CHARGED Electric Vehicles Magazine JAN/FEB 2012 Preview

ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE CHARGEDEVS.COM JAN/FEB 2012

THE

TESLA

EFFECT

THE SILICON VALLEY START-UP THAT SPARKED A REVOLUTION P. 42

MY VERY OWN ELECTRIC CAR P. 10

TRADING OIL FOR LITHIUM P. 80

JAN/FEB 2012

A

INDUSTRY P. 14

SIDNEY GOODMAN OF BETTER PLACE P. 54

Breakthrough Innovations for Affordable Electromobility Widespread deployment of electric vehicles depends on an intelligent power supply infrastructure, coupled with advanced electronics to create affordable and dependable electric vehicles.

With more than 40 years of innovation experience in automotive and power electronics, Infineon is applying its industry-leading expertise to the evolution of hybrid and electric vehicles. In addition to increasing overall system efficiency, our intelligent power semiconductors and modules, microcontrollers and sensors make a significant contribution to cost efficiency in both fuel burning and electric drivetrain systems. For example, our active battery-balancing solution extends the capacity, range and life of EV/HEV batteries more than 10%.

Semiconductor solutions also play a key role in the intelligent power supply chain needed for tomorrow’s smart grid infrastructure. Infineon’s technology leadership is the starting point for breakthrough innovations driving the emergence of affordable, market-viable electromobility.

[ www.infineon.com/electromobility ]

CONTENTS 42

THE TESLA EFFECT

42 A

14

14

INDUSTRY

INCREASING CAPACITY

Up and down the EV supply chain, resources are pouring in.

20 BROWN LEANS GREEN

UPS orders 100 electric delivery vans.

EARLY ADOPTERS

10

MY VERY OWN ELECTRIC CAR

By Michael Walsh

10

Owning a Nissan LEAF, five months in.

22 MEET THE SAXTONS

Driving electric since 2008.

By Tom Saxton

64 WHY I BOUGHT A VOLT

By Eric Cote

REVIEWS

60 BOTTLED LIGHTNING

60

A book review by Christopher Ward

CONTENTS 32 6 WAYS TO DRIVE ELECTRIC TODAY

32

A NEW WORLD

54 Q&A

54

Sidney Goodman of Better Place.

By Robert Gluck

80 SWAPPING ADDICTIONS

Are we trading oil for lithium?

By Steven M. Shaker

NEWSWORTHY

80

8 NEW FUEL ECONOMY LABELS 30 BETTER BATTERIES FASTER 78

30

CONVERSIONS

70

THE eDART

By Gavin Bogle

76

TAX CREDIT BLUES?

By Ryan Moore

70

AAA MOBILE CHARGING

My electric 1974 Dodge Dart.

Filing the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit.

Publisher’s Note More than anything else, Charged is about progress. Moving forward as a technologically advanced society.

Electric vehicles are not a fantasy dreamed up by hippies. They are real, highly capable machines with a dozen advantages over internal combustion engines — power, efficiency, cost per mile, diversity of sourced energy, simplicity of design and (of course) cleanliness, to name a few.

And their shortcomings are not insurmountable.

In the past decade, great leaps and investments have been made in battery technology and manufacturing techniques. All signs point towards continued advances. In the ten years in front of us prices will continue to drop, the weight of batteries will diminish as their capacity increases and the speed at which vehicles recharge will trend towards irrelevancy.

Those are the predictable variables. Notwithstanding unforeseen breakthroughs, we're on course to put a lot of affordable, quality battery powered vehicles on the road. It's a future clear to anyone who looks closely.

Christian Ruoff Publisher Laurel Zimmer Associate Publisher Charlie Morris Senior Editor John Eric Vona Associate Editor Matthew Scaccia Copy Editor Nick Sirotich Illustrator & Designer Raji Purcell Designer Arielle Katarina Chorman Illustrator

I founded Charged after a relatively brief career in high power electronics engineering. A bit of a media junkie, I grew tired of EVs being covered in the same breath as futuristic Utopian answers to our energy problems. Many "clean/green" technologies do not make sense on a large scale, and their path to global adoption is uncertain. Not the case with electric vehicles.

Nate Greco Contributing Artist

Charged is here to follow the inevitable rise of EVs into primetime, like the viable solutions that they are. Serving up starry-eyed environmentalist optimism is not our goal, but rather engineering and building better machines and encouraging you to ask yourself "Why hasn't this happened yet?"

Contributors Michael Walsh Tom Saxton Eric Cote Gavin Bogle Ryan Moore Christopher Ward Steven M. Shaker Robert Gluck Max Grater Eric Sullivan

EVs are here. Try to keep up.

Christian Ruoff Publisher

CHARGED ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BI-MONTHLY BY ISENTROPIC MEDIA. COPYRIGHT © 2012 BY ISENTROPIC MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTING IN WHOLE OR PART IS FORBIDDEN EXPECT BY PERMISSION OF ISENTROPIC MEDIA. MAILING LIST: WE MAKE A PORTION OF OUR MAILING LIST AVAILABLE TO REPUTABLE FIRMS. IF YOU PREFER THAT WE DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME, PLEASE WRITE US AT CHARGED - ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE, ATTN: PRIVACY DEPARTMENT, PO BOX 13074, SAINT PETERSBURG, FL 33733. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO CHARGED - ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE, ATTN: SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES, PO BOX 13074, SAINT PETERSBURG, FL 33733. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $29.95 FOR 1 YEAR (6 ISSUES). PLEASE ADD $10.00 FOR CANADIAN ADDRESSES AND $36.00 FOR ALL OTHER INTERNATIONAL ADDRESSES. ADVERTISING: TO INQUIRE ABOUT ADVERTISING AND SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES PLEASE CONTACT US AT +1-727-258-7867. PRINTED IN THE USA.

Photographers Kevin Jones Rune Luk Cathy Saxton

Special Thanks to Kelly Ruoff Sebestien Bourgeois

Sponsored Events February 6 - 10, 2012

Orlando, Florida

February 21 – 23, 2012

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TAMPA • FLORI DA

Advance Automotive Battery Conference

March 4 - 8, 2012 Greenville, South Carolina

IEEE International EV Conference April 18 - 19, 2012

San Diego, California

PEV Infrastructure USA 2012

July 23 - 26, 2012

San Antonio, Texas

Plug-In 2012

EV Expo 2012

March 27 - 28, 2012

San Jose, California

Electric Vechiles Land Sea Air

May 6 - 9, 2012

Los Angeles, California

Electric Vehicle Symposium 26

October 23 -26, 2012 Montréal ,QC, Canada

EV 2012 VÉ

For more information on industry events visit ChargedEVs.com/Industry

JAN/FEB 2012

7

NEWSWORTHY

Fuel Economy Labels Get A Makeover

BY MAX GRATER

MILES PER GAL Until the end of 2012 the stickers you see on showroom cars will be the standard fare - with info including the car’s fuel economy, miles per gallon city and highway, and an overall estimate of the vehicle’s annual fuel costs.

Starting in 2013 dealerships will display new fuel economy labels designed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of Transportation (DOT).

The new labels have been specifically formulated for the incoming wave of

8 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

electric powered rides. With every major car manufacturer having an electric and/ or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in the works, they’re right on time.

The newly released fuel economy labels will help the average consumer decipher how the standard MPG and other ratings pertain to EVs and PHEVs. Miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) has been introduced in an effort to compare the efficiency of vehicles using different energy sources. For cars that don’t use liquid fuel the DOE says MPGe represents

“the number of miles the vehicle can go using a quantity of fuel with the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline.”

On the pure EV label (above left) the MPGe is prominently displayed as the largest number and represents a combined city and highway figure.

Also included is the kilowatt hours per 100 miles. A more relevant term when discussing the efficiency of EVs, but for those shoppers who forgot their calculators MPGe sums it nicely. Below the fuel economy is the driving range when the bat-

LON OF WHAT? teries are fully charged, and the time needed to recharge them from empty.

The PHEV label (above right) is similar to the new EV labels, but because PHEVs have two modes of operation, you’ll find both MPGe and MPG. The MPG rating represents when the batteries are discharged and the vehicle uses gasoline.

The electric driving range is displayed as well as the distance you can travel with the use of the range extender.

On both labels you’ll find the estimated annual fuel cost, and the potential

savings over a 5 year period when compared to the average new vehicle.

Smog and greenhouse gas emission ratings are given from 1 to 10, so at a quick glance you have an idea of just how ‘green’ you will be behind the wheel of the new vehicle. This figure does not include the pollution from the power plant that delivers the electricity to your outlet - only that which is output from the car’s tailpipe, or lack thereof.

Yes, of course, there is an app for that. Scan the smartphone QR Code® and you can store the vehicle’s info

and compare stats on the spot. It also lets you input your zip code for more accurate information based on factors specific to your area.

All in all the EPA, DOE, and DOT have done a decent job providing the tools and data for making the comparison between EVs, PHEVs, and traditional vehicles - where otherwise a good bit of math would be involved.

VISIT FUELECONOMY.GOV FOR MORE DETAILS JAN/FEB 2012

9

MY VERY OWN ELECTRIC CAR

BY MICHAEL WALSH

I

So what has the last five months driving the Nissan LEAF been like?

guess you’d have to say the LEAF has been remarkable in that it’s been so normal. Whether by design or by accident, the driving experience isn’t massively different from that of driving any other car, beyond being smoother and quieter.

And I think Nissan has been pretty smart in this, because they could just as easily gone the route of a really unusual looking vehicle with some significant driving quirks.

Although, just sometimes, I wish it was more recognizable as something revolutionary – I’m afraid it’s a bit anonymous to anyone not already in the know. But at the end of the day, I suppose, a vehicle appealing to the widest possible audience from the get-go makes complete sense.

That doesn’t mean the car didn’t come with some compromises. The steering, for example, which they appear to have set up to favor Japanese tastes, comes off as being too light (vague even) for those of us used to vehicles more European in

10 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

Michael Walsh is IT Manager for a small aerospace company in the Los Angeles area. But he's long held a passion for environmental issues, with a particular interest in the electrification of transportation systems and the derivation of energy from renewable sources. His desire to share the experience of owning a Nissan LEAF extends to writing and blogging; personal appearances with his car at "green" events; and participation in his local chapter of the LEAF owners' club.

their feel. And regeneration while braking is very light by default too, which I always knew would be a huge bug-bear for a die-hard EV crowd used to a heavy dollop of regeneration with their deceleration.

The other niggles I have personally are very small - I could do with a more accurate state-of-charge meter; the visors are too short to be useful when against the door

windows; most of the door and window controls lack nighttime illumination; there are some proneto-scratching plastic interior surfaces that I’m trying my best to avoid contact with; the horn is too wimpy to keep stray vehicles from getting in my path; and the Nissan “Carwings” software has this annoying “accept” button you must push every time you use the car.

Photo Courtesy of Michael Walsh

But I’ve always felt that I’d give Nissan a bit of a pass on all that stuff. In fact, before I got it, I did say that all the car really had to be for me was a “commuting appliance.”

That it turned out to be so much more is very much appreciated, particularly as I went with the decision to buy rather than lease. After all, how many other mass-market, affordable, fully electric vehicles

were going to be available this year?

That’s right….it’s a pretty short list!

And that’s kind of how Nissan got my business – I always said that I would buy the first EV from a major manufacturer that I could both own and afford, and it turned out to be the LEAF by default.

And it’s not like it’s not a spectacular vehicle overall. It’s smooth and quiet, as previously noted, with

performance equal to a car with a V6 engine. And it’s well planted and stable too, thanks to the low-slung battery pack. The driving systems on my car have worked flawlessly for the 5,000 miles I’ve managed to cover since January, though other new owners have reported issues that have needed rectifying already.

But I suppose that’s to be expected with a new vehicle of any type, and JAN/FEB 2012

11

EARLY ADOPTERS

“

especially a first-year model.

One thing I do find myself wanting is a little more range from the battery pack. As my daily commute of 61 miles is 95% highway driving, I’m not getting the “100 miles of range” widely touted by Nissan marketing folks in the early days.

Not that I ever expected to – I already knew from experience that highway speed driving would diminish the battery far more rapidly than puttering around in the city.

But I did go through an initial period of discovery, during which I tried using different permutations of speed and vehicle systems usage to figure out what the best return would be for the energy consumed.

In the end I decided that highway speeds of around 65mph would allow for my round-trip commute

and a bit of errand running, without resorting to any daytime recharging, even when I needed to use the air conditioning this summer. My driving would also be exclusively in the normal mode rather than ECO, which is a mode allowing for lower energy consumption by limiting throttle response and increasing regeneration, but one which makes the car feel more sluggish than I like. However, I do use ECO if I think it absolutely necessary, and I actually misjudged available range on a side-trip from home a few days ago, making the decision to take advantage of it a very wise one. Which I guess goes to show that driving the LEAF is an ongoing learning experience for me.

In case you’re wondering, by the way, I’d say the LEAF is good for

between 80 and 85 miles at highway speeds. That would be with a driver only; without climate control use; and over fairly flat ground.

Though I should also mention that I’ve not yet run the car down to 0% charge. Being seen pushing a fully discharged EV around is hardly an ideal way to promote them!

Another important point to note about both the LEAF and EVs in general – use of the climate control; changes in terrain; the extra weight of a passenger or cargo; even small changes in driving style to the negative….all can have a detrimental effect on the range of your vehicle.

