Somtimes the news comes too fast for us to keep up. Here's a roundup.
- Conde Nast Portfolio's 5 page story on Green Cars
- Conde Nast Traveler's overview of PHEVs
- Newsweek on conversions and the US trying to catch up on hybrids
- IEEE Spectrum overview on battery technology
- Edmunds.com on Toyota vs. GM vs. Ford on PHEVs
- Cleveland Plain Dealer on GM ads for Volt
- Detroit Free Press on GM vs. Toyota
- Green Car Congress on US Dept of Energy's $17M PHEV contracts
- German Public TV's 5-minute video on PHEVs

CONDE NAST PORTFOLIO
The October issue of this new business monthly
includes a substantial five-page article,
"Big Green Machines: Handicapping Toyota, G.M.,
Volkswagen, and the new clean upstarts in the race to the future."
http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/goods/cars/2007/09/17/Clean-Car-Wars

It's written by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran,
environment/energy correspondent for The
Economist, who has written extensively about
PHEVs there. He is the co-author of a new book,
"Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the
Future," whose publication date is today. (Order
at http://www.calcars.org/books.html .)
* VV is skeptical about the infrastructure for ethanol.
* He calls Tesla and other forthcoming electric vehicles "promising."
* About PHEVs, he says "Hanssen [Greg Hanssen,
co-founder of EnergyCS, now at EDriveSystems)]
and like-minded activists have managed to whip up
so much media attention and grassroots clamor for
plug-ins that the big auto manufacturers have
been forced to respond." He sees economic rather
than environmental obstacles, and says "The main
reason this technology may have a bright future
is the noisy environmental movement supporting
it. Advocates have even convinced the White House
that this hobbyist’s invention is the Next Big
Thing. Political pressure will force Detroit and
Japanese automakers to devise at least a token number of plug-ins by 2010.
* He finishes with hydrogen fuel cells and a leap
of faith. After cataloging many of their
limitations, he says "Fuel cells are the riskiest
bet in clean-car technology, but they also have
the most potential to change the game... fuel
cells’ promise of clean, carbon-emission-free
personal transportation and an end to oil
addiction is so great that this long shot is well worth keeping an eye on."
Some of the comments online also question hydrogen's benefits and feasibility.


CONDE NAST TRAVELER
The Perrin Post: Secrets Every Traveler Should Know by Stephan Wilkinson
Where Do You Plug In a Hybrid?September 13, 2007
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/blogs/perrinpost/2007/09/where-do-you-pl.htm\
l
Includes a large picture of a CalCars PHEV,
a pretty good explanation of PHEVs,including a
suggestion that they may be "The Next Big Thing,"
as well as some misinformation (about having to
plug in, about the need for a plugging
infrastructure), plus comments that respond to these concerns.


NEWSWEEK
From all indications, this excellent story is in
the October 1 print issue of Newsweek -- but we didn't find it in our copy.
PROJECT GREEN : Riding in the Slipstream
The Japanese are way ahead in manufacturing
hybrid cars. The good news: American
entrepreneurs are cashing in on side products like souped-up batteries.
By Daniel Gross
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20920172/site/newsweek/

...the big idea behind the success of
Japanese-made hybrids—the proposition that
electric batteries can displace gasoline as
fuel—has its own coattails. Across the United
States, enterprises big and small are developing
souped-up batteries, plug-in kits and technology
that hold the potential to turn cars from gas guzzlers into power generators.

[several paragraphs discuss A123Systems,
Hybrids-Plus, EnergyCS, PG&E, the Chevy Volt, Google's conversions]

The technology isn't fully competitive with
gas-powered vehicles. Many of the start-ups in
the space will likely fail. And there are also
questions about how well these
innovations—brilliant in the lab—will work in the
real world on a mass scale. Of course, that's
exactly what U.S. automakers said about hybrid
vehicles themselves—1 million sales ago.


