A hybrid electric car (HEC) is a car that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the car. A HEC combines an internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors. HEC’s consume less gasoline than conventional (internal combustion) cars because the batteries in the HEC get charged when the car breaks. This electric energy is used to fuel the electric engines. 

On the European market there are currently approximately 9 HEC’s on the market:

1. Toyota Prius
2. Honda Civic Hybrid
3. Honda Insight
4. Mercedes S400 Hybrid
5. Lexus RX450h
6. Lexus LS600h
7. Lexus GS450h
8. Citroën C4 Hybrid
9. Peugeot 308 Hybrid

Electric vehicles are cleaner than fossil fuel driven ones. True or False?
Did I hear, “Of course, it’s true!” ? Or was it “False, you’ve only moved the pollution from the cars to the power plants!”
The right answer, as in most cases, is “Well, it depends…” – the answer to life, the universe and everything else we have no clue about.

The latest lecture in my class on Sustainable Energy Systems and an article by a Senior Lecturer at my university (Gas vs Electric Mini Cooper) provided fodder for this post.

First of all, what is an electric vehicle? It could be one of four types :

1. Battery electric vehicle -> Propelled by an electric motor which is powered by a rechargeable battery.
2. Hybrid Electric Vehicle -> Propelled by a combination of an electric motor and an internal combustion engine. The electricity is generated from regenerative braking or from the internal combustion engine.
3. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle -> Propelled by an electric motor powered by a rechargeable battery. Backup electricity is generated by an internal combustion engine
4. Fuel Cell  -> Propelled by an electric motor. The electricity is generated from a fuel cell that combines hydrogen gas and oxygen.

A hybrid electric vehicle uses only petrol (or gasoline) as a fuel. A smaller engine, automatic switching off of the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop and electric motor drive at low speeds (where ICEs are inefficient) results in a cleaner vehicle than one running using  fossil fuels in Internal Combustion Engines. So the answer here would be True.

The answer for the other three would depend on how the electricity is produced (or how hydrogen is produced). In the US, about half the electricity is produced using coal. Which means that generating and using 1 MJ of electricity (1 MJ Life Cycle Energy which included the energy needed to mine the coal, refine uranium etc. ) in the US would release 1.7 times more CO2-equivalent than producing and using gasoline containing 1 MJ of Life Cycle Energy (including the energy required to extract the crude, refine it, transport it etc.)

Upstream emissions are emissions in the production of the fuel. Tailpipe emissions are from the exhaust pipe of the vehicle during the use stage. Source: Near-term estimates from GREET 1.8; Farrel, et al. (2006) for ethanol with credit.

So that makes electricity dirty right? NO!

An electric motor is far more efficient than an internal combustion engine. From  John DeCicco’s article, where he compares a gasoline driven Mini Cooper with the Mini Cooper Electric, I gather that the Electric version needs

33 kWh of electrical energy to travel 100 miles on city roads
and
36 kWh of electrical energy  to travel 100 miles on a highway

(Why is it better on city roads? Electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines at low speeds, which is what you’d encounter on city roads,  while internal combustion engines are probably more efficient at higher speeds, on highways)

The combined average (55% city driving and 45% highway driving) of these two mileages is 34.4 kWh per 100 miles

A gallon of gasoline (or about 4 L of petrol) has an energy content of 33.7 kWh.  (More on conversion from electricity to gasoline here)
To find the mileage,

33.7 kWh    100 miles
————– X  ————– =    97.7 miles per gallon
1 gallon      34.4 kWh

A Mini Cooper Hardtop has a mileage rating of :

City : 28 miles per gallon
Highway : 37 miles per gallon

The average mileage is 32.1 miles per gallon.

This means that an electric car is around 3 times (97.7/32.1) more energy efficient than an internal combustion engine propelled car. Given that electricity is 1.7 times more polluting to generate than gasoline, an electric car is roughly 2 times cleaner than its petrol or gasoline alternative. The assumption here being that around 50% of electricity is produced from coal. In India, where the proportion of coal generated electricity is higher, electric cars would be far less cleaner than their US counterparts, but still cleaner than a petrol driven car.  DeCicco’s article says  that the gasoline powered Mini Cooper emits 357 g of CO2 per mile driven. If the electricity is generated completely from coal, the electric Mini Cooper would emit 355g of CO2 per mile.

So, finally, is an electric car cleaner than a fossil fuel car?
A battery electric car definitely is. Even if you assume that all the electricity is generated from the “diritiest” options – coal fired plants (which is never the case) you still emit marginally less Green House Gases (GHGs) than in using a petrol fuelled car. With the increase in penetration of solar and wind energy generation, it only gets cleaner.

But what about fuel cells and hybrids or Compressed Natural Gas fuelled cars? More analyses and more posts.

Updated with comment from Ener1: Norway-based electric vehicle developer Think has narrowed the “short list” of locations for its first North American manufacturing facility to at least three states, including Indiana, Michigan and Oregon. A Reuters article published late Tuesday reported that Indiana has a lock on the facility, citing an interview with the CEO of Ener1 (s HEV) Charles Gassenheimer. But the Ener1 chief — whose company holds a 31 percent stake in Think as well as a contract to supply lithium-ion batteries for the upcoming Think City electric vehicle — may have jumped the gun, as Inside Indiana Business reported and Think confirmed with us this morning.

Think spokesperson Brendan Prebo tells us that Indiana, Michigan and Oregon remain on the “short list” for the facility — the latest game-piece in an ongoing competition among states to woo advanced battery and electric vehicle factories, which raise the prospect of not only bringing manufacturing jobs and future business to a state’s economy, but also government investment. Prebo confirmed with us in an email that, “Indiana is one of the states on our short list for manufacturing sites and has been for quite some time,” but the company has not yet finalized a decision about the factory location. While Prebo did not disclose how many states are still under consideration, he said, “An earlier report that a decision had been reached was premature.”

Gassenheimer told Reuters that Think has entered the “initial stages” of a request for loans under a government program designed to encourage production of fuel-efficient vehicles. One program that matches that description is the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing, or ATVM, loan program. Earlier this year, Think announced plans for its North American joint venture (with the firms Kleiner Perkins and RockPort Capital Partners) to seek low interest loans under that program.

Ener1 also requested loans earlier this year under the ATVM program. Gassenheimer told us in March that while the company was not banking on the loans, “I cannot envision a scenario where government is not going to be part of our future.” In an earnings call last week, he told shareholders he expects to announce federal loans “before the end of the year,” adding to the $118.5 million in federal grants awarded this summer.

Indiana would be a logical pick for Think, given that Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel will be manufacturing batteries for Think in Hoosier state (Think also plans to offer customers a sodium battery option from another supplier, based in Switzerland). At the same time, however, the automaker plans to source some batteries from A123Systems (s AONE), which will be producing vehicle batteries in Michigan (one of eight states Think was considering earlier this year).

As Bob Kanode, CEO of battery maker Valence Technologies explained earlier this year, vehicle battery packs are heavy and long-distance shipping costs add up. If Think is going to hit in the ballpark of its target to produce a sub-$25,000 electric vehicle, those costs will have to be top of mind.

