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Who Might Win McCain’s Battery Competition? Part I: Firefly

Nick Chambers — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:28:34 +0000

Editor’s note: This post is a lead-in story to the Gas 2.0 interview with Mil Ovan, Senior Vice President and Co-founder of Firefly Energy.

Last week John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee for the 2008 Republican ticket, suggested that a $300 million government-sponsored competition would be a good way to spur development of next generation battery technologies.

His comments generated debate in the blogosphere and around the United States. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic ticket, called McCain’s proposal a gimmick suggesting that $300 million was not enough.

Regardless of my feelings about the proposed competition or the candidates themselves, it got me thinking about just who might win it if it were to become a reality. All that thinking led to this post, and, hopefully, to several others that will look at the most promising next generation battery technologies on the horizon.

This week I’ll start with Firefly Energy.

Founded in 2003, Firefly has been working on reinvigorating old-hat lead-acid battery technology in such a way that it would become brand new and cutting edge once again. On the surface, the concept may seem pretty dull, but digging into it we find that it presents a lot of promise.

Firefly’s innovation is that they’ve taken the heavy lead plates you’d find in a classic lead-acid battery and replaced them with a light carbon-graphite microcell foam that’s been impregnated with lead.

Key benefits of their first and second generation technology when compared to traditional lead-acid batteries include:

up to 70% less lead
up to 50% reduction in weight and size
Much faster recharge and discharge capabilities
Much better cold weather performance
Increased lifetime and durability

Two of the main problems associated with traditional lead-acid batteries are corrosion and sulfation. Together these are the lead-acid battery’s Achilles’ heel and the typical reasons they fail. Firefly mitigates these problems by creating a balance between the amount of lead in the battery and the acid electrolyte that flows through the microcell foam.

Firefly’s technology could make the lead-acid battery truly competitive with other advanced battery chemistries, such as lithium-ion, but at a much more affordable price and in a safer package. At the same time, the technology would increase the durability and reliability of the lead-acid battery and address many of the environmental concerns associated with the industry.

Another key benefit of reinvigorating the production of lead-acid batteries in the United States is that it would be a domestic endeavor — meaning that the US has lots of lead available (it’s the third largest producer behind China and Australia; PDF), a robust system in place for recycling lead from batteries, and a healthy and capable domestic manufacturing base.

In terms of energy security and recyclability, this beats the pants off of lithium-ion batteries, which depend on resources from the Far East and South America (PDF) and are proving very difficult/costly to recycle.

Firefly is set to release its first commercial product by Q4 of this year with the introduction of the Oasis battery — only available to the trucking industry initially.

While Firefly has no immediate plans to enter the electric vehicle market, they are fully aware of the keen interest their technology has generated among EV enthusiasts and the benefits that their battery technology could provide to the EV market.

I recently had a chance chat with Mil Ovan, Senior Vice President and Co-founder of Firefly, about the company, their take on McCain’s competition, Firefly’s battery technology, environmental worries about lead, the Oasis battery, electric vehicles and the company’s plans for the future.

Rather than try and distill that conversation down to its elements, I thought it was interesting enough to present it in its entirety in a separate post. Click the link below to proceed to that interview.

Interview with Mil Ovan, Senior Vice President and Co-founder of Firefly, June 26th, 2008.

Posts Related to Batteries, Electric Vehicles, and the Politics of Green:

Image Credits: Firefly Energy

Interview With Mil Ovan, SVP and Co-founder of Firefly Energy

Nick Chambers — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:28:04 +0000

Editor’s note: This interview is a companion piece to Part I of the Gas 2.0 series about who might win John McCain’s proposed $300 million dollar battery competition if it were to become reality.

Last week John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee for the 2008 Republican ticket, generated debate by suggesting that a $300 million government- sponsored competition would be a good way to spur development of next generation battery technologies.

His comments got me thinking about just who might win such a competition it if it were to become reality.

Firefly Energy is one of the companies that made it to my short list. Founded in 2003, they have been working on reinvigorating old-hat lead-acid battery technology in such a way that it would become brand new and cutting edge once again.

Interview with Mil Ovan, Senior Vice President and Co-founder of Firefly, June 26th, 2008.

