When Ford Motor Co. (F) rolls out its electric vehicles next
year, it wants an infrastructure to support them, so the company is
working with utilities and seeking government support to ensure
that a charging network is in place.
The automaker was the lead applicant for a grant proposal under
the U.S. Department of Energy's $400 million program to support the
development of an electric-vehicle market through technology
demonstration and education projects, said Nancy Gioia, director of
Ford's sustainable mobility technologies and hybrid vehicle
programs, in an interview with Clean Technology Insight. Ford's
partners in the application are 15 electric utilities that cover 55
million customers, she said.
"The project would benefit from all the knowledge we have from
the Ford Escape [plug-in hybrid vehicle] project, but moves well
beyond that," said Gioia, referring to a project launched in 2007
involving eight utilities and the utilities-funded Electric Power
Research Institute, or EPRI. That project entails placing 20
sports-utility plug-in hybrid Ford Escapes with the utilities to
monitor performance and infrastructure requirements.
Under its DOE proposal, Ford and its partners would deploy 740
vehicles in four different segments: small cars, small SUVs, small
business vans and large vans, with the objective of assessing and
building infrastructure for the electric vehicles and ensuring grid
connectivity.
"Our intent is to bring forward a very comprehensive national
electrification transportation demonstration," said Gioia. "We went
for the big wazoo."
The demonstration fleet is also expected to collect data from
the vehicles and speed up understanding and adoption of the new
technology by drivers, according to Ford.
The DOE grants come from federal stimulus funds and attracted
hundreds of applicants, including many privately held developers of
advanced battery technologies. The department said it expects to
announce the grant recipients in July and disburse the funds in
September.
The DOE funding is aimed at addressing the chicken-and-egg
conundrum that comes with adoption of new technologies. Knowing
that there is a market for the product is essential for automakers
to justify the investment in electric vehicles and the disruption
to their business model.
At the same time, drivers won't buy the new cars if a recharging
infrastructure isn't available, if the batteries aren't safe and
their capacity limits travel distances. There's also education
required on the high cost of these vehicles: In an all-electric or
PHEV, the consumer spends upfront much larger amounts than in a
gasoline-engine car, but that pays for itself over time in zero or
very little gasoline consumption and sharply reduced maintenance
expenses, electric vehicle developers say.
"Electric transportation is a genuine alternative to gasoline,
and this path of migrating to electric from gas is a tremendous
opportunity to reduce [carbon dioxide] emissions and reduce
dependency on foreign oil," said Tom Reddoch, executive director
for energy utilization at EPRI. "But it's different, so it
automatically slows people down."
Reddoch said that EPRI found that, in the existing Ford program,
the battery in the PHEV Ford Escapes that allows the vehicle to run
for 20 miles per charge will displace two gallons out of every
three gallons of gasoline needed.
"We're beginning the process of familiarizing the public with
the technology, to get an easy to charge infrastructure," said
Reddoch, who believes the first wave of electric transportation
will come as PHEVs, which have one battery and a gasoline tank that
kicks in once the battery runs out.
One of the things that Ford and its utility partners are working
on is the creation of open standards and open platforms for the
charging of PHEVs and all-electric vehicles, said Gioia. The 2007
program, which started with Southern California Edison and then
attracted the other utilities, will run for two more years and cost
$20 million.
Earlier this year, Ford received a $10 million grant from the
DOE under its Vehicle Technologies Program in support of that
project. The Ford Escape PHEVs are using batteries developed by
Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions LLC, a joint venture
between publicly traded Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) and Saft Group
SA (SAFT.FR), based in Bagnolet, France.
To illustrate the importance of having utilities and automakers
working together in the process of adopting electric
transportation, EPRI's Reddoch gave the example of the plug
design.
"At the beginning [of the project] each automaker wanted to have
their own plug, with their own design, and we said we want a
universal plug, one with a common interface so that wherever you go
[with the car] it will be OK [to charge it]," he said.
Johnson Controls-Saft will also supply the batteries for Ford's
PHEV, which Ford will bring to market in 2012, the same year that
it plans to launch the next generation of its hybrid systems.
Before that, though, Ford will next year roll out its Transit
Connect light-duty van, the automaker's first 100% battery-powered
vehicle, developed in partnership with Smith Electric Vehicles U.S.
Corp. Gioia said the Transit Connect will cost between $60,000 and
$65,000.
And in 2011, Ford will launch its first all-electric passenger
vehicle, the Ford Focus, with a 100-mile range per charge. The car
is being developed with Canada's Magna International Inc., and Ford
intends to announce the battery supplier for the Ford Focus later
this year, said Gioia. The car will be assembled at the same
production line as its gasoline version, giving the company
manufacturing scale and the ability to produce it globally.
Last month, Ford received $5.9 billion in low-cost loans from
the DOE to upgrade plants in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky and
Missouri.
(Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight covers news about public and
private clean-technology and alternative-energy companies.)
-By Mara Lemos Stein, Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight;
212-416-2017; mara.lemos-stein@dowjones.com