Archive for February, 2010

Hertz Teams Up With Nissan to Bring Electric Cars to Market by Early 2011
Hertz Seals Commitment to Green Car Rentals Through Innovative Partnership
PARK RIDGE, NJ, Feb 12, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — The Hertz Corporation (NYSE: HTZ), the world’s largest general use car rental brand, today announced it has entered a joint commitment with Nissan to bring zero-emission mobility to car rental in the US and Europe by early 2011. Under the terms of their Memorandum of Understanding, Hertz will develop a program for the roll-out of Nissan LEAF at select rental sites in those two major markets.

As the world’s first affordable, zero-emission car, Nissan LEAF ushers in a new era of eco-mobility that is in line with rising consumer demand across Europe. Designed specifically for a lithium-ion battery-powered chassis, the medium-size hatchback comfortably seats five adults and has a range of about 100 miles (160km) as tested by the LA4 Test Cycle, to satisfy real-world consumer requirements. The car will go on sale in Japan, the US and Europe in late 2010.

“The partnership with Nissan seals Hertz’s commitment to green-car rentals and firmly demonstrates our mission to advancing zero-emission mobility on a global scale,” said Mark P. Frissora, Hertz Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “With unique solutions like the Hertz Green Collection already available to our customers, we believe in continuously providing innovative mobility solutions to sustain the growing demand for eco-travel,” he added.

Toshiyuki Shiga, Chief Operating Officer of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., commented: “Our partnership with Hertz is an important step towards our goal of promoting widespread acceptance of electric vehicles. Together with our Alliance partner Renault, we aim to be the leader in zero-emission vehicles which we believe are one of the best solutions for sustaining the growing need for transport across the globe.”

The Renault-Nissan Alliance will start mass-marketing electric vehicles globally in 2012. To lay the foundations for widespread expansion, the Alliance has already formed partnerships with more than 40 governments, cities and other organizations in Japan, the US and Europe to advance the deployment of EVs worldwide. This includes developing a comprehensive charging infrastructure through public and private investment; incentives and subsidies from local, regional, and national governments; and public education on the individual and societal benefits of zero-emission mobility.

In the future, Hertz and Nissan plan to expand Nissan LEAF electric vehicles into Hertz’s global car share service, “Connect by Hertz.” By applying the same innovative model to car sharing, this would allow the Renault-Nissan Alliance to scale up availability and acceptance of electric vehicles across a wide consumer base in some of the world’s most densely populated cities.

“The flexibility and environmental credentials offered by the existing Connect by Hertz fleet presents an ideal opportunity for the expansion of electric cars into the car-share market,” added Frissora. “With its performance and energy efficient technology, we’re confident that Nissan LEAF will be popular with existing customers and help attract new eco-conscious motorists.”

About Hertz

Hertz is the world’s largest general-use car-rental company, operating from over 8,100 corporate locations in 145 countries. Hertz is in its 91st year of delivering quality car-rental solutions to leisure and corporate customers.

Product and service innovations such as Hertz #1 Club Gold, Worldwide Online Check-in, specially designed NeverLost(R) satellite navigation systems, Hertz in-car DVD Entertainment and unique cars offered through the company’s Prestige, Fun and Green Collections, set Hertz apart from the competition.

About Nissan

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. generated global net revenues of 8.437 trillion yen in fiscal year 2008. Nissan is present in all major global auto markets selling a comprehensive range of cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and light commercial vehicles under the Nissan and Infiniti brands. Nissan employs over 220,000 people worldwide.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance

The Renault Nissan Alliance, founded in 1999, sold 6,085,058 vehicles in 2009. The objective of the Alliance is to rank among the world’s top three vehicle manufacturers in terms of quality, technology and profitability.

SOURCE: The Hertz Corporation

Expect to see more attention on flow batteries in 2010, as investors, utilities and entrepreneurs look to the technology as a way to provide low cost energy storage to the power grid alongside the addition of clean power. Take EnerVault, a flow battery company we profiled last May. The startup recently raised its first round of $3.5 million in venture funding, from Oceanshore Ventures and U.S. Invest, according to a regulatory filing. (Previously the company won a $650,000 grant from the NY State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA)).

According to an executive summary from EnerVault, the company plans to use the funding to build a prototype that can demonstrate that their flow battery technology can scale to megawatts, as well as for adding on staff and attracting new customers. Once the prototype is built, EnerVault says it will look for follow-on and government funding to build a full-scale field-deployable system.

