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ON July 31, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) allowed
all-electric vehicles to operate in Metro Manila.
Four e-jeepneys were given yellow plates as
low-speed vehicles. Three will ply routes in Makati and one in UP
Diliman.
These all-electric vehicles have a number of
desirable features. They are emission-free, noiseless, relatively
easy to maintain, and, at the current price of gas, cheaper to run.
However, their range and speed are limited.
Their pulling power, fully loaded, on steep grades is not
impressive. And it takes about 8 hours to recharge their batteries
to run 100 kms at a top speed of 40 kph.
All of them were manufactured by Green Renewable
Independent Power Producer (GRIPP) using locally made rechargeable
batteries.
Are they a good deal?
In 2010, Nissan will be selling all-electric
cars. The price is still unknown but it’s likely that they will
cost more than a conventional gas- or diesel-powered car.
According to Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan,
the model that will be introduced in 2010 in the US and Japan and to
the rest of the world in 2012 is good for 160 kilometers per battery
charge. The operating limit conforms to the average commute in the
US of about 50 miles or 80 kms each way.
A little known company—Tesla Motors—is
betting big on an all-electric car. Its owner, Elom Musk, is a
37-year-old South African who came into a lot of money when eBay
bought PayPal, an Internet company, that he co-founded.
Tesla Motors began in 2003 to develop an
all-electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, that has an effective
range of 365 kms per battery charge and whose acceleration compares
favorably to most factory-assembled sports cars. Pictures of it that
I’ve seen are stunning.
The downside is the price—$109,000. So far,
Tesla Motors has delivered 4 Roadsters. It has a waiting list of
1,080 customers.
But Musk’s ambition is to develop and sell an
all-electric 5-seater for about $60,000, a goal that some experts
think will take some doing.
Don Sherman, the technical editor of Automobile
was quoted by Joe Nocera (International Herald Tribune, July 19 to
20, 2008) as saying: “If the Roadster costs $100,000, how much
will a sedan cost? It will have more doors, more seats, more metal,
larger brakes. The operative word here is ‘more.’”
The central problem of all-electric vehicles is
the rechargeable battery. Ghosn said that Nissan’s 80 kilowatt
motor will be powered by lithium-ion batteries that are twice as
powerful as nickel-metal hydride batteries that are currently used
by most hybrid cars like Toyota’s Prius.
The Tesla Roadster uses lithium batteries that
David Cole, the chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, called “suboptimal” (Nocera, IHT, July 19
to 20, 2008). They weigh almost half a metric ton.
Musk’s counterpart, another visionary, is Shai
Agassi, 40, a software engineer. He developed his own prototype
all-electric vehicle. Unlike Musk, Agassi has the encouragement and
perhaps the backing of the Israeli government. It’s in Israel’s
strategic interest to free itself from dependence on petroleum for
transportation fuel.
For this reason, Agassi envisions a complete
electric car system. He plans to operate the system by signing up
customers for agreed monthly miles. Each subscriber will get “a
car, a battery, and access to a national network of recharging
outlets all across Israel—as well as garages that will swap . . .
dead batteries for a fresh one whenever needed.” (Thomas L.
Friedman, The New York Times, July 28, 2008).
Agassi’s company, Better Place, will run the
entire grid that will be supplied with 2 gigawatts of solar
electricity over 10 years. Five hundred all-electric cars, built by
Renault, will be on the road next year. Agassi’s goal is to make
the electric car “so cheap, so trivial, that you won’t even
think of buying a gasoline car.”
These are the options that our transportation
and energy departments should be looking at.
An all-electric car system is the goal of the
Climate Friendly Cities (CFC) project that plans on putting more e-jeepneys
on the road.
At the same time, our science and technology
department should begin to develop a manufacturing capacity for
electric cars. Tesla Motors, for example, is using highly efficient
copper rotors for the Roadster. Why can’t we begin producing our
own copper rotors? R&D on rechargeable batteries is within our
technical capacity. Tesla’s batteries are made in Thailand.
Perhaps GRIPP and CFC should pay Better Place a
visit to see if there’s anything they can learn from it. At the
same time LTO can explore the possibility of getting the e-jeepney
project evaluated and partly financed by cap-and-trade. What is the
net energy saving of electric vehicles? And more important, will
they truly reduce greenhouse gases?
opinion@manilatimes.net
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