The “solution” is an electric car itself, such as a Chevy Volt, Spark EV, Nissan Leaf, etc., but the “elegant solution” could be maximizing the value and fleshing out a complete cradle-to-grave and beyond paradigm for post consumer batteries.

As a case in point, Nissan and GM are working with ABB Group seeking ways to practically re-use EV batteries in energy storage systems which maximize value of an otherwise post-lifecycle car battery, and add to the renewable energy grid. By definition, EV batteries are deemed post life when their charge holding capacity is somewhere around 70-percent depleted and they cannot meet a sufficient range compared to the new EV.

At the same time, there may be a monetary payback for the depleted battery in years to come, thus lessening the sting of the EV’s price tag for the consumer who may even be able to sell off his old battery to offset the cost of a new one.

“From an environmental picture standpoint, you need to think about the sustainability of everything you’re doing. You need to focus on the broader picture,” said Pablo Valencia, GM senior manager of battery lifecycle management in an interview with Automotive News. “What we’re doing right now is preparing for that broader picture — getting awareness up, both from a customer standpoint and also an industry standpoint, so that the energy storage industry is thinking about secondary use.”

Valencia said he expects within 10 years time the bugs will be worked out of energy storage prototypes just now being demonstrated, and infrastructure will be in place to accept used EV batteries, check their level of performance capacity remaining, and re-purpose them into stationary energy storage units.

“That’s where the world will be,” Valencia said. “People will understand how to use them.”

One of the “bugs” will be software and algorithms to make it a reality.

“One of those key pieces is the controls and the ability to charge the batteries up evenly at cell level, at a section level and an overall system level. Keeping all that balance in place is really the secret sauce to making any battery system work whether it’s a new battery system or a secondary-use battery system,” Valencia said. “The bigger the system is, the more important it is to keep it playing like a good orchestra with all of the pieces in balance with each other.”

Those working in this research field say EV batteries will not be able to be mixed. That is, only the same type of battery must be used, and so you will not likely find a Volt battery mated with a Leaf battery, and a Tesla battery, for instance.

“Batteries that are going into the Volt, for example, are different than the ones going into the Leaf. They are different than what’s going into the Tesla,” Portland General Electric’s Allcock said. “Batteries have all kinds of characteristics. You can’t mix and match on battery packs from different vendors. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Automotive News

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“This next generation, we think we can decrease the price on the order of $7,000 to $10,000,” said Akerson speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Previous statements by people at GM have been that GM can cut $10,000 or more on its build costs, but Akerson said “price” suggesting GM will pass onto the consumer savings it has found.

GM has already collected a laundry list of awards for its “extended-range electric” car capable of driving 38 miles on electricity alone, but Akerson confirmed also that the over-engineereed, low-volume plug-in vehicle costs too much to build.

“This car, on a technology scale, is off the charts versus what you [have] seen,” said Akerson who owns a Volt himself. “We’ve sold about 26,500 of them,” he added, saying customers have become diehard fans and the technology is safe, but, “We’re losing money on every one.”

Left un-said are numerous details including the actual weight to be shed from the presently 3,750-pound or so vehicle, the next-generation Volt’s electric range, launch date, and more.

Nissan has already dropped the price of its all-electric Leaf and belief among many is GM does indeed need to follow Nissan’s lead.

But when will it do what ever it is going to do?

The 2014 model year Volt due to be switched over to at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in a couple months or so may not see the next-generation changes, and this too, Akerson did not state.

However despite some criticism GM has faced even among the Volt faithful that the company is resting on laurels following its launch and staged global roll out of its “moonshot” Volt halo car, Akerson said GM is resoundingly dedicated to this and other cars engineered “from the ground up” to be more fuel efficient.

Proof, Akerson said, that GM is still dedicated to the Voltec technology is that it chose to put it also into the pending Cadillac ELR.

“We took a gamble, and we put the same technology in the Cadillac,” he said.

He did not say if or when any down-market Voltec variants might be coming along, however.

CNN

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The cars are only similar; the Leaf is all-electric and the Volt is “extended-range electric,” but we’re keeping the informal progress report going, even though GM has said it is not in a sales “race” against the Leaf.

Nissan is now assembling its Leafs in Tennessee and slashed its prices for this year, enabling the value proposition to look far better to alternative energy car consumers.

As such, April was its second-best month to date and this follows its best-yet sales performance that it achieved the month prior in March.

The Volt’s also-ran performance did not match its March sales of 1,478 units and fell short of numbers achieved last year which have seen double or nearly double its latest numbers.

2013 Chevrolet Volt.

Presently it appears the spotlight is on Nissan.

Year to date, Nissan noted Leaf sales are up 160.4 percent compared to the same period in 2012.

That said, the Volt still is edging out the Leaf with 5,550 units sold January through April, compared to the Leaf’s 5,476. But the Leaf struggled in January with only 650 units sold compared to the Chevy’s 1,140. In February also, Nissan delivered just 653 units compared to the Volt’s 1,626.

