The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) has been a
leading supporter of plug-in hybrids for years -- and a model for
directions other regional air districts can take. Last Thursday they
had something of a "coming-out party" for EnergyCS, including
representatives from Southern California Edison, Plug-In Partners,
and Andy Frank from UC Davis. The only media report we've seen follows.

<http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/3215966.html>
Officials lobby automakers to build plug-in hybrid vehicles
AQMD and Energy Control Systems sponsor event to encourage the
production of a vehicle that could get up to 100 mpg.
By Megan Bagdonas
DAILY BREEZE, June 23, 2006

Fueling up your car could be as simple as plugging in an electric
toothbrush once the acronym PHEV -- plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
-- becomes as recognizable as SUV.

With a bigger battery pack, smaller fuel tank and the ability to
recharge in a household electric wall socket, the technology for the
next generation of hybrid cars is here. But it could be several years
before they hit the streets.

Plug-in vehicles operate completely on electricity up to 35 mph,
unlike regular hybrids that burn fuel the minute the driver eases off
the brake. At higher speeds the gas engine kicks in and runs
simultaneously with the battery and averages 100 miles per gallon.

It takes no longer than eight hours to recharge, and the plug-in uses
as much electricity as a hair dryer, said Pete Nortman, president of
Energy Control Systems, which designs prototype plug-in vehicles.

It's just a matter of creating the demand for car companies to
produce them, said city leaders, vehicle engineers and utility
officials at a plug-in electric hybrid vehicle campaign Thursday at
the South Coast Air Quality Management District headquarters in Diamond Bar.

"This is not a call for research, but a call for action to take it
from the laboratory to the streets of Southern California and this
country," said Riverside Mayor Ronald Loveridge, whose city is in one
of the smoggiest areas in the nation.

While today's hybrid -- such as the Toyota Prius -- uses 30 percent
less gas than regular vehicles, plug-ins have the ability to use 80
percent less, said Andrew Frank, Hybrid-Vehicle Center director at
the University of California, Davis.

In two to three years, car companies will have the ability to mass
produce plug-ins, which could cost about $2,000 more than the
conventional hybrid. But it's more likely five to six years before
consumers will plug in their cars, Frank said.

With crude oil at $70 a barrel, gas more than $3 a gallon, and China
and India's demand rapidly increasing, the climate is right for a
fueling sea change, said Ed Kjaer, director of electric
transportation for Southern California Edison.

"We can no longer continue on this glutinous path of oil," he said.
"Electricity is an energy asset for this country. We just need to
figure out how to connect more transportation vehicles to it in the
off-grid hours.

"We have excess off-peak capacity. Right now 12 million to 15 million
cars could plug in."

Kjaer emphasized that the infrastructure is already in place. While
there are 170,000 gas stations and 600 ethanol stations in the United
States, the electric grid includes almost every home in the country, he said.

The first step, however, is to build a consumer market, said Roger
Duncan, the deputy general manager of Austin Energy in Texas. He
encouraged city and organization leaders to become "Plug-In Partners"
-- a national campaign to prove that a market exists for the vehicles.

To become a partner, cities and organizations make a pledge of
potential fleet purchases if the technology was available. Los
Angeles, Irvine, San Francisco and Santa Barbara have joined the
campaign. Plug-In Partners has about 6,000 "soft" fleet orders for
the plug-ins so far.

"Ford put out the Ford Escape when they thought it could sustain
20,000 sales a year," Frank said. "So fleet orders is where we need to begin."

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

Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) is the national community of
business people committed to "protecting the environment while
building economic prosperity."  Without E2's voice and efforts,
California's AB 1493 Climate Change (Pavley) Bill would probably not
have passed. E2 has repeatedly played a key role nationally and
locally on critical issues and legislative campaigns. Any
CalCars/PHEV supporter with a business background should consider
joining E2's 2000-person network and 600 members from 22 states who
work in technology, consulting, venture capital, financial services
and other sectors. See http://www.e2.org> for more.

E2 members have been very supportive of CalCars and PHEVs
individually for a long time. The article in the June 2006 E2
newsletter is the first time the organization has considered the role
of electricity in transportation. (Until now its transportation focus
has been largely on hybrids and on the benefits of cellulosic ethanol.)

Importantly, E2 works closely with one of the world's most effective
environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council.
(Contributions to E2 go to NRDC.) CalCars has been working for a long
time to encourage NRDC to become champions of PHEVs. As a member of
Set America Free and the Apollo Alliance, NRDC has supported the idea
of PHEVs. Roland Hwang, NRDC's Vehicles Policy Director, was involved
in they early HEV Working Group efforts that helped fuel the recent
advances in PHEVs. Deron Lovaas, NRDC Vehicles Campaign Director,
co-authored an Op-Ed on with Set America Free's Gal Luft in April
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/375.html> and drove CalCars'
PHEV when we were in Washington. Senior Attorney Robert F. Kennedy,
Jr., has strongly endorsed PHEVs and has featured them on his radio
show. NRDC is currently involved in a major research program to
quantify PHEVs' overall benefits. We're hoping E2's attention to
PHEVs along with efforts by CalCars, Plug-In Partners, legislators
and others, will further encourage NRDC to expand its programmatic
attention to PHEvs in the coming months.

Following are brief  excerpts from a longer article by E2 Co-Founder
Bob Epstein and Tony Bernhardt. Please view the full story at
<http://www.e2.org/ext/jsp/controller?docId=10696> to see the full
story, follow URLs and get a sense of the scope of E2 programs. Even
from this excerpt you'll see E2 looks at the issue in novel, creative ways.

Will Electricity Challenge Ethanol?

Biomass to Fuels: Grasses like the field of Miscanthus above can
create as much as 15 dry tons of biomass per acre. This can be
converted into 870 kilowatt-hours of electricity to power a plug-in
hybrid or electric vehicle; or into 80 gallons of ethanol to power a
flex-fuel vehicle. This article compares the two choices.

Most electric vehicles were removed from the U.S. market when
California withdrew the legal requirement to sell zero-emission
vehicles in April 2003. It is hard to find former owners of electric
vehicles who did not become attached to their cars' noiselessness,
lower fuel costs and ability to refuel at home instead of the local
gas station.

Ethanol could displace most of our gasoline usage if we solve the
technical challenge of making it from plant "biomass" such as
agricultural waste, grasses and forest residue (known as cellulosic
ethanol), rather than corn. (See Biomass Basics for background.) In
our February 2006 newsletter , we described how liquid fuels derived
from plant material, like ethanol, can compete with gasoline.

Alternatively, biomass can also be used to produce renewable
electricity to power electric vehicles - if more powerful batteries
can be developed. If cellulosic ethanol or electric vehicles - or
both - become mainstream, the opportunity exists to replace
significant amounts of gasoline with fuel derived from biomass.

As President Bush identified in his most recent State of the Union
speech, America is addicted to oil. Alternative fuels that use less
oil and produce less pollution reduce our dependency on oil, put
price pressure on gasoline and diesel, and can reduce global warming pollution.

Electric Vehicle Batteries

Batteries have not been successful as automotive power sources
primarily because the amount of energy in a battery is a small
fraction of the amount of energy in gasoline. This problem is known
as "energy density." To hold the same amount of energy as gasoline,
today's vehicular batteries would require over 100 times more space.
Current nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries hold only about one
percent of the "energy density" of gasoline.
<snip>
An electric vehicle will have much more weight in its batteries than
a gasoline-powered vehicle with a full tank of gas. However, an
all-electric vehicle avoids the weight of the gasoline motor (an
electric motor is much lighter), the transmission and other items.

The issues of weight and efficiency have lead to three design choices:
     1. The all-electric vehicle:  <snip>
     2. The hybrid vehicle:  <snip>
     3. The plug-in hybrid: The plug-in hybrid provides a way to
charge the battery separately and is both a complete battery-electric
vehicle and a gasoline vehicle. More battery is added so the electric
driving range of the vehicle is between 20 and 40 miles.
(All-electric vehicles usually are designed for a 100 mile range.)
For more information about current plug-in hybrids, see CalCars.

The all-electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicles allow us to
displace gasoline with electricity. As batteries decrease in price
and increase in energy density, electricity could power more - or
most - of our vehicles.

How Much Electricity vs. Gasoline is Required per Mile ?
Is There a Hybrid Premium?
<snip>

Using the Toyota Prius as our test case, we can compare its gasoline
engine performance to its electric engine performance. The author's
car actually gets 44 miles per gallon as measured over the last five
years. A modified Prius developed by CalCars running only on battery
power requires about 11,400 watt-hours of electricity (this is the
equivalent power of 114 one-hundred-watt incandescent light bulbs
turned on for one hour - or about 500 compact florescent bulbs) vs.
one gallon of gas to travel the same 44 miles.
<snip>
How Far Can You Drive on a Ton of Biomass?

Both Ethanol and electricity can be produced from biomass. This is
done either by using agricultural waste or specific plants such as
switch grass, and either converting the energy stored in the
cellulose plant cells to ethanol or combusting the dried plant
material and converting it to electricity. The question becomes:
Which is better?
<snip>
Thus, one dry ton of biomass will produce:
Prius running on electricity    Prius running on ethanol
2,700 miles/ton         2,300 miles/ton

In other words, biomass-to-electricity and biomass-to-ethanol produce
similar number of miles achievable per ton of biomass. However, there
are major differences in feasibility today which will change over time:
      * Biomass-to-electricity and plug-in hybrid technology exists
today while the potential of biomass-to-cellulosic ethanol is still
unproven in volume.
      * Electricity can be transmitted to every home that an electric
vehicle can be plugged in to, compared with the current limited
infrastructure for delivering ethanol.
      * The auto companies have sold more than 5 million flex-fuel
(ethanol-based) vehicles, but few have announced plans for electric
vehicles. GM is rumored to be working on a plug-in hybrid (see GM
Eyes Plug-in Hybrid . Toyota is starting to talk about their plug-in
hybrid plans (see Toyota to Explore Plug-In Hybrids ).
      * According to the U.S. Department of Energy, advanced
technologies for biomass-to-electricity such as gasification could
double the electricity produces per ton which would provide 5,400 miles/ton.
      * Market pricing for electricity is relatively independent of
oil, while ethanol directly displaces gasoline and, even though its
production cost is currently significantly less than that of
gasoline, tends to be priced just below gasoline.

How Much Does it Cost to Drive a Mile?

There is considerable savings in buying electricity to charge a
battery vs. gasoline in today's market. Using the night time
electricity rate of 8.8 cents per kilo-watt hour, the cost to drive
is about 2.3 cents/mile. At 44 miles/gallon, this is the equivalent
of buying gas at $1.02 per gallon. If a driver recharges during the
day, the price is likely to be 50 percent higher or more.

What are the Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
<snip>
If motor fuels go green before power generation goes green the
lifecycle GHG emissions of hybrids will be lower than electric
vehicles. If power generation goes green first, hybrids will compare
unfavorably. In the distant future, when both power generation and
motor fuels are green, it won't make a significant difference.

Summary

As the U.S. looks to biomass as a renewable source of energy for
transportation, two paths hold promise. In one case, the U.S. fleet
would comprise increasing numbers of flexible fuel vehicles that can
run on gasoline or ethanol. Ethanol production would transition from
corn-based to cellulose-based. Alternatively, the U.S. fleet could be
increasingly based on electricity, either through plug-in hybrids or
all-electric vehicles.

In the first case, the major risk is the ability to produce
cellulosic ethanol on a large scale. In the second case, it is the
ability to develop higher-energy density batteries. Consumers are
likely to find electricity significantly cheaper than ethanol. This
is because electricity prices are regulated while ethanol prices are
likely to be priced just below gasoline until there is a significant
oversupply. E2 believes both paths should be aggressively pursued as
they both offer alternatives to oil that will save consumers money
and help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Many thanks to E2 member Tony Bernhardt for co-authoring this
article. Thanks also go to E2 members Felix Kramer and Ron Lloyd, and
to Joe Romm and Brian Jenkins for providing key details.
-- Bob Epstein and Nicole Lederer, Editors

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

Ford's commitment to rapidly expanding its hybrid program is
decreasing in favor of the easier goal of making more of their fleet
flex-fuel capable. (To do this requires little more than small
modifications of electronics and tubing, costing $100-$150 per car.)
In doing so, as the article reports, Ford is simply staying even with
GM and DaimlerChrysler. This approach enables automakers to contend,
"we're doing our part; we'll help build the fuel infrastructure, but
we're off the hook." And it assumes we need to increase the ethanol
supply from today's 4 billion gallons/year to 140 billion, instead of
the 40 billion we'd need if we fuel cars first with electricity for
local miles, using E85 for range extension.

Ford had cited its goal to increase its hybrid fleet by 10x as one
reason why it was hard for it to pay sufficient attention to the
CalCars-Andy Frank proposal for a partnership on PHEVs. We continue
to believe that Ford has a large opportunity to jump ahead of the
pack -- especially now with Toyota acknowledging a PHEV research
program and GM is reported to be planning a PHEV prototype -- by
being open to working with the modern inventor of the PHEV and with
us to take advantage of the emergence of a market of ready buyers for
PHEVs. (We detailed the plans of our proposal in our letter to Bill
Ford, <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/395.html>.

Tthe Associate Press reports, "Big Three to Make More Biofuel Cars,"
followed by two stories on Ford.

The Big Three U.S. automakers said Wednesday that they would double
production of flexible-fuel vehicles by 2010, adding cars and trucks
capable of running on ethanol blends and other biofuels to reduce
dependence upon foreign oil.

Leaders of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler's
Chrysler Group wrote members of Congress about their plans, urging
oil companies and lawmakers to promote the production of ethanol and
biofuels and increase the number of service stations that offer the fuels.

"Our hope is that with this commitment, fuel providers will have even
more incentive to produce ethanol and other biofuels and install
pumps to distribute them," the automakers wrote.

The letter was signed by GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick
Wagoner, Ford Chairman and CEO Bill Ford and Chrysler Group President
and CEO Tom LaSorda.

The Big Three automakers have produced 5 million flexible-fuel
vehicles, capable of running on gasoline and fuel blends of up to 85%
ethanol, and are expected to produce 1 million more this year. Their
commitment would lead to 2 million annually by 2010.

In meetings on Capitol Hill last month, Wagoner, Ford and LaSorda
stressed their work on alternative fuels but highlighted the lack of
service stations offering the fuels. Only about 700 of the 170,000
gasoline stations nationwide offer E85, a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

GM and Ford said they could not provide specifics of how they would
increase production of the vehicles, which typically cost a few
hundred dollars more to produce. Chrysler said it would produce
500,000 of the vehicles by 2008.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115152296833993299.html

Ford Raises Flex-Fuel Target
By NEAL E. BOUDETTE and JEFFREY MCCRACKEN
June 28, 2006 5:55 p.m.

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford Motor Co. is planning to build fewer
gas-electric hybrid vehicles than it previously pegged by 2010, but
will double the projected number of flexible fuel cars and trucks
that can run on ethanol, Chairman William C. Ford Jr. said Wednesday.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ford said interest
in biofuels like corn-based enthanol has "exploded" since the company
said last fall that it would produce 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010.
As a result, Ford is "rejiggering" the mix of hybrids and
flexible-fuel vehicles it expects to build in the next several years.

"Hybrids were the only game in town when we looked at what was
possible nine months ago," Mr. Ford said in a flower-filled, paneled
office at Ford's world headquarters here outside of Detroit.

"We will produce fewer hybrids," he said, declining to give a precise
figure for how many the company now expects to produce. Ford now
plans to make 500,000 flexible-fuel vehicles per year by 2010. It had
not previously stated a target for flexible-fuel vehicles but had
internally expected to make about 250,000 a year by 2010.

Because of the doubling of flexible-fuel vehicles, Ford's new plan
has greater potential for lowering the country's gasoline consumption
and carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, he said. "It's a
reduction of hybrids but an acceleration of the overall plan" in
terms of fuel-economy and emissions, Mr. Ford said.

He said the company is still committed to offering hybrids, and plans
to accelerate an effort to offer hybrids in Europe.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115155261951593987.html

Ford's Chief Cites Hurdles to Turnaround Push
Chapter 11 'Not an Option,'
But SUV Sales Slide More;
S&P Cuts Rating Further
By JEFFREY MCCRACKEN
June 29, 2006; Page A3

Ford Motor Co. is running into a stronger head wind than the auto
maker anticipated a few months ago, a development that is stressing
the "Way Forward" turnaround plan it unveiled in January, Chairman
and Chief Executive Bill Ford said in an interview.

The latest blow came yesterday when Standard & Poor's cut its rating
in Ford debt deeper into "junk" territory. S&P cut Ford debt one
notch to single-B-plus from double-B-minus, saying it believes "2006
would be a more difficult year for Ford than previously anticipated."

[Different Routes]

In an interview that took place yesterday before the rate cut was
announced, Mr. Ford dismissed any talk that bankruptcy was a threat,
saying "it's not an option."

He said his family's company has no interest in taking itself
private, despite reports that the company has studied doing so amid a
falling share price and a flurry of private-equity-backed deals.

Mr. Ford said his company is planning to build fewer
gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles in the future than planned, and
instead is "rejiggering" the mix it expects to build of hybrids and
flexible-fuel vehicles that can accommodate alternative fuels like ethanol.

Since Ford detailed its plan, auto-industry conditions have gotten
tougher than the Dearborn, Mich., company planned for, he
acknowledged. The tougher treading contrasts somewhat with rival
General Motors Corp., which faces similar declines in U.S. market
share and reported a $10.6 billion loss last year but since has made
some progress in reducing costs.

Ford's shares fell to a 52-week low yesterday of $6.36, down 18
cents, or 2.8%, at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite
trading, while GM's shares rose 76 cents, or 2.9%, to $26.66.

Mr. Ford said sales of sport-utility vehicles have fallen off faster
than planned because of the recent run-up in gasoline prices. That
hurts Ford because trucks and SUVs make up more than half of its
sales. Prices of metals, plastic and other materials have also risen
faster, he said.

"I think we had some fairly conservative assumptions in the Way
Forward plan, just because the world never develops like you think it
is going to, and the world has gotten tougher," Mr. Ford said.

