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Meeting You Halfway -- The Continuing Saga of Electric and Hybrid Cars Hybrid cars, combining electric motors and internal combustion engines, may be the only way to wean the auto-loving public away from gas-guzzling machines -- at least if Detroit and Big Oil have anything to say about it. By Remy Chevalier Start Date: 2/10/00 "I hope with the Prius we're meeting you halfway." That's what the Toyota Man said to the Exxon Man at a hybrid conference two years ago. You see, the Prius is a half electric, half gasoline-engine car. Toyota has already sold 30,000 of these hybrids in Japan. It should arrive on U.S. shores in the spring, targeted at the youth market as one of their new Echo model options. Honda, who wanted to beat Toyota to the punch in America, started selling their hybrid called the Insight in January. A few hundred have been delivered. The scheduled 5000-production run is virtually pre-sold, so the car will never sit in dealerships long enough for future customers to test-drive them. A line was drawn in the sand back in 1984 when Honda tried to introduce its 68 mpg 1.3 CRX. The Big Three (U.S. car makers) and the 7 Sisters (oil majors) sent Honda packing, and it was the beginning of a wonderful new friendship. The Japanese understood fuel efficiency could not take precedence over gasoline sales if they were going to conquer the U.S. car market. The new Prius barely gets more than the 1984 CRX did, a mere 70 mpg. Yet the media is quick to swallow "green-washing" to satisfy the public's growing concern with ecological decay. In 1999, pure electric vehicles were cast aside in favor of these hybrid vehicles that still need their fix of black gold. Let's not forget that the U.S., through the Army's Marshall Plan, bought and paid for Japan's auto industry*. Japanese cars are Japanese in name only. The Japanese have no oil. They live on islands smaller than California with a population half the size of the United States. We went to war in the Gulf to protect their oil supply, not ours, since 90% of all oil shipped from Kuwait goes to Japan. So Japan is eager to find alternatives to the oil economy, but not so eager as to anger big oil interests, which are partly to blame for their current economic woes. What does this have to do with electric cars? Well, for one thing, were the Japanese free to design, develop and sell any car they wanted, we would have millions of electric cars on the roads in America today. They grew up watching Astro Boy. But they are constrained by the oil/car-tels. Little did Ronald Reagan know when he deregulated the electric utilities that he would open a can of worms which made it possible for the Japanese to re-introduce "reduced" gasoline consumption cars into this country. I think it never occurred to Reagan's Republican administration that cleaner and often cheaper alternatives to oil, coal and nuclear would loom over the horizon despite the fact that he shut down all solar energy programs. The utilities started finding it very attractive economically not to have to buy gasoline for their fleets of pick-up trucks and started putting pressure on Detroit to provide them with electric versions of the Chevrolet S-10 and the Ford Ranger, which have now sold thousands of electric vehicles since deregulation, not only to the utilities, but to military bases, national parks and corporate parks as well. Why the fascination for a type of car that doesn't go as fast as plain old gasoline alone? Well, for one thing, once you've driven one you know why. They are even easier and smoother to drive than an automatic transmission. When you are at full stop, there is no idle. The car just stops dead. Not only do you feel good about not spewing dirty exhaust into the air, there is no vibration, just silence. Since most white-collar workers use their cars to commute, spending around 2 hours a day in bumper-to-bumper traffic talking on their cell phones, hybrids are a godsend for the 21st Century lifestyle. What makes them so attractive, even if their range is limited to just 50 miles, more or less, on a single charge? The "Innovator's Dilemma", a Harvard Business book recently reviewed by Infinite Energy magazine, dedicates a whole chapter to marketing strategies for EVs. A great selling point is, in fact, their limited range. Few employees would go off and use company EV pick-ups for family outings on the weekends. Similarly, this would prevent teenagers from straying too far from home. Furthermore, to the utilities, the fuel is free, and maintenance on batteries and electric motors is virtually non-existent. It turns out that this "out of the gasoline box" thinking is also a big selling point for people who like to play golf all day and live just a few blocks from the club green behind gated communities. Bombardier, the Canadian defense contractor who otherwise builds bullet trains, markets what are called neighborhood electric vehicles, or NEVs for short. They are not alone. Dozens of other companies, including Ford's new Th!nk division now also makes them. Nissan is planning to market one called the Hypermini, complete