The Sierra Club Singles Out Ford's Chief in New Campaign

By DANNY HAKIM

DETROIT - The Sierra Club introduced an advertising campaign yesterday that ties fuel economy to patriotism and calls for action by William Clay Ford Jr., the chairman and chief executive of the Ford Motor Company, who was once viewed by the group as an ally.

The campaign, produced by Haddow Communications, is being rolled out in a dozen states. The campaign includes a radio spot and television ads featuring Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator, and Jack Shanahan, a retired vice admiral. Both men urge the auto industry to take action to cut oil use.

"It's time for us to tell the auto industry that we want to break the grip of oil-producing countries and reduce our oil use," Mr. Kerrey said in one spot, which also showed pictures of oil fields burning in Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war.

The advertisements encourage consumers to ask dealers for a so-called freedom option package. Instead of air-conditioned seats or a sunroof, the Sierra Club wants people to buy cars with eco-friendly features like continuously variable transmissions, which obtain better mileage by using an infinite number of gears, and integrated starter-generators, which shut off engines while idling.

The group said only the Toyota Prius, from Toyota Motor, and a new version of the Honda Civic, from Honda Motor, which both use hybrid engines that combine gasoline and electric power, offer the entire freedom package.

But the most surprising part of the campaign is that it singles out one company, and one man, in particular -- Mr. Ford -- in a radio ad.

"Now more than ever, America needs cars that get better gas mileage," says a narrator in the ad, which began showing in Washington yesterday.

"That's why we're asking Bill Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, to do his part and to produce more fuel-efficient cars, S.U.V.'s and pickup trucks."

In October, Mr. Ford became chief executive of the company founded by his great-grandfather. Before that he was perceived as an iconoclast, a Detroit executive with a green image who would talk about issues like global warming. Groups like the Sierra Club were quite hopeful that he would lead the company to break with the industry's lobbying against toughening fuel-economy regulations.

Instead, Mr. Ford kept the company in the trade groups that backed the industry's campaigns against higher federal gas mileage standards during a Senate debate earlier this year, souring relations with several environmental groups.

Still, the Sierra Club considers General Motors and the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler to be more entrenched opponents on fuel-economy legislation, so why single out Mr. Ford?

"If you want somebody to lead, you go to somebody who wants to be a leader," said Carl Pope, the chief executive of the Sierra Club. "We think Bill Ford wants to be a leader, but there are people in his company who don't want him to be a leader."

He added that the radio ad was intended "to up the cost of not leading" by calling into question the image the company has fostered as being concerned about environmental issues.

Ford did pledge in 2000 to improve the fuel economy of its sport utility vehicles by 25 percent over five years, leading G.M. and Chrysler to say they would match Ford. And Ford has said it will come out with what would be the first sport utility vehicle to use a hybrid engine next year. But since becoming chief executive, Mr. Ford is faced with a struggling company that lost $5.5 billion last year and has not been vocal on environmental issues.

"There is no dissension within Ford over our commitment to deliver improved fuel economy," Mr. Ford said in a statement.

"The Sierra Club chose to target Ford and me personally because we are seen as leaders," he added. "I think that's ironic because I have often been criticized for being too far out front on this issue. But we will not change the course we are on and will not alter our commitment to improving the fuel efficiency of our products."

The Sierra Club intended to start running the radio spot in Detroit yesterday as well as Washington but has not yet found a local station willing to play the ad.

"We felt it was inappropriate for the Sierra Club to single out an individual and attack an individual in the ad," said Rich Homberg, general manager of WWJ, a local news station owned by Viacom.

Ford has been one of the station's advertisers, but Mr. Homberg said the decision was made on the merits of the ad.

"Singling out the C.E.O. of a major automaker, especially one who was in the forefront of the issue, seems inappropriate," he said. "We're one of the stations that sets the standard for journalism in this community. We didn't make this call lightly."

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1023912636818999840.djm,00.html

Activists Set Sights on Ford Chief In Ads Pushing Fuel-Efficient Cars

June 11, 2002 By JEFFREY BALL

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

DETROIT -- The Sierra Club is running ads targeting Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive William Clay Ford Jr., a self-described environmentalist, as part of a consumer campaign to persuade auto makers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

In what the environmental lobby said is its biggest effort ever against an industry, the group unveiled a series of TV and radio spots Wednesday. The TV ads don't mention any specific auto company, but the group's radio ad calls specifically on Mr. Ford "to do his part" to build more-fuel-efficient vehicles.