However, I do go against Nissan’s recommendation of only charging to 80% on a nightly basis to meet my work-week driving goals, and

Nissan has delivered a fully electric and well equipped family hatchback, for not a massive amount of money when you consider how technologically advanced it is.

12 CHARGED NOV/DEC 2011

”

instead charge to 100% each time.

So does that mean my battery pack will age prematurely, eventually making the car unsuitable for my daily needs? Well it’s really too early to tell. But what I am rather hoping is that it’ll take at least 5 years to find that out, and by then a replacement pack of the same size, maybe with more density (and therefore more effective range), will be available for only a fraction of what the OEM pack costs today.

Even if it’s not, assuming the pack only degrades by a limited amount, I should still be able to accomplish what I need to do daily with only small inconveniences, like maybe recharging while parked at work during the day or maybe more use of the ECO mode.

In any case, all that is just about

Photo Courtesy of Michael Walsh

the way I drive when I need to get to work and back. When I don’t have far to go, or even when I do have a distance to drive but know that there is going to be a proper charging opportunity at my destination (and by proper I mean 240 volts or better), I’m more inclined to have some fun, and am pleased to report that the LEAF is a more than capable adversary in fast flowing traffic. Which, truth be told, is the way I really prefer to drive it.

So what’s the bottom line? Well, Nissan has delivered a fully electric and well equipped family hatchback, for not a massive amount of money when you consider how technologically advanced it is. It will meet the daily driving needs of most people as it stands right now, and even more when a robust

charging infrastructure is finally in place. Plus it’s fun to own and drive.

Is it perfect? Not completely. Many think that it should have come with 6.6kW charging, which would mean recharging in half the time of the 3.3kW system Nissan eventually chose. And, of course, there are those who feel that the initial range claims were a bit disingenuous, and that Nissan should have built the car good for 100 miles under just about any driving conditions.

All I can say for myself is that I’m thoroughly enjoying my time in the LEAF, and will continue to savor the experience of finally being able to have my very own electric vehicle. It’s been a long time coming for me, but was well worth the wait!

NOV/DEC 2011

13

A

INDUSTRY

Increasing Capacity Up and down the EV supply chain resources are pouring in.

Celgard Renovates to the tune of $334 Million Celgard manufactures a microporous separator used in lithium-ion batteries. These separators play a critical role in the performance and life of lithium-ion batteries by providing a barrier between the positive and negative electrodes – preventing short circuits while controlling the exchange of lithium ions from one side of the battery to the other.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of Polypore International, the company recently announced the fifth phase of its targeted Electric Drive Vehicles expansion initiative — a $105 million addition to its facility in Concord, North Carolina.

Bringing the grand total of allocated expansion funds to approximately $334 million since August 2009.

Robert Toth, Polypore President and CEO, can see the writing on the wall. “We are actively involved in development programs for over 50 vehicles scheduled for launch between now and 2015,” he said, explaining their recently capital expenditures.

“We are experiencing an accelerating demand curve associated with the growth of Electric Drive Vehicles, and the size and scale of our investments are in response to that acceleration. We have been working closely with key customers to evaluate this, as well as the growth rate in consumer electronics applications, and the related impact on our

14 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

capacity. This latest investment is consistent with our commitment to make the necessary investments to capitalize on this growing demand.”

The capacity increase of the Concord, North Carolina facility is scheduled to begin ramping up in late 2012. When the expansion reaches full production levels in 2013, the company will have increased lithium-ion battery separator capacity by more than 200% compared to the run rate experienced during the second half of 2010.

“

We are experiencing an accelerating demand curve associated with the growth of Electric Drive Vehicles, and the size and scale of our investments are in response to that acceleration.

50 200

percent increase in production

Images Courtesy of CELGARD, LLC

vehicles in development

�

JAN/FEB 2012

15

A

Increasing Capacity

I think we are investing the taxpayers’ money wisely.

”

30 110

million dollar new facility

new South Carolina jobs

16 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

KEMET Opens New Capacitor Facility in South Carolina Capacitors are a key component in the electonics that control electric motors. For the high power demands of electric vehicles you need some big ones.

KEMET Corporation — a leading manufacturer of tantalum, ceramic, aluminum, film, paper and electrolytic capacitors — has hopped on the EV wave and opened a new plant to meet the increasing demand for advanced film capacitors. The South Carolina location, operational since December, is dubbed the Simpsonville Power Film Manufacturing Facility.

“The hybrid electric and full electric vehicle market segment is expected to grow at a rate in excess of 19 percent over the next 10 years. With 35 percent of that growth in the U.S., we are in a unique position to provide our customers with the required DC bus capacitors from our new state-of-the-art facility here in Simpsonville,” said Per Loof, KEMET Chief Executive Officer. “Transportation is 16 percent of our total revenue and that will only expand as vehicles become more integrated with electrical technology.

I think we are investing the taxpayers’ money wisely.”

The multimillion dollar project was made possible through a $15.1 million grant under the U.S. Department of Energy Recovery Act, as well as incentives from the state of South Carolina equaling $2.5 million and a $16.5 million investment by KEMET. Of particular significance to the local community is the commitment by KEMET to initially create more than 110 new jobs to staff the plant as it becomes fully operational.

Images Courtesy of KEMET

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INDUSTRY

AZD’s Balance™ Hybrid Electric drivetrain is integrated on Ford’s E-450 chassis.

AZD’s proprietary Force Drive™ System is the high-efficiency, all-electric, zero emission drivetrain powering the Ford Transit Connect Electric.

2012 IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference From Prototype to Mass Production and Mass Use

Date: 4-8 March 2012

Location: TD Conference Center Greenville, SC USA -and-

Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) Greenville, SC USA

Sponsors/Patrons:

For more information and to register, visit: http://electricvehicle.ieee.org

Proud Media Sponsor

The first IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference (IEVC) will facilitate the exchange of information on new global trends in technology, engineering, standards and deployment aspects among academic and industrial thought leaders of the fast-growing electric mobility ecosystem via a unique cross-organizational platform.

Who Will Be There Keynote speakers and panel leaders include executives and leading experts from organizations such as BMW, Bosch, Chrysler, Delphi, Duke Energy, EDTA, GE, FedEx, KEMET, MBTech, SAE, Valeo, Volkswagen…and many others.

Who Should Attend IEVC is an international venue for those with an interest in the transformation of the transportation industry via electrification, including electrical vehicle designers, component and infrastructure system developers, manufacturers, utility experts, corporate executives, technical analysts, researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, legislators, regulators and standardization experts.

A

Increasing Capacity

INDUSTRY

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Images Courtesy of SAFT

Saft Builds Florida Battery Facility, Starts Exporting Multinational battery maker Saft announced the grand opening of their Jacksonville, Florida factory in September 2011, described as “the world’s most advanced automated lithium-ion battery factory.” By December they were exporting the first cells rolling off the production line to European customers.

The $191 million, 235,000-square-foot plant was partly financed by a $95.5 million federal grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) and financial incentives from the state of Florida and the city of Jacksonville of around $20 million.

The DOE estimates that through the funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, factories like these will “help cut battery costs in half by 2013, making electric-drive vehicles much more affordable for Americans.”

Once fully operational, Saft expects to have the capacity to supply batteries for more than 37,000 electric vehicles (370 megawatt hours) a year, while permanently employing nearly 280 people in the Florida factory.

In contrast, Boston-Power (who lost a similar DOE bid for $100 million in Recovery funds to build a plant in Massachusetts) announced it was packing up and moving its manufacturing operations to China, around the same time of Saft’s grand opening in Jacksonville.

Boston-Power will maintain its R&D and sales office Westborough, MA, and expects to produce 400 megawatt hours’ worth of batteries from China by the end of 2012.

Help cut battery costs in half by 2013, making electric-drive vehicles affordable for Americans

370 280

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megawatt Picture n° 0203 hours per year Calender, winder and slitting equipment

new Florida jobs

Grand Opening Sa� Jacksonville September 16th, 2011

Pictur

JAN/FEB 2012

19

BROWN LEANS GREEN

20 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

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INDUSTRY

UPS Orders 100 Electric Trucks Early this year, UPS will begin deployment of the largest electric delivery vehicle fleet in California, and one of the largest in the world. In August 2011, they announced the purchase of 100 class 6 walk-in delivery trucks from Stockton, CA based Electric Vehicles International (EVI).

The companies have been working together for over two years, and successfully completed a 90-day demonstration project to collect data and analyze the vehicles’ return on investment. The repeated and predictable routes of delivery trucks are among the best applications for today’s EVs. The new e-UPS vehicles have a range of approximately 90 miles, and will be placed in service to help clean California air in the South Coast Air Basin, San Joaquin Valley, and Sacramento Valley.

UPS estimates that the use of the 100 truck fleet will displace 126,000 gallons of fuel a year that would have been burned running diesel trucks.

EVI enlisted industry leader UQM Technologies to supply the powertrian components. The truck will feature UQM PowerPhase HD Select 200 systems, designed specifically for use in commercial vehicles, with 200 kW (268 horsepower)/900 N-m (664 ft-lbs) electric motor/generator and controller.

The battery packs are built by EVI’s exclusive supplier, Valence Technology, who announced the $7.2 million purchase order in August 2011.

IMAGES COURTESY OF EVI (TOP), UQM (BOTTOM LEFT), & VALENCE (BOTTOM RIGHT)

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the 100 truck fleet will displace 126,000 gallons of fuel a year

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JAN/FEB 2012

21

EARLY ADOPTERS

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We no longer own a gas car and really can’t imagine ever going back to burning gas.

22 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

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Meet The Driving Electric

Saxtons

I

Photo by Tom & Cathy Saxton

Since 2008

By Tom Saxton

n the late 1990s my wife, Cathy, decided she wanted her next car to be electric.

It wasn't until July of 2008 that she was able to find and buy one, a 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV, one of the few hundred saved from the crusher when California relieved the automakers from the short-lived requirement to produce a small number of zero emissions vehicles. (If you haven't seen the film Who Killed the Electric Car, I highly recommend it.)

At first, it was an experiment to see if we could reduce our environmental footprint by driving some of our miles on clean, locally-produced electricity instead of dirty, imported oil. We really weren't sure it would work out, but knew change could never happen if no one was willing to try it. It did work out beyond our expectations. In 2009, we bought a second electric car, a Tesla Roadster. We no longer own a gas car and really can't imagine ever going back to burning gas.

We've been completely immersed in the electric vehicle community and sometimes I'm surprised when I meet someone who knows nothing about electric cars, or has wild misconceptions about them. Recently, it struck me that it's obvious most people don't understand electric cars: if the advantages of electric cars were widely understood, nearly all of us would be driving them.

Before we bought the RAV4-EV, we'd seen the movies, read the books, and researched the concepts. I'd like to share with you the surprising things we've learned from three years of driving on electricity.

JAN/FEB 2012

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EARLY ADOPTERS

Range Anxiety

Range anxiety is the term often used for the misplaced fear of driving an electric car with a range that's lower than what we're used to from driving gas cars.

Conquering this fear requires a shift in thinking from how many miles you can drive on a tank of gas to how many miles you drive in a day.

Today's electric cars won't work for everyone. Someone that has an exceptionally long commute, say 150 miles per day, isn't going to be happy with an electric car that can only drive 100 miles between charges. That’s not range anxiety, that’s just reality.

Like the Nissan LEAF introduced this year, the Toyota RAV4-EV has a nominal range of about 100 miles. We looked at our driving and knew that we don't drive over 100 miles very often,

so we figured that we could use the RAV4-EV, with its limited range, for maybe half of our driving.

We were totally wrong. It's more like 98% of our driving. Despite doing the math, we were surprised how much 100 miles really is. The only time we needed to drive a gas car was when we needed to be different places at the same time.

Since we both wanted to drive the cool electric car, we instituted a simple rule: whoever needed to drive the farthest got to take the electric car.

Cathy's parents were skeptical about the electric car. They thought we'd end up stranded somewhere with no charge.

Shortly after we got the RAV4EV, the alternator on Cathy's mom's car died, lighting up every error indicator on the dash. She had it towed to the nearest dealer and was stranded there. We were out running errands in the RAV4-EV and were down to 70% charge when she called to ask for a ride. We had plenty of charge to pick her up, drive her home and get home ourselves. The car came through for an unplanned side trip outside of our normal driving routine.

Three weeks into driving electric, and range anxiety was dead.

If you’re considering buying an electric vehicle, I recommend you measure your daily driving. Each morning, either record your odometer reading or zero your trip meter. The next morning, see how far you drove and write it down. Do this until you have a good idea how far you typically drive and

how far you drive on exceptional days.

If you can do your driving on 70% to 80% of a vehicle’s rated range, then that electric vehicle will probably work for you.

Do You Have to Plug It In?

It's hard to appreciate what a nuisance gas stations are until you stop buying gas to fuel your car.

There's the obvious problem that gas prices can fluctuate wildly which poses a real problem when you depend on gasoline to get you to work and run your daily errands. All it takes is a disturbance in some unstable country in the Middle East to threaten the world supply of oil and prices spike, turning a normal weekly expense into a genuine hardship.

The inconvenience of gassing up is harder to notice because it's so normal.

When the tank gets low, you have to make a detour and often end up running late. Working the gas pump leaves your hands smelling like gasoline for hours, something I used to hate doing on the way out to dinner.

Gas stations are outdoors, in the cold and wet. When your favorite station is busy, you end up burning more gas while waiting to creep up in line. If you share a car and the other driver drains the tank getting home instead of stopping to fill up, you get stuck with the chore when you need to drive.

