Here are two important events on Tuesday, April
22: a Washington DC policy briefing on PHEVs with
high-level participants, and an entertaining
segment of the WGBH Nova series on "Cars of the
Future," broadcast most places at 8PM on PBS,
featuring Click & Clack, the Tappett brothers,
who after exploring the options both turn out to
be favorably inclined to PHEVs, and devote
considerable time to visiting and talking with
Dr. Andy Frank of UC Davis and Efficient Drivetrains, Inc.


WASHINGTON DC PANEL
The Electric Drive Answer: Transportation
Technologies & Policies to End Oil Dependence
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 9:30am-11:30am
562 Dirksen Senate Office Building
This event is free and open to everyone. Pre-registration is not required.

The Electric Drive Transportation Association
(EDTA), with support from the Environmental and
Energy Study Institute, invites you to The
Electric Drive Answer: Transportation
Technologies & Policies to End Oil Dependence.

During this unique multi-industry panel, EDTA
members will detail their latest projects and
plans for battery, hybrid, plug-in and fuel cell
electric drive vehicles, components and
infrastructure. They will also discuss how
federal policies can speed the commercialization
of clean, efficient electric drive and reduce the
role of oil in transportation.

EDTA members from the following companies will
participate: Ford Motor Company, General Motors,
Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota, Southern
California Edison, Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced
Power Solutions, Electrovaya, EnerDel, Phoenix Motorcars, and Vectrix.

Panelists:
* Mike Andrew, Director of Government Affairs and
External Communications, HEV Battery Systems
Power Solutions, Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions
* Edward B. Cohen, Vice President, Government &
Industry Relations, Honda North America
* Dr. Sankar Das Gupta, CEO, Electrovaya (or another representative)
* Daniel J. Elliott, CEO, Phoenix Motorcars
* Charles Gassenheimer, Chairman of the Board, Ener1
* Nancy Gioia, Director of Sustainable Mobility
Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Programs, Ford Motor Company
* Charles Ing, Director, Government Affairs, Toyota
* Andrew J. MacGowan, Executive Chairman, CEO, & President, Vectrix
* William MacLeod, Senior Manager, Government Affairs, Hyundai Motor Company
* Dean Taylor, Technical Specialist, Southern California Edison
* Joseph Trahern, Director Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, General Motors


NOVA Cars of the Future: full text of MSNBC
story, excerpts from Newsweek interview with
Click and Clack, excerpts from Sacramento Bee and
UC Davis stories on the broadcast.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/21/918802.aspx
A plug for your future car
Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 10:01 AM by Alan Boyle
ABOUT COSMIC LOG: Quantum fluctuations in space,
science, exploration and other cosmic fields...
served up regularly by MSNBC.com science editor Alan Boyle since 2002.

The "Car Talk" radio guys go on a joke-filled
quest to find the perfect car of the future in a
TV show premiering on Earth Day. And the punch
line is that the technology they're looking for
is already available - for a price, that is.

"Car of the Future," airing Tuesday as part of
PBS' "Nova" documentary series, marks the
prime-time television debut of Tom and Ray
Magliozzi, a.k.a. Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers.

The brothers have made a name for themselves with
a newspaper column and call-in radio show that
blends folksy advice on auto maintenance with
even folksier repartee and punnery. (For example,
their credits list the accounts payable
administrator as "Imelda Czechs" ... get it?)

That mix of the serious and the silly carries
over to the TV show. Tom and Ray set the scene in
their garage in Cambridge, Mass., where Tom's
1952 MG roadster just refuses to turn over.

"It sounds like a sick cow," Ray says.


So the brothers hit the road, looking for an
up-to-date replacement. And we're not talking
about just going down the street to the local car
dealership: Tom and Ray check out the glitzy cars
on display (and the glitzy showgirls displaying them) at the Detroit Auto Show.

"I thought you were interested in these models," Ray says.

"I am," Tom answers.

"I meant the cars," Ray quips.

They're less impressed by some of the
high-powered, gas-gobbling vehicles at the show.
"Who the hell needs 500 horsepower!?" Tom exclaims.