IEEE SPECTRUM
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, which has in the past called PHEVs a
"downright irresistable solution," put a PHEV on
the cover of its September 2007 magazine, and the
article, Lithium Batteries Take to the Road, by
John Voelcker, Spectrum automotive editor is an
excellent summary of the issues involving
mostly-lithium batteries, including relatively
non-technical discussions of cathode materials,
and analyses of vendors including A123Systems,
Altair Nanotechnologies, Gaia, Valence. and Tesla Energy.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep07/5490


EDMUNDS.COM GREEN CAR ADVISOR
John O'Dell, has moved from the auto beat at the
LA Times to Edmunds (joining consumer reporter
Philip Reed and AutoObserver Michelle Krebs) and
now writes at the Green Car Advisor. We think
he's right that when GM, Toyota and Ford weigh in
on their solutions (GM with series hybrid, Toyota
with parallel, Ford with parallel and perhaps
"blended," meaning the car could have no
all-electric range), the public will be the
winner. (We're often asked why smaller companies
are bothering to try to compete with the GM Volt.
The quick answer: look how many different kinds
of internal combustion engine cars we have.
There's surely room for a dozen PHEV contenders!

Coming Soon: Plug-in Wars, Sept. 11, 2007
http://blogs.edmunds.com/GreenCarAdvisor/11
[snip]
The latest battleground is in the automotive
arena, as automaking giants General Motors and
Toyota duke it out over whose strategy for a plug-in hybrid is best.
Things heated up Monday as Toyota took on GM in a
blog posting, GM’s outspoken vice chairman, Bob
Lutz, took a swing at Toyota in a Frankfurt auto
show interview, and two top Ford hybrid program
executives suggested in interviews with Green Car
Advisor that they favor the Toyota approach.
[snip]
We don't have a favorite in this technology race;
perhaps both approaches can coexist. But we are
happy to see several of the world's biggest
automakers arguing over the best way to do
something that can help improve the environment.


CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/motoring/2003909007_voltads28.html
GM charges ahead with ads plugging Volt before it's built
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
Sept 28, 2007 in Seattle Times
By ROBERT SCHOENBERGER

They've shown it around the world. They've
discussed each technological breakthrough with
reporters, and they've promised to do everything
possible to produce it by 2010.
Now, General Motors has taken the unusual step of
advertising its Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid
vehicle nearly three years before plans to produce one.
Producing a car that could handle a typical daily
commute without burning a drop of gasoline could
catapult GM past Toyota as the leader in
technologically advanced hybrids. But failure
would prove the company unable to compete on innovation.
[snip]
Marketing experts said GM's strategy appears
clear: It's not trying to sell the Volt as much
as it is trying to sell the image of GM as a technological leader.
Advertising progress could help the company shift
its reputation from being a fossil of a bygone
industrial era to a leader in global environmentally friendly technology.
Thomas Powers, a marketing and management
professor at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, said GM could burnish its image with
promises of futuristic cars, but there's a clear
downside: "They have invested in this
image-building exercise with unproven
technologies. There's a big risk of over-promising."


DETROIT FREE PRESS
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070927/BUSINESS01/709270410/10\
14
PHELAN'S CORNER: Hybrid systems get more exposure
September 27, 2007
[snip]
Meanwhile, GM executives are quietly delighted
Toyota ran into problems developing new batteries
for the next generation of plug-in hybrids.
GM badly wants to beat its Japanese archrival to
market with a plug-in, which charges from a wall
outlet and uses a small engine as a backup generator for long trips.
Toyota, meanwhile, says the technology GM is developing is unsafe.
"There's so much negativism, especially from one
competitor," GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said. "The
sooner we can disprove that, the sooner they've
got some more egg on their face," he said in a
thinly veiled reference to widely rumored battery
fires in vehicles Toyota was testing.


