New Government, New Hope For More Electric Cars In Canada?

Canadian Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau with flag [photo: Liberal.ca]

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Canadian electric vehicle advocates can look at the election of Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party with cautious optimism, and not just for the party's promise to install charging stations at government buildings.

Gerald Butts, Prime Minister Trudeau's chief policy advisor, played a role in the Province of Ontario's decision to shutter its coal plants.

Then he moved on to serve as President and CEO of the conservation group WWF Canada before returning to politics.

DON'T MISS: Electric-Car Range: The More You Have, The More You Use, Canadian Data Shows

In that role, he collaborated selectively with industry – rather than simply confronting it – to achieve specific goals, one example being the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.

The pact commits 19 forestry companies to cease logging in an area the size of Nevada, and to adopt sustainable practices within a larger, California-sized region.

In return, six environmental NGO's agreed not to campaign against the loggers. (The number of participants has varied, with a few players having left the agreement since its inception.)

Bourgeois Chevrolet, Rawdon, Quebec, Canada [photo: RoulezElectrique.com]

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Under Trudeau, Canada's Ministry of Environment has also been renamed the "Ministry of Environment and Climate Change", signalling the new government's intent to tackle the issue.

Its platform proposes to reduce fossil fuel subsidies and to ensure all parts of the country price carbon in some manner; both should incrementally improve the economics of plug-in vehicles, as Canada's electric grid is about 80 percent fossil fuel free.

Nationwide purchase incentives would seem unlikely, though. The country is under intense pressure to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions quickly, and there are lower-cost ways of doing so that will have a larger immediate impact.

ALSO SEE: Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, October 2015: The Wallet Ballot

Federal investment in public transit will triple over four years. Energy retrofits of federal buildings are another plausible choice, as these usually pay for themselves within a few years.

Canadian 2015 Federal Election voting patterns [by Noname2. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons]

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Though the government committed C$1.2 billion to help clean technology companies succeed, two-thirds of the funds are being directed to the resource sector, still a hugely important sector of the Canadian economy.

While this means electric-vehicle component makers may face a lot of competition for the remaining $400 million, some may be able to find willing partners in the resource sector--for partially-electrified mining or logging equipment, perhaps.

Most encouraging for electric-vehicle advocates, the Liberal Party's platform calls for the government to serve as an early adopter of environmental technologies, and as a test-bed for Canadian companies as well.

This includes "rapidly expanding the federal fleet of electric vehicles".

While campaign promises are honored more often in the breach than the observance, Quebec already has such a policy in place, and the Liberal Party won half of the seats in that province.

There could also be opportunities for EVSE cloud and connected-car companies to gain scale. The latter category includes FleetCarma, which has studied the cost savings from plug-in fleets (note that oil prices were considerably higher, at the time).

Fleetcarma's analysis of Nissan Leaf driving range at different temperatures

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Policy measures that boost companies within the broader electric car ecosystem, and which could get those all-important "butts in seats" of plug-in electric vehicles, could still provide a substantial positive benefit--though they're neither as direct nor as pricey as electric-car purchase incentives.

We'll end on the inevitable suggestion that some electric-car owner needs to get Mr. Butts in a seat.

We'd suggest starting with a Tesla Model S.

PHOTO: "Canada 2015 Federal Election" by Noname2. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons.

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Source: New Government, New Hope For More Electric Cars In Canada?

Japan introduces cars with green technology and safety features

Driver can select manual driving to piloted driving mode.

Over 160 exhibitors showcased their best concepts to grab automotive fan's attention by presenting the latest ideas from green cars to super cars at the recently held 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.

The show bustled with much of the excitement coming from the Nissan stable, as their electric vehicle concept cars attracted the attention of visitors because of the freedom given to drivers in terms of design.

The all-new concept vehicle - Nissan IDS - is named after 'Intelligent Driving System'. It is an electronic Vehicle that embodies Nissan's vision of the future of autonomous driving technologies and zero emission.