In the wake of Sept. 11, the ads stress improved auto mileage more as a way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil than as a way to clean up the air. The spots feature Bob Kerrey, the former U.S. Navy Seal and former senator from Nebraska, and Jack Shanahan, a retired Navy vice admiral.

The ads mark the first salvo in what will be a three-year battle by the Sierra Club to prod consumers to demand auto makers build cars and trucks that go farther on a gallon of gas, said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director. In addition to ads, the effort will include "grass-roots actions" at auto dealerships and perhaps at auto shows.

The campaign comes as Ford, which has seen its corporate image -- and profits -- plummet in the past year, has sought to counter those problems by elevating the public profile of its telegenic CEO. In a series of television spots featuring close-up shots of Mr. Ford, the great grandson of automotive pioneer Henry Ford defends the propriety of his company continuing to sell sport utility vehicles.

Those ads, along with Ford's participation in the auto industry's big lobbying push earlier this year to defeat calls in Washington for significantly tougher federal auto-mileage standards for trucks and SUVs, incensed environmentalists. Environmental activists thought they had found a kindred spirit in Mr. Ford. So, Mr. Pope said, the San Francisco environmental group decided to focus on Mr. Ford in its public campaign against Detroit.

Mr. Pope compared the Sierra Club's decision to target Ford to the United Auto Workers union's traditional practice during contract talks of picking one of Detroit's Big Three auto makers to set a pattern the other two companies will have to follow. He said he believes Mr. Ford does want to improve his company's environmental performance, but he is encountering opposition from other officials in his company.

"William Clay Ford has said he wants to lead Ford to being the environmental auto maker of the 21st century," Mr. Pope said. "We believe him. And we believe it is much easier to get leadership from someone who wants to be a leader, but may be running into resistance inside his own organization, than from somebody who hasn't yet demonstrated that he wants to be a leader."

Ford officials said they are committed to improve the fuel economy of their vehicles, including boosting efficiency of their SUV fleet by 25% by the end of the 2005 model year.

In a statement, Mr. Ford said there is "no dissension within Ford over our commitment to deliver improved fuel economy across our vehicle lineup," though company officials do have "healthy discussion" about how best to do that. He said the company plans to start selling a hybrid version of its Escape SUV next year, and added: "The Sierra Club chose to target Ford and me personally because we are seen as leaders. I think that's ironic because I have often been criticized for being too far out front on this issue. But we will not change the course we are on and will not alter our commitment to improving the fuel efficiency of our products."

While in Detroit, Sierra Club officials met with leaders of the politically influential UAW. The union has opposed the kind of big increases in the federal fuel-economy standards the Sierra Club wants, arguing they would particularly hurt U.S. auto makers. But both sides said they plan to talk further about how they plan to push jointly for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The Sierra Club is launching its campaign a few months after it and other environmental groups failed to persuade Congress to significantly raise the nation's auto-mileage rule, known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standard. Environmentalists blame that loss largely on what Mr. Pope called a "misleading, fear-based campaign" by the auto industry that included a "multimillion-dollar ad blitz."

The political success of that campaign convinced the Sierra Club it had to respond with a similarly massive public-relations effort. "We're doing this because what we did before didn't work," Mr. Pope said. "So we're going now to the customers."

Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com2
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/technology/15NECO.html

July 15, 2002

Detroit Makes a Comeback With Research Centers

By STEVE LOHR

WARREN, Mich. -- IN 1956, when General Motors opened its sprawling research center here, President Dwight D. Eisenhower praised it as a symbol of democratic capitalism's natural impulse to explore the frontiers of technology. G.M. executives declared their commitment to making the Warren research center "one of the nation's great resources."

Yet the research centers of Detroit — Ford Motor opened one in 1953 — never really rose to rival the labs of the information technology industry. A handful of computer and telecommunications companies, led by I.B.M.'s Watson Labs and AT&T's Bell Labs, were the places where the best and brightest minds gravitated to do pioneering work on everything from solid-state physics to software algorithms.

Detroit, however, seems to be making a comeback as an industry in which people are working on breakthrough technology. There is perhaps no better place to get a sense of that technological excitement than here in Warren. Today, it is a place of work spaces separated by shoulder-high partitions and informally dressed researchers carrying laptop computers. Except for the prototype automobiles, the place could be mistaken for an office in Silicon Valley.

