Electric Vehicles

LIFE: BALANCE, CORUPTION AND OUR POLITICAL WAY

2010-07-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

Life is about balance. When balance leaves, corruption fills in. Washington has totally been corrupted. As soon as a politician is elected or re-elected, they start running for the next election. They stop thinking about America and its needs from a broad sense and look for financial support (a lot from lobbyists) from people who want to influence the politicians stand, support their re-election and put their lobbying needs into everything. You talk about healthcare reform and you leave out a major, major lobbying group, the American Trail Lawyers who changed their name to American Association of Justice. Why? Most people put lawyers about as low on the respected occupations as politicians. They are spending about $34M on lobbying every year to prevent tort reform every where. They are especially concerned about health care because the ambulances they chase are very profitable for them. There has been no concern in Washington among mostly the Democrats about health care costs reductions. Why has health care costs gone up? Why are US drugs so expensive? Not all, but a lot of it has to do with money hungry trail lawyers suing companies with deep pockets, and doctors and hospitals. The costs to do "everything under the sun in diagnosing problems" have been driving costs up, not by the judgment of doctors, but the lawyers looking for reasons to sue a doctor or hospital.

Now where is the corruption? Probably 90% of Congress is lawyers by education. They are deeply tied to the legal industry in this country. Tort reform is not on their agenda. I am from the auto industry, and a major driver in what we do is to protect ourselves from ambulance chasers. The bulk of the Toyota problem is caused by the press and the trail lawyers. Have you yet heard any "facts" bought out, other than by Toyota? Obama is a lawyer and don't you think he is looking after his friends? The legal profession is needed, but you need to recognize that it adds no value to our economy, it is a re-distributor of money. The legal professional needs major reform.

Suggestions, yes limit lobbying, but more importantly is getting in new representatives in Washington who come because it is a privilege to serve and not a permanent job. Term limits are absolutely necessary. With term limits you will get a better cross section of America than a bunch of lawyers who could not make it as lawyers. It is impossible for an average business man to say, I think I can help and I want to run for that office and serve a term. He has no chance in today's system because of the corruption in our political system. We do not have a cross section of America in Washington. We have a bunch of lawyers. Lawyers because of their education and training do not understand cause and effect in a scientific way, nor do they have the vision of what to do today to fix tomorrow. Lawyers go by one case or problem at a time and the result does not even have to be correct to be considered a "win." They do not think about much beyond today which is going to be our death.

As far as Green initiatives are concerned, what we need today is a Congress in Washingtion with business people, scientists and lawyers who see what is needed, such as a direct carbon tax that will change people's wasteful habits and make alternative energy lower cost than status quo. Cap and trade is stupid (look at Al Gore and his firm that is going to play in cap and trade to make billions!). It saves the politicians, who pass it, from any responsibility. It will make consumers pay more but they will believe that it is the utilities and oil companies soaking them in name of profit and the public will not change their bad energy habits. If you pay directly with a greater tax on the gas you buy, and know that the tax will increase every year for next 10 years, you will want to buy a smaller more fuel efficient vehicle (look at Europe), might even demand better mass transit, want the cities revitalized to move closer to work, and actually conserve energy rather than waste it. And yes, I have an answer to where those tax dollars go. They are allocated to be spent on alternative energy R&D, mass transit, rebuilding our cities, revitalize our crumbling transportation infrastructures and help people in transition from oil dependent systems to others AND with public oversight.

But nothing can happen without throwing out the current Washington and State legislative systems and starting back where we were in 1776! That was how our forefathers thought it would work, not what we have evolved to.
And yes it is currently very corrupt and has no balance. Get rid of them all!!! It is about time to reinvent ourselves and the 1776 model will do it.

Obituary for GM (General Motors Corp.)

2009-06-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today GM declares bankruptcy. My prediction of 25 years ago comes true. Who would have ever thought GM would go bankrupt? Only me? and I got laughed at for at least 24 years. I am not happy about this because of what it will do to the many men and women who worked so hard and were so dedicated to GM’s success. But it takes more than just hard work and dedication to compete in a very competitive world. It takes leadership to do the right things and do them not only right, but better and better the next time, and the next time. GM has been missing that leadership for 30 years, probably more.

GM has lost $88 billion since 2005. Does that sound like a company that knows what it is doing? Will the bailout or bankruptcy solve these problems? NO! The core problems still remain. The financial people in the President’s Auto Task Force, in GM, and in the investment world do not know anything about product and manufacturing and can not fix what they can not see. Money is only part of the solution. What is GM going to do differently tomorrow? For example, the last straw of stupidity was selling off GM’s European Opel operations (except for 35%) to auto parts supplier Magna and the Russians. What is GM going to do for small car platform engineering now? North American operations gave up on this in the 90’s. Ex-CEO Wagoner also sold off every other company relationship GM had, Fiat, Suzuki, Isuzu, Fugi Heavy Industries (Subaru), all for short sighted cash. The other “asset” GM has eliminated is the Balance Sheet liability of people. Again, for short term cash. But when you sell off your experience, skills, and knowledge, you have very little left. Only a financial person would do this.

What are the core problems? The main one is lack of a visionary with leadership who understand the execution of car programs. Leaders see the next program and see the need to build culture to do the next, and the next and the next better and better for lower and lower costs, faster and faster to production times and with higher and higher quality. This does not happen by accident, but by a thoroughly diligent leadership and a knowledge based organization that builds that thinking into its culture and encourages it. GM did not have this commitment for the 25 years I worked for the company (1971-1996). I saw the company try to build this in the era of Project Centers (1977-1985), but almost the opposite occurred and it got worse, until I gave up on GM’s management and left (not retired, but walked out the door.) Without this leadership to build core competencies in all areas, GM continues to struggle to do car programs. The mode of operation is to use money instead of knowledge and expertise. For example, rather than having a team that has done hundreds of hoods and can do the new one in hours or weeks, GM spends years and makes mistakes over and over because the learning is never captured because the engineers and designers just move on to something new that they have never done before either. This is very expensive and does not yield world class. GM solves its problems with money. If one person can’t do it, put 5 on it and if they make mistakes pay money to redo or retool or retest until it is right, just don’t run out of time.

What is GM going to do with $50 billion of our taxpayer money? Do they need that much? I can’t imagine how they could spend that much money. Can a smaller GM pay that back? Are they simply trading old inflated debt for new taxpayer debt? Even at 5% interest, $50B creates $2.5B in interest per year. And even if this is a shell game to get Wall Street to over value GM stock to “buy” the Government out, it will only collapse again. A successful company needs to be rock solid and stable to its core. GM has burned up $18B of our taxpayer money and what has been the result? Bankruptcy? It is paying for mostly overhead and inventory to build some small amount of product and probably lawyers and accountants. Is it an investment in the future? Financial people usually do not see the future beyond paying tomorrow’s bills. This is not the way for the future. Where is the leadership to build a new GM? No where in sight.

How much would Toyota need to do 5 new car programs, as GM may need to do? $5B maybe, but certainly not $50B. It makes no economic sense. I am sorry but I do not see a survival plan for GM. Henderson is no different than Wagoner before him and Jack Smith and Roger Smith before them. These guys probably made good CFO’s but they do not have the leadership skills to move the company in new directions. They can’t because they do not have the understanding of product development and manufacturing from a global corporate stand point. They only know how to ask, “What do you need?” and add up the numbers and grumble. Old traditional ways do not die without some one challenging the numbers and suggesting new ways and creating new organizational structure and culture. Who is going to do this? Is there anyone left?

Is GM doing anything right? As an electric vehicle enthusiast, the Volt sounds promising but GM is spending way too much money on this program. Just like the EV1 program I worked on, they spent money wildly, to the tune of $1B to do the EV1 program. The result was about a 1,000 cars built and then they killed it, crushed the vehicles and made everyone including suppliers hate them. Most of the people were retired out but a few remained. When Bob Lutz stands up and says proudly, "we are spending over a half a billion dollars a year on development," you know something is wrong. The Volt was announced in January 2007 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to be GM’s future. GM continues to promise delivery by the end of 2010. The product really can not be done that fast due to the battery testing required before putting into production. Battery pack testing will take at least 5 years of testing in its final state before production. GM keeps changing everything as they learn about the battery, and that resets the 5 year clock. I suspect, the bankruptcy will delay the program launch which is good if they keep working on the development. But then GM announced that they will ask DOE for another $2.6B for two Volt derivatives! Why do they need so much money? Did any one ask and challenge them who knows anything about this business? GM’s financial numbers may be the best they have, but they are way too high and require a new way to doing things.

Sorry GM, but the dinosaur is starting to freeze to death and die. Let him go and for certain something will be reborn. Will it be an American car company? Probably not. Ford will continue to grow because they have a technical guy leading and a good plan that has been in place for a while. They see the future and know how to address it....themselves. I do not know about the Fiat and Chrysler deal. Fiat is getting far more than it wants or needs to make a stand in the US market. Fiat probably does not understand how Chrysler is organized nor what its culture is --- neither did Daimler and we know what happened there. What Fiat needs is far less than what Chrysler will “sell” them in the “New Chrysler.” Fiat needs a couple of assembly plants to build small cars, small engineering staff to do testing, purchasing staff to source parts, manufacturing people to run the plants and some small number of dealerships with distribution to sell products.
I am sorry for GM and its people, its dealer, its suppliers, its stockholders, but when death comes, we must move on. We now have to look to the future, not the past.

Congress Must Do, Successful Auto Bailout & Insuring an Energy Future

2008-12-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

The situation in the US auto industry is bad but the Detroit 3 need more than just money. Internally they need leadership with vision and understanding of the product and manufacturing side of their business, not just the financial side. But more importantly they need Congress to have the courage to put in place policy that fosters their talk about the energy future of the United States.

What Congress and the President must do:
1. The country needs an immediate $2 per gallon gas tax with the policy to increase the tax 50 cents each year for 6 years. This will be painful for everyone, but no more painful than it was this summer. We can’t have the automakers building small fuel efficient cars unless the public wants them. This summer when gas was $4 a gallon people wanted small cars, now gas is $1.60 and small cars are sitting on the dealer’s lots and pickups and SUV’s are selling like hot cakes. This is fact and it is suicidal for this Nation to accept this.
2. Congress needs to implement trade policy that levels the playing field with all nations we trade with. We should be able to trade as easily and freely with other nations as they are with us. If we decide that some countries are not doing enough with atmospheric emissions, child labor, product quality or safety, currency exchange, then stop trading with them until they put in place a plan to correct. Any country that can produce something at a lower cost delivered should be able to do so. We should be able to flood the Japanese rice market with lower cost American rice and be able to put the Japanese rice producers into some other kind of industry, just like Japan has done with electronics in the US. Why should the US be limited in importing vehicles into Korea? The answer is make the situation equal to all. China produces huge quantities of goods in conditions that are appalling to the environment and their workers. China must fix and until they do, we limit what they can import. Sorry Walmart shoppers, but buy American (if it is not too late.)
3. Congress needs to implement economic stimulus plans based on buying American made products. With item 2 & 3 together, we need to restart building American products again. Manufacturing is a key occupation for many average Americans. Half of the world is below average intelligence and they are not equipped to be leaders in the Information Age. They need unskilled labor jobs that pay a decent wage building products the others in America need and want. Make economic stimulus tied to buying American made goods.
4. Congress needs to carefully look at all the issues American business faces setting up manufacturing in this country and eliminate the huddles, the legal battles, product liability threats, the complicated business taxes, control the rising health care costs, the massive environmental impact hurdles required to put in a new business, and all the items that are causing American companies to build their products overseas because it is lower cost , less hassle, and simply easier.
5. Congress needs to set energy policy that directly includes the American consumer in both the environmental and energy costs. The American public is responsible for 75% of the energy consumed in this country some directly and some indirectly. The private citizen consumes energy driving vehicles, running all the appliances, furnaces and air conditioners in their homes (direct use), they demand products be created that use energy and services be provided that consume energy. They directly need to be made financially responsible for their choices.
6.) Congress needs to put in place “tough love” for alternative energy. Legislating energy businesses to use more expensive alternative energy is putting the cart in front of the horse. Use a carbon tax on oil, coal or natural gas used in electricity generation. If the consumer sees his bill is going to go down with alternative energy sources for his electricity, they will demand it and the utilities will have to provide it. When the price of alternative energy is lower than traditional energy, it will happen naturally. Congress needs to put in place these policies.
7.) Congress needs to put in policy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Making gasoline more expensive is one step. Switching the nation to E25 (gasoline that is 25% ethanol) as the standard gas available reduces our need immediately by 25%; all 250M cars and trucks will have to use this fuel (standard gas will no longer be available) The ethanol produced needs to be second generation ethanol, cellulosic ethanol. Since the oil companies will lose 25% of their revenue, they will put huge R & D dollars into perfecting 2nd generation ethanol production, they will have no alternative and this is good.

