I covered the AFVI Expo last week and that trip was my first visit to Las Vegas. I've heard the stories, the advertising campaign that tries to sell Sin City as, well, Sin City that takes your credit card. What interested me the most, though, was how my environmentalist mind would react to being in a city that, quite honestly, celebrates excess and waste. I didn't expect to feel comfortable in an oasis of VIP come-ons and bright lights surrounded by a harsh desert. I arrived in town around noon and, during my lunch at a quite reasonable buffet (Indian food, not one of those with endless tables featuring every food ever), I happened to read Wendel Berry's essay Faustian Economics from the latest issue of Harper's. Whoops.

Berry, who wrote an astounding collection of essays called The Long-Legged House back in 1969, takes on biofuels in the Harper's essay. Well, he starts with biofuels and smoothly segues into a discussion of limits, reductions and how it will ever be possible to really come to terms with the way we're consuming the world's resources. More thoughts on this after the break.

For Episode #22 of the AutoblogGreen podcast, Sam and Sebastian recap the AVFI show in Las Vegas, and enter into a discussion focusing on diesel. Still on the diesel tip, Sam talks excitedly about the Volkswagen TDI Cup racing series before moving on to the much more charged topic of EV infrastructure. Our interview this week isn't so much a one on one as it is a speech from T. Boone Pickens, he of oil magnate status, about how oil is not going to last forever. Thanks for listening, see you again soon!

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Andrew Littlefair (left) and T. Boone Pickens

The majority of the attendees at the AFVI Expo's Fleet Day breakfast keynote seemed quite pleased to listen to T. Boone Pickens (just like last year). Pickens is the founder of BP Capital Management and had a sit-down discussion with Andrew Littlefair, the president and CEO of Clean Energy. Why do AFVI folks like this guy? He's got a lot of information (he's made billions in the oil and energy industry) and he sees a way to power the future (he's made a huge investment in wind power in Texas, for example. Littlefair said that without Boone, there wouldn't be an NGV industry in the U.S.

A few choice quotes:

• "We are importing 72 percent of our oil. ... We are now transferring $600 billion [a year] out of the United States to a few friends and a hell of a bunch of enemies. I can tell you, we are paying for the war against ourselves."
• "If they [China] had the Olympics today, in this smog, and ran the 100 meter dash, it would have to be a relay."
• "Diesel will never sell, again, below gasoline. It will always be more expensive than gasoline."
• "We're actually dealing with a huge shift of capital out to somewhere. We're going to be reduced to - I promise you it's going to happen pretty quick, too - we'll be reduced to something less than the superpower that we are."

Much more from Boone (including audio of his chat) after the break.

Project Better Place has been making lots of headlines with their plan to create a battery swapping and charging infrastructure in different countries. At the recently held Alternative Fuels and Vehicles conference, a panel of representatives from some American electric car makers suggested they would prefer to see a slightly different scenario for the U.S. market. Nay to the whole battery swapping thing, yea to fast-charging stations.

Here are some quotes from the participants as reported by Jennifer Kho of greentechmedia:

• Bryon Bliss of Phoenix Motorcars: "With the ability to do rapid charge, we see that playing more of a role than stations to exchange them." "There are a lot of complications [in exchanging the batteries]."

• Richard Kasper of Chrysler's Global Electric Motorcars said the investment that battery-replacement stations would require would be "very significant."

• Jeff Boyd of Miles Electric Vehicles: "Fast charging is here; it's available. You can put a station at a Starbucks for a cost of $125,000. There's no reason to wait [for something else]."

During the question and answer session after the panel, Dean Taylor, a senior technical scientist at Southern California Edison, brought up a point often raised in debating fast-charging. Specifically, that daytime charging by drivers would add to peak demand as well as put strain on the grid. That was countered by Bryon Bliss who stated that charging stations could pull the electricity from batteries, like those made by Altairnano, which could also be a boon to utilities by helping them with grid stabilization. Click the "read" link to learn more of this interesting discussion. [NOTE: AutoblogGreen's Sebastian Blanco moderated the AFVI panel]

[Source: Greentechmedia]

Michael Williams is a bold man. It's not because he wears a bow tie and cowboy boots; it's because he will publicly say he's a good friend of the President. Not many people around who will admit to being tight with George Bush these days. Williams, who is the chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas, revealed this and many other things during his speech to the AFVI Expo crowd during fleet day last week about the power of propane as an alternative fuel. Now, why would the Railroad Commission care about propane? Well, in Texas, the Railroad Commission doesn't regulate railroads (anymore). Instead, it regulates the "state's oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry, and the surface mining of coal and uranium." Therefore, if you're involved in LPG or other gases in the state, then the Railroad Commission is your agency. But, if you don't want to hear about propane from Williams, then skip ahead to about minute 10:30 in the audio clip below and you'll hear a little joke about the AFVI and Moses.