None of this happens when you charge up at home overnight. People new to the concept often give me a concerned look and ask, "do you have to plug it in?" "No," I answer, "I get to plug it in." Instead of fueling at a gas station, sending my dollars overseas, and breathing toxic fumes, I charge at home with about the same effort required to charge my cell phone.

“Three weeks into driving electric, and range anxiety was dead. ” 24 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

The Electric Experience

Photo by Cathy Saxton

Internal combustion engines are amazing machines. Through a complex mechanical apparatus, they turn a rapid sequence of small explosions into circular motion that can be used to power our wheels and push us down the road.

It's great technology, but it has some limits. Typical efficiency is only about 20%, meaning that only 20% of the energy in gasoline is converted into usable mechanical power. Engines only produce high torque (acceleration) in a narrow band of RPMs. We compensate for this by putting tachometers in

“

sports cars so the driver can shift gears to take maximum advantage of engine torque. Automatic transmissions handle this for us, but it makes for a jerky driving experience when accelerating and causes delays in response when pressing the gas pedal to go from steady cruising to accelerating when passing. Gas engines can't produce much torque at low RPMs which is why cars stall.

We all learn how to deal with these limitations when we learn to drive and many take pride in being skilled at driving a manual transmission to get

maximum performance, a particular challenge for those living in cities with lots of steep hills.

Electric motors don't have these same limits. An electric drivetrain can be over 90% efficient. The types of motors used in electric vehicles produce torque over a broad range of RPMs, negating the need for a transmission.

Starting from a stop when pointed up a steep hill is no problem. Accelerating up an onramp is smooth. Response to the accelerator pedal is instant, whether you are taking off from a stop or accelerating from 50 mph to pass.

Response to the accelerator pedal is instant, whether you are taking off from a stop or accelerating from 50 mph to pass.

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EARLY ADOPTERS Imagine parallel parking, facing up a steep hill, and wanting to move a few inches forward to fit in the spot. That can be a challenging task in a gas car, but it's very easy in an electric vehicle.

I'd read about this stuff before we got our RAV4-EV, but I didn't really understand it until I'd been driving electric for a couple of months. Now on those occasions when I drive a gas car, it's startling how awkward it seems. Soon there will be young people learning to drive in electric cars. I suspect those people will look at driving on gasoline the same way we think of horse and buggies: quaint, but not something you'd want to do every day.

Charge Times

The single most frequent question I answer for people is "how long does it take to charge?" The answer to that question is both complex and misleading. Once you really understand how driving electric is different from driving gas, you realize it's not even the right question to ask.

We all understand the process involved with fueling a gas car. It's so simple and common it doesn't even occur to us to consider the thought process that goes into it. In a gas car, you drive until the gas tank is low enough that you feel it's necessary to gas up.

You drive to a gas station and (assuming you can afford it) you fill the tank up to full. No one pops into a gas station with 3/4 of a tank to add a gallon of gas. Going to the gas station is annoying, so no one does it any more than absolutely required.

Driving electric is different. Charging is easy and convenient, mostly done at home, and requires only a few seconds of your time to plug in. You almost never do a full charge from empty to full, you just charge back up to full each night. This might take a few minutes or a few hours, but you don't care because you don't have to stand there

26 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

while it charges.

If someone asks me how long it takes to charge the RAV4-EV and I tell them five hours, it can picture the image going through their head. They imagine me driving to the grocery store, realizing I'm running out of charge, pulling

into a charging station and waiting five hours before I can go buy my gallon of milk.

That's how it works with a gas car, but only because filling up is inconvenient but quick. With an electric car, you start every day with a full charge

Photo by Tom Saxton

never do a full charge from empty to “full,Youyoualmost just charge back up to full each night. ”

JAN/FEB 2012

27

EARLY ADOPTERS so you don't run out of charge on the way to the grocery store. If an electric car won't let you do your typical, and even exceptional, daily driving without waiting for a mid-day charge, then you shouldn't buy that electric car.

Also, you don't have to fill up all the way. If I drive 60 miles to the nearest shopping mall, leaving only 40 miles of range, I don't need to wait to replenish the full 60 miles. I only need to add about 30 miles of charge to get back home with a comfortable buffer.

The RAV4-EV with a 100-mile range takes about five hours to charge from

“

The RAV4-EV charges at a rate of about 20 miles of range per hour of charging from a special 240V charger.

If I drive it 40 miles one day, it will take about two hours to charge back up to full that night. If I drive 60 miles to the mall, I'll need to shop for about an hour and half while the car adds the 30 miles of range I need to get back home. If it's only 40 miles to the mall, I won't have to charge at all.

The Tesla Roadster can charge from a variety of sources, picking up at little as three miles of range per hour of charging from a regular 120V outlet, or as

When we bought the Roadster, we got the super duper home charger that can add 60 miles of range per hour of charging. As it turns out, that's just silly. Instead of charging at 70 amps, we charge at 32 amps. In two years and 17,000 miles of driving, we've never needed to charge at more than 32 amps at home.

The only time the 70A charging has been useful has been when Roadster friends were driving through town and needed to charge to continue their journey. That's when charging quickly matters: when you're driving beyond

With only a few models of electric cars available, not everyone will be able to make the switch to all electric, but millions of households in the US have multiple cars and a garage where they can charge an electric vehicle.

empty to full. Charging from the same source, the Tesla Roadster with an over 200-mile range takes about 10 hours to charge. If we drive each of them 40 miles, they take about the same time to charge. An electric vehicle's charge time doesn't depend on the size of the battery pack, it depends on how much it's been driven since the last charge, how much is needed for the next drive, and how quickly it can take in power.

Charging Speed

Once you know the range of an electric car, instead of asking how long it takes to charge, the right question to ask is how quickly can it take in charge.

As long as it charges fast enough to recharge from your typical daily drive, it doesn't matter how long a full charge takes. Even if you drain the battery all the way to empty one day, you don't have to get if fully charged that night.

You'll be good to go if you can pick up enough charge for your next day's drive.

28 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

much as 60 miles of range per hour of charging from a full 240V/70A charging station.

Both the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt charge at about five miles of range per hour from a regular 120V household outlet or about 12 miles of range per hour from a 240V charging station.

The typical US driver has a daily round trip commute of under 40 miles.

For those drivers, charging a LEAF from a 120V outlet can do the job because they can pick up 50 miles of range in 10 hours of overnight charging. Say you drive 90 miles one day, get home with 10 miles of range, and charge overnight for 10 hours. In the morning, you'll have 60 miles of range, which is more than enough for a typical 40 mile day, with enough buffer to run some extra errands if needed. If you expect to drive 80 miles every day, then charging from a 120V outlet isn't right for you. (And really, the LEAF isn't right for you unless you can also charge while you're at work.)

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your single charge range and need to pick up charge away from home during your journey.

Most EV owners don't need to worry about charging quickly at home, as it will mostly be done at night. While most of your driving will be within your single charge range, it's very helpful to have the capability to charge faster away from home.

So, to properly evaluate how well an electric vehicle will meet your needs you'll need to ask two questions: how far will it go on a single charge and how fast can it take in charge (miles of range per hour of charging).

The Joy of Not Burning Gas

Prior to purchasing the RAV4-EV in 2008, we owned three gas cars. Our primary car was a 2001 Honda Insight.

It got over 50 mpg and was big enough for the two of us and groceries. When we needed to carry more cargo or more than two people, we drove our 17mpg 1996 Nissan Pathfinder. Our fun

car was a 21-mpg 1995 Acura NSX-T, an incredible sports car that was a joy to drive and still got better gas mileage than the Pathfinder. Shortly after getting the RAV4-EV, we sold the Pathfinder and the RAV4-EV become our primary car, being more energy efficient then the Insight and having nearly as much passenger and cargo space as the Pathfinder. When we got the Roadster, Cathy made me wait six weeks before selling the NSX. She was worried I'd miss the NSX if the Roadster wasn't everything we thought it would be. When the six weeks was up, I drove the NSX and realized how slow and unresponsive it felt compared to the Roadster. We sold the NSX shortly after that and haven't regretted it a bit.

We waited another year before selling the Insight when we realized we used it so little we should let someone else take advantage of a very efficient gas car.

With only a few models of electric cars available, not everyone will be able to make the switch

but, like us, I suspect many of them will find it quickly becomes their main car, with the gas car as the vehicle relegated to occasional long trips. If we can replace just one car in most of the multiple car households in the US, that would be a giant step toward reducing our economic dependence on oil, our political and military costs in trying to stabilize the world oil market, and the impact of our driving on the environment. Plus, it's a better experience to drive electric than gas.

to all electric, but millions of households in the US have multiple cars and a garage where they can charge an electric vehicle. Many of those households can replace one of their gas cars with an electric. They may think of the electric vehicle as their second car, a limited vehicle that they just use for short trips

JAN/FEB 2012

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Photo Courtesy of The Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory

AN A123SYSTEMS BATTERY MODULE LOWERED INTO THE CALOMETER.

BUILDING BETTER BATTERIES FASTER

BY ERIC SULLIVAN

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has upped the ante on battery development with its new Large-Volume Battery Calorimeter.

The LVBC allows battery and EV manufacturers to measure precisely how much and from where heat is generated by a battery under varied conditions.

Battery power and lifespan are directly impacted by the operating temperature of the battery pack.

Now these variables can be tested prior to prototype batteries being installed into actual vehicles.

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The new LVBD is the most accurate device of its kind. The previous battery calorimeter was unable to handle the liquid-cooled batteries that have rocked the electric vehicle landscape in the Ford Electric Focus, the Chevy Volt, and the Tesla Roadster, so the NREL created the world's largest battery calorimeter.

Funding for this behemoth came courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy with input on its design solicited from both battery and vehicle manufacturers.

Researchers are analyzing tem-

perature's effects on systems and pinpointing optimal temperature ranges for EV batteries.

This data allows for further optimization of battery thermal management systems, which should result in longer lasting and cheaper batteries that function well in a variety of temperatures.

A123Systems, LGChem-CPI, and Johnson Control Saft all have batteries being tested currently in the LVBC. GM used an earlier NREL calorimeter to help create the Volt battery.

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So you know the reasons to buy an electric car, but how can you actually get behind the wheel of one of these enigmatic automobiles? We have you covered with six options to own an EV today.

BY JOHN ERIC VONA

32 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

toda

The Tesla Roadster

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Photo Courtesy of Telsa Motors

Tesla Motors shocked many of the big-wigs in the auto industry into action by producing a not only viable, but high-performance lithium-ion powered vehicle back when industry leaders were just beginning to dip their toes into the hybrid market. Since that time, they have developed the gold standard of electric vehicles. The Roadster has become the EV’s manifesto of style and ability against the looming stereotypes that such cars are destined to be the slower, weaker, funnier-shaped cousins of their fossil fueled brethren.

One stereotype the Roadster failed to break, however, was that of high cost. In fact, you could hardly say its California-based company even made an attempt there. With a base price of $109,000, they did not make it easy to brag about saving money on gas. Limiting Roadster owners to the rich and famous seems to have been more of a boon than a blemish on this hip EV, though. For once, driving an electric car has been seen as a sign of prestige and style, not environmental abstinence.

For those looking to go green with flair, time may be running out. Production on the Roadster is winding down as Tesla retools to begin making their more affordable Model S, an electric sedan currently available for pre-order.

The Good News: Unparalleled performance in the EV community with 200+ miles per charge, 0-60 in 3.7 seconds, convertible The Bad News: A price tag far beyond the budgets of most, two seats, limited time to buy

JAN/FEB 2012

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The Nissan LEAF Nissan’s strategy with the LEAF can best be summed up by the acronym created to fit the green-charged name: Leading, Environmentally Friendly, Affordable, Family Car. Capable of holding five adults, this five-door hatchback certainly fits the label of an EV for the family, not just the eco-conscious millionaire, and its base price of $32,780 (before sizable U.S. tax incentives) won’t break the bank for many in the market for a new car.

The additional costs of charging packs and worries over cold-weather performance will weigh on

34 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

some prospective buyers, but with an estimated 100 miles to a charge, a reasonable cargo capacity and a spacious back seat, the LEAF will meet the needs of daily commuters and soccer-moms alike. To the uninformed passer-by, however, what the LEAF seems to do best is, quite simply, fit in.

It isn’t boxy or noticeably halfa-car. It looks like any other vehicle on the road, except its electric.

In recent months, sales of the LEAF have topped any other EV on the market as many in the so-called “Electric States” look to be the first to hop on the EV bandwagon.

Unlike some companies which will deliver anywhere, Nissan is currently ramping up to sales in every state, but with the success the LEAF has thus far met, you can bet your carboncredits this little car will be arriving at a dealership near you as soon as the Japan-based company can make it happen.

The Good News: Affordable, practical, “Top Safety Pick,” spoiler-mounted solar panel helps charge accessories The Bad News: Still limited availability, some hold reservations about the design of the battery, requires the purchase of a pricey charging pack

Photo Courtesy of Chevrolet

Photo Courtesy of Nissan

The Chevy Volt Initially viewed by some as a PR salvo against the damning barrage of criticism leveled against General Motors by the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? Chevy rushed its EV to the market in late 2010. Amid a torrent of criticism, skepticism, and giddy anticipation, the Volt won the 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year and has had a moderately successful launch in selected markets.

The Volt stands out among EVs for one reason that may leave you scratching your head: it still uses gasoline.

The Volt is all electric for the first forty miles (though the EPA estimates this at something closer to 35). Great for running out to the store or for those blessed with brief commutes, but pretty shabby when compared to the LEAF, Roadster or the boasts of many EVs trying to emerge from regional and pre-production obscurity.

