It’s been a few weeks since my last TWiEVs post, but there hasn’t been much to cover. No matter, the biggest news in the world of automotive electric propulsion has really been flooding in this week (pun intended). Once again I’ve gathered some electric vehicle and battery news from around the net for SU readers to gain some insight into Saab’s new challenges.
Battery safety has been called into question this week after several Fisker Karmas and Toyota Prii (priuses?) spontaneously combusted after burning at port after being inundated by the storm surge of Superstorm Sandy. That same storm made getting gas an extreme headache for anyone with a car in downstate New York and northern New Jersey as many readers here can attest, we’ll look into how having more EVs might change that.
And speaking of EVs in North America, there’s some new studies out that show the US will actually lead plug-in sales in the next few years and that China will surprisingly not meet anticipated targets. Someone might want to tell those guys at NEVS they might want to rethink their Chinacentric model?
Saltwater + Batteries = Bad Idea
In an event that took most of the tristate area in the Northeast US by storm and is continuing to cause untold pain, a fascinating experiment happened when a 13′ storm surge inundated the power of Newark. Yes, it’s the same port that once held hundreds of Saabs but fortunately a few days before Sandy flooded NJ, had only four left (I’m not sure if they made it out before, if anyone does feel free to chime in on comments below). As many of you know, Fisker has their Karmas built in Finland at Valmet, the same factory where 9-3 Convertibles were manufactured for GM only a few years ago, then shipped to the Port of Newark for delivery to US customers. Sixteen were parked there when the surge hit, in addition to a few Toyota Prius plug-ins (one that smoldered, the other outright combusted). The leading theory at the moment was posted at the New York Times, which made the connection between the much higher conductivity of salt water which acts as a connection between the negative and positive diodes of the battery and caused a chemical cascading reaction that led to the fires. While this all sounds scary on the surface and initially causes great concern over battery safety, when you back up and think of all the scenarios that this could possibly happen, it’s pretty much limited to saltwater flooding. Lesson: if you live on the coast of the ocean and there’s any chance of a flood, move your car to higher ground because even if it’s not electric, if it floods it’s going to be a mess regardless.
Disasterproofing your commute
One of the leaders of the EV movement who runs the blog Insideevs.com learned his lesson after his power was out for an extended period of time after the last hurricane that struck the Northeast plus a freak snowstorm that downed deciduous trees. He purchased a Generac natural gas electric generator with enough kW output to power his home and charge his two EVs. While there is still gas rationing in New Jersey today, Lyle has seen absolutely no disruption to his daily routine, despite the grid power being out at his home. This is something to think about for those SU readers who like to only see the downside to using a plug to power your car. I too have had a Generac natural gas generator since 2006 and have to say it’s one of the best investments of $5,000 you can make if you experience freak storms the way we have in the Northeast in the past few years– just in groceries that didn’t go bad through extended power outages alone it’s paid for itself. Some companies like Bank of America and Apple are actually integrating entire natural gas generation plants into their headquarters not only to protect against disasters but use a more environmentally friendly power source than coal. As more and more EVs begin to get plugged into the grid, it may even make sense for governments and utility companies to offer incentives to get more people generating their own power from solar, wind, or even natural gas to fill in the grid and reduce load on the system.
Tesla meeting targets though still not profitable
Tesla has been awarded with some huge awards in the last week, from the Model S earning it’s spot as one of the Inventions of the Year in Time Magazine to being named Automobile’s Car of the Year. They’re going to need that as they’re still spending more than they take in from car sales. In the big picture they’re just starting to stretch their legs, as they are meeting production targets and seeing steady demand for the Model S. Thankfully, they have access to enormous amounts of private capital and were buoyed by the US DoE loan that they fully drew down and are beginning to pay back (right wingers might want to note that the US government is expected to make back every penny from it, and as a bonus, Tesla is building their cars in California and employing Americans in high tech positions, not in China or Europe). I can only hope that Saab has as deep pockets as Elon Musk and his investors to weather the inevitable growing pains they face in similar startup waters.
Look, No Wires!
For all of you who think it’s too much of a hassle to plug your new Saab into your garage at night, not to worry. That’s what Plugless Power is promising for Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf owners. Again, I hope NEVS works from the get go to be compatible with these systems.
