Donlen Corporation and Sierra Club Launch "Cool Fleets"

Back in June, the Christian Science Monitor ran an article on the greening of car fleets. Partly to develop green cred, and partly to save money on gas, companies ranging from Abbot Pharmaceuticals (which has a big fleet for its salespeople) to Enterprise and Hertz are adding thousands of hybrids and flex fuel cars to their fleets. While they've had to literally beg for hybrids because of relatively limited production, automakers like Toyota are stepping it up to meet the demand of these big buyers.

That's good news for both the environment and the future of green car manufacturing: because they're buying in bulk, fleet owners and managers can give car makers an extra push towards developing and producing vehicles with higher fuel efficiency and lower emissions. Last week, Illinois-based fleet management company Donlen Corporation released, in partnership with the Sierra Club, its Cool Fleets web tool, which is designed to give fleet managers an extra push towards choosing more climate-friendly vehicles. Noting that fleet professionals need information about environmental impact in context, Donlen CEO Gary Rappeport claims that the Cool Fleets tool organizes this information in a manner that makes the benefits of greener cars obvious:

Fleet managers cannot make effective decisions in a vacuum. Simply looking at isolated carbon data will not provide the complete picture. With this calculator, carbon-conscious decision makers can now reach a conclusion that is well-received by an organization's environmental and finance teams, just as our existing clients also use this resource. ...

...the tool allows vehicle fleet managers to accurately determine and compare global warming and air pollution emissions, as well as fuel and maintenance costs for all types of vehicles. For example, the tool calculates that a hybrid vehicle can cost 22% less to operate, and emits 46% less global warming pollution over a three-year period, than the average mid-size sedan. In addition, the tool provides a financial analysis of carbon output and how it affects the organization's bottom line.

Fleet managers can compare actual vehicles on a wide range of features, including fuel costs based on the actual price of gas in the user's region. Just playing with the tool, I could easily see that while an '08 Toyota Prius has a higher sticker price than a Chevy Malibu LS (both "large compacts"), the fleet owner would make up that difference in fuel savings... and also emit half of the greehouse gases. A no-brainer... right?

Those of us who are passionate about environmental protection tend to argue in those terms, as they're meaningful to us. But business people, however green they may be, need the business case, and the Cool Fleets tool looks like it does a nice job of offering just that. Fleet managers can have their green cred without breaking the bank... what better example of a "win-win?"

Categories: cars, fleets, tool, fuelefficiency, emissions, climatechange, globalwarming, sierraclub, donlencorporation

Will GM Revive the Electric Car? Part 2

As I noted last week, General Motors new Chevy Volt concept vehicle has received quite a bit of fanfare around the green blogosphere; as we also saw from some of the comments that post [at Green Options] received, the company's claim that it must develop an automotive lithium-ion battery to move the Volt to production has met with its share of skepticism. The media event I attended last Monday was aimed, in part, at skeptics -- the company wanted to make its case for choosing this particular path, including the reasons for developing new battery technology instead of taking advantage of current nickel metal hydride batteries common to most hybrid vehicles.

While our breakfast meeting with Larry Burns was small and relatively casual, GM had a thorough formal presentation planned for the larger group of reporters and writers that gathered later in the morning. Joining Beth Lowery, GM's VP of Energy and Environment, were Denise Gray, Director of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems for GM, and Joe LoGrasso, the Engineering Group Manager in that same division. Also present were representatives of the companies GM has contracted with in developing li-ion batteries for its "E-Flex" concept: Mary Ann Wright, CEO of Johnson Controls-Saft, Ed Bednarcik, VP and General Manager of A123Systems, and Scott Lindholm, VP of Systems Engineering for Cobasys. The presentations by all of these executives came together around two common themes: 1) the li-ion automotive battery is necessary for the E-Flex concept; 2) the combination of talent and experience GM had brought together can make it happen.

