinions and needs of the general public. Combine that with a growing apathy for the automobile among young people and you create a situation where anti-car sentiment is easily bred. Look no further than the move to ban EV charging stations from urban areas as a perfect example of their utter refusal to meet reality on reality’s terms.

Even as gas prices rise higher and higher and the cost of new cars increase, people still opt for their own private transportation in record numbers. For some it is a matter of convenience, while for others who must commute from the suburbs, it is one of necessity. While top-down directives for public transportation may fly in parts of the globe where no previous infrastructure existed and cars remain unaffordable, I can only imagine that it would be poorly received in countries which emphasize individual choice and the free market as pillars of society. But still, don’t be surprised if this line of thought becomes part of the discourse at some point in the near future.

So-called “range anxiety” is the biggest — perhaps the only — issue being discussed in the electric-vehicle debate nowadays. Whether it’s a Leaf crapping out at the sixty-mile mark or a Tesla Model S driving in circles around a parking lot to drain the battery for theatrical purposes, electric cars and range potential are linked in the minds of most potential buyers by a true Gordian knot.

If the people at Phinergy are correct, that knot can be sliced by a sword constructed from charged aluminum plates — and the resulting rewards would be spectacular, to say the least.

Gizmag reports on a new electric vehicle concept from Israel’s Phinergy:

“The company’s battery currently consists of 50 aluminum plates, each providing energy for around 20 miles (32 km) of driving. This adds up to a total potential range of 1,000 miles (1,609 km), with stops required only every couple of hundred miles to refill the system with water…

Phinergy claims to have solved the CO2-related premature failure problems seen in other metal-air battery technologies by developing an air electrode with a silver-based catalyst and structure that lets oxygen enter the cell, but blocks out CO2. The result is an air electrode that Phinergy says has an operational lifespan of thousands of hours.

The company says the aluminum plate anodes in its aluminum-air battery have an energy density of 8 kWh/kg, but the batteries are not rechargeable. Once the energy is expended, the plates, which add up to around 55 pounds (25 kg) per battery, need to be replaced. However, the company points out that aluminum is easily recyclable and that swapping the battery out for a fresh one is quicker than recharging.”

Now I’d like to talk about something my mother once said to me. I was sitting in front of our family’s console TV when an advertisement for the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon Miser came on. “50 MPG!” it said in big letters. I was perhaps ten years old at the time.

“If that’s true, it’s incredible,” I opined. My mother looked up from her copy of Songs Of Innocence And Experience or whatever the hell she was reading to bark at me.

“The proper use of the word ‘incredible’ is, literally, in-credible, which is to say, unbelievable, so when you say what you have just said you must mean if it is true, you are too much of a fool to believe the truth.” How I treasure the memory of all the little interactions like that we had every time I forget to visit her in the home*. If you’re reading this, Mom, allow me to say that

if the Phinergy claims are true, they are incredible!

It’s also fair to say that the plates would be incredibly expensive. This isn’t a Better-Place-style swap-out plan. Rather, the plates serve as a known opportunity cost for extended range.
They could be combined with a traditional electric battery arrangement to produce a car that got, say, 300 miles on a charge — but if you needed more, you could just use the plates. There would be a cost to doing so, but it would presumably be less than the cost you would incur by not using the plates.

The practical Israelis probably haven’t considered it, but there would be another aspect to the plate battery that would appeal to Americans — the sheer conspicuous consumption of using the plates whenever you felt like it. Imagine, if you will, the rap songs of the near future:

(Drake)
I’m on a 24 hour
Aluminum diet
Swappin’ plates cross-country
I encourage you to try it
Im probably just saying that cause I don’t have to buy it
Phinergy supply it, Boy I’m on that fly shit
Don’t try to charge me up, I like runnin’ on E
Swappin out these five-pound plates loike constantly

(Birdman)

Hit the Phinergy store and later get served
Crank the A/C with no reservations
Them people passin’ so we smash on em’
Bindin out we keep the plates on deck
Teslas and Leafs with extra charge on deck
Chevy Volt is America’s conflict diamonds
Detroit Electric version of the Lotus Spyder

And so on. Kim Kardashian could be seen ostentatiously leaving the plug for her C-Max Energi or whatever dangling unconnected from her upstairs window before leaving for the morning with a fresh aluminum-plate battery. I’ve forgotten to include the Cadillac ELR in this fantasy, so here goes: Motor Trend will get a free one stacked to the ceiling with batteries to deplete.

Naturally, the most important modern question about batteries — what makes them explode? — has yet to be answered by the Phinergy folks. Still, it’s exciting to consider that the elimination of range anxiety could electrify nearly the entire American fleet, leaving plenty of fuel to run my Porsche 993 in perpetuity. Gets you all charged up, really.

* The phrase “the home” refers to her home. I haven’t found a facility that will take her, to be honest.

The Geneva Auto Salon is a small show in a small city of a small country. The show is big because it is an annual confab of automakers where shoulders are rubbed, mergers are planned, policies are set. The cars are mostly decoration. A top topic in Geneva was how to meet rigid EU emission limits. “There is a growing awareness that conventional hybrids and slow-selling battery cars simply won’t be enough,” Reuters reports from Geneva.

The interim goal of 130 grams  of CO2 per kilometer by 2015 does not appear to be a big deal. Most carmakers think they will meet it. “But drastic steps are needed to meet the 95 gram target set for 2020 and the potential for tougher standards after that,” Reuter says.

