(Matt Vance, reporting from Paris)

The French. We all know they’re commies at heart.

Which is why it’s not surprising to hear that the French government is going one step further towards the abolition of private property, putting forth a plan that will allow Parisians to drive a zero-emissions electric car whenever they want, without ever having to buy one.

Yep, the city of Paris wants to do to electric cars what they did to bicycles in their rent-a-bike Vélib’ system. And, applying the same logic from one to the other – as the French indubitably love doing – the program will be called Autolib’ – a clever portmanteau of liberté and automobile (just as Vélib is a contraction of liberté and vélo).

Freedom and cars, together at last.

There have long been rumors of such an initiative, yet it became official last summer when an intergovernmental council was formed for Greater Paris to oversee the scheme’s implementation. (While the creation of intergovernmental councils in France is always a sure mark of a plan’s permanence, it also paradoxically signifies a plan’s almost interminable delay of action – before the intergovernmental council was created, the scheduled launch date for Autolib’ was mid-2010, now it’s September 2011 and counting).

Once in operation, drivers will be able to pick up either a two-seat or a four-seat 100% electric car – without reservation – by merely swiping their credit card into a reader. Rates will likely be around $6-$9 per half-hour, and users can drop off their car at any rental location. Unlike the Vélib’ system however, which anybody can walk up to and use, those wishing to mosy around in an Autolib’ will need to register in advance with a valid driver’s license, and sign up for a monthly subscription fee between $22 and $29. Yep – it’s not quite as liberté as you might expect form the French.

The city’s plan calls for up to 700 Autolib’ stands to be built within Paris’ periphery – 500 curbside stations, and 200 in parking lots – and another 700 to be built in the city’s surrounding suburbs – making a total of around 4,000 all-electric Autolib’s in circulation.

An artist's rendering

There’s no news yet as to which electric car will staff the Autolib’ fleet. Daimler, Renault, and Peugot Citroen have all expressed interest in the project, yet there’s also the possibility that a new car will be specially-designed for the program. Obviously, there are certain major hurdles any car that’s used will have to overcome – vandalism, theft, long recharging times, durability among them.

While Paris’ Vélib’ system has been a massive success, it has also been a huge headache for JCDecaux – its parent company – to maintain, with thousands of bikes going missing, or being returned broken beyond repair ever year.

Ouch.

Of course it hasn’t helped matters that French privacy law dictates that a merchant cannot keep a customer’s credit card and personal information once a transaction is finished, making offenders rather hard to book.

Proponents of the Autolib’ initiative, Paris’ mayor Bertrand Delanoë perhaps the strongest among them, it being one of his campaign pledges, argue that the scheme will not only improve traffic congestion – as fewer people will own cars – but will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 22,000 tons a year. “It will revolutionize transport,” said Delanoë, revealing both his impassioned committment to Autolib’, as well as his natural French propensity for things revolutionary.

Yet in a move that almost seems uncanny, many French environmentalists – close political allies of Delanoë among them – are critical of Autolib’s green credentials. Autolib’, they argue, will increase traffic congestion, and might encourage people to go for drives “on a whim” that would otherwise not. “Encouraging the public to use any type of car instead of taking bikes or public transportation is a mistake,” according to Denis Baupin, a prominent Green Party leader, who prefers traditional rental schemes in which cars must be reserved ahead of time and returned to the same location.

Only time will tell whether the French can realize this ambitious feat of engineering, and if Autolib’ will end up like its kindred Vélib – with its kinks, but overall successful and enjoyed by many – or more like those automated rent-a-toilets you see on street corners – seemed like a good idea at the time…

First there was Vélib’, now Autolib’, and next… Sarkozy: “I’m going to launch PrimeMinister-lib’ – I can change mine whenever I want!”

Ah, Tesla Motors…the only automaker selling only mass-produced electric vehicles in Europe or North America.  Well, really, make that vehicle – Tesla currently only produces one kind of car: the Roadster (well, if you want to be picky, you could argue they produce two kinds, the Roadster and the Roadster Sport).  The base model runs at about $100,000 after the government tax rebate.  Not cheap, but this isn’t your granola neighbor’s electric vehicle.  It’s sexy, it’s sporty, and it does zero to sixty in under four seconds.  All while costing about two cents per mile to run.

No more electric Roadsters for Tesla?

Today now you, too, could be an owner of this innovative company.  Well, in the form of stock, at least; Tesla just announced that it’s going public and putting $100 million in shares on the public market.

But it’s like a wise frog once said: it ain’t easy being green.  Tesla hasn’t seen booming sales despite an increasingly emissions-conscious public.  They plan to stop making the current version of the Roadster next year when they change suppliers and won’t restart production until 2012, when they’ll also likely introduce their next model: a sedan tentatively priced at around $50k.

So why aren’t Teslas flying off the lots?  Why aren’t they commonplace cars by now?  After all, the company’s been around for since mid-2003.

Maybe because the Tesla doesn’t offer much middle ground (not that it should, but as a culture, we seem to be reluctant to change.  Those big trucks and SUVs are still permeating the roadways, usually inhabited by one lone driver.)  It’s all electric and that might be scary for consumers.  Also, Tesla began offering cars to the public in the middle of a deep recession – not exactly the right time to buy new luxury vehicles (unless you’re in charge of a major bank, of course).  And Tesla prides itself on no advertising.  It certainly works for Lamborghini, but the jury’s still out on Tesla.