Why will flow batteries be so important for the future of the smart grid? The technology — which generally uses large storage tanks full of electrolytes and pumps that circulate the solution throughout the system — has had decades of research, could offer one of the lowest cost grid storage options out there, and can be safer and more reliable than other energy storage technologies like advanced batteries, which can become overheated.

EnerVault CEO Craig Horne told us last May that the company’s flow battery can run around $100 per kWh, but says that price could also come down when the company scales up production. In comparison, lithium-ion batteries can cost from $200 per kWh to $500 per kWh and up to $1,000 per kWh for more advanced batteries with more expensive materials.

Like other forms of grid energy storage, flow batteries will become increasingly important as utilities look to add clean power to their portfolios. In particular utilities that have state renewable portfolio standards will need to make sure that the intermittency of the clean power (the sun and wind are only available at certain times of day) that they add on doesn’t make their grids more vulnerable.

Other flow battery companies are raising funds, too. Last year flow battery maker Deeya Energy closed a $30 million financing round from Technology Partners, BlueRun Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and New Enterprise Associates. Deeya is a 5-year-old firm that hails redox flow battery inventor Lawrence Thaller as a technical adviser and has raised $53 million.
Source: Earth 2 Tech

“A” Grade energy rating must become standard for non-domestic buildings says Carbon Trust report.

For the UK to meet its national carbon reduction obligations Britain’s commercial, industrial and public buildings need to improve from an average of an E energy rating today to C by 2020 and A by 2050 , according to a new report released by the Carbon Trust today.
“Building the future, today” confirms that an urgent focus on the non-domestic building sector is needed to keep the UK on track to deliver carbon reductions of 80% by 2050. Currently, 18% of the country’s emissions can be attributed to the non-domestic building sector and these emissions have remained static for the last 20 years.

If the right strategy is followed, the carbon footprint of non-domestic buildings can be reduced by more than one third by 2020 and a net benefit of £4billion can be delivered to the UK economy through energy savings, the report finds.

Central to this strategy is the roll out Display Energy Certificates (DECs) and Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) to all non-domestic buildings by 2015 to provide transparency of energy performance across the sector.

The Carbon Trust also proposes that all cost-effective energy efficiency measures, such as lighting and heating controls, must be implemented across all 1.8 million non-domestic buildings in the UK within the next ten years.

Beyond 2020, more costly measures – such as triple glazing and ground source heat pumps – must become standard in both new and existing buildings, alongside continued decarbonisation of the UK’s electricity grid. Designers and developers of new buildings will need to take a more holistic and integrated approach, reducing energy demand by making better use of natural light and ventilation.

The scenario presented by the Carbon Trust requires urgent action and a clear sense of purpose. However, it also identifies barriers that must be overcome such as energy costs being seen as marginal by building developers and operators, non-compliance with building regulations and the landlord-tenant divide.

Stuart Farmer, Head of Buildings Strategy at the Carbon Trust and lead author of the report said: “Commercial and public buildings offer the UK a big bang for its carbon reduction buck. But it won’t just happen on its own; energy efficiency needs to be the first and second priority. For policy makers and business, rolling out Display Energy Certificates to all non-domestic buildings must be the foundation stone to deliver not only better buildings, but better use of buildings too.

“Policymakers and business need to work together to capture this opportunity. Policymakers need to set a clear direction, show leadership and provide the necessary policy and regulatory support. In return, the building industry needs to respond by moving from niche exemplars of good practice to large scale, mass market implementation as standard.”

‘Building the future, today’ sets out a strategy to reduce carbon emissions from non-domestic buildings by 35% by 2020. It also includes a range of policy options for policymakers to consider which the Carbon Trust believes will help catalyse the market into action by improving the quality of buildings and encouraging more energy efficient use of them by building owners and occupiers. These policy options include:
Improved buildings:

* Tighten the Building Regulations to ensure all cost-effective carbon reduction measures are implemented in new builds and major refurbishments by 2020, including Zero Carbon new buildings by 2019.

* Implement a minimum building standard to ensure almost all non-domestic buildings achieve an F-rated EPC or better by 2020.

* Show public sector leadership by ensuring that large public sector buildings implement all cost-effective measures recommended in DEC reports within the seven year lifetime of the report.

