ISSN 1946-1011 The Hybrid Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Report June 15, 2013 This report is a summary of articles appearing in popular, business, and technical media referring to the impact of fuel costs and fuel efficiency on vehicle technology, development, and markets. At the end of the report is a list of all articles summarized, with hyperlinks to internet sources where available. Some hyperlinks may require free registration or paid subscriptions to access. The Hybrid Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Report (ISSN: 1946-1011) is compiled by Thomas L. R. Smith, Ph. D., Economic Analysis Branch of the Budget and Financial Analysis Division, Washington State Department of Transportation. Contact the editor at [email protected] or (360) 705-7941. Contributions of articles and positive comments about The Report are welcome. TABLE OF CONTENTS HYBRIDS .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 2 ELECTRIC VEHICLES....................................................................................................................................................................... 2 ALTERNATIVE FUELS ...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 COMING TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU ......................................................................................................................................... 5 OTHER TECHNOLOGY ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6 SUBSCRIBING TO The Hybrid Report. .............................................................................................................................................. 7 ARTICLES REFERENCED ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Notice to Subscribers: Due to the editorial staff’s vacation on Tybee Island, Georgia, there will not be a June 30th edition of The Hybrid Report. We’ll see you on July 15, 2013. “So long, it’s been good to know yuh:”1 Dan Sheppard, long time Hybrid Report subscriber and frequent contributor, retires from State service at the end of this month. We wish Dan well in the next chapter of his life. In addition to his frequent contributions of articles to The Report, Dan filled in as copy editor from time to time. Dan was also the first person to write a letter of complaint to The Report (in our eight years, we’ve had two). On the occasion of our first use of the plural “Prii,” Dan’s letter said, in its entirety, “Aaargh.” Because of his contributions, he was designated as one of our first Honorary Acting Assistant Editors. Upon his retirement, we promote Dan Sheppard to Assistant Editor, Emeritus. National Hybrid and Plug-in Sales Data for May 2013: May was a good month for hybrid sales, nationally, while the news was mixed for electric vehicles. HybridCars.com and Baum & Associates (Cobb, June 4, 2013) report that even though May was a good month for the auto industry, hybrids still outperformed the market. Overall, auto sales were up 12.3% over April and 8% over May 2012, while hybrids were up 14% and 31.2% for the same periods. Hybrids accounted for 3.4% of the automotive market. Toyota and Prius still dominate the hybrid market with four of the top five hybrids. While sales of Ford’s most popular hybrid, the Fusion, dropped in May from the previous month, Ford has sold more hybrids in the first five months of 2013 than it sold all of last year. Plug-in sales were up 8.6% in May over April; however, this was lower than the auto market as a whole. The Nissan Leaf was the sales leader at 2,138, pushing the Tesla Model S out of the number one spot it has enjoyed for several months. Electric cars account for just over ½ of 1% of the total car market. 1 Woody Guthrie, “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know Yuh (Dusty Old Dust)” TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc (BMI), 1940, 1951. 1 © 2013 Washington State Department of Transportation The Hybrid Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Report ISSN 1946-1011 June 15, 2013 2 HYBRIDS Toyota is planning to build hybrid car battery plants in China to support the development of hybrid cars Toyota plans to sell in that country, Reuters (May 30, 2013) reports. Toyota is involved in two separate joint ventures with Chinese firms to produce hybrid cars. This is a significant turn of events because, until recently, the Chinese government was not interested in hybrids, but had concentrated on development of fully- electric vehicles in its bid to reduce fossil fuel consumption. The City of New York plans to spend $500 million to give itself “the greenest fleet in the country,” Fleet Owner quotes Keith Kerman (Mele, May 31, 2013), NYC’s chief fleet management officer. The city plans to replace vehicles in the Fire, Police, and Sanitation Departments with 1,000 hybrid or electric vehicles. The city will replace refuse trucks with 20 Compressed Natural Gas vehicles, and the parks department will get 60 Ford and Nissan plug-in vehicles. The latest entry into the hybrid car market is Ferrari’s new LaFerrari, Greener Ideal (Turberville-Tully, May 31, 2013) says. The car, introduced at the Geneva Autoshow, will sell for just $1.3 million. The car is limited to 499 buyers. Prospective buyers must already own at least two Ferraris. The driver’s seat of the custom made car will be custom-molded to the owners “shape.” LaFerrari will be the fastest Ferrari ever built. Critics of hybrid and electric cars often talk about the “hybrid premium” and how long it takes to payback the premium. The Chicago Tribune (Undercoffler, June 6, 2013) and Edmunds.com have developed another metric to use when trying to decide if it’s worth paying extra for a hybrid car: price per miles per gallon. You take the car’s price and divide by the EPA’s mpg rating. Using this measure, the cheapest car per miles per gallon is the Ford C-Max Energi at $329.50 per mpg. Next, is the Prius plug-in at $336.84 per mpg. The Smart fortwo is the cheapest non-hybrid and registers third on the list. Lightning Hybrids and National Fleet Hybrids will join up to provide hydraulic hybrid conversion kits to fleet operators of shuttle buses and medium duty delivery trucks, Fleet Owner (June 11, 2013) says. Lightning Hybrid does conversions for fleets in the Rocky Mountain States and the West, while National Fleet Hybrids will offer Lightning Hybrids’ hydraulic conversions to the East Coast. ELECTRIC VEHICLES The second annual BC2BC Electric Vehicle Rally and International Golden Plug Ceremony are scheduled for June 29, 2013 at the Peace Arch State Park, 19 A Street in Blaine, Washington. The BC2BC (for British Columbia to Baja California) is a road rally © 2013 Washington State Department of Transportation The Hybrid Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Report ISSN 1946-1011 June 15, 2013 3 for electric cars that goes from the border between the Canada and the United States to the border between the United States and Mexico. Public events and festivities are scheduled from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, while the Golden Plug Ceremony is scheduled for 11:00 am to noon. For more information see the All Electric Vehicle Rally website at http://www.allelectricvehiclerally.org/ where you register, sponsor the event, or donate. The rally is supported by the Washington State Department of Transportation, the States of Oregon and California, the Province of British Columbia, and several private organizations. Tesla, which only has one model of car for sale, plans to introduce several more over the next few years, Automotive News (Lienert, May 30, 2013) says. The first vehicle is the Model X crossover that will hit showroom floors in 2014. Tesla has two more vehicles coming out later. One is a small sedan, priced around $30,000, while the other is another crossover, smaller and cheaper than the Model X. Possibly more frustrating than finding a charging station, is finding one that is part of the network you subscribe to, Bloomberg Businessweek (Doom, May 30, 2013) speculates. There are 15,000 charging stations operated by several major networks and a plethora of private operators. Many of these required their own RFID cards to use the station, forcing many drivers to subscribe to several systems. Ecotality and ChargePoint plan to establish a joint service which will give subscribers access to 90% of the chargers in the U. S. A lucky group of 100 residents of Scotland will be able to use a Nissan Leaf for a mere £100 (about $155) per month for 18 months, Wired UK (Dow, June 5, 2013) wired. The deal is part of a trial called My Electric Avenue, put together by EA Technology and Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution to see the impact electric vehicles will have on the Scot power grid. Customers of the bankrupt firm Better Place rallied in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkron Park to promote a plan to keep the company’s battery swapping facilities open past the planned shut-down date of June 13, The Jerusalem Post (Udasin, June 8, 2013) posted. The Association for Electric Transportation Advancement, the car owner group, is trying to get all of Better Place’s customers to join a cooperative to take over the swapping stations. Meanwhile, Israel’s solar-power developer Captain Sunshine, Yosef Abramowitz, is putting