The Energy Revolution: Could America get left behind?

With our stock market faltering, our investment firms sinking, involvement in frustratingly unproductive conflicts, and our entire southern region battered by hurricanes, America seems to have a lot more to worry about than our environment.  What many don’t realize is that all of these issues can be tied to America’s insistence  that energy sustainability has little more purpose than appeasing tree huggers.  Investing in clean, cheap, renewable electric energy is imperative in situating America on the top of the impending energy revolution. America will continue its downward spiral if we continue to adhere to our wasteful, dirty, traditional methods of energy production.

I happened to be watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on September 23rd, 2008 when he had President Bill Clinton on the show.  Clinton explained the importance of renewable energy so precisely I had to find his exact words again:

Bill Clinton- If you remember, in my second term, we had lots of jobs in part because all these high tech industries were booming.  So like every boom, it led to a downturn.  When the downturn occurred, the federal reserve left a lot of money in America, but the only thing that was then making money was housing…. In 2001, all this money was out there; and it all went into houses and construction.  So we had to keep finding funny ways to have more houses, like, the sub prime mortgages or the derivatives. What if we had put a lot of this money into solar, and wind energy, and hybrid electric vehicles, and all these things that are making all of our cities as energy efficient as possible?  We would have created millions of jobs, raised incomes, had the revenues to provide healthcare to everybody, and there would have been competition for investment.”

[Cheers and applause from the crowd]

Jon Stewart- If we had the presidential election today, what do you think you’d win by? 20? …. You would pretty much crush them.

There are three ways of succeeding in the business world: you have to be the first, the best, or the cheapest.  America has the opportunity to succeed in energy sustainability the same way it has in many other industries.  Some pundits say the any efforts by the US to slow global warming won’t matter because China and other developing countries are creating more pollution than ever.  Well advancing clean energy is more than being green, it is about setting ourselves up in a leading role in developing technology that allows us to live cheaper and more efficiently, that will someday be utilized by everyone.

Masdar City:

Take, for example, the United Arab Emirates and the Masdar initiative.  In this initiative, the UAE has begun building cities that rely entirely on clean transit and renewable means of energy production.  More can be read about it here.  Now, why would a world leader in hydrocarbon production be investing in renewable energy that, if widely used, would hurt their chief export?  Well, for one, they know that their chief export is finite and will run out some time in the future.  Instead of spending their cash flow on more consumable fossil fuels, they are investing in cheap, renewable energy that will power their cities when the oil, and most of their income runs dry.

This trend of Middle Eastern countries, rich off of our addiction to oil, and making wise investments is not mitigating our current financial crisis.  The weak dollar has led to an influx of foreign investors buying up our assets.  Middle eastern firms are buying our most prestigious US landmarks, such as the Chrysler Building in NYC.

“We are buying in the U.S. … Somebody’s problem is somebody’s profit. Something you want to buy, you can buy cheaper now,” Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem (Reuters)

New York City:

Government and corporate greed supported America’s addiction to oil and derailed the alternatives long enough to run our economy into the ground, all this while endowing Middle Eastern countries with the resources necessary to buy our biggest assets and make it a world leader in clean, renewable energy.  Last week, we just passed a spending bill to open up offshore drilling and bail out faltering US auto companies, GM and Ford, whom have, so far, shown absolutely no understanding of hybrid electric vehicles, what consumers want.  The most prominent renewable energy manufacturers are coming from Europe. A Danish company, Vestas is the world leader in designing and manufacturing wind turbines.  A Scottish company, Pelamis, is developing the world’s wave energy converters. If we do not restructure how we develop energy, we will be stuck in the 20th century with our “clean” coal and offshore drilling that will give us more oil 30 years down the road, by then it should be a worthless commodity; while the rest of the world develops into clean, efficient, renewable, and cheap energy producers. Our current economy, and our persistence in traditional means of energy production could cause America to be left behind, never crawling out of the hole we have dug.

On the Venturi Fetish

The Venturi Fetish became the world’s first production electric sports car when it was unveiled at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show. To this day, it remains the worlds most expensive and rare electric sports car, as only 25 were delivered worldwide. The price range has been around $400,000 to $500,000 over the years. Performance is relatively pedestrian when compared to the electric supercars in development and on the streets now. The Fetish accelerates from 0-60 in just under 5 seconds, with a top speed of only 100 mph and a 150 mile electric range. More information can be found at the Venturi Fetish website.

This is a cool video of the car in action:

The Monoco based Venturi company has since teamed up with French tire maker Michelin, and is going to introduce its next generation electric supercar extremely soon at this year’s Paris Auto show on October 2, 2008. Venturi has two other project cars that heavily utilize solar power, the Venturi Eclectic and the Venturi Astrolab. More can be read about them at the Venturi website here. More info on those vehicles will come soon.