Beyond the factors that Think must weigh surrounding the site itself — including proximity to suppliers and target markets — keeping its options open for as long as possible may also serve the company’s financial interests. States compete for these projects by putting together incentive packages, and Think could get a better deal with Indiana if it appears ready to take an offer from Michigan or Oregon.

Readiness to walk out may have helped electric car startup Tesla Motors secure a fat incentive package from California. The San Carlos, Calif.-based company initially said it would build an assembly plant for its second-generation vehicle (now known as the Model S) in California. It later announced plans to set up shop in New Mexico, and then it was back to California again after the Golden State put together juicier incentives, including a tax break expected to save the company nearly $29 million.

Think may not have the luxury to switch back and forth between states or prolong incentive negotiations. The company announced plans less than a year ago to introduce the Think City two-seater (already available in Europe) to the U.S. market in 2010. That’s already a delay from the 2009 launch announced last spring when Think took the step last April of forming its 50-50 North American joint venture to sell electric cars stateside.

Update: An Ener1 spokesperson told us in an email that Think has not made a final decision regarding when or where it will locate U.S. production facilities. Emphasizing that all future announcements about the project site will come directly from Think, the spokesperson wrote: “Charles was a little too far ahead of the curve yesterday.”

These are the top ten analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen from Wall Street research calls this Tuesday morning:

Apollo Commercial Real Estate (NYSE: ARI) Started as Overweight at Barclays; Started as Hold at Citigroup.
Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ) Raised to Equal Weight at Barclays.
CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
Diedrich Coffee (NASDAQ: DDRX) Cut to Hold at Roth Capital.
Ener1 (NASDAQ: HEV) Started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.
Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) Cut to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
Valueclick (NASDAQ: VCLK) Raised to Hold at Citigroup.
Vitacost.com (NASDAQ: VITC) Started as Buy at Needham; Started as Buy at Jefferies; Started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.

You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG

How much would you value a developing technology company with a product you have never seen nor ever tested? $1.5 billion dollars??

That’s what an implied valuation of the company EEStor equates to using their minority shareholder Zenn Motors for the valuation.  Zenn Motors, a Toronto based EV firm, owns 10.7% of EEStor and after recently ceasing operations to produce an electric vehicle seems to be focusing their efforts now solely on supplying EV drive-trains based on EEStor ultra-capacitor batteries. Using the market cap of Zenn at about $169 million, this implies a $1.579 billion valuation of EEStor while giving little value to the other components of Zenn Motors. Zenn is the only publicly available equity for EEStor while Kleiner Perkins and other, unnamed private parties played a key role in the firm’s early development.

Zenn Motor Vehicle

EEStor is an upstart firm in Austin, USA developing an ultra-capacitor for transportation, military and grid storage applications. “Their (EEStor) unique technology capacitor-based battery, in theory, is far more energy dense and low weight than lithium ion, is cheap to produce out of unlimited natural resources, suffers no degradation, and can be recharged in minutes.” “EEStor says its energy storage technology for vehicles can provide 10 times the energy of lead-acid batteries at one-tenth the weight and half the price, and move a car 400 kilometers after a five-minute charge.”  The company is a legend of sorts with two entire websites dedicated by fans of the company to speculate about company developments(http://theeestory.com/, http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/).

Reducing the cost of energy storage, reducing charge times and switching to domestic materials would have a significant effect on the economics of hybrids, electric vehicles, and grid based energy storage used in cooperation with wind energy. It is not often products are enticing firms to more than double their performance and halve their costs. As much as these claims would revolutionize an entire industry or two, they have never been proven nor demonstrated to the public.

Similarly to EEStor, IBM, is currently working on a project called “Battery 500” using lithium air technology. This is not an ultra-capacitor but an advanced variation of lithium batteries with cathodes that use oxygen from the atmosphere (instead of phosphate or manganese) which enable these batteries to have a charge density ten times as dense as the best current standard Lithium Ion technology. Electric vehicles would be able to travel 500 miles on a single charge with a battery that was not dependent on rare Earth metals. However, like EEStor, this project is under works, and may or may not be an eventual success. “IBM estimates that it will take two years to determine if the goals of The Battery 500 Project can be met with lithium-air battery technology.”

The “what if” technologies of EEStor and IBM are vastly superior in performance and cost to the current Lithium Ion technologies being offered by Valence Technologies, LG Chem, A123 Systems and Ener1. However, what these lithium ion producers have that the two emerging technologies don’t are supply agreements, manufacturing and supply infrastructure and a history to prove the technology actually works. Oh, and revenues. (Yes, IBM sells a few other products.)

So, why is EEStor valued at $1.5 billion? Is it a validation of the importance of the energy storage sector? Do some people know that the ultra capacitors actually work? Or is this the result of hype built upon by a community of investors anxious for a technological breakthrough? While few people will doubt the importance and the expected growth of the energy storage sector, watching which particular firms emerge as the winners or losers will certainly be exciting.

1) http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1035989_did-eestor-certify-its-eesu-in-september

2) http://earth2tech.com/2009/01/08/john-doerr-mentions-kleiners-stealthy-lithium-ion-battery-startup/

3) http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/10/eestor/

4) http://taintedgreen.com/batteries/eestor-watch-out-ibm-is-building-a-next-gen-battery-too/000351

5) http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Technology-For-Change/Battery-500-Project-Charged-Up-over-AllElectric-Cars/

Darryl Siry, former Chief Marketing Officer for electric car maker Tesla originally implied this EEStor valuation, shown on source #3, implying that Zenn is worth nothing if EEStor is unsuccessful. Author owns shares of Ener1.

Jártomban-keltemben elvetődtem a nagy ferencvárosi közlekedési csomópontra, a Könyves Kálmán krt. és a Soroksári út kereszteződésébe (Lágymányosi híd pesti hídfő). Szinte minden közlekedési eszköz elérhető itt, ráadásul a forgalma is indokolna egy nagytakarítást, lévén olyan slendrián foltozgatott csomópont ez amit egy kis szervezéssel rendbe lehetne azért rakni.

Egy részről a Duna partján jár a HÉV, melyről rengeteg séta árán lehet eljutni az 1-es és 2-es villamos végállomására, ami esőben/hóban/babakocsival vagy járókerettel nagyon nehézkes és kellemetlen tud lenni. Az egyes és a 2-es villamos/HÉV nem hozható szintbe ez nyilvánvaló, viszont ha a 2-es villamost meghosszabbítanák a 21-es (ex-30) irányában Pesterzsébet irányában (megtartva a közvágóhídi visszafogóvágányt). Továbbá lehetne egy elágazó járat a 21-es és a 24-es villamos összevonásából. Ezekkel és a megfelelő területrendezéssel máris csökkenthető lenne az átszállások száma, ezzel gyaloglás, idő, pénz takarítható meg.

(Sárga – villamos; Zöld – HÉV; Vörös – opcionális átkötési lehetőségek a pesterzsébeti és belvárosi vonalak között)

Egyelőre nem teljesen megoldott még például a HÉV-MÁV illetve a MÁV-Busz/Villamos átszállási lehetőség, pedig ezzel a bal-parti agglomerációból bejárók élete megkönnyíthető volna.

