Living LEAF

A look at Ford and the Focus Electric

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Ernie Hernandez

First part in a series on the state of electric cars for American consumers

Ford’s electric future

Last week, Ford introduced their Ford Focus Electric in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Naturally, they will have the car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week as well. Based on the upcoming 2012 Ford Focus, the Electric is not an all new platform, but an existing platform launched at the Paris Motor Show last year and tweaked to accommodate the electric drive train. Ford chose to partner with an outside supplier (Magna International) to provide the powertrain and battery for the car. Ford chose this route to save time and development expense.

If you have been following the LEAF for any length of time, you will find much that is similar in the Focus Electric. There is an electric motor powering the front wheels through a single-speed reduction gear transmission. Ford has released no information regarding power or torque, but they have stated that the Focus Electric has a top speed of 84 miles per hour. Many may quibble with whether this is fast enough or not, but the fact of the matter is this: 84 mph is faster than any legally posted freeway speed in the U.S. One item of note – Ford has claimed a recharge time of the 23 kilowatt hour Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery in three to four hours using a 240 volt charging dock. Focus Electric offers a 6.6 kilowatt on-board charger vs. the 3.3 kilowatt charger used by the LEAF. While many have said that the 3.3 kilowatt charger in the LEAF should be doubled, if you plug your car in at night it will be fully charged by morning. We don’t see being charged by midnight (if plugged in at 9 PM) as any real advantage. Ford has partnered with Best Buy to sell and install charging stations for the Focus for $1,499. Ford has provided little in the way of other specifications, and nothing regarding price. Focus Electric will launch in “late 2011″ in the U.S. and Ford has not stated any production targets.

So what other plans does Ford have in the electric car arena? Nothing regarding electric cars. They have two more hybrids in the works, along with a new plug-in hybrid, but no additional electric cars. In late 2010 they completed the first Transit Connect Electric (TCE) vans. So let’s take a closer look at those. The TCE is, again, based on an existing platform. The Transit Connect is built in Turkey, has a 2.0 liter 4-cylinder engine and is front-wheel drive. It is presented as a small, light-commercial vehicle for route deliveries and similar uses. For the TCE, a glider (body less powertrain) is built in Turkey and shipped to the U.S. for final assembly. The powertrain is purchased from Azure Dynamics and installed by AM General in Michigan. The batteries are acquired from Johnson Controls-Saft. So the TCE is even more of a kit van than a production vehicle than the Focus is, with the low build rate (600 to 700 per year) that would go along with that assessment. In contrast, the Nissan NV200 received the International Van of the Year in December 2009 with plans to make an electric version of it using Nissan’s own EV technology.

It seems that Ford has acknowledged the need to offer electric vehicles to their customers as a publicity gesture, but does not feel that a commitment of their own research and development team toward this effort is worthwhile. As the only domestic manufacturer to weather the automotive fiasco in reasonably good shape, we feel that Ford’s lack of commitment in this area places them a step or two behind Chevrolet – who has developed the Volt in-house.

Posted in Industry News, Is the Nissan LEAF right for me?, LEAF 101, Other EVs | 1 Comment

Nonotechnology offers shorter electric car battery charge time

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Ernie Hernandez

Nano batteries to charge 40 to 60 times faster than today’s technology

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York has developed a new type of nanomaterial (material based on materials dimensionally smaller than one tenth of a micrometer). Due to the ultra small scale of this nanomaterial, a future generation of lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries of the sort used to propel the Nissan LEAF (along with laptops and mobile phones) could lead to shorter charge times for all of these device batteries.

The reason that current Li-ion batteries charge at the slow rates that they do is that faster charging (and discharging) would result in stresses in the battery which could cause premature failure. By slowing the charge/discharge cycle, internal stresses are reduced and battery life is not sacrificed. This is where the nanoscale of this new material becomes a factor.

Rensselaer calls the new material a “nanoscoop“. It earns this name due to its structure: a cone-shaped carbon nanorod base, topped with a thin layer of nanoscale aluminum and a “scoop” of nanoscale silicon. (Anything that compares itself to an ice cream cone is alright in our book.) These nanoscoops are then arranged side-by-side as would be the individual pieces of yarn in a piece of carpet fabric. Due to their structure, stresses of expansion and contraction are distributed differently than in current technology Li-ion batteries, allowing the faster charge/discharge cycles.