Mr. Ford said the turnaround plan is ahead of schedule when it comes
to reducing headcount -- he anticipates 12,000 hourly workers will
depart this year, largely through buyouts -- but it was off track
when it came to the consumer exodus from SUVs like the Ford Explorer.
Ford's market share is down again this year, with truck sales nearly
9% below the year-earlier period, despite an 8% jump in car sales.

The plan anticipated a shift in the mix of sales of trucks, SUVs and
smaller cars, but the shift is happening at a faster pace than
forecast, he said. "If that pace continues, that is tough for us."

Sales of Ford's best-selling and most-profitable vehicles are down
this year. Explorer sales, despite a redesign in 2005, are down 27%
this year. Other Ford SUVs, such as the Ford Expedition or Lincoln
Navigator, are down 30% and 12%, respectively.

Mr. Ford said the trends in April and May, where sales of Ford cars
rose because of products like the Ford Fusion but its truck sales
tumbled, are what it sees for June. Most auto makers make more on big
pickup trucks and SUVs than on cars.

Ford's North American auto operations had losses of $1.6 billion in
2005 and $457 million in the first quarter of 2006. As part of the
Way Forward plan, it said North America would return to profitability by 2008.

Ford last fall said it would produce 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010.
Mr. Ford didn't give a figure for how many the company now plans to
produce, although it will continue developing hybrids and will
accelerate plans to sell hybrids in Europe.

Ford's shift amounts to a bet that bio-fuels are gaining momentum in
the rush to bring more environmentally friendly vehicles to the road.
"Hybrids were the only game in town when we looked at what was
possible nine months ago," Mr. Ford said.

GM made a significant step forward in its restructuring earlier this
week when it said some 35,000 hourly employees had agreed to take
packages to leave the company or retire by the end of the year. GM
said this week its sales in the next few months will show declines
compared with the strong sales it had a year ago when
employee-pricing discounts caused a temporary spike in sales.

The auto maker's shift amounts to a bet that biofuels are gaining
momentum in the rush to bring more environmentally friendly vehicles
to the road. Ford has helped set up fueling stations along highways
linking Kansas City and Chicago that offer E85, a mixture of 85%
ethanol and 15% gasoline. This "Midwest ethanol corridor" will enable
drivers to flexible-fuel vehicles to drive the entire 530 miles
between the cities on E85 alone.

Ford's shift to put more emphasis on vehicles capable of running on
ethanol is part of a broader effort involving the company and its
Detroit rivals, General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG's
Chrysler Group, to win more government backing for biofuels.

On Wednesday, GM and Chrysler also pledged to double their output of
flex-fuel cars and trucks by 2010, and issued a joint letter to
members of Congress to help get more ethanol-based fuel on the market.

"We need business and government to work together to enhance the
production, distribution and use of renewable biofuels," said the
letter, which was signed by Mr. Ford, Chrysler Group Chief Executive
Tom LaSorda and GM Chairman and Chief Executive G. Richard Wagoner
Jr. (Read the letter.1)

"Congress and the administration need to continue to promote the
production of biofuels, increase incentives for refueling
infrastructure, and continue incentives for automakers to produce
biofuel vehicles," the letter said.

Some five million flex-fuel vehicles on the road today, and the three
domestic automotive companies will add a million more cars and trucks
this year alone, the letter continued, but the are only about 700 E85
pumps among the nation's 170,000 gas stations.

"Eventually, we need to get to the point where most Americans have
reasonable access to these fuels at a price that is competitive with
gasoline," the CEOs said in the letter.

Write to Neal E. Boudette at neal.boudette@... and Jeffrey
McCracken at jeff.mccracken@...

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

Last November, Nancy Gioia took over Ford's hybrid and sustainable
vehicles program from Mary Ann Wright, who had run the program for
five years. (Gioia's biography is at
<http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=21922>. Her
interview with the Chicago Tribune's automotive columnist appear to
be her first extended comments on PHEVs.

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0606300225jun30,1,5638090.column?col\
l=chi-business-hed>

Plug-in hybrid an answer, probably not the answer
Jim Mateja, Chicago Tribune, June 30, 2006

When General Motors introduced the battery-powered car in the late
1990s, environmentalists insisted that the whole auto industry go
electric--pronto.

When batteries turned out to have a short cruising range and a long
recharge time, some carmakers shifted to gas/electrics as the way to
save gas. The cry became convert to hybrids--pronto.

Now that consumers question getting enough mileage to offset the
$2,000 to $5,000 premium for a hybrid, the new "answer" is plug-in hybrids.

A plug-in essentially is an electric car with a gas engine as a
backup to increase driving range when needed. That should be
frequently because the batteries have a range of about 30 miles
before an overnight recharge.

So the gas engine comes into play if you want to travel 40 miles and
not stop eight hours to juice the batteries.

In theory, you could drive to work and back all week and never
consume a drop of gas. Simply plug the battery pack into the wall
socket at night and be ready to go again in the morning.

A regular gas/electric uses the batteries to start the vehicle, get
it up to cruising speed and provide a power boost when needed, such as passing.

These hybrids recharge the batteries as you drive by capturing the
energy used in braking and sending it back to the pack. No need to
plug into a socket overnight, but, of course, they burn gas.

Not everyone is convinced plug-in hybrids are the solution.

"We continue to look at it but feel there has been more hype than
understanding about their value," said Nancy Gioia, director of
Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid programs at Ford.

"It may be one technology that makes sense for certain customers,"
she said. "But to run on batteries only for an extended period of
time brings down the charge fast unless you double or quadruple the
size of the batteries. And if you do, you added 200 to 400 pounds to
the weight of the car."

That means added cost, not to mention added space for the battery
pack, which robs trunk room now, and lower mileage because the car
will need to recharge sooner from the added pounds. Besides, the
constant charge/recharge cycles play havoc with batteries.

"Today's nickel-metal-hydride batteries don't like to be fully
discharged and fully charged or they start to break down, so it means
possible durability and reliability issues, cell failures and costly
replacements," Gioia said. "We're looking at lithium-ion batteries
that would allow greater energy density in the same size cell for
more range with less weight."

But the problem is cost, maybe double the $2,000 to $5,000 premiums
of regular hybrids now.

Some suggest a better way to conserve gasoline would be hybrids that
run on E85 fuel, the blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas.

"We can make one," Gioia says, "but the challenge is to solve the emissions."

When the gas engine shuts off and the car runs on batteries,
temperatures drop in the catalytic converter. But E85 needs higher
heat than regular lead-free gas to treat exhaust emissions. For now,
Ford offers the Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrids, and will add Ford
Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrid sedans for the 2008 model year.

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

Though not described in what I'm including below,
this bill AUTHORIZES BUT DOES NOT APPROPRIATE
$250M/year from 2007-2011 for PHEV R&D and
$50M/year for PHEV fleet deployment.

The full text of the bill is at
http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full06/June%2022/index.htm

Press coverage has been slight; below is a report
from Southwest Nebraska News, followed by a press
release from Rep. Lamar Smith
http://www.swnebr.net/newspaper/cgi-bin/articles/articlearchiver.pl?158712
Committee Passes Comprehensive Energy Legislation

WASHINGTON, – By voice vote, the House Science
Committee today approved an energy package
designed to spur new technologies related to
clean coal, nuclear power, biofuels, advanced
vehicles, solar and wind energy, and energy efficiency.

Provisions of the bill, H.R.5656, Energy
Research, Development, Demonstration, and
Commercial Application Act of 2006, introduced by
Energy Subcommittee Chairman Judy Biggert (R-IL),
have been endorsed by the Edison Electric
Institute, Dow Corning, DuPont, Johnson Controls,
Inc., American Honda Motor Company, Alliance to
Save Energy, American Chemical Society, American
Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, American
Institute of Architects, American Public Power
Association, Association of American
Universities, National Association of State
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

H.R. 5656 includes language that was originally
in the following bills: H.R.5634, Advanced Energy
Initiative Act of 2006, by Chairman Biggert;
H.R.5633, Energy Efficient Buildings Act of 2006,
by Chairman Biggert; H.R.5643, Energy Technology
Transfer Act, by Chairman Biggert; H.R.5538,
Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Act of 2006, by
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX); H.R.5594, Solar
Utilization Now (SUN) Demonstration Act of 2006,
by Rep. Smith; and H.R.5644, Green Energy
Education Act of 2006, by Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R-TX).

“As I think everyone knows, having reliable,
affordable, clean domestic sources of energy is a
must if our nation is to remain safe and
prosperous in the future,” said Science Committee
Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). “To do that,
we must invest in a balanced portfolio of energy
research and development (R&D) now so that we
have a balanced portfolio of energy sources in
the future. And at the same time we need to
develop and promote ways to use those sources
more wisely – an aspect of dealing with energy
that once again will be conspicuously absent on the House floor this week.”

“High natural gas prices and the recent spike in
gasoline prices serve as a stark reminder that
the path to energy independence is a long and
arduous one,” Chairman Biggert said. “To make
significant progress down this path requires a
steadfast commitment from Congress and the
federal government to support the development of
advanced energy technologies and alternative
fuels that will help end our addiction to oil and
gasoline. The bill we are considering today
includes provisions that do just that, by
building on the excellent research and
development provisions this committee included in
the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”

Rep. Smith added, “Americans are concerned about
high gas prices, our dependence on foreign oil
and global warming. The bills before our
Committee today have the potential to alleviate
all three problems. Through federal grants, the
‘SUN Act’ and the ‘ Plug-In Hybrid Electrical
Vehicle Act’ will encourage development and use
of cleaner burning fuels. If we harness the power
of renewable energy, and use that energy in more
efficient ways, we can put America on a path toward energy independence.”

Rep. McCaul said, "This is legislation with real
purpose which I suspect and hope will have
lasting positive impacts on the way Americans
live their lives. With this legislation we are
bringing architects and engineers together to
design and build more energy efficient buildings
and homes. Buildings consume 39 percent of
America’s primary energy and 70 percent of our
electricity – more energy than any other sector
of the U.S. economy. By bringing these two groups
together they can better work to build more
energy efficient homes and buildings and help
save our nation's environment, energy and tax dollars."

H.R. 5656 authorizes the President’s Advanced
Energy Initiative, which includes funding for
research and development (R&D) on carbon
sequestration, nuclear fuel reprocessing, solar
and wind energy, and ydrogen. The approved bill
also imposes emissions requirements on FutureGen,
the clean coal project, and imposes limitations
on demonstration projects under the Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The bill also
creates programs at the Department of Energy to
demonstrate plug-in hybrid vehicles and solar
power technologies, to encourage the design of
green buildings, and to offer energy extension
services. Finally, the bill asks the National
Academy of Sciences to further study and refine
its recommendation to create an Advanced Research
Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E).

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

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, author of The
World is Flat and other books, periodically
presents documentaries (previously on the
Times-Discovery cable channel, now on Discovery.
This most recent one, "Addicted to Oil,"
premiered as an 80-minute film at the Silverdocs
Film Festival; then it aired on cable June 24.
(We described it at
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/440.html>.
Plug-in hybrids, including appearances by Felix
Kramer of CalCars and Greg Hanssen of EnergyCS,
show up for five minutes around 20 minutes into
the program. Because the entire program was very
compelling, including riveting sections with Bill
McDonough toward the end, we've produced a
transcript of the full program -- thanks to the
dedicated efforts of Greg Wiley.

You can see our small clip of the segment on
PHEVs at <http://www.calcars.org/audio-video/ATOclip-24june06.html>.

Addicted to Oil, Thomas L Friedman reporting,
hour-long version broadcast on Discover Cable Network June 24, 2006

Introduction:

Thomas Friedman (Narrator): No doubt about it.
America is addicted to oil. We've had shortages
and price spikes before, but this is definitely
not your parent's energy crisis.

Today, kicking the habit is an urgent necessity.
Urgent, because we are funding both sides in the
War on Terrorism. The US military with our tax
dollars, and supporters of Islamic militants through our gasoline purchases.

[woman on video]: Every major national security
problem has roots in oil. Terrorists see that oil is our achilles heel.

TF: Getting off oil is also urgent because our
consumption of gasoline is warming out planet.

[Man on video]: We are changing the climate
faster than anything we have seen in the last million years.

NARR: And it is urgent because Asia and Europe,
much more than the United States, are heavily
investing in green technologies, one of the
biggest growth industries for the 21st Century.

[Man on video] There's a million jobs hanging in
the balance. Chinese manufactures intend to eat Detroit for lunch.

TF narrating (NARR): While there's no 12 step
program for kicking our oil addiction, there is a
lot we can do right now, today, to get the oil monkey off our backs.

Intro for Friedman: New York Times foreign
affairs columnist, author of The World is Flat
and 3 time winner of the Pulitzer prize, Thomas L
Friedman explores what is at stake and what is
the cure for America's addiction to oil.

NARR: I came to the annual auto show in Detroit
because at the heart of the energy crisis is our
glutinous consumption of gasoline.  97% of
transportation in America is dependent on oil.
The 230,000 vehicles on US roads today burn more
than 55% of the oil we consume. And they emit
almost one third of all greenhouse gases we put in the air every year.

Of course all cars are not created equal. GM's
Hummer gets only about 10 miles per gallon. I
asked General Motors CEO Rick Wagner why they
still make Hummers when all they do is drive from gas station to gas station.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner: We build what the market
wants. We try to forecast what the market is
going to want but we have not been successful,
and I suspect we never will be, is building a car
and telling people, "you buy this car".

NARR: The largest Hummer was recently
discontinued because of sagging sales but the
other models are still on the market.

Gas prices being what they are, people are buying
more hybrids.  Sales of hybrids increased more
than 141% from 2004 to 2005. A hybrid car has an
electric motor that provides additional power to
the gasoline engine greatly reducing the amount
of gas burned. The electric motor is connected to
a battery which recharges when you slow down or put on the breaks.

A car that normally gets 25 miles to the gallon
of gas could get 40 to 50 with much less
pollution. All the American car companies are now
jumping on board. Like with GM's new Saturn hybrid.

Elizabeth Lowery (VP, Environment & Energy
General Motors): It's estimated to get 27, 32 on
the highway, which we are very proud of.

NARR: But the Japanese are way ahead. Both Ford
and GM are closing factories and laying off
thousands of workers while Toyota had its best
year ever in part because of increasing sales of its hybrids.

Across the floor Ford is unveiling its super
chief, a supposedly eco friendly pickup truck.

NARR: How many miles to the gallon does it get?

Ford spokesperson: This vehicle when you're
running gas will get 12 miles to the gallon.

NARR: Gee, a whopping 12 miles to the gallon. No
wonder the Japanese are so far ahead.

Downstairs were the cars of the future. Most of
which seemed pretty far fetched. I thought, well,
at this rate it might be a while before we get off oil.

For those of us who remember the oil crisis of
the 1970's there's an unmistakable sense of deja
vu. Back then the price of gasoline skyrocketed
and it led to a burst of innovation in
alternative energy and fuel efficiency. In fact
from 1977 to 1985 our oil imports from the Person
Gulf fell 87%. And our total consumption dropped
17%. We did so well it caused an oil glut and
OPEC oil ministers had a ready response.

William Mcdonough (Founder, McDounough & Partners
Environmental Design): In the 70's Sheik Yamani
speaking  for OPEC in London said "We will drop
the price of oil, destroy those investments on
Wall Street, and then put the price of oil back.
Which is exactly what they have done every single decade.

NARR: So what's different this time? A lot.
Islamic terrorism has changed the geopolitical
equation, and petro-dollars are now funding networks of Islamic militants.

People of all political stripes are beginning to
recognize just how toxic this dependence on oil
is for American foreign policy and it's spawning
new political alliances with some very strange bed fellows.

The Set America Free Coalition is dedicated to
getting the US off foreign oil. The group ranges
from dyed in the wool environmentalists to a
former head of the CIA. From Republican and
Democratic lawmakers to leaders of the evangelical movement.

It's true Christian Evangelicals have joined
forces with their traditional nemeses the liberals and Democrats on this issue.

TF: How in the world did you people find each other?

Gary Bauer (President, American Values): We're
all aware that there are evil people feverishly
working on ways to kill us. We are dependant on
our energy resources to people that worship death
and have drawn a bulls eye on our backs.

Deron Lovaas (Natural Resources Defense Council):
We face immediate threats in terms of security
and the environment. We need to do something now.
Inefficiency and alternatives to oil are no
longer a luxury. It's a necessity to make this shift.

NARR: The coalition has lobbied Congress for a
bi-partisan bill that will reduce our dependence
on oil and encourage super fuel efficient
vehicles. The rational for the legislation is hard to dispute.

Ann Korin (Chairman, Set America Free Coalition):
Where does the money come from for Iran to
develop weapons of mass destruction? It's not from adding microchips.

Where did the Pakistani's get the money to buy
nuclear weapon technology from the Chinese? We're
at war with an ideology and that ideology is
radical Islam and we can't win the war against
radical Islam as long as we are funding the other side of the war.

In World War II we bombed the supply chains and
in this war we are not doing that. We are in fact
doing just the opposite. Not only are we not
cutting off their supply chains we are sending more money in their direction.

James Woolsey (Former C.I.A. Director): We're
being even stupider than what Lennon described
when he said the capitalists will sell us the
rope with which we hang them. We're doing much
worse than that. We're funding the rope for the
hanging of ourselves. And as far as I'm concerned it's just nuts.

NARR: The Set America Free Coalition is trying to
redefine what a realistic American energy policy
should be. The old realism, endlessly repeated by
politicians beholden to big oil was that it's
naïve to think alternatives to oil can make a difference.

Dick Cheney (Vice President): For now we must
take the facts as they are and the reality is
that fossil fuels supply virtually 100% of our
transportation needs. For years down the road this will continue to be true.

NARR: But that is so wrong. A classic example of
pre-911 thinking. The new realism is that we
can't afford not to think about alternatives to
fossil fuels. In the absence of a forward
thinking energy policy some Americans have taken
it upon themselves to help our nation of gasoholics kick the habit.

NARR: Beyond the problem of our gasoline
purchases enriching people who want to harm
America, lies another issue which makes this
energy crisis different from anything we have
faced before. It's the threat that global warming
poses to the planet and our way of life.