“We can’t get the necessary gains we need with traditional technology any more. We’re seeing a real break with the past,” Peugeot innovation chief Jean-Marc Finot told Reuters.

While GM’s Dan Akerson made bold battery announcements, there is growing conviction everywhere else that battery electric vehicles won’t be the answer. “Battery technology has not been able to resolve the century-old problem of too much weight and limited range capability,” Arthur Wheaton, automotive expert at Cornell University, told Reuters.

This view reaches the staunchest battery supporters. Said Francois Bancon, Nissan’s upstream development chief:

“Demand for electric cars isn’t where we thought it would be. We’re in a very uncertain phase, and everyone’s a bit lost.”

To meet the fleet goal, cars must do more than output little CO2. They also must be bought. Green cars that just sit in the show room don’t help the environment. High-priced batter-electric vehicles collide with this simple fact. “There’s more and more regulation, but customers want to pay less and less,” Nissan’s Bancon said. “So we have to cut prices and increase technology content – that’s the headache we’re faced with.”

One company does not seem to be worried about the 95 gram limit, and that is Volkswagen.  A day before the show started, VW announced that it is “committing to reducing the CO2 output of the European new car fleet to 95 grams per kilometer by 2020.” Volkswagen also wants to reduce “the CO2 output of its European new vehicle fleet to less than 120 grams per kilometer by 2015. Volkswagen intends to outperform by more than 12 grams the figure required by law for its vehicle fleet.”

Note: While Europe sets CO2 targets, while the U.S. has ostensibly different mileage targets, when all is said and done, both more or less  want the same. Use less fuel, generate less CO2. There even is a handy conversion formula.  Except that the formula is not EPA compliant …

The drama circling around the New York Times test of the Tesla Model S doesn’t surprise me one bit. Why? Because I understand, perhaps at a deeper level than most of the motoring press, how batteries work. Perhaps that has to do with growing up in a family of engineers and scientists, but battery technology has always interested me. So when people from Phoenix came to me crying in their soup about their LEAFs in the heat and friends started wagging fingers at Tesla and the New York Times, I figured it was time for a battery reality check.

What’s the problem (this time)?

Consumer Reports says their Tesla’s power gauge dropped to “zero” at the 173-mile mark on a 176-mile trip. At the beginning of the trip the range indicator said 240 miles while the “projected range” indicator which takes driving style into account said 188 miles. On first glance this sounds like some horrific range issue. “OMG, the Model S missed its 240 mile range by 64 miles.” But did it?

What was the problem last time?

If you didn’t know about the Tesla / New York Times punch up, then click here for the article that started it all. (And a picture of a Tesla on a flatbed.) Basically John Broder took a Tesla out on the road for a long road trip and ran out of juice. Of course he also didn’t charge the battery fully at every opportunity he had, but that’s beside the point for the moment.

About those journalists

Our readers are no doubt familiar with Jack Baruth’s assertion that the vast majority of auto journalists are less than professional drivers. The same applies in this case, the majority of journalists know rather little about EVs, how they work, what’s going on in the battery pack and why it matters. Much like a novice on the track, a novice in an EV can result in unpredictable results.

How batteries work

Batteries are a means of storing electricity chemically. The fact that we’re talking about a chemical reaction is absolutely vital to keep in mind when anyone starts talking about range, battery degradation, heat, cold, charging, etc.

All batteries have three basic components: a cathode, an anode and an electrolyte between the two. Depending on what materials are used for each of these three components battery life, cost and power density will vary. At the low-end of the scale we have the zinc-potato-copper battery from school and at the high-end of consumer electronics we have the lithium iron phosphate-dimethyl carbonate-graphite battery known as the Lithium-ion battery, or the battery that powers modern cell phones, laptops, electric cars and is even used in the new Boeing 787. (Yea, the one getting the bad press.)

Every battery chemistry has its advantages and disadvantages. Lead-acid batteries (the one that starts your car) are heavy, cheap and can handle the high current draw of starter motors. Ni-Cad batteries that were popular in my child hood were relatively easy to manufacture and lower cost than other alternatives. Nickel-metal hydride batteries have been around for some time and thanks to their stability and energy density have been used in hybrid vehicles since the Prius and Insight. Lithium based batteries are the current star in the consumer electronics world because their power density and ability to charge rapidly are excellent for smartphones, tablets and laptops. The problem is Lithium batteries can be more “temperamental” than some of the older chemistries. If you want to know all there is to know about Lithium-ion batteries, click on over to Batteryuniversity.com.

What does this have to do with the cold?

Because batteries store energy chemically, a chemical reaction has to occur when charging and when discharging. When batteries get cold, the internal resistance of the battery increases which decreases the amount of energy that you can get out of the pack. You can test this at home yourself if you have a camera flash at home. Drop the batteries into the freezer, put them in the flash and see how long it takes to recharge the flash. What does this mean in a car? Well, you are charging outside and it’s near freezing, then (A) you won’t be able to completely charge a battery and (B) after charging if the battery cools off to ambient you won’t be able to use a portion of those electrons you just stuffed in the battery. Think about your 12V car battery, remember that cranking amps vs cold cranking amps rating? Same thing.