The IDS is meant to showcase the company's vision for the rapidly approaching autonomous future.

Nissan IDS Concept promises a very different vision of future, it doesn't get rid of the driver. Driver can select manual driving to piloted driving mode.

When the driver selects Piloted Drive, the steering wheel recedes into the instrument panel and a large flat screen comes out. Various driving operations are handled by AI, voice and gestures from the driver.

All four seats rotate slightly inward facilitating easier conversation, like in a living room. Even when the driver selects Piloted Drive and turns over driving to the vehicle, the car's performance, from accelerating to braking to cornering, imitates the driver's own style and preferences.

As Nissan aspires to live in a world with zero emissions, The IDS will be the next interaction of the mainstream consumer vehicle.

The Nissan Gripz Concept aims to blend the ability and practicality of a compact crossover with the excitement and performance of a sports car.

The car equipped with 'Pure Drive e-Power'-an EV technology based hybrid system that an efficient gasoline engine powers the electric motor.

Taken from the video game to real life, Nissan's updated Concept "2020 Vision Gran Turismo" is a real-world embodiment of a virtual car through which gamers around the world experience Nissan's dynamic performance and innovation.

It is a supercar developed in conjunction with the creators of the racing video game for Play Station. The "Teatrofor Dayz" is a car for the future generation.

This concept has an innovative design and features that enable drivers to create and share experiences immediately with friends both onboard and online.

Designed under the concept "a clean canvas," its key feature is the smooth white interior that allows the instrument panel, seats and even door trim to serve as a display for expression. 2:40Yamaha is best known for its motorcycles and musical instruments.

The theme of this year is "Yamaha Motor Product Orchestra" - The booth offers an experience of the growing world of personal mobility.

A total of 20 models of which six are world premiere models and one is a Japan premiere. These includes electrically power assisted bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, Leaning Multi-Wheelers, a Recreational Off-road Vehicle and anautomobile.

The Resonator 125 is a concept model that proposes a lifestyle with an authentic sport bike. It has authentic wood grain material used in guitars and engravings on the muffler and more done with same intricate techniques used for brass wind music instruments.

The result is a motorcycle that inspires young people with concepts and qualities that only the Yamaha can deliver.

Yamaha unveiled an autonomous motorcycle-riding humanoid robot 'Motobot' that has combined motorcycle and robotics technologies.

The human-shaped robot is mounted atop on Yamaha?s flagship YZF-R1motorcycle - Motobot aims to outperform a world champion Valentino Rossi. Yamaha plans to apply what it learns in building Motobot to improve their products.

The four-wheel sports ride concept was built by iStream, a manufacturing and design process to produce lightweight, high-rigidity vehicle structures.

It is developed by Gordon Murray Design Limited and has its origins in Formula One technology. The MWT-9 will be what opens up a new category of sporty mobility. It is a 'Cornering Master' featuring a twin front wheel configuration.

The road-tracking performance of the two front wheels provides excellent feedback from the road and achieves outstanding cornering capabilities.

The theme for Suzuki booth is "SUZUKI NEXT 100", the exhibits represent proposals for products and technologies that give a sense of the company's preparations for the next 100 years.

A range of concept models showcased how Suzuki delivers wonder and enjoyment to drivers. Retro styled crossover, Ignis, gives shape to Suzuki's foray into the new compact-crossover genre.

The crossover will be a new addition to Suzuki's growing range as well as MIGHTYDECK offers new kinds of fun in the mini car segment. The Suzuki Air Triser concept, is offering premium luxury and accessibility.

It has a smart seating arrangement that can transform its interior into a genuine private lounge. Under the global brand slogan "The Power of Dreams", Honda exhibits a broad range of items including innovative mobility.

Hydrogen is a particular trend - Honda is showing off the all new hydrogen fuel cell powered machines. Clarity Fuel Cell is a planned production model of its all-new fuel cell vehicle.

A high-pressure hydrogen storage tank installed to this vehicle provides a cruising range of more than 700 km. Honda will begin lease sales in Japan of new Clarity in March 2016.

