SAN JOSE, Calif.--Silicon Valley is sparking a revolution in alternative-fuel autos, but it may take awhile--too long perhaps--to effect change in Detroit, according to a panel of auto executives.
A group of electric and traditional carmakers spoke here Friday at the Joint Venture Silicon Valley conference about innovation, why alternative carmakers are attracted to the Valley, and whether nimble upstarts can overshadow the big Detroit automakers. The consensus was that Silicon Valley is commanding the attention of the auto world, whether it will dominate or not.
"We're not going to take over China or Detroit, but every carmaker has an outpost here and is watching what people are doing," said Felix Kramer, founder of nonprofit plug-in hybrid initiative CalCars. "This can be a real incubation area for new technology in automotive."
To be sure, Silicon Valley is rife with change when it comes to the merger of technology and autos.
Volkswagen, for example, recently funded Stanford University in order to develop a new car lab whose mission is to study "cutting-edge research in safety, comfort, and fun for the consumer driving the car," said Sebastian Thrun, while speaking at an artificial intelligence conference Thursday night. The lab, which will open later this year, will focus on new technologies such as computer-assisted driving--for instance, a car that could park itself. Eventually, self-driving or smart cars could help make driving more efficient and safe, Thrun said.
"When kids can drive themselves to soccer, and do away with the soccer parent, humanity will be better off," Thrun said.
Elon Musk's Tesla Motors, also based in Silicon Valley, is delivering its first production models of an electric two-seater roadster, for a price of nearly $100,000. It eventually plans to sell a four-door electric car for about half the price and then even more affordable models later.
Another Palo Alto upstart called Project Better Place, founded by former SAP executive Shai Agassi, recently announced that it will team with Renault and Nissan car companies, along with the Israeli government, to develop electric cars and electric-battery stations in that nation. It has raised $200 million to produce lithium-ion batteries and the facilities to recharge those batteries--and its cars are expected to be ready by 2011.
Google, based in Mountain View, also recently announced Recharge It, a project to convert hybrids to plug-in hybrids and test vehicle-to-grid technology, in which the vehicle's battery powers the electrical grid. Milpitas-based OEMtek is charging people $12,500 to convert their Toyota Prius into a more efficient car (getting 100 miles per gallon vs. 45 miles per gallon) with a larger battery.
San Dimas-based AC Propulsion, which makes an all-electric Scion eBox for $70,000, is also opening up an office in Palo Alto to service customers here, according to Tom Gage, CEO of AC Propulsion who spoke on the panel. (Gage drives an eBox, an electric car that gets 120 miles on one charge. The company's first customer was actor Tom Hanks.) AC Propulsion also supplies technology to Tesla Motors.
So why is Silicon Valley such a hotbed for alternative cars? It's the customers.
"The driving public here is among the most enlightened in environmental and policy issues," Gage said.
CalCars' Kramer, added to the sentiment: "The plug-in hybrid is the first thing to come here because of popular demand," he said, referring to the movement behind CalCars, Ourpower.org, and Google's plug-in effort. "There's a different customer here in the Valley, and that's why we favor this area."
Backing up his point, 30 percent of the people in the audience said in a poll that they drove a hybrid to the conference.
Byron Shaw, managing director of the Advanced Technology Office at General Motors and who's based here, spoke on the panel about the goals of GM, which is one of the first major car companies to say that it will develop a plug-in hybrid. Shaw said that the company plans to introduce the first rendition of the plug-in Chevy Volt in 2010 along with similar versions for the Saturn. He said that GM will also sell a bevy of alternative-fuel vehicles in the next decade, including electric cars, fuel cell cars, and vehicle-to-grid plug-ins.
"There's an opportunity to bring Silicon Valley and the auto industry together because the two don't always march to the same drum," he said. "We have a wealth of experience of building vehicles, but there are things changing that now, such as the conventional cost of fossil fuels. In the same way Silicon Valley has driven down costs of technology, it may happen with the auto industry, too."
That said, GM is slower than the technology industry, he said, and the company is driven by a fickle consumer. One consideration, for example, is that the battery for a hybrid plug-in must operate well in cold climates like Minnesota as well as warmer places like Phoenix. "The supply base just isn't there for electric vehicles," he said.