To fix these problems many EVs (like the Model S) heat the battery to try to keep it at an optimum temperature. Doing so ensures that you can use the entire capacity for charging and discharging, but it of course consumes power, and the colder it is, the more power it takes to heat the battery. In hot weather the system cools the battery to preserve the lifetime of the battery chemistry.

What are the factors that decrease battery life?

There are many factors involved, but put simply, having your battery at a very low state of charge or a very high state of charge has a negative impact on battery life. The rate at which you take the battery from charged to discharged or discharged to charged also has an impact. While cold temperatures may keep you from getting the most out of your battery, it usually doesn’t impact longevity. Heat on the other hand has a severe impact on battery life and it gets worse the higher the state of charge.

Back to Consumer Reports

Without access to Elon’s creepy data logs of the CR test vehicle, I have two suggestions to what was going on. First off, the car was fairly close to reality with the projected range of 188 miles, but this needs explanation and education. The car was saying that if you drive gently the maximum range is 240.  Drive it like you’ve been driving it,  expect 188. Now we insert the cold weather into the mix. I assume he was heating the cabin on a chilly day and driving like normal. What wasn’t obvious is that the Model S may very well have also had the battery heater turned on, if so, there’s your 12 miles. Even if that wasn’t the case, any gasoline car that gets the range estimate within 7% scores in my book.

What about those LEAFs in Phoenix?

A while back I got a frantic call from a friend in the Phoenix area. “My LEAF’s batteries are dead!” So for the next 15 minutes he poured his heart out about the problem. Towards the end the usual comments from a person dealing with “automotive loss” came out “Nissan needs to give me a new battery.” After all his woes had been aired he asked me what I thought. I paused for a moment and said (as nicely as possible) “I’m not sure what your problem is. What you are describing to me is normal battery wear and tear.”

You see, unlike the Model S, the LEAF does not have an active cooling system for the battery pack. (This was done to save money and with the LEAF now dropping to $28,800 (less than half the Model S), you get what you pay for.) The lack of active cooling means that in the hot Arizona desert, parked in the sun at work or at the mall your battery is slowly dying. Why? It’s all back to the chemistry again. The optimum service life of Lithium-ion batteries is achieved when the cell is a constant 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Baking in the sun for 8 hours a day while you’re at the office the inside of the car can easily go over 170 degrees when it’s 115 outside. Since he had to charge his car at the office in order to get back home, he was compounding the problem since batteries get hot as they charge. As the battery aged because of the long commute he started to drop by the local DC quick charge station. This made the battery age even faster because now the battery is hot and you are rapidly going from one state of charge to the other. Net result: 20% loss in capacity over 2 years and 33,000 miles. Case closed.

What about my Prius? (or other hybrids)

Right now the Prius, and most older hybrids like the Escape Hybrid and the first generation Fusion Hybrid use Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries. This chemistry is more stable but less power dense than lithium based batteries. In addition remember what I said about battery life? State of charge and charge/discharge rates are large factors. Hybrids extend their battery life deliberately by never fully charging nor fully discharging their batteries. In fact most non-plug-in hybrids use 60-70% of the rated capacity in the battery. Since they don’t depend on the battery for 100% of the propulsion like an EV does, charge and discharge rates are lower which also extends battery life. And lastly, it’s less obvious when your hybrid’s battery does age because it’s not your only source of propulsion. As hybrids move to lithium batteries they are retaining these life extending measures, but even still they may or may not have the same life span as the NiMH batteries, only time will tell. In the plug-in world, only GM seems to be operating in a cautious fashion by only using about 80% of the Volt and ELR’s battery pack vs nearly 95% of the capacity in Ford and Toyota models.

Who’s right and who’s wrong here? Who is to blame?

Everyone. The EV buyer who didn’t bother to do his homework, the dealer who didn’t help set expectations, and the manufacturer who promised all would be well. My inclination however is to place the burden on the EV buyer. If you’re going to buy a car of any description, you need to do your homework. You don’t buy a Mazda Miata and then get upset when you bend the frame trying to tow your 5th wheel. Likewise, don’t expect any EV to have some magical battery that runs on butterfly-farts and lasts 250,000 miles, it just won’t happen. Yet.

Note the date of publication is 1914, not 2013

While following the he said he said back and forth between the New York Time’s James Broder and Tesla’s Elon Musk, over Broder’s unsuccessful drive from New York to Boston in a Tesla Model S, it seemed to me that one important factor affecting consumer acceptance of EVs is being obscured by all the Sturm und Drang of the NYT and Musk both working this story for maximum bad publicity for their respectless enterprises. That factor, ironically, is why Tesla set up the media road trips in the first place, the fact that EVs will need a publicly accessible charging infrastructure if they are going to be seen as anything other than town cars. The Model S press trips from DC to Beantown were supposed to demonstrate Tesla’s expanding network of locations equipped with Tesla’s “Supercharger” quick charging stations.

That need for public charging stations has been obscured by other issues in the discussion of electric cars, which it seems to me have been focused more on range than anything else. Tesla is not unwise to create it’s own charging infrastructure for its customers because the simple fact is that if you could recharge an EV as quickly and as conveniently as you can refuel a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, and if you could find a charging station within your EV’s range, range becomes more of a non issue. Let’s face it, how many owners of gasoline cars really consider range on a single tank of gas when buying a new car? As long as you can get ~300 miles between fill ups, the vast majority of car consumers don’t really care about range. Gas mileage yes, but I’d bet that total range is only important to a minority of gas/diesel drivers.

