ASE releases hybrid and EV certification plus other training resources to know about

electric vehicle techniciansA new job certification category was just released that should be very good news to educators in programs supporting skilled workers servicing alternative fuel vehicles. The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) last week announced the Light Duty Hybrid/Electric Vehicle Specialist (L3) certification category. Service technicians may register starting Dec. 1, 2014, and testing begins in January 2015.

“The new Light Duty Hybrid/Electric Vehicle certification was developed in response to industry requests for an ASE certification for those servicing hybrid vehicles,” said Tim Zilke, ASE President and CEO. “The L3 is the result of years of work by industry specialists from both OEM and Aftermarket segments who came together to develop a certification which encompasses a wide range of hybrid/electric vehicle technology.”

The L3 Certification Test Reference is included as an electronic pop-up during the test. This document identifies the concepts for the hybrid/electric vehicle technology included in the test, and outlines the three common types of hybrid/electric vehicle drive systems, with diagrams shown for each type.

As discussed by educators last February at a day-long workshop, there is a real need for certified service technicians working with hybrids and electric vehicles. Dealers, fleets, and maintenance garages will need to hire more service technicians trained to keep these vehicles running safely and efficiently. As I’ve mentioned many times in this newsletter, and since starting my consulting practice, education and public awareness programs are essential for job creation, vehicle acquisition decisions, and support in legislatures and corporate boards.

It’s good for stakeholders in clean transportation to stay updated on educational resources like the ASE certification. Here’s a list of other resources to keep in mind………

Community-College Based Training
The best training programs out there are coming from community colleges across the country; along with service technicians, training is being delivered for maintenance and repair, fueling stations and infrastructure, other technology courses supporting natural gas, propane autogas, hybrids and electric vehicles, hydrogen, and biofuels. US Dept. of Energy’s Clean Cities Coalition Coordinators are very good to contact for guidance on these resources.

National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium
NAFTC is a nationwide training organization, headquartered at West Virginia University, that develops curricula and conducts more than 20 courses and workshops focusing on alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles. NAFTC works with US Dept. of Energy (DOE) and Clean Cities, and has 30 national training centers located throughout the US.

Natural Gas Vehicle Institute
NGVI offers natural gas vehicle education, in-house training, and public education forums, technical assistance, and awareness programs for government, utility companies, suppliers, and customers.

Propane Autogas Fleets Safety & Training
Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) offers guidelines for constructing or modifying repair and maintenance garages for propane autogas-fueled vehicles including passenger cars, vans, buses, and trucks. Fleet managers, operators, and private garage owners are given information on basic requirements of a propane autogas-fueled vehicle repair or maintenance garage.

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
NPFA is considered by educators to be an essential resource for training programs serving emergency responders. In September, NFPA received a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to develop NFPA’s Alternate Fuel Vehicle Safety Training. NFPA’s online program will be used to provide free training to the US fire service on safe handling of electric, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gas at incidents involving passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses.

The Hybrid Shop
Powered by technology developed by Automotive Research and Design, The Hybrid Shop is an international network of service centers dedicated to bringing scientifically-sound, environmentally friendly, and cost effective repair solutions to owners of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Clean Vehicle Education Foundation
CVEF manages a DOE-funded program that increases awareness of compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinder inspection requirements; and encourages natural gas vehicle owners to periodically have their tanks inspected.

Alternative Fuel Data Center (AFDC)
Check out DOE’s AFDC section on natural gas vehicle maintenance and safety. It’s an educational site covering cylinder inspection, oil-change intervals, ignition systems, and other topics.

SAE International
The Society of Automotive Engineers has working groups that issue standards shaping the way alternative fuel vehicles and the charging/fueling infrastructure are designed and manufactured. Two good sites to research are focused on alternative fuels and vehicle electrification.

Auto Career Development Center (ACDC)
ACDC offers hybrid and electric vehicle technician training through classrooms and other channels such as webinars and DVDs. Its hybrid training goes back to 2000, and electric vehicles were added in 2008.

    This Week’s Top 10: Hyundai and Kia get a steep penalty for incorrect mileage ratings, Nissan Leaf sales still breaking records

    by Jon LeSage, editor and publisher, Green Auto Market 

    Here’s my take on the 10 most significant and interesting occurrences during the past week…….