But fear not, the Volt won’t leave you stranded after a paltry jog around the town. When its electric battery is exhausted, a gasoline-powered motor kicks in to maintain the charge, leaving you driving one of the most fuel-efficient hybrids on the road.

In fact, for those skeptical of EVs, having a vehicle that can fall back on a gas-electric engine just might provide the reassurance a prospective buyer needs.

This dual capability makes the Volt ideal both for short-range gas mileage and long road trips.

The Volt will be available nationwide by the end of the year.

The Good News: Quickly broadening availability, total range in the ballpark of 300 miles The Bad News: Slightly pricier at $40+ k, not entirely electric, four seats, fuel-economy (when it uses gasoline) comparable to much cheaper hybrids

JAN/FEB 2012

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BYO-EV (Build Your Own)

Whether it means buying a conversion kit or cobbling together spare parts and used batteries, thousands around the world have given up waiting on the auto industry to satisfy their desires and have transformed their gasguzzlers into homemade EVs right in the comfort of their own garages. The Internet is rife with success stories, small companies selling conversion kits, a forum of builders that boasts more than 20,000 members (DIYelectriccar.com), and even a weekly television show about re-powering cars (conveniently titled EVTV).

Speed, power, and range are limited only by the amount of money and time you want to put into the project. Some blogs and conversion kit sellers claim making the switch for as little as $300 (not including the

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price of the vehicle or ‘donor’ as they’re called), but most estimates, be it for a conversion kit, paying a mechanic, or completely doing it yourself, are more in the eight to twelve thousand dollar range.

Most conversions run on DC (direct current) power from heavy lead-acid batteries, hampering range, top speed, and charging time. For those willing to pay up for better performance, lithium batteries have recently become available to the general public.

Just as with buying an EV it’s imperative that anyone wanting to build their own does plenty of research.

Most will tell you that only a little mechanical experience is necessary, but it helps to have electrical experience. The one thing that cannot be debated, however, is that to undertake

such a project is to pay for an EV in long hours spent hard at work. But for many, money is in shorter supply than work ethic and the payoff is just as great.

The Good News: Limited mechanical knowledge required, far cheaper than purchasing a manufactured EV, still qualifies for tax incentives, rewarding hobby The Bad News: Time consuming, limited direct customer support

Resale

When thinking about an EV, most conjure images of futuristic concept cars, shiny first-run vehicles, or the outlandish visions of science fiction. But the fifth option on our list asks you not to think forward, but backward, as in used cars. They may be hard to find, but with the help of Internet auction sites and other listing services, some have found their way behind the wheel of a Toyota RAV4 EV, Ford Ranger EV, or other rare specimen of green transportation fashioned in years past.

As with any used vehicle, it’s buyer beware. Do your research and ask a lot of questions. Most dedicated enough

to build their own EV or lucky enough to own one of the select early EVs aren’t likely to be selling the car without a good reason.

Buying a used EV may save you the greasy hands and long hours in the garage of building your own, but you’ll still have to be prepared to get downand-dirty with the World Wide Web. Used EVs are out there, but finding and securing one will be a trying task all its own.

The Good News: In many cases just as good a vehicle as those currently available The Bad News: Cost as much or more than some new models now hitting the market JAN/FEB 2012

37

If you just don’t have the money to get a pricey, fullsized EV, that ‘C’ you pulled in high school shop class has you doubting your ability to convert your ICE, and used cars of any kind leave you feeling a bit like you’re eating someone else’s leftovers, one more option remains: electric mopeds and motorcycles.

Go ahead and laugh at the moped part, but your lessleather-clad two-wheeled friends will be laughing right back, all the way to the bank, hair flapping in the wind. But don’t dare laugh at anyone driving an electric motorcycle.

The hardcore enthusiasts are

38 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

on a records-race, building allelectric bikes capable of hitting 60 mph in under a second with top speeds well over 100 mph.

While most consumer electric scooters have a top speed around 15-25 mph and a range well below 50 miles per charge, electric motorcycles come in a wide variety of models with capabilities similar to their four-wheeled counterparts, far exceeding those scooter numbers. Electric scooters are cheap and look exactly like any other scooter. Some look more like your old-fashioned pedaland-chain bicycle (and still retain that as an out-of-juice alternative), but they may leave

you feeling more comfortable in the bike line or on the sidewalk than taking to the roads.

Both are widely available, and either is an excellent choice for anyone looking to go green and save some green all at once. EV bikes have unparalleled fuel efficiency, not to mention a base-price so low you could get two or three for the cost of a LEAF or Volt.

The Good News: Extremely low cost for an EV, lots of variety The Bad News: Range and speed lower than a conventional moped or motorcycle

Photo Courtesy of Zero Motorcycles (Top), Brammo Motorcycles (Bottom Left), & E-Wheels (Bottom Right)

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TESLA MOTORS

T

esla Motors has established a brief history of delayed releases and financial losses. However, if CEO Elon Musk’s stated goal of accelerating the electric car revolution by five years is really the ultimate prize, the company could arguably claim unmitigated success, even before it launches its second car, the Model S sedan.

The end of 2011 was mimicking the end of 2008 with flagrant unoriginality. With the financial markets in turmoil, Tesla Motors was bleeding cash as its hopes were pinned on the success of a single vehicle. The doubters stood alertly by, ready at a moment’s notice to pop bottles of hater-aid and celebrate the downfall of a naive, hubristic enterprise. At the same time, a loyal cadre of starry-eyed true believers cheered on what they’re sure is the savior of not only the American automotive industry, but the entire gas-guzzling world.

It’s true that Tesla’s state mirrors its circumstances at the close of 2008 to an extent. However, the Palo Alto, CA allelectric car company walks with a fair bit more swagger these days, and has at least enough juice in the industry to fill a soon obsolete catalytic converter.

On the strength of its Roadster sports car sales, as well as partnerships with Daimler, Toyota and others, Tesla in August 2011 announced record revenues of $58 million for the second quarter. The company also added 150 employees in the second quarter of 2011 to bring its workforce to 1,400. As of this January, there were more than 220 jobs listed on its website, mostly for

44 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

engineering and technician positions.

The numbers kept rolling in for the third quarter 2011, for which Tesla reported another $58 in revenue and a finalized contract with Panasonic to supply battery cells for the Tesla Motors Model S sedan EV. By the end of September 2011, Tesla had racked up about 6,500 buyers putting $5,000 down for the Model S, effectively selling out its entire 2012 planned production run.

Of course, it’s not all Champagne and caviar just yet. To go along with its record revenue, Tesla posted a second quarter loss of $58.9 million, which

was greater than analysts’ expectations and more than the losses of $38.5 million in the same quarter of 2010. Net losses for the third quarter 2011 also clocked in at $57 million.

As Tesla faces a shaky overall economy yet again, it also faces the uphill battle of cranking out the stated goal of 20,000 Model S sedans in 2013. Starting at $49,900 after a $7,500 federal tax credit, the Model S will not only challenge strapped budgets, but it will compete with a growing number of EV alternatives. Tesla has the manufacturing space, and the cushion of some lucrative partnerships. But with only 2,600

LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY

The Tesla Roadster features a 65 kWh lithium-ion battery pack capable of 244 miles of range, a 248 hp 3-phase 4-pole AC induction motor, and a single speed BorgWarner fixed gear transmission. 273 lb-ft of torque, 125 mph top speed, and 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The Roadster Sport boasts 15 percent more peak power and 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds.

total Roadsters produced by December 2011, after which the Roadster was discontinued, the step up to mass production this year will be a tall order.

DRIVEN One cannot dwell on Tesla Motors for too long without considering its serialentrepreneur, visionary co-founder Elon Musk. The 40-year-old’s rapidly paced life story reads like one of the comic books he nerded out to growing up in South Africa. In fact, this real-life super genius/business tycoon supposedly served as inspiration for the version of Tony Stark played by Robert

Downey Jr. in the Iron Man movies.

Profoundly precocious as a child, Musk outpaced his computer programming instructors and sold his first video game at the age of 12, all the while dreaming of extricating himself from his home before having to serve in the military that backed the institutionalized racism of Apartheid, which he and his brothers ardently opposed.

By 17, the wunderkind made his way to Canada and eventually landed at Stanford University. As a student, Musk generally skipped classes, read the text books, and showed up to ace the exams, but he preoccupied his real

mental faculties with the future. Musk determined for himself in college that three areas of technology would most affect the human race: the Internet, transitioning to sustainable energy and transportation, and space exploration, including off-planet human colonization.

Wasting no time, Musk founded Zip2 during the infancy of the Internet with his brother Kimbal. While the online publishing software for news media may seem primitive now, it sold to AltaVista in 1999 for more than $300 million.

Taking nary a rest, Musk then boot-

JAN/FEB 2012

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TESLA MOTORS

ROADMAP Tesla Motors came about in 2003 with Musk as one of five co-founders. He chipped in $6.3 million of his own dough initially, though his total investment would eventually balloon up to $75 million of his personal wealth.

You could find no more apt moniker for Musk’s all-EV car company. His aptitude, vision, and ambition combined with his real-world manifestations and growing legend parallel in some respects those of Nikola Tesla, the great inventor and pioneer of alternating current (AC) electrical systems who died in 1943. Like Musk, Telsa was a gifted mind born into a troubled state (the Croatian Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire), supposedly possessed a photographic memory, and did his best work in America, eventually becoming a citizen.

Yet Nikola’s grandest ambition went unfulfilled. Although he demonstrated wireless transmission of electrical energy at the absurdly early year of 1893, his goal of trans-Atlantic wireless transmission of power was not to be. His mammoth Wardenclyffe Tower

46 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

Elon Musk and President Obama tour the SpaceX commercial rocket processing facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida in April 2010. In addition to heading Tesla Motors, Musk also acts as CEO and CTO of the Space Exploration Technologies company.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA

ed up X.com, which soon merged with Confinity to form Paypal. In October 2002, eBay acquired Paypal for $1.5 billion in stock, netting Musk a personal take of around $180 million.

Before that deal was even inked, however, Musk had founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), with the goal of supplanting government space programs with a more innovative commercial venture that would one day build colonies on the Moon and Mars. In April 2011, SpaceX announced that its Falcon Heavy rocket with Dragon spacecraft module would be ready to launch by 2013, and it has scored NASA contracts to service the international space station in the postshuttle era. But that’s another story.

The Model S is Telsa’s mid-priced sedan manufactured at the new Tesla Factory in Fremont, California.

“

[Musk’s] aptitude, vision, and ambition combined with his real-world manifestations and growing legend parallel in some respects those of Nikola Tesla, the great inventor and pioneer of alternating current (AC) electrical systems who died in 1943. on Long Island was to provide wireless communications as well as wireless transfer of energy. However, the project ran into budgeting and financing problems and was never completed.

Musk’s own Wardenclyffe Tower was formerly known as Nummi, or New United Motor Manufacturing plant.

The 5.5 million square-foot facility in Fremont, California served as a factory for Toyota and General Motors from 1984-2010. Thereafter, Toyota offloaded it to Tesla Motors for what was considered a bargain-basement price of

”

$42 million. Of course, the plant, which is now known as the Tesla factory, was optimized for internal combustion engine vehicles. Converting it into an EV plant presents a logistical and financial challenge that Tesla skeptics speculate could backfire on the company.

As usual, Musk’s belief in his plans remains unwavering. As Wired reported in September 2010, Musk said he thinks Tesla can be churning out 250,000 cars annually at its factory by 2015, at which point it will be producing its third-generation vehicle, a

more affordable EV slated to sell in the $30,000 range.

Just like his three-part vision for humanity’s future, Musk’s initial plan for Tesla always included three phases.

While Tesla took a healthy helping of criticism for entering the market with an “elitist” six-figure sports car, the luxury Roadster was a strategic move from the jump.

Musk told Charlie Rose in interview from August 2009 that just as with computers or mobile phones, “any new technology is expensive when it starts out. The first thing engineers are trying to do is to make it work. Then you optimize, and optimize, and optimize.”

To make cars affordable you have to produce them at a scale of hundreds of thousands per year. As a start-up company, Tesla could not afford to do that right out of the gate. Besides, Musk added, “you want to make mistakes at a small scale.”

JAN/FEB 2012

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TESLA MOTORS

48 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

That last statement remains to be seen. However, with only a single car having hit the market and a second one planned to ship by July 2012, the undeniable effect Tesla Motors has had on the industry as a whole may have already set the dominoes in motion toward a sustainable energy future where we don’t depend on finite oil supplies to roam the earth.

TECH-CELERATION Consider the general climate for EVs circa 2003, when the group of five cofounders revved up Tesla Motors.

Chevy Volt

Volkswagen E-Golf

The electric car revival of the 1990s had all but petered out. Spurred in part by the California Air Resources Board’s 1990 mandate that 10 percent of cars sold in the state be “zero emission” by 2003, a brief wave of electric innovation washed over the major automobile manufacturers, resulting in small batches of the Nissan Altra EV (19982002), Ford Electric Ranger pick-up (1998-2002), Honda EV Plus (19971999), Toyota RAV4 EV (1997-2003), and of course the notorious GM EV1 (1996-1999).

Like a savvy investor picking up un-

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHEVROLET

So Tesla’s three-step plan to breaching the mass market included first a high-priced car (the Roadster) at low volume, second a mid-priced car (Model S) at medium volume, and finally a low-priced third-generation car at high volume. Although both the Roadster and the Model S have experienced delays, the current plan for the third-generation vehicle includes a sub-$30,000 price at a high volume of 100,000 cars by 2013.