(A HÉV és az 1-es villamos fejleszthetőségéről a véleményemet korábbi posztokban olvashatjátok)

A123 Systems will IPO this week on Thursday on the US based NASDAQ market using the symbol AONE. The IPO has been widely anticipated as A123 often receives much of the attention within the battery start up sector. A123 has high profile backers such as GE and Kleiner Perkins. Already public firms such as Ener1 (HEV) and Valence Technology (VLNC) have seen their share prices run up, perhaps in anticipation of the IPO (up 14% and 34% respectively in past two weeks).

This week’s IPO will help put the spotlight on a variety of battery start ups as well as the entire sector as a whole. While some start ups are geared up with government funding and supplier contracts, others are still looking for footing. US Department of Energy loans are to be announced in the upcoming weeks and grants were already announced this past August to help jump start the industry.  On September 22, Fisker Automotive, a start up automotive company developing plug in hybrids and client of Ener1, was awarded an early DOE loan of $529MM.  As noted in an earlier post, the industry appears poised for a dynamic and exciting period of growth.

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090922-703279.html

http://earth2tech.com/2009/07/20/13-battery-startups-hitting-the-road-with-lithium-ion/

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2236305920090922

DISCLOSURE: Author owns shares of Ener1

       “A Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) is a hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine propulsion system with an electric propulsion system. The presence of the electric powertrain is intended to achieve better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle. A hybrid electric vehicle is also a form of electric vehicle; a variety of types of HEV exist, and the degree to which they function as EVs varies as well. The most common form of HEV is the hybrid electric car, an automated driven by a gsoline internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric motors power by batteries.”

Well, HEV is kinda an old concept, it was successfully introduced in the 1990’s when Honda introduced Insight and Toyota introduced Prius. Now researches and vehicles manufacturers are seriously working on manufacturing a gas-free vehicle that only consumes electricity. In fact, they’ve already manufactured some, such as Nissan Pivo, but there’s a dilemma with the battery consumption which takes ages to charge and few hours to discharge!! Their efforts in manufacturing environmental friendly vehicles is highly appreciated and required, we’ll be waiting!

An invitation any night of the week is likely to land me anywhere! Sometimes I’ll have been there before, like the great Gypsy Jazz night at Bar Ladino last week. Sometimes though, it’ll be a brand new experience where I’m left wondering how I managed to live my life without ever having known this place! So it was last Friday when the lovely MI extended an invite to go to Romai to hear her sister’s band perform. She lured me there with the promise of fish and chips! And what self-respecting fan of The Van could turn that one down.

It’s a hike. It’s practically surburban by Budapest standards. But as KG reminded us, by London standards, it’s not far at all. A little like going from Kennington to Forest Hill. There is a boat that takes you there but for some unknown reason (I keep forgetting that reasons are no longer required for irrational behaviour – if they ever were here in BP) the boat service stops before 5pm. So we took the hév - Budapest’s surburban railway. It’s about a 20-minute journey, no longer. You get off at Romai furdo and then walk towards the river. Római Fürdő is one stop after the one for Aquinicum (yes, when I’m wrong KG, I’ll admit it!) and I’ll need to come back to RF later… next free day I have, as it looks like it could be rather pleasant way to pass the time. District 3 (Budapest has 23 districts in all and District 3 is in Buda) is lovely, lovely, lovely. I’ve picked out my house, complete with ‘guest cottage’ in the grounds. It’s like walking back in time. Some of the houses still have the original pre-WW2 street signs on the walls where utca (street) is spelled utcza.

The band were great. Some really good covers of old classics like Proud Mary, Sweet Home Alabama and  newer stuff that surfaced the depths of my ignorance of what’s happening music-wise these days. But when the lead singer (who bears a remarkable resemblance to Mr Paul Trevorrow, complete with trendy porkpie) launched into Máté Péter’s Zene nélkül mit érek én (What I am worth without music), they took off. It was excellent. No matter how fluent the singers, you can’t beat singing in your native language for sheer passion. The band asked us to get up and dance and make their night and for the longest time the only one on the cobblestoned floor was a cute little five-year-old who was putting us all to shame. We eventually braved it though and once up, found it very, very hard to sit down. We should have done it sooner: moving targets are hard for the mozzies to find!

It’s a gorgeous spot – imagine the buzz of a city-centre square on the banks of a river in the heart of the suburbs… Our partners in crime for the evening, the lovely András and his gal Bori, drove us back to the city. It was way too long a walk!

I quite fancy myself as a groupie though… so keep those invites coming MI!

This morning, the widely read website, seekingalpha.com, published an article with an intriguing headline: “Electric Cars Could Dominate Market by 2030.”  The article is based on a study carried out at UC Berkeley, and the proviso is revealing: “provided that consumers don’t have to buy the high-priced batteries themselves and an infrastructure can be built to maintain and manage them.” (http://seekingalpha.com/article/152127-electric-cars-could-dominate-market-by-2030).  There it is: the key to our willingness or ability to switch to electric vehicles is the batteries that power them.  The study is worth looking at (there is a link in the article above), and it figures the cost of an infrastructure to handle batteries at $320+ billion, partially offset by a saving of $205 billion occasioned by reduced healthcare costs due to fewer harmful emissions.  The article also ventures a guess that emissions could be reduced by 62% from 2003 levels, and that 350,000 new jobs could be added to the economy. 

In the first article in this series, we had a brief look at the definitions of two types of hybrids: power-split hybrids and mild hybrids.  We believe that these hybrids will dominate the EV market for the midterm at least, and that the pure EV market will arrive in terms of meaningful numbers several years down the pike.

Before we discuss the battery market, we should note that heavy vehicle operators, makers and conversion specialists may well be leading the way in emission reductions.  Torrance CA-based Enova Systems (Amex: ENA, http://www.enovasystems.com/) is an example of the conversion specialist.  It has had a string of good news recently, including a news bulletin this morning on its work with Smith Electric Vehicles, with vehicles delivered to numerous illustrious (and big) companies like AT&T, Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Staples, and PG&E (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Enova-Systems-Sees-Fleet-bw-2788026103.html?x=0&.v=1).  ENA shares languish, primarily it seems because the audience is small, and the stock is trading at $0.52 vs a 52-week high of $3.45, a market cap of under $11 million, and average volume of only 30,000 (though that is not double-counted).  ENA is reporting losses and probably is due for some dilution from new financings in the future, but its market seems to be growing by leaps and bounds, and the endorsements of big companies can do nothing but good for them.

At the same time, Mississauga ONT-based Azure Dynamics (TSX:  AZD, Pink Sheets:  AZDDF; http://www.azuredynamics.com/), also a pennystock is developing, building and selling hybrid trucks delivery vans for companies like FedEx, and passenger busses for municipal bus lines.  We have written about AZD in the past.