NC: What are the core operating principles of Firefly? What drives the company?

MO: We are developing a battery technology that reinvigorates a battery chemistry that’s been around since 1859 — lead-acid. Although traditional lead-acid batteries have been proven safe and are low cost, they suffer from weight issues as well as lifetime issues because they use fairly heavy lead plates on a metal grid. What we’re doing instead is replacing the lead plates and metal grid with a high surface area, non-corroding, lightweight microcell foam material. Using this technology you can start to realize the true capability of the chemistry and overcome some of those limitations I mentioned by not having to use all that lead in the battery.

NC: I’ve read that Firefly started as a part of the company Caterpillar. Is Firefly still a subsidiary of Caterpillar?

MO: No. The technology was spun off from Caterpillar. Firefly was created as a separate company with separate funding and was founded on May 1st, 2003.

NC: As you know, one of the main reasons we got interested in having this conversation was because of John McCain’s recent proposal to hold a competition to see who could come up with the most advanced next generation battery technology. If McCain’s $300 million battery competition were to become reality, what would give Firefly the edge to win it?

MO: First of all I’d like to say that whatever party is offering solutions that involve expediting development of next generation batteries, we’re all for that. The government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year on fuel cell development and we’re still probably as far away from fuel cells as we were ten years ago when they said it would be ten years before we see them widely deployed. We see the shift coming towards the realization that fuel cells are still going to take at least another ten years and that battery technology is of paramount importance.

Right now the world of advanced batteries and research is primarily in the far east, most notably in China. In one sense, while we want to electrify vehicles and reduce our nation’s dependance on foreign oil and the national security risks that represents, we’re in essence kind of trading one energy security risk for another because the majority of the lithium-ion batteries come from China. Firefly’s goal is to reinvigorate the vast base of lead-acid battery manufacturers in the US and enable them and their customers to enjoy greater performance without necessarily getting the resources of the less safe, higher priced, advanced batteries that come from the far east.

NC: I hear where you’re coming from on fuel cells. I remember about 20 years ago I read an article in Popular Science about how hydrogen fuel cells were going to be widely available within the decade. That was 20 years ago. Today they’re still saying that hydrogen fuel cells will be available within the decade. It’s easy to get pessimistic about fuel cells given that environment.

MO: Yeah. The thoughts about lithium-ion technology right now are similar to how fuel cells have evolved over time. People are saying “yeah, it’s expensive” and “yeah, it’s not as safe as it needs to be,” but there’s a lot of money being thrown into it and a lot of smart people. Well, take out the word lithium-ion and replace it with fuel cell and it’s the same phrases that have been uttered about fuel cells for some time now. We think we are unique in that we have a very practical means of gaining better battery performance and getting that right equation of safety, cost, run-time, size, weight, and life that has eluded many in the past. On one end of the extreme you have companies liking lead-acid’s low cost but hating its life and weight issues, and at the other extreme liking lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride for their small footprint and light weight, but hating its ten-times cost penalty and safety and thermal challenges.

NC: So, McCain thinks his plan is a good idea, Obama says its a gimmick. Obviously both of them are interested in spurring next generation technologies. Do you think something like McCain’s plan is a good idea, or is it a gimmick? If you think it would spur innovation, do you think $300 million is enough?

MO: One has to look at the specifics of the proposal to weigh in and determine whether it’s a practical idea or not. Without knowing the details — I haven’t seen them yet — I’m not going to comment on whether that particular plan is a good one.

In general government support of advanced research on batteries is a good thing because the stock market doesn’t support long term investments in capital in research — they’re more interested in quarterly results — and certainly venture capitalists aren’t patient enough to see multimillion dollar research evolve. A lot of venture capitalist jumped into investing in fuel cells only to see the payback be much longer than they expected.

It is a role of our government to enable basic research because, frankly, our country is being outspent in battery research by China, Japan and Korea.

NC: Shifting gears now… What is the microcell foam made of?

MO: There’s a variety of materials we can choose from including graphite and carbon.

NC: Graphite is a pretty fragile compound. Is there a way you’ve gotten around that limitation in your battery to increase the durability?

MO: The way in which we reinforce the underlying foam is part of the intellectual property of Firefly, and part of those reinforcement methods are patented and some are trade secrets.

