Seattle's Flexcar Launches Hybrid EV Program

Source: Financial Times [Sep 29, 2002]

Toyota Motor is already making a profit on its eco-friendly hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles and is aiming for sales of 300,000 a year by 2005, the chairman of the world's third-largest carmaker said on Tuesday.

Hiroshi Okuda said the company was "making money already" from the Prius, the first hybrid vehicle to enter mass production.

"[Other companies] are sure that we can't make money from Prius production," he said. "But we are making money already."

Analysts were surprised and said the Prius, a saloon, is almost certainly not making a return on the investment in development.

But the company insisted it was making a "marginal profit" on each Prius sold, so the selling price was higher than the cost of production and distribution.

The ability to make a profit on an environmentally-friendly car stands in stark contrast to attempts by others to commercialise competing - mainly electric - technologies.

Ford, the second largest carmaker, last month abandoned attempts to sell electric vehicles after the limitations, such as the range, deterred buyers.

The hybrid system behind the Prius and two other models uses a battery when it would be inefficient to run the petrol engine - for example, when moving slowly in traffic.

Toyota is aiming to increase the volume of cars using its hybrid systems through distribution deals with other carmakers. This month it agreed to supply arch-rival Nissan with its technology for use in the US from 2006 and expects sales to reach 100,000 by 2011.

"This is our first step to encourage the popularisation of our hybrid systems and is proof of our leadership in this area," Mr Okuda told investors in London on Tuesday.

Toyota is preparing for the experimental launch of a fuel cell vehicle in December. Fuel cell technology - which will be on display at several carmakers' stands at the Paris Motor Show this week - has been lauded as the future for clean cars.

But Mr Okuda said that, when the energy and pollution of the extraction of the hydrogen needed to power a fuel cell was included, the "[oil] well to wheel" efficiency of hybrid vehicles was better than even the best current fuel cells.

Toyota also set out plans to market its Yaris, Camry and Corolla models on a global basis, bucking the conventional wisdom that differing tastes in Europe, the US and Japan require different designs.
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UQM Announces Electric Motor Performance Breakthrough

Newly Developed UQM(R) Electric Motor System Demonstrates High Torque and High Speed Capability

Source: PR Newswire [Sep 29, 2002]

FREDERICK, Colo., Sept. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- UQM Technologies, Inc. (Amex: UQM - News), a developer of alternative energy technologies, announced today that it has achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in the performance of an electric motor. The Company has developed and successfully tested a permanent magnet electric motor system that achieves a 10 to 1 top speed to base speed ratio or what is commonly referred to in the industry as constant power speed ratio (CPSR). The newly developed system provides both high torque and high speed capability in the same machine at levels greater than twice that of the industry's best performing motor technology.

Many electric motor applications require high torque capability for starting and low speed operation, but must also achieve high speed. This is particularly the case for battery electric, hybrid electric and fuel cell electric vehicle propulsion. For the military, high torque at low speed translates into obstacle and grade climbing capability, while high speed enables pursuit, dash and evasive maneuvers as well as on-road convoy transport. Many commercial applications have similar requirements. Conventional vehicles achieve the high torque required for launch and low end acceleration and the constant power required for high road speed by using a transmission and multiple gear changes.

In January of 1998, UQM Technologies announced that it had received a key patent for a method of "phase advance control" of permanent magnet motors that eliminates the need for multiple mechanical gears in its on-road vehicle applications. Considered revolutionary at the time, UQM's systems incorporating phase advance were able to achieve a top speed to base speed ratio of 4 to 1, the best in the industry. The Company's already established reputation for small, lightweight and highly efficient electric propulsion systems was further enhanced by this new capability which led to numerous successful applications of UQM propulsion systems in vehicles ranging from motor scooters to passenger cars to trucks and buses.

In nearly all electric propulsion applications since that time, vehicles have been designed around the 4 to 1 limitation, sometimes resulting in unwanted gearing and/or less than desired performance. This has particularly been the case in the more demanding off-highway equipment and military vehicle applications. Providing vehicle developers with electric propulsion systems capable of a top speed to base speed ratio of 10 to 1 overcomes a significant limitation and opens up many new application opportunities for UQM systems.

