PROJECT EASY GREEN

The White House sometimes gets what it wants.

President Obama and leaders from major automakers today heralded an agreement to raise the average fuel economy for light trucks and cars to 54.5 miles per gallon. Right now, the fleet average mileage for new cars coming off the line is 28.3 MPG and will have to jump to 34.1 MPG by 2016. (See our article yesterday on ten technologies that might help car makers get there.) The new mandate means:

–$1.7 trillion. That's the estimated amount of money that Americans will save from 2011 through 2025 on gas because of the new rules, the White House estimates. Put another way, you'll save $8,000 over the life of your car on fuel costs.

–12 billion. The total number of barrels of oil we won't consume.

–2.2 million per day. The total number of barrels of oil a day we won't consume in 2025. The U.S. now consumes around 21 million barrels a day so this would represent a 10.5 percent reduction from today's figures. The White House states that 2.2 million barrels of oil a day constitutes around half of the oil we get from OPEC on a daily basis.

–28.3 MPG. The current average mileage for cars coming off the line, according to the Washington Post.

–163 grams. The number of grams of carbon dioxide per mile a 54.5-MPG car will generate. The new standards will reduce greenhouse gases by 6 billion metric tons cumulatively.

–5 percent and 3.5 percent. Cars will need to increase mileage by 5 percent per year. Light trucks will face a 3.5 percent improvement standard from 2017 through 2021. It will then bump up to five percent.

–10 percent. Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn recently said electrics will constitute 10 percent of industry shipments by 2020 — 85 million cars will be sold and 8.5 million will be electric, he said.

–457 miles. The number of miles an electric car can go on the power from the electricity produced by burning 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas at a power plant, according to MIT. A car running on compressed natural gas can only go 224 miles. Thus, expect to see more electrics than CNG cars. Tesla founders Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard wrote a great piece in 2006 on the general efficiency of cars. Electrics win out.

–$100. The amount of money Aptera CEO Paul Wilbur will give you if you can dent or scratch the body on their three-wheeled car. The body is made from a honeycombed material that is six times stronger than steel but far lighter to improve mileage and range. (Why they are trying to sell cars instead of materials is beyond me.) Materials like this will start to become common. Weight is the third fuel.

–$258. That is the amount of money that you will save–repeat SAVE—under these regulations. The math works like this: The Center for Automotive Research issued a recent report on the prospective impact of new fuel economy rules on the retail price of cars. The report includes a net-net cost to consumes in Figure 13. (it's on page 39. Here's the report.)

Hitting a 44.8 MPG standard (56 MPG CAFE, or close to what the White House has come up with) will add $6,714 to the retail price of a car. CAR then adds $1,500 for safety requirements, but the report states that most of the costs will revolve around drive-by-wire features that do not deal directly with fuel economy.

It then subtracts the cost of gas and adds the cost of electricity. At $3.50 a gallon, the new standards add $2,858 to the cost of owning a car (That's CAR's $4,358 net net cost minus the $1,500). Gas, of course, is already over $3.50.

Under a scenario for $6.00 a gallon gas, the price drops by $258. That's $1,242 minus the $1,500 safety costs.

Hence, you save money. The figures include gas and electic cars. If you just want to know about gas cars, you can go to scenario one. You will save $2,106 with $6 gas.

We don't know if gas will go to $6, but it's probably more likely by 2025 than $3.50.

What sound should an electric car make?

Safety advocates have long warned that the relative silence of electric cars make them a safety hazard. Pedestrians, particularly kids, won't hear them and thus increase the likelihood of accidents. Silence, however, is also one of the great attributes of electric cars. You glide down the road without having to listen to all that thumping and whining coming from the engine.

Ford Motor, which soon will deliver the all-electric 2012 Ford Focus, is currently testing out four sounds. Here's a link.  Option A is my personal favorite. It has an ominous tone in the beginning with a bell-like undertone. It almost sounds like the sounds behind the old THX ad in action movies. "In a world…" you half expect the car to announce.

Option B sounds like a piece of paper stuck in an air duct. Option C is a bit too jet engine-y. In any event, have a listen yourself.