Azure Dynamics Hybrid Delivery Van

AZD shares trade fairly heavily on the TSX, with an average daily volume of nearly 1.5 million shares.  The US Pink Sheets version of the stock trades far less (70,000 shares), but that is the price we will quote because it is in USD: $0.19 vs a 52-week high of $0.27.  AZD is also reporting losses and consuming cash, but it is hard to imagine how a company gearing up to make fleet vans and trucks and city busses could do so without breaking a few eggs.  They announced a supply agreement with Johnson Controls earlier this year.

Another Canadian company,  Reno-based Altair Nanotechnologies (Nasdaq: ALTI, http://www.altairnano.com/) is concentrating in its transportation segment in batteries for heavy-duty vehicles and municipal busses, although we hasten to add that its primary identification is with the storage of energy from renewable sources, and if you go to their website, the first thing you will see is wind turbines.  Altairnano batteries for the transport market are lithium ion powered.  ALTI shares are trading at $1.03 at the moment, vs a 52-week high of $2.94, and the average volume is nearly 700,000 shares, so there is some liquidity.

We did an article on the subject of busses on June 8.  If you put “hybrid bus” into the search engine of this blog, you can get to that article.  There are illustrations of several, including one from privately held, Golden CO-based Proterra, (http://www.proterraonline.com/pdfs/Index-5_Page-1.pdf).

In the next article in this series, we will start to look at batteries, which, as the SeekingAlpha article that began this article says clearly, are the sine qua non of hybrids now and EVs later.

AOL Auto ran an article this weekend on hybrid cars, by no means an uncommon subject in any medium these days.  Interestingly, their headline was “Insight Costs Less than Prius” (http://autos.aol.com/gallery/hybrids-under-30?icid=main|htmlws-main|dl6|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fautos.aol.com%2Fgallery%2Fhybrids-under-30 ).   With electric power in cars more common, it is worth looking at what that means — and what investors should be looking for if they find the electric and hybrid car markets interesting. 

For one thing, there are many different types of hybrid vehicles, and the differences are meaningful in HOW they are designed, HOW they save fuel, and HOW they are powered — even to what extent they are dual-powered. 

There are lots of overlapping definitions, but basically the most common range is from “power-split” hybrids to “mild” hybrids.   Although it may not be the snootiest resource, Wikipedia has a useful article on the types of hybrids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vehicle), and you will have to scroll down through heavy vehicles and other types of transport before you get to autos.   The point being that the two vehicles in the AOL headline are entirely different types of cars, and whether you are shopping for a car or shopping for stocks that might benefit, you need to know the differences.

Power-split hybrids. First of all, in terms of road cars (not golf carts or campus people movers), in today’s world almost all cars that are not strictly dependent on burning fuel (gas, diesel, CNG, ethanol — whatever) are hybrids, not “EVs.”  That means they are capable, in varying ways and degrees, of being powered by BOTH internal combustion engines AND electric-powered motors.  The most common variety of hybrid on the road today (Toyota Prius, Ford Escape, and Lexus Gs450 and LS600) is the ”power-split hybrid,” cars in which a standard internal combustion engine is assisted and co-powered by 2 electric motors that can either take over at various times (like when coasting), or help supercharge the car (like during passing).  The gas engine and braking mechanism can help recharge the batteries that power the motors, and you can save gas as a result.  But power-split hybrids carry a lot of “extra” weight from having two complete powertrains, and replacement batteries for the electric motors can be dizzyingly expensive.  Nonetheless, they dominate the public consciousness about “EVs” or “hybrids” and many people assume that the other cars that are called “hybrids” are in some way similar.

Mild hybrids. Because the extra weight in a power-split hybrid cuts into the fuel saving, an alternative variety of hybrid seems, at least in the sort and mid-terms, to be more practical — and popular with car companies.  They are real fuel-savers and predicted by many marketing experts to be the most common such cars in Europe and the US very shortly. They are called “mild” hybrids, and they include 2 Hondas (Civic Hybrid and Insight), Mercedes-Benz S400 BlueHybrid, and BMW 7-series hybrids — so far.  Mild hybrids generally use one compact electric motor to assist the gas engine (which is generally downsized to save fuel), and can run the AC and other peripheral systems, while partially recharging on the fly.  These mild hybrids do not suffer from extra weight penalties, and they do not need the extraordinarily expensive battery packs that power-split hybrids need.  To a large extent they rival the power-split hybrids on fuel efficiency, but cost far less to purchase.

In either case, the batteries that power the electric motors that work alongside the internal combustion engines are a clear segment for the investor interested in the EV industry. 

What does that mean?  From an energy-storage point of view,  if you cast your investment vote for power-split hybrids, you can have your pick of energy storage companies (lithium-ion, NiMH, and a variety of exotic others).  The pioneer power-splits are running, for the most part, on NiMH batteries today — primarily because that’s the road that Toyota chose to take when they introduced the market-share-dominant Prius. 

But if you read the media, whether it is AOL, Green Car Congress, the Wall Street Journal or Earth2Tech, you have to be aware that there is a growing gaggle of lithium-ion battery companies who loudly proclaim that their batteries, not NiMH, are the batteries of the future EV or hybrid.  These include NYC-based Ener1 Inc (Nasdaq: HEV, http://www.ener1.com/), easily the most visible US li-ion car company, followed closely by the privately held (but not for long, apparently) Watertown MA-based A123 Systems (http://www.a123systems.com/company), and truly a bunch of others, like Boston Power, which recently announced that it too will get $100 million in federal stimulus money to build a li-ion plan in MA (http://www.zoomilife.com/2009/06/06/boston-power-gets-100m-in-federal-stimulus-to-build-li-ion-manufacturing-facility/).   The little-talked-about fact of li-ion batteries is that very few real cars are currently being powered by them.  How many people have actually seen a Tesla on the road?  A Fisker?  A Th!nk? Show of hands? I thought so.  Not many. 

And the further fact is that many of the world’s large car and components companies are forming alliances with none of the above or with non-US li-ion manufacturers for their future models of power-split hybrids:   http://seekingalpha.com/article/148248-lithium-ion-batteries-for-hybrid-vehicles or http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/06/continental-tak.html or http://www.thedeal.com/corporatedealmaker/2009/07/quallion_uses_gov_stimulus_mon.php.

The further complication is that the power-split hybrid is by no means guaranteed to be the winner in the hybrid sweepstakes.  Remember the “mild” hybrid?  The Honda Insight? The next article in this series will have a closer look at that version of hybrid, which may well become standard-issue on many production cars from all over the world while power-split hybrids continue to be a small minority of cars sold.

Everywhere I look, the myths of “clean electric” vehicles & PHEV’s propagate
themselves like an agressive virus. Startup car companies and Oldie Moldies like GM, Ford, etc. boast about “zero emissions” battery power propelling cars down the road at unbelievable “gallon equivalents”.  Bloggers repeat the error, not reporting that hybrids are actually much cleaner than EV’s charged by coal-fired utilities or nuke plants, which both emit toxic metals, radioactive particles & foul the planet.

Our company has proven 90+ MPG HEV powertrain technology that costs the same or less than standard drivetrains. Our power management system was verified at 45 MPG in gridlock (stop & go) driving and 90 MPG highway, on combustible fuels.

