As rumors filter in about GM’s Volt battery program, the faithful must be experiencing a certain amount of restless discomfort. After all, it’s not like this couldn’t be seen coming. Let’s just say that when I asked at SEMA last October the guys from A123 Systems (then bidding on the project) about the Volt battery development program, they took full advantage of the fact that SEC silent periods don’t forbid eye-rolling. Though non-verbal communication can (and in this case, did) speak volumes, we like to get our facts in writing. Which, thanks to the truth-proof wall surrounding the Volt’s development, usually means going through GM’s PR-exercise interviews with reliable Volt boosters and mining them for some kind of meaning. And hey, there’s an interview at Volt cheerleader HQ gm-volt.com which suggests that the Volt’s battery development is being rushed. And engineers are complaining to blogs? Fancy that!

GM-volt.com’s Lyle Dennis sat down with GM’s head Volt honcho Frank Weber for a sanitized-for-your-protection update on General’s moon-shot gambit. So what is happening right now, according to Weber?

We have been using the winter for winter tests . . . Now what’s happening is the true development work that you say OK this is the temperature of the battery, and this is the temperature of the system, and this is what happens when you are plugged in, etc. There are parameters that we call calibration, you have the basic software functionality on those cars defined, and then we start to calibrate it looking at the temperature and when to we start it, what is the true power of the battery at a certain temperature, etc.”

Any of this sounding intelligible or reassuring yet? This is supposed to be GM’s chance to thrill the credulous faithful, and the best Weber can come up with is “start to calibrate?” Don’t worry, it gets worse.

“What you know is what the behavior is for the cars that we are testing, and then you make an assumption for how a component will behave over time and how it will behave under the same situation in several years.  This is what we call accelerated testing. This gives you some indication of durability. The piece that is tricky and interesting about the battery is to do a really accurate extrapolation of the true behavior. For a mechanical part this is very simple. For a mechanical part you can replicate its lifetime and find out when it will break. The battery is electrochemical and its more difficult to make those extrapolations. This is part of the learning we have to do, battery learning between the battery supplier LG and us. By the way this is still the element of risk. This is also why we are unable to get the car out any sooner. It is those things that have to be developed now with the components that are representative of the production vehicle.  There is no way to do this any faster.”

If GM would just admit that the “late 2010” launch date is toast, this wouldn’t even qualify as spin. But then we don’t exactly live in a world where you can just say “it’s complicated, we don’t know when it will actually be done, now where’s my NSFWing bailout” is it? Or is it? I digress.

In a separate post, Lyle Dennis predicts public test drives this summer, putting faith first in spite of more damningly ambiguous talk, this time from GM’s John Lauckner. Saying “we need an experience where people say ‘Wow’ this is really something special,” Lauckner reveals that GM has “laid out all of the concepts that we want to use and written a lot of the preliminary code,” for the Volt’s “software-driven” driving experience.” Concepts. Preliminary. Wow. Lauckner continues:

“I would say that conceptually we’re most of the way there if not all of the way there, but there’s a lot of work to be done still to make sure that the whole thing operates seamlessly. [GM has to] love this thing a little bit to make sure that you not only get it that it actually works but you get it working in such a way that its completely intuitive. We need the time with the car and we need the time over a wide variety of conditions to simulate certain things, so that we can see just exactly how the car is going to behave and what sort of information the driver is going to get to make sure everything works in as seamless a way as we can possibly make it.”

Love your own product? Really? You’re only going to be asking $40 grand for the thing. And though both executives note its importance, time is the one thing GM doesn’t have. Weber reveals that the engineering freeze on the first true Volt prototypes or integration cars will occur “within days,” and that these integration models will be built and tested sometime later this year. If GM could simply let its executives just say what they hint at (conceptual, preliminary, this thing takes time) and let the “late 2010” date slip, their troops on the ground might not be grousing that the battery system is an “epic fail.” Instead it’s being rammed through and damn the torpedoes. This won’t end well.

Aptera Motors has pushed its first street-ready prototype out of the cradle. Yes, it’s a tricycle, with a drive train à la Fisher Price PowerWheels, and a name that sounds like a one-year-old pointing out the cruise director on Love Boat, but the 2e might prove to be the car the Chevy electric/gas plug-in hybrid Volt and lithium-ion-powered Tesla long to be: the future.

Aptera itself is only a toddler, raised for the last three years by Google and others, now with a chance at the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize. The contest from the X Prize Foundation challenges teams to “design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy.” To stake a claim, Aptera claims the 2e achieves the equivalent of 200 mpg and 100 miles on a charge. They hope to have cars in Southern Californian driveways before November.

“Everything is progressing nicely as we ramp up for full production of the 2e beginning in October,” says chief marketing officer Marques McCammon. “We’re still on target to build an ultra-efficient, high-mileage vehicle without sacrificing comfort and safety, and once Californians get behind the wheel this fall, we expect to change the world of commuter transportation.”

Well ahead of Chevy Volt’s debut, the 2e is supposed to hit the street between $25,000 and  $45,000, halving or quartering a Tesla’s price. Not that it’s a fair comparison. Tesla wants the mantle of true sports car. Chevy wants respectability. The 2e wants to win. Hearts, minds and 10 million large. It’s got a shot, if you believe corporations, which I do. Not what they’re saying, mind you, but what they’re doing. Aptera seems to be quietly making a car like no other.

The difference between the 2e and the rest of the world can be seen in any slideshow from the 2009 Detroit Auto Show. Eight companies lit up cars they say we’ll be plugging in come the next decade. They all look like cars. The 2e could have played Eva in Wall-E. The dove body with Cessna landing gear makes the Prius look like a brick.

The thing is so birdlike you can’t help but ask if it’s safe. Three-wheeled ATVs were outlawed because of the inherent instability. Aptera dumps a lot of answers on that question. First, they use composite materials for the exterior (“lighter than steel but three times as strong.”). They claim not one, but two elephants can stand on the 2e’s shell without hatching a mess. That shell wraps a Formula 1 style passenger cage and more airbags than a chop shop in Modesto.

All of which is great for the driver. For the car? It looks like an underwriter’s nightmare. The rear is one, big whale tail. The front wheels are on little spindles. The wonderfully sleek, nearly seamless body looks as though it could absorb a crash nicely with its totality. Resulting in a total. Eh, none of us want to drive Hummers anymore, right?

