A Tesla driver recorded his friends’ reactions while accelerating from a stop in his new P85D model:
Make sure to watch to the end.
Maybe one of the best parts about 2015 will be being one-step closer to a mass market, 200-mile range electric vehicle. At an Autoline panel of experts (video below), two battery business leaders (Ann Marie Sastry, CEO of Sakti3 and Prabhakar Patil, CEO of LG Chem’s North American unit), and a researcher (Brett Smith of the Center for Automotive Research) hint that we may be two years away from such a transformative vehicle.
The key is to get the cost down to $100 per kilowatt hour, which Sastry is pledging to achieve at her company by 2017. Meanwhile, if Tesla can get there with the Gigafactory, the panelists predict the company will have competition from other automakers. Which is only a good thing for consumers and fans of keeping the Earth’s climate at a livable temperature. If you don’t have time to watch the video, Green Car Reports has a write-up of the video here.
It’s official — the site in California’s Central Valley, along Interstate 5 at Harris Ranch, is Tesla’s first battery swap station. As I speculated earlier this month, Tesla unveiled the station last week in a blog post:
Starting next week, we will pilot a pack swap program with invited Model S owners. They will be given the opportunity to swap their car’s battery at a custom-built facility located across the street from the Tesla Superchargers at Harris Ranch, CA. This pilot program is intended to test technology and assess demand.
At least initially, battery swap will be available by appointment and will cost slightly less than a full tank of gasoline for a premium sedan. More time is needed to remove the titanium and hardened aluminum ballistic plates that now shield the battery pack, so the swap process takes approximately three minutes.
With further automation and refinements on the vehicle side, we are confident that the swap time could be reduced to less than one minute, even with shields. Tesla will evaluate relative demand from customers for paid pack swap versus free charging to assess whether it merits the engineering resources and investment necessary for that upgrade.
If the pilot program is successful, and ownership models for the batteries can be determined, Tesla may have just begun a major innovation in electric vehicle driving. The program could herald two major breakthroughs: first, it solves “range anxiety” by allowing drivers to travel long distances without having to endure lengthy and uncertain battery charging sessions at public chargers. Second, it could potentially decrease the price of the vehicles dramatically by removing the cost of the battery from the purchase price.
How so? Well, I’m not sure Tesla (and other automakers) would be interested in this second benefit, but they could arrange car purchases where the automaker retains ownership of the battery and leases it to the customers when they purchase the vehicle. Then when the battery swap happens, a customer is simply swapping one leased battery for another, with a performance guarantee from the automaker on the lease. The automaker would benefit by ultimately reselling the used batteries for grid storage and other market opportunities (and increasing vehicle sales). The customer benefits by not having to pay for the full cost of the battery (a huge part of the purchase price) and by not shouldering the uncertainty of long-term battery performance.
And to imagine even more possibilities, when you couple the battery lease option with the possible revenue from vehicle-to-grid services performed by plugged in vehicles via grid signals, you have a recipe for a very inexpensive vehicle, an essentially free battery lease, and a better performing grid to boot.
It’s an unsubstantiated rumor, but the Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger site in the Central Valley (off I-5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles) may be getting the first one in the “modern” era. Here’s an eyewitness account:
While charging at Harris Ranch on the way back from the shareholder meeting I was chatting with the employees at Subway inside the Shell gas station market, I was told by someone (not a Subway employee) who works there that Tesla is putting in the battery swap station where the car wash is currently located, I guess the car wash is broken & they don’t want to get it fixed so they struck a deal with Tesla & plans have been drawn up to build the station where the car wash is currently, best guess is should be open in about 6 months or so & will be manned with Tesla personal for awhile until they get the kinks worked out, several times Elon has mentioned the first station will be on the I-5 & this area is perfect.
We know that Tesla batteries can be swapped faster than it takes to get gas. If you could “refill” your Tesla battery for another 250 miles or so in just a minute or two by swapping in a fresh one, it would solve the range anxiety/charging time issue completely.
This Harris Ranch carwash could soon be California’s first EV battery swap site.
There are really no technical barriers to pulling this off, but in practice it can be complicated. The battery is the most expensive part of the vehicle (tens of thousands of dollars in a car like the Tesla). So if you just drop the battery off for a new one every time you’re out and about, who is going to own it? And how are you going to know the quality of the new battery you’re receiving? And how will it affect the purchase price of the vehicle?
The EV charging company “Better Place” introduced this battery swapping business charging model a few years back, but the company got crushed. Bottom line is that the automakers didn’t want to give up possession of the battery ownership for a swapping model.
But given Tesla’s ambitions to be an energy storage company as much as a car company, it may make sense for them to retain ownership of the batteries. It solves the range and potentially the cost issues of the cars, and it also gives Tesla an opportunity to flip the batteries for energy storage whenever they need to.
If the Harris Ranch swap station is happening, it’s likely a pilot project for the company to evaluate. But it could portend a new era in how electric vehicles are engineered, operated, sold, and — most importantly — experienced by drivers.