AC Propulsion's Gage said that after working in Detroit for eight years, he's seen that car companies can change for the consumer, but it will be especially challenging in the alternative fuel market.
"It's a major transformation for the car companies," he said, "the power train is different; fuel sources are different. We have to start small and build a market base, and it has to appeal to consumers. To come back to this, Silicon Valley is more advanced in this area. Grassroots efforts will continue."
CalCars' Kramer went further with his criticism.
"They're being too slow. It's a major wedge for climate change. They need to learn about versioning--getting cars on the road and seeing what people like," Kramer said.
The panelists finished by predicting how many cars would be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2028. Two of the men, Shaw and Kramer, forecast that it would be 80 percent of cars on the road by then. Gage was more conservative at only 20 percent. The question is: Will that be enough to turn the tide of global warming?
We wrote about Fisker Automotive's sporty plug-in hybrid last week and now here is a picture.
The company is planning to come to market in about 18 months with a high-performance, high-end plug-in hybrid sedan. The car will cost $80,000. It will go about 50 miles on a battery charge, which isn't far, but the car will also come with a built-in gas engine that exists primarily to charge the battery. With the charging capability, the car can go around 620 miles before conking, according to Henrik Fisker, the company's CEO.
How's this for a plug-in hybrid
(Credit: Fisker Automotive )With a range of hundreds of miles, the car will go farther than other electric cars coming to market. The new electric cars go only about 225 miles on a single charge at best. Granted, Fisker's car uses a little gas--something electric cars don't--but it won't burn much.. Long range and lower costs are the advantages plug-ins have over all-electrics. If Fisker hits its goals, it will have cars on the market in 2009.
Fisker also hopes to come out with SUVs and other types of cars. The drive train comes from Quantum Technologies, by the way. Quantum works with a number of companies and government agencies on alternative fuel vehicles. Initial production will be about 15,000 vehicles a year. It has received investment from Palo Alto Investors.
The company will show off a prototype in at the Detroit Auto Show in 2008.
In this day and age, it seems everybody has started an alternative car company. There is Tesla, Miles Automotive, Zap, Venture Vehicles. Everyone but my grandmother, and that's because we took her license away.
But Fisker does have something a lot of these other companies don't. Namely, experience in the auto industry. Henrik worked for years at Ford and BMW. He came up with the BMW Z8 and the Aston Martin DB9.
Fisker Automotive. Think of it as a marriage between the Chevy Volt and the Tesla Roadster.
The company is planning to come to market in about 18 months with a high-performance, high-end, plug-in hybrid sedan. The car will cost $80,000. It will go about 50 miles on a battery charge, which isn't far, but the car will also come with a built-in gas engine that exists primarily to charge the battery. With the charging capability, the car can go hundreds of miles, according to Henrik Fisker, the company's CEO.
With a range of hundreds of miles, the car will go farther than other electric cars coming to market. The new electric cars go only about 225 miles on a single charge at best. Granted, Fisker's car uses a little gas--something electric cars don't--but it won't burn much. This is how the Volt functions. General Motors, however, doesn't plan on coming out with the Volt until 2010. If Fisker hits its goals, it will have cars on the market in 2009. Fisker, though, is also aiming at the luxury end of the market with its alternative car, which makes it like Tesla. Its tag line is "Eco-chic."
Fisker also hopes to come out with SUVs and other types of cars. The drive train comes from Quantum Technologies, by the way. Quantum works with a number of companies and government agencies on alternative fuel vehicles. Initial production will be about 15,000 vehicles a year.
The company will show off a prototype at the Detroit Auto Show, according to the company's somewhat cryptic Web site.
In this day and age, it seems everybody has started an alternative car company. There is Tesla, Miles Automotive, Zap and Venture Vehicles. Everyone but my grandmother, and that's because we took her license away.
But Fisker does have something a lot of these other companies don't. Namely, experience in the auto industry. Henrik worked for years at Ford and BMW. He came up with the BMW Z8 and the Aston Martin DB9.
Thanks to Greg King of Wostec for pointing out the Fisker presentation at the Dow Jones Alternative Energy Innovations Conference taking place in Redwood City, Calif., this week.
