[Oeva-list] Fwd: EV Headlines Seem to be Daily Occurances - Stories from yesterdays Seattle and LA Times

[John Christian]

Interesting, even if it is Seattle.....


[image: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/art/ui/logo_200w.gif]<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/>

* *Sunday, October 25, 2009

*Seattle** expected to be key market for electric cars*

*By Katherine Long*

**

**

[image: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2009/10/23/2010126617.jpg]

MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES

A Ford electric car recharges at a sustainable-communities conference at
Microsoft on Friday.


[image: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2009/10/24/2010130858.jpg]

MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee views an electric car: "We're trying to make Washington
the epicenter of this revolution."

* *

After years of hype, it looks like the mass-produced, all-electric car is
really on its way.

Puget Sound is poised to become one of the key markets for the initial wave
of electric cars, in part because of plans to begin building next year a
network of more than 2,000 charging stations throughout the region.

Funded by part of a $100 million federal Department of Energy (DOE)
economic-stimulus grant, the charging stations are to the electric car what
the cellphone-tower network was to the cellphone. Just as the phones needed
towers to make them functional, the network of charging stations will make
it practical to own a car that does not use gas.

By December 2010, drivers in our area should be able to buy mass-produced,
plug-in electrics that create no emissions and run for pennies a mile.

"It's going to blow people's doors off how fast this transition is going to
happen," predicted U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, who took a spin around the
Microsoft campus Friday in an all-electric Ford Focus.

As part of the DOE grant, the Puget Sound area has been promised 1,000
Nissan LEAF all-electric cars, which will be sold here beginning in December
2010.

But that's only the start.

Because of the charging network, the Seattle area will be one of the major
markets for other brands of electric cars, said Steve Marshall, a senior
fellow at the Cascadia Center, a Seattle-based transportation think tank.
Ford, for example, plans to bring an electric commercial van to the area in
2010, one that will run for about 3 cents a mile and is designed for
small-business owners and package-delivery fleets.

The electric Focus will hit the market in 2011, as will the Chevy Volt, a
car that can drive the first 40 miles on electricity before a
gasoline-powered engine kicks in, driving a generator that provides electric
power beyond 40 miles.

Inslee predicts that within a decade, a significant portion of the American
car fleet will be made up of electric cars, and "we're trying to make
Washington the epicenter of this revolution," he said.

The car companies know it. "Washington is a lot more aggressive and more hep
on this than any part of the country," said David Berdish, manager of
sustainable business development for Ford Motor Co.

*Meeting at Microsoft*

On Friday, state and federal officials and business leaders gathered at the
Microsoft campus for a Cascadia-sponsored conference called "Beyond Oil."
They talked about building sustainable communities and ensuring the
electrical grid could handle the power draw if thousands of people all tried
to recharge their cars at the same time.

Outside, a half-dozen Tesla roadsters — all-electric sports cars that cost
about $100,000 — were lined up in the parking area. But it was the somewhat
homely Ford Focus, which arrived on a flatbed truck after an overnight trip
from San Francisco, that attracted the buzz, in part because it's price is
expected to be within the reach of the average family when it comes to
market in 2011.

The Seattle area is expected to be a leader in electric cars for a couple of
reasons.

For one, we get most of our power from relatively cheap, carbon-neutral
sources. Statewide, hydroelectric accounts for about 66 percent of our
energy; for Seattle City Light, it accounts for about 90 percent, according
to city and state statistics.

We also have a mild climate, with summers that don't require power-sucking
air conditioning and winters that don't involve battery-killing temperature
plunges.

And already we're crazy about hybrids, cars like the Prius that top gas
mileage. Washington ranks fourth among states in the number of hybrids per
1,000 people. About 50 of the Tesla roadsters have been sold here.

Finally, government officials are working to streamline the process of
getting car-charging plugs installed. The state Legislature this year passed
a law encouraging state and locals to develop the infrastructure to
accommodate electric cars.

The $100 million DOE grant is being shared by five other areas around the
country: Portland, Salem, Corvallis and Eugene, Ore.; San Diego, Calif.;
Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.; and Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville, Tenn.

Because the Portland area is also getting grant money, it's likely that the
Interstate 5 corridor between Seattle and Portland will have a string of
charging stations, making it possible to go between the two major cities on
nothing but electricity, said Colin Read of Ecotality, the parent company of
Electric Transportation Engineering (eTec), which will build the charging
stations.

*Powered by Metro*

King County Metro is getting ready for the change. It has installed 39
110-volt public-charging stations at park-and-ride lots throughout the area,
said Ron Posthuma, assistant director for Metro's Office of Regional
Transportation Planning.

Next year, as part of the DOE grant, Metro will put in more powerful,
240-volt charging stations at park-and-ride lots. That's the standard
voltage needed to charge an all-electric car, requiring a plug that
resembles the one you use for your clothes dryer.

For legions of electric-car buffs in the Seattle area, the future can't come
fast enough. A number of drivers have bought extra battery kits to turn
regular hybrids into plug-in electric hybrids, which can dramatically
increase the car's miles per gallon if driven carefully.

Toyota Prius driver Stephen Jensen, who lives on the Sammamish Plateau,
installed a second battery in his 2004 Prius, allowing him to drive the car
at higher speeds on all-electric power. He plugs it in at a Metro
park-and-ride lot while he takes the bus to work in Seattle. If he drives
carefully, he can average 90 to 95 miles a gallon.

Charging your car at a park-and-ride is still in its infancy. Just four
drivers tap into them regularly, and the county is not yet asking users to
pay. Posthuma said the charging stations won't remain free in the future,
although how to charge for them is another puzzle to be worked out.

Bruce Agnew, director of the Cascadia Center, has seen electric cars go from
a quirky passion shared by some Northwest drivers to a mainstream interest.

Six years ago, during the institute's first conference on transportation,
technology and energy, the parking lot was full of funny-looking cars, Agnew
said, and the institute could barely find enough people to fill a one-day
agenda.

This year, Ford came courting. The lot was full of electric cars. And the
institute had to turn participants away.

*Katherine Long: 206-464-2219 or klong at seattletimes.com*

*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*
 *LA Times*
Electric vehicles are charging up the automotive industry
A dozen all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles are expected to hit the
market in the next three years. They promise to combine blinding fuel
efficiency, radical new technology and futuristic styling.
   [image: Nissan Leaf]

Although Nissan will start mainly with fleet sales, a few all-electric Leafs
(Leaves?) will be available to individuals before a larger rollout in 2012.
Nissan hopes to eventually build this relatively low-cost entrant in
Tennessee. (Itsuo Inouye / Associated Press)


Next time you're filling up the cavernous fuel tank of the gas-gulping
family jalopy, imagine getting 230 miles per gallon.

Better yet, how about never buying another gallon of gas?

After years of hope and hype, electron-powered driving finally appears to be
on the verge of reality.

In the next three years, at least a dozen pure electric or plug-in hybrid
cars are slated to hit the market in the U.S. Electricity-driven vehicles
from giants such as General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co., as well as
start-ups like Fisker Automotive Inc. in Irvine, will provide consumers with
a wide variety of choices. These new vehicles promise to combine blinding
fuel efficiency, radical new technology and futuristic styling that makes
the hybrid Toyota Prius look downright staid.

Battery makers and automakers alike are tooling up factories to produce big
volumes of electric vehicles. Meanwhile, power utilities and regulators are
scrambling to figure out just how big the market will be.

"This is happening and it's happening soon," said Mark Duvall, director of
electric transportation at the Electric Power Research Institute, an
independent, nonprofit research group. "By the end of 2011, consumers will
have more choices in vehicles they can plug in than they currently do for
hybrids."

The electric vehicles will be arriving at a good time. With gasoline prices
creeping up once again and federal regulations calling for huge fuel economy
gains in the next half-decade, there's increasing demand for cars that burn
less fuel, make less noise and push automotive technology forward.

In August, President Obama set a national goal of getting 1 million plug-in
vehicles on the road by 2015. It took about twice as long to get a million
hybrids rolling on U.S. streets and highways.

But any new technology that involves high-voltage, exotic battery
chemistries and 3,500-pound objects hurtling forward at high speed is bound
to hit some potholes. Early adopters, experts say, will have to contend with
charging infrastructure challenges and some pretty long waiting lists.

And did we mention price? Even the least expensive electric or plug-in car
will cost more than $25,000, and most will come in closer to twice that.

"There will be some real challenges at first," said Roland Hwang, vehicle
policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "These are going
to cost more than conventional cars. The infrastructure is not going to take
care of itself. These issues will determine whether this is a trickle or a
massive flood."

For those willing to take the leap, however, there is plenty to be excited
about.

*Restarting electrics*

Electric cars are hardly new. In fact, a century ago, around the time of the
dawn of the automobile, there were as many electric as gasoline-powered
cars.

But technological limitations eventually killed those early EVs, and
electric cars didn't truly raise their heads again until the late 1990s.
That's when a smattering of electrics, including the much-lamented GM EV1,
were made available in California as part of a government-mandated test
program.

Wildly popular among a select group of enthusiasts, they were officially
declared unfeasible and unprofitable by automakers. Today, only a few
hundred are still on the road, among them a Toyota RAV4 EV driven by Paul
Scott, co-founder of electric vehicle activist group Plug In America.

Nobody was happier than Scott when Tesla Motors Inc., a San Carlos, Calif.,
automaker, last year began selling its all-electric Roadster, a rocket of a
two-seater that noiselessly goes from zero to 60 mph in less than four
seconds. True, the Roadster costs $109,000. And it has a waiting list longer
than Sunset Boulevard. But to people like Scott, its arrival signaled the
coming of a new electric era.

"This time electric cars are here to stay," said Scott, who envisions
charging cars using solar power, making them essentially cost-free to
operate.

**Tesla and other nimble start-ups have helped jump-start the industry. Now
big automakers are getting their electric programs in gear. That's no minor
development considering the titanic capital costs involved in developing
high-volume-production vehicles.

For Ford Motor Co., better batteries were key. Previous technologies were
just too heavy and inefficient, said Nancy Gioia, the automaker's director
of global electrification. "They weren't ready for mass production," she
said.

But in the last couple of years, huge improvements and new battery
chemistries "opened the opportunity" for ambitious product plans, she said.
Gioia predicts that as many as a quarter of new vehicles sold by 2020 will
be electrics, plug-in hybrids or traditional hybrids.

*Challenges ahead*

Yet even the fiercest electric advocates admit that battery reliability
still has room for improvement.

Arthur Krieger, a retired police officer in Los Angeles, drives a Prius
powered by a relatively small nickel metal hydride battery to assist the
gasoline engine. The battery needed replacement after nine years on the
road. That's when Krieger got a nasty surprise: A new one would cost more
than $4,800.

"That cost will wipe out the entire cost savings of having a hybrid in the
first place," Krieger said.

The price would be even higher on an all-electric vehicle using the latest
chemistry: lithium ion.

Already widely used in cellphones, watches and laptops, those batteries have
storage, charging and weight characteristics that make them superior to
previous technologies -- with premium prices to match. A replacement battery
for a Tesla Roadster costs $30,000, and it can move the car only 200 or so
miles before it needs to be recharged. That's a 3 1/2 -hour process on a
high-powered charger, 30 hours on regular household current.

Then there is the matter of exactly where to re-juice all those electrics.

Some experts believe that public charging stations will be the best
solution, either those put up by state and local governments or, perhaps,
private for-profit companies. At present there is almost no such
infrastructure. Building a nationwide network would cost tens of billions of
dollars.

That means most electric owners will be charging at home initially. Plug-in
hybrids, which primarily run on batteries but also have gasoline-powered
engines to supplement range and power, can get by on standard household
current. They're ready to roll in five or six hours.

All-electric cars, however, can take well over a day to charge unless owners
invest thousands of dollars in home electrical upgrades.

That's because a fully electric vehicle calls for a 240-volt, 40-amp
circuit, far above the limits of the socket in a typical garage, said Ed
Kjaer, director of electric transportation at Southern California Edison.

Another issue, he added, is that "not everyone has access to a garage or
other place to plug into," including apartment dwellers or people in urban
areas that depend on street parking.

"Plug-in cars are not for everybody at this point," said Kjaer, who expects
that infrastructure such as public charging stations will eventually help
level the playing field.

*A rewarding experience*

For those willing (and able) to take the plunge, however, the rewards of
owning electrified cars could include the financial kind.

Thanks to a provision in last year's $700-billion Wall Street bailout
legislation, buyers of electric or plug-in hybrid cars can qualify for a tax
credit of as much as $7,500.

Routine maintenance could be a bargain too. Since these vehicles use simple
electric motors rather than complex gasoline or diesel engines, as well as
pared-down or in some cases nonexistent transmissions, they are far easier
to service than conventional vehicles. There's no oil to change, no radiator
to flush.

There are other perks as well. In California, electric vehicles still
qualify for special stickers that permit their drivers to travel solo in the
state's carpool lanes. The stickers expire in 2011, but lawmakers are
considering extending the privilege until 2016. It's unclear whether plug-in
hybrids will qualify.

With all the excitement brewing over electric vehicles, it's easy to forget
that 98% of the cars sold in America still have traditional drivetrains.

Simply put, the gasoline engine isn't going to disappear overnight. Even the
most vociferous boosters of plug-in vehicles admit that the greater range
and lower cost of internal combustion-powered cars and trucks mean they'll
dominate vehicle sales for at least another decade or two. And for some
applications, like hauling a trailer over the Rockies, they may never go
away.

But for people like Chelsea Sexton, who drove an EV1 and now advises Silicon
Valley firm VantagePoint Venture Partners on electric transportation, the
next few years offer a tantalizing glimpse of a future with a lot less
internal combustion.

"I really relate to the pure electric experience," said Sexton, who has
test-driven the Chevy Volt, due out late next year, and liked it. "If I had
a magic wand, we'd have four different configurations of electric cars and
plug-ins to choose from tomorrow."

ken.bensinger at latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times <http://www.latimes.com/>
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