Electric vehicles are a hot topic and not just in boardrooms and engineering conferences.
Newer prototypes, such as the Mercedes-Benz A93 Vision in Europe, the Mitsubishi ESR in Japan and the General Motors Impact 3 in the U.S., have drawn extensive press coverage, and consumers are beginning to ask pointed questions about the range, performance and price of electrics.
Except for a brief spurt of activity in the mid-1970s spurred by the OPEC oil embargo, electric-vehicle development had languished since early in the 20th Century. Even in electric-vehicle friendly countries such as Britain, where there are an estimated 40,000 battery-powered vehicles on the road, technology, in terms of vehicle range, speed and recharging time, hasn’t advanced significantly in 75 years.
In recent years, however, the global environmental movement has picked up steam and has fueled a growing concern by local and federal governments. The net impact has been to jolt automakers around the world into action.
Observes Honda President Nobuhiko Kawamoto: “A car company has the responsibility to show people the future and raise their understanding of what is the next direction. . . . As far as environmental concerns, it is not only regulations (driving electrical-vehicle development), but really the crucial issue of whether humans can survive or not. So we are seriously studying EVs, regardless of the law, and we are concentrating on making the electric vehicle a usable car.”
Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry has set a goal for that nation’s automakers of building 200,000 electrics a year by 2000. Under the ministry’s 1991 “Electric Vehicle Popularization Plan,” some 2,000 petrol stations will be converted to alternative-fuel “Eco Stations” by the turn of the century.
In the U.S., California has adopted stringent pollution-control standards that require 2 percent of new vehicles sold there in 1998 (growing to 10 percent by 2003) to be zero-emission vehicles-in effect, electrics. Several Northeastern states, including New York and New Jersey, are considering similar legislation.
In Europe, a growing number of cities such as Zermatt and Basel in Switzerland are restricting entry to emission-free vehicles such as electrics.
Despite the intense global activity in electrics in the last three years, the bugaboos remain the same: Performance and cost.
“The battery is still the limiting factor, the Achilles heel to a pure electric,” says Gary Dickinson, president of GM’s Delco Electronics Corp.
Adds Chrysler President Robert Lutz: “We all know how to build the Energizer Bunny. The problem is what do you put inside to make it keep going and going and going.”
United States
Electric-vehicle developments are taking place on two fronts-individual projects such as GM’s Impact and Ford’s Ecostar and a $250 million cooperative research effort called the United States Advanced Battery Consortium that links the Big Three with key U.S. suppliers.
“(The consortium) is our best hope,” says John McTague, Ford’s vice president of technical affairs. “We simply have to figure out how to make it (the electric) more affordable.”
As its name implies, the Advanced Battery Consortium is focusing on battery research. “The battery still doesn’t hold enough energy. A thousand-pound battery pack equals about a gallon and a half of gasoline,” McTague says.
An associate, Roberta Nichols, adds: “We’re also facing another issue, and that is that so much of the technology is new. . . . Many of the advanced batteries are still way too expensive to put in an affordable production vehicle. But if you try to build a vehicle with what is mature technology and affordable, like lead-acid batteries, you’re limited in scope to a vehicle that will satisfy only a small sector of the market.”
Ford has shifted to sodium-sulfur batteries, which it says have up to four times the energy-storage capacity of lead-acid batteries, in its Escort-based Ecostar van. In late November, the automaker began delivering the first of a test fleet of 105 Ecostars, primarily to commercial and fleet users in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe.
Based on the European Escort delivery van and assembled in Dearborn, Mich., (bodies are shipped from England), the two-passenger Ecostar has a 50-kilowatt motor with a range of 100 miles in urban driving and a top speed of 70 miles per hour. Recharging takes six to seven hours at 220 volts.
According to McTague, the sodium-sulfur battery pack alone costs $46,000 and lasts two to three years. Replacement, even if the batteries were in mass production, would cost at least $15,000, the price of a conventional Escort. McTague estimates the total cost of building an Ecostar at $250,000. U.S. fleet customers are paying $100,000 for a 30-month lease on each of the test vehicles.
GM’s latest version of the electric it unveiled in 1990 is called Impact III. The automaker is building 50 vehicles for a two-year field test in which it hopes to attract up to 1,000 drivers in 12 U.S. cities.
“The market is very uncertain,” notes Kenneth Baker, vice president in charge of GM’s Research and Development Center. “We want to find out what motorists are looking for. The success of (electrics) boils down to acceptance by consumers. Real-life driving experience by potential customers also will help us define the infrastructure and incentives that will be necessary to make the (electric) a viable commercial effort.”
GM’s sporty two-seater offers a lightweight aluminum structure and an ultralow drag coefficient (0.19; most product cars today are rated at 0.30 or higher. Drag coefficient is the measurement of a car’s wind resistance. The lower the number, the more aerodynamic the car.). Impact also has a full complement of features found in many production cars: Air conditioning, dual air bags, heated windscreen, traction control, anti-lock brakes, cruise control, power windows and door locks and a premium stereo system with CD player.
Powered by a 102-kilowatt motor, the Impact III has a governed top speed of 80 m.p.h., with a range of up to 90 miles. Charging takes two to three hours at 110 volts. The lead-acid batteries have an estimated life of 20,000 to 30,000 miles and a potential replacement cost of $1,500.
While the 50-vehicle test fleet is being largely hand-built at GM’s Technical Center in Warren, Mich., Baker says GM hopes to keep the price of the production version at less than $25,000.