Lithium-ion batteries juice the 2e’s electric motor that, per company literature, urges the car from zero to 60 in less than 10 seconds, topping out at 90 mph. Even the guy in the Aveo laughs at you, but riding around for 100 miles on half a buck is a whole new kind of bragging right. Then you plug in. At a standard 110 volt outlet, you’re watching Lord of the Rings before you’re stuck in traffic again. All three disks.

At 55 mph, half a car’s energy is used to cut the air. With a coefficient of drag around 0.15, the 2e is a Ginsu. It’s only 1,700 pounds. Oh, and the tester has gull wing doors. Maybe they improve efficiency, maybe not, but they appear integral to the design. They might actually make it into the final product.

Aptera wanted a real car, though, so they stuck to their mandate of two people and two sets of golf clubs. The 2e is classified as a motorcycle by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. They had to call it something. Given the size of the C-pillars, I would’ve voted for panel truck.

Aptera says it’s taken 4,000 deposits for a car they promise will look and spec out really close to the prototype: front-wheel drive, solar powered climate control, do-it-yourself windows. Not what you’d call luxury but comfier than an Austin Healy, if that counts for anything.

It might. Industrial design is always about compromise. Aptera hasn’t created the fastest, biggest or softest EV concept, but they’re thinking about showrooms, while most others are thinking about shows. It’s too early to tell if 2e will grow up and become the future of the car. It certainly does look the part, though. We’ll check back around Halloween and see if it has anything more than a cool costume.

Lithium-ion batteries are not yet a major source of automotive propulsion. Excluding the li-ion cells lingering within the $100k+ Tesla Roadster, not a single volume vehicle depends on the technology. Toyota has adopted a “go slow” policy on li-on cells re: their gas – electric Synergy Drive (most famously found inside the Prius). Sure, li-ion batteries will power Chevrolet’s electric – gas hybrid Volt. Eventually. And that’s no small point. At the moment, with gas prices at historic low levels, hybrids simply aren’t selling. Of course, nothing’s really selling. Except the idea that we need lots and lots of hybrids and that those hybrids will need lithium ion batteries and we better make sure we have enough lithium otherwise the vision of clean, gas-free personal transportation will disappear. And the New York Times can’t have that, now can it?

Earlier this week, The Times set the autoblogosphere abuzz with a look at Bolivia’s bounteous lithium supply. According to the Times, the United States Geological Survey estimates Bolivia is home to some 5.4m tons of lithium. The U.S. soil supposedly contains “just” 410lk tons of lithium. Ladies and gentlemen of the politically aware persuasion, forget ye olde missile gap. Welcome to the “lithium gap.”

Francisco Quisbert is the leader of a group of salt gatherers and quinoa farmers who live near a giant salt flat. Quisbert’s fifteen minutes of fame arrived when a NYT reporter recorded him pronouncing “we know that Bolivia can become the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” If that wasn’t enough to raise the hackles of the friends of hybrids, Quisbert also played the class card. “We are poor. But we are not stupid peasants. The lithium may be Bolivia’s, but it is also our property.”

Yeah right. Meanwhile, back to the template Times’ readers know and love to hate: western exploitation. The head of Bolivia’s national– yes national– lithium mining company provided the necessary rhetoric. “The previous imperialist model of exploitation of our natural resources will never be repeated in Bolivia. Maybe there could be the possibility of foreigners accepted as minority partners, or better yet, as our clients.”

Bolivia’s President (and former Coca grower) Evo Morales is no stranger to the government-sanctioned expropriation technique commonly known as “nationalization.” Whether sending soldiers into BP’s local headquarters or nationalizing Brazil’s natural gas operations and then charging higher prices, Morales has made it clear that he believes natural resources belong to local indigenous peoples (even if they’re not as well compensated as, say, the Bolivian government and Morales-appointed representatives).  

Obviously, lithium commerce predates hybrid hopes. The battery industry has been buying lithium for well over a decade. And Bolivia’s reluctance to grant that industry grant unfettered access to its lithium predates its current leftist president. When right wing nationalists controlled the Bolivian government in the early 90s, advances by the American firm LithCo to secure supplies were thwarted. Unlike the early days of Saudi oil exploration, American firms are on the outside looking in.

The Times reports that Sumitomo, Mitsubishi and a French conglomerate headed by Vincent Bolloré have been trying to wrangle a lithium extraction deal with the Morales government. More recently, Reuters has reported that the Korean firm LG is trying to jump onto the Bolivian lithium bandwagon.

Morales is having none of it. Well, some. The companies’ opportunities are limited to investment in the government operation, which consists of a $6m pilot plant. Construction of a $250m lithium extraction plant is proceding at what The Guardian calls a “snails pace.”

According to Bolivia’s state mining director Freddy Beltran, “there haven’t been any developments (in the negotiations with Mitsubishi, Sumitomo or Bolloré). None of them has made a proposal including (the creation of a lithium) industry.”

Beltran’s kvetch: the three firms all want to export raw lithium. (Why does this sound familiar?) The Bolivian government wants them to develop a processing industry in-country.

Yes, well, the Bolivian government is likely to come to some kind of “arrangement” fairly soon. As one Bolivian economist puts it, “we have the most magnificent lithium reserves on the planet, but if we don’t step into the race now, we will lose this chance. The market will find other solutions for the world’s battery needs.”

Or other lithium supplies. The WSJ’s Environmental Capital blog (and Lithium Abundance blog) points out that increasing demand for lithium would increase exploration, which could turn up new reserves.  

What’s more, battery technology is hot (so to speak). With federal funding providing the match. Scientists are hot on the trail of alternative battery materials– from zinc-air to improved nickle-metal-hydrate. Meanwhile, China is pumping out lithium for its own booming battery sector.  

In short, despite the NYT geo-political paranoia, anyone worrying about the possibility of a Bolivian lithium embargo is wasting their energy.