So the Volt did better earlier this year, but Nissan had said the pipeline was constrained due to the switchover in production from Japan to the U.S.

It would appear Nissan’s assertion is correct, and it may well be taking away limited market share from the Volt due to lower-cost leases, and a lower selling price as well.

As a reminder, the Volt is only a part-time EV with an EPA-rated electric range of 38 miles, after which it has a decided advantage over the Leaf of relying on its second powertrain and running its generator indefinitely with fill ups from the gas station.

The Leaf’s 2013 EPA numbers are not out yet, but its electric range can exceed 80 miles which studies show is more than enough for the average American’s daily driving needs, but it’s incapable of long-range driving without charging stations accessible, and extended layover time.

Nissan has aggressively established itself to eventually meet sales goals set by Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn for U.S. and global electric vehicles. GM also says it intends to be competitive, but this month its just-over 1,300 sales for the Volt are a hiccup in the big picture for the company now celebrating its best U.S. April sales in five years of 237,646 total vehicles.

It could also be Volt sales are tapering off, as buyers await release of the 2014 model year in a couple months.

The dark horse – Tesla Model S.

Meanwhile, we await to see what that also-aspirational electric car maker Tesla did, and we expect it will have topped both of these ostensibly mass-market cars for number of units sold from January to present.

As of March, Tesla sold 4,750 Model S units this year, and if it sells around 2,000 more or less in April, that will let it keep its place as plug-in volume leader.

Tesla has been coming on strong and our story anticipating its ascendancy in March and a subsequent recognition noting this phenomenon early this month eventually was picked up and repackaged into a new story by major media in recent days noting the Model S was outselling the Volt and Leaf.

Helping matters for the more-expensive but compelling Tesla Model S is a back-log of customer orders meaning it can deliver as many cars as it can produce at this juncture.

We’ll have more for you along with our monthly Dashboard as soon as possible.

The post Nissan April Leaf Sales Its Second-Best; Volt Trailing Behind appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Specifications for the engine were not given and the story by Edmunds was neither confirmed nor denied by a GM representative the publication consulted.

The story as given is that the engine – developed with GM and its Chinese partners – is being proposed and use of a lighter design would be in keeping with GM’s general plans announced to decrease curb weight and decrease fuel consumption in Gvarious models over the next several years.

If the plan is accepted, the 2015 Volt would see the three-cylinder generator as part of its major refresh, referred to generally as the much-anticipated “Generation 2” Volt.

The 2014 Cadillac ELR’s powertrain, based largely on the Volt’s powertrain, has not even been launched yet, and the report for its new engine said it would see the three-cylinder specified the year following the Volt’s receiving it.

Presently the Volt makes use of an 84-horsepower 1.4-liter four-cylinder plus electric power rated at 149 horsepower (111 kw).

Last year another such rumor said to be from a reputable source said the Volt and ELR would get a 2.0-liter, but the specs on the ELR proved that false, as it uses the same 1.4-liter the Volt does.

This does not mean the new three-cylinder story is false, and GM may indeed be evaluating the proposal. If it meets its criteria, it is possible it will make its way to production, but at this point, it’s a case of wait and see.

Edmunds

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Actually, I was trained as a mechanical engineer and retired from the Navy after teaching nuclear power, driving and repairing ships and submarines.

Post-retirement, I taught myself database development, business management, tax accounting and computer programming, then created a computer-based dental practice management company, Teleo Practice Services, Inc.

I find that when people give you the “green” moniker, to some, that’s akin to saying you’re a fringe nut job. However, I tell people that if you like being efficient and hate waste, you are half way to being “green” whether you realize it or not.

Loving efficiency and hating waste are more a matter of practicality and wisdom than they are about a specific philosophy – like “environmentalism.” I realized I was green long before I’d heard the term used by anyone other than Kermit the Frog.

Shedding The Guzzlers; Discovering Hybrids

It all started in 2006 when I was still driving a 1993 Buick Roadmaster. I loved that car for how useful it was, if not its fuel efficiency. It could haul my 20-foot cuddy cabin boat, got relatively respectable mileage and comfortably seated six. I could even deflate my 10-foot dinghy and throw it and its 6-horsepower motor in the trunk. But closing in on 140,000 miles, it was showing its age.

I lamented as I looked for alternatives. I’d eyed SUVs with disdain given their truck-like rides and mediocre mileage. And a minivan was never an option. By accident or divine intervention, I stumbled upon the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. It could carry all my stuff, tow 3,500 pounds and get 30 mpg in the city and on the highway. WOW! My beloved Roadmaster had its replacement.

Once you start driving a hybrid, the practical aspects dawn on you even more. You look around at traffic lights and wonder why everyone else’s engine is still running. You tool around a parking lot, enjoying the silence of electric drive. If stuck in rush hour traffic you can still feel serenity because your engine is not wasting gas. I found myself wanting to roll down my window and shout to drivers creeping along at 5 mph, “Buy a Hybrid!” Of course I resisted the urge but it makes so much sense; all cars should be that efficient.