The Honda Project 2&4 concept model was designed to fuse together the values oftwo- and four-wheel mobility. The best selling motor bike in history, Honda Super Cub is revealed as EV powered motorcycle concept.

Honda proposes new mobility products filled with unique Honda characteristics represented by the original ideas and innovative technologies. 

Source: Japan introduces cars with green technology and safety features

New electric car startup fuels media speculation

A mysterious startup is the latest to join the plug-in car race(Photo: Stan Liu)

There's never a shortage of auto industry startups, but a new one shrouded in mystery is having its media moment -- in a big way.

Faraday Future, as it is called, is taking shape in a Los Angeles suburb, with a $1-billion promise to "take a user-centric, technology-first approach to vehicle design with the ultimate aim of connecting the automotive experience to the rest of your life." In other words, it wants to take on electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors.

What sets this electric-vehicle venture apart is its promised billion-dollar investment. the lack of information about who exactly is backing the project and that it arrives right as tech industry observers scan for any clue as to computer giant Apple's plans to field an electric car of its own.

If Faraday is fronting for Apple -- the subject of speculation in at least one prominent media post -- then it's doing so in plain sight. Faraday has a well-developed web site, is issuing press releases and touting that four of its vice presidents are veterans of Tesla..

Faraday is even trying to set up a competition among states for the factory that it says it will build, saying California, Nevada, Georgia and Louisiana are in the mix for a "phase-one investment."

Big claims are nothing new when it comes to automotive startups. But few ever make it. The list of failures among high-tech automakers in the past decade alone include electric or hybrid-car makers Think, Aptera Motors, Coda and Fisker Automotive.

But few have ever merited the kind of attention that has gone to Faraday in the past four days. It started with media reports like the one from the Wall Street Journal, reacting to the press release about its $1-billion plans, and finding executives coy about naming the source of its funds.

The Los Angeles Timesmoved the story farther Friday, playing Faraday's emergence at the top of its front page and digging into the company's incorporation papers through the California Secretary of State to find the company is linked to Jia Yueting, a Chinese tech billionaire. The Times says the papers show one of his lieutenants as Faraday's chief executive.

But it also paints Faraday as no small, typically under-financed operation. It says that it has 400 employees and is operating from the highrise once occupied by the U.S. headquarters of Nissan in Gardena, south of Los Angeles.

"With energy constraints, urban crowding, and the increasingly intrinsic relationship we have with technology, today's cars simply do not meet today's needs," said Nick Sampson, Faraday's senior vice president in the statement issued Thursday. "Our range of 100% electric and intelligent vehicles will offer seamless connectivity to the outside world."

Sampson is identified by Faraday as being the former director of vehicle & chassis engineering for Tesla. Faraday also says it has landed Tesla's former director of manufacturing, human resources and supply management.

Faraday also appears to borrow something else from Tesla: The origin of its name. Just as Tesla is named for Nikola Tesla of alternating-current fame, Faraday to have chosen a name that takes from another pioneer in the development of electricity, Michael Faraday researched electrical fields.

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Source: New electric car startup fuels media speculation

Mysterious electric-car startup Faraday Future takes aim at Tesla with $1B investment

Faraday Future's website makes it look like the company has already settled on a design, but specifics are hard to come by.

Website Screenshot via Faraday Future

Faraday Future, a mysterious electric-car maker looking to take on Tesla, said Thursday it plans to invest $1 billion in a new US factory that will produce its first cars in 2017.

The Gardena, California-based startup, which launched 18 months ago, said it is considering several locations for the factory, including sites in California, Georgia, Nevada and Louisiana. A decision about the factory's location will be announced "in the coming weeks," Faraday Future said.

"Selecting the right location for the future FF manufacturing facility is critical to our overall goals," Nick Sampson, senior vice president of Faraday Future, said in a statement. "Producing our forward-looking and fully-connected electric vehicles not only requires the latest technology, but the right community partner."