8.) Electric vehicles are going to happen and the US must not trade importing oil for importing batteries. This needs a major policy decision to manufacture batteries in this country. Congress must take the lead and make Government support, money and priority happen. The items above will help American manufacturers be more competitive but massive amounts of money and leadership are required.

Now back to the US automobile industries that lack of vision. Personally speaking I do not believe financial people should be running manufacturing companies. They typically do not run the successful companies in Asia or Europe. Only in the US do we have financial people running manufacturing companies. Ford is in the best shape today and in fact told Congress they don’t need taxpayer money unless the economy turns even worse. They have a plan and it is working. GM and Chrysler are in bad shape and both are run by financial people.
I worked at GM for 25 years and saw what happened when Roger Smith took over and when he left, the company was in terrible shape, so he got Bob Stempel put in as CEO to set him up for failure. This arrangement resulted in Stempel being pushed out and then they brought in another financial guy, Jack Smith. Smith had “earned his stripes” by cutting GM’s German Opel engineering from outstanding to barely functional, but saved GM lots of cash short term. Only a financial guy sees people as liabilities and R&D as expenses without return, when in fact people are the greatest assets and R&D is critical to long term success. But when Jack Smith retired he got buddy Rick Wagoner appointed to CEO. All these guys are financial “wizards” and people without product vision. GM’s market share under their watch has dropped dramatically, but more importantly, GM’s engineering knowledge has dropped dramatically too. GM was never organized properly to begin with. GM never developed a “culture” internally to share knowledge, train that knowledge into new people, or even captures knowledge. The company developed a ladder climbing mentality and everyone knew that it was more important to look good and climb the ladder than doing a good job and training the people under you, so you never took a step backwards.

This will be an interesting story to watch, but we all need to be concerned because they want to take our tax dollars, too. Write your Congressman and tell them put a tax on gas and put a tax on carbon! Now are you having second thoughts about the environment and energy independence? It will not come cheap. Are you ready?

Who is Rich Marks? How can he say what he says?

2008-08-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

To reach me by email use my website on the link below to send an email; it is easy to access on the front page. Sorry but spam robots are vicious with published email addresses!

Richard W. Marks
President
EnVironmental Transportation Solutions, LLC
Detroit, MI
www.EcoVElectric.com

Biographical background on the author:

The author has always been interested in mechanical and electrical things. From early ages he took things apart and put them back together. He took that interest to college and graduated from University of Maryland with a BSME (Mechanical Engineering). He then went on to Cornell University and graduated with a MSME. He was recruited by General Motors Research Labs and went to work with GM in Warren, MI. He decided early on he wanted to get the experiences necessary to become a Car Division Chief Engineer. While that never happened, he did get a variety of great experiences in areas of vehicle structure, safety, durability, ride pleasibility, weight control, international structures program coordination, aero dynamics, chassis systems, and electric vehicles. He considers his expertise to be total vehicle systems with the understanding of how to conduct a production vehicle program start to finish.

He spent 25 years with GM, but his last 5 years were involved with the EV1 electric vehicle program and with EV conversion programs. He worked on the vehicle systems and assembly side and was involved with all the engineers and management team on the entire vehicle. He then initiated an activity to develop EV conversions that GM and its manufacturing partners could build in their own plants. While the EV1 was exceptional, it was also very expensive to develop and build. Conversions offered GM an opportunity to market and sell a much lower price EV to the commercial and consumer markets. He and his team built the first Chevy S10 conversion for GM and GM took that to production, but not with the author involved or in the way he had originally intended. The S10 GM built was costly and did not do very well in the market for many reasons.

After the S10, he pursued a relationship with Toyota to build a Geo Prizm conversion in the Fremont, CA plant. That project got relatively far along, until GM and Toyota could not resolve financial issues. Then his team converted a Geo Tracker 4 door to electric drive for a management demonstration and it was accepted as a worthwhile project to continue. The team pursued a relationship with Suzuki to convert the Tracker in the CAMI plant in Canada. Suzuki got very involved in the project and wanted to do this. Between the Toyota and Suzuki projects, the author made many trips to Japan and Europe and met with many of the suppliers making EV parts. Tracker was coming in initially too expensive and the team was told to reduce the cost by 30% if it was ever to reach production. Six months later the team had reduced costs more than 30% but GM decided they had changed their minds. The author then went off and pursued a couple other conversions.

One was going to be a low cost Postal Truck conversion (never built), well before the USPS issued their RFP for one in the 1998 time-frame. The other was to convert a small car, the “Chevy,” being built for the Mexican market (Actually it was a German Opel small car produced in Mexico). This project was coordinated and guided with two outside suppliers who had a great deal of electric vehicle experience. Two cars were converted. The one selected was outstanding and demonstrated how simple and low-cost a small car conversion could be. The car did not have air conditioning, but did have everything else. It went 65 mph and about 50-60 miles on a charge. It could be assembled in Mexico on the assembly line and brought to the US and certified. But again GM got cold feet and it was at that point that the author decided that his commitment to EV’s was far greater than GM’s. He left GM and walked out the door after nearly 25 years.

The over the next 6 years, the author took on two jobs with a couple of Tier 1 suppliers to the major US OEM’s. He got great experiences to complement his GM experiences. He learned how to quote projects, work with Tier 2 & 3 suppliers, did supplier development, learned quality systems, did Process Sign-Offs and Production Part Approval Processes, worked with manufacturing sites and even set up a low volume assembly line to build a specialty automotive truck. All of this was done as he continued to be in charge of the Engineering & Design Teams, and responsible for Project Management and Profit/Loss. Both jobs ended when both companies re-organized under new management from outside of the US.

At that point the author came back to his passion for electric vehicles and started a consulting company on EV’s, EnVironmental Transportation Solutions, LLC. He consulted for two companies trying to develop neighborhood and highway electric vehicles. Both companies failed to find investors and pay him for his work so finally he left to do his own road-worthy electric Low Speed Vehicle. He brought his work back to Michigan which included several prototypes he, with the help of others, had built (at his expense.) The EcoVElectric is the product his company is working on to get funded. The author is now writing a book to guide people doing EV conversions (converting gas cars to electric drive). His purpose is to bring his understanding of vehicle safety, both at the vehicle level and high voltage safey level and plug-n-play reliability to the surface that others can learn from his OEM knowledge. He wants converters to better understand the consequences they face with each decision they make as they modify their cars to electric drive. The book should help the EV cause in many different ways by making conversions less science fair projects, more safe and more enjoyable.
If you have questions, or need advise; I am an email away. Look for my book "The Converter's Guide to the Galaxy and EV Conversions," coming soon to eBay(?).

Lastly, in 2007 he joined the Electric Automobile Association (www.EAAEV.org) and got involved in creating a new Michigan Chapter. His goal was to help the EV converters of the EAA to understand better how to improve their conversions in many different regards. His focus has been on safety and reliability. This Guide is a result of that desire.
Join EAA; it is a great organization and they will help you with your conversion, too.

What is going on with people investing in Electric Car companies?

2008-08-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

We, www.EcoVElectric.com , are an electric car company and have not found any interest on the part of private investors, yet others are getting significant money. What is going on?

Who seems to be getting investment money and from where? Silicon Valley has put a $150M into Tesla and Tesla is struggling to build vehicles and are over a year late. So what?
Aptera just got $24M round C funding and Google.org’s RechargeIT program was a small part of this.

Think is working with $76M of funding out of Silicon Valley, too.

Phoenix is still in trouble and still trying to climb out of a hole.

Miles still has a long way to go and they really don’t know where they are either. There is a reason China is slow coming to the US. Miles may not even understand this. Again cars are not in their business experience.

Zenn is struggling and you can go to their financials and see they are selling less than 400 vehicles per quarter. Don’t know what the future holds for them.

And there are others. It does not take a rocket scientist to see the EV opportunity out there and it is growing. It is like 1990’s all over again. EV companies popping up all over, but few survived. Most again were very short on automotive fundamentals.

Do these companies have what it takes to be successful? Success is different for different people. Why are VC’s investing in these companies? It is not for a long term investment; it is all about pumping up the “value” of the company and then introducing “production” vehicles to the market and selling out after the IPO. Then will the companies survive? I believe they will not. Not without the key automotive based disciplines a world class company needs. These companies will be sold based on emotionalism, enthusiasm, and lots of hope and frustration about the World today. The VC’s will be all smiles as they reap great sums of money from an unknowing and unsuspecting public. Most of these companies are very weak on automotive understanding including design, engineering, test and validation. Most can’t wait to learn or do the proper testing. Most will probably end up in severe financial trouble within a couple of years of selling these untested battery systems they are going to use. They will potentially slowly die and disappear. People will be bitter and complain of a conspiracy against EV’s but it is so much more than that.

I worked on the GM EV1 and saw the problems a very large and wealthy corporation can get themselves into. No start up can spend $1,000,000,000 to build 1000 vehicles and then call them all back and crush them. Why did this happen? In addition to all the usual suspects presented in “Who Killed the Electric Car,” GM had other major issues they could not overcome. They pissed off their supply base by having many of the suppliers amortize GM’s tooling costs over unrealistic volumes and then GM shut the program down after building about a 1000 cars. GM never guarantees anything in their contracts. As we used to say in the Tier 1 supplier business, which I joined after GM, “the only thing worse than doing business with GM is not doing business with GM.” So what was the problem? GM did not do enough testing on EV1 and they sort of knew that. (Their lead acid batteries were no good and the Ovonic’s NiMH batteries were $40,000 a pack and those batteries were not very good either! Toyota with Panasonic had them both right. How did GM fix the S10 EV’s? They put in Panasonic lead acid batteries. How did Ford fix the Ranger EV’s, they took out the 8V GM lead acid EV batteries and put in Panasonic NiMH. Toyota and Panasonic did the proper testing and took the proper time to do it.) But then GM eliminated their supplier base, many of who would never build GM another EV1 production or service part ever again. GM had no option but to recall and crush the EV1’s. Bottomline, GM could afford to do this with their huge budgets. No small company will know all of this and know how to solve it, without extensive automotive experience. People from the software industry will take years and years to learn what they need. People from the sales and marketing side, don’t even know what they don’t know about automotive. It will probably kill them and their companies. Do the early VC investors care? No they don’t as long as they can get their money out before the deck of cards falls.

