What’s the way forward for future car makers?

“We don’t want to re-invent the wheel, but in an era when car manufacturers have to totally re-think their engineering perhaps even wheels are in question.” - Futerra

I’ve been wondering over the past few months how best to write about the hefty financial bailout loans and various scrappage schemes that have been dished out to save car makers amidst the financial implosion of the auto industries across the US and Europe.

It’s hard to miss the news. The car manufacturers across the planet have been on the ropes for a while now. Things were bad before the ‘recession’ hit, but since late last year the poo really hit the proverbial fan, and all of them have been going down the tubes. Car sales in the UK are down 50% compared to the previous year.

For months the car unions and the car makers in the UK pushed repeatedly for some fiscal incentive package to help bring in much needed car sales, and for a long time the government resisted. But these are tough times, and by now all member states have caved in to the tremendous pressure from the car maker lobby groups.

As one example, our beloved (or behated) Jaguar Land Rover [JLR], owned by Indian-based Tata Motors, received a grant worth 27 million pounds to mass-produce a “green” crossover vehicle. And according to Candace Lombardi, the model would be a street version of their LRX concept car - a hybrid 2-liter turbo diesel crossover vehicle, combining features of a car and an SUV. The concept reportedly can get 50 mpg on average.

The £27 million grant specifically requires that the car be made at JLR’s plant in Merseyside, England, in order to protect jobs. But is this the future for UK manufacturing, and will it save JLR? Even if they do build it, what assurance is there that consumers will flock to this new crossover vehicle? More importantly, why commission a new car cobbled from old ideas at a time when we really need new ideas from the ground up?

“We believe that there will be some benefits for the environment as old cars are replaced by newer, more fuel efficient models.”
In January this year, Germany put a scrappage scheme in place, paying €2,500 towards the purchase of a new car in exchange for cars over 9 years old, in hopes of stimulating the struggling German car industry. Due to its overwhelming popularity, they renewed this scheme twice. Unfortunately most of the new car purchases went towards smaller, more efficient foreign models and not for homemade German models as they hoped. The UK followed suit in April, hoping to stimulate new car sales here. The UK government provides a £1,000 incentive, to be matched by either the car maker or dealer, for consumers to replace their 10 year old+ car or light van for a brand new one. The scheme runs until 2010, or when the money runs out.

Sadly there is no green incentive tied to the new scheme. According to DBERR (our UK government business / industry department): “There are no environmental criteria for the new vehicles the motorist chooses to buy. The scheme is primarily designed to boost the automotive industry and restore consumer confidence; it was not designed as a green measure. However, we believe that there will be some benefits for the environment as old cars are replaced by newer, more fuel efficient models.”

So why do we think this is a pointelss excercise and a waste of tax payers money?  And what is wrong with the major car companies? Quite frankly, the industry is dominated by big players who all very conservative. Their scale is way too large, they are weighed down by investments in old systems and all of them are struggling to survive financially.

At a recent talk by Riversimple, a new emerging car maker based in the UK, Patrick Andrews suggested that the cars of the future would be vastly different than what we have built to date. They have a new production car freshly designed from the ground up. Ultra capacitors allow for very fast acceleration, while the hydrogen allows a good range (200miles+). Without a heavy internal combustion engine the car is much lighter, and with a carbon composite body and environmentally friendly resins and epoxies the car can be recycled again and again.

So what are the 6 criteria for the cars of the future, according to Riversimple?

1. Lightweight: A Smart car weighs around 750kg; the new Riversimple car will weigh 350kg. It will be made of a lightweight composite material. Because it will be lighter it will be more fuel efficient as it doesn’t need to spend so much energy lugging it’s fat heavy weight around. More fuel efficient cars also cause less harm to pedestrians, create less wear on roads, and because of less wear on tyres there will be less heavy metals in air causing pollution.
   