    1. Hyundai Kia MotorsHyundai and Kia will pay a $100 million fine for inflating the fuel economy ratings of their vehicles. The $100 million fine is the largest in Clean Air Act history, and came from an investigation by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice based on the sale of about 1.2 million vehicles with overstated ratings. Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were far less than what was originally stated – about 4.75 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in excess of what the automakers claimed to the EPA. “This settlement upholds the integrity of the nation’s fuel economy and greenhouse gas programs and supports all Americans who want to save fuel costs and reduce their environmental impact,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
    2. Plug-in sales: October saw deliveries of 2,589 Leafs, bringing the year-to-date total to 24,411 – which exceeds the 2013 total of 22,610, the previous record. The Nissan Leaf broke its own record for most electric cars sold in the U.S. in a single year with two months left to sell them this year. The Chevrolet Volt has also been seeing a strong year, already exceeding the annual sales totals for the Volt in any of the full three years it’s been on sale. BMW sold 1,159 BMW i3s – the third month in a row it has sold more than 1,000 i3s. Tesla continued to go unreported in its monthly sales numbers, but the company says that sales went up quite a bit during the month.
    3. Very redesigned Chevy Volt: The refreshed 2016 Chevrolet Volt will be quicker, lighter and more fuel efficient than its predecessor. GM is using the redesign as an opportunity not only to optimize the plug-in hybrid technology it pioneered four years ago. It’s going to be very different with a completely difference drive unit and battery. The car will travel father on battery power, yet GM hasn’t yet said how far it will go compared to its present 38 miles on the battery.
    4. Vincentric, a leader in cost-of-ownership data, released its most recent Hybrid Analysis last week. Among the 10 hybrids with lower ownership costs were the Lexus CT200h and the Toyota Avalon Hybrid, which when compared to their all-gasoline counterparts had savings of over $7,600 and $3,200 respectively. Ten of 31 hybrid vehicles analyzed were identified as having a lower total cost-of-ownership than their closest all-gasoline counterpart. Over the past three years the percentage of cost-effective hybrids has dropped from 44% in the 2012 analysis, to 39% in 2013, to now just over 32%.
    5. Natural Gas Vehicle Conference. The 2014 North American NGV Conference & Expo to be held at the Kansas City Convention Center Nov. 11–14 in Kansas City, Mo. is set to be the largest NGV event of the year and is hosted by NGVAmerica in cooperation with the Canadian NGV Alliance. NGVAmerica has reached out to fleets of all types and sizes with special discounts to register for the conference. For more information on the 2014 North American NGV Conference & Expo, or to plan your attendance, visit the event website at www.ngvamerica.org/conference/2014.
    6. Check out this TedxDetroit video: Debbie Mielewski, the technical leader for plastics research at Ford Motor Co., says she’s been able to get up every day excited to go to work. Much of what is being added to cars these days is plastic, which comes from petroleum resources, and she’d like to do something about it. All of the polyurethane going into Ford vehicles and their seat cushions now comes from soy beans (which Henry Ford would have been proud of, having started that years ago). Using wheat straw (which is the byproduct of the food portion of wheat) to fortify plastic bins in the Ford Flex and Ford Focus, has been another step forward. And there’s more…….
    7. Big numbers from VW: Volkswagen Group claims it will launch more than 20 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in China over the next few years. That will include small cars, large-sized SUVs, plug-in hybrids, and battery electric cars, said Jochem Heizmann, head of Volkswagen Group China.
    8. Home energy storage. Nissan is moving the “electric vehicle batteries as a great source for energy storage” campaign along. Nissan will soon begin testing its Leaf-To-Home energy station in Japan; they’ll be testing the ability of electric cars to provide temporary electrical power to buildings in real-world circumstances. The station converts high-voltage direct current from a Leaf’s lithium-ion battery pack into the 100-volt current used by homes in Japan.
    9. Mercedes-Benz B-class electric cars. Daimler AG’s Mercedes teamed up with Tesla Motors to put an electric motor and battery inside its B-class hatchback. Mercedes-Benz has high hopes for the alliance and sales of the B-class electric cars. The German automaker is hoping the image of working Tesla will be impressive while avoiding the pitfalls of spending billions on a technology few may want to buy.
    10. Hyundai vs. Toyota. Hyundai will roll out its first “dedicated” hybrid, designed to be marketed exclusively as a hybrid instead of being merely a copycat of an existing traditional engine edition of that model. Hyundai Motor Co. said that its hybrids will go up again the Toyota Prius.

      What fleets want to see in clean transportation

      Clean fleetSo why would a company like Elio Motors with its three-wheel electric car choose fleets as its primary market instead of consumers? The company is moving through red tape for its $185 million loan through the US Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program. While it may sound strange that a specialty electric vehicle maker would choose the fleet market, there are reasons for it. According to a post on the Elio Motors Blog: “We have talked about ‘why Elio’ quite a bit, but to the fleet customer the economics are many times larger than for an individual. Think about it, you can save $1,500 a year on fuel which is enough to make a LOT of payments.  Now multiply that times 100, or 200 or as much as 1000!  That is real (huge) savings for companies.  Each gallon of fuel saved is money in their pocket and helps save our environment.”

