Electric motorbikes - where will they be marketable?

As originally published on AskPatty.com.

First, electric cars. Now electric scooters. Would this be another class of vehicle to go zero-emission soon? I sure hope so, for the millions of motorbikes that are polluting the air in developing countries.

Here is a picture of Ho Chih Minh City in Vietnam during rush hour. I have tried crossing the street (there is no choice if you are a pedestrian there) and it is real scary.



Here is a picture of Taipei, Taiwan, with its motorbikes amidst its copious traffic. I have ridden in one during lunch hour and my eye stung from all the pollution. Literally watering and painful from all the SO2 and NO2 in the air. It is a sad reality in many parts of the world, ours included – think Los Angeles and any other big city -- that vehicular emission significantly reduces quality of life. Perhaps the electric motorbike will come to the rescue. Perhaps not. It has as much to do with economics, as its compelling environmental credential. Let's look at one such example on the market in the USA today.

The Vectrix Maxi Scooter electric motorbike has been in the news a lot in the past few months. It was approved for sales in California in Aug 2007 after ten years of development, generating a lot of excitement in the press. It looks a lot like the conventional gasoline scooter, except for the tailpipe. Its dashboard displays how many miles remain on its charge so you don’t have to worry about running out of juice. It also has an interesting customer service policy – whereby the scooter is delivered to your door and a technician comes to your door for service. Here is an interesting YouTube clip of the first delivery to the first customer in the United States where you can see how it rides, and hear the Vectrix sales rep guy talk about their V.I.P. Direct service.

In my opinion, electric scooters are a great GHG emission reducer, if sold in cities that are dominated by motorbikes. This is because for families that depend solely on motorbikes for all their commutes and errands, the gasoline usage will add up significantly. However, this offer will probably make less sense in an urban environment where the scooter is mainly a style statement and gets on small mileage. Gasoline usage in conventional model is already low enough. My friend who owns a conventional scooter tells me he gets 60mpg already. Each month his gasoline bill is about $5 as he uses the scooter to commute around San Francisco. So I think it will not be as compelling for him to switch to an electric version if the argument is about saving cost or reducing GHG emission.

Add to this the cost of a Vectrix. It is about $12K, twice as much as a regular scooter of similar specification, and one starts to see why the economics of this may not be the reason to switch. It is more of an upgrade, a luxury goods, which in my opinion, should appeal pretty well to the celebrity set. Now if only the electric scooter develops a more distinctive look too…. then perhaps folks will switch to it for the “cool factor”.

Perhaps all these reasons contribute to why the Vectrix has not been doing as well. Unlike the runaway success of the Prius though (which carried a rather distinctive look by the way), its sales figure has so far been disappointing. In 2007, Vectrix built 2,002 vehicles but sold just 123 of them. But don’t mark them off yet. And definitely don’t mark off the electric motorbike category yet.

This is just the beginning. In fact, Vectrix had recently started offering a 3-wheeler, and is continuing with its marketing campaign, include a Hollywood tour. Perhaps there are other entrepreneurs also working on this, though I am not particularly aware of any with go-to-market plans announced yet. In a world where eco-consciousness, and increasing personal consumption responsibility is driving the switch to more sustainable products, the electric motorcycle may yet to see its glory. I sincerely hope that the industry continues to innovate and that more versions of the electric motorbike appear on the market. I hope that the economics will work itself out and that they find markets that appreciate all the conveniences a scooter offers plus all the positive environmental benefits that an electric version offers.

Now for me, I think I will probably not really ever switch to an electric motorbike, or even a gasoline one. Firstly, I don’t have a motorcycle license. Secondly, I find scooters or motorbikes kinda heavy, especially on startup or backing up, so it is rather difficult for me to operate, for example, when parking. Lastly, I am quite worried about being on a vehicle without a shell on our car-laden streets… These mean though I am missing out on the joy of the wind in my face, and the thrill of driving along faster than those poor cars stuck in a traffic jam. Not to mention… I am spending much more on gasoline than I would if I were to own a motorbike.

Israel -- The First Electric Car Nation?

As originally published on AskPatty.com.

On Jan. 21, 2008 Renault-Nissan President and Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn announced in Jerusalem that they will begin producing a customized electric car for the Israeli market in 2011. The idea is the brainchild of former SAP executive Shah Agassi's, who formed a venture specifically for this project, name Project Better Place, based in Palo Alto, California. The five passenger Renault Megane will serve as a prototype vehicle. Initially, up to 20,000 such cars will be produced. To celebrate, Renault staffers recently converted a gasoline car to electric, and according to Israeli news reports, it even raced against a gasoline car. Dozens will hit the road at the end of 2008 as demonstrations.