Hopefully going public and getting over $450 million from government loans will bolster the seemingly tenuous company.  After all, turning the lights off when we leave the room will only go so far.  Tesla goes the extra mile.  And in a sporty roadster, no less.

Better Place Car (Renault) - Source: socialearth.org

While covering the 2010 EDTA Conference in Washington on electric vehicles for Clean Horizon Consulting, I learned that the first cars were actually electric vehicles. It is only under Thomas Edison’s advice that Ford chose to develop a model around a combustion engine. Edison knew that in terms of energy storage, it is hard to be more efficient than fossil fuels. Then, the technology struck back in the aftermath of the 1973 and 1979 oil crises. This eventually led to some product developments - for those who remember the infamous GM EV1. At that time, electric vehicles with its multiple drawbacks (range constraints, time to charge, lack of infrastructure, etc.) could not threaten the more flexible and established technology that was the combustion engine. Can the story be any different this time?

During the conference, even the most adamant electric vehicle (EV) evangelist knew that mass adoption of EVs will come down to one thing only: customer experience. Early adoption is never an issue especially for a technology that can appeal to both geeks and environmentalists. The real trick though is to secure mass adoption. This is actually where the technology failed in the past. You have to provide the average consumer with at least an on-par experience compared to what she is used to getting with her current car. This is all the more challenging that a seamless customer experience requires the emergence of an ecosystem linking a nebula of actors. If you wake-up at 7AM to get to this important meeting and your car is not  charged up, who should you call? The car manufacturer? the utility? the charging station manufacturer? All of them? For those of you who tried to get a Google Nexus while conserving your current T-Mobile account, you know that seamless interactions between companies’ customer services rarely self-emerge.

While the industry is still fighting to define standards, a self-emerging ecosystem seems like an utopia. As a consequence, EV will struggle through the next decade, slowly grabbing market share but growing slower than some could have expected. However, we should be aware of two important wild cards: Better Place and Smith.

For Better Place, an on-par, if not enhanced, customer experience is at the core of its value proposition. Instead of waiting for an ecosystem to emerge, they have chosen to develop it where it geographically and demographically made sense. The key to their success is to secure enough funding to develop the infrastructure required to satisfy their customers – namely the charging and swapping battery stations. That’s why they are currently focusing in a very dense mainly urban country like Israel; and banks clearly see some future in their endeavors since they just secured more than 350 million USD to build the infrastructure. Provided their business model prevails in Israel and Denmark (their next target), Better Place will still have to prove it can pull it off in a country like the US. But by that time, they may not be the only one company with such an approach!

Smith is a manufacturer of electric trucks that boast a range close to 150 miles. They focus on a “niche” market where their product will enhance the customer experience even with a sub-par infrastructure. Indeed, managers of truck fleets for city delivery (like Coke Cola or Staples) are already masters at managing highly complex environment. EV would not add another constraint to their job. On the contrary, they would relax one: the price volatility of oil. For firms with available capital upfront, it makes sense to invest a premium in EV to gain more predictability in their costs. With an EV, you know exactly what you transportation cost will be for the entire life of your truck! Then, I would not be surprised if most of the city delivery relied on EV trucks in the next 5 years. Interestingly, this may be the push that everybody waited to bring economies of scale to the battery production.

What if the electrification of city delivery became the enabler of a cheap electric car for mass market?

Tesla Roadster

The original electric car was introduced in the early 1900’s the Detroit Electric Car Company lost out to the internal combustion engines of the twenties. Then there was the EV1, which according to the movie “Who killed the Electric Car?” was scrapped by GM. The electric car is being resurrected in the twenty-first century.

His name is, Jacob Ziegler, and very few people in the U.S. are even aware of his existence. However, in 1976, Detroit Diesel Allison, a Division of the General Motors Corporation, and it’s Detroit and Indianapolis Operations facilities were very much aware of him because of his innovations in creating the first fully functional electric car in the Midwest and possibly the U.S.

With all this talk about revitalizing the automobile industry and the push toward inexpensive electric cars, we wonder if politicians are truly serious about taking the U.S. to the next level in the automobile and manufacturing industries.

For example, there was an article written earlier this month by Indianapolis Star writers, Ted Evanoff and Bruce Smith, titled, ‘Indiana’s plugged in to an auto revival.’ The article talked about the deal that was struck between the state of Indiana and Think City, a European car maker, to build an assembly plant in Elkhart Indiana which would create 415 new jobs.   Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels, when speaking about how the state could become national center for the electric car revolution, said, “We’re here at the moment the revolution became clear.”  Actually, the revolution became clear before any of us ever heard of Mitch Daniels, Think City, clean fossil fuels or hybrids.   Even Popular Mechanics wrote about Jacob Ziegler and his amazing innovations in the electric car as early as March of ’77.’

At this point we want to take you back to November of 1976 where Jacob Ziegler gave an interview in Power News, a Detroit Diesel Allison plant newspaper.

Electric car no Hhhmmmbug

In the beginning, there was no Volectra.  There was, however, a Jake Ziegler, lathe operator at Maywood Plant 5, a man with energy and enthusiasm, who has always tinkered with things electronic, and who decided he would like to build an electric car.

“I don’t give up,” he says—and with two years and some help from his friends, he succeeded.