with its own garage solar rooftop electrical charging system. At the turn of the last century, when electric cars were still the rage, women loved them because they did not taint their clothes with that awful odor. Now our entire cities smell of fuel, worse in metropolitan areas like Paris or Rome where diesel is common, with smog destroying historic monuments. And don't let anyone tell you it takes all day to charge an electric car anymore. This hasn't been true for years. Hundreds of charging stations now exist in the Los Angeles area, all equipped with rapid charging technology. Someone discovered a while back that if you used a computer to vary the rate of charge from slow to progressively fast to slow again, you could charge cars in about 10 minutes, without straining the battery, and without gasoline spills contaminating ground water supplies with toxic additives like MTBE. Plans are in the works to line all of Route 66 with EV charging stations so tourists can rent-an-EV in LA and cruise the famous vista-laden scenic highway all the way to Chicago and back. The problem is, only two companies control the bulk of battery technology in the world, Duracell and Eveready, the Coke & Pepsi of the throwaway battery society. The December 99 issue of Consumer Reports made that pretty evident. Any attempts on the part of smaller competitors, like Rayovac for example, to establish a genuine market for rechargeables has been thwarted by the two top dogs, Earth Day ethics or not. Just like GE's light bulb -- allegedly designed to blow out in time to buy another one -- battery companies are not eager to introduce technology that will allow longer lasting charges. So R&D; is limited to special space and military applications that seldom see the light of day in the real world. Even so, what made all the difference a few years ago for EVs was that the Japanese got hold of what is called Nickel Metal Hydride batteries from maverick solar inventor Stanford Ovshinsky. Even though Varta, the German battery company (a favorite of photographers), had contracted to develop the technology commercially, Panasonic did what Japanese companies do, went ahead and mass produced them anyway. Ovonics, Ovshinsky's company in partnership with General Motors, spent five years dragging Panasonic through the courts instead of developing its own better battery. By then it was too late. Both Toyota and Honda had introduced Nickel Metal Hydride power packs in all their electric cars, doubling their range, while GM's EV1 was still struggling to get 50 miles on one lead-acid charge. GM finally pulled the plug on the EV1 this year after spending a reported $700 million on the project, which is what it had wanted to do all along. GM was forced to develop the car because of California zero-emission standards. When these mandates were relaxed, GM's schizophrenia was suddenly cured. It was a lot of money spent for a car targeted at a niche Hollywood eco-celebrity market -- a car in which you could not even stick your elbow out the window because the door was too high, and you could not order a convertible model to enjoy the silent breeze in the California sunshine. GM would only lease them, and refused to lease the car outside the state. The restrictions were so great that people wanting to buy one gave up trying. Six hundred were leased out of the 1000 built, and they will probably be scrapped for parts when their batteries need servicing. Since there was no option to buy, they can't even become collector's items. While Detroit keeps having love affairs with committee cars that never make it past the concept stage under the bright lights of auto shows, the Japanese have pushed ahead and delivered commercially available models that have captured the imagination of a whole new segment of the population who just sees the automobile as a functional tool, a must-have of daily life. Sure, there are dozens of independent car companies trying to launch their own electric or hybrid models, like Solectria in New England. But, the lessons learned from Tucker and DeLorian have demonstrated that an independent automaker bringing his own vehicle to market in substantial numbers is a pipe dream. The automobile business is a closed game. New players are not being invited to the poker table. What we are seeing is mounting pressure on established automobile companies to meet the demands of environmentally conscious customers who want not so much better mileage, but less emissions. But transition away from oil as a fuel is not yet an option. Sixty percent of all television and print advertising is cars and trucks -- and what's the current rage but the 4x4 SUV, aka the yuppie assault vehicle. Every suburban mother wants one to protect her kids. So let's give them an emission-free tank! That's what the Army has done by developing a hybrid Humvee that has twice the speed and power of the regular diesel version, but can ride in total silence with no heat signature to boot! Introduced to the press with great fanfare at Disney World in 1998, it has since been hushed up. GM bought the Hummer company, thwarting any plans for Mr. Terminator to add one