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NY Times reports that the US Department of Energy has released the first third of an estimated $25 billion in low interest “green-tech” loans to automakers. The big winners are Ford Motors which received $5.9 billion, Nissan at $1.6 billion and Tesla Motors at $465 million. The uses vary:

Ms. Cischke [environmental vice president at Ford] said the financing would be applied to improving the fuel efficiency of more than a dozen Ford cars and trucks, including the Focus, Escape, Mustang, Taurus and F-150 pickup. Nissan’s $1.6 billion will be applied to retrofitting its Smyrna, Tenn., plant to build the company’s forthcoming (and as yet unnamed) electric sedan. Construction is expected to start in late 2012. Tesla was perhaps the wild card in the funding equation because it is a small start-up. The company has delivered slightly more than 500 Roadsters to customers, and the government loan will help pay for a Southern California manufacturing plant for the Model S sedan, due in 2011. A second plant in the Bay Area will make battery packs and electric drivetrains for the Roadster, the Model S and Daimler’s Smart car.

Following last month’s ill-fated appearances before Congress the Big Three US Auto makers were directed to submit survival plans showing what any bailout money would be used for. Today was both the submission day and the day in which the November sales numbers were announced.

Autoblog has a number of posts following this busy day:

Ford stated it could survive if the recession ended in 2010 with its North American operations being profitable by 2011 and would only need government assistance in the event of a longer recession or the collapse of General Motors or Chrysler impacting its suppliers. To deal with these possible it requested $9 billion in bridge financing. Part of its restructuring plan would be to sale Volvo. It also announced plans for a battery electric vehicle (BEV) in a van-type vehicle for commercial fleet use in 2010 and a BEV sedan in 2011.

Chrysler is in more difficult straits is requesting a $7 billion secured working capital bridge loan by December 31, 2008 as without the loan it expected to run out of working capital in the first quarter of 2009.

As the biggest car manufacturer and with the most brands, General Motors presented a radical plan in its request for $18 billion in loans including $4 billion this month. Autoblog noted that in its plan for profitability General Motors would:

• Focus on "core brands": Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac
• Launch predominately high mileage, energy-efficient cars and crossovers
• Sell Saab, HUMMER
• Sell or kill Saturn
• Reduce Pontiac to a "niche" brand
• Trim dealerships from 6,450 to 4,700
• Reopen talks with UAW to cut manufacturing costs further
• Reduce total workforce from 96,000 to 65-75,000
• Negotiate with lenders, remove $35.6 billion in debt

In addition to the immediate loans or grantees Ford and Chrysler are promoting vehicles that would qualify as "Advanced Technology Vehicles" under the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act’s Section 136 (pdf) which would enable the companies to receive loans aimed at assisting the manufacture of these vehicles.

Ford hopes for $5 billion in direct loans by 2011 and Chrysler $6 billion. General Motor’s plan does not mention Section 136 but no doubt the Chevy Volt and its hybrids would qualify.

Helping their case may have been the terrible November sales numbers that were released today and showed an industry wide plunge in sales that affected both domestics and imports alike. General Motors sales fell 41.3%, Ford 30.6%, Chrysler 47% while Toyota was down 33.9%, Honda 41.6% and Nissan fell 42.2%.

In a surprising move Chrysler has unveiled a line-up of three electric vehicles, one for each of its brands with the target of one being produced in 2010. Announced were the all-electric Dodge EV sports car, the Jeep EV range-extended electric vehicle, and the Chrysler EV range-extended minivan.

Like the Tesla Roadster, the Dodge EV is an all electric design and some believe that it too is based on a Lotus sports car, in this case the Europa. Chrysler has not announced what company would produce the batteries but A123 Systems has been mentioned.
Unlike General Motors which introduced the Chevy Volt concept car with a unique design and then designed a new aerodynamic body for it, Chrysler used existing bodies for the Jeep EV and Chrysler EV range-extended minivan. The Jeep EV is based on the Jeep Wrangler and the Chrysler EV minivan on the Chrysler Town & Country minivan. Since they are claiming the same 40 mile electric powered range as the Chevy Volt but with heavier, less aerodynamic bodies, the Chrysler vehicles require larger batteries (via AutoBlog).

• Chevy Volt – 16KWh battery, 40 mile electric range
• Dodge EV - 26 kWh battery, 150-200 mile electric range
• Jeep EV – 27KWh battery, 40 mile electric range
• Chrysler EV – 22KWh battery, 40 mile electric range

While larger batteries mean more expense, Chrysler is actually aiming at a higher priced segment than the Chevy Volt. The more expensive Jeep Wrangler trim levels cost over $25,000 while the Chrysler Town & Country starts at $30,000. The GM Volt by comparison is basically an alternative to the upcoming Chevy Cruze which starts in the high teens. If Chrysler can show people that you can drive a large vehicle with much less worry about gas prices it may have a winner.

