The Inspired Auto Bailout Of Tom Friedman's Dreams

Tom Friedman's column today bemoans the lack of foresight and innovative thinking in Detroit. While the topic isn't particularly new -- can you think of anyone not distressed in some way by the failures of the United States auto industry? -- Friedman points out a few places involved in the futuristic-sounding Better Place electric car network:

What business model am I talking about? It is Shai Agassi's electric car network company, called Better Place. Just last week, the company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., announced a partnership with the state of Hawaii to road test its business plan there after already inking similar deals with Israel, Australia, the San Francisco Bay area and, yes, Denmark.

The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy -- such as wind and solar -- as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets -- the first pilots were opened in Israel this week -- plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.

Agassi's plan was the subject of a big feature in Wired not too long ago. The story highlighted the kind of passion Friedman seems to wish for in Detroit. Agassi left a job to start thinking about a free electric car network:

Nevertheless, many of Agassi's colleagues from SAP joined him. They realized that what Shai was building was still essentially a software company. He needed a network that allowed cars to tell the grid how much charge they were carrying and how much more they required. The system had to know where the car was so it could tell the driver where to go to "fill up." And it had to electronically negotiate with the local energy utility over when it could and couldn't take power and how much to pay. Few of his colleagues asked to read the business plan before signing on. They were joining the cause, not just the company. "Once you have a mission," Agassi told me over dinner one night last winter, "you can't go back to having a job."

If Friedman's colleague Paul Krugman is right about the coming decentralization of the US auto industry, then both might be cheered by San Francisco's work with Shai Agassi and Better Place:

The new $1 billion project is expected to encompass the cities of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. Similar deals have been signed with governments elsewhere, and now California marks the first stop in the US market. The United States is set to go electric.

According to media reports, Better Place, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, will begin constructing the charging stations by 2010, with commercial sales beginning in 2012, a few short years away. The electric cars will be built by Renault-Nissan.

Comments

[TrooAmerican]

A) No AMericans DONT need an electric car with an onboard charging system or that can go 300 miles on one charge that happens in 5 minutes. Want? sure.
B) If ALL Americans needed the same thing, they wouldnt produce SUVs, Trucks, Vans, Minivans, sedans, Rear drive, front drive, compacts, subcompacts, etc. So No, the same Electric Car Is Not required for All Americans.
C) the typical driver commuting to work statistically drives about 46 miles there and back per day.
A day of running errands to stores, church, school etc drives about the same.
D) Electricity is normally cheaper at night and with cars you can just plug in and charge up over night, most people have no problem with that. Anyway, charge times, battery longevity and charge holding time and capacity are all being improved yearly.
E) the EV1 proved that a good running, EV with torque and ride handling can be enjoyable and quick to drive as well as convenient and easy to charge with enough range for hte people that test drove them on leases to the point that almost all of them were VERY Happy with the car.

What other proof do you need than those that drove them enjoyin them?

I commute longer everyday myself 37 miles each way. And I would LOVE to have a basic EV that could go 100miles perday and charge at night. It would be fine for me.

[veracity]

Come on, techies... Toyota already PERFECTED a PERFECTLY RELIABLE, ALL-ELECTRIC plug-in car back in 1999-2002.... the Toyota RAV4-EV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV

They were FORCED to STOP producing these excellent, reliable, (up to) 80 mph, 100-mile range small SUVs (externally identical to the popular gas-powered Toyota RAV4 that you see on the roads every day) when CHEVRON oil co. SUED Toyota and Panasonic for $30 million for battery patent infringement.

WHERE? did Chevron get the patent rights to this outstanding, high-density, high-reliabilty, high-tech battery? FROM TEXACO (whom Chevron bought out in that lawsuit), who in turn bought the battery patent from... GM !!

A friend of mine owns one, and drives it to work as a commuter vehicle to this day - the car still on its original battery pak! This particular vehicle was driven from NY to Florida without stops, merely by bolting a stock 5,000 watt (HomeDepot) generator to a bumper-rack, and wiring the generators 240v output into the car's AC charging system. (Like a yacht running off of dockside power.)

