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The godfather of EVs in China has turned his attention to hydrogen cars

It's no accident that nearly half of the world's electric cars on the road today are in China. According to the International Energy Agency, of the 1.9 million battery electric vehicles on the road, 951 million are found in China.

Wan Gang had a lot to do with that. The former Audi exec is now China's state science and technology chief and helped launch the country's aggressive push toward zero-emission vehicles after he delivered a report in 2000 outlining the country's need to develop an electric-car industry. China heavily subsidized that industry and helped push the world toward electrification.

Now, Wan may have his sights set on hydrogen-powered vehicles. Wan told Bloomberg last week that the benefits of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would benefit long-haul transportation: buses, trucks, etc.

“We should look into establishing a hydrogen society,” he told Bloomberg. “We need to move further toward fuel cells.”

His opinion carries more than its weight in mere words. Wan said the country may keep in place its subsidies for fuel-cell development, even if battery electric car incentives wane. China's nascent hydrogen fuel cell market is much smaller than Japan's, which leads the world in hydrogen adoption. But that may change if China's government can spur growth for hydrogen fuel cells through incentives the same way they have for EVs in the last 20 years.

2018 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell at hydrogen fueling station [photo: Chris Baccus]

Toyota, Hyundai, and other companies such as Nikola have developed hydrogen-powered semis and retail vehicles, although infrastructure has lagged behind in many countries other than Japan. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, China had 12 hydrogen refueling stations in operation in May 2018 compared to more than 100 in Japan who has stated that it aims to have roughly 200 by the end of next year.

Wan says the country will move toward building more infrastructure to support hydrogen-powered vehicles.

“We will sort out the factors that have been hindering the development of fuel-cell vehicles,” Wan told Bloomberg.

If China's push toward hydrogen matches its push toward electrification that could net a seismic change for the industry within the next 15 years.

Fiat Ducato Electric debuts in Europe, first electric commercial van from brand

In the U.S., pickups reign supreme for most work detail. Abroad? That duty often falls to slab-sided commercial vans like the Fiat Ducato. In the U.S. the Ducato is offered as the Ram ProMaster, but is largely identical.

Earlier this month, Fiat Professional rolled out its 2020 Ducato van with slight updates inside and out, but the brand offered for the first time an electric powertrain that could make it into wider production soon.

Fiat didn't offer many details about the electric powertrain such as range, power, wheels driven, or batteries, but the automaker said the vans would be available for pre-order soon and would be offered to select buyers first to test and study how owners will use the vans.

A spokesman for Ram didn't immediately comment on whether the vans would be offered in the U.S.

Although hardly sexy, electric commercial vans on the roads would reduce emissions significantly in dense cities. The vans are often used for myriad jobs and constantly run. Any emissions improvements in commercial vehicles can have wide-reaching impact in carbon reductions in cities all over the globe.

Although this is Fiat's first foray into electric vans, they're not alone. For instance, Mercedes-Benz has announced an electric version of its Sprinter van, the eSprinter; Ford has a range-extended version of its Transit Connect commercial van; and Nissan offers in the U.K an electric e-NV200.

That's a boon to businesses across Europe, who have significantly higher running costs for gasoline-powered vehicles than they would with electric vehicles. EVTrader found last year that light-commercial vehicles in Europe cost roughly 23-28 cents per mile to run versus 6-7 cents per mile for an electric van.

Porsche CEO: EVs are the future, but they won’t completely replace combustion engines

The Volkswagen Group has made one of the largest investments in electric-car building, infrastructure, and development for any automaker on the planet. In the next decade, Volkswagen and its subsidiaries including Audi, Porsche, and others, plan on building millions of EVs and will invest billions more into charging infrastructure.

In an Op-Ed published Monday in USA Today, Porsche Cars North America CEO Klaus Zellmer says the future for any automaker will be electrified, but he stopped short of saying that all cars will be electrified. That's a surprising pivot for a Porsche CEO whose future Taycan promises to be one of the most highly anticipated EVs to arrive next year.