LoGrasso and Wright tackled the main question on everyone's mind: why lithium-ion when nickel metal hydride is a battery technology that, according to LoGrasso, is "nearing maturity in cost and performance." According to LoGrasso, GM had decided upon the following needs for a battery for the Volt:

• Energy: 40+ miles all-electric in city driving
• Recharge: While driving and with plug-in
• Power: EV driving full vehicle performance
• Life: 10 years/150k miles life

The advantages of li-ion batteries include:

• Superior specific discharge power & energy
  • ~40% less mass than NiMH
  • ~20% less volume than NiMH
• Excellent cycle life
• Long term cost potential
• Relatively low self-discharge
• Easier to control (determine SOC & power available)

To put this in terms that apply to most people's driving, a NiMH battery in the space alloted for a battery in the Volt would provide a 25-30 mile range in electric-only mode, and not provide the power most consumers want -- according to engineers that addressed this for me later by email, "The 0-60 would be unacceptable. The owner would also have issues with being able to drive up hills." An li-ion battery, on the other hand, could provide a 40-mile electric-only range with the power most car owners expect. Wright also noted that lithium-ion batteries provide more power with less space and weight, which translates into cost savings. Challenges still exist, of course, including cold temperature performance (mentioned here), as well as life span, robustness & abuse tolerance, the more sophisticated electronics needed to maintain li-ion cells, and the initial costs of the batteries and battery packs before production can be ramped up to a scale that will bring prices down.

The questions asked by readers at Green Options also came up during the Q&A period -- why not go with the technology currently available and upgrade as necessary? The company stuck to its story -- li-ion is necessary to create a plug-in hybrid that meets the power and energy expectations of most consumers.

So, is it? GM and its partners made a complex case for this technology -- we'd love to hear why you think they're right or wrong.

For other takes on this presentation, visit Autoblog Green, Evolution Shift, and EcoWorld.

Cross posted at Green Options.

Categories: gm, automobile, car, chevyvolt, battery, detroit

Will GM Revive the Electric Car? Part 1

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Detroit to attend a really interesting (and pretty unique) event: General Motors brought bloggers and journalists to their Research and Development Center outside of Detroit yesterday not to make a big announcement, or roll out a new vehicle, but to simply provide an update on the development of battery technology for the Chevy Volt and other electric concept vehicles. As the PR rep who coordinated the event told us right before the big presentation, there was really no news; rather, GM really seem to want to keep the media posted on where things stand with these new concepts that received a ton of attention in January.

Now, if you're a skeptic, you're probably thinking something along the lines of "Wow! Who Killed the Electric Car? must've really got their attention!" I think that's accurate -- at the auto shows in LA and Chicago, as well as today, company execs. discussed the EV1 project openly and frankly. Their story (and I think it's got some merit): a two-seater with an 80-mile battery range was only going to have limited appeal, and, ultimately, not serve the purpose of really greening the American auto fleet. And that's their real push, they claim -- they want to create greener cars that have mass appeal, and fundamentally change the vehicles we drive.

Enter the Volt, which was rolled out at the Detroit Auto Show, and is getting all sorts of attention. It's a sweet car, no doubt, but it's also a concept vehicle at this point. That's another area of criticism: GM does well creating green concept vehicles, but they're not rolling off the production lines. We heard a healthy dose of that in LA from the Rainforest Action Network and JumpStartFord (now Freedom From Oil). Larry Burns, VP of Research and Development, spoke to that criticism when I talked with him in Chicago, and the company continued to respond yesterday. In short, GM has more vehicles in its fleet that average over 30 mpg than any other American auto maker. Furthermore, as CEO Rick Waggoner said in LA, and Burns told us this morning at a bloggers-only breakfast meeting, GM is committed to "reinventing the automobile."

OK... sounds like a good line from the PR department, right? I've got to admit, after talking to Burns one-on-one in Chicago, and then seeing his presentation yesterday, I think we've got to give the company some latitude: they're definitely thinking very big. Burns held a breakfast meeting with four bloggers: Ed Ring of ecoworld, David Houle of Evolution Shift, Sam Abuelsamid of AutoblogGreen, and myself. The thrust of his talk: we're facing big challenges in terms of energy security, climate change and global political instability, and that requires a fundamental rethinking of the automobile. Burns noted that the "DNA" of the car hasn't really changed in 120 years: it contains an internal combustion engine powered by petroleum products, is driven by mechanical systems, and functions independent of other vehicles on the road. GM wants to change those factors: create a vehicle powered by electricity and/or renewable fuels, driven by electronic systems, and connected (via communications technologies) to other vehicles on the road (think accident avoidance, among other things).