And that’s before we factor in our Pulse Detonation Turbine engine that boosts MPG’s to 150 as it cleans toxins from the incoming air! We figure that 90 MPG is the MINIMUM needed to begin rolling back global air pollution – something not possible with EV’s or battery-powered PHEV’s.

Green investors, potential franchise assembler/dealers & those who are truly interested in cleaning our air are invited to visit www.WorldKar.com for details about our under $10K all-terrain commuter kit car and the engine that cleans the air as it operates.

This is a tentative proposal for an outer ring line in Budapest – probably a light metro line, such as the VAL. It would connect to the radial lines of the proposed Budapest urban-regional metro, and also to the proposed southern tangent line from Kelenföld Station to Kőbánya-Kispest Station, and the proposed eastern tangent line from Nyugati Station to Kőbánya-Kispest. The outer ring line would partly parallel the proposed Érd – Ferihegy S-Bahn tangent, and could form an alternative to it.

With 1,7 million inhabitants, Budapest is sufficiently large to justify this type of outer metro line. The general alignment is Budafok – Csepel – Pesterzsébet – Kispest – Kőbánya-Kispest Station – Kőbánya – Rákos station – Rákosfalva – Istvántelek – Rákospalota. For most of the route, it would follow existing main roads and rail lines, so the detailed alignment would have few variants. The line would be about 23-26 km long.

The proposed line would start at an underground station, under Budafok station, on line 40/30. (It could start further west, but that is not considered here). It would cross the Danube in tunnel – a bridge here is difficult, because of the built-up area on the opposite bank. The line would cross to Csepel Island, between the main channel and a secondary channel of the Danube. Its northern end is urbanised, and is a borough of Budapest.

Through the built-up area on the island, the line could follow an alignment under Karácsony Sandor utca and Katona József utca. That would allow interchange with HÉV at Karácsony utca station. The HÉV is a suburban rail line, planned for incorporation into a future metro line 5. A tunnel seems the only option for the line across Csepel: much of the alignment would pass through low-rise suburban housing, and the streets are relatively narrow.

The line would then cross the other arm of the Danube (Ráckeve-Soroksar branch). It is narrower, and a bridge is the best option. (There was once a HÉV line across this arm of the river, see the map of former lines). On the other bank, the line would cross the Kelebia railway line, and the HÉV line to Ráckeve. The Pesterzsébet station could be relocated, and a new HÉV station opened, to allow good interchange. This section of the HÉV might, in any case, be replaced by a new alignment, if the fifth metro line is built.

In Pesterzsébet, District XX of Budapest, the line would follow Nagysándor József utca, and then its continuation in District XIX / Kispest, Hunyadi utca. Between the two, the line would cross the main road out of the city, the Nagykőrösi út (leads to the M5 motorway). This would allow interchange with the proposed south-eastern urban-regional line along this highway. Here too, the housing is generally low-density, but the streets might allow a cut-and-cover tunnel.

Low-rise housing in south-eastern Budapest

In Kispest, the line would follow Hunyadi utca, and then Katica utca, to Kőbánya-Kispest Station. The line could possibly emerge from tunnel, and cross the rail lines next to the road bridge: otherwise a tunnel would be needed. The section from Budafok Station to Kőbánya-Kispest Station is 10 km long. It would be possible to build it as a light metro, and the rest of the route as an outer tangent S-Bahn line, along rail line 273. The alignment would be almost identical. The version described here is a light metro, over the rest of the semicircular route.

From Kőbánya-Kispest Station, the new line would run toward Rákos station (on line 80 and line 120). The alignment would first follow the Sibrik Miklós út, then pass through undeveloped areas. (This district of Budapest has a history of abandoned mine workings and garbage landfills). At Rákos station, the new line would cross the railway by bridge or tunnel, and then turn north-west, to connect to link line 273. It could partly follow Keresztún út, to the junction with the rail line, a tangential route.

….

The new line would now follow the tangential rail line 273. It would cross Kerepesi út, route of the HÉV. Interchange would be facilitated by a new or relocated station, near the existing Rákosfalva HÉV station. (This HÉV line might be replaced in the future by an extension of Metro line 2.

The line would continue along line 273 through districts XIV, XV, and XV. It would serving a restored Rákosszentmihály station, where it crosses Fogarasi út / Csömöri út. There would be a new station at the crossing with Drégelyvár utca (the planned alignment of new metro line 4), and possibly a station near the M3 motorway, serving Pestújhely.

The new line would terminate at Istvántelek station (giving 23 km total line length), or continue to the next station, Rákospalota-Újpest, 2 km further. There it could connect to metro line 3 (a short extension is planned). Both stations are on line 70, the main line northwards out of Budapest.

The proposal for a two-line urban-regional metro in Budapest has been revised, with new map images.

2004: The first GM hybrid delivered to Seattle, looking very much like a traditional bus (http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=435202)

The municipal authorities around the United States — bus systems and school systems most obviously — have been way out in front of the breaking wave of interest in greentech, emissions control, carbon footprints.  The general public is mostly still driving internal combustion-driven vehicles, in spite of the rising sales of hybrid electric vehicles like the market-dominant Toyota Prius.

By early 2008 GM was delivering its 100th GM-Allison hybrid, this one to Las Vegas, and Seattle ordered an additional 500 such buses in May 2007. http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/01/09/las-vegas-to-the-get-the-1000th-gm-allison-hybrid-bus-this-month/.  In October 2007, New York City announced it would acquire 850 hybrid buses for $435 million.

Of course a lot has happened since the first GM-Allison bus was delivered in 2003.  Now Allison is owned by The Carlyle Group, having been sold by GM for $5.6 billion in the good old days when automobiles were still selling and car companies still looked like they had a chance of being viable.   And, of course, GM sucked up a lot of federal stimulus money and still declared bankruptcy, was dropped from the NYSE, and is now a Pink Sheets small-cap (Pink Sheets: GMGMQ,  http://www.gm.com/),  with a market cap of about $528 million as of the close of the market on Friday, and a stock price of $0.78.  A deal was announced to sell the Saturn division to Penske Automotive Group (NYSE:PAG, http://www.penskeautomotive.com/), itself arguably a small cap with a market cap of only $1.3 billion, and a closing stock price of $14.65 vs a 52-week high of $23.58.

But in the meantime, evolution has been a strong force in municipal buses and school buses, with some small players emerging as interesting companies to watch.

Proterra All-Electric Clean Bus in San Jose

The  all-electric clean bus by Golden, CO-based privately held Proterra (http://www.proterraonline.com/)  , with batteries probably from Reno-based Altair Nanotechnologies (Nasdaq: ALTI, http://www.altairnano.com/), presents one vision of the future, built entirely of composites to minimize weight, and streamlined beyond what the bus designers of yesteryear could have imagined.  ALTI shares are still somewhat down-and-out, closing Friday at $0.94 vs a 52-week high of $2.94, and a market cap a hair under $90 million, but average trading of 500,000 shares, which may make it easier to look at as a stock to be interested in.   Autobloggreen article on the Proterra bus: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/02/08/proterra-touring-california-with-fast-charging-electric-bus/.