Even if Tesla Motors successfully scales up its business and becomes profitable, as Musk predicts it will by 2013, Musk’s overall goal is a complete transition away from fossil fuel transportation and into sustainable renewable energy.

Before Tesla, Musk embarked on a “hobby,” becoming the initial investor and chairman of Solar City, which is now the largest solar provider in the United States with more than 10,000 customers. Solar City represents stage one of a sustainable energy future—energy creation—while Tesla represents stage two—energy consumption. Solar City secures agreements with banks that allow customers to lease solar panels, so they can enjoy the benefits of solar energy with no money down.

Luckily for Musk, he mentioned in the Charlie Rose interview that Solar City requires very little of his time. Well, that’s a relief.

Will Musk see his greatest ambitions succeed where Nikola Tesla did not? That may depend on what the parameters for success are. When Rose asked him that very question, Musk said, “personally, success for me and for Tesla is that we’ve accelerated the advent of electric cars by at least five years.” To clarify, Rose asked if that’s really it or if it’s to create a great electric car company. “I think the two are synonymous,” Musk said. “You do one, you do the other.”

LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY

“

General production on the Roadster began in 2008. Since then, virtually every single car maker in the world has announced an EV strategy.

PHOTO COURTESY OF FISKER

PHOTO COURTESY OF TOYOTA

dervalued stocks after a huge market crash, Tesla picked up the extinguished EV torch out of a river at the bottom of the technology’s lowest valley, determined to run it back up to the top of the mountain. Naturally, the start-up did this to many a lifted eyebrow and amused chortle from industry and analyst onlookers.

Nevertheless, Tesla started building prototypes in 2006. General production on the Roadster began in 2008.

Since then, virtually every single car maker in the world has announced an EV strategy. The Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF have arrived and will soon be available in all 50 states, and literally dozens of other cars with cords are

”

scheduled to be released over the next two years.

One could cite parallel thinking and development rather than hastily dub Tesla the grand instigator of the 21stcentury EV movement. However, once you start retracing the steps of many companies’ EV initiatives, it begins to feel like a round of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon—all roads lead back to Tesla.

2005: Ian Wright, a Tesla Motors cofounder, launches Wrightspeed in San Jose. Its X1 prototype is the fastest street-legal EV but exists mainly as a proof of concept for the Wrightspeed Digital Drivesystem, which the company supplies to various government and commercial customers.

Toyota RAV EV

Fisker Karma

2006: Tesla’s announcement that it will produce an all-electric sports car lights a proverbial fire under GM vice chair Bob Lutz’s ass, and he forms a team to develop the Chevy Volt concept car for the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. In December, 2007, Newsweek quotes Lutz saying, “If some Silicon Valley startup can solve this equation, no one is going to tell me anymore that it’s unfeasible.”

In Bloomberg’s August 2011 Risk Takers profile of Elon Musk, Lutz is shown saying, “whether Tesla is ever hugely successful or not, I’ll always owe them a debt of gratitude for having kind of broken the ice.”

2007: Several ex-Tesla employees join Atieva, a start-up developing software for monitoring individual battery cells in EVs, co-founded by ex-Tesla VP Bernard Tse.

JAN/FEB 2012

49

TESLA MOTORS 2008: John D. Thomas, Nam ThaiTang, and W. Jeffrey DeFrank—all ex-Tesla men—co-found ALTe, which builds electric powertrain systems for retrofitting old-school vehicles.

2009: After Tesla performs an emergency electric conversion of a Daimler Smart car, the German automaker orders battery packs for Smart from Tesla. A few months later, Daimler buys an approximate 10 percent stake in Tesla for $50 million. Daimler’s US Freightliner brand also bought Tesla’s battery tech for a fleet of hybrid commercial trucks in 2010.

2010: Europe’s biggest automaker, Volkswagen, hires Martin Eberhard, a Tesla co-founder and former CEO, to work on EV batteries and development.

50 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

2010: Toyota invests $50 million in Tesla to build the new version of the RAV4 EV at Tesla’s Fremont, California plant, now called Tesla Factory.

2011: The 2012 Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid electric vehicle debuts. Henrik Fisker briefly worked for Tesla in 2008, designing an EV sedan. (The relationship ended in a lawsuit that accused Fisker of stealing trade secrets. A California court called the allegation “baseless” when it ruled in Fisker’s favor and ordered Tesla to pay over $1 million in attorney’s fees and court costs.)

UNPLUGGED Whether it’s partially or directly attributable to Tesla, as Musk would have it, the electric bandwagon is reaching a full charge. There are a handful of EVs

and PHEVs coming to market before the Model S rolls out in mid-2012. Had Tesla reached its earlier goal of releasing the Model S in 2011, it might have been the first sedan EV on the market.

The Model S will have other superlatives going for it, though. Tesla claims it’s the first sedan designed from the ground up as an EV. There was enough room for a third row of seating. Along with storage in both the front and the rear, the Model S will seat seven—more than any other EV or PHEV. It will also have the longest driving range per charge of any EV, topping out at 300 miles. Three Model S configurations will offer ranges of 160, 230, or 300 miles per charge, at base prices of $57,400, $67,000, or $77,000, respectively and a fully loaded Performance model dipping into six-figure territory.

LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY At those prices, Tesla is still striving for luxury in its Phase 2 car. Part of that entails an in-dash 17-inch touchscreen “infotainment” system with 3G data connection for navigation, streaming radio, and info on local attractions. Options include a glass panoramic roof, foldaway rear-facing third row seats, Tesla’s wall-mounted fast charger, keyless entry and other high-tech delights.

Forming a bridge between Tesla’s second-generation Model S and its unnamed third-generation car will be the Model X SUV, which is set to be revealed in February. The 2013 Model X will be be based on Model S technology and sell for around the same prices.

Like the Model S, the Model X will seat seven across three rows of seats.

In addition to Tesla’s future plans for a more affordable EV, it will offer a

“

next-generation Roadster in 2014. But before those plans come to fruition, the Model S will face the test of public and industry scrutiny.

In a recent interview with GigaOM, Musk claimed than the Model S costs less than half of what the Roadster cost per kilowatt hour, and that he expects the cost of battery energy to improve by 7 to 9 percent per year, compounding to significant gains over several years.

“The biggest effect that Tesla will have on the market is being a good example for the overall car industry,” Musk told GigaOM. “We can show the industry that if you make cars that look good, have good performance and long range then people will buy them.”

And buy them they already have. The entire production run of the Model S for 2012 is already spoken for through

more than 6,500 pre-orders with down payments. Tesla’s original production goals laid out plans to produce 5,000 Model S sedans in 2012 and 20,000 in 2013. For a famously polarizing company, that fact invites bi-directional spin.

The Tesla faithful can see demand outstripping supply as a sure sign that the company is as hot and exciting as ever, while detractors are free to speculate that Tesla is in over its head and will never be able to scale up in time to reach profitability. In either case, the 2012 Tesla Watch should be one hell of a ride.

VISIT TESLAMOTORS.COM FOR MORE VEHICLE SPECS & RESERVATION INFORMATION

The entire production run of the Model S for 2012 is already spoken for through more than 6,500 pre-orders with down payments.

”

JAN/FEB 2012

51

BATTERY TECH

BY ERIC SULLIVAN

Drexel University's Yury Gogotsi's recent advance in supercapacitor technology came through the equivalent of fitting a camel through the eye of a needle.

Gogotsi and his colleagues discovered that the capacitance of a carbon supercapacitor can be significantly improved by shrinking the pores of the nanomaterial to a smaller size than the solvent-covered ions that go inside of them.

Don’t worry, we don’t really understand it either, but they say it’s a big deal.

Supercapacitors are used to store energy, and prove to be superior to Lithium-ion batteries in a few key facets. Supercapacitors can be charged much faster (1-10 seconds rather than the 10-60 minutes needed for a standard battery). They can withstand many more charge cycles before degrading - on the order of a million times versus thousands of times - which means that they last considerably longer. With the current price of replacing the battery in an electric vehicle prohibitively

52 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

high, this represents a significant advance.

Currently supercapacitors are used in conjunction with lithiumion and lead-based batteries as peak-load enhancers rather than as standalone power sources for electric vehicles. This is due primarily to the fact that supercapacitors hold only a fraction of the energy of a standard battery.

Gogotsi's recent discovery could drastically increase the power they can hold and alter the role that supercapacitors play.

Gogotsi's initial research showed the increase in stored energy when the pores were reduced beyond the size of the charge carriers but this seemed to be impossible given current understanding of superconductors. To

further verify his findings Gogotsi reached out to Oak Ridge National Laboratory computational chemists and physicists Bobby Sumpter, Jingsong Huang and Vincent Meunier. Using the Jaguar and Eugene supercomputers of ORNL they were able to confirm the phenomenon and further understand what was happening. The ions were able to pop out of their solvent shells without difficulty due to a variety of forces acting upon them.

This advance has already progressed beyond the theoretical stage with the ORNL team partnering up with colleagues at Rice University to develop a fully transparent and flexible energy storage device using the new superconductor technology.

Image Courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory

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17/01/2012 16:51

A NEW WORLD

Sidney Goodman,Vice President of the Automotive Alliances Group at Better Place

Vice President of the automotive alliances group at

Better Place, Sidney Goodman is responsible for overseeing relationships with automobile manufacturers, component suppliers and technical services providers. A founding member of Better Place, Sidney has been with the company since before its official launch in 2007. With more than 17 years of experience in the IT industry, Goodman held various management positions in development, consulting, alliances and strategic account sales and support. In his last role, he served in a senior staff position for the president of the product and technology group and executive board member of SAP AG. Goodman received his BA specializing in Management and Information Systems from The School of Business Administration at the College of Management in Israel.

54 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

Shai Agassi, Founder and CEO of Better Place

Q&A

By Robert Gluck

With Sidney Goodman of

CHARGED: Please tell our readers a little bit about Bet-

us to join the mission. We know that we’ll be successful by being true to the vision and mission that he created.

SIDNEY GOODMAN: Better Place aims to displace

CHARGED: What is the mission of Better Place? The automotive alliances group?

Photos Courtesy of Better Place

ter Place and why you got involved with the company.

petrol-based kilometers with electric kilometers by making electric cars more affordable, more convenient and more sustainable than today’s internal combustion engine technology. We separate ownership of the electric car and the battery and treat the battery as a consumable and as part of the necessary EV infrastructure.

In our model, consumers buy an electric car just like they would normally buy an ICE car, but rather than filling up at the pump each week, they pay for a package of mobility services from Better Place at a fixed price. They also don’t pay for the battery as that’s our investment. In return, they get unlimited access to our entire network of charge spots and battery switch stations as well as an inventory of batteries to use. It basically makes owning and driving an electric car cheaper and more convenient than owning an ICE car and paying more and more at the pump each week.

I’ve been with Better Place since the very beginning. I’ve known our Founder and CEO Shai Agassi for years, and I helped Shai with the business plan for Better Place.

CHARGED: We’ve heard much about Shai Agassi, the founder and chief executive officer of Better Place. Please tell us a little about Agassi.

SG: Our mission is to enable the entire world to go electric.

We see an enormous opportunity to switch the world from oil-based personal transport to electric transport. My team plays a critical role in our mission as our core function is to court and manage our relationships with car manufacturers. Renault, which has been a great partner, will produce the world’s first switchable battery electric car, the Fluence Z.E., later this year.

CHARGED: How do you see the world right now in terms of where we’re at with electric vehicles?

SG: What’s clear is that nearly all of the OEMs around the world have an EV strategy. That wasn’t the case 3-4 years ago. What’s also clear is that major markets like China are becoming a gravity center around EV that will influence the rest of the world. China, for example, recently named EVs as one of seven industrial pillars in its most recent five-year plan. When China goes electric everyone else will follow.

“

SG: Shai is a natural born leader and brilliant visionary. It’s his vision that created Better Place and compelled many of

When China goes electric everyone else will follow.

”

SEP 2011

55

A NEW WORLD

CHARGED: Better Place announced a strategic agreement with China Southern Power Grid Co. (CSG), the world’s eighth largest utility listed in the Fortune Global 500. The agreement focuses on joint electric car and infrastructure projects in CSG’s service areas and will further advance electric cars with switchable batteries. This calls for the companies to open a battery switch station and joint education center in Guangzhou before the end of the year, while working to formalize a joint-venture partnership. Would you tell us a little more about this strategic agreement?

SG: Utilities play an important role in our model. In China, there are only two utilities – North Grid, also known as State Grid, and China Southern Grid, our partner. We’ve seen the central government and both utilities indicate that

“

as the primary EV champions. Now, everyone is backing electric transport and helping to move the needle towards oil independence. That’s a win for the planet, the economy and the consumer.

CHARGED: The Better Place network addresses historical limitations to adoption by providing unlimited driving range in a convenient and accessible manner. How are you doing this?

SG: There are two ways to charge the car in our model.

The first is through a charge spot to be deployed in your home and at work. Because your car mostly “sleeps” 22 hours a day, you’ll plug in and charge when you get home at night and the same at work. Each time, your battery will

For the long distance drive, you’ll pull into one of our battery switch stations and swap out a depleted battery for a fresh one in less time than it takes to fill up with a tank of fuel.

their preferred charging method for electric cars is battery switch and trickle charge technology, which are the cornerstones of our approach, over fast charge due to the impact on the grid. Our partnership with CSG allows us to set up a battery switch station in Guangzhou as part of a pilot program that will allow us to demonstrate the technology to government, industry and consumers. The project will kick off later this year so we hope to have more to say then.