So what is EcoV’s problem? We don’t have the above issues because we are strongly trained and experience in automotive. We have done high and low volume production. We have done testing and validation. We have done the design, engineering and development of automobiles. We have done electric vehicles at the OEM’s. We have the people with experience from the Board Room to the show room. We know how to integrate customer needs with a low cost flexible product design, integrate supplier base, and integrate all the processes to develop, market, sell and service EcoV. These are all things a vehicle company must have.

But we are not sexy. We are not known by past accomplishments. We don’t have powerful investors on our side promoting us to their wealthy friends where everyone is after a quick buck. We are a company on a mission to provide a needed product that we know both fleets and the public wants and needs. We are trying to set up a sustainable business with a focus on still being around serving our customers in 50 years. With a 50 year survival plan you do things differently today than if you do if you have a 3 year plan to get in, pump it up, and get out. We are in it for the long haul not a short flash in the pan. So if these are things you are concerned about and consider important, we need to know and talk!
Do we need and want all of the above companies to be successful? Yes we do! We hope they will be. But they need to get a lot smarter, a lot quicker.

Energy Solution Today - Improved version

2007-06-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

If everybody can agree on the major objectives, then we can start to develop real solutions.
Do you agree that the Nation’s objectives are:
1. Reduce our dependency on foreign oil, by using less
2. Improve World climate concerns through reduction in fossil fuel consumption
3. Encourage and promote the development of alternative fuel solutions in both the transportation sector and the energy sector.
4. Keep America growing, moving forward, and secure.

If the Congress can agree these are the objectives, then I propose some ideas to think about that will bring the 4 key groups to the table and participate in solving this problem. Congress is Group 1, the key and influential representatives in Congress. Group 2 are the energy companies. Group 3 is business/industry and Group 4 is the public consumer.

Here are ideas we need to talk about, discuss, & act upon. I welcome your thoughts & advise.
.
1.) First and most difficult, but extremely effective is to reduce the National speed limit back to 55 mph. 80% of Americans speed; which wastes more gasoline. Reducing speed limits from 70 mph to 55 mph saves about 17% in fuel (EIA and DOE). This is a real test for the environmentalist in Congress. 55 mph speed limit is easy to do and has major powerful benefits to solving all the objectives above. First it affects all 250,000,000 registered vehicles in the US, which no other alternative does. Second, it saves consumers money...17% or more in lower fuel bills. Third, it is safer for the driving public resulting in less deaths and injury. Lastly, it creates a much needed awareness that we, the public, have a very important role in this solution and conservation of energy. The situation today is far more serious than in the 70’s. Doing this will result in a very significant reduction in gasoline consumed...which is what everyone in Congress wants. But something must change, so change the speed limit.

2.) Michigan's Senator Levin proposed to move car CAFE to 36 mpg by 2025 and truck CAFE to 30 mpg by 2022, is good but mild compared to taking today’s cars and trucks and reducing max speed limits to 55 mph which results in an effective 34.3 mpg for today’s cars and 27 mpg for today’s trucks (based on 20% reduction in fuel). But instead of effecting just the 17M new cars and trucks, the new speed limit affects all 250,000,000 registered cars and trucks on the highway. WOW!

3.) Move towards making E20 the standard fuel for automobiles. Montana is pushing for EPA’s help on this. This would take a number of years to accomplish and hopefully researchers may be able to find an additive that would allow all cars past, present and future to use E20. (this is more correct than the blog entry below) E10 or gasohol is pretty much the standard fuel at gas stations and every auto manufacturer in the world approves use of E10 in their vehicles. E20 would by its composition eliminate 20% of the oil we are consuming. E20 is higher in octane and could eliminate the need to have regular, mid-grade and premium at the pumps. Economies of scale will help drive the cost down too. The energy companies need to take this on and get moving away from only oil solutions.

4.) a.) Auto companies need to work with making E20 the universal fuel. E85 can still be blended from E20. Now the “chicken and egg” problem with ethanol is gone and the OEM’s can improve their fuel economies for real to avoid the Federal penalties for not meeting current CAFE. Fuel economy will have to increase to make up the loss from using 20% ethanol. The AMFA 2005 is no longer necessary.
b.) Fleets, according to EPAct 1992 need to be held accountable for using “real” alternative fuel vehicles. Flex fuel vehicles should get AFV credits only to the percentage of E85 they use. Currently less than 1% of the time do they actually use E85. This is not the intent Congress wanted, so let’s fix it. Similarly, the OEM’s get a huge break on their CAFE (AMFA of 2005) by using FFV that are not burning E85. Fix this too, and fuel economy improves for real reasons.
5.) Restore the income tax credit incentive for electric vehicles, this expired last year and needs to be extended. Electric vehicles offer a natural environmental transportation solution that does not require anything to be burned. EV’s could be available soon; they need your help. Electric Low Speed Vehicles (LSV) where used as a replacement for a gas car or truck, should be allowed to count as an alternative fuel vehicle for fleets; EPA does not allow this. This must be fixed. We are a company in Michigan that will soon be building a LSV in Detroit and employing 200 workers plus another 600 in support of our plant! Fleets are the first market and they should get credit for using these in their fleets for city operations.

I believe we need to be proactive in our Country’s quest for reduced oil and energy consumption. Please consider and talk about these changes. It is another approach. We know the problems are serious and in order for change, something new must happen. This is a solid solution which is powerful in terms of accomplishing the objectives. I urge your support of this!

Proposal for an Energy Policy Change that Brings Real Results

2007-06-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

This county needs to make changes beyond CAFE.
A real solution requires 4 groups to be involved: Congress, the energy companies, business/industry, and the Public. Without all four, it is not a complete solution. CAFE is only Congress and the auto companies. This is not a complete solution.
My Proposal for Congress's consideration:
Assumptions about what is important:
a) Reduce dependency on foreign oil by using less,
b) Encourage use of alternative forms of energy in the transportation sector
c) Keep America growing and moving forward
d) Reduce impact on our environment caused by burning fossil fuels.

Part 1 – Congress
a.) Make E20 the standard fuel (Sen. John Thume (S.D.) is proposing this)
b.) Enforce Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) initiatives to Fleets per EPAct 1992 and 2005. Eliminate the E85 fuel economy credits to auto companies and base it on the amount of E85 that is used. Flex Fuel Vehicles are no longer automatically AFV’s, but are counted based on the amount or percentage of alternative fuel used (100% alternative fuel = 1 credit; 10% used = 0.1 credits).
c.) Allow street legal electric Low Speed Vehicles to count as AFV’s where they are bought to replace a standard cars or trucks or are bought to do the duties of a standard cars or trucks. These are early electric vehicles available today and need your encouragement.
d.) Reinstate the Electric Vehicle tax credit. Encourage electric vehicles in addition to plug-in hybrids.

Part 2 – Energy Companies
a.) Mandatory E20 as the “standard” gas – 20% minimum amount of ethanol in gasoline. This is an immediate reduction of 20% in oil both foreign and domestic.
b.) Will also eliminates need for standard and mid-grade gasoline since ethanol increases octane. E20 is compatible with premium gas with octane of 91+ and could be piped through pipelines because one fuel fits all needs. This results in significant delivered cost reductions.
Gasoline today is moving towards 10% (E10) to eliminate other octane enhancers that are not environmentally healthy (MTBE). E85 can be blended from E20 but people will not buy it as long as standard gas is available. With E85 the loss of fuel economy approaches 20% and unless E85 is 20%+ lower in cost, it is not cost effective to use. Today is it not that much lower than standard gas. This is why no one is buying it.

Part 3 – Business and Industry
a) Auto companies – make necessary changes to use E20 and for Flex Fuel Vehicles to use E85. CAFE credit change is eliminated in Alternative Motor Fuels Act 2005 which will cause manufacturers to improve fuel economy. Parts 1 & 4 reduce gas consumption far more than any CAFE change.
b) All Fleets, with 20 or more vehicles must meet EPAct 1992 standards for AFV purchased as new or replacement vehicles (Federal, State, municipal, and commercial fleets must meet the intent of EPAct 1992; this is 75-90% AFV purchases.)
c) Industrial Fleets – encourage alternative fuel vehicles that reduce oil consumed. This means credit for Flex Fuel vehicles only to the extent they can demonstrate by percentage of alternative fuel used. Allow electric Low Speed Vehicles to be used as AFV’s, to encourage more electric vehicle products.

Part 4 Public
a) Mandatory maximum speed limit drops from 65 or 70mph to 55 mph. This is estimated to result in a 10% - 17% drop in fuel consumed in all vehicles on the road (250,000,000 registered vehicles)
b) The effect is immediate and occurs on all vehicles operating on public roads.
c) Benefits are significant since cost of driving drops 17% in fuel costs, safety at lower speeds improves, and less gas burned means less emissions.

Lastly, I would still suggest that Congress talk about increasing the tax on petroleum products. I have sent my JEDI Fund proposal many times before.

An All-encompassing Policy Towards Climate/Environmental Change

2007-04-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

I hope you had a chance to read my Global Warming story. One statement I made was this: “Politicians are supposed to represent the people, but they don’t know how to guide their constituency to unpopular, but healthier choices. This is not leadership but an abdication of responsibility. All solutions in society require industry, government, and the public who uses the goods and services. All three need to have a role and work together. It is not a popularity contest; it is about changing our lives for the better.”

I am adding a very critical fourth party to this because they are at the core. I am adding the energy companies because they are at the core to change and “industry” I am modifying to business and industry. They are independent users of energy, separating them from energy producers. Similar, but they have very different parts of energy and environmental solution.

All the solutions to our concerns about climate change, environmental & energy responsibility, and conservation of natural resources converge at the cross roads of these four groups. The solution must have each of the four groups involved. Today the group that I think is most missing, least committed, and the largest part of the solution is the general public. This is not to say there are not 100’s of thousands of strong supporters of environmental responsibility, but most do, what comes easiest, least expensive, most convenient as an alternative. I hope you also read about my JEDI Fund which is a way to change the economics that drives most of us common consumer’s behaviors around gasoline. The same kind of contribution could be made over coal, natural gas, and even oil used to generate energy (electricity). Doing this makes the other alternatives more attractive which give them a chance of being desired and wanted because the economics drive it.

Energy consumption by Sector breaks down this way. Total energy consumption in 2005 was 99.9 Trillion BTU’s (for reference 1 gallon of gas = 115,000 BTU’s). Residential was 22%, Commercial was 18%, Industrial was 32%, and Transportation was 28%. The private consumer is residential plus a good portion of the transportation market for energy. The public consumer also indirectly drives a lot of business and commercial activities with their associated energy use. I would estimate that the private consumer drives nearly 50% of our energy consumption. How can you have a solution without involving the consumer directly in the purchase decisions?

It is so easy for the politicians to say let’s increase CAFE on cars and trucks to solve the petroleum issue. Or to mandate more bio-fuels be used. Or set targets for use of more alternative energy. Who are they forgetting? Just about everyone who votes! It is all talk with total abdication of responsibility for the results or lack of results. The consumer will not pay more for anything where a lower cost option is available. All that is required is public policy that resets the cost balance. That takes courage and leadership to do. Do we have any of those people?

