This story will appear in the Sunday, October 1
NY Times automotive section under "Green Tech"

Hybrids With a Power Cord: Plug-In Vans Put to the Test
By JIM MOTAVALLI
http://select.nytimes.com/preview/2006/10/01/automobiles/1154648126188.html

ARE there plug-in hybrid vehicles in America’s
future? Such hybrids could travel 10 to 20
additional miles on battery power alone, but
until recently automakers have said — more or
less unanimously — that it was not practical to
add a larger battery pack and plug-in chargers to
hybrid vehicles because of the added weight, complexity and cost.

The public is already confused about hybrids,
they say, with many people still believing that
these cars (whose batteries are charged by their
internal-combustion engines) need to be plugged
in. So now hybrids really will have a power cord?

Maybe, says DaimlerChrysler. The company recently
showed in New York the first vehicle in its small
test fleet of Dodge Sprinter delivery vans with
plug-in-hybrid powertrains. The Sprinters can
drive 20 miles on batteries alone, powered by a
70-kilowatt electric motor. The three Sprinters
currently in the United States (built in Germany
with either diesel or gasoline engines) are the
vanguard concept vehicles in a four-truck fleet;
another three dozen will enter service around the world.

This does not necessarily mean that
DaimlerChrysler will make plug-in production
Sprinters for sale, but the company appears to be warming to the concept.

Other companies are mulling the idea, too. Ford
Motor’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., said in
May that his company was “keenly looking at” the
technology. At Toyota, Dave Hermance, executive
engineer for advanced technology vehicles,
confirmed that the company has started a research
and development program for plug-ins. “But we
believe the batteries are not ready for production,” he added.

According to a Bloomberg News report in June,
General Motors is also developing a plug-in
hybrid. Even Google.org, a charitable for-profit
company set up by the popular search engine
provider, said it would create its own plug-in system.

A June report by AllianceBernstein, an investment
management firm in New York, entitled “The
Emergence of Hybrid Vehicles,” concluded that
“Plug-in hybrid vehicles are likely to arrive as
an extension of current hybrid technology.” The
fuel-efficiency gains, the report said, “would be
enormous for those people who typically drive only short distances each day.”

Plug-ins, like all hybrids, excel in stop-and-go
duty. And their ability to make those runs on
batteries alone makes them ideal for the delivery
tasks envisioned for the Sprinter project.

The Electric Power Research Institute, a trade
association for utilities, estimates that a
plug-in hybrid would consume 2,000 to 2,500
kilowatt-hours of grid electricity annually. So
wouldn't vehicles like the plug-in hybrid
Sprinter simply transfer their pollution source
from the tailpipe to the smokestack of a coal-burning power plant?

That depends on the source of electric power,
according to a report released last month by the
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy,
a nonprofit energy policy group. The council
concluded that a plug-in version of the Toyota
Prius could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a
third compared with today’s Prius hybrid, but
only if its batteries were charged with
California electricity — generated mainly from relatively clean sources.

“One of the key determinants is whether the
electricity is generated using coal,” Jim
Kliesch, a co-author of the report, said in an
interview. The report says that in a part of the
Midwest dominated by coal-burning power plants, a
plug-in Prius would generate 1 percent more
carbon dioxide. “Our position is that overselling
plug-ins to policy makers or to John Q. Public
has the potential of causing disenchantment with
the technology,” Mr. Kliesch said.

But the plug-in concept has long been championed
by environmentalists and green-minded
entrepreneurs, some of whom have added battery
packs and chargers to existing hybrids like the
Prius and the Ford Escape. On short commuting
runs, these cars wouldn't need to start their
gasoline engines, allowing their champions to
claim very high potential economy figures. But
some homemade plug-in hybrids have had problems
adapting to the software of the cars’ sophisticated on-board computers.

“This DaimlerChrysler introduction is the
beginning of the automakers’ fulfilling our
dreams,” said Felix Kramer, a founder of
CalCars.org, which has championed plug-in hybrids
and helped build prototypes. “It’s very encouraging.”