This is nothing new. Like 3D photography and movies, this is not the first go-round with EVs. Electric cars and were marketed more than a century ago, at the dawn of the automotive age and soon enough electric car companies, electric component makers, trade organizations, tire and battery companies, and publishers rushed in to help EV owners find a charge.

The EV side of the auto industry understood that drivers of EVs would need public charging facilities at the same time that it promoted electric cars as suitable for touring. The Electric Vehicle Association of America even published a charging station guide to the Lincoln Highway, America’s first attempt at a coast to coast road. Since the longest distance between charging stations was about 120 miles, well beyond the range of any contemporary electric car, it’s doubtful than any early electric automobilists completed the entire route, but the EV industry did what it could to dispel the image that electric cars could not be taken on long trips. Tesla is doing the same today.

The fact that the Electric Vehicle Association agreed on a standard charging plug that was used by most EV makers made things a little easier. In the photo above, the charging port on a 1922 Milburn Light Electric is being held open so you can see the terminals in the photo above. The photo below shows a similar charging port, though closed, on a 1914 Detroit Electric runabout.

By 1912, the Detroit Electric Car company, the most successful of the first wave of EV makers (it has only been in the past year that the Nissan Leaf surpassed the Detroit Electric as the most successful EV ever, in terms of total sales) had both standalone charging garages as well as combined sales branches and charging stations in Detroit, Manhattan, Chicago , Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Cleveland, Evanston, Kansas City, and Minneapolis.

In 1914, the New York Electric Vehicle Association, in conjunction with Automobile Blue Books started publishing route guides for “electric touring”, that mapped the locations of charging stations and provided suggested touring routes.

The guide was updated, apparently annually. In an emergency, drivers of electric cars could get a charge from electric streetcar or trolley wiring – as this Tom Swift story relates.

While General Electric sold  mercury arc rectifier based residential chargers to EV owners, the majority of the more than 14,000 chargers that GE sold a century ago were sold to public facilities like hotels and parking garages.

The Exide battery company, perhaps the major EV battery maker in the early days of the automobile, set up its own storage and charging garage (many city dwellers didn’t have residential parking for their cars) and “battery depot” in New York City.

In addition to public charging facilities, taxicab companies that operated electric cabs set up their own charging garages and had chargers installed for their drivers’ use at hotels they serviced.

As was shown 100 years ago, broadscale consumer acceptance of electric cars needs a publicly accessible charging infrastructure. It’s unfortunate that the war of words between Mr. Musk and the New York Times is obscuring rather than illustrating that need.

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

Tim Horton’s, the Canadian coffee chain that’s home to the legendary “double-double”(the local slang for two cream, two sugar in one’s coffee), has announced a pilot project to install EV charging stations in the parking lots of its coffee shops.

A store in Oakville, a western suburb of Toronto, will be the first to get a charging station. Oakville is home to Ford’s Canadian headquarters, so no surprise that the C-Max was photographed getting a charge at the store. Tim Horton’s says that negotiations are already underway to expand the program, which will provide charging facilities free of charge to owners of EVs and plug-in hybrids. Who knows, maybe this will offset the reduced range that’s certain to be brought on by cold, Canadian winters.

Three years ago, at a groundbreaking ceremony for an LG Chem Battery plant in Holland, Michigan, President Obama promised that this and other pants will be “a boost to the economy in the entire region.”  Instead, the plant has become an example for what is wrong with a state-directed command economy. It also is yet another chapter in the Chevrolet Volt debacle.

Half of the plant’s $300 million price was funded by the tax payer, courtesy of a $150 million government grant.  The  plant does nothing. Its workers  “had little work to do and were spending time volunteering at local non-profit organizations, playing games and watching movies at the expense of the federal government and taxpayers,”  Gregory Friedman, inspector general at the Department of Energy, concluded in a report made public yesterday.

At the groundbreaking, President Obama said:

“The workers at this plant, already slated to produce batteries for the new Chevy Volt, learned the other day that they’re also going to be supplying batteries for the new electric Ford Focus as soon as this operation gears up. That means that by 2012, the batteries will be manufactured here in Holland, Michigan.”

Not true. According to a Reuters report, the plant has not shipped “any products used in vehicles sold to the public.” Reports that ask why hear that the Volt did not sell in the expected quantities.

At the groundbreaking, Obama told workers that they are “leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America.” Not true. The few batteries that are used in the Volt are made in Korea.  Workers in the plant show how tax dollars go to waste, spending “their time watching movies, playing cards and board games, or volunteering at local organizations – all on the U.S. taxpayers’ dime,” as the Reuters report says. The only batteries this plant ever produced were test samples that were destroyed.

At the groundbreaking, President Obama said:

“This is the ninth advanced battery plant to begin construction because of our economic plan. These plants will put thousands of people to work. This includes folks who are working at a couple of facilities being built in Michigan by another battery technology company called A123.”

A123 went bankrupt. Instead of bringing jobs back to America, the  plant was sold off to China.

At the groundbreaking, President Obama said: “This plant will prove that we are headed in the right direction.” The plant did just the opposite.

Even the Detroit News, usually very sympathetic to government programs that bring money to Michigan, can’t help itself, and writes:

“President Obama said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that he wants to establish 15 “manufacturing hubs.” Hey, why set up 15 hubs? They can all just come to Holland and talk to the folks at LG Chem about how you succeed as a manufacturer by making nothing and selling nothing – while collecting lots and lots of government money.” 