That 2006 Highlander Hybrid became my wife’s daily driver and she left her beloved 2001 Oldsmobile Aurora in the garage to collect dust. The hybrid was hard to argue against. She went from averaging 19 mpg with eight cylinders to 30 mpg with no real downside.

On to the Prius

At some point, it struck me to try and convince Donna to ditch the Aurora altogether and buy a 2008 Prius. It was a hard sell because she was still emotionally attached, but I promised her we could upgrade with a better stereo, or whatever she wanted. She eventually went for it.

While the 50 mpg Prius was homely, it had no competitor, and gasoline expense became an afterthought. And, it so happened our purchase was made a few months before gas prices went through the roof, further validating our decision.

I wish I could remember what Web search started the move toward plug-in cars, but somewhere along the way, I found myself reading about people converting their Prii into plug-ins. This made so much sense. The vehicle was largely electric already. Why not take the next step?

So, I talked to the dealer. I wrote Toyota Corporate. I made the case for a plug-in. … (crickets chirping) … silence. The apathy for the concept irritated the heck out of me. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but it seemed like the same arrogance that had contaminated the Detroit big three in the ‘70s and ‘80s had found its way into Toyota. They had the whole hybrid thing down pat; why mess with perfection?

Meanwhile, I kept reading. Then a company called A123 announced a Prius lithium battery add-on kit. Cool! I contemplated purchasing one, but my waste-hating sensibility prevented me from doing it. Because it was an add-on, no regenerative braking energy found its way into that lithium battery. I decided to wait until an automaker offered a fully engineered plug-in.

On To Solar

Not insignificantly, I was also undergoing a philosophical transformation. For the second time, a Category 4 Hurricane struck my home leaving us without power for weeks. Four Hurricanes had struck my home state of Florida in just six weeks.

My solar office roof.

A year later we had Katrina and Wilma. Maybe this whole global warming thing had some merit? It took a while, but I wised up. I got photovoltaic panels installed. I was going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And then the synergy of photons on the roof replacing hydrocarbons in the cylinders became a vision of purity that just couldn’t be matched. I was going to drive around on sunshine … now who was going to help me do it?

Discovering a Viable Plug-in Car

Enter the Chevy Volt. At first it was just a concept. But GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz and his team kept their development efforts out there in public view. I wasn’t a diehard GM fan, but when I looked at what other automakers were doing, it was basically nothing. This is when I truly got disgusted with Toyota. At the beginning of 2008 they made an announcement that they were test driving plug-in Prii in California. Then, for a couple years remained essentially silent on the matter. I tried to learn of any specific results from those Prius plug-in tests and all Web searches yielded old headlines and surface detail.

Then along came announcements of an all-electric car, the Nissan Leaf. That was OK, but I needed something I did not have to worry about being stranded with because of a depleted battery. By this point, I had two homes 1,400 miles apart.

GM really seemed to nail the concept – all-electric, all the time, until you needed gas. I had a personalized plate picked long before a vehicle arrived, “SUN FUEL” would be my ride and my message.

Towing one of our Volts with our two-mode hybrid Tahoe.

Eventually it became clear that GM and Nissan would have wheels on the ground while everyone else was still floating hot air. The Volt was going to be it, barring any catastrophes.

In September 2011 we ordered one sight unseen. Part of my confidence in taking this plunge was because for the previous two years, I’d been participating in the GM-Volt forum. Lots of folks were already driving Volts and raving about them, which is a good thing, given the dealer I went to was no help.

We test drove a Volt October 2011 at a New York dealer who proved the car had better sell itself, because like most dealers I’d contacted, they were oblivious. This dealer had only one salesman with some knowledge of the Volt, and he was off that day. Next stop, however, was driving bliss.

My wife, who had never truly forgiven me for making her give up that Aurora, again instantly found nirvana during that test drive. It felt nice. It felt natural. It was quiet luxury. Our first Volt was delivered in December 2011.

Still Sun Powered Today

Fast forward a year and half and nirvana still exists and we have two Volts now. It’s still a blast to floor the accelerator from a stop light and silently watch cars falling behind in the rear-view mirror. Knowing I am burning nothing but photons, I can enjoy driving for its own sake, like I never have in my life. I can be frugal and maximize my range. Or I can zip around when I know I will make it back to my plug without igniting a spark plug.

As for the long waited-for Prius plug-in, well Toyota finally launched one last March. All I can say is you’ve got to be kidding me. They took years, had the electrified vehicle mass market potential all to themselves but their smugness is obvious to me. They completely took the lazy way out in my opinion, and their efforts amount to replacing the old nickel metal hydride batteries with a little bit larger li-ion pack and that’s about it. The vehicle gets a measly 11 miles on electricity, and only if you are gentle with the accelerator.