* Launch a hands on advice and support service for owners and users of F and G-rated buildings to help accelerate improvements.

* Tighten the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) cap to incentivise businesses to take up cost-effective energy efficiency measures.

* Develop a national programme led by the energy suppliers to install simple, low cost energy efficiency measures in SME buildings.

Energy efficient use of buildings:

* Tighten the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) cap to incentivise businesses to take up cost-effective energy efficiency measures.

* Develop a national programme led by the energy suppliers to install simple, low cost energy efficiency measures in SME buildings.

The findings of the Carbon Trust report have been welcomed by key players in the buildings industry and environmental groups: Paul King, Chairman, UK Green Building Council, said: “The government has put some excellent carbon reduction targets and policies in place for new homes and buildings. But so far we have collectively failed to grasp the scale of the opportunity - in terms of innovation, investment, efficiency, jobs and benefits to occupiers - of radically improving our existing non-domestic buildings. To achieve the carbon reductions we need by 2020 and beyond, we need to start today, and embrace a revolution in energy efficient refurbishment.”
Neil Bentley, Director of Business Environment, CBI, said:

“Businesses are keen to take big steps to reduce energy and carbon emissions from their buildings. However many businesses, like homeowners, face major barriers in finding the capital to invest in energy efficient measures such as energy management systems, efficient lighting and heating systems. The Government needs to work closely with business to provide the right incentives to help overcome the upfront costs.”

John Sauven, Director of Greenpeace said: “Buildings are responsible for a massive 44% of our CO2 emissions. It is clear that climate change cannot be tackled in the UK unless energy use in our homes and commercial buildings is massively reduced.
“The transformation of our buildings has many benefits. It will reduce emissions, improve energy security, and save energy. It will provide jobs and many local benefits. And it is key to meeting our climate change targets. This report from the Carbon Trust, calling for non-domestic buildings to improve their energy rating from an average E today to A by 2050, will be key if we are to decarbonise our economy.”
Source: Carbon Trust UK

By TODD WOODY and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: February 14, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — If electric cars have any future in the United States, this may be the city where they arrive first.

The first wave of electric car buying is expected to begin around December when Nissan introduces the five-passenger Leaf.

The San Francisco building code will soon be revised to require that new structures be wired for car chargers. Across the street from City Hall, some drivers are already plugging converted hybrids into a row of charging stations.

In nearby Silicon Valley, companies are ordering workplace charging stations in the belief that their employees will be first in line when electric cars begin arriving in showrooms. And at the headquarters of Pacific Gas and Electric, utility executives are preparing “heat maps” of neighborhoods that they fear may overload the power grid in their exuberance for electric cars.

“There is a huge momentum here,” said Andrew Tang, an executive at P.G.& E.

As automakers prepare to introduce the first mass-market electric cars late this year, it is increasingly evident that the cars will get their most serious tryout in just a handful of places. In cities like San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and San Diego, a combination of green consciousness and enthusiasm for new technology seems to be stirring public interest in the cars.

The first wave of electric car buying is expected to begin around December, when Nissan introduces the Leaf, a five-passenger electric car that will have a range of 100 miles on a fully charged battery and be priced for middle-class families.

Several thousand Leafs made in Japan will be delivered to metropolitan areas in California, Arizona, Washington state, Oregon and Tennessee. Around the same time, General Motors will introduce the Chevrolet Volt, a vehicle able to go 40 miles on electricity before its small gasoline engine kicks in.

“This is the game-changer for our industry,” said Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s president and chief executive. He predicted that 10 percent of the cars sold would be electric vehicles by 2020.

Utilities are gearing up to cooperate with the automakers, a first for the two industries, and governments on the West Coast are focusing intently on the coming issues. Price and tax incentives need to be worked out. Locations must be found for charging stations. And local electrical grids may need reinforcement.

The California Public Utilities Commission, whose headquarters are in San Francisco, has brought together utilities, automakers and charging station companies in an urgent effort to write the new rules of the road.

Much of the attention on electric cars has been on the vehicles’ design, cost and performance. But success or failure could turn on more mundane matters, like the time it takes car buyers to navigate a municipal bureaucracy to have charging stations installed in their homes.

When the president of the California Public Utilities Commission, Michael R. Peevey, leased an electric Mini Cooper, he said, it took six weeks of visits by installers and inspectors before he could plug in his new car at home.