Consumers lose interest. Even reporters do.!

A few days ago, we wrote that “EVs run out of juice.” When we did that, we referred to collapsing sales in January only.  Now Reuters says: “Are electric cars running out of juice again?” Reuters means it in a bigger way. Like forever.

In a long article, written by  its best brains, Reuters writes  that electric cars are “still is not ready for prime time – and may never be. In the meantime, the attention of automotive executives in Asia, Europe and North America is beginning to swing toward an unusual but promising new alternate power source: hydrogen.”

Both lovers and haters of electric cars should read the article, written by Reuters’ best automotive reporters around the world, Norihiko Shirouzu, Yoko Kubota, Paul Lienert, Deepa Seetharaman, Bernie Woodall, and their Pulitzer-Prize winning boss Paul Ingrassia.

Executive summary:

• Consumers continue to show little interest in electric vehicles.
• EVs continue to be plagued by many of the problems that eventually scuttled electrics in the 1910s and more recently in the 1990s.
• Problems include high cost, short driving range and lack of charging stations.
• The  Obama administration backed away from its aggressive goal to put 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015.
• Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn  is backing away from EVs and shifts  toward more mainstream gasoline-electric hybrids.
• Tightening of global fuel-efficiency standards from 2020 on is forcing automakers to assess their options.
• Large OEM back hydrogen.

“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge.”

Long-term TTAC readers will find many of these assessments in past TTAC articles.

EV sales had shown minor signs of life in the last quarter of 2012, only to collapse sharply in January. “Sales of the Chevrolet Volt, the Toyota Prius Plug-In and Nissan Leaf each had deep dropoffs in January from December,” Reuters says.

“Even after accounting for the fact that January is one of the slowest months of the year for auto sales, the dropoff for plug-in electric cars was considerable,” Michelle Krebs of Edmunds told the wire. According to Krebs, consumers are opting instead for less-expensive standard hybrids, rather than plug-in electric cars. OEMS blame other factors, such as limited supply, model year changeovers, or changeovers from Japanese to U.S. production, as it is the case for the Nissan LEAF. GM says January sales were down for the Volt because people bought before the end of the year to gain the 2012 tax credit. Which may have been the power behind the last quarter rise of the still tiny segment.

The chart above (data courtesy insideevs.com) tells its own story. Ford did not report January sales of the C-Max Energi and the Ford Focus Electric. Not included.  The chart also does not reflect sales by Tesla and Fisker who do not report data on a consistent basis. We do not believe that this has a material impact on the general trend.

America, land of wide open roads and big cars, listen up: On the sidelines of Nissan showing its new day care center at its Yokohama headquarters to reporters, Nissan’s COO Toshiyuki Shiga made a comment that should resonate well with American customers:

“Fuel-cell technology is suited for use in large vehicles and long-distance driving,” Shiga said, in answer to a reporter who asked whether Nissan’s new collaboration with Ford and Daimler on fuel cell technology would eat into Leaf sales. EVs are small vehicles for short range driving, and the laws of physics will try their level worst to keep it that way.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles, which are, for all practical purposes, EVs with a battery that is charged with hydrogen, already can last longer on a single tank than most gasoline-powered cars. They also can be filled-up just as fast as a gasoline-powered car. Limited range and charge times of many hours will keep BEVs in the small niche they are.

I went to Yokohama to take pictures of Shiga with cute Japanese babies on both arms. There were none, the kindergarten won’t open for business until April. It shall be ignored by TTAC until Nissan offers me a photo op for cute baby pictures.

Wanxiang Group, China’s largest maker of auto parts won the auction for A123 Systems, Reuters says. The maker of batteries for electric cars was funded partly with U.S. government money, but went bankrupt nonetheless.

Investment banker Lazard Freres told Reuters that Wanxiang’s bid of about $260 million was better than a joint bid of Johnson Controls and Japan’s NEC.

Wanxiang supplies auto parts to many of China’s largest automakers. Wanxiang generates about $1 billion in revenue in the United States by supplying parts to GM and Ford Motor Co and has bought or invested in more than 20 U.S. companies, many of them in bankruptcy.

The sale must be approved by Delaware Bankruptcy Court judge Kevin Carey at a hearing scheduled for Tuesday. It also needs the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

A213 also supplies the U.S. military, and there is opposition to a Chinese company having access to sensitive technologies being used the U.S. military.

However, the part of A123′s business that works with the U.S. Defense Department went to another unidentified bidder, a source told Reuters.

Quite interestingly, the $260 million are just a little more than the $249 million grant A123 has received from the U.S. government. It is not clear whether the grant can be transferred to a new owner.  Even more interestingly, A123 can still draw $120 million under various government grants, court records say.

A123 supplies batteries to Fisker. Fisker stopped production saying it needs to wait until the new owner of A123 has been determined.

Ford has set itself an ambitious target. According to a Reuters report,the company “expects to wind up with 11 percent of the U.S. market for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles this year.” Not next year. This year. By our calculation, Ford would have to sell more than 50,000 of the electrified cars this year to stand a chance. By end of October, it had sold a little over 20,000. They better get going.