Listen to Williams (15 min):



As part of the Fleet Day opening session, there were many keynote speakers who discussed alternative fuels for fleets. Read about and listen to them after the break.

There weren't a lot of astoundingly cool vehicles to drive at the AFVI Expo Ride and Drive earlier this week. Still, throw a handful of alternative-fueled cars, trucks and CUVs in a Las Vegas parking lot, and I'll check it out. As you can see in the video I made of the event, Bosch was heavily represented by a half-dozen or so clean diesel models. GEM and Miles EVs were easy to spot, and there was even a hybrid cherry-picker and a propane pickup or two. To kick off the event, Ed Begley, Jr. and Bobby Rahal cut a ribbon (see pictures below) and then took a short loop around the lot. Watch the video after the break, and thanks to Shotgun Musical Laboratories for the sounds.

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We first heard about the ZeroTruck, a Class 4 delivery truck powered by nothing but good old electrons, towards the end of April. Electrorides, Inc. brought the prototype ZeroTruck to the AFVI Expo in Las Vegas this week, trying to get fleet operators to sign up for an upcoming national tour the truck will make later this summer to show off its capabilities.

Tedd Abramson, the president and CEO of Electrorides, Inc., spoke to AutoblogGreen about the ZeroTruck and said that the truck will save fleets money not only at the pump but also in the back room, where maintenance billing is done. Down time at the fueling station is also reduced, so there are cost savings on top of the lower price for the energy needed to move the truck.

The ZeroTruck is a 2008 Isuzu N Series chassis converted to run on batteries. The vehicles uses a lithium polymer battery pack that offers a 100-mile range. The 14-foot truck offers very flexible options for the bed and, since Isuzu chassis makes up around 78 percent of the market, fleet operators are very familiar with what these options are, how the vehicle operates, and how it holds up in the field.

All of this does not come cheap. Abramson said that the ZeroTruck will have a cost premium of just over $100,000 a compared to the standard diesel version. All those cost savings, Abramson said, mean that the premium should be recouped in five years. Abramson said he expects the vehicle to offer about ten years of operation. If everything checks out, then that cost premium won't be a problem at all. We'll have to wait and see how many fleet operators pull the trigger on this truck to see if they believe the company's claims are accurate. Note: Electrorides gave AutoblogGreen permission to post the slides used during the company's presentation at the Expo. You can find them in the gallery below.

Listen to Abramson (10 min):

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This week, at the AFVI Expo, I moderated a panel on the roll-out of electric vehicle products from Miles EV, Phoenix Motorcars and GEM. The representatives were Bryon Bliss, vice president of sales and marketing for Phoenix, Jeff Boyd, COO of Miles, and Richard Kaspar, GEM's president and COO. Oh, and our friend Ed Begley, Jr. was there as well, continuing his relationship with Phoenix.

The purpose of the panel was for each company to present their case not only for EVs but for their particular products. Since these companies all offer vehicles with quite different capabilities and styles, they're not really competitors, and it was a congenial event. Since I expect our readers to be pretty familiar with the vehicle line-ups of these three companies, I won't go into details about them. There were a few things said during the 90 minutes that caught my ear, though, that I think you'll want to hear about.

• The Miles EV offices are in Santa Monica, CA. To commute to work, Boyd drives a prototype of the XS500, Miles' upcoming highway-speed battery-powered sedan. The price target is still $35,000 and deliveries should start in the third quarter of 2009. The sedan will be followed by an electric SUV. I told Boyd that the next time I'm in town, I'll be knocking on the office door, begging for a ride. I mean, it worked for the Roadster.
• Phoenix expects deliveries of its all-electric SUT to start at the end of June (yes, in six weeks). Certification should be finished June 1, Bliss said and the company has orders for 600 vehicles to fill as of today.
• GEM's big news is the addition of new options to the back cargo space of its work trucks. Since GEM vehicles have been selling for over a decade, GEM has had plenty of time to listen to customers and find out what they want/need. New covers and door types are now available, and you can see a list of GEM vehicle options here.

Greentech media was also in the room, and wrote up this account of what happened. Both Miles and GEM had vehicles on the show floor, and I've included galleries of their displays below. The Phoenix photos are from the 2007 AFVI Expo. For those of you keeping score, Zap and Dynasty were nowhere to be found at the Expo this year (unlike last year).

