[Peakoil] Solving the Car-Propulsion Problem

[Keith Thomas]

Here's the latest from Tesla Motors. Not, I hasten to add, that I think 
it is any sort of way forward to reducing global warming, responding to 
peak oil or leading in any way to a greener future.
--------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
http://www.evfit.com
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Solving the Car-Propulsion Problem

Predictably, my account last week of a presentation and test drive of 
BMW's liquid hydrogen-powered cars generated all kinds of angry 
nay-saying.

The "no such thing as global warming" crowd spoke up; the "global 
warming isn't human-driven" contingent was heard from.

Most respondents, however, simply called hydrogen cars a dead end. 
"You'll produce more pollution burning fossil fuels to CREATE the 
hydrogen than you'll save by driving these zero-emission vehicles," 
they reiterated.

Yes, which is why I wrote: "BMW agrees that hydrogen cars are pointless 
unless the hydrogen itself is produced using clean, renewable energy 
sources: solar, wind, geothermal and so on."

"All right then," some of you argued. "If you're going to imagine a 
future where we routinely create clean energy, why produce supercooled 
liquid-hydrogen cars? Why not just stick the clean electricity into 
batteries?

Actually, I'm excited by this idea, too.
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At the TED conference that started this whole discussion, Tesla Motors 
was also on hand. This fall, Tesla will deliver an electric car like 
none you've never seen: an extremely hot-looking two-seat roadster 
(teslamotors.com). Over 350 people have already pre-paid for their 
cars--at $100,000 each.

(I asked Darryl Siry, Tesla's VP of marketing, why the high price. "If 
it were easy to design a good EV [electric vehicle] at a low price, 
we'd be doing it," he replied. "So would everyone else, for that 
matter. Any new technology usually has a high initial cost that then 
goes down over time. The 100% electric drivetrain and large battery 
pack is part of what drives the price to the current price.")

One of these cars was on display at TED, and it is indeed a 
rockin'-looking car. It goes from zero to 60 miles per hour in four 
seconds. Top speed is 130 miles per hour. It has, Tesla, says, "better 
acceleration than a Lamborghini Murcielago and twice the 
mile-per-gallon equivalent of popular hybrids."

The 900 pounds of lithium-ion batteries (the same type that's in your 
laptop) recharge in 7 hours when plugged into a standard power outlet, 
or twice as fast if you install a 220-volt outlet in your garage. 
There's no engine under the hood (only fans), only two gears (and one 
of them is optional), no gas tank, no clutch and no engine noise at 
all. "Under hard acceleration there is a very nice sound not unlike a 
turbine," says Mr. Siry. "In normal cruising you hear mostly tires, the 
road and wind (or music, if you prefer)."

And, of course, the car itself produces no emissions.

The Tesla is not especially practical, of course; electric cars, too, 
are in their infancy.

It's a two-seater only, and the trunk has only enough room for a golf 
bag.

Nobody can service or repair this car except Tesla, and at the outset, 
there will be only five service centers are planned (two in California, 
and one each in New York, Chicago and Florida; if all goes well, Tesla 
plans 15 more in a few years). If the car breaks down, or if you run 
out of electricity (which happens after 250 miles), the company 
cheerfully suggests that you call a flatbed truck to deliver your car 
to one of those five stations.

Like an iPod battery or laptop battery, this car's battery is good for 
only about 500 chargings. (Tesla guarantees it for five years or 
100,000 miles.) After that, you have to deliver the car to one of those 
service centers to buy a new battery.

The plan is to sell about 1,000 of the roasters in each of the first 
two years. Meanwhile, the company developing other cars in other price 
ranges, starting with a $50,000 sedan called the White Star that's due 
at the end of 2009. Tesla is building a factory in New Mexico that will 
be able to ship 13,000 White Stars a year (and has an option on more 
land that will expand capacity to 25,000).

Like the hydrogen car, the electric car requires electricity that's 
generated somewhere else--like at today's fossil fuel-burning plants. 
Isn't that just transferring the pollution source from the car to the 
plant?

The Tesla Motors Web site addresses that common objection this way: 
"Power generation plants, even coal burning ones, are inherently more 
efficient and less polluting than vehicles due to economies of scale 
and the ability to more efficiently remove pollutants from a smaller 
number of much larger fixed locations."

Darryl Siry clarifies: "Even using the worst assumptions for 
electricity generation, an EV [electric vehicle] is more efficient and 
less polluting than the gasoline equivalent. If you use best-in-class 
electricity production (such as modern natural gas turbines), the 
difference is enormous."

In short, both hydrogen- and battery-powered cars, if they're to solve 
the pollution problem (and not just the oil-dependency problem), depend 
on the development of clean, renewable electricity production.

Still, the Tesla roadster demonstrates three things. First, nobody has 
yet killed the electric car. Second, electric cars can be exciting, 
desirable and fun to drive. But third, affordable, long-range electric 
cars are still a long way off.

A number of readers wrote to encourage the development of "plug-in 
hybrids"--that is, electric cars with gas-engine backups--as a more 
immediate solution. So far, nobody's making one.

Nonetheless, electrics, plug-in hybrids and yes, even hydrogen cars 
deserve open-mindedness, especially when they're meeting with such 
resistance at the government and auto-industry levels. As this Popular 
Mechanics article (about hydrogen) puts it:

"Ultimately, hydrogen may be just one part of a whole suite of energy 
alternatives. Any one of them will involve investing heavily in new 
infrastructure. Though the price tag will be steep, we can't afford 
oil's environmental, economic and political drawbacks any longer."
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