Hello Energyfolks,

A really wonderful source of ongoing up-to-the-minute info on plug-in
hybrids other advanced vehicle news is the email list and website run
by Felix Kramer and the folks at calcars.org.   This one is a great
summary of a recent zero-emission-vehicle technology symposium.  Good
summaries of the presentations, and good links if you want further
info on batteries, PHEVS, vehicle-to-grid possibilities, and EVs.
gil

To: "calcars-news-yahoogroups.com" <calcars-news@yahoogroups.com>
From: Felix Kramer <fkramer@calcars.org>
Subject: [calcars-news] Progress or Breakthroughs at California
Symposium on Zero
   Emission Vehicles

This year, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) got a new
Chairman and is taking a fresh look at the big picture for "zero
emissions vehicles" (ZEVs). California's ZEV Mandate dates back to
1990. It's devolved in many ways since its first ambitious version
(that 2% of new cars sold in the state would be ZEV by 1998; 5% by
2001, 10% by 2003). That story has been told in many places,
including in the movie, "Who Killed the Electric Car" and recently in
detail by Steve Heckeroth
<http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/2006-10-01/Why_We_Need_Electric_Cars>.

 From Sept. 25-27 at the ZEV Technology Symposium in Sacramento, an
Expert Panel heard from the main players: technology developers,
auto-makers, advocates and drivers. Auto-makers think we still need
technology breakthroughs; we think the cars and components we have
show we can get back on track now. We hope our report will help you
judge for yourself! (This report is also at our blog, where you can
comment, <http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/zevtech>.)

For the benefit of those who weren't there, we've highlighted
presentations based on their significance and on how much information
is available in the slides. (Often, the presentations provided only a
fraction of the information delivered verbally.) You can
view/download individual PDFs of 50 presentations at
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/symposium/presentations/presentations.htm>.
For the Green Car Congress's Michael Millikin's blog and comments,
see "Plug-Ins Progress"
<http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/plugins_progres.html#more>.

MAJOR THEMES (RANKED BY SIGNIFICANCE)

* Reports on the current state of the art on batteries confirm what
we've heard informally from automakers and experts at the Department
of Energy: Batteries have already improved far more than they
realized (or expected).
* "Vehicle-to-grid" is evolving from a futuristic possibility to a
solution that businesses and public institutions want now. Even a
relatively small number of parked EVs and PHEVs could contribute to
profitability and sustainability of both energy producers and
wholesale customers -- and benefit car owners.
* Since the 1990s, the performance, range and cost of advanced
all-electric vehicles (EVs) and (so far) plug-in hybrid vehicle
(PHEV) conversions have improved substantially -- and now we're
seeing documented proof.
* PHEVs and EVs do very well compared to ethanol, natural gas,
hydrogen and other fuels in well-to-wheel comparative analyses of
energy efficiency, greenhouse gas reductions and land use impacts.
* Hydrogen is looking increasingly like only a long-term possibility,
unlikely to contribute soon to California's goals for zero emission
vehicles. (We don't highlight specific hydrogen/fuel cell
presentations, because we didn't attend the first "hydrogen day.")

BETTER BATTERIES

At a jam-packed session, two emerging battery companies, A123 and
Altair, presented solutions -- both characterized as using
nano-technologies to increase performance and safety characteristics
of lithium chemistries. While they have very different designs, both
companies are well beyond the "promises" stage: Both have real,
testable products in use in prototype vehicles. Both presented
background and lab data showing favorable results for criteria that
are often mutually exclusive: long cycle life after multiple deep
discharges, high power/high energy, ability to charge and operate at
wide temperature ranges, good safety characteristics and rapid
recharging. Both companies made clear they are eager to work with
automakers.

A123Systems: Andrew Chu presented for this Massachusetts-based
private company, which has raised over $60M, most recently from
investors including General Electric, and is the exclusive supplier
to Black & Decker for DeWalt 36-volt power tools. A123 batteries have
been installed in Prius retrofits by Hybrids-Plus of Colorado and
Hymotion of Toronto (see Where PHEVs Are
<http://www.calcars.org/where-phevs-are.html>).