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“Let’s be clear: We believe EVs will quickly become commonplace in the U.S. new car fleet, not that they will fully displace internal combustion engines,” Zellmer wrote. Instead, he says that offering EVs, PHEVs, and ICE will be commonplace and offer consumers the right fit for the right circumstances.

That's not to say that Zellmer sounds bearish about the prospect of performance EVs in his commentary. In fact, the CEO lays down the groundwork for converting enthusiasts from flat-6s— found in the iconic 911 sports car—to EV powertrains in future cars thanks to the immediate response and nearly unlimited power.

“Frankly, EVs are fun to drive,” he wrote. “Electric motors provide instant torque for quick acceleration, and the lower center of gravity from battery packs will reinforce the sporty feeling. So don’t be surprised when all of this truly catches on in the near future.”

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The column contains a nuanced position—that EVs represent a future for performance vehicles, and that internal combustion will live alongside electric performance. It's a pragmatic take, but a surprising one ahead of the Taycan's launch.

Overall, Zellmer lays out a comprehensive argument for Porsche—and Volkswagen's—push into EVs and infrastructure, and he enumerates his logic for demand, adoption, and support of those future vehicles. It's a compelling argument, and worth the read.

To hear the CEO of a major North American sports car maker publicly embrace electrified powertrains is not only encouraging, but perhaps also a harbinger of a larger sea change of attitudes among mainstream automakers—but it's hardly an all-or-nothing “attitude.”

Nissan Leaf batteries are lasting a very long time

Since even before the first market deliveries of its Leaf electric car in late 2010, Nissan has made frequent mention about the need to create second-use demand for the Leaf's battery packs.

It turns out, they may need to see many of those ideas put into place. According to comments made last month by a Nissan-Renault executive, citing charging and battery degradation data from Nissan on the 400,000+ Leafs sold globally, the battery packs are going to easily outlast the life of the vehicles—not just the ones that are in accidents.

“We are going to have to recover those batteries,” said Francisco Carranza, the managing director of Renault-Nissan Energy Services, at the Automotive News Europe Congress.

Nissan Energy Solar

In the UK, the company is currently offering Nissan Energy Solar solutions, combining solar panels with battery storage and an app-based control system. In some other places within Europe the Leaf is allowed to be grid-connected, and globally the 4R Energy Corporation, a company founded by Nissan and Sumitomo, is testing a scheme that would use second-use EV batteries to take street lights completely off the grid. And there have been some novel solutions along the way, such as using them for pop-up travel trailers.

Nissan x Opus camper with reused Leaf batteries in Britain with Nissan Qashqai

Other larger-scale uses include megawatt energy-storage systems good for smoothing peak demand at commercial venues, industrial plants, or smaller buffers used for electric-vehicle charging stations. But some big-picture fundamental questions remain: Like whether recycling existing less-efficient batteries for their raw materials might be better.

Some months ago Nissan in the U.S. said that it’s examining a wide range of uses but hasn’t committed to any on a larger scale. We’ve reached out to Nissan once again for comment to see if that remains a fair characterization—and to see if the company’s experience with degradation and projected life mirrors that in Europe.

Volkswagen last month said that it expects the battery packs in upcoming ID models, built on its mainstream modular electric platform (MEB) to last “the life of the cars.”

VW MEB platform

Specifically, VW says that its batteries will keep 70 percent of their original capacity for 8 years or 100,000 miles.

That’s close to Nissan’s goal at the original rollout of the Leaf—that they then expected its battery to keep 70 percent or more of its original capacity after 10 years—although its original warranty was also for 8 years or 100,000 miles.

But even when their capacity degrades far lower than that, they'll be fine for second uses. Nissan R&D staff, for example, projected that at 20 years the typical cells might store less than 40 percent of their original energy capacity. That would still make them a productive piece of larger-scale energy storage.

With VW planning 22 million electric vehicles in 10 years, all with active thermal conditioning that could give those battery packs an even longer life, let’s hope more companies get together on solutions that can truly scale up.

Beyond Tesla, electric cars lose value faster than other vehicles

Lower maintenance and repair needs plus lower energy costs can make a very convincing case for electric car ownership.