This fundamental shift is encapsulated in a concept introduced by GM CEO Rick Waggoner at the Detroit Auto Show: E-Flex. According to Waggoner,

What exactly do we mean by E-Flex? Well, the "E" is no surprise - it stands for "electric," because no matter how an E-Flex vehicle is configured, it will always be driven exclusively by electricity.

This is the major difference between E-Flex and hybrids. Hybrids can be driven by an internal combustion engine, or an electric drive, or both systems simultaneously. E-Flex vehicles will always be driven by electricity.

What about the second half of the name? Well, that's the really interesting part of all this. E-Flex is "flexible" because the electricity it uses to drive the vehicle can come from a wide range of fuel sources. It can come from a hydrogen fuel cell; it can be generated by a small motor running on ethanol or bio-diesel or synthetic fuel; or it can come from the power grid, and be stored in a battery. And, when the electricity comes from the grid, it can be generated by natural gas, coal, nuclear power, wind, hydroelectric, and so on.

In short, E-Flex vehicles will enjoy one of the really outstanding benefits of electricity: the opportunity to diversify fuel sources for the vehicle.

E-Flex is also flexible because it offers flexibility around the globe. Europeans rely more on diesel fuel than North Americans, Brazil has gravitated to E-100 ethanol, and we see tremendous opportunities with bio-fuels here in the U.S. China, meanwhile, may well be the first country to develop a broad-based fuel cell infrastructure.

By setting up a propulsion system that allows us to power vehicles with any of these fuels, E-Flex provides us with a single elegant solution.

In short, E-Flex creates options. It'll allow GM to leverage a range of electrically driven propulsion systems, as well as benefit from the inevitability and the promise of energy diversity.

The concept is really innovative: essentially, GM wants to take the concept of energy diversity, which we've heard much about in the context of electricity production by utilities, and adapt it to the automobile. Rather than creating vehicles based on the assumption that gasoline is the almost universal fuel of choice, E-Flex allows for diversity based on local and regional difference.

Of course, this thinking presents unique challenges. The biggest ones: development of next-generation battery technology, particularly lithium ion batteries for automobiles. This, the company claims, is the main challenge they'll have to overcome before moving the Volt, as well as the Sequel, to production status. They say, though, that they're fully committed to developing this technology, and that, while no firm dates were given, they foresee these vehicles on the road within a 3-5 year time frame.

Too good to be true? That claim was made, with at least one reporter in the battery briefing characterizing the company as having a history of overpromising and underdelivering. In my next post, I'll get into the battery development plans, as well as alternatives that were suggested over and over.

I do think GM is very serious about reinventing the automobile, and that their ideas are much bigger than anything we're hearing from the remaining two companies of the "Big 3." They've provided a pretty specific blueprint for how they'll do that. And, while they don't have firm dates (that probably would be overpromising), they've argued that such developments can happen in a relatively quick time frame. The one question that remains to be answered (and the one that you can help with): how will the public react to this news? Are we willing to give the company the time it needs to make such dramatic changes? Or, has their moment passed? I'm tending towards the former: GM's certainly made its mistakes, but if these plans succeed, we're looking at a revolution in personal transportation...

Disclaimer: GM did cover my expenses for this trip. As with my trip to the Chicago Auto Show, this was done with the understanding that I was free to write (or not to write) whatever I chose...

Cross posted at Green Options

Categories: gm, automobile, car, chevyvolt, battery, detroit

From the Showroom to the Fairground: Toyota's "Highway to the Future"

Automobile marketing is pretty standard stuff, right? Newspaper ads, billboards, and the big, flashy exhibits at the auto shows -- that about covers it. If you want to find out more, you go to a website or the dealership -- right?

Toyota's attempting to turn some of those conventions on there heads with the (literal) roll-out of its Highway to the Future: the Mobile Hybrid Experience tour. Begun in January at the San Jose International Auto Show, the tour consists of two rolling museums: 53-foot trailers that contain high-tech exhibits meant to bring hybrid technology to the masses. The feature exhibits of the Experience include:

• "Alternative Fuels: Fueling the Future" identifies the differences in various types of alternative fuels and how they are produced.
• "Environment and Resources: Small Steps, Big Difference” shows attendees what they can do to make a difference to the environment.
• "The Prius Driving Experience" simulates the current Hybrid Synergy Drive technology, allowing visitors to interact with the system while on-screen instructions offer driving tips.
• "Hybrid Technology: Not All Hybrids are Created Equal" gives visitors a better understanding of the various hybrid technology options on the market and how hybrids benefit the consumer and the environment.