So I visited the national center for atmospheric
research overlooking Boulder Colorado to find out
what the US Government's top scientists have to say about climate change.

Bill Collins (National Center for Atmospheric
Research): One of our missions here is to really
try and communicate our scientific findings with the public.

NARR: Bill Collins the center's chairman for
global climate modeling is the lead author of
what's widely considered to be the most
comprehensive study of climate change to date. He
took me to the center's Inner Sanctum, the
visualization lab where super computers create models of global warming.

BC: So Tom, this is our simulation of how the
temperature has changed from the middle of the
19th century basically the beginning of
industrialization and each frame is one year and
the colors go warmer and warmer because the
planet is heating up. The blue areas are
indicating that the planet is cooler. These are
more or less disappearing from our simulation.
When we get into the late 1990's we have 5 of the
warmest years in historical record. Now we're
getting to the future and you'll start to see
colors in the orange and  red range. We know
that's due to man kinds burning of fossil fuel.
There's no longer any reasonable doubt in the scientific community.

TF: So what would happen?

BC: Well, for example you begin irreversibly
melting Greenland. All the ice in Greenland is
equivalent to more than 25 feet globally of sea level rise.

TF: What would that do to New York City?

BC: You'd need a really high dike around New York
City. This will have a major impact on coastal
areas around the United States. Other nations will be completely inundated.

TF: Bill if you had a chance to convey one
message about what you've learned here on the
basis of hard science what would it be?

BC: The message would be that we're running an
uncontrolled experiment on the only home that we have.

TF: With the urgency growing, and a lack of
sustained action from both Washington and the
automobile industry, individual Americans have
been doing something about our oil addiction all by themselves.

14:45
In the basement of a small building on the
outskirts of Aspen, Colorado is a group called
FiberForge, founded by the environmentalist and
physicist Amory Lovins. They are making ultra
light car bodies that out of carbon fiber.

Jon Fox-Rubin (President, CEO FiberForge): These
are the carbon fibers, these are 48,000 strands.

Amory Lovins (CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute): My
team published a book called Winning the Oil End
Game describing how to eliminate US oil use by
the 2040's, led by business for profit while
revitalizing the economy and improving our
national security. The basic recipe is pretty
simple. First you triple the efficiency of cars
trucks and planes. If we make our vehicles ultra
light with such materials we take out half the
weight we save half the fuel and when you combine
that with hybrids then you get tripled efficiency.

TF: What about the safety issue?

AL: The car gets safer because these materials
can absorb up to 12 times the crash energy per
pound of steel. You could run it into a wall at
35 miles per hour and still be protected from serious injury.

TF: All the major car companies have expressed
interest in ultra light car bodies. The folks at
FiberForge say we could see these on the road in the next five or six years.

TF: Amory took me to his home at the Rocky
Mountain Institute to show me another key element
in how to get America off oil, it's Ethanol. A fuel made from plants.

AL: Once we've saved half the oil by making our
vehicles ultra light we can get the other half
from advanced bio fuels like ethanol made from
this switchgrass. This is like a five or six foot
high prairie grass that's perennial, it comes up
by itself every year. It doesn't need any
irrigation, doesn't need any pesticide. This is
not corn. In the United States they make corn
into ethanol. This is woody, weedy stuff.

TF: This has more energy in it than corn?

AL: Oh yes, and a much better net energy yield,
less capital investment, twice the crop yield. It
just sits there and grows and you harvest it with
hay making equipment. Then you send it to the ethanol plant.

TF: In fact Brazil gets almost half of its motor
fuel from ethanol made from sugar. And it could
import it to the United States. But Washington
has imposed a 100% tariff in order to protect
American farmers who make more costly ethanol from corn.

AL: And because of that tariff Brazil is going to
ship that stuff to China and Japan instead of us.

TF: So that's great, so Brazil is the Saudi
Arabia of our hemisphere. It's got an energy
source that it grows quite natural. And we're
preventing it from coming into the United States?

AL: Well, a 100% duty is a pretty good deterrent.

TF: What is our duty on crude oil?

AL: Zero.

TF: Well that makes a lot of sense.

NARR: In the backwaters of Southern California is
another small band of engineers who are working
on a car that could change the way the world
drives. Inside this little garage in Monrovia, CA
they're converting already fuel efficient hybrids
into plug-ins. They replace the original factory
installed battery with a set of much larger
batteries that are charged by plugging into a
regular electric outlet. This allows the plug-in
to go the same distance as a regular hybrid on only half the amount of gas.

Greg Hanson is an engineer with the small company that is doing conversions.

Greg Hanson (V.P. Engineering, Energy CS): I'm an
engineer and I'm a geek and very fascinated by
the technologies that are involved in the future
of transportation but I'm also concerned about
America's place in a world with less and less
fossil fuel. It's not just about cleaner air.
It's about what happens to our United States
economy when we're paying $8 a gallon for
gasoline and we're at war with China over some
scrap of land in the Middle East trying to get it.

NARR: Felix Kramer is the founder of CalCars.org
a virtual think tank devoted to the plug-in hybrid.

TF: So Felix, what exactly is the big benefit from this plug-in?

Felix Kramer (Founder CalCars.org): Well the fact
is the average American commuter drives maybe 20
to 25 miles per day. If you have a battery that
can get you all electric for that entire time,
every night you go home and you plug in your car
and you leave the next morning with a full tank
of electricity. You don't ever have to go to the gas station.

NARR: I asked Felix where this idea came from

FK: I got one of the first Prius' and there was
this little black button that had nothing written
on it. So many of us Prius owners were online and
the people who were from Europe and Japan
responded that on our car it says EV which means
Electric Vehicle. It turned out that this button
gave a very brief, less than a mile, electric
only range to the car. So the gasoline engine
didn't come on. So we set up on online discussion
group, explicitly open source. Got people from
all over the world contributing their ideas and
figured how to re-enable the button and we converted a car.

GH: This is our original prototype that was done
almost a year ago. This vehicle underneath the
floor here we have a bunch of batteries.

TF: And this is the key deal.

GH: This is how we plug it in. This is what makes
all the difference. Right here we plug in.

TF: How many miles per gallon are you getting on this car?

GH: It's about one hundred miles per gallon.

TF: I want to drive this thing.

GH: Absolutely, let's do it.

NARR: In fact if you fuel it with E85 ethanol
which contains only 15% gasoline you have a plug
in that can go 500 miles for every gallon of gas it uses.

TF: So Felix, I want to convert my hybrid, how much does it cost?

FK: Ten to twelve thousand dollars. But we
believe that Toyota could sell these cars to
buyers for $3000 more than the cost of a regular
hybrid. That's where the huge market is.

TF: Explain something to me. Toyota has been very
green, why would they be resisting all this?

FK: There's a lot of speculation, but certainly
one reason is that Toyota was spending tens of
millions of dollars explaining to people that
they didn't have to plug-in. They were
essentially saying plugging in was a bad thing.

NARR: Toyota was not the only car maker that was
promoting no plugging in as a big benefit. Honda
made this TV commercial to emphasize the point.

[TV Commercials shown]

FK: Our goal was to get the information out to
people and our ultimate goal was to increase the
pressure on Toyota to build them.

TF: But all the major car makers seem convinced
that Americans won't buy plug-ins no matter how
much drivers can save on gasoline. If these
companies thought they'd make money selling
plug-ins they'd certainly build them. Part of the
car maker's skepticism is based on their
experience with marketing electric vehicles in the 1990's.

Richard Wagoner: We made a very interesting move
in the mid 90's with our electric vehicle
program. Spent a huge amount of money, well over
half a billion dollars. A technological marvel, a
complete commercial flop from every angle you
could imagine. From, no one wanted to buy it to,
there was no place to recharge it. A classic
example of a very interesting idea but no market
for it. So we were looking for a solution and we
really thought the hydrogen powered fuel cell was
the right thing to do. And I think that was a good call.

NARR: Could it be that the hydrogen fuel cell will power the car of the future?

NARR: I have no doubt that America's love affair
with the automobile will never end. It's an
American invention, a symbol of our independent spirit.

Of course symbols are different from reality.
Americans are more dependent than ever on oil. A
few facts: Transportation in the United States
burns up 14 million barrels of oil every day.
America only 4 ½ percent of the world's
population consumes ¼ of the world's oil. Nearly
½ of this goes to passenger vehicles. Cars, SUVs,
light trucks, which are the fastest growing
source of deadly green house gasses.

A possible solution that all the major car makers
are researching is the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

Bill Reinert is national manager of Toyota's advanced technology group.

Bill Reinert (Toyota): With a fuel cell vehicle
you take hydrogen and oxygen, you combine them
together and it creates electricity and the
emissions are water. So that's a very nice clean
solution. We're some ways away from doing that.

TF: How far?

BR: We can probably put compelling products on the market within two decades.

TF: So you would go with hydrogen?

BR: Yeah.

NARR: Two decades is an awfully long time to
wait. And some say hydrogen cars are such a long
shot that they will never make it to market.

But riding with stay at home mom Sandy Spallino
in her cool fuel cell prototype from Honda makes
quite an impression. It's totally silent, has no
emissions and rides like a smooth super charged golf cart.

Sandy Spallino: I use it every day just picking
the girls up, doing local errands.

TF: So Sandy, do people stop you? Hey lady,
what's that car? What's that cool car?

SS: All the time, I get questions every day, it's really fun.

NARR: Sandy Spallino and her husband John of
Redondo Beach California were chosen by Honda as
America's first hydrogen fuel cell family, in
order to gather data on how the car performs in
every day life. Ever since, it's been a parade of publicity.

The car gets between 160 and 190 miles to a tank
of hydrogen. And the Spellion's fill up about twice a week.

TF: You know, I've always wanted to say this but, Filler up with hydrogen.

Stephen Ellis (Honda): You're on. How about full
service today? Well, we have to open the fuel
door here and here's the nozzle where we put
hydrogen in. Then we connect it. Then we'll just
say Fast Fill and it will begin filling the vehicle.

NARR: So is hydrogen the cure for us oiloholics?
On the surface this seems the perfect solution.
Even if the car current costs a million dollars
to make. With a little ingenuity and scaling for
mass production the price will surely come down.

TF: Steve, where does the energy come from that makes this hydrogen?

SE: This is a solar powered station. These are
Honda designed and engineered photovoltaic cells.

TF: Honda is in the solar business?

SE: Yes, we are.

NARR: If solar power provides the electricity to
make the hydrogen and the only byproduct is purified water, what's the problem?

Well, these solar panels about 700 square feet,
take a full week to generate enough energy to
create one tank of hydrogen fuel. A refill that
gets on average 175 miles. Americans drive about
3 trillion miles per year. So it would take over
230 billion square feet of solar panels to meet the current demand.

BR: We have some real severe problems with how
we're going to make hydrogen because hydrogen
doesn't occur anywhere in nature free. The
hydrogen molecule is always tightly chemically
bound to another molecule. And to separate those
two molecules and to get free hydrogen requires
immense amounts of energy. Tremendous amounts of energy

TF: To take the H off the H2O.

BR: That's correct.

NARR: The real problem is that we will need an
enormous amount of electricity to get off oil.
Whether it's to turn water into hydrogen or to
charge batteries for plug-ins. And where to we
get our electricity from today? Mainly coal,
which generates huge amounts of pollution, unless
we can clean up how we burn coal or find cleaner
sources of electricity, we will just be shifting
our pollution from tail pipes to smoke stacks.
And that's where renewable energy comes in.

NARR: I stopped by the solar convention in
Washington D.C. There I discovered an endless
array of solar panels, solar gizmos, solar you
name it. From the basement of the Hyatt it
certainly looks like solar has arrived.

Exhibitor at convention: Solar is very
mainstream. It's on houses, ballparks, large
commercial buildings. The utilities are using it.

TF: So I put that [solar panels] on my roof. Now what's the payback?

Exhibitor: Around eight years depending on your
electricity usage. And after that you have free
electricity for the life of your house.

NARR: An eight year investment is pretty good,
though it costs tens of thousands of dollars to
convert a home. For me the big question is, does it really work?

So I checked out the solar decathlon, an amazing
contest sponsored by the US department of energy.
Where college teams compete to build the most
efficient solar house and then drop it onto the
national mall in Washington D.C. Unfortunately the sun was not cooperating.

NARR: Not only are the houses judged on the
efficiency of their solar design. Each one must
also generate enough excess solar energy to power
an electric car. The farther it goes the more points earned.

As I toured the other solar houses I was
impressed by the ingenuity and enthusiasm of the
students who seemed utterly unfazed by the rain.

NARR: Harnessing clean energy from the sun to
power your house and car sounds ideal, though it
may not be the most effective alternative for all
climates. The main problem with solar power today
is that it's still very expensive. Costing
between 30 to 70,000 dollars to make an average
house energy self sufficient with solar panels. I
wondered if there was a cheaper source of renewable energy.

Jim Dehlson (Chairman and CEO Clipper Windpower):
Wind is certainly far more economic than solar.
Solar's had a very hard time coming down in cost.

NARR: Jim Dehlsen is a true American original. He
pioneered wind power in the 1970's when everyone
thought he was crazy. Today he's still developing
wind farms across the country for profit.

TF: Jim, what's the biggest benefit of wind farms?

Jim Dehlsen: Well, we have this tremendous wind
resource in America. Four states could supply all
of the electricity requirements for the country.
There are parts of the Midwest that are referred
to as the Saudi Arabia of wind for America. We're
building turbines, and only three of those
machines, over thirty years, is the same amount
of electricity as one million barrels of oil. We
could really provide thirty or forty percent of
the electricity for the country in relatively
short order. In Germany they now get roughly six
to seven percent of their electricity from wind.

NARR: But to really move forward the wind
industry needs help from the government. The oil
industry receives tens of billions of dollars in
federal subsidies and assistance every year. On
average, wind developers get less than 200
million. And even that relatively paltry amount is periodically withheld.

JD: It's really a case of getting the economics right.

TF: But the federal government has given you subsidies hasn't it?

JD: On and off.

TF: What do you mean On and Off?

JD: Well it's been stop start pretty much from
the outset, typically being for two or three
years at a time. Then expiring in the mid 80's
the incentive program was withdrawn.

TF: You mean they got rid of the subsidies?

JD: That really caused the industry to collapse.

TF: Do we stop and start oil subsidies?

JD: No, not that I know of.

TF: So we could get a third to a half of all our electricity from the wind?

JD: That's right

TF: So it's get your energy from Bin Laden Land
or get your energy from the wind.  Which part of
that sentence don't we understand?

JD: And if you have a clean resource that's home grown, why not use it?

NARR: Opponents say that wind farms disrupt the
natural habitat of the area, killing birds and
plants as well as ruining the visual landscape.
In light of this developers are building more
wind farms off shore and in less inhabited areas.
But we need to be careful not to exaggerate the
fate of a few species of birds when the fate of
all species on earth is at risk from global warming.

Many of the alternative energies that could wean
America from its dependence on oil are here and
ready to be deployed. But they need long term
consistent subsidies and research support from
our government to make them competitive with oil.
Unfortunately our government's approach to
renewables has been utterly inconsistent.

But beyond renewables like solar, wind and
ethanol there's another solution. One that
requires no alternative energy sources at all.
And it's good for business. It's simply a matter of energy efficient design.

NARR: In learning about ways to break our
addiction to oil I heard about an energy
efficient computer chip factory that Texas
Instruments was building in Richardson Texas just
outside of Dallas. What struck me was the claim
that being green is not only good for the
environment but is great for business and can actually keep jobs in America.

A few years ago the top brass at Texas
Instruments laid down a challenge. If their
design team could figure out how to build their
newest chip factory for 180 million dollars less
than the going rate of 600 million they would
build it in Richardson. Otherwise the factory and
all its jobs was going overseas. Paul Westbrook
is the sustainable development manger for Texas Instruments.

TF: Paul, what went through your mind when your
bosses said; you don't take 180 million out of
this building, it's going overseas, I hope you speak Chinese.

Paul Westbrook (Worldwide Construction Texas
Instruments): What I really thought was, are they
crazy! That's one of those things that's so large
you can't even fathom it. We all just thought this was like a bad dream.

TF: So what was the first phone call you made to try to solve that problem?

PW: When we started talking about a sustainable
building on a large scale through a couple of
meetings we said we should do this design session
with the Rock y Mountain Institute.

TF: After a couple of brainstorming session the
design team figured out how to eliminate an
entire floor of the factory. A huge energy saver.

Steve Pensen (Construction Manager Austin
Commercial): The greatest innovation that we did
on this project was to actually reduce the square footage.

Green is not necessarily solar panels and it's
not solar hot water heaters and it's not wind
farms. It is efficient use of the space and
resources that you're given on a project.

TF: The innovations include how air is cooled and
recycled naturally, allowing the elimination of
huge industrial air conditioners. Bigger water
pipes with fewer elbows reduces friction and
let's them use smaller energy saving pumps. These
design breakthroughs in efficiency, among others, are starting a new trend.

SP: Before we started this project, probably ten
percent of the proposals that came into our door,
the people asking for the projects were green.
Now over half the proposals that we see come in are green related.

TF: In the end the project exceeded the savings
goal by 40 million dollars. The total reduction
in cost was 220 million dollars and that doesn't
include the four million Texas Instruments will
save every year on energy consumption, just by designing efficiently.

Shawna Sowell is Vice President of worldwide
facilities for Texas Instruments.

Shawna Sowell (VP, Worldwide Facilities, Texas
Instruments): Amazing things happen when people
claim responsibility for creating the impossible.
It generates new ideas, it generates passion. And
we exceeded a goal that we thought was
impossible. How exciting is that? And if you're a
true competitor there is nothing like winning.

NARR:  Of course that doesn't mean that
competitors, like China, are losing. In fact
faced with a huge environmental challenge, the
Chinese government has made sustainable
development a top priority. Half the water in
China's seven largest rivers is useless today.
One third of the urban population breathes
polluted air. Land for agriculture and living has
been sharply diminished over the past fifty years.

With so much pressure to become more
environmentally sensitive, China is poised to
become a major innovator of green technology.

William McDonough (Founder, McDonough &
Partners): There are 200,000 industrial design
students in China, compared to 4,000 in the
United States. So imagine 200,000 designers come
into the marketplace designing products and
systems. It's phenomenal! China is where the future will be defined.