The startup hasn't divulged where its funding is coming from, but Bloomberg noted that Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting is backing the company, though it doesn't state whether some or all of the money comes from the online video magnate.

Faraday Future's plans to begin manufacturing its first vehicle in a little more than half the time it took for Tesla to get its first car out the door. While Faraday plans to make cars just three years after its launch, its Palo Alto, California-based competitor launched in 2003 but didn't produce its first car, the Lotus-based Roadster, until 2008. It took an additional four years from there to build its own car from the ground up.

"We are quite far along in the design and engineering process," said Stacy Morris, a Faraday Future spokeswoman. "We just released data for manufacturing prototypes, as well as initial long-lead tooling data for production."

While technology has advanced since Tesla was born, Faraday's three-year timeline for production still faces challenges, experts warn.

"[Building cars] is a space that a lot of startups ha ve tried and failed at. It's just a good way to burn money for a long time, which you can see is still happening with Tesla," said Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst at auto-industry analysis firm IHS Automotive. "But what's interesting about Faraday is the Chinese backing, because you have people with the cash and the interest to make these investments. FF did a good job with its hiring. If you want to throw a lot of money at a large roster of employees to speed things up a bit, it can happen."

Making its headquarters in Nissan's former sales facility, Faraday is pulling in some very serious talent with experience in alternative-energy vehicles, which could prove beneficial to Faraday's timeline goals. The automaker's website lists some powerful hires, including Dag Reckhorn, Tesla's former director of manufacturing, and Richard Kim, the lead designer for BMW's i3 and i8 concepts. The team is already some 400 employees strong, and the company expects to grow to 500 by th e year's end.

Source: Mysterious electric-car startup Faraday Future takes aim at Tesla with $1B investment

Faraday Future is the mysterious car company taking on Tesla

No one knows who's running it, but a mysterious electric car company is building a billion-dollar manufacturing plant and poaching the best minds in the auto world.

The company is called Faraday Future, and it began operating out of an old Nissan research facility in California sometime last year. The name Faraday comes from the English scientist Michael Faraday who contributed massively to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

It currently has over 400 employees working for it, but company bosses claim to be hiring around 10 new staff members per week in various fields with the aim of having 500 by the end of the year. But for now, its staff boasts a who's-who of electric car engineers and designers.

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This includes the former vehicle and chassis engineer for the Tesla Model S, the head designer of the BMW i8, a former interior designer for Ferrari and a battery specialist from the Elon Musk-owned Space X. A further LinkedIn search reveals more employees that have significant experience at massive auto companies such as Ford, General Motors, Volvo and even the likes of Facebook and Google.

Nick Sampson, who was the former director of vehicle and chassis engineering for Tesla is now the senior vice president at the company and seems to be acting as the spokesman for the company.

He recently told US media that the company would launch a brand new electric car in 2017 that would rival the Tesla Model S, and a press release revealed the company was ready to get that going.

Faraday says it will invest one billion US dollars in a manufacturing plant in either its home state of California, Nevada, Georgia or Louisana, however it doesn't have a location set in stone yet.

"Producing our forward-looking and fully-connected electric vehicles not only requires the latest technology, but the right community partner," Sampson said in the release.

Despite the fact the car company has close to 500 employees, no one really knows anything about the car they're making aside from the fact it's completely electric and will be packed with connected-car features. The range of the car isn't known, nor is its speed, but the company has revealed it will have a battery pack with 15 per cent more capacity than the Model S 85kW-hr. If the range for that is around 435kms, you can assume Faraday is aiming for at least 500kms of range for its car.

In terms of design, the company has a teaser rendering on its website of an SUV which looks very BMW X6-esque.

It's not just building electric cars that Faraday is interested in too, with the release saying that it, "plans to explore other aspects of the automotive and technology industries, including unique ownership and usage models, in-vehicle content and autonomous driving."

It's a very ambitious aim for a company that has no product, no publicly announced CEO and a team of just 400-500 people. But Faraday claims it has already begun purchasing orders for components and secured parts suppliers for its products, while its manufacturing plant will begin construction early next year.