The technology is in its infancy and faces limitations. Currently, the size of the battery is small, so this will need to be improved. While tested to over 100 continuous charge/discharge cycles, this will also need to improve by probably a factor of forty (giving a useful life of over ten years) to be useful in an automotive application. The benefits, though, will be worth it.

Think of the possibility of charging your LEAF in minutes, not hours. Taking that drive up the coast could be as easy as driving your conventional gas powered car is today. And if the energy density and power are improved, we will be looking at significantly longer range capable EVs with charge times the equivalent of filling your gas tank. If these advances in technology continue, it’s really going to make it difficult for those that say EVs don’t make sense.

Posted in Battery/Charging Experience, Industry News, Is the Nissan LEAF right for me?, LEAF 101, LEAF Information, LEAF Ownership | 1 Comment

Corporate espionage at Renault may impact Nissan

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Ernie Hernandez

Renault uses Nissan battery technology

Not long ago, we wrote about the Renault-Nissan corporate alliance that has served both companies well for the past twenty years. Some cracks may have just formed in that alliance.

According to Renault, three high level Renault executives, one of which whom served on Renault’s management committee, have been the subject of a month’s long investigation. This investigation determined the dissemination of information deemed to be “strategic, intellectual and technological assets” according to Christian Husson, Renault’s head of legal and ethical affairs. All three have been suspended. According to Husson’s statement:

Renault decided to take action because these are serious acts concerning people with extremely strategic positions at the Group. Their acts justify this suspension, the first aim of which is to immediately protect the strategic, intellectual and technological assets of our company. In accordance with labor laws Renault will preserve the identity of the three persons concerned. The investigation is underway. We are examining all legal options, which will inevitably result in legal action.

How could this impact Nissan? According to those familiar with the situation, and France’s industry minister, the leaks pertain to electric vehicle technology. A Nissan executive had this to say:

“Whatever they leaked, it’s ours,” said the Nissan executive, who declined to be identified. “They don’t have their own lithium-ion battery technology. We serve all of their battery technology needs, and we are their supplier of battery cells and packs.”

Additional source material from the Wall Street Journal

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Real Nissan LEAF owners exceed 100 mile range

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Ernie Hernandez

LEAF owners trek over 100 miles home from dealer

Two cautiously adventurous new LEAF owners chose to drive over 100 miles home in their inaugural drive of their new electric vehicle (EV). Guess what? They made it.

We say cautiously adventurous because an asterisk needs to be placed next to the entry in the book (for those who keep track of such things). More on the asterisk in a moment. Three employees of San Diego Gas & Electric decided to purchase the LEAF for their personal vehicle, for various reasons. They made their purchase from Fontana Nissan, east of Los Angeles. Fontana sent a driver down to pick up all three, and one chose to have his LEAF delivered to his home just to play it safe. But after taking delivery, the other two strapped in and hit the start button to (in the words of Steppenwolf) – “Get your motor running, Head out on the highway, Looking for adventure, In whatever comes our way”.

Choosing the conservative approach, they tiptoed the first few miles at just over 50 miles per hour. After getting honked at by one driver, and scowled at by another, they decided to pick up the pace to a steady 55 miles per hour. Keep in mind, the two intrepid adventurers were in contact with each other via bluetooth cell phone conversation pretty much the entire way. Once they settled in at 55 mph, it was pretty smooth sailing.

Just a quick side note; we drive all over Southern California freeways weekly. We drive from San Diego, to Yuma, Arizona. We spend time in Orange County and in the Inland Empire. We drive on these freeways in the morning, in the middle of the day, and in the evening. Yes… we drive a lot. While some would say driving 55 miles per hour in SoCal is hazardous, we would beg to differ. Many drivers drive sub-60 miles per hour (for whatever reason) routinely. Most freeways have enough lanes to accommodate a variety of speeds without any significant safety issues. That said, let’s continue on with our daring duo.

