Some 100 years ago, when the auto industry was in its infancy, Thomas Edison promised his friend Henry Ford a battery for his electric car. Mr. Ford died waiting. And the gasoline internal combustion engine took hold and reigns supreme today.
Yet many are still making Edison-like promises about electric cars. In July, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Group of Eight summit in Japan that electric cars would be commonplace by 2020. He repeated the claim weeks ago at the London Motor Show.
And judging by the constant stream of announcements about this or that new electric car, some think Brown is right.
BMW's Mini brand has begun recruiting 500 drivers in California, New York and New Jersey to lease its Mini E for a year. Some 10,000 people have signed up for more information. They and the rest of us will get loads of it when the Mini E makes its debut later this month at the Los Angeles auto show as a concept car.
Could the Mini E become the low-emissions city car BMW is working on as part of the company's Project i? BMW won't say. But BMW is expected to start taking formal applications from potential drivers any day now.
But it does not sound as though it would be so difficult to live with the Mini E or something like it. Top speed approaches 160 km/h, range is about 350 km and the lithium-ion battery powering the 204-horsepower electric motor recharges in 4.4 hours using a 240-volt outlet like the one for your washing machine.
In Canada, Electrovaya Inc. has announced a partnership with China's Changan Automobile Group to roll out 30 electric cars before the end of this year. The hope is for Changan to become the first Chinese auto maker to tap the North American market.
Reports say Mississauga, Ont.-based Electrovaya is working on the powertrain and will be responsible for distribution of the cars assembled in Canada.
And of course many others are beavering away to make electric cars viable for the everyday consumer.
Mercedes-Benz says it will have a demonstration fleet of practical, if small, electric vehicles on the road in two to three years. Each car in the test fleet of Smart electric vehicles is expected to run 130 km or more on the lithium-ion batteries the German auto maker is developing. Regular production could begin a few years later.
Mercedes also says it will be first in North America to market a gasoline-electric hybrid using a lithium battery pack.
Think Global, a Norwegian upstart, hopes to sell pint-size, affordable electric cars in North America as early as next year. A newly formed North American division has particularly high hopes for the upcoming Th!nk Ox, a concept unveiled at the Geneva International Motor Show last March. It's a preview of Think's next-generation production vehicle, due out in 2011.
Roughly the size of a Toyota Prius, the Ox can travel between 200 and 250 km between charges and goes from 0-100 km/h in less than nine seconds.
Officials say the Ox's lithium-ion batteries can be charged to 80 per cent capacity in less than an hour. Battery power is preserved by using slender solar panels integrated into the roof to power onboard electronics. Very slick, but no price tag has been given, yet.
Tesla Motors in the United States has also made a big splash with its $109,000 (U.S.) Roadster. With 1,200 advance orders on its books, Tesla until recently looked poised to take the electric-car market by storm. That is until the credit crunch hit. With funding tight, Tesla is now phasing back some of its plans, though officials say the dream is alive.
And, of course, the world's major auto makers are hard at work on various electric car programs. General Motors's much-touted Volt extended-range electric car remains on track for a fall 2010 launch, despite the company's well-publicized financial issues.
Nissan plans to sell an electric car in North America by 2010. Nissan also expects to sell a lineup of electric vehicles globally by 2012.
Other auto makers such as Mitsubishi and Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru's parent, are testing versions of electric cars. So is Toyota, which like GM, is working on battery-powered vehicles that have small gasoline engines for recharging.
Toyota expects to offer a car similar to GM's Volt, a so-called "plug-in" hybrid, around the end of 2010, according to reports.
Nissan's bold announcement earlier this year is interesting because, unlike its rivals, the company is the first manufacturer to say it will mass-market all-electric vehicles worldwide.
Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, a Munich-based consultant, says an all-electric scenario is unlikely, but that does not mean electric cars do not have a bright future. And Europe, more than North America, has a better chance of being successfully invaded by electric cars in greater numbers.
By 2020, says Roland Berger, electric vehicles of all kinds — plug-ins and battery-powered cars — will command one-quarter of the European market and 10 per cent worldwide.
"Europe is one of the projected front-runners with an electric vehicle (EV) share of up to 25 per cent due to its leading role in environmental technologies, government pressure, and fertile customer ground for EV market penetration," the report said.
