Lowe Joins Hybrid Plug-Ins Hype

By Mike Bartley

Actor Rob Lowe went to Capitol Hill last week to tout plug-in hybrids and a bill sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The said bill would vest drivers tax breaks for converting their hybrids into plug-in models that can be recharged using a regular wall outlet.

Automakers were annoyed by the decision to include Lowe, while none of them was invited. In his testimony, Lowe twice quoted his Sam Seaborn character from TV's “The West Wing” and said that the car has improved his driving skills since he tries to get better mileage. “I have been driving this car around and I have to tell you, it did what my mother couldn't do. It did what my driving instructor couldn't do, it's made me a better driver,” Lowe added.

Markey's occasion got lots of hype and pulled plenty of environmentalists who back the event with noteworthy speed and reliability likened to ACT performance. One man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that his group had recently raised money to send copies of the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?” to all 535 members of Congress and all 50 governors. The initiative would cost around $9,000 at current prices. The film suggests a host of scoundrels were behind General Motors Corp.'s decision to end its EV1 electric car program after investing more than $1 billion.

How did the Congress react? Did lawmakers enjoy the show? And the media thought United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger was not a devotee. A throng of quote-thirsty reporters, grabbing the out of the usual run of things chance, swooped on the notoriously reticent labor chief after his speech to the NAACP at its national convention last week in Detroit.

While auto company chief executives regularly make themselves available to the press, a Gettelfinger interview is a rarity. That fact is especially irritating to reporters in the weeks leading up to this summer's national contract talks.

One journalist asked the labor chief to explain why he does not like talking to reporters. A look of surprise crossed Gettelfinger's face and his jaw dropped. “What do you mean? I have no problem with the media,” he said. Apparently the question stuck with him, because after answering questions, he returned to the topic. “I love the media,” he said. “What makes you think I don't?”
Afterward, to drive the point home, Gettelfinger reminded the group that, while he might not talk to them, at least one journalist in town is on his A list. “Call Paul W. Smith if you think I have a problem with the media,” he noted, referring to WJR's NewsTalk-760 host to whom he habitually grants interviews.

You can go home again. The Cerberus Capital Management LP sees value in Detroit automakers, or at least in the Chrysler Group, the American luxury unit of DaimlerChrysler AG. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the New York-based private equity firm's chairman, John Snow, has an appreciation for the barrel-aged, exquisite tang of Vernors ginger ale.

The former U.S. treasury secretary was in town last week for an appearance before the Detroit Economic Club. He could not stop gushing when he spotted the green can so familiar to Midwesterners on a table outside a conference room at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester. “Vernors!” exclaimed the Toledo native Snow to his private equity associates, who gazed on with bewilderment. “This stuff is so good. I used to drink this all the time,” Snow chattered. “This is what I was telling you about. You have to try this.”

Cerberus is expected to close its deal to acquire Chrysler this quarter.

Freedom From Oil Campaign Applauds Ford, Edison Promise To Build Plug-in Hybrids

By Anthony Fontanelle

Rainforest Action Network Campaign Director Sarah Connolly and Global Exchange Campaign Director Mike Hudema recently commended Ford Motor Company’s announcement that it would team with Southern California Edison to build as many as 20 plug-in hybrid electric vehicle prototypes by 2009.

Earlier, Southern California Edison Co. and Ford Motor Co. announced a partnership that included a multimillion-dollar test of plug-in hybrids. Plug-ins are said to be the next-generation development of the current crop of gasoline-electric hybrids.

In addition to saving gas, Ford and Edison said, increased use of plug-in vehicles would lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce American dependence on imported oil. The partnership will explore how plug-in hybrids would operate on a day-to-day basis and how they would fit into the state's electricity grid.

“We applaud Ford’s bold commitment to build the first ever road-ready, consumer-class plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Consumers have been waiting a long time for an automaker to offer the next generation of ultra-fuel-efficient, gasoline-optional cars. Plug-in hybrids could very well be the key to breaking America’s destructive oil addiction by giving consumers a viable alternative to the gas-guzzling cars and trucks currently clogging our roads and polluting our atmosphere,” noted Connolly.

She added, “Plug-in vehicles, which use proven technology that is capable of achieving over 100 miles per gallon, make the U.S. Senate’s goal of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 seem painfully conservative. We are encouraged by what appears to be a sincere effort by Ford and Southern California Edison to chip away at the auto industry’s longstanding relationship with Big Oil. By being the first automaker to put a plug-in hybrid on the road, Ford is leaving its competitors in the dust.”

