Why is the most cost-effective plug-in hated by most plug-in advocates?

It’s simply time to get real about battery-powered potential

In the last couple of days there has been a ton of news about the Facebook IPO. It’s the Internet boom all over again. Others say that Chinese investors helped stoke the fire, as they also did in the few years preceding the mortgage crisis.

Ironically, these themes are also woven into the plug-in revolution that is currently hurting America more than it is helping.

I’m not much of an investor outside of my 401k, and I really don’t know what to make of the Facebook IPO, except that for the last year or so there have been many that have called the IPO process, minimally, scandalous. Insiders, some claim, know how to hype the process to their advantage, and then everyone else gets burned — at least goes the theory.

Oh how Americans seem to love hype, and the plug-in revolution is another sad example.

I remember being in Detroit just before the launch of the Chevy Volt concept. While GM had provided embargoed details regarding the Volt, much was still unknown, and the crew of Who Killed the Electric Car was in attendance to find out if GM really had killed the electric car or not.

Thus, electric cars were a big topic at NAIAS that year. Plug-in advocates at the Detroit show insisted that all GM had to do was sell the EV1 on the open market and the program would have been a success. LOL! I think today’s plug-in sales, built on technologies far superior to the EV1, prove that such an idea was complete BS. Complete fricken BS.

Unlike the EV1, which cost an arm and a leg per car, the Volt would be different claimed then GM Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz. In fact, Lutz originally suggested that the Volt would probably only cost a few thousand more than the car Lutz has hated since day 1, the Toyota Prius.

Suddenly, the Prius and hybrid cars no longer really mattered. And, it wasn’t long before other mainstream automakers jumped into the plug-in game — all the while selling as many gas-guzzlers as possible.

Over time, especially as cost projections started rising, I worried that the Volt and plug-ins were becoming an excuse not to to do more in the near term. I couldn’t help but wonder that since, as Lutz claimed, it would only take a fraction of one year’s marketing budget for GM to build its own Prius, why not just do so? Wouldn’t a non-plug-in Volt be the perfect complement to the Volt? Besides, even GM suggested the idea of a non-plug-in Volt in the early days.

But why? The Prius had just been leap-frogged, at least in terms of hype.

Fast forward some 5 years and Toyota has now sold more than 4 million hybrid cars. For the last few months the Prius family has been Toyota’s second best selling lineup of vehicles in the US, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all Toyota sales. Yet, according to Toyota, the Prius family — and hybrid cars –  is poised for far greater market penetration.

Sadly, with rise of plug-in hype, I have heard many claim that hybrid cars had become passe.  That even Toyota is passe, including its plug-in Prius. Unfortunately, numerous studies have continued to suggest otherwise.

The latest is a Canadian study that finds from well-to-wheel, when driving conditions are fully accounted into the equation, hybrid cars are pretty much on par with plug-in hybrids and range extended electric vehicles in terms of overall energy use and CO2 emissions. In fact, non-plug-in hybrids might even be better. Even more troublesome, they are far cheaper, particularly upfront. And cheaper means more sales and greater impact.

But what does the real world matter?

Pathetically, at least in my opinion, this type of data has now been around for several years. For instance, in recent years studies from Carnegie Melon and Oxford University, to name just a few,  have suggested the same.

But America had to leapfrog an idea like the Prius, and we had to beat the Chinese.

Deja vu?

The Chinese helping to stoke another American hype-powered bubble that benefits the rich at the expense of the poor?

Maybe that’s going too far, but it’s hard to understand just how plug-ins are really helping America. Massive subsidies are being pumped into this space to rush into a technology that many experts claim simply isn’t ready for primetime, at least not based upon the demands and expectations of mainstream consumers. So just what are we rushing towards? Hype? For example, recently the head of advanced products at Mercedes echoed what many mainstream auto execs — easily the majority –  have been claiming for years. There is NO major battery breakthough coming within the next decade.

DECADE!

Then shouldn’t we being do more in the interim? And again, at least in my opinion, that’s just what mainstream automakers have been using plug-ins to avoid, just as they did with fuel cell vehicles. It’s a sad pattern. Doing as little as possible today, while pretending that the future is just around the corner.

I mean, why can’t lithium hybrids, for example, be a good step towards such a breakthrough? You can make far more hybrids with the same amount of resources and you can make them far cheaper — while basically achieving the same savings in energy and even greater emission’s reductions compared to plug-in hybrids.

Achieve more for less? Is that really so anti-American? Why do we let hype supersede logic? It has the right political resonation?

As I’ve argued before, hybrid cars are a great way to introduce consumers to electrification. That occasional burst of EV silence is powerful, and it makes many consumers want more of it. That’s a good start. A great opening to the full benefits of pure electrification. More noteworthy, if there was a small incentive for such vehicles — much smaller than for plug-ins — cars like the Prius would become Toyota’s top-selling vehicles.