NC: Okay, we’ll leave it at that I guess. Inside the battery, is the lead bonded to the foam?

MO: Yeah. In a regular lead-acid battery, for lack of a better term, you plop the chemistry on top of the lead metal grid and then you press onto that the plate and that’s a two-dimensional grid structure. In contrast, in the Firefly foam approach the chemistry is washed into the pores of the foam so that now you have a three-dimensional surface area that you can take advantage of and the electrolyte then is in much tighter proximity within the pores of the foam to the chemistry that is in the walls of that foam. Now your ability to recharge and discharge the battery is greatly increased and particularly in cold weather it becomes an advantage.

NC: How long would you expect the Firefly battery to last versus a traditional lead-acid battery or versus a lithium-ion?

MO: The answer on all of these things is ‘it depends.’ I’ve been in the battery industry 5 years now and I’ve come to learn the phrase “there are liars, damn liars and battery companies.” As a policy, in the public forum, we don’t make claims that ‘hey our battery can achieve this level of watt hours per kilogram and watt hours per liter’ because it really is dependent on solving a complex set of calculations in terms of cost, safety, runtime, weight, volume, and temperature concerns. So these types of things really depends on the application.

Take an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) example. Envision a room full of lead-acid batteries providing power backup for a data center of a major corporation. Under a fast discharge of five minutes — say power goes out at the facility and before the generator kicks in — the batteries are invoked and over the course of a five minute discharge, that battery is drained. The problem with a classic lead-acid battery, is that under very fast discharges it can supply the power you need, but it requires a room’s full of batteries to do it. In contrast, the high surface area of Firefly microcell foam batteries can accomplish that same five minute discharge in half a room’s worth of batteries. So what does this mean practically? It’s at least half the weight and half the volume of classic lead-acid battery technology. So the implications beyond that would include that there’s less shipping, less installation, less cabling required, less floor space taken up, and less air conditioning. The benefits really multiply in just that one example alone.

Another example is the Army. We’re working on a prototype battery for military tank applications. The Army says “we’re not interested in size reduction because this Bradley tank has a battery tray and cables already wired with set specifications.” It’s a 40-ton vehicle so weight reduction is nice to have, but it’s not critical. The idea is to just stuff as much runtime as you can into this thing. So in that example we’re not delivering any size savings, but were greatly improving upon watt-hours per liter of the current lead-acid batteries. So, all that is a long-winded way of telling you that it’s a complicated answer.

NC: What kinds of reductions do you find in the amount of lead used in the Firefly batteries when compared to classic lead-acid batteries?

MO: I believe on our website there’s a trucking industry white paper (PDF), and in there we go into a description of how much lead per battery is in a Firefly battery versus a standard battery. The other factor to consider is that a battery is going to last several times longer than a regular lead-acid battery, so the amount of lead used in the mission, in this case powering a truck over several years instead of over one year, means that the effective lead reduction is several fold. That’s how we like to portray the lead reduction.

Now we have two technologies. The first one we call 3D, which involves the replacement of the negative lead metal grids in a classic lead-acid battery with a microcell foam. The positive lead metal grids as well as the overall interconnecting strap that connects the cells within that battery are still lead. The second generation of our technology that we’re also working on is called 3D2, and that replaces all of the lead metal in the battery with the foam material. The amount of lead savings can range from 50% to 70% depending on which technology were talking about. The true effective reduction in lead depends on the application.

We’re about to commercialize a battery for the world of highway trucks called Oasis. The reason why we named it Oasis is because, when you think about it, what does a sleeper cab represent to trucker that’s just finished a ten hour hour drive and he’s pulling into a truck stop in the middle of August and it’s 95 degrees out? Well that sleeper cab is a sanctuary or refuge or, as we like to call it, an oasis. With the anti-idling legislation that is starting to sweep the country requiring that, for example in California you need to shut off your truck engine for a portion of every hour, how are they going to run all of their hotel loads — microwave ovens, TVs and the like? It’s going to put a tremendous strain on current lead-acid batteries which are primarily used for starting the truck, not for runtime support.

