Economic Turmoil May Force Automakers To Focus Their Green Solutions R&D

Economic Turmoil May Force Automakers To Focus Their Green Solutions R&D

The ongoing economic crunch may accomplish for alternative fuels what an ambivalent marketplace and bipolar political system haven't been able to do: Thin the herd and get everyone working toward the same goal.

So far, automakers and fuel and energy companies have been wandering all over the place in the search for replacements for crude oil and improvements in vehicle fuel economy.

Some favor a particular approach - Toyota Motor Co. and hybrids, for example.

Others, like General Motors Corp., sample everything, spending part of their R&D budgets on fuels like ethanol, part on hydrogen, a little bit on improvements to the gasoline engine and the rest on battery-electric vehicles.

But with an already cash-strapped auto industry staring at double-digit declines in annual new-vehicle sales for the next few years, money for ongoing projects is going to be harder to find than a tree-hugger at a McPalin rally.

Alex Molinaroli, head of Johnson Controls' hybrid battery unit, is one of a growing number of industry watchers who believe that automakers are soon going to have to exert some discipline, pick a technology for long-term alternative fuel and powertrain solutions, and stick with it.
As you might expect, Molinaroli favors battery-electric technology, and says he believes the bulk of the industry has swung to his way of seeing things.

"You see the long-term R&D effort focused on the electric car, that's where the real strategic efforts are," he told an interviewer for Reuters news service earlier this week. "Automobile manufacturers are not going to be able to afford to keep investing in all these different technologies."

Indeed statements supporting that thesis have come lately from General Motors, Nissan, Chrysler, Renault,  Peugeot, Mitsubishi and Daimler, among others.

Some are more EV-intense that others, but all have announced plans to launch electric vehicles in the next few years and most are involved in battery development ventures aimed at perfecting the lithium-ion batteries specialists say will be necessary to effectively electrify a large part of the transportation fleet.

Even companies like Toyota and Ford that aren't visibly pursuing fully electric cars are working on conventional and plug-in hybrids that use electric motors, power batteries and, in the case of plug-ins, electricity from the commercial power grid.

Among major global players only Honda, which is sticking with conventional hybrids and hydrogen-electric fuel cell cars, seems to have turned its nose up at the idea of rechargeable battery-electric cars.

 Molinaroli, whose company is developing next-generation lithium-ion batteries for clients including Ford (plug-in Escape hybrid SUV) and Mercedes-Benz (S-Class mild hybrid), told Reuters that as he looks around his industry he finds that "people talk about fuel cells, but I don't really see the kind of energy and effort around them that I see around the electric power train."

We presume he was speaking specifically of the rechargeable, battery-electric powertrain, as fuel cell vehicles also are, by definition, electric vehicles.

And that's where we part company with him.  

His comments belie the fact that GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, Hyundai, Daimler,  Volkswagen and Nissan all are working of fuel-cell electric vehicles even as many of them veer toward plug-ins and battery-electrics as mid-term candidates to replace king oil.

We're not backing one technology or the other. It is our belief that something has to take oil's place as the chief energy source for the transportation sector -- the sooner the better - and that it needs to be a clean, renewable energy source. Beyond that, no favorites.

So we hate to see anyone dismissing a promising technology because it isn't the one on which his company happens to have staked its future.

It is true that economic constraints are likely going to force automakers to cut back and make choices.  GM may no longer be in a position to drop wads of research dollars on ethanol, fuel cells, hybrids, pure EVs, diesels and improvements to gasoline engines.

It - and the rest of the auto industry - may well have to pick two or three of the most promising avenues and close down the rest.

We asked David Cole, head of the respected Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., for his thoughts on the subject and he said he agrees that electrification is the path the auto industry is pursuing but doesn't agree that it will be - or ought to be - battery electrics or nothing.

Cole sees the road forward divided into three distinct sections.

First will come plug-in hybrids that take advantage of the range-extending capabilities of an electric drive system that can be recharged from the commercial power grid and will provide a decent amount of all-electric travel before the internal combustion engine kicks on.

Some will use the ICE - burning gas, diesel, ethanol, flex-fuel, liquid hydrogen, liquid natural gas or something we've not thought of yet - to provided propulsion, others - such as the upcoming Chevrolet Volt from General Motors -- will use it only to generate electricity for the electric drive system.

Battery-electric cars and trucks that are recharged from the grid and use only an electric drive -- will be next.

Their utility, however, will be limited by the energy storage capacity of their batteries and the availability of fast-charging stations. Today, only 14 states have public EV charging stations and only in two of them - California and Massachusetts - are there more than a dozen stations.

Fuel-cell electric vehicles that produce power on-board in a thermo-chemical reaction that combines hydrogen and oxygen, will likely be the end of the road, Cole says, pointing out- rightly--that the fuel cell itself is no longer a technological challenge.

As with electricity for battery EVs, the big roadblock for hydrogen fuel-cell cars is production and distribution of hydrogen. There are fewer hydrogen stations than EV charging posts.

The road from here to there probably won't be all that straight and narrow - few things are.

We see lots of side roads and a mostly mixed traffic flow, with plugs-ins, pure battery-electrics, fuel-cell vehicles and even clean internal combustion cars and trucks all sharing the highways for decades to come.  

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.