Altair Nanosystems: Evan House presented for this Nevada-based public
company (NASDAQ: ALTI). They are starting to deliver batteries for
EVs to Phoenix Motors.

Johnson Controls: JC has a joint venture with SAFT for lithium-ion
batteries (included in the DaimlerChrysler Sprinter PHEVs). Number 75
on the US Fortune 500, this is the company George Bush visited in
Minneapolis and talked about PHEVs. Michael Andrew presented
preliminary data showing encouraging results on cycle life, safety
and other characteristics.

Mark Duvall of The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) presented
results of cycle testing both NiMH and Li-Ion batteries (used in the
PHEV Sprinter) in cycles designed to mimic worst-case PHEV use.
Results after 1,500-2,000 cycles showed batteries going strong and
likely to last for at least 3,000 cycles --as would be required for
an expected 10-year vehicle lifetime.

VEHICLE-TO-GRID

Three presentations described the potential of vehicles parked up to
23 hours/day to "rent" their networked batteries for distributed
energy storage. (For a report and comments, see Green Car Congress's
"The Plug-In and BEV Adoption Wild Card: Vehicle-to-Grid"
<http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/the_plugin_and_.html>.)

Jasna Tomic from Calstart, co-authoring with Willit Kempton from the
University of Delaware, introduced the concepts and benefits of V2G
in providing regulatory services and load-levelling for utilities.

Willit Kempton with Cliff Murley from Sacramento Municipal Utility
District surprised the audience by explaining how a substantial fleet
of EVs and PHEVs could enable the utility to rapidly and
cost-effectively increase its use of night-time wind power -- even
well beyond the industry-accepted norm of 25%. We felt brain cells
lighting up as attendees heard how one of the nation's largest
renewable power producers needs V2G now!

Bay Area Rapid Transit System's Eugene Nishinaga described a creative
win-win V2G scenario. To get power at low rates, BART predicts how
much electricity it will use and buys it in advance. BART often
misses high or low, which costs money. Even a few thousand EVs and
PHEVs in BART parking lots plugged in during working hours would
buffer the energy difference. Owners would get free charging; BART
would save/make money!

PLUG-IN HYBRID VEHICLES

Many presenters referred to Prius after-market conversions as a
development platform and source for data in discussions of other
topics. They were also a principal focus on their own. EnergyCS's
Pete Nortman outlined the company's challenges and solutions. For
EDrive, Greg Hanssen described the planned evolution to
second-generation designs, with sales expected next year.

Sacramento Municipal Utility District's Dwight MacCurdy analyzed the
results of a series of test runs in which SMUD's EnergyCS Prius was
compared to a stock Prius. They found 40-140% improvements in MPG.

CalCars described the driving experiences of Ron Gremban and Felix
Kramer, the world's first two consumer owners of PHEV Priuses. We've
previously posted the full text at CalCars-News and at our Blog,
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/early-drivers>. We explained a
typical driving day: 50.8 miles of mixed-speed driving, at an average
of 124.1 MPG plus 123 Wh/mile. We translated the catchy "100+MPG
(plus electricity)" into 76-83 MPG gasoline equivalent. We talked
about the importance of all-electric driving for short trips, how
multiple factors influence the decision about when to plug in, and
how electricity rate price signals and rooftop photovoltaics fit into
the picture.

Argonne Labs' Danilo Santini gave an overview of previous PHEV
reports including one national lab study showing that a massive
influx of PHEVs could reduce gasoline use by 31-43% while reducing
carbon emissions by a similar amount without stressing grid capacity.

NREL's Tony Markel showed encouraging results for PHEVs of a study
based on 227 St Louis vehicles' driving patterns. Markel and Duvall
evaluated the tradeoffs for PHEVs that can operate in electric-only
mode versus ones that operate mostly or only in "blended" mode.