This is NOT FUTURISTIC FANTASY - there are 300 of these cars on the road today!

[SShaw490]

Build an EV that can run at least 300 miles with the lights and AC running, can be charged up in the same amount of time it takes to fill a gas tank, and has acceptable on-the-road performance, and you have something that people will buy. Otherwise, you have a conversation piece and a neat toy.

Americans have to have range and that range has to include running with lights and AC going. In short, Americans need an on-board charging system.

[ImpressedByHonesty]

If it takes you $80 to fill up in 10 minutes, but $25 to fill up by plugging in overnite, which would you choose?

1st scenario most of that $80 goes to the middle east in part to fund islamic extremists and fundamentalists that use it to curtail womens rights and western style democracy. The $80 contributes heavily to global warming and air pollution inhaled by kids and the elderly.

2nd scenario keeps the savings over $25 in your pocket here in the U.S. Think of it as a $4000 tax cut every year. And the $25 stays here in the U.S. to contribute to our flagging economy. You'd pick the $80 10 minute fill-up every time, right?

[KillTheMessenger]

What was so perfect about the Rav4? It's an ugly looking piece of... and that's just the gas powered version. Don't get me started on the electric one.

Toyota could have easily fought that battery patent if they had wanted to and there is nothing special about those batteries to begin with. They simply decided that it wasn't worth it because no more than 328 were sold.

According to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV

some Rev4-EVs made it 150,000 miles on their battery pack. Wow... so logic tells us that most didn't last that long or people never even tried and keep them like collectors items. That's just not enough of lifetime for a production car with a 27kWh battery that's insanely expensive to replace.

The vehicle has a 0-60 time of around 18 seconds. That's 18 endless seconds. Many already complain about the 12s of the Prius (which, especially uphill, requires some patience). In comparison the gasoline versions of the Rav4 they make today are between 6s and 10s... can you imagine how getting into an electric equivalent must feel after driving the "normal" one? Molasses comes to mind.

No, it's not a fantasy to have 300 of them out there. The fantasy part starts where you begin imagining 300,000 or 3,000,000. But actually, that's just a nightmare.

[veracity]

Well! I find myself a victim of the wrath of the great KtM, lol.

Yep, you're right.. 18 seconds to 60mph. is the car's biggest drawback. But if our Electric Car Club friends could bolt a stock generator to a bumper rack, I would hope professional engineers with full factory backing could do better.
The rest of your comment fails to acknowledge that this was A FIRST, factory run of an all electric car. Sure, Toyota is almost as guilty as GM and the rest for "KILLING the Electric Car" - but they actually did put a roomy small SUV on the road, and you would expect 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation models to be more powerful, quicker, and longer ranged.

I just find GM's song & dance about the Volt to be just that - a song and dance - and can't understand why Techies don't grab on the RAV4-EV as a perfectly good place to START America's future EV, next-generation transportation fleet.

And, certainly, the high battery costs could be brougth down by massive production, government subsidies, or both.
Did we mention - it uses almost NO OIL and FLUIDS, greatly reducing its operating costs (which should be deducted vs battery costs)?

[SShaw490]

I read Friedman's article and immediately took exception to his bemoaning of the US auto industry. The US auto industry is the most innovative developer and builder of REASONABLE automobiles in the world. They make a 400hp Hemi hybrid SUV that gets 22 mpg combined. Hybrid trucks, Escalades, all kinds of things. And the Volt is the ONLY PRACTICAL ELECTIC CAR YET. A car without an on-board charging mechanism is not practical for Americans - go tell Americans they can buy this $100K car that they can't drive more than 75 miles from home, ever, and see how you do. The Volt has unlimited range because its gasoline engine will charge the battery when it gets low, and that's what you have to have in a car for Americans.

This deal Friedman is talking about is the least practical thing I ever heard - so you subscribe in San Francisco and you can never leave the city? You live in San Francisco but have to take a bus if you want to go to Monterey? Not to mention the sheer enormity of a project that requires thousands of recharging stations being built all over the city.