of the hybrids to his collection. This is why, as editor of Electrifying Times, the only electric vehicle publication yet on newsstands, I was fighting a losing battle to make people aware. If Detroit was really serious about EVs, or hybrids for that matter, Electrifying Times or any other EV publication would be supported by the auto industry to reach out to the general public the same way as other car magazines dedicated to niche interests. Electric cars are only limited by the willingness of automakers to commercialize them. About 5000 enthusiasts, members of the U.S. Electric Auto Association, have retrofitted electric cars as a hobby and use them daily. It's another Kar Kulture, much like Hot Rods or Low Riders. But in France, where electric cars are advocated by environmentalists and seen as a threat to the national power company, the Electricite De France (EDF) doesn't mind using EVs for governmental services; they just don't want "you" to have one as a private citizen! (Ninety percent of electricity in France comes from nuclear power. In Europe, EVs have become synonymous with a need for "clean" electricity by the anti-nuclear Greens. EDF is afraid newly formed independent energy companies could start providing green power alternatives to their customers, as is the case now in California, New Hampshire and Vermont.) The annual electric vehicle symposium held October 1999 in Beijing saw few American EV enthusiasts attend because of the prohibitive travel cost. But China has been listening and doesn't want to repeat the West's city planning mistakes. Hundreds of thousands of electric bicycles are made and sold in China every year. America is trying to capitalize on that emerging market by building and selling state-of-the-art batteries there. Soon, China will start selling its electric bicycles in the U.S., for a fraction of the cost of electric bicycles made and sold by Lee Iacocca. Iacocca, after retiring from Chrysler, formed EV Global Motors, with eventual plans to make electric cars as well. But will Detroit allow him to turn his back on the Good Ol'Boys? Let's not forget, Honda started out making motorcycles. We could be on the verge of a transportation revolution. Look at Monte Carlo. They worship $300,000 sports car there, but the city is lodged in a basin that traps car fumes and suffocates the tourists. So all city service vehicles are electric, and now citizens are buying them for themselves. The future for pure EVs -- 100% electric vehicles -- could be just as bright as for hybrids, but it might take forever for pure EVs to establish themselves in the court of public opinion. The old cliches die hard. For example, the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) has failed to capitalize on the sudden fame its drivers received from the mainstream press in 1999. Both Wired and Top Gear magazines praised NEDRA in lavish articles, heralding it as a bastion of genuine automotive revival. It turns out the instant torque of electric motors could make them a real challenge to nitrous oxide boosted, alcohol fueled internal combustion engines in standing-start races. It could be just a matter of time before EVs race for pink slips on San Diego's deserted midnight streets, and win! This would be a nail in the coffin for smoke and pistons. You'd see bikini-clad girls modeling brightly colored EVs at trade shows instead of having the EVs hidden in some forgotten corner with the rest of the non-profit organizations! But that's the fantasy. The reality is that the media is there to cover the unveiling of fancy eco-cars aimed at the environmental market, but when the camera lights go out, the auto companies roll these vehicles back into moth balls and come up with a pre-arranged set of excuses for why they failed to develop and market them a year later. It's a vicious cycle. Short of a Bill Gates deciding to bank his entire fortune on changing the face of the auto industry, I don't see much change in sight. It would take a massive consumer rebellion. On a positive note, that revolution might finally come, but only if Toyota and Honda are successful in selling hybrids in America starting this year. These two companies might really be singing a new tune for a change, and not blowing smoke in our eyes again. Both the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight sticker prices come in under an affordable $20,000. If enough eco-conscious drivers demand one, these carmakers may have no other choice but to build more of them, making way for Detroit to follow. Recommended reading: *"Car Wars" by Jonathan Mantle, 1995 -- How American interests have always owned and controlled all the car companies in the world. "Forbidden Fuel", authors unknown, 1975 -- Hard to find. Tells how the oil companies funded the 1930's prohibition era just to destroy the ethanol fuel industry. Remy Chevalier is former editor of Electrifying Times Magazine. He can be emailed at remyc@prodigy.net or see his websites at http://www.endsecrecy.com and http://www.remyc.com. Also see the Electrifying Times website at http://www.electrifyingtimes.com
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