PLUG-IN PARADOXES

Compadre Marc Geller’s essay on the state of alternative fuel vehicles is so insightful and authoritative it deserves an extended life.

Scoot and Spin: Two Plug-in Paradoxes
Marc Geller, October 27, 2007 (Plugs and Cars)

WHO
EVWorld’s Bill Moore and LATimes’ Martin Zimmerman

Nobody minds Toyota flirting with hydrogen as long as it brings a PHEV home.

WHAT
Geller astutely expands on auto experts’ reports about driving the Toyota plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell experiment. He describes a resolvable paradox in plug-in hybrid operations causing excessive tailpipe emissions when the vehicle shifts from battery to internal combustion operation that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Toyota do not seem to be making the necessary effort to resolve. He goes on to explain why electric vehicles running on any and every kind of petroleum and biofuel, rather than hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), are the only practical solution to large scale personal transportation.

WHEN
GM is promising consumers a PHEV in the 2008 or 2009 vehicle fleet. Toyota is promising one soon after.
As is frequently observed, the HFCV is the car of the future and always will be.

WHERE
The reporters’ test drives were at Higashi Fuji, Toyota’s testing facility in Japan, south of Tokyo.

WHY
- The excess tailpipe emissions caused when a pluig-in hybrid electric vehicle shifts from battery to internal combustion operation could readily be mitigated by an inexpensive heating system added to the catalytic conversion process. Why CARB cannot and and Toyota will not resolve this obstacle to progress reminds informed observers of the film Who Killed the Electric Car?
- The hydrogen fuel cell is an inefficient way to do what an electric battery already does. Geller explains it well. Someday, when the many problems with hydrogen are solved, the country can get down to dealing with the bigger problems of mass production and mass infrastructure can be considered.

GM's Chevy Volt is currently the frontrunner in the race to bring a PHEV to market but GM has the stigma of the EV-1 to overcome before it will be trusted like Toyota, which brought the Prius to market.

QUOTES
- Zimmerman: “Too bad that there are only a few dozen (HFCVs) in existence and that if you could actually buy one -- which you can't -- it would have a sticker price of about $1 million. Maybe, as some critics like to say, hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be.”
- Moore: “...for all the FCHV's advances, it seems everyone at Toyota recognizes that fuel cells remain a distant dream. Even if Toyota succeeds in lowering costs to 1/100th of their current level, while improving the durability of the stacks to the equivalent of 150,000 miles, the problem of infrastructure and sustainable hydrogen production present daunting obstacles...”
- Geller: “…unfortunately green-minded consumers are again left confused. What is possible? What is preferable? What can, what should, car companies be making?…
’Let one hundred flowers bloom’ said Vijay Vaitheeswaran recently…It is unfortunate that environmental organizations and concerned writers continue to take Chairman Mao's advice when considering the choices facing us. Surely if we study and fund and chat about all the options before us - biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen, fuel cells, electricity - we will find our salvation, they suggest. I'm afraid not. We haven't got the time or money… the hard cold reality is that unless we begin to move to grid electricity for most driving, none of the other fuels will ever stand a chance of contributing to the end of the petroleum era.”