The same isn’t always true for those who own vehicles the old-fashioned way, going with what’s new and fresh every three years or so, before trading it in for the next. Then, electric vehicles have an issue that can turn the math on its side: appalling resale value.

The average new electric vehicle loses 56.6 percent of its original value in three years, according to the car-deal search engine iSeeCars. The average among all kinds of vehicles is 38.2 percent of depreciation over three years.

The depreciation is from its sticker price, so it doesn’t include things like a potential EV tax credit of up to $7,500—which not every buyer may be able to claim.

In a recent analysis, iSeeCars found that the Fiat 500e had the steepest value plunge among EVs. Its average three-year-old used price was just $10,358—a depreciation of nearly 70 percent from its original price. The BMW i3 after three years cost just $19,784, which was a 63-percent cut from its original price. The Nissan Leaf (despite hints of an uptick last year) and Volkswagen e-Golf also posted steep value losses of nearly 60 percent over three years.

2018 BMW i3s

The Ford Fusion Energi was also called out by iSeeCars a plunge in value that was nearly as steep as that of those EVs. The Fusion Energi is worth just $15,983 after three years.

The new trends come from an analysis of more than 4.8 million car sales, comparing average price weighted by sales volume for vehicles sold between January and May 2019 with those of the same model sold between January and May 2019, adjusting for inflation via the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

2019 Tesla Model S

Tesla is an exception to the rule, though—and proof that EVs don’t have to be resale-value money pits. After three years, the average Tesla Model S remains worth a strong $57,517, according to iSeeCars, which is just a 17.1-percent reduction from its price when new.

For nearly all the other non-Tesla models, these losses help enforce the value of leasing (under what are in many case highly subsidized offers), while purchasing may only make sense when planning to keep an EV over a longer timeline.

All of the electric models that lost the largest chunk of their original value are short-range models. One of the keys to success (and a signal of success) for the new long-range fully electric vehicles is that they escape the pull of strong depreciation. With the first Chevrolet Bolt EVs due to near that three-year mark early next year—and the new ones in their tax-credit phaseout—we’ll start getting some answers on whether that's the case in a matter of months.

Honda E electric car: 50/50 weight distribution, “in action” tease next month

Honda’s sporty, retro-cute Urban EV Concept created quite a buzz ever since its 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show debut. And now, with the Honda E, as it will be called, fast-tracked and due to be shown in production form later this year, Honda is aiming to keep up the excitement.

This week, Honda revealed some key details about the production vehicle’s platform and battery—including one very interesting piece of information: that the Honda E will have a near-perfect 50/50 weight distribution.

The battery pack in the Honda E charges either with a Type 2 (230-volt AC) connector or via CCS DC fast charging, enabling an 80-percent charge in just 30 minutes. The charge port is at the front of the car, in the center. Honda claims a range of “over 125 miles” but doesn’t specify whether that’s to the WLTP or NEDC standards, or to an internal specification of its own.

Honda E powertrain infographic

With rear-wheel drive (no word about all-wheel drive yet) and short overhangs, maneuvering in tight urban environments should be a cinch. The E rides on a four-wheel independent suspension, with suspension components themselves made of forged aluminum for weight savings.

The 35.5-kilowatt-hour battery pack is water-cooled to help maximize its efficiency, and it’s positioned low, just below the passenger floor, and between the front and rear wheels—the key to that weight distribution and what should be a very low center of mass.

That could be put to the test—or at least demonstrated—soon, as the Honda E Prototype will be presented “in action” at next month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, in the U.K.

Honda aims to “feature electrified technology in 100 percent of its European sales by 2025”—meaning that in addition to fully electric models there may be multiple hybrid systems (including the carmaker’s i-MMD two-motor system) as well as fuel-cell tech.

2019 Honda Clarity Electric

Where does that leave us in the U.S.? Honda currently offers one fully electric model, the Clarity Electric, although the model is only available in California and Oregon, and only by lease. Honda is clearly aiming for much wider availability for the E, and notes that it has already received 31,000 “expressions of interest” across Europe. Although Honda has repeatedly told us it’s not being designed for the U.S. and won’t come here, we can only hope for something so inspiring.

