Here’s a press release (dressed as a news article) from Aerovironment, a company with a division that makes electric vehicle chargers. And here’s a line from it that reminds me of the adage: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”:

The consumer is just looking for something that works and allows them to charge fast.

Wrong.

The consumer is looking for a reasonable business proposition in terms of price and range. He won’t pay twice as much for a car, only to be limited, inconvenienced, and fearful that he’s investing in a dead-end technology.

Cameron Atwood writes:

I recall seeing figures indicating the $45k Volt pays off the difference in savings on gas over electric cost over its ICE (internal combustion engine) brethren in six years. That’s not especially dismal.

It depends on how far you drive, and, in the case of a plug-in hybrid like the Volt, how you drive, i.e., how seldom you exceed the battery-only range (about 35 miles) and start to use gasoline. The analysis is easier with a battery electric like the LEAF. Let’s say:

• You pay $30K for the LEAF after rebates
• This is $10K more than you would have paid for an equivalent ICE car
• The ICE car would have gotten 30 MPG
• Gas is $4 per gallon
• Electricity is the equivalent of $0.60

You’d break even at 85,000 miles. So you’re right, it’s not too dismal.

And I love the dialog my friend Paul Scott, who put his EV consulting career on hold to go sell the LEAF at Nissan’s downtown Los Angeles showroom, has with his prospects who are sitting on the fence on this issue. It begins with Paul’s asking, “Now, let’s put an extra price on gasoline. In addition to the $4 you’re paying at the pump, how much extra would you be willing to pay for fuel, which, when taken from renewable sources, doesn’t cause lung disease, global climate change, and dead soldiers?

This, of course, can go one of two ways. Fortunately, most prospects come up with a realistic figure, making the case for the LEAF very attractive. But occasionally a prospect says “zero.” Here’s where it gets ugly. Paul says, “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. You’re not a very good person, are you?”

As I told Paul when I heard this, “Ouch! I’m glad I’m not in the room when this happens.”

A quick note from the electric vehicle show in Los Angeles this week:

It’s true that most of the credible car-makers have EV products scheduled for delivery in the not-too-distant future.  But they’re obviously hedging their bets, delaying their market entrance as long as possible, so as to maximize the penetration of their pipeline of gasoline powered vehicles.

It’s pretty clear that their hearts are not in this.  And why should this be otherwise?  If you’re an auto OEM, you see nothing but an ocean of downside: billions of dollars of R&D, tons of a dozen different kinds of risk including exposure to tort attorneys from hell, diminution of sales revenues, huge costs of customer support and education (that will STILL wind them up with upset customers), the expense of supporting multiple platforms, shotgun weddings with charger suppliers and standards, etc.  No profitable industry really embraces change, regardless of its rhetoric — and that’s true in spades here.    

At conferences like these, I’m always amused by the hoopla that surrounds what is actually the routine, the clearest possible cases of business-as-usual.  The car companies tout their new vehicles as game-changers, yet anyone can see that they’re anything but.  Yesterday’s antics happened to feature the unveiling of the Toyota RAV-4 Electric SUV, with all the loud music, pretty girls, and bright flashing lights with which every new car or truck announced at an auto  show has been introduced over the past half century or so.  

But its MSRP is just a hair under $50K, almost exactly twice the sticker price of the gasoline version of the same vehicle.   How exciting is this, really?  The customer gets to pay twice the price for an inconvenient car?  Take a step back and ask yourself: Who really wants it at that rate?  A few wealthy environmentalists?  

So will this pre-ordained market failure bring disappointment or some sort of shock to Toyota?  Not in the least.  They win regardless of the success of the RAV-4 Electric.  With this product launch, Toyota did what it was finally forced to do.   After their unimaginable success in positioning themselves as the first eco-friendly auto company 12 years ago with the Prius, and having milked that cow far longer than anyone could have possibly expected, they’re finally back with a product in this space that they can promote.  Regardless of how dismal the sales figures, they’ll be making a few of these pure battery EVs — while beating the living bejeepers out of the public relations angle to ensure they regain their former stature in the public’s mind as an environmentally conscious company.  

Which they’re clearly not.  With one of the largest and best staffs of automotive engineers, if they had chosen, they could have led the world to green transportation.  Instead, they took more than a decade to introduce a $50,000 car that only a few people will buy.  Their sales revenues in this space will represent a minute fraction of one percent of the gas powered vehicles they’ll be selling around the world for at least a generation to come — at a handsome profit.  

The bigger picture: it looks like Big Oil and Big Auto will remain blood brothers for a long time to come.  God’s in his heaven/All’s right with the world.  – Robert Browning

Btw, that statement was borne out by what’s on display here at the show.  Lots of new models, improving range, prices high, but, I believe, poised to come down.  Toyota unveiled their RAV4 Electric.  Nice looking  SUV, but it’s bigger than I need, 100 mile range, and MSRP just under $50,000.  This stuff needs to be less expensive, and I believe will be one day soon.

I tend to make up my mind about travel at the last minute, leaving all options open until the very end. For example, the Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS-26) happens to be in Los Angeles this year, and runs from Sunday to Wednesday. I want to attend precisely one day — but which one? It’s a function of several things:

• When, if at all, do my kids need help with their homework?

• Is there flexibility on the part of other people I want to meet while I’m there, e.g., 2GreenEnergy Associate and transportation visionary Dan Sturges?

• Should I take the train, lowering my eco-footprint and enabling me to work both going and coming?