      That sounds very familiar to conversations I’ve had in the past couple of years with fleet managers. There sometimes are concerns and mandates to reduce emissions and fuel consumption, but in the end, containing costs is the top priority given to fleets in corporate, government, and other sectors. For the clean transportation industry, fleets are the focal point of direct marketing. Tesla Motors is benefiting from upper income, educated individuals signing on for lease payments on the Model S, but as for the rest of the green vehicles and infrastructure, fleets make up most of the marketplace. Besides buying in volume, they bring institutional credibility to the new technology. If a municipal fleet brings in 150 compressed natural gas trash trucks; or a delivery fleet reduces its fuel consumption and emissions 20% in one year by switching over to hybrids, that truly stands out with media, stakeholders, and the general public.

      Here are a few newsworthy items on what fleet managers are thinking about clean transportation……

      • Debunking myths emanating from common alternative fuel vehicle misconceptions was the focus of a speaker panel at Green Fleet Conference in Schaumburg, Ill., last week. Richard Battersby, manager of Equipment Services for the City of Oakland, Calif., and coordinator of the East Bay Clean Cities Coalition, chaired the panel. Battersby thinks there is a “dizzying choice” available today in fuels: CNG, LNG, renewable natural gas, dimethyl ether (DME), E85, hydrogen, battery electric, plug-in electric, biodiesel, renewable diesel, algae diesel, clean diesel; and there will be more. Read on for interesting quotes on electrified transportation, diesel, biodiesel, propane, and natural gas.
      • The city of Indianapolis signed up for Vision Fleet’s Clean Miles Solution, a total-cost-of-ownership plan for bringing electric vehicles (EVs) into its fleet. It bundles the process together and guarantees all the expenses of purchasing, operating, and fueling an EV. Indianapolis will utilize Clean Miles Solution to deploy 425 EVs in its non-police fleet by early 2016. That will be the largest ever EV deployment by a public fleet in the US. It comes out of an executive order made by Mayor Gregory Ballard in 2012 that pledges the city’s fleet will reach post-oil technology by 2025.
      • PepsiCo has removed 55,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through reducing fuel consumption in its fleet by 24% since 2010. That will continue further for its trucks and passenger vehicles, according to Green Century Capital Management, which is working with Pepsi on its climate change efforts. Pepsi’s plan includes implementing a formal request for proposal process seeking low carbon fuel alternatives from its suppliers.
      • Downsizing the fleet and looking for transportation alternatives has become a viable option for a few municipal fleets in large US cities. Their goals can be met several ways to reduce carbon emissions and fuel consumption. Reducing the number of vehicles in their fleet, based on their utilization rates, has been at the heart of it. Bringing in outside vendors such as Zipcar for its carsharing services is also taking care of short-term transportation needs. Fleet managers will see several of the vehicles in the fleet idling in parking lots for the majority of time. Downsizing the fleet and accessing alternative transportation is reducing costs and bringing accolades to fleet staff.

        On the biodiesel-powered road again with the legendary Willie Nelson

        Willies Place exit signBiodiesel has provided inspiration for many, including the legendary singer/songwriter Willie Nelson. It’s also been enough to motivate his music industry colleague, Neil Young, to roll out the Lincvolt, a biodiesel-powered hybrid. There was also Josh Tickell touring the country in the mid-2000s in his Veggie Van, powered by biodiesel made from cooking oil taken from restaurants. For some, biodiesel has a do-it-yourself appeal; these are people living outside the mainstream and wanting to live outside the power of the oil industry.

        But it’s also an industry, one suffering through several blows and challenges. Biodiesel has shot up in production volume, with the federal mandate bringing it from 500 million gallons in 2009 to 1.28 billion last year. Biodiesel producers saw conditions changing in recent years with a federal tax credit expiring, and the US Environmental Protection Agency deciding to scale down the production volume. Nelson’s story is a telling one highlighting the difficulties in succeeding in a new and risky business like biodiesel.

        By 2007, Willie Nelson became committed to biodiesel in a book he’d written and through releasing his BioWillie biodiesel product. Having been an organizer of farm aid fundraising concerts since the 1980s, Nelson saw biodiesel as a logical continuation. BioWillie would help “reduce our dependency on foreign oil while simultaneously saving the American family farm,” he said.

        Nelson had joined the board of Earth Biofuels, a Dallas company that left a trail of unpaid debts, delayed securities filings, and disgruntled investors. He forfeited six million shares of stock to resign in 2007. In 2008, Nelson and his business partners transformed a landmark truck stop on Interstate 35 in Texas into Willie’s Place, a biodiesel theme park. People stopped for the fuel and to view Nelson’s display that included gold records and occasionally a chance to meet the legend himself.

        To come up with funding, Nelson and his partners took out a $4.75 million loan to finance construction of Willie’s Place. The group defaulted on the loan and Nelson put up $35,000 of his own money to make a payment. Willie’s Place was sold in 2011 during foreclosure proceedings.

        Nelson, at 81 years old, has not given up on biodiesel. He has an ownership stake in Big Island Biodiesel of Hawaii and SeQuential-Pacific Biodiesel of Salem, Ore. Nelson also controls the trademark for BioWillie, sold at pump stations on the islands of Maui and Hawaii.