CHARGED: By the end of the year, Better Place will have battery switch stations under deployment in countries on four continents, including the U.S., Europe, Australia and now China. Why will this be an important accomplishment?

SG: Our business model is based on scale so our ability to showcase and implement our technology in the four corners of the world will help us to scale globally. We’ve found that seeing is believing with our model so these deployments will help to accelerate our global mission.

CHARGED: Many experts consider Better Place the world’s leading electric car services provider. Why? SG: We created a “big bang” when we launched the company 3.5 years ago, and we’ve seen the industry come together around a $2 trillion global market opportunity. In the early days, it was Better Place, Renault-Nissan and Tesla

56 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

”

be “topped off.” This is a more convenient experience than what you get today because Exxon or BP aren’t coming to your car each day and topping off the tank, are they? For the long distance drive, you’ll pull into one of our battery switch stations and swap out a depleted battery for a fresh one in less time than it takes to fill up with a tank of fuel.

As a result, battery switch gives consumers a similar level of

JAN/FEB 2012

57

Photos Courtesy of Better Place

A NEW WORLD

“

a range as an ICE car and a better experience via a battery switch station than having to pump your own fuel.

”

CHARGED: How are things moving forward in terms of battery switch stations?

track, we’ll begin network deployment in Canberra, Australia, later this year with a view toward launching commercial service in the second half of 2012. We’ll expand beyond Canberra to Melbourne, Sydney, etc. We’re on track with all three markets.

SG: One of the biggest myths about Better Place is that we require a standardized battery, which is not true. Our only requirement is that the battery is accessible from underneath the vehicle. What you’ll see in our battery switch stations is the ability to manage multiple form factors of batteries. That’s an important element to our solution.

CHARGED: On April 19, 2011, Better Place announced the initial deployment of its electric car network infrastructure in Hawaii with the installation of the first 10 charge spots across Oahu – five at the Sheraton Waikiki and five at three Hawaiian Electric sites. Why Hawaii? How did this deployment come about?

CHARGED: The company works with all parts of the transportation ecosystem, including automakers, battery suppliers, energy companies, and the public sector to create a compelling solution. Based in California and privately held, Better Place has operating companies in Israel, Denmark, and Australia. How are things going in these three countries and why are you working so closely with them?

SG: Hawaii is one of the most progressive states in the US in terms of EVs and energy policy. Hawaii is nearly 100% dependent on oil and diesel for both transportation and generation. They have a “70X30” policy where they aim to produce 70% of their power from renewable sources by 2030. We’re working with Hawaiian Electric on the initial deployment of our network there and have had tremendous support from the state government and local partners since Day One.

SG: We plan to go live with our commercial service in Israel and Denmark later this year. We’re still in the process of testing our entire solution before we begin broad deployment of the network in both countries. On a parallel

58 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

CHARGED: Will Better Place get involved in other partnerships? Care to let us in on any?

Photos Courtesy of Better Place

Our model assumes no new breakthroughs in battery technology, but rather, leveraging this Moore’s Lawlike effect relative to the ever-increasing price of oil.

SG: Given that this is a $2 trillion global market opportunity, there’s enormous opportunity for many players to profit from the transition to electric transport. GE, for example, has been great to work with and like us, they see enormous upside in the transition. More and more companies are waking up to the EV revolution.

CHARGED: Founded in 2007, Better Place is a privately-held company based in Palo Alto, California. The company has Better Place Centers in Israel, Denmark, and Canada so the public can familiarize themselves with all aspects of the Better Place solution. Why not do more in your home country, the U.S.? Will Hawaii be the only place in the United States offering Better Place solutions?

SG: We’ve got parallel projects under way in Hawaii and Northern California, where we’re implementing an electric taxi project similar to the one we did in Tokyo. Like Hawaii, California is a leader in EV and energy policy so we’ll begin with our first deployments in both states and expand as conditions warrant.

CHARGED: Better Place works with leading battery and vehicle manufacturers, like Renault, A123 Systems and AESC, to develop lithium-ion batteries for EVs that are high-performing, recyclable, environmentally-friendly and

safe. What’s the latest on batteries? What is Better Place working on for the future in terms of batteries?

SG: There’s a Moore’s Law-like effect on batteries where we’re seeing the price per kWH come down and the cycle life improve, thus reducing the overall cost of an electric kilometer. Our model assumes no new breakthroughs in battery technology, but rather, leveraging this Moore’s Law-like effect relative to the ever-increasing price of oil. It’s these two levers that make the market economically attractive.

CHARGED: With so much attention now on global warming, creating green jobs, weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels and tensions in the Middle East, why is the world not moving forward at a faster pace when it comes to electric vehicles?

SG: To the contrary, nearly every OEM and every government support the transition to electric cars. The industry is moving from hype to reality this year with the arrival of the first cars with more to come this year and next. It’s an exciting time for all of us.

JAN/FEB 2012

59

REVIEWS

BOTTLED LIGHTNING

Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy

S

A Book Review by Christopher Ward

eth Fletcher, in the epilogue to his book about the burgeoning lithium economy, asks: “Will this last? Is this...the beginning of something enduring-a new era for transportation, energy and American high tech manufacturing? Or will it turn out to be a portrait of another false start, an anomalous couple of years in which, once again, scientists and entrepreneurs and government attempted to seed an energy revolution, only to see those seeds die when ‘business as usual’ resumed?” He has good reason to be skeptical. Today’s world presents an excellent climate for this question.

In many ways, we live in a post-world. Post-industrial and internet revolutions, post 9-11, post-cheap oil, post-Imperial America; post-modern. Many believe that it is time to move into the post-internal combustion engine era.

Some, such as battery industry advocate James Greenburger, look at it as a matter of national security - a familiar buzzword in this age of live nude body scans at the airport courtesy of the TSA. Others hold onto the promise inherent in the aims of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the hope that the end of fossil-fueled transportation will lead to breathable air, drinkable water, and quieter neighborhoods.

The story of the electric car has been one of over a century’s worth of heroic endeavors, brilliant mistakes, cult-like devotion, false starts, missed opportunities, and borderline criminal irresponsibility (and that’s just General Motor’s EV-1). It is a story that Fletcher documents with the pacing of a fine whodunit. Like the best mystery stories, Fletcher leaves the reader guessing right up to the end.

The electric car is not new. In fact, during the turn of the previous century, such luminaries as Thomas Edison felt that

60 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

Bottled Lightning

By Seth Fletcher Hill & Wang, 260 pages $26

electricity was to be the preferred method of propelling the automobile. Then, as now, the standard methods of transportation were facing a crisis.

America was urbanizing. The horse, and buggy, had become more than just quaint relics of a bygone era: waste matter from the horse threatened to drown major cities in rivers of manure. In a society where the railroad transferred goods and people from one end of the continent to the other in record time; where the telegraph and the telephone promised to do the same for information and the human voice; where Muybridge and others were gaining mastery over the illusion of motion via the zoetrope and the motion picture; where gravity itself was becoming less and less of a hindrance to human’s ability to fly; many looked to the electric car as the personal transport solution.

The reasons were not that difficult to see. It was smooth, quiet, clean, possessing many of the qualities that draw fans and adherents today. It also was seen as slow, limited in range, difficult to recharge, and somehow effeminate,

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REVIEWS

which, oddly enough, are the flaws pointed out by today’s detractors.

The gas-powered engine won out, as we know, but as Seth Fletcher points out, the victory was by no means swift nor assured.

In Bottled Lightning, Fletcher, a senior editor for Popular Science, tells the story of the people who sought to address the electric car’s perceived faults. From the drive to develop a stable, quick charging and powerful battery, to the visionaries, dreamers, madmen and crackpots that populate the history of the electric car like an engineer’s version of Days Of Our Lives, Fletcher handles his subject matter deftly.

There are truly amusing bits about super conductors designed to work at very high temperatures. Batteries that exploded, not because they couldn’t properly hold or discharge electricity, but because no one thought to test how they would respond to being charged, slowly, over and over again. Esoteric physics and chemistry that play out like middle-school locker room hi jinx. Greed, money, sex, and murder. Well, maybe not so much on the murder or sex, but you get the picture.

Bottled Lightning also addresses many of the current doomsday scenarists’ pet theories as to why the electric car, and the concurrent lithium economy, would be doomed.

A recurring theme has been the concern that dependence on foreign oil could simply be traded for dependence on foreign lithium. According to one William Tahil, energy analyst, lithium is every bit as scarce, or even more so, than petroleum. We could quickly find ourselves ceding our autonomy to China and Bolivia, countries that appear to have the lion’s share of readily obtainable lithium reserves. Chapter Nine, “The Prospectors,” has some truly fascinating insight into the debate between Tahil and geologist R. Keith Evans.

In Chapter four and five, “Reviving the Electric Car” and “The Blank Spot at the Heart of the Car,” Fletcher recounts the tale of General Motors’ EV-1. Their supposedly nefarious schemes to kill anything that smacks of oil independence gets a hearing as well.

The unveiling of the Chevrolet Volt is an interesting tale—Fletcher not only interviews GM insiders and policy wonks like Volt project head Bob Lutz and CEO Rick Waggoner, but also Who Killed The Electric Car star Chelsea Sexton as well as the team behind the Tesla Roadster.

62 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

Another noted concern is the ability of our current power grid to withstand an influx of electric cars the size of our current petroleum powered fleet, charging overnight, and the infrastructure needed to handle such volume.

While being no techno-triumphalist, Fletcher points out the ways that scientists and engineers are seeking to move beyond our traditional views of what a battery can do, so-called far horizon projects that look at methods of increasing grid performance, and truly exotic materials science such as lithium-air batteries and paper/cloth electric storage cells.

Extensive appendices and notes make for handy reference and provide suggestions for further reading from the experts. Bottled Lightning is well written and informative. This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in where we’re going in the field of, well, where we’re going. Recommended.

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64 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

DESIGNS BY RAJI PURCELL; PHOTO BY JOHN HRITZ

VOLT

BY ERIC COTE

JAN/FEB 2012

65

I

EARLY ADOPTERS

swore I would never buy a new car… and yet, December 23, 2010, I took delivery of my brand new, cyber gray metallic Chevrolet Volt – number 186 off the assembly line – and I couldn’t be happier. The car is amazing. But don’t take my word for it – to date the Volt has won over half a dozen awards, including 2011 North American Car of the Year, 2011 Best World Green Car, 2011 Motor Trend Car of The Year, SAE’s Best Engineered Vehicle of 2011, and a 2011 Edison Gold Award. Not bad for a car that has barely been out for six months. But awards aren’t everything, and I’d like to focus on some of the reasons that I decided buying the Chevy Volt was right for me. Some of these reasons are altruistic, while others are more selfish in nature,but each of them has influenced my personal decision.

The Environment

Perhaps one of the most common reasons people purchase some form

“

December 23, 2010, I took delivery of my brand new, cyber gray metallic Chevrolet Volt - number 186 off the asembly line - and I couldn’t be happier.

of electric vehicle is to reduce one’s impact on the environment. Whether the car is a Prius, a Volt, or a Leaf, electric vehicles enjoy the distinction of being environmentally friendly. The simple conclusion here is that, typically, less gasoline usage equates to less emissions.

This statement deserves a more detailed analysis that includes carbon footprints of the full manufacturing cycle, gasoline emissions, and electric plant emissions in the case of vehicles with a plug, but for the sake of brevity let’s assume this statement to be generally true.

In my particular situation, I am a one car household that travels roughly 20 - 40 miles a day, and has a 400 mile trip a few times a year. This type of driving pattern scores high for the Volt. Its EPA rated 35 miles of all-electric driving means that most days I don’t use a drop of gasoline,

”

but its gas-powered electric generator means that I can take it on my long trips without stopping to recharge.

Thus far, I have driven about 4000 miles and have averaged nearly 190 MPGG (miles per gallon gasoline – the explicit notation of gasoline is to stress that electricity usage is not being included in this calculation). Environmentally, my Volt has thus far been impressive. And since I purchase 100% renewable energy, the carbon footprint of using my Volt is even smaller.

The Economy

The whole of the national economy is a complex, multidimensional money machine that deals with everything: education, employment, energy, retail, agriculture, manufacturing, finance and on and on. If we focus on energy, however, the United States relies heavily on a single source: oil. Because of this, any fluctuation in the price of oil

Thus far, I have driven about 4000 “miles and have averaged 190 MPGG ”

66 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

has a dramatic effect on our country’s prosperity. When oil prices increase, our economy suffers proportionally.

Even the simplest investor knows that to minimize risk, they must diversify their portfolio.

Energy diversification is easy when it comes to electricity because it can be created from a variety of fuel sources.

If natural gas is cheap, we can generate electricity with natural gas. If that gets expensive, how about coal? If all hydrocarbons become expensive, photovoltaics can be used to power a larger percentage of the grid. Whatever the source, the impartiality of electricity allows us to reduce our dependence on a single commodity. Therefore, the purchase of electric vehicles like the Volt and the Leaf provides a means of energy diversity that, ultimately, can lead to greater economic stability. Even further, we can choose to use domestic energy sources that will simultaneously keep more Americans employed while reducing our trade deficit.

National Security

Reducing our trade deficit also has a positive effect on national security. A study by the International Center for Technology Assessment estimates the true cost of our gasoline at around $15.00 per gallon. Driving electrically reduces oil use for transportation – in 2009, less than 15% of our country’s energy production came from oil.