On the Velozzi

With all the buzz surrounding the big name automakers entering EV market, I thought I’d take some time to write about a relatively unheralded upstart looking to take home the Progressive Automotive X Prize. Unheralded, until you find out how many rocket scientists are behind the program, with help from Bayer MaterialScience, Weisman R&D, some aeronautical patent holders, and Saminco Inc., which created the worlds fastest EV (321 mph). The supercar will be a series hybrid, meaning the wheels will be powered completely by four electric motors (at each wheel) with no combustion engine help. However, a small internal combustion engine will be used to recharge the batteries. They have not decided on which fuel the vehicle will use: E85, gasoline, or biodiesel. The team projects the Velozzi will accelerate from 0-60 in an unprecedented sub 3 seconds and have a top speed of 200 mph, all while maintaining a fuel efficiency of 100 to 200 mpg. Roberto Jerez, the company CEO, gave a pretty good update on the Velozzi’s development as of late June for AlternativeEnergy.com. You can find out more about the car and the dream team behind it at Velozzi.org.

Chrysler Reveals its Electric Cars!

Looks like the good ol’ boys at Chrysler have been paying attention. With rising gas prices, economic downturn, and their own disappointing sales, Chrysler had been secretly developing electric cars since 2007 in the ENVI program. Each of these 3 highway capable EV’s has its own distinct characteristics and function.

Dodge EV

The Dodge EV is an obvious reaction to the popularity and media buzz created by the Tesla Roadster. The car features the same Lotus styling, and a 150 to 200 mile EV range while boasting a 0-60 in under 5 seconds. Look for them to undercut the Tesla Roadster’s price, as Chrysler will be able to produce cheaper than any EV startup.

Chrysler EV

The Chrysler EV is a serial plug-in hybrid in that can go 40 miles on electric power before a gasoline generator kicks in to extend the range to 400 miles. When the small gasoline motor is on, the minivan gets 50 miles per gallon. An electric minivan is really ingenious because middle class families will be able to save money driving their ev on the long trips that really are starting to cost us an arm and a leg. This way they do not need an electric car for the day-to-day driving and a gasoline car for long trips. Having two cars to save money is sort of counterproductive and why many would be wary of buying an ev.

Jeep EV

The Jeep EV will have the same electric/gasoline combination power setup as the Chrysler EV, but the Jeep will feature four electric motors at each wheel. Which could, in theory make the Jeep EV superior to the regular Jeeps in many ways. Each wheel being independently powered could open up some interesting opportunities in maneuverability during off-roading situations.  Jeep EVs will also not have regular axle setups that can hinder Jeeps off road.

Chrysler says around 100 test cars should be on the road next year.  There is really no reason why these cars shouldn’t be released within the next couple years, because they are not using any new technology that has not already been demonstrated by EV startups.  Regardless, anytime a big automaker like Chrysler recognizes electric car’s potential, it is good news for everyone… except the startups.

Mystery of the Electric Car

So I’ve been reading up on electric cars for a while now, and over that time a pretty clearly defined mystery plot unfolded before me.

Then:

The modern day electric car saga (not the one from a century ago) began in 1996 when GM released the EV1 to customers in California on a lease only basis. Customers loved the car for its convenience, environmental standards, and impressive performance.  The EV1 could blow away combustion engine varieties in its class in 0-60 trials.  Depending on what generation you drove, the batteries could last from 70-160 miles on a charge.  Patrons who were able to lease one gave it rave reviews, but the car was inexplicably pulled off the market in 1999, and the leased cars were taken back by GM and crushed.  The car was a completely capable, $30,000 to $40,000, plug-in ev that did not even make it to the 21st century.  This was before lithium-ion batteries, the popularity of laptop computers, and numerous other technological advances of the past ten years.

One name stuck out like a sore thumb from when I watched Who Killed the Electric Car (I encourage everyone to watch).  His name was Alan Cocconi and he developed the 100,000 watt amplifier for GM that would allow the first generation EV1 to travel 90 miles on a charge, and go 0-60 in 7.9 seconds, with lead-acid batteries.  I wrote an article completely dedicated to his work from development of the EV1 to his company, AC Propulsion, and his electric drivetrain, now used in the Venturi Fetish, Wrightspeed X1, and the Tesla Roadster.

Now:

So how do you rectify it being 2008 and the advances in lithium-ion laptop battery technology, with the auto industry’s failure to release an electric car with comparable performance to the EV1 at a reasonable price? Look at this list of 10 electric cars available now.  It’s a sad motley crew of too expensive and barely capable of 45 mph.  And it’s not the fault of the startups. How can these small companies compete with big auto? But notice the two electric supercars on the list, the Tesla Roadster and the Venturi Fetish.  What do they have in common? Alan Cocconi’s AC propulsion electric drivetrain.  Why is this man not employed by a major automaker?  If Tesla had GM’s scale, they would have no problem selling an electric vehicle far superior than any combustion engine car to the masses for under $30,000.  Why can’t major automakers utilize this technology instead of giving us the over hyped hybrid Chevy Volt?  I would love to interview Alan Cocconi to see what his thoughts are on this.

Production Chevy Volt Revealed

Pictures courtesy of Autobloggreen.com

Featuring snazzily dressed Chevy executives.  But I must say, they are right on the money with this design.  Chevy did away with the sharp corners and the awkward plastic moldings around the windows; and they are obviously targeting the Toyota Prius market as a gas saving, compact family sedan.  They could have gone the other way with this, as an edgy electric sports car, but it would have been a bit ego heavy, and not broadly appealing. Another major carmaker, Honda, is following this strategy as their upcoming 2010 hybrid is even more of a knockoff of the successful Prius. The Chevy Volt is tentatively scheduled to release in 2011

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