NARR: Is it possible that a green China will pose
a greater challenge than a red China ever did?

NARR: William McDonough is a world renowned
leader in designing and building green. As an
architect he's working to re-draft our energy
future by taking the concept of energy efficient
design to a whole new level. At his offices in
Charlottesville, Virginia he's laying out plans
for what could become one of China's biggest
experiments in environmentally sound development.

Bill's designs are based on a strikingly original
concept that he calls Cradle to Cradle.

TF: When you say Cradle to Cradle, what exactly do you mean by that?

WM: It means we close all the cycles and stop the
whole concept of waste. If you just look at this
chair it's an example of Cradle to Cradle. This
is the new fabric selected for the Ergos 380.
This one is designed to be composted safely.

TF: In other words if we plowed this into the
ground it would become soil safely? So Cradle to
Cradle is that it starts from the earth, it goes
through life as a chair and goes back to earth.

WM: That's one part of Cradle to Cradle. That's
what we call biological metabolism so things that
go back to soil should all be safe in soil. So that's biological nutrients.
This [metal chair] is aluminum, pure aluminum.
This we would call a technical nutrient and this
gets put through industrial cycles, over and over again.

TF: Today it's a chair tomorrow it could be an airplane part.

WM: Tomorrow it could be a can. So that's Cradle
to Cradle in terms of the materials.

NARR: In America McDonough's ideas are changing
the ways major US corporations think about
design. But in China he's being embraced by the Chinese government.

TF: Why have you focused so much of your energy on trying to transform China?

WM: 80% of Chinese in cities don't have good
drinking water. They either don't have enough or
the quality is so bad that they'll kill
themselves drinking it. It's so bad that they've
called for Cradle to Cradle cities.

NARR: Bill invited our film crew to join him in
Wong Bijou to see first hand how Cradle to Cradle translates to China.

Though it doesn't look high tech, this village
may be the future for rural China.

WM: This is a straw bale house, and that is a straw bale.

NARR: The new homes are constructed from
materials that require little or no fossil fuels
to make and are biodegradable and recyclable.

WM: …and right next to it is a block wall that is
made out of dirt and the dirt came from right down there.

NARR: Rather than building with traditional clay
bricks fired by coal which consumes a lot of
energy, they're making bricks out of compressed
dirt which are stacked and covered in plaster to make the walls.

WM: Put it in a press, squeeze it. Without using
coal or firing it or using soil that is used for
farming so you don't burn your coal and you don't
lose your farm fields, it's just pressed earth from this place.

NARR: The entire village is designed to save
energy. The homes are oriented at a 15% angle to
break up the cold winter winds and maximize their daily exposure to the sun.

WM: So this is the first time that Chinese
peasants have been given a solar system that is connected to the utility grid.

NARR: Bill believes that China will set the
standard for solar power and finally make it affordable to a mass market.

WM: … the idea that China will be the place in
the world that finally brings the cost of solar
energy down so the rest of the world can use
solar energy because manufacturing costs in China
could collapse the price of doing these kinds of things.

NARR: Of course China today is mired in
ecological problems and is far behind the west by
any environmental standards. But Chinese
officials at the highest level of government are
listening to Bill and if things go well in this
trial village, China of all places, could become
a new model of sustainable development.

WM: It signals a strategy of hope because if
everyone in rural China lived like this they
would cut their consumption of coal and firewood
in half. Right now we have to find a way to speak
about the future in the present tense. So, can we
live in the future as quickly as possible in ways
that allow us to tell our children that we
realized the problems that we're facing and that
we're doing something about them.

TF: Bill when I listen to you I don't know
whether to laugh or cry. We're a couple of hours
south of Washington D.C. but up the road not a
lot of people know who you are. Yet 10,000 miles
away in Beijing your ideas are being translated
into Chinese and implemented and quoted by the leadership in China.

WM: The Chinese see themselves in crisis. We are
not in crisis in this country. We don't have a
crisis mentality. We're beginning to start to have a crisis mentality.

TF: You get to be king for a day. King of the
United States. What's the one thing you would do to advance your agenda?

WM: I would speak to all the children. I would
put out a call to the young people. It's the
young people who will do this. It's the next
generation. When children hear Cradle to Cradle
they get it immediately, they just think well
isn't that the way the world is? Then they're
surprised to find out that we would make poison
things that destroy the planet. Why would we
create a system that doesn't give them hope?

NARR: Bill's right. Most kids understand that
this is not their parent's energy crisis, but
something much more profound. The problem is the
next generation won't be in power for another
decade or two. And that might just be too late.

We already have the alternative fuels that could
make a big difference right now in how much oil
we consume, how much we heat up the planet, how
dependant we are on nasty governments for our
energy supplies and how competitive our companies
will be in green technologies. That burgeoning
growth industry for the twenty first century.

With just a little leadership from Washington and
smart subsidies and regulations consistently
applied we could make plug-in hybrids, wind,
ethanol and solar so much more competitive with oil. Right now, today.

But it takes a new way of thinking. An
understanding that being green is no longer some
high minded vaguely unpatriotic hobby for tree
hugging girly men. Living, thinking and acting
green is the most geo-strategic, tough minded and
patriotic thing we can do today.

Green, my fellow citizens, is the new Red, White and Blue.


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

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas spoke by teleconference to
the  "Future Trends in Energy, Technology & Transportation" held
by  the Cascadia Center at the Microsoft Executive Conference Center
in Redmond, Washington, on June 1. (We described the event at
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/414.html>.) We've gotten a
transcript of what he said. As you can see, the time we spent showing
him our PHEV in DC had an impact. (See photos of him and many others
at <http://www.calcars.org/phevs-in-dc.html>.) Here are excerpts from
his remarks:

As you get oil up over $50 a barrel a number of economic alternatives
kick in that didn't previously exist...what we need to do is get more
electricity involved in our use of our cars and automobiles. One
quick fact is about half of the country drives less than 30 miles a
day, and if we could get that 30 miles off of electricity either
through plug-in technology or gasoline car that recycles the energy
it's using through batteries and recharging major batteries like the
Honda Civic that I have, we can really rapidly reduce our dependence
on foreign oil and stretch our petrol much further than we currently have.

I was in a Prius that had been retrofitted that gets 100 MPG. It's
got juiced up batteries that you plug in at night that had adapted to
a basic Prius technology. They can get 100 miles to the gallon. The
owner and developer of it said imagine filling up your car just 5
times a year was the way he was looking at it.

And I think the technology is here that we need to really embrace and
rapidly bring on using them here to drop our foreign oil dependency.
Using them here to reduce the threats that we receive from countries
like Iran, potentially from Russia, and the competition from China,
and then sell and spread that technology globally to other places and
be first in the marketplace to develop it.

That's part of our thinking in the bipartisan bill that myself, Joe
Lieberman, a number of others have put forward. And we have a
companion piece of legislation in the House side. My thanks to
Congressman Jack Kingston and Eliot Engel, a Republican and a
Democrat, that have sponsored with Vehicle and Fuel Choices for
American Security Act. It's a mouthful, but S2025 is the Senate bill
with 25 bipartisan cosponsors. The basic thrust of it is to bring
this technology on the marketplace more rapidly. We require the
implantation of a computer chip in vehicles coming off assembly lines
that can read alternate fuels, whether it's E85 or regular gasoline.
We provide tax credits for people purchasing hybrid technology, we
provide tax credits for companies developing high end diesel engines
that can make much higher MPG and also hybrid technology and plug in
technology. And within this as well we put forward funds for research
and development into other types of vehicle options and the support
of biofuels.

It's an exciting time and it's a good time and I think we can answer
multiple questions of security, stretching our petrol further,
environmental concerns, technology and economic competitiveness
concerns by really embracing this challenge in the good old American
way, and that's with innovation, good policy and market driven solutions.



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

To CalCars/PHEV supporters

For the next two weeks (until July 18), I'll be trying my best to
stay disconnected while on vacation in Europe. This marks my first
extended vacation since before launching CalCars in 2002. The PHEV
story continues to unfold with jaw-dropping new developments weekly
and news stories and new supporters arriving daily; I'll check in
occasionally but will catch up mostly on my return.

Meanwhile, Communications Director John Davi will post news and
updates to this list, and will be driving my car to Sacramento next
weekend for the AAA Greenlight Initiative Rally and other events that
may appear at <http://www.calcars.org/events.html>.

For information on reaching us see our Contacts Page
<http://www.calcars.org/contacts.html>.

Au Revoir, Felix

P.S. Please remember that CalCars-News is a one-way medium. If you
respond to the sending address, there's no guarantee your message
will be seen. You're better off following the suggestions at Contacts
(URL above), remembering we're a few people trying to do a lot. If
you do write, please change the subject line from Re: [CalCars-News]
ETC. to your specific concern.


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

Hi folks. Glad to be with you and to be the first non-Felix
contributor in the history of this group. In this momentous posting:

1) Joel Makower on "Who's Reviving the Electric Car"

2) "Who Killed" director on Talk of the Nation Science Friday

3) How to see "Who Killed the Electric Car"

---

1) Joel Makower is an influential writer, speaker and consultant on
corporate environmental strategy, clean  technology, and green
marketing -- and he's wired in with, among others, GM. His July 3 blog
posting is an excellent overview of the impending EV and PHEV market:
(full text pasted at bottom of this message)

http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2006/07/whos_reviving_t.html

Mirrored at http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004627.html -- along
with a fairly active discussion.

2) "Who Killed the Electric Car" director Chris Paine was on Talk of
the Nation Science Friday on -- well, Friday -- along with EVWorld's
Bill Moore. 25-minute interview includes discussion of PHEVs;
available in Windows Media, RealAudio or MP3:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Jun/hour2_063006.html

3) Finally, where can you see "Who Killed the Electric Car"? The
official web site
(http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/) has a list of
opening dates and locations, but it's not directly linkable. We've
replicated the list at http://www.calcars.org/whokilled/showtimes.html

----
Joel Makower
Who's Reviving the Electric Car?
http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2006/07/whos_reviving_t.html

Who killed the electric car? Who cares? It's history!

What's far more interesting is who's working to bring electric cars to
life. Despite the hype and buzz created by the recent debut of a
passionate documentary film examining the life and premature death of
General Motors' all-electric EV-1 vehicle in the late 1990s, there's a
far more newsworthy story: Several notable efforts are taking place to
bring all-electric or plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles to market. And
for all appearances, these stand to be far more substantive -- and
more sustainable -- than GM's initial entry ever was.

Over the past few months, I've been tracking several threads of this
story. Here's a snapshot of what's going on.

At least two car makers are viewing electric cars as a high-end niche
market -- something the Hollywood or well-heeled Silicon Valley set
will want to embrace simply for the cool factor. After all, now that
"everyone" has a Prius, what's the Next Green Thing?

The Tesla, for starters. Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley start-up, has
been keeping its sports car under tight wraps for months, showing it
only to a privileged few. (I assumed that my role on the clean-tech
advisory council of VantagePoint Venture Partners, the venture capital
firm that is the lead institutional investor in Tesla, would get me in
the door to have an early look. It didn't.) Tesla's first vehicle, an
electric sports car set to be unveiled later this month, runs on the
same lithium-ion batteries found in cameras and cell phones -- 7,000
of them per vehicle, the inventors told me. They claim that the Tesla
Roadster, built on the chassis of a Lotus Elise, will go from 0 to 60
mph in just four seconds, travel 250 miles before needing to be
recharged (by plugging in to a regular AC outlet), and retail for
about $80,000. They intend that Tesla's second-generation car, due out
in 18-24 months, will be somewhat more popularly priced at around $50,000.

The Tesla rolls in the same league as the Wrightspeed, another Silicon
Valley entrant. (Founder Ian Wright formerly worked at Tesla.)
Wrightspeed's X1 model is a high-performance all-electric $120,000
roadster that beat out a $440,000 Porsche on a test track. (I did
manage to snag a ride on the X1. Wright took me for a spin in downtown
Palo Alto late one night, showing off his car's prowess by going from
0 to 80 to 0 in a single city block. It was the closest I can
approximate to being shot out of a cannon -- albeit a noiseless
cannon, but for the wind racing by.) The X1, which is not yet in
production, boasts a quarter ton of rechargeable batteries.

Clearly, neither Wrightspeed nor Tesla are looking to sell to the hoi
polloi, though each company claims to be making technological advances
in electric vehicles that will eventually filter down to more
mass-market models -- probably manufactured by others.

There's also the Tango, a novel EV offered by Seattle-based Commuter
Cars Corp. The Tango seats two people -- one behind the other, like on
a motorcycle -- and the super-slim, battery-driven vehicle that
results is designed to slip in and out of traffic and parking spaces
in ways conventional cars can't. Tango's most affordable model is
priced at $18,700, but don't hold your breath: According to the
company's Web site: "This car has not been designed yet as it will
require a team of engineers, tens of millions of dollars, and at least
18 months to meet all of the safety requirements."

And then there's the Th!nk. This nifty little EV, developed by a
Norwegian design team, was sold as the CityBee in Europe and the Citi
in the U.S., before being purchased by Ford in 1999. Ford leased just
over 1,000 of them throughout Europe and the U.S., comprising the
world's largest EV fleet. But in 2004, much to the chagrin of
environmentalists and others, Ford sold Th!nk to a European firm,
which went bankrupt early this year. The company's remnants were
purchased in March by a group of Norwegian investors that is looking
to introduce the vehicle back into the U.S. market.

Even before such vehicles hit the roads, a new generation of plug-in
hybrid-electric vehicles is likely to take EVs out of the realm of
hobbyists and techies and into the mainstream. As CalCars, a
California nonprofit that's been rabidly promoting PHEVs of late,
explains:

"Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are like regular hybrids but with larger
batteries and the ability to re-charge from a standard outlet (mostly
at night). They're the best of both worlds: local travel is electric,
yet the vehicle has unlimited gasoline range."

CalCars is among several groups that have modified Toyota Priuses and
other hybrids to run on electricity-only while traveling in town,
resulting in overall fuel economy exceeding 100 miles per gallon of
gas in most cases.

PHEVs offer an additional benefit that could help greatly boost their
appeal: Their ability to store electricity to be used when needed --
whether on the road (to power computers or other appliances) or at
home (as an emergency generator during power outages). Explains
HybridCars.com:

"Someday, the larger battery packs used in plug-in hybrids could
juggle power back and forth from the car to your household current. If
adopted on a widespread basis, a fleet of plug-in (a.k.a. "gridable")
hybrids could offer what are called "regulatory services" (keeping
voltages steady, etc.) to a modernized electric power grid. It is
estimated that what's called "V2G" could benefit individual car owners
by as much as $2,000 to $3,000 per year for the use of their energy
storage capacity -- offsetting their purchase and operating costs."

It's perhaps symbolically fitting that General Motors -- the villain
in the currently running movie -- may be first major car company to
boast a production model PHEV. Bloomberg recently reported that GM
will unveil at the Detroit Auto Show next January a PHEV that gets
more than 60 miles a gallon -- and GM hasn't exactly denied the story.
(My inside sources tell me that the Bloomberg reporter "got it mostly
right.") And what's good for GM -- well, you know the rest.

Looking a bit further down the road is the Automotive X Prize, a
multimillion-dollar prize to be awarded to the team "that makes and
sells the most units of a vehicle that exceeds 100 MPG equivalent,"
according to the organizers. The competition -- whose details will be
announced later this year -- is technology neutral, though it is
likely that electric-vehicle technology will loom large in the winning
entry.

And so it goes -- a far less hopeless state of affairs than many
activists (or filmmakers) would like us to think. Suddenly, seemingly
out of nowhere, electric vehicles -- only recently assumed to have
been "killed" -- appear to be stirring to life.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) is hosting a
day-long forum/meeting on PHEVs next Wednesday in Diamond Bar, CA,
specifically focused on battery issues. Batteries are the main
technical holdup for automaker adoption; this roundtable forum hopes
to identify the key areas that need further R&D in order to speed
commercialization.

SCAQMD has been one of the most vocal and consistent supporters of
PHEVs, and took delivery of EnergyCS's first demonstration vehicle in
April.

Meeting announcement and agenda follows.

Meeting Announcement:

Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle Forum & Technical Roundtable

The South Coast Air Quality Management District is convening a Plug-in
Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Forum and Technical Roundtable focused
on the technical issues related to advanced batteries and their effect
on the development and commercialization of PHEVs.  The objective of
the meeting is to identify key expert perspectives on battery
capabilities, requirements, and other issues specifically for
application to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and to highlight
important or necessary RD&D areas for near-term commercialization of
plug-in hybrids.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at the SCAQMD
headquarters in Diamond Bar, CA.  The meeting will start at 9:00 a.m.
in in the main auditorium.  In the morning, eight technical experts
will provide focused presentations on various aspects of PHEV battery
issues.  Following lunch, a technical roundtable discussion by these
experts will be conducted.  Public comment will be encouraged
following the roundtable discussion.

The AQMD encourages all major stakeholders to attend, including auto
manufacturers, energy companies, industry representatives, state and
federal regulatory agencies, environmental and community organizations
and other interested parties.