If cross-country road trips are the quintessential American journey of the 20th century, I’m a quintessential American. I’d ridden thrice between Seattle and Boston by the time I was eight. At 17, I drove from Boston to Palo Alto, then back a year later, in a beat up ‘62 Falcon. I crossed the US another eight times—including once respectively by train and bicycle—while a student at Berkeley. Three decades later, I’m longing to do it again. Unfortunately, the 20th century is over. Since it began, the US and world populations have quadrupled. We’re straining world oil production capacity, and the specter of global heating and acidified seas from CO2 emissions is causing cognitive dissonance in my car-loving head. Driving’s future seems uncertain. But a new company, Better Place of Palo Alto, has a plan.

Already, two tiny Massachusetts-sized countries, Israel and Denmark, have signed-up for Better Place’s plan. Another 25 countries, both small and big, as well as Hawaii, are reportedly interested. Better Place offers a few rays of hope for a healthy planet free from thrall to oil-soaked thug-nations. Nonetheless, in this brave new world, the romance of the open road is but a dream.

Why? Batteries. And don’t hold your breath for technological deus ex machina. “Electrochemistry is, by definition, hell on materials,” says John DeCicco, of the Environmental Defense Fund. Lithium ion phosphate, which will power the Better Place fleets, improves power density and charge-cycle endurance—to a claimed 2,000 cycles. Even so, some 500 lbs. of batteries will limit the Israeli and Danish Renaults’ range to 60 to 100 miles.

By 2011’s end, Better Place promises to blanket Israel’s 10,000 square miles with a grid of 500k charge spots, about 50 per square mile. Israeli customers will be able to replenish their battery at home, at work, and all over the place. If they must push the range limits, they can exchange their depleted battery for a fully charged one in less than five minutes at one of Better Place’s specialized battery swap-out stations—no extra charge. But these will number only 100 in this 290-mile long country. Nonetheless, Israelis and Danes will save big on the 70 percent and 180 percent taxes their respective countries levy on internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.

According to Dan Sperling, battery swapping raises some red flags. Its “many flaws” include “the issue of standardizing across model lines, never mind across car companies,” maintains the director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis (who erroneously thought Better Place might be switching to fast charging). Greg Nowell, of SUNY Albany, worries about the cost of transporting all these 500-pound replacement packs to the swap-out stations. He also warns of the possibility that peaks in demand—such as holidays—may present intermittent supply problems.

Should the program come to America, the cost for the mileage contract would run around $500/month. A Better Place spokesperson says the precise figure would vary with mileage. But a substantial monthly rebate would accrue, varying according to local costs and incentives. The EVs would be competitive with ICE cars. You would, in theory, save $10k-12k on the batteries. All this is very roughly equivalent to the cost of new car ownership.

Could it work in a country the size of the U.S.?  Better Place says a “mass roll-out” of the infrastructure here would cost $100b. “When compared to the $500 to $600 billion the U.S. spends on oil imports annually, we’re talking about a five year plan that will change our economy,” the spokesperson says.

The EV company says that if 84 percent of America’s 200m cars switched to electricity overnight, no new power plants would be needed. Indeed, all those batteries could aid the transition to renewable energy sources, by storing excess coming off of wind and solar farms.

Competition? All else equal, the far simpler EVs should be cheaper than hybrids (or even conventional ICE) to manufacture and maintain, and potentially more reliable. From government’s point of view, Better Place is great for balance of payments and geopolitics. But “battery electrics won’t out-compete gasoline hybrids anytime soon,” Sperling admits.

That said, Sperling says Better Place is “all very doable,” adding that “there has to be resolve by government, risk-taking by companies, and willingness to change behavior on the part of consumers.” At current gas prices, which he says will not go higher long term without aggressive fuel or carbon taxes, he foresees a market potential of about 25 percent, chiefly among two car households.

Better Place may not be the dream of a high octane pistonhead, but it could well relieve pressure on all that we hold dear.

It’s Monday, December 27, 2010. A Chevy customer sits behind the wheel of his brand-new, fully-charged, plug-in hybrid Volt. He’s heading off to the office some fifteen miles away. Three years ago, our early adopter was one the first to put his name on the waiting list at gm-volt.com. Since then, he visited the site religiously for daily updates. And now the Volt looks set to deliver on all of GM Car Czar Bob Lutz’s promises. But… the Volt driver’s journey into the future is about to be a lot shorter than he’d imagined.

His thirty-mile round trip California commute is well below the Volt’s advertised forty mile all-electric range (AER). So the EV enthusiast confidently instructed the dealer to purge the range-extending gas tank. His new-found freedom from OPEC, Hugo Chavez, Middle-East terrorists and money-grubbing Big Oil is intoxicating. He’s on the phone telling his stock broker to short Exxon.

He keeps his speed five miles an hour below prevailing freeway traffic. After only thirteen miles, the low battery warning lights come on. The Volt coasts to a stop on the shoulder. A head is scratched, epithets uttered.

Meanwhile, Katrina II is bearing down on New Orleans. A Louisiana Volt driver packs his family into his EV and heads for relatives in Mobile, Alabama, some 130 miles away.

Since he normally uses his Volt strictly for urban all-electric driving, the gas tank is empty. Traffic crawls along jammed I-10. The gas stations have all closed. The shoulders are littered with cars that have run dry. As he pulls into his relatives’ driveway, 13 grueling hours later, the Volt’s low-battery warning lights are just coming on.

Non-EV drivers will have a hard time believing that any vehicle can achieve ten times the range in stop-and-go-traffic than it can attain on the open highway. EPA statistics have trained them to believe that vehicles operate more efficiently at highway speeds than they do in city traffic— even though it’s not an intuitive conclusion (they know it takes more energy to “push” the car through the air at increasing speeds).

This discrepancy between expectation and reality comes down to the internal combustion engine's (ICE) gross inefficiency. Most automotive ICEs in the world use about 30 percent of the energy content stored within their gasoline. (Most of fuel’s energy content disappears into heat and carbon dioxide.) And that’s under optimal conditions. Typically, an ICE's is in single digits or teens.

An EV is an entirely different beast. Due to the excellent efficiency of all parts of the EV system (batteries, inverter, motor), cumulative efficiency exceeds 70 percent at virtually all speeds. So an EV’s energy requirements almost perfectly reflect the actual energy being expended to move the vehicle.

This results in spectacular range in city traffic and traffic jams.