"This is perhaps the most significant discovery in the history of our company and reflects the continued technical leadership exhibited by our engineering organization," said William G. Rankin, UQM Technologies' President and Chief Executive Officer. "Not only does this revolutionary achievement accomplish what heretofore was considered impossible, the new technology can be applied to a wide range of motor system sizes, power levels and voltages and uses conventional low cost materials and manufacturing processes. What phase advance did to replace 4 to 5 speed transmissions in electrically propelled automobiles several years ago, 10 to 1 does to replace 12 to 16 speed transmissions for heavy on-road, off-road and military vehicles today. This breakthrough has changed the game and further distanced us from the competition. UQM propulsion systems now have an even greater advantage in substantially improving the performance of any vehicle propelled by electric motors."

Commenting on the new development, Bernard B. Poore, Manager, Product Technology for John Deere (NYSE: DE - News), said, "The majority of our vehicles require low speed torque coupled with high speed transport and present a particularly tough challenge for electric propulsion systems. We have been working with UQM for many years because their superior technology is well suited to the variety of demanding applications in our industry. Their achievement of 10 to 1 is a significant breakthrough and will greatly improve the performance of electric and hybrid propulsion systems. We know of no other demonstrated technology that comes close to this performance."

Added Gary Smith, President of PEI Electronics, a unit of Integrated Defense Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: IDE - News), "UQM Technologies is a key supplier of permanent magnet electric propulsion motors and electronic control systems to our hybrid electric vehicle programs, including UPS's hybrid electric delivery truck and the U.S. Army's hybrid electric HMMWV. We originally selected UQM's motor and motor controller system because of its proven reliability, product maturity and production readiness. UQM's new technology will significantly expand the control range and performance of their motors, and we will be better able to address our customer's demanding vehicle performance and packaging requirements in both current and future production vehicles."
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Smokestack Visionary

Hy-wire concept vehicles points to GM's future, but environmentalists highly skeptical.

Source: New York Times [Sep 29, 2002]

Last January, Larry Burns, General Motors' vice president for research and development and planning, unveiled the company's plans for the car of the future. It wasn't exactly a car but the underpinnings of one, sort of a 16-foot-long, two-dimensional wine carafe on wheels -- what Burns called the ''skateboard.'' The car would come in two parts, Burns explained. The car's power and control system would be encased in the skateboard, which could be kept for decades while customers shuffled car bodies as tastes changed. And the bodies, too, would be radically different from what we know, with the windshield extending all the way down to the floor because the car's essential systems are kept underfoot.

The first working prototype, dubbed Hy-wire, made its debut at the Paris Motor Show last week. Hy-wire represents a merging of technologies: the hydrogen fuel cell, a power system that creates electrical current from chemical reactions and drive-by-wire, which replaces mechanical linkages between parts with electronic ones. Taken together, the technologies would move the automobile from the machine age to the digital age and result in a car that emits only water vapor.

Burns, 51, earned his bachelor's degree from a Flint, Mich., university once called the General Motors Institute, but he preferred hanging out with Ann Arbor intellectuals while in school and got his doctorate from Berkeley. He says he believes there is enough evidence for carmakers to take global warming seriously. ''If it's true,'' Burns says, ''the ramifications are so significant that it's irresponsible not to be addressing it.'' It's a stance that puts him at odds with many people at G.M., among them the company's stogie-wielding vice chairman, Bob Lutz, who talks of global warming as tree-huggers' hokum and of the Kyoto Protocol as conspiracy theory. Rick Wagoner, G.M.'s C.E.O., falls somewhere in between. ''You read one article and it is and another article and it isn't,'' Wagoner says of global warming. ''I'm not a scientist. I don't think it's healthy for our industry to be exposed to a huge degree of risk here.'' For their part, environmentalists view G.M.'s quest for the ultimate green vehicle with suspicion. This is the company making a mass-market brand out of Hummer, after all, and arguing on Capitol Hill that being forced to make more efficient cars now will only undercut their work on the fuel cell for the future.

''It's like Wimpy from 'Popeye,''' says Dan Becker of the Sierra Club. ''I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. It's amazing G.M. gets away with it.''

But G.M. insists that the environment is one key reason why it is taking Burns's project seriously. With 700 million vehicles in the world today and 1.1 billion expected by 2020, Burns says, short-term options like gas-electric hybrids or highly efficient gas cars can only delay, not halt, global warming. ''You've got to get to an endgame here,'' he says.