Elsewhere:

–A123 Systems, the lithium ion battery maker that consistently loses money, has signed another deal for grid storage. Dongfang Electric, China's third largest wind turbine manufacturer, will install 500 kilowatts worth of batteries at its facility in Hangzhou City to demonstrate the power of grid storage. Wind turbines and farms in particular need grid storage because of the intermittent nature of wind. Batteries can help stabilize power deliver. And, as competitor Xtreme Power has noted, utilities will also pay wind farm developers for access to their batteries for the own management requirements. Thus, batteries can become profit centers on their own.

500 kilowatts is a large, but not a huge, order for A123. The company is also the battery/technology provider for a 32 megawatt project for Southern California Edison, a 20 megawatt project for AES in upstate N.Y., and a 20 megawatt project in Chile. By the end of the year, it will have 100 megawatts worth of projects worldwide.

Storage will also help solar and wind counter the "cost" argument. Wind farms cost around $2,000 per kilowatt and have a 30 percent capacity factor. A123 told us in November that it's battery packs cost around $1,000 per kilowatt. Thus, you could build a virtual full-capacity wind farm with some storage for $7,000 a kilowatt (3 x 2,000 plus 1,000.) Nuclear plants cost $7,000 per kilowatt, if you average the wide array of estimates out there, and take far longer to build. Solar is approaching $3,000 per kilowatt and solar farms can provide power at a more consistent manner than wind.

Like in solar panels, A123 has discovered that a huge part of these storage systems–around 30 percent–derives from the so-called balance of system costs. The company, naturally, wants to decrease this.

–Coulomb Technologies has won the contract to supply EV charging stations to Walgreen's. Retailers have been staking a claim to electric car charging for the past few years Costco already has free charging in many locations. The idea is to give away a little power and win someone's loyalty for life. Walgreens will install chargers at 800 stores, so it's a big deal for Coulomb, one of many companies trying to sell almost virtually identical chargers to store owners. (Call it Chargemaggedon.)

Expect to see more announcements on EV charging from parking companies like Ampco. Every time I attend an EV conference I run into parking guys.

Walgreens will also try to get around the time problem by installing DC chargers at a few select locations. DC chargers, while expensive, can charge a car in a few minutes. A regular charger can take hours and not many people spend that much time at Walgreens. Even the ones that still serve tubular ice cream.

–Speaking of electric cars and A123, Ray Lane, the former Oracle oracle now working at Kleiner Perkins, will show off his Fisker Karrma later today in Silicon Valley. The thrice-delayed plug-in luxury hybrid is finally coming to market. It runs on A123 batteries.

–Jerry Cutini will take over for Oliver Janssen as CEO of eIQ, a maker of DC optimizers for solar panels. Solar electronics is a crowded field, but a promising one. No one knows yet which formula–microinverters, AC modules, DC optimizers–will win although anything microinverter seems to currently have an edge.

–General Electric has bought Lightech, wihch makes controllers for LED bulbs. Although GE has been making light bulbs since Thomas Edison showed off the first incandescent in 1879, it's LEDs are collaborative efforts. GE relies on acquisitions and outside technologies for its bulbs.The LEDs inside of its bulbs come from Cree. It recently invested in Nuventix, which makes components that cool LED bulbs. There's nothing wrong with this approach: it's just historically amusing.

Diesel. Strangely enough, it means clean.

General Motors today formally announced it will come out with a version of the gas-sipping Chevy Cruze with a diesel engine in 2013. Modern diesels can get 20 percent to 40 percent better gas mileage than their gas counterparts. The current "eco" version of the Cruze gets 28 miles per gallon on the street and 42 mpg on the freeway, while the more standard version clocks in at 26/36 mpg. At the high end of things, this would give a diesel Cruze a mileage of 50 to 58 mpg on the highway and 35 mpg in the city.

Such a car would best the Toyota Prius (50 mpg) in mileage, although it would not top the coming plug-in Prius. But, unlike a hybrid, a diesel car would likely have pretty tremendous acceleration. Diesels can also go 600 miles on a single tank, much farther than plug-in hybrids or electrics. (That's a generic shot of the Cruze above.)