The Dearborn automaker wants to investigate ways to bring down the cost of the vehicles, including by using an innovative technology that allows plug-in vehicles to return unused power to the grid during periods of peak demand. "They understand the grid, we understand the vehicles and together we can figure out how to optimize the system," said Susan M. Cischke, Ford's senior vice president for sustainability, environment and safety engineering.

The partnership is entitled to grab hold of the Ford door handle to open more opportunities environment- and profit-wise. Under the partnership, Ford will supply a batch of its Escape SUV hybrids for Edison to use. At a later date, it will provide plug-in versions of the vehicle to the utility for testing.

"We're taking this beyond laboratory-scale work to a systematic evaluation of its impact" on the grid, said John Bryson, chief executive of Edison's parent company, Edison International. Edison serves almost five million residential and business customers in the Los Angeles Basin and parts of the coast and Central Valley.

Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally said earlier this year that he wanted his company to embrace "green" technologies. Ford was the first U.S. automaker to add a hybrid to its lineup when it introduced the hybrid version of the Escape.

“Powering America’s cars by electricity rather than oil will help America kick its oil addiction once and for all. Yet, despite the hope raised by today’s announcement, plenty of work remains. Utilities must earnestly begin the shift away from dirty coal and toward renewable energy sources. A green grid powered by wind and sun can cleanly recharge car batteries and help tackle our twin crises of oil addiction and global warming,” Hudema concluded.

The Freedom from Oil campaign is working to end America’s dependence on foreign oil and end global warming issues by convincing the auto industry to radically improve fuel efficiency and eradicate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

Ford Plug-ins Expected Within Ten Years

By Anthony Fontanelle

Dearborn-based automaker FoMoCo will be producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 5 to ten years according to the company’s Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally. The announcement came at a press conference where Ford and Southern California Edison formally announced their partnership towards the future of PHEVs.

“Within five to ten years we will start to see this technology in our hands,” said Mulally. When asked whether Ford plug-in vehicles will be available on their dealerships, the Ford CEO answered “Yes. Sure.”

According to Mulally, the production of practical plug-in hybrid vehicles depends on how long it takes for them to produce a practical lithium-ion battery pack for automotive application. Lithium-ion battery packs are seen as focal point of plug-in hybrid vehicles of the future.

PHEVs are essentially hybrid vehicles, having a powertrain composed of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. What drives the electric motor is the battery pack. A PHEV is a hybrid with a plug-in capability. This means that its battery pack can be recharged by plugging it into an electrical socket.

Lithium-ion batteries are powerful energy storage devices which mean they can store power which can power a vehicle over long distances. This means that for car owners driving around the city everyday, the need to refill their tanks with petroleum fuel will be virtually eliminated.

This advantage of PHEVs is what Ford and Edison are looking to exploit. The working relationship between the two companies is expected to find solutions to problems posed on the mass production of PHEVs. But with complete dedication on the part of the two companies, we may soon see numerous Ford fender-equipped Ford PHEVs in our roads.

The partnership between the second largest American automaker and the second largest American electric utility company has already received praises from different groups. One of the groups which have commended this joint venture of Ford and Edison is the Freedom from Oil Campaign. According to Rainforest Action Network Campaign Director Sarah Connolly and Global Exchange Campaign Director Mike Huderna:

“We applaud Ford’s bold commitment to build the first ever road-ready, consumer-class plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Consumers have been waiting a long time for an automaker to offer the next generation of ultra-fuel-efficient, gasoline-optional cars. Plug-in hybrids could very well be the key to breaking America’s destructive oil addiction by giving consumers a viable alternative to the gas-guzzling cars and trucks currently clogging our roads and polluting our atmosphere.”

The environmental group also stressed that the partnership encourages their effort to take steps to further protect the environment. “Plug-in vehicles, which use proven technology that is capable of achieving over 100 miles per gallon, make the U.S. Senate’s goal of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 seem painfully conservative. We are encouraged by what appears to be a sincere effort by Ford and Southern California Edison to chip away at the auto industry’s longstanding relationship with Big Oil. By being the first automaker to put a plug-in hybrid on the road, Ford is leaving its competitors in the dust.”