Israel was apparently chosen because it was an ideal testing ground for the electric car. Ninety percent of automobile owners drive fewer than 70km (43.5 miles) per day, and the country's main cities are within 150km (93 miles) of each other.

What’s interesting in this new development is that Israel is not a hotbed of environmentalism. Environmental awareness is low and environmental regulations are uncommon in this country. Instead, ending foreign oil dependency is in their best interest. The Israeli government has thrown its support behind the project, by helping to make the economics of electric car work. On Jan 13th, 2008, the Cabinet approved a proposal to tax new cars based on their emissions levels. Regular new cars will be taxed 79%, hybrids 30%, and zero-emission electric vehicles 10%. This favorable rate will disappear gradually over time and as market share increases, the typical way where government subsidy can be used to encourage adoption of a beneficial technology to create enough demand to make large-scale production eventually viable.

However, don’t cheer too fast – for the Israeli grid is not very clean. This proposal will increase greenhouse gas emission until the grid uses more renewable sources of energy. Currently, Israel has a policy to produce (only) 10% of its electricity from solar and wind by 2020. Still, consolidating emission from point-source such as cars to large power plants is a good idea, as it will make it easier to tackle the issue of GHG emission. E.g. it is easier to apply pressure to a large polluter than to persuade millions of car users to switch to clean cars.

To circumvent battery life issue, a completely different re-charging model will be used. Better Place will create and maintain a chain of service stations where owners can pull in and wait 10 minutes, while technicians swap out the battery with a fully-charged one. This is about twice the time it takes to fuel up today so it will be interesting to see how what consumer reactions are. Still, I am willing to wait 10-15 minutes at my car wash, because it is so entertaining to watch and they have great bbq/popcorn… there are definitely ways around it. Ever heard of how they installed mirrors at elevator banks because people used to complain those cars took a long time to arrive? Yeah, well, the complaints stopped once we had a chance to preen. Smile.

This is definitely news worth getting excited about. An entire nation deciding to go electric! Now that’s something. Imagine a clean-grid state like California doing the same. Perhaps smog in LA can be a distant memory someday. I will keep on dreaming.. after all, good news like this Israeli development are becoming more common each day.

Sources: BusinessWeek articles here, and here.

A Talk by Sherry Boschert - Plug-in Hybrid Enthusiast

As originally published on AskPatty.com, entitled "Where can I buy an electric car?"

I recently attended a talk by Sherry Boschert, the author of "Plug-In Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America". Sherry got into plug-in hybrid when she put in solar panel on her home in foggy San Francisco. Once one gets free electricity from the sun, the logical next step, obviously, is to figure out what else could be plugged in. Today, she has been driving an all-electric Toyota RAV4 for 5 years now, and hasn’t been to a gas station in 5 years. Some people has racked up over 100K miles on the RAV4 and the battery is still doing well. I am sure you are wondering, by now, whether it makes sense to drive an electric car if you don't have solar panels.

But first, let's look at the two flavors of electric vehicles – partial and full electric vehicles. Both depend on batteries to store electricity that is generated by several possible means. An example of a partial electric vehicle is today's hybrid, which runs on gasoline, and produces electricity through regenerative braking. A plug-in vehicle (PHEV) is a step-up. Some of today’s hybrid can been converted by a third party to be plugged into regular electric outlet, further reducing its dependency on oil. They work on regular 110V outlets, although the 220V outlets for washer/dryer will recharge the car faster. Compared to regular hybrids, a PHEV needs more batteries, and is an intermediate step until full battery-electric vehicles (BEV) become commonly available.

According to a 2007 National Resource Defence Council (NRDC) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) study, PHEV reduces GHG between 7-46% compared with hybrids, in the study timeframe of 2010-2050. This will happen even in heavy coal state such as Idaho and Ohio. Plug-in electric vehicles is probably the quickest way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emission, right now. It is something we can do today to make significant progress on the problem of global warming.

Experts present the following arguments on why electric cars are better than gasoline, better than fuel cells. The gist is that they are cheaper, cleaner, and use domestic power sources. Unlike fuel-cell vehicles, which require an infrastructure for refueling stations (since they use compressed hydrogen as fuel), the infrastructure for powering plug-in electric cars already exists. It is our national grid! Assuming the average American grid, which is still 50% coal and hence polluting, the wells-to-wheel emission for electricity is still lower than that of regular gasoline. Wells-to-wheel measure refers to the total pollutants produced by vehicles and by their power sources. This is an inclusive measure of carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emission. In addition, in case you are wondering how the US grid can support all our automobiles, the US Department of Environment has just released a study this year assessing the impact of PHEV on electric utilities and regional US power grids. The study says that existing off-peak grid capacity can already fuel daily commutes for 73% of all US cars, trucks, SUVs and vans as PHEV.

