Using leverage

To ensure effective and tough federal CAFE standards for 2017-2025, enviro groups are holding on to the California card - the state's right to set its own auto emissions standards - according to Jim Motavalli in the NY Times. Read the full story here.

[Source: NY Times]

Think goes down

Think has declared bankruptcy in Norway. Sad.

[Source: ElectricAid, Indianapolis Business Journal]

Think in trouble as Norwegian EV market booms

Think, maker of the Think City, is in trouble, Norwegian business newspaper E24 reports. It's not paid it's bills since February, according to Swedish parts supplier AQ Wiring Systems.

At the same time, sales of electric cars are booming in Norway. The iMiev has become the fastest selling car in its segment, beating out gas vehicles. 764 new electric cars were registered in the first five months of the year. During the same period last year, the number was only 123.

[Source: E24]

From Scooters to High Speed Rail, China is Electrifying

I’m sure I’m not the first to say it. China is electrifying.

When I was studying China and Mandarin Chinese 35 years ago, “Red” China was unrecognized by the US, literally, and dark in a way difficult to imagine now. Who knew what was going on over there? Was “reality” that the world’s oldest civilization was throwing off the shackles of Western domination and its own past to offer a new vision of civilization, or was it bodies floating downriver to Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution?

Just as today we can look at a nighttime satellite image and see the black void that is recalcitrant, unelectrified North Korea, once that was China. Today China is as illuminated as the rest of the world, and they are carrying electrification further. I can’t cite the government decree, but having just returned from two weeks that took me from Beijing to Changsha, Hunan to Shanghai, it is evident that a national transportation system is being implemented, and electrification is at its core. From two-wheeled scooters, a mainstay of urban mobility, and urban mass transit, to high-speed inter-urban rail, China will soon see the day most people move about most of the time on electricity. Fifteen years ago Shanghai was a city of diesel busses and bicycles. It had few private cars. For a while, gas scooters held sway piled high with people and products. It had no subway system. Today Shanghai has the world’s largest. Smoother and quieter than any I’ve ridden anywhere. And three types of electric busses - legacy trolleys with catenary wires, battery busses, and super capacitor busses. And most of

the scooters are now electric. (And they are headed directly at you, at night, with no headlight.)

Not very many years ago, tens of millions of Chinese packed themselves regularly into unairconditioned, slat-seatted box cars to get to work and visit family during holidays, enduring trips of more than 24 hours. I’m sure there are still plenty of old-school trains about, but today Chinese are boarding comfortable, high speed electric trains coursing on unimpeded raised trackbeds at over 200 MPH between cities large and ever-larger. Last year it took 24 h

ours to go from Beijing to Guangjou. Next year it will take 6 or 7.

With these dedicated high speed electric rail lines crisscrossing the nation, and the huge, attractive new train stations being opened to serve these inter-urban lines, it becomes clear China has decided most long distance passenger travel will be by electric trains. And these trains are being integrated with existing and new subway systems. Step off one system right onto the other.

Cars will undoubtedly be the last piece of the electric transportation matrix in China. The week I was in Shanghai, the Electric Vehicle Test Drive Center opened to the public in Shanghai Automobile City, a far suburb still reachable by subway. Plug-in cars from a half dozen Chinese automakers were on display along with charge stations in an attractive setting amidst a winding course for test drives. The BYD plug-in hybrid I drove performed well. I have no doubt we will see Chinese brands in the US when they are ready to make a move. While I think selling gasoline cars by the tens of millions to the domestic market is perceived to be of prime economic importance, I hope they choose to forgo following the Japanese and Korean model of aggressively competing on the low end in the export market. We really don’t need more cheap gas cars. With some attention to fit and finish, the Chinese could use their low-cost advantages (labor and a huge battery industry) in a market segment that sells at a premium outside their borders. Once EVs are cool in the West, the Chinese domestic market will follow.

China is very much a work in progress. As progressive and foresighted as they seem to be on the transportation front, they’ve got huge challenges ahead regarding electricity production. Largely dependent on domestic coal, cities are smothered in smog. Beijing, which systematically restricts automobile usage and moved a lot of factories out of town for the Olympics, had clearer skies than I expected. But it is an anomaly. Shanghai and Wuhan are enshrouded in poison.