Given Germany’s reputation as a leader in greentech, it is also worth noting that Puchheim, Germany-based Proton Motor Fuel Cell GmBH (http://www.proton-motor.de/ )  has teamed up with Czech partner, Pilsen-based Skoda Electric, and announced last month a bus on a standard chassis with no internal combustion engine at ALL — just a combination of fuel cells, batteries and ultracapacitors.  http://www.proton-motor.de/fileadmin/documents_pm/press_releases/20090508_TripleHybridBusPreview_EN.pdf

Proton-Skoda Pure Electric Fuel-Cell-battery-Ultracapacitor Bus

Torrance, CA-based Enova Systems (Amex: ENA, http://www.enovasystems.com/)  has teamed up with Navistar’s IC Corporation to build a plug-in hybrid diesel that is now operating at the top of the western hemisphere in Alaska’s Denali National Park.  The bus is claimed to use 70% less fuel than a conventional bus. http://gas2.org/2008/07/30/plug-in-hybrid-bus-at-denali-np-uses-up-to-70-less-fuel/

Enova-IC Corp bus for Denali Natl Park

ENA shares have been largely ignored by the market, closing Friday at $0.83, up $0.08 on a very light 24,000 shares.  The year-high was $4.70, and the market cap is a very low $17 million, but it may well be a diamond in the rough.   It is also the go-to company behind the Hybrid Electric School Bus Project, in which it is partnered with Raleigh, NC-based state-sponsored Advanced Energy, which says it has delivered school buses to Austin, Napa CA, and two school districts in NC. http://www.hybridschoolbus.com/.

We should also point out Oak Park, MI-based Azure Dynamics (TSE: AZD and Pink Sheets: AZDDF, http://www.azuredynamics.com/).  AZD announced this year a 5-year pack with Johnson Controls to supply advanced li-ion batteries for its commercial vehicles and buses, including the Altoona.  AZDDF closed Friday at $0.23 and has an average volume of 115,000 shares.  It was formerly listed on AIM, but is no longer.

Azure Dynamics' Altoona CitiBus

As always we have no recommendations on these companies, nor is this an attempt to equably survey the hybrid bus market, which is also being supplied by very large companies that are completely outside our area of interest.  We write about companies that we find newsworthy.

Last week we discussed Transportation 2.0 and the movement to Plug-in Vehicles.  We introduced the 100 year road of R&D and innovation we have traveled advancing our gasoline fueled vehicles and the position they hold in our society today.  Also discussed was how these vehicles had their own set of doubters and skeptics as they were initially introduced to the public in the early 1900’s.  Well we all know how that story turned out!  Looking back at history one could say we are preparing to re-write our book on transportation, only this time the main character is the Plug-in vehicle.  For this weeks discussion I would like to introduce the main character of Transportation 2.0, and that is the “Plug-in Vehicle”.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the term “Plug-in” means something “designed to be connected to an electric circuit by plugging in.”  This definition applied to a vehicle describes a Plug-in vehicle in the simplest of terms.  It is simply a vehicle that has a battery on-board capable of accepting a charge through an electrical outlet.  This battery will then be utilized to propel the vehicle based on what type of vehicle it is.  Sounds simple, right?  Well this is where our discussion gets interesting.  There are different types of plug-in vehicles and today we are going to introduce these vehicles to you.

The first class of vehicle we will discuss is the Battery Electric Vehicle or BEV.  This is the simplest of plug-in vehicles and as they run entirely off battery power.  When the charge runs out, the vehicle stops.  The pro’s of this type of vehicle is they are extremely low maintenance.  You see there is just one moving part in the powertrain as opposed to hundreds of moving parts in today’s gasoline fueled vehicles.  Oil Changes, transmission fluid changes, and all the maintenance you are accustomed to today are gone.  Also to note is in today’s gasoline fueled vehicles we measure the powertrain life in hundreds of thousands of miles.  For a BEV we measure the life of the powertrain in Millions of miles.  Quite a thought huh?  The main downside of this type of vehicle is the limited range.  The first generation of these vehicles are capable of 100-200 miles on a charge, and for most of us that is plenty.  For those that cannot live with the range restrictions there are Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles or PHEV’s.

PHEV’s are offered in different configurations, but the main idea behind them is when the battery runs out of juice there is a secondary source of power.  This may be a traditional engine running on gasoline or an alternative fuel that directly powers the vehicle, just like we have today.  This system works in conjunction with the electric power source and completely takes over when needed.  This is called a Parallel Hybrid and can be found on today’s Toyota Prius and Ford Escape.  The other type of configuration utilizes a “Range Extender” which is basically a traditionally fueled generator that runs to charge the batteries when needed.  With this type of system the vehicle is always propelled with the electric motor powered by the batteries and is called a Series Hybrid.  This type of system will be heart of the Chevrolet Volt and many other vehicles entering our market.  The obvious appeal of this system is the limitless range, but the downsize is the complexity of running both systems together. 

We will discuss these vehicle classes in more detail in upcoming posts.  I hope you found this introduction useful, and thank you for supporting our efforts.

Until next time…

-John

Fueled by the Sun

We have spent 100 years designing and refining the vehicles we have on the road today. During this time the auto industry has helped lead our industrial and financial dominance. Going back to the beginning of the auto industry we were a country rich in energy and full of bright minds looking to lead the world. Each passing year lead to new technology breakthroughs and exciting new products. As time went on other countries began to catch up and compete with us on a global basis and our industry leadership position was challenged. The industry now focused on global competition and there was an increased effort to reduce vehicle costs and stay competitive with both price and quality. The competition in the global market was now our priority and rightly so. Our leadership in innovation and exciting new products had to take a back seat to stay alive.

Today we sit in a very unique position. Our energy independence is gone, our auto industry is in turmoil, and global competition is higher than ever. How do we pull out of this and get our industry back on track? The answer is simple; Change. We now have an opportunity to move our energy reliance to sources we can create domestically, electricity. This move will slowly allow us to regain our energy independence and help us regain our leadership in the auto industry. Many people read the headlines and news stories on plug-in vehicles and focus just on their short comings, and there are a few of them. In my opinion we should all focus on the short comings. Yes you heard me right. After all, this is where opportunity lies. We need better batteries, improvements in hybrid systems, technology breakthroughs in our electric industry, charging infrastructure for the vehicles. Sounds like a lot right? It is, and this is where we regain our leadership. These shortcomings and problems will be solved by the bright minds of this country and spawn new markets and jobs. Not a believer? Neither were the masses in the early 1900’s when today’s automobile was introduced. Loud and smoky, early automobiles were laughed at by many. The will of our leaders and the minds of this country have refined the automobile for 100 years and today we could not live without it. It is now time for the next 100 years and transportation 2.0.

Until next time…

- John

- Hogy mondják románul, hogy elvisz a hév?

- L-a dus CFR-ul.

The news this morning: although we are enthusiastic about today’s battery–powered EVs, the fuel-cell-powered vehicle will be an important part of the mix in the future.  (http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/04/h2fcv-20090423.html).  