DOE to Provide $17.2M for Five PHEV Battery
Development Projects; Focus on 10- and 40-Mile Electric Range
25 September 2007
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/09/doe-to-provide-.html

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected
five projects for $17.2 million in DOE funding
for plug-in hybrid (PHEV) battery development
projects with an emphasis on batteries for both
10- and 40-mile range PHEVs. DOE will also
provide nearly $2 million to the University of
Michigan (U-M) to spearhead a study exploring the future of PHEVs.

The five projects selected for negotiation of
awards of up to $17.2 million from DOE aim to
address critical barriers to the
commercialization of PHEVs, specifically battery
cost and battery life. Combined with cost-share
from the United States Advanced Battery
Consortium (USABC), these projects will allow up
to $38 million in battery research and development.

DOE funding is subject to negotiation of final
contract terms and Congressional appropriations.
Projects are expected to begin this year and
continue through 2009; funding will come from
DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable
Energy (fiscal years ’07-’09). USABC will
negotiate final contract terms with five
lithium-ion battery developers. Companies
selected for negotiation of awards include:

* 3M of St. Paul, MN. Selected for an award
of up to $1.14 million from DOE (total
DOE/industry cost share: $2.28 million) over two
years to screen nickel/manganese/cobalt (NMC)
cathode materials through building and testing of small-sized cells;
* A123Systems of Watertown, MA. Selected for
an award of up to $6.25 million from DOE (total
DOE/industry cost share: $12.5 million) over
three years for a project to develop batteries
based on nanophase iron-phosphate chemistry for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs;
* Compact Power Inc. of Troy, MI. Selected
for an award of up to $4.45 million from DOE
(total DOE/industry cost share: $12.7 million)
over three years to develop batteries for 10-mile
range PHEVs using high energy and high power Manganese-spinel;
* EnerDel, Inc. of Indianapolis, IN.
Selected for an award of up to $1.25 million from
DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $2.5 million)
over two years to develop cells for 10- and
40-mile range PHEVs using nano-phase lithium
titanate coupled with a high voltage Nickel-Manganese cathode material;
* Johnson Controls ­ Saft Advanced Power
Solutions of Milwaukee, WI. Selected for an award
of up to $4.1 million from DOE (total
DOE/industry cost-share: $8.2 million) over two
years to develop batteries using a
nickelate/layered chemistry for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs.

The University of Michigan’s Michigan Memorial
Phoenix Energy Institute (MMPEI) will receive
nearly $2 million from DOE to coordinate efforts
among DOE and its Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory, General Motors, Ford Motor Company,
and DTE Energy to conduct a two-year study on
PHEVs. Specifically, the study will:
* Evaluate how PHEVs would share the power
grid with our Nation’s other energy needs;
* Monitor the American public’s evolving
view of PHEVs and provide the first
national-level empirical data on how driving
behavior differs with these vehicles compared to
conventional gasoline, diesel, and hybrid vehicles;
* Assess a possible reduction of greenhouse
gas emissions with the increased use of PHEVs;
* Identify how automakers could optimize
PHEV design to increase performance while also
reducing cost. U-M researchers and auto industry
partners will build a simulation model to test different PHEV design concepts.

Research for this study will take place over the
next two years, and a preliminary report is
expected to be released in January of 2008, at
the Detroit Auto Show. DOE’s Office of
Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability and
Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
(EERE) will fund this study (fiscal years 2007
and 2008, subject to appropriations from Congress).

GERMAN TV
Here's an excellent story that aired on Germany's public TV network 3sat
http://www.3sat.de/neues/sendungen/magazin/113184/index.html
is the German-language report
http://www.3sat.de/webtv/?070916_googlecar_nes.rm
is the five-minute video that starts with
RechargeIT's PHEVs, continues with an interview
with Google.org's Dan Reicher, and in the last
two minutes shows Felix Kramer driving and
talking about PHEVs, explains how PHEVs can be
powered from home rooftop solar systems, and
introduces "peak-shaving" from vehicle-to-grid systems.

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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
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