Honda is upping its production of gas-electric hybrid cars, but has no immediate plans to develop the kind of hybrid that would recharge from an electrical outlet, the company announced Tuesday.
Honda CEO Takeo Fukui also publicly criticized General Motors for its pursuit of the Chevy Volt at a press conference on Tuesday in Japan.
If that kind of high-performance battery power is possible then carmakers would be better served making a completely electric vehicle from an environmental standpoint, said Fukui, according to the The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
Honda is scheduled to release several environmentally friendly vehicles at the 2007 Tokyo auto show this week. Among them may be a hybrid sports car and a diesel-engine car that gets 60 mpg.
GM has been touring its Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric car that it plans to make available to consumers by 2010, across the U.S. since its debut at the Detroit auto show. The Volt could possibly run off lithium-ion battery power alone for about 40 miles, according to GM.
Many critics have raised questions as to whether that battery type, more commonly used in laptops, could be cost effective and energy efficient for car use. GM has said it's developing the necessary technology to make a lithium-ion battery hybrid successful and plans to test out the Volt as soon as spring 2008.
The news follows statements made Monday by Toyota that it's taking its time to develop a plug-in hybrid to address questions of cost, efficiency and consumer interest.
EnerDel says it will come out with a lithium-ion battery for plug-in hybrids that will cost $1,500, a development that could go a long way to making these cars palatable in terms of price.
The Indianapolis-based company, which recently received a $6.5 million grant from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), hopes to deliver the battery to car manufacturers for their 2010 lineups, according to Charles Gassenheimer, vice chairman of the company. The 2010 model cars will start coming out in September 2009, he said.
By then, there will probably be 65 hybrid cars on the market, he estimated. Right now, there are 15, he said. No major manufacturers currently make plug-in hybrids. Plug-ins have larger batteries than conventional hybrids, can be charged through a socket and get better gas mileage. However, they cost a lot at the moment. Converting a hybrid to a plug-in costs about $15,000, money that even plug-in hybrid proponents admit is nearly impossible to make up for with better fuel economy.
"You're not going to spend thousands of dollars to save $600 to $700 at the pump a year," Gassenheimer said. "Until you make this a positive return on investment, you won't see these (plug-ins) at 50 to 80 percent penetration."
EnerDel will mostly aim at selling batteries to manufacturers to incorporate into cars coming off the line and not aftermarket modifiers.
How much cheaper will an EnerDel-energized plug-in hybrid be compared to a regular one? It's hard to say. Gassenheimer, though, asserts that the company's batteries will cost half as much or less as nickel-metal hydride batteries, which are used in some plug-in retrofits these days. The price the company is quoting is fairly cheap. The National Renewable Energy Lab has put out reports estimating that the battery price should be able to come down to $2,500 or more. So if EnerDel could hit its goal--and it's an if--it could help. The grant will be used to drive costs down further.
The company's basic technology was coined by Peter Novak, a scientist and former member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The batteries also rely on technology from Japan and packaging know-how from Delphi.
The battery is a lithium titanate battery. Competitor Altair Nanotechnologies uses a similar chemistry. Meanwhile, A123 Systems, which has received millions in venture funds, builds a lithium potassium battery. Gassenheimer stated that his company's lithium titanate batteries run at lower temperatures than potassium ones and thus are more safe. Lower operating temperatures also mean that car manufacturers won't have to include additional cooling systems for the battery alone. (Notebooks use lithium cobalt batteries, which run hotter.)
The technical and marketing issues for EnerDel, and the plug-in industry in general, still need to be fine-tuned. But customers are receptive to the idea, according to Gassenheimer.
"This is a major supply problem, not a demand problem," he said.
Google is earmarking more greenbacks to make cars greener.
The nonprofit arm of the Web search giant, Google.org, on Wednesday issued a $10 million request for proposal from companies involved in commercial plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and other forms of sustainable transportation.
The RFP process--to be done entirely online--is meant to accelerate development of cleaner forms of transportation at a large scale in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to Google.org.
Google intends to invest between $500,000 and $2 million in companies that are approved and will not take up position on those firms' boards.
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page plug their wheels into the grid.