The Freedom from Oil campaign concluded its support of Ford and Edison’s initiative by saying: “Powering America’s cars by electricity rather than oil will help America kick its oil addiction once and for all. Yet, despite the hope raised by today’s announcement, plenty of work remains. Utilities must earnestly begin the shift away from dirty coal and toward renewable energy sources. A green grid powered by wind and sun can cleanly recharge car batteries and help tackle our twin crises of oil addiction and global warming.”

General Motors Reports Progress Toward New All-Electric Car

By John Birchard/Voice of America

In January of 2007, General Motors (GM) unveiled a concept car powered solely by electricity. The Chevrolet Volt is a big step beyond today's hybrid, that uses both a gasoline engine and electric motor. VOA's John Birchard reports on the progress GM is making toward turning the Volt from an attractive idea into a production vehicle.

As vice president of research and development and strategic planning for General Motors, Larry Burns is responsible for the company's efforts to reinvent the automobile, so to speak - to move beyond conventional gasoline-powered vehicles to environmentally sound "green" cars of tomorrow.

The seemingly routine news of GM's recent award of two contracts to suppliers who will conduct advanced battery development for the Chevrolet Volt is, according to Burns, really a milestone for the company. Because the battery that powers the Volt is the key to its existence.

"Specifically, what you can do is plug your car into a regular 110-volt outlet at night and, over a four to six-hour period, recharge the battery so that the next day you can drive this car 40 miles [64 kilometers] on pure electric drive with no emissions."

At the suggestion that forty miles, 64 kilometers, doesn't sound like a long distance, Larry Burns cited research that indicates the projected range of the Volt would meet most Americans' requirements.

"Because 70 percent of the people in the U.S. travel less than 40 miles a day. For a lot of people this kind of vehicle could meet most all of their travel needs on pure battery electric driving," he said.

Americans are accustomed to hearing automakers talk about the car of tomorrow... about hydrogen power and fuel cells being the wave of the future. But it always seems to be the next decade, or beyond, before these marvelous pollution-free vehicles will arrive. So, we asked the GM executive when will the all-electric Chevrolet Volt be in a dealer's showroom, ready for sale to the public? His answer?

"Since we started our production engineering in January of this year and, typically, the lead times in the auto industry are three to four years, that would suggest we ought to have it out in that time frame. But we haven't formally announced that date, just because there's still a lot of work to be done on the battery and we want to make sure we get that work done properly," he said.

Storage of electricity has long been a vexing problem for automakers. The battery that is big enough to store sufficient power to not only move the car, but operate all the electrical devices that modern cars require is currently too big to carry in the car and still have room for people and cargo. So, the contracts General Motors awarded to those suppliers recently amount to a crucial component for GM's non-polluting future fleet.

Google Turns Green, Launches RechargeIT

By Evander Klum

In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and global dependence on oil, internet giant Google has launched its new RechargeIT initiative to promote the development of plug-in hybrid electric cars. Under the guidance of Google’s own philanthropic Google.org team, the new initiative will award $1 million in grants and a further $10 million to fund the development and eventual commercialization of plug-in hybrids.

According to the company’s press release, this is how the first million will be spent: * Brookings Institution: $200,000 to support a spring 2008 conference on federal policy to promote plug-ins * CalCars: $200,000 to support its work to educate the public about plug-ins * Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI): $200,000 to support its plug-in research and development program; * Plug-In America: $100,000 to raise public awareness and advocate for plug-in transportation; * Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI): $200,000 to enable RMI to launch the design of a practical plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, with additional support and collaboration by Alcoa, Johnson Controls, and the Turner Foundation; * Dr. Willett Kempton, University of Delaware: $150,000 for megawatt scale vehicle-to-grid research and implementation planning.
Too Not only is Google interested in creating a reliable plug-in hybrid, its new initiative will also support the development of a sustainable electricity grid. Under the proposal, owners would be able to sell back unused energy when power across the grid is running low.

Partnering with A123Systems-Hymotion, Google has already tested a fleet of Toyota Prius vehicles that were converted into plug-in hybrids. In the initial tests, the fleet’s fuel efficiency averaged 74mpg, stark contrast to the 41mpg for the test fleet of non-plug-in Prius cars.
Google also announced the start-up of the solar panel installation at Google HQ to power the plug-in vehicles it already has. The new solar panel installation at its Mountain View headquarters in California should develop up to 1.6 megawatts of power – enough to power roughly 1,000 homes.

Google employees will also be able to get free car sharing through Google Fleet. This fleet will get 100 PHEVs when they're available.

Too bad Honda (maker of quality Honda car bra) has decided to discontinue its Honda Accord hybrids.