In our first Volt scenario, the cutting edge commuter had to “climb” a modest three percent grade at a constant 70mph. This challenge knocked 67 percent off the Volt’s 40-mile projected AER. In scenario two, the Volt achieved maximum efficiency during 10mph stop-start traffic.

In fact, gasoline packs 80 times more energy per pound than a lithium-ion battery. It’s only the EV’s superb efficiency that makes them feasible. BUT aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed. In other words, the faster an EV travels, its power requirement increases disproportionately. So until battery density increases further, and quick charging becomes commonplace, EV’s are still best suited for urban environments.

[The Volt’s range projections—13 miles and 130 miles– may be off by a mile or two. But drive a Volt into a headwind at the eighty-mile speed limit in flat West Texas with the A/C on, and simple physics dictates that the Chevy’s AER range will be somewhere in the teens. You can’t fight Newton.]

The Volt’s range-extending ICE gen-set overcomes its labile range– at a price. To compensate for the battery’s inherent limitations, the extended range Volt will have to lug around hundreds of pounds of complex machinery. That extra weight reduces range further. Not to mention adding unwelcome/expensive complexity in the service bay.

Meanwhile, cheaper, long-range EVs and quick-charging batteries are around the corner. Nissan has announced its intention to sell an affordable 100-mile range pure-EV in the US by 2010. Nissan partner AESC has developed batteries that can be recharged to 90 percent in fifteen minutes, or 60 percent in five minutes. And with battery density increasing by some eight percent per year, by 2017 that 100 mile range could well be 200 miles. Cross-country trips for bladder-challenged moderate-speed drivers become doable.

Until then, don’t believe everything you hear. Our calculations suggest that “Maximum” Bob Lutz’ 40-mile EV-only jaunt in a Volt mule must have been at no more than 50mph average. That’s good, maybe even great. But it’s still not good enough. 

Not for same reasons you do. You want a battery-powered Tesla Roadster because it’s a way cool car boasting bleeding edge technology. Or maybe you just like sexy sports cars. Or perhaps you’re looking for massive eco-auto props. As a free marketeer, I’m good with any of these motivations. As a Porsche Boxster S owner, I’m not bothered (I’ve already found my dream date). But as the publisher of this website, I want a Tesla Roadster BAD. I want to reveal the truth about the EV– whatever that may be.

The Tesla Birth Watch was born a fit of journalistic pique. It galled me to see my colleagues repeating the aspiring electric car company’s claims for their Roadster’s range, recharge time, safety and performance as fact. This before they'd turned a single wheel in anger. It made these media outlets– including mainstream publications that should have known better (I’m looking at you Forbes)– not-so-silent partners in the company’s PR and fund-raising efforts. The words “unproven” and “claimed” were conspicuous by their absence.

What’s more, Tesla’s Devil-make-care insistence that their unproven lithium-ion battery technology would deliver the claimed results (see how that works?) struck me as the worst kind of corporate arrogance– especially for a start-up. If BMW announces that their new twin-turbo 3.0-liter six will deliver 300 horsepower, accelerate the 335i from zero to sixty in 5.4 seconds and deliver 17/26 mpg, I have every reason to believe them. If a newbie named Tesla says their high tech Roadster will go from zero to sixty in under four seconds, travel 250 miles between charges and recharge in three hours, I say show me the money.

So I started the Tesla Birth Watch. If you go back and read the various installments, you’ll soon find the common thread: delays, disambiguation and disappearing claims. Transmission problems have forced the company to deep-six its sub-four second zero to sixty time. The 250-mile range is now 211 miles in “EPA Combined”- despite the fact that the EPA doesn’t have an electric vehicle mpg protocol. And no one– I repeat no one– has tested the Roadster’s batteries’ recharge time.

When Frank said we should pronounce T.O.B. (Time of Birth) on the Tesla Roadster and end the series– as the manufacturer claimed to have delivered a vehicle to a paying customer– I wanted proof. Given Tesla’s credibility (or complete lack thereof), the fact that this customer wants to remain anonymous doesn’t pass the smell test.

And if there is any wiggle room in our definition of “customer delivery of a production car,” I’m confident Tesla’s using it. For example, Tesla says it will retrofit the Roadster with a new transmission just as soon as they figure-out how to build one. Would we call a Ford Flex a proper production vehicle if it had to have a post-sale tranny swap? I don’t think so. As TTAC commentator PCH101 points out, “Even Vector delivered one vehicle. Technically, they’re still in business. It remains one of our oldest and best known vaporware companies.”

But you don’t hire a world-class Managing Editor, and then tell him he’s full of shit (at least not often). So I’ve deferred to Frank in this case. But I insisted we start the Tesla Death Watch. Think of it this way…

Tesla says they’ll deliver 400 cars by next March. Let’s assume they make, build and sell twice that and then some: 1000 cars per year, or 20 cars a week (pausing to note that Audi plans to sell 1k similarly-priced R8’s stateside in the car’s first year.) Let’s also assume they clear $20k per $100k car. So that’s $20m in ostensible net profit. Is there anyone reading this who thinks Tesla hasn’t already burned through $20m?

Now we know Tesla’s raised a lot more money than that, but that’s not the point. At some point, they’ll need to, you know, take in more money than they spend. At the same time, the Roadster runs the very real risk of catching “everyone who wants one’s got one” disease. It’s no wonder the company’s beginning to shift focus onto the WhiteStar EV– or partial EV– sedan. They need something to sell. To investors.

In truth, Tesla Motors is no more likely to produce and sell a viable, profitable, competitive, mass-market electric-powered sedan than General Motors. Given Tesla’s history of over-promising and under- (as in not) delivering on the Roadster, I reckon they don’t have a hope in Hell of achieving this goal. But that won’t stop them from raising tens of millions of dollars for their cushy offices and healthy salaries, and making a killing with an IPO. Nor will it stop us from telling the truth about Tesla, test car or no.

[Once again, we call on Tesla to provide a Roadster for third-party evaluation.] 

For nearly a century, powertrains and vehicle design have followed a largely evolutionary development path, slowly improving on one basic concept. But rising fuel prices for our inherited automotive paradigm point to radical changes ahead. Hybrids have already established a beachhead for the coming revolution. Like the dot-com boom just a decade ago, the EV gold rush is on. From pure vaporware to Hail-Mary-mobiles to groundbreaking machines that threaten real world practicality and affordability, there's lots to learn from and laugh at in the post-combustion world.