One of the more intriguing projects is led by Christopher Borroni-Bird, a young research director who holds a Ph.D. in physics from Cambridge University and did post-doctorate work at Tokyo University before joining the auto industry. He worked for DaimlerChrysler and then moved to G.M. two years ago to help it completely rethink the conventional automobile — its design, technology and propulsion.

Mr. Borroni-Bird is the program director for a concept car called the Automony, a sculptured, aerodynamic vehicle that is intended to be powered by hydrogen-based fuel cells and controlled electronically using so-called drive-by-wire technology. About the only thing left of the traditional automobile would be the wheels and the driver.

Gone would be the internal combustion engine and, oh yes, the petroleum-based energy economy. The electronic controls would mean there would be no need for foot pedals or even a steering wheel. The car could be driven with a joystick or a device resembling a video-game controller. With no hump for a drive shaft down the middle of the interior, design would be liberated. And the driver could sit anywhere in the car, since the portable electronic controls could be taken to any seat.

A working prototype of the Autonomy is scheduled to be shown later this year. Most other car companies, including Toyota and BMW, also plan to have demonstration fuel-cell vehicles ready soon.

The sincerity of the auto industry in developing fuel-cell cars is difficult to determine. Detroit has an enormous stake in the internal combustion engine and the status quo. But there are incentives to pursue a long-term transition: oil reserves will not last forever, and fuel-cell technology does provide a way to sell cars to the 88 percent of the world's households who still do not own automobiles, without choking the globe in pollution.

The G.M. concept has some particularly interesting elements that Mr. Borroni-Bird, a small, slight native of Liverpool, explained with animated enthusiasm. The Autonomy idea is to separate the chassis from the body. All the fuel-cell propulsion equipment is in the chassis, a series of modular components, beneath a solid platform. Mr. Borroni-Bird refers to the chassis as the skateboard, fittingly, since it resembles a giant skateboard riding on four automobile wheels.

All kinds of car bodies could, in theory, rest on a single platform, secured by mechanical locks. There could be a sports-car style body for a drive in the country or a van-like body for a family vacation. The skateboard platform would use sensors and software to automatically adapt to whichever body happens to plopped on top — plug and play, as they say in the computer industry.

Such an approach to car-making has the potential to overhaul the structure of the industry. For example, some companies might specialize in making skateboard platforms, while other companies might make bodies. There could be a proliferation of companies and innovation. Yet if one company became the leading producer of skateboards, it could own the crucial technology platform in the industry — just as, for example, Microsoft's Windows operating system is the dominant technology platform in the personal computer business.

The hurdles to bringing a car like the Autonomy into the mainstream market are daunting as well. Mr. Borroni-Bird is a veteran of fuel-cell research, and he is well aware of the progress that still needs to be made in cost, size and storage if fuel-cell technology is going to become commercially practical. But the trends are going in the right direction. A decade ago, a fuel cell to power an automobile was the size of a van, while today a vehicle like the Autonomy is possible. But can there be enough on-board storage to give a fuel-cell car the 300-mile range before refueling of a conventional car? And what about the fuel-distribution infrastructure? After all, there are roughly 175,000 gas stations in the United States.

Mr. Borroni-Bird and other experts see an evolutionary path toward fuel cells in which first gasoline and ethanol are used in a reforming process to produce hydrogen, which is then used by the cell to produce electricity that powers the car. Still, Mr. Borroni-Bird says, even the gasoline-to-hydrogen conversion would mean 50 percent greater energy efficiency and 50 percent less pollution than internal combustion cars.

Many experts predict that fuel cells will first be used on portable electronic devices like cellphones and laptop computers. Start-ups, like Neah Power Systems of Bothell, Wash., are developing such systems; plug a fuel-cell device the size of a lighter onto the side of a laptop, and it could run for days or a week.

Mr. Borroni-Bird said he was hopeful that by 2010 there would be substantial numbers of fuel-cell vehicles on the road.