          This Week’s Top 10: Henrik Fisker has suprises in store at LA Auto Show, Toyota and Daimler sell off Tesla Motors stock shares

          by Jon LeSage, editor and publisher, Green Auto Market 

          Here’s my take on the 10 most significant and interesting occurrences during the past week…….

          1. Henrik FiskerFisker surprise announcements scheduled for LA Auto Show: Fisker Automotive’s co-founder and former CEO has come back on the scene for the first time after quitting, and later attempting to acquire, his extended-range sporty luxury car company last year. Henrik Fisker says he’ll be unveling two new cars on November 20, a media day at next month’s LA Auto Show. Back-to-back press conferences are scheduled with no details yet revealed, except for the fact that they’re being sponsored by the mega-Ford dealer Galpin. The first session will be taking place with Galpin Auto Sports, the dealer chain’s custom-car division and the other session will be hosted by Galpin Motors. One of them is predicted to be more of a muscle car than an environmentally sound, fuel-efficient model. Fisker has been known to be quite a designer, overseeing the BMW Z8 and Aston Martin V8 Vantage sports cars, plus a few others. One of his other businesses has been Fisker Coachbuild, which made restyled versions of the BMW and Mercedes-Benz luxury cars.
          2. Toyota and Daimler have sold off some, or all, their stock shares in Tesla Motors. Daimler made big gains of selling off its remaining 4% shares and bringing in $780 million from its original $50 million stake. Toyota didn’t reveal the timimg or amount of its latest sale. Its initial investment of $50 million gave it 2.5% share in the company in May 2010. While the Toyota RAV4 battery and motor deal is ending later this year between Toyota and Tesla, their relations appear to be solid. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company would sign a new deal with Toyota in the next two-to-three years. Daimler and Toyota were likely taking advantage of the extremely high value of Tesla shares – closing yesterday at $221.67.
          3. Sierra Club releases tool for EV shoppers. The Sierra Club is now offering car shoppers its “pick-a-plug-in” website tool to find the right electric vehicle (EV) for them. Pick-a-plug-in asks the user a few questions about driving habits and vehicle needs, and then generates a list of EVs that fit the bill. There’s no recommended car featured, but leading models are given based on how many miles a day the person drives, whether the person takes frequent long trips, whether there is a place to plug in the car, and how much money the person is prepared to spend.
          4. ChargePoint says you can pay for your charge on PayPal. While over half the 19,000 chargers in the ChargePoint network are free, the company is now moving forward in the payment process. ChargePoint employees at its San Jose, Calif., campus, can go to 34 charging ports and pay for ChargePoint with PayPal. This must be entertaining for Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, a former PayPay co-founder.
          5. Asplundh, a tree expert company, is bringing in propane-powered medium-duty trucks. Asplundh provides tree management services to utilities and municipalities, and will start off its propane autogas vehicles with two Ford F-650 trucks powered by Roush CleanTech’s propane augogas fuel systems. “We were searching for a cost-effective alternative fuel that provides an adequate refueling infrastructure and also meets our environmental initiatives,” said John Talbot, director of fleet services for Asplundh Tree Expert Co. “Propane autogas was our answer.”
          6. GM adds to its sustainability credentials with more solar. Along with its landfill-free facilities, General Motors is adding to its solar power. A new 2.2 megawatt, ground-mounted solar array will be set up by the end of this year at its assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Once the last of the more than 8,500 solar panels are in place, it will be GM’s largest solar installation in the western hemisphere, the automaker said.
          7. Navigant Research expects EV growth, though not an easy one. Navigant Research expects the global light-duty electric vehicle (EV) growth to be sizable – from 2.7 million sold in 2014 to 6.4 million in 2023. These numbers include hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery electric vehicles. That growth rate will take a lot of hard work, according to the study, with much competition coming from automakers producing more fuel effient internal combustion engine vehicles. Stop-start technologies, lightweight materials, engine downsizing, and growing interest in clean diesel, is putting the pressure on OEMs to reach the level they’re stiving for in electrified vehicle sales.
          8. Smart parking tools available through ParkMe and Microsoft. For those of you affected by “urban mobility” (carsharing, ridesharing, e-bikes, parking, etc.), there was an interesting announcement made by ParkMe, which is probably the largest provider of real-time parking data to car owners through the mobile devices. ParkMe will provide parking data to Microsoft Corp. to be integrated into its Bing search engine. Users will be better able to access smart parking tools to find nearby parking, check real-time availability, and pre-pay for the cheapest and most convenient parking at their destinations.
          9. Telsa and US Bank offering cheaper lease payments. Tesla CEO Elon Musk just wrote in the company’s blog how the agreement with the major bank can lower monthly lease payments by as much as 25% on a new Model S. Another perk: the Tesla happiness guarantee. If you don’t like the car for any reason in the first three months, you can return it and the lease obligation is waived. “The only catch is that you can’t then immediately lease another Model S,” Musk wrote.
          10. Brazil loves biofuels but holding back on EVs. The Brazilian government just released a green-car incentives programs that excludes battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Import duties are cut on new hybrid cars, though that does not include tax breaks or other perks. Electric vehicles are excluded entirely because the country’s electricity grid doesn’t have the capacity to handle an influx of EVs and all the charging they need. Recent droughts have lowered water levels in the dams that power hydro-electric electricit plants. Brazil has had to look for other methods of electricity generation.