With so much to be depressed about (the death of affordable gas, the new Knight Rider TV series, etc.), you gotta laff, mate. And that's where Volt Nation comes in. Your online headquarters for (GM) Volt-o-mania, gm-volt.com recently covered the breaking news that Bob Lutz didn't actually say the Volt would cost $48k. When pressed, Lutz tells gm-volt.com's Lyle Dennis “(The price) keeps going up. Every time you ask, Lyle, it goes up again.” Lutz also calls the battery “a big unknown”– a fact which doesn't prevent one commenter from declaring that the unborn Volt “could change the world economy.” Another gushes “I vote that we quit asking price. If it’s right, then I’ll buy one or two.” Enjoy the love-fest, but remember: reality is just a hyperlink away.

The antidote to clueless cheer leading, greencarcongress.com is the place for hard-core EV (electric vehicle) and alt-energy nuts to geek out. The site offers a smorgasbord of super-wonky details and discussion of new developments such as a new $10k plug-in conversion kit for the Prius and the possibility of a renewable, organic electrode material for lithium-ion batteries. No detail goes unnoticed– from ZF's development of "hydraulic impulse oil storage element that can be integrated in the new generation of its 8-speed automatic transmissions to better support start-stop microhybrid systems," to the latest hybrid sales numbers.

Evworld.com brings us news of a plugless plug-in hybrid Skoda Fabia developed by the UK's Motor Industry Research Association. The retrofit is said to "eliminate the primary limitation of the 'plug-in hybrid' concept." Sadly, this isn't a cure for high prices and overly complex technology. Nope, this e-doo-hickey simply allows you to lug your batteries to a power source to charge them up, so on-street parkers can still rock a plug-in. Hmmm, sounds like an extension cord might have been cheaper.

Let's take a moment now to dispel the notion that EVs are all overly-complex yet boring city boxes. Sometimes they're slightly-complex yet impractical sports cars. Case in point, the Dutch firm Evisol threw a Siemens engine and some lithium polymer batteries into a Lotus Seven replica. Blijdschap! The Thorr was born. Like Tesla (after several epic fails), Evisol left the gearbox out, figuring the (up to) 450nm of torque at zero rpm would suffice to haul the 1600 lb Thorr to speed while still returning a 125 miles range. Too bad Evisol can't tell us what it will cost, when it will be available or the final performance. Still, it's a good blueprint for a sweet shadetree EV project car.

For a snapshot of the EV companies with the best PR departments products, Dvice.com has a list of the Top 10 World-Changing Electric Cars. Ignore the hyperbolic headline, and the inclusion of such oddities as the cartoonish Venturi "Eclectic Car" (pictured) and the Baker Electric Vehicle, which went out of production in 1915, and you have a snapshot of some of the products coming down the EV pipeline. Whether cars like the Fisker Karma even make it to production is still a question, and the Aptera Typ1 is unlikely to change anything outside of Southern California, but hey… the future has to come sometime, right?

Still not convinced that EVs have a future in the US? The optimistically-named solveclimate.com covers a Deutsche Bank study which might just change your mind. The German beancounters went over the numbers for Project Better Place's charging station and car-leasing business model. They were impressed to say the least. PBP's plans to market EV's like cell phones with set-mileage service plans could reduce the cost of driving to as little as seven cents per mile, compared to an average of 15 – 20 cents per mile currently available in the US. PBP proves that EV technology isn't enough on its own. Someone has to overcome their cost downsides.

Finally, the no-longer-presented-by-Acura Jalopnik takes us inside a Chinese factory which builds counterfeit Smart ForTwos. The ripoff rides might not be EVs, but they offer an insight into the conditions in which ultra-cheap EVs like Zap's Xebra are built. Just in case you thought your EV was, y'know… saving the planet.

Jim McGreen wanted to make some money in a green business. A craftsman-like mechanic, he had success making and selling electric bicycle kits out of his Alameda garage. Like so many others, he thought electric vehicles (EVs) were the obvious answer to pollution and expensive fossil fuels. In 1992, McGreen founded ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) Power Systems. But he needed more capital. 

Gary Starr had started an EV division at Solar Electric Engineering, a struggling solar cell firm later renamed US Electricar. In 1994, Electricar sent Starr packing, but not without plenty of cash to invest. Starr soon found McGreen. ZAP incorporated with McGreen, Starr and their wives as the board of directors.

Two years later, ZAP went public, clearing over $2m. McGreen invented the Zappy upright scooter in 1997. The $650 15 mph two-wheeler caught on with celebrities and public alike. Kevin Spacey rode his on Letterman, and Edward Norton called ZAP, asking them to make his go faster (than Spacey's).

ZAP sold over 2k Zappy scooters in 1998. But even $1.4m in sales wasn't enough to turn a profit. Starr argued that ZAP could cut costs by outsourcing production to Asia. McGreen was committed to quality. Starr, however, had masterminded adding three directors to ZAP's board. Late in 1999, Starr, his wife and his three new board members voted Jim McGreen out as president and CEO, putting Gary Starr in charge.

Under Starr, ZAP attempted to replace McGreen’s production expertise by purchasing Global Electric Motorcars (GEM), successful builders of low speed EVs. Failing there and elsewhere, ZAP's share price plummeted from a peak of $13 to $5.50 by April 2000.

Starr brought in John Dabels, former Marketing Director for the GM EV Program, to manage operations. As President, Dabels managed to double sales, raising annual revenue to $12m, but also resisted outsourcing to Asia. Dabel soon tired of butting heads with Starr and resigned in January 2001. (He later was a suspect in Who Killed the Electric Car?)

Zappy knockoffs drove stock prices under 50 cents a share. So Starr axed 80 of ZAP’s 100 California workers and outsourced to Taiwan. Almost immediately, cheap Asian copies– selling for a quarter of the “real thing”– flooded the market. With annual revenue falling below $5m, ZAP filed for Chapter 11 with a suspended Nasdaq share price of 21 cents.

Somehow, Starr emerged from Chapter 11 as board chairman. He brought in used-car dealer Steve Schneider. Between them, they gained controlling interest of Zap. Issuing stock as payment, ZAP went on a buying spree and learned the power of the press release to impress new investors.