It’s registered as a “1976 model, two-door hardtop.”  The body, made of aluminum and conduit tubing, is painted bronze, with yellow lightning streaks on both sides.  Later it will have a “Hhhmmmbug” painted on the back because it was once a Volkswagen.  (You’d never know it now, Ziegler, who says he hates to follow plans anyway, likes to salvage the pieces for his projects from unlikely places—so a youth bed frame holds the windshield, and the headlights are set in fondue pots.)

“I don’t know how much it cost to make,” Ziegler says.  “Some parts were expensive—others were cheap, or free.  Some parts didn’t work out, and had to be replaced—often more than once.  Ziegler tried three motors before he found one that worked the way he wanted.  He had to try different sets of fuses, different kinds of pulleys, different batteries…

“I bought all the parts, and about two-thirds of the ideas were mine, but my neighbor helped.  He’s a welder, and on Saturdays we were able to get into the plant where he works and use some of the equipment.  We couldn’t have done it without that.”

Now,” it turns on a dime,” Ziegler points to a special button on the dashboard, “that lets me go slow.  Otherwise it’s quick as scat.”  He uses the button mostly in parking lots. “The motor’s so quiet, people don’t hear me coming.  It can be dangerous.  All they  hear is the sound of the tires on the pavement.”

There are gauges for amperage, voltage, and miles per hour on the dashboard too, and Ziegler also has a horn, radio and windshield wipers.

The Volectra shifts gears like any other car.  Ziegler estimates that in first gear the car gets up to 12 miles an hour, 20 in second gear, 30-33 in third, and 40-43 in fourth.

“Forty-six is the fastest I’ve driven it,” he says.  “but [performance] depends on a lot of things—the condition of the road, how much air is in the tires, the temperature (it’s always slower in the cold), how much I start and stop—but I always get home.  It’s not like a car that runs out of gas.  It goes more slowly, but I just keep shifting down, and I always get there.”

The batteries (6 volt, 225 amps each) take five of six hours to recharge with a standard AC-110 transformer.  Ziegler notes that his household electricity bill didn’t increase at all with the addition of his car.  He lives about 8 miles from Plant 5, and figures that the round trip might cost 15¢ if depreciation of the car is figured in with the cost of the electricity.

Ziegler finds his electric car “a lot more interesting than a regular car—and a pack of fun.”

“I get a lot of stares.  One day a little boy ran down the street after me, shouting, “did you build that?  Did you build that?’  Another time, I was driving to the bowling alley.  It still looked like a Volkswagen then, and every time I shifted, a relay light would spark beneath the car.  Since the bottom was open, people could see the flash.  All the cars stayed about a half block behind me, thinking I was going to explode!”

Ziegler is married, and has four daughters and one grandson.  A few of his daughters, and of course his grandson, have ridden in the Volectra—but not his wife.

As successful as he considers the Volectra, Ziegler is already thinking about building a new—and better—electric car, and he has a lot of ideas for it.  It seems like he’s thought of everything—even the use of solar energy (“too expensive right now”).

He explains himself with a reference to the eight years he spent working on a stereo system for his home: “ I sit around the house and watch that durn silly television.  I just want something else to do.” And he adds with a grin, “ I don’t drink; I don’t smoke; I don’t run around.”

Ziegler will have been in service with DDA 27 years in April.

We thought this story worth mentioning because maybe, just maybe, the Governor of Indiana, the general assembly of Indiana, the city council of Indianapolis and the wonderful citizens of the great state of Indiana might once and for all come to an agreement about what’s truly important not only for Indiana’s economic future but for the economic future of every state in our union.  EDUCATION!

Like him or hate him, we heard the president give a magnificent speech in his State of the Union address as he touched on our need to reinvest in our legacy, our children, by making education a top priority. We agree.  However,  in spite of our need to financially support K through 12 programs,  higher learning institutions and community college programs, the Governor of Indiana has took an completely opposite stance that does not really move us in the right direction.  If  Indiana needs spending cuts, anyone in their right mind knows that any freeze or cut cannot come at the expense of your children, your future innovators, your future taxpayers, your future college professors, engineers and the like.  Your Straight Gospel writers  believe our leaders must be both fiscally and morally responsible to our future generation.   In our opinion,  resting on the laurels of bringing 415 jobs into a city is like spray painting a glossy color over a rusty bicycle frame; pretty soon you’ll be right back at trying to cover the rust again, this time with a new color.  That is to say, the frame, the foundation, is your culprit– not the color of the cycle.  We’d like to see the governor and our legislative body get serious about educating our children, because we know our children are the innovators, the creators of a better tomorrow, a better Indiana.

Jacob Ziegler  is one of Indiana’s own and was born in Evansville Indiana.  He  has Alzheimer now and he is going on 90 years old.  He has an eighth grade education and he didn’t read his first novel  until around the age 67 or so.  He’s a “right brain” thinker, who learned to blend his faculty of comprehension and logic (characteristics  generally thought to be associated with the left brain hemisphere,)  beautifully for his creation of an electric car.  This, we believe, ties in perfectly to our little discussion here about  politics,  the president’s speech,  education, and spending cuts at the expense of children.