Besides requirements due to anti-idling legislation, since January prices for diesel have gone from $3 to over $5 per gallon. If you’re idling your engine 8 hours a night times $5 per gallon — because that’s about how much is consumed per hour when you’re idling the main engine — times 5 days per week times 52 weeks per year, you can see how incredibly expensive idling your truck becomes. In response, Firefly has developed this long runtime battery in the classic group 31 battery footprint and we think it is going to enable fuel savings as well as pollution reduction as a result — and give the trucker the kind of performance he needs in order to drive effectively.

We’re also pursuing a strategic marketing relationship with a company called Bergstrom, which makes a battery powered supplemental air conditioning system, so that indeed you can turn off the engine and the driver can turn on this supplemental battery powered air conditioning system in the sleeper cab and the driver can have a comfortable night’s rest running on battery power.

NC: My brother is a trucker, so I’m familiar with those laws. There’s another strategy in the preliminary stages I’m sure you’re aware of in truck stops where they are putting in these supplemental power units and air conditioning attachments, but you have to have your truck specially outfitted to take advantage of that…

MO: Well, yeah, and you have to also find a place that has that special equipment and, you know, it’s not ubiquitous of course, so it’s not a solution that’s going to make a big dent in the trucking problems we’re facing today.

NC: And I’d say that most truckers don’t actually spend every night at truck stops, they spend the night on the side of the road…

MO: …Right, along the highway on an exit.

NC: In terms of the Oasis, and maybe any other future products, obviously there’s going to be a premium charged for the technology. What’s the premium you expect to charge for the Oasis over a traditional lead-acid battery?

MO: Well, if you look at the spectrum of choices available to a trucker for group 31 lead-acid batteries, they could buy an inexpensive flooded lead-acid battery for anywhere from 80 to 100 bucks, and if you went to the next tier of quality lead-acid batteries it would be a valve-regulated lead-acid battery, or VRLA battery, and that would be around $280 for one battery. We haven’t announced prices yet, but we’ll probably be somewhere around $400 per battery. From a cycles per dollar perspective, that being how many times can you run it before you have to replace it given that it’s a heavy cycling application, we think that on a cycles per dollar basis it’s cheaper than both of the traditional battery choices I mentioned. Certainly, in the view of battery powered air conditioning systems and the like and being able to turn your engine off and not use fuel idling, the payback would be less than a year.

NC: So you’ve got the Oasis, there’s some buzz going about that — but future products? Obviously, from our readership there’s going to be a huge interest about electric vehicles. So the next questions are going to be about just that. I don’t know how much you’ll be able to answer about it because you haven’t even gone there yet, but I’m sure you’ve talked with some companies or interested parties that are out there. In general, when you’re talking about electric vehicles, what sorts of benefits does your technology hold over lithium-ion?

MO: Well, I think that before I answer that question I would say that if you look to the GM EV1, it was deployed in California and Arizona. Why? Because it had a 60 mile range due to the limitations of the traditional lead-acid batteries that it had. But, were you to drive it in the depths of winter in Detroit, you would have an 8 mile range. That’s because in a classic lead-acid battery it’s capacity falls as the temperature falls. So at minus 20 degrees centigrade you would only have 10-15% of what you would have at 30 degrees centigrade — which would be 100% of your battery capacity. In contrast, with the microcell foam Firefly technology you would have about 60% of your maximum battery capacity at minus 20 degrees centigrade.

So what does that mean? First of all it means lead-acid electric vehicles can become more practical across the nation not just specific to a modest temperature or a modest climate like in California. So that’s one advantage. Secondly, lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries have certain issues in terms of capabilities in both cold and hot temperature extremes that are limitations. Third, in particular, if you look at nickel metal hydride batteries they have a very high self discharge rate and so if you left your electric vehicle standing without charging it for a week you’d see a fairly significant drop off in capacity.

The Firefly battery has an incredibly low self discharge rate even compared to a traditional lead-acid battery which is already the best among the various chemistries in terms of slow self discharge rates. Even the first generation of our technology, 3D, probably would be the best lead-acid battery out there in terms of fitting with an EV for those few reasons I mentioned. But we think that the real promise, in terms of the world of EVs will come from our second generation technology, 3D2, where we’ll be able to make pretty significant inroads in terms of weight and size reduction and making it competitive to lithium-ion. Because in today’s world of lead-acid EVs, as you know, you’re spending a fair amount of energy just pushing the lead down the road.