Announcing the $99k fuel-cell Worldcar for 2003 pushed the stock price to $1.85 a share. Announcing their rights to sell smart cars– though later debunked by Daimler– drove it to $2.60. By 2005, ZAP's stock price was back down to 26 cents. A sympathetic USA Today article in 2006 raised ZAP's stock up to $1.23. Eventually, both the Worldcar and the flex-fuel, Italian-built Obvio (announced for 2005) faded into the ether.

ZAP has actually sold an EV: the Xebra, a three-wheeled Chinese EV with a Daktari paint option. As reviewed on TTAC, its lethargic top speed, limited range and cheesy detailing does not impress. The Xebra’s poor reliability also turned out to be the bane of unwary dealers that sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into Starr and Schneider’s promises– only to find themselves selling cheap EVs that had to be repeatedly towed back to the dealership.

And yet ZAP is still attracting investors on the vapors of green PR, promising two "fast, sexy and affordable" EVs within only two years.

For their $32,500 three-wheeled Alias sports EV, ZAP claims 321hp and 156 mph. Albert Lam, chairman of ZAP's joint venture with Chinese coach-builder Youngman said, "I believe we can go into production by the second quarter of 2009."

For the $60K Zap-X CUV EV, ZAP claims 644 hp, 0- 60 in 4.8 seconds and 155 mph, performance comparable to a Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Even less believably, ZAP claims a 350 mile range and a ten-minute recharge.

"This is vaporware," responds auto industry analyst Aaron Bragman, of Global Insight. "The claims they've made just don't jive with the current state of technology."

Despite the long development times seen with the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt, Youngman promised China Daily last October that, "the sample vehicles will be finished at the end of this year (2007) or next January" and "two or three months after testing, the electric powered sedan under the Lotus brand (Zap-X) will be the first to go into mass production."

But even the $40m Youngman has invested isn't nearly enough to actually deliver radical new EVs in that time frame. At least we'll know who killed this electric car.

Until GM’s stylish EV-1 came along, electric vehicles (EVs) looked like they were made in shop class. Back then, very few people actually thought about owning an EV. Though many electric dreams have been literally crushed, green-thinking and/or peak oil-aware drivers now look to EVs as the natural successor to traditional fossil-fuel sucking and CO2 spewing motorcars. But are they worthy?

With standard nickel metal hydride batteries, no. Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) demonstrate the best use– and limitations– of the technology. NEVs such as GEM and ZENN are fully functional, ready right now vehicles. But most of us would hesitate to (as in never) shell out $10K – $15K for a vehicle with a range of 30 to 35 miles and a speed of 25 to 30 mph– especially when we could get a Yaris or Fit for the same money.

The EV’s immediate and long-term future [still] depends on developing powerful, reliable and safe batteries. At the moment EV hopes reside in lithium-ion batteries, which are twice as powerful by weight as nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

Li-ion cells work great in our mobile phones and iPods. But automotive batteries must transfer much larger amounts of energy than a notebook battery. Safety, both real and perceived, is a huge problem. Fire can result from a ruptured separator: the electrically insulating porous polymer membranes that stop electrons (but let ions pass) between anode and cathode.

Automakers need high performance separators that allow greater ion flow and thus more power with safety membranes that close pores when overheated, thus stopping fire. Production is complicated; the Tesla Motor’s Li-Ion cooling system is a complex work-around with inherent risks and limitations, both practical and financial. Meanwhile, Evonik, Celgard, Asahi Kasei and even ExxonMobil are working on multilayer separators to make lithium-ion car batteries safe enough for soccer moms.

Even if they don't burst into flame, lithium-ion batteries are expensive. Their capacity often degrades in the first year. They don’t work well in cold temperatures. And they sometimes fail altogether after three years. Yet many EV startups confidently offer lithium-based electric vehicle conversions.

Hybrid Technologies lists a range of electric vehicle conversions. The Smart ForTwo becomes the $43.5K LiV Dash; the MINI Cooper becomes the $57.5K LiV Flash; the Chrysler PT Cruiser becomes the $55K LiV Surge; and most recently, the Toyota Yaris becomes the $39.5K LiV Wise. Hybrid Technologies claim 100 mile ranges, 70 to 80 mph speeds and at least 1500 charges.

Lion EV offers the $30K Ford Ranger EV, a $35.5K Ford Escape EV and a $37.5K Ford Escape Hybrid PHEV. They claim a base range of 120 miles for the Escape EV and 200 miles for the Ranger EV.

For serious EV shoppers, their manufacturers’ greatest weakness: you can pretty much forget about kicking the tires and taking your prospective purchase for a quiet spin. Hybrid Tech is looking for distributors other than the catalog at Sam's Club. LionEV claims their dealerships are home-based with no lots to visit. "How can I arrange a tour of your manufacturing plant?" asks the LionEV FAQ. "You can't," is the answer.

Prices for these unseen, untouched vehicles are expressed in general terms– many options cannot be specified before ordering. And ordering online requires paying an upfront deposit weeks, months and even years ahead of delivery.

Lion and Hybrid are two of the rare companies that actually let you order four-wheel electric vehicles with some expectation of delivery. The Tango looks great next to George Clooney, but it requires a $10K deposit and a two to three year wait (while Commuter Cars lines up investors). Phoenix and Think maintain Flash-y websites that promise breakthroughs, but never seem to have anything for sale (in the U.S., anyway). And then there’s Tesla’s Roadster. Or, as is the case, not.

Assuming that EV makers get their acts together and create lithium-ion batteries (or some better storage medium) that are powerful enough to offer the range and recharge times consumers demand, and safe enough to withstand America’s litigious society, the question remains: are EVs a suitable solution to our desire for personal mobility?

On the positive side, nearly everyone has electrical power in their homes and businesses. No question: there’s a lot of unused nighttime generating capacity. EVs run clean, run quiet (too quiet, according to advocates for the hearing challenged).

On the negative side, electrical energy has to come from somewhere, and that source is usually CO2-emitting, fossil-fuel-fired plants and/or the ever-controversial nuclear power plants.  Except for the tiny contribution by wind and solar, and the modest contribution by hydroelectric, electricity is not clean power. Nor is electric power any more guaranteed to stay less expensive than oil and natural gas.