Like a number of other manufacturers, including Ford which at least offers maybe 21 miles electric range for its C-MAX Energi and Fusion Energi, electricity basically remains a helper technology.

After experiencing real electric, with full torque off the line, its hard not to scoff at “lite” versions of electric/gas utility.

With the Volt, GM hit a moonshot. They put in a battery thermal management system that was shunned by Nissan, who thought air cooling was enough. Now Leaf owners in hot climates are seeing the battery degradation that GM avoided.

Politically motivated tactics aside, there have been no recalls and no other vehicle has a higher satisfaction percentage- for two years now. It was won many awards, including European Car of the Year, something especially noteworthy for an American car.

Holding Pattern For Now

My journey from the Roadmaster through the hybrids and finally to the Volt has been meteoric, but has now hit a plateau. I bought two 2012 Volts, expecting to keep them for the long haul. With regenerative brakes that will probably last the life of the car, a rarely used internal combustion engine and a battery warranted for eight years, these cars have significant life expectancy. Nor do I see vehicles on the horizon that will supersede the Volt’s ability to provide most of my transport duties propelled by sunlight.

In time new vehicles are expected to come along that will interact with the grid to provide power back-up. Those of us who have lost power for weeks at a time understand the value of generating power when needed, and working with a smart grid scenario looks like a great idea.

Newt Gingrich may have said you can’t mount a gun rack to the Volt, but I mounted a rack to carry the deer I bagged while hunting with mine.

More likely than not, I’ll wait for grid interaction potential before my next vehicle purchase. If GM is still the leader, with its Voltec technology, I’ll be happy to jump on board with them. But I am not brand specific on my journey to ultimately rid my life of fossil fuels. And, like it or not, that future awaits all of us within a few decades, or less.

Maybe the Voltec generator is shifted to bio fuels. Maybe we even get inductance charging built into the roadbeds. Regardless, when you see the Saudis rushing to embrace solar power, because their oil is too valuable to burn for power generation, the writing is on the wall that your still-new gas burner could be just a museum piece before you know it.

Mark graduated summa cum laude with his BS in Mechanical Engineering SUNY Buffalo (1984). He and Donna (nee Dixon) have been married 29 years. They have one son, one daughter, and two grandchildren.

The post My Journey From Gas Guzzlers To Hybrids To Photon Powered Transportation appeared first on HybridCars.com.

In recent years high oil prices caused by high demand have allowed Alberta’s oil sands to become truly profitable, ending the need for billions in government subsidies and tax breaks. With starry eyed dreams of $200-plus a barrel oil prices, rapid expansion is underway with hundreds of billions of dollars in private capital being invested in new, mostly in situ projects. After 40 years of careful nurturing by government and private industry the future finally looks bright for Canada’s oil sands.

Author is the cool-looking teenager second from the left in the back row. Photo taken in 1978 at the Syncrude Project site Fort McMurry Alberta. Today he is a commercial pilot and flight instructor; his car of choice is a 2012 Chevy Volt.

Oil sands crude is used for everything from plastics to aviation fuel, but the vast majority of it is consumed powering transportation for average North American drivers commuting in the family sedan. No steadier customer could be imaged. The fact that oil sands crude is already the most expensive to produce in the world, and climbing with each new project, is of no matter. Since there is no substitute for gasoline, soaring production costs are easily passed onto the consumer. As long as the global price of oil continues to rise faster than the cost of new synthetic crude production, the Canadian Oil Sands are golden.

Then 18 months ago a challenger arrived to provide the daily commuter with an electric escape hatch to the spiraling costs of crude production. This escape artist was spawned not by nagging environmental concerns, but by the relentless forces of technical innovation and the laws of economic efficiency. Enter the first-generation mass produced plug-in electric fueled family car.

The arrival of plug-in electrified vehicles such as the extended-range electric Chevy Volt, which can be fueled by either electricity or gasoline, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf created a media super storm, particularly in America. Buried under a blizzard of misinformation including various critical editorials and attacks, hype also from the manufacturers and a putdown by a U.S. presidential candidate against the Volt is a startling fact striking at the heart of the purported value offered by oil sands:

Plug-in vehicles use less energy per mile than gas-powered cars

Plug-in vehicles can go further on electricity generated from the energy sunk into producing one gallon of oil sands-based gasoline than an average car can on the gasoline. The Chevy Volt, able to utilize both electricity and gasoline as fuel, can actually go as far on the energy used to create a gallon of gasoline as it can on the gasoline!

How can this be? It turns out that the oil sands, just like ethanol and other forms of synthetic crude production, in addition to being capital and labor intensive, also consumes a large amount of other types of energy. Even under ideal conditions, 13 kwh of electrical energy could be created from the energy input added “well to wheel,” to mine bitumen, transport it, transform it into synthetic crude and then refine it into a single gallon of gasoline.

Synthetic crude oil’s dirty secret

Whether secret or not, the fact is this: Whatever its source, synthetic crude oil is more of an energy carrier than a fuel. Read on and we’ll show you why.

