meeting report

PHEV ’09 - Plug-In Hybrid and Electric Vehicles

Montréal, Québec, Canada

September 28-30, 2009

• Nigel P. Fitzpatrick
• Azure Dynamics
• Vancouver BC

"The Turn of the Electric Vehicle Tide"

In 1903 Montréal was the first city in North America to receive electricity by a long distance high voltage transmission line. Last year Hydro-Québec generated 164,678GWh from carbon-free sources and only 261GWh from fossil fuel, i.e., 98.4% of Québec’s power last year did not result in carbon dioxide emissions and much was transmitted to the U.S. Today nearby Saint-Jérôme leads North America as a test city for electric vehicles and hybrids based at a centre headed by Pierre Lavallée. Pierre was to become used to being on TV and radio during this conference!

Serge Roy of Hydro-Québec and Mike Elwood from Azure Dynamics and Chair of Electric Mobility Canada, were the able co-chairs of the PHEV’09 supported by Al Cormier, EMC’s executive director. Some 350 people attended 16 sessions and there were 16 exhibitors. Enthusiasm was expected to rise in a crescendo to conclude with presentations by Ford, General Motors and Nissan. But on that Monday not all would have seen that the 24th addendum to the program and attendees would not have expected the closing harmonious chord by Chelsea Sexton to have been so moving.

Before the conference proper began there was a workshop on "Emerging Battery Technologies." Lithium was well covered and indeed the main focus of the session. But there were also battery systems not so much emerging as still improving. Allan Cooper spoke on the applicability of advanced lead acid where steady progress with materials reduces diffusion distance. Sadeq Faris of eVionyx Inc. spoke on nickel zinc while Bob O’Brien of MDH Technologies Inc. described the effects of stirring electrolytes.

Mark Shoesmith of E-One Moli Batteries presented specific data on the evolution of a cell originally developed for high-power tools. Mark reported on tests down to -25oC, spoke of 2,300 cycles at room temperature and showed a battery temperature rise of only 8oC in an hour of city driving.

Gitanjali Dasgupta of Electrovaya spoke mysteriously of a switch in cell chemistry and said the company was looking to expand in Norway.

Karim Zaghib, of Hydro-Québec’s R&D facility, illustrated with nail penetration, crush and short circuit tests the safety of lithium iron phosphate cells. He showed that safety was not a function of particle size. Karim spoke about organic and ionic (non- flammable) liquids and presented results that showed an optimum cell performance could be attained with between 40% and 60% ionic liquid added. And the mixture was still inflammable. Québec has a long association with developments in France and it was interesting that Karim showed some materials were being tested by Saft.

Kerry Knoll of Canadian Lithium Corp. quantified the availability of lithium and showed that while there was no shortage of reserves there would be possibly shortages of production. By looking at the rate at which supplies came on stream and comparing with the history of molybdenum he estimated that the cost of lithium carbonate might quadruple. But he said that would still result in a very small impact on the cost of a vehicle battery.

There followed a presentation on the applicability of analytical techniques by Jijang Zhou of Canadian Light Source Inc., who used as examples studies on Li- intercalated nano tubes. The concluding presentation in the battery workshop was by Ian Clifford of the Zenn Motor Co. who identified that his company is moving from vehicle to electric drive production. Ian hoped to be able to access a 52kWh system capable of one million cycles weighing only 120kg (which translates to 433Wh/kg) with admittedly unproven EEStor technology.

In the evening there was a reception where John Marrone of Natural Resources Canada formally accepted an electric vehicle technology road map that EMC members have been developing since June of 2008.

The conference proper opened the next day with a plenary session. Line Beauchamp, Quebec’s Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, was evidently committed when she spoke about the benefits of electric drive. Two days later she was to announce that Québec would hold public consultations as it seeks to reduce the province’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Mme Beauchamp was followed by the editor of EV World, Bill Moore, in the rare position of being the EV news. Opening with an explosive list of key events, including a French government plan to purchase 50,000 electric vehicles, Bill reminded us that 2012 was not just the end of the Mayan calendar but also was likely to be the year when the oil capacity buffer disappeared. He reflected that our intelligent computer- laden vehicles — the Prius has 11 — might be impacted by "the monster footprint of digital technology" which results from it taking 800kg of fuel to produce 1kg of micro chips.

Then we broke into three parallel sessions. A scribe can either leap from session to session or pay attention to one. I picked "Performance of Batteries in Extreme Conditions" chaired by David Strong of Queen’s University. He has been long enough involved in batteries to have appeared on a hybrid battery vehicle paper 21 years ago at EVS 9 before helping Black and Decker design electric and cordless products. The first speaker, David Swan of DHS Engineering, talked of battery testing in what he called "the harsh Canadian winter" and the interesting ability of salt to find its way into battery packs.