Friedman is losing it a little bit. His over the top histrionics about the economic issue have been alarming, and this scheme is so overwhelmingly impractical that I'm amazed to hear him hyping it.

[sposton]

Friedman often draws broader conclusions than is warranted. He gets caught in his own excitement spiral.

[KPinSEA]

Good lord, you can't really be bragging with a straight face about a hybrid Escalade? That's like a fat guy bragging that he cut down from six to four Twinkies at lunch.

Volt is (a) not yet available and (b) looks like it won't be available for less than $40K, making it a miserable failure at getting any significant number of people to buy it. Although I'm all in favor of Volt's plug-in hybrid approach, it looks like better than even money that the Prius Plug-In version will beat it to the market at a lower price.

The U.S. auto industry drove itself into the ground by milking highly profitable products until the last possible minute with their eyes firmly on this quarter's profits .... until there were no profits left and they could beg somebody else to bail them out and save next year's bonuses for executives.

Better to broker a Toyota takeover of G.M. than to reward their mismanagement.

[KillTheMessenger]

There is nothing reasonable about a 400hp engine unless it is used to tow one or two trailers. A 38ton truck in Europe (the largest regular transportation vehicle allowed on European highways) usually comes with a 360hp diesel.

The Volt doesn't even work, yet. And it is a hybrid, not an EV.

Try again. But this time harder.

[SShaw490]

Everyone bitches about the US factories building "cars nobody wants" and ignores the simple fact that the big 3 sell more vehicles than the Japanese, outsell the Japanese 2 to 1 in America, and GM has been the sales leader of the world for 77 consecutive years. The big 3 build EXACTLY the cars Americans want. Americans WANT trucks and SUVs and if they're going to have to satisfy that demand, why not do it with a model that uses less fuel and emits less pollution? Toyota's Prius is the only high-mileage hybrid that is profitable to build, and it's questionable exactly how profitable it is. All other small hybrids are money losers.

Americans want trucks and SUVs. The green movement had better figure out that if we don't build better, more responsible ones, we'll keep pushing car manufacturers to build cars they really CAN'T sell. The key to the green movement is to DRIVE LESS, not to try to push people to buy cars that cost a fortune, are totally impractical and they don't want. Until you can charge up an EV car in the same amout of time that you can fill your gas tank, they're unsuitable for Americans and people won't buy them. Why build them?

If you want to really solve problems, you have to take the public's desires into account. It's better to build a product that fills a market more responsibly than to tell people they're wrong about what they want.

[TrooAmerican]

"The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy -- such as wind and solar -- as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a National Electric Car Charging Infrastructure."

Did you read the article? The concept from this "Better Place" is National not limited to a single location. They are just testing it in the SF OAK SJ area first.
Dont you think it might be a good idea to go look at the website of the company first before Knocking the concept?
Especially when regional government of a population that size Loaded with PHDs and Masters Degreed professionals with decades of experience in Project management and feasibility studies has apparently endorsed the plan and is movin forward with it.
And especially since foreign Nations have also looked it over and done the same with their experts.
I tend to trust the people that have combined Thousands of years of education, management, research, expertise and knowledge in regional planning vs. some Poster with dubious complaints.

[Overtone]

Batteries may soon be technologically obsolete. When that occurs, all new cars and vehicles, of every conceivable variety, are likely to feature all-electric propulsion.

Hans Coler, a German inventor, demonstrated an electronic alternative to batteries in 1926. His work was examined by two teams of university professors. Distinguished scientists found there to be "no fraud, hoax or fault" involved. Coler stated that the magnet strength remained constant. Space, since the time of Paul Dirac, is believed by eminent scientists to be chock full of energy. Converting some of this energy, seemingly from nowhere, as well as a second new source of energy, is now the subject of new science and technology. The second source is ambient heat and reflects Maxwell's interpretation of thermodynamic laws. Both open a path to powering our planet without the need for fossil fuels. They can replace the need for batteries of all sizes with a power source which maintains constant output and never needs to be recharged.

