Fwd: [calcars-news] Digest Number 696

[Timothy Hitchcock]

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From: <calcar...@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:42 AM
Subject: [calcars-news] Digest Number 696
To: calcar...@yahoogroups.com


There is 1 message in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. AMP's Mystery Partner; O'Dell Surveys The Conversion Scene; Birthday
   From: Felix Kramer


Message
________________________________________________________________________
1. AMP's Mystery Partner; O'Dell Surveys The Conversion Scene; Birthday
   Posted by: "Felix Kramer" fkr...@calcars.org felixkramery
   Date: Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:08 am ((PDT))

AMP, one of the emerging companies in the gas-guzzler conversion
industry, made an intriguing announcement about an undefined
relationship with a major carmaker, prompting reports by two longtime
automotive journalists. And we have news of a birthday milestone!

(Shortly after it goes out on email, this posting will also be
viewable at http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html -- there you can
add CalCars-News to your RSS feed.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANDY FRANK: This year he'll get quite a birthday
present. Often described as "the father of the modern plug-in
hybrid," Andy has spent more than half his life imagining, designing,
prototyping, and educating about PHEVs. He's travelled the world,
usually on his own dollar, promoting the concept to automakers,
suppliers, and governments. His continuously variable transmission
technology has attracted much attention, and some of his dozens of
patents have been described as fundamental. It's been said that "Andy
has been working on plug-ins so long, he's solved problems others
don't even know exist." For decades, he's been on the Mechanical and
Aeronautical Engineering faculty at the University of California at
Davis. http://mae.ucdavis.edu/faculty/frank/frank.html His
award-winning "Team Fate" retrofit projects under the FutureCar,
FutureTruck and Challenge X programs showed the potential of PHEVs.
His program's graduates play important roles in the auto and utility
industries. A few years ago he co-founded and became chief
technologist at Efficient Drivetrains Inc. to advance these
technologies. http://www.efficientdrivetrains.com [Felix has been
pleased to be an advisor to that company.]

Many who've known Andy have long hoped that PHEVs would come to
market before he retires. He shows no sign of doing  that, and he
looks, talks, and acts, much younger than 77. So our hopes are met
and he gets his wish. Now Andy's on the list to get one of the first
PHEVs off the production line -- he's looking forward this fall to
driving his own Chevy Volt! (He does have to pay for it himself.)

SUV CONVERSIONS IN BIG CARMAKER'S FUTURE? AMP Holdings, an Ohio
company with many industry veterans, some from the original GM EV-1
team, has signed an agreement with an undisclosed major carmaker to
electrify one if its SUVs. This is a good precedent for automakers to
eventually partner with companies to convert some of the vehicles
they've already sold, or to resell new vehicles converted to electric
drive. (That's what Solectria Corp. did with some success in the
1990s.) AMP's CEO Steve Burns nails the most important issue: "Time
is not a luxury, it's a race to the finish now -- AMP possesses the
scalability and nimbleness to get an OEM to mass production with an
already existing model literally within months" in the company's
press release.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amp-to-develop-electric-prototype-for-major-oem-2010-09-13?reflink=MW_news_stmp


MEDIA ABOUT AMP: Veteran automotive journalist Paul Eisenstein gave a
very positive review to the company's conversion of a Chevy Equinox
into a 0-60 in seven seconds, 150-mile range EV (at a high cost of
$47,000.)
http://www.cheboygannews.com/news/business/x718564085/Paul-A-Eisenstein-Eco-friendly-Amp-Electric-Equinox-powerful-but-pricey

QUICK REACTION FROM GM: Jim Motavalli also got a chance to drive the
Equinox.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/the-business-of-converting-existing-cars-into-e-v-s/
He also got to think about one of the more interesting questions,
prompting an exchange between the company's CEO and GM:

Amp could presumably produce cheaper conversions of the Equinox if it
started with so-called "glider" versions of the car minus their
gasoline drivetrains. But though the company is seeking such a
relationship with General Motors, Amp doesn't have one now. "G.M.
doesn't know if we are friend or foe," Mr. Burns said. "They're
trying to figure it out." Rob Peterson, a G.M. spokesman, said,
"We're pro-E.V., and it's a good thing that there others out there
moving the electric vehicle market forward."

ONE OF THE BEST ROUNDUPS ON CONVERSIONS came from John O'Dell, Senior
Editor at Edmunds: "PHEV Conversions Slow to Catch On in U.S., But
Could Be Big Elsewhere; Low Cost 'Revolo' Hybridization Kit Could
Boost India's Presence in Gas-Electric Arena. Read it all at
http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2010/09/phev-conversions-slow-to-catch-on-in-us-but-could-be-big-elsewhere.html
or see our excerpts below:

The idea of converting existing gas- and diesel-burners to plug-in
hybrids with electric-drive systems that augment their internal
combustion powerplants and boost their fuel economy through the roof
is a compelling one.