Every gallon of gasoline derived from foreign oil that we can eliminate lowers the US trade deficit, increasing our country’s sustainability, and therefore, our national security.

It is also no coincidence that many of the countries in which the United States has a military presence are also net export-

ers of oil. Reducing our dependence on oil through electric car adoption will reduce the need to put the lives of our troops at risk, lessen animosity towards America in the nations that we occupy, and ultimately, increase our national security.

So far I’ve presented a trifecta of altruistic reasons to own any fuel efficient vehicle, including a Volt, but there are other, more selfish, incentives to choosing a Chevy Volt…

Versatility

The Volt is a versatile ‘no compromises’ vehicle. Critics of electric vehicles and their feasibility in the broader vehicle market often cite range limitations and long recharge times as barriers to mass market adoption. The Volt eliminates both of these potential barriers with its range extending gasoline engine that can create electricity onboard whenever the battery runs low.

A study by the US Department of Transportation concluded that 75% of Americans commute 40 miles or less to work each day. Using this information, Chevrolet was able to design the Volt in a way that would minimize battery cost while maximizing electriconly driving. As a result, the Volt is a vehicle that allows 75% of Americans to commute to work using very little, if any, gasoline. They can use the Volt all day long, plug it in before they go to sleep, and they’ll wake up with another full charge and 35 miles ready to go. At the same time, though, the Volt allows those same Americans the ability to take a 1000 mile, fuel-efficient, crosscountry trip without ever having to

stop and recharge the battery. It is the versatility of the Volt that was, and is, so appealing to me. I can commute to work every day without using a drop of gasoline, but I can also take a long trip whenever I desire. That means no additional vehicle or additional planning is required.

Instant Torque

Currently in the United States, the most popular electrically-propelled vehicles include the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and the Telsa Roadster, and there are more to come. A major benefit of these vehicles and their electric motors is the fact that they allow for instant torque from a stop.

Don’t be fooled by the more common ‘hybrids’ that are available. Cars such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid are known as parallel hybrids, which means that the electric motor typically works in parallel with (or at the same time as) the gasoline engine. These electric motors add some horsepower to a small combustion engine, but are not capable of producing sufficient torque to propel the vehicle under high acceleration without the engine’s help.

With a Volt, your first 35 miles or so are driven purely on battery power using only the electric motor. It doesn’t matter if you’re flying down the road at 100 mph or flooring the accelerator when the traffic light changes from red to green, the car is propelled by the electric motor. Period. After the first 35 miles or so, the Volt has a gas engine to create electricity to keep the Volt’s electric motor propelling your vehicle. As an aside, there are also some scenarios where the Volt indirectly links its gasoline engine to drive the wheels through

commute to work every day with“Ioutcanusing a drop of gasoline, but I can also take a long trip whenever I desire. ”

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EARLY ADOPTERS the electric motor without first creating electricity. This has some people criticizing the Volt, but in reality this is a semantic argument. By doing this at highway speeds, the Volt is even more efficient than it otherwise would have been, and performance isn’t compromised one bit.

The acceleration of a fully electric drive train feels nothing less than amazing and it gives the Volt a much sportier feel than your typical hybrid that is available today. The Volt is certainly no golf cart!

Luxury

Let’s face it, people want luxury. They want a car that is comfortable and loaded with features. The Volt fits this bill.

The feature list is awfully long, and I’ll bore you if I list them all here, but to list a few: it comes standard with a 30GB hard drive for storing music, a time-shifting radio function that lets you pause live radio, cabin temperature pre-conditioning, XM radio (subscription required after the first 90 days), and hands-free Blutooth connectivity for your cell phone.

To be honest, though, some of the Volt’s most luxurious aspects aren’t found in the advertised features. The first is the amazingly quiet ride that the Volt offers. By virtue of its electric motor, the Volt is virtually silent. I personally love this quality of the Volt and find that people are continually

amazed at how quiet the Volt really is.

Second is the Volt’s acceleration.

Again, by virtue of its electric motor, the Volt has no gears, which means there is no shifting. A typical automatic transmission consists of a complex system of gears that are manipulated as one accelerates. As the gears switch you can always feel a slight jerking in the movement of the vehicle. The Volt, however, delivers constant acceleration without any jarring or hesitation. The smoothness of the acceleration is one feature that puts a smile on my face each and every time I drive my Volt.

There are many other reasons that I decided to buy my Volt, but these halfdozen were what persuaded me the most. I will talk in detail about specific feature sets as well as my personal experiences with the Volt in future issues.

Hopefully by now you’re mulling over the reasons that you want a Chevy Volt. Well, by the end of 2011, the Volt will be available nationwide, and it is already available in Washington DC, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Texas, and California. So what are you waiting for?

VISIT CHEVROLET.COM/VOLT FOR MORE DETAILS AND TO SCHEDULE A TEST DRIVE

acceleration of a fully electric “The drive train feels nothing less than

amazing and it gives the Volt a much sportier feel than your typical hybrid that is available today.

”

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If you have questions about The Chevrolet Volt, or have a topic that you would to have discussed in a future Volt article, Eric can be contacted by email: Eric@ChargedEVs.com

JAN/FEB 2012

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W 70 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

ho does not want to relive their youth? Theoretically, driving one of the mid-70s muscle cars is a great idea: lots of leg room, big power, and of course nostalgia.

In Ontario, Canada, you even have the advantage that such cars are, by necessity, exempt from the emission tests. Of course, that assumes you do not actually care about emissions. What if you do? Enter eDart or The Electric Swinger.

The project started when I finished installing an intercooler and new ECU piggy back computer in my 1991 Porsche 911. I was, of course, looking for my next project. I examined options like ripping out the whole engine from the p-car and installing a twin turbo in place of the TPC supercharger. I think I might have actually bid on a compatible engine I saw on eBay. Then I read about the Tesla Roadster and saw the White Zombie, an electric 1972 Datsun 1200, blowing the doors off a Corvette and a BMW online. That did it. I decided to replace the engine

Illustration By Nick Sirotich

CONVERSIONS

The eDart

MY 1974 DODGE DART SWINGER ELECTRIC CONVERSION ETOBICOKE, ONTARIO, CANADA

BY GAVIN BOGLE in my Porsche with an electric motor.

It did not matter that I knew nothing about it. I found some completed examples on the web and began collecting information.

LEARNING CURVE All of this was in the early fall of 2008.

That is when I began to research what it would take. I joined the EV Society of Canada and read their conversion manual. I read Victor Tikhonov‘s metricmind.com web site. I bought Electricity for Dummies and read it. I spoke to anyone who would talk to me.

It became clear I did not know what I was talking about. So I bought a couple books on electric cars and read some more. I soon realized the 911 was not

the ideal electric car. I talked to Randy Holmquist at Canadian Electric Vehicles and found him to be a great source of information and also probably the only source of Zilla controllers at the time. Randy took more than an hour to discuss various issues with me and helped me decide on my design parameters. For example, I decided to go with a Chevy S10 transmission. No matter what car I ended up with. Motor/transmission adapters for S10s are plenti-

“

ful so I would not have to design and build a custom adapter. Randy helped me understand that most electric car conversions have a clutch for safety. He also helped me to understand the availability of suitable parts such as motors and controllers.

I looked at the basic design parameters: fun to drive, high gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR), big trunk, big engine bay, and light weight. I considered buying an early Miata. I had once

It became clear I did not know what I was talking about. So I bought a couple books on electric cars and read some more.

”

JAN/FEB 2012

71

CONVERSIONS

“

”

co-owned and raced a 1990 Miata in SCCA, and I loved that car, but here I determined that the weight was actually too close to the GVWR. The basic problem was this: an electric motor requires electric power that has to come from batteries. In 2008/2009, I figured I needed to buy lead acid batteries because that was pretty much all that was in my budget.

Lithium was out of the question. An older Miata had a curb weight of about 2500 lbs but a GVWR of only 3078.

That gave only 600 lbs., less the passengers, and I knew from experience that

72 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GAVIN BOGLE

I put the Dart in my garage and began pulling stuff off it.

Gas tank first. Then the motor and tranny. removing the aluminum engine would not help a great deal.

The best option was a Chevy S10 pickup truck, but I had decided the vehicle would have to carry my 5 year old triplets, so I wanted a car. My first car was a 1974 Plymouth Valiant, which I bought for $500 in 1981, and back then it was too pedestrian. I needed a twodoor. (The 74 Valiant was identical to the Dart except it has four doors rather than the Dart’s 2).

The Dart weighs about 3000 lbs. but has a GVWR of 4500 lbs. Perfect! So I got on eBay and began looking for a

Dart in great shape but with the slant six engine no one wants. I found a Dart a few weeks later. One issue – it was an automatic, so I also needed to install new pedals, which I managed to find online.

First things first, I replaced the brakes and brake lines, and I got the car safety inspected. I drove it – 100 hp does not move the car that fast, but it certainly was a change from my other cars.

I had been researching parts and decided I had to have a Zilla controller because I surely needed 1000 amps (early misconception). I also needed a huge

electric motor, so I wanted a Warp11 from Netgain Motors. CANEV was the only source of Zillas I could find, and Randy was only selling them coupled to complete conversion kit packages, so that is what I did. This was not a bad choice in the end because they came with some reasonable wiring diagrams that were mostly mistake free.

I put the Dart in my garage and began pulling stuff off it. Gas tank first.

Then the motor and tranny. I bought a 2000 S10 five-speed transmission at a junk yard and began reassembling everything. Inland Empire Drive Lines

shipped a light-weight aluminum drive shaft with a Chevy S10 front slip yoke and a 1974 Dodge Dart differential connection with a one week lead time – truly amazing!

THE BATTERY SAGA In the middle of 2009 the EV community began to buzz with excitement.

Lithium batteries from China were becoming available at very reasonable prices. I was still planning on using lead until I spoke to Robert Weekly at the EV Society of Canada. He convinced me it had to be lithium or nothing.

I took his advice and also used his review of prices to track down a company based in Washington state. They were aggregating orders and buying in bulk from the ThunderSky Battery company in China. In January, 2009 I plunked down my $10k for 50 Thundersky TS180AH cells and crossed my fingers.

Four months later, the company went out of business and kept everyone’s money. Everyone in the EV conversion community is well aware of this debacle. I was in luck because I am a Canadian: my batteries were apparently being drop shipped.

JAN/FEB 2012

73

CONVERSIONS

1974 DODGE DART SWINGER ORIGINAL MSRP:

$3,077

The company had stopped responding to email and disconnected their phones, so I contacted China. ThunderSky’s people were very helpful. My batteries had been in Toronto for over a month sitting in some warehouse. One day later, I had them. I was probably the last person to get batteries at the very low bulk prices.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS I have basic welding skills, which came in very handy for creating motor and transmission mounts. I put everything in place – then I moved. Project on hold. Then I expanded the garage. Project still on hold. Finally, garage in. New two-post lift in. Battery saga over and everything is together and. . . nothing.

Zilla puts out data over a serial cable, but I do not have a computer with a serial cable. New (used) laptop. Read the errors. No help. Talk to Randy. Talk to Otmar Ebenhoech – the designer guru from Café Electric. Return Zilla to Ot-

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mar – it works fine. Review CANEV wiring diagrams and compare to online. Bingo, I discovered the one mistake. Re-wire the Zilla, and off I go.

The nice thing about Darts is that people still drag race them, so lots of cool new parts are available. The car has needed significant upgrades including: a new fiberglass hood, new leaf springs (I installed split monoleaf springs from Calvert Racing), a new Flaming River manual steering box, fast ratio pitman arm, a new 18kwh power supply, LED headlights, a new dash, and numerous new gauges. Next winter I want to install a new, light-weight K member with rack and pinion steering. I also bought an AirTop diesel boat/big truck heater to improve the overall heating during the long Canadian winter.

FINALLY The result is a 2800 lb. Dodge Dart Swinger daily driver that can be charged in two hours, with accelera-

tion and top speed at least as fast as the original, and a more than adequate range in the area of 90 miles. I love the car. So what is next? Did I mention I have a 1991 Porsche 911? Did I mention that the parts and technology have significantly improved in the last couple years, so this is now an easily doable project. Perhaps that is next!

EVTV I’d like to give a shout out to Jack Rickard and his EVTV Friday night show, which is broadcast on the web every week. This show is the only television show I watch now, and it does not require a TV! My wife finds this fascinating and suggests that it is truly the end of network television. She may be right. I have bought practically everything advertised on the show, from Nord-Lock® washers to EV Works electronics. In the end, the show and Jack have been a great help in getting all the details correct.

IMAGE COURTESY OF EVTV.ME

www.EVTV.me

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76 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

CONVERSIONS

CONVERSION TAX CREDIT BLUES? Name:

D.O.B.

Tax Credit Form #8910

BY: RYAN MOORE

Tax Man Extraordinaire & The Most Organized Guy You’ll Ever Meet

So you’ve decided to take the plunge and untether your USE THE RIGHT FORM auto from the umbilical cord of the petroleum monster.

Undoubtedly, at least a small part of the impetus behind your decision was that generous federal tax credit that is available to those who converted their gasoline powered car to a plug-in electric vehicle by December 31, 2011. This credit, buried deep within the voluminous pages of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is potentially equal to 10% of the cost of converting a vehicle to a qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle, topping out at a maximum credit of $4,000. In other words, if you spent $3,000 on the conversion, your credit is worth $300; if you spent $40,000 then your credit is the maximum allowable $4,000. What may at first seem like a great idea can quickly turn into a downright frustrating ordeal when faced with the onerous task of filling out forms and reading instructions that appear to be written in a foreign language. But fear not! Claiming this federal tax credit can be a walk in the park if you abide by these simple rules.

