June 2008

The Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association (LVEVA) will meet on the third Saturday of each month during 2008. Meetings will be held at the Clark County Library on 1401 E. Flamingo Road from 10:15 AM to 12:15 PM. Members will be displaying their own electric cars and answering questions before and after the meeting.

Calendar

June 21      Monthly Meeting

July 4      Boulder City Damboree Parade

July 19      Monthly Meeting

August 16    Monthly Meeting

September 20 Monthly Meeting

October 18    Monthly Meeting

October 18 Poker Run EV Road Rally

November 15  Monthly Meeting

December 6   Boulder City Christmas Parade

December 20  Monthly Meeting

LVEVA Board of Directors:

Richard Furniss, President
Lloyd Reece, Vice President
Bill Kuehl, Secretary/Treasurer
Al Sawyer, Jan Himber , Al D’Inzillo, Stan Hanel

Newsletter Editors and Contributors:

Richard Furniss, Bill Kuehl, Al Sawyer, P.E.,
Jan Himber, Brent Singleton, Kent Singleton, Stan Hanel

WATTS HAPPENING
is published monthly by the
Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association,
a chapter of the Electric Auto Association

Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association web site
http://www.lveva.org
Electric Auto Association web site
http://www.eaaev.org

Electric Auto Association
Membership Renewals
323 Los Altos Drive
Aptos, CA 95003-5248

Current EVents contact:  

At http://www.eaaev.org/eaaboard.html

Ron Freund
Chairman, CE Publication

 
Address Correspondence to:
LVEVA
2816 W. El Campo Grande Avenue
No. Las Vegas, NV 89031

Call for Information:
Richard Furniss (702) 453-6196

Jan Himber for Al Sawyer (702) 642-4000
Bill Kuehl (702) 636-0304 Stan Hanel (702) 405-0506

Contents:

   -- LVEVA To Participate in Boulder City 60^th Damboree Parade and Celebration on July 4th

   -- Rock Monster Motor Sports Joins Grassroots EV to Provide Fabrication Shop in Las Vegas

   -- NEDRA Power of DC Results at Hagerstown Raceway, Maryland from May 31^st - June 1^st

   -- AMP Motor Works Launches “The AMP” Commercial Electric Saturn Sky™ EV Conversion

   -- General Motors Closes Four Truck and SUV Factories While Shedding 8, 350 Jobs

   -- General Motors’ VP Bob Lutz YouTube Video Interview Updating Chevy Volt™ Progress

   -- Toyoto Hybrid Sales Increase Demand for NiMH and Li-Ion Battery Production in Japan

   -- Honda Motor Company Leases Fuel Cell Electric FCX Clarity™ into LA Auto Market

   -- EV Repairs and Service

   -- EVs and EV Parts for Sale

LVEVA To Participate in Boulder City 60^th Damboree Parade and Celebration

Boulder City will be hosting its 60^th Annual Damboree Celebration on Friday, July 4^th. The event schedule is shown on the Boulder City government web site at: http://www.bcnv.org/Damboree/

The local Rotary Club will sponsor a free pancake breakfast at 7 AM from a booth at 1100 Colorado Street.

For the last several years, the LVEVA has participated in the Damboree parade that begins at 9 AM on Colorado Street and winds through the city’s downtown area before finishing by 11 AM at Robert Broadbent Veterans Memorial Park between Avenue B and 5^th Street. At 11 AM, ceremonies will include a flag raising and singing of the National Anthem as well as parade awards and speeches by local dignitaries. Midway booths presented by local non-profit groups at the Veterans Memorial Park will provide food, drink and games to Damboree visitors.

At 6 PM in the evening, festivities will continue through the night.  Entertainment will include music by local DJs, food, games, water park activities, and a fireworks show beginning at 9 PM.

