Officials Plug Electric Cars to Recharge Economy : Technology: Proponents say Southern California has the potential to lead the nation. The industry is seen as a way to offset defense job losses.
The year is 1995. Legions of electric cars traverse roads that crisscross the San Fernando Valley by day and silently recharge their batteries in residential garages at night. A high-tech plant in Burbank turns out 25,000 of these non-polluting vehicles annually. Hundreds of Los Angeles residents, many of them retrained aerospace employees, work at the facility; hundreds more make components at a network of small firms throughout the Valley.
A Hollywood fantasy?
Not necessarily.
Ambitious plans to jump-start a Southern California electric car industry--intended to decrease the region’s severe air pollution, create jobs for laid-off aerospace workers and stimulate a sagging economy--are being explored by public officials, city agencies, utilities, academicians and the auto industry.
They face formidable hurdles: The current state of the technology makes the cars more expensive than gasoline-powered vehicles and allows them to travel only 60 to 120 miles between eight-hour recharges. The batteries are heavy, which in turn increases energy consumption.
Consumers will have to be persuaded to forgo the conveniences of gasoline-guzzling cars. And incentives, in the form of tax breaks or government seed money, may be needed to encourage production of the vehicles as well as to train those who will build them.
But a new UCLA study concludes that a narrow “window of opportunity” exists for state and local governments in California to adopt policies that will spur regional development of an electric car industry before other interested states--notably Arizona and Utah--take the lead. The feasibility report, expected to be completed this month, will be circulated to key elected officials and policy-makers in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Washington.
“Southern California has already in place both the research and manufacturing capability to become a leader in the production of non-polluting vehicles,” the draft UCLA report states. “Further, this new industry could offset the decline we are experiencing in aerospace and defense spending.”
Movement is occurring on several fronts:
* The preliminary UCLA report is being used by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who plans to introduce legislation to provide federal funds for states to encourage development of electric car technology and the regional infrastructure to support it. Berman has also spoken to Gov. Pete Wilson to urge his administration to get involved in the effort.
* The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison last year awarded a $7-million contract to a Swedish firm, Clean Air Transport (CAT), to produce at least 6,000 hybrid electric cars for sale in the Los Angeles market. The luxury sedans, to be fueled by a combination of electricity and a small internal combustion engine, would initially cost an estimated $25,000 each and would have a range of 150 miles. They are slated to hit city roads within the next four years.
* The DWP and Edison also launched a $2-million research project last year to build an electrified roadway in Westchester. An electric cable is being installed beneath the pavement on a 1,000-foot segment of a lightly traveled street below Westchester Bluffs. Two electric vans and a passenger bus will be equipped to draw power from the street by tapping a magnetic field created by the electrified roadway. This could be the first step toward a full-scale powered roadway in Los Angeles.
The hybrid vehicle project involving Clean Air Transport is likely to have the most immediate impact. Although initial production is expected to occur at temporary facilities in Great Britain, Los Angeles officials hope to persuade the firm to locate its permanent plant in Southern California, close to its largest potential market. The start-up company beat out 17 U.S. and international competitors to win the DWP/Edison contract.
“CAT can be the catalyst for acceptance” of electric cars in the region, said E. J. Constantine, a consultant on electric vehicle commercialization working with the DWP and Edison. The firm’s plans call for production of 35,000 cars by 1997, Constantine said.
Reflecting the growing competition in this emerging field, Arizona and Utah, Great Britain and various counties in Sweden have also approached the high-tech firm about hosting a long-term production plant. The Japanese, meanwhile, appear to be taking a back seat on developing new battery technologies but are expected to jump in when advances become available, Constantine said.
The growing interest in establishing an indigenous electric car industry reflects a convergence of Southern California’s environmental and economic needs. On the one hand, the region faces legislative smog-reduction mandates to put alternative-fuel vehicles on the road. At the same time, it has a skilled work force that faces widespread dislocation as U.S. defense spending is trimmed and aerospace firms move to other states for competitive reasons.
“There is a massive irrationality in the system as it’s now constituted,” said Allen J. Scott, acting director of UCLA’S Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, which did the study in conjunction with the university’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning.
“We are pumping a massive amount of pollution into the air, and those who are causing it are not being asked to pay the costs,” Scott told Berman at a recent briefing at the lawmaker’s Panorama City district office. “Drivers of private cars are nowhere near compensating for the burden they impose.”
The DWP estimates that 70% to 80% of Los Angeles-area air pollution is caused by emissions from the 8 million cars and trucks that operate daily in the basin. Among alternative fuels, electricity holds the greatest environmental promise because it produces no emissions. And the power plants that generate the electricity for battery recharging create only 3% as much air pollution as gas-fueled autos. Other alternative fuels--ethanol, methanol and compressed natural gas--produce less pollution than gasoline but significantly more than electricity.
The emission issue is critical. Starting in 1998, the California Air Resources Board will require that 2% of the cars sold in California by each auto maker, or about 40,000 vehicles a year, produce no emissions. By 2003, the percentage rises to 10%, or about 200,000 vehicles a year. In addition, the federal government’s recently revised Clean Air Act requires auto makers to build at least 150,000 low-emission cars and light-duty trucks annually in a California pilot program, starting with 1996 models.