The agenda for the meeting is provided below.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle
Forum and Technical Roundtable
Agenda
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
AQMD Headquarters
21865 Copley Drive
Diamond Bar, CA 91765
Main Auditorium

9:00 AM Welcome Barry Wallerstein, D.Env.
Executive Officer, AQMD

9:05 AM Self-Introductions Panelists
Context and Framing of Issues

9:15 AM Technical Issues and Background Matt Miyasato, Ph.D. Tech.
Demonstrations Mgr, AQMD
Forum Presentations

9:30 AM Plug-In HEV Battery Requirements Mark Duvall, Ph.D. Mgr.,
Tech. Development, EPRI

9:50 AM Dept. of Energy's Plug-in HEV Tien Duong Research Program Team
Leader Vehicle Tech., FreedomCAR

10:10 AM Energy Storage Options for Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles Ahmad
Pesaran, Ph.D. Principal Engineer, NREL

10:30 AM Break (20 minutes)

10:50 AM Lithium Ion Battery Issues Dan Doughty, Ph.D. Mgr., Li Ion
Battery R&D, Sandia

11:10 AM Battery Systems Requirements for Production Vehicles Johnson
Controls-Saft (invited)


11:30 AM Integration Experience Greg Hansen Vice President, EnergyCS

11:50 PM Plug-in Hybrid Battery Evaluation: Laboratory and Field
Testing Naum Pinsky, Ph.D. Southern California Edison

12:20 PM Lunch (60 minutes)

Roundtable Discussion
1:20 PM Moderator: Mark Duvall

3:30 PM Public Comment Summary and Next Steps

Two items:

1) S. David Freeman is the former head of the Tennessee Valley
Authority, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Sacramento
Municipal Utility District (SMUD) -- and one of the most memorable
interviewees in "Who Killed the Electric Car." He's long been a
hydrogen proponent (see http://www.h2carco.com) but in an excellent
interview with the SF Bay Guardian he can't endorse PHEVs enough:

"That kind of car -- which they know how to make -- with the plug-in
feature, with just a few more batteries in it, can run at least 60
miles all electric...I'm writing this book [about energy], and this is
our most available big option for displacing oil, far bigger than
ethanol."

"I don't think you can say too much about the impact on our national
security. Plug-in hybrids would probably make as much difference as
any weapons we can come up with."

"One is a huge thing. If a million people signed up to say they're not
gonna buy a car until they can get a plug-in hybrid, it would happen.
It would pass more quickly than any law."

See full interview at http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=1008

2) The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a detailed and well-sourced
guest editorial on making Washington the leader in "clean energy
independence." Great suggestions all, and PHEV adoption is one of five
major components. The editorial calls for, among other things, a State
Plug-In Hybrid Task Force:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/276049_focus02.html

With Washington and Minnesota
(http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/436.html) increasingly vocal on
the issue of PHEVs, perhaps "California Cars Initiative" needs some
reconsideration. WashCars or MinCars, anyone?

-John



--
John Davi
Communications Director
jdavi@minca-- no, still calcars.org

We (by that I mean "I") spent Saturday participating in the AAA
Greenlight Initiative Rally, a day-long alternative-fuel event
reflecting AAA's growing efforts to publicize the next generation of
cars. 15 vehicles of various types made the drive from Santa Clara to
Sacramento, and were put on display for AAA members to inspect. Kudos
to local AAA organizers for a well run event. No kudos to Sacramento
for being hot.

15 vehicles included biodiesel, CNG, a RAV4EV, propane and lots and
lots of hydrogen.

Short SJ Mercury News article about the event:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/15000111.htm

Also see the accompanying slideshow (quite artful), which is very
CalCars-heavy, to say the least:
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/08/plug-and-play/

Finally, this is as good a time as any to point out our new Photoblog
-- http://www.calcars.org/photoblog -- which features a few snapshots
of the Rally and other things. We participate in a lot of events and
take a lot of pictures, but lack an appropriate outlet for said
images, so we're trying this. In true Silicon Valley spirit, it's
launching as a Public Beta, so you may find some kinks.

John

(Just in case you don't read every single CalCars posting and wonder
what the heck I'm doing here, check out
http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/464.html)

Three items here:

1) Greenspan Hearts PHEVs

2) Toronto Star on "Who Killed" and the future of EVs/PHEVs

3) Sixth-Sootiest City working to join Plug In Partners. Your city too!

1) Alan Greenspan (who's previously supported PHEVs "despite their
inconvenience" -- http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/434.html) has
clearly drunk the plug-in Kool Aid. In one of Arianna's blog entries
at the eponymous Huffington Post she describes her recent trip to the
Aspen Ideas Festival:

"Then there was Alan Greenspan. During a discussion on 'Oil and Gas:
The Next 50 Years,' the former Fed head said he believes the energy
future will belong to cellulosic ethanol, made from switchgrass, and
plug-in hybrid vehicles. He said while many people think this is
nonsense, he thinks it's inevitable -- and would happen 'when gas gets
to X dollars a gallon.' But he wouldn't say what X was."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/powell-on-iraq-couric-on_b_2459\
9.html

2) The Toronto Star's Tyler Hamilton has a lengthy article in
yesterday's issue, giving a detailed overview of "Who Killed" and the
electric vehicle future. Includes CalCars mention and nice section on
PHEVs:

http://tinyurl.com/eabd9

3) Burbank, CA -- recently named the city with the sixth-sootiest air
in the nation -- will consider joining Plug In Partners in a July 18
City Council meeting. Whether or not your air is as dirty as Burbank's
(probably not!), your city should still be on Plug In Partners's list
(http://www.pluginpartners.org/campaignOverview/partnerList.cfm). If
it's not, you can help! Contact (or continually harangue) your local
officials and tell them to join the growing coalition. Start by
checking out what local governments can do:
http://www.pluginpartners.org/whatYouCanDo/localGovernment.cfm

Here's the LA Daily News article on Burbank's consideration:
http://www.dailynews.com/glendale/ci_4029268

John

Our stock answer to a very common question ("Why don't you put solar
panels on a PHEV?") has routinely been as follows:

(from http://www.calcars.org/faq.html#2)

"A car's rooftop surface area is too small to make a significant
contribution. Unless/until PV cells become more efficient, and are
part of the original installation, they will seriously affect the
car's aerodynamics and will be far less durable than metal.
Photovoltaic arrays belong on stationary rooftops -- which is an
excellent way to drive on solar power (roof > house > car)."

We're not necessarily ready to reverse that position yet, but
increasing chatter in the PV community suggests that acceptable
(meaning "a significant amount of energy generated") rooftop solar
cells may not necessarily be as far off as our answer suggests. And
we've learned a new acronym: VIPV, for Vehicle Integrated
Photovoltaics. (I humbly suggest we refer to it as "Vip-Vee.")

In an article posted at RenewableEnergyAccess.com (and elsewhere),
Steven Letendre of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable
Development (http://www.prometheus.org/) gives an excellent overview
of the potential PHEVs have in relation to solar panels, the grid,
energy storage and V2G (vehicle-to-grid) applications:

http://tinyurl.com/rkmum

Dr. Letendre references an earlier article in the May/June issue of
Solar Today in which he and his colleagues first refer to Vip-Ve-- I
mean VIPV:

http://www.solartoday.org/2006/may_june06/solar_vehicles.htm (article
abstract)

For now, roof > house > car (or solar-carport > car) is still the most
sensible PV solution for PHEVs, but our FAQ answer certainly needs a
touch-up for now, and maybe more changes soon.

John

Two different stories on three different PHEV projects in Long Island,
which has gone plug-in crazy for heavy-duty vehicles. A plug-in bus
from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is ready to roll into
service in the next couple of months, and the town of Oyster Bay was
recently awarded $270,000 to convert three dump trucks to plug-ins.

Not many specifics on the truck conversions as they've just been
funded. They'll be used -- of course -- for curbside recycling.
They'll run in full-electric mode for residential pickups and only
turn on their diesel engines for travel to and from the recycling
facility. These (also postal service vehicles) represent practically
the ideal commercial implementation of PHEVs: in addition to the
standard major benefits of a plug (cleaner/cheaper/domestic) there's
significant impact from the side benefit of "stealth mode."

http://www.northender.com/northend_news_details.jsp?id=291

The bus conversion was sponsored by the Long Island Power Authority in
conjunction with EPRI (partners also in the Daimler-Chrysler Sprinter
project - see http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/340.html). They've
replaced the standard engine with a four-cylinder Volkswagen diesel,
which will serve exclusively to recharge and top-off the batteries.
Batteries (assumed to be lithium) weigh a whopping 5200 pounds but
give the bus a 40-mile all-electric range. It charges from a 240V
outlet, so if you can part with your clothes-dryer and $2M, you can
have one of these babies yourself.

Article also lists a number of other PHEV projects that are in the
works in other LI cities.

http://www.libn.com/article.htm?articleID=35733

No new specifics here on performance or timetable, but the topic is
moving up higher on the company's agenda. Whereas up until now it was
mainly discussed as a research project, Toyota's North American
President is placing greater emphasis on benefits -- the ability of
PHEVs to "travel greater distances without using its gas engine, it
will conserve more oil and slice smog and greenhouse gases to nearly
imperceptible levels" -- with less of a focus on the readiness of
batteries and on economic "viability".

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115323638623409864.html
Toyota Considers Plug-In Hybrids
Associated Press
July 18, 2006 3:48 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Toyota Motor North America Inc. President Jim Press
said Tuesday the Japanese auto maker plans to pursue a plug-in hybrid
vehicle, touting the long-term potential of gas-electric hybrids on
America's highways.

"Make no mistake about it, hybrids are the technology of the future
and they will play a starring role in the automotive industry in the
21st century," Mr. Press said in a speech at the National Press Club.

Mr. Press, highlighting the company's work on alternative vehicles,
said Toyota is also "strongly considering" a program to develop
flexible-fuel vehicles in the U.S. capable of running on E85, an
alternative fuel made of 85% ethanol.

Mr. Press, who recently became the first non-Japanese president of
Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. subsidiary, said hybrid technology has
long-term staying power because it can adapt to several alternatives,
such as clean diesels, biodiesels, ethanol, plug-in hybrids or
hydrogen fuel cells. The auto maker produces the popular Toyota Prius hybrid.

The plug-in being pursued by Toyota would be able to "travel greater
distances without using its gas engine, it will conserve more oil and
slice smog and greenhouse gases to nearly imperceptible levels."

Plug-in hybrids use larger battery packs that can be recharged
through a typical 120-volt outlet, allowing a driver to travel
locally on battery power before the vehicle switches to the gasoline
engine. DaimlerChrysler AG has been developing a plug-in hybrid van.

President Bush has touted the potential of the technology but
obstacles exist, ranging from making the batteries lighter, less
expensive and more durable. Some observers have expressed concern
about the ability of the electrical grid to support the vehicles, but
supporters say most plug-ins would be recharged at night.

Amid discussions among General Motors Corp., Nissan Motor Corp., and
Renault SA on forming an alliance1, Mr. Press said Toyota has had a
"good working alliance" with GM and shares operations at a Fremont,
Calif., plant and conducts research on advanced technology.

"I can't speculate on what will happen if GM and Nissan come
together, but I think it illustrates just how tough and expensive it
is to compete on a global basis as well as the consistent need for
efficiency in our operations," he said.

Toyota is expected to soon surpass GM as the world's largest auto
maker by sales volume. Mr. Press said the health of GM and Ford Motor
Co. was crucial to the auto industry. "I firmly believe that GM and
Ford will both come back stronger than ever and be very successful.
And that's important because they are vital to our industry and our
national economy," he said.

Amid today's wave of coverage of North American Toyota President Jim
Press's speech yesterday (stories by AP, AFP, Reuters, and many
others), this one stands out in pinpointing the significance of the
news and eliciting comments from us and others. It's by Mark Clayton,
who was written some of the earliest and best stories on PHEVs.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0720/p02s01-ussc.html
USA>Society & Culture from the July 20, 2006 edition
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Toyota moves to corner the 'plug-in' market
Reversing course, the Japanese automaker reveals it will make hybrid
cars that can go even farther on electricity.

The plug-ins are coming.

Toyota's revelation Tuesday that it will develop a new "plug-in
hybrid" - which uses a wall socket at night to charge and relies on
an electric motor to go many miles before sipping any gasoline -
could presage a major shift in automotive technology, some industry
analysts say.

Detroit's Big Three have each said the technology is being looked at
- after years of outright dismissal. But Toyota's announcement was
more significant because the company is presumed to have the
technology to actually bring such cars to market, they say.

Toyota itself had steadfastly denied any interest in plug-in
technology. A senior Toyota engineer told the Monitor early last year
the company had little interest.

But gasoline prices have since soared to more than $3 a gallon. On
Tuesday, the president of Toyota's North American subsidiary, Jim
Press, said the company is looking at developing a plug-in vehicle
that can "travel greater distances without using its gas engine." The
technology would "conserve more oil and slice smog and greenhouse
gases to nearly imperceptible levels".

The company is also developing flexible-fuel technology that could
use E85 ethanol. If the two technologies were combined in one
vehicle, it could help free the US from its oil dependence, some analysts say.

"When you combine plugging-in - which pushes fuel efficiency over 100
miles per gallon - with biofuels, then you're getting into multiple
hundreds of miles per gallon," says Bradley Berman, publisher of
hybridcars.com, a technology website. "It starts to look like a real
here-and-now solution to oil dependence, air quality, and climate change."

Not everyone's convinced. Walter McManus, an industry analyst at the
University of Michigan, says the technology may be too costly. "I
don't think there's a huge market for them," he says.

But if Toyota's announcement caught some by surprise, it was
certainly no surprise to Andy Frank.

Four years ago, the professor at the University of California at
Davis and a team of engineering students created a plug-in vehicle. A
typical hybrid has a big gasoline engine and a tiny electric motor.
The university students reversed the roles by combining a more
powerful electric motor that went 50 miles without using any gasoline.

No wimpy econo-box, the modified Ford Explorer was a 325 horsepower
"rocket" that still got the equivalent of 100-plus miles per gallon
even after a tiny gas engine kicked in, says Dr. Frank.

"The average person who drives 40 miles per day or less wouldn't use
any gasoline at all," he says. "The only time would be on weekend
trips and vacations across country."

The impact on America's dependence on foreign oil could be dramatic
if such technology were widespread, according to energy-security
hawks like former CIA director James Woolsey, who has cited the
technology as a key to cutting US reliance on Mideast oil. President
Bush also mentioned the technology in his State of the Union speech.

Frank's studies suggest a major impact on US oil dependence if most
vehicles were plug-ins. While an average person might fill the tank
with gasoline about 35 times a year, a plug-in would require perhaps six times.

A great idea? Perhaps. But when offered a detailed look at the
machine, each of Detroit's Big Three took a pass, Frank says.

Toyota, however, accepted his offer. It loaded up the students'
plug-in truck and flew it back to the company's research headquarters
in Japan. A few weeks later the truck was returned intact, many of
its technological secrets well digested.

Gas prices were probably the biggest factor in changing Toyota's
stance. But it also probably helped that Daimler-Chrysler has been
delivering its first plug-in hybrid vans to big companies.

That impetus, plus the other auto companies talking about it,
apparently pushed Toyota to go public. After all, it has established
a lead in hybrid technology with the Prius - and it wants to remain
out in front.

Another factor might have been the nudge from a group of tech guys
working in their garages, modifying a regular Prius into a plug-in
vehicle. Such changes voided the warranty, but CalCars founder Felix
Kramer says he's pleased if his group has goaded Toyota into making a
production plug-in - the group's goal all along.

"I'm the first consumer-owner of a Prius converted to a plug-in and
... I'm getting at least 100 miles per gallon equivalent. We're still
working on better versions, and it's catching on."

Battery technology remains a challenge. Deep discharges can wear out
ordinary and previous-generation batteries. But Mr. Kramer says
today's lithium ion batteries are up to the challenge.

In fact, since proving it could be done by making their own in a
garage, after- market conversion companies are now offering to
convert regular Priuses into plug-ins for about $10,000 to $12,000.

Despite some concerns that plugging in might stress the electric
grid, or actually increase carbon dioxide emissions by relying on
coal-fired power plants, Kramer is not worried. Most charging would
be done at night, tapping power at a low-demand time. And because
electric power is much more efficient per mile, the amount of
pollution and carbon dioxide sent skyward would still be far less
than an automobile engine, his analysis shows.

"What it gives you is the world's cleanest extended-range vehicle,"
he says. "If Toyota were to begin selling these tomorrow they could
sell as many as they could build."

(Photograph)  ELECTRIFYING: Some Toyota Prius owners tinker with the
hybrids to give them more juice. Ron Gremban of Corte Madera, Calif.,
added electric bicycle batteries to his car.


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

The Roadster is a worthy successor to the General
Motors EV1, and a great follow-up to the movie,
"Who Killed the Electric Car." Tesla Motors,
which has its launch tonight in Santa Monica,
shows what kind of "high-end" cars the
auto-makers, with far greater resources, could be
building. Furthermore, Tesla aims to produce
successive generations of vehicles, each costing
$20-$30K less. Then pure electric vehicles with
200+ mile range will become affordable. And
presumably, many of us will trade in our PHEVs!
Following is an article giving many of the
particulars; go to <http://www.teslamotors.com>
starting tomorrow for technical specs and many news clips.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/business/19electric.html
The New York Times July 19, 2006
Zero to 60 in 4 Seconds, Totally From Revving Batteries
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, July 18 — In a new approach to making
the electric car a mass-market product, a
California company will unveil on Wednesday a
model that is very specialized, very expensive and very, very fast.

Tesla Motors, a four-year-old Silicon Valley
start-up, has raised $60 million and spent about
$25 million developing a two-seat Roadster that
will sell for $85,000 to $100,000.

It goes from zero to 60 miles an hour in four
seconds, “wicked fast,” said the company’s
chairman, Martin Eberhard. Because it is an
electric, the driver does not have to shift into
second gear until the car hits 65, he said.

The Roadster comes 10 years after the
introduction of another two-seat electric car
that was hailed as a breakthrough in technology,
the EV-1 made by General Motors. While many
environmentalists had hoped that would be the
vanguard of a new trend, G.M. withdrew that car
as the three-year leases expired, saying that its
limited range — less than 100 miles — made it unmarketable.

The recent movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
argues that G.M. and California conspired to kill
a vehicle that would have been popular. The EV-1
was leased on a basis comparable to a vehicle in the mid-$30,000 range.

In contrast to the EV-1, the Roadster is supposed
to go about 250 miles on a single charge. It uses
lithium-ion batteries, the kind most commonly
found in laptops, and carries about three times
the energy the EV-1 did, although the battery
pack weighs only about 900 pounds; the original
EV-1 battery pack weighed more than 1,100 pounds.

And where the EV-1 had 26 batteries wired
together, the Roadster has 6,831, arranged in
what Mr. Eberhard called a complex network. The
voltage of the batteries is added together, as if
they were wired serially, like flashlight
batteries. If one fails, only the computer
running the car will notice, he said, and the
effect on total energy storage would be like
“dropping a couple of marbles in the gas tank of your car.”