Byton M-Byte electric SUV: More interior photos, US timeline confirmed

While the upstart electric vehicle maker Byton hasn’t yet said much about how its $45,000 M-Byte electric SUV will be sold or serviced in the U.S. it’s confirmed that this vehicle, due next summer, will come with a standout feature atop its dash: a wider screen than you might have in your living room.

The huge 48-inch Shared Experience Display spans the width of its M-Byte’s dashboard and incorporates gesture controls plus individual zones for the driver and passenger, a companion touchscreen tablet built into the steering wheel, and facial recognition and directional microphones to help cater functions to each occupant.

Although that might sound more like the pipe-dream domain of concept cars, the interface will be included even in the base M-Byte costing around $45k. And last week, with the official opening of its Shanghai Design Studio, the company released a few more up-close images that confirm a series of standout details making it into the production version.

Byton concept, 2018 Consumer Electronics Show

Some of the pragmatic concessions—like climate control vents and some hard buttons―that Byton added to its prototype version of the M-Byte for its most recent showing, this January, carry through to the production version.

Byton notes that the front seats, which can rotate inward up to 12 degrees, have made it from the M-Byte Concept all the way through to the production model—although we would assume the rotation is for when you’re parked. In all, Byton claims that 90 percent of the concept car’s design was retained.

The pictures confirm that although climate controls are in a smaller screen at the front of the center console, physical buttons for the front and rear defroster/defogger are higher up in the middle of the dash, as are the shift buttons.

Headquarters of Byton electric-car company, Santa Clara, California

Byton has its headquarters in Nanjing, China, with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. It retains an R&D center in Silicon Valley and its primary design and concept center in Munich, Germany.

When the Nanjing, China–built M-Byte shows up in the U.S., in mid-2020, according to the company, with a sales-and-service plan yet unannounced, it could slot into a compelling niche, costing tens of thousands less than alternatives from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Jaguar but a whole size larger than the Tesla Model Y.

Byton M-Byte concept

Byton told Green Car Reports last week that “the current tariff situation has not impacted Byton’s production and delivery timeline.” In addition to the North American rollout in 2020, it plans to sell the M-Byte in China starting late this year and in Europe in late 2020, and a full reveal is likely this fall.

Oslo plans to recharge electric taxis on the fly

If ever there were an argument for wireless charging, taxis may be it. And as with most things in electric cars, if there's a way to demonstrate the technology in action, Norway may find it.

That's the impetus behind the country's latest effort to equip all of Oslo's taxi stands with wireless chargers. The city announced the plan in March, according to a Reuters report. The chargers will be installed by Finnish utility Fortum.

As long as taxis are sitting, waiting for passengers, they might as well be charging, and they'll start as soon as the cabbie pulls up, with no action needed from the driver.

Wireless charging technology for cars has been somewhat controversial, with many EV advocates dismissing the technology as less efficient than plugging in, because cars have to park precisely for maximum efficiency, and because of cost.

Some have said wireless charging won't make sense until wireless chargers can be run down long stretches of highway to replace the need for fast chargers that require cars to stop and drivers to plug in—and which, generally, can only accommodate one car at a time.

Taxis, however, could be the perfect (sorry) outlet for wireless chargers. While most private cars seldom travel more than 40 miles a day (and even fewer more than 80), taxi drivers often cover several hundred miles a day, have less control over their routes, and can't afford to sit for 45 minutes and wait for a charge.

They need to charge every chance they get. And while cabbies can't afford to stop for 45 minutes to charge, they often stop at airports or outside hotels to wait their turn for passengers.

In November, Oak Ridge National Laboratory demonstrated a 120-kilowatt wireless charger that could give an Oslo taxi a significant 90 miles of range in a 15-minute wait. With wireless chargers at all the taxi stands, drivers wouldn't need to charge up completely, but pick up a few additional miles every few runs.

Norway has announced plans to require all new cars to be electric by 2025, and for all taxis to be to be electric by 2023. That could be a lot more feasible with wireless chargers where they need to stop.

Climate change: GM mulls an electric Hummer revival

The idea of bringing back the Hummer brand is on the table at General Motors.