Rock Monster Motorsports Partners With Grassroots EV to Provide LV Fabrication Shop

Rock Monster Motorsports is partnering with Grassroots EV to provide a fabrication shop here in Las Vegas where people interested in converting or building their own electric vehicles (EVs) can find support, service and EV parts at one location: http://www.rockmonstermotorsports.com

The company specializes in custom chassis design, primarily building offroad 4 x 4 vehicles, rock crawlers or sand rails for owners who enjoy the challenges of navigating the desert terrain near Las Vegas. Their fabrication shop employs sheet metal shaping machinery and welding equipment that can fabricate custom aluminum parts. Previous projects have also involved integrating electric lift motors, electrical wiring and electronic control systems onto a vehicle chassis.

Rock Monster Motorsports is located at:

Rock Monster Motorsports

5225 S. Valley View Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89118

Tel: (702) 255-2700

Fax: (702) 255-2710

Contact: John

Grassroots EV, founded by Steve Clunn in Florida and expanded by Jon Hallquist to Las Vegas, helps enable EV conversions by continuing to build strong vendor relations that can provide parts and EV conversion expertise to the company’s clients. Rock Monster Motorsports is an official Grass Roots Electric Vehicles Installation Center for alternate fuel, hybrid, and electric vehicles.  For more info on Grass Roots EV, contact Jon Hallquist at (702) 277-7544. The Grassroots EV web site is at: http://www.grassrootsev.com

One recent EV design project enabled by Grassroots EV was a sports car fabrication by Steve Mills of Mills Extreme Vehicles (MEV) in the United Kingdom in conjunction with Ian Goodman of LiFeBATT Ltd. as a showcase car for LiFeBATT’s Lithium Iron Phosphate battery cells at: http://www.lifebatt.co.uk:80/r2/index.html

Stuart Mills had talked with Ian Goodman of LiFeBATT Ltd during a meeting of the Battery Vehicle Society in the UK to initiate a sports car project of Mills’ own design called the R2 that would be used LiFeBATT’s Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack technology for LiFeBATT Ltd. Ian, through LiFeBATT USA (also located in Las Vegas), contacted several members of the U.S. National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA), an affiliate of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) at: http://www.nedra.com

Steve Clunn had distinguished himself during NEDRA competitions in Florida, particularly the annual Battery Beach Burnout, where he has exceeded 100 mph in ¼-mile drag strip racing events with his electric vehicle conversions. Steve became a design consultant on the Mills Extreme Vehicles R2 electric sports car project. The design team decided to go with his recommendations for a power train consisting of:

1. The WarP9, a 9-inch series-wound DC electric motor supplied by Netgain Motors, Inc. at: http://www.go-ev.com

2. 120-Volt/750-Amp Motor Speed Controller supplied by Logisystems Controllers at: http://www.logisystemscontrollers.com

3. Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery packs and voltage monitoring systems manufactured in Taiwan, but distributed in the U.S., United Kingdom and other worldwide locations by LiFeBATT at: http://www.lifebatt.com

The initial fabrication of the vehicle and installation of the power drive train was completed by

May 4^th of this year, just in time for an exhibition during the National Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh, UK. The R2 was driven around the exhibition hall amid “lots of bewildered looks from the petrol heads”. After initial data analysis, estimated vehicle ratings show that the electric power drive train can provide about 500 ft-lbs of torque from a standing stop, accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds.

The Mills Extreme Vehicle R2 sports car is now going through additional refinement and safety testing that will provide additional sensors and dashboard meters for the design to make it street legal. More information and posts about the progress of the vehicle’s development can be found at the UK Battery Vehicle Society Forum at: http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk

Additional posts by Ian Goodman on the progress of the MEV R2 can also be found at the Do It Yourself (DIY) Electric Car Forum at: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums

The LVEVA would like to wish Rock Monster Motorsports and Grassroots EV much success as they strive to bring their custom electric vehicle fabrication services to southern Nevada!

NEDRA Power of DC Results at Hagerstown, Maryland from May 31 to June 1, 2008

Editor’s Note: Chip Gribben, webmaster for the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA), organized the annual “Power of DC” EV exposition, Autocross and NEDRA drag racing EVents at Hagerstown, Maryland.

News Release from NEDRA web site on May 5, 2008 at: http://www.nedra.com

NEDRA News, May 5 - The 8th Annual Power of DC will be held in Hagerstown, Maryland May 31 to June 1. Electric racers from across the country will be attending the event.