Who knows? The Cruze could even encourage Ford to bring the touted, high-mileage diesel Focus made for the European market to the U.S. Volvo also has a hybrid diesel on the way.

Diesel is enjoying a second life in the U.S. Although a mainstay in trucking and trains, diesel cars faded out in the U.S. because of emissions issues. Although they get better mileage, diesel engines in general emit more particulate matter — NOx and SOx — than gas cars. Improvements in the technology and a proliferation of diesel pumps, however, has helped boost their popularity.

Volkswagen sold out of Audi and Volks diesels in 2009 and saw a similar surge in 2010.

“Seven years ago, diesel was a no-go in the U.S,” Peter Schwarzenbauer, a member of Audi's board, told Greentech Media last year. “But now there seems to be a trend that American consumers will embrace" diesel.

JD Power and Associates estimates that diesel cars will triple their market share, surging to about 10 percent of the market by 2015.

Several companies such as Solazyme also hope to increase the flow of biodiesel to fuel pumps, further cleaning diesels.

Further out, expect to see trucks and/or cars powered by opposed piston diesel engines from the likes of Achates Power and EcoMotors. Achates Power says its two-stroke opposed piston diesel engine can increase fuel efficiency by another 10 percent to 15 percent.

The company that helped bring the lithium-ion battery to life is spreading its wings.

Sony said this month that it will produce lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and start selling them by the middle of the decade.

"Sony's batteries have an advantage of long life, and they do not have to be frequently replaced," the company said, according to Nikkei Electronics. "Therefore, they are suited for EVs. We want to enter the market by the mid-2010s."

Sony has already made a prototype and is now in negotiations with several automakers in and outside Japan. It aims to sell Li-ion batteries for use not only in EVs but also in hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Rival Panasonic already produces batteries for Tesla Motors and Toyota.

The Japanese giant may be having trouble in its consumer division, but like Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic and other conglomerates, the company still wields impressive hardware engineering divisions.

Sony rolled out the lithium-ion battery for notebooks and consumer electronics back in the early '90s. Technically, it wasn't the first lithium-ion battery, but it was the first commercial success and it set the standards for what followed. ExxonMobil actually produced the first lithium battery way back in 1977. Exxon's battery relied on a different chemistry, but the oil giant lost interest in the project after oil prices plunged in the early '80s.

Last year, Sony showed us the lithium phosphate battery packs it produces for grid storage at Ceatec, a large tech trade show outside of Tokyo. (See picture.) Lithium phosphates don't have the same energy density as lithium cobalt batteries, but are generally safer and last longer. Conventional lithium batteries might only endure 500 charge cycles. The lithium phosphates can endure 3,000 to 4,000 cycles, according to Masayuki Yasuda, senior general manager of the new business division at Sony Energy Devices. The battery pack was one of the finalists for a smart grid award at Ceatec. (Disclosure: I headed the award committee.)

“That’s maybe ten years,” he said. “They are improving in energy density but the important part is safety and longer cycle life.”

Some companies are producing lithium phosphates for the car market so these two applications might be based around similar cells.

All of the major Japanese manufacturers have EV plans. Nissan has been selling Leafs for close to nine months now. Mitsubishi brought out an all-electric in 2009 in Japan and will introduce a version for the U.S. in a few months that will sell for $28,000. I drove it in Japan last year. Mitsubishi's i looks a bit odd from the outside, but it drives quite well. Expect a price war in the near future.

SAN CARLOS, CALIF. — Most internal combustion engines operate like trumpets, with punctuating valves controlling the flow of air, fuel and exhaust in and out of the cylinder.

Pinnacle Engines has come up with an engine that operates more like a trombone.

The company, founded in 2007, has developed a somewhat novel opposed piston engine that controls the flow of gases with a sliding cylinder sleeve — typically an inert component that separates the cylinder from the rest of the engine — instead of traditional intake valves.

The cumulative architectural changes allow Pinnacle’s engine to improve fuel economy by 25 percent to 50 percent, the company claims.

An Asian manufacturer has already agreed to adopt it — assuming development continues as planned — for two- and three-wheeled vehicles, said CEO Ron Hoge.

“We should be in production with our first engines in 2013,” he said.