The state of Indiana is full of right brains thinkers.  These are they, like Jacob, who use their feelings and intuition more. In other words, they see the “big picture. Their imagination is uncanny, and they seem to know how objects function and have excellent spatial perceptions, they’re risk takers, believers, people with a firm grasp of the possibilities of making something out of a few parts, or something  out of nothing.  Jacob, with only an eight grade education, is a genius, and we wonder how many more geniuses are hidden in urban and rural areas across Indiana and the U.S?  We believe more than you can ever imagine.  However, we may never get to know their true genius or benefit from anything they have to offer if any program or curriculum associated with the arts and creativity are butchered.   If Indiana truly wants to be on the leading edge of any kind of revolution, the leaders of this great state must learn to invest in their own.   We cannot boast of bringing 415 jobs from overseas to Elkhart Indiana to build an electric car when we were sitting on top of  one of the greatest minds in Indiana who long prepared the way for the electric car revolution.  How long will we chew on the fat, the sizzle, and not the steak?  At this point, we’re not sure of whether our political leaders are right brain or left brain–perhaps there’s no brain at all.  We’re still waiting to see signs of cognition.

Your Straight Gospel, No Chaser writers

L.E. Coleman & C.H. Wyatt

If you’ve ever actually read through the owner’s manual of any of your electronic gadgets, you probably ran across a warning against using your digital gewgaw in blistering hot or freezing temperatures. Unfortunately, Mini forgot to put that disclaimer in the manual for their new all-electric Mini E, and motorists in the frosty northeast have been left stranded on the side of the road, out of juice and out of luck.

The problems affecting the Mini E are not necessarily because of poor design. The trouble is that batteries in general don’t perform well when the mercury drops. Because the Mini E doesn’t have a backup gas-powered engine like hybrids, it has nothing to fall back on.

The Mini E is still in the early stages of coming to market. Only 450 cars have been leased to owners across the states to test the systems and provide feedback on the feel. With its current lithium-ion battery pack, the Mini E has an estimated range of around 100 to 120 miles on a full charge and in optimal weather conditions. However, drivers in New York and New Jersey have been seeing those ranges drop down to 70 miles because of the cold.

The root of the problem lies in the Mini E's battery pack

Of course, the lack of performance and loss of range have not been an issue for Mini E drivers out in California, where the weather is sunny and golden like onion rings nearly year round.

Source: NYTimes

Death and taxes may have been for Benjamin Franklin the only certainties in life, but research firm Frost & Sullivan adds a third this week: a boom in the car sharing market over the next several years. “It is a trend that WILL happen,” the firm writes in a new report, “and vehicle manufacturers need to carefully gauge the potential impact on their total sales.”

According to the report, the number of drivers using car-sharing networks increased 117 percent between 2007 and 2009 in North America. Within five years, the firm expects to see 4.4 million people in North America and 5.5 million people in Europe signing up for services like the one from Zipcar, more than tripling membership from 2009.

Car-share providers, which often roll the cost of fuel into membership and hourly or daily fees, are now “actively seeking fuel efficient, low emission, low priced, and trendy vehicles,” Frost analyst David Zhao notes. This presents both a risk and an opportunity for car makers, since car-share providers could turn into big customers, while also driving a decline in personal vehicle ownership (according to Frost, each shared vehicle replaces about 15 personally owned vehicles).

For makers of electric vehicles in particular, car-share networks could help shore up demand in the early days of the technology, with plug-in vehicles expected to make up one in every five new vehicle purchases for car-share fleets by 2016.

What’s in it for consumers? Zipcar claims its members, most of whom drive 5,500 miles or less each year, can save more than $435 per month by driving shared vehicles rather than owning a car (factoring in costs like fuel, insurance, vehicle maintenance, parking and car payments). Frost’s analysis suggests, however, that savings can be much higher for some low-mileage drivers. Drive less than 12,000 miles per year, the firm estimates, and you could save more than $1,834 by opting out of vehicle ownership and paying for a car-share service instead.

Still, as I’ve noted over on GigaOM Pro (subscription required), car-share networks have a growing user base, but they’ve struggled with profitability. Many, like City CarShare in San Francisco, PhillyCarShare in Philadelphia, I-Go Car Sharing in Chicago have taken a non-profit approach, while Autolib (an all-electric network) in Paris has government backing. In recent years, rental giants like Hertz and Enterprise have cautiously entered the car-share game (see our cheat sheet comparing the business models, availability of green vehicles and rates for more than a dozen car-share networks).

Auto makers may be well advised to heed Zhao’s call and pounce on the opportunity of marketing green cars to the car-share market. But challenges also await car-share providers, because it’s not just the market that’s growing — the competition is, too.

Related reports on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d): “Electric Vehicles Give ‘Mobility as a Service’ a Jumpstart” and “Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility“

Think, the Norwegian electric car maker that aims to start selling its Think City model in the U.S. next year, has been doing its homework: slicing and dicing the massive U.S. auto market into an index of cities where its mid-range two-seater is most likely to take off early on.

“Ideally,” Think CEO Richard Canny says in a release today of the company’s top 15 “EV-Ready” cities, Think would like to sell the City nationwide next year. “[B]ut in our early commercialization phase, it is important that we first establish a strong concentration of sales in key, highly attractive markets.” Topping Think’s list are Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York (full index below the break).

As much range as can be found in the pricing, designs and origins of the upcoming generation of plug-in vehicles, most automakers working on these cars can agree on a few things: They’re going to need support from utilities, governments and other partners to help build the nascent market. And most places in the U.S. just don’t have the demand, income levels, infrastructure and incentives needed to support the earliest deployments of plug-in vehicles.