Since I am an automotive person, let’s look at CAFÉ or Corporate Average Fuel Economy. In 2001 the Federal Highway Administration reported that there were 230,428,326 vehicles registered for road operation in US. Passenger cars averaged 22.1 mpg and light trucks, vans, SUV averaged 17.6 mpg. In 2004, cars were at 22.4 mpg and trucks were at 16.2 mpg. In 2001 average vehicle age was 9 years old. The data also shows that the number of vehicles is rising continuously and so are the miles of travel per vehicle and fuel consumption per vehicle. Those 230M vehicles (2001) have grown to about 250M in 2006 and the average fuel economy for that fleet is now about 20 mpg. What does increasing fuel economy by 4% per year on just 17M new cars and trucks do to overall consumption of gasoline. NOT MUCH! Will it reverse the trends in driving behavior? ABSOLUTELY NOT! The politicians talk about how many millions of gallons of gas they will save but did you know that every man, women, and child consumes a 1 ¼ gallons of gas per day! We consumed in 2005, 140 billion gallons of gasoline! How do you stop this and make a significant reduction.

This is why we must pursue a 4-way discussion with the government, energy producers, business/industry, and the PUBLIC private consumer! What is needed is leadership and not an abdication of responsibility.

Ethanol Sham & Alternative Fuel Vehicles

2007-04-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

The Truth about Ethanol Alternative Fuel Vehicles

The Chicken and The Egg
The OEM’s are pushing ethanol with a vengeance. They started doing this when there were almost zero E85 pumps in existence. Is this a chicken and egg problem or is there more to it? The OEM’s lobbied that this was a problem. If there was no fuel available, why should they build vehicles that would use it, and similarly if there were no vehicles to use the fuel why would fuel providers want to put capacity in place?

Why Does EcoV Care?
We are a company that is dedicated to electricity as an alternative fuel for transportation. Electric vehicles struggle to gain a foothold in the market. Again General Motors has come out and said it will electrify its entire fleet in the future (read our other blog on this.) Sure the technology is not quite ready or affordable for “prime time” with advanced battery technology but there are choices today for limited EV capability, like EcoV, which are real, reasonable, environmentally and budget friendly alternatives. These products are important because they help “prime the pump” to higher sales in electric vehicles. The biggest reason for lack of active development is that the technology is very disruptive to current big OEM thinking. This means the technology does not fit the OEM’s standard ways of thinking or building automobiles. They are afraid of it. They can not even see it because they have lived their entire lives in a world of gasoline. “A worm in horseradish thinks the world is horseradish.” We and EcoV care because we can provide an environmental transportation solution that can have virtually zero impact on our world. EcoV has no emissions, odors, noise, never stops at a gas station, releases no CO2 in its operation, can be “fueled” by wind, sun, water power or nuclear. It is also virtually maintenance free and easy to own and operate. On energy equivalent basis EcoV gets between 200 and 300 miles per gallon and on a cost basis with gas at $2.50 gallon and electricity at 10¢ kWh, EcoV is equivalent to 125-200 miles per gallon.
What EcoV cares about is that while LSV are street legal vehicles, they are not considered as AFV’s in fleet applications by EPAct. They were perceived as “golf carts” and not real replacement vehicles. This is wrong and needs to be changed. One half of our market, the commercial fleets will be buying EcoV’s to replace more expensive to operate gas cars.

So What Is Going On With Ethanol or E85?
By the AMFA (Alternative Motor Fuel Act of 1988) Congress provided that motor vehicles subject to corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard are accorded special consideration if they are capable of running either flexibly (dual fuel) or exclusively (dedicated) on fuel other than petroleum. AMFA encourages the production of these vehicles by providing a specified credit towards the calculation of CAFE. From 1993 through 2004, the maximum credit was 1.2 mpg per manufacturer on CAFE. In 2005, it was extended through 2008 with maximum allowed credit of 0.9 mpg. The number of flex-fuel ethanol vehicles on the road today is about 5,000,000. Many people do not even know their vehicles can run E85. And those that do either can not find it or have tried it and found it too expensive when considering they need to fill up 25% more often.
The automakers have been building flex-fuel vehicles since 1998. Why? Because it helps them meet CAFE that they would otherwise have not met and paid huge fines. They have started pushing ethanol only recently when dependency on foreign oil and environmental issues became important in the public’s list of buying issues. GM has a major campaign that promotes their flex fuel vehicles and as “live green go yellow” (reference to corn from which ethanol is currently made). That GM is “yellow” is another story in lack of courage and deception. GM, Ford, Chrysler, and Nissan all took advantage of this ability to improve their CAFE’s in 2006 and reduce their fines to EPA.

There is a lot more to it. Not well publicize but the Federal Government thru Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency grants the auto companies a significant boost in fuel economy calculations when alternative fuels are used (AMFA 1988). An AFV that uses E85 gets its fuel economy boosted by dividing by 0.15 (or multiplying by 6.67). So an AFV that gets real world 20 mpg is calculated at 133 mpg. But the Government recognizes that E85 would only be used about 50% of the time (actually it is less than 1% of the time), so they average gasoline fuel economy with alternative motor fuel, fuel economy to get an average. Engines burning E85 do emit about 20% less CO2 per mile but have the same emission air pollution rating. E85 is also higher octane which allows it to be used where premium fuel would be required. See http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfueltype.htm for 2007 models and fuel economy.
Here is an example. GM sold about 636,000 Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks in 2006. The standard Silverado is rated at 17 mpg city and 21 mpg highway with standard gas. With E85 the numbers are about 25% worse since ethanol does not contain as much energy as gasoline per gallon. However, when the real E85 fuel economy is divided by 0.15 the alternative fuel economy for CAFE calculations is 85 mpg/105 mpg. In the final calculation for half and half use, the composite fuel economy comes out as 31 mpg versus 18.6 mpg for a straight gasoline truck. Did you know this? Well now you do.
So this allows GM and others to use this higher fuel economy to avoid huge penalties and build and sell more big gas guzzling trucks & SUV’s. In 2006 GM built enough high volume cars and trucks with flex fuel to meet CAFE. Assuming they did this perfectly will they avoided a 0.9 mpg CAFE penalty? This calculates out at $5/0.1 mpg missed in CAFE x 9 missed tenths mpg gallon x 4,860,000 cars and trucks sold = $212M. Is that the environmental and energy security issue the original law had intended? We don’t think so.
Bottom-line has the absolute opposite. Gas consumption has not gone down. Alternative fuel consumption has risen slowly. In Federal Fleet Report – 2006 http://www.gsa.gov/gsa/cm_attachments/GSA_DOCUMENT/FFR2006_030707_R2K-g6_0Z5RDZ-i34K-pR.pdf
In 2006:
E85 accounted for 3,205,693 gallons (GGE) versus 286,922,862 gallons of gasoline – 1.1%. While total world fuel consumption dropped in 2006 by 4.7% from 2005, the trend line for petroleum based fuels – gasoline since 2002 has grown upward at something less than 1% per year. Diesel fuel has dropped about 8% per year. Petroleum fuels have not dropped the 20% between 1999 and 2005, required under Executive Order 13149. Also required by 2005 was that alternative fuels were to be the majority of fuel used. Alternative fuels in total accounted for only 4% of all fuels used. Also by 2005, the Federal Fleet was to be buying 75% AFV. In 2006, of the 62,978 acquisitions made, only 18,411 were AFV’s or 29%. The Federal Government is not meeting the law! Not even close!
The chicken and egg story has never materialized and it is time to enforce the EPAct of 1992. AFV’s using E85, should carry their own weight and the Government should put in places policies to make the objectives of EPAct happen. AFV vehicles should get credits based on the amount of E85 fuel a fleet uses. When they start paying for it, they will stop because it does not make economic sense. This needs to be fixed, too.

Global Warming - Are We, Humans, Responsible?

2007-04-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Earth is warming. That is about all we can completely agree on. It is not opinon based, because we can measure it. Over and over again. But when it comes to why and who is responsible for this, the experts and scientists seem to be somewhat at odds. Let me also say this up front that science is not a democratic process. It is based on facts, observations, measurements and data collected. It makes no difference whether one scientist believes one thing and all the rest believe something else. Read about Galileo below. The politicans of the World have clearly made up their minds based on political agendas, and follow the statement, “Don’t confuse me with facts, I have already made up my mind.” But watch the wording carefully of those who are pushing their doctrines. They put in enough weasel words that you really can’t trap them. Some of them, at least. Those who are politicans without science training (and some who do) who have an agenda, have attempted to make the issue black or white. Science is about discovery, learning, running experiements, collecting data, observing, and presenting all the facts including those that seem in conflict with your hypothesis. We are far from that today. Why?

The big issue that continues to cause world-wide concern is, are we humans repsonsible for the warming? If we are, is the Earth on a path that can not tolerate our desire to improve life through our habitual desire to use fossil fuels for everything that requires energy? Have we, as humans, put the Earth, which has “fixed it self” over millions of years, in jepordy of survival as we know it? I don’t know but let’s explore some of the observations.

Galileo Model
I do not think the jury is out, to say absolutely yes or no. But another fact to consider in science is how can so many be so right, yet so wrong. Galileo was the father of astronomy in 1600’s and he defended heliocentrism which was the belief that the Sun was fixed and the Earth revolved around it. The masses, mostly the politically centered Catholic Church believed this was not possible and claimed it was contrary to the Scripture passages. As a result Galileo was sentenced to prison, which he was commuted from but remained under house arrest for the remainder of his life. He was condemned as "formally heretical." Is “correct” always correct? Not when politics gets into it, whether it is at the UN or in the Church. But the scientific method is what must be applied and that is for scientific researchers to propose specific hypotheses as explanations of natural phenomena, and design experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. They do it over and over to be sure it captures all the possible outcomes. I feel we may have lost sight of science in the name of political causes. Can political and “business” political processes and agendas influence the direction science moves? It was estimated (again I don’t have real data) that $50B has been spent in global climate warming research since 1990. Some to prove it is not caused by humans (blamed on the oil industry money) but more to prove it is (blamed on liberal politicans and environmentalists.) How do scientist, who are not politicians react to someone offering money to prove something. Sounds like a good research job to me. Then there is the media. Do you sell your news by printing everything is ok, keep up the good work, or do you sell more saying there is an apocalypse about to occur. They hound the scientists who can almost be lead down any path the reporter wants to lead them and the scientist gets recognition for doing good work (something most scientist don’t get, just ask Galileo.) What a nightmare to figure out.

What I want to do. I want to show some data that has been presented that in objective terms does not satisfy the hypothesis. I am looking at issues I believe the average person needs to understand.

What are PPM?
As of January 2007, the earth's atomspheric CO2 concentration is about 383 ppm. Does this sound freightening? How about comparing it to 280 ppm in 1750, the pre-industrial average? That’s a 35.7% increase. More frightening? But on a total GHG standpoint, it is very, very small increase. What does this mean? Little or zero explanation has been given. It means about 0.0383% by volume or 0.0582% by weight of the total green house gases (GHG) are CO2. Note: while we are not widely informed, ppm is parts per million. In this case it is CO2 parts(molucules) per million green house gas parts (molucules). This represents about 2.996×10E12 tons. To non-scientists, 3×10E12 is 3 million tons times a millons times, pretty large number but still small to total GHG weight. My question is can something that small in quantity be so responsible for something as large as global warming. Reporting one number without explanation of its relevance is not to increase understanding but rather mislead others to one’s premise.

It was suggested to me to run out immediately and buy Joseph Romm's book, “Hell and High Water.” I read most of it but gave up on his hypocrisy. Wow what a crazy angry man! Why is he so angry at this world! His first part was supposed to be science but it was not at all. He says if you want facts go to www.realclimate.org. Which I did and was not impressed with their interpretation of science even though they tried. I am skeptical about everyone in this arena, on both sides and only want to understand the facts. Romm is so prejudice, he does not even begin to understand the scientific method. He confuses global warming, which is almost unilaterally agreed to, that it is happening because of us humans. The total argument is based on the fact that Artic core samples show a “correlation” of increases in CO2 with increases in temperature. Although the data he sights states that the CO2 rise is after the temperature rise by 400 +/- 200 years (these numbers come from his source realclimate.org) His total argument is destroyed by the vary facts he shows. But he has a strong political agenda to pitch so he drops certain facts.

