Looks like within the next two years, auto manufacturers will start building PHEVs and BEVs. And that great because these plug-in cars will have much better fuel mileage and should greatly reduced smog and green house gas pollution.

But, while these cars will reduce the air pollution problems locally, that alone will not solve the air pollution problems. When we use more electricity off the grid, we create more air pollution at fossil-fueled power plants. Currently 50% of our electric power is generated by coal-fired power plants, which account for the next largest amount of air pollution behind automobiles. Someone recently said: If you shut down the coal-fired plants, you would solve the green house gas, and the smog problems with this one action.

Short of that drastic action, I would like to see us pressure Congress to mandate pollution control devices on all the old and new coal-fired plants as a step toward cleaner power generation. It is interesting that because of a deliberate loop hole generated by Congress, some of the older coal plants have been spewing out sulfur, nox, co2 and fly ash for thirty to fifty years without any pollutions controls whatsoever. It's time this stopped.

I'm not a Serria Club member but if you want to know more link to: http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp

RMI are the people who started the hypercar concept - the completely carbon fiber SUV, and later started the fiberforge company. So the "lightweighting" is their speciality. I'm not sure if they've actually accomplished anything in terms of actual products, though.

Anyone have a quote on how much their carbon fiber costs per pound? Price as of 2006 was around 8-10 USD/pound ($3.63-$4.54/kilogram), according to Oak Ridge national laboratory: http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20060306-00

From the article: "[The Volt] is a 4,000-pound vehicle...So this is a concept that is not going to work....So until they start hearing the RMI message, really, of lighten your vehicle, make it more efficient, and that the energy you put on board is a minimum...then you can afford it. The cost equation does work."

Unless they can show that carbon fiber can become truly affordable, they're going to fall victim to their own words.

Additionally, most sources I have seen have indicated the Volt concept -which uses a lot of weight-reducing plasics in the body panels - actually had a weight of around 3,140 pounds, versus 2,970 pounds for the EV1. Despite this blatant factual error, Walters' point about lightweighting still stands.

One again the Delphic oracles come out of their Orifices to instruct all the stupid plebeians actually doing the job, on how they should do it better. This time, they will consent to instruct the world's engineers and automakers on how to build PHEVs.

Its just like their last forage into the world of commerce, where the sniffed and scoffed at the use of fully recyclable metal car bodies. Once again, they are talking disparagingly about the work of actual doers.

They are saying you could save weight and construct them out of the light weight materials that rolled the cost of B2 Bombers to $2 Billion dollars, (with a B), per copy. True but irrelevant.

They disregard the fact that no one has figured out a way to either afford such a PHEV in the first place, or to recycle such a monstrosity in the second place.

Indeed it was their influence on the government politicians and planners that turned the "Planned Generation of New Vehicles" the PGNV experiment, into a total boondoggle. Of course the non doers in the government listened to the pontifications of the Delphic Orifice; it wasn't their money, the taxpayers just donated it.

PNGV became such a boondoggle that produced PHEVs that projected with economies of mass manufacture, to "ONLY COST" $800,000 dollars a copy to produce, never mind try to build and sell. Vehicles that only a billionaire could afford.

Their sainted Philosopher King, Amory Lovins, self proclaimed half-wit leader of the "small is beautiful" crowd, has consented to suggest the yokels on how they should go about their mundane tasks, once again.

His prior advice, besides PNGV, was to advise Mao Tsetung that "backyard blast furnaces" were a great idea, and "small is beautiful" in action. The Marxist fools wasted billions, and starved other millions diverting resources, in implementing the cockeyed ideas of the gentleman who never bothers to actually, (ahem), get his hands dirty, and to follow his own advice.

Instead of food, they produced lots of slag, the exact equivalent of his philosophical trash. Lovins retreated into his Delphic milionaires abode in the Rocky Mountains before deciding to emerge once again to provide the world with his divine ruminations.

How many forests have been felled, to fill the world with his belief in Noble Savages doing fine with primitive or no technology? Just once I would like to see him do without, himself.

Just once I'd like to see him know what he is talking about before he shares his "Bon Mots", with us mere mortals.

What a load of utter Rubbish.

Stan, the lightweighting is free.

With the use of low-pressure forming and larger pieces, you have such a reduction in tooling and production costs that the increase in material cost is offset by the reduction in equipment, labor and energy needed to do the forming. Put some color in the plastic and you avoid the need to build, run and power the paint shop too.

Or, you know, we could all keep driving Excursions and Hemi Rams while we wait for the perfect car to arrive...