Initially the fact the company refused to disclose its CEO intrigued people, but later it was shrugged off as a hype-builder. Now Faraday has funding for a manufacturing plant, the mystery has garnered serious interest.

When the Wall Street Journal pushed Sampson on where the significant amount of money for his virtually unknown company had come from reporters were simply told "we are keeping our partners confidential".

One rumor is that Faraday could be a dummy company created by Apple to hide its car plans until they're ready.

The basis to the theory obviously begins around the fact that it's almost certain that Apple will be entering the car market over the next five years. Apple has never been one to reveal its plans so far away from release and hiding a massive manufacturing plant would be even harder.

This would also explain the lack of known CEO, as pushing an Apple executive to that position would immediately give it away, and it would be highly unlikely Apple would put someone that hasn't spent time there in that role. Let's not also forget that Faraday seemed to have plucked its funding in an extremely short time.

Apple has also just bought a huge amount of land in California, twice the size of its new 'spaceship' campus.

The huge amount of Tesla employees on the Faraday payroll could also align with Elon Musk's comments that Apple is stealing loads of his engineers for big bucks.

Regardless of how accurate the Apple rumour seems to be, it looks like Tesla might finally have its first proper electric car rival.

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Source: Faraday Future is the mysterious car company taking on Tesla

Tesla could deliver enough cars for a happy New Year

Electric-car maker Tesla expects to deliver as many as 52,000 vehicles by the end of the year.

Josh Miller/CNET

If you're on the waiting list for a new Tesla, you may get it sooner than you thought.

Tesla Motors said Tuesday that it plans to build 15,000 to 17,000 of its Model S and Model X electric cars before the end of the year, and deliver 17,000 to 19,000 by then. That puts the company on track for 50,000 to 52,000 deliveries in 2015.

While that total would fall at the low end of a revised forecast Tesla gave in August, it seemed to please investors, who sent shares up 10 percent in after-hours trading.

The stock pop may have cheered the company as it looked for some good news this month. In October, Consumer Reports pulled its recommendation of the Model S, citing reliability issues that only recently came to light in owner-supplied surveys. Since then, Tesla has been hard at work establishing differences between models sold early in the production run and what's coming out of the factory right now.

Tesla sai d Tuesday that production and delivery of its Model S sedan are on track to hit fourth-quarter goals, but it revealed that problems from a supplier are pinching its production of the Model X sport utility vehicle. As a result, Tesla will start manufacturing seats for that vehicle itself, rather than rely on a third-party supplier. The SUV should be steadily rolling off the production line during the first quarter of 2016, the company said. Tesla also said its Model 3 is "on track" for an unveiling in March 2016.

Fremont, California-based Tesla said that in the third quarter it delivered 11,603 vehicles, including the Model X, exceeding its expectations.

Tesla posted a third-quarter loss, minus some items like foreign exchange rates, of 58 cents per share on $1.24 billion in revenue. On average, analysts polled by Reuters had estimated a loss of 54 cents per share on $1.22 billion in revenue.

Source: Tesla could deliver enough cars for a happy New Year

A Plan B for Every Monopoly Electric Utility?

Electric companies seemingly face a business "death spiral" because the 20th century rules for the electric grid make it a challenge to address stagnant energy demand and competition from energy-producing customers. The result is a utility-funded war on solar and other distributed power, and retrenchment on last century's business model as many utilities try to gain certainty by taxing solar or requiring customers to pay more regardless of how much energy they use. But one investor-owned utility—Green Mountain Power—is bucking the trend and embracing a 21st century electricity system that's driven from the ground-up by distributed renewable energy, storage, and smart grids.

Green Mountain Power has distinguished itself from its peers for nearly a decade. In 2008, this utility serving 75% of Vermont's electric customers testified to the state's Public Service Board that it wanted to expand net metering by increasing project sizes, the capacity cap on projects, and pay a premium of 6 cents per kilowatt-hour—in addition to the retail energy rate—to solar producers because of the value of offsetting dirty, peak energy production.

