Month: May 2014

Hydrogen fueling infrastructure sees forward motion

hydrogen stationHydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been the subject of skepticism for years – always waiting to break through but stuck in the planning phase due to excessive production costs for automakers and lack of fueling infrastructure for vehicle owners. In late 2013, automakers (especially Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai) committed to manufacturing and marketing new fuel cell vehicles within the next two years. Now, the fueling infrastructure is getting a boost, and it should benefit from having a prominent automotive executive playing a lead role.

FirstElement Fuel Inc. just won a $27.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission that will bring 19 more hydrogen fueling stations to the state. Joel Ewanick, a former Hyundai and General Motors chief marketing executive, serves as CEO at FirstElement Fuel, and says that once these stations are deployed, fuel cell vehicles will be able to drive anywhere in the state without running out of fuel.

These 19 locations will be assembled at existing filling stations; FirstElement Fuel is ordering the fueling equipment, which will take months to build and install, Ewanick said. They’re expected to be up and running by the fall of 2015 or sooner. The stations will need to have the fuel delivered at first, but can eventually produce hydrogen on site. Having more stations up and running soon will help Hyundai as it launches its 2015 Tucson Fuel Cell this spring; Honda will roll out its new fuel cell car this year and Toyota said it will introduce its fuel cell model in 2015. Toyota has felt strong enough about the fueling infrastructure to provide FirstElement Fuel with an investment of at least $7.2 million.

California announced last week that it is funding $46.6 million in grants for 28 hydrogen stations as part of its commitment to zero emission vehicles. Northeastern states are likely to follow suit with hydrogen fueling, Ewanick said. New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Jersey previously adopted California’s clean air standards.

Ewanick had served as global marketing chief at GM and was ousted in the summer of 2012 for the handling of a controversial sponsorship deal with English soccer club Manchester United. Ewanick played a key role in marketing the Chevrolet Volt (and accepted the Green Car of the Year Award for the Volt at the LA Auto Show in late 2010); he also served as interim chief of global sales and marketing for Fisker Automotive. Ewanick appears to be fascinated with clean, advanced vehicle technologies and their economic opportunities – as are many other people in the automotive and transportation sectors.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has established research and development projects in the past two years with automakers, fuel station providers, and its research centers. Most recently, DOE launched H2FIRST, a collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories and National Renewable Energy Laboratory; the project will focus on accelerating the design and construction of hydrogen fueling stations. Currently, there are only 11 hydrogen stations in the US (10 in California and one in Columbia, SC). Forty seven are actively in development in California, according to the California Fuel Cell Partnership. Several European Union nations are deploying hydrogen stations (with Germany playing the leading role); Japan and South Korea have been committed to the vehicles and fueling stations longer than other nations, and now have several hydrogen fueling stations set up.

The Future of Electric Vehicles – Where is it going?

By Richard Marks

Today’s populations are moving to the cities and urban areas surrounding these cities.  In the US, 75% of the population lives in an urban metropolitan area.  Europe and Asia are slightly lower.

So what are the choices to interested private buyers?  That depends where you live, what you do, where you work, how much you earn and your household needs.

The average price paid for a new car today (March 2014) in US is $32,086. Median income for US is $53,043 (half above – half below; by Sentier Research).  Who can afford a new car?  Really only the wealthy buy new cars (15.6 M new cars/trucks sold 2013) and 40+M used cars.  The “average” person buys a used car.

Experian Automotive reported recently that roughly 21 percent of electric car buyers earned an average household income of at least $175,000 last year, not your typical car buyer.  However, with all the low dollar monthly lease deals on EV’s going on, the industry probably has dropped that.  The other issue is that the $7,500 tax credit on a purchase, only works if you purchase, not lease; and you need a tax liability greater than $7,500 after all of your other deductions.  So what kind of income do you need? The $100,000+ is not a bad place to start.  So EV’s are for the richer and more educated buyers plus our Government gives them a special tax break? Sound fair?