The engine will cost more initially than other engines, but the premium can be made up in fuel economy, he added. With Pinnacle’s engine, three-wheelers, a common mode of transportation in India, can go 45 kilometers on a liter of gas instead of the usual 36 kilometers.

Put another way, a car with a six-piston Pinnacle engine can get the same mileage, but sport better performance, than a car with a standard four-piston engine.  

Although electric cars tend to grab most of the headlines, established companies and a select group of startups like Achates Power and EcoMotors are tinkering with ways to improve the efficiency of internal combustion engines. Electric car advocates like Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn and Elon Musk of Tesla Motors predict that electrics might constitute 10 percent to 13 percent of the car market by 2020. Thus, 87 percent of the market will need technology to meet the more stringent mileage standards in place in the EU, the U.S., China and other nations.

The big question is whether and how these startups will fare. Large auto companies historically have been reluctant to license outside technology, particularly from young companies. Only a few companies ever adopted the Wankel engine. Scuderi Engines has spent years on its engine but has yet to graduate beyond simulations.

Many others have extensive programs underway, as well. Ford, for instance, is concentrating most of its fuel economy efforts on its EcoBoost engine, a diesel-like gas engine that can boost fuel economy by 10 percent to 15 percent.

Gains in fuel economy can also be achieved through things like air conditioners powered by engine waste heat or microhybrid battery packs.

Hoge, though, points out that transportation will grow more rapidly in emerging economies like China and India and many of these new car companies don’t have decades of engine R&D or worldwide teams of engineering.

And, despite the fact that emerging nations often don’t have a great reputation when it comes to protecting intellectual property, Asia has become a destination for intellectual property startups. Most of the customers of Innovalight, which makes an ink to enhance solar panels, hail from China.

Pinnacle's engine, invented by Monte Cleeves, shares similarities with the engines from Achates Power and EcoMotors. All three are based around an opposed piston design. In most engines, a cylinder contains a single piston. In these engines, two pistons face each other from opposite ends of the same cylinder. The change effectively gives these engines a dynamic, more efficient compression chamber for burning fuel. Think about how it is easier to squeeze a rubber ball with your two hands instead of pressing it with one hand onto a flat, immobile table.

“Your combustion chamber is two working surfaces,” explained Achates CEO David Johnson earlier this year.

Combining two pistons into one cylinder also reduces the number of parts, leading to lower costs and, ideally, lower maintenance requirements. (Subaru and Porsche have boxer engines, which sport pistons positioned opposite from each other, but the pistons sit in their own cylinders.)

All three have a heritage that goes back to World War II. Junkers, the plane manufacturer of the Third Reich, developed opposed piston diesel engines for planes. The British used sliding sleeve engines in the Bristol and other planes.

The engines from Achates and EcoMotors, however, run on diesel. Pinnacle’s engine runs on regular gas, which is easier to find and doesn’t have the same baggage when it comes to particulate matter. It can also run on compressed natural gas or ethanol.

The Pinnacle engine is also a four-stroke engine (i.e., there are four separate segments to the compression cycle). The company calls it the “Cleeves Cycle.” Achates has a two-stroke cycle.

The sliding sleeve is also unique. With a sleeve, the port for letting in air and fuel or letting out exhaust can be as big as the entire circumference of the cylinder. It’s a void that is open and shut by sleeve. Traditional valves have smaller circumferences. Greater potential intake leads to performance gains.

Pinnacle’s biggest challenge in development has revolved around figuring out a way to keep the sleeve lubricated while simultaneously keeping oil out of the cylinder.

Right now, the company only has prototypes. (See video. That's Cleeves, by the way.) A pre-production version of the engine is due in around six months.

While Pinnacle will produce engines, it will also explore licensing and joint ventures. With the first customer, you won’t see the Pinnacle name on it. Instead, the engine will bear the name of the vehicle manufacturer, but it will be touted as the Cleeves Cycle engine.

NEA, Bessemer Ventures and Infield Capital put $13.5 million into the company in March.

Think has run out of money.

Again.

But this time it might be for good.