Kicking off the Power of DC, and starting at 10:00 am Saturday, will be an AutoCross set up by the Sports Car Club of America. The AutoCross is open to both hybrids and EVs. The AutoCross will also feature a Show-n-Shine and EV display throughout the day.

On Saturday night we will be drag racing at Mason-Dixon Dragway as a warm-up for Sunday.

On Sunday, starting at 12:00 noon, will be the classic NEDRA “Power of DC” Drag Racing event at the Mason Dixon Dragway in Hagerstown, Maryland. Included in this event is the $500 Lawless Challenge open to any electric motorcycle. The fastest bike with the 1/8-mile time wins.

A T-shirt design for the 2008 event was illustrated by Chip Gribben, featuring 27 of the sponsors on the back of the shirt.

The Power of DC is organized by Chip Gribben of the NEDRA and the Electric Vehicle Association of Washington DC (EVA/DC). See the Power of DC website for more information including discount hotel rates. Contact Chip at 301-490-0657 or pr@nedra.com for more information.

Sponsored by Milwaukee Tools, Zapi, QuickCable, NetGain, EVA/DC, Boardman Steel, Thunderstruck Motors, Hi-Torque Electric, Cafe Electric, Battery Warehouse, Hot Juice Electric, Torque Drives, Lawless Industries, ElectroScooterWorks, Harvey Coachworks, KTA Services, EV Consulting, Hugh's Woodworking, BTR Capital Management, Environmental Transportation Options, Westall Group, Bad Fish Racing and EV Parts

Some of the feedback from members of the EV Discussion List who attended the event were posted in early June:

Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 11:39:45 -0400

From: Chip Gribben <futurev@radix.net>

Subject: [EVDL] 2008 Power of DC Photo Galleries and Results are up

To: ev@lists.sjsu.edu

Message-ID: <435B73B5-FA0B-4DD9-B419-65C3B9A90BA8@radix.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Hi everyone,

The 2008 Power of DC photo galleries and results are up from the 

AutoCross and the Drag Race. Over 100 photos of the event are 

available. Thanks to those who sent pictures.

The results are listed by fastest time for the AutoCross and Drag 

Race. Two NEDRA records were also made last weekend.

PHOTOS

http://www.powerofdc.com/gallery.html

RESULTS

http://www.powerofdc.com/results.html

2008 Results

TROPHIES AND AWARDS

NEDRA Drag Race Records
PS/B - Bob Salem (VW Truck)
MT/J - Andrew Barlow (Orange Crush motorcycle)
SP/A2 - Roy Nutter (S-10 Truck)
Drag Race (Low Voltage)	Drag Race (High Voltage)
1st Place - Dave Delman (DeLorean)	1st Place - Eric Stanislaw (Dragster)
2nd Place - Chip Gribben (Ford Escort)	2nd Place - Bob Salem (VW Truck)
3rd Place - Bob Rice (VW Jetta)	3rd Place - Dave Cover (Porsche)

Drag Race (Motorcycle)

1st Place - Bryan Seara (AGNuS)

2nd Place - Andrew Barlow (Orange Crush)

3rd Place - Darin Gilbert (Pirahna)

AUTOCROSS SOLO STANDINGS

Vehicle	V	Type	Owner/Driver	Laps	Time
Blue Streak Go-Kart	48	EV	David Chen	6	24.696
ELECTRK VW Pickup	240	EV	Robert Salem Dave Erb	20	25.220
Toyota Prius	230	Hybrid	Keith Vansickle	29	25.644
Toyota Camry	230	Hybrid	CoachRider	6	26.025
Porsche 944	170	EV	Dave Cover	8	26.582
Chevy S-10 US Electricar	312	EV	Roy Nutter	24	27.225
Wattson Ford Escort	144	EV	Chip Gribben	7	27.598
DeLorean	156	EV	Dave Delman	6	28.000
Jetta	90	EV	Bob Rice	5	28.111
Spirit of DC Toyota Prius	230	PHEV	Jerry Asher	3	28.176
Mercedes	??	EV	Joe Kirby	5	29.573
Porsche 914	96	EV	Mark Hanson	6	29.842
Red Bug VW Bug	??	EV	Richard Acuti	2	29.???
EV Sol Fiero Destiny 2000	108	EV	Joe Lado	27	31.845
BugE Trike	48	EV	Mike Harvey	2	34.227

DRAG RACE STANDINGS (by 1/4 ET)

We'll have more information soon!