That offers real impact today.

And imagine if GM had used a fraction of one year’s marketing budget to build their own Prius, even before Toyota, according to Lutz. Would that mean 8 million hybrid sales to date between the two? Spread that across the entire mainstream auto industry and things look very different today than they do currently, in terms of fuel efficient offerings, at least I believe.

But competition is bad. Instead, regulation is the answer to everything. Please.

Instead, it might still be a decade, probably more, before the Volt and the Nissan Leaf truly find their groove. And, even then according to many studies, conventional hybrids might still dominate sales for some time for numerous reasons, such as limited recharging capabilities, etc.

Like Facebook and the Internet Bubble, plug-in hype is only good for a handful of rich people. While plug-ins will have their time and will leapfrog ICE-based hybrids eventually, it’s going to take time, significant time unfortunately. Hype simply isn’t going to change that reality, just as it didn’t for the Internet bubble, nor for Facebook. It’ll only keep America dependent upon foreign oil longer while leading to even greater CO2 emissions.

At the end of the day, it’s time for plug-ins to stop being an excuse for not doing more today. Likewise, it’s time for the government to stop enabling automakers to continue to be so complacent. With the proper incentives, we could achieve 2025 CAFE requirements many years earlier, in a way that mainstream consumers will embrace and that will be good for the country. Plus, accepting this hybrid opportunity creates a much better foundation for plug-in electrification to build upon.

The rest is just hype and BS. But that’s what sells in America these days. Enjoy the smell.

Photo: Jason Paur/Wired

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The second time’s the charm for SpaceX. This morning at 3:44 a.m. EDT the company’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off of Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. After a faulty valve caused a aborted liftoff Saturday, today’s successful launch marks the third flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, the second flight of the Dragon capsule, and the first flight for a commercial spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.

After clearing the lightning towers, the million pounds of thrust provided by the nine Merlin engines slowly lifted the rocket into the dark sky. The accelerating Falcon 9 and Dragon reached “max Q” one minute and 24 seconds after lift off. This marks the time when the vehicle experiences the maximum dynamic pressure on the structure during the flight thanks to a combination of the relatively thick atmosphere and the increasing velocity of the rocket. Once past max Q, it continues to accelerate, but it does so in a rapidly thinning atmosphere, reducing the aerodynamic load and stress on the rocket.

Three minutes after launch the nine engines of the first stage shutdown, at which time there was no glow and only a faint trail of smoke was visible in the night’s sky. Five seconds later the second stage with the Dragon capsule separated from the first stage. After the second stage separation, an orange glow reappeared in the sky as the second stage ignited and burned for six minutes and two seconds, placing the Dragon into an orbital path where it separated from the rocket and began its chase of the ISS.

Just under 10 minutes after launch SpaceX announced Dragon successfully reached orbit. A few minutes later, loud cheers were heard over SpaceX’s launch coverage on the factory floor as Dragon successfully deployed its solar panels.

The Dragon receives power from batteries and the pair of solar arrays. The next big event will be the opening of the Guidance, Navigation and Control Bay door a little less than two hours, twenty-seven minutes after launch. When the door is opened, it is the first step towards the rendezvous with the ISS according to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.

“This is a key new feature for this mission, which basically exposes the Proximity Operations Sensors to space so we can see the ISS as we are approaching and allow us to get close enough to berth,” Shotwell explained in a press conference Friday. “Our star trackers also get a view of space at this time, so this is a very critical operation”

After confirming the navigation and thermal imaging capabilities, the Dragon will go through a series of maneuvers testing the use of the Draco thrusters. These tests will demonstrate the capsule’s ability to abort a maneuver with both a continuous burn of the small thrusters built into the capsule, as well as an abort using short pulses from the Dracos.

All of these initial tasks take place far from the ISS in the first 11 hours while the Dragon is chasing down the station. On day two, the Dragon will adjust its orbit towards the station and on day three it will perform the first fly-by to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) beneath the ISS.

Day three is filled with a series of maneuvers inching closer and closer to the space station until it is finally brought in by the station’s robotic arm at the end of day four.

Enthusiasm for today’s successful launch was evident from SpaceX employees hosting the webcast who were jumping and cheering at the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters after the launch. But following Saturday’s aborted liftoff, the company knows there are still many challenges ahead as launch is just the first step needed by the SpaceX team before getting the seal of approval from its potential customer, NASA. All of the demonstrations must be completed before the agency will sign off on SpaceX providing regular cargo resupply missions to the ISS.

Despite receiving the most attention, today’s SpaceX Falcon 9 launch was just one of five separate launches to orbit in the past week. Three launches happened in Russia including a Soyuz carrying three crew members to the ISS last Tuesday. Another Soyuz rocket boosted a spy satellite into orbit on Thursday, followed by a Japanese launch with a multiple satellite payload, and the final Russian launch of a telecommunications satellite finishing the busy day.