How can something so small cause something so large?
The other issue I have a personal problem with and I am still researching for an answer is nowhere do the people that are spreading this fear ever, ever explain in scientific terms why CO2, which is being measured in ppm or particles per million and is quoted as 380 ppm or 0.038% of total green house gas, is so significant. This is a very, very small amount that is never mentioned, all that is mentioned is the giga-tons of CO2 we are adding (remember giga is 10E9 and current CO2 is measured in tera-tons a 1000x larger, but the percentage is what matters not the delta we are adding. Put a cup of salt into a pitcher of water and it seems extremely salty, but if that cup is added to a three 55 gal drums of water it is hardly noticeable (same as 380 ppm). I don't see scientifically how this CO2 concentration can influence anything. There is data about CO2’s ability to reflectivity of infrared light back to Earth To add to that, CO2 is basically a non reactive gas that occurs naturally in nature. How does increasing this small percentage of gas cause major chemical changes to the atmosphere which results directly in more insulating value to the atmosphere and global warming? CO2 will dissolve into the atmospheric water vapor and what does that do? There appears to be more going on than Romm and others want to admit or understand. His basic claim is that we are approaching levels of CO2 never seen before. That is inaccurate; all they really say is that it is higher than any previous levels “that can be reliably measured” in the last 450,000 years. Scientists have never made measurements in ice cores that estimate CO2 levels higher. The process of measuring in ice cores is the "best we have" but is subject to so many, many variations going on over 100's of thousands of years. The assumptions are huge and the potential error is high. You certainly can not pick up short term variations on a year by year basis. CO2 gas is known to migrate in ice for thousands of years until the snow is compacted into ice by all the snow above it. Al Gore's little elevator trip to his slide is so over done, but he is a great politician telling a “story”. If he plotted CO2 as an actual percentage of the total green house gases and not ppm’s, he would be crawling on the floor with a magnifying glass. By expressing CO2 in ppm’s he is actually multiplying the amount by a 1,000,000 times. But that would not have fed the fears they were trying to create. Is this the proper use of science or is it people with a political agenda to accomplish?

What is difference between “correlation” and “cause and effect?”
There also appear to be a mixed up of the fact that what drives what. Gore and others express there is “correlation” that as CO2 levels go up so do temperatures go up. But what is not expressed is that the ice core data shows (and Gore’s slide, if he bothered to point it out) a time delay of 400 +/- 200years (see this at www.realclimate.com ) between rise in temperature and rise in CO2. In plain words, CO2 rise occurs about 400 years later than the temperature rise. The quoted scientific evidence does not support the conclusion. The issue is expressed as the difference between correlation and cause and effect. They are very different. It is like plotting the deaths of people with lung cancer (let's do it in ppm because it makes the small number of deaths look frightening large) with age. There a clear correlation with age and death from lung cancer. Can you properly draw the conclusion that as you get older your chances greatly increase of dying from lung cancer? According to what Romm has drawn, absolutely! But we know that the correlation has nothing to do with the cause and the cause is smoking and the effect which is lung cancer develops over time and effects more people as they get older. Do you understand what I am saying? This is a critical point that is missing. Climate scientists own data says temperature rise occurs first and them it is followed by CO2 increases. There is a lot more to this but the point is, were these facts presented for you to understand and reason with?
I skipped some of Romm's political sections because I could not take his distortions to attempt to prove the other side of his opinions was out to get the rest of the scientific world. I went to read something that I have knowledge of and that is the auto industry section (Chapter 8). While some of his points are valid, so much is mindless angriness over anything that is currently in place. CAFE is not the answer to anything and it has NOT reduced consumption in 30 years. Does it not make sense that as bigger cars use less fuel, people will buy even bigger cars and drive them more? What will stop them? The answer is not are we better today with CAFE, but will changes in the future amount to anything significant. I agree that a hydrogen economy is stupid, at least short-term, but I also disagree that it should be dropped completely. His argument for ethanol is also full of holes. Burning ethanol only reduces GHG by 20% and if it is only used half the time as straight gas (actually, today it is used about 1%), then it is 10%. I can get that by just driving smarter when I drive. I don't think the 20% even considers the energy spent and CO2 released in the process of getting it to your fuel tank! It is almost a total waste unless you are one of the huge corn farming conglomerates. Ethanol does one good thing and that is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Romm supports plug-in hybrids that are another step but also does not address the problem in the US...people drive too much, waste too much energy and don’t really care. That is the problem that needs to be contained. The only way to change consumer behavior is to change their cost model. Higher price fuel absolutely needs to be discussed in Congress. Read my JEDI Fund?

Can the Earth fix itself?
How can a real scientist say that the Earth is not capable of fixing itself? After 3 billion years it seems to have done a pretty remarkable job. Although, I do remember walking through the National Parks out west and telling my kids, “millions and millions of years ago this was all under water.” Who caused that and what are we to do today and tomorrow? I personally believe we and most of the Nations of the world have a problem with dependency on oil and fossil fuels. Someone told me (and I have not researched this, so don’t take it as fact, but it seems reasonable) that we are burning oil, natural gas and coal at the rate of one million years of vegetation growth per year! We as a world need to look at alternative energy forms. We are company committed to electric drive technology. Our product, EcoV has no emissions, noise, odors, releases no CO2 in operation, requires no trips to the gas station and is nearly maintenance free. It is recyclable, too. If you charge it off the Sun, it has almost zero environmental impact. We are committed to two things, dependency on foreign oil and air quality in our cities. EcoV does not require sacrifices to be made when used in the right application, it is both environmentally and budget friendly. There are no other technologies, available today that can do that. Politicians are supposed to represent the people, but they don’t know how to guide their constituency to unpopular, but healthier choices. This is not leadership but an abdication of responsibility. All solutions in society require industry, government, and the public who uses the goods and services. All three need to have a role and work together. It is not a popularity contest, it is about changing our lives for the better.
Convince me that 0.038% of the atmosphere, 380 ppm CO2 can really influence global climate change? The question more important is can we, the humans on this planet, do anything about it? I believe we can but not for global warming, but to be better stewards of Planet Earth.
As a person with a strong scientific background (Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering) I am not convinced the small amount of CO2 in our green house can scientifically cause significant change. This I need to research more. But as far as Romm and his arguments, he is a sad and angry man and that has no part in trying to help the world. As far as Al Gore is concerned, you owe yourself to read the facts yourself, not someone’s political interpretation of those facts through their glasses. Science is about facts, not opinions. Anytime someone talks about math models to predict things, if they don’t go through the assumptions made in detail, don’t believe it. If you want to, then I have this bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you! You need to think clearly about what is going on and be objective about the facts. All of us, including me can be wrong. If I am convinced, I will be the first to say thank you and admit I am wrong. What about you? One last suggestion, watch the BBC documentary “Global Warming Swindle” not as fact but as the other side of the argument. It made me look much closer at this issue which I was convinced after Gore’s movie was an absolute truth. It is not that way anymore.

JEDI Fund For An American Energy Future

2007-02-12T07:42:00.000-08:00

THE WORLD NEEDS A SOLUTION

The World is changing and everyday we are faced with new questions, new issues. Many of these issues have reached a high level of discussion around the world. These are Global Warming, dependence on foreign oil and the quality of the air we breathe. Most of these issues deal with sustainability of our world today and tomorrow. The world’s appetite for energy is growing in leaps and bounds, with no end in sight. What we are doing is not really bad, since we are living “better” quality of life all over the world. But how we are doing it, is this sustainable? What will our children and grandchildren see as the affects of this uncontrolled growth in energy needs by old world technologies? The United States consumes 25% of the World’s energy with only 5% of the population. This energy issue has severe consequences. How do we change this?
While we all like to believe we are intelligent and will naturally do the right things, we are not that intelligent. We are creatures who are basically economically driven. We do what we think we can afford and not much more. As costs change, we adapt purchase decisions. Changing costs is what we must do to change our habits. We must create new economics for making energy related purchase decisions.
Energy for the future is a very significant issue. So are jobs and our way of life. This country's appetite for imported foreign oil is shocking. Only 7% of the energy produced in US is renewable. The effect of our low oil & gasoline prices is preparing this country for a major shock in the future that we are not willing to focus on today. As individuals, we are making poor long term decisions based on the low cost of fuel and energy. Issues of environment, global warming, clean air and water, uncontrolled urban sprawl are real. Proposals to raise fuel economy CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards on cars and trucks is futile and a poor excuse to change anything. The recent increases in gasoline prices only show how vulnerable we are as a nation and even with the return to more moderate gas prices, we still consume without constraint. It is not going to get better as we continue to move into the future. Now we read about Iran’s leader and possibility the whole Middle East could end up as a nuclear waste land. What will that do to our fuel prices and energy security? Our Nation needs something different in our lives to help us focus on the future and how to make our world a better and more secure place to live now and for future generations.

THE JEDI FUND: A SOLUTION FOR ENERGY RESPONSIBILITY

The Justified Energy Development Initiative (JEDI) fund is created by “mandatory contributions” when purchasing gasoline or diesel fuel. If Americans understand the purpose of supporting this fund and how it will provide a better future, they will support it. The money that this country will need to develop alternative energies for the future is huge and will be paid through personal income taxes and debt. Hydrogen fuel cells will require billions and billions of dollars to develop and that will come from us, the taxpayer. Furthermore is anybody out there saying they want to pay more to buy them? The end result is nothing different than today in terms of how we live and that does not solve the problem. The JEDI fund will cause Americans to make "better" decisions since energy costs now fall in line with their behaviors. People will demand lower cost alternatives, including cars and trucks with lower fuel consumption, which will cause private enterprise to invest in these new technologies without Government intervention or subsidiary. People will now demand more fuel efficient cars and Detroit will respond. The significant drop in our discretionary spending, now going to buy cheap gas that we waste, will provide money to spur the economy and create jobs. Billions of dollars flowing to Middle East will now be spent to buy other things made in America and that means jobs. People will stop leaving the cities to move a hundred miles away from their work. This will curtail the huge urban sprawl and destruction of both urban cities and rural America.
The dollars the JEDI fund raises will be used for many initiatives. It will be used to develop alternative energy sources. It will be used to support mass transit systems that will be needed or improved as people demand those systems. It will be used to improve our highway and perhaps our railroad infrastructure. It will be used to help those industries and individuals caught in this shift in fuel costs to operate businesses totally dependent on cheap fuel, at least for a period of time. It will be used to help redevelop urban areas as people start to move back into cities to be closer to work. Like all healthy things in life, the change will be good for most of us, and hard for some of us who have grown dependent on cheap fuel and uncontrolled expansion based on cheap fuel. But the best part is that the free market will demand these changes.
We as a nation will start to make intelligent decisions about our precious energy. Our future will change directions that will leave us stronger and more secure. Please consider this; give the proposal some careful thought and support the proposal. We need a different solution, so discuss it and start calling your government representatives.
This country will never become more energy conscious or energy conserving without a major kick in the pocketbook. Alternative energy and fuel economy programs will be just exercises in futility until there is a public demand for it. My JEDI fund is a way to create this demand before it is too late. While the focus here has been primarily on transportation fuels, it can easily be extended to other energy costs, too. Electricity generated by nuclear, solar, or wind should be lower costs than that generated by natural gas or coal. The demands for 20% alternative energy generated electricity by 2020 are only a dream unless the economics are changed. So add a mandatory contribution based on percentage of energy generated by burning fossils fuels. Even bio-fuels should pay based on the CO2 releases, too.