That sparks a tale that highlights past, present
and future automotive technologies:

* Is there a better way? Although federal
regulations led to an increase in average gas
mileage from 1975 to 1987, the average actually
slipped downward after that time, due to the
popularity of bigger, more powerful cars. Today,
high gas prices, concerns about carbon emissions
and the need for greater energy independence are
generating fresh interest in more efficient
vehicles (and a fresh upturn in mileage averages).

* Is hydrogen the answer? The Magliozzi
brothers travel to Iceland, where geothermal and
hydro power are harnessed to produce electricity,
which in turn is used to produce hydrogen for a
fleet of experimental buses. The
geopower/electricity/hydrogen scheme could
eventually fuel all of Iceland's cars - but
experts figure it will take 50 years to make the
transition. Will hydrogen ever work for the
United States and China? We'll see.

* What about ethanol? Yes, some of our
energy needs can be met by ethanol, an alcohol
replacement for gasoline. Currently, corn
provides most of the raw material for U.S.
producers, but that sets up a food-vs.-fuel
problem. Tom and Ray gab with researcher Lee Lynd
at Mascoma Corp., which is genetically
engineering microbes to produce ethanol
efficiently from cellulose rather than corn sugar.

* How about lighter, more efficient cars?
Less than 1 percent of the energy contained in a
car's gas tank actually goes to move the driver
down the road. The other 99 percent is either
lost through inefficiencies or ends up moving the
car surrounding the driver. Tom and Ray learn
about efforts to make internal combustion more
efficient (at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, their alma mater) and to make
ultralight, ultrastrong car bodies out of carbon
composites (for the Rocky Mountain Institute's Hypercar project in Colorado).

* Will electric hybrids save the day?
Gas-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius are
already making a difference: Although they're
more expensive to produce, they consume 30
percent less energy than gasoline-only cars and
emit 30 percent less carbon. Tom and Ray take a
test drive with Andy Frank, a researcher at the
University of California at Davis who has pioneered plug-in electric hybrids.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles have large banks
of batteries that can be charged up overnight,
meaning that the cars can go 40 to 60 miles
before the gas-fueled engine kicks in. Frank
figures that range would account for 90 percent
of a typical driver's mileage. Some hybrids
already have been converted to plug-in power, and
Chevrolet's Volt plug-in should be ready for prime time by the end of 2010.

At America's current energy rates, running a
plug-in hybrid is only one-fourth as costly as
running a gasoline-only car, Frank says. He adds
that the full benefit of plug-ins will be felt
when the electricity comes from renewable sources
such as wind turbines or roof-mounted solar cells.

"I think one of the things that this kind of car
motivates is the possibility of personal wind and
personal solar," Frank tells the "Car Talk" duo.

"My brother's been responsible for a lot of
personal wind," Ray Magliozzi jokes.

By the end of the program, Tom is clearly sold.
(On plug-ins, that is, not on making wind.) He's
back at the garage, contemplating the next step.

"I've seen a lot of very interesting technology,
and I know what I want," he says as he looks at
his beloved MG. "I want to turn that into a plug-in hybrid."

And now ... the rest of the story
That may be the end of the documentary, but it's
not necessarily the end for Tom's MG. In an
interview last week, Frank told me it's
technically possible to make Tom's dream come true.

"My message, fundamentally, is that the plug-in
hybrid is something you can build right now," he said.

As an experiment, he has already taken a GM EV1
all-electric car (the car that was supposedly
"killed" on the commercial market a decade ago)
and converted it to a plug-in hybrid with a
smaller electric motor and a 2-cylinder gasoline
engine - all in the same space.

"The hybrid weighed 200 pounds less than the
electric vehicle," Frank said. He said the
juiced-up EV1 was so efficient that even when the
car was running on gasoline power, it got 80 miles per gallon.

He told me he has converted nine cars to plug-in
power in the course of his quarter-century of
automotive research: Rather than being more
complex, the plug-ins are simpler, in part
because of UC-Davis' patented transmission
system. "All of our cars have far fewer parts
than a conventional car," Frank said.