GET ORGANIZED

Whenever dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, it is imperative you document everything, save all your receipts, and make sure they are organized for easy access. Part of the beauty of this tax credit is that it’s available for up to 10% of your total conversion costs, including parts, shipping, labor, and any necessary body work, among other things. In order to maximize your credit, it will be important to maintain proof of every little expense, no matter how small! A paper trail will be your best friend if the IRS ever comes knocking, in which case, being able to substantiate your expenses will be key.

The correct form to use for claiming the federal tax credit for EV conversion is form 8910 - Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit. This form is also used for claiming tax credits for other fuel efficient vehicles so don’t let that confuse you. Given the form’s multi-purpose nature and infamously ambiguous instructions, it may not be readily apparent, but... line 4 is where you indicate the total cost of your conversion. A printable version of the one page form, as well as its instructions, are available on the IRS website at www.irs.gov.

CONSULT YOUR TAX ADVISOR (IF YOU HAVE ONE)

Granted, if you’re reading this you most likely subscribe to a 100% do-it-yourself way of living, but taxes can get complicated and so it never hurts to ask an expert.

Converting your gas guzzler to a more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly plug-in EV is an exciting and rewarding endeavor. And of course, if Uncle Sam is offering to help pay some of the costs, that’s great too! Unfortunately, Congress recently allowed the tax credits to expire for gas-to-electric conversions, two and threewheeled EVs, and home chargers.

Plug In America, an advocacy group that lobbies for EV-friendly legislation, is trying hard to influence the ongoing debate in Congress. Visit PlugInAmerica.org to learn how you can help.

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HELP IS ON THE WAY

AAA TAKES CHARGING ON THE ROAD

BY ERIC SULLIVAN

52 million members have rested comfortably in the knowledge that if they run out of gas AAA’s assistance was just a phone call away.

Now card-carrying AAA members of the EV movement are guaranteed that same assurance with the nation's first production ready level 2 and 3 mobile-charging units - unveiled at the Plug-In 2011 Conference and Exposition in Raleigh, NC. “For more than 100 years, AAA has been a leader in addressing the needs of the motoring public.

Dating back to the early days of the automobile, AAA has kept the pulse of the ever-changing automotive industry, and that continues today as we ready AAA’s emergency road service operations to address the emerging electric vehicle market,” said John

78 CHARGED JAN/FEB 2012

Nielsen, AAA National Director of Auto Repair, Buying Services and Consumer Information.

“We know electric vehicles are coming and we’ve got to be ready for them,” AAA spokeswoman Christie Hyde said.

Six states are initially slated to have their trucks equipped with the units. California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia will be ground-zero for the impending influx of operational mobile-charging units in August according to Hyde.

Stationary level 2 charging stations were installed at various AAA offices throughout Florida as early as June. They provide free charges for EV drivers between the hours of 6:30am and 8pm.

This represents a significant investment in the United States

EV infrastructure by the nation's largest auto club. With Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn's recent deal with the Japan Automobile Federation providing similar support to Japanese motorists, the barrier to entry for potential EV owners is quickly dwindling.

Between AAA’s mobile and stationary offerings, range anxiety is no longer a valid excuse for putting off that EV purchase.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AAA

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A NEW WORLD

Swapping Addictions ARE WE AT RISK OF EXCHANGING OIL DEPENDENCY FOR ONE OF LITHIUM AND RARE EARTH METALS?

T

he American love affair with the automobile has produced a dangerous dependency on gasoline, a societal addiction manifesting itself in pollution and the threat of being held hostage by foreign and often unfriendly dealers. Like any novice to AA or NA, we have admitted as a country that our lifestyle has become unmanageable. As a people, we seek change.

President Obama’s treatment is to make the United States the first nation to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. His prescription includes consumer rebates, greater investments in R&D, and incentives for communities to finance electric vehicle infrastructure. But while the politicians, lobbyists, energy activists, and industry experts debate which therapy or course of rehabilitation we should undertake, we the consumers hold the ultimate trump card when it comes to how our energy and transportation futures will take shape.

Addiction Transference One treatment for addiction is called “addiction transference” when you trade one pattern of behavior for another, like giving methadone to heroin users or a nicotine patch to smokers.

Some of these approaches work well, providing a more gradual means to remove an addiction than simply going “cold turkey.”

When successful, the addicted can be weaned off of this alternative substance. At the very least, it is intended to redirect the addiction to a substance less harmful.

In some cases, however, transference results in an illness more harmful than the original addiction. It is fear of such a solution-gone-wrong that has lead some EV detractors to take aim at the power source behind the budding technology: their reliance on lithium ion batteries. Critics maintain that replac-

BY STEVEN M. SHAKER - Technology forecaster & futurist, former CIA case officer & Navy civilian analyst on future warfare, CoAuthor of The WarRoom Guide to Competitive Intelligence JAN/FEB 2012

81

A NEW WORLD ing oil with lithium would only result in a new set of equally perilous problems. William Tahil of the French firm Meridian International Research proposes that much of the lithium supply will be siphoned off for use in laptops and other devices by the exploding consumer electronics market.

His data indicates that there will only be enough lithium carbonate for use by 1.5 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2015. Today there are over 1 billion automobiles on the road. “Depletion rates would exceed current oil depletion rates and switch dependency from one diminishing resource to another,” wrote Tahil in a 2006 paper. “Concentration of supply would create new geopolitical tensions, not reduce them.”

A Look at Mega Trends Although options other than lithium exist, some form of lithium chemistry is at the heart of every EV remotely close to production. Jeffrey P. Chamberlain, who heads up Argonne National laboratory’s Electrochemical Energy Storage Group, predicts that lithium batteries will be prevalent for at least the next decade or two.

In accessing the viability of lithium and rare earth materials to support a burgeoning EV market, one needs to examine the megatrends. Megatrends, a term coined by futurist and author John Naisbitt, are the large-scale changes in circumstances shaping the marketplace. There are five such megatrends pacing EV development and impacting America’s overall energy security.

F

Megatrend 1: Resource Demand rench automobile manufacturer Renault estimates that by 2020, the overall market share for EVs will comprise ten percent of all automobiles. They project that the number of all types of cars produced worldwide in 2020 will range from 62 to 107 million vehicles. Assuming 7.5 million electric cars will be built in 2020, and factoring in 15kWh batteries containing 2 kgLi2CO₃/kWh, then the overall demand for the auto industry in 2020 would be 225,000 tons of carbonate lithium. This would be an only moderate increase from current levels, and one that could be easily handled by the dozens of companies currently moving into the lithium mining market. Barring a drastically unpredictable increase in EV demand or a catastrophic drop in lithium supply, this should be a non-issue.

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ARGENTINA Beneath the crust of the vast salt flats in South America lies a brine rich in lithium.

An estimated 50% of the world’s current supply comes from Argentina & Chile.

PHOTO BY KEVIN JONES

NORTH SEA The all too familiar sight of an off shore drilling rig used to extract, process, and temporally store oil from below the ocean’s floor.

PHOTO BY RUNE LUK

R

Megatrend 2: Resource Availability eports of lithium’s scarcity are greatly exaggerated. Research conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School, the Argonne National Laboratory and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) indicates that current producers will provide enough lithium to fuel the requirements for EVs for the next decade. Currently, the US has at least 2.5 million tons of lithium in reserve, and other countries have an additional 23 million tons. Outside of the US, the world’s lithium reserves are found in countries such as Australia, Argentina, Chile, China, Russia, Serbia and Zimbabwe. Recent deposits found in both Bolivia and Afghanistan contain easily more than half the world’s known supply.

In those areas currently being mined, producers are only at 60% of their production capacity for lithium, leaving plenty of room for expansion.

Take into account the discoveries of new lithium deposits, the fact that the lithium part of batterJAN/FEB 2012

83

A NEW WORLD ies can be extracted and recycled, and the issue of resource availability seems to vanish into thin air.

EV batteries do require additional rare earth elements (REE) such as neodymium in the magnets used to make electric motors. Two other REEs – terbium and dysprosium - are added to neodymium to allow the electric motors to retain magnetism at high temperatures. The name “rare earth elements” is somewhat of a misnomer, however, in that many of the REEs are quite abundant (Neodymium in particular is the second most abundant REE). The problem is that they typically are not concentrated in deposits making them easy to tap.

C

Megatrend 3: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities learly the amount of lithium available for mining and production is plentiful, but factors other than volume determine availability. Whether lithium supplies can be held hostage by foreign powers is a fear eerily reminiscent of those currently associated with oil producers.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has been publicly critical of US policies and in 2010 Bolivia chose Iran, hardly a friend of the US, to assist in providing material, technical and training support for its lithium extraction. The chance of Afghanistan exploiting its vast, untapped resources seems highly unlikely. The country has no experience in mining on a large commercial scale, and lacks the necessary infrastructure. On top of that, regional instability, mainly the conflict with the Taliban, has outside mining companies reluctant to move into the beleaguered country. These are not the only sources of lithium, but with nations like Chile and China occupying the list of other suppliers, concerns are not far-fetched.

When it comes to REEs, the US has some of the largest deposits, but since the 1990s it has imported most of its supplies from China. China was able to increase its production and drive down prices to the point that US firms found it too difficult to compete. They revealed their willingness to leverage their control of rare earth minerals as an economic weapon when they blocked shipment of REEs to Japan following the naval mishap in the East China Sea between the two countries.

Hope exists in the potential for renewed mining efforts in the US, Canada and Vietnam; nevertheless, an over dependence on any single supplier or group of potentially hostile foreign sources re-

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LITHIUM

A soft silverwhite metal.

It is atomic number 3 and the least dense solid element. One of two metals that can float on water.

PHOTO BY DENNIS S.K.

mains a severe supply chain vulnerability. It may prove to be a legitimate hurdle to the worldwide expansion of EVs as an alternative to fossil fuelbased transportation.

T

Megatrend 4: Research and Development he Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-e) is funding a number of projects aimed at making improvements on the standard lithium-ion battery.

One being developed by the firm PolyPlus, with ARPA-e support, is the lithium-water battery. The new technology encases the lithium in a special electrolyte membrane so it can be used as an elctromechanical couple with oxygen and water. The result is far greater energy density - 1,300 watthours per kilogram of electricity as compared to the roughly 400 watt-hours per kilogram achieved by standard lithium-ion batteries. In other words, more power per kilogram of lithium.

There are also research efforts to eliminate the need for REEs used in lithium-ion batteries. Continental Corporation is developing an alternative to permanent-magnet motors using a brushed synchronous motor that requires no REEs. A careful analysis of the megatrends reveals that America is not in danger of swapping its addiction to oil for one of lithium. Rare earth elements may pose a few difficulties, but there are measures underway to lessen the risk. By and large, electric vehicles have robust resource availability and a diversified supply chain to mitigate any real vulnerabilities for the foreseeable future.

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?

By Charlie Morris There’s no longer any doubt – 2012 will be the longawaited Year of the Electric Car. Every major automaker has EVs in the pipeline, and dozens of new models took the stage at January’s Detroit auto show. Electrical current is flowing into every corner of the transportation world. We’ve recently reported on electric motorcycles, ATVs, dragsters, Formula One racers, pickups, vans, city buses, yellow school buses, boats, auto ferries and even a retrofitted electric tractor-trailer rig.

I haven’t been so excited since my days writing about the internet boom of the 1990s. A disruptive technological genie is out of the bottle, and Silicon Valley startups are duking it out with global corporate giants.

Of course, building (and marketing) cars is not like building web sites. Although technology is shortening product cycles in the auto industry, this revolution is not going to unfold as quickly as the web did.

The bête noir of the early internet was Bandwidth, and for EVs it is Batteries. Performance isn’t the problem – you can punch a Leaf up to 93 mph if you like, and a Tesla Roadster could go head-to-head with a Porsche on a short track. The problem is cost. There’s no question that EVs save money (half the per-mile cost of the most efficient ICEs). But with EVs selling at double the price of comparable gas models (Volt vs Cruze, for example), the payback period is too long to tempt the average driver. I don’t expect to see Main Street EV

sales explode this year (things will move faster in highgas-price Europe and Japan, and in China’s command economy).

In the commercial zone, however, electrification is proceeding at a steady pace. If you have a fleet of vehicles that travel a regular route and return to a central depot, then a few minutes with a spreadsheet will sell you on EVs. Delivery services and other fleet operators are simply starting to phase out their dinosaur burners. One exception: taxis, which can’t take time off to charge.

To the rescue: wireless inductive charging, which is available now as a retrofit for most EVs, and will increasingly be offered as a dealer option. Those parking meter-like charging posts could be obsolete before they gain a foothold. Some day charging constraints may disappear, as cars recharge on the go. One company that may not be cheering is EV pioneer Better Place, which has bet on a mechanical battery-swapping system.

The biggest media event of the year could be the launch of Tesla’s Model S. Even if they never sell another car, Tesla will always be known as the company that remade the EV’s image from a sacrifice to save the planet into something sophisticated and sexy. Elon Musk wants the Model S to be “not the best electric car, but the best car of any kind.” That’s a tall order – there are some damn fine vehicles on the market today, and for an eight-year old company to build something that can compete with the likes of BMW and Volvo will be a feat for the history books indeed.

2012 Image Courtesy of Flickr: Creativity103

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