The two biggest synthetic crude sources, oil sands and corn ethanol, both have questionable energy return on investment (EROI) ratios. This doesn’t matter if your only method of delivering energy to a car is to convert it into gasoline. The threat posed by battery powered electric cars is that they are powered by electrical energy from a wall socket combined with an electric drivetrain that is dramatically more efficient than the best gasoline engine. It is simply more efficient to feed energy directly into an electric car’s battery bypassing the costly steps involved in turning this energy into gasoline. Not only do you short circuit the need to line up at a gas station, and the environmentally unfriendly steps involved in creating and then burning gasoline, but you can save a lot of money doing it.

The savings per mile driven are dramatic. By cutting out the oil sands middleman, labor costs, and his billion-dollar capital investment, the Chevy Volt costs only 4 cents per electric mile to run versus 10 cents per gas mile (based on U.S. national average of $3.80 a gallon gas and 0.12 cents per kwh).

To see this efficiency challenge in action, let’s follow the energy path a barrel of oil sands bitumen takes to your gas tank from one of Canada’s newest, most efficient stream injected oil sands extraction sites now under development. Pengrowth Energy Corporation’s new Lindbergh thermal bitumen project is state of the art and well managed. It is also insulated from the labor and cost pressures facing most other oil sands projects thanks to its easily accessible location. Lindbergh is a good example of the next generation of oil sands thermal extraction built with environmental waste water and energy efficiency in mind. It is also primed to take advantage of efficiencies created by the new Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipeline infrastructure.

Step A, extraction: At Lindbergh Alberta, using the latest and most cost efficient in situ technique, burn 1,100 cubic feet of natural gas input energy per barrel to extract and process bitumen with a diluent into a barrel of crude feedstock called Dilbit. This process includes energy used recycling 90 percent of the waste water and chemicals used during the extraction and adds 1 part diluent to every 3.3 parts of raw feed produced (a best case 30-percent ratio). We will assume the most efficient diluent source, the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline which is actually a twin pipeline. One Pipeline will export 525,000 barrels and the other will import 193,000 barrels of diluent back from the refinery’s processing the crude. For our calculations we will assume the diluent is shipped to the coast and piped to the site over the rocky mountains under ideal conditions adding only 4 kwh per barrel.

Step B, transport: Pipe the resulting dilbit 1,600 miles from Canada through six U.S. states using the planned $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline. This pipeline will use 30 grid-fed electrically driven pumping stations to move crude before it finally ends up at a refinery hub in Port Arthur, Texas. According to the state of Montana, each station is expected to draw 82.3 million kwh per year. That’s 6.7 million kwh per day in total to move 830,000 barrels, or only about 8 kwh per barrel. See Keystone XL pipeline info here.

Step C, upgrade the dilbit into synthetic crude: This “pre-refinery” process transforms heavy oil into a lighter synthetic crude oil ( SCO) that can then be further refined into diesel and gasoline in step D. This is an upgrade process that needs to be done to crack the heavy oil into lighter synthetic crude. This use to be done first before transportation to a refinery but thanks to the proposed XL pipeline and economies of scale, it is more energy efficient if the upgrading is done after transportation to the Refinery. Estimated energy input is about 870 cu ft of natural gas per barrel or 15 percent of the feedstock itself (1.15 bbl. = 1 synthetic crude).

Step D, refine the synthetic crude into gasoline: Each refinery is different and this is a topic that electric vehicle enthusiasts have been discussing for years (sometimes without realizing that the majority of energy is consumed in steps A to C above). Even Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, has joined this debate. A good discussion can be found here and a good number for energy consumed is considered to be about 6 to 8 kwh per gallon of thermal energy (not electrical energy) or 240-280 kwh of thermal energy per barrel. We will be conservative and take the lower number and assume that, on average, 66 percent of the energy needed will come from the oil itself (reducing the end product from a 42 gallon barrel to 36 gallons), 22 percent from more natural gas and 12 percent from the local electrical grid to produce an end product. That would be 29 kwh of electricity (either produced on site or sucked from the local grid) and 200 cubic feet of natural gas per barrel.

Step E, transport it to your local filling station: Using trucks, rail, ships and pipelines deliver gasoline to the consumer and then pump it into his tank using electricity. Lets just say it’s a pipeline level of efficiency of 8 kwh as this figure is all over the map, pun intended, depending on where the product is going.

In Total: That’s 49 kwh of grid electricity and 2,170 cubic feet of natural gas per barrel. What if this natural gas was burned by your local utility’s existing gas turbine generator instead? Using real world figures from the Energy Information Administration of 125 kwh per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas and transmitted with average 93 percent efficiency to your wall socket you would have 252 kwh of Electricity. With new co-generation technology this could be 50-percent higher, but we will use the conservative 252 kwh number. So in total that’s a minimum of 252+49= 301 kwhs of electricity “invested” into each oil sands barrel.