Toyota watched the PNGV program and produced the Prius. No one said that you had to stop with the 3 prototypes that the automakers built. The PNGV program was established to get the automakers thinking in new ways and in Toyota's case it worked.

@Stan,
I knew that long post was yours in the first sentence. I thought the Supercar died because a Bush entered office. UC Davis had a modified aluminum-bodied Mercury Sable sedan hybrid getting 78 mpg 6 years ago. It passed California emissions tests, too.

@ Rob,
Here's my take on Carbon Fiber: Detroit will spend hundreds of millions on an assembly line to get the marginal cost per bumper stamped out to be as low as possible, hoping to make it up in volume. Thus far, Detroit has not found (or not looked hard enough for) a way to do that with carbon fiber. It probably wouldn't make sense to max the carbon fiber in the first generation, but there are bound to be some parts where you get the greatest return for substituting carbon fiber. My guess is there are major chunks of the chassis where carbon fiber would allow many pieces to be replaced by a single piece (labor savings), the passenger compartment gets stiffer, and hundreds of pounds come off the vehicle weight. If it's a common component that can be used in several GM or Ford cars, the economies of scale get better still. You probably still want steel in the nose of the vehicle for the crumple zone to dissipate energy maximally.

@breeze,
actually, I beleive that Carbon fibre is absorbs and disipates more energy than steel. but in a non strutural location its a pretty expensive part.

I heard of a U.S. oompany that bought the rights of a Canadian inventor who was using many sheets of linen that were pressed and glued to gether. The new material was apparently stronger than steel a fraction of the weight and wouldn't corrode. The company was going to use this material to make babbit bearings for ships. As friction increased heat the oil and glue in the material would then act as a lubricant.

It would seem that a variation on this idea would be more than feasable.

plugin hybrids are a great idea, for homeowners that want to remember to plug their cars in every night. In LA, everyone has cars, but when you have to park on the street you arent going to be able to plug it in. and i doubt employers are going to set up more than a half dozen recharge stations for every 100 employees.
carbon fiber is a great idea, especially since Boeing has cornered the market for their new plane and new factories wont be up and running for a few years. Not to mention the oil based epoxy resins and the glass sharp particles that pop off in accidents.
I am surprised to see that all the GM supporters havent weighed in to support that thundering dinosaur, but that will happen in time.

stan -

I don't believe Mao and Lovins have any connection whatsoever. Lovins was still a schoolboy when Mao was up to his idiotic Great Leap Forward fantasies, and even at that tender age would presumably have seen the folly in "a blast funace in every backyard."

As to whether he would like to see a solar water heater in every backyard, I must there agree with you, but that is simply his thermodynamics talking; Lovins theorizes that it is inherently inefficient to raise the temp of water 80 degrees using electricity produced far from point of use, perhaps using a nuclear reactor that produces temperature difference hundreds of times the 80 degrees you need.

I think the worst that Lovins can be accused of is having a talent for self-promotion, but I am glad to listen to an energy wonk so well informed about physics, economics, and the environment. The stuff he wrote in 1977 looks pretty brilliant and prophetic right now.

Lovins makes a living run his mouth off about physics, economics, and the environment to the clueless about those subjects. He is brilliant at it. He has convinced Tom. I call it verbal slight of hand.

Now to the topic of this PR. Just how stupid are these people?

“PHEVs can help increase the use of renewable power generation at the margin, flatten out peak demand, and overall contribute to the more efficient use of electric power, while reducing the need to build new power generation capability, according to the team.”

This statement is contradictory on so many levels. If you want renewable energy power plants they must be built. There is no excess renewable energy or nuke capacity. Looking at the curves provided, the only thing that would happen is inefficient gas fire power plants would run longer.

Five million PHEVs all feeding electricity back to the grid from 3-6 pm. Anyone see a problem here? Peak demand is caused by people diving home and turning on their AC.

Does anyone has an authoritative source for the mass of the Volt? For electric vehicles mass is slightly less important than for ICE powered vehicles thanks to regenerative braking.

That said, there seems to be a lot to gain by making batteries that can fully charge / discharge.

Fred, once the 20% with off road parking have purchased a few million PHEVs local authorities will start putting in place street charging units. Especially in smog effected areas like LA.

Rant all you want KitP, PHEVs are going to happen.

