Electric Cars and Energy Independence, Part II

Friday, in Part 1 of this post, I distilled the recent findings of the MIT study, On the Road in 2035 (pdf), and explained why a significant reduction in US fleet fuel use is still decades away: for even with aggressive market penetration of new technologies, the fleet turnover rate will be slow. I then predicted the energy impact of America's new CAFE standards: by 2037, gas consumption should be about 33% lower than it was in 2007 from the change.

Today, in Part 2, I size up Barack Obama's plan to get a million PHEVs on the road by 2015 and Andy Grove's idea to convert existing light duty trucks to plug-in hybrids.

Barack Obama: 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars by 2015

Part of the Obama-Biden New Energy for Ameria plan is a proposal to put one million PHEVs on the road by 2015. To motivate purchasers, it includes a $7,000 tax credit. But how much impact would one million PHEVs really have on our gas consumption? Truth is, almost none. Given that one million PHEVs would be somewhat less than one half of one percent of the 240 million car fleet, at best it will reduce gas consumption by, well, one half of one percent.

And yet, while the immediate gas savings are minimal, this is still a worthy idea. You may recall the main conclusion and recommendation of the MIT study -- that it takes a long time to achieve the full impact of auto technology changes, which means we must start now. A few years wasted means the entire adoption curve is shifted a few years to the future. So anything that gives PHEV development a kickstart is a good thing, not because the minimal gas savings in 2015 will get here sooner, but because the very large gas savings expected 25 years in the future will.

Andy Grove: Converting Light Trucks to PHEVs

Andrew Grove, the retired CEO of Intel, recently floated a plan to convert the existing light duty truck fleet, including pick-ups, SUVs and vans, to PHEVs (see: Former Intel Chief to America: Convert 10 Million SUVs to Plug-Ins by 2012). He claims that if all 80 million are converted and have at least a 50-mile range on battery power, we could reduce oil imports by 50 percent. He suggests a big tax credit and even free electricity for a couple years to encourage conversions.

But do his numbers add up? His article doesn't have enough detail to really check the math. With the numbers I have, I believe a 30 percent cut in oil imports is a more realistic prediction. But the difference doesn't matter because it's never going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, the idea is a great one, but it ignores the most important barrier to a PHEV future: batteries. There really aren't any extra battery packs available right now, much less 80 million of them. It will likely take several years before batteries are truly ready for universal deployment, and then it may take another ten years to build a sufficient number of factories. Only then will production reach the 16 to 20 million or so that would be needed each year to convert all new US LDVs to PHEVs. Even assuming there were millions of suitable batteries available, retrofitting old trucks and SUVs would be very expensive. There would be a lot of engineering to do -- to reinforce frames to hold a half-ton battery, to engineer the weight distribution, to figure out transmission and differential gear ratios, not to mention the suspension work and lots more. And keep in mind, every model would be somewhat different.

But there is real merit to one aspect of Grove's idea: defeating the big lag due to slow fleet turnover. Recall that the MIT authors estimate that it will take 30 to 35 years before the full impact of PHEVs is achieved. Fifteen years of that would be after widespread adoption, waiting for old cars to retire. If the idea of doing retrofits on today's trucks doesn't work because of a lack of batteries and the massive expense, then perhaps we should get the next generation of old LDVs simply ready to retrofit instead. The next generation of old LDVs, of course, are the ones that will be sold today and over the next 10 years that are not PHEVs. An effective tax credit for LDVs that are conversion-ready would mean that when batteries might be available in 10 or 15 years, the vehicles could be converted easily and relatively cheaply.

Voila, we've short-circuited the fleet turnover lag.

Exactly what "conversion-ready" means, however, would have to be determined by auto engineers. At one extreme, it could simply be a Chevy Volt without the Volt: meaning a car powered alternatively by electricity or gasoline but without the big battery. Then conversion becomes a matter of simply plugging in the battery, perhaps with a few adjustments. At the other end of the spectrum, conversion-ready might mean only that the engineering and testing have been done by the manufacturer to support the extra weight safely, without major frame modifications and without ruining the suspension, handling or safety features. In all cases, the car company would have to honor the remaining warranty after conversion, something they would never do today. The engineering here is the key advantage. This gets the original manufacturer to design and build in such a way that the weighty addition of a half-ton battery is accommodated. A small change at the engineering stage could easily save enough money at the conversion stage to make the difference between feasible and ridiculous.

Still, there's no big hurry on this idea. Batteries won't be available for a long time, and there won't be any sense in converting a pick-up with three years left on it, so this year's models, at least, are not good targets. Cars are designed two to three years before production, so a direct-to-manufacturer incentive of a few hundred dollars could give us 2011 or 2012 models that are conversion-ready for batteries that might be available in 2018.

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