The US Congress is also helping; it just passed a bill offering up to $7,500 in tax credits for the first 250,000 plug-in hybrids.

A Cincinnati, Ohio company - AMP Motorworks is offering to convert Saturn Sky automobiles to all electric vehicles with 150 mile range for $25,000. The company says it will use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries and expects to start delivery in early 2009 of converted vechicles. It plans an initial run of 300 conversions.

A posting in the Australian Electric Vechicle Associate forum states the first batteries were sent off to AMP Motorworks in April 2008.

If successful, would GM be willing to sell them Saturn Sky bodies without a gas-powered powertrain to simplify the conversion process?

Update: May 25, 2008

AMP has a media page with links to recent radio, television and newspaper reports and interviews.

One of the radio shows is Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW interviewing AMP President John J. Kuntz and Chief Engineer Tim Wieck. The interview and answers to caller questions reveal:

• Custom patent pending engine based on one from a speciality shop that does defence work
• 13000 rpm
• No transmission
• 90 MPH software limited maximium speed
• Uses hundreds of batteries
• Life expectancy is expected life of vehicle – 100,000 miles stated but no guarantee
• Limiting battery charge to portion of maximum capacity to smooth performance
• Plan to sell the removed gasoline motors on eBay
• First prototype estimated to cost $1 million to build

In Feburary, 2008 AutoblogGreen wrote about a company called Spark EV which planed to sell the Zotye, a $20,000, highway speed, electric SUV with 100 mile range. At the time the company’s founder Michael Papp said that the company’s first year goal of selling 250-300 vechiles had been greatly exceeded.

According to Papp, the company sent out 1,000 emails on January 11th, 2008 to everyone on the company's email list telling them the Zotye was available for sale. 10 days later 600 people were asking where to send their money. Some people simply sent the money (which the company returned). Papp said that no new orders are being accepted at the website "to slow this down. No matter how good the car is, how we perform in the beginning will define this company. We will get the first requested cars out, follow up, get feedback, and only then will we take more orders."

At the time there was a lot of debate by readers in the posts comments on whether the company’s claims are creditable. For example meme stated:

Ok, this is getting less and less believable. Let's look at what they're claiming: that they can take a Zotye -- a $15-$17k vehicle:

Then import it to the US as-is, then convert it to an EV with a few tens of kWh of li-poly cells, an electric motor, controller circuitry, and so forth on a $3-$5k budget (plus what little they can get for its non-standard aftermarket parts)? Even at Chinese prices, that's ridiculous, yet they're planning to do this in the US. Then, to top it off, they're claiming that it'll get 3,000+ charge cycles. On li-poly cells? On what planet?

The more I hear about this car and the more I think about their claims, the less I believe them. At first, I was thinking it was just a loss leader. Now I'm leaning toward "scam".

Well meme was right!

AutoblogGreen now reports that Michael Papp has been arrested in New Jersey for failing to provide paid for vehicles. It writes:

According to the Express Times, Papp was arrested Friday after failing to deliver 14 electric vehicles to Electric Cars of Houston (which had ordered 10) and Electric Transportation of Arkansas (four). Papp is charged with bilking them for almost $100,000, according to court records. The EVs were paid for in January and February, and Papp told the payers the vehicles would be delivered March 14. They weren't. After trying to track down what happened, the companies asked for a refund. Papp answered that he was filing for bankruptcy, so no go. Apparently, Papp is in Northampton County Prison and being held on $20,000 bail. We'll have more on this as things move forward, I can guarantee you that.

Hopefully the “600 people” asking where to send their money did not actually send any.

Tesla Motors has announced that it has begun regular production of its electric powered Tesla Roadster with the first one going to co-founder Martin Eberhard. These initial vehicles will use the existing less durable two-speed transmission which is being phased out in favour of a one-speed transmission and enhanced power electronics module design. These initial cars will be retrofitted with the new transmission once it is available.

AutoBlogGreen states that the initial production rate will be one car a week until the new transmission and power module are available and only then will be increased to 15-20 a week.

Toyota Motor Corporation announced Sunday night at the Detroit Auto Show that it would build its first plug-in hybrid by 2010 putting it in competition with General Motors which expects to sell Chevrolet Volt plug-in series hybrid also in 2010.

Unlike its existing Prius hybrid’s the new vehicle would be powered by lithium-ion batteries, instead of less powerful nickel-metal hydride batteries.