Frank said he enjoyed hanging out with the
Magliozzi brothers while "Car of the Future" was
being shot - and so he's willing to offer Tom a
dream of a plug-in deal for the mere sum of, say, $40,000 to $50,000.

"We'll be happy to convert that MG for them," he told me. "It'd be fun."

If you miss Tuesday's show, or if you don't get
PBS in your corner of planet Earth, you can watch
"Car of the Future" online starting Wednesday
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/program.html .

For more about Click and Clack and future cars,
check out Newsweek's Q&A with the Magliozzi brothers:

NEWSWEEK INTERVIEW (EXCERPTING FUNNY AND RELEVANT PARTS)
Sputtering Ahead
NPR's 'Car Talk' guys search for the car of the future.
Brian Braiker
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 1:47 PM ET Apr 17, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/132531 .

Tom and Ray Magliozzi like to joke that they have
faces for radio. Now you'll get to judge for
yourself. The hosts of NPR's wildly successful
"Car Talk"—better known to many of their 4
million weekly listeners as Click and Clack, the
Tappet Brothers—will be making their small-screen
debut in "Car of the Future," an Earth Day
episode of "Nova" on PBS. Then, in July, PBS will
begin airing "As the Wrench Turns," an animated
series loosely based on the lives of the brothers
and the off-the-cuff banter that has been the
hallmark of their show for more than three decades.

In "Car of the Future" Ray decides it's time for
Tom to junk his sputtering 1952 MG Roadster.
Armed with alarming statistics—that a quarter of
the oil ever consumed was pumped in the last
decade; that placed bumper to bumper, the earth's
800 million cars would circle the planet 100
times—they go in search of a suitable
replacement. The brothers crack wise at the
Detroit Auto Show and the corollary underground
AltWheels festival in Boston. They ride, and help
refuel, a hydrogen-powered bus in Iceland. They
visit automotive engineers at universities and
think tanks, all in the interest of finding
something—anything—that might help Americans
break free from Big Oil's tight grip. If the
underlying message is grim, Click and Clack
provide a dose of humor, curiosity and good
nature. It's essential if inconvenient viewing (apologies to Al Gore).

NEWSWEEK's Brian Braiker and Arlyn Tobias Gajilan
recently spoke with Tom and Ray Magliozzi after
the "Nova" and PBS shows were announced at a
press briefing in New York. Excerpts:
[SNIP]

So there is no car of the future?
Tom: Oh, there is, but we don't know what it is.
Ray: I don't think that Dean Kamen is going to
announce tomorrow that he's got the car of the future.

NEWSWEEK just interviewed him . He's working on
water purifiers and robotic arms right now.
Ray: [Laughs] Tell him to call me. Because I
gotta say, as exciting as the technology behind
the Segway was, it was a pretty big
disappointment. From him I kind of expected the
car of the future: the car where you throw banana
peels in, close the lid and convert the stuff
into hydrogen right on the spot. I guess the most
promising thing is the hybrid and the plug-in hybrid.
[SNIP]

You guys wrote a letter to Congress about the
energy bill that included a list of technology that could improve engines.
Ray: We cited seven or eight or 10 technologies
that already exist. The question is whether
Congress should force automakers to have cars get
35 miles to the gallon by 2020. And of course all
the Detroit guys said, "Oh no, that can't be
done!" In the past when they've been asked to do
something like that, whether it's to improve
safety, they always say, "We can't do it. People
won't be able to afford the cars. It'll put us
out of business. We'll all be driving tricycles."
In every case their predictions have been so wrong it's unbelievable.
Tom: They lie!
Ray: And they have a vested interest in keeping
the status quo. They know how to make money with
what they're making, and they don't necessarily
know how to make money with new technologies. And
they don't want stuff foisted on them.

What types of technology did you recommend in the documentary?
Ray: We cited start-stop technology, which makes
your engine stop when you're at a traffic light,
regenerative braking, cylinder deactivation,
turbos, diesels, direct-injection gasoline
vehicles, hybrid diesels, lightweight materials.
Our vehicles weigh 6,000 pounds. It's
preposterous! All of these technologies are out
there right now. Is it that simple to put any one
or combination in current cars? No. But they've
got 12 years to do it. And the truth is they
could probably do it in two or three years.
They've milked the SUV craze as much as possible,
and now the public is going to demand more
fuel-efficient vehicles, especially with gasoline
prices getting up to near four bucks a gallon. I
secretly hope they go higher, because it'll push the process along.