PHEVs are fine, but the notion of efficiency as a design element isn't the reality. We should be talking about how to balance efficiency with meeting customers' emotional and utility needs. That's what sells cars. It's why the EV1 didn't sell. It's why the Prius is still considered 'snobby'. It's why Toyota and Nissan have beefed up their large (gas-guzzling) pick-up trucks in the last five years. It's why SUVs are still popular even with $3.00+/gallon gas.

Apparently GM is doing some work with structural composites. They've done a prototype engine/transmission support from CF that might make it into production vehicles eventually. Certainly their full-size pickups could stand to lose a few ounces here and there...

Not sure what happened to this since it was reported in 2004:

"Adam Myers of General Motors described a new composite transmission cross member for full-size pickup trucks, under development at his company. The two-component, molded SMC cross member, a critical load-bearing element of the truck chassis, will replace a steel part and save 5 kg/11 lb, a "huge" reduction, according to Myers. Testing is under way, and the beam could be produced by the hundreds of thousands, if taken into production. Peter Foss, of GM's Research & Development and Planning Group, discussed another composite development, a thermoplastic composite liftgate for the Buick Rendevous. The composite version has reduced a multiple-part metallic gate to just three compression-molded components made with Twintex glass/polypropylene pellets, from Saint-Gobain Vetrotex (Valley Forge, Pa., U.S.A.)."

http://www.compositesworld.com/ct/issues/2004/October/593

On the corvette C6 they went with a magnesium/aluminum engine cradle to save weight. Supposedly the next-gen Corvette uses substantial amounts of carbon. Let's hope the tech trickles-down.

As for weight not mattering because of regenerative braking? It's my understanding that regenerative braking only recaptures about 30% of the kinetic energy of the vehicle. Surely it is better not to need to accellerate the weight in the first place, which lets you use a smaller motor, smaller brakes, smaller battery, lower-capacity controller & regen charger, more space for passengers and less for running equipment...

Note that a reduction in labor requirements will probably NOT yield a cost savings under the UAW contracts.  The UAW wants minimum staffing levels, and for workers to be paid even if there is nothing for them to do.  Given that, an automaker would derive no benefit by substituting high-tech materials for labor of the same cost, because they still pay for the unused labor.

One more reason why one automaker should declare bankruptcy, throw out the union, and start fresh.

E-P: ????

GM can't substitute unused labor for high-tech materials of the same cost. The (non)worker makes nothing now and hasn't the skill or training to make anything GM can sell.

If surplus labor was useful for making low-tech parts then GM would have them doing so right now.

I think your point was that high-tech will increase GM costs. I agree, in the short run it must. But the alternative is building stuff that you can't sell. That is tough on the bottom line too.

IMO GM got the better of the deal. Health costs are capped. The principle of tiered wages was accepted. And those excess workers will retire fairly soon (the UAW work force is getting old, I think the average age is over 50).

My guess is that putting those excess workers back to work is the last thing GM intends.

This "and batteries cost money" is an under statement!

RMI also was a huge promoter of the Hydrogen Economy. Remember that? I agree that RMI's promotion of lighter weight materials is reasonable (I guess) but hopelessly naive. Automakers are not (that) stupid. They would substitute more Aluminum for steel if it made sense economically, but it doesn't. Carbon fiber parts are even more expensive than Aluminum.

RMI's belated foray into PHEVs is an also-ran effort, in my viewpoint. I think they should apologize for all that Hydrogen stuff first.

Jim,

There are many automakers that feel Aluminum does make economic sense in specific places: Look at the number of vehicles with aluminum suspension components, fenders, hoods, roofs, bumper reinforcement beams and wheels.

Personally, I would only sign on as a part of a "V2G" program with a PHEV if the utility company agreed to buy and own the battery pack while I simply use it in normal driving fashion. They can make use of the battery pack so long as they leave me with enough electricity to drive home at the end of the day + some margin for error. I would only be held liable for the battery if I cause damage to it intentionally (insure it separately from the car against accidents). They get a backup system to use as needed and extra electricity purchases out of me (to pay for my daily driving usage) and I don't have to worry about the power company causing the life of my batteries to be used up prematurely (it is their batteries they would be abusing).

If I owned the batteries - I would "opt out" of any V2G schemes.

Patrick, If you owned a car with a battery used for something than starting; then you would be too dumb to opt out of V2G.

Who's a bigger jagoff - Kit or Stan?

Glad you have a great sense sense of humor to go all with your insight on the topic Randall.

I would add to Patrick's list, building enough renewable energy and nuclear generation so the stop importing LNG to burn it in California cities. Oops, I'm bad. If there was enough generation capacity and clean air there would be no reasons to discuss V2G or PHEV.