Note to NEVS: You may want to rethink your primary market
Two things caught my attention from Mattias Bergman’s NEVS presentation at Oktoberfest. First, that he was so insistent on China becoming the number one EV market in the world and second, that NEVS is still interested in the traditional Saab markets around the world. It’s not really news that most SU readers have been nervous about Saab being exported to their home markets. As the US has historically been the number one market for Saab, we certainly have reason to hope that NEVS wants to keep the North American sales infrastructure intact somehow. New evidence suggests they might want to heed that advice.
Another article at InsideEVs caught my attention. While NEVS may want to disagree with the evidence, McKinsey & Co, a leading consulting company who covers the EV market, has found that they might be able to produce 300,000 cars by 2017, and even that is dependent on conditions not yet seen in the market including enormous subsidies. Previous targets had them at 500,000 by 2015 (not happening) and 5,000,000 by 2020 (definitely not happening). Saab will be competing against several companies that have the innate advantage of building their cars in China, and if they’re competing for a dramatically smaller market, they’re going to need to rethink their global sales strategy.
Meanwhile, Pike Research who specializes in reporting on clean energy markets, has released a report that suggests that the US will be the #1 consumer of PEVs – Plug-in Electric Vehicles which includes Battery (BEVs) and Plug-in Hybrids (PHEVs)– in the world, ahead of even China. Their forecast suggests that US and Japanese producers (Ford, GM and Toyota, cough) will benefit most, though I’m hoping Saab slides in under the radar and surprises everyone.
The 80-page study predicts Ford and Toyota will lead the PEV market in terms of total vehicles sold in the U.S. from 2012 to 2020.
“Despite the early introduction of the Leaf, from Nissan, and the significant marketing push behind it, we expect Nissan to trail Toyota, Ford, and General Motors by a significant margin through the end of the decade,” says research director John Gartner. “Although Ford has been relatively slower than some competitors to enter the passenger PEV market, its future plans are ambitious, and it will be the only automaker to surpass 400,000 PEVs sold in the United States through 2020.”
As per the report, PEV sales in the United States should reach nearly 48,000 units in 2012, making the United States the country with the highest number of PEV sales.
The report expects the U.S. will maintain this leading position at least through 2020 – and beyond. Worldwide sales of PEVs are expected to surpass 1 million units in 2017, after 7 years in the market – about half the time it took hybrid electric vehicles to reach that level.
As battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are purchased in greater numbers over the next few years, Pike Research’s analysis indicates that significant regional differences in adoption patterns will emerge. For example, while PHEVs will outsell BEVs in North America, the converse is true in Europe and Asia.
While I’m not suggesting that the Chinese market not be a considerable target for NEVS, they may want to at least consider the necessity of selling EVs in the west sooner rather than later. Whether or not they admit it now to us or not, this reality may force them to change their business plan in a way that most of us would be pretty happy with. The report found that PHEVs will be more popular in the US, and if you couple that to the notion that Saab’s historical largest market has been the US and that the largest PEV market in the world will continue to be the US, then you’d hope that NEVS should concentrate on the US as their largest market too. Extending that logic further, since PHEVs are expected to be the primary driver of PEV growth in the US over the next decade, it would be wise for NEVS to focus on some sort of range extender option for their first ground up effort. It just makes business sense, and the analysts and facts support it.
I expect NEVS electical cars main market is densly populated areas. I think China is a significantly different market from the US, for three reasons: Infrastructure (I think the risk of fragmentation just like in the US mobile industry is significant), battery availability and subsidizing/regulatory issues. Add to that the fact that peak oil awareness is significantly higher in the China leadership.
I don’t know if it really is in its infancy. Maybe only the wrong companies are working on it.
For instance companies like Bombardier have system like their PRIMOVE system that deliver wireless charging to trams, buses cars or trucks, and even while they are running.
The Primove concept is flexible and interesting for automotive purposes, but I’m curious how all these different systems will be adapted to either SAE or some sort of standard to be applied to multiple brands. The Plugless Power team seems to be addressing that head on by integrating adapters directly at the factory with GM and Nissan. It’ll be interesting to see who Saab chooses to partner with.
Good point. Back to manual.
Hate to say this but is Telsa is losing money charging their prices what hope does NEVS have. 🙁
This may well be, but as it seems, they still sell the cars faster than they can produce them, yet they loose money…
Maybe their business model is based on the assumption that when they sharge less now than what they actually needed, they can become a player until the prices for batteries go down enough, and after then, they will make a profit.
The question here of course is, why the battery costs should ge down.
