RE: "Power Struggle", Feb. 2
www.economist.com
It was not the Prius hybrid that revolutionized cars a decade ago, it was the oil-free all-electric battery-powered Electric cars that auto makers were forced to produce starting in 1997. The California Air Resources Board ("CARB"), sensing in 1990 an easy solution to its need to reduce emissions "by 10%" under the Clean Air Act, mandated that 10% of all cars must be Zero Emission Vehicles ("ZEV") by 2003.
Auto makers fought this requirement but ultimately were forced to produce a few hundred all-electric demonstration vehicles, including the lead-acid battery-powered 1997 GM EV1, the Nickel Metal Hydride ("NiMH") battery-powered 1997 Honda EV-Plus and Toyota RAV4-EV, Ford Ranger-EV, and the 1999 GM NiMH EV1.
The Prius, far from being revolutionary, was intended from the start as a distraction from this ZEV "mandate". The Prius, a "parallel" hybrid that fails to use the motor for all driving speeds, gets all of its energy, ultimately, from the gasoline pump. The Prius is a very complicated gasoline car that still keeps the gasoline engine as the primary source of motive or "traction" power.
A real EV uses only the motor for traction power.
The plug-in serial hybrid ("PISH") GM VOLT is revolutionary only because it is, basically, a real EV with a small Internal Combustion ("IC") engine used only to charge the batteries. A VOLT owner can unplug and remove the IC, install more batteries, and own a real EV, a battery ZEV. The characteristic of the PISH is that it can travel in all speed ranges powered only by the electric motor-controller and battery-charger.
Focusing on the Prius fails to understand this important issue, misunderstanding the role of the Prius in the public relations wars over the ZEV mandate.
When 2003 rolled around, auto makers, instead of making EVs generally available for sale, moved the goal posts, giving themselves another, fuel-cell path to reach that 10% number, and another 15 years to do it.
Only Toyota dared sell the last 328 of its RAV4-EV, after the program was killed, to the general public on the open market, for six months in 2002. All the other EVs were leased, and taken back and crushed.
These hundreds of EVs still in the hands of the public, with hundreds of 2001 and 2002 fleet-lease RAV4-EV, are still running fine with over 100 miles range on a charge and some approaching 100,000 miles on their original NiMH battery pack. In reality, every one of these RAV4-EV can become an instant PISH, just like the proposed VOLT, just by adding as small IC engine-generator. Some RAV4-EV owners have done this, hauling the genset in a small trailer instead of under-the-hood.
The real story here is not about the VOLT, which is a technology known for decades, but why GM is claiming that they don't have the batteries to produce it. GM used faulty Delco and much better Panasonic lead-acid batteries weighing 1300 lbs. to give the 1997 EV1 a range of up to 110 miles on a charge. GM also used a 700-lb. NiMH battery pack on the 1999 EV1 to give it a range of up to 160 miles.
The NiMH battery is recyclable, lasts longer than the life of the vehicle, is recyclable, has adequate power, is cheaper than Lithium, is safe, non-toxic and is capable of deep cycling on a daily basis.
The real reporter would inquire as to why GM is failing to produce the VOLT with existing NiMH batteries; it's not as if GM is not aware of them. GM even, at one time, owned the worldwide patent rights to the NiMH batteries, which it sold to Texaco (now part of Chevron).
It's not that GM knows Lithium is better; in fact, GM claims that Lithium needs research, for which they are asking government money, and admits that Lithium won't be ready earlier than 2010, at the soonest. So clearly, NiMH, which doesn't involve any additional research money, would be the cheaper choice for initial release of the VOLT, even if GM eventually discovered that Lithium were, in fact, viable.
Another interesting issue is why not one reporter, in the entire world press corps, has asked GM why they are ignoring NiMH batteries. It almost makes the VOLT press release seem an exercise in defusing the PR disaster, for GM, of its crushing the EV1 and the "Who Killed the Electric Car" documentary.