The Norwegian company, which has created a two-seater electric car, has filed for bankruptcy in Norway. Ener1, the battery maker that invested in Think, presaged the filing when it said in its own SEC filing earlier this week that Think was liquidating because it could not find adequate capital to continue operations. Ener1 will take a $35.4 million charge on its investment in Think and said it didn't expect much from the liquidation.

Think's bankruptcy highlights once again the challenges facing startups trying to break into the automotive market. The business requires massive amounts of capital, but companies also have to budget ample time for safety and reliability testing. Establishing a dealer channel can take years as well. Aptera, VentureOne (a three-wheeled vehicle) and Venture Vehicles have all stumbled in their efforts to bring a car to market, while Coda Automotive and Fisker Automotive, though on track to actually bring cars to market, have faced delays. Meanwhile, Nissan has come out with an all-electric for $32,000 and Mitsubishi will have one hitting the streets in a few months for $28,000.

Tesla Motors in many ways has been the exception instead of the rule. In the future, expect companies to concentrate on components and technology licensing for cars and trucks instead of full-fledged vehicles.

Think's City car dates back to an electric car project started by Ford in the '90s. Ford lost interest and ultimately sold the concept to the people behind Think. While the Ford heritage gave the company a technological foundation, Think still faced delays and high costs. Back in 2008, the Think City debuted in Europe after delays for around $40,000, a price that's quite high for a two-seater economy car. Only a few dealerships carried it.

The company soon after had to halt production because it ran out of money and almost went under. A group of investors, including Ener1, gave the company a new lease on life. A waiting list of potential customers began to form.

In late 2010, it formally announced its plans to come to the U.S. The new sales price was $34,000. Think also made the car zippier by taking the governor off of the pedal to give it better acceleration. It actually didn't drive badly. See video:

The slowest, and arguably the most sensible, electric vehicle got a huge endorsement today.

Proterra, which makes electric municipal buses and a complementary fast-charging system, raised $30 million from GM Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and others.

The company's EcoRide BE35 buses began to ply the streets of Pomona, California for Foothill Transit last year and will soon be rolling out in San Antonio and Tallahassee. Sources close to the company have also said it has been in contact with municipalities overseas.

Why electrify buses? Predictability. Buses are the mules of the road, driving fixed routes at moderate speeds. The Foothill Transit route that the EcoRides travels is eight miles long and the buses generally lumber along at an average speed of around 12 miles an hour. As a result, Foothill only needs two chargers, which hang on poles similar to telephone poles, to make sure the buses can complete their routes. The bus drives under the charger. They make contact and after a few minutes the bus drives on. Limited range means limited range anxiety.

The minimal number of charging points will in turn give Proterra the economic wiggle room to come to market with rapid, high-speed charging. Most electric car companies and car-charging outfits will start with standard chargers, which can take hours to fully charge a vehicle. A Proterra bus can be completely charged in ten minutes or less.

"It is a well-matched situation," CEO Jeff Granato told us last year. "We know exactly how far it is going. You can predict how much range a vehicle will need."

The relatively short distances the bus drives, combined with the high-speed charging capabilities, also let the company minimize the size of the battery pack. Proterra's buses have battery packs in the 72-kilowatt-hour to 54-kilowatt-hour range. The Tesla Roadster has a 53 kilowatt-hour pack. So this concept revolves around a small battery and little infrastructure.

Are there problems to be solved? Yes. The three buses and two chargers Foothill bought cost $5.6 million. Prices, ideally, will come down with volume manufacturing. Municipalities and the occasional large fleet owners constitute the buying public. 

Regulations will help too. By 2012, 15 percent of the buses purchased by municipal agencies in California will have to be zero-emissions vehicles. Some of the large mega-cities of Asia have passed diesel regulations, as well. Proterra's bus gets the energy equivalent of 24 gallons an hour, it claims. A diesel city bus gets 4 miles per gallon or less.

We took a test drive in San Jose back in 2009 with a Proterra prototype. It was smooth, quiet, and had a lot of room for ads from the University of Phoenix. In short, just like a regular bus but no fumes or noise.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — New owners are generally enthusiastic about their all-electric Nissan Leafs.

They are also finding themselves stuck on the side of the road occasionally when the battery runs out.