New information on Tesla’s Nevada gigafactory indicates that the company is making a major play for the stationary storage market (i.e. backup battery systems for homes and businesses and maybe stacked batteries for bulk energy storage. According to CEO Elon Musk:
“Stationary storage is a vital element for going to sustainable power generation and we are currently assuming that somewhere around 30 percent or so of the Gigafactory output would be aimed at stationary storage, that’s a rough guess, says Musk. But, one way or another, stationary storage is going to be a really huge thing that needs to be done.”
30 percent is a pretty staggering figure for a company making such great headway on the vehicle side. Of course, we need both types of energy storage, for transportation and for decarbonizing the grid. Meanwhile, plans for the factory are coming along, with some production possibly beginning as soon as 2016.
I hope they hurry up — I’ll be in line to get their mass-market Model 3 as soon as it’s available.
Some California environmentalists may be celebrating now that Tesla has apparently decided to build its $5 billion “gigafactory” in Nevada instead of California. Lawmakers here had toyed with the idea of weakening the state’s signature environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), to help expedite review on the factory and therefore encourage Tesla to locate in-state, possibly in Stockton. But those plans fell through last week.
Not California
But Tesla’s decision could be an overall setback for the environment, compared to building a factory in California. To be sure, the idea of a gigafactory is a huge win for the environment overall. The cheaper batteries will encourage more adoption of electric vehicles and also help clean our grid by enabling inexpensive storage of surplus wind and solar energy.
So why is Nevada so bad, compared to California? First, the siting of the gigafactory will likely launch a major manufacturing program, with an attendant industry likely to spring up around it, in a state with much weaker regulation than California. Nevada ranked 20th among US states in a George Mason University survey of the most lax regulatory states when it comes to land use decision-making, with California ranked 49th. And a recent comprehensive survey of business owners gave Nevada an “A” on the impact of environmental regulations on business, which is not a good sign for environmental protection. California of course received an “F.” So the factory itself, as well as any future co-located suppliers, will operate with less future oversight for environmental health and safety protection.
In addition, the thousands of workers who will be employed there will likely end up in new subdivisions that sprawl over the high desert countryside, if Reno’s past growth is any indication. And they will likely commute to work by car, a lifestyle that Californians are rapidly abandoning. California meanwhile is engaging in regional transportation plans that will offer alternative, more environmentally friendly housing and transportation for workers, and its environmental laws are now encouraging growth closer to jobs and services.
Finally, from a shipping perspective, the factory in Nevada will have to transport the batteries by train to the major population centers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are the leading markets to buy electric vehicles. Locating the factory in Stockton would have reduced this shipping distance significantly, along with its associated environmental impacts, while placing the factory only a negligibly farther distance from the East Coast markets.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he plans to build more such factories. And as I say, the gigafactory is an overall environmental win. Yet while California’s economy would certainly benefit from locating it in-state, the environment would as well, compared to the site announced today.
Steve LeVine over at Quartz has an excellent write-up of the Tesla versus General Motors showdown to build the first mass market, long-range EV:
The stakes are enormous. Most electrics have less than 100 miles of range. Experts regard 200 miles as a tipping point, enough to cure many potential electric-car buyers of “range anxiety,” the fear of being stranded when their battery expires. If GM and Tesla crack this, sales of individual electrics could jump from 2,000 or 3,000 vehicles a month to 15 to 20 times that rate, shaking up industries from cars to oil, which were until now certain that large-scale acceptance of electrics was perhaps decades away.
LeVine traces the economic and engineering challenges to bring battery costs down so dramatically. Musk is betting on economies of scale through mass production. But the scientific consensus is dubious. Experts point to the difficulty of building a better anode (the negative electrode):
All current lithium-ion batteries use graphite anodes. But scientists say a big jump in performance would be possible if they could perfect a silicon anode, which would absorb far more lithium than graphite, increasing how much energy could be stored. The problem is that in tests thus far, silicon expands, cracks and kills the battery. The US government is funding six efforts to create a working silicon anode that can go commercial, but even if one or more are successful, they would not deliver a 200-mile car by 2017 or 2018.
Meanwhile, Nissan is quietly improving the LEAF’s battery range. By 2020, given the current decreases in battery costs, Nissan may be able to offer a 170-mile model for the current price (approximately $29,000).
It’s very encouraging to see so much capital and ingenuity devoted to cracking this battery code. Let’s hope for success and that it happens quickly.
The website Clean Technica presents interesting information on electric vehicles sales compared to top car sales in the US generally. The news is mixed but to my mind ultimately positive. The bad: EV sales are pretty tiny compared to ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles, with no true EV cracking the top 20. The Toyota Prius Plug-In (with the first few miles all-battery electric but then traditional hybrid miles from thereon) hit #15. But:
13.5 times more units of the Toyota Camry were sold than the top-selling electric car, the Nissan Leaf.