In 2011, the utility completed its campaign to install 10,000 solar panels in 1,000 days, beating its goal by installing 26,000 panels.

In 2013, the utility was the first in the nation to rent cold-climate heat pumps to assist with residential heating and cooling.

In 2014, unlike many of its utility peers, Green Mountain Power supported quadrupling the capacity cap on net metering from 4% to 15%. The law also allowed projects under 15 kilowatt to be registered within 10 business days. The utility followed up on its support for expanding solar by breaking ground on a microgrid for Rutland, VT, combining 2.5 megawatts of solar with 4 megawatts of battery storage. The project provides resilient power in the event of a larger grid outage, and contributes to the utility's goal of making Rutland the "solar capital of New England."

Also in 2014, the utility announced a partnership with NRG to "remake the Vermont grid" by offering "community solar, energy management systems, micropower, personal power, electric vehicle charging and similar distributed energy offerings." More broadly, the partnership is intended to "transform the distribution grid 'to a market-based platform designed to create efficiencies and distributed energy solutions.'"

In 2015, the utility launched a program for customers to "share solar," allowing customers with sunny roofs to host solar arrays at no cost. The customer would receive a portion of the energy, reducing their energy costs, and the remaining production would be available for purchase by other electric customers.

While Vermont's largest utility has sided with its customers, other utilities continue to battle against them, in fights covering more than two-thirds of U.S. states (Vermont is notably absent from the list).

The difference?

Green Mountain Power is the only electric utility in America organized as a Benefit (or "B") Corporation. B Corps are for-profit companies, but include "positive impact on society and the environment in addition to profit" as their legally defined goals. It's like the "fair trade" label for coffee or the LEED standard for buildings, a way to differentiate between companies whose only goal is profit maximization and those that want the legal flexibility to think more broadly.

The utility has a vision for using the energy system to the greater benefit of all its customers:

GMP is at the forefront of a new energy system for Vermont that can improve lives, reduce costs, and be produced in a more environmentally and economically sustainable way. They are leading the transition from the traditional grid of the past, to one that is more resilient and reliable, and that uses a series of microgrids through renewable and clean energy generation and innovative energy storage solutions. This work will empower their customers like never before and increase their comfort in all Vermont seasons while fostering healthier, stronger communities.

The fundamental rule of the 20th electric utility system is granting government-sanctioned monopolies to most for-profit utility companies, to avoid costly duplication of electrical infrastructure and capture economies of scale for power generation. But the grid is built, and the scale economies for fossil fuels are undermined by the socialized health and environmental costs as well as competition from cost-effective distributed renewable power. The utility's monopoly is increasingly un-natural.

One solution is to follow New York into the brave new world of regulated de-monopoly, changing the distribution system from just one piece of a utility behemoth into an open, competitive platform for delivering energy services. It's removing the conflict of interest for utilities that own power plants that compete with customer-driven solar, energy storage, and energy management.

But an alternative to cracking open archaic monopolies would be to incorporate the public benefit into their corporate charter.*  Instead of requiring utility commissioners and legislators to endlessly battle well-funded utility companies over incremental shifts toward a cleaner and more equitable energy system, bake it into their legal structure. Make every utility monopoly company a B corporation.

Most utility companies aren't prepared to embrace the transformative opportunity to democratize the electricity system, whether due to inertia, conservative culture, or perceived conflicts with their profit-maximizing mission. They can't envision a system in which the customer is king, and not the utility. And the tools we have to move utilities require enormous time, energy, and money to overcome the power of their economic and political incumbency.

Maybe it's time for Plan B.

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This article originally posted at ilsr.org. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter or get the Democratic Energy weekly update.

Photo credit: Martin Ringlein/ Revert to Plan B

*Note: this wouldn't change anything for government-owned municipal utilities or rural electric cooperatives, that operate under the auspice of democratic control.

Source: A Plan B for Every Monopoly Electric Utility?