“We expect that the roll-out of EVs to the U.S. market will be quite focused in the early stages,” Canny notes in Think’s announcement. “Some cities are more likely to be early adopters of EV technology.”

The automaker, whose ambitious plans for U.S. manufacturing and sales hinge largely on a still-pending request for federal loans, hired research firm ASG Renaissance to compile the index. ASG assigned a score to each city based on “purchase/usage incentives,” such as access to carpool lanes and charging infrastructure, and “market fit,” indicated by factors including hybrid sales and traffic congestion. Canny explains the scores reflect “the available government support, consumer acceptance, and the opportunity for EVs to provide the maximum benefits possible from electric drive.”

Los Angeles earned the top spot on Think’s list, edging out San Francisco by just a fraction of a point in the market fit category and overall score. China’s BYD Co. is also eyeing the L.A. area as a prime launchpad for its upcoming electric model, the e6, due to its relatively high population density, air pollution problems, sizable car market, affluent residents and willingness to adopt new technologies.

Chicago and New York tie for third on Think’s list, followed by San Diego, Calif., Portland, Oreg., and Sacramento, Calif. Interestingly, Washington D.C., which General Motors (s GM) has named one of its lead markets for the upcoming Chevy Volt (an extended range electric vehicle, rather than an all-electric like Think’s model), brings up the bottom of the list, ahead of only Philadelphia and Phoenix.

Yesterday we collected “Bluebell” our new Mega City Electric car from Dragon Electric Vehicles in Cwmdu. Bluebell is one of the two cars in this year’s Talybont car share project. The other one is a biodiesel car for longer distance trips and carrying more people.

She’s a funky  blue and, with your foot hard down on the accelerator, she’ll happily pootle along at 38mph on the level – ideal for a run into Brecon and back along the B4558. She adopts a more conservative speed on hills and certainly likes to be fed (see photo) little and often, we are discovering.

We can view her as charged (indirectly) by our own Taylbont turbine….  she may be the first car powered by water! …

Watch out for a bright blue flash around the lanes of Powys…..

Later this year, Nissan will introduce the Leaf – an all-electric car. Get it? Leaf? Green? Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s CEO, says that the Leaf is about “preserving the planet.” Is there anybody left in this world who really believes that a profit-making corporation invests for purely altruistic, environmental motives? Maybe not, but Nissan isn’t taking a huge risk to bring an innovative, environmentally friendly vehicle to market?

As always in the world of corporate greenwash, the reality is ugly. Let’s go back to Econ 101. In a market economy, investors take risks with their own money. They place a bet that what they produce is worth more than it costs. If they succeed, they can keep the difference as profit. If they don’t succeed, their investors and bankers have to eat the loss. If I choose not to invest in their venture, their loss is not my problem. That simple mechanism is what makes the US a wealthy country.

Is that what Nissan is doing? Taking a gamble with their shareholders’ money? In a word, no. They talked the US Department of Energy into giving them a $1.6 billion loan to build a 200,000 vehicle-per-year production facility in Smyrna, Tennessee. The US Government essentially borrows that money from China at about 5% per year, requiring interest payments of $100 million annually or $500 per vehicle produced. Who pays that? You do.

That’s not the worst of it. The US Government also offers consumers a $7,500 per year tax credit to buy an electric car or a plug-in hybrid. You also pay for that. Where will you be able to plug in your new Leaf? About 11,000 charging stations are to be built in strategic markets for the Leaf by Electric Transportation Engineering Corp (eTec) at a cost of $100 million. Who pays for that? You do, via a grant from the US Department of Energy.

If the Leaf is a rousing success, Nissan gets to keep the profits. If it falls flat on its face, you have to pick up the tab.

Why exactly is the US Government doing this? Well, if you ask the Department of Energy, I’m sure they will patiently explain that this “seed money” will help to develop a new technology that will help us fight climate change and free us from dependence on imported oil. Are electric cars a good answer to these problems? Well, let’s have a look at the economics before the federal government starts distorting them. We don’t really know what the Nissan will cost to produce, but we can make an educated guess. The Leaf is roughly the size of a Toyota Corolla. With a 24 kilowatt-hour (kWh) lithium-ion battery costing about $600 per kWh, the battery itself would cost about $14,000. Let’s say the whole electric drive system costs $15,000, so a Leaf would cost that much more than a conventional gasoline Corolla. If your car loan is for 10 years at 6.5% interest, the Leaf will cost you an additional $2,100 per year in car payments.

How much do you save in fuel? Well, if you drive 15,000 miles per year, a Corolla at 30 miles per gallon would require 500 gallons of gasoline at about $2.75 per gallon for an annual fuel cost of $1,375. The Leaf would use about 0.3 kWh of electricity per mile, requiring 4,500 kWh per year at an average price of 11.5¢ per kWh or a total of $517.50 in fuel costs per year. In other words, for $2,100 more in car payments, you save $800 a year in fuel. Few if any people would buy this car without the massive government subsidy, which will reduce the owner’s cost by just over $1,000 a year. Even this subsidy may not make the car economical, but some people will buy any cool new gadget and some people will want to “go green.” For the average American on a budget, however, this car is a non-starter.