Selling new hybrids and electric vehicles helps slow our use of oil
and reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions from transportation, but
it will take decades to sell enough to meaningfully dilute the impact
of the nearly 1 billion internal combustion vehicles on the world's
roads today. But convert many of those existing vehicles to electric
drive and the impact could be tremendous and immediate. That's been
the message that plug-in advocates such as CalCars founder Felix
Kramer and University of California engineering professor Andy Frank
have been preaching for years.

It looks like at least a few people have been listening - at home and
abroad. In India, where air quality can use all the help it can get -
and where consumers can use all the relief from high fuel prices that
the auto industry can pass on to them - a pair of major Indian
corporations have teamed up to develop an aftermarket hybridization
kit that could someday make its way to the U.S. It may well be that
countries such as India and China, acting from a sense of urgency
that wealthier, more developed nations such as the U.S. just don't
yet feel, will wind up leading the 21st Century transportation parade.

At home, one of the conversion leaders seems to be a Michigan
company, ALTe, that has been showing a prototype converted Ford F150
pickup (above and left) in which the standard gas engine has been
replaced with a modular system consisting of a smaller internal
combustion engine and an electric motor and lithium-ion battery pack.
Several others, including XL Hybrids of Boston and Chicago-based
Hybrid Electric Vehicles Technologies, offer conversion systems that
use the vehicles' existing engines and transmissions and add the
necessary batteries and electric drive components. CalCars maintains
a list of U.S. plug-in hybrid conversion providers
http://www.calcars.org/ice-conversions.html , although Kramer points
out that most are start-ups that work on special orders but can't yet
sell you a completed vehicle out of inventory. "There's no place
yet," he said, "where you can go and buy a validated, warrantied plug-in car."

Barriers range from the high cost of components to the relative
paucity of tax credits to help purchasers of conversions. ALTe, which
charges about $25,000 for its F-150 conversion, can only qualify for
a $2,500 federal tax credit while the new factory-built Chevrolet
Volt PHEV and Nissan Leaf battery-electric vehicle each will qualify
for a $7,500 credit. That's not smart, says Kramer, who agues that
encouraging conversion of most of the nation's millions and millions
of big pickups, delivery trucks and SUVs to plug-in systems would
save a lot more oil - and cut a lot more CO2 - than selling tens of
thousands of new PHEVs and EVs. Yet the maximum federal credit for a
conversion is $4,000 and most- like the ALTe system - qualify for
much less. The federal formula is a credit of 10 percent of the
conversion cost up to a maximum of $4,000 - for a $40,000 conversion.

But things are moving along, albeit slowly. At Alte, company
marketing director Brian Polowniak told us recently that he expects
to have several announcements to make by late summer, including word
on the disposition of his company's application for a $100-million
loan guarantee from the federal government's advanced technology
vehicle manufacturing program that will help ALTe build a factory to
begin turning out a stream of plug-in conversions. Also in the works:
a distribution deal with a major auto dealership chain.

And in India, the new aftermarket hybridization kit, called the
Revolo system (right, taken from "revolution"), is slated to go on
sale by the end of the year. Its developers claim it can increase the
typical Indian-market passenger car's fuel economy by 40 percent
while reducing CO2 output by more than 30 percent. Once the business
model is proven in India, Pandit told us, the companies expect to go
global with the system. Company executives have hinted that a Revolo
plug-in hybrid conversion kit for a small car in Europe or the U.S.
could cost as little at $5,000 using lead-acid batteries, he said.

The joint venture is conducting market research to "develop a demand
estimate," said Pandit , who believes that the low initial price and
low operating cost of converted vehicles will help make the Revolo
conversion kit a hit with both private and fleet b=vehicle owners in
India. It's that kind of low-cost, easy-to-install kit that will be
needed to make plug-in hybrid conversions accessible to most people
in the U.S., said Kramer - who also believes that it will take the
development of smaller and more powerful batteries and inexpensive
in-wheel electric motors to truly make U.S. passenger car conversions
work, as there is little room on most cars to day to add an electric
motor and a battery pack.

He sees, and he's not alone, the commercial-vehicle segments as the
immediate markets for conversions. Not only are trucks, vans and SUVs
larger and better able to accommodate the extra equipment a hybrid
system require, "it just makes more economic sense to start with big
vehicles and migrate down," Kramer said.
 Commercial fleets look at total cost of ownership over many years
and many miles, so a higher initial purchase cost isn't that much of
a concern if the vehicle saves money on maintenance and fuel." And if
the U.S. doesn't get on the ball - private business and government
alike - Kramer worries, pointing to efforts such as Revolo, then
fleet operators may be purchasing their conversion systems, or
converted vehicles, from overseas suppliers in the electric-drive
industry's repeat of the Asian takeover of the small-car business in the U.S.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
      Felix Kramer  fkr...@calcars.org
     Founder  California Cars Initiative
            http://www.calcars.org
      http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --






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