However, the overall trajectory of the EV sales is outpacing hybrids at a similar stage of introduction, and this disruptive technology is showing a hockey stick-like sales trajectory. Here’s the most recent EV sales chart from the PEV Collaborative:
EV sales nationwide and in CA from 2011 through June 2014
And as the Clean Technica post notes:
If the Nissan Leaf quadrupled its sales (or if the Tesla Model III came along and sold 4 times as many cars per month as the Leaf), it would make it into the top 20 best-selling cars in the US.
Quadrupling sales doesn’t seem like that big of a feat giving how fast sales have been increasing, the fact that most Americans still aren’t aware of the Nissan Leaf, and the fact that disruptive technologies see exponential growth, not linear growth.
EV companies and advocates still have a ways to go with the technology: we need cheaper vehicles with a longer range. Tesla’s gigafactory is the big hope in this respect, but even without a game-changer factory, the technology is steadily improving and becoming cheaper. The sales data we see here, to my mind, offers cause for cautious optimism.
Tesla’s proposed “gigafactory” to mass produce cheap lithium ion batteries could be a climate game-changer. The batteries would be an environmental twofer: first, we’d get cheap electric vehicles to dramatically reduce transportation emissions (via a half-priced Tesla), and two, we’d get cheap energy storage units that could be used for everything from home and business backup or offgrid power to utility-scale storage of renewable power, which could be dispatched when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. It’s the missing piece to achieve the worldwide reductions in greenhouse gases needed by 2050, which require electrifying transportation and simultaneously decarbonizing our electricity supply.
It also means a lot of jobs for whatever state gets the factor. California was considered out of the running, but state leaders have been lobbying Tesla CEO Elon Musk big-time. And now we can see some of that wining-and-dining in legislative action. SB 1309 (Steinberg & Gaines) provides a legislative commitment to reduce regulatory barriers to siting the factory, including environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Big project streamlining like this has happened before, most notably for large sports facilities like the Sacramento Kings arena and an NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles. But this would be the first time that a facility with such huge environmental benefits would get an environmental review exemption (or streamlining, depending on how the bill gets worded). If it comes to pass, it will likely pit traditional environmentalists against climate hawks. But first we’ll have to see what Musk decides to do with the facility. Stay tuned!
This past Friday in Sacramento, the Office of California Governor Jerry Brown convened a few hundred electric vehicle experts for an update on California’s progress deploying EVs. The attendees were mostly from California, including utility representatives, advocates, researchers, and officials. However, experts also came from places ranging from Oregon to the Netherlands. Some informational highlights from the conversation:
- The Netherlands recently reached a major milestone: 25% of their new car sales were electric vehicles. Part of the appeal: the Netherlands waived the sales tax on EVs and has invested heavily in charging stations. Maybe a good lesson for California as EV rebate money runs out? Waiving the sales tax on EVs, if it could pass the Legislature, would be a great incentive for purchase.
- Most Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, and Toyota Plug-In Prius customers were motivated by the environmental benefits and fuel savings. Tesla customers, however, were primarily motivated by vehicle performance and access to new technology. Survey results found here (collected by the entity that sends out vehicle rebates, which is a great source of market data like these).
- Most electric vehicle customers skew to the older, whiter, more highly educated, and male demographic.
- HOV (carpool) lane access was an “extremely or a very important purchase motivation” for 59% of EV customers. This bodes poorly for California as the state is running out of carpool lane stickers to distribute — like in a matter of months. The Governor’s Office vowed to make addressing this need a priority.
- California sales of EVs currently represent one-third of the national market, with 64,649 sold to date. The sales graph is definitely looking like a hockey stick, which is an incredible advance for the technology.
- An electric utility rep says that sales of California’s low carbon fuel credits could mean $200 a year back in the pockets of EV drivers. The low carbon fuel standard is part of California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and it requires fuel refiners to either limit the carbon content of their fuel or purchase credits on the open market. Since electric utilities are providing low-carbon fuel (electricity) to their EV customers, the utilities get to sell the credit to oil companies and then return the money to the EV drivers. And if the utility is saying $200 a year, it’s probably more like $500 a year, which is basically free charging at home for most EV drivers.
- Atlanta is the number 2 market in the US for Nissan LEAFs, due to HOV access and other state incentives in a congested urban area. San Francisco is #1 and Honolulu is #6 (and it could rise to the top in terms of percent of EVs sold each year). Even Nashville clocked in at #9. I like see red state cities showing up on this list. EVs should be a bipartisan priority.
Ultimately, the Friday convening was a success in terms of sharing the latest information, providing participants with a chance to influence state priorities on EVs, and giving people in the field a motivational boost. The state is doing incredibly well in terms of EV adoption, as the hockey stick sales graph and anecdotal observations can attest. Look for the key near-term priorities to be an extension of the HOV sticker program and making that low carbon fuel standard rebate happen quickly.
Full speed ahead, California EV drivers and those who will soon be one!