And here’s a further complication: Are any 2GreenEnergy readers going to be in Los Angeles during that period who might be interested in a chat and a cup of coffee? Please let me know, and eventually, I’ll make up my mind.

Here’s a “clean car calculator” in which users can plug in certain values and receive an instant assessment of the eco-impact of their vehicle. I’ll point out (before skeptics like reader Glenn Doty have the chance) that the methodology is subject to question; it uses the average cleanliness of the electric power in the user’s state, which differs from the overall impact of adding load anywhere on the grid in most of the US.

At yesterday’s Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Conference I had a wonderful conversation with a senior player at Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I began by validating him for coming to a show like this; to me it shows, at a minimum, a kind of progressive, forward-thinking approach to the business.

When I asked him about the pros and cons of adding electric vehicles to the line-up, I got some very interesting and thought-provoking answers that I thought I’d share:

Pros:

 • They have 1.2 million cars, and they feel that adding a few thousand electrics is really the least they can do.

 • Offering customers an EV experience will drive the EV adoption curve, as car rental is the way many customers are first exposed to a new car.

 • Enterprise does everything in its power to ensure that every customer experience is a positive one, and they feel that, with proper dialog in the sales process (“Where will you be taking this?” and, if necessary, “Where can you charge?”), the experience will be almost uniformly good.

Cons:

The business model for rental car companies is: a) You buy the car at a considerable discount, since you buy thousands at a time, and you’ll take the hot pink or mustard yellow ones that no one wants, b) You rent it for 18 months or so, getting as much for it as you can, and then c) You sell it at a good price. EVs throw a monkey wrench into the works, as no one knows the residual value of the car, and worse, it’s even harder to predict the residual value of the battery. Right now, batteries are half the value of the car. That’s a pretty big item about which to be guessing.

I walked away extremely impressed. This guy’s sharp as a tack, and he’s working for a company that really wants to do the right thing. I sure wish I could say that more often.

I just had a great conversation with Allan Schurr, IBM’s Vice President of Energy and Utilities. I performed quite a few projects for IBM over the 30 years that I functioned as a marketing consultant for the tech sector, and thus they’ll always occupy a warm spot in my heart — even if they did achieve their dominance in the late 20th century with the borderline abusive business tactics for which they were well known at the time.

Nowadays, we have a kinder, gentler — and I would say smarter IBM, a company dedicated to adding true value with its level of innovation, business strategy, and industry expertise. I’m delighted to see that IBM embraces electric transportation, and focuses on integrating its many information-related pieces, e.g., smart-grid. IBM’s done a great deal of work in early-adopter Denmark, where, for instance, an EV comes home at the end of a workday, gets plugged in, and waits patiently for the wind speed to cross a certain threshold, at which its charger switches on, thus minimizing the use of fossil fuels and maximizing the penetration of wind into the Danish grid-mix.

Great stuff, guys. Keep up the good work.

I just had an interesting conversation with the Qualcomm’s Senior Director of marketing, Joe Barrett, who told me about his company’s acquisition of the wireless (inductive) charging technology that they’re taking to market under the name “Halo.” I have to admit, Qualcomm really is in a good position to take this forward, given their size, and their success in establishing standards in a large and (vaguely) related industry: cellular telephony.

This really is a game of standards — a set of agreements that will enable utilities, OEMs, tier-one suppliers, and charger manufacturers to grow up and fit together seamlessly. We think of the EV industry as fairly well developed, with dozens of OEMs all rushing to market with EVs of various shapes, sizes, and price-points, yet there are so many issues that are a million miles from a clear resolution — and charging is one.

Obviously, it would be better for everyone if no one had to physically plug their cars in. And, because of that, I have every confidence that we’ll get to inductive charging eventually, perhaps including charging in the roadway, i.e., power delivered to vehicles in motion.

I hope I’m still on the planet to see it.

A couple of times a year, I order up a free “press pass” and head out to a conference on electric vehicles. Tonight, I’ll be driving south, staying with a friend in Los Angeles, then getting up early and continuing down to San Diego for the first day of the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure USA 2012. 

I don’t think I’ll be the only one asking tough questions of the panelists, insofar as anyone can see that the EV adoption curve isn’t what most people (including me) had predicted a few years ago. What really happening here?

By my wits, it’s summed up in the new Ford Focus Electric ad, featuring photographs of the gasoline-powered car and its new battery-powered brother side by side. They look identical, but the electric version is $40,000 — about two-and-a-half times the sticker price of the other ($16,500). So the customer now can have a who-cares car, worry about running out of charge, and pay an extra $23,500 for the privilege.  That’s something to get excited about, isn’t it?

If I were trying to show customers the folly of electric vehicles, and get them to stick with the good ol’ gas-burners for as long as possible, this is exactly the way I’d do it. Sure makes you wonder who composed that ad, and why.

I notice that the head of market strategy at Coda has been asked to make a presentation.  Seriously?  Isn’t this like learning about sobriety from Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan?  And in the case of Coda, the consumer value proposition contains all the nonsensical elements of the Ford Focus Electric — but wait, there’s more!  Not only is the car even far less attractive than the Ford, but the customer is expected to buy the car (and its warranty) from a company whose continued existence is incredibly unlikely.   Sounds like the deal of the century.  

Sorry for the sarcasm; regular readers will recognize that I actually support electric transportation.  But I’m also a big fan of sanity and reason, ingredients that, for some reason, are distinctly lacking here.