(Credit: Google)It is looking for "for-profit companies whose innovative approach, team and technologies will enable widespread commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, electric vehicles and/or vehicle-to-grid solutions," according to the RFP.
Submissions can be anything from battery technologies to services that encourage plug-in hybrids. The proposals will be reviewed by Google employees and experts in the field.
In June of this year, Google launched RechargeIT, a program to convert company cars to plug-in hybrids, which can be recharged and potentially feed power back into the electricity grid during times of high demand. The company has also installed a large 1.6-megawatt solar array and dedicated $1 million to nonprofit groups working to address global warming.
"While $10 million is a fraction of the total investment needed to transform our transportation sector, we hope this RFP will help catalyze a broader response. We need the automakers to bring these cars to market, but plug-in vehicles also need an entire ecosystem of companies (to) flourish," Google said in a statement.
Despite Google's enthusiasm for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, there still are very few commercial options for the average consumer. Typically, customers need to retrofit plug-in hybrids for several thousand dollars, though some automakers are now working on plug-in hybrids.
A recent study from the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that vehicles that draw part of their power from the electricity grid pollute less than conventional cars.
Submissions are due by October 22, 2007.
Security will be crawling at Lake Tahoe on August 17 as bigwigs such as U.S. Senator Harry Reid and former president Bill Clinton along with his wife (who has some sort of government job) attend the Lake Tahoe Summit.
(Update: Arnold Schwarzenegger was listed as a possible attendee. But apparently he can't make it now, according to his press office.)
And one of the highlights, at least in my mind, will be the test-drives of the all-electric SUV from Phoenix Motorcars. Phoenix's car can go 130 miles on a single charge and hit 100 miles per hour. (Read more on Phoenix here.)
Electra glide in white
(Credit: Phoenix Motorcars)The car is powered by the Nanosafe battery from Altair Nanotechnologies. It is a lithium-titanate battery, which means it has a different, safer chemistry than the lithium-cobalt batteries found in notebooks. Recharge time ranges from 10 minutes (with a special charger) or three to five hours from a socket.
Like some other new-fangled electric car companies, Phoenix is working through the final bits of testing and will try to crank up a consumer launch next year. Because of the range, it will mostly target them at municipalities with large fleets of cars.
There's no guarantee that the guests will test-drive the car, but, you have to figure, why wouldn't they? And where will the food-loving former commander in chief take the car? My guess is Izzy's Burger Spa or the snack bar at the Magic Carpet miniature golf course.
Plug-in hybrids have emerged as the favorite form of transportation for reducing greenhouse gases in the near term, but calculating their energy efficiency can be a little complicated.
Plug-ins won't conk out after 130 to 200 miles, like electric cars, and they don't require major technological breakthroughs, like hydrogen cars. Converting a Prius to a plug-in hybrid costs about $10,000 to $15,000 now--that's part of the reason only about 50 exist--but if car manufacturers decide to make these at the factory, the additional cost may only run $6,000 or so, say proponents. That's a lower premium than what electric cars will run, by the way.
Plug-ins have more batteries than regular hybrids and can get charged from a wall socket.
A plug-in hybrid
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)But there's some disagreement over how much energy these cars actually consume. Owners report their cars going 70 to over 100 miles on a gallon of gas. But that doesn't include the electricity used the charge the batteries. The cars do get 100 MPG, but what is the total energy consumption?
When you add in the electricity, plug-ins get the equivalent of 59 miles per gallon, according to John Shore, who is organizing the X Prize for automobiles. He gets this number by examining data from Google's experiments with plug-ins.
"The most reliable information available today about PHEVs is from the Google project RechargeIT, in which they report actual data from real driving conditions for a Prius modified to be a PHEV. Google currently reports that, on average, the vehicle gets 73.6 MPG (gasoline) and uses 118.1 watt-hours/mile of electrical energy--these equate to 59 MPGe, considerably less than the AXP goal of 100 MPGe," he wrote in an e-mail.
Shore, by the way, is a big fan of plug-ins. However, those numbers mean that current plug-ins won't be able to waltz away with the automotive X Prize, which will likely give more than $10 million to inventors who can come up with a car that can get 100 miles a gallon and win a cross-country race.