Factories, including a solar panel plant I know of, have had to curtail production because coal can’t be shipped fast enough to supply electricity generation plants. Transportation of freight, including coal, will be relieved by moving passengers off the freight path and on to the growing high speed rail network. But that only postpones the reckoning that will come with the growing power demands of a burgeoning consumer culture.

China may end up with the world’s most efficient electric transportation system powered by the world’s most toxic electrical generation.

We, in contrast, may end up with an efficient, relatively clean, partially renewable electrical grid, while still burdened with a transportation “system” dependent on trucking freight and moving passengers on petroleum.

The approaching Tesla dry spell

Interesting piece by Katie Fehrenbacher about Tesla and the period of limited revenue that approaches. "...this latest funding underscores how Tesla will be transitioning into a period where the company will be generating a lot less revenue for several months — hence part of the reason it needs to raise more funds now."

Fehrenbacher had thought components sales might provide a backstop until the Model S appears, but points to the recent S-1 filing. "Tesla doesn’t have any signed agreements for powertrain component sales after 2011." As interesting for what it says about Toyota. There's no evidence yet of a deal beyond 2011 regarding the heralded, new RAV4 EV. And Daimler is committed to German batteries going forward for Smart and Mercedes, and has a deal with BYD for China.

Tesla has weathered dry spells before with Elon Musk's money, as it appears will be the case again.

[Source: GigaOM)

Transmission Losses: 4 killed in Chevron UK refinery blast

The Independent reports four workers at the Chevron refinery in Wales were killed yesterday in what is being described as a "tragic industrial accident"....

Billowing black smoke gushed from the refinery and spread across the sky in what some have described as a "mushroom cloud"....

Fukushima oil spill and explosion

A oil spill has been detected, and another explosion occurred, at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, here.

How Japan uses public works projects, including gyms and swimming pools, to buy acquiescence for its nuclear projects, here.

Atomkraft? Nein, Danke.

Germany calls it quits on nuclear power.

Last plant to close in 2022.

Today about 25% of Germany's electricity comes from nukes.

The U.S. gets just under 20% of its electricity from nuclear.

War is Peace dept.

It seems in Foxland if Obama didn't cause the problem, George Bush found the solution. Check out "George W. Bush -- Father of the Modern Electric Car?"

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/26/george-w-bush-father-modern-electric-car/#ixzz1NWHup7DX

Missed Charge Station Opportunity in San Francisco

ClipperCreek, an Auburn, CA based manufacturer of electric vehicle charging equipment, has just announced the shipment of its 5,000th unit. Some of those units are being paid for by a California Energy Commission grant to upgrade existing Avcon charging stations across California.

Seventeen Avcons eligible for replacement are located at San Francisco city-owned parking lots. With the city budget constrained just as investment in EV charging infrastructure has become warranted, one would think the City would jump at the opportunity for seventeen n0-cost new units to serve LEAFs, Volts and Teslas now. These ClipperCreek chargers would be simple to use - just park and plug in. No card to swipe, no phone call to make, no network to join. Just as they have been for over ten years.

Instead, the Department of the Environment has opted to utilize a federal grant to Coulomb Technologies' ChargePoint America to pay to upgrade these charge stations. What's the problem? The CEC grant is restricted to the replacement of legacy units. $50,000 to $100,000 was left on the table. The Coulomb grant could have been utilized anywhere. The City has sacrificed early expansion of charging beyond the downtown core which today contains the lion's share of the charging stations.

There were undoubtedly considerations beyond the mere efficient use of available public resources involved in the choice made. Coulomb touts the sophisticated capabilities of its "networked," revenue-producing solution, but it is only one of numerous business models for EV public charging. With the ClipperCreek/CEC chargers, for example, the City wouldn't be on the hook for ongoing networking charges with Coulomb once the federal grant runs dry in a year or two. Will there be enough usage of a pay-to-charge statioin to justify the annual fee to Coulomb?

Once there are enough cars and enough public infrastructure, we'll begin to understand what will best serve drivers and the development of useful public charging at appropriate charging levels. Might be a monetized, networked system. Might look quite different. The ubiquity of electricity offers many options if the playing field stays level. Consumers will decide.

It seems obvious to me that government ought not prematurely buy into a "business plan" when we mean to buy charging stations. Especially when the opportunity presents itself at no cost to the City and greater simplicity of use for consumers.

iMievs do their bit in Japan

Mitsubishi iMievs have played a roll in the petroleum deprived region around Fukushima. New York Times Wheels blog has the story. The picture tells the story.