2. Electric transmission: An internal combustion engine (ICE) is at the most 25% efficient. An efficient electric car can get 55% efficiency. Then there’s the Big Question: Battery or hydrogen? It’s not an either/or question. For short journeys - battery EVs are better suited. For long journeys, hydrogen is the answer but both have their own infrastructure problems.
3. Regenerative braking system: A Toyota Prius regenerates 10% energy through it’s braking system; the new Riversimple car will regenerate 50%.
4. Built to last: Cars generally last 5 years before they start breaking down. The new Riversimple car will be made to last over 10 years.
   
5. Designed for recycling: At the moment, many car parts are made to be downcycled. In the future cars will be designed to be truly recycled.
   
6. Open-source: In the current paradigm, car companies keep new design ideas secret and patent new ideas in order to dominate the market. In the future paradigm, small car makers will collaborate with a worldwide web of designers, engineers and manufacturers using a ‘creative commons’ style licensing agreement and peer to peer review.
   

Riversimple will be unveiling their new hydrogen-powered urban vehicle in June 2009 in London.

Blake, for We Are Futureproof

Electric car plans need new energy source first

There is an interesting debate on about electric cars at the moment.

At first glance I thought that everyone would support a transition to electric vehicles (EV’s). They are the future, aren’t they? Who could resist, for instance, the allure of owning a new Tesla Roadster?

These are exciting times for electric cars. There are many projects across Europe to support new EV technology. Denmark is partnering with Project Better Place and has raised € 130 million to build a new  electric car charging network by 2011. The network will consist of around 100 stations where drivers of electric vehicles can swap out or top up their depleted batteries. In France the government has pledged €400m (about £310m) to help carmaker Renault and French energy firm EDF get a nationwide electric recharging network off the ground by 2011, and Paris is set to introduce a new rental scheme for electric cars by 2010, similar to the succesful Velib bike hire scheme. Ireland recently announced that 10% of vehicles will be powered by electricity in 2020, and has set aside more than $1 million for demonstration projects. In the US, Obama’s stimulus bill announced major new funding for plug-in vehicles, including $600m for federal procurement of plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles, $400m for state procurements of acquisition of alternative fueled vehicles or fuel cell vehicles and a $1bn advanced battery loan guarantee scheme. Hong Kong is renewing the tax break for electric vehicles for a further 5 years, while in Portugal, drivers of electric cars aren’t charged for vehicle  registration. And in Sweden, fast food giant McDonalds plans to roll out recharging points at its outlets.

Electric technology has a lot of good things going it. Electric (battery) engines are 65% efficient compared to old internal combustion engines (ICE), which are at best 23% efficient. The batteries can be recycled, where an ICE can’t.

But not everyone supports EVs. In fact, in a recent meeting in Brussels, some environmental NGOs were resolutely against them. While at We Are Futureproof, we remain optimistic and supportive, we ask, what are the issues?

Perhaps the most obvious gripe is that electric cars are increasingly tagged as ‘green’, which in fact they aren’t. Electric cars still have a ‘carbon footprint’ from their manufacturing stage, as well as from the energy they use (more on that below). There are also concerns about the production of the electric batteries - this process is apparently quite polluting, and uses rare materials like lithium.

In terms of the energy they use, critics point out that if you drive an electric car but charge up on electricity produced from dirty coal power (brown energy), then you may as well be driving a petrol vehicle which will get a lower overall emissions. What’s important is to look at the future carbon intensity of the energy mix.

The argument often used that electricity from nuclear is somehow ‘clean and green’ also gets the shackles up. Very few campaigners would like to see electric vehicles promoted if this resulted in a green light for new nuclear stations.

So what is the way forwards? The only way to ensure that electric cars emit as little CO2 as possible is to make sure the electricity comes from alternative energy sources - solar, wind, biogas and tidal.

Professor Julia King recently reported that if all the cars in the UK were converted to EVs, then the extra demand on the energy grid would increase only by 17%. Whist that figure still seems significant, she said that with the use of smart metering systems, cars could be powered up at night when the demand on the grid was low.

It’s obvious that the electric technology needs to develop and grow. At this point we should embrace the evolution to EVs, whilst also monitoring the energy sources used for electrical charging points.

Blake, for We Are Futureproof