Data compiled by our sister site Hybridcars show that Ford already reached the 11 percent goal for the month of October. Driven by strong sales of the Ford C-Max Hybrid that came in third after the perennial Prius and its smaller Prius c sibling, Ford held an 11.7 share of the market for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles. It looks like a lot were conquests from Toyota, Prius sales were down in October. But there are only two months left …

Even if Ford would triple its C-Max et al sales in November and December, it would not be enough to gain the 11 percent share. But who knows, with a huge fleet sale … Next year could be a different matter. Ford is poised to claim a significant share of the electrified car market, and could even help increasing the still anemic take rate of hybrid cars.

All hybrids taken together can barely muster a 3.1 percent share of the U.S. market. Plug-ins remain a hard sell at a homeopathic 0.65 percent market share.

P.S.: If you want the low-down on sales of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric, CNG and even clean diesel sales, then you should make the Hybridcars Dashboard your first destination. Solid data, and the price is right.

P.P.S.: After this story was put to bed, Ford sent out a communique, saying:

“Ford projects November will be its best hybrid sales month ever with more than 6,000 units sold. Ford is expected to capture an all-time-high 11 percent share of the electrified vehicle market – an increase of more than fivefold this year alone. November marks the first full month the all-new C-MAX Hybrid, all-new C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid and all-new Fusion Hybrid are available on dealer lots.”

Hmm. According to our spreadsheets (see above), Ford already had a 11 percent share in October. And sorry, with “only” 6,000 sold in November, there would be some 26,000 to sell in December to reach that 11 percent for the year goal.

P.P.P.S.: Or maybe the problem is the (intentionally? unintentionally?)  confusingly written statement by Ford that says:

“Ford expects to achieve all-time-high 11 percent share of electrified vehicle market – an increase of more than fivefold this year alone driven by C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid sales of 4,400 units projected for November.”

Yesterday, we told you about that miracle battery, Toyota allegedly has developed. The Nikkei [sub] said it will double the range of an EV. The Tokyo wire quoted  researchers as saying that they “may also be able to achieve a driving range of between 500km and 1,000km” (310 to 620 miles), You possibly noticed the skeptical tone when we reported on the report . As it turns out, the Nikkei was a bit – exuberant.

Checking in with Toyota this morning, we learn that Toyota’s researchers indeed have a new Sodium-Ion  battery technology. However, research into this technology is in its very, very early stages.

A group of Toyota researchers (M. Nose, H. Nakayama, K. Nobuhara, S. Nakanishi, and H. Iba) presented a paper titled “Novel Cathode Materials of Sodium-Containing Metal Phosphates as Highly Voltage Sodium-Ion Batteries” at a symposium in Honolulu. After two of the researchers,  Nakanishi-san, and Iba-san were interviewed by the Nikkei, some finer, but crucial points were either misunderstood or lost in translation.

Instead of targeting 2020 as the date of  commercial release of the battery, the researchers think that commercialization can take anywhere between 10 to 20 years – if commercialization indeed turns out to be viable.

The researchers confirm  that the new battery has the potential to extend driving range. However, they did not say, “We may also be able to achieve a driving range of between 500km and 1,000km.” What they said was that to be commercially viable, a next-generation battery should give an EV that range or one exceeding it. With that in mind, they are pushing forward with their research.

Bottom line: Take that sodium story with a big grain of salt.

The Nikkei [sub] claims that Toyota has done the groundwork for a new battery that could “potentially more than double the driving range of electric vehicles,” possibly up to 1,000 km (620 miles). And it’s even cheaper.

Toyota’s new battery uses a sodium-based chemical compound as the positive electrode in a sodium ion battery. The battery produces a voltage that is 30 percent higher than that of lithium-ion batteries. Once commercialized, prices of the battery will likely be lower than those of conventional lithium-ion batteries, says the report.

Further testing is needed before the new technology is ready for prime time. “We may be able to extend EV mileage considerably,” the Nikkei cites a Toyota official. “We may also be able to achieve a driving range of between 500km and 1,000km.”

Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, Wikipedia says. Half of the world’s salt consists of sodium. Toyota thinks that the new sodium battery could be commercially available by 2020, if all goes well.

Just a few months ago, Toyota’s vice chairman and R&D chief Takeshi Uchiyamada was outspokenly skeptic about the viability of EVs:

“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge.”

If the new battery lives up to its promise, two out of three would not be bad.

It is midnight in Tokyo. We’ll try tomorrow to get more.

Our other man in China, (the Dutchman, not Bertel) has some spy shots of a new General Motors EV. It looks like a Chevrolet Sail, but may not be dubbed as such.

The mystery EV in question appears to wear “Springo” badges, and this would have some precedent, according to Tycho from Carnewschina

“When the ‘Sail EV’ debuted as a concept on the 2010 Guangzhou Auto Show it had a new S-shaped logo on the bonnet, leading the intense speculation that Shanghai-GM was planning a green-energy brand.”

16 Fisker Karmas waiting at a New Jersey port caught fire, with all 16 cars burning to the ground.

Photos of the aftermath were obtained by Jalopnik, which also obtained this statement from Fisker

“It was reported today that several Fisker Karmas were damaged by fire at the Port of Newark after being submerged in sea water during Superstorm Sandy.  We can report that there were no injuries and none of the cars were being charged at the time.

We have confidence in the Fisker Karma and safety is our primary concern.  While we intend to find the cause as quickly as possible, storm damage has restricted access to the port. 

We will issue a further statement once the root cause has been determined.”