The van of dreams is a conventional-looking
Sprinter, familiar to Americans as a tall Dodge
or Freightliner utility vehicle used as a
passenger bus and, without rear seats, as a
delivery truck. In Europe, it is badged as a
Mercedes-Benz. Departures from factory
specifications include a plug-in recharging port
on the right side of the van’s nose, a small
switch on the dashboard that shifts the vehicle
into electric-only mode and a 350-pound,
14-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack peeking
out from under the flat floor. And, of course,
Hybrid Sprinter lettering on its flanks.

The Sprinter drew a crowd to the lobby of the
Solaire apartment tower in Battery Park City,
chosen because it is the first green high-rise
residential building in the United States(with
its own wastewater plant and photovoltaic panels).

The Sprinter project is a team effort involving
DaimlerChrysler, the New York Power Authority and
the Electric Power Research Institute, among
others; representatives of each were on hand for
the introduction. “The plug-in hybrid is a good
application for fleets, and terrific for New York
City,” said Timothy S. Carey, president and chief
executive of the power authority, who drives an Escape Hybrid.

The officials stood under an awning and looked on
as I became the first journalist in the United States to drive the Sprinter.

I twisted the key, and was amazed at how quiet
the truck was. Unfortunately, it wasn't running.
To the consternation of almost everyone there,
this would-be paragon of New York fleet use had failed to start.

A German engineer quickly connected a laptop
computer to troubleshoot the failure, and
concluded that the van’s motor controller was not
functioning. Unfortunately, he couldn't fix the
problem quickly and the demonstration drive was postponed.

According to a DaimlerChrysler spokesman, Nick
Cappa, the car was running half an hour later.
But I didn't connect with it again until several
days later, in White Plains, where the power
authority has its headquarters. The facilities
also include a charging station, which takes six
to eight hours to replenish the Sprinter’s
lithium-ion batteries. The paddle charger fits
into a slot in the front fender and is pushed
downward to start the electricity flowing. The
charging system is designed with safety in mind:
the electrical contacts are not exposed until the
paddle is inserted into the car.

John Markowitz, a power authority engineer with
temporary custody of the hybrid Sprinter,
explained that this van, with a gasoline engine,
was destined for California, where regulators are not friendly to diesels.

That van’s lithium-ion batteries offer the same
amount of energy storage as the
nickel-metal-hydride packs in the other version,
but weigh half as much. But lithium-ion batteries
pose some cost and durability challenges: both
Apple Computer and Dell have recalled lithium-ion
laptop computer batteries because of an overheating hazard.

The Sprinter is relatively simple to drive, with
an automatic transmission that offers manual
shifting. It handles well for a large vehicle.
The driver can choose either hybrid or
electric-only mode, with the latter providing the
strongest initial acceleration.

The 2.3-liter gasoline engine in my test vehicle
revved to 5,000 r.p.m. without providing much
forward motion up hills, but the electric motor’s
abundance of low-speed torque pulled it away
smoothly — and with much less noise than a conventional van.

The engine engagement is not quite as seamless as
it is on the production Prius or Escape, but as
in those cars, the engine shuts off neatly at
stoplights. The alternate version, with a
2.7-liter turbocharged diesel engine, is likely to move out quicker.

In the first phase of testing, Sprinters will be
deployed in New York, Kansas City and Los
Angeles. The Kansas City and Los Angeles vans
will go into service at utility companies. The
Sprinter to undergo a three-year test in New York
will be a diesel version with
nickel-metal-hydride batteries. It will be used
by The New York Times to deliver newspapers from
a printing plant in College Point, Queens, to
routes in five boroughs, and to haul newspapers
to schools, said Mark E. Coleman, director of
distribution for The Times. He said the van was
likely to be delivered in February or March.

The Sprinter will have company. Claus C. Tritt,
senior manager for commercial vehicles, said
DaimlerChrysler would also field a second plug-in
hybrid on a revised platform, though he declined
to comment further. “It will have wheels,” he confided.

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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
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