What future for alternative fuel cars?

What will be the future power train for cars? Hydrogen Fuel Cell (HFC), Electric Vehicle (Fully Battery Powered EV) or Hybrid?

Alternative Fuels fascinate me, this Blog contains only my thoughts. My views are simply that mine and I would welcome any alternative points of view or insights. I am sure alternative fuels will create any number of different scenarios and in light of these challenges fleet managers and operators need to start considering how in reality these changes will impact their fleets both in the short and long term.

If you wish to contribute or debate any aspects please follow @autoprocurement on Twitter or Iain Ross on LinkedIn and post your views.

A wee bit of history

Manufacturers have always investigated alternatives to Petrol or Diesel and with every oil crisis or significant oil price raise their efforts gather pace. In the late 1970s LPG appeared in the UK as an after fit conversion and I remember fitting German conversions to a fleet of petrol Opel Records for a specific fleet operator that already had existing LPG tanks for forklifts. Despite significant fuel cost savings LPG never made it as a mainstream fuel and in hindsight this was due mainly to the fact that there was in effect no infrastructure for refuelling.

LPG continued as a niche conversion product but reappeared together with Bio-Diesel & CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) in the early 2000s when it seemed like the government of the day was committed to backing change. Much was made by the authorities of persuading fuel companies to install LPG pumps nationally, thus it was said solving the infrastructure issues. The Government also announced the Powershift Grant initiative which it was announced would cover the majority of the additional cost of production alternative fuel vehicles. On the back of these initiatives Volvo offered the first factory built UK spec LPG models in their S60, V70 & S80 ranges. Other manufacturers followed with pre sale conversations like the Vauxhall Astra, some vans and commercials also appeared but ultimately it failed. LPG, Bio Diesel and CNG remained niche markets, mass acceptance and the much trumpeted national infrastructure never materialised.

These initiatives failed for a number of reasons. In my view the three major problems were the fuel itself and the approach of the authorities. 1) Ultimately LPG is simply not efficient enough to replace petrol or diesel in the mainstream. 2) The governments commitment to updating the infrastructure was superficial and ineffective. 3) The way the Powershift Grant scheme was set up and operated. Customers, leasing companies or garages had to retrospectively claim back the grant after the vehicle was registered and when they tried they found the process cumbersome and obstructive. Worse, it turned out that there was no guarantee of when or if the monies would be paid due to a shortage of funds. In short the Powershift programme which was set up with the best political intentions was from a consumer’s point of view a complete lash up.

To summarise; I believe the widespread adoption of alternative fuels failed at that time primarily because the most likely contender LPG is not a viable efficient fuel. But also because the government initiatives were based on politically motivated green posturing rather than a proposition based on a sound product and viable economics.

Today

Today there are three prime contenders vying to become the future champion of the alternative power train.

Hybrid (Various combinations of Internal Combustion Engine ICE and Electric Power)

Electric Vehicle (Battery Operated only Power train)

Hydrogen Fuel Cell (HFC a vehicle using hydrogen as fuel to create electricity that drives electric motors)

What are they

Hybrid – There are any number of variations to the modern hybrid car but effectively they utilise an electric battery pack which is backed up by a petrol or diesel engine to supplement the battery. This can be done by either recharging the battery while driving, taking over the drive of the vehicle when the batteries are low or both. The best known examples are the established Toyota Prius, Lexus h models or Honda Insight and now the newcomers from Citroen, Peugeot and Volvo.

Hybrids vehicles I believe are a viable stop gap however in the short term they are expensive and in the UK have suffered from the reduction of the London Congestion Charge CO2 threshold to 75g/km. In the long term I believe Hybrids will disappear as production costs of both EV and HFC technologies fall and efficiencies improve, I can’t see Hybrids being around in 20 years for anything other than specialist applications .

Electric Vehicle

EV’s use only stored electric battery power to drive the vehicle. They have actually been around for quite some time, in fact in 1835 both Robert Anderson from Scotland and Thomas Davenport from Vermont USA built forms of electric cars or carriages.

Today EV’s have become available from the mainstream manufacturers; the best known of these is probably the niche Nissan’s Leaf however the unveiling of BMW’s new i35 and PSA (Peugeot Citroen) electric City Cars will make EV a practical solution for many. It is however the arrival of the much acclaimed Tesla Model S that could provide EV with the impedance needed to move into the mainstream.