The ultimate application is the potential to turn parked cars into power plants. Equipped with fuel-free generators that produce perhaps an average of 100 kW - parking lots can be equipped so that power can be sold to the local utility. No physical connection will be necessary. Technology exists that can wirelessly transmit up to 150 kW to the power grid. Car owners can be paid. Many vehicles may pay for themselves.Those who experience these changes will be living in a far better place.

[KillTheMessenger]

Are you interested in a historical landmark spanning across a river in the neighborhood of Brooklyn? I have one for sale.

[SShaw490]

In the Middle Ages, it was alchemists. Today, it's perpetual motion engineers.

[KillTheMessenger]

They call it "free energy" now, but it's still covered by the same old energy conservation law that made perpetual motion such a loser.

[ipv4]

What can't we just give all those billions to tesla motors who have been doing something that the big 3 refuse to do which is give us real electic cars that can get more then 200 miles on a charge ,but the only thing they are missing is the means of mass production. http://www.teslamotors.com/

[ferrarimanf355]

... because Tesla has problems of their own?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169161

Everybody needs to stop putting Tesla on a pedestal. It's harder than it looks...

[SShaw490]

No, what they're missing is an on-board charging mechanism. Without that, an electric car is a toy for rich people, not a serious vehicle for Americans. Sorry, but that's the way it is. A car you can't drive more than 75 miles from home is a conversation piece, not a car for Americans.

[norkas]

ipv4 is correct and i have been advocating tesla autos because of what can already be done.

Tesla sold out of there first 2 years of autos and it is pricey because it is a very fast sports car.

GM or the other idots could of purchased the patents and technology from them at a great price but of course they did not want to see a fuel efficiant autos or electric.

There are other autos being developed in Calif that will shock you just do a little looking under new electric autos and hybreds.

You will be upset and then understand we were all screwed

[kiwijohn]

The roots of Paul Krugman's ideas on the decentralization of the car industry may be found in the old classic E.F.Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" which contains some other missing links that are very relevant in the context of Tom Friedman's 'Hot, Flat and Crowded' world - one of the most exciting books I have read in many months.

[sposton]

E.F.Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" is a must read for our age.

[kiwijohn]

It is. My grandfather worked with him at the Control Commission in Berlin implementing the European Marshall Plan. Published in 1973 the book pointed at issues of globalization and the potential pitfalls of a version of capitalism that would rely on size and momentum rather than flexibility and timely effectiveness. For a large organization to work, according to Schumacher, it must behave like a related group of small organizations. I am not aware of the details of the proposed Detroit bailout that got through the house today, but I am hoping that someone closer to the action can help cement the restructuring provisions along Schumacher lines. I smell that the GOP is mistakenly worried about the Code Green angle of the bill but is fronting another agenda as cover-up?

[elizaconnors]

Yet, we have just funneled $15b away from this and other like companies in order to bail out companies that refuse to drop emissions related lawsuits against us.

Unbelievable.

[ErnestineBass]

Funneled that money into two companies that no longer have any interest in building autos.

Read this yet? This is where that $15 Billion will be spent...guaranteed.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/02/24/cerberus_problems_deepen_amid_chrysler_gmac_woes/

I wonder how much the reclusive head of Cerberus, Steven Feinberg, will pocket?

[elizaconnors]

Thanks for the link. This is all just wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Tricina]

I've been pretty thrilled by the idea of Better Place ever since I too saw the Wired article. The speed at which Better Place has landed deals with Israel, Japan, Denmark, Hawaii and San Francisco either shows the desperation to find a new way to power cars or a company that's growing too fast. We'll see which it is in the next few years. I sure hope they're a success, though.

[Sumocat]

I remember the Better Place article from Wired. Very interesting system. Instead of recharging batteries in the car, which takes hours, their system relies on swapping batteries, like swapping an empty gas tank with a full gas tank, which can be done in minutes. Obviously, the logistics of a battery-swapping system can be problematic, but it allows batteries to be charged during the day when solar energy is collected, as opposed to relying primarily on overnight charging via other sources. It also leaves the door open for upgrading batteries as new technology becomes available.

[Tom95134]

The electric cars will be built by Renault-Nissan.

Says it all!