“It was really drawn out and frustrating and certainly is not workable on a mass basis,” Mr. Peevey said.

Such issues are being hashed out here first. The San Francisco area is home not only to a population of early technology adopters but to companies like Coulomb Technologies and Better Place that are developing the networks and software to allow utilities to manage how cars are charged.

Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley company that makes electric cars, says it has already sold 150 of its $109,000 Roadsters in the Bay Area. One customer bought the sleek sports car on the spot after a test drive.

“We asked him how he heard of Tesla and why he bought the car,” said Rachel Konrad, a Tesla spokeswoman. “He said, ‘Well, three other guys on my block have them.’ ”

In Berkeley, a town known for its environmental sensibility, one out of five cars sold today is a hybrid Prius. If electric cars are adopted that broadly in the next few years, problems could ensue.

“If you just allow willy-nilly random charging, are we going to have neighborhood blackouts?” asked Mr. Tang, the utility executive. He said a single car could consume three times as much electricity as a typical San Francisco home.

Mr. Tang is working to make sure that does not happen by monitoring where electric cars are sold in Northern California. And later this year P.G.&E. will lead a “smart charging” pilot project, connecting 200 cars to special charging stations that let utilities control the electrical demand at a given moment.
Robert Hayden, the clean transportation adviser for San Francisco, said the city hopes to have 60 charging stations installed in public garages by year’s end, with a thousand more available across the Bay Area in 2011. And in Oregon, an advisory group is working on charging stations and related issues.

To avoid problems in areas with high car concentrations, utility executives said they would encourage people to charge their vehicles at night or to use smarter electric meters that help control demand.

“We are trying to be proactive about how to make sure that the transformers that serve these homes and neighborhoods are robust enough,” said Doug Kim, an executive at Southern California Edison, which serves Los Angeles.

Mr. Kim said the popularity of electric vehicles “will be a function of a lot of different things: the state of the economy, how many people can actually afford to buy the cars and the price of gasoline — how high does it have to be?”

Some transportation experts are skeptical that electric vehicles will catch on anywhere in the country, in large part because the batteries and the installation of home recharging units are expensive.

Dan Sperling, the director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, estimated that a typical electric car battery would cost the automaker $12,000, and a 240-volt charging unit would cost a household at least $1,500.

Without huge subsidies, “the reality is, these electric vehicles are not going to sweep the industry and become a major share of the market for a very long time,” Mr. Sperling said.

Despite such skepticism, Washington is putting considerable money into the effort, including billions of dollars in loans to Ford, Nissan and Tesla Motors.

Under last year’s stimulus package, nearly $200 million will support Nissan’s introduction of the Leaf by permitting the installation of 13,000 charging stations around cities in Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and Tennessee in the next year or so. (Nissan plans to build the Leaf in Tennessee eventually.)

If electric cars do take off, consumers and society could benefit. Battery-powered motors are more efficient than gasoline engines. They cost drivers on average only 2.5 cents a mile for fuel, less than a third of the cost for a highly efficient gasoline car, according to proponents.

The Energy Department says electric cars produce less of the emissions linked to climate change than traditional vehicles, though how much less depends on the source of power on the local electricity grid.

Before the first Nissan Leafs and Chevrolet Volts reach the show room, an electric car infrastructure is getting a test drive in the Bay Area, in a limited way.

Google, which is talking to automakers about using its PowerMeter energy management software, has already become something of an electric transportation hub. At Google’s Mountain View headquarters, a handful of employees drive to work in Tesla Roadsters, and more drive a fleet of modified Priuses that Google owns. The employees pull into carports that are covered with solar panels and plug their cars into the 100 available charging stations.

Nearby, in downtown San Jose, the city has reserved street parking for electric vehicles and installed charging stations. Nearby, at Adobe Systems’ headquarters, an executive showed off a dozen charging stations in the parking garage. Eighteen more will be installed this year.

“No one wants to be left behind,” said Richard Lowenthal, chief executive of Coulomb Technologies. “We’re preparing for an onslaught of demand.”
Source: New York Times Online

February 15, 2010 by Matt Brogan
Mercedes-Benz has today unveiled a battery-powered prototype of its Vito commercial van. The vehicle was prepared for the informal EU Competitiveness Council meeting, which was held in San Sebastián late last week.

During the event, European ministers of economic affairs met to discuss issues concerning the economic viability of future technologies, such as battery-powered EVs (electric vehicles). Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, spoke about the sustainability of EVs in his capacity as current president of the ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association).

