THE BETTER BATTERY AND THE PLUG-IN CAR

President of GM-North America Troy Clarke, speaking at the Brookings Institution/Google Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington? event June 12, promised the Chevy Volt will be available in 2010. He also promised it will have a 40-mile battery-powered range and a gas motor-assisted 400-mile range beyond that.

The only question remaining: Will the public at large buy in? If attendance at the Brookings/Google event by so many movers and shakers in the energy, transportation and entertainment worlds is any indication, the answer will be an impressive affirmative.

Meanwhile, reports from the battery world - where the quality (and ultimate success) of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) will really be determined - indicate technology is ready to back up the hopes and dreams of the leaders and glitterati.

Earlier this year Toyota was still questioning the readiness of battery technology but has just announced it will also bring a PHEV with a lithium-ion battery to major auto markets by late 2010.

Most interestingly, much discussion at the Brookings/Google conference focused on the contribution plug-in vehicles will make to advance New Energy. As part of a smart grid system, EVs and PHEVs can store intermittent New Energy sources at off-peak times for dispatchable use at times of peak demand.

Also, a battery designer in competition for the Volt contract pointed out recently that after the Volt battery runs 150,000 miles over 10 years, it will still have 80% of its capacity left. Hundreds of thousands of such batteries could be incorporated into an alternative energy storage system relatively inexpensively.

Prabhakar Patil, chief executive, Compact Power (one of 2 companies competing to provide the battery for the Volt): "The model we keep talking about is where the consumer doesn't even own the battery, it gets leased…Whoever owns the battery can have ties with the utilities."

More and more, the discussion about batteries indicates plug-in car owners will be leasing and not buying them. It makes Shai Agassi's Project Better Place seem that much smarter.

click to enlarge

Battery supplier declares itself ready for GM electric car
Kevin Krolicki and Soyoung Kim, June 9, 2008 (Reuters via International Herald Tribune)
and
Newer Lithium Batteries Improve Electric Car Range
Edward Taylor, June 12, 2008 (Wall Street Journal)

WHO
Compact Power (Prabhakar Patil, chief executive), battery unit of LG Chem; General Motors (GM); Mitsuhiko Yamashita, executive vice president for research and development, Nissan

WHAT
- Patil says Compact Power’s lithium ion battery, one of 2 competing for the opportunity, is ready for GM’s Chevy Volt both in power and production volume capacity.
- Yamashita says lithium-ion batteries will have a 250-mile range in the foreseeable future.

From Compact power: Why lithium-ion. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- GM is promising the Volt for November 2010. Its Board approved the plan in the first week of June.
- The decision on the Volt battery maker is said to be coming certainly by the end of t2008 but is most likely even more eminent.
- Yamashita sees the lithium-ion battery having a 250-mile range by 2015.
- Nissan will bring out an all-electric vehicle (EV) in Japan in 2010 and take it worldwide in 2012.

WHERE
LG Chem is based in South Korea. Its Compact Power unit is based in Troy, Mich. The batteries will be manufactured near Seoul and shipped to the Volt assembly plant in Hamtramck, Mich.

WHY
- Continental, a German auto parts supplier adapting A123 Systems battery technology, is the other competitor to become the Volt battery maker.
- The Compact Power 400-pound T-shaped lithium ion batteries are in their 3rd generation and proven in key elements such as cooling.
- This generation of lithium-ion batteries have a ~40-mile range. The next, expected by 2012, will nearly double that. The 4th-generation, expected by 2015, could have a 250-mile range.
- Compact Power will need to double its 60-person staff and ramp up to $1 billion in sales if it gets the Volt contract.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
- Prabhakar Patil, chief executive, Compact Power: "Nobody knew whether this could be done…But the process is really paying off."
- Bob Lutz, executive in charge of the Volt, GM: "While the car is definitely a work in progress, the thrill of driving electrically - that instant silent torque - is certainly present and accounted for…"