NC: Not to mention that it’s lead and people are always going to have environmental concerns about the process of making lead and the chances for it to contaminate the environment. But after reading through your website, Firefly seems to have a good argument for why lead is actually a better choice than lithium-ion when it comes to the environment because there’s a vast recycling program already available in the United States…

MO: Yeah, people don’t talk about that with these other chemistries. It is very expensive to reclaim the metal in a lithium-ion or nickel metal hydride battery and lead-acid has a far better recycling rate than aluminum bottles — over 90% of lead-acid batteries are recycled — and there’s no change required in the recycling infrastructure to reclaim the Firefly batteries.

NC: So, there are going to be a lot of people who will ask “when can I get a hold of a Firefly battery to put it in my electric car?” What would you say to that?

MO: We get that all the time…. all the time. I mean, there is no one more passionate about seeking better battery solutions than the EV aficionado. That’s for sure. They’ve been continuously eager to get a hold of our battery. As a start up, however, I hope your readers can appreciate that there’s only so much time we have on our investment capital, so we have to get to market with some major customers first and so we’re working with some major companies and we’re also working with the US Army.

Out of that work I would hope that there could come variants that would allow Firefly to offer a lead-acid battery for the EV crowd that represents a new standard for performance capabilities for those that are looking to put lead-acid batteries in their converted vehicles. But there are also other types of EVs ranging from scooters to three wheel and four wheel vehicles and neighborhood electric vehicles and the like.

So it’s a question of finding what’s best and making it all fit. What’s the ideal distribution structure that would allow us to get those batteries out to that audience? What would be your advice if I were to sort of turn the tables on you? What vehicle do you think this would be best for in terms of type of electric vehicle? Or do you just offer it up for sale and let the EV world grab it and adapt it as they would for their application?

NC: Well, that’s a good question. I think that once you start digging into it, there are a huge amount of home EV tinkerers, especially in the west. There are organizations like the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association. It might be that you could establish connections with those groups. You know, even the Oasis battery that you are selling to truckers, they might want to tinker with that. That might be a place to start and establish a relationship.

But, I don’t know, I see what your problem is. It’s an issue of chicken and egg. Nonetheless, I think from all the research I’ve been doing and the comments I’ve seen — and I’m probably biased because I’m in the thick of it — I think that in the next 2 to 3 years I would imagine there would be a big enough market of electric vehicles for you to start considering actually developing batteries specifically for that market. Anyway, if you were to develop a battery for EVs, this 3D2 technology, how far off is that really?

MO: I think that probably in 24-36 months we could have a commercial version of our 3D2 technology. Now, I’m not saying that it would be ready for an EV at that stage because we do have funding from the US Army to develop something for them, but we’re aiming to commercialize our technology in the next 24-36 months.

NC: Compared to a lithium-ion battery — these are the last questions by the way, and then I’ll let you get going because I’m sure you have better things to do than talk with me — how far might you expect an electric vehicle vehicle powered by your next generation battery to go on one charge and at what kind of speed? Ball park if you can. If you can’t that’s fine, but these are going to be the kinds of questions that I get and the better I can answer them, even if they are not set in stone, the better it would be.

MO: The problem with lithium is that everybody likes to quote what the innate performance of the single cell is… you know in terms of watt hours. The problem is that when you put it into a multi-cell task now you’ve got all these thermal management issues and you’ve got these safety issues that require controls and all of this safety and thermal management stuff that all adds to the volume and weight of the box which then drags down the performance in terms of range and so on. The fact is that you’ve got to keep lithium from over-discharging. Therefore you’re really not using the innate power capability of that single cell as a result.

We get very specific with major customers who say “here’s my application, here’s the performance envelope of that application, and here’s my favorite battery in this application, how would you compare?” All I’m saying is that I don’t like to throw out a number there because there are so many factors that have to be considered for each application and, in any case, are you talking about a particular climate, are you talking about combined city/highway driving, are you talking about hills involved, you know, what specifics? So I’m going to have to beg off on answering that question for those reasons.

NC: Okay, thanks… and with that I guess I’ll let you go.