They make a profit on every Model S they sell, that was shown in their report. The problem is they are in the same situation as Saab was when they were bleeding cash, with one very major difference. Saab had the capability to produce a ton of volume, but had little demand. Tesla is working towards increasing their capacity to produce volume but at the moment is just stretching its legs, while they actually have high demand. I’d rather be Tesla in that case.
How do you figure that? Their 3q automotive sales were $50m, and the cost of automotive revenues were $58m. They are losing 15% on each car on a gross profit basis.
Jeff I didn’t think Tesla had a dealer network at all…. I know they don’t in Canada and I thought it was all of North America. If I’m wrong, I’m sorry but I thought I got that from their own PR’s.
not having a traditional dealer body is something that really bothers me and as a consumer it would be something I find worrisome for when the warranty period was over. Yes I know I come from a dealer background but I’d like the conventional dealer network over this anyhow. The mall store and ordering on line is not something I see as long term success but who knows, I may be wrong.
I think the brick and mortar model gives people the most confidence. Virtual businesses seem flighty.
They are brick and mortar. They’re standalone and mall based. I’m getting the sense I need to write an article about it, and the more I research about it, the more interesting I think it will be. Stay tuned.
Jason, you won’t like what Elon Musk has to say 😛 For a sneak peak, click here.
So to assure that your already-overpriced and limited-range electric car is going to work during storms with power outages you need to pony up another $5000 for a natural gas generator? Thanks, but no thanks!
I think the economic equation for used EVs to make sense will be a combination of factors from increased gas prices and the addition of battery recycling programs coming online that allows for batteries to retain higher residuals. I don’t see that happening anytime in the next 5 years. But for new cars off the showroom floor, the economics of EVs may already pay off for many consumers.
Tks Jeff for this very interesting report. A lot of food for thought.
Am I surprised the press only reported the Fiskers burning, not the Prii!
Well written, Jeff.
And don’t come at me with the “government picking winners and losers” argument. To question the fact that battery R&D is somehow a bad thing that won’t lead to increased fuel economy and thus lower dependence on carbon producing fossil fuels (and thus foreign government controlled fuel) is totally, completely inept. And the government didn’t pick the winners and losers, private venture capital firms already did– the government as I said only reinforced the existing players already widdled out by you guessed it, the capitalistic private market.
It’s a great question and one I hope Saab will safety test for: how long can a Saab EV stay submerged in salt water before the battery catches fire? Is there a way to prevent it? Is there a way to warn the driver if a fire is imminent?
Yes, there is fairly easy ways to prevent it. A fusing device in the battery cells, proper chemistry in the battery (and the NEVS seems Ok in this respect) and careful power routing. The problem seems to be solved in mobile phones.
I haven’t been worried about EVs catching fire until now. There are quite a few drivers each year who end up parked in salt water. Their chief concern is of course to get out of their vehicle before it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, but if they also have to worry about a fire at the same time… That can get very ugly very fast!
I’m hoping the engineers in Sweden get to oversee the Chinese production operation and have some say on the packaging and safety characteristics. It’s not that I don’t trust Chinese quality control…eh, actually it is. If NEVS wants to be credible, they need every aspect of production to have a Swedish hand in the safety systems. It’s a material difference.
I agree. A traditional, rigorous and uncompromising Swedish hand in the safety systems hopefully will mean that NEVS Saab will be able to take advantage, in a sense, of the “birth pains” we are seeing reported here and, as Mair says, do more R and D to eliminate or at least massively minimize the potential for this kind of catastrophic fire to break out. Let us just hope that safety remains a no.1 priority within Saab and there is no repeat of the ng900 fiasco with regards to safety on this one.
Jeff, brilliant writing and very a very good summary. Thanks!
One electric component touched salt water for long period of time and this caused fire , based on newspaper report more than 300 fiskers were damage by superstorm Sandy and the insurance policy will cover all this mess. Karma fisker is going to investigate the root cause problem and prepare a domestic recall
In my opinion a 100,000 usd EV car must be offer security and reliability
I hate to be the one to mention this… but not only did they ration gas, no one had electricity… lol… So instead of waiting in line every other day for a few gallons of gas, you’d have ONE battery charge until your power came back on in… five, ten, twenty days? Doesn’t sound like it would be much better.
In fairness, in a natural disaster I don’t think it matters much what you have and for most driving would be an after thought. I know I couldn’t do much with rationed amounts of gas, I this I’d resort to taking transit to get around regardless of what I drove. What happens to gas prices in these situations too, I heard hotels were charging disgusting amounts, are gas companies the same? Nothing like hurting people further when they’re down.