How about greenhouse gas emissions? Nissan trumpets the leaf as a “zero emission” vehicle. Really? The car itself would emit no gases, but fuel has to be burned to generate the electricity that charges the car’s battery. Let’s make a favorable assumption that all additional power required for electric cars is produced by natural gas. (Nuclear would be better, but we won’t be able to build more than a handful of nuclear plants over the next 20 years.) Providing 4,500 kWh of power to a residence would require on average 40 million British Thermal Units (Btus) of natural gas emitting just over 2 metric tons of CO2 annually. Since the vehicle costs $1,300 more per year ($2,100 in car payments less $800 in fuel savings), our carbon dioxide savings cost $650 per metric ton. Is that price high or low? Well, just for comparison, the Senate version of the “Cap and Trade” bill seeks a maximum price for carbon emissions of $28 a ton. From that standpoint, the Leaf looks like a loser.

How about solar or wind power to generate electricity? These technologies emit no carbon dioxide, but they are prohibitively expensive. For example, if you installed solar panels on your roof, the electricity to fuel your Leaf would cost roughly $2,000 annually, much more than the gasoline to fuel a conventional car.
The Leaf makes sense only if you believe that actually building electric cars will make them cheaper. Maybe, but unlikely. Doubling or even tripling production of Mercedes would not put them within the grasp of the average consumer. Nissan has a sweet deal from the US taxpayer, and if the Leaf turns sour on them, they are much more likely to run to Washington for more assistance than to spend a lot of money improving the cars. We are indeed turning over a new leaf in the US automotive industry. The car manufacturers and the government will get together and decide what’s good for you. This should be as popular as Obamacare.

Things just got a little cozier between Norwegian electric car company Think and one of its U.S. investors, Ener1 (s HEV). EnerDel, the battery-making subsidiary of Ener1 (s HEV), already had a major contract with Think to supply batteries for the company’s electric City model, as well as “supplier of choice” status. Now, in a press conference at the Washington Auto Show, Think has named EnerDel the exclusive battery supplier for Think City vehicles sold in the U.S. through 2012.

The automaker, which hopes to secure funding from the Department of Energy to set up manufacturing in the U.S., also announced a new partnership today with AeroVironment (s AV) to work on fast charging for the Think City. AeroVironment, which provides charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, will work with Think under the agreement on demonstration and commercial projects using AeroVironment’s Level 3 charging system (chargers are classified as Level 1, 2 or 3 based on how much power they can provide).

The Department of Energy says a charger is deemed “fast” if it can “charge an average electric vehicle battery pack in 30 minutes or less.” According to Think, the AeroVironment system will juice its City batteries up to an 80 percent charge in as little as 15 minutes.

This type of high-voltage rapid charging system will be critically important, Nissan’s Mark Perry said last year, for what he calls “destination” and “pathway” charging, at shopping centers and along major roadways, for example. The idea is that if you’re charging at home overnight or at work during the day, the high-voltage quick fix isn’t as necessary. But AeroVironment and Think plan to offer the fast-charge option as “a supplementary alternative for customers’ added sense of security and for fleets with daily mileage requirements exceeding the car’s range.”

Today’s deal with Think comes on the heels of AeroVironment winning a contract with Nissan (s NSANY) to provide home charging equipment and installations for the upcoming Nissan LEAF, announced earlier this month. AeroVironment spokesperson Steven Gitlin told the Los Angeles Business Journal at the time that the deal was a first for AeroVironment in the home charging space. “We’ve been working on electric vehicle technology for 20 years,” he said, “but are now ready to start seeing it used widely in homes.” As in the Nissan deal, AeroVironment’s charging systems for the Think City will be sold separately from the vehicle.

The exclusive battery deal highlights a difference between Think’s strategy in the U.S. and in the European market, where it offers customers two battery options: EnerDel’s lithium-ion battery, and a sodium-based battery made by Switzerland’s Mes-Dea and designed for use in very hot or very cold climates. According to Think’s announcement today, EnerDel will supply about 60 percent of the batteries for City vehicles sold in Europe.

Lithium is a key component in “hybrid” and electric car batteries, and is also extraordinarily rare. It’s already evident that not enough lithium exists to replace the world’s existing internal-combustion fleet (more than 1,000,000,000 automobiles and counting) with electric technology.

In a bit of divine irony (god does play dice) most of the world’s lithium lies under South America – mostly under Bolivia’s famous salt flats, with some in Argentina. Car manufacturers and would-be industrial giants (Japan and China) are already trying to corner the market.

Now Toyota wants in, and has reportedly signed a major deal with Argentina to mine its lithium:

A key supplier of Toyota Motor Corp. has formed a partnership to mine lithium in Argentina, securing greater access to a metal critical to the production of future hybrids and electric cars.The partnership, announced late Tuesday, includes Toyota Tsusho Corp. and Australian miner Orocobre Ltd. They will develop a lithium mine in northwestern Argentina, and the project is expected to cost about $100 million, Orocobre Chairman James Calaway said.

So next time you see someone driving a hybrid car, ask them where they got the battery. My guess is that the emissions from mining all that lithium more than make up for the gas they save themselves from burning. (And don’t forget all our electricity comes from coal anyway. You know that ain’t clean.)

When the temperature drops, so does the power capacity of a battery. Anybody who has left a cell phone or ipod in their car on a freezing night knows this, and all of us MINI E drivers who hail from the colder climes have seen this in the reduced charge-o-meter readings we’ve been seeing.