Chip Gribben

Power of DC

http://www.powerofdc.com

futurev@radix.net

Tel: 301-490-0657

Message: 32

Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 00:27:51 -0400

From: Chip Gribben <futurev@radix.net>

Subject: [EVDL] Power of DC makes major news

To: ev@lists.sjsu.edu

Cc: NEDRA@yahoogroups.com

Message-ID: <A4047B6A-8084-4133-8EEE-7C3D166E0AC1@radix.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Hey all!

It's just past midnight and we just got home from the Power of DC.

We'll be on the CBS Morning News from 7:00 to 7:30 am. They got Shawn 

Lawless' tri-motor “Juiced Up” dragster going 131 mph in under 10 seconds on the ¼-mile drag strip track. Juiced Up did the 1/8 mile in 6.28 seconds at 126.78 mph! And this was only its second run ever after just being put together last week!

The local paper came by on Saturday to capture the excitement at the 

AutoCross: 

http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=195366&format=html

And four film crews came by Sunday!!

1) Planet Green (G-Word from Discovery Channel)

2) Travel Channel

3) CBS News

4) NBC Channel 25 in Hagerstown

I'll have more later. And I'm sure some of my EVing friends who came 

to the event will be posting stuff up.

Thanks to everyone!

Gotta catch some zzzzzz's. I'm exhausted. We'll have the site 

updated soon.

Chip

Power of DC

http://www.powerofdc.com

Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:22:22 -0400

From: Chip Gribben <futurev@radix.net>

NEDRA is still basically a grass-roots low-budget organization. We 

have been approached by professional videographers in the past who 

have offered to video our events for a "small" fee :-)

Only thing is, those "small fees" add up quickly in planning an event 

and there is little money left afterwards to pay a videographer. I 

like to use all our extra money earned at the race to pay the winners 

and to pay other necessary race expenses. We surprised some people at 

the drag race when they came up to get their trophies and we handed 

them some cash. That was money earned from raffles, the motor 

Auctions and sponsorships. Thanks Jim, Brian, Dave and Dennis for the 

raffle and auction donations and thanks to the sponsors who sent 

things to give out and money! I'm still not done paying expenses for 

the Power of DC and still owe some winners who left the event early, 

their winnings. The AutoCross alone costs $2000 just for insurance 

and the SCCA staff to set it up. We ran out of T-shirts for the 

sponsors so I need to have more printed up for them.

So for video and photo footage we rely on our volunteers to help in 

that capacity.

Shawn does a lot of spontaneous racing. He's usually pretty busy with 

the vehicles and the camera is like the last item on the list. If 

someone on his crew happens to bring one along then they can get some 

video.

Both Shawn and I didn't even bother to take pictures at the Power of 

DC. No time with all the other stuff and responsibilities going on. 

Usually there are enough volunteers who enjoy taking pictures and 

sending them after the race so we rely on our enthusiastic volunteers 

to handle the photography.

At the Power of DC we were lucky to have lots of media there but the 

only problem with that is we rely on their scheduling and their 

content. Apparently NBC took more footage of the gas cars racing then 

the EVs . . . argghhhh!

Someday when we get some big sponsorships for our events we can hire 

professional videographers.

Here is some interesting info on NEDRA PR costs. A motorsports 

magazine did a story on Dennis Berube's dragster and a profile on 

NEDRA this past May. They approached us for some hi-rez photos of the 

dragster for the article. After they finished the article they asked 

if we wanted an ad for a discount price. Get this, $2000 for a 

"discount" half page ad. Just that one ad for that issue would break 

the NEDRA treasury. We passed on the ad. Our 2006 Nationals followed 

by our NEDRA display with the White Zombie at the Engine Rebuilders 

Conference in Indiana pretty much emptied out our Treasury even 

though the conference organizers offered us free display space. We 

still had to pay for food, gas, lodging, transportation, equipment, 

signage and flyers. Those two events left us scraping the bottom of 

our Treasury at the end of our 2006 budget year.