Both the decision of develop a plug-in hybrid and use lithium-ion batteries are turnarounds from Toyota’s previous statements dismissing plug-ins and stating opposition to lithium-ion batteries.
As a result of this initial opposition the Toyota plug-in maybe less developed than the specifications of the Chevrolet Volt. The New York Times describes differences between the two vehicles:

Each charge, which takes about four hours, uses the equivalent of 2.7 kilowatt hours of electricity, said Jaycie Chitwood, a senior strategic planner in Toyota’s advanced technologies group. But it cannot go very far: the plug-in hybrid’s two batteries hold enough power for only seven miles, said Saúl Ibarra, a product specialist with Toyota who worked on developing the Prius. By contrast, G.M. claims that the Volt will be able to hold a charge equal to 40 miles, after a six-hour charge. Still, the electric mode of the Toyota plug-in is enough to start the car and run it until the engine reaches the point where it needs to tap the gasoline engine. The plug-in Prius can stay in electric mode until 62 miles per hour, versus around 30 miles per hour for the conventional Prius, Mr. Iba- rra said.

All existing Prius hybrids in Japan and Europe have the ability to travel for about one mile on electricity from their batteries. This new model is a logical enhancement of that ability.

DARPA director Tony Tether has announced the winners of the DARPA Urban Challenge robot car race:

• Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Racing Team won the first place prize of $2 million.


• Stanford University's Stanford Racing team won the second place prize of $1 million.


• Virginia Tech's Victor Tango team won the third place prize of $500,000.

When will GM offer auto drive as an option on its Chevy Tahoe models?

Six teams finished the DARPA Urban Challenge in the required time period. The first three were:

• Stanford University's VW Passat, Junior.
• Carnegie Mellon's Chevy Tahoe, Boss,
• Virginia Tech's Ford Escape hybrid, Odin.

Based on elapsed time and its lack of noticeable errors, a post on Wired’s Danger Room blog states that Carnegie Mellon looks like a good candidate for first-place. Both Stanford’s and Virginia Tech's vehicles made driving errors.

Also finishing were:

• Ben Franklin Racing Team’s Toyota Prius Little Ben
• MIT’s Land Rover
• Cornell’s Chevy Tahoe

Of these time Ben Franklin Racing Team finish first and could be in the running for a top three finish. It’s unlikely the other two teams could win. Winners will be announced tomorrow with prizes of $2 million, $1 million and $500,000 for the top 3 finishers.

DARPA's Urban Challenge race starts this morning at the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, California. The race is described as:

The teams will attempt to complete a complex 60-mile urban course with live traffic in less than six hours. The finalists will operate on the course roads with approximately 50 human-driven traffic vehicles. Speed is not the only factor in determining the winners, as vehicles must also meet the same standards required to pass the California DMV road test.

The race's web site is very slow but updates should be available on other sites such as Wired or TG Daily.

Wired's Dangar Room blog and TG Daily report that DARPA officials are only allowing 11 teams into this Saturday’s Urban Challenge race down from the expected 20 qualifying teams. It states that Dr. Tony Tether, the head of DARPA, said the decision was based mainly on safety and whether the robots would impede other vehicles from reaching their destination.

Wikipedia has more details of the race and selection process and Wired's Dangar Room Blog has a large amount of coverage.

TG Daily has coverage of the qualification trials US DARPA Urban Challenge in which robotic vehicles drive through a simulated city environment. Highlights include a video of possibly the first time a robotic car has hit a car driven by a human.

In a posting yesterday I noted that it was unfortunate that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is preventing foreign teams from competing in its Grand Challenges involving robotic vehicles. Today the Globe and Mail has an article noting that no less than 10 of the teams in next month urban driving challenge will be using navigational technology from Canadian company Applanix Corp. of Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Applanix technology uses GPS in conjunction with inertial systems such as gyroscopes to determine the vehicle’s position. Additional systems from other companies such as laser range finders are used to identify obstacles. The vehicle’s current position plus details of its surroundings are then analyzed in software to determine its movements, all done while the vehicle is moving at high speeds.

The Canadian government should sponsor a competition for Canadian teams – maybe seeing which university can build a car that can navigate the 401 during rush hour.