But as I talked about in my last post, I’m starting to think that the 15-20% hit in the battery capacity that many of us have seen has more to do with the algorithm used to calculate the remaining charge, and the temperature of the batteries, than with an actual loss of capacity due to cold temperatures. And a test I ran last week seems to back this up.

First, here’s the theory - as long as the High Voltage battery pack temperature doesn’t fall below 40°, then I don’t think the battery looses much capacity, if any.

To put this to the test, I decided to pioneer-up last week and follow my warm-weather routine – which is to not plug in #217 after my usual 45-mile morning commute. In the past this would mean I’d show about 52% battery left when I parked in the AM, 60% showing when I’d start my evening commute home, and  anywhere from  5-15% of battery range left when I pulled in at home.  If my theory held water, I’d be fine – though running very low on battery power when I returned home 92 miles later. If however the 15-20% “cold deficit” was in fact accurate, then I’d be sitting on the side of I-287 waiting for a tow truck.

So last Wednesday morning I pulled into Morristown after a modest (no faster than 60mph) and heater-free trip, showing 48% of battery power left. The high that day was 38° , and by 4pm I was reading a 55% charge – but the battery never got colder than 42°.  I drove back home (again very conservatively, 65mph max), and also without the heater. The charge-o-meter showed 0% with about 8 miles to go, but as happened in the summer and fall I just kept going without a hiccup. After getting off the highway, the meter did the usual recalculation and I gained 5% more by the time I got home. The battery temp when I pulled in was 72°.

After 2 hours of sitting in an unheated but insulated garage, the meter read 11% charge, with the battery at a fairly cozy 68°. Which is right around what I was getting in the fall.

Ironically though, my ipod  - which was 50% full when I parked in the municipal garage in the morning and left behind in the car – did drain pretty quickly, and powered off about 10 minutes into my evening drive, even thought it’s powered by a Li-ion battery just like the MINI E. Sadly the iPod doesn’t tell me its battery temp, but I’m guessing that without insulation (as the MINI E has) it must have been around the mid-30°s.

So the conclusions that I draw are:

1) The magic number to stay above – battery temp wise – is 40°. Keep that temperature, and at most you’ll be shorted 5% of the battery.

2) The Charge-O-Meter needs a new calibration, so that we don’t any get unnecessary range anxiety.

Knowledge really is power – about 15-20% more power when you’re driving an electric car in the winter!

Capstone Turbine is the hand-built super car, which can move in a totally electric or a combination, and also its heat engine is a micro turbine.

For the design and body Capstone Turbine has been used in another exotic car, the Factory Five Racing GTM, thus focusing on the mechanical side, which is truly unprecedented. It is a diesel-electric hybrid, but this is not really interesting.

Only with lithium polymer batteries, the TMC-380 can travel 80 kilometers. However, when using the same concept of the Chevrolet Volt (heat engine to move the electric), can move up to 800 km. The batteries can be recharged through a 110V or 220V outlet, but also by the gasoline engine.

In this case, the engine is a small wind turbine that is powered with diesel or bio diesel, and which pays out about 40 HP. It works only when the batteries are about to deplete its charge. This turbine is very clean, it does not require a catalyst or a refrigerant, being very friendly to the environment.

Such benefits are exceedingly eccentric remarkable car, with acceleration from 0 to 100 km / h in 3.9 seconds and a top speed of 241 km / h. However, we emphasize that the most remarkable is its range of up to 800 km on one charge and a fuel tank. For now, it’s just an interesting concept, and will have to see how it develops further.

Hello! Do you know that ferrari produce electric car? Look at that small nice car.

Today, Spain’s Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, presented the objectives of the EU’s first semester within the scope of the recently ratified Lisbon Treaty. His extemporaneous speech before the European Parliament was centred on the economic crisis but his explanations went on to indicate his inclination towards social policymaking.

Just a few weeks back, Rodríguez Zapatero went under fire in U.K. newspapers (The Financial Times & The Economist), seconded by Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. Whilst the WSJ editorials are tinted by the ultra-conservative influence of no less than Murdoch’s Spanish Sancho Panza, in the person of Spain’s former Prime Minister José Mª Aznar, those written by British economic experts went beyond the limits of journalistic competence in questioning Zapatero’s capabilities in a sarcastic comparison to popular British TV character, Mr. Bean.

In its fourth rotating mandate, Spain has so far lived up to expectations, with important European milestones set in each one of its presidential semesters. With a clear all-out support of the EEC, later the EU, Spain has earned its entry into the European club and has there onward led some initiatives which other members, like the United Kingdom for one, have yet to set into their agendas.

This semester is too important for the 27-Member Union to waste words in sarcasm and destructive criticism, more so when the United Kingdom has undermined EU unifying efforts in too many occasions.

As an expert in EU relations, the underlying motive of such mocking comments is certain resentment towards Spain far beyond the political scene and more focused on Spanish corporations taking over numerous British enterprises in the last few years, to name a few – Banco Santander and Iberdrola.

In spite of Spain’s high unemployment rate at the present time, never has the U.K. generated as much jobs as Spain has in the years before the outbreak of the worldwide financial crisis nor has it contained its public deficit to have Spain’s five-year surplus. In fact, Tony Blair’s apparent economic miracle was partly a well-designed accounting reengineering by no less than Gordon Brown, as narrated in detail in the book – Fantasy Island.