THE JEDI FUND MONEY MUST BE USED FOR THE PURPOSES SPECIFIED

How much would the mandatory contribution be? It needs to be significant and long term so people can plan their lives around it. Start with a $1.50/gal contribution and up it $0.50/yr until it reaches about $5/gal contribution in 7 years on top of the retail price of gas. This sets in place a long term program and everybody can start to respond to it. Researchers can get serious about the needs and demands for alternative fuels, car makers can plan their R&D focus and product plans, the public can start to plan their lives and make choices that will effect them long term. It must be a Federal contribution, since to coordinate States would be impossible. The Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Interior would be responsible to administer the fund. Fixed percentages would need to be set; for example: 35% to alternative energy developments, 20% to mass transit systems, 10% to improve highway infrastructure, 25% going to 0% to subsidize industries/occupations hurt by our past errors in judgment (everything from truck transportation to taxi cab drivers), and urban redevelopment going from 10% to 35%.
How big is this number? According to the Energy Information Administration of Department of Energy, we consumed 140,416,000,000 gallons of gasoline in 2005 (about 1 1/4 gallons per day for every man, woman and child). Currently the Federal tax on gas is $0.184/gal., thus they raise almost $26 B in tax revenues yearly. So at $1.50/gal tax, the Fund would collect $211B dollars, but remember that consumption should fall significantly as people reassess their energy habits. . The American people will be willing to pay this mandatory contribution, only if they see it going to create energy independence. These kinds of funds will be a significant step toward a better world. I am not a politician, so I am not the one to "sell" this to the American people. Also, remember, if we curb our consumption of gas, that money stays in our pockets to spend on other made-in-America things, probably to the tune of $100B a year. What will that do for the job market in US?
It must also be recognized that as the cost of oil goes up, so will the costs of goods and services today. All of this needs to be carefully analyzed and studied. But now is the time to start the move!
Lastly, how do you keep the bureaucrat’s hands off of the money? It must be allocated and not diverted. The public is paying for this and needs to see progress that their mandatory contributions are being spent right and as promised. There must be public oversight of this program, too. Let’s start talking about this. Wouldn’t it be nice to see our politicians take this and run with it? It is not suicide to propose this, if it is thought through and presented correctly and positively. The question is how to sell a major habit change to America? This is a question on how to get fit and healthy. Getting healthy is not easy, we all know that, but we also know that we will all live longer if we make the sacrifices and just do it and do it right.

Let me know your thoughts and if you have a better alternative.

You may think this is a ploy by an electric vehicle company to sell more product. But it is not. This is the traditional chicken and egg question about what comes first. Our company is dedicated to reducing our dependency on foreign oil, improving our global environment, providing jobs in USA, and bringing energy and environmentally responsible transportation products to our customers.

Can You Fund a New Electric Car Company and Be Financially Successful?

2006-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

Obviously the answer is Yes you can fund it, but this is not an easy task, we know that and are still working to fund our company.
But what goes along with this is” “Can you be financially successful?” What is financial success? I define it as a sustainable business that makes money for the stakeholders and the company to survive for the long haul.
Success has been scarce and we will talk about this further.

Let’s talk about our company as a case study. EnVironmental Transportation Solutions develops and markets an urban based electric Low Speed Vehicle. We will manufacture a road-worthy commercial fleet vehicle for under $10,000. We are different from many electric vehicle companies. We require only a modest investment of $5M – ½ is equity and ½ is debt to expand our manufacturing capacity, we breakeven on a mere 1,050 units annually, we have a realistic marketing plan that targets commercial fleet users who are hungry for EcoV, and we have an experienced management team that can put EcoV into production in 9 months. We are changing the rules in niche vehicle manufacturing.

For the Low Speed Vehicle market we are changing the paradigm, as are a few others, no longer is a LSV a dual purpose vehicle to use to play golf and drive on restricted access public roads in a closed community, but now EcoV is a daily driver that can be used on all public roads, 35 mph and slower and feel safe and comfortable driving it. Furthermore, EcoV is available in 4 and 6 passenger versions with a rear seat that easily converts into a utility vehicle or a 2 passenger pickup, all with a 1000 pound payload capacity. And we will do Factory customization for our customers.

But we have NOT got funded yet! At least in Michigan, we have fallen on deft ears.

Let’s talk about three types of EV companies: 1.) Non-EV Start-ups; This could be the Daimler Chrysler – GEM or GM EV1 , 2a) EV’s not like EcoV and there are several here, Feel Good Cars or Tesla are two current examples; and lastly, 2b.) EV’s like EcoV. We will talk about our experience, efforts and results.

Category 1: Non-EV Start-ups – these are companies in business today with products; they have assets, sales and a positive bottom-line. They need funding to expand into new products. Being an existing company is a huge benefit. 90% of all start-ups fail in first 5 years. Many investors stay away from start-ups for many reasons. If you are an existing company there are many State Economic Development Funds that will provide funding to expand, if you have sales and positive income, this opens opportunities for debt financing, there are private investors who feel more comfortable investing in these companies because of past success, and lastly the companies may be large enough to self fund the technology development and manufacturing start-up themselves.

Category 2a: Companies not like EcoV – Most start-ups believe they have a “great idea” or new “twist” on an existing concept that launches their quest to create a business. You need much more than a great idea, you need a strong management team with diversity of skills and experience in “the business” to make it happen. It has been said many times that it is better to have a first-rate management team with average technology than first-rate technology with a second-rate management team. First-rate management teams are more likely to succeed. The start-ups need passion about what they are doing and how they are doing it. This passion keeps the process going, and going, and going. It sounds exciting to be the underdog challenging the Big Dog with the new technology.
Some of these companies enter the new business with a very sexy product that sounds exciting and almost too good to be true. I have found that what sounds too good to be true, usually is. These companies have the potential to raise capital and with the right publicity, usually do. But do they have more than a sexy product or idea? Time usually tells all.

Category 2b: Companies like EcoV – EcoV is a product that is not very sexy. It is practical and useful to its mainstream customers, particularly fleet users. It uses mostly proven off-the-shelf current technology production components; no sex appeal there. It’s only Intellectual Property is the company trade secrets about how to do what has been done. It is about how to integrate systems, how to find the right suppliers, how to design around existing parts and systems, how to use and adapt existing auto industry standards, how to understand customer usage cycles and abuse issues, how to put in expected and unexpected safety features, how to find the right partners to take the product to production, how to control overhead costs, how to market and sell the product in early, mid and late years, and how to make money in the business. EcoV sounds like same old, same old, but it is not. Being successful in automotive in low volume niche business is a major challenge not understood by many.

The challenge is a reflection on the issues facing the transportation business in alternative energy. CleanTech, an organization assisting in investment opportunities in clean technologies and alternative energy, has indicated that only 4% of the invested money has gone into the Transportation business sector. This puts into perspective the challenge businesses have to fund EV companies.

I believe that beyond the “idea” is the need for an experienced management team that can superbly execute the idea. Having been in automotive for 35 years and having put into production many cars in North America, I realize that the automotive business is not as simple as it sometimes appears. Yes, there are now 60,000,000 vehicles being built worldwide per year, so how hard can it be? Just look at the failure rate of companies doing electric vehicles. Opportunity is the start of the maze, but it does not define the path to success.

Who is Richard Marks? Why is EcoV different? How do we find the needed investors?

I have been in automotive for 35 years. I spent 25 great years with General Motors learning the in’s and out’s of automotive design and production. I spent my last 5 years with GM’s Electric Vehicle program, EV1. I left GM in mid-96, realizing that I was far more committed to the battery electric drive technology than GM. I worked for a couple Tier 1 suppliers and then about 4 years ago, I start down a path to do my own EV. We started with a Low Speed Vehicle, because, by automotive standards, it is much simpler to do than a standard automobile because of the safety and vehicle testing required. We saw the opportunity to start with a LSV, build an organization and team, get profitable, and then move into a standard EV later.

Our management team is built around the automotive knowledge base in Detroit. My management team of 7 automotive executives is powerful because we bring extensive auto experience in all areas, bring start-up and funding experience, can build EcoV cost effectively with automotive quality, and can market and sell EcoV. Despite what people outside of Detroit think about the auto companies in Michigan, we don’t live in caves with wood burning forges building cars. I believe that the electric vehicle will come to market from outside of mainstream, but by automotive & EV experienced people. There is just too damn much to learn on the path to execution that amateurs outside of the auto industry will need to learn. It can be done, but the mistakes cannot afford to be costly ones.

What is EcoV?
EcoV is a 25mph street legal electric Low Speed Vehicle that is road-worthy with automotive ride, comfort, durability and reliability that offers a safe driving experience on daily trips on public roads 35mph and slower. EcoV is to be built in USA in Detroit, MI.
For 50 cents of electricity out of a standard wall outlet in less than 8 hrs is completely charged and ready to go another 25-40 miles day-in and day-out.
EcoV comes in 3 models each with a 1000 lb load capacity. There are a 4 and 6 passenger models with a rear seat that converts into a utility load floor easily, and a 2 passenger pick-up truck.
There are many Factory installed options available to make EcoV exactly the way you need it or want it. There is right-hand drive, extended range, air conditioning and heat for extreme climates, and many more options. EcoV is technology neutral and can be updated easily to new affordable technologies.
EcoV has changed the Low Speed Vehicle paradigm. EcoV also changes the rules on how to do niche vehicles.

Who wants it and why?
The first market is fleets. EcoV is a street-worthy commercial fleet vehicle for under $10,000. Fleets are hungry for the operational cost savings EcoV provides in city operations..

Fleets market size: 17 M new cars and trucks sold per year (2005). 3M were sold to fleets, and of those 200,000 do not need to go faster than 25 mph and could be low speed vehicles.

Fleet applications: First fleet market is electric utility companies who desire to have vehicles which use their “fuel.” Fuel provider fleets are mandated to purchase 90% Alternative Fuel Vehicles by EPAct 1992 and to reduce consumption of oil based fuels.
DTE Energy is signed up to test next year.
From there we springboard to government fleets, as Federal Fleets, State Fleets, and municipal fleets. They are mandated to purchase 75% alternative fuel vehicles and reduce oil based fuel consumption.
Cities of Ann Arbor and Grosse Pointe Woods, MI are signed up to test next year.
University of Michigan Dept of Public Safety is signed up to test next year
Detroit Department of Parking Enforcement is preparing to test next year.
US Postal Service is going to test next year as a carrier route vehicle in city and urban areas.
Commercial fleets such as delivery services, vacation rentals, city rental vehicles, hotels, resorts and community transportation services, transportation vehicles at theme parks, for sales at Master Planned Communities and for maintenance are retirement communities.
This is a realistic approach to starting a new company. Furthermore, after commercial validation and profitability, we will expand into the even larger private use market. This includes everything from baby-boomer Master Planned Communities to urban families.

What about finding investors to date? Our country has great belief and faith in entrepreneurs bringing new ideas to market and creating jobs in America. Yes, start-ups can do that but can they get funded? Funding commercialization projects is a limitation in our system. Government funding stops at the commercialization stage. Why? Is it because over 90% of start-ups fail? Is it because our short term thinking overwhelms our ability to think long-term? I don’t know the answer, but it must change. Investors need to think longer term and similarly politicians need to think long term as well. If it is something needed for the future, you better start investing in it today, because successful start-ups don’t happen overnight when the crisis appears.

What have we done to date? Since the beginning of this year, we have been working on the funding. .