The car comes with a kit that connects to a
240-volt circuit and charges the batteries from
dead to fully charged in three and a half hours.
It can also be charged on a normal 110-volt
household outlet, but that takes longer.

At the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group that is not normally a fan of
fast cars, Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the
energy program, called the roadster “a remarkable
potential breakthrough” because it does not use
oil and can be powered by clean sources of electricity.

The last round of electric vehicles was built in
anticipation of a “zero emission vehicle” quota
to be imposed by California, but the state dropped the mandate.

The Roadster’s advantage is that it avoids
gasoline at $3 a gallon. At the national average
retail price for electricity and fuel economy of
200 watt-hours per mile, it will go 150 miles on
the price of a gallon of unleaded regular.

Still, saving money presumably won’t be the prime
motivation of most potential buyers, since to
earn back the $65,000 premium over a two-seater
like, say, the Mazda Miata, would require more than 700,000 miles of driving.

According to Mr. Eberhard, the way to get a new
product into the mass market is to sell it to rich people.

“Cellphones, refrigerators, color TV’s, they
didn’t start off by making a low-end product for
masses,” he said. “They were relatively
expensive, for people who could afford it.” The
companies that sold those products at first, he
said, did so “not because they were stupid and
they thought the real market was at the high end
of the market,” but because that was how to get
production started. His company and others that
have tried electric cars, he said, are too small
to produce by the tens of thousands anyway.

The company will start taking orders on Wednesday
and hopes to begin deliveries in the middle of
next year, he said. It hopes to sell 4,000 to
5,000 over three years and then move on to a larger, more mainstream vehicle.

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

This roundup devotes most of its attention to
that endlessly intriguing and frustrating
question: how and when can individuals get PHEVs?
(We keep a short summary of the options updated
at <http://www.calcars.org/howtoget.html>).
Interestingly, MSN asks its readers to rate
articles, and about 12 hours after being posted,
at 4.08 out of 5, this article is #1 on the list
at
<http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Commentary/ByRating/TopRated.aspx>.
(Though as a new entry, it has only 294 users
compared to 6,782 for the next-highest story at
3.51 of 5. The site takes the elementary
anti-ballot-box stuffing step of preventing any
individual from voting twice.) News and Op-Eds on
PHEVs and CalCars have been among the "most
emailed" repeatedly at The New York Times.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveonaCar/The100mpgCarIsComi\
ng.aspx
MSN Money July 19, 2006
The 100-mpg car is coming

In fact, for some shade-tree mechanics, it's
already here. But now big automakers have
announced plans to soup up their hybrids, too.

Toyota said Tuesday said it would offer a
gasoline-electric hybrid with bigger batteries
that could be recharged at any outlet, further
stretching the gasoline the car uses. Though
production is years away, experimental models
built by independent mechanics have already demonstrated 100 mpg results.

"Make no mistake about it, hybrids are the
technology of the future, and they will play a
starring role in the automotive industry in the
21st century," Jim Press, president of Toyota's
North American subsidiary, told the National Press Club.

Even though the addition of bigger trucks and
sport-utilities has brought its corporate average
fuel economy down from 26 mpg in 1987 to 24 mpg
today, according to EPA figures released this
week, Toyota is the undisputed leader in hybrid
technology. Press said Toyota has "sold more U.S.
hybrids so far this year than Cadillac, Buick or Mercedes-Benz has sold cars."

The company's Prius model is the best-selling
hybrid model in the U.S., with 73% of the small
but rapidly growing market it shares with Honda
and Ford. Daimler-Chrysler and GM are
experimenting with plug-in hybrids as well. But
in this case, all are merely following the lead
of dozens of backyard tinkerers.
Available now, if you do it yourself
Though the 100 mpg car sounds like a myth, it
turns out that such vehicles do exist -- only
they're built in your neighbor's garage, not a giant production plant.

Known as plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (aka
PHEVs, or grid-connected hybrids), they’re
basically Priuses or similar hybrids that have
been equipped with extra batteries so that they
rarely use their gasoline engines at all. They
get plugged into a wall socket at day's end.

Here's the rub, though: Transforming your Prius
or other hybrid into one of these gas-sipping
wonders is no simple feat. Nor is it cheap. And
buying a brand-new plug-in off a showroom floor? Impossible, at least for now.

"People are salivating for plug-ins," says
Bradley Berman, editor of the site
HybridCars.com. "Once you start driving a hybrid
-- and now we’re only about a year and a half
from having a million hybrids on U.S. roads --
and you start realizing all of the benefits, and
start to experience the silence of the
all-electric mode. … You want to extend that. And
that’s what plug-ins represent."

How it works
A hybrid vehicle today like a Prius has both a
gasoline engine and a battery, which is fed by
the braking energy produced by the car. The car
doesn’t get plugged in -- in fact, it can’t be plugged in.

A plug-in hybrid keeps those components, but
essentially gets an extra fuel tank, in the form
of an added battery bank (plus some changes to
accommodate it.) that allows the car to run
exclusively off battery power for most driving.
We’re not talking big distances gained here -- a
range of up to about 30 miles at slower, city
speeds, depending on the batteries used. That may
not sound like much. But "there have been
numerous studies that peg the average American
driver’s daily vehicle use at between 25 and 30
miles," says Pete Nortman, president of EnergyCS,
one of just a few companies that’s at work on plug-in conversion kits.

A plug-in hybrid doesn’t sloooow down when its
charge runs low. (That wouldn’t be a very useful
car, would it?) Instead, the vehicle simply slips
into its hybrid mode, using both gasoline and
electricity. And it does all of this automatically; the driver never notices.

The benefits of a plug-in
Felix Kramer, founder of the California Cars
Initiative, a nonprofit group that promotes the
use of high-efficiency, low-emission cars, owns
the first consumer plug-in in North America – a
Prius equipped with high-end, lithium-ion batteries.

Not surprisingly, he loves it. "Many days I use
no gasoline, because I go at neighborhood speeds
for under 30 miles, and I’m just all-electric all
day," he says. "And that means it’s quiet.

"I resent when the gasoline engine comes on,"
Kramer adds. At speeds over 34 mph in the Toyota,
the gasoline engine kicks in. Even so, "At 55
mph, 60% to 70% of the power can come from
electricity," he says, so the machine is still saving gas.

And the mileage? "At highway speeds, you can
easily get over 100 mpg, plus electricity." Other
plug-in owners offer up similar results.

"I used to fill up every 400 miles or so," he
says of life with a regular Prius, "and now I
fill up every 800 miles or so." His car is
emblazoned with the words "100+MPG." "I have a
lot of conversations at the gas station," he says.

Since they’re usually plugged in at night, when
electricity rates are lowest, advocates estimate
that it costs less than $1 per gallon to
replenish a plug-in hybrid. If gasoline costs $3
a gallon, driving most gasoline cars costs
roughly 8 to 20 cents per mile, CalCars
estimates. The cost of a plug-in hybrid for local
travel and commuting drops to 2 to 4 cents per mile, the group says.

And as for pollution, proponents of plug-ins also
say that even with a national power grid that’s
fueled in great part by coal, plug-ins are still
better for the environment than straight gasoline cars.

The downsides
Intrigued? You should also know that there are some drawbacks right now, too.

1. First, you’ve got to buy a hybrid.
Transforming your old TransAm isn’t an option.
You’ll pay a premium for hybrid technology, of
course, and there are sometimes waiting lists for
cars like the Prius and Camry Hybrid. (A Prius is the main conversion car.)

2. Then you’ve got to violate the warranty. "In
order to get a plug-in now you have to basically
void your warranty," says HybridCar.com’s Berman.
Manufacturers say plug-in modifications nullify
the powertrain warranty, so owners take a considerable risk.

3. The conversion isn't cheap. It costs anywhere
from about $3,000 to around $12,000 to convert a vehicle.

4. And you’ve got to do it yourself. With the
considerable attention plug-ins are getting, it’s
easy to forget that there are only about two
dozen now in use. "There are plenty of plain
ordinary citizens wanting to do it; there’s no
one to do it for them, yet," says Steven Lough,
president of the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association.

Want to be first on your block?
If you want to be first on your block to boast a
PHEV, it will take some perseverance, patience and some coin. Your options:

The Option: Toronto-based Hymotion, is the
for-profit operation that’s closest to bringing a
"conversion kit" to market. The kit, whose main
component is a 150-pound, 16-inch-by-33-inch box
of lithium-ion batteries that fits in place of
the spare tire, will be able to be fitted to
either a Prius or a Ford Escape Hybrid in less
than two hours, says co-founder and President
Ricardo Bazzarella. The company is working on
converter kits for other hybrids, too.

Hymotion says its users will be able to drive 30
miles in full electric mode if they are driving
under 50mph. The vehicle simply reverts to its
hybrid properties when that charge expires, says Bazzarella.

When Available: "We’re shipping product right now
to fleets," says Bazzarella. "We’re shooting for
October" to have something available for consumer
use, he says. "There are a lot of people who have
already put their names on the list," Bazzarella
adds. "When gas prices get high, people call."

Cost: The company’s goal is to get the product to
$9,500, installed, for the consumer.

The Option: Keep an eye on a Monrovia, Calif.’s
EnergyCS and its offshoot, EDrive Systems, The
technology is similar to Hymotion’s, a
lithium-ion battery pack that boosts the range of
existing hybrids. President Pete Nortman says the
product could deliver about 30 miles of
all-electric driving at low, around-town speeds.
"It’s a commuter vehicle," he says. And even if a
driver exceeds the speed that electricity can
supply on its own, the booster battery is always
helping, so "No matter how fast you’re going,
it’s always working to use the least amount of
energy to go a mile." If driven carefully, a
vehicle could get far beyond 100 mpg.

When Available: The company had hoped to have
something available this year, but has since
backed off on an exact date. "We are doing a lot
of testing at this point and evaluation both on
the battery side and with our prototype test
fleet, which is 10 vehicles" in use by agencies
such as California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District, says Nortman.

Cost: Right now, the conversion would cost about
$12,000. "The battery is by far the large cost
driver," says Nortman. "Battery costs will go
down significantly with increasing volumes."

"At $3 a gallon you’re not going to pay for the
cost of the battery in your car’s lifetime,"
Nortman concedes. "But it’s a different-feeling
car," he adds of the "stealth{" electric ride.
"It’s a choice for the earliest adopters, people
who aren’t going to wait five to 10 years for an
(automaker) to do something, but they want to
make a statement today, and they want to start making a difference now."

The Option: Feeling handy? You could tackle a
do-it-yourself conversion – with a little help
from your friends at your local electric automobile club.

"If you’re technically minded and familiar with
high-voltage systems and not worried about the
warranty being voided, then you should be
perfectly capable of doing a conversion
yourself," says Ryan Fulcher, a 30-year-old,
self-described "high-tech hippie" from Federal
Way, Wash., who as of this spring is proud owner
of a plug-in Prius. "We’re all using off-the-shelf components."

CalCars founder Kramer adds, "Any Prius owner who
has no technical knowledge needs to hook up with
an engineer or electrician comfortable working
with high voltage. Between the two of them they
should be able to do this in a vacation week."

"Our do-it-yourself, open-source style is still in development," Kramer adds.

Those interested in tackling this pretty in-depth
challenge should hook up with the Electric Auto
Association, which has chapters in more than a dozen states and in Canada.

When Available: Available now, sort of.
Components are available, and the knowhow -- but,
curiously, almost no one is actually doing it.

Cost: For about $3,000, says Fulcher, owners who
put in their own labor can install lead-acid
batteries that give a car about a 10-mile
electric-only charge, before the car’s hybrid
power takes over. Plug-in owner Fulcher is
experimenting with a high-powered battery charger
from a small company that can give those
quick-draining batteries a full recharge from a
wall outlet in about 30 minutes.

"Our goal is to have a $3,000 kit," CalCars'
Kramer says. (That number, coincidentally, is
also what many plug-in evangelists think that the
technology would cost for Toyota to add to its hybrids.)

Christopher Solomon is a free-lance writer in
Seattle. A former reporter for The Seattle Times,
he writes regularly for The New York Times, and
has written for Outside magazine, Ski and Skiing
magazines and Men's Journal. His work will appear
in 2006 Best American Travel Writing.

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

If you're live or know anyone who lives near Madison you or they may
consider going to this unique, first-ever event. The news article
that follows has errors about Hymotion cars (they come installed, not
as kits), but otherwise has interesting info. (CalCars was invited
but didn't have the travel budget for it.) For more about the event
see <http://www.hybridfest.org>.

<http://www.madison.com/tct/business/index.php?ntid=91785&ntpid=0>
Beyond oil: Festival touts alternative fuel vehicles
By Jeff Richgels

Bill Robbins didn't buy a hybrid Toyota Prius to save money.

"I wanted a car that polluted less, and by the way I saved in gas,"
said Robbins said, who bought a 2004 Prius in October 2003. "But was
it going to pay for itself? That's not why I bought it."

For hybrids ever to break beyond "do-gooders" like Robbins and into
the mainstream of car buyers, the cost/benefit formula needs to
change so it makes sense economically to buy a hybrid, he believes.

That means either drastically cutting the thousands of dollars extra
a hybrid costs over a comparable regular model or drastically
increasing the savings of owning one - something soaring gas prices
are doing and tax incentives can help with.

"They need to make cheaper, more efficient hybrids," Robbins said.

The thousands of people expected to attend Saturday's inaugural
Hybridfest - the nation's first major hybrid car show - at the
Alliant Energy Center will get a chance to see the "plug-in"
technology Robbins believes may be an answer.

Enterprising "backyard" mechanics have turned hybrid Toyota Prius
sedans into plug-in Prius models by adding extra batteries and other
electronics so that they can travel up to about 40 miles a day solely
on electric power, enabling those who don't drive much to all but
forget filling up their gas tank. (Non plug-in hybrids charge while
the car is decelerating and at a stop.)

"For a really long-term solution we'll get off of gasoline all
together" with technologies like hydrogen, said Robbins, a member of
the Madison Hybrid Group that organized Hybridfest. "But for the
near-term, the next best solution I think is the plug-in hybrid."

At least two companies are developing plug-in kits and one - Hymotion
of Canada - will be at Hybridfest with a couple of plug-in vehicles.

"They say they are going to start selling packages to people to
upgrade their Prius'," Robbins said.

However, when they become available most people will need to pay a
mechanic to do the work, he added.

"It's never going to be mainstream until the manufacturers are
building plug-in hybrids and they have really engineered the car from
the ground up as a plug-in," Robbins said.

John Dolan, a salesman at Smart Toyota of Madison who specializes in
hybrids, is "really looking forward" to seeing the Hymotion plug-ins.

"The problem is it costs $10,000 to $12,000 to convert to plug-in,"
Dolan said. "And adding the heavy hardware slows down performance."

Toyota long resisted the plug-in technology, warning that it voided
the vehicle's warranty, but this week the automaker announced plans
to develop a plug-in hybrid, although it gave no timeline.

The plug-in being pursued by Toyota would be able to "travel greater
distances without using its gas engine, it will conserve more oil and
slice smog and greenhouse gases to nearly imperceptible levels," Jim
Press, president of Toyota's North American subsidiary, said Tuesday
in a speech at the National Press Club.

Plug-ins do draw power from power plants, but that results in less
greenhouse gas emissions than direct burning of gasoline. And since
the charging typically is done at night when power demand is well
below day-time peaks, a big jump in plug-in use wouldn't mean a need
for new power plants.

Press said Toyota's hybrid technology has long-term staying power
because it can adapt to several alternatives, such as clean diesels,
biodiesels, ethanol, plug-in hybrids or hydrogen fuel cells.

According to the Electric Power Research Institute, half the cars in
the U.S. are driven just 25 miles a day or less.

"A plug-in vehicle with even a 20-mile range could reduce petroleum
fuel consumption by about 60 percent," said Bob Graham, manager of
EPRI's Electric Transmission program.

Dolan believes hybrids can become mainstream when they reach 10 to 40
miles a day of electric use only.

That may be achievable with improved batteries alone, he added,
noting that lithium ion batteries are in development that will be
superior to and replace the current NiMH batteries used in hybrids.
Dolan said Toyota is aiming to come out with an all-new hybrid design
featuring lithium ion batteries in 2008.

But, cautions Dolan, "There is no silver bullet. Toyota is working on
a variety of hybrids, trying to make them smaller, lighter and
cheaper ... trying to find the way that works the best until some day
hydrogen gets worked out."

The Prius, which doesn't come in a gas-only version, has been the
best-selling hybrid since it went on sale in 2000, and became the
first hybrid to top 100,000 annual sales in 2005.

Hybridfest will feature more than 100 hybrid cars with participants
registered from more than 20 states and Canada, Robbins said. Details
are available at www.hybridfest.com for the event that runs in
conjunction with the Dane County Fair from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday.
Parking and admission are free.

Test drives will be available, hybrid owners will be on hand to talk
about what it's really like to drive a hybrid, and there will be
speakers talking on a variety of topics.

Dolan said Toyota also is sending a "real expensive" exhibit piece -
a cross-section of a Toyota Highlander hybrid cut in half showing how
its hybrid synergy drive works.

The hybrid vehicles that will be on display include the Saturn VUE
Green Line that hasn't hit the market yet and the new Toyota Camry,
which Dolan said has been proving extremely popular since they
started arriving at Smart in mid-May. The regular Camry has been the
best-selling passenger car in the U.S. for eight of the last nine years.

Smart has sold about 10 hybrid Camrys and has about 45 people on the
waiting list, which requires a $500 fee, Dolan said.

Those folks may wait quite a while since the Kentucky plant that will
produce half of the 100,000 hybrid Camrys a year isn't scheduled to
open until October, leaving just a plant in Japan producing the cars.

"We're only going to be getting maybe five a month until things crank
up," he said.

The hybrid Camry essentially provides the power of a 6-cylinder
engine with the mileage of a 4-cylinder.

Dolan said the hybrid Camry he drove got about 40 miles per gallon in
the city and 34 to 35 on the highway. A regular V6 Camry is rated at
31 highway and 22 city.

Hybrid Camrys don't come in "stripped-down" versions. The MSRP on the
hybrid Camry with the fewest features is $26,400, Dolan said. A
similarly equipped regular V6 Camry LE is $25,900. Fully loaded
versions of each are about $30,000, Dolan said.