Many in the media seem to accept that EVs will be powered by either the current dominant technology (the Nickel Metal Hydride or NiMH battery), or the myriad variety of Lithium-ion batteries that are being designed and flogged in Asia, Europe, and North America.  But not every early winner finishes a winner.  Ask the Mets or the Cubs about that.

The Lithium-ion industry is grabbing the largest share of battery or batterylike stimulus dollars.  The Watertown, MA-based privately held and venture-backed A123 Systems (http://www.a123systems.com/)  has applied for $1.84 billion in subsidies, and the New York-based but Indianapolis-centered company, Ener1 Inc (Nasdaq:HEV, http://www.ener1.com), has applied for $480 millon, and was recently advanced to the finalist stage by the feds.  That’s all well and good — if the li-ion battery is not a mirage shimmering on the automotive horizon. 

There are some issues with li-ion batteries, and they are no secret.  The most well-known issue is that some of them have exploded, taking transporting aircraft and people’s laps down with them.  EVERY li-ion battery maker says they have fixed that problem.  Nobody wants to drive a car whose powertrain might blow up, after all.  Also li-ion batteries can have problems starting in cold temperatures (which is why li-ion vehicles still have a lead-acid battery for starter purposes). 

But if you look around, there are other technologies that “coulda been a contender” (with apologies to Marlon Brando) — and may yet be.  Perhaps the most obvious is the lineal descendent of the battery in the car you drive now — the “good old” lead-acid battery.  But wait! 

There are several companies that are modernizing the lead-acid battery, many of them working within the auspices of the US-based Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium (http://www.alabc.org/)  .  That would include the R&D-stage Firefly (http://www.fireflyenergy.com/),  and Axion Power* (EBB: AXPW, http://www.axionpower.com) , which recently snared a deal with one of the world’s largest battery companies, Alpharetta, GA-based Exide Technologies (Nasdaq: XIDE, http://www.exide.com).  Both companies use forms of the element carbon to revolutionize and improve the performance of batteries.  It’s hard to tell a lot about Firefly batteries because they haven’t been sold commercially, but Axion batteries, branded as PbC(r) batteries, are the heart and soul of the Exide distribution deal, and are also being used in demonstration projects by widely diverse groups including NYSERDA and an industry consortium designing and building solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles.  Axion has also been the recipient of DOD and DOE research funds, as well as industry grants to test and develop their proprietary technology, which basically replaces half the lead in a battery with nanocarbon that is analagous to the substance that is in your Brita water filter.

There are other tortoise-like technologies bringing up the rear behind the hare-like li-ion companies.  Some are pretty exotic — steam-powered assists, or devices that pump up gasoline efficiency by adding platinum, or urea, or even hydrogen additives.

Then there are the fuel cells, as mentioned at the top of this article.  The biggest problem with fuel cells is that few of them actually work well enough to be manufactured in quantity.  One assumes that will change.  The second biggest problem with fuel cells is that they are NOT batteries; they actually generate “new” electricity on the spot, rather than regurgitating “old” electricity that they have stored.  Other than that distinction (and it is important), they BEHAVE a lot like batteries.

Toyota Fuel-cell vehicle (today)

For reality’s sake, there ARE fuel-cell vehicles operating today, just not in production quantities.  Read this from carlist.com: http://www.carlist.com/autonews/2004/toyota_fchv.html.   And in this picture you can see how the innards of a fuel-cell-car look (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=0&f=/c/a/2007/01/02/FUELCELL.TMP):

Mercedes Fuel-cell car cutaway

And lest we be accused of favoritism, there is this from GM and SAIC — both as American as apple pie: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/04/21/saic-to-use-gm-fuel-cell-propulsion-system-in-new-experimental-v

GM-SAIC Fuel-cell prototype

The problem to be surmounted is that only one company has ever managed to make portable (as opposed to the gigantic, truck-sized fuel cells that are called “stationary”) fuel cells in production quantities:  Medis Technologies (Nasdaq: MDTL, http://www.medistechnologies.com). Medis pumped out 250,000 of their hand-held fuel cells last fall, and now says it is in the process of upsizing the product and moving its production back to the US from Ireland, no doubt with stimulus funding on its agenda.  They also are eyeing military applications here and abroad (http://www.defencetalk.com/fuel-cell-power-technology-for-the-italian-military-17532/)

This article is already too long to go into the reasons WHY Medis fuel cells can be built in quantity and others can’t.  Suffice it to say here that they use a heretical technology employing sodium borohydride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_borohydride), where everyone else uses hydrogen, in most cases generated by breaking down natural gas.  The former works well; the latter is more orthodox and does not work well (and might explode — Remember the Hindenburg!).

As for stationary fuel cells, they seem to be chugging along.  FuelCell Energy Inc (Nasdaq: FCEL, http://www.fuelcellenergy.com) announced a new deal with the USAF: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/FuelCell-Energy-Power-Plant-pz-14856468.html.

*Allen & Caron client

SUBSEQUENT COVERAGE: After our article was published, this interview of Bright CEO Waters appeared on Fox Business News: http://tinyurl.com/ckl8oe  (video)

Electric vehicles seem to be cropping up everywhere like the flowers of spring these days.  Today there was an important unveiling in Washington DC, as Bright Automotive (http://www.brightautomotive.com) showed its utility vehicle, the IDEA on Capitol Hill.  As Earth2tech observed, it is hard to characterize it as terribly slick (http://earth2tech.com/2009/04/21/photos-bright-automotive-unveils-100mpg-plug-in-fleet-vehicle/), but its stats are pretty impressive.   It claims fuel efficiency amounting to 100 mpg, and it was developed by Rocky Mountain Institute-spawned company headed by John Waters, former head of the GM EV-1 project.  Bright aims to be building 50,000 of these little puppies annually in about 3 years.  From DC, it heads to Norway for an official debut at a show there.

Bright IDEA -- the new utility vehicle from Bright Automotive

This bright idea (ok, it’s a pun) is a useful vehicle that looks like a slicked-up panel truck, but if you count the number of panel trucks on the road today and add up their gasoline exhausts, there is probably more carbon to be saved on those than on the sexy 2-seaters that are being hawked around by Tesla (http://www.teslamotors.com)  and archrival Fisker (http://www.fiskerautomotive.com).   Fisker said today that a simpler EV power system might hold the combination of cheaper EVs (http://earth2tech.com/2009/04/21/fisker-eyes-simpler-engine-as-one-key-to-a-lower-cost-plug-in/).

The brouhaha in DC today also involved other green companies that are involved in providing charging stations, without which EVs are less useful (if you can only charge them at home, the driving range becomes less meaningful).  The charging mafiosi who showed up today included Coulomb (http://www.coulombtech.com), the company that is making a name for itself with charging stations in the SF Bay Area, Envision Solar (http://www.envisionsolar.com), and Axion Power (http://www.axionpower.com), who are ganging up to provide charging stations independent of the grid, courtesy of Envision’s solar panels and Axion’s PbC(R) batteries, which are lineal descendents of lead-acid, but which use nanocarbon anodes to replace the lead and to gear up the performance.  Axion Power trades on the EBB as AXPW, and their shares were quoted at the close today at $1.60, down from a 52-week high of $2.75 on volume today of 84,000 shares, mostly due to a global distribution pact signed last week with the giant Alpharetta, GA-based battery company, Exide Technologies (http://www.exide.com), which trades on Nasdaq as XIDE, and whose shares closed today at $4.69 on volume of more than 400,000 shares, down from a tad under $20 on a full-year basis. 