Where's the tour going? Auto shows, of course, but also to fairs, film festivals, and environmental gatherings -- it's also just making stops in various locations. All together, the Experience will make 150 different stops.

Is this marketing? Certainly. But it's definitely a unique form of marketing for a car company. First, and most obvious, there's a genuine educational effort here. Second, Toyota's not only bringing its hybrid line-up to potential customers, but also using the tour to literally move into weaker markets: as LA's Daily Breeze notes (sorry -- looks like the actual article is unavailable on the site), Toyota pretty much owns the hybrid market in the US. The bulk of those sales, though, occur on the coasts. By taking the Prius, Camry and Highlander on the road, and into flyover country, the company can get people behind the wheel (or, at least, playing with an exhibit) and introduce them to these vehicles in a fun, non-threatening manner.

Of course, the big question someone's bound to ask: what's the environmental impact of taking these trailers trucks on the road for 18 months? Probably sizable, but Toyota has attempted to offset that impact in several ways. First, they've partnered with the National Arbor Day Foundation, and will be planting over 50,000 trees in honor of Experience visitors -- that should offset some of the carbon emissions. They've also partnered with 3form in building the Experience: ceiling tiles, wall coverings and flooring are all made from recycled and/or eco-friendly materials. This could ultimately be a moot point: if the Tour gets more people driving hybrids, that in itself could offset this effort's carbon footprint in fairly short order. A definite "win-win..."

The Experience hasn't made it to St. Louis yet, but the folks at Toyota have promised to keep me in the loop. Has anyone been? What did you think?

Categories: toyota, hybrid, event, automobile, car

Chicago Auto Show: The Interview Round-up

Apologies for not getting this up sooner... was in bed at 8:30 Wednesday night, and yesterday was traveling home day...

I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon talking to GM executives. We've got audio files that we'll be sharing with you as soon as we get some glitches smoothed out, but I wanted to give you a quick overview.

GM scheduled a group interview/conversation with the bloggers at the show and our colleague Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of Global Product Development. If you follow GM's FastLane blog, you know that he's pretty outspoken -- that was clear in our discussion, too. It was a fascinating meeting -- Lutz addressed not only environmental concerns (even what he thought would happen to vehicles like the Hummer with GM's stated commitment to "reinventing the automobile"), but also the history of design at GM (and how it's come back into prominence), and even the perils of blogging with a PR team watching what you say!

I also met with Saturn's Director of Brand & Product Development Lisa Hutchinson. With the unveiling of the Astra, the Saturn folks were clearly in demand -- I was originally supposed to meet with Saturn GM Jill Lajdziak, but the radio folks kept her for themselves. Lisa was clearly in demand, also, so we kept it short and sweet. Essentially,

• Saturn believes that small cars like the Astra will continue to grow in demand.
• The VUE Hybrid will be going through several manifestations, from the current hybrid, to GM's dual-mode hybrid, to a plug-in. No dates, however, for the last stage.
• Saturn believes that green is a good bet, and sees it as a major part of their "evolution."

The last interview I did, with GM's VP of Research & Development and Corporate Strategy Larry Burns, was a blogger's dream (even when it's a green blogger meeting with a high-level executive of a major auto company). I was impressed not only with Larry's passion for his company and its products, but also his command of that company's environmental impact, and its efforts to address them. When I brought up the Rainforest Action Network and JumpStartFord's assertion that GM is focused on green concept vehicles and dirty production vehicles, he answered very thoroughly and very candidly. It's a wonderful discussion, and I can't wait to bring it to you.

I've got to admit I came away from these meetings pretty impressed with GM's ideas about "greening" the automobile. Of course, we'll have to keep a close eye on them, as well as other car manufacturers -- everyone's talking green now, but the proof will be in the actions they take. We should probably keep the Wal-Mart standard in mind -- judge them by their actions. But we also shouldn't take the relatively easy step of writing GM off because it killed the EV1 and builds the Hummer. If they really get it, the potential for positive impact is tremendous -- and we've got to encourage that. I hope you'll listen to the interviews once I get them up here... lots and lots of food for thought.

Crossposted at Green Options.

Categories: gm, automobile, cars, chicago, autoshow