The “cautiously” in the “cautiously adventurous” above comes in here. The pair chose to stop at the Nissan dealership in Temecula to top off with juice. Many Nissan stores in the Southern California market are LEAF certified dealerships. What this means, is that the dealership had to provide certain upgrades to their facilities. These upgrades included installing two publicly available 220/240 volt charging stations for Nissan customers. Temecula is a LEAF certified store. But just to stay on the good side of the dealership (after all, one never knows when he might need a little more juice), the pair called the store ahead of time and asked for permission. And while they were waiting for their cars to charge, they enjoyed some popcorn and bought out the inventory of four LEAF license plate frames that the dealership had just received. In their 90 minute stay they picked up about 18 miles of range.

This is a typical public charging station arrangement at a Nissan store

The drive from the Fontana dealership to their homes was about 110 miles. They live in different areas of San Diego, but about the same distance from Fontana. The side trip to the dealership in Temecula added a couple miles. When they got home, they each had about 18 miles left. So could they have made it all the way? It sounds like they might have just coasted into their respective driveways. But with a LEAF, since there is no engine noise, a curious neighbor might ask about the lack of noise from under the hood. Our response might be – “Yeah… it always sounds like that”. While there may not have been an American flag theme painted on the gas tank (Oh… wait… there is no gas tank)… these two were “Born to be Wild“.

Posted in Battery/Charging Experience, Charging Infrastructure, Dealership Experience, Driving Range, Is the Nissan LEAF right for me?, LEAF 101, LEAF Acquisition, LEAF Information, LEAF Ownership | 6 Comments

Electric Vehicle Studies

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Ernie Hernandez

Electric car studies grow in number

We look at a Google Alert daily for information on the Nissan LEAF, which is the top of the funnel that we muddle our way through each day to come up with something timely to discuss. One notable feature of our alerts lately is the ever increasing number of electric vehicle (EV) studies being bandied about. We typically will take a look to see if there is anything worth noting, but often there is an agenda behind the sponsor of the study, and often it is apparent in the result. We don’t remember much from our old statistics classes, but one thing that we do seem to recall is that you can pretty much use statistics to say anything that you want them to. It’s all in the framing of the questions and the study. And in the respondents that you select.

Take for instance, the 60 some page Electric Vehicle Study published by Zpryme Research & Consulting, sponsored by Airbiquity. It has many graphs and charts, and presents itself in a polished manner. One of the surprising findings of this study is that more people would consider buying a Ford electric vehicle, followed by Toyota, Chevrolet, Honda and Nissan. Hold on here – Chevy is third and Nissan is fifth? This, despite the fact that Honda has no EV on the near-term horizon, Toyota is partnering with Tesla to buy EV technology (while Nissan has been developing their current battery technology for eighteen years), and Ford’s Focus EV is not due out until the end of this year. As an aside, Ford has decided to launch the Ford Focus EV not at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, but at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week. We’ll keep you posted. But let’s get back to the study. One bit of information that Zpryme provided is the current vehicle brand owned by the respondents. Of the five brands mentioned above, in order, the respondents owned the following brands: Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Honda and Nissan. No huge surprise that Ford owners might prefer to buy a Ford EV. Certainly, there is potentially some useful data to be derived from their study, but knowing that biases have not been filtered out taints the results of the survey at best, and renders the result totally useless at worst.

Our point to this is that there will be even more studies being released in the coming year as the EV segment gains traction with the release of more vehicles. It is always worth keeping in mind the point of view of the study author, who is paying the bills, is the study author competent and are the results truly reflective of the situation.

Posted in Industry News, Is the Nissan LEAF right for me?, LEAF 101 | Leave a comment

Electric truck market gaining traction

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Ernie Hernandez

Smith Electric Vehicles US buys UK parent

According to Reuters Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. (SEV) just bought a majority interest in its United Kingdom based parent. Essentially, this makes the company U.S. based. Considering the state of the budding electric vehicle (EV) market in the U.S., this seems to be a timely proposition.