Furthermore, Brown’s government has again manipulated figures in order to hide from EU scrutiny state subsidies to British banks in violation of European Commission regulations. Whereas Spain has not nationalised a single bank, the U.K. has both subsidized illegally and nationalised bankrupt entities. Whilst Spain has an exemplary supervision of financial entities the U.K.’s banking system is a free-for-all that allows quite a few irregularities.

The British economy has a full decade ahead before it can say it is out of the rut even if stats show that recession may have come to an end in 2009’s last quarter. What these financial newspapers seem to forget is that whilst Spain now lingers in unemployment, its growth potential in new technologies (solar & wind energy) and innovative activities (electric cars) with renewed immigrant labour forces will launch Spain into a new cycle of competitive businesses. What has been known as the financial crisis is greatly accountable to the uncontrolled business in Wall Street and The City. All risky financial gimmicks launched by the American & British banks have brought us to where we are.

Likewise, the British press seems to resent Obama’s chummy attitude towards Spain’s Prime Minister in detriment of Gordon’s declining role. Should the Tories take over next May, 10 Downing Street may still drift further away from The White House.

Spain has a challenge to reemploy its workers but the United Kingdom has a greater challenge – to start admitting they are no longer an empire.

It’s best these newspapers think twice their words before going to press. I’ll be watching in 2020 where the United Kingdom is to be compared to an environmental conscious businesslike Spain in this coming decade.

Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid

Ok Who’s ready to help me turn my Chevy SSR into an electric car using Trexa’s electric car platform? The Starting Block is estimated to cost around $15,999. 0-60 in 8 seconds, 4 hour charge time to travel 105miles.

It looks like it will have 3 sizes 64″, 80″ and 96″. That probably won’t work with my 120″ wheel base of my SSR so we may have to start from scratch

Check out the Trexa Site and let me know what you think.

According to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla Motors is planning to raise as much as US$100 Million in capital through the aide of public investors. While the entire auto industry is facing difficult times, Tesla hopes that they will be able to supplement the $465 Million loan from the federal government and claim a lasting stake in the new car market by increasing the public’s awareness about their intent to mass produce electric vehicles for a wide range of consumers.

The California based manufacturer is currently offering a lineup of only two cars, with the $100 000 Tesla Roadster leading the charge and the $60 000 Model S sedan following closely behind. By opening themselves up to public investors with an IPO, the electric car manufacturer is adding another element of uncertainty to their plans in an already unstable new car market. However, Telsa co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is no stranger to taking chances.

For example, when he decided to head in a different direction than the competition at Fisker Automotive by opening up a network of owned and operated freestanding dealerships, which gave him more control over the sales and service of his new products. Despite the expansion costs, moving from their California outlets to a host of major US cities and beyond, hasn’t taken a toll on the electric car builder so far.

However, new has recently surfaced that Tesla Motors plans to cease production of their flagship Roadster until 2013. This means the 2012 four door Model S will be left as the sole product to get the automaker through their period of public investment. It is believed that the decision was made due to the fact that Lotus are preparing for the next generation Elise, the vehicle upon which the Tesla Roadster is based, leaving the American manufacturer with a bit of downtime before they come back with an all new Roadster for 2013.

New ride at work.  It is a GEM car.  It is a replacement for our John Deer Gator that we had and it’s fully electric.  Top speed of 25mph with a 30 mile range.  I drove it around and it seems alright and more than enough for hauling some equipment around campus.

Renewable energy technologies are of course one of our big areas of interest, but nevertheless we find them slightly frustrating sometimes. For all the continual advancements, it often seems that little is actually put in place. Well the Aussie government are actually going a bit further.

In a pseudo-Big Brother type scheme, they are offering one family the chance to live rent, water and electricity bill-free, with an electric car, in a specially designed eco-house. In return, they have to update the world on their experiences via the media, websites and blogging. The idea is to test-run this kind of house for wider application. As such, applicants should have some experience of online communities, an interest in sustainable living… and a good sense of humour for when it all goes wrong.

The house itself will have:

rooftop solar photovoltaic panels, a 2kWBlueGen fuel cell converting natural gas into electricity, an electric car, OLED TV, state‐of‐the‐art lighting solutions (controlled plasma, CFL, LED). The Newington Smart Home will also be fitted with a HAN, or Home Area Network, such that lighting and household appliances can be remotely controlled by an iPhone. And there is much more besides.

And if we’re honest we don’t know what half of that stuff is. But anyway – the idea of trialling such a house for wider application had us very interested. Watch this space, and we’ll probably be following these guys when the scheme gets started.

(source: Tree Hugger)

Automobile companies are trying very hard to predict what People want in the future.  Many companies have offered some of their vehicles in “hybrids”.  Others are opting to go full electric.  BMW unveiled its’ idea of what future of cars with a different kind of hybrid; diesel and electric. Even though diesel is better than the fuel that we use, would everyone WANT to move to a better fuel source (like all electric power) and futuristic looking cars. You tell me.  What is your opinion?  (You must write a paragraph of AT LEAST 8 sentences or you will get ZERO CREDIT)

Talybont Energy is very grateful to the Henderson Hall committee for allowing us to install an external, lockable charging point for Bluebell (our electric car) at the community hall in Talybont. We plan to install PV panels on the roof of the hall later this year which means that we could then say that Bluebell is solar charged. At the moment, we like to think of her as water-charged courtesy of the Talybont Turbine which, in theory, could charge a fleet of 55 such cars.