Now we need to take into account that a 42 gallon barrel of synthetic crude can produce up to 45 gallons of product using 100 percent external energy input. But as mentioned most refineries produce 36 gallons of refined product as they are built to consume part of the barrel for the energy required during the refining. Of the 36 gallons, (30 percent of 42) or 12.6 gallons of diluent (required in Step A to process the bitumen into dilbit) needs to be recycled back into the process. That leaves us with 23.4 Gallons of which at most only 19.6 gallons is motor grade gasoline.

Let’s use the 23.4 gallons figure to be generous. That’s 301 kwh / 23.4 gal = 12.86 kwh /gal.

That’s a 13 kwh of grid electricity that could have been delivered to your wall socket from the energy used to produce each gallon of oil sands based gasoline under ideal conditions. This doesn’t take into account the energy used in finding, developing and finally repairing the environmental damage of the oil sands operation.

Accounting for average battery charge efficiency (see EPA sticker for each car), how much above the 23 mpg average can the new technology cars go on 13 kwhs from your wall socket? That’s enough electricity for the Chevy Volt to go 37 miles, the same distance it can go burning the gasoline. The Nissan Leaf can go 38 miles, and the Tesla Model S 34 Miles. The Tesla family sedan also has the advantage of being able to spank many purpose-built sports cars such as the 10 mpg 500 hp Dodge Viper.

It appears that using natural gas and grid electricity to produce oil instead of applying it directly to our transportation needs is like feeding bread to a cow instead of grain. Yes it works, but it is an unnecessary and costly waste that only the baker benefits from.

Here is Mark Brooks still looking cool beside his 2012 Chevy Volt in classic -15 C Canadian weather.

The good news for Alberta’s oil industry (a.k.a. the Baker) is that its nemesis is still in its infancy and like all new car technology, it’s expensive. The average new car consumer is just beginning to struggle up the learning curve around understanding and trusting plug-in vehicles. Only a tiny fraction of new vehicles being purchased today can plug into a wall socket for some or all of its fuel needs. Intense lobbying efforts by a vast array of vested interests also appear to be dampening the quick adoption of the new technology. This will ensure that the tipping point for the mass adoption of plug-in vehicles is still years away.

The bad news is that the genie has escaped the lamp and no amount of lobbying or nay saying has ever buried American technological innovations of this magnitude in the past (i.e., Ford Model T, Wright brothers’ airplane, personal computer, etc). Advances in everything from battery storage densities and costs, to improved electrical grid energy generation are on the way. Sales of the new technology vehicles are already accelerating (Chevy Volt sales tripled last year) as consumers climb a wall of worry to discover that the cars are a robust and seamless replacement to gas-only models.

The long-term implication for Canada’s economy and North America’s fossil-fuel dependant society is massive. The cost to drive a mile into the future just dropped dramatically and as a side benefit, electric drive enables the removal of a key source of the CO2 emissions creating global warming. Already more than a dozen other automakers are rolling out plug-in vehicles to test the technology and consumer demand.

But don’t cry for Alberta’s oil patch. Even a generation from now when it is no longer an affordable consumer fuel, oil sands crude will still be in high demand for everything from plastics to aviation and industrial fuel. The difference will be that burning oil sands gasoline in the family car will be considered an unnecessary luxury rather than a necessity.

The post The Oil Sands’ Surprising New Nemesis: Plug-in Vehicles appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Citing vagaries in the rules, and ultimately blaming the non productivity on the Volt – for which the plant is intended to produce battery cells – the Korean battery maker has however paid back the funds to the federal government.

According to a report by Wired, since the Volt’s battery cells are still made in Korea, and LG Chem has not shifted production stateside, it was felt these workers – whose numbers are estimated at “less than half” of 440 workers projected to eventually come on the payroll – had to do something to stay occupied while two of five planned production lines remain unfinished.

To date, not one battery cell has been produced in Holland for a production car offered for public sale, and they are all being made and shipped from Korea. In order to find something to do as they wait, other paid employees were found to be occupied with more civic-minded things like volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, outdoor nature centers, and animal shelters.

The story was portrayed as another (not-so) great example of your tax dollars (not) at work, and a government-mandated industry that has not exploded like the bureaucrats and industry executives working with them expected.

Building the new factory has taken $142 million out of a $151 million federal Recovery Act grant. LG Chem Michigan is partially staffed and ready to go, but producing very little except expenses for all the effort.

Officials for the Korean company, spending the U.S. taxpayer funds, justified the need to pay idle workers further with a rather weak excuse that they’d initially been “unfamiliar with the types of costs that were allowable” and were trying to keep an awkward situation under control.

“They wanted to do their best to maintain the workforce in hopes that production would start soon,” said Energy Department inspector General, Gregory Friedman, who explained to Wired the situation. “They also indicated that they resorted to furloughs and permitted employees to engage in non-productive activities to help ensure that their investment in training employees was not lost.”