Anyone with a science background (or anyone that got better than a C in Chemistry…): how do the vehicles go up in flames after being submerged in sea water. Anyone? Buller?

Reuters reports that battery maker A123 Systems is filing to bankruptcy protection in Delaware.

The company has received cash infusions from China earlier this summer, and its financial situation has been precarious, to say the least. Political controversies were also part and parcel of the story, as with any green energy project today, and A123 received a $249 million dollar grant from the Obama administration in 2009. A123 supplied battery technology to Fisker and General Motors.

UPDATE:

Johnson Controls will be purchasing the remnants of A123, while providing $72.5 million in funding to help A123 continue operations as it goes through bankruptcy proceedings.

Crain’s Detroit Business is reporting that

Under the deal, the Waltham, Mass-based A123 will pay to license technology its own grid, commercial and government technologies from JCI.

Presumably, A123′s brand will carry on under the JCI empire. That won’t do much for the beleaguered battery company, which apparently posted 14 consecutive losing quarters, and has $376 million in debt versus $459.8 million in assets. In the filing, A123 noted

“The company may not have sufficient cash to fund operations and may need to seek the protections provided under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code…No assurance can be given that the company will be able to avoid restructuring, reorganization, or a bankruptcy filing.”

With sales of the third-generation Ford Taurus lagging, the Blue Oval decided that an entry-level variant would be just what was needed to help kickstart sales. Faced with slumping sales of their Leaf EV, Nissan is apparently taking the same route.

Without the $7,500 tax credit, a Leaf costs $36,050, and there’s no indication of how much the entry-level trim will knock off the sticker price. The new base model will forgo the high-tech, energy-efficient LED headlamps in favor of traditional HID units, as well as some unspecified features integrated into the car’s GPS system. The LED lamps are considered integral to the Leaf’s battery performance, since they use far less energy than traditional headlights.

Nissan will also switch production of the Leaf and its battery components to Tennessee, allowing the Leaf to escape the unfavorable exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the yen. Leaf production hasn’t started Stateside, but battery production at the Smyrna, TN plant is set to begin shortly.

Shai Aggasi, the visionary behind the Better Place EV battery swap network, has been ousted, with Better Place Australia’s CEO replacing Agassi as global CEO.

The news comes from Just-Auto, which carried Better Place’s official statement on the management change. Agassi will stay on as a board member and retain his stake in the company. Better Place has lost nearly $500 million since its foundation in 2007.

BetterPlace customer IsraellyCool has some interesting takes on the company from the perspective of an Israeli customer. While their product, customer service and lease deals are second to none, their marketing is apparently second rate.

TTAC has long followed the progress of Better Place, with Ed-Emeritus Niedermeyer being a particularly enthusiastic fan. But recent shifts in the world order have struck a blow against EVs, whether it’s the newly accessible supply of tight oil and natural gas or the abandonment of EVs by major OEMs like Toyota. Better Place isn’t yet ready for the grave, but in the five years since it was launched, the climate has changed significantly (no pun intended) and the change in management may precipitate deeper structural changes as well.

In 1873, it took Phileas Fogg and his valet Passepartout eighty days to get around the world, mostly by slow trains and steamships. 150 years later, that trip can take eight months\ when you do it by EV. One of the drawbacks when you have to stop every 60 miles to wait for yo r car to recharge.

Antonin Guy and Xavier Degon left Strasbourg, France on Feb. 11, writes Hybridcars. Their goal: To round the globe in a re-badged Mitsubishi i-MiEV, now called  Citroën C-Zéro. On September 24, they were back in Strasbourg,

Their trip led them through 17 countries and they covered  16,383 miles. To do so, they had to stop and charge their ride close to 300 times.

While some charging points were anticipated in advance, the crew’s biggest challenge has often been to convince the encountered inhabitants to lend them their outlets.

Electric cars haven’t taken the market by storm, despite a hurricane of propaganda, and despite of tsunamis of government subsidies.  Now, India is joining the fray. India will spend some money to entice its citizens to go electric. Like the U.S. and China, India expects them to do so by the droves.

India’s government has approved a 230 billion rupee ($4.13 billion) plan to accelerate the production of electric and hybrid vehicle production, says Reuters.  The money will be spent over the next eight years. The target is ambitious: 6 million vehicles by 2020.

It will be an uphill battle. Most manufacturers in India focus on low-emission cars,” citing the prohibitively high costs of new technologies and an almost non-existent support infrastructure,” says Reuters.  India’s only electric-focused carmaker is Mahindra Reva, and even its Chairman is doubtful: “The question is the viability … The cost of the car and how much the consumer can pay, there is a gap,” Pawan Goenka told Reuters.

The plan sounds more doable when we hear that out of the 6 million green vehicles by 2020, 4 to 5 million are expected to be two-wheelers. In neighboring China, around 25 million electric bicycles are sold each year, the sales of electric cars however don’t want to get going.

The irrational electrification exuberance  claims another victim: Battery maker A123 Systems Inc is running out of money. A lot of it is your money. Says Reuters:

“The company, which received a $249 million grant from the Obama administration as part of a program to develop advanced lithium-ion batteries, said in documents filed with U.S. regulators that it “expects to have approximately four to five months of cash to support its ongoing operations” based on its recent monthly spending average.”

Reuters views A123′s issues as “a reminder of the struggles for a U.S. electric-vehicle industry still in its infancy and dealing with lower-than-projected demand.”