            Parker Hannifin RunWise well positioned in electrified commercial truck market

            Parker Hannifin hydraulic hybridFleets looking for hybrid and plug-in Class 3-8 trucks and vans have fewer options today than before – with Boulder Electric Vehicles and Smith Electric Vehicles pulling down their shutters and Eaton deciding to leave the hybrid medium-duty truck market in North America. The Parker Hannifin RunWise hydraulic hybrid has been seeing more interest from fleets this year, primarily among refuse trucks, and that’s been expanding into other sectors including parcel delivery trucks.

            Fleets are impressed with the benefits – including fuel savings up to 4,300 gallons per year for each vehicle; capturing 71% of lost brake energy; and significantly reducing carbon emissions. The Runwise Advanced Series Hybrid Drive System is distinct in the market; when starting up, the engine charges a high-pressure accumulator in the hydraulic system. Hitting the brake pedal drives energy back from a reservoir into the accumulator – driving energy normally lost in braking back into powering the truck. It’s similar to regenerative braking systems currently being used in several hybrid passenger cars.

            Like other clean transportation options, RunWise brings a significantly higher acquistion cost than comparable internal combustion engine vehicles. RunWise brings fuel-cost savings – 40%-to-50% less than gasoline and diesel; brakes lasting about four-times longer than traditional braking system replacement cycles; and productivity gains from drivers who like using the hydraulic hybrid trucks, says Tom DeCoster, North American business development manager at Parker Hannifin.

            Fleet owners are more educated today about their options than years ago, DeCoster said. They’ve been reading up on alternative fuel vehicles and have checked vehicles out at industry conferences. They’re looking to save on fuel and lifecycle costs and have concerns about the driveability and adoption by drivers, DeCoster said. While they’re feeling pressure on reducing emissions, cutting costs has been higher on the list for more fleets. Saving on fuel costs and brakes has been impressing fleets enough to make the investment in RunWise trucks. Payback is about two-to-three years in duty cycles for fleets making the RunWise truck acquisitions, he said.

            Class 8 refuse trucks with their heavy payload and stop-start patterns are producing a lot of energy captured in the RunWise drive system. Trucks are classifed as “severe duty” in the refuse truck industry as refuse trucks stop and start about 2,000 times a day while collecting garbage.

            Fleets are starting to take battery-powered vehicles more seriously this year than before and are looking at their options. Along with RunWise, Smith Electric Vehicles is resuming production this fall of its Newton trucks; TransPower offers Class 8 drayage tractors that are being field tested at the Port of Los Angeles; Electric Vehicles International has delivered electric walk-in vans to UPS and Frito-Lay; Zero Truck converts Isuzu NPR medium-duty trucks to electric vehicles for municipalities; Hino Trucks, which just celebrated 30 years doing business in the US, since 2012 has offered its Class 5 cab-over diesel-electric hybrids; and XL Hybrids just received certification from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for its hybrid-electric conversions of Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana vans.

            Waste Management Inc. has been entirely committed to natural gas vehicles, but other major refuse service companies are bringing in hydraulic hybrids to meet cost saving and emissions reducing targets, DeCoster said. Most of Parker Hannifin’s business has been in trash trucks, but delivery fleets are starting to bring in hydraulic hybrids, he said. Transit and shuttle bus facilities are acquiring buses with RunWise hydraulic hybrid systems. Parker Hannifin is also working with a major alternative fuel OEM to manufacture hydraulic hybrid trucks using natural gas as their fuel, DeCoster said.

              Four reasons I was wrong about California and electric vehicles

              EV charging in CaliforniaNot long ago, I wrote about a sticking point I’ve had for a long time – it’s not all about California electric vehicle sales for bringing zero emission vehicles to US roads. Well, I may have been wrong about some of it……. California does lead the way in collaborative projects between government, industry, and non-profits organizations. Here are a few clear examples………….

              • The governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) and the Japanese government organization New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) agreed last week to conduct a feasibility study for an electric vehicle (EV) demonstration project to develop new fast charging EV stations in California. During the roughly half-year feasibility study, NEDO in coordination with GO-Biz will develop a detailed plan for the possible demonstration project. It comes from a memorandum signed by the two governments in September on climate change, renewable energy, vehicles, and other issues.