Based on the Mercedes-Benz Vito commercial van, this experimental vehicle was developed to “start of a new era in local, zero-emission mobility in the van sector”. It is said to be the outcome of R&D activities that focused on three key aspects: optimising combustion engines, boosting efficiency via custom hybrid components and emission-free vehicle operation deploying batteries and fuel cells.

Over the remainder of this year, more than 100 examples of the Vito EV will be delivered to 20 customers, including fleet operators and public institutions. A further 2,000 units are planned following these initial trials.

The Vito EV is designed to run solely on battery power and utilises powerful lithium-ion batteries to supply the van with an operating voltage of 400-volts, 16-amps current and an available capacity of 32kWh. The Vito EV’s range is said to be around 130-kilometres but can be “considerably higher given an appropriate driving style”. The electric motor delivers a peak output of 90kW to see the Vito EV reach an 80km/h electronically limited top-speed.

Safety features are on par with Vito’s traditionally-powered counterparts and include ESC with Traction Control and ABS braking. The number of airbags offered corresponds with Vito model grade, just like petrol- and diesel-powered models do.

Payload and load volume also compare favourably to a conventionally powered Vito with a load capacity in excess of 900kg possible.

Source: CarAdvice.AU

AFP

Nissan has the potential to double its market share in the Middle East but needs to offer the consumer more smaller and cheaper cars, Renault-Nissan president and CEO Carlos Ghosn said on Sunday.

“I think we are far, far from our potential,” said Ghosn, who was in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, to launch a new version of Nissan’s Patrol SUV. “I’m looking for doubling the market share in the Middle East.”

“One of the reasons… we’re not maximising market share is we don’t have enough small cars, and cheaper cars,” he said.

Small, inexpensive cars based on the company’s V-Platform, which will be launched in Geneva next month, will be key to addressing this shortage, he said.

Carla Bailo, programme manager for the Patrol, said Nissan expects its updated SUV model to sell around 20,000 units a year in the Middle East, up from the current model’s five to eight thousand.

Nissan is the second largest car manufacturer in terms of market share in the region after Toyota, Ghosn said, declining to give specific figures.

He said Toyota’s brake and accelerator problems, which have caused the company to recall millions of vehicles, could offer Nissan a short-term tactical advantage, but probably nothing more.

“When a car company is in trouble, yes, you can have some tactical advantages in the short-term,” he said.

“But frankly, don’t expect anything more than that… I think you progress in your market share because of your product, your merit, not because somebody else is weak.”

Ghosn also said he “would like Renault-Nissan to be the pioneer and the leader” in electric vehicles. “I want electric car (to) mean Renault or Nissan, period,” he said.

“There are two things which are absolutely important to understand for the electric car,” he said. “The first is the CO2 problem is here to stay,” and the second is that oil prices are likely to increase.

“I don’t think you need to be a huge visionary… to say zero emission cars are going to be a part of this industry,” he said, adding that the only question was how much of the market would be made up of electric cars.

“You’re gonna see that all car manufacturers will end up doing an electric car,” he said.

Nissan is to launch its first electric vehicle, the Leaf, by the end of 2010, Ghosn said.

He said that a Nissan electric light commercial vehicle, luxury sedan and a small “city car” were also in the works, along with four Renault electric vehicles.

Earlier this month, Nissan Motor upgraded its earnings outlook, saying it was on course to end the current financial year in the black thanks to solid demand in China and other emerging markets.

Japan’s number three automaker said it now expects a net profit of Y35 billion ($A437.94 million) for the current fiscal year to March, against an earlier projection of a Y40 billion ($A500.5 million) loss.

Source: news.smh.com.au

The Spanish premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, pledged to present a European-wide plan for the development of electric vehicles.

Spanish premier announces EU plan to develop electric cars
The initiative form part of a new economic strategy for 2020 that EU leaders are due to approve before June. “We want to put into place with the European Commission a plan for the development of electric cars,” Zapatero announced to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, in a speech that was received with lukewarm applause.

Zapatero reiterated that the new strategy, set to replace a ten-year plan that failed to turn the EU into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” by 2010, needs to have binding targets.

“The other day I met together with a group of companies, some of the most important in Europe, and it was felt it was fundamental that there should be co-operation and integration of efforts in developing the electric vehicle,” he told MEPs.