In the 1990's, environmental politics grew increasingly intense. California moved to force automakers to sell superefficient cars (and this year, it passed legislation to reduce greenhouse gases). Subsequently, the entire auto industry sped up its work on the electric car.

The result, though, was frustration. In the late 1990's, G.M. scrapped its ambitious EV1 because the car could only travel 80 miles between charges. Last month, Ford gave up on its battery cars. And while Toyota continues to sell an electric S.U.V. in California, it does not do a compelling business.

The question for carmakers became, What if an electric car generated its own electricity? The obvious ways to achieve that were through either the fuel cell (in which electrons are stripped from hydrogen atoms and used to form an electric current) or the gas-electric hybrid.

In the mid-1990's, a high-level debate took place within G.M. to determine whether to focus on fuel cells or gas-electric hybrids. ''We did not view the hybrid as the ultimate solution to the problem,'' Wagoner says. ''In a high-fuel-cost environment, a hybrid could work. It's hard to see that happening in the U.S.''

To much fanfare, Toyota and Honda began selling hybrids in the late 1990's, and each now sells tens of thousands, far more successful than electrics ever were but still small numbers. The hybrids are expensive to build, however, and what is not clear is whether they will ever make a profit.

Every major automaker is working on fuel cells, but most conform to the design of normal cars. Hy-wire is not designed around an internal combustion engine, so it has no dashboard and few moving parts except for tires. Brake pedal and accelerator are replaced with electronically controlled steering using hand grips on the wheel. (One's feet wander reflexively, and it's easy to confuse twisting to speed up and squeezing to stop, but a few lazy eights around a parking lot makes it intuitive.)

Not everyone at G.M. is convinced that Burns's vision will materialize. ''I just can't help remaining skeptical,'' Bob Lutz says, ''because I've lived through a series of miracle engines.'' He took pleasure in rolling his eyes at motoring revolutions of the past -- the jet engine, the Wankel engine, the orbital engine -- that are now all but discarded. ''We have to be careful not to create the impression that all of this is just around the corner.''

Burns is tactful in response. ''Bob's one of my two bosses,'' he says. ''Even if he wasn't my boss, out of respect for him and his knowledge of the industry, I have to take his perspective into account.'' He adds, though, that automakers have been focused on fuel cells for less than a decade, compared with a century of dead ends on batteries, and are quickly closing the gap.

Storage capacity has expanded to allow nearly 200 miles of range, far more than a battery-electric. The fact that Hy-wire's pressurized hydrogen gas tanks lie below the driver and passengers is a safety concern, so engineers are working on a spongelike form of hydrogen storage. Costs have come down by a factor of 10 in a decade, but Burns concedes another factor of 10 remains. Still, he maintains that G.M. can produce tens of thousands by 2010 and phase in broad usage by 2020.

''This can be a better car all around,'' Burns says of the fuel cell. The right thing to do? Yes, he says, but it's more than that. ''At this point, it's a business issue. If we don't invent it, somebody else will.''

Danny Hakim reports on the auto industry for The New York Times.
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Excuses, Excuses!

9/30/02 article by ;Clare Bell, cbell@sosinet.net

Ford has given four major reasons why they want to end production of the Think EV. First, they say that there is no demand. Second, they say they need the resources to develop Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) technology, which will be more successful. Third, that there are no workable batteries. Fourth, that the existing government incentives are insufficient.

Close scrutiny shows that none of these reasons are real.

1. Ford says it has only sold 1000 Think vehicles so far and that demonstrates that there is little market for EVs. When one examines the situation closely, one discovers that Ford's claim that the Think City EV has no market is misleading.

Here's why:

How do you know what market there is for the cars if they aren't available?

Where has Ford actually SOLD Think EVs? Certainly not in the US. All the cars are LEASED. This starts to narrow the market down, since many people want to own their cars. Jay Leno, for instance, won't take a Think or an EV1 because he can't buy it.

You can't lease to buy, either. Ford won't do it.

Furthermore, Ford has restrictions on who can lease the cars. Not everybody can go down to their local Ford dealer and get a Think City. The dealer has to be part of the program, equipped to support the cars and willing to participate. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California, New York and some other metro areas, it has been possible to get the City, but how many Think EV drivers are there in Kentucky? Minnesota? North Dakota?

And if you say that North Dakotans etc. don't drive EVs, you'd be wrong, because there are people in those outlying states or in the US heartland who have Corbin Sparrow EVs or who have built conversions. I know because I've talked to them.