No wonder, then, that the recent Paris auto show was awash with electric vehicles and concepts. Some were from tiny companies, but large auto makers such as Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Smart all were aggressively pushing their electric plans.
The Nissan Nuvu electric concept hinted at the company's plans, said product chief Carlos Tavares, reiterating that his company will roll out electric vehicles in 2010 and sell them globally in 2012.
"They will be real cars meeting the diverse needs of drivers globally," said Tavares, Nissan's executive vice-president for corporate and product planning. "We are all on the same mission. The ultimate goal is zero emissions."
Zero emissions is the promise of electrics — unless the source of the electricity is a dirty coal-fired plant or some other sort of environmentally unfriendly power station. That is why government involvement, along with co-operative, engaged utilities, is critical if the world is to see a fleet of electric cars replace gasoline and diesel vehicles, as Thomas Edison first envisaged.
Auto makers believe a rollout of electric cars is only likely and possible if governments provide incentives for zero-emissions electrics. Utility companies, meanwhile, with the help of governments, need to create a recharging infrastructure that provides electricity using clean technologies.
Many experts believe sales of electric cars won't take off unless a recharging infrastructure grows in tandem. New infrastructure will be hugely expensive to build, put new stresses on the electrical grid, and utility companies are unlikely to move decisively if there is no assurance of electric car customers needing an electric "fill-up" all over the place. So there seems to be a role for government involvement here.
But consumers are not likely to move to electric cars in great numbers if they are more expensive to own and operate, and do not meet their performance needs for everyday chores. In the face of financial issues, social pressure on consumers to buy greener cars will not be enough to trigger a mass switch from gas and diesel, the experts say.
That is not to say electric vehicles will not slowly become more mainstream. In fact, Kenichiro Wada, project manager for the Mitsubishi MiEV electric vehicles, said in Paris that vehicles like his company's are feasible now.
"This is the future — this is the real future," Wada said. "Some auto makers only provide a mockup. Mockups have no meaning. You can drive this today."
Mitsubishi officials say the MiEV probably will be sold in North America by 2011 to 2012. Wada said he expects quick battery-charging technology, which can restore 80 per cent of a battery's charge within 30 minutes, to overcome the limited range of electric cars.
The MiEV has a range of about 160 km in mixed driving conditions, and about 120 km in city driving.
But Pitt Moos, product manager for Smart electric drive vehicles, dismissed quick-charging. He said it wears down batteries. And because most recharging will take place at vehicle owners' homes, much of the infrastructure for electric cars is already in place, Moos said.
Nissan's Tavares suggested charging at home can be supplemented with charging stations in long-term parking areas. Nissan also envisages swaps in which batteries are leased to customers and driving power is restored not by recharging, but at service stations where depleted batteries are replaced with fresh ones.
The benefit there: "As a customer, you are not concerned about 'Is this battery reliable? Will it run out?'" Tavares said. "We take care of that."
In all this, the move to an electric-car society will be made much simpler if auto makers co-operate to develop common standards for electric cars, officials say.
Thomas Weber, head of research and development at Mercedes parent Daimler AG, says the huge cost of developing mass-market electric vehicles can be ameliorated by eliminating costly duplication of electric car research and development.
The smart way forward, he says, is for auto makers to agree on common technical standards for electric vehicle platforms and components. However, insiders say auto makers are too protective of their proprietary intelligence, and are unlikely to share what they know about the development of major components such as battery packs.
Enter governments, again. Weber says they can play a role by developing common emissions standards and regulations in Europe, the United States and emerging markets such as China.
If regulations were harmonized to a common global standard, the auto industry would spend less on meeting minor differences between various jurisdictions, and instead focus on the ultimate objective — reducing vehicle pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
"At the moment," he said, "they [regulations around the world] are different, and we need to say: 'This is nonsense.'
"Obviously there are both barriers and incentives to bringing electric cars to mainstream drivers. But there is one huge incentive in all this, cost aside: electric cars make common sense.
"If you look at the number of kilometres people drive per day to commute, more than 90 per cent of the people do less than 100 kilometres a day," Nissan's Tavares says.
"There is a huge, huge potential there for Evs."
JEREMY CATO
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
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