“If our markets don’t have a regulatory framework to provide financial support, and if we don’t have common standards on the technologies, then it will be difficult for Europe to take a leading role,” he added.

Greater energy self-sufficiency will also be key to sustainable European growth, said the Spanish leader whose country was one of the worst hit by the recent recession.

“In the last ten years our energy consumption has gone up by nine percent,” he told euro deputies. “We need to reduce our dependence. If we don’t reduce it we won’t be able to have any economic growth.”

At present roughly 58 percent of the gas used by European homes and industry comes from outside the EU, with last January’s dispute between Russia and the Ukraine and the subsequent European energy crisis highlighting the bloc’s vulnerability.

Source: EVWind.es

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Smith Electric Vehicles is scouting locations in the Bay Area and Sacramento for a facility that would assemble, sell and service their plug-in trucks, used by such companies as Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Smith sees the move as a way to reach more potential customers. Right now, if one of the company’s trucks has a serious breakdown, Smith has to send a mechanic from its U.S. base in Kansas. The company plans to open facilities in 10 urban markets nationwide that would be capable of assembling and fixing the trucks.

“You could see it, touch it, see the technology, and you’d also have the confidence that you could service it,” said Bryan Hansel, chief executive officer of Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp. “It opens up an entire new class of customers for us.”

The proposed facility would employ about 40 full-time workers, Hansel said. For possible locations, Smith is looking at closed big-box stores or large, shuttered car dealerships. The company plans to pick a location by June.

PG&E, based in San Francisco, has been testing one of Smith’s trucks since last year, said Kory Raftery, a spokesman for the utility. The company has since ordered 12 more, to be delivered this spring. The trucks will be scattered throughout PG&E’s vast territory in Northern and Central California.

“We’re going to try to check the truck’s performance in all kinds of conditions,” Raftery said.

To date, most of the excitement surrounding electric vehicles has focused on cars, not trucks. Tesla Motors of Palo Alto has grabbed the public’s attention with a sleek and pricey electric sports car, while large automakers such as Ford Motor Co. are developing mass-market, plug-in sedans.

But Smith argues that electric trucks, in some ways, make more sense than electric cars, at least right now. Commercial trucks often run predictable routes, so there’s no worry about their batteries running out of juice. They can easily be recharged at a central facility each night.

“It’s depot-based logistics,” Hansel said. “You’ve got a central warehouse. You come back and park in the same space every night for 10 years. You drive the same route every day.”

A typical Smith truck can go about 100 miles on a charge, another reason the company wants to locate its assembly and sales offices close to potential customers. The trucks’ window-sticker price ranges between $130,000 and $150,000. But starting in March, California customers will be able to take advantage of a state rebate program for zero-emission vehicles, worth up to $20,000 for commercial trucks.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

by Sebastian Blanco (RSS feed) on Feb 12th 2010 at 7:37PM

Source: Green Autoblog.com

Not only did Ford reveal the all-electric version of the Transit Connect Electric at the Chicago Auto Show this week, but they also pulled the electric vehicle (EV) into the snowy Chicago streets and allowed us to take it for a quick spin. After our five minutes behind the wheel, we can say that, if your company needs a sensible delivery vehicle that doesn’t have to travel all that far each day, then this should be your electric van of choice. Well, depending on how much these vans will cost, a number we won’t get until later this spring.

The most noticeable thing about the Transit Connect Electric is that this is a fully realized EV. Based on a very popular model – the standard gasoline and diesel Transit Connects have sold around 655,000 units since going on sale in Europe in 2003 and the van won the North American Truck of the Year after its introduction here in 2009 – the Transit Connect Electric feels like a utility car, electric or otherwise, should feel. Ford and its partner on the project, Azure Dynamics, have created a winner. Read on past the jump for the rest of the story.

Photos by Sebastian Blanco / Copyright ©2010 Weblogs, Inc.

From what we can tell, the Transit Connect Electric will operate like any other Transit Connect, except that running costs should be far lower than versions that burn CNG or gasoline (or, in Europe, diesel fuel). Turning the key, as in a standard vehicle, brings up the dashboard lights and turns the van on. At this point, the range and battery state of charge gauge come to life. While the Transit Connect Electric has an official range of 80 miles (depending on drive cycle), when we sat down in the driver’s seat, we had just under 50 miles on the range gauge and just over half of the battery left in the state-of-charge indicator. This seemed a bit high to us, and reminds us that companies that opt to add some of these vans to their fleets shouldn’t rely on these indicators until they’ve had some experience with just how quickly the last 20 miles might drop away. We’re not saying drivers will get stranded, just that we’re heard an ounce of prevention makes a lot of sense.