A tricky problem we face with automobile emission reduction is that we have millions and millions of individual emission points. Each of these pollution sources (i.e. each of our cars) will have to be cleaner to make a dent on the climate change issue. This is a mass coordination effort, which could be multiplied if car technology were to gradually shift into cleaner and cleaner technology. However, if PHEV or BEV were available today, then we only need to change our cars once to be cleaner. If all cars run on electricity, then the emission problem is shifted from millions of tailpipes to hundreds of power plants. Greening fewer enormous pollution sources is a lot easier than greening hundreds of millions of cars all over the world. Since even with today's power plant mix, we will already emit less if everyone shifts to electric cars, we are starting from a cleaner picture, with improvement opportunity as power plants use more renewable energy sources.

However, the sad news is, neither PHEV nor BEV is currently available to mass consumers (unless you can afford the 100K Tesla). The major automobile makers are focusing on FCEV, which uses hydrogen fuel cells for electricity, instead of the plug. According to the Plug-In Partners America website, an advocacy group for PHEV, “just a few short years ago each of the major automakers were building all-electric cars, trucks, or vans in order to meet the Zero Emissions Mandate for the California Air Resource Board. Today, none of these same companies are building all-electric vehicles. Today, no major Automaker is selling plug-in hybrids. So where can people get plug-ins?”

If you are interested in taking action to encourage automobile makers to sell PHEV, check out the Plug-in Partners National PHEV Initiative website. It is “a national grass-roots initiative to demonstrate to automakers that a market for flexible-fuel Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) exists today”. As a consumer, you can sign the Plug-in Petition. In addition, if your workplace has a fleet of vehicle, Plug-in Partners is garnering “soft” fleet order of PHEV, with no financial commitment, to demonstrate that market demand exists. You can also ask the California Air Resource Board (CARB) to do everything possible to get plug-in cars on the road (link here). CARB is reviewing the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate this year.

Personally, like Sherry, I now have solar panels on my roof, and am keenly looking into a plug-in or full battery electric car. Since the major automobile makers do not have any offering in the market, I will have to look at the second-hand market (e.g. Toyota RAV4), alternative neighborhood electric car manufacturers, or buy a hybrid and find a conversion partner. It is a hassle to shop for and involves way too much research. However, it is worth the effort since I have to do my part to fight climate change. I will keep you posted on my adventure shopping for one, and also what I learn about the possibility of obtaining such a car as a consumer, TODAY.

(Source: 2001 U.S. DOE Argonne National Lab, 2007 NRDC/EPRI. Both studies use the sophisticated Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET) system for analysis. Details here.)

Who is greener? Well, that depends...

As originally published on AskPatty.com. Here's the excerpt...

This week I happened to chance upon two situations of people debating their relative environmental impacts, with each side thinking she is more eco-friendly. In both cases, one party owns a more efficient vehicle while the other insists she lives a lower impact lifestyle overall despite having a less efficient vehicle.

So in this post, I will compare the vehicle usage patterns of two drivers – one a hybrid owner (Driver A), and one an SUV owner (Driver B). At first glance, A appears more environmental because she drives a hybrid, but let’s verify whether this is true with some numbers based on these two drivers’ actual life styles.

	Driver A	Driver B
Vehicle owned	Hybrid Toyota Prius	SUV Dodge Durango
Vehicle spec	2006 4 cyl, 1.5L	2006 4WD 8 cyl, 4.7 L, Auto(5)
Vehicle MPG (City/Hwy)	60/51	12/17
EPA Air Pollution Index* (0-Worst, 10-Best)	8	1
Daily commute (each way)	60 miles, highway	6 miles, town

* The EPA Air Pollution score represents the amount of health-damaging and smog-forming airborne pollutants the vehicle emits. This score does not include emissions of greenhouse gases.

This translates to an annual commute impact of…

	Driver A	Driver B	Difference (A minus B)
Miles driven per year	30,000 miles	3,000 miles	27,000 miles
Annual fuel use*	541 gallons	187 gallons	354 gallons
Annual fuel cost	$1623	$561	$1062
Annual CO2 Emission**	10,584 lbs	3,669 lbs	6,915 lbs

Assumes 250 working days , gasoline at $3/gallon. Sources:
* http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm
** http://www.terrapass.com/road/carboncalc.php

Driver A (hybrid owner) actually generates 6,915lbs more of CO2 than Driver B (SUV owner)! The clearest lesson to be taken from this is that simply living close to work can be a major environmental gain. Even though buying a hybrid electric car is a great thing, it doesn’t necessarily make you environmentally responsible in the big picture. In this real life case if you look at the bigger picture there’s an even wider discrepancy between these two drivers since Driver B is close enough to walk to work twice a week (cutting back emissions and gasoline by another 40%), while driver A lives by himself in a large house that takes a lot of energy to heat.

