Green Vehicles or Green Fuels?

June 25, 2007 – Vol.12 No.14

GREEN VEHICLES OR GREEN FUELS? HIGH TECH GOOGLE CHOOSES HIGH TECH CARS.

It seems like there’s an enormous chasm between the two green vehicle camps. On one side are the technology geeks who know how to build highly energy efficient vehicles such as plug-in hybrids and pure-electric vehicles. On the other side are the biofuel guys who see the road to energy independence and lower emissions lined with filling stations pumping ethanol, biodiesel or some other concoction.

Oddly the two camps are in the same country, speak the same language but their ability to communicate is about as good as the US and, well, Iran.

Yet they need each other - badly. (Iran and the US too.)

Plug-in hybrids fueled by biofuels seem the best way to achieve independence from petroleum fuels rapidly as well as to witness a precipitous drop in greenhouse gases from cars and trucks. Pure electrics can benefit from biofuels as well. Biomatter that is too difficult to be made into fuels can fuel powerplants and, in turn, energize cars and trucks.

True energy independence attributable to biofuels may never come without sacrificing the food supply (a bad idea) unless 1) new processes are developed to convert a wide variety of feed stocks into fuel; and/or 2) much less biofuel is needed to power vehicles. The technology geeks may not be able to help out with the former but they certainly can with the latter.

Right now the biofuel guys (who have large numbers of voters in their camp) are relying on Washington to keep themselves supplied with provisions (money). But the tech geeks in the other camp are pretty much on their own, with only marginal help from Washington.

In a stunning announcement, the most well known group of tech geeks - Google - through its philanthropic arm Google.org is stepping out of the cyberworld into the real world to use its riches to accelerate the adoption of plug-in hybrids. The effort known as RechargeIT has already begun with a round of grants totaling $1 million in six awards to raise awareness of plug-ins as well as develop new hybrid technologies.

The next round of RechargeIT funding will come in the form of a $10 million Request for Proposals (RFP) to fund development, adoption and commercialization of plug-ins, fully electric cars and related vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.

The company has also said that its newly commissioned 1.6 megawatt solar system will eventually be used to charge Google’s own 100-vehicle fleet plug-ins as they become available. The organization has been working with A123 Systems and Hymotion to build a small fleet of plug-ins for testing which will include vehicle-to-grid demonstrations where excess energy in a vehicle can be sold back to grid.

RechargeIT effectively puts Google in the green vehicle business at a time when other seasoned electric and hybrid vehicle technology companies have been busy putting vehicles on the streets.

Electric propulsion and components manufacturer Enova Systems will be providing 300, 90 and 120 kilowatt electric drive units to Smith Electric Vehicles of the UK.

Smith Electric, a division of the Tanfield Group, builds battery-electric powered, medium duty electric delivery trucks and vans intended for urban applications. The vehicles typically have a range of over 100 miles and a top speed of 50 miles per hour.

The company, with over 500 clients around the globe, is the world’s oldest manufacturer of electric vehicles and the world’s largest producer of road going commercial electric vehicles. The company was founded in 1920.

The Enova units will be a key drive line component in the first fleets of new-technology electric vehicles from Smith, presumably the sharp Smith Edison and Smith Newton vehicles, both converted conventional diesel trucks. The order is scheduled for delivery throughout the remainder of 2007.

ISE Corporation, a developer and producer of hybrid and electric drive systems since the mid 1990’s, announced in late May that it would be supplying 150 gasoline/electric hybrid drive systems to be installed transit buses to be built by New Flyer. The 40 foot buses were purchased by the City of Montebello, California with funding from a pooled procurement program offered by the Federal Transit Administration that provides 90 percent of the funding to participating agencies.

ISE’s ThunderVolt drive system is available in gasoline and diesel versions. The gasoline version offers low tailpipe emissions. The company has the ability to mix and match various engines, electric drives and energy storage systems, including ultracapacitors, to meet the particular needs of the customer’s heavy duty vehicle fleets.

Jumping on the trend to lithium batteries ISE has also announced that it will jointly develop with Altair Nanotechnologies a lithium titanate battery pack exclusively for heavy duty applications.

Visit Smith Electric Vehicles at http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com/ Enova Systems http://www.enovasystems.com/ ISE Corp at http://www.isecorp.com/ Google RechargeIT at http://www.google.org/recharge/ Google Solar Panel Project at http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels