Environment Forum

Survey finds electric car buyers motivated by environmental concerns, technology

With the first mass-market electric cars hitting the streets this month in the United States, one question looms: Who will buy these cutting-edge vehicles?

General Electric commissioned a survey to find out and the results shed some light on what is likely to motivate different kinds of potential electric car buyers.

The global conglomerate, of course, has a vested interest in promoting the electric car market. GE has its corporate hands in everything from batteries to charging stations to smart grid technology that will be crucial to managing electric cars interaction with utilities.

A research firm surveyed 1,000 people about their thoughts on electric cars. Half were drivers of gasoline-powered cars and the other half drove hybrid or electric cars.

Three types of buyers emerged – the environmentally conscious, tech-loving gearheads and the frugal.

Not surprisingly, self-identified green consumers are motivated by environmental considerations when deciding whether to buy an electric car. One hundred percent of those surveyed said they worried about the environmental impact of cars and the U.S.’ dependence on foreign oil. One hundred percent of them also believe global warming “is a real threat to the planet.”

Only 15 percent of green consumers said they “loved cars” while 44 percent of those surveyed said they were “really into technology and gadgets.” But nearly half agreed that the car they drive expresses their personality.

Fabio goes green in electric car vs gas ads

Fabio has gone electric?

The long-maned Italian model appears in a new commercial promoting electric cars that spoofs Apple’s Mac v. PC ads of years past.

“Hello, I’m an electric,” says a hip young actor in the spot made by Plug In America, a Southern California non-profit.

“And I’m socially responsible gasoline,” says his smarmy counterpart, who is surrounded by a film crew.

“A documentary?” asks Electric.

“Time to spend some money to look like I care too. Of course, I actually profit from destroying the planet but with my billions I’m pumping up my green image. Line!”

Detroit vs. Silicon Valley as green auto hub

There’s a debate touring its way around the blogosphere these days: should the new green auto industry be based in Motor City Detroit or shiny, happy Silicon Valley?

The Valley in southern San Fransisco Bay area is already a hub for electronics expertise – certainly a cornerstone in the pursuit for innovative design and engineering. The world’s largest high-tech companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, and Intel are headquartered there.

The culture of the region, a recent NPR series pointed out, is “where people are used to taking a chip, a cell or an idea and working on it until it becomes something big.”

But is that enough to build a manufacturing industry?

GreenCarReports.com says no way, and for three reasons. Car companies need money and lots of time to mature to a point where they make any money, not exactly the model for the quick-turn success Silicon Valley hosts by the bucketfull. Secondly, programmers, coders and microelectronics experts may rule the tech industry, but electric cars require a whole different specialized skill set – automotive mechatronics (combining mechanical and electronic engineering) and high-voltage systems skills. Lastly, the cost of living is high in California and it’s too highly-regulated a place for companies to locate, especially if they manufacture physical goods.

Tesla may be there, but one yet-to-turn-a-profit automaker does not an industry make. (Incidentally they chose California because of a sales tax exemption on the purchase of manufacturing equipment and grants for training staff. )

How I overcame range anxiety in Mitsubishi’s new electric car

By Kwok W. Wan

I’m perhaps not the best person to test drive a car around London, as I consider these metal boxes only as machines to take me from place A to place B, and not vehicles of pleasure.

I did once have a very enjoyable road trip from New York to Los Angles, but someone else was driving, and I just looked out the window.  I’ve never even owned my own car, so approached Mitsubishi’s new electric car with trepidation.

“Here’s the car charger,” the Mitsubishi man who handed over the i-MiEV car said, pointing to a yellow springy cord with an ordinary three-pin plug at one end and round black socket to attach to the car at the other.  He also told me not to use the heating too much, as it drained more power than any other dashboard function, and to call him if I encountered any flat battery problems.

Flat battery.  I have since found out that electric car makers have coined a phrase to describe a driver’s paranoia that the battery is about to run out of power. “Range anxiety”.  And I was about to experience range anxiety in full force.

Before the 16 kilometre (10 mile) drive from my house on the border of Kent to central London, I did a few hours research to find the shortest distance to the charging bay near Victoria train station, calculating to the mile how long it would take me to get there.  As I started driving on that grey cloudy day, I kept constant monitor of the battery gauge, doing the range calculations in my head, and tried to avoid wrong turns and detours as to conserve charge.  My range anxiety was a relaxed medium.

Unfortunately, with all this focus on trying to save on power, I forgot the charger around a third of a way into my trip and had to drive all the way back to get it.  So after 40 minutes of driving, I was back at my house, and the battery had dropped two bars to 14 from 16 (over 10 percent!).  My calculations flew out the window and my range anxiety climbed up to high.

Gaze into clean technology’s crystal ball for 2010

Clean technology investors who have suffered through 2009 can find cheer in a new report by the Cleantech Group that gives its top ten predictions for 2010.

The number one prediction: Private capital growth will recover, the research group said.

The group believes that the amount of money from global venture capital and private equity in clean technology in 2010 will surpass that in 2009 “by a healthy margin” and could be a record year. The group also is watching for major investments like Khosla Ventures’ raising $1 billion for renewable energy and clean technology funds, more capital in Asia and innovative fund strategies.

Here are the group’s other predictions for 2010:

2.    Clean economies become the new space race. There will be changes in which countries and cities are driving global momentum, but greater protectionism surrounding the industry will be a drawback.

3.    Electric cars take the back seat to smart mobility. The trend will influence city designs, shipping ports and governments’ tax incentives and budgets.

4.    Resource constraints beyond carbon rise to the fore. As the global economy picks up, there could be price spikes that impact clean technology sectors, pushing companies to use resources more efficiently in order to maintain or boost their profitability.

MINI leases not good enough for some electric car champions

Sometimes, even electric vehicles aren’t good enough for the die-hard green car set.

An electric car advocacy group on Tuesday criticized California’s influential air quality regulator, the California Air Resources Board, for allowing BMW’s one-year pilot program of electric Mini Coopers to earn the same credit towards the state’s clean vehicle program as standard production cars.

California is requiring that automakers, collectively, put 7,500 zero-emissions vehicles, or ZEVs, on its roads.

But Plug In America on Tuesday said there is a “gaping loophole” in the program that “could deal a blow to the proliferation of plug-in vehicles.”

Specifically, the group targeted BMW’s leasing program of 500 electric Mini Coopers, which it calls MINI Es.

“CARB is allowing BMW to game the system by accruing the maximum number of ZEV credits with the least amount of effort,” Plug In America legislative director Jay Friedland said in a statement. “In order to receive full credit, these vehicles must be offered for sale.”

CARB plans to revisit the regulation next year and will be looking at ways to accelerate the commercialization of electric vehicles, according to spokesman Dimitri Stanich.

from DealZone:

Tesla sticker shock?

With highly touted plans for a new electric car in jeopardy, an overseas investor steps in to provide new capital and a much-needed endorsement.

GM? No, Tesla.

Remarkably, the terms of German automaker Daimler AG's 10-percent stake in Tesla may have also helped the Silicon Valley electric-car start-up inch closer to GM in value.

Daimler's vague disclosure of its purchase price as  "double digit million dollar" means Tesla is valued at a minimum of $100 million. That would make Tesla, which was founded nearly six years ago, about one-eighth the size of 100-year-old GM.

A world away in Detroit, GM has seen its share price spiral downward to near $1.  That the price may fall to near zero if the automaker files for bankruptcy as is widely expected. It would be worth less than 2 cents if GM proceeds with plans to issue a flood of new shares to pay off creditors.

GM was worth around $768 million, making it by far the smallest component in the Dow Jones industrial average judged by market cap.

Beyond hybrid green technology – tribrids, quadbrids next?

This portable electric recharging device could be a lifesaver if you break you leg on a windswept mountaintop in the middle of the night and find that your mobile phone battery is dead when you try to call for help.

Of course that’s vanishingly unlikely (and not part of the official sales pitch) but the K3 is an interesting example of “tribrid” technology - using three sources of power. You can plug it into the mains electricity, it has tiny solar panels and a micro wind turbine … Going on sale in June for $99.95, it can charge cell phones, iPods or other electronic devices.

“The K3 allows anyone to charge their devices at any time, anywhere in the world,” said Tod Wagenhals, president of makers Kinesis Industries in Arizona.

Hybrid technologies – for instance cars using both gasoline and another power such as an electric motor – have taken off in recent years as part of efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

So maybe tribrid cars are the next generation? You can bolt solar panels to the roof, for instance.

Add a small windmill or two and you have a “quadbrid” (or perhaps it might be called a ”tetra-brid”?) – see this link for an picture of a converted quadbrid Ford Escort.

So will tribrid or quadbrid technology catch on? Or is it just a complicated gimmick?

Electric cars to help solve riddle of storing power

Since the days of Thomas Edison, finding a way to effectively store electricity has been one of the “Holy Grails” for power companies.

While it won’t be an overnight revolution for electricity, eventually plug-in electric cars and trucks will be a step toward the elusive goal, said Ted Craver, chief executive officer of Edison International.

Edison International is the parent of Southern California Edison (SCE), which is the biggest utilty in the United States in terms of power delivered to customers.

 ”They are effectively storage units on wheels,” Craver said of electric cars and trucks.

Vehicles batteries charged during off-peak periods could feed power back to the grid during periods of peak demand, said Craver in a telephone interview on Thursday.

California like other states requires that power utilities have enough power plant generation to serve the highest demand day of the year. This means that more than half of the state’s power generation sits unused most of the time.

VW on electric cars: “Please, lower your expectations”

Volkswagen’s U.S. chief ruffled some entrepreneurial feathers on Thursday when he told a group of business school students at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management that  it will be 35 years before electric cars make up a significant portion of the world’s auto market.

During his prepared remarks, Volkswagen Group of America CEO Stefan Jacoby outlined the German automaker’s view that fossil fuels and traditional combustion engines will be with us for many years to come. VW, however, is committed to making them vastly more fuel efficient. The company is also investing heavily in so-called clean diesel technology, which reduces tailpipe emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases while still giving cars their “fun-to-drive” pep.

“At Volkswagen we are taking a long-term and a short-term approach, and the short-term approach is not electric vehicles,” Jacoby said. “We can have cars on the road that have fuel consumption of 50, 60, 70 miles per gallon. That can happen in the next ten years.”

For electric cars to make economic sense now, gas prices would have to be about $10 a gallon, Jacoby said, attempting to underscore the high cost of electric vehicle technology.

“May I ask how many of you guys can afford a Tesla?” Jacoby asked, referring to the company behind the $109,000 electric Roadster sports car.

During the Q&A session, Jacoby was taken to task for his position on electric cars by some of the audience members, particularly a man who said he drives an EV that is partially powered by the sun.

Jacoby didn’t back down, but he did encourage the audience to take a longer view.