Automotive consultant ASG Renaissance's Max Kapadia, working with
engineering services firm Ricardo, presented detailed data modelling
mid-size sedan PHEV-20 production costs, retail price equivalents,
fuel and maintenance savings. The projected additional first cost
over a similar internal combustion vehicle, manufactured in
mass-production quantities, came in well below the $10,000+ numbers
currently cited by automakers -- but above the $4,100-$6,000
projected in 2001-2002 by the HEV Working Group. Acknowledging that
the data were preliminary, both the author and audience pointed to
many factors that could be added to the study to further reduce cost.
We found encouraging the simple fact that the study adopted the
analytic approach used by automakers and showed PHEVs priced at
300,000/year volume levels with a less than three-year life cycle
cost.

The Charles Clark Group's Charles Clark showed preliminary data from
a remarkable study undertaken for EPRI. We've seen many estimates of
CO2 and power plant emissions for PHEVs, but for this complex
problem, the assumptions used are critical, and findings have often
diverged. This study used EPRI's model of the whole U.S. power grid
(with detailed characteristics of every generating plant), a
worst-case 30%-peak/70%-off-peak charging regime, and scenarios for
PHEV penetration, regulatory climate and other factors. National
worst-case results: a PHEV-20 would have well-to-wheel CO2 emissions
of 500 grams/kiloWatt-hour (decreasing in the future to 300 g/kWh).
This compares to 850 g/kWh for a non-plugging hybrid and 1,200 g/kWh
for a conventional gasoline car. The PHEV 20 reduces CO2 by about 40%
compared to the conventional hybrid, and 60% compared to the gasoline
car. In California, the PHEV would emit 375 grams per kWh, declining
to 200 g/kWh. Even more dramatic reductions would result from PHEVs
linked to wind or solar, or PHEV-30s through PHEV-60s.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

AC Propulsion's Tom Gage, Tesla Motors' Martin Eberhard  and
Wrightspeed's Ian Wright demonstrated a compelling message about the
new electric sportscars and ACP's Scion conversions: All deliver more
acceleration and fun than almost any internal combustion engine on
the road. High-horsepower gasoline vehicles can dip below 10 MPG. To
avoid the Faustian bargain, EVs offer  power and efficiency at the
same time. (Summaries and audio streams/podcasts of these three talks
are at EVWorld.com
<http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=1106>.)

When Gage and Eberhard, along with that of Aerovironment's Alec
Brooks, compared well-to-wheel efficiencies of electricity/battery
vs. hydrogen/fuel cell, batteries were 3-4 times more efficient.
Brooks has presented this case many times to ARB in the past -- but
this time, it looks like the message is getting through. Argonne
Labs' Danilo Santini found similar results for natural gas.

Plug In America's Paul Scott and Chelsea Sexton compiled an
invaluable table itemizing by car type the 5,599 EVs leased/sold and
the 1,380 remaining on the roads. The Electric Auto Association's Ron
Freund reported on a survey of 132 RAV4-EV drivers, including the
surprising news that 48% use rooftop solar photovoltaics.

Miles Automotive's David Hirsch gave a preview of a future in which
China could provide affordable EVs for the US market. And GEM's Larry
Owald described the growing success of low-speed NEVs (neighborhood
electric vehicles) at this company owned by DaimlerChrysler.

AUTO-MAKERS

Auto-makers repeated what they've said in the past about PHEVs and
EVs. (See "How Car-Makers are Responding to the PHEV Opportunity" at
<http://www.calcars.org/carmakers.html>.) DaimlerChrysler did not go
beyond describing the Sprinter program as "proof of concept." Honda
called for government research on PHEVs. GM's spokesperson focused
only on hydrogen cars -- days after Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz had begun
describing them as "electric-fuel cell vehicles" and touting PHEVs
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/538.html>.

We posted a transcription of Dave Hermance's comments for Toyota at
CalCars-News<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/535.html>. Perhaps
we will see if the advanced batteries described at the hearings match
up to the "breakthrough in battery technology...for capacity, energy
storage, durability and cost" that Hermance said is necessary for
PHEVs to be "economically viable."

Meanwhile, we hope that additional developments in the coming months
provide more food for thought for the Expert Panel. Stay tuned for
their report in a few months -- and for how an Air Resources Board
that appears to be newly receptive to PHEVs responds in early
2007....(Don't forget--you can comment at our blog:
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/zevtech>.)

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
       Felix Kramer  fkramer@calcars.org
      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