Whatever the outcome, others have noticed the altered mood among the technologists of Detroit. "They are pursuing a radical change in the design and power plant of vehicles," observed Peter Schwartz, chairman of the Global Business Network, a consulting firm in Emeryville, Calif. "It has some of the feel of the early days of the Internet and biotechnology, a sense of vision, enthusiasm and desire to help the world. Microchips and PC's felt that way 20 years ago."

http://www.bfi.org/Trimtab/spring01/fuelcells.htm

An Example: First National Bank of Omaha

Contingency Planning Research estimates that power fluctuations cause 45 percent of all computer data losses and the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that power-quality breakdowns caused some $50 billion in business losses in 1999. However, most high yield facilities can’t afford to surrender floor space to back up power systems that earn no revenue. Web hosting centers, for instance, can generate more than $1,000 a year per square foot of rental space.

There is a solution to this apparent dilemma: ‘high availability’ power systems that economically replace the common ‘grid + diesel + battery’ back-up power strategy with a distributed primary power system (including fuel cells in some configurations, as well as gas turbines, flywheels and other technologies). Placed adjacent to, but outside, the facilities they power, these systems free up a tremendous amount of highly profitable floor space that batteries and UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems would occupy.

In 1999, the First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO)–the nation’s largest privately owned bank–installed a $3.4-million, 800-kw fuel-cell system as the primary power source for its new 200,000 square foot Technology Center’s critical loads. FNBO had previously endured power outages where even its back-up systems failed. The SurePower fuel cell system they installed (disclosure: a company Natural Logic works with) provides the first ever ‘Seven 9’s’ (99.99999% available) power system in such a setting.

As the nation’s seventh largest credit card trans-action processor, handling over three million transactions per day, 365 days a year, FNBO simply can’t afford power outages." A single one-hour blackout could cost FNBO’s credit-card operation as much as $6 million in lost business," according to Business Week.

Faced with such vulnerabilities, this system emerged as a cost competitive solution for their critical load applications. Over a 20-year life span, fuel cells are "the cheapest way to go," the bank’s director of property management, Dennis C. Hughes told Business Week.

The FNBO system is registering environmental benefits as well. The system "produces 40 to 50 percent less greenhouse gases than a traditional UPS system that draws its power from the electricity grid," according to Dr. Joseph Romm of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions and author of the book Cool Companies.

Some of the benefits come from a kind of multitasking: the system not only converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and water; it also generates ‘waste’ heat that can be used for both heating and cooling (using absorption chillers). "Essentially," Romm notes, "the Sure Power system provides three services:

1) 340 kW of high-availability power for the critical load,

2) 400 kW of excess electricity, and

3) 2.8 million BTU/hour [of heat] not all of which is used by the bank."
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/w/dwd130/future1.html

DATE?

http://www.ballard.com/news_archive.asp archive of news releases

Vancouver, Canada - Ballard Power Systems (TSE:BLD; NASDAQ:BLDP), announced today that its Transportation Division has signed a three-year agreement valued at $69.1-million (US $43.9-million) with alliance partner Ford Motor Company of Dearborn, Michigan. Under the terms of the agreement, Ballard will supply Ford with fuel cell engines and related engineering and support services.

"This $69.1-million order for the development of fuel cell engines is in addition to Ford´s September order of $34.5-million, and brings Ford´s total recent orders to over $100-million," said Firoz Rasul, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "This new order is further confirmation of Ford´s commitment to Ballard and to the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles."

methanex.com: american methanol fuel institute

Good morning. Welcome to Detroit in the 21st century!

There are some who say the 21st century doesn’t officially begin until next year. But, after spending a few days at the North American International Auto Show, I think you’ll agree that the 21st century is well under way… at least in the automotive business… and especially at Ford.

We’ve had a very good year… actually, we’ve had a very good century. Henry Ford was named Businessman of the Century. The Model T was named Car of the Century. I’m very proud of those honors, and what they say about our heritage.

In more recent news, Jac was just named "Car Guy of the Year." If you know Jac, and you’re familiar with all of the new vehicles we’ve launched around the world in the last year, that’s an obvious and well-deserved choice.

We also had two of the three finalists for the North American Car of the Year Award, Ford Focus and Lincoln LS. And we were very pleased to hear this morning that Focus won.

I’m pleased by the success we’ve had, and the recognition we’ve received in the past year. And we’ve been inspired by the support and encouragement we’ve had from around the world for our vision… of giving people not only better cars and trucks, but a better world. But if there was ever a time for resting on our laurels, it certainly is not now.