Martha Christenson of Environment Canada followed with test results on a PHEV tested on a chassis dynamometer between +22C and -18C. Low temperature reduced efficiency more on city cycles than on the highway. There were also more CO and total hydrocarbon tailpipe emissions. Barney Carlson of the DOE Idaho National Lab followed and reported on more than 150 PHEVs of 12 models that had been tested in 22 states and four Canadian provinces. Barney’s general results were, of course, similar to Martha’s but he added mechanisms. One mentioned was that as temperature drops, rising cell impedance leads to greater energy loss during cell balancing.

Steve Carkner of Panacis Inc. described battery temperature work that had been done for conditions found in an F-18 fighter. The technique was specific to prismatic cells and combined the use of an external heating blanket with the natural heating that arises from cell impedance where colder cells heat faster.

The session was concluded by Luc Tremblay of the Société de Transport de Montréal who had been looking at the relationship between diesel-electric hybrid bus fuel savings and routes to which they were applied in Montreal and Gatineau over a full year. In Montreal temperatures plunged to -30C and rose to +30C. These buses had 600V, 450kg NiMH batteries and a key finding was that the average energy absorbed by the pack did not vary with ambient temperature. Overall there was a 30% greenhouse gas reduction.

At lunch we took in the trade show and saw the GM Volt, Ford Escape plug-in hybrid and the elegant Toronto Electric EV developed by Steve Dallas.

There were three afternoon sessions and I went into "Grid/Vehicle Interface" chaired by Tom Molinski of Manitoba Hydro which was appropriately led off by Eric Bibeau of the University of Manitoba with a paper on "Battery Re-Purposing." Eric, who was the person behind the 2007 PHEV Conference in Winnipeg, has now been giving thought to where batteries could be put to use to increase the renewable energy ratio of power produced in Manitoba. He led us toward thinking about the ratio of battery capital cost to the product of depth of discharge and cycle life as a means of choosing whether to apply batteries to aid energy produced from renewable energy. He is concluding that batteries in conjunction with renewable energy can have more financial benefit to the grid than from V2G (vehicle to grid) advocated by the PHEV and EV community.

Maxime Dubois of the University of Laval followed with a test study on PHEVs which indicated that the maximum efficiency gain over an HEV was when the vehicles were on mixed cycles with 60% DOD rather than just urban (40% DOD) or highway (84% DOD). Maxime suggested that if lead acid (limited to a C/5 discharge and 50% DOD) were used, the energy cost would be one-third of the energy cost of Li-ion despite its greater DOD and cycle life.

Ed Innes of Manitoba Hydro concluded the session with a description of a PHEV trial and showed how eight vehicles were charged from 208/120V three phase. There was a power factor of 0.98 leading or a resistive load. Forward projections showed that if, by 2030, 40% of the Manitoba vehicle fleet was PHEV, then they would require 720GWh, or an insignificant 3% of the total load that year. More significant was the time shift in the power demand line as the new power would be required two years before it would in the absence of PHEV implementation.

Another break and we were back in the trade show. There I met Diehart Line of Magna Advanced Technologies displaying a mock-up of a prismatic Li-ion stack with cells from Kokam that he said might be shortly manufactured in Ontario or Michigan. Diehart gave me a handout that shows the envisaged battery would have 60Ah cells and modules would scale from 24VDC to 720VDC, and both liquid and air cooling would be considered.

After the break there was a session, "An Overview of Key Initiatives in Canada,"chaired by Al Cormier. First, Mike Elwood, as EMC Chair, presented the highlights of the Electric Vehicles Technology Roadmap just completed with the Government of Canada. Mike concluded with a list of proposed actions by governments and industry to accelerate EVs in Canada. Geoff Munro, Natural Resources Canada’s chief scientist and associate deputy minister followed. He welcomed the roadmap as a useful tool for EV policies and added that it will be injected in a number of round tables being set up to further explore energy management options. He concluded that Canada looks forward to working with industry to implement the many recommendations. Then Tabitha Takeda of Transport Canada summarized current R&D activities focused on EVs in the various government departments. Ray Hoemsen of Winnipeg’s Red River College reported on how EVS 24 recently held in Norway contained lessons and opportunities for the Canadian EV industry. The session concluded with Pierre Lavallée of the Saint-Jérôme-based centre national pour le transport avancé reviewing actions in Québec.

Day three began with three parallel sessions. In the first I heard Bill Adams, chairman of the Defence Science Advisory Board, whom I first met at an electric vehicle conference in Ottawa in 1983. Bill pointed out that in the Canadian far north there were locations where fuel was brought in by ship, when the ice allowed it, and that micro grids were running on very expensive fuel as a consequence. There was a superb opportunity as a result to couple wind energy with EV battery storage.

Elsewhere, Takafumi Anegwa of the Tokyo Power Authority described the surprising benefits of a public quick charger. To meet the charging needs of Subaru 400V, Mitsubishi 370V and Nissan 400V EVs, one needed a charger capable of 500V max and 125A max which would be capable of giving a range of 40km in five minutes or 60km in 10 minutes.