"We find a lot of people who are buying these cars aren't necessarily
just people who want fuel savings - they're also what we call
principle buyers" motivated by reducing pollution and America's
dependence on foreign oil, Dolan said. "But I am selling more to
people who are just looking for better mileage. They're tried of
paying for the gas."

That is backed up by a recent Autobytel poll that found that while
only 35 percent of car shoppers said their current vehicle gets at
least 25 mpg, 71 percent said their next vehicle must get at least 25
mpg, and 43 percent said it must get better than 30 mpg.

E-mail: jrichgels@...

Caption: John Dolan of Smart Motors says the west side Madison
dealership has sold about 10 hybrid Toyota Camrys (front) and has
about 45 people on a waiting list. The Toyota Prius (rear) will also
be on display at this weekend's Hybridfest.

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

This is the text of my posting at the CalCars Blog, "HybridCars
Power, Plugs and People"
<http://www.calcars.org/power/victory-or-tipping> -- if you read it
there you can add your comments and see what others are saying about
this and previous postings.

Those who've been along for the plug-in hybrid ride for a year or
three can best appreciate how far we've come in 2006. To see
appreciative senators and representatives passing along "the
infrastructure" (the "dongle" or charging cable) as if it were a
sacred object, giving their thumbs up as they rode in our PHEVs
<http://www.calcars.org/phevs-in-dc.html>, to read about the mayors
of America's biggest cities joining Plug-In Partners, and to watch
the President say "you plug it right in the wall"
<http://www.calcars.org/audio-video/bush-phevs-20feb06.html>, all
have been unparalleled experiences. To see so many print and
broadcast stories <http://www.calcars.org/news.html> that it's no
longer possible even to list them is an incredible advance from a
time when almost no-one had heard of PHEVs. To hear news about PHEV
trucks, buses, motorcycles and garbage trucks, after-market
conversion companies getting closer to delivering cars, and a
do-it-yourself solution nearing completion, are all most encouraging.
And for me personally, to say, "I drive a PHEV every day" still feels
like a miracle.

Then within two months to hear Bill Ford Jr. tell shareholders "we're
keenly looking" at PHEVs, to see reports that General Motors will
build a PHEV, and to hear Toyota's top US executive say, "We are
pursuing a 'plug-in' hybrid vehicle...conserving more oil and slicing
smog and greenhouse gases to nearly imperceptible levels," have all
been cause for high-fives and festivities. (Look back at What
Car-Makers say -- http://www.calcars.org/carmakers.html -- to
appreciate how much they've evolved.)

All the individuals and groups who've been working on PHEVs -- see
our CalCars Partners list <http://www.calcars.org/partners.html> --
can recognize that our combined efforts over the years have
established new channels of influence and changed the game.

Now we're starting to hear suggestions that "this is going to happen
no matter what." So -- have we succeeded? Can we move on to other
challenges? By no means! Assuredly, we've reached a turning point.
But if we stop making waves, we might end up with no more than dozens
or hundreds of PHEV prototypes from car-makers in the next five years
-- followed by a few years of evaluations and consideration. Or maybe
not even that, since no car-maker has presented a timetable.

Everything can change overnight. Ford just backed off its entire
hybrid program, suggesting that hybrids may be a flash in the pan.
Carlos Ghosn, who may gain influence at GM, is a hybrid skeptic. With
Toyota, we need to parse the meaning of "pursuing." We have no done
deal. And as more and more people realize the impact of literally
every month of delay in cutting greenhouse gases and oil consumption,
we have no choice but to keep up the pressure. We absolutely need
car-makers to start producing mini-fleet PHEV extensions of their
hybrid lines for institutional customers and early adopters ASAP.

Unavoidably, we have to make a pitch for CalCars.org. We have plans
for several extraordinary campaigns to further broaden awareness and
support, and demonstrate market demand. We have technology projects
that will expand the envelope of what is possible and realistic. And
we have ambitious ideas about starting a company that could dazzle
the world with Andy Frank's best ideas. But we honestly don't know
when we'll launch any of these. (We can't even respond to much of the
email we get.) We're only three full-time people -- though we do have
part-time volunteers, dozens of advisors, and thousands of
supporters. This spring we experienced how hard it was to raise
$25,000 from over 3,000 grass-roots supporters  who obviously don't
have extra dollars to spare even for a compelling specific goal
(bringing PHEVs to Washington). Thanks to those of you have been able
to provide help -- if you haven't yet, or want to do more, Sponsor
CalCars <http://www.calcars.org/sponsor.html> will take your credit
card or PayPal donation 24/7.

As a practical matter, we're energetically looking for "angels" --
people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere comfortable enough not to have
to worry about making a living, who can afford substantial
tax-deductible contributions. And for the first time, we're looking
for potential six- to seven-figure investors -- from people motivated
not so much by wanting to get even richer, but by seeing the value of
placing a promising bet that will increase the security of all of the
globe's assets. So keep spreading the word; look through your address
books and pass along the pitch. -- Thanks, Felix


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

Plug-In Bay Area has just been formed, with a Coordinator staff
position sponsored by Rainforest Action Network. Think of this as a
local complement to Plug-In Partners, the national campaign promoting
soft buy orders for fleets from utilities, government agencies and
private companies. Last week, the City of Alameda endorsed Plug-In
Partners; San Francisco's Board of Supervisors did so in February;
others will follow.

The group is launching with a public event. Feel free to pass along
the the announcement:

Join a diverse group of clean energy advocates for the official
kick-off of Plug-In Bay Area, the new "drive" to bring 100+ mpg
vehicles to the Bay Area. Several of the world's foremost plug-in
hybrid electric vehicle experts will share their insights on these
gasoline-optional cars and discuss the status of plug-in hybrid
production. The presentation will also include technical and policy
updates and address ways that the public, state and local agencies,
and governments can help bring this new and cleaner technology to
market. Demonstrations of groundbreaking plug-in hybrid vehicles will
be available.

WHAT: A Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Public Forum
One hour of educational and inspiring presentations by plug-in
electric vehicle experts, followed by Q&A, vehicle viewing and refreshments!

WHERE:  Pacific Energy Center, 851 Howard Street (between 4th and
5th), San Francisco, CA

WHEN : August 2, 4:00 p.m.

WHO: Sponsored by Rainforest Action Network, Bluewater Network, PG&E,
CalCars, Plug In America and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District

MASTER OF CEREMONIES: Jack Broadbent, Bay Area Air Quality Management District

SPEAKERS:
Terry Tamminen, Special Assistant to the Governor on the Environment
Roger Duncan, Plug-In Partners
Felix Kramer, CalCars.org
Bob Graham, Electric Power Research Institute
Frances Dahlquist, PG&E

Please circulate this announcement
RSVP to Jodie Van Horn, jodie@..., Plug-In Bay Area Coordinator





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

CNN's headline is "Plug-in hybrids: Not ready for primetime." That's
the kind of thing you hear just before they are.
I'm cautioning people that celebrations are premature -- we have a
long way to go between today's early expressions of interest from
car-makers and getting vehicles on the road. But this story quoting
Ford's Mike Tamor, like the one where Cindy Knight is quoted with a
price tag of $10,000 compared to our estimate of $3,000 for Toyota in
Volume (see <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/407.html>, means
we're now talking mainly about "how much," not about "yes or no".

By the way, thanks to Michael Bender, we've now added dates and live
URLs to our extensive chronology of quotations about car-makers
evolving views at <http://www.calars.org/carmakers.html>.

Before we get to the CNN story, her's a quick excerpt from today's
Wall St. Journal story,
The Electric Car Gets Some Muscle
Latest Models Go Faster, Farther on a Single Charge; Sticker Prices
Up to $110,000
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115386418450617046.html>
By Jennifer Sarnow July 27, 2006; Page D1
Indeed, major car makers are also starting to take another look at
battery-powered electric vehicles. While GM says it is focused
primarily on developing production vehicles that are powered by
electricity generated by hydrogen fuel cells, it is testing new
battery technology like lithium-ion batteries to see if it can find a
way to get a range of roughly 300 miles per charge or use them in
other ways such as for hybrids, according to a GM spokesman. Toyota
announced last week that it is developing a plug-in hybrid. The
batteries in such a hybrid model could be recharged at an outlet to
allow the vehicle to go a certain number of miles before needing to
switch over to the gasoline engine.

<http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/26/autos/plugin_hybrids/>
Plug-in hybrids: Not ready for primetime
Making an affordable hybrid car that can be charged from an outlet
isn't as easy as just adding cord.
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com staff writer
July 27 2006: 12:58 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As car buyers search for more
fuel-efficient alternatives, interest in plug-in hybrids is increasing.

Ordinary hybrids, like the Toyota Prius, use power from the vehicle's
gasoline engine to charge batteries that in turn power electric
motors. When these hybrids were first introduced, people had a hard
time understanding that they did not need to be plugged in to get
needed electricity.

Plug-in hybrids, however, can get their power from the same outlet
that charges your cell phone or electric razor. That option greatly
reduces reliance on gasoline.

And a plug-in hybrid could drive on pure electric power for many
miles before the gasoline engine would even need to turn on, offering
the benefit of an electric car without the downside of limited range,
promotors say.

Some like to say that plug-in hybrids can get up to 100 miles per
gallon of gas -- though such estimates depend on how far you drive
before recharging the battery. At any rate, fuel economy would be
significantly improved even over an ordinary hybrid vehicle.

Toyota Motor Co. recently announced that the company was working on
plug-in hybrids. CNNMoney.com recently reported that General Motors
is also working on the technology, although the company now says it
cannot confirm that report. A recent story in Business 2.0 reported
on two small companies that are planning to sell kits to convert
Toyota Priuses and Ford Escape Hybrids into plug-in hybrids.

The challenges

It sounds simple. Just take a hybrid car and add a plug. So why are
car companies still "working on it?"

Batteries: The biggest challenge is the battery. The batteries now
used in hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape Hybrid
aren't actually very good at storing electricity. They don't need to
be because they are constantly being recharged.

Those batteries are ideally suited for holding electricity for short
periods of time. They are never fully charged or fully discharged. In
that way, hybrid vehicles currently on the market are engineered to
have a long, easy life. Hybrid Escapes and Priuses in fleet use have
gone hundreds of thousands of miles without their batteries ever
giving out, spokesmen for Ford and Toyota have told CNNMoney.com.

To be really useful, plug-ins would need a different kind of battery,
one that could swallow a lot of electricity and hold it for later
use. But that kind of use tends to significantly shorten a battery's life.

Expectations: Consumers will also need to be educated about how the
vehicles will work. Many seem to think that a plug-in hybrid will
operate just like an all-electric vehicle for many miles until
battery power runs down. Only then will the gasoline engine begin to run.

"The way the hybrid systems are designed they really don't have
enough electric drive power to do that," said Mike Tamor, executive
for hybrid and fuel cell research at Ford Motor Co. "Not by a long shot"

To make a vehicle capable of that would increase costs to the point
where the vehicle would make little economic sense, said Terry
Penney, manager for vehicle technologies at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory.

"Then you basically have to design two powertrains," he said. "That's
just silly."

Instead, plug-ins will run on electric power up to a certain speed -
say, fast enough to drive on level suburban roads - but the gasoline
engine will still kick in when speeds get higher. However, fuel
economy will still be greatly increased because the gasoline engine
will be freed from having to charge the battery.

Cost: Currently, the cost difference between a hybrid vehicle and an
identical non-hybrid version is about $3,000 to $5,000. The cost
difference for a plug-in hybrid could be twice that, experts say,
mostly because of the larger, costlier batteries. (Tamor, of Ford
Motor Co., called that estimate "extremely optimistic" based on
current technology.)

Hymotion, a Canadian company that offers kits to retrofit Toyota and
Ford hybrid vehicles for plug-in use, currently charges about $12,000
for a kit. The company hopes to lower that price to half that much by
next year, said president Ricardo Bazzarelle.

Even then, that cost will come on top of the premium paid for the
hybrid system in the car itself, resulting in a total premium of about $10,000.

With current battery technology, consumers could also face the cost
of buying replacement batteries, something owners of current hybrid
vehicles will probably never have to deal with.

Hymotion currently guarantees its battery, which operates
independently from the battery already built into the vehicle, for
two years, according to its Website. The company says it may stretch
the warranty as more usage data comes in.
The road ahead

The two most difficult challenges facing researchers, for the time
being, will be battery cost and life span.

"They need to get a better handle on long term reliability with the
extreme charge and discharge cycles," Ron Cogan, editor of the
magazine Green Car Journal, said of battery researchers.

Ford would not sell a plug-in hybrid unless it could guarantee that
the battery would last as long as current hybrid batteries do, said
Tamor. He's confident that challenge can be met, though.

Batteries are used for all sorts of modern applications so there is
impetus to find breakthroughs from every quarter.

"We can't see that path clearly," said Cogan. "There's a lot of work
going on behind the scenes."

Batteries used for other applications, like laptop computers, could
be adapted in large numbers for use in cars, he said.

One likely future, said Cogan, will be that people can purchase
hybrid vehicles that are specifically tuned to economically meet
their personal driving needs.

For example a customer who drove only a few miles to work and back
most days would pay less and get a vehicle with a smaller battery
pack. Someone with a moderately long commute would pay more for
bigger batteries or might get a vehicle that never runs on "all
electric" mode but, instead, spreads the electric assist out over a
longer distance. That would result in less fuel savings, but much
lower cost for the vehicle since the batteries wouldn't need to be as big.

In the end, said Cogan, answers will likely come through more
research and through simple creativity.

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

The suspense is killing us. How shall we interpret "a little more
optimistic?" Coming from a new voice from Toyota, this is the first
mention that "we need some breakthroughs" rather than simply facing
cost impediments -- though battery lifetime is the intermediary
between those two concerns.

<http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060727/BUSINESS/607\
27025>
Louisville Courier-Journal - Louisville,KY,USA
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Toyota has new hope for hybrid batteries
By Robert Schoenberger

Toyota has had a change of heart about plug-in hybrids, said Dennis
Cuneo, senior vice president of the company's North American operations.

In March, Toyota engineers said the concept of a car that can be
recharged at home overnight and only use gasoline occasionally when
its batteries run low was interesting. But they said then that
high-tech batteries needed to make it work could take as long as 10
years to develop.

On Thursday, however, Cuneo said the automaker is now more hopeful
that the batteries could be ready soon. Speaking at the Kentucky
Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting at the Galt House, he said
Toyota believes it could have a plug-in hybrid on the road much sooner.

"We're a little more optimistic now of breakthroughs that would make
(lithium-ion batteries) viable in the near term," Cuneo said. "We're
working on this, and a lot of other companies are tackling this problem."

Today's hybrids use batteries made from nickel, but those are too
heavy to be practical in a vehicle that would derive most of its
power from electricity, Toyota executive engineer Dave Hermance said
earlier this year. Lithium-ion batteries are the likely successor,
but so far, reliable ones have not been available in the sizes needed.

In March, Hermance said lithium-ion technology could be as many as 10
years away.

Cuneo said much work still needs to be done on the technology, but as
gas prices have increased, more people have taken interest in
possible fuel-saving technologies.

"We need some breakthroughs, no question about that," Cuneo said.
"But if you look at the progress we've made with our regular hybrids,
it's clear that we can face these challenges."

Toyota, which builds Camrys at its plant in Georgetown, Ky., will
begin production of a hybrid version of the sedan there in October.
The Japanese automaker has its North American manufacturing
headquarters in Erlanger, Ky.

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

This is in part a roundup of old info, with the following news:
President again promotes PHEVs, DaimlerChrysler says they've now
built 40 Sprinter PHEVs; Argonne Labs says in 18 months they'll know
how far away batteries are, and Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight says,
"Obviously, the plug-in has captured the public's imagination." The
more stories run in Detroit media, of course, the better.

<http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060727/UPDATE/607270448>
President calls for more hybrid research
David Shepardson / The Detroit News
Thursday, July 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The United States is making good progress on plug-in
hybrid battery technology that would allow drivers to travel 40 miles
without using any gasoline, President Bush said today.

"We're working on battery technologies," Bush said in Washington at a
speech to the National Association of Manufacturers. "They say we're
pretty close to a breakthrough in a battery where you can drive the
first 40 miles on a battery, and your car doesn't look like a golf cart."

But don't get the checkbook out to buy that plug-in hybrid yet. The
big unknowns are cost and battery life.

Plug-in hybrids are gas-electric vehicles that recharge their
batteries with an extension cord and a normal wall outlet when
parked, and through a regenerative brake system while on the road.
Such a vehicle travels farther without gasoline because it has a
fully charged battery pack every morning.

Experts and auto manufacturers say getting those vehicles to the
driveway is likely a long way off -- and no vehicle on the market can
go nearly that far on battery power alone, despite 15 years of
government-funded battery research.

Toyota Motor Corp. which announced in June it was conducting
significant research into plug-in technology, said current hybrid
batteries can't be modified to function as plug-ins.

"The battery technology to achieve the goals (of a plug-in) is
several years away," Dave Hermance, Toyota's executive engineer for
advanced vehicle technology, said in May.

There has been some speculation that Toyota's 2009 Prius might be
made as a plug-in hybrid. Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight said the
company wasn't ready to make any announcements about that vehicle.

"Obviously, the plug-in has captured the public's imagination,"
Knight said. "Our engineers are optimistic that there's a normal
development curve and with advanced battery technology we will be
able to get there."

Some people have modified current hybrids into plug-ins and some
companies are selling conversion kits -- a move not endorsed by the
manufacturers. Converting a current hybrid to a plug-in puts
significant strain on a current Toyota Prius or Ford Escape's nickel
metal hydride batteries.

The federal government has been funding battery research since 1991
through the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium.

Michael Duoba, research engineer at the Department of Energy's
Argonne National Laboratory, said the first move is getting lithium
ion batteries to be cheaper. He noted that cell phones batteries have
moved from nickel metal to lithium ion.

"All of the major technologies exist. The question is it cheap enough
and will it last," Duoba said.

The other part will be training drivers. "We've been trained to plug
in our cell phones at night. We'll have to learn to plug in our cars too."