Enough of these PR expenses could empty out our treasury in one 

racing season. So we will need to continue to rely on volunteers to 

support things such as photography until we land some big time 

sponsorship or increase our yearly membership from $35 to $200.

We are getting more interest from race promoters with big budgets so 

things may be looking up but until then or if it even happens we will 

be on the lean side using all available resources available to us.

If there are people who like to take videos we would encourage them 

to come out to events and take some footage for us.

And if anyone knows of any sponsors that would like to support NEDRA 

let us know. Right now we survive strictly on NEDRA memberships and 

donations.

Chip Gribben

NEDRA PR

Power of DC

http://www.nedra.com

http://www.powerofdc.com

AMP Motor Works Launches “The AMP” Commercial Saturn Sky™ EV Conversion

AMP Motor Works in Cincinnati, Ohio began taking orders on its web site last month for a pilot run of 300 finished production vehicles called “The AMP”, a two-door, all-electric roadster at: http://www.ampmotorworks.com

A deposit of $10,000 was required to reserve a position on the customer list and, within five days of the web site announcement, the company had already received deposits for over 150 vehicles. At the time of this article, all 300 vehicles have been pre-sold. Hollywood celebrity George Clooney was reported to have been one of the first customers.

The AMP is a commercial EV conversion built on a stock Saturn Sky™ chassis from General Motors that AMP Motor Works will produce commercially for delivery by early 2009. Because the assembly plant location is also the first vehicle service center, initial sales are primarily targeted to customers living in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area. Special discount pricing on Saturn Sky™ vehicles for conversion by AMP Motor Works can be obtained through a local Cincinnati Saturn distributor, Saturn of Kings Auto Mall at: http://www.saturnofkingsautomall.com

If successful, AMP Motor Works will branch out to provide more service centers across the country and expand the scope of its sales, distribution and maintenance efforts. The price to the consumer will be the original cost of the standard gasoline-powered vehicle plus an additional $25,000 in conversion costs for the all-electric drive train, battery pack and charging system components. Estimated total cost is about $50,000. This compares to less than half the cost of the Tesla Motors all-electric roadster built on a modified Lotus factory chassis: http://www.teslamotors.com

AC Propulsion has set a cost threshold of $55,000 to convert a $15,000 Scion xB™ to the all-electric eBox™ for a total of $70,000 at: http://www.acpropulsion.com

The AMP electric drive train will employ two electric motors with a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack, a battery management system and motor speed controller. The high torque of the two electric motors will provide acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in less than 6 seconds, comparable to the Red Line turbocharged version of the gasoline-powered Saturn Sky™. Top speed of The AMP will be limited to 90 mph but will provide a range of 125 to 150 miles on each battery pack charge cycle. The cost of recharging the EV at night in the home garage, added to a monthly electric bill, will be about 3 cents per mile. Using a 30 mpg highway range of a stock gasoline-powered Saturn Sky™ as comparison, a gallon of gasoline would cost about $3.70 whereas a 30 mile battery pack recharge would cost about 90 cents. This translates into about 1/4 the cost to refuel The AMP vs. the stock Saturn Sky™ gasoline roadster on a daily basis.

AMP Motor Works is a privately-owned corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio founded by Jack Kuntz, Tim Wieck and Dan Zito. The three men have gained previous experience growing technology and financial start-up companies within the aerospace, electronics, banking and software industries. If successful, AMP Motor Works also hopes to extend its EV conversion product lines to include a four-door sedan and a crossover SUV that will also be built on standard Saturn vehicle platforms.

The EV community hopes that many more “boutique” all-electric EV conversion companies will start up in the next few years to commercialize innovative EV conversions. These efforts should continue to help bring down battery pack, materials and conversion costs to consumers over the next few years.

Editors Note: History is repeating itself as a similar wave of start-up conversion companies appeared during the 1980s, after the OPEC cartel imposed production limits on the amount of worldwide crude oil available to the world economy in order to sustain the commodity price per barrel. Because the U.S. economy had become dependent on oil imports, this resulted in long lines at service station pumps, gasoline shortages to consumers and a nationwide supply crisis during 1973 and 1978.

