Electricnick, The EV Revolution

Green this, green that.  Every car company seems to have a green product or another these days.  But is there a consents as to what “green” is?

What Does Green Mean To Car Makers? We could make that topic into an entire book, so what exactly does it mean to go green when we talk about car makers?  100% electric, soft hybrids, HEV or full systems, cleaner diesels or flexfuels, compressed gas, hydrogen, CNG, or mixing it all together?  One thing is for sure, it has a different meaning for each car manufacturers.

For Ford, it means making more fuel efficient cars.  Even though many green people frown at the company for not embracing a more radical green tomorrow, in their fragile economic state, green could mean using their infrastructure that creates internal combustion engines, ICE and make them more and more fuel efficient.  In other words, use those ICE engines manufacturing tools with more sophisticated technologies, such as turbos and more direct injection to cut down on emission.  Nothing news here, but the technology is readily available.

For Toyota, it is all about using a mild HEV setup where the ICE engine is coupled to an electric one, sort of using an electric turbo charger, mostly called parallel hybrid.  Honda seems to be going that road also.

For Tesla, AC Propulsion, Tango, to name a few and some of Aptera’s upcoming vehicles, it’s 100% electric.  After all, the technology has to be mass produced one way or another, being first means having the most recognition and giving you most chances of surviving the flourishing years ahead.

For German companies, mostly BMW and VW it is about creating cleaner burning diesels with turbos.  There is always the potential segway to hybridizing these vehicles at a later stage.  The only problem with diesel is that the U.S. sells it at a premium, forcing people with conventional gasoline.  Nonetheless, turbos force more air and gas mixture in the engine, lowering consumption while raising horesepower with smaller displacement.

And then there are the out of the beaten path routes.  CNG, hydrogen and compressed gas cars.  Honda has been a big proponent of CNG.  CNG burns cleaner than gasoline but doesn’t get us away from ozone depletion.  On top of it, the infrastructure for fill up stations are sparse.  Same problem with hydrogen which is a great technology but shows limitation back down here on Earth.  Compressed air cars are the wild jokers at this stage.  Will the technology catch on?  It’s hard to say since commercial fleets could save much money with it.  It remains to be seen how it can be the same for consumers.  It’s a promising technology that might find some momentum.

Low gas prices, the culprit! With wild fluctuations of nearly $150 a barrel for crude oil to recent $45, it’s hard to keep the momentum going.  Knowing that $40 is the bottom line for drilling feasibility, OPEC’s news of lowering production of crude oil to raise price, is of no surprise.  Yes, it will go up again, as it did same time last year.  However, as we look at the car industry news, the amount of time, energy and money spent on alternative energy source development for cars indicates that the momentum is still rolling forward.  At least now, they all have been talking about it.  It would negative publicity to go back unadulterated gas guzzlers.  It’s a different world then it was back in the 80s.  We have a far more efficient and faster way to spread news with the Internet.

So what does “going green” mean to companies?  At this stage of the game, it’s mostly using what you have to survive while transitioning into alternative energy cars.  The trend is going to smaller, but more powerful traditional engines with turbos, to HEV, and the soon to be released plug-in hybrids, PHEV upgrades.  Eventually, cars will be mostly 100% electric.  Judging by the juggernaut pace of battery evolution, the future looks like it is pointing to a hybrid battery system of high density energy traditional batteries (most likely a tpe of lithium, unless something better is found) and ultracapacitators.  In the meantime, it will take some time and expenses to adopt the early technology but the environment and geo-political scene will be much healthier.  After all, we all lose when we buy gas that sustains a very unhealthy circle of violence and bleak environment consequences.

Source: Boston.