              • The County of Los Angeles has deployed 82 EVlink charging stations at 34 locations, including hospitals, sheriff stations, and the LA Civic Center. Users will get free charging up to four hours during the first year of the pilot program. Schneider Electric makes the EVlink stations and it makes a lot of sense to work with that county. “LA County is leading the way in providing their communities with EV charging solutions,” said Mike Calise, Senior Director of Electric Vehicle Solutions, for Schneider Electric. “We hope other counties will take this lead and pursue similar projects, since the sum of multiple county involvements will create a tipping point for the state.”

              • Major utility NRG’s eVgo company has installed what it says is the largest corporate deployment of EV charging stations in Southern California – 60 Level 2 workplace charging stations at Sony Pictures Entertainment’s historic facility in Culver City. Sony began offering incentives to employees in 2008 to buy EVs, and so far 300 employees have done so. The Ready for Electric Vehicle (REV) program provides Sony and other workplaces with turnkey EV charging solutions, providing charger maintenance and driver support.

              • An impressive meeting took place Thursday at the South Coast Air Quality Management District office in Diamond Bar. Officials from eight states say their country is on track to have 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025 – with about 1.5 million of them in California. Beyond a vivid display of a wide range of Evs in its parking lot, officials from members of the multi-state EV task force praised California and talked about what’s been accomplished in their states. A commissioner with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection said that Evs are playing a vital role in his state’s goal of dropping green house gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

              While I would still love to see other states embrace EVs, California is leading the way. That’s also true for natural gas vehicles, hybrids, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (which fall under the zero-emission vehicle category). I think there are three other reasons why California is leading the pack: plentiful funding programs through California Energy Commision and other state sources; university think tanks such as the UC Davis Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center with its excellent study on dealerships and EVs; and California Air Resources Board is up there with the US Environmental Protection Agency for certification standards governing OEMs in alternative fuel vehicles including natural gas and propane autogas.

                This Week’s Top 10: Gasoline prices are coming down and what it means, CALSTART announces keynote speakers for its annual conference and awards event

                by Jon LeSage, editor and publisher, Green Auto Market 

                Here’s my take on the 10 most significant and interesting occurrences during the past week…….