As much press as the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt have received these past several months, almost invisible has been the development on the commercial vehicle side of the business. As far back as July, when President Obama held a press conference at the SEV plant in Kansas City, Missouri, there has been discussion regarding this movement. That same month, SEV announced that AT&T, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), and Staples had placed orders for their electric trucks. And real trucks they are.

SEV UK has been producing commercial electric vehicles since 1920. In London, they were particularly known for what were referred to as “milk floats” – electric trucks that delivered milk in the early morning hours to London’s multitudes. As the need developed, increasingly heavier duty applications were called for in other applications, and current SEV products expanded to offer a payload of as much as eight tons. Electric vehicles make particularly good sense as a replacement to diesel vehicles in city-based delivery route applications with their constant starts, stops and low-speed operation, although the vehicles are highway compatible with a 50 mile per hour capacity.

AT&T has made a significant commitment to alternative-fuel vehicles. 15,000 of AT&T’s commercial fleet of 75,900 vehicles will be replaced with compressed natural gas (CNG), hybrid-electric vehicles, and now full electric vehicles by 2018. Without doubt, the LEAF could serve a role as a customer service vehicle in this fleet.

Coca-Cola, already a leader in transitioning to an alternative-fuel powered fleet, is also looking to place full electric trucks into its fleet, initially in New York and Washington, D.C.

Frito-Lay, the snack subsidiary of PepsiCo, planned to place 21 electric trucks into operation in the U.S. and Canada in 2010. By the end of this year the goal is 155 more, making Frito-Lay the largest commercial fleet of all-electric trucks in North America. Eventually half of their 4,000 medium-duty trucks could be all-electric.

PG&E will be using a combination of different kinds of electric trucks in its fleet. In July, PG&E announced an agreement to take delivery of extended range electric trucks, similar in operating design to that of the Volt – operating pure electric for 30-40 miles with an on-board gas engine providing further range if needed. In addition, PG&E worked with SEV to produce an all electric utility “bucket truck”, which has been incorporated into its fleet with more on the way.

Staples will place 41 class six electric trucks in operation in California, Missouri and Ohio. From Staples press release:

“The addition of these all-electric delivery trucks is the latest example of our commitment to continually improve our delivery fleet and its impact on the environment,” said Mike Payette, manager of fleet equipment at Staples. “Over time, we’ll look to increase the number of these trucks in the Staples fleet as an effective way to service our delivery customers while reducing our carbon emissions.”

Not only are commercial ventures looking to move in the EV direction. The U.S. Marine Corps has also made the move, with trucks due to arrive at Camp Pendleton, California by February. The Marines have a stated goal of being 25% reliant on renewable energy by 2025. Of all of our government’s agencies, we give the Marines the best odds of meeting this goal.

The question is, if all of the nay-sayers are correct about electric vehicles not making sense, why are all of these entities embracing the technology? Simple. It makes good business sense.

This from the Wall Street Journal:

“We’re a business here,” said Mike Payette, vice president of fleet services for Staples, a Framingham, Mass.-based office-supply company. “They have to justify themselves. They have to prove themselves and pull their own weight.”

Staples is spending $90,000 for each truck compared to the $60,000 cost of the diesel truck that they would otherwise be buying. With an expected usable life of ten years, Staples will make back the additional investment in 3.3 years, and come out $60,000 ahead over ten years. Referenced in the article are all of the cost savings offered by the electric truck, most of which will also apply to the LEAF owner. Also, all of these cost savings are based on the current cost of fuel – be it diesel or gasoline. When the price of these fuels goes up, the cost savings will increase.

In a nutshell (although this was a particularly large nut), companies are transitioning to EVs for the same reasons that individuals are: it makes financial sense, and it is good for the environment. We see continued movement in this direction as these vehicles are seen in operation – both private EVs and corporate EVs.

On a side note – you may have noticed the byline change above. When I first started publishing Living LEAF, my primary means of communicating online was via various fora. My nom de plume was (and continues to be) LEAFguy. I never meant for my real name to go unpublished, as I have that information in my “About” page above. I think it’s time, with the advent of the new year, to take ownership of my blog, under my own name. The byline will continue to read “Ernie Hernandez – LEAFguy” until I decide to drop the LEAFguy at some point. Thank you for your continued support.

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