Lectra Motors in Las Vegas was founded in 1979 by LVEVA member Al Sawyer and several partners. Al was President, as well as Director of Research and Development at Lectra Motors. His company built over 1,000 all-electric EVs based on different models of Datsun chassis that employed lead acid (Pb) battery technology, electric motors and electronic motor speed control technologies available during that era. Other EV conversion companies also sprang up and were moderately successful until low-cost gasoline car imports from Japan arrived from Toyota and Honda. The rise of the U.S. dollar and new discoveries of world oil supplies also helped reduce the price of oil once again during the late 1980s. However, efforts by the U.S. government to continue to develop alternative energies and transportation technologies should have also continued, in order to prevent just such a cyclical change that we are experiencing today from happening again. Unfortunately, when the cost of a barrel of crude oil dropped to just $26 in the mid-1990s and the U.S. was still the largest consumer of crude oil in the world, the total supply was thought to be sufficient by industrial consumers, including automotive manufacturers and the U.S. government’s military industrial complex.

With the new millennium, strong economies from India and China have emerged that can now harness manufacturing manpower and consumer market power encompassing seven times the population of the United States. These two countries by themselves are creating a new economic market where total world crude oil supply cannot meet demand. Alternative energies and transportation technologies must be developed for the world economy to continue to move forward. If the U.S. does not lead the way, these solutions will come from Japan, Europe, China, India, South America, Russia or elsewhere in the world. Trillions of dollars gained from new industries that will create and develop these new technologies and translate them into higher-paying jobs may flow from outside the U.S. if our country’s economy continues to be based on non-renewable energy resources imported from other countries.

It is past time for America to embrace this new challenge to provide alternative energy and transportation technologies for the next generations to come. We owe it to our children as well as to ourselves!

General Motors Closes Four Truck and SUV Factories While Shedding 8,350 Jobs

As the price of gasoline continued to soar above $4 per gallon during the first half of 2008, General Motors made even deeper cutbacks than projected at the end of the first quarter. Due to an automotive sales decrease of 28% in May 2008 compared to May 2007, the company has determined that consumers are making a “sea change” in their decisions about purchasing automobiles for the near future. Potential SUV and truck buyers are instead opting for smaller gas-efficient cars, forcing General Motors to make radical production changes to stay profitable as these consumer purchasing decisions have hit the marketplace extremely hard in just the last two months.

Threatened with losing its position as the world’s largest automaker to Toyota Motors in Japan, the company has decided to restructure by closing four SUV and truck plants while laying off 8,350 workers. The Janesville, Wisconsin manufacturing plant will lose about 2,800 jobs; the Oshawa, Ontario plant in Canada will shed 2,900 jobs; the plant in Moraine, Ohio will lay off 2,400 jobs; and a plant in Toluca, Mexico will discontinue 250 jobs. GM is considering selling its Hummer™ product line to another automotive manufacturer in order to refocus its resources to produce smaller cars and crossover vehicles over the next few years. GM factories that make smaller gas-efficient vehicles are currently adding extra shifts and paying workers overtime to increase production capacity at these plants. GM is also still committed to producing hybrid gasoline/electric vehicle models as well as releasing the Chevrolet Volt™ Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle within the next few years.

Battery development for the new proposed hybrid product lines are still an issue, forcing recalls of 9,000 new hybrid model cars based on the Saturn Vue™ and Aura™.  Premature failure of the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery cells produced by Cobasys, a joint partnership between Chevron-Texaco and ECD/Ovonics battery subsidiary was blamed on chemical leakage of the cells over time. Chevron had invested in a substantial part of this venture, gaining access to the project from General Motors, who had been a majority partner with ECD/Ovonics (51%) in the development and licensing of NiMH battery technology over the last ten years. General Motors had helped create the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) research superfund in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as Ford Motor Company and Chrysler during the mid-1990s, when it was developing the all-electric EV-1. Ovonics was a small subsidiary company founded by Stanford and Iris Ovshinsky of Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) that was awarded major grants by the USABC to develop NiMH battery technology for the U.S. automotive industry. Their innovative battery chemistry doubled battery storage capacity compared to tradition lead-sulfuric acid rechargeable battery chemistries. To raise capital in order to ramp up production of its innovative battery product line, the company hired former GM CEO Robert Stemple, who had pushed development of the EV-1 program at GM before resigning in the early 1990s. Stemple was able to convince General Motors to help finance expansion of the Ovonics battery subsidiary but gave away majority ownership in order to receive the necessary financial backing.