But last week we saw some other impressive EVs, most notably the busy little Bee  One, which is set to be sold for just UNDER $10,000 a copy — and it is a 4-seater with a top speed of 80mph and a driving range of 200 miles.   The Bee One is a fit competitor for Tata’s Indica (http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/21/tata-indica-soon-to-hit-the-streets-of-norway-its-electric/), which is set to be rolling off the assembly lines later this year.

The Not-Unsexy Little Bee One 4-seater (200 mile driving range)

None of these cars looks like a Formula One racecar, but they look a damned sight better than a lot of boxy gas-guzzlers.  Speaking of which, Raser Technologies introduced a PHEV (plug-in hybrid) HUMMER that, it is claimed, will also deliver 100 mpg in its trucky version (http://www.autobloggreen.com/tag/raser+hummer/).  Raser shares trade on the NYSE as RZ, and closed today at $4.17, down from a 52-week high of $11.79 on 480,000 shares (presumably not double-counted). 

And of course none of those announcements made more headlines than the deal Chrysler made with A123 for Li-ion batteries for their EVs (http://seekingalpha.com/article/130094-energy-storage-chrysler-a123-alliance-likely-to-spark-interest-in-sector) , nor more wide eyes than Toyota’s announced $21,000 price tag for the new, bigger, better Prius (http://www.dailytech.com/Toyota+Trims+Price+of+2010+Prius+to+Combat+Honda+Insight/article14929.htm).  Get ‘em while they’re hot! 

Must be the time of year . . . .

I am neither a scientist nor a historian of science, but I have been told that the fuel cell was “invented” about 170 years ago — before there was any such thing as a battery.  That said, fuel cells have been the unicorns of energy, much talked about and never quite there. 

First of all, what is a fuel cell?  It is a device that contains a chemical reaction that directly generates electricity.  Did I hear someone in the back of the room say “methane”?  Yes, fuel cells are commonly associated with methane, or CH4, which is the largest component of natural gas (a fossil fuel), and can also be made artificially in a variety of relatively expensive ways and from a variety of carbon-based or organic substances.  Not ALL fuel cells are methane-based, however heretical it is to say that.  But back to that in a minute.

The unicornlike aspect of fuel cells is that no one has actually manufactured them in quantity in that 170 years, unlike the gazillions of batteries that are turned out all the time.  Well, one company has made some of them, and you’ve most likely never heard of them: Medis Technologies, based in New York City with labs and scientists in Israel (Nasdaq: MDTL, http://www.medistechnologies.com).  Medis has had a checkered record of fits and starts, but as far as we can find out, they are and remain the only company that has ever designed and manufactured a portable fuel cell in commercial quantities. Their stock is trading for $0.50, down from $10.49, for a market cap of about $22 million, which reflects an expectation of very poor financial performance for 2008, mos t likely.

The prairies are littered with the bleached bones of investors in companies that staked everything on fuel cells.  Probably the best known of those is Ballard Power Systems, based in Burnaby, BC (TSX: BLD & Nasdaq: BLDP, http://www.ballard.com).  The dizzying heights of Ballard back in 2000 was when their stock was at US$129.00, and the stomach-churning parachute drop since then has left their shares trading at 1/100th of that price, or $1.30.  When I say bleached bones, that is the sort of thing I am talking about.   They have been developing fuel cells for two decades and their website says they are a leader in that development effort.  According to their March 3 news release on their 2008 YE results, they shipped 802 fuel cells in the fourth quarter.  That’s not missing any zeros: 802.  These are big stationary units, not pocket-sized portable units.

Clearly there are sexy aspects to fuel cells.  Unlike batteries, they create energy on the spot (when they work).  If they are methane-based, they create carbon dioxide.  If they are sodium borohydride-based, they have no carbon footprint at all.  And they are so cool, so self-contained that they inspire people to lofty dreams.  Look at this Mercedes Benz F-Cell Roadster:

Mercedes Benz F-Cell Roadster

It took 150 students and interns to design and build it.  Probably not something you are going to see on the Autobahn, but there is a certain unicorn-ity about it (http://www.porhomme.com/2009/03/the-f-cell-roadster-concept-built-by-mercedes-benz-trainees/).

Or check out this improbable announcement from Toshiba: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/toshiba-starting-mass-production-of-fuel-cells.php. Mass production of fuel cells to start right away, possibly available next year.  Oh, by the way, they will cost between $100 and $500 EACH.  You may want to wait to turn in your old-fashioned plug-in phone charger until a bit later in the pricing curve.  It is that sort of announcement that makes people snicker when fuel cells are mentioned.  For comparison purposes, the Medis 24/7 Power Pack cellphone or PDA-charger is available at Amazon for about $30. 

Nonetheless, DOE is tossing some coins into the pot: http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=10575 and this is not the only federal stimulus money that is available for fuel-cell development.  Renssalaer Polytechnic is no slouch, and one assumes that the materials they are developing will be important to the future of fuel cells.

Las Vegas-based SymPowerCo Corp (OTC: SYMW, http://sympowercocorp.com/) said that it is entering into negotiations with unnamed third parties to bring its methanol-based fuel cell to commercialization, possibly for automotive uses.  The same small company said that its first EV would be a golf-cart-type vehicle, possibly to use to replace pedicabs in the Far East, but no ETA was given.  SYMW trades at an impossibly low $0.0003 per share, for a full-company market cap of $65,000 or so. 

For a more uptown view, look at Mississauga, ONT-based Hydrogenics (Nasdaq:HYGS, http://www.hydrogenics.com/).  HYGS is trading for $0.41, down from a high of $2.45, for a market cap of $38 million, just a hair over its recently announced 2008 revenues of $36.9 million, with a loss of $14 million. 

Two prominent alternative energy companies seem to have de-emphasized their fuel-cell operations.  One is Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER, http://www.ovonic.com) , which started as a battery company and was responsible for inventing the NiMH battery,  then went into the H2 fuel-cell business, but is now largely seen as a solar energy company; its shares are selling for $13.35, down from $83.33 for a market cap of about $611 million.  The other is Ener1 Inc (Nasdaq: HEV, http://www.ener1.com), which cast its lot with its li-ion operations in Indiana and Asia, and seems to be one of the charge-leaders in its niche.  HEV is selling for $5.98, down from a high of $9.24, for a market cap of about $679 million.  Not bad in a market like this one.

There are lots of companies fiddling with fuel cells, just as there are lots of companies fiddling with li-ion batteries.  There is an implied assumption that both fuel cells and li-ion batteries will win some portion of the potentially huge automotive markets currently served by by NiMH batteries in HEVs.  But there are very few production models running on li-ion, and there  are very few portable electronics being powered by fuel cells.  At least at the moment.  Still, it may be worth a follow, or even a bet, if you believe that we need these clean alternative energy sources for our grandchildren’s world.