The Transit Connect is small, but there’s a lot of practical room in back. Furniture stores probably won’t want to invest in a fleet of these, but we can see telephone repair crews and food delivery companies seriously considering them. Scott Staley, chief engineer of HEV/FCV technology development for Ford and the leader of the technical team from the Ford side, rode with us and said the whole reason the Transit Connect Electric exists today is because customers came to Ford and expressed an interest in an electric delivery van. Fleet operators like the post office and AT&T are the most interested in the electric van, he said. For companies looking for something a bit larger, Azure does offer Ford’s E-450 chassis vans and shuttle buses upfitted with the Balance hybrid electric drive system.

Driving the city-sized Transit Connect Electric, though, proves just how well all of the bits fit together well and it feels like you’d want a production EV to feel. This isn’t a highway-ready long haul vehicle, but for scooting around corners and fitting in with traffic, the Transit Connect Electric performs as expected. The 0-60 is about the same as the gas version, for example, and the electric version has the same 39 foot curb-to-curb turning radius.

Last fall, things didn’t appear quite as smooth as they are now. In October 2009, Ford and partner Smith Electric Vehicles mutually split ways on the Transit Connect Electric’s powertrain and Ford scrambled to find a new partner in Azure. Staley said that one of the reasons Ford went with Azure was because it had the propulsion experience:

In a lot of programs, you work on optimizing every component, right? In this vehicle, we’ve taken advantage of existing Azure experience with other components. For example, the charger for the vehicle is a Brusa charger, the electric drive is a Siemens motors which is an AC induction motor. It’s not the latest permanent magnet technology, but is quite robust and they have a lot of field experience with it. So that’s helped us meet the timing requirements to get this thing ready by the end of the year.

Why will the Transit Connect Electric be ready so soon? Because Ford promised to have an electric vehicle to market by the end of 2010. When the Smith partnership fell through, Staley said, teaming up with Azure as an upfitter made Ford realize they still had a chance to meet the deadline. After all, “We’ve got things backing up behind us,” he said, referring to the Focus Electric and other hybrid and plug-in vehicles Ford has announced. “There’s only one chance to get this car out first.”

The logistics of building the Transit Connect Electrics look like this. The bodies will be built in Turkey and shipped as rolling chassis to southeast Michigan. There, in a city and plant to be announced later, they will be upfitted with the Force Drive powertrain by Azure. (The large vehicles that are upfitted with the Balance hybrid system undergo the procedure at a Utilimaster plant in Wakarusa, IN.) Azure is buying the vehicles from Ford and doing the EV powertrain work themselves, so it will fall to Azure to actually sell the vans. Staley said:

In this case you see an upfitter strategy, where you share the costs of developing the vehicles. We also share the costs of marketing and selling the vehicles. So, Azure, for the electric truck, is going to be the marketing and sales agent, through selected Ford dealerships. They do all the heavy pulling.

Ford is using a similar strategy with the CNG/LPG version of the Transit Connect Taxi it announced in Chicago. The variety of powertrains for the vehicle came about as a result of customers coming to Ford, Staley said. “They say, ‘we need to do something to reduce our emissions,” and Ford worked with them to figure out which powertrains would work best. Since taxis need to run more or less 24-7 or at least two shifts, electric vehicles could not handle the load and CNG was selected as an alternative. Having a variety of powertrains allows also Ford to respond to customer and government emphasis, Staley said. If the federal government were to say, for example, that plug-in hybrids will be the only vehicles to get tax credits, then Ford could relatively easily put a PHEV powertrain into the Transit Connect.

Right now, there’s no lengthy waiting list for the Transit Connect Electric – the van was only officially announced Wednesday, after all – but Staley said that he expects Azure representatives will soon be out talking to potential customers and taking orders. Setting and announcing the price is Azure’s responsibility and will be revealed later this spring. For the first few years, Ford and Azure expect to build around 1,000 Transit Connect Electric vans annually and test the market demand. If our few minutes behind the wheel are any indication, they’ll probably want to up that number sooner rather than later.