Battery Electric Cars: Easy to Build Today?

May 28, 2006 – Vol.11 No.10

BATTERY ELECTRIC CARS: EASY TO BUILD TODAY?

Less than a decade ago automakers were scrambling to build all-electric cars to meet a California mandate for zero emission vehicles. That mandate, and a growing concern about emissions overall, led many companies, government officials and other stake holders to believe that highway-capable, battery electric vehicles would soon be introduced nationwide and perhaps worldwide.

But despite a number of fairly successful designs, GM’s EV1 for example, the effort to introduce highway-capable electric vehicles to the marketplace failed.

Why?

--- Automakers really didn’t want to build the cars in the first place so they fought the California mandate in court and won.

--- Automakers said that in the long run hydrogen was a better bet even though development would take longer. Hydrogen offered zero direct vehicle emissions and refueling at a pump, not a lengthy recharge from the power grid.

--- Toyota and Honda successfully introduced the first hybrids. Not exactly zero emission, but hybrids had significantly lower emissions with the benefit of quick refueling using conventional fuels.

--- The industry and government collaboration known as the Partnership for New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) to build an 80 mile per gallon family-sized sedan was successful, but the cars were diesel-electric hybrids, not battery-electric. (In the end the Big Three decided not to build these cars. PNGV became the roots of the Bush Administration’s FreedomCar program.)

--- And, the full basket of technologies needed to build highway-capable, battery-electric vehicles was not yet available or was still in development.

Yet today, less than a decade later, that basket is full.

--- Lightweight, but stronger than steel, carbon-fiber composites which could replace heavy steel body structures are commonplace. Car structures need to be much lighter if they’re going to haul around heavy batteries. The next new airliner from Boeing will be largely carbon-fiber. If used in airplanes why not in cars?

--- Battery technology has improved dramatically with lightweight, energy-dense, lithium-based technology at the forefront with vehicular applications in mind.

Valence Technology, for example, has announced the availability of large format lithium-ion batteries intended for electric and hybrid electric applications. The company is offering four new models capable of peak power ranging from 500 - 1700 watts with the possibility of up to 30 batteries connected in series for high voltage applications up to 450 volts. Three of four new batteries are in standard automotive sizes. The fourth is a taller version on the same footprint. All are ready to ship.

--- Ultra-capacitors, which can capture nearly all the energy lost in braking, are commercially-available, off-the-shelf products. Maxwell Technologies is at the forefront of the commercialization of ultracapacitors and offers products in standard battery sizes such as C and D cells as well as plug-and-play packages ready for integration into vehicles.

--- At least two car makers are again considering electric vehicles. Subaru may be planning to sell an electric vehicle as soon as 2008 and Mitsubishi is working on a battery electric vehicle with wheel hub motors, another off-the-shelf technology.

--- But with general disinterest from most of the world’s car makers a window may be opening for a new round of electric vehicle development from startup companies. At least one new company is willing to step into the ring - Tesla Motors. (The name would finally put electricity pioneer Nikola Tesla deservedly on a factory name plate as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse have so been honored.)

Tesla has secured $40 million in new financing to be used in the development of a pure-electric sports car. The company, with long term plans to build a whole line of cars strictly for US sale, intends to make initial product announcements in July.

Funding came from Elon Musk, founder of online payment processor Paypal, and VantagePoint Venture Partners that has more than $2.8 billion in capital under management. Musk is on Tesla’s Board of Directors.

The timing might be right for a renewed interest in pure electric vehicles particularly in the US: Excess overnight power generating capacity is available that would allow drivers to reenergize from diverse energy resources - from nuclear to wind - at a time when generally tight supplies of oil and escalating violence and tensions in the Middle East threaten to restrict conventional fuel supplies.

Visit Maxwell at http://www.maxwell.com/ , Tesla at http://www.teslamotors.com/, Valence Technology at http://www.valence.com/ and VantagePoint Venture Partners http://www.vpvp.com/