MO: Thanks Nick. It was good talking with you. I enjoyed your questions.

NC: Well, thanks very much for taking the time to answer them in such a thorough way.

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Image Credits: Firefly Energy

McCain Proposes $300 Million Prize to Developer of “Super Battery”

Max Lindberg — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:25:58 +0000

On his campaign swing through the west, Sen. John McCain proposes awarding $300 million to the first developer of a battery technology that exceeds all known technology today. The package would have to be superior to any technology known today, to power plug-in hybrids or electric cars.

McCain is also focusing on alternative fuels, suggesting a $5,000 tax credit for every person who buys a zero-emission vehicle. He says that should level “the playing field for all alcohol fuels that break the monopoly of gasoline”.

It seems like McCain is jumping from one side of the fence to the other in his campagin. Last week he sided with President Bush, calling for resumption of off shore drilling, now he’s beating the drum for alternative fuels.

And let’s not forget McCain’s call for 45 more nuclear reactors by 2030.

I’m confused. Could he be appealing to those who hear only what they want to hear? That might cover both bases and get a few more votes.

Meantime, Senator Barak Obama opposes the idea of offshore drilling, saying it won’t answer the immediate problem facing motorists around the world. He blames, in part, the speculation of energy traders for the upswing in oil prices.

Source Material: ABC

Mindset Six50 Electric Car Mixes Gas, Li-Ion and Solar Power

Andrew Williams — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:53:47 +0000

New car industry start-up Mindset, has announced plans to sell a gasoline-electric hybrid next year. The 2+2-seater hybrid, called the Six50, boasts an electric-only range of 100km (62 miles) via a built-in Li-Ion battery. A two-cylinder gasoline motor, which kicks in as a generator as required, boosts the range to 800km (496 miles). Battery charging is further assisted by integrated roof-top solar panels.

The Six50 tag hints at the target weight of 650kg (1430 lbs). However, according to recent reports, the prototype, composed of a plastic body built around an aluminum frame, tips the scales at a still fairly lightweight 800kg. According to Mindset, this means the car can achieve decent levels of performance. The 70kw (95hp) motor should enable speeds of up to 140km/h (75mph) and acceleration from 0-100km/h (0-60mph) in under six seconds.

The company was established by Marat Gunak, former head of design at Volkswagen, with backing from Swiss billionaire Lorenzo Schmid. According to Gunak, most cars are currently “too big, too heavy, too expensive,” a trend that he hopes to help overturn with the Six50.

First impressions suggest he might have succeeded in developing a small, lightweight car. However, many potential buyers will need to be persuaded that the price, currently estimated at €31,000 (about $47,900) - and likely to reach nearer €50,000 (about $77,200) by the time the Six50 hits the market - is not “too expensive.” For an average buyer, that’s pretty darn expensive.

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Image Credit: Mindset

Honda Begins “Production” of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle

Nick Chambers — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:51:38 +0000

Honda has started rolling the first US specification FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell sedans off a production line in Japan to be delivered to a small group of hand-picked high-profile California test customers. Leases to these customers, including Jamie Lee Curtis, are scheduled to begin in July.

The combined sales plan for the US and Japan calls for a few dozen to be leased the first year with about 200 total units leased over the next three years.

The FCX Clarity was designed from scratch as a dedicated fuel cell vehicle and is powered by the relatively compact Honda V Flow fuel cell stack. With a 280 mile range per tankful of hydrogen, Honda claims it has a miles-per-gallon-gasoline-equivalent (GGE) fuel economy rating of 74 mpg (how’s that for a confusing tongue twister of a concept?).

Honda chose California as the starting place for the roll-out because, currently, California has the best liquid hydrogen distribution network in all of the US — with plans to expand the existing network of hydrogen fueling stations even more.

Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to run a vehicle in the same way as a battery powered vehicle. However, fuel cells need to have their electricity generating substance (e.g. hydrogen) constantly replenished, whereas batteries are a closed system that can be recharged by plugging them into an outlet.

To accommodate the special equipment needed in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Honda has designed and built a new dedicated assembly line. The assembly line includes processes for installing the fuel cell stack and hydrogen tank. Because of the potentially explosive nature of storing compressed liquid hydrogen on board, the attention to detail must be very high.