In short, EVs have a long way to go before they can go a long way towards transforming America’s transportation system.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy made a pronouncement that made a lot of people think he'd lost his mind: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade." According to GM's Vice Chairman of Global Product Development, Chevrolet's gas-electric plug-in electric hybrid is GM's moon shot. Wired magazine recently sat down with Bob Lutz and asked the Car Czar what would happen if the Volt doesn't succeed. "What if Kennedy hadn't pulled off the moon shot?" Bob wondered aloud. "If it doesn't work, it's not fatal. But if it does work, it will be sensational and it will have the same sort of symbolism." The U.S. put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, as promised. What are the chances the Volt will appear in a Chevy showroom by 2010?

Ever since the Chevy Volt burst forth from the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, "Maximum Bob" has been feeding an adoring press a steady diet of sound bites on the Volt's technology and timetable. The statements are frequently contradictory, usually unrealistic and subject to frequent change.

It began in March of last year, when Lutz promised a running Volt prototype by the end of 2007. A test mule with the Volt drivetrain crammed into an existing model would have provided reasons to be cheerful, part one. But it wasn't to be. In November, Bob revised his estimate: "Let's wait for the Easter Bunny."

In January, GM revealed the Volt's development team was having problems getting the mission critical, new technology batteries for testing from one of their suppliers. Recently, GM said that they'll have appropriate lithium-ion batteries "ready to demonstrate" by June (of this year). The reason for the new date? "Acceleration issues." We now learn that a Volt equipped with the current state-of-the-art batteries would require a full minute to amble from zero to sixty miles per hour.  

And that's just the technology. When Bob first mooted Chevy's Plug-in Electric Hybrid (PHEV), he pegged the PHEV's price point at a Prius-competitive $30k. As soon as the Volt team realized what a suitable lithium-ion battery pack might cost, GM announced that they were considering leasing the battery packs for around $100/month– to keep the "total" price within reason. Easter Bunny or not, GM hasn't said whether or not they're still pursuing that particular hair-brained scheme.

Now the $30K selling price seems to be going the way of Jamie Lynn Spears' virginity. Speaking to Wired, Backpedalin' Bob stated "it doesn't look like that's going to be possible." The Volt's price "might get there on the second generation, and they say if they had a lot more time they might be able to cost-optimize it [but] I don't want to wait for cost optimization. I'd rather come out in 2010, and if it costs closer to 40 than 30, well, that's too bad." Too bad for the customer…

No matter what the final price, we still don't know when we might finally see a Volt on the road. At the beginning of this saga, Lutz claimed the Volt would be humming along in 2010. Then, at last year's Los Angeles Auto Show, Lutz said the Volt would hit the streets by November of '08. Now it's 2010. Or not. Apparently, November 2010 has become GM's "internal target." "You don't know what you don't know," Lutz told Wired. "Could it go later than 2010? Yes."

Deadline, schmeadline. Maximum Bob's still pumped on the Volt. He crows that it's "symbolic of a renaissance in the American auto industry… If we pull it off successfully, it can really put us back at the top of the heap of automotive technology instead of being called laggards that are being left behind by the Germans and the Japanese." That is, unless a Japanese manufacturer doesn't quietly introduce a fully-realized plug-in electric hybrid first, as Toyota's CEO has just promised to do. 

Even IF GM rolls out a Volt by 2010, even IF it offers better performance than the next generation PHEV Prius, even IF it can compete with the segment leader on price, even IF it sells well, even IF it proves to be a reliable automobile, even IF it continues to sell, GM's Car Czar has already destroyed the Detroit automaker's credibility. And here's the real problem: the Volt probably won't do any of these things. 

John F. Kennedy entered the space race saying a moon shot "will be done in the decade." GM has refused to fully  commit itself to any deadline for the Volt, making the Hail Mary PHEV's appearance a moving target. Why? To avoid responsibility. And it is that difference– the difference between a culture of genuine accountability and GM's culture of endless streams of false, unrealized promises– that hobbles the Volt, and has brought GM to its knees. 

The prolonged wait for the Chevrolet Volt reminds me uncomfortably of waiting for the Chevrolet Vega to appear. For GM’s sake, the outcome had better be radically different. Because no one single vehicle did more damage to GM then the highly-hyped Vega.

Beginning in 1968, three years before the star-crossed Vega finally landed, GM cranked up a huge publicity campaign for its coming “import killer,” code named XP-887. Every month in Popular Science, I read of the miraculous XP-887, accompanied by spy sketches. This huge PR build-up was unprecedented. Previously, new cars were kept under wraps as long as possible. GM was raising the expectations of the whole nation.

The Vega became a cause of national interest: if Americans could beat the Russians to the moon, GM could damn well beat back the imports.

Kinda like the new Chevy Volt.

When I finally saw photos, I began to salivate. The Vega was as cute as a button: those sparkly bright eyes, that Ferrariesque egg-crate grille, the sleek lines on the fastback coupe and that adorable little wagon. Never mind that the Vega was essentially a baby Camaro, with a low roofline that made it cramped and impractical.

Not unlike the Volt’s squished roof.

My enthusiasm inspired a friend to become a Vega beta-tester. Since the baby Chevy’s prices were rather lofty, he settled for a base two-door sedan. When he showed up with it, I experienced my first GM cold shower; actually, it was more like being waterboarded.

At a time when the imports were only selling fully equipped models, the base Vega made a pole-dancing stripper look dressed for church. Unlike the proto-bling Vegas in the ads, his car had no exterior trim, ill-fitting taxi-cab rubber flooring and grim wall-to-wall hard plastic. There wasn’t even a door on the glove box. I had never seen anything like it before because nobody had built an interior like this before.

The Vega forced GM to confront a cruel fact that it still hasn’t solved: it doesn’t know how to manufacture small cars profitably. Originally intended to compete head-on with the imports, higher production costs forced GM to price the Vega some 10 percent higher. They intended to justify that premium with an extra-well-equipped small car. But in a last-ditch effort in the losing battle with profitability, they made the ad-friendly “custom” interior and exterior pieces optional.

Kinda like GM’s plan to sell the Volt without a battery.

