business of making superefficient cars, The

In Business, Summer 2001 by Chevalier, Remy

In the search for super energy-efficient vehicles, what will it take to push all-electric to the top of the model line?

HERE's what the Toyota Man said to the Exxon Man at a hybrid conference three years ago: "I hope with the Prius we're meeting you half way." The Prius is a half electric car - with a half gasoline engine. Toyota sold 100,000 of these hybrids in Japan. It arrived on U.S. shores last summer. Honda, who wanted to beat Toyota to the punch in America, started selling their hybrid called the Insight a few months prior. The scheduled 5,000production run was virtually presold, so the car never sat in dealerships long enough for future customers to test drive them.

The line was drawn in the sand back in 1984 when Honda tried to introduce its 68 mpg 1.3 CRX. The Big Three and the 7 Sisters sent Honda packing, and it was the beginning of a wonderful new friendship. The Japanese understood fuel efficiency could not take precedence over gasoline sales if they were going to conquer the U.S. car market. The new Prius barely gets much more than what the 1984 CRX did - 70 mpg. In 1999, pure electric vehicles were cast aside in favor of these hybrid vehicles that still need their fix of black gold.

Why the fascination for a type of car that doesn't go as fast as plain old gasoline alone? Well for one thing, once you've driven one you know why. They are even easier and smoother to drive than an automatic transmission. When you are at full stop, there is no idle. The car just stops dead. Not only do you feel good about not spewing dirty exhaust into the air, there is no vibration, just silence. Since most white-collar workers use his or her car to commute, spending around two hours a day in bumper-to-bumper traffic talking on their cell phones, hybrids are a godsend for the 21st century lifestyle.

POPULARITY OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES

What makes electric vehicles (EVs) so attractive, even if their range is limited to just 50 miles, more or less, on a single charge? The Innovator's Dilemma, a Harvard Business book reviewed by Infinite Energy magazine last year, dedicates a whole chapter on marketing strategies for EVs. A great selling point is in fact its limited range, because it would prevent teenagers from straying too far away from home! Few employees would go off and use company pickups for family outings on the weekends. To the utilities, the fuel is free, and maintenance on batteries and electric motors is virtually nonexistent. So it's a win-win proposition.

Turns out this type of thinking out of the gasoline box is also a big selling point for other people, people who like to play golf all day and live just a few blocks from the club green behind gated communities. Bombardier, the Canadian defense contractor who otherwise builds bullet trains, markets what are called neighborhood electric vehicles, or NEVs for short. They are not alone. Dozens of other companies, including Ford's new Th!nk division now also make them. Nissan is planning to market one called the Hypermini complete with its own garage solar rooftop electrical charging system.

Don't let anyone tell you it takes all day to charge an electric car anymore. This hasn't been true for years. It was discovered awhile back that if you used a computer to vary the rate of charge from slow to progressively fast to slow again, you could charge cars in about ten minutes, without straining the battery. Plans are in the works to line Route 66 with EV charging stations so tourists can rent an EV in Los Angeles and cruise the famous vistaladen scenic highway all the way to Chicago and back.

BATTERY TECHNOLOGY

What made a major difference a few years ago for EVs was that Japanese companies got hold of what is called Nickel Metal Hydride batteries from maverick solar inventor Stanford Ovshinsky and even though Varta, the German battery company, a favorite of photographers, had contracted to develop the technology commercially, Panasonic went ahead and mass produced them. Ovonics, Ovshinsky's company in partnership with General Motors, spent five years dragging Panasonic through the courts instead of developing its own better mousetrap. By then it was too late. Both Toyota and Honda had introduced Nickel Metal Hydride power packs in all its electric cars, doubling their range, while GM's EV1 was still struggling to get 50 miles on one lead-acid charge.

While Detroit keeps having a love affair with committee cars that never make it past the concept stage under the bright lights of auto shows, the Japanese have pushed ahead and delivered commercially available models that have captured the imagination of a whole new segment of the population, coined Generation Y, who just sees the automobile as a functional tool, a must-have of daily life.

INDEPENDENT COMPANIES

There are dozens of independent car companies trying to launch their own electric or hybrid models, like Solectria in New England or Amory Lovins with Hypercar. But, the lessons learned from Tucker and DeLorian have demonstrated chances of an independent automaker bringing its own vehicle to market in substantial numbers is a pipe dream. The automobile business is a closed game. New players are not being invited to the poker table. What we are seeing is an ever pressing need for established automobile companies to meet the needs of their customers, and those needs now are expressed by a strong environmental consciousness which is demanding not so much better mileage, but less emissions. Transition away from oil as a fuel is not yet an option.