Downtown South San Francisco electrified

Four electric vehicle charging stations were unveiled today at a new parking structure in downtown South San Francisco. The Coulomb J-plug/120V units were installed under grants to ChargePoint America (DOE and CEC money). For the time being, there is no charge for either the parking or charging for vehicles that plug in.

The opening of the new parking garage and office complex one block off Grand Avenue was a big deal. Miller Avenue was blocked off as dignitaries gathered to celebrate the

delayed opening of this large project for

this small city in the shadow of San Francisco. Hoping the parking will contribute to the revitalization of

Grand Avenue, SSF now offers a convenient spot to stop for a bit of juice just off 101. Lots of

restaurants, a Peets coffee, and many banks and shops are within a few blocks. If you've always driven past the Grand Avenue exit, pull of the highway, plug in, check it out.

One caveat to an otherwise positive report. With very limited signage, and a prime location right by the entrance, we'll have to see how long before these spots begin to be ICED.

More SF Bay Area Charge Stations....some work

Once again, charge station serendipity.

I arrived a couple of days ago at the parking garage beneath One Montgomery Tower in the LEAF with Peter Van Deventer, Dutch EV guru, and a couple of professors from Holland. Jay Friedland, Plug In America Legislative Director, followed in a RAV4 EV with some more profs, who had come to learn about California's EV efforts. Lo and behold, we spy two Coulomb J-plug/120V units, one with a plug-in Prius conversion plugged in. I waved my Coulomb card only to find the unit gave us a fault and wouldn't release the J-plug. The other unit however, was in working order and I plugged the LEAF in.

As we walked away, pleased to have given this unexpected real-world demonstration of public charging to the visiting Dutch scholars, we saw a Tesla plugged in to a

random 120V outlet. Believe it or not, and we didn't, there were two plug-in cars in the lot before we even arrived!

Later I checked, and the charge stations do appear on the Coulomb/ChargePoint America maps. They are listed as "Not Available" and "Free." (This is of course a pay garage.) I suspect the map hasn't caught up to reality on the ground.

Last week I went to the opening of the charge stations at a new San Rafael municipal pay lot at 900 C St. Two Coulomb J-plug-only units located right by the entrance. A grand opening ceremony attended by the mayor saw many EVs, although only one could charge at a time, as one unit here didn't work either. Furious phone calls during the event couldn'tget the machine to allow the juice to flow after waving the Coulomb Card.

We'll see how this all plays out, but in the short term, the added technical complexity of these charge stations that require activation with RFID cards dependent on

remote connections not only add a barrier to usage they present another point of potential failure. For now, drivers and the EV project broadly speaking, would be better served if one could confidently arrive and simply plug-in, as you can at some charge stations - public chargers upgraded to J-plugs, for instance. Like the one I used yesterday at the Vallejo Ferry Terminal. Once The EV Project (the other DOE-funded program) charge stations begin to appear (hello Ecotality, anybody home?), will Coulomb cards work, or will drivers need to collect every network's proprietary card?

Now I learn from fellow LEAF driver and long-time EV driver Danny Ames (he loved his Th!nk

City, too, and also built a conversion) of yet more ChargePoint America charge stations. A brand spanking new South San Francisco municipal parking garage one block off Grand Ave. sports four J-plug/120V units. Three are currently listed as "Available" and "Free." (Metered pay parking.) One is "Not Available." (I won't presume why.) There's a great Korean restaurant near there. I'll visit soon.

FIRST-EVER plug-in prius! Really?

A story on Toyota's announcement that an ordering system for the plug-in prius will be coming later this year prompted me to check out the site. I find it rather funny and rather sad.

"THE FIRST-EVER prius plug-in hybrid," it says. Really? Ask Felix Kramer of CalCars. Ask any of the hundreds of individuals and fleets driving around in prius converted to have plug-in capability.

It's not even Toyota's first plug-in prius. They've been showing variants around for more than two years. The only thing that's "first" about it is that they will have a system for selling them sometime later this year in a baker's dozen states give or take.

Also headlined on the website: "the prius everyone's been waiting for." That they got right. Their own customer polling a long time ago showed a plug was at the top of Prius drivers' wish lists. Surely there's a market for their plug-in hybrid. But the bar has been raised in two unexpected directions. Nissan has begun to put a real all-electric car on the market. And GM has extended the electric range expectation for a plug-in hybrid before Toyota's even in the game.