Not so fast, say Felix Kramer and Ron Gremban of CalCars, one of the chief organizations promoting plug-ins. Argonne National Labs has a plug-in that reportedly gets 150 miles a gallon. If you go through the equivalency calculations, you end up with 103 miles per gallon equivalent.
Regardless of the actual mileage, Gremban points out that the important thing is that plug-ins reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on foreign oil, and there is not a lot of debate about that.
If you live in a state where coal is the main source of electricity, like Ohio, the emissions from a plug-in are about the same as a regular hybrid. But in California, the emissions are much lower because of hydroelectric power, wind and other renewables. (Coal accounts for approximately 52 percent of U.S. electricity, according to the Department of Energy.)
When the X Prize Foundation announced that it was going to give an award to inventors who can get 100 miles a gallon and win a cross-country race, I thought "so what?"
Spacecraft designer Burt Rutan (left) joins Intel CEO Craig Barrett on stage at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.
(Credit: Getty Images)Full-electric cars like the ones coming from Think and Tesla Motors top that, and so do the hydrogen vehicles that DaimlerChrysler says it will release in 2012 to 2105. Plug-in hybrids also get 100 miles per gallon.
You could even load up a Winnebago with a bunch of lithium-ion batteries and go for the victory. (Such a stunt could also mean dying in a fireball after hitting a speed bump wrong in the parking lot of Carrow's. Still, RV drivers would build a monument to you.)
The rules are a little trickier than that, explains John Shore, senior director of the Automotive X Prize. The idea is to give the prize, which will likely be north of $10 million, to a car that the average person could and would want to buy in 2011.
Hydrogen doesn't qualify, he said, because there won't be hydrogen filling stations in 2011 that will let someone drive cross country. The 'bago? No one wants to drive that. The Tesla Roadster, due out later this year, probably also won't qualify because, at $98,000, it's too expensive.
So who will be able to enter? Companies like Phoenix Motorcars, which is making an all-electric SUV. Think, Tesla and Zap can all participate because they all have midprice sedans coming out. Most of these cars in this price range will go less than 200 miles on a charge, so extending the battery life is one of the key technological challenges.
The prize money will also help a small company get attention and move toward commercialization. (Putting a new car on the market, though, will likely cost more.)
The Foundation has given awards in the past for people who have developed space vehicles. The organization has nothing to do with the X Men or other comic book heroes. However, former X Prize winner Burt Rutan bears an uncanny resemblance to angry surperhero Wolverine in this photo.
Valence Technology won't go it alone.
The company, which is angling to sell lithium ion battery markets to vehicle makers, has signed a licensing deal with Lishen Battery Stock Co. to help it gets its batteries quicker to market, said CEO Bob Kanode in a recent interview with News.com
Under the deal, Valence will sell its lithium powder to Lishen. Lishen in turn make battery cells out of the material and sell them back to Valence. Valence will then take the cells and make battery packs that it will sell for use in electric cars, military vehicles or boats.
Lishen will also try to sell the battery cells to other manufacturers. In these deals, Valence will earn revenue from the sale of the chemicals to Lishen but also a royalty on the battery cells sold to third parties.
The deal will effectively allow Valence to concentrate on its strengths, said Kanode, who joined the company back in March in an effort to start commercializing its products. Valence has a strong background in battery chemistry, he said. "We also have a lot of microcontroller technology for controlling battery packs," he said. It just doesn't have much experience in the middle part of making cells.
Competition is also getting warm in the lithium ion battery market. Both A123 Systems and Tesla Motors are marketing their batteries to car makers. A123 can count General Motors as an investor and customer.
Valence's biggest 'name' customer, by contrast, is Segway. Nonetheless, Kanode says a number of organizations are tinkering with its batteries and batteries from other companies. The market thus should be big enough for more than one manufacturer, he speculated.
"There are 80 different companies out there testing batteries. This isn't just benchmark testing," he said. "The testing can take one to two years."
Kanode, though, indicated that Valence will back out of trying to compete in the notebook battery market, something it had its eye on earlier. Notebook manufacturers want lithium cobalt batteries. Valence specializes in lithium phosphate.
"Lithium cobalt for cell size will give you more energy," he said. "But by definition, lithium cobalt will never be safe."
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