To truly understand one’s impact on the environment, accounting for the bigger picture of your daily car usage pattern and lifestyle is important. Accounting is usually valued only as a monetary cost, but for true comparison, we need to factor in economic costs too – which would take into account the opportunity cost of the next best alternative, and the externality cost to society and environment. Be aware too, that although carbon accounting is important, it is not the only story. Other greenhouse gases (e.g. methane, N2O) contribute to climate change too. Pollution from cars contributes to smog and health problems, not to mention odor nuisance and noise pollution. One’s lifestyle determines one’s eco-footprint – how many planets worth of resources are needed to support human race if everyone consumes at the same rate as us. I will explore eco-footprint in a future post.

Each of us makes choices based on our own very unique needs, budget, and preferences. Sure, a Hummer is downright excessive when you look at its environmental impact. But what about the more-efficient-than-a-Hummer, but still less-efficient-than-a-sedan SUV or pickup truck? In some cases, they may actually make sense to own! An outdoor enthusiast with a lot of equipment who needs to drive regularly to the ski resort on a mountain may need an SUV. A renovating homeowner who is doing regular hardware store run to pickup lumbers and other large-sized supplies need a pickup truck. It is simply too cost ineffective to pay Home Depot to deliver several times a month…

So in my opinion, simply being aware of the impact of one’s action on the environment is a good start. From there, the next step is to evaluate alternatives on how to do better, if you can afford to do so, and if not, when you can start doing better. Sometimes it is as simple as paying an extra $5K for the Honda Civic hybrid. Other times, it is a toss-up between your conscience and a roomier SUV because you make a lot of trips with 4 other passengers. Perhaps the decision to buy a smaller or more efficient car will have to wait in certain situations, e.g. till the kids go away to college. The key is to constantly evaluate your personal situation and make the most responsible decision you can, based on your own unique situation. If however, you do not yet own a car or is currently ready to switch, the best decision is to buy the most efficient car you can possibly afford, because once you go down the path of owning a particular vehicle, the switching cost will become another limiting factor.

The next time a friend challenges your automobile choice or transportation options, show them the tables above, and have a discussion about the bigger picture of both your commute pattern and lifestyle choices. The answer is usually a lot fuzzier than just choosing a more efficient car.

In summary, to all car owners out there – please do enjoy your vehicle, but please do actively consider the impact of your driving pattern and vehicle usage on the environment. You can be green by actively thinking about what else you can do to negate the carbon/GHG impact of daily vehicular usage. Here’s an inspiring example from Hewlett Packard 2006 Global Citizenship Report: "We estimate that for our monochrome LaserJet products, the total energy consumption saved since 1993 from use of [instant-on fusing] represents 4.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent to removing 870,000 cars from the road for one year.”

Remember, we can all be our own “power of one”. What’s the one change that you can make today to offset your carbon footprint?

GM Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicle: from concept to market

This week I attended the GM Chevy Volt fuel cell vehicle media event. Here's my story... as originally published on AskPatty.com.

http://askpatty.typepad.com/ask_patty_/2007/10/gm-hydrogen-fue.html


Filing this after a day at the GM Equinox Fuel Cell media outreach event -- "Electric Drive University". After having read Sherry Boschert's "Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America" and watched "Who Killed the Electric Car?" (2006) by Martin Sheen, I was really curious to hear directly from GM its side of the story.

The event showcased the GM Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell all-electric vehicle and provided an intensively satisfying series of lectures on Project Driveway (the largest market-test for a FCEV), safety, fueling, technical principles, and highlights of GM's strategy (from gasoline-powered to gas-friendly to gas-free). It was my first ever chance of driving an all-electric FCEV. However, I was most curious about to market path, especially after listening to Ira Flatow's NPR show "Green Cars on Display, But Will They Hit the Road" -- a fairly contentious discussion featuring Elizabeth Lowery (GM VP Environment & Energy), Sherry Boschert, and an Engineering Editor at Road and Track.

Today's car economy, especially in the U.S., is built on gasoline cars, gasoline stations, and internal combustion parts' service providers. We know how to deal with good 'ole polluting gasoline guzzlers. In economics terms, this is path-dependency -- i.e. "history matters" in making subsequent economic decisions. Adopting a completely new set of technology -- e.g. electric vehicle -- requires major shifts in established industries -- from labor, R&D, assembly line, supply chain, to refueling capabilities.