Toyota has passed on the opportunity to be the plug-in leader, given up the lead they'd accrued from the RAV4 EV and the Prius as much as GM postponed its rendevous with destiny when they jettisoned the EV1. Someone from Toyota once told me they are "never first, always best." Time will tell.

Who knew, part 2, 120V edition

Some more places to plug in. SFO now has 120V plugs available in each of its public parking garages. You'll need to provide your own cable; of course every new EV comes with one.

Airports are one of the places 12oV makes lots of sense. Most cars sit for many hours, some for days at long-term parking. And it's very cheap to install, probably less than 10% the cost of a Level 2 unit.

A few Level 2 charge stations would be useful in short-term parking, as well.

And more importantly, I'd suggest a DC Fast Charger, perhaps at the Cell Phone lot. The airport is a crossroads, and folks with an EV driving over 40 miles to pick someone up at SFO could charge up quick allowing them to not use a gas car.

Well done, SFO!

CHAdeMO DC Fast Charge network coming to Norway

The Norwegian energy company Ishavskraft yesterday unveiled its plan to make the stunning vistas of Norway's isolated fjords accessible to vacationers in electric cars with a 2500 mile network of DC Fast Chargers using the CHAdeMO connector.

Displaying a stunningly Nordic prototype charger in downtown Oslo, Ishavskraft announced it is looking for partners, public and private, to make this electric highway a completed reality within two years.

The Mistsubishi iMiev, with a CHAdeMO connector, is currently the best selling

small car in Norway. It is also available rebadged as the Citroen C-Zero and Peugeot Ion.

The Nissan LEAF will arrive in Norway soon, and is also available with the fast charge connector.

California, Oregon and Washington, too, are working on creating a west coast DC Fast Charge corridor through some rather picturesque scenery. With any luck we'll soon argue over which country has got the best views while getting a quick charge.

[Source: ElectricAid]

Who knew?

A few more J-plugs have appeared in the San Francisco Bay Area, tho I challenge you to find out where they are. They are not listed on the DOE funded charge station project sites. Not on ChargePoint America/Coulomb's charge station map. Nor on The EV Project/Ecotality's map.

I did find one of the three on recargo.com, one of a number of outfits aggregating charge station locations. Good for them. And one on Google's map.

The units I found quite accidentally are Free Juice Bar dual-connector units. Free Juice Bar, as the name implies, dispenses electricity to cars without networks to join, credit cards to wave, or phone calls to release the precious, if not dear, electrons. Charge cars, not people is their stated philosophy.

Now of course these days free doesn't necessarily mean free. These three charge stations are located in places you'll have to pay to park your car. And probably not cheap. There's a carpark at touristy Beach and Hyde; the Park 55 Hotel downtown; and the Expresso long term parking near the Oakland Airport that could run $15/day for the valet service. But it could just as easily be a shopping mall, a municipal lot or employee parking.

The notion here is that once a business buys and installs a charge station, the running costs (electricity) are too low to give much value to the operational complexities and expense of participating in and paying for a "network". The opportunity to gain some "green cred" for your hotel or shopping mall or parking lot company might be all that's required to make the sale. At first glance the cha-ching of a revenue stream of EV drivers charging up is enticing to the host, but it may take an awful lot of $2 charges to be significant or even earn back the ongoing charges to remain in the network once the DOE grant contribution disappears.

I'm obviously not sure how this will all play out, but there is more than one way to skin a cat.

A side note about infrastructure. Lots of mistakes will be made as public infrastructure is deployed. Charge stations will appear where cars don't. Bad siting or signage will lead to empty or ICEd spaces. And 240V charge stations will appear where 120V outlets would suffice. I've publicly pondered when the first J-plug would appear at an airport long-term parking lot, as there would seem to be little benefit to charging faster if the car is sitting for one or more days. If you're parking in a long term lot, your Tesla will fill up at 120V before you return.

So for all that I like about the Free Juice Bar business model, this is one case where they are not a model to follow. While I suspect the Expresso charge station has the "added value" of Valet Service, I'd rather see a wall of 120V outlets at half the cost. At least this charge station wasn't paid for with public funds.

"Transmission Losses" - The Cost of Bio-fuels

The Times has story of the consequences of crop production for bio-fuels: higher food prices and tragic irony.

...last year, 98 percent of cassava chips exported from Thailand, the world’s largest cassava exporter, went to just one place and almost all for one purpose: to China to make biofuel.

