electric cars

Economic stimulus money is helping to build a U.S. manufacturing hub for batteries that will power a coming wave of electric cars, but the nation still faces unrelenting competition from Asia, a top executive at Johnson Controls told Congress.

Speaking at a hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Mary Ann Wright, a vice president at Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls, said Asia currently controls almost 100 percent of the lithium-ion battery market.

The Pacific Rim "has a stranglehold on the supply base," Wright said. "If we don't change this, we will change our oil cartel for an Asian battery cartel."

Reporting from Tel Aviv, Israel

Better Place, the electric car start-up, made clear when it unveiled its first vehicle demo center near Tel Aviv this week that far more is at stake in its Israel transportation trial than green clout.

"Israel is detaching itself from oil," said Shai Agassi (photo), the 41-year-old, Israeli-born founder of the company. The government "really wants this to happen," he said. "It is a national project."

The first electric cars are expected to hit U.S. showrooms by the end of 2010, a major step in the reinvention of the automobile. But hopes for a fast transition away from oil are looking premature.

Two new reports — one from the National Resource Council (NRC) and a second from consulting firm Pike Research — question whether the high costs of lithium-ion batteries, which power most plug-in electric hybrids (PHEVs), such as the Chevy Volt, and all-electric cars, such as the new Nissan LEAF, can drop fast enough to achieve mass-market adoption.

The industry will know by 2012 what is possible, Pike Research suggests.

Nissan's early commitment to push its autos from the pump to the plug is paying off.

In June came the news that the automaker landed $1.6 billion in lucrative loans to electrify American cars. And now the company has won another $200 million to help deploy the charging network that will power them.

When it happens, it will be the largest roll out of electric charging stations and electric vehicles in the history of the world, by far.

Half the funding will flow from the Obama administration's $2.4 billion electric car grant program. The other half will come from local project participants.

All of it is a sign that Nissan, the Obama government and certain states are serious about achieving technology leadership in producing the car of the future.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is considering building Better Place's car recharging infrastructure at its bases to support a coming fleet of electric troop carriers, as well as civilian electric cars when they become available, Israel's Globes reports.

It's no big surprise. Israel was the first country in the world to commit to installing the California start-up's nationwide car charging network (not to mention the CEO of Palo Alto-based Better Place is Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the IDF). But the news is still worth noting for a number of reasons.

First, the report underscores the global trend of major militaries embracing electric vehicles to break foreign fuel dependence. Second, the IDF is considered one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world. If its electric vehicles and charging infrastructure prove viable options with clear benefits, then the IDF could propel other governments and militaries to adopt them. That could help Palto Alto-based Better Place, which seeks to blanket the world with its electric recharge grids and define the global standard.

Third: The news is more proof that oil-poor Israel is aiming to be an electric car epicenter.

Ontario, Canada -- which is already on track to shut down coal by 2014 -- has become the nation's first province to adopt Better Place's electric car recharging grid. It joins Israel, Denmark, Australia, the San Francisco Bay area and Hawaii in making a deal with the Palo Alto start-up.    

Details remain thin. But according to press releases (here and here), Better Place will partner with Bullfrog Power, the Canadian retailer of renewable energy, to power the charging infrastructure with clean sources.

The mass-market electric car could finally hit California's roads.

That's thanks to the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, who have declared their intention to transform the Bay Area -- and eventually California -- into the "Electric Vehicle Capital of the US" (video of the press conference here). To do so, they've signed up Palo Alto EV firm Better Place to deliver the charging infrastructure -- the first US deployment of the company’s technology.

The Better Place goal: 250,000 charging ports, 200 battery-exchange stations and a control center to service Bay Area electric car drivers. The cost: $1 billion. The time frame: permitting of the network will begin in January 2009 and construction in 2010. Commercial availability of the electric cars is targeted for 2012.

Green Energy News has picked up on something interesting in the middle of the Olympic controversy.

Tibet is a treasure trove of lithium.

In fact, it boasts the largest source of known lithium reserves in the whole world, according to the China Tibet Information Center.

Three Deutsche Bank analysts took a hard look at Project Better Place’s business plan for an electric-car recharging grid in Israel and Denmark, and they drew this unexpected conclusion:

The electric car scheme is viable in America, too. The assumption that it would make a cost-effective investment only in tiny nations with sky-high taxes and outrageous prices at the pump is dead wrong.

How do they know?