                Exxon gas station1. Automotive News ran a lead article yesterday on how gasoline prices are softening and what it means, with a telling headline: “Falling gasoline prices make alternative-fuel vehicles a tougher sell.” The boom in US oil production, more fuel efficient new vehicles being offered to consumers, and a softening global demand for oil, seem to be reducing the price of oil and gasoline sold at retail stations. The US Energy Information Administration thinks that will continue into next year – from $3.45 this year down to $3.38 next year. Automakers are increasing incentives on alternative fuel vehicles to make up for reducing demand in hybrid and electric vehicle sales. Toyota boosted Prius incentives up to $2,300 per vehicle in September from $1,400 a year ago and Ford increased C-Max incentives up to $4,900 from $2,650 in September 2013. Consumer tastes have been shifting away from electrified vehicles toward SUVs and pickups, according to a Kelley Blue Book analyst. Green Auto Market has been concerned about the impact of softening fuel prices on green vehicle sales since coverage of the issue last month. Wearing my consultant/analyst hat, I would say that strengthening sales of alternative fuel vehicles will require clear messages from automakers, dealers, government agencies, infrastructure suppliers, and other stakeholders:
                ♦Fuel efficiency is still a big driver for car shoppers, says Mike Maroone, COO of AutoNation. Consumers remain vigilant about the risk of another oil spike, even as they gravitate toward trucks, he said. Consumers and fleets are prioritizing fuel efficiency in their purchase decisions. Alternative fuel vehicles have an edge over internal combustion engines on fuel costs during their ownership lifecycles. (I like getting 48 mpg in my Prius, no matter how much gasoline prices may drop.)
                ♦Federal and state incentives, and those offered by automakers and dealers, will be continuing for a while on electric vehicles, natural gas vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and propane autogas vehicles.
                ♦The infrastructure is getting better all the time in charging stations and alternative fuel pumps.
                ♦As mentioned in the article on working with environmental groups (running in its long version this month in Green Auto Market – Extended Edition), there are three strong arguments for supporting alternative fuel vehicles: emissions reductions, reducing dependence on oil, and economic growth with job creation. If you add in the pragmatic lifecycle fuel cost savings, that means there are four good reasons to purchase these vehicles
                2. CALSTART has announced two keynote speakers for its Annual Meeting and Blue Sky Awards luncheon. Christopher Grundler, director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality for the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Dr. Cheryl Martin, acting director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) at US Dept. of Energy, will be speaking at the event on Tuesday, December 9, 2014, in Los Angeles. The CALSTART annual meeting will feature leading public policy officials, investors, and industry leaders with the sole focus of developing new plans and initiatives supporting clean transportation technologies. Leaders in the field will be honored; for over a decade, the Blue Sky Award has been presented annually to companies and individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the development of clean, sustainable transportation, and technologies. You can view the preliminary agenda here; and for more information, to review the agenda and register, you can email Susan Romeo at sromeo@calstart.org.
                3. Tesla Motors may add franchised dealers into its retail chain to gain access to states like Texas and potentially Michigan that have banned Tesla selling directly to consumers. “We may need a hybrid system, with a combination of our own stores and some dealer franchises,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged during an interview with John McElroy on Autoline Daily. Michigan’s governor is scheduled to make a decision today on whether he’ll be signing into law the state legislature’s decision last week to ban Tesla from selling or operating a gallery. There are no details yet on how this distribution network would be structured, but it might also assist Tesla in building its presence in states with bans or others like New Jersey and Nevada that are allowing Tesla to sell in the states with limited presence.
                4. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue revised guidelines by the end of this year on mpg ratings. Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, says it has much to with the agency’s “coast-down” test that has been the source of mistakes impacting Hyundai, Kia, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz to revise their fuel economy ratings since 2012.  During testing, vehicles are sped up to 80 mpg then coast to a step for readings on aerodynamic drag, friction in the drivetrain, and other data points. That data has been going into dynameters for simulations of the vehicle’s performance on real roads. New guidelines will come out clarifying how the test should be conducted, and more accurate audits of automakers’ testing results, Grundler said.
                5. China will crackdown on automakers that fail to meet fuel economy requirements on passenger vehicles set to rollout in the 2015 model year. China has standards similar, but stricter, to those being adopted in the US, Europe, and Japan – requiring corporate average fuel economy of 34 mpg in 2015 and 47 mpg in 2020. The rule takes effect on Nov. 1. The Chinese government says it will publicly name automakers, both foreign and Chinese, who fail to meet the 2015 target; and there will be a ban on new vehicles that don’t meet fuel economy targets that will be determined by a special weight-based formula.
                6. Kia has been slacking on joining the electric vehicle competition, but it’s got a very cool car, according to the New York Times. The 2015 Kia Soul EV got a rave review for a few reasons, one being its 27 kilowatt-hour battery pack. The EPA gives it a range of 93 miles on a charge, better than other EVs and especially significant for its small car size. The reviewer was able to reach just about 100 miles each time without resorting to extreme eco-maneuvers.
                7. Clean Energy Fuels introduced a patent-pending product designed to help fleet operators sequester natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in their existing maintenance facilities. NGV Easy Bay  is the “lowest cost separation and vapor containment system available” for NGV maintenance and storage facilities, the company says. It was developed by the company’s facilities modification team, which has been helping potential operators solve problems faced in converting not only their vehicles but their vehicle support installations for natural gas using its code-compliant fabric barrier system.
                8. LG Chem predicts it will be the giant in electrified transportation batteries in 2017 – 25% of a $5 billion global market in lithium batteries for battery electric, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, and microhybrid vehicles. Prabhakar Patil, CEO of LG Chem Power Inc., the Korean company’s North American division, thinks that LG Chem will continue to grow despite Tesla Motors’ decision to go with Panasonic at its upcoming “gigafactory” in Reno. Nev. Patil thinks the EV market will grow and is in talks with several automaker about supplying them with batteries. He also thinks it’s pretty questionable that Tesla and Panasonic will be building 500,000 electric vehicles a year.
                9. US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is impressed with a new biofuels plant in Kansas – he says it represents the future of ethanol production and next-generation biofuels, solar, and fossil technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The $500 million refinery in Hugoton, Kansas, is now one of three commercially sized facilities in that US that only use plant waste, such as stalks and leaves, for production. That would mean staying out of the “food vs. fuel” debate that plagues the corn ethanol used in E10 gasoline. Abengoa, a Spanish company, opened the plant in late September. The plant has been funded by an Energy Dept. grant and loan guarantee, and it has the capacity to produce 25 million gallons of ethanol per year.
                10. General Motors has increased its number of landfill-free facilities up to 122 as 11 more manufacturing and non-manufacturing operations have made the list. These facilities in Asia, Europe, South America, and North America take waste from daily operations and recycle, reuse, or convert it to energy. Three of the 11 sites are in Michigan and one is in California; combined, the 11 added facilities help GM avoid more than 600,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions

                  Training program needed for dealer staff to answer questions from EV shoppers

                  dealer financeSales of electric vehicles (EVs) have been fairly impressive since their launch in late 2010, but the question of how to move those numbers up continues to plague the auto industry. A new working paper and brief by researchers at the Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis explores the issues. Aside from Tesla buyers, car shoppers and buyers of EVs are much less satisfied with the dealer purchase experience than are buyers of conventional vehicles. EV buyers have been dissatisfied with the level of support they receive from dealerships. The UC Davis team sees that EVs require innovation in how they’re retailed to customers during a time of change in what consumers expect from their car shopping and buying experiences. There’s a real need for a dealer training program to enhance the EV car shopping and buying experience – and Green Auto Market has a proposal on how to get that done.