Yes, that’s the brand that was much maligned by environmentalists in the ‘00s, for becoming a plus-sized piece of hypocrisy on wheels, a fashion statement of American excess riffing off the Humvee, a vehicle that helped fight the war (in part) to secure the flow of foreign oil.

“I love Hummer,” said GM president Mark Reuss to reporters on June 12, when asked specifically about the brand. “I’m not sure. We’re looking at everything.”

A Hummer EV could potentially be built on GM’s upcoming BEV3 dedicated electric vehicle platform—a platform that GM has already confirmed could also (at least in part) be the foundation for an electric pickup.

To look at it another way, GM may have a hard time justifying bringing the Hummer brand back in any way other than as an all-electric brand—especially in light of CEO Mary Barra's stated goal to transition GM toward an all-electric future. Hummer met its demise in 2010, at a time of greater awareness of efficiency, the recession, and a different, reformed company.

The Hummer H2, which is the one that was most maligned over time, shared some of its building blocks with GM’s full-size trucks but was built to a higher weight class—such that it didn’t require an EPA mileage rating (it was single-digit mpg, by all accounts). There was a smaller Hummer, the H3, but even that more efficient model got an EPA-rated 9 mpg city in its popular V-8 H3T form.

1999 AM General Hummer

If Hummer were to come back that way, it would land somewhere between two brands that have seen a fair amount of buzz over the past couple of years: Rivian and Bollinger. With its military heritage and more of an off-road focus, an electric Hummer could be a more rugged counterpoint to Rivian, as well as a somewhat more practical alternative to the specialized, high-end Class 3 truck Bollinger intends to build.

Hummer sales reached their peak in 2006, with 71,524 sold that year, according to Automotive News. While that was definitely still niche territory, it was enough for Hummers to be quite a common sight on American streets.

A revived Hummer could also give Jeep a serious run. The Jeep brand has been slow to electrify, especially in the U.S., although a plug-in hybrid version of the Wrangler is due in 2020.

Such a model would also, of course, have to be light and modestly sized. Anything else might make it a different kind of “guzzler”—at charging stations, instead.

Obstacles include a dealer network that still remembers being burned by GM, when it had them build unique, expensive showrooms, demonstration courses, and facilities and then abandoned the brand.

Although the idea might seem paradoxical, going electric could be quite the statement. Hummers were a valuable tool in the fight over oil resources. What better symbol for energy independence and going tailpipe-free than that?

ChargePoint and Electrify America simplify charging access with roaming agreement

While public charging sessions are few and far between for most electric car owners, who typically charge at home the vast majority of the time, they can present a disproportionately high level of frustration.

The mess of multiple apps, fobs, and RFID cards may soon be a thing of the past. So, too, will the late-night calls to tech support to process credit card numbers, or to enroll as members in a different network in order to just use one of its chargers once.

Electrify America DC fast chargers

Although some of the charging and utility sector wants to term this “interoperability,” the word “roaming” is appropriate because the users who most need to understand it—people new to electric cars—can think of it like cellphone coverage. Simply put, you use the app for the charging network you most use, and occasional sessions on other networks will just work—and be billed via your usual network.

The new partnership agreement was announced Tuesday, and should prove especially useful from a consumer standpoint as those using an existing account from one of the networks won’t incur additional fees on the other.

“This roaming agreement further accelerates the seamless integration of individual EV fueling networks and brings us even closer to the day when the movement of all goods and people will be powered by electricity,” said ChargePoint president and CEO Pasquale Romano. “Partnerships like this make transitioning to electric drive easier than continuing to use fossil fuels.”

2018 Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid charging at ChargePoint station, Santa Cruz, California, Dec 2017

In all, there will be more than 30,000 individual charge points connected by the two networks, including Level 2 AC and DC fast charging (CCS or CHAdeMO). ChargePoint claims to be the largest electric vehicle charging network in the world, while Electrify America, created by the Volkswagen diesel emissions settlement, is committed to having 2,000 charge ports at 484 locations by July 1.

Both Electrify America and ChargePoint have already made such partnerships with Greenlots. Electrify America also has allied with EV Connect and SemaConnect, while ChargePoint has roaming agreements with EVBox and FLO.