While acknowledging that current hybrids cannot go 40 miles on
electricity alone, Duoba said, that distance is a significant
percentage of most people's daily driving in the United States.

Duoba said in a year to 18 months, researchers will have a better
idea of how long it will take to develop a plug-in hybrid.

Last year, the Department of Energy announced it was spending $195
million on battery research over five years through the FreedomCar
and Fuel Partnership program, a joint venture with the Big 3 and
major oil companies.

Each year, the government spends more than $300 million on advanced
automotive research through the FreedomCar program.

DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group is the only domestic manufacturer
that has a test plug-in hybrid on the road.

The automaker has built about 40 plug-in Dodge Sprinter vans that can
go up to 20 miles on a battery, spokesman Nick Cappa said. One is
going to the New York Times so they can use it to deliver newspapers,
for example.

"The data is not there yet to say how far the vehicles will be able
to travel. You don't want to make promises you can't keep," Cappa
said. The project's technology "could evolve into a different type of
a hybrid, like a two-mode system. We have a lot of different
technologies we're looking at."

Ford Motor Co. also is making new moves in the plug-in hybrid arena.

In May, California Cars Initiative said it was in talks with Ford
about plug-ins. The intiative plans to "rapidly build a small
prototype/demonstration fleet of plug-in hybrids using Ford's Escape
Hybrid as a platform."

"First customers for the conversions of several dozen SUVs would be
cities, utilities, CEOs, entrepreneurs and celebrities."

Ford said it supported the group's efforts. At the company's annual
meeting, CEO Bill Ford said the company was "keenly looking at" plug-ins.

The inventor of the plug-in hybrid works for California Cars
Initiative. University of California-Davis professor Andrew Frank in
the early 1990s replaced gasoline engines with electric motors and
dubbed them "plug-in hybrids."

On Thursday Bush also touted a technology even farther out: hydrogen
fuel cells.

"One of these days our children will be driving cars powered by
hydrogen. In other words, in order to make sure this country is
competitive, we've got to be spending money on technology now, on
research and development now, to change our habits."

You can reach David Shepardson at (202) 662 - 8735 or dshepardson@....

In, of all places, a story about Ryan Fulcher,
the Seattle-based owner of CalCars' 3rd converted
car (congratulations to him and Danika), a
reporter decided to ask a spokesperson for the
oil industry about PHEVs -- and got a somewhat positive response!

On very little gas, plug-in hybrid gets couple around
Quad-Cities Online - Rock Island,IL,USA
Print publication date: July 30, 2006
By Stephen Elliott, selliott@...
<http://qconline.com/archives/qco/sections.cgi?prcss=display&id=299047>

CAPTION: Ryan Fulcher, formerly of Geneseo,
displays his Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle that
gets more than 100 miles per gallon.
[At URL, see More photos of car and batteries]

GENESEO — Ryan Fulcher and his fiancee, Danika
Minder, came home to Geneseo this week, bringing
with them new technology and a chance for a better way of life.

The Seattle residents and Geneseo natives watch
gas prices soar more than $3 per gallon,
political unrest rocks oil-rich countries, and
environmental issues such as global warming grab headlines.

Their message is simple and aptly stated on their
car bumper -- "This Plug-In Hybrid Gets 100 plus MPG."

Their mode of transportation is the Toyota Prius,
originally a hybrid car, now a modified plug-in hybrid.

Standard hybrids are primarily powered by
gasoline engines. An electric motor kicks in
while the car is idling, backing up, moving in
slow traffic or after the gas engine has provided the power for acceleration.

While efficient, standard hybrids are still 100 percent gas-fueled.

A plug-in hybrid is more of an electric vehicle
with a gas tank for a backup, said CalCars
spokesman John Davi. Its batteries have to be charged each night after use.

CalCars, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is a
nonprofit group of entrepreneurs, engineers and
environmentalists. The small group built the
first plug-in Prius in 2004 and is working on others.

Mr. Fulcher's plug-in is one of maybe 10 such
vehicles in the world, Mr. Davi said. His Prius
was converted in April by CalCar volunteers at a
"Maker Faire" in San Mateo, Calif.

"CalCars converted Ryan's car over a weekend in
public to show that a bunch of backyard engineers
could do this in a couple of days," Mr. Davi
said. "Why can't Ford and GM do this?"

Mr. Fulcher has done some additional work on his
plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, also known as a
PHEV. He thinks there is a future for these
vehicles and the technology is already available.
Mr. Fulcher made the 2,000-mile drive from
Seattle to Geneseo this week in his Prius.

While running on electricity, the vehicle is
quiet and has no exhaust, Mr. Fulcher said. While
showing the expanded battery pack in a storage
container underneath the trunk, he said the only
real maintenance is a drop cord used to plug into
a 120-volt outlet each night at home.

Mr. Davi said the PHEV's are made for daily commutes.

He said on a 20- to 40-mile drive, the car might
not use a drop of gas. But, if it goes beyond
that, it simply becomes a regular efficient hybrid, using the gas engine.

"It doesn't really perform as well on the long drives," Mr. Davi said.

Getting 50 mpg on long drives isn't such a bad
thing for Mr. Fulcher, but 100 mpg is even better
on the shorter distances. He simply plugs it in
at night to recharge his vehicle.

Mr. Fulcher said it cost him about $3,000 to put
in the additional batteries to convert the care into a PHEV.

But, he said if major automakers put a program in
place, it could lead to more demand and lower costs.

John Felmy, chief economist for the American
Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C., said
there are too many unknowns regarding plug-in
hybrids. While he represents the oil and gas
industries, Mr. Felmy said there will likely be
more alternatives to gas-fueled vehicles in the future.

High gas prices and environmental concerns are a few reasons.

"There are a bunch of reasons," Mr. Felmy said.
"These are new things where people want to be environmentally conscious.

"With improvements in technology, they'll
continue to grow. The Japanese have an incredible
lead in auto technology to produce them.

"It's very expensive (now). You have to see the
long-term performance. Battery technology is
still the linchpin for those vehicles. It has
never improved to make it viable."

Mr. Davi, from CalCars, envisions a combination
of new technology and alternative fuels powering cars in the future.

"We want to put pressure on automakers to make
these cars," Mr. Davi said. "After two months,
we've had announcements from GM and Toyota that they're working on them.

"The question is when will they be available for sale."

Until then, Mr. Fulcher and Ms. Minder will drive
back home with their PHEV to Seattle after their
Aug. 5 wedding. They hope for a bright future
here on earth -- for both couple and car.

Plug-in hybrid

A plug-in hybrid (PHEV) is a modified hybrid
vehicle that runs on both gasoline and
electricity, but when charged is primarily an
electric car with a gas-powered engine for backup.

— PHEVs are charged using 120-volt current.

— PHEVs, using both electricity and gasoline, get
as much as 100 miles per gallon, with an equivalent cost of $1 a gallon.

— On commutes, PHEVs run primarily on
electricity. Longer drives require gasoline.

Source: CalCars - The California Cars Initiative

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

The X-Prize, best known for the competition won
by Spaceship One/Burt Rutan, has just unveiled
its website for its Automotive prize, aimed at
high-efficiency, low-emissions cars. The X-Prize
is still developing rules and plans for its
competition. See the site at
<http://auto.xprize.org>; the blog (with a first
posting that may be controversial) at:
<http://autoblog.xprize.org>, and a White Paper
plus the full survey from which we've reproduced
the introduction summary at <http://auto.xprize.org/xprize/why.html>

June 27, 2006 Public Sees Big Gains from High
Mileage Cars, but does not Expect them on the Market Soon

Despite a belief that high-mileage cars would
bring major benefits, most Americans doubt such
cars will be available soon, according to a new
survey. Only 13 percent believe carmakers will be
selling 100 mile-per-gallon cars in the U.S.
within the next five years; only 37 percent
believe this will happen within the next 10
years. On average, the public believes it will
take over 25 years to reach this goal.

The public believes the main obstacle to the
availability of such cars is that automakers and
oil companies are blocking the technology from
coming to market; over half the public, 52
percent, picks this as one of two main reasons.
The next most selected reason – consumers don't
care enough about high-mileage cars to buy them –
lags far behind, selected by only 30 percent.

Even though the public doubts 100 mpg cars will
reach the U.S. market any time soon, an
over-whelming 81 percent say it would be
extremely or very important if some project could
make this happen in the next five years. Nearly
half the public, 46 percent, say it would be
“extremely” important. The main benefit the
public would expect from such high-mileage cars
is reduced U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cited
by 65 percent of all respondents as one of two
main benefits. They see reduced driving costs as
the next most important benefit (39 percent).
They are less inclined to focus on such benefits
as reduced air pollution (27 percent), combating
global warming (24 percent), helping to revive
the auto industry and its jobs (15 percent), or
cutting oil company profits (14 percent).

There are some significant differences across
types of respondents. For example, Democrats are
twice as likely as Republicans to say that a key
benefit of high-mileage cars would be a reduction
in global warming, picked by 31 percent of
Democrats but just 15 percent of Republicans.
Motorists who drive the most are more likely to
believe it will take longer for automakers to
offer high-mileage cars. Younger people are most
likely to cite reduced driving costs as a benefit of such cars.

But what is more remarkable is that the major
findings from this survey cut across virtually
every political and demographic sub-group. Not a
single major partisan or demographic sub-group
believes 100 mpg cars will be available in less
than 20 years. Every major sub-group believes the
main obstacle is auto and oil companies blocking
the technology. A super-majority of every major
sub-group believes it would be extremely or very
important to have high-mileage cars available in
the next five years. And every major sub-group
believes the main benefit would be less
dependence on foreign oil. Thus, there is a
strong consensus that there would be great
benefits to bringing 100 mpg cars to market in
the near future, but also that – under current
conditions – this is unlikely to happen.

The findings are based on a series of questions
added to an omnibus survey, based on telephone
interviews with 1,000 registered voters,
conducted June 4-7, 2006. The results are subject
to a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.1 percent.

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

So many people have said so many nice things about plug-in hybrids
this year that CalCars has spent 2006 in a perpetual blush. It seems
appropriate to also update our "Endorsements" page with the latest and
greatest. At http://www.calcars.org/endorsements.html you'll find
quotable quotes from the likes of:

George W. Bush
Hillary Clinton
Thomas Friedman
Bill Ford
Alan Greenspan
James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Space Institute
Orrin Hatch
Barack Obama
...and many more

We've also used this potpourri of public patronage to produce our
latest flyer, "Everybody Loves Plug-Ins" -- available in PDF format at
http://www.calcars.org/downloads.html (or via this direct link:
http://www.calcars.org/calcars-endorsements.pdf).

As long as we're on the subject of who said what, our "Car-Makers
Say..." page (http://www.calcars.org/carmakers.html) is tracking the
increasingly frequent appearance of automaker comments in the press.
The introduction to that page reads "How car-makers are responding to
the plug-in hybrid opportunity." We're closer than ever (though not
there yet) to changing it to "How car-makers are *taking advantage* of
the plug-in hybrid opportunity."

If you know of or have access to a quote we've missed for either
"Everybody Loves..." or "Car-Makers Say..." send 'er along to
info@....

John

Two big pieces of news from The Empire State:
* NYS is allocating $10M to convert 600
state-owned vehicles to PHEVs, leading to an
expanded program for individual owners.
* Toronto-based lithium battery maker Electrovaya
(ranked 13th in Profit Magazine's ranking of the
fastest-growing Canadian companies) will open a
facility in NYS, eventually with 75 employees.
Excerpts from the Governor's press release, then
Associated Press and Albany Business Review stories

http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/06/0801062.html
GOVERNOR AND SENATE MAJORITY LEADER ANNOUNCE
INNOVATIVE ENERGY PROGRAMS TO BE LOCATED AT
SARATOGA TECHNOLOGY + ENERGY PARK New Alternative
Fuel Research Lab and $10 Million Program for
Plug-in Hybrids Will Help to Reduce Dependence on Imported Energy

Governor George E. Pataki and Senate Majority
Leader Joseph L. Bruno today announced plans for
the construction of a state-of-the-art
alternative fuel research laboratory at the
Saratoga Technology + Energy Park (STEP) and a
new $10 million State program to convert vehicles
in the State fleet to plug-in hybrids.

“This year, New York State has taken significant
steps to reduce our dependence on imported
energy, and we will continue to promote
cutting-edge research and technology that will
build a brighter energy future here in the Empire
State,” Governor Pataki said. “This new vehicle
testing laboratory and our investments in plug-in
hybrids are critical to this effort, and will
help spur the innovation necessary to transition
away from a petroleum-based transportation sector.
<snip>
The $10 million plug-in hybrids program will
facilitate the development and deployment of
these advanced, high-mileage vehicles, which can
achieve a fuel economy of up to 100 miles per
gallon. Under this program, the 600 hybrid
vehicles in the State fleet will be retrofitted
to be plug-in hybrids. Once the State’s hybrid
vehicles have been converted to plug-in hybrids,
the program will be made available to private
vehicle owners through a competitive process.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles can be plugged into the
electric grid – such as a normal 120 volt
household outlet - to boost mileage. This will
allow the vehicles to operate on emissions-free
battery power, reducing the amount of fuel
utilized and significantly decreasing the release
of harmful pollutants, including greenhouse
gases. Since the utility grid has lower demand
during overnight hours, the recharging of
plug-ins would not add to the peak load.
<snip>
In addition, the Governor announced that
Electrovaya, a Canadian high-tech battery
manufacturing firm, plans to expand Canadian
operations into 5,000 square feet of
manufacturing space at STEP, with additional
expansion planned. The company’s lithium-ion
batteries can be used in a variety of products and applications.
<snip>
This year, Governor Pataki proposed an energy
independence plan designed to reduce our State’s
dependence on imported energy, promote greater
use of clean, renewable fuels, and spur
additional research and development into clean
and alternative energy sources. Among the
initiatives proposed by the Governor and approved
by the State Legislature were [3 of 8 shown]:
      * The elimination of all State taxes on
renewable automobile fuels, including ethanol
(E85), biodiesel, and compressed natural gas
(CNG), hydrogen, and other renewable fuels,
providing a savings of approximately 40 cents/gallon for consumers.
      * A new $10 million program to retrofit the
600 hybrid vehicles in the State fleet to be
plug-in hybrids, which allows them to be plugged
into the electric grid to boost mileage in excess
of 100 miles per gallon while significantly
reducing emissions of harmful pollutants. Once
the State’s hybrid vehicles have been converted
to plug-in hybrids, the program will be made
available to private vehicle owners through a competitive process.
      * A $5 million competitive grant program,
administered by NYSERDA, for start-up companies
that are developing or deploying the next
generation of vehicle batteries, propulsions
systems, and lightweight vehicle parts and components.

<http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--pataki-environmen0801a\
ug01,0,1989235.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork>
State to open research center for alternative fuel cars
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer, August 1, 2006,

MALTA, N.Y. -- The state will build a research
center to develop technology such as an engine
that can tap just 45 cents worth of electricity
at night to turn a 50-mile-per-gallon hybrid car into a 100 mpg plug-in hybrid.

The research and development center will include
a Canadian high-technology battery manufacturer.
Hudson Valley Community College in Troy would
provide employee training. The center will be
built in the Saratoga Technology + Energy Park
about 20 miles north of Albany. Contracts will be
bid this fall with the plant operating in 2008.

The center would research new programs to
conserve energy, decrease dependence on petroleum
and reduce emissions, said Gov. George Pataki. It
will test new technologies including fuel cell
propulsion and develop emission controls for diesel buses and trucks.

The center is intended to attract private
companies using government support to develop
alternative fuels and to train and retrain employees in the field.

Pataki said the technology will reduce emissions
and take advantage of excess power in the state's utility grid at night.

Pataki also announced that the state would spend
$10 million to convert 600 state vehicles to
plug-in hybrid vehicles. After the state project
is done, the facility will be made available to
private companies to retrofit vehicles.
<snip--bigger program for corn ethanol described>

http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2006/07/31/daily24.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Alternative fuel research lab to be constructed at Saratoga tech park
The Business Review (Albany) - 4:50 PM EDT Tuesday
by Richard A. D'Errico

Gov. George Pataki announced plans for an
alternative fuel research lab at the Saratoga
Technology + Energy Park on Tuesday.

During the announcement at the Malta, N.Y., tech
park, Pataki also said that a Canadian company
that manufactures high tech batteries would move into the area.

The company, electrovaya, will occupy 5,000
square feet of an existing building at the
Saratoga Technology + Energy Park. Initially the
company will have 15 employees locally, but
expects to expand that number to 75 people over the next five years.

Also announced Tuesday was a $10 million program
to convert 600 of the state's fleet of vehicles
into hybrids. Currently, 5,500 of the state's fleet are already hybrids.

Pataki said STEP would be to energy what Albany
NanoTech is to nanotechnology. The state at
University at Albany's $3 billion Albany NanoTech
research site is home to research efforts of
giants such as IBM, Honeywell and AMD.

"These new programs are important tools in our
effort to develop clean and renewable fuels,
promote greater energy efficiency, and create
jobs in the emerging energy sector," Pataki said.

At one point, an easel holding a rendering of the
new lab, blew over. Without missing a beat,
Pataki said wind power was also an important
energy source that would be developed at the park.
<snip>

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

At this launch event for Plug-In Bay Area, get the latest information
on the national and regional campaigns for plug-in hybrids -- and
hear the Governor's Special Assistant on the Environment speak about
how PHEVs fit into the overall state picture.

Following are the basic who/where etc. info; for more see July 24
event posting
<http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/calcars-news/message/478> and
June 23 Plug-In Partners update <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/454.html>.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Public Forum
MASTER OF CEREMONIES: Jack Broadbent, Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Terry Tamminen, Special Assistant to the Governor on the Environment
Roger Duncan, Plug-In Partners
Felix Kramer, CalCars.org
Bob Graham, Electric Power Research Institute
Frances Dahlquist, PG&E

August 2, 4:00 p.m.
Pacific Energy Center, 851 Howard Street (between 4th and 5th), San Francisco

RSVP to Jodie Van Horn, jodie@..., Plug-In Bay Area Coordinator

Sponsored by Rainforest Action Network, Bluewater Network, PG&E,
CalCars, Plug In America and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District


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