Let’s go back to the 40M used cars/trucks sold each year. National Automotive Dealers Assoc. reported the average used car price was $15,042 in March 2014.  that’s better, but you are buying an out of warranty vehicle up to 8 years old that has a lot of up and coming repair work and maintenance on the horizon plus $4/gal gas.

There is a solution to many on the horizon.  How many cars do you have in your household?  2010 Census data says that 21.5M households have 3 or more cars, 45.4M have 2 cars, 39.7M have 1 car and 10.7M have no cars.  If you are part of the 2 cars or 3 or more, than EcoVElectric is an affordable alternative.  EcoV is designed to meet the needs of people and fleet operators in city areas.  At $11,999 it is also affordable by all and it offers a 70% lower cost to operate than a new or used car.  EcoV costs less as a new vehicle than an average used car today.  Never have to buy gas; just plug into a wall socket and for 50¢ you are charged and ready to go 25 – 40 miles.  Zero emissions and almost zero cost to operate.  EcoV is safe and crash tested. EcoV is fully enclosed and very much a car.  What’s your purpose? EcoV is available in passenger, pick-up and delivery vehicle models that are all multi-functional.

How much range do you need in a vehicle for city and urban area trips? Average daily trip distance for urban based cars in USA, was 36.5 miles/day.  The average single trip distance was 5.95 miles.  The average commute distance was 13.6 miles.  In fact, we do not realize how little we really drive.  For most people a city based EV is a great solution to save money, particularly when a high speed vehicle is available for those important but less frequent trips.

EcoV

Now how about government and commercial fleets in cities and urban areas?  Since many of these fleets don’t need to go fast and their missions are shorter in distance,  EcoV can save them greatly  in operating costs.  Take a city parking enforcement vehicle.  EcoV can save $43,500 over a 10 year period, payback in 9 months based on 25-35 miles per day.  100,000 EcoV’s in service over 10 years, saves you the taxpayer $4.5B.  Take an EcoV city mail delivery vehicle with a 22 year life cycle – saves Post Office $145,000 per EcoV with payback in 7 months based on 5-10 miles per day and with 40,000 in service that saves you, the tax payer, $6B.  There are lots of applications: parks & recreation, city services, security patrols, university public safety and campus service & pool vehicles, vacation resort rentals, airports, homeland security at airport, harbor and border crossings.

The future is clearly going towards smaller, smarter city based transportation solutions like EcoV.  The next question is how does an early stage company find partners, both financial and business?  Can the current trend away from investing in EV companies be reversed?  Can we create a race towards an affordable EV solution for everyone?  Can we attract investors with the strength, skill and vision to be part of the future profits EV sales will generate?  We think so.

Manufacturing is key to any low volume niche business.  Overheads in terms of staff, facilities, tools and equipment are typically large.  We are changing the paradigm on low volume niche manufacturing in the transportation business.  How we integrate the product, the suppliers, and the processes to be able to build not only a profitable low volume (10,000-30,000 units/yr) but low price product ($11,999 well equipped) has changed all the rules.  The manufacturing side is about finding the right partners to assemble the product, which we have been able to do.  The other side is using off-the-shelf proven technology rather than designing all new parts ourselves, we leverage other’s efforts including prototyping, testing, tooling, and putting into high volume manufacture to get to low costs.  They buy excess manufacturing capacity.  We need to be out of the traditional manufacturing box to make an entry level great product work and be a sustainable business.

Here is a short, entertaining video that presents a strong message about investing in electric vehicle start-ups for the future.  EcoV is just one but it is for limited number of investors who can see the future.

The owner, Richard Marks, spent 25 years with General Motors, including five on the EV1 electric vehicle.  I then worked for Tier 1 suppliers and during the past eleven years has been developing EcoV in a full-time, privately funded effort.  Today the company has invested  $10M (mostly sweat equity, prototype building & testing and market research) and is looking for $10M in funding to be in production in 9 months.  The “secret sauce” is the unique integration of product, suppliers and automotive process.  We have taken a bite out of Apple Computer’s manufacturing model playbook.

Written by: Richard W. Marks
President, EnVironmental Transportation Solutions, LLC
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