Obviously, the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at any meaningful level is going to be entirely dependent upon accessibility to compressed liquid hydrogen refueling stations (unless hydrogen can truly be produced in large enough quantities in the vehicle and on-demand by some other means). This is no small road block and it leaves me still wondering if hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will ever really make it big.

But I guess it’s a good thing to research all the different possibilities for cars of the future. Eventually a few technologies will settle out as the winners and the world will be better off for it. I could be eating my words in 10 years, but I just don’t think hydrogen fuel cells are going to be one of those winners though.

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Image Credit: Honda Motor Company

VW Debuts Tiguan HyMotion Fuel-Cell Vehicle and 2009 Clean Diesel Jetta

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:18:31 +0000

Tiguan HyMotion Fuel Cell Concept Car

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to attend a VW press event showing off the new hydrogen fuel cell powered Tiguan. The vehicle (above) is one of only two concept prototypes in the world, and this one was flown in from Germany for its US debut.

The event was originally intended to be a test-drive of the HyMotion Tiguan, but the vehicle was having “electrical problems” that kept it out for display only. A VW spokesperson assured us that it had nothing to do with the fuel cell, but whatever the problem was they didn’t want it to happen to us in mid-day San Francisco traffic.

But it was a good opportunity to get under the hood of a fuel cell powered vehicle. The Tiguan HyMotion has an onboard carbon-fiber tank capable of storing 3.2 kg of compressed hydrogen, which gives it a range of about 160 miles. It has a lithium-ion battery that serves as auxiliary energy storage and is re-powered by braking energy or the fuel cell. (In case you aren’t familiar with fuel cells, they can power an electric drivetrain by using electricity generated from splitting hydrogen molecules. More on how fuel cells work.)

Where does the hydrogen come from? Well, noone really knows yet. Unlike GM, who backed a new hydrogen refueling station near LA the other day, VW does not have any plans to invest in infrastructure. The Tiguan HyMotion is just a prototype that allows them to play around with the technology, and they said it was at least 7 years away from any kind of commercial production.

On the other hand, VW did let us test drive the new 2009 2.0L Jetta “clean” TDI Sedan (which will be released in the US in August) and the gas-powered 2.0L Tiguan TSI. I took the wheel of the Tiguan first, which felt like just about any other new car but was noticeably sluggish in responding to the gas pedal. I wasn’t particularly impressed by its 18 mpg city / 25 mpg highway rating either.

But the Jetta sedan was worth waiting around for. Having zero experience with newer diesels (I own a 1987 Toyota Truck, which is a heartless 2L diesel), I was surprised to find out just about everything they’ve been saying is true: the new diesels are so quiet you can hardly tell it’s a diesel, except at idle, and it handles like any other comparable sedan on the road.

It also has power. Close your ears/eyes VW, but during the downtown SF test drive I was somehow able to hit a clear straightaway onto a freeway onramp that left my passenger and I deeply imprinted in our seats. If you’re worried about acceleration and horsepower in these new diesels, well, don’t be.

It’s been several years since VW introduced a new model diesel in the US, due to the implementation of strict new emissions standards. I’ve written before (see Clean Diesel Cars Coming to US This Fall: 2008-2010 Timeline) about how the new clean diesel Jetta has cleaner emissions than your average car. My only gripe is that the EPA mileage estimate is listed as 29 mpg city / 40 mpg highway. Older Jetta’s seem relatively well-known for getting up to 55 mpg, and I’m not sure if the difference has to do with the new emissions technology or changes in horsepower.

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An Electric Car You Can Buy Today: The $20K TRIAC EV

Clayton B. Cornell — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:07:19 +0000

TRIAC Electric Car. Range: 60-100 Miles. Cost: 2 cents per mile

This little number has been getting some good press lately (see EcoGeek and Inhabit), and for good reason: it’s the first commercially available electric vehicle with a price tag and functionality that could meet the needs of the average city driver (assuming you can afford it).

OK, you aren’t going to fit a family of 5 in there, but that’s not what it’s made for. Green Vehicles, manufacturer of the 3-wheeled TRIAC EV, calls it a “modern freeway commuter,” because the zero-emissions vehicle can reach 80 mph and will get you into the carpool lane with a single driver. Safety-wise, it has a structural steel cage the company says is the “same metal skeleton used in race cars” and a low center of gravity to maintain balance (but surprisingly has no airbags).

