Foreign oil dependence on TheStreet
Should plug-ins be the only path to foreign oil dependence?TheStreet.com asked me to be a guest contributor recently, so they published Foreign Oil Versus the GM Volt this morning (although I didn't pick the title).
Ultimately, I've become very critical of the Chevy Volt compared to a year ago, when I was a fairly strong advocate. While I agree that it's important to bring this technology to market, such vehicles are decades away from making a major impact on America's energy paradigm.
More important, while GM can hype the petroleum-free driving of the Volt, such hype can't hide the fact that the Volt will be a limited production vehicle for most of the next decade and it won't be cost-effective and profitable until well into the 2020s. Thus, it will be 30 to 40 years before such plug-ins can provide a dramatic impact on ending foreign oil dependence.
So, I can't help but ask, how many more decades before foreign oil dependence leads to another bin Laden, another 9/11, another major gas spike?
Ultimately, the Volt isn't the source of my angst, my focus is purely on foreign oil dependence. Unfortunately, as the Volt moves closer to reality, it has become a tool for illustrating just how far away America is from tackling foreign oil dependence.
Labels: Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, Foreign Oil Dependency
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:38 AM
18 Comments:
This is the basic premise of the Pickens Plan. Take technology we have "today" and use it to obtain foreign oil independence.
CNG looks like a good option but we run into the same economic issues we do with Hydrogen, Hybrids and Electric.
GNG vehicles are more expensive, especially when it comes to the large tractor-trailers, that Pickens is targetting. A CNG tractor-trailer costs $65,000 more than a diesel one.
We have the technology, but not at a price that will make a difference.
The post on your own blog reads better and more direct than the one on TheStreet. Wasn't quite sure where you were going with the mention of Honda's fuel cell for homes, for example. (If it was to bash the Detroit 3 then I would point out, as you might recall, General Motors also developed a stationary power fuel cell with Giner, Inc. earlier in the decade.) While independence from foreign oil should be a national objective, it still remains hard to beat the cost-effective energy density in a gallon of gasoline. Therefore oil independence will not be from just new technologies, but more so from when the price of gasoline exceeds that of the alternatives. To show how far we have to go: At $2.599 per gallon of gasoline, gas is about $0.02/Megajoule for combustion energy. In contrast, lithium-ion batteries are about $195/Megajoule for storage energy (don't forget the innefficiencies of generating the electricity and getting it transferred into the battery). Not to mention, for the same amount of Megajoules, lithium-ion batteries are still 13 times heavier than gasoline. I'm all for oil independence, but lets not overlook the magnitude of the task.
Don't blame GM too much. They've been hammered for not offering more visionary cars and relying on SUVs, trucks and the like.
So the Volt is their "green" cred if you will.
Do we think that Toyota or other companies are going to create any more viable a plug-in than GM?
When I say viable - I mean a car that becomes the de-facto default car (like the Camry).. and essentially accelerates the process of getting us off of foreign oil.
So the bad guy here is not GM. GM really is a reflection of us as is Ford and even to a large extent Toyota.
I think - if you would ask a lot of Americans what is more important - getting rid of our foreign oil dependence or reducing energy consumption overall.. you might not get a consistent unanimous answer - and that is what you would need for people to agree to essentially pay twice as much for fuel as they do right now.
and no.. this is not an impossibility...
Europe has essentially accomplished - exact this.
Gasoline is ungodly expensive. The tax is then spent on wide and deep transit that people accept for day-to-day mobility home-to-work-and-back.
and they are much less dependent on foreign oil - and as a result don't have near the military stake in the middle east as we do.
I would submit - humbly - that this is not GM's fault but ours as we - as a nation - have refused to face realities and proactively deal with them but rather wait until the bear comes to eat us before we get worried.
it's us - not GM.
there are solutions:
read this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos
such reactors could -not only power homes and businesses but plug-in cars... without polluting the dooda out of the the air we breath and the lands and rivers.
why don't we do this?
partly because the "green" folks won't agree - with any different path.. they want us to stop using energy..
and part of it is the wall street largess that is anchored in the current status quo - like coal-generated electricity.
larry-
i don't blame GM solely for this problem. i totally agree that it is our problem as a nation.
nonetheless, if GM can use the Volt today - still more than a year from limited launch - to sell SUVs. then I think i can use the Volt to demonstrate just how far we are from solving foreign oil dependency.
I don't disagree but let's say that the GM Volt drops out of the picture.
Would you expect the plug-in technology to do any better (or worse) if the baton is passed to Toyota or Ford (also looking into the technology) or Nissan, etc?
I just don't think - the plug-in succeeds or fails based on what GM does.
it's a bigger continuum....and GM is (cynically) "using" the Volt to hype interest in GM products
.... which by the way ... they are heavily advertising products like the Equinox that gets 30+ mpg.
... now if all the existing GM owners were to trade "up" to a 30+mpg car (for far less than the cost of a Volt)...