We put together a plan of attack of where the investors identified were.
Corporate Consortiums
Individuals
Fleet Buyers
Bank Venture Funds
Philanthropic Organizations
Utilities
Environmental Groups
Utilities Venture Funds
Other Vehicle Companies
Suppliers
Pension Funds
Unions
Corporate Venture Funds
Federal Government
Venture Capital Groups
State Government
Angel Investors
City Government

We have been networking for 4 years but that is only a start.
We have applied for State economic development money but were written off because of other companies that tried LSV’s and failed.
We have approached local electric utility companies thinking this would be great for them to support. We are not done exploring that opportunity yet.
We have approached customers who could have a large use for our product but were told they did not want it. We have not got to the right people yet.
There are numerous Government agencies who should be very interested in saving money by using our product in their city/urban/military base applications, but we have not got to the right people. Who are they? What more could our Government want but to reduce dependency on foreign oil, create jobs in America, provide alternative fuel vehicles that are simply clean, affordable, and have available fuel infrastructure.

We have mentioned numerous fleet customers who have driven our early prototype and signed up to test EcoV next year when we start production. Fleet customers are not typical early adopters, they are more mainstream buyers who have a work job to do and want to be sure what ever they buy, it does the job. We will let them test EcoV with confidence they will place orders afterwards. To date, they are skeptical because of all the previous deficient products and will not make any commitments for future purchases.

So where does this leave us. We need your advice and assistance to access to your network. We need to reach the people you know. We need you to provide us introductions to EV interested parties. The EV industry will need to work together if it is going to be successful.

For the Future: The public does not understand what EV’s have to offer them. It is a major disruptive technology for a lot of industries including automotive, but for the consumer EV’s represent an exciting opportunity to move into the future of transportation alternatives. Public policy needs to provide incentives to encourage EV’s and take away incentives that don’t encourage EV’s – why do we count flex-fuel vehicles as AFV’s when most only burn gas?..tie it to actual ethanol used. I personally believe that if we can get the public into solid and sound EV’s, the public will demand the OEM’s build more of them. This is working with hybrids, and starting to work with plug-in hybrids. The public is starting to demand they be built and offered. No OEM will deny the public what it demands, no matter how much they drag their feet. GM announced a couple of weeks ago that it will show plug-in hybrids or series hybrids at LA and Detroit auto shows as a step towards electrifying their entire fleet. Is it for real or is it Johnny-come-lately to be more popular by being fuel efficient with environmentally clean vehicles? Time will tell.

EcoV is simply elegant by being elegantly simple. We offer a practical, affordable application of current technology. EcoV will change the way transportation moves us!
We need your help & advice on how to get our company rolling! Pleased contact us. Thank you.

The World is ready for a road-worthy Low Speed Vehicle

2006-11-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

What is a LSV?
A Low Speed Vehicle is a Federally defined class of street legal vehicles that must go at least 20 mph but no faster than 25 mph. They are smaller and are limited to 2500 lbs GVW. They are required to have a number of safety features, such as head lamps, tail lamps, turn signals, brake lights, side reflectors, seat belts, approved automotive windshields. Over 45 States allow LSV’s on public roads 35 mph or slower. They are desirable since they can offset the use of a larger gasoline powered vehicle.

What is new?
The original intent as written in the Federal Register in 1998 was “This final rule responds to a growing public interest in using golf cars and other similar-sized, 4-wheeled vehicles to make short trips for shopping, social and recreational purposes primarily within retirement or other planned communities with golf courses. These passenger-carrying vehicles, although low-speed, offer a variety of advantages, including comparatively low-cost and energy-efficient mobility. Further, many of these vehicles are electric-powered. The use of these vehicles, instead of larger, gasoline-powered vehicles like passenger cars, provides quieter transportation that does not pollute the air of the communities in which they are operated.”
Hence the original paradigm was for a dual purpose vehicle to play golf in and to drive on restricted access public roads. The new paradigm that EcoV establishes is a road-worthy daily driver, which can be used on any public roads 35 mph or slow and feel safe and comfortable driving EcoV.
What is the history in this market?
The history of neighborhood electric vehicles probably started in Florida, Arizona, and California. In retirement communities, people needed a low cost transportation solution. Used golf carts were inexpensive and available, so they were purchased. People started to use them in more and more ways, including driving them on public roads where they could get away with it. Many closed communities allow golf carts on city streets. Then people started to modify them to go faster. This is not difficult to do, but if not done correctly will lead to problems with over-heating and poor performance on hills or under load.
In 1997 the National Traffic and Safety Administration released a proposed rule making standard for Low Speed Vehicles. In 1998 the final rule was published. This is referred to as FMVSS 500. Neighborhood Electric Vehicles were not specifically defined in the standard.
California Air Resources Board had previously set requirements for Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) sales in California. Originally it was set to reach 10% of the OEM’s sales volume. The OEM’s dragged their feet and the rules were relaxed. In 2000 CARB proposed to let LSV’s be counted as full ZEV’s and have in addition a multiplier as was being offered to get the OEM’s to set up. For 2001-2002, all LSV’s “sold” would get 4 credits. For 2003 it would drop to 1.25, and in 2004-2005 drop to 0.625, followed by 2006 and on when it dropped to 0.15. This created a huge incentive for the OEM’s to get into LSV’s. Chrysler bought GEM at end of 2000 and took all of the credits they had already collected. Because of the impact of producing higher volumes of electric vehicles, ZEV credits were going to be traded on open market. New companies coming in to build EV’s would get credits that they could sell to OEM’s. This created a lot of new entries trying to make money off the rule changes. As a result the value of credits was high enough that the market was stimulated. In the meantime Chrysler and GM took CARB to court over the whole ZEV issue and in 2003 won the suit and the mandate was cancelled. CARB and the industry move towards fuel cells which were at least 10-20 years off.

What is and has been in this market?
Golf Carts (2005):
New and used golf carts accounted for 620,000 units. There were 371,000 units to the non-fleet market; 150,000 new & 221,000 used. Fleets, mainly private golf courses, bought 253,000 new golf carts. Since golf course fleet sales are so strong, competitive, and important, golf carts are optimized for lowest possible cost to meet 2 rounds of golf per day for a 3 year life span. Used golf carts require major refurbishing or rebuilding before they are re-sold. Electric carts now out sell gas versions.
Club Car Precedent golf cart – $6786 (2004 price)
StreetRod Productions - golf cart chassis – customized - $16,999

Neighborhood and Low Speed Vehicles (2005):
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV’s) – are not necessarily Low Speed Vehicles (LSV’s). All LSV’s are street legal. In 2005 it was estimated that between 5,000 and 5,500 LSV’s & NEV’s were sold in US.
Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler Chrysler. It is estimated that sales were 4,500 to 5,000 units last year. They have 37 dealerships listed on their website nationwide, including Hawaii. GEM is the largest selling make of LSV.
GEM e4 starts at $8,995 as shown with doors $14, 300
Dynasty sold about 75-100 vehicles last year. They are struggling and were bought out of bankruptcy a couple of years ago.
Dynasty – base price about $13,000
Western Golf Cart Company
Western sells golf carts and some offer NEV packages; they also sell the Lido which Lee Iacocca put into production back in late 90’s and Northern built for his company.
Western (with NEV pkg) as shown $12,959 start about $7,500
Lido base $13,000; woody $15,800; no doors available
Feel Good Cars – ZENN (zero emission, no noise) is being offered by a Canadian company who is not in production yet, but will receive “gliders” from French MicroCars and convert to electric in Canada. Only available as two seater.
Miles Automotive – owned by Tianjin Xiali (Tianjin-Qingyuan Electric Vehicle Co), a subsidiary of the First Automobile Works in Tianjin, China. Miles and Tianjin plan to offer and sell standard electric vehicles. To meet LSV requirements, the ZX-40 which is a 6 passenger micro-van is only rated to carry two people to stay under the GVW requirements of FMVSS 500.
ZAP is no longer offering LSV models, but is offering a motor-cycle (three wheel) class vehicles. ZAP has offered two types of LSV’s before (one a French micro-car and one a Chinese micro-car) but apparently could not deliver them(?).
ZAP – Xebra, priced under $10,000 with max speed 40 mph and range up to 40 miles

Subcompact Standard Cars; (note all of these are equipped with 4 doors, automatic transmissions, and radios; all have A/C as part of model with A/T available; destination charges not included)
2007 Hyundai Accent – GLS 4 dr. base price $12,565 (A/C & radio)
$1,000 A/T
$13,565 Total

2007 Kia Rio – LX base price $12,695 (A/C & radio)
$850 A/T
$13,545 Total

2007 Chevrolet Aveo – LS – 4dr – base price $12,515 (A/C & radio)
$850 A/T
$13,365 Total

Has Beens, now gone:

Bombardier NEV; circa 2000

Ford Th!nk Neighbor built in 2002

Lafayette County Car Company; circa 2004

B.I.G. Man; circa 2004

What is EcoV?
EcoV is a 25mph street legal electric Low Speed Vehicle that is road-worthy with automotive ride, comfort, durability and reliability that offers a safe driving experience on daily trips on public roads 35mph and slower. EcoV is to be built in USA in Detroit, MI.
For 50 cents of electricity out of a standard wall outlet in less than 8 hrs in completely charged and ready to go another 25-40 miles day-in and day-out. EcoV comes in 3 models each with a 1000 lb load capacity.
There are a 4 and 6 passenger models with a rear seat that converts into a utility load floor easily, and a 2 passenger pick-up truck.
There are many Factory installed options available to make EcoV exactly the way you need it or want it. There is right-hand drive, extended range, air conditioning and heat for extreme climates, with no significant effect on range, and many more options.
EcoV has changed the Low Speed Vehicle paradigm. EcoV also changes the rules on how to do niche vehicles.

Why is EcoV road worthy?
1. EcoV was designed by experienced automotive engineers who have done many standard cars and trucks. EcoV has automotive ride, handling, and comfort.
2. EcoV uses a tubular steel welded frame and chassis similar to how a race car is built, including a full roll cage. It is light, strong, and easy to repair.
3. EcoV was configured as a small car. EcoV has a high cowl, full automotive safety glass windshield, additional width over a golf cart for stability, doors, and hood with dry lockable storage below. EcoV was designed to be a no excuse, do anything vehicle for use in city/urban areas.
4. EcoV uses 87% current technology, current production automotive and industrial parts. These parts are already proven, durable components. For example, EcoV uses 14” standard highway tires and wheels that are available everywhere.
5. EcoV exceeds what is required by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 500. In addition we add items like a full hydraulic 4 wheel brake system with independent mechanical park brake, third brake light and our Slow Speed Alert System lights to warn drivers approaching from the rear that EcoV is different and is only going 25 mph.

How does EcoV compare to its competition?

We have a chart that list key customer purchase decision attributes on top and our competitors on the side. Our competitors are golf carts, other LSV’s, and standard cars.

The key customer attributes are Street legal, Safety, Fuel Cost, Low Maintenance & repair, Long Life, Price, and Factory Customization.

EcoV has all the boxes satisfied. Golf carts are not street legal, only EcoV has a full steel frame and chassis which offers more protection than other LSV’s. The electric vehicles clearly have an advantage over gasoline vehicles, for low operation fuel costs. For low maintenance costs only EcoV uses off-the-shelf current production automotive and industrial parts, including standard sealed batteries that do not require watering. For a small sub-compact car used in a city on short missions, on and off operation, they wear out in 5 years. For price, EcoV is lower cost than comparably equipped LSV’s and small standard cars with automatic transmissions.

Who wants it and why?

The first market is fleets. EcoV is a street-worthy commercial fleet vehicle for under $10,000. Fleets are hungry for the operational cost savings EcoV provides in city operations..