Chrysler’s approach to electric-vehicle development and testing has taken a more conservative approach. The automaker converted its front-wheel-drive Caravan to electric power, with a 48-kilowatt motor and an array of nickel-iron batteries that weigh 1,800 pounds and cost an estimated $6,000 to replace every two years. The so-called TEVan has a range of around 90 miles, accelerates from zero to 60 m.p.h. in 25 seconds and is being sold to fleet users for $100,000 each.
Says Chrysler’s Lutz: “Within the limits of today’s battery technology, we think we’ve done an excellent EV. It’s reliable, it’s got decent acceleration and adequate top speed, it meets all (safety) requirements (mini-vans don’t have to meet the side-impact protection and passive-restraint requirements of autos). . . . While none of us is enthusiastic about EVs, I have to say the electric mini-van is a good execution, and I think it’s the right way to go.” It makes sense for fleets, such as utilities, where the vehicles are fueled in a central location,” Lutz added.
Japan
Japanese automakers have been reticent in revealing electric vehicle developments in that country, but the veil is coming off.
At the Tokyo Motor Show in late October, more than 15 electric vehicle prototypes were displayed by vehicle manufacturers and local power companies conducting joint research and testing of battery packs, propulsion systems, recharging stations and other unique elements required to make EVs a reality for public consumption.
It appears the same stumbling blocks-notably vehicle range and cost-are nagging the Japanese industry.
“The two things are the mileage-by one charge right now (the range), it’s too short-and it’s very, very expensive,” says Honda’s Kawamoto.
Honda has been testing battery-powered Civic wagons and at the Tokyo show displayed a prototype called EVX, which will be exhibited at the Chicago Auto Show. The latter model is a tiny four-passenger hatchback that runs on conventional lead-acid batteries, with a range of up to 95 miles on one charge and a top speed of 80 m.p.h. Operating an electice vehilce at top speed, however, can cut its range as much as 50 percent. A solar battery panel on the roof stores energy to power the vehicle’s headlights and audio system.
Like most of the EV prototypes shown in Tokyo, the EVX doesn’t seem to stretch the technical envelope. Kawamoto acknowledges that “nothing with electric vehicles is within our experience. This is the greatest problem.”
Another Toyota debutante was the Toyota EV-50, a small four-seater with a sealed lead-acid battery pack that can be recharged on household current. Its range varies from 70 to 155 miles, with a top speed of 70 m.p.h. Like the Honda, Toyota’s EV-50 has a roof-mounted solar cell that activates a fan to cool the passenger compartment on hot, sunny days.
Similar in size and shape is Suzuki’s EE-10, which uses the same long-life sodium-sulfur batteries as Ford’s Ecostar. Suzuki declined to divulge performance data for its prototype but noted that the electric motor is supplemented by a front-mounted 660-cc methanol engine that can be used for emergency power, and for long-range or high-speed driving.
Displayed in Tokyo, Frankfurt and Chicago, the Mitsubishi ESR is another hybrid, a four-seater that combines a 70-kilowatt motor and a 20-kilowatt, 1500-cc 4-cylinder engine to give it a top speed of 120 m.p.h. Like Suzuki, Mitsubishi declined to reveal much else about the ESR.
While the experimental models were conceived as low-polluting, lightweight urban commuters, they were joined at the Tokyo show by more than a dozen battery-powered conversions of production cars. On display were electric variants of the Mitsubishi Libero wagon, Nissan Avenir, Subaru Vivio, Suzuki Alto, Toyota Crown Majesta, Nissan President, Daihatsu Hijet, Honda Civic and Mazda Miata.
Among the more notable prototype designs were the Wave, a gas/electric hybrid developed by the Tohoku Electric Power Co.; the Pivot, a car that can rotate and run sideways, from the Shikoku Electric Power Co.; the Dream Mini, a NiCad-powered two-seater from the Chubu Electric Power Co., and the Micro, a tiny one-passenger microcompact from the Kansai Electric Power Co.
Judging from the applications in production models and concept vehicles displayed in Tokyo, lead-acid still is the battery of choice among Japanese manufacturers, just as it is in the U.S., for the same reasons: The technology is known and available, and the cost is not prohibitive. But the same drawbacks remain, notably limited range and durability.
Europe
Consumers in England and across the Continent have been buying and operating a variety of battery-powered vehicles for decades, amassing millions of real-world miles. But only recently have the major manufacturers begun advancing the state of the art. The focus in the last year has been on vehicles with hybrid or interchangeable propulsion systems.
One of the more futuristic designs, which can accept an internal-combustion engine or electric motor, is the Mercedes-Benz A93 Vision, a visitor to the Chicago show. The company’s first choice of power is a small gasoline or diesel engine, but the A93 also has been designed to accommodate a 40-kilowatt motor and an AEG “Zebra” sodium-nickel chloride battery pack, giving it a top speed of 75 m.p.h. and a potential range of up to 95 miles in urban driving. The high-energy, maintenance-free battery has four times the capacity of lead-acid batteries and a projected life span of more than 60,000 miles.
In Frankfurt, Ford showed a hybrid version of its Ecostar, called EHV, powered by a 60-kilowatt, 1200-cc, two-stroke, 3-cylinder engine and a 40-kilowatt Siemens asynchronous electric motor. The Hoppecke/DUAG nickel-cadmium battery pack can be recharged in four hours or quick-charged in 30-60 minutes. Top speed is 62 m.p.h. (100 m.p.h. in dual mode), with a modest range on battery power alone of only 30 miles.