... would that not be a legitimate contribution to reducing our dependence on foreign oil?
is we double our fleet average fuel economy, don't we cut in half our foreign oil dependency?
still on the table:
do plug-in electrics reduce greenhouse gases compared to existing cars - or are we essentially trading oil for coal with the same net GHG emissions?
smurf-
well, i imagine the costs to convert these vehicles into plug-in vehicles is even more astronomical.
moreover, according to Pickens, the costs of CNG as a fuel would be cheaper than gasoline, so some cost recovery would be there. also, i think economies of scale are far easier to achieve on CNG technology versus battery technology. inevitably, it's FAR easier to produce CNG vehicles than it is battery powered vehicles.
likewise, CNG could be converted into gasoline as an interim option to this interim fuel.
as paperclip jas' points out, there really is no competitive way to compete with gasoline, so this task is monumental.
ultimately, this is as much about security as it is energy costs, in my opinion. and that's how it should be approached. and i believe that's how it should be, and could be, sold to america.
nonetheless, my real goal is the end of foreign oil dependence as quickly as possible. that will take very bold action and a very bold goal.
inevitably, i'll take any plan as i believe the security costs alone will be enough to recover this investment.
larryg-
in terms of the environment, i'd call it a wash, take or give a little either way according to what i've read.
in terms of toyota, i think toyota is doing far more. for instance, toyota might be producing a million hybrid cars per year by next year, in addition to plug-in hybrids and full electric vehicles.
in my opinion the Volt is not superior to anything that Toyota is working on. most studies have indicated that a plug-in prius is more cost-effective, for instance.
and no i don't think using the Volt to sell a 30 mpg highway vehicle is a worthy practice. it would still take more than a decade to replace the current fleet with 30 mpg vehicles. moreover, from the research i've read, even the current CAFE will achieve little, in terms of foreign oil dependency, when population growth, etc are added into the mix over the next few decades.
I dunno. I'm not sure GM is doing with the Volt any more than Toyota is doing with the Prius.
Let me explain.
Supposed here was no Prius. Then what car or kind of car would your sweet-spot would-be Pris buyer - buy?
I would submit that - that buyer would more than likely buy a Corolla, or a Yarus or a Civic ...that class of car....
Are Prius owners folks who considered the Camry or the Rav4 or a Tundra or Highlander (even a hybrid version)?
I'm skeptical here.
I think a Prius plug-in is basically going to cannibalize other Prius models in terms of sales - as opposed to convincing Sienna and Tacoma buyers to switch.
It's a niche market and not likely to expand.
Now a Hybrid/Plug-in version of a Sienna or Tacoma?
yes...
but we know that there is no chance of that happening because the plug-in won't work for squat in anything but a fairly light-weight car - like the Prius.
So... GM and Toyota are basically playing the same basic game with the plug-ins - Toyota has more street-cred but in the longer scheme of things - I don't think they are going to convert the world of Toyota to plug-ins...
so it's a bit of a false hope methinks.
change will happen - when soccer moms start buying plug-ins....
of course all bets on this dismal path are off - if a dramatic breakthrough in battery technology explodes onto the landscape.
in that vein - has anyone thought about induction coils for recharging plug-ins?
that would neatly solve the problem with available plugs...on city streets.
Dahc's,
I'm with you. Any path out of foregn oil dependence is a good one to me. Unfortunately, the rest of the country is not with us.
Real change will happen only when the economics are there.
For every 10 people that want a more fuel efficient car, 9 of them want it so they can save money, not so they can reduce foreign oil consumption.......
well, i'd just argue that Toyota has taken the smarter path because it isn't nearly as reliant upon the plug. overall, toyota's fleet fuel economy is more efficient that GM and I bet the difference will only grow.
also, i would disagree that most Prius buyers would buy a corolla or something similar. even if true, for people like me that live in LA, the fuel economy of a Prius is still vastly superior to that of a corolla.
nonetheless, as you suggest, neither hybrids nor plug-ins are going to provide a solution any time soon, which is why i've become more open-minded to natural gas, for instance (in the past i was pretty strongly against such a move).
Smurfs got the truth.
If you want America to change, you'll have to convince them of the necessity...
Obamba knows all about that problem.
The chances of the US declaring war on foreign oil dependence appear slim to none without a large gas spike, terrorist attack, etc.
Still, if there is an issue that could drive consensus in America, it is foreign oil dependency. That gives me at least a little hope.
Larry,
Obama may know what it feels like, but does he know what to do about it?
I wish Obama would learn a lesson from Japan and offer incentives for all Hybrids, not just plug-ins.
In Japan, thanks to the incentives for hybrids, the top selling cars are the Prius and the Insight.
It seems silly to offer a tax credit for a car that hasn't even hit the market, while not offering tax credits for the cars that are sitting on dealer lots right now.....
well.. the Prez is a little wet behind the ears.. no where near hitting his stride yet...
I think he has the potential to learn more about being Prez....
For better or worse - he believes that Health care and GHG are a higher priorities than foreign oil ...
of course, unlike his predecessor, he did learn not to call other countries leaders 'JERKS' so he gets points for learning that lesson in less than 8 months.. rather than not learning it in 8 years...
tweak tweak...
Wireless charging
Toyota's heavy duty division, Hino Motors, is testing a new kind of hybrid electric vehicle without a plug (hybrid outboard chargeable vehicle). The energy in the batteries doesn't come from a plug and a charging point, but it comes from a wireless charging system built into the road. A series of induction coils built into the road resonate energy at certain frequency, like radio waves. The bus is able to capture those waves and store the energy in its batteries...now I think larry G gots a point...but toyota is still leading the way!!!!
That's pretty crazy. Sounds like there would be a lot of bumps in that road!
many electric toothbrushes work this way
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