By adding only one quick charger, vehicle distance driven went from 203km/month to 1472km/month. But the quick charger was not used!

Before the charger was installed each driver arrived home with a battery more than half full. After installation their batteries were more than half used. The range increase was the result of a reduction in anxiety.

Felix Kramer, founder of the California Cars Initiative, followed. He has helpfully posted his slides http://calcars.org/calcars-beyond-new-plug-ins.pdf and they provide a useful summary of some companies offering PHEV and EV conversions in the U.S. and Canada.

Then I moved to hear Stuart Evans of DeltaQ, whose Vancouver-based company was launched in 2003 and has sold 500,000 chargers via a Tier 1 supplier. Their product mainly goes to the off-road market but is now catching on for road vehicles. Stuart pointed out that the charger has the longest working day of any part of an electric vehicle. Most parts of a light car only run for two hours a day, he said, but the charger has to put in an extra eight hours a day.

Sheldon Williamson of Concordia described a novel cell equalizer and its potential to reduce the cost of a PHEV. Sheldon was followed by the holder of the 3M NSERC chair at Dalhousie, Jeffrey Dahn, who showed how battery chemistry is evolving to allow Li ion cells to have the safety of the iron phosphate cathode while retaining the energy density similar to those with cobalt oxide cathodes. Indeed Jeff identified a blend that would hold 25% more energy than iron phosphate.

Coffee in the tradeshow allowed me to meet with Rob Lankin, Co-CEO of Accelerated Systems Inc., whom I had last seen in a Winnipeg meeting on hybrid buses ten years before. He is pictured with a 4kW wheel motor and his company offers systems specifically designed for the off-road vehicle market. Then I talked to Guhari Singh of CrossChasm which offers advanced simulation, prototype testing to manufacturers and advice to fleets.

Back in the sessions I heard Luc Gagnon of Hydro-Québec discuss transportation options in the context of climate change. This was a very significant presentation that could have been in the opening plenary to set the context. Luc showed that by 2050 we have to make an 85% greenhouse gas reduction relative to 1990 to hold the planet to only a 2C rise. Luc’s view was that the planet was warming too fast for adaptation to help.

Lunch was seated and I was able to join Luc and talk about transportation options modeling and was delighted that he is also familiar with www.ghgenius.ca which we have looked at Azure Dynamics.

Then we were into the last lap!

The afternoon plenary began with a rapid commercial/heavy duty four-person panel session from the producer’s end. Mike Elwood spoke for Azure’s Class 3-4 sector, Roger Martin of Unicell spoke about the benefits of electric drive to customers, while Phil Jones of Eaton described electric hybrids in the Class 6-7 niche. Serge Viola of Purolator spoke about the 154 hybrid Class 3 vehicles they now operate and the process of learning how to operate a new technology. Serge described maintenance as well as fuel savings and confirmed that it was dollar savings that count.

Then a six-person panel gave us the light vehicle market side. Speakers were Sankar Dasgupta of Electrovaya whose company had spoken in the battery workshop, Nancy Homeister of Ford, Todd Pratt of Future Vehicles Technologies, a vehicle converter from Maple Ridge BC, www.futurevehicletechnologies.com, Phil Petsinis of General Motors of Canada, Stephen Beatty of Toyota Canada and Ian Clifford of Zenn Motor Co. of whom we have also spoken earlier and who confirmed again that he should no longer be counted as an OEM.

Ford, GM and Nissan detailed the electric drive products they were launching. Nancy Homeister went beyond the expected in identifying that Ford was interested in creating demand for Li-ion in stationary applications. The resulting economics of scale would allow used vehicle batteries to have a residual value in the stationary market and vehicle financing would be improved.

You can find much of what Mark Perry said about the Nissan Leaf if you look for the words "Nissan Leaf LA4 cycle" for on that cycle it is planned to have a 100-mile or 160km range. Mark’s extra was to tell us that the Leaf (which is similar in size to a Versa and will hold five) will sell at a price normal for that class.

In discussion it was asked how long it would be before it would be profitable to sell electric vehicles. Mark Perry confirmed his pricing and said it was volume that would bring down costs.

Mike Elwood and Serge Roy co-chaired the closing plenary. It began with a truly uplifting and moving talk by Chelsea Sexton of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" fame. The shoe-string movie has become a hit and its sequel will be filmed with more of a budget. Watch for, "Revenge of the Electric Car".

Thierry Vandal the CEO of Hydro-Québec summarized the conference and thanked the organizers. Then Mark Dubois-Phillips of BC Hydro welcomed all to attend the sequel to this conference in Vancouver, BC in September 2010 where there is climate-driven rising tide to turn, perhaps helped by the turn of the electric vehicle tide we saw at PHEV 09.

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