Fleets market size: 17 M new cars and trucks sold per year (2005). 3M were sold to fleets, and of those 200,000 do not need to go faster than 25 mph and could be low speed vehicles.

Fleet applications: First fleet market is electric utility companies who desire to have vehicles which use their “fuel.” Fuel provider fleets are mandated to purchase 90% Alternative Fuel Vehicles by EPAct 1992 and to reduce consumption of oil based fuels.
DTE Energy is signed up to test next year.
From there we springboard to government fleets, as Federal Fleets, State Fleets, and municipal fleets. They are mandated to purchase 75% alternative fuel vehicles and reduce oil based fuel consumption.
Cities of Ann Arbor and Grosse Pointe Woods, MI are signed up to test next year.
University of Michigan Dept of Public Safety is signed up to test next year
Detroit Department of Parking Enforcement is preparing to test next year.
US Postal Service is going to test next year as a carrier route vehicle in city and urban areas.
Commercial fleets such as delivery services, vacation rentals, city rental vehicles, hotels, resorts and community transportation services, transportation vehicles at theme parks, for sales at Master Planned Communities and for maintenance are retirement communities.

Private use markets:
There are two major parts of the private use market, first is retirement communities as household’s second vehicle and secondly, urban families as the third or fourth vehicle.

Private use market size statistics:
46M households in 2010, 55 years and older; how many live in the 10,000 and growing Master Planned Communities or retirement communities? Whose second vehicle could be an EcoV?
25 M households today with 3 or more cars. How many could the 3rd or 4th vehicle be an EcoV?

Private use applications:
Car for community errands
High school or college student vehicle
Urban family vehicle for neighborhood errands on public roads
City resident transportation vehicle

Complete product offering:
We provide the complete product offering for a Fleet manager or private buyer. We provide the base product as the start. Then expand to include standard options, service and parts, and lastly factory customization, where we build the product exactly to their needs... like a refreshment truck or Postal truck or personalized vehicle in coral pink with monogrammed seats.

How do we bring new automotive technology to market faster?
Old way is wait for the OEM’s and how long will that take?
New way is to use automotive people to bring new tech forward, but create the demand on the consumer side. When customers demand, the OEM’s must respond. To do this, you need incentives and education on the customer side.
What incentives:
The domestic OEM’s did not want to go to hybrids. Toyota and Honda started to produce them and expand the market. Gas prices, foreign oil sensitivity, and environmental issues raised awareness and made them desirable to purchase. The domestic OEM’s were behind and are struggling to catch up. What drove it? Government put incentives to purchase them, classified them at a minimum performance level to count as a hybrid. California gave hybrids access to the High Occupancy Lanes even with one person. Oh, by the way, the Japanese Government is still subsidizing hybrid vehicle battery prices.

How does this compare to what is being done today to encourage electric vehicles and other alternative fuel vehicles?
There is still a 10% tax credit (up to $4,000) in certain individual private applications. EcoV can qualify for this tax credit.
There are other incentives or subsidies for corn, ethanol, bio-diesel, etc.
But we must stop the foolishness of allowing dual-fuel vehicles to count as alternative fuel vehicles when they only use gas; tie it directly to the amount of ethanol used.
We should allow and encourage LSV's to count as alternative fuel vehicles, which they don't today.

What more could be done?
The objective is to help stimulate awareness of the benefits of electric vehicles.
Low cost incentive issues:
1. Free parking at meters in cities
2. Free charging for EV’s on parking meters, on utility poles in city areas, or in special areas at shopping centers.
3. Free charging at work locations for EV’s
4. Allow parking in handicap spots for EV’s
5. Special designated lanes for LSV’s on public roads, including those with speed limits higher than 35 mph but less than 45 mph.
6. Each State can set its own limits for LSV’s that are operated on non-Federal roads. Maybe allow LSV’s with certain safety equipment to operate at 30 or 25 mph on State roads.

Some cost incentives:
1. Allow free licensing and registration for LSV and EV’s
2. Offer significant reduction in electricity costs for after peak hour operation

Cost (revenue positive) “incentives”
1. Tax on gasoline and diesel fuels to make fuel efficient transportation desirable. Start at a significant tax and raise it every year for 5 to 10 years. Make it stick and use the tax to fund alternative energy solutions, not for pork-barrel pet projects. This is working as oil prices have climbed, but add tax to support developing new energy initiatives to reduce dependence on foreign oil and tie it to who uses the oil based fuel. This works in Europe.
2. Make registration a “use” tax on mileage and miles driven.

Please comment whether you agree or not; we need to have discussions on this.
Thank you! Yes the world is ready for a street-worthy LSV, EcoVElectric!

Who believes GM is serious about electric vehicles?

2006-11-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

I hope we get some interesting comments.
I worked for GM for 5 years on the EV1 program. I was there from late 1990 to mid-1996 when I left GM. GM was perplexed between what the Legal people were fighting and the what the technology people were doing. Ultimately the legal people won and the EV1 disappeared. The technical people were not blame free and in part sealed their own destiny because they spent such an extreme amount of money, much was through mismanagement by the leadership. But now Bob Lutz is at it again. Toyota and Honda have embarassed GM in the automotive business with its total lack of regard for the environmental issues facing us. EV's are a disruptive technology and too difficult for GM to handle. So what is Lutz doing? I don't know but I suspect it is all a sham to look good while not doing anything serious. After they killed the ZEV mandates in California, they promised fuel cells and the hydrogen economy were just around the corner. Hydrogen is still a potential, but its future remains very foggy. Most estimates are 10, 20 or 30 years away and many inventions are still needed. How do you generate hydrogen cost effectively? how do you store it (and not lose it) both in vehicles and in storage yards, and at fueling stations, how do you distribute it, and how do you dispense it. What happens to a 10,000 psi storage tank 10 years down the road, particularly when some untrained mechanic starts to take things apart while smoking?
All these issues can be addressed but they all take time and money to do. And who's money will it be? YOURS, you can bet on it.
Then GM jumped on the ethanol, flex fuel vehicle bandwagon. Until cellulosic processes are developed the cost will be too high and unless E85 is 25% cheaper than gas, no one will buy it because it does not pay for the inconvenience of refilling 25% more often. And why in the hell, do the OEM's who sell flex fuel get these qualified as alternative fuel vehicles when almost all are refueled with straight gas? They should be awarded credits not based on the number sold, but on the number of gallons of ethanol put in the vehicles. Same way for flex-fuel vehicles counting as AFV's for fleet's EPACT requirements. Count them if they actually buy and burn E85, but but if a fleets buys 3% E85 and 97% gas, then give them 0.03 credits, not full credit. And tell me why, an electric Low Speed Vehicle which replaces a gasoline vehicle does not count as a AFV? It doesn't. I personally believe the ethanol issue will backfire for GM and others supporting it. And who is going to pay for this? YOU ARE!
But now back to GM's announcement of electrifying its entire fleet of vehicles in the future. They finally realized that fuel cell cars are electric vehicles and the same drive technology works for both. I am dying to see what technology they include for charging. Will they go back to the Hughes inductive charging or use conductive charging? Will they put the charger on-board the car (they should, absolutely!) or will they try to scream wolf again and leave it to the electric utilities' mission to invest in the infrastructure. This failed before and will probably fail again.
I don't think Lutz understand the technology very well. If Li batteries are used and they must be, the high power cells being developed for hybrids are perfect for an EV. Vehicles need peak power to accelerate and that is the same power level that a hybrid requires. The Li batteries are now getting more powerful and still holding the high energy levels required for an EV. GM may over analyze the situation and try something more expensive and ultimately more complex by adding ultra capacitors. But right now Lutz is saying the high energy cells are about 5 years off. Didn't GM say they would be building a 1,000,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2010?
So what will they show in LA next month? The easiest solution is to take a fuel cell Equinox and put in a battery pack. Sure it will run, but then all the excuses will be said about how far off it really is and why it will not meet the needs of all American drivers for years to come. Now, GM is saying they will show a series hybrid electric at Detroit Auto Show in Hanuary. Something about a small diesel generator ICE to charge the batteries so you can drive your 300-400 miles. Work the math and it will say the series engine needs to be able to provide all the energy when the pack gets low. This is all too confusing to a company that builds big V8's and all you have to do is fill it with gas and they know how to do that!
It will be interesting to watch this unfold. What I want to watch is what Mitsubishi and Subaru will show this year. Both have very serious programs going on in Japan to produce and demonstrate full electric vehicles. Both showed vehicles last year at both autoshows and I think they were at EVS23 this year.
Let me know your thoughts on this.
Richard M.
Update Dec. 4, 2006 GM has done their announcement in LA. Who is impressed?
This is a good news, bad news story. For EV people, this is great news. GM coming back to this market with a plug-in hybrid brings credibility to the EV market, which they helped kill. This is particularly good news for the battery people who need a large volume customer to sell to. Bad news is, if GM is not really driven to do it, Toyota will kill them by being faster to market. I believe GM has set-off a horse race for PHEV's. Toyota will bring one to market in one year, mark my words. They are not going to give an inch in this market. GM on the other hand is trying to re-establish itself, but talk will not do it. Only action will do it. GM's strategy is to bring their 2 mode hybrid to production (rear wheel drive, large trucks), then do another one but smaller for front wheel drive (like the Vue). How long will that take? Then, they need to figure out how to get the batteries developed, ready and how much energy to put in. How long will this take? Then they will fight over how to charge their plug-in hybrid. Will it be a conventional 110 VAC outlet plug or will GM still try to push inductive (I hope not). This will be interesting to watch. Nickel metal hydride batteries are just too expensive. Li will be the direction and it will be interesting to see who GM chooses. It will also be interesting to see how Toyota and Japan does this. Panasonic and Toyota are working to together on EV batteries. This makes a very capable and wealthy set of companies who know what they are doing.
I still think GM missed an opportunity to take their fuel cell Equinox and make a real EV out of it. Yes, it could be done quickly and easily, but this flies in the face of California trying to mandate CO2 emissions. GM claims is impossible without making all products much smaller which translate into regulating fuel ecomony, which a State can not do. Around and around it goes. Bottomline: It does not matter what GM does, this is good news for the EV cause. I am excited!

Electric Vehicles

2006-10-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

EcoV Electric
EcoV Electric is a road-worthy commercial fleet vehicle for under $10,000. Our company EnVironmental Transportation Solutions develops and markets an urban based electric Low Speed Vehicle. After commercial validation and profitability, we will expand into the private use market. EcoV is a 25 mph street legal vehicle that is road-worthy with automotive ride, comfort, durability, and reliability offering a safe driving experience on all public roads 35 mph and slower. For 50 cents out of a standard wall outlet, you are recharged and ready to go another 25 to 40 miles day-in and day-out. EcoV is an electric vehicle and has no emissions, noise, odors, no trips to the gas station, no CO2 is released, no need for imported oil, and is virtually maintenance free. EcoV is available in three models, each with a 1000 pound payload; 4 and 6 passenger with flip down rear seat that converts into a utility vehicle and a pick-up truck.
We are a start-up company in Detroit, MI trying to raise capital to get started. Would you think it would be hard to raise money in "Motor City" for a new auto company? So far it has been nearly impossible. We are unlike other electric vehicle companies, we need only a modest investment, we breakeven on a mere 1,050 units, we have a realistic marketing plan that targets fleet customers who are hungry for EcoV, and we have an experienced management team that can put EcoV into production in 9 monhts. Key to our success is an established US world-class manufacturing partner who is ready to assemble EcoV in their plant in Detroit on a designated assembly line.
Would you be interested? EcoV will change the way transportation moves us!
Check us out at www.EcoVElectric.com