Pat Cadam started Pat's Garage in San Francisco about 25 years ago and worked exclusively on Honda and Acura vehicles at first. In the 1990s, Pat and his mechanics found themselves in an unusual position because they enjoyed working on some of the new-fangled Honda EVs while other people were slightly afraid of them. The Insight, for example, became a shop favorite, soon followed by the Prius. In 2006, Cadam partnered with Nick Rothman and Green Gears to focus even more on eco-vehicles like hybrids (another San Francisco-based shop, Luscious Garage, has a similar mission but adds a woman's touch).

Cadam first heard about the possibility of converting hybrids to plug-in vehicles in his shop about two years ago. He investigated the options and concluded that Hymotion's nearly plug-and-play model would be the best for his garage. A few business meetings later, and Green Garage began doing prototype conversions. The garage has done about 65 conversions in the last 18 months, starting with small government fleets and utility fleets (e.g., Google, Wisconsin Public Power, Austin Energy). Most, but not all, of the vehicles have been Priuses; Green Gears has also done proof-of-concept conversions of Escape hybrids. The data from these test units helped Hymotion launch their $10,000 production Prius conversion packs, which officially began shipping two weeks ago. Green Gears installed the first three production units into Priuses belonging to UC Davis.

Today, each Prius conversion takes around four hours, but Green Gears sets aside a day each time they do one. This is because the mechanics do additional testing with each unit and then spend time on driver education - notifying the new PHEV Prius owner about the 35 mph limit for EV-only mode, for example, and telling them how to maximize fuel use even at highway speeds (hint, it involves lots of coasting). These sessions have led Cadam to prepare an eco-driving course, with tips that people who don't have a plug-in or a PHEV can use, that Green Gears will offer in June.

Cadam says that the onset of official plug-in hybrids coming in the next few years doesn't mean his shop will be out of the conversion or green car business. Like Kim Adelman, Cadam sees OEM PHEVs as just more eco-car to work with, ones that offer a huge possibility for maximizing fuel efficiency.

Listen for yourself (9 min):

So, I'm editing together a short video of the Ride and Drive portion of the AFVI Expo that ended yesterday in Las Vegas. While we have (and often use) a piece of music we crafted ourselves as an intro and bed for our podcasts and videos, it really wasn't designed to be played in its entirety. And, since the video I'm working on has no comments, no talking heads, I thought you might want a change of pace this time. I figured at least one of our readers out there is a musician and would like to have his or her music, whether it's instrumental or have words that match out ABG theme, be the backdrop to this video.

Therefore, if you've got your music online in an easy-to-edit-in-iMovie format - along with (important) proof of either a Creative Commons license or some other way to guarantee that it's OK that we use the music - then post a link in the comments by 4 pm EST today. Alternately, if you know of come great Creative Commons music you think I should use, let me know that, too. I hope to post the video tonight, so don't delay. Thanks!

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Sometimes, when you're walking around the showroom floor, you see a vehicle that you didn't expect. At the AFVI Expo in Las Vegas this week, the most unusual ride is the 360 Electrica. What we have here is a 100 percent battery-powered street sweeper. The specs of this little bubble van aren't going to impress anyone who's a fan of EVs (you think NEVs are limited with their 25 mph limit? The 360 Electrica can only go 3.5 mph), but that's not the point.

This vehicle is going to be popular with the right crowd, says the father-son team of Jean-Claude and Xavier Moreau (general manager and service & customer support manager of Grentech, LLC, respectively). The two explained to AutoblogGreen that the 360 Electrica is geared towards places like arenas, parking lots, or airports. The vehicles are manufactured in Italy, while Greentech, the North American distributor for the 360 Electrica, is based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Electrica 360 uses lead acid batteries in a 48 volt system that give 6.5 hours of working time (8 hour run time if the brushes are not used constantly). The brushes have about a five-foot sweeping size, which Xavier said is pretty standard. In fact, the company that makes the 360 Electricia also makes diesel-powered versions. There are around 120 of these electric sweepers in use in Europe. How much will it cost you? $75,000-$80,000, depending on options. Even at that price, Jean-Claude said that the electric sweeper can save users around $8,000 a year, leading to a cost premium payback time of two years or so. The lead acid battery pack has a five-year warranty, and they are looking at li-ion batteries for future models. If you order one now, expect building and delivery to take about two months to the West coast; two weeks quicker to the East coast.

The vehicle is rated PM10 by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Actually, the vehicle is exempt, which means that the vehicle can be sold. Details about the PM10 rating - and more about the 360 Electrica - can be had in the audio clip below (Xavier speaks first, then Jean-Claude. 11.5 min):

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The Neighborhood Electric Vehicle market is not exactly huge, and there are already some established players involved: Miles, Zenn, GEM. So, what's Dymac going to do to enter this space? The answer is, well, simple.