The EV-1 program was abandoned by GM management in the late 1990s in conjunction with the company’s legal efforts to overturn the California Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandate with help from Chevron, Toyota and other auto manufacturers. However, Panasonic in Japan had also licensed this technology from ECD/Ovonics. It continued to develop the NiMH battery packs under license and improved on related production processes to provide good yield and high reliability for its NiMH battery packs that the company then sold to Toyota as it was developing its Prius™ gasoline/electric hybrid vehicle. With successful sales of the Prius™ hybrid, other hybrid gasoline/electric vehicle manufacturers purchased the Panasonic battery packs after the start of the new millenium. GM was one of these customers, purchasing the more reliable but expensive Panasonic NiMH battery packs for its higher-priced GMC Yukon™ and Chevrolet Tahoe™ hybrid SUVs during 2008. The Panasonic NiMH battery packs do not have battery cell leakage problems when used to provide power to the drive trains of these higher-priced gasoline/electric hybrid vehicles released into production late last year.

As GM tries to push forward parallel engineering efforts to fast track the Chevrolet Volt™ Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle, it hopes to introduce newer Lithium-Ion battery technology into that vehicle’s power train by seeking out some of the best battery manufacturers in the world. These companies are making derivative chemistry versions of this technology in the U.S., Japan, Korea, China and Europe. This new technology has shown signs of increasing battery storage capacity by four times the capacity of rechargeable lead-acid batteries with stronger current discharge performance and a longer recharge cycle life approaching eight to ten years. So far, there have been applications engineering, cost and reliability problems with these new technologies that may not be resolved in time for the planned release of the Chevrolet Volt™ for initial commercial production by 2010.

The cost reduction actions taken by General Motors this month will reduce truck and SUV production capacity by 35% this year over last year but save the company $1 billion per year over future years. When combined with other cost reductions, factory closings and autoworker layoffs over the last several years the company will save $15 billion dollars per year compared to fiscal year 2005 costs of manufacturing.

GM lost $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2008 and also spent $3.4 billion in cash reserves during the same period. It ended the quarter with cash reserves of $23.9 billion and $7 billion in credit accessibility. By closing plants and laying off workers, the company will create more liquidity for future investment that can be used to restructure its manufacturing plant capacity but at the human cost of displaced employees and the loss of a skilled, highly-trained labor force. After the initial restructuring announcement, common stock shares of GM on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rose 14 cents on Tuesday, June 3^rd to close at $17.58 per share. However, after the NYSE Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 395 points due to another surge in the cost of crude oil on Friday, June 6^th, GM shares ended the day at $16.22 per share-- a drop of about 5% in the value of GM’s common stock compared to the DJIA drop of 13.3% for the day.

GM will now be forced to compete worldwide with other manufacturers in the mid- and low-cost car and SUV crossover markets, where product lines sell between $15,000 and $20,000. These vehicles are half the price of the company’s high-profit SUVs and pickup trucks.

Innovative engineering and strong leadership can save General Motors from losing its worldwide market leadership. The weak U.S. dollar can actually help well-engineered U.S. vehicles be more valuable and attractive to consumers in automotive markets outside the United States. However, with a struggling U.S. economy and a perceived permanent shift in gasoline prices based on the U.S. dollar worldwide, it will take visionary corporate leadership that truly seeks to provide fuel-efficient value to worldwide consumers to differentiate GM products from the rest of the pack. U.S. autoworkers and the U.S. economy can only hope that the U.S. automotive industry can find this kind of resolve and talent from its engineering staffs and management teams. Otherwise, worldwide automotive buyers will shop elsewhere.