What I learned from GM is that they believe the following may need to happen for the FCEV to be commercially viable (i.e. available in the market). Currently, the vehicle is undergoing market test only, and no production schedule has been announced. Most of these info are from a question posted to Byron McCormick, Executive Director/GM Global Fuel Cell Activities, as well as discussions throughout the event with numerous GM reps.

• Partnership amongst car industry (e.g. GM), fueling providers, and government is necessary to create a critical mass of refueling infrastructure. Currently it could take 4 years just to obtain permits to put in a new H-refueling station. Germany, for example, is working on reducing this lead-time.
• GM admits it can't do it alone. Hence it is a good thing many automobile manufacturers are working on fuel-cell vehicles at the same time. The cross-pollination of ideas amongst researchers and management facilitates problem solving which shortens the path to market.
• Technical challenges are not so much an issue today, but there are still many little things that will require more cycles of iterations before an FCEV is market-ready.
• Partnership with government is critical, to revise/develop codes and standards, and develop favorable tax structure to producers and consumers to adopt hydrogen FCEV.
• FCEV needs to be cost-competitive with existing options, since majority of consumers will not vote with their wallet when it comes to green options. Hence, GM needs to produce at a cost-competitive price.
• High-volume productions for hydrogen and membrane manufacturing will lower cost enough, because of economy of scale. One way this could be helped along is by providing tax incentives to increase ROI for early players in these arenas.
• Since hydrogen FCEV requires refueling infrastructure and fairly intensive educational outreach to both consumers and the local emergency first responders, GM is starting from a regional strategy (LA, NY, Washington DC) in testing FCEV markets, and then expanding along contiguous corridors.
• GM needs to know that consumers want EV, what they want in such cars, and enough consumer awareness in order to have enough demand to justify large-scale production. Hence its Project Driveway initiative.

Overall, my sense is that GM seems to have a well-organized program to bring this technology to market, although they have not announced a production schedule (which is a thorn to skeptics out there). The fuel cell, like any other technology, has its pros and cons, but overall, it does seem like a viable component of motor vehicle energy diversity. GM has spent some real money (upward of $1B although actual figure is undisclosed) -- on R&D, safety testing, marketing/promotion, training, and consumer awareness. However, the final proof will be when the consumer can actually buy electric vehicles from GM dealers. Wouldn't it be great if there comes a day when Americans can buy affordable American-designed, American-made EVs anytime, anywhere?

Electric cars - they were once viable??

Recently, I came across a great book ("Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America"), and a great DVD ("Who Killed The Electric Car?"), that proved that viable electric cars existed commercially in the not-too-distant past of 1996-2001. What's more, it was GM-made, had an insane following, and was practical for almost 90% of American drivers needs.

I was even more shocked to learn that electric automobiles and electric street-cars (trolleys) were once more common than gasoline vehicle -- as early at the late 1800's. It wasn't until the 60's that business dynamics (and some rather unethical maneuvering by today's standards) by the big car and oil companies that a system that had worked well was systematically dismantled.

It is a sad state of our society that such knowledge is not even publicly well-known. That clean, green technology that had proven viable was wiped out due to greed -- for there was more money to be made in oil, and in mechanical and engine-intensive vehicular technology.

Encouragingly, the converging factors of climate change, high oil prices, and geopolitical instability due to our oil habits, are meshing well with much-improved technology to produce/store electricity cheaply such as battery technology, lightweight car frame, better ways to generate electricity from renewable sources. Hence, it is actually now more possible to have this past reality resurrected.

I am hopeful that electric cars, or at least plug-in hybrids, will be available to consumers more readily in the near future. Please watch the DVD. Read the book if you want more info. You can also read chapter 2 of Natural Capitalism (or see rmi.org) for more information on Hypercars -- a super light-weight cars that has physics and economics on its side.

Thank you to those of you who fought for the EV1.
It makes me angry that the folks at GM and various other vested interest groups were so short-sighted, and misguided... Thanks but no thanks to them, we still have to breathe the dirty air when there was a real chance to shift the dynamics of our roads and transportation. We lost our lead as a country in a very viable technological innovation just because entrenched big business interests prevaileld. The Japanese have now successfully proved, economically, that hybrid electric cars have a market.

It makes me SOOOO MAD. Which is why I want to write this blog. And continue to write about good, green tech where the numbers make sense. Write about the good green alternatives that have a chance in the market. Please spread the word.

-Marn Yee