In my opinion successful high tech has historically behaved like a waterfall, often described as the “halo effect” it is fitted to a select few premium price products creating interest and an ever increasing demand from we lesser mortals. Car tech is no different, think of Sat Nav, Air Conditioning and the like, these all started in top of the range executive cars and now even some Renault Clio’s have them as standard. My reason for stating the obvious is not just the arrival of BMWs i35 but more importantly Tesla’s Model S Executive Saloon. It seems the days of EV being the preserve idealists driving kooky little City Cars with 80miles range are gone. The Tesla at $83K with a single charge range of 350 miles is a state of the art technical wonder, it has the potential to mark the beginning of EVs very own halo effect. I’ve no doubt the arrival of BMW i8 and the rumoured Mercedes Benz will reinforce this effect but the Tesla Model S will probably be the car that carries the revolutionary tag and is remembered.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Again a little history, the first Hydrogen Fuel Cell was conceived in 1839 by William Grove of Wales who mixed hydrogen and oxygen together using electrolysis to produce electricity. In the 1950s the HFC was further improved by Francis Bacon and the first practical HFC was developed by General Electric for use in NASA space vehicles.

I understand that the HFC’s that have been developed for use in cars are a polymer exchange membrane (or PEM) type fuel cell. This type of fuel cell contains two electrodes a membrane and a catalyst. The PEM HFC works by forcing H2 hydrogen atoms over a catalyst on a negatively charged electrode called an anode; this breaks the molecules into hydrogen ions (protons) and electrons (electricity). The ions pass through the PEM membrane but the electrons which are larger have to go around; it is at this stage that the electrical charge of the electrons can be harvested to do work such as drive an electric motor. However the particles are still flying around in the fuel cell and something has to be done to return them to a stable state. To achieve this Oxygen is forced over a cathode where the hydrogen particles reunite by mixing with the oxygen molecule to form the fuel cells only waste which is H2O or water.

HFC is a thing of the future or is it? There are some Mercedes B Class F HFC cars already being leased by a select few and being driven daily in California. Hyundai who have been working on HFC since 1998 recently announced the ix35 HFC but despite the fanfare and trumpets it is not yet a production vehicle.

It appears that contrary to the hype volume production of any HFC vehicle is some years off yet. But even if HFC was in the showrooms now one of the biggest hurdles remains, just like LPG HFC lacks a viable refuelling infrastructure. But there I believe HFC’s similarity to LPG ends, HFC is a sound technology which will fulfil a need and so I believe it will become economically viable. Much to the disgust of the oil company’s EV and HFC will out mode the internal combustion engine as the dominant means of transport. It won’t happen overnight but it will happen in maybe 15 to 20 years time. Of course the time frame will depend on the success of the current EV’s, if the Tesla Model S is anything to go by that could be sooner rather than later.

EV verses HFC

Will there be a VHS vs Betamax war between EV and HFC prompting the manufacturers to abandon one or the other? If you think back to VHS & Betamax, Sony’s Betamx was a superior product but VHS was first by a couple of years and by the time Betamax was launched VHS had tens of thousands of film titles available so VHS prospered and the better product Betamx died. If you think of VHS’s film titles as fuel and or infrastructure for the product then the comparison to EV and HFC becomes obvious.

Today EV as a product certainly has the upper hand, it is available now, is receiving National & Local Government backing through the tax system and ‘Source London’ London’s recharge point programme. The UK’s National Grid already exists as an upgradeable infrastructure direct to the consumers home, office or parking space though some major challenges still remain. For example how the already stretched National Grid is going to be able to fulfil the massive additional demand EV charging would place on it. HFC is realistically still some way off and some real challenges exist around its daily use. Both storing and transporting large quantities of hydrogen poses difficulties that still need to be addressed, on it’s own the cost of a new hydrogen road tanker fleet would be considerable. HFC will also require serious infrastructure change at roadside fuel stations to enable a driver to fill his tank with the same ease he can today. In short if it came to it EV would almost certainly win a product war, though I’m pretty sure that long term HFC like Betamax is a better product.

Having said all of that my belief is that there won’t be a product war between the two because in my view the technologies are complimentary. In an HFC car the electricity generated is then used to drive electric motors which propel the car or the excess energy can be stored in battery packs. The synergy between EV and HFC technological developments is obvious and there will be many such common technologies and shared costs. For this reason I believe that in the long term EV will naturally evolve to incorporate HFC and create a common drive train utilising the best of both.

Whatever your view EV is going mainstream and it will probably happen soon, the big multinational players like BMW, Toyota, Honda and Peugeot Citroen throwing billions at new EV product confirms it.

The much needed improvements in battery pack range and cost reductions associated with volume production will begin to happen.

Recharging, be it supercharging stations, on street or quick change standardised battery packs will happen simply because the basic infrastructure is currently available and the product will evolve to match the realities and needs of the consumer.

There will possibly be changes to the ownership model, e.g. vehicles may be sold without the battery pack which could be sold or leased separately.

New battery packs or even part of the recharging price could include the decommissioning and warranty costs.

Something we all need to be prepared for is already a given, the government will somehow want offset the reduction in Fuel Tax revenue and Benefit in Kind tax, as they say Death & Taxes.

Iain Ross