Three different participants at Charged 2011, a two-day symposium on electric transportation sponsored by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group taking place this week at SAP’s offices in Palo Alto, shared stories about how their Leafs ran out of power at inconvenient times.

While the speakers weren’t anti-EV, the first-hand anecdotes underscored the need for public charging networks and stations, the need for new EV owners to think about their routes and energy consumption, and the need for EV manufacturers to beef up their technology.

Ironically, two of the drivers got stranded leaving the conference.

John Boesel from CalStart, a clean transportation advocacy group, drove his Leaf 65 miles from his home in Marin to Palo Alto on Thursday. The Leaf had only been charged to about 85 percent when he left, but because the Leaf only has an 80- to 100-mile range, the need to charge in Palo Alto was unavoidable.

None of the parking lot chargers were available at SAP, so he went to Better Place around the corner. He plugged in at noon, but had to stay until around 7:30.

Boesel declined to bring his Leaf to the conference on the second day.

In a similar situation, Rami Branitzky, managing director of SAP Labs, left SAP after 10:00 pm on Thursday. Around 10:30 p.m, the indicator light that warns of a low charge in his Leaf began to blink. He called a friend in Los Gatos, parked the car at his friend’s house, and got back home with an old-fashioned gas car.

He’s going back today to get the stranded Leaf.

Branitzky said the Leaf is a “fantastic” car, but adds that it comes with the "mother of all range anxieties.”

Dhaval Brahmbhatt, CEO of PHY Chip, a startup producing electronics for charging networks, had his Leaf conk out at night a few weeks back. During a rainstorm. At night. In a somewhat dicey section of Oakland. He had to get towed.

“My wife said, ‘Give it back,’” he told me.

The Leaf, Brahmbhatt added, has a maximum range of about 96 miles — if one drives it extremely cautiously and conservatively. Realistically, the range is more like 80, he said. But, because dealers recommend not fully depleting the battery, the range might even be closer to 60 miles, he argued.

(Side note: this discussion wasn’t part of the agenda. Their comments came during a Q&A session during a panel I was moderating. None of the speakers were panelists.)

Are there solutions? Sure. EVs could come with larger batteries and more powerful chargers. Coda Automotive, for instance, will insert a 36-kilowatt-hour battery in its sedan toward the end of this year and a 6.6-kilovolt charger, said Aaron Cohen, director of marketing strategy at the company.  A 6.6-kilovolt charger allows for faster charging. Ford also put a 6.6-kilovolt charger in its all-electric Focus.

The Leaf has a 24-kilowatt-hour battery and a 3.3-kilovolt charger. Boesel said he has heard that Nissan may insert a 6.6-kilovolt charger in the 2013 Leaf.

Plug-in hybrids also help ameliorate range anxiety. CalStart has a Volt, says Boesel. The organization recently drove it from the Bay Area to Pasadena just north of Los Angeles. It averaged 42 miles a gallon.

The Volt, he added, mostly gets used as an electric car. A total of 750 miles of the first 1,000 miles that CalStart’s Volt has traveled have been in the pure electric mode. (The Volt has two modes: it drives on electricity for the first 40 miles of driving. After that, a gas engine/generator kicks in to recharge the batteries.)

Felix Kramer, who runs CalCars, owns both a Leaf and a Volt. He likes both, but admits the Volt is the one that is more useful as an all-around vehicle. (See his review here: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-leaf-or-the-volt-which-is-better/.)

Another option: battery swapping. Although the idea remains controversial with many, battery swapping allows drivers to get back on the road. Jason Wolf, vice president for North America at Better Place, said more car manufacturers are now studying producing cars with swappable batteries.

 Renault will produce cars for Better Place’s EV networks in Denmark and Israel. (These networks will go live in 2012.) Better Place has also begun to work with Chery for EVs with swappable batteries in China. But other manufacturers will surely follow.

“All of the OEMs are starting to look at it,” said Wolf.

And of course, having access to greater numbers of higher-powered charging stations would help as well. 

Other notes out of the conference: Mitsubishi has lowered the price of the i, the all-electric coming to the U.S. toward the end of the year, to $28,000, according to a Mitsubishi exec. Earlier, the estimated price was $30,000.