We opened the Vega’s hood and started the engine. An auditory form of CIA-approved torture ensued. Not only did the strangely shaped long-stroke engine “look like it had come off a 1920’s farm tractor” (John DeLorean), it sounded and shook like one too. As fond as I am of old Farmalls, this was nothing like my high school buddy’s zippy and smooth Datsun 510 engine.

And what did GM’s moon-shot program offer in the transmission department? The two-speed Powerglide first saw the light of day in 1949. It felt like half of the engine’s 80 horsepower were somehow lost in translation to the rear wheels.

Unfortunately, the standard three-speed stick was just as much a throwback to the fifties, and had such widely-spaced ratios that Car & Driver said it “feels more like a six-speed with first, third and fifth gears missing.” The fact that the Vega handled well (on glass-smooth pavement) only made the power-train that much more frustrating.

But hope springs eternal. Right from the beginning, Chevy was talking up a performance version being developed with Cosworth. They promised a 180hp Vega was “just around the corner.” When the Cosworth Vega arrived four years later, it had all of 120hp, accelerated from zero to 60mph in nine seconds, and cost twice as much as a regular Vega. Not surprisingly, only 3500 were sold. 

My friend went on to endure a number of the Vega engine’s pathological suicidal tendencies: carburetor fires, overheating, distorted blocks, oil consumption. When terminal rust set in after three years, he dumped it for peanuts and bought a Toyota.

Why was the Vega so flawed? It wasn’t actually developed by Chevrolet at all, who might (possibly) have had a (slightly) better idea of what import buyers wanted. GM gave the XP-887 job to a lofty corporate engineering group, and forced the flawed finished product on a reluctant John DeLorean, then President of Chevrolet. On his engineers’ first drive in a prototype, the whole front of the car literally fell off after eight miles.

Chevrolet had already developed a conventional small-car engine, but the GM corporate engineers knew better, and risked all on the world’s first aluminum block without steel cylinder liners.

Kinda like the Volt’s lithium-ion batteries.

But I’ve put my worries aside; companies learn from their mistakes, and lightning never strikes twice in the same place, right?

I learned to drive in a 1985 Volvo 240. The Nordic boxcar's 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine deployed one hundred and fourteen horsepower against three thousand pounds of Swedish steel. For reasons best left to Roswell conspiracy theorists, the feds recently re-calculated the 240’s mpg: 19/26 (coincidentally the age of the average 240 driver).  That’s not bad for rust, but let’s face it: a used 240 is hardly a Prius driver’s second choice. Even so, the humble Volvo recently inspired an automotive epiphany that could lead to The Mother of All Environmentally Friendly Automobiles.

My [non Honda] insight arrived as I was sitting in traffic, ogling– OK, “observing” a Volvo 240 in the lane next to me. Hmmm. What if you ripped out the 240’s rear seats and installed a state-of-the-art, meltdown proof, South African-made pebble bed reactor? That’s right; it’s time environmentally conscious motorists went nuclear.

I realize that some people won’t immediately embrace the idea of a fission-powered Volvo wagon. Luddites. What’s not to like? Everyone knows nuclear power is safe, clean and cheap. Unlike all the internal-combustionists melting the icepack and drowning baby seals every time they open their car’s throttle body, pilots of a nuclear-powered Volvo 240 would release less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than a flatulent Guernsey. Yup. Nuclear is the ultimate alternative fuel.

Ethanol? Please. Put that corn juice in your tank and you’ll get fewer miles per gallon than a Sherman tank, and pigs will have to pay supermarket prices for their feed. Are you in favor of more expensive pork chops? That’s un-American. Besides, devoting America's corn crop to E85 production makes about as much sense as reserving Bolivia's most popular export for insomniacs.

Biodiesel? Powering your car on french fry drippings might work if your local diner is willing to tolerate yet another bum lingering around their dumpster, but try running a fleet of FedEx trucks on McDonald’s goodwill. Hydrogen fuel cells? Sounds like a great idea– until you realize it takes more electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen than it does to power all the electric carving knives in America.

A few rivet counters will point out that a nuclear powered automobile is nothing new. The 1957 Nucleon concept car was [theoretically] powered by a trunk-mounted mini-reactor. Uranium fission generated steam that drove a set of turbines (one for torque, one for electricity). A cooling loop turned the steam back into water. When the reactor ran out of fissionable material in, say, fourteen thousand years, you just popped down to your local service station and swapped it out your old reactor for a new one.

That said, the Nucleon was Ford’s idea. Frankly, I’m not going to get too worked-up about a nuclear powered car designed by a company that tried to sell me an Aspire. And I’m thinking that it’s no coincidence that The International Atomic Energy Agency was established the same year as the Nucleon's debut.

Anyway, nuclear technology has moved on since then. The new pebble bed reactors consist of a radioactive material surrounded with a graphite coating. This reactor is gas-cooled, rather than water cooled. This breakthrough eliminates the most complex part of conventional reactor designs. Needless to say, the Germans came up with the idea. But the South Africans and the Chinese have started to run with it.

I know you’re all saying “Go with the lowest bidder.” But honestly, if the Chinese government can’t keep lead paint off toys that are going to go into Happy Meals, do you really want to trust that your contractor didn’t take a few shortcuts during the final assembly of your automotive reactor core?

Anyway, we all know that the bathroom is the average American's killing field, and gas is only slightly less explosive than TMZ.com. So a few risks must be assumed. And these must be balanced against the potential rewards, which extend far beyond satisfying the California Air Resource Board.

How many times have you looked around your car and found that you had a cell phone, iPod, radar detector, toaster oven and waffle maker plugged into every available 12-volt outlet? With the abundant electricity produced by a nuclear reactor, you’ll never have to choose between Mary J. Blige and chocolate waffles. In fact, you’ll be able to sell spare juice to the highest bidder. I suspect this capability will come in handy if you live in one of those left-coast states with rolling brownouts (which already sounds vaguely automotive). 

And just think what a nuclear-powered car could do for football season. Once you get your 75” plasma TV and satellite dish combo running, you’ll be the most popular man at the tailgate. Hey! If GM starts making a nuclear-powered car to run alongside the Volt, then this plug-in hybrid thing might actually take off. And here's hoping there'll be a retrofit for the Volvo 240, so that the old ones can, someday, go out with a bang.