Dymac had something like a coming out event at the AFVI Expo in Las Vegas this week, according to Tim Melland, regional distributor for Dymac Northwest. There are already around 200 of these very basic all-electric trucks, vans and shuttles in operation, but the company wanted to make an appearance at AFVI to broaden their visibility. These are bare-bones EVs. If you thought a Miles Electric Vehicle was the bare minimum of what people would settle with in an electric vehicle, you're not thinking like Dymac, which thinks that things like regenerative breaking add too much complexity and cost to the vehicle. As Melland told me, if you've taken shop class, you can fix whatever goes wrong with a Dymac vehicle and, because of the way the components are installed, it shouldn't take more than an hour to upgrade any of them. Want new batteries or want to try out a fancy new electric motor in your car? Not a problem. The simpler system means that Dymac vehicles are around $5,000 less than comparative Miles EVs (the Miles ZX40ST is $18,400)

Oh, and yes, those are solar panels on the top of the truck there. Melland said that if you start with a full battery, drive the truck ten miles and then let it sit in the sun for an hour, the battery will be back to full charge. Without any solar input, Dymac trucks have a 30 mile range.

Listen here (7 min):

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It was hard to miss the colorfully-decorated natural gas truck that Sterling Truck Corporation brought to the AFVI Show in Las Vegas this week. This is a huge cab that Sterling is calling the Set-Back 113, and the company claims it can save fleet operators up to six grand a year in fuel and operating costs, on top of any tax credits and other government incentives. There was no one at the booth who could talk to us about the truck, but this is where press releases come in handy.

Fleet operators were a big part of the AFVI Show, especially yesterday (it was Fleet Day, after all, and today is Public Day) and the main customer base that Sterling will likely be selling the Set-Back 113 to are port operators, natural gas utilities and municipalities. Natural gas is burned in a Cummins Westport ISL G 8.9 liter stoichiometric cooled-exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) engine. Sterling says this combination "offers the lowest emissions available in the industry without sacrificing top-level performance and efficiency." At the very least, the ISL G with its maintenance-free exhaust system already meets 2010 emissions standards. The display version is pretty, too. Check it out in the gallery below.


[Source: Sterling]

I've done you a favor. As part of the American Honda Lunch program yesterday at the AFVI Expo, comedian Matt Hovde was part of the entertainment. Before he took to the stage, I was kind of excited. I mean, he's part of Second City, and they're legends in the comedy business. So, what's my favor to you? I've split the audio from Hovde's routine from the clip of the other speaker during lunch: American Honda's vice president of corporate planning and logistics Dan Bonawitz. You can still listen to Hovde if you really want to, but don't complain to me if you find yourself groaning more than laughing

So, what did Bonawitz have to say? Like Larry Burn's presentation during the morning session, Bonawitz ran through some of his company's efforts to bring cleaner transportation to customers. The main focus Bonawitz talked about was hydrogen. Bonawitz said that American Honda sees natural gas-powered cars as a bridge to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Honda, like GM, is calling for more government help in establishing refueling infrastructure, but the lack of the infrastructure today isn't stopping the company from moving forward with deploying vehicles. The world's first fuel cell vehicle dealer network will kick into gear in a few months when the Honda FCX Clarity becomes available in parts of California. Honda has one of these production models on display here at the Expo, and you can check out some pictures of the car in the gallery below. The lighting in the Expo hall is terrible for photographs, but I hope some of the gorgeous burgundy color of the FCX Clarity is reproduced well on your monitor.

Aside from fuel cells, Bonawitz talked about other Honda clean tech like the new diesel Acura, new I-TEC engines and the Honda / RITE cellulosic ethanol partnership. Of course, we're certainly anxious to see Honda's new purpose-built hybrid car that will be unveiled next year and will carry a price tag below the current Civic hybrid. Bonawitz said that vehicle is still on the way, but didn't provide any more information. All I can say is I'm happy he didn't try to make a joke out of it.

Hovde (8 min):



Bonawitz (12 min):

When Larry Burns, GM's vice president of R&D and planning, spoke at the opening session of the AFVI expo yesterday morning, he stayed on target to bring GM's message to the conference. Before he stepped onto the stage, we had a chance to sit down with him and ask a few question

One thing I wanted to follow up with him about was his recent speech to the Hydrogen Fuel Association where he called for more government support for a hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Burns told me that in the six or so weeks since that speech, he's heard a bit of discussion and seen some movement on this issue. There's nothing to announce, but it seems there are still lots of people in government who listen to what GM wants. As for the customer side of the equation, Burns said that buyers will get excited about hydrogen cars once they have the chance to take a ride or a drive in a fuel cell car. Just take a look at Project Driveway, he said. We also talked about the 1970s Oil Shocks and the problem of reduced oil supply (you can't think of it in cyclical fashion; you need to think long-term, he said). Listen for yourself (12 min)