Electric vehicles also have the potential to reduce America’s reliance on imported oil because there is ample electricity-generating capacity to energize the vehicles during off-peak hours--at night--when most would be recharged.
The UCLA researchers outline two scenarios for development of an electric car industry. In one, it emerges from the existing automotive industry; in the other, it evolves from various industries, including automobiles and aerospace.
The Big Three auto makers already have taken steps to develop advanced battery technology--the key to the future of mass-market electric cars. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler announced earlier this year that they had formed a joint venture to share the costs of research designed to produce a technological breakthrough. They have pledged $35 million to the project and plan to raise $100 million annually by 1993 from the government and electric utilities for the consortium, known as the United States Advance Battery Consortium.
Indeed, the major challenge facing the embryonic industry is the need to produce a lighter, cheaper, more durable battery. “With their help, with pooling our resources like that . . . we can get at least a 200-mile battery by the end of the decade, if not 300-mile,” Energy Secretary James D. Watkins said in a recent interview.
General Motors is testing its prototype electric car, the Impact. Chrysler has embarked on a 28-month engineering and development study to bring its electric minivan into commercial production. The van would be aimed at fleet markets in California as a delivery vehicle in downtown areas.
But the UCLA study maintains that the American auto industry has a problematic track record “in bringing laboratory research and development to fruition.” In addition, at least initially, electric car production is likely to require great flexibility to accommodate rapid technological changes as well as the ability to target limited, specific markets. The large auto makers, in contrast, tend to be geared to mass-market production. In addition, the Big Three have no incentive to locate production facilities in Southern California.
If, on the other hand, an electric car initiative moves into high gear in the Los Angeles area, the San Fernando Valley’s abundance of well-trained aerospace workers and subcontractors in electronics, metallurgy and engineering, as well as its existing automotive facilities, would make it a prime candidate to become the industry’s headquarters, according to Scott of UCLA.
“You have the Van Nuys General Motors plant here already, and you have the kind of industrial base you’d want to build on,” Scott said. “So, the San Fernando Valley would likely be an important part” of any fledgling regional industry.
As designed, electric cars already can achieve adequate acceleration and speed. The CAT sedan, for instance, will have a top speed of 70 m.p.h. and accelerate from 0 to 30 m.p.h. in nine seconds. But the limited range of electric vehicles without recharging makes it unlikely that they will widely replace traditional cars and trucks in the foreseeable future.
They also tend to cost somewhat more than their gas-driven counterparts--considerably more when manufactured in small numbers. And their batteries must be replaced every several years at a cost of $800 to $5,000 per car--depending on the number and nature of the batteries.
Currently, electric cars or trucks can be created simply by replacing a conventional car’s internal combustion engine with an electric motor and multiple batteries. The state Department of Motor Vehicles has licensed 4,000 electric vehicles for use on California roads. Performance of these converted vehicles, however, does not measure up to cars designed from the ground up to be powered by electricity.
Given their limitations, battery-powered vehicles are likely to be marketed for specific roles at first, such as fleet delivery or commuter vehicles or as second cars for driving around town. They might, for example, be pressed into service as school buses or postal service vehicles. These markets could, in turn, spur development of additional production capacity and serve as a bridge to wider acceptance of electric cars as the technology evolves.
Southern California, with its enormous demand for new cars, its serious air pollution and its network of skilled aerospace workers and defense subcontractors, is the logical place to establish a beachhead for the electric car industry, the UCLA study contends.
The critical missing link, the authors say, is a coordinated public policy to stimulate design, development and manufacture of alternative-fuel vehicles. The policy could include funds for applied research, investment tax credits to manufacturers, low-interest loans for capital construction and job retraining for aerospace and other technical workers.
With concerted early government intervention, Southern California could become the Silicon Valley of electric vehicle manufacturing, the report asserts. As a parallel, the authors recall the Douglas DC-3’s domination of aircraft markets in the 1930s, which served as the springboard for Los Angeles’ leading role in wartime production and culminated in its enormous postwar aerospace industry.
“We’re very excited about this,” said Laurel Shockley, Southern California manager for the state Commerce Department’s Office of Business Development. “This is where the need is and this is where the market is and this is where the production should be.” She confirmed that Gov. Wilson has expressed interest in the electric car proposals, but said he has not yet determined the nature and extent of his administration’s involvement.
At the federal level, legislation introduced by Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton) would encourage development of the electric vehicle industry nationally. His bill--the Electric Vehicle Research, Development and Commercialization Act of 1991--would establish a 10-year $50-million demonstration program for large or polluted cities to buy electric vehicles for their municipal fleets.
It would also set aside $10 million a year for three years for joint ventures with industry to develop electric car infrastructure and $5 million a year for five years to assist states with planning and seed money for alternative-fuel vehicles.
Berman, meanwhile, plans to introduce a measure shortly to establish a federal fund to assist states in developing the technology to nurture electric vehicle production. The bill would also set up a capital pool of matching federal funds for states to sponsor regional corporations to support development of an electric vehicle industry with ventures such as industrial parks or telecommunications services. The cost will be $50 million to $100 million.
“Electric vehicles offer--in the least--a partial solution to two pressing problems in our nation: dependence on oil and chronic air pollution,” Berman said. “I am particularly enthusiastic about this technology, which can reduce the volume of carbon dioxide dumped in the air and into our lungs.”