General Motors may have some competition to the Chevrolet Volt from Volvo. AutoblogGreen has details of a press release from Volvo announcing the upcoming unveiling of their Recharge Concept car based on their C30 model (Flash site) at next week’s Frankfurt Motor Show. From the press release:

The ReCharge Concept is a specially designed Volvo C30 with individual electric wheel motors and batteries that can be charged via a regular electrical outlet. When fully charged the Volvo ReCharge Concept can be driven approximately 62 miles on battery power alone before the car's four-cylinder 1.6 Flexifuel engine1 is needed to power the car and recharge the battery. The concept car also retains the Volvo C30's lively and sporty drive thanks to an acceleration figure of 0-62mph in 9 seconds and a top speed of 100mph. The only extra cost will be the electricity used during charging. The Volvo ReCharge Concept can be charged at any regular electric plug socket at convenient locations such as at home or work and a full recharge will take three hours. However, even a quick one hour charge provides enough power to cover just over 30 miles.

Note that the charging times are with European 220 volt outlets, so double the times for Canada and the US. Introduced in 2006, the C30 is a 3-door hatchback currently available in Europe with a 2008 model year car being introduced to the US later this year.

The Toronto Star has a pair of business articles on businesses that aim to make money through environment technologies. Energy Reporter Tyler Hamilton looks at Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner who has a number of thoughts on what ideas are useful and which are toys. The article states:

He calls conservation a "nice habit." He refers to hybrid cars as "great" but incremental. Biodiesel he considers "completely irrelevant." Solar PV is "sexy" but immaterial, partly because it's an intermittent source of energy, similar to wind. And while he sees an important role for new battery technologies, "to call that a climate change solution is an environmental hallucination. "I think we should stop playing with toys," says the self-described pragmatist, who never hesitates to engage in online debates with environmentalists and idealists who believe solar rooftops and wind power can wean us off coal. "If you're not solving 50 per cent of the problem it's not material."

His solutions including solar thermal plants that concentrate heat from the sun with mirrors enhanced geothermal power, tidal power and next-generation, ultra-high-voltage DC transmission technologies and infrastructure to bring this power to distance cities that need it.

While Khosla is quoted as dismissing biodiesel, he is not against all biofuels. He has an article in the October 2006 Wired Magazine discussing his biofuels investments.

A second article by Tyler looks at the growth of Concord, Ontario -based Hymotion Inc. which produced third-party battery packs to turn hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius into plug-in hybrids that can travel for short to medium distances on battery power alone.
Hymotion was purchased in May by MIT spinoff A123Systems Inc. which develops high-power lithium ion batteries and is currently one of the battery companies vying to supply battery packs for GM’s Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid. The article does not state if Hymotion is currently using A123Systems batteries in its products.

RedHerring.com examines the announcement by Elon Musk, Chairman of Tesla Motors, Inc. that Michael Marks, former CEO of Flextronics and an early investor in Tesla Motors will take over as interim CEO of Tesla Motors replacing Martin Eberhard. Eberhard will remain as with the company as President of Technology and is tasked with developing the company’s core technology. The author, Andrea Quong does not think this shuffle lends validity to the immediate rumours of a production delay of the Tesla Roadster which expected to start production by the end of September.

Analysts and bloggers note that the skills needed to start a high-tech company are not the same as those needed to grow it to a billion-dollar firm and so executive shake-ups often happen in such companies. The best recent example is Google co-founders Larry Page giving up the CEO position in favour of ex-Novell CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt.

On Thursday, General Motors announced that in addition to previously Compact Power Inc., and Continental Automotive Systems it will work with A123Systems Inc. to develop lithium-ion battery packs for its plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt. The Volt is design to be able to run for 40 miles on electric power alone before using a smaller internal combustion engine to recharge the car’s batteries while still in motion.

A123Systems Inc. is best known for creating the batteries that power lithium-ion rechargeable Black and Decker and DeWalt cordless power tools. The Detroit Free Press states that GM expects good progress with A123Systems:

Lutz said GM and A123 hope to have the first full lithium-ion battery pack ready for testing in the Volt by mid-October and a battery ready for use in test vehicles -- called mules -- by the end of the year. GM plans to have batteries ready for road testing by next spring.

Continental Automotive Systems actually packages A123 cells into battery packs, together they will be competing against Compact Power Inc. which uses a different cell technology. From the Free Press report:

GM already has contracts with Michigan-based Compact Power Inc., a subsidiary of South Korean battery manufacturer LG Chem, and with Continental Automotive Systems. Continental will bundle and package A123Systems' cells into battery packs. The key difference between the batteries being developed for GM and those in electronic devices, such as phones and computers, is the chemistry involved. Most lithium-ion batteries have a core of cobalt oxide. The Compact Power battery uses a manganese-based core; the A123Systems-Continental battery uses a patented doped nanophosphate technology.With the contracts, GM basically is betting that one of two types of lithium-ion batteries will contain the proper chemistry for powering its electrically driven Volt.