Did you get any response from Congress?
Tom: A bunch of compliments and a few pieces of
hate mail. We get that every week. [Laughs]
Ray: It's usually directed at Tom! Because of the way he looks. [Laughs]

You guys started as a call-in show for people
with busted cars. Now you're writing letters to
Congress, trying to effect policy change. How do
you feel about becoming activists?
Ray: We're not activists.
Tom: We call a spade a spade. If they happen to
be senators and they're jerks, we tell 'em
they're jerks. They need someone to tell them they're jerks.
Ray: I don't think anyone can really argue the
fact, although there will be plenty of people who
try, that it will be beneficial for everyone if
all of our vehicles get better mileage. If
scaling down the size of the vehicles is what
does it, that's clearly what we should do first.
There are some people who argue that the best way
to do that is to let the marketplace take over. I
think it's a combination. People will make
decisions based on what makes sense for their
pocketbooks. At the same time I think they need a
little prodding. It was about time we said
something, because we felt very strongly about it.

Do we need 200-horsepower cars?
Ray: No, we don't. But if we're going to
differentiate this year's model from last year,
what do the ads say? "Twenty-five more horsepower
this year." The newest Volvo, which is a
six-cylinder, gets better mileage than the
previous five-cylinder. They made some great
breakthroughs, and they could have taken that and
they could have diminished the power a little and
used that technology to get even more miles to
the gallon. But the automakers use that new
technology to get more power instead of more
economy. They'll rethink that a little.
Tom: Now, it's sad that the foreign companies
have taken on the same things. They know they
have to compete with General Motors, and the only
way they can do that is to have one that goes fast.

You're fortunate enough to live in a city with a
decent public transportation system. Do you take advantage of that?
Tom: I walk.
Ray: I ride my bicycle a lot when the weather's
nice. I probably drive more than I should.
[SNIP]


Rick Kushman: Tom & Ray at it again: This time it's serious
Sacramento Bee 12:00 am PDT Monday, April 21, 2008
By Rick Kushman - rkushman@...
http://www.sacbee.com/kushman/story/876653.html
Story appeared in SCENE section, Page E1

Let's start with the pick of the week, PBS'
"Nova: Car of the Future," on Tuesday (at 8 p.m.
on Channel 6). It features the Car Talk guys, Tom
and Ray Magliozzi, in a cheery, smart, uniquely
Car Talkish search for some answers to our
growing problems with the gas shortage and worldwide pollution.

This is anything but an eat-your-veggies hour.
This is Click and Clack here, legendary car guys
and goofballs, looking for a replacement for
Tom's beloved-but-broken-down 1952 MG Roadster.

Their story is narrated by John Lithgow, who
outlines the issues – one quarter of all the
petroleum consumed in history has been used in
the past 10 years, and we're running out – but
it's the guys who carry the tale.
[SNIP]

They also visit the University of California,
Davis, and professor Andy Frank, who's working on
a plug-in electric hybrid, and talk with
car-company people who are caught between
consumer demand – around the globe, people almost
always drive the most horsepower they can afford,
Lithgow says – and a need to change.

As merry as the Magliozzis are, there's still a
serious layer because any large-scale changes are
still years away. They show one rich example of
the general resistance at a car show, where a
General Motors exec hypes the 500-horsepower
Chevrolet Camaro. The exec is the vice president of environment and energy.


The California Aggie // Features // “NOVA” to feature UC Davis professor
“NOVA” to feature UC Davis professor
Andrew Frank's plug-in hybrid discussed on PBS program
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/426
Written by APPLE LOVELESS April 21, 2008

The car of the future exists today.

At least that is what Andrew Frank, UC Davis
professor of mechanical and aeronautical
engineering, believes. Frank is one of the many
experts featured on PBS' "NOVA" premiere of Car
of the Future. The program will air Tuesdayat 8 p.m.

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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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