LG Chem officials have argued they had no choice but to pay workers to play.

The rationale for paying trained workers to kill time while they waited for a plant start up was ultimately blamed on the Volt’s production not living up to its billing that had paved the way for this factory in the first place.

In calendar year 2012, noted Wired, GM sold around half of the 60,000 Volts and Amperas it had initially projected globally – back when plans for the LG Chem Michigan plant were also just getting underway.

Friedman told the publication that LG Chem had to make some tough decisions, but blamed lack of sufficient demand as lying “at the core of the problem.”

The government inspector also observed GM is nonetheless domestically producing on average 1,955 Volts each month, and these at least could use batteries produced in Holland.

But they are not.

So until “some alternative use for the plant is developed,” or LG Chem decides to move production from Korea to Michigan, Friedman told Wired, “U.S. taxpayers will receive little direct benefit from a plant for which they provided half the funding.”

Wired, Forbes

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As competitive and fun-loving people are wont to do, owners of electrified cars are also turning up at local drag strips to see what their battery powered cars can accomplish.

That said, this quarter mile match-up video between a Tesla Model S that recently beat a Viper and set a world production EV record and a humble gas-electric Chevy Volt was anything but a fair contest.

It was recorded just the same by Drag Times and shows what a Volt – driven with a slow launch – is able to do. Because the Volt serves up 273 pound-feet torque from a standstill, some Volt owners report especially good acceleration from 0-30 mph, decent to 60. But a quarter mile needs more grunt than the Volt had to stay competitive.

In all, it’s not a bad performer, but not a rocketship like the Tesla is by comparison. A Model S also recently out-dragged a new BMW M5 to 100 mph when in the hands of Automobile Magazine, so any hopes of GM’s “Prius fighter” getting the upper hand were pretty slim.

As for the actual results, the Model S turned a respectable 12.562-second run at 108.34 mph compared to the Chevy’s time of 17.201 at 80.36 mph.

With a gap of nearly 4.7 seconds, we’d say it wasn’t really a race, and more like a demonstration run. Apparently it was all in good fun. The engine noise heard is of course from cars in proximity, not the two electric cars facing off.

Now, if someone can just post a drag race between the Rimac Concept One and a Model S, that could be entertaining indeed. The Model S was entered in the world record book by the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) for its speed feat, but in existence in another part of the world is the fringe-lunatic Rimac. The Rimac is not yet in production, but is said to be pending a 2013 limited production launch and has also been called the fastest electric car in the world – estimated at north of 186 mph, not the 130 to which the Model S is limited.

Pitting the Rimac against a Tesla would of course be even more unfair, given the AWD Croation creation costs around 10-times more, and boasts 1,088 all-electric horsepower and 1,180 pound-feet of torque.

Even though it’s long-legged enough to top 300 kph, Rimac says the no-excuses Concept One will sprint from 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds which ought to help it on its way to completing a quarter mile in a respectable amount of time.

The company also says lateral acceleration from the torque-vectoring supercar rolling on Vredestein Ultrac Vorti tires is an astonishing 1.4 g. (If you can believe it). All-electric range from the 4,300-pound car’s 91-kwh LiFePO4 pack is said to be a Model S-beating 373 miles (600 km) – (“realistic range” estimated at 310 miles (500 km). As for how they calculate “realistic,” we’ll have to see, but we’d expect using its speed potential overly much and achieving such range to be a case of one or the other, not both.

You can read more about that astonishing EV here, but coming back to the Volt, it does a great job for what it is, and is not as financially out of reach as the premier Model S costing 2-3 times more. The Volt is a step closer to a mass market vehicle leading away from oil, and GM wasn’t thinking of bragging rights for cruise night.

But Volt fans often say they’d love to see a high-performance Voltec model, and GM is actually bringing one out that has such a posture, this being the Cadillac ELR.

It’s one thing to race a $40,000 Volt against a $100,000 Tesla and excuse the Volt for not doing so great, but what about the aggressively positioned ELR? Its actual price is not known, and won’t likely be so close to six figures, but it does represent a high-performance image, for sure.

At its heart however is a powertrain remarkably close in configuration to the Volt’s. It puts out a bit more juice, but this is just to compensate for a couple extra hundred pounds or more.

So, how would it be if, a year from now, a video turns up of a Model S against an ELR, and the result – GM car gets creamed – is posted for its new tech halo?

Will this matter? Should GM have found a way to amp up its new ultimate extended-range EV to match the looks? Or will anyone pay the power deficit much attention?

Drag Times

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General Motors’ Chevrolet division has flexed its creative marketing muscle lately by using a quick response (QR) code as a way to help current Volt owners inform friends, family, or even strangers, about their Volt, answering questions about how the car works, if it needs to be plugged in, how long charging takes, etc.

Gigaom blogger Kevin Tofel, a Volt owner of about two months, writes about how while away on a trip – in his Volt of course – GM delivered to him a Volt owner’s kit.