After berthing with the ISS, astronauts and cosmonauts on board will spend several days unloading the more than 1,000 pounds of cargo and experiments on board the Dragon. They will then load the Dragon with more than 1,300 pounds of cargo to be returned to earth. Dragon is expected to spend about a week on station, returning with a splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on May 31.

C'mon—everybody knows that some of the coolest contests out there these days are on Instagram, the photo-sharing mobile app, and now we're thrilled to join 'em. In partnership with the National Geographic Channel to celebrate their coming epic 4-part series "Untamed Americas," we'll be helping you win a load of photography equipment and some spiffy Nat Geo swag.

All you've got to do is submit a photo to Instagram that, for you, defines "Untamed Americas." Okay, you have to do a couple more things as well, and they're detailed below.

Your intrepid Editor here at Jaunted, Cynthia Drescher, will judge the submissions along with Nat Geo WILD’s "America the Wild" Casey Anderson and landscape photographer Cole Rise. We're looking for the theme of "Untamed Americas," creativity, originality and (of course) photographic quality.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – The XTS is arguably the most important vehicle launch from Cadillac in the last few years, and to help owners get acclimated to its features – including the all-new CUE infotainment system – Caddy is providing owners of the 2013 model with an Apple iPad.

The inclusion of the iPad is part of a larger launch strategy by Cadillac to reassert itself as the world leader in luxury, and part of that is getting owners familiar with the range of new technologies incorporated into its largest sedan.

Speaking with Wired at the CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans, Mark Harland, Cadillac’s head of customer experience sets a lofty goal for the all-American luxury brand, saying, “We want to be the leader in customer experience.”

To that end, Cadillac is rolling out a series of online and dealership-based educational initiatives to help new XTS owners learn the ins and outs of their new sedan.

“The moment you pull away from the dealership,” says Harland, “there’s this kind of black hole for 90 days,” during which the owner has little to no contact with the dealer.

Cadillac’s new owner-education program aims to change that, beginning with 25 new “connected consumer specialists” Cadillac parent General Motors is hiring to get dealers up to speed on the XTS’ range of infotainment and safety systems. Each of the 700 or so Cadillac dealerships in the United States are required to have two “certified technology experts” on hand and trained by the XTS tech pros. Additionally, Cadillac is setting up a call center dedicated to CUE education and if customers still have issues, rather than trekking to the dealer, a specialist will come directly to their home.

“We need to think about helping [owners] with the learning curve,” Harland tells Wired. “Even if you get a walk-through at the dealership, you’re going to forget about a lot of the features. And we want the customer to learn about CUE on their own time.”

That’s where the iPad comes in.

Each Apple tablet given to XTS owners will come preloaded with OnStar RemoteLink, MyCadillac and an app that simulates the CUE user experience, allowing owners to familiarize themselves with all the functionality of the new infotainment system from the comfort of their couch.

Going even further, the CUE team will be scouring Cadillac forums, social media and other community sites to answer questions, solve issues and provide a level of support heretofore unheard of in the luxury automotive space.

“We always said that the customer is important,” Harland admits, “but there was no real strategy.” This is that new strategy and expect it to filter down throughout the ranks of Cadillac products in the very near future.

No Ford hybrid pickup trucks anytime soon?

The costs of hybrid trucks are just too heavy

Ford has owned the title to the best selling vehicle in America, well, almost forever. While that’s great for this American company, it’s terrible for US fleet fuel economy. If Ford’s top selling F150 Series came in a hybrid or plug-in option, on the other hand, it would be a game changer thanks to the incredible amount of gasoline such vehicles could save.

Unfortunately, Ford CEO Alan Mulally squashed any hopes for a major move to battery-powered pickup trucks any time soon.

At the Brainstorm Green conference Mulally pointed out that in a typical car, batteries add about an extra 100 pounds and $2000 dollars to the cost of hybrid cars. For plug-in hybrids the numbers increase to 300 pounds and $7,000 – $8,000. Make it electric cars and the weight jumps to 600 – 700 pounds, and $12,000 – $15,000 in extra costs.

And that’s just the batteries for an average car. For pickup trucks, at least based on GM’s dual mode hybrid pickup trucks, the battery size and cost can only be expected to increase. And that sticker shock, regardless of fuel savings, is almost impossible for most consumers to overcome.

Currently, Ford is working with Toyota to develop a new hybrid powertrain specifically for hybrid trucks, but it doesn’t appear as though Ford has high sale’s expectations for these new hybrid trucks. Nonetheless, Ford is still forecasting somewhere between 10 – 25 percent hybrid sales by 2020. Considering that Toyota is already at 20 percent, without a hybrid pickup, I’d bet Ford’s hybrid sales will follow the same trend.

Source: Pickuptrucks.com