                  Earlier this year, a Consumer Reports investigation came to similar conclusions. The magazine dispatched 19 mystery shoppers to 85 dealers across four states. One finding was that dealer staff knew little about the EVs they’re selling. In some instances, dealer staff discouraged EV purchases.  The UC Davis team conducted 43 interviews with six automakers and 20 new car dealers in California’s major metro markets for EV sales. They also analyzed national and state-level J.D. Power 2013 Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) study data on customer satisfaction with new car dealerships and Tesla stores.

                  One of the challenges for EV success is that these vehicles need to be offered outside of California. Currently, 19 different EV models from 10 different automakers are available for purchase in California, but only three of these models are available nationally. While automakers have their part in getting national EV sales above and beyond 1% of all new vehicle sales, dealers play a very large part in meeting this goal. Legal battles between dealer associations and Tesla Motors present a real challenge for dealers to compete, but also an opportunity for franchised dealers to stand out. Nearly every automaker is offering an EV for sale now. It can be challenging for dealer management to get their sales representatives focused on selling EVs; they do need to spend more time these days answering car shopper questions on connectivity, infotainment, extended warranty coverage, etc. It might be attractive for a dealer sales rep to get the car shopper to focus on something other than EVs, especially if it takes a long time to answer their questions – and if the customer knows more about EVs than the sales rep.

                  Here’s what Green Auto Market and LeSage Consulting would like to offer automakers and dealer networks: a training model where dealer sales representatives can give a 10-minute presentation that answers questions car shoppers usually have about EVs. These questions might include:

                  • Federal tax and state incentives and how they’re acquired
                  • Home charging stations – how much they cost and how the building code inspection process and installation work
                  • Driving range once the car is fully charged
                  • Public charging stations and how they can be found on mobile devices
                  • Cost of fueling compared to internal combustion engine cars
                  • Maintenance process and services offered by the dealer

                  It would probably make the most sense to have a training program for dealer staff available on video with other presentation materials, such as a slide show and hand-outs. Whatever the method, it’s becoming more important now for the dealer experience to improve for EV shoppers – if automakers and dealers want to see those sale numbers increase and to build customer loyalty. For anyone interested in exploring this opportunity, I encourage you to send me an email.

                    How to work effectively with environmental groups to move clean transportation forward

                    environmental activists, Clean transportation has a symbiotic relationship with environmental groups. There is a wide gap between the business side and the environmental activist side on certain issues, but the crossover in common interests does show up on a regular basis. That can show up as lobbying for government clean vehicle funding programs, public awareness and education campaigns, reducing vehicle emissions, and debating the oil industry. If you’ve attended Clean Cities meetings and alternative fuel vehicle events, you’ve probably met a few of these environmental activists – many of whom drive hybrids and electric vehicles. Some of them participate on speaker panels. They may also be serving in an executive role in cleantech businesses like solar power installers, or in management at a government agency overseeing environmental issues like air quality and waste management.

                    All that being said, Green Auto Market – Extended Edition is now featuring a six-point guide to getting the most out of these relationships to further the cause of clean transportation. For those interested in getting a subscription and reading this article, visit this site. Here are the six points covered in detail in this article…….

                    1. Support a moderate, deal-making approach – There may be one or two environmental issues that a clean transportation industry group or company supports, but five or six they don’t. Finding those common causes can support getting something passed through a legislature and other gains the clean transportation industry needs to see happen.
                    2. Know their advocacy issues – The article presents a list of top priority issues that you’ll see in environmental group email marketing campaigns, public protests, petition signings, celebrity statements, lawsuits, and other tactics. It’s good to stay informed on these issues as they move through the political maze.
                    3. Know the basics on leading environmental groups – A who’s who list with information to help you become familiar with these groups and to meet their leadership at events you’re attending.
                    4. Support clean energy/cleantech jobs and economic growth – Groups see clean transportation as a vital segment in their sustainability campaigns – with economic benefits a large part in gaining their support. It makes for a convincing argument to gain more support from environmental groups, companies, governments, investors, and from the public, in this day and age of several US industries dwindling and more jobs going overseas.
                    5. Understand the types of vehicles and transportation they support –Electric vehicles tend to gain the most support from environmental groups – representing freedom from oil addiction, and energy that can be produced through clean sources. Hybrids have been popular, too, with environmentalists, especially the Toyota Prius. Beyond EVs and hybrids, environmental groups tend to be supportive of, and impressed by, fleets deploying EVs and other alternative fuel vehicles. They also support a number of transportation policies in cities across the country.
                    6. Have a “fracking” policy in place –Fracking so far hasn’t yet hurt support for natural gas vehicles, but it is a growing issue of debate and political and legal battles in several states.Controlling water usage and methane mitigation have been the focus of recent studies by academic and environmental groups that have emphasized making fracking a viable and responsible technique for cleaner natural gas extraction and storage. The federal government is moving closer to having more standards in place on fracking, and companies serving transportation and energy markets would be wise to adopt sound and practical policies.