In the package, along with a hardbound book about the Volt’s history to this point, was a QR code sticker that he placed on his new car. The “QR code sticker for my Volt helps people learn about the car without me even being present,” says Tofel.

He also says that the owner’s kit also included 10 informational cards he can hand out to the Volt curious. The Volt QR code differs from other QR codes in that instead simply directing users to a website after they’ve scanned the code with their smartphone or tablet, the Volt QR displays a video.

“What I like about it the most is that it does exactly what I do when asked about the Volt: The video explains how it works and what the capabilities are,” says Tofel. “This way, people understand if it’s the right vehicle for them.”

Gigaom

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The former General Motors vice chairman who pushed the compact extended-range Chevrolet Volt and Ampera sister to market and who now is on the board of VIA Motors says if he was to do it all over again, he’d electrify gas guzzlers first.

More specifically, Lutz said if he was back and in charge at GM, he’d apply the Voltec formula to the Cadillac Escalade – which some say is a symbol of conspicuous consumption and alternately this can be seen as a point of pride or others see it as courting wretched excess.

What ever it may be, Lutz says the Volt is practically a wasted exercise – at least at the price GM is selling it for. In his interview with Autocar, it was also brought up that the Volt project was a bargaining chip in negotiating the GM bailout with the Obama administration.

So, it was seen as an expedient also, but Lutz is now marketing GM “glider” chassis vehicles for VIA that have been converted to series hybrids. Their prices are negotiable for fleet orders, and the vehicles are highly configurable, but quoted selling figures have begun in the high 70s.

That sum of money happens to be right in Escalade territory, so does Mr. Lutz have a valid point?

Here is what he said to AutoCar as relayed also by InsideEVs:

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course, and we shouldn’t forget that the Volt and sister car Opel Ampera are the world’s best-selling electric car, but the truth is that even then it’s not meeting sales expectations, and that’s because most customers don’t want to pay out a major expense for the technology to make minor savings.

“Frankly, unless that customer is philosophically, religiously or economically affiliated to buying an electric vehicle, then they can’t be convinced. The first two types of buyer will buy whatever’s built, but the latter is a harder case. The obvious answer is to electrify as big a vehicle as you can, because that’s where the fuel and running cost savings make the most sense.

“If I had my time again at GM then I would have started with the Cadillac Escalade for the range-extender technology, and brought the Volt in later. The more gas-guzzling the vehicle, the more economic sense of electrifying it. Car companies need to get their minds on that: electrifying an Opel Corsa that uses virtually no fuel anyway and then lumping a huge premium on it to cover the battery costs is nonsensical. Why bother? It uses virtually no fuel anyway.”

2013 Cadillac Escalade Platinum.

A base two-wheel-drive V8-equipped Escalade starts with an MSRP of $63,170 and returns fuel economy of 14 mpg city, 18 mpg highway. Prices escalate for the Escalade up through the 60s and 70s, and the 2-mode hybrid versions are $83,295 and $85,845 respectively for the two- and all-wheel-drive versions. The hybrids get a rated 20 mpg city, 23 mpg highway.

What do you think an Escalade would go for via VIA Motors? Would it be a deal at, say, $89,900 or into the $90s or more? Would it be worth it as a series hybrid with 40 miles all-electric range, and 100-plus MPGe?

Could the price be brought much lower if they could sell the value proposition and mass market it? Or, is there something missing in this equation?

The Escalade’s name came up in the interview, but Lutz’s logic could be applied to all gas guzzlers including those that are not triple the cost of the average new car price.

That’s probably good, because it will take some serious incentives to get the Escalade even selling as well as the Volt, and GM is discontinuing other variants as we speak, which is understandable.

If anyone objects to the Volt’s sales numbers – 2,633 in December and 23,461 for CY2012 – look the other way when you discuss the Escalade Hybrid numbers. In December it sold 90, and in 2012 708 happy owners took home their new Escalade Hybrids.

And, this is the way it was with all of GM’s Chevy and GMC variant hybrid trucks. Each one of these sold well under 600 units for the entire calendar year of 2012, so the real market for trucks is the conventional gas burners.

Americans are not going out of their way to net a difference of mileage in the mid teens to mileage in the low 20s. But, what can we peg a fair selling price on an extended-range electric full-size light-duty truck? Or other larger marginally efficient vehicles?

Is Bob Lutz onto something here or does he have a conflict of interest or is the truth somewhere in the middle?

We won’t touch that one, but one could say the idea of electrifying larger vehicles does cater to a mentality of not trying to wean Americans away from them, but simply makes them closer to as efficient as smaller ones.

However it is a fact that saving fuel for the least-efficient vehicles is worth more than making a fuel miser more miserly. Lutz has made this point in marketing VIA trucks before, so it is little surprise to hear what others might think is throwing the Volt under the bus – or is that throwing it under the VIA truck?

Your thoughts?

AutoCar via InsideEVs

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