The fact that Think Cities are available only on lease, and not even closed end-lease, artificially restricts the market. Yes, the European cars are in the US under a waiver because they don't meet all the Department of Transportation requirements for their year. What's missing? A passenger-side air bag and a 5 mph bumper. The cars can be retrofitted to make them DOT-approved. I'm sure similar things have been done with other cars and Ford is no stranger to them. But the missing DOT items sure do make a good excuse.

Even where the cars have been made available there are numerous restrictions. Even in the San Francisco bay area, availability was severely limited. I'm in Hollister, CA, about 40 miles south of San Jose. I can't get a Think City. Even though I worked on the cars in Norway and can basically put one together from parts -- there is no participating dealer close enough. A woman in San Jose is fighting to get a Think lease transferred from San Francisco to San Jose -- cities only 50 miles apart. This is evidence of the limited state of availability even in California's urban core.

S and C Ford in San Francisco states that the Think City is the only Ford product that has a waiting list. Another dealership reportedly has a 150-name waiting list. Dealer salespeople are annoyed; they were ready and willing to sell new US model Thinks because they know how much demand there is. Many other dealerships feel the same way. They have geared up and trained to sell EVs and they want to do it. Some have sunk money into expensive showrooms. Ford has pulled the rug out from under the dealers as well as present and prospective Think drivers.

In Norway, where Ford does sell the cars, Norwegians can't get them. Why? Because they're all going to the US for the leasing program.

Potential American buyers have been told to wait and see if demand justifies further production. Potential Norwegian buyers have been told to hold on because American buyers are taking priority. A circular argument, if there ever was one.

So why hasn't Ford SOLD many Think Cities? To sell something, you have to offer it for sale. The truth is, Ford hasn't.

Instead, they've taken a page from GM's saga of the EV1. It's easy to get out of building EVs. All you do is to raise the bar so high that it impossible for any but a small fraction of the population to make it over. When you find the bar can't be raised high enough to prevent waiting lists, you simply hire public relations firms and repeat over and over "there is no demand." Even reporters from respected newspapers such as the NY Times and LA Times haven't asked basic questions or spoken with actual EV drivers. Industry press releases are accepted as disinterested truth.

You simply claim there is no market and use that "fact" to knock down the California ZEV law. Devilishly brilliant.

All US car companies make a number of low-volume (as compared to mass-market) specialty vehicles. Can you imagine, say, the Viper or the new Hummer, being handled the same way as the Think? No! Would red-blooded American would-be Hummer drivers stand still for that? No, and the companies know it. Think is essentially a low (presently) volume specialty vehicle, just like certain high-powered sport scars, certain commercial trucks, tractors, farm equipment, flexible-fuel cars, etc. are.

What if the new Hummer was put out on lease only, made available only in restricted areas, to a limited number of individuals, held on a tight leash, like the Think? Then, the company could claim (and sound legitimate) that there was no market for such a vehicle. Would outraged would-be Hummer drivers sit still for that? Heck no.

They'd be out there, crowding Detroit parking lots with SUVs, alternating protest sessions with tailgate parties and in general raising a big stink. And the car companies would know that they would take hits on their image as well as their pocketbooks.

So what's different about Think? It's an EV. It doesn't go with the program, as laid down by the American car industry. It doesn't (gasp) need gasoline. It doesn't need Middle East wars. Politically, it's downright dangerous, so we can't really let it loose. Now that those crazy so-and-sos from the California Air Resources Board have been forced to see the error of their ways (thank you, GM and Chrysler), we don't have to.

Think City has a market. People want it. Intensely. This was shown by the pioneering 1996-1999 Pivco Citi program at Alameda, CA, run by Green Motorworks. The hardest part of the job (I worked there) was getting cars back from the people who had leased them. They didn't want to give up their Pivco. It was so easy to park, so nice to refuel by plugging in at home, so fun to drive and so cute that a lot of the cars had pet names. Kids gave Pivco divers smiles and thumbs-up signs. Some long-term lease people (yes, men too) literally cried when they had to turn in the cars.

The two early Think City prototypes that were shown at the 1998 Alameda EV expo stole the show. There were long lines for test drives. Market questionnaires given out during the test drives indicated that the Think had an even stronger attraction than the Pivco.

The waiting lists at various Ford dealerships indicate that this was not just a single-shot car-show phenomenon.