Back at home, it takes about 6 hours to charge the car’s lithium-ion batteries at an estimated cost of about 2 cents per mile. Not a bad deal if you can afford the $20,000 price tag. The company website says the TRIAC EV is currently available at dealerships in San Jose and Mill Valley, California, and should be more widely available in the future..

Final thoughts: to me, it looks like they added an extra wheel to a racing bike and built a canopy around it, which makes it a powerful ride but a lot safer (and a lot greener). Generous State/Federal tax credits would put this car within reach for many more drivers, like the $4,000 Federal credit for electric vehicles that ended in 2006.

Want one of these? Check out the Green Vehicles website.

See more pictures below.

Fuel Cells that You can Carry on a Plane to Charge Phones, iPods, or Game Players

Rod Adams — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:53:42 +0000

Disclosure: I have been following the development of this device for several years and own Medis stock.

As a long time business traveler who likes to listen to music and podcasts and who occasionally needs to participate in lengthy phone calls, I have often gathered with others around the few electric sockets available at airports to grab a bit of juice for my portable devices. Some airports have finally started making more outlets available - perhaps they recognize that forcing some of their best customers to sit on the floor next to the columns where their cleaning crews plug in vacuum cleaners was not a good form of customer service.

However, there are still plenty of times when there is no source of ready power and I have a battery operated device that needs to be charged.

There are a couple of available solutions, but most of them depend on using chemical batteries to provide a few emergency charges. Once those charges have been completed, the batteries become a disposal challenge because it is not always easy to find a recycling path that will take proper care.

Since I have been dealing with this growing challenge for a couple of decades now, I have been very interested in a fuel cell product being developed by Medis Technologies that makes some very positive strides in solving the problem without causing new issues. Instead of typical chemical batteries, it uses a material with a paste like consistency that produces electricity by reacting with oxygen in the atmosphere.

Because a large portion of the chemical reactant is not stored inside the cell - the oxygen - the cells can be packed with a much higher quantity of energy than any battery where all of the chemicals that react to produce electron flow are sealed up as part of the battery. Medis has been working on their technology for at least five years and has made a lot of advances in terms of producing a charger that can provide a useful service.

They have gone through and extensive regulatory process to get the device approved for carrying on board airplanes, they have built and qualified a production facility that can produce large quantities of fuel cells and they have packaged the devices with a cord that accepts a number of different tips that allow it to be compatible with the multitude of different types of battery charging connections. The photo accompanying this post is one of the early models that I purchased about 9 months ago from MyTreo.com. I tried to keep track of its use - I managed to charge my iPod Nano about 30 times before it ran out of juice.

The charger is obviously one that was designed by a company where engineers have more influence than industrial designers - it looks a lot like a typical brick from a charging cord without the portion of the cord that plugs into the wall. Apparently, the company is developing some new relationships with people that know a bit more about pleasing the eye; the new models will not be in a black, boxy case. They have also announced that they are working on a product that combines their fuel cell with LED lights that will be useful for campers, travelers, storm victims and people who live in places where there is no reliable electricity. (If you want to learn more about how to purchase fuel cells or about the company’s future plans for new products using the same basic technology, you can read the transcript of their most recent investor conference call.)

Medis fuel cells are not rechargeable and they do - eventually - run out of chemical reactant and stop working. They provide about 5-20 times as much energy as a comparably sized battery, however, and the company will take them back for recycling. It is not a perfect solution, but certainly it is something to consider the next time that you wonder how you are going to keep your cell phone working through a long conference call.

Update: (Posted May 24, 2008) Medis 24 x 7 Power Packs are now available for purchase at Savenna.com. Medis also stated during their recent investor conference call that the Power Packs will soon be available for purchase at selected Best Buy stores. In the works are versions of the system that will be refillable and other versions designed to provide laptop quantity power. You can learn more about the technology at Medis Technologies.

Photo credit - Rod Adams under Creative Commons (taken May 20, 2008)

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Fuel Cells that You can Carry on a Plane to Charge Phones, iPods, or Game Players