The Toronto Star reports that Honda will teak the Civic and Fit for the 2008 model year to reduce their fuel consumption enough to qualify for a $1,000 rebate under the federal government’s ecoAuto rebate program. Both cars missed the 6.5 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres mark by a small amount. The Fit uses 6.6 litres per 100 km while the Civic uses up to 7.0 litres. In contrast the Toyota Yaris uses 6.37 litres per 100 kilometres and therefore qualifies. For now Honda is giving consumers a $1,000 corporate rebate to match the Yaris’ advantage.

The City of Toronto announced earlier this week a new project, the Toronto Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle Pilot Project that aims to test whether plug-in hybrids which can operate entirely on battery power for distances of up to 50 kilometres would be effective in an in an urban setting. Initially ten vehicles would be modified, eight Toyota Priuses, one Honda Civic Hybrid, and one Ford Escape Hybrid – will be converted and driven for a year under urban driving conditions. A larger test of 200 vehicles is contingent on funding.

Japanese market and modified North American Toyota Priuses and 2006 Civic Hybrids can travel on battery power alone for short distances at low speeds, while the Escape has a greater range. To extend the range of all three models, Concord, Ont.-based Hymotion will install advanced lithium-ion batteries and update their software.

Hymotion was recently acquired by A123 Systems Inc. which is one of the two companies developing battery packs for General Motors’s plug-in hybrids such as the Saturn Vue Green Line plug-in hybrid SUV and the Chevy Volt. The latter is a plug-in electric car with an internal combustion engine used to recharge the car’s batteries if they are exhausted before the car can be plugged in again.

Electric sports car maker Telsa Motor has announced that it will start selling its Energy Storage Systems (ESSes) lithium ion battery packs made from small, commodity cells to other companies. Sales will be through the newly formed Tesla Energy Group with the first customer TH!NK in Norway which is producing plastic electric vehicles based on a designed developed when it was owned by Ford. Like GM giving up on the EV1, Ford gave up on the TH!NK design when California’s Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate was scrapped in 2003.

Jostein, a Norwegian reader of Eberhard’s blog has posted a comment stating that this story on a Norwegian language site indicates that the TH!NK cars will use 3000 cells instead of the approximately 7000 that the Telsa Roadster will use.

An article in the Globe and Mail notes that Toyota is the big winner in this week’s federal budget as buyers of its segment sells leading Yaris subcompact would receive a $1,000 rebate while cars from competitors in the budget subcompact field will not. The margin of “victory” is quite small. From the article:

The Yaris costs $14,605 while the Fit costs $14,980 so a $1,000 rebate is very significant and will not doubt improve the Yaris’ one number sales position. Honda’s engineers will be certainly looking for ways to shave the needed 0.1 litres per 100 KM. In the meantime maybe Honda should offer to plant a few trees with every Honda Fit sold if the rebate gets applied to it also.

Another article looks at the negative impact of the gas-guzzler levy on North American auto manufacturers and their Canadian operations. One analyst notes that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are all facing challenges to their survival, “They send a bomb — a missile — into these boardrooms saying we're going to put a $4,000 tax on your most profitable vehicles"”

The New York Times and the UK’s Times has articles on the Chevrolet Volt concept car introduced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. This concept car is a prototype for GM’s E-Flex hybrid design in which all of the car’s motion is from an electric motor. While it has a gasoline engine, this engine does not power the car rather it recharges the car’s batteries, which can also be recharged from the electric grid. The Times describes the car usage:

The Volt, which has a top speed of 120mph and accelerates from 0-60mph in 8.5 seconds, can run for 40 miles on electric power. Thereafter the petrol engine is started automatically and runs at a constant speed to recharge the batteries. For a 60-mile trip, fully charged after being plugged in overnight, GM estimates the fuel consumption at 180mpg — although that does not include the cost of the electricity. As most car journeys are short, GM expects “most people will use little or no petrol”.

The NY Times article notes that 78 percent of commuters in the United States have a daily round trip to work of 40 miles or less, which the Volt can do on electric power alone. By creating the required electricity from wind, solar, hydro or nuclear sources, all greenhouse gas emissions would be eliminated.

Update: AutoBlogGreen has much more.

Update: March 30, 2007

On GM’s FastLane Blog, Bob Lutz GM Vice Chairman disputes a Detroit News report that suggests the current lack of batteries to power the Volt means that General Motors is trying to dial back the hype around the Volt. He states that they are “100 percent committed to making this [the Volt] happen” . Previous Beth Lowery, Vice President, GM Environment and Energy noted the challenges in developing the needed lithium ion batteries at a briefing on which the Detroit News reporter based her story.