The wire service calls President Barack Obama’s goal of getting 1 million battery-powered vehicles on the road by 2015 “a target that is looking increasingly unrealistic.”

America’s best-selling plug-ins, the Volt, the plug-in Prius and the Nissan Leaf jointly sold 2,990 units in June. They were out-sold by a small sports car targeted at drifters, the Toyobaru hachi-roku, which sold 3,502 units in June.

Nobody dares to say that it does not make sense at all. We say it.

• There is no market for EVs in China, at least not at the moment. Despite grand plans, EVs in China have not morphed beyond experimental projects.
• There is absolutely no market for imported EVs in China. Every carmaker knows that. Only noobs don’t. In China, new energy cars can only benefit from generous government policies if the car is built in China and sold under a Chinese brand, Nissan’s CEO Carlos Ghosn said at this year’s Beijing Auto Show. Ghosn should know what he is talking about. His company makes the all-electric Leaf and will make it in China under the Venucia brand to comply with the Chinese regulations. Without the subsidies, even a made-in-China EV would be way too expensive.
• Instead of benefiting from subsidies, an imported EV would be priced way out of the non-existing market. Customs duty, taxes and import costs can double the price of a car once it goes on sale in China.
• “Saab” has absolutely no brand cachet in China. Most likely, this won’t be a factor. The sale of the assets does not include the brand name, it would have to be licensed from a very reluctant SAAB AB.
• Lastly, an EV must be purpose-built to make halfway sense. The battery pack of the Nissan Leaf for instance weighs 660 lbs. The rest of the vehicle must be built considerably lighter yet stronger.

“We’re struggling to see how this enterprise is going to work,” Ian Fletcher, a senior analyst in London for IHS Global Insight, said to the New York Times. “Do they have some kind of magic bullet?”

It’s a magic bullet that would be aimed at the foot.

The only way this sale make sense is when the tools, production equipment, and most of all the production know-how that sits in the Trollhättan plant gets shipped to China.

Is the US EPA fudging the way it calculates miles per gallon equivalent ratings for electric and hybrid cars, making EVs appear to be more energy efficient than they really are, increasing their consumer appeal? That’s what Lindsay Leveen, author of Hydrogen – Hope or Hype? A Primer on Energy and Sustainability, says.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculates MPG ratings based on energy at point of delivery. That means that it ignores the energy costs of drilling, pumping, refining and transporting the gasoline to the corner gas station. When calculating miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) ratings used to evaluate fuel costs for electric vehicles and hybrids, the EPA also ignores the energy costs of producing and transmitting electricity as well as the energy costs of transforming transmission line voltage to 110/220 VAC and then losses in converting to the Direct Current needed to charge batteries. The EPA also assumes that EV batteries have a charge/discharge efficiency of 100%. Essentially the EPA is treating EVs as though electricity is 100% efficient until it gets to the vehicles’ motors. You could say it does the same for gasoline, not looking at the total energy costs of getting that fuel to market. The agency then mileage tests EVs, dividing electricity consumed by an energy conversion factor of 33.7 kilowatt hours per gallon of gasoline to arrive at MPGe ratings.

So what’s the problem? As long as the EPA is evaluating energy costs at the point of delivery, it’s comparing apples to apples, right? Well, it seems as though some apples take more energy to plant, grow and get to the fruit market than other apples. It’s true that there are extraction, processing and transportation energy costs for all fuels, including the coal, natural gas and uranium used to generate electricity as well as for gasoline. Drilling, pumping, and refining crude oil plus trucking and dispensing gasoline consumes the equivalent of about 10% of the energy in the crude oil.

That 10% energy cost is comparable to the 90% efficiency of electrical transmission lines and local distribution systems, or the 90% efficiency of AC/DC conversion and battery charge/discharge cycles. Those 90% efficiencies, though, if I remember my math terms correctly, are associative – together they yield 81% efficiency, not 90%. Of course, with gasoline, unlike electrical generation, that 10% energy cost is all that’s involved.

You may use some energy getting petroleum out of the ground and then turning it into a useful fuel, but electricity generation that isn’t hydro or geothermal necessarily involves consuming fuel, either fossil or nuclear. Most of America’s energy comes from coal fired power plants. In the near term, what won’t get generated from coal will probably be generated from natural gas (owing to the ongoing boom in gas discoveries and production), not wind and solar power (which have their own energy costs).

Essentially, to run an electric vehicle you’re converting chemical or nuclear energy into heat into electricity. As we know from internal combustion engines, turning chemical energy into heat into power involves waste heat. As Leveen seems to enjoy saying, you cannot avoid the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy exists. Average energy efficiency of electrical power plants is about 42.5%. Multiplying all the efficiencies in getting electricity generated and charged into your car’s battery pack and you come up with 34.4%.

That means that the EV version of the Honda Fit’s EPA rating of 118 MPGe, multiplied by electricity’s inefficiencies, would actually work out to 40.6 MPG. A conventional petrol fired Fit has a combined EPA rating of 35 MPG. Taking that 10% energy cost of production and distribution of gasoline into consideration yields 31.5 MPG. While that still puts the EV Fit as 29% more fuel-efficient than the gasoline version, that’s not nearly as impressive as triple digit MPGe figures. If you’re running a government agency that wants to encourage the sale of electric cars, using the larger figures might make sense but then political science and real science, as Leveen points out, aren’t the same thing.

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