...It can be tricky predicting how new demand from the biofuel sector will affect the supply and price of food. Sometimes, as with corn or cassava, direct competition between purchasers drives up the prices of biofuel ingredients. In other instances, shortages and price inflation occur because farmers who formerly grew crops like vegetables for consumption plant different crops that can be used for fuel.

China learned this the hard way nearly a decade ago when it set out to make bioethanol from corn, only to discover that the plan caused alarming shortages and a rise in food prices. In 2007 the government banned the use of grains to make biofuel. [emphasis added.] ...Although a mainstay of diets in much of Africa, cassava is not central to Asian diets...

“For Americans it may mean a few extra cents for a box of cereal,” she said. “But that kind of increase puts corn out of the range of impoverished people.”

Higher prices also mean that groups like the World Food Program can buy less food to feed the world’s hungry.

[Source: NY Times]

Public Transit or Private Cars, It's All About the Fuel

[The following is an article I wrote in Earth Island Journal last year to answer the question "Public Transit or Electric Car?." ]

Greater support for mass transit and appropriate land use policies that make mass transit accessible are essential. They are essential for more livable communities and more efficient use of resources, including energy. However, we have created a nation that is dependent, for the foreseeable future, upon the automobile. And many of the rest of the world’s inhabitants aspire to automobile ownership. China has opened up high-speed rail lines while the United States fiddles. Yet simultaneously, China has overtaken the United States in the number of automobiles sold annually.

City of San FranciscoSan Francisco recently became the first city in the country to mandate plug-in charging stations
for all new buildings.

Despite billions of dollars of investment, in most of the United States only a tiny percentage of people use mass transit regularly. The latest report by the American Public Transportation Association documents a 3.8 percent decline in ridership overall in the first nine months of 2009. Designing our cities and regions around mass transit is something we must do, but it is a multi-generational project.

In other developed countries – in Europe and Asia, for example – clean, electric public transit is the principal means of transportation. In most of the developing world, public transit remains the only viable means of getting around. But the commuters in poorer nations usually travel in a haze of pollution created by petroleum-powered trains and buses. The basic problem that faces transportation today isn’t whether people travel on mass transit or in automobiles, but rather the technology and fuel employed.

The question that faces us is how to ensure that our mass transit and private cars minimize the negative environmental impacts of travel. To do that we must set our nation, and the world, on a path to eliminate petroleum as the predominant fuel for transportation. To continue to rely on petroleum is to accept as inevitable the immense political power of the world’s wealthiest corporations and the resultant pollution, climate change, and war. There is no catalytic converter that can fully scrub the toxics that result from burning oil. And there is no way to democratize the production and distribution of petroleum.

There is, however, an alternative path: Electricity. It’s been around a long time and powers just about everything we use except transportation. It’s ubiquitous, relatively price stable due to government regulation, and is created in many ways, increasingly including renewable – such as solar, wind and geothermal – sources.

Of course we need energy to create electricity, and just as we’ve been burning petroleum for a century to move us and our stuff around, we’ve been burning oil and coal and natural gas to create electricity. While burning all those fuels has caused pollution just as surely as gasoline cars and trucks, we have options. As aging, filthy coal power stations are retired, they are often replaced with cleaner-burning natural gas generators. And now we are making a commitment to renewable electricity generation. Multiple sources of electricity generation make the grid reliable. In contrast, there is no effort to protect our transportation “grid” from vulnerabilities to petroleum’s monopoly.

While our electricity generation is becoming cleaner and more renewable due to state and federal mandates, switching to electricity for transportation immediately lowers emissions. On the existing US electric grid, half of which is powered by dirty coal, an electric car already is less polluting and emits fewer greenhouse gases than the average gasoline car. In the worst cases, like some nearly 100 percent-coal-powered states, the emissions profiles may be a wash. In others, like California and Texas, which use a preponderance of natural gas, it’s truly a slam dunk for electric transportation. Given our commitment to ever more solar, wind, and other renewables, electric transportation will only get cleaner.

Only with an electric car could you aspire not only to zero-emission driving, but to making your own zero-emission electricity to feed it. Putting solar PV panels on one’s roof is not rocket science, nor out of reach for millions of homeowners. With renewable power and plug-in cars, we can begin to get control over our energy destiny.

A central goal of the twenty-first century must be to bring the revolution of electrification to transportation – and that will include both mass transit and personal vehicles.