The future needs more polymaths
By now, if you're a regular reader of this site, you'll probably have stumbled across the name of Bill Reinert -- more than once even! Reinert is based in the US, working as the National Manager at Toyota's Advanced Technology Group. Two weeks ago, journalists from Australia were invited to hear him speak about what the future holds, for Toyota and for the car-buying public.
It's always entertaining to listen to someone of Reinert's intellectual standing and eloquence. He is to Toyota what Dr Andreas Truckenbrodt is to Mercedes-Benz (see below).
One gains the impression that Reinert loves to stir the possum. He seems to enjoy the prospect of catastrophic social breakdown -- as an intellectual exercise more so than anything else. His opinions are intentionally provocative, but if there's one subject on which he is deadly serious, it's education.
This is a bit off-topic, but Reinert believes that our ability to invent some new 'deus ex machina' -- like a fabulous high-capacity battery that takes little time to recharge and is cheap to produce without spoiling the environment -- is hindered by our apparent inability to educate our kids as broadly as we would have done decades ago. Bear in mind that Reinert is speaking in the American context, but we believe that his comments have some application in Australia too.
"One of the big challenges is the oil industry, the auto industry, the manufacturing industries -- nobody wants to go into these," he told the Aussie journalists.
"Turning out PhD-level folks, real scientist folks that can go to work immediately for the auto companies or go to work the oil companies, go to work for the energy companies or regulatory companies -- and have this broad range of experience, you just can't talk about cars any more... You can't know one thing.
"The ability for schools to turn those out... that's a big thing. You've got a 30-year knowledge gap there and even as bad as things are for the oil companies now, there's an anti-early-retirement package, where they're bringing in old guys and asking them to find ways to keep [other] old guys working, because you just don't have the folks coming through."
Is the question one for educational institutions to address, or is it a matter for society generally? Have we become all so specialised, to the detriment of cross-discipline R&D?
Algae is among the latest ideas for a biomass resource; it's one that Reinert fully supports.
"We're looking at other fuels, like algae -- another solution that would fit well in Australia," he says.
"You grow algae, dedicated algae using carbon and emissions from a coal-fired powerplant... Some of that work is being done at Arizona Public Service. It's a wonderful deal. You get oil-rich bio-mass and you can turn it into hydrogen or you can turn it into diesel fuel or gasoline. We're working on those kinds of things to reduce the carbon impact of our fuel cells."
But one might question how much further and faster this work could progress if there were trained biochemists who also express an interest in the social sciences -- like economics -- or are self-taught logisticians with a concern for transport of the future.
And returning to the original example of a new wonder-battery for the 21st Century, Reinert sees a resource shortfall there too.
"We're not turning out very many electro-chemists either. Pure materials physicists are a big deal -- it's a huge deal."
A road trip like no other
Still on the subject of Bill Reinert, the advanced powertrains specialist (or generalist? see above) related to journalists how Toyota's FCHV-Advanced had fared travelling on an extended drive from Fairbanks, Alaska to Vancouver on the west coast of British Columbia, in Canada.
The trip measured around 3750km along the Alcan Highway, which Reinert regards as a route as iconic as 'Route 66'. For the trip, the R&D team ran in a convoy comprising the FCHV itself, a lead 4Runner, a couple of Tundra pick-ups, a RAV4 camera vehicle, a motorhome and three semi-trailers. One of the 'embedded' journalists (with apologies to CNN) for the 2007 trip drew an analogy with famed inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, burning a lot of lamp oil to develop electric (incandescent) lighting -- to explain away the massive carbon footprint of the convoy.
"We've been doing this since 2001," says Reinert.
"We drove our car -- the car you're going to see today, the FCHV, and it's a hybrid vehicle so it uses a lot of carry-over components from the Prius -- we drove it from Fairbanks Alaska... to Vancouver, British Columbia.
"We borrowed the car from our Technical Centre and they asked what we were doing with it -- and we didn't tell them anything. We brought it back without a windshield... but we demonstrated that car can travel in incredibly cold temperatures... We can do all that.
"We had to carry our hydrogen with us. We couldn't even create fuel in Alaska, because that's not allowed -- portable refuelling at 700 megapascals is not allowed."
We're wondering about the missing windshield -- and Reinert was not forthcoming on that. Did the FCHV get caught in the crossfire between moose and Sarah Palin?
For Toyota, the Alcan Highway run is more a promotional opportunity than a cold-weather test. The R&D guys already knew the FCHV-Advanced would cope. It's technology that is by and large ready for mass-market application, other than the expense of producing the fuel cell stack. What also stands in the way currently is the lack of resource, something we've already reported (more here).
"To work together as manufacturers and get this infrastructure into place is a big deal," says Reinert.
"It's a bigger challenge than developing the car. But we need to do that, because of the challenges of liquid fuel -- and migrating away from there -- the limitations of battery-electric cars in range [and] the consumers' need to have range, to have mobility, and the need to reduce the carbon [footprint]. We need to have all of that."
But for all his assumed pessimism, Reinert actually foresees our ability to overcome the infrastructure problems. There's the biomass (algae) solution mentioned above and there's also the conversion of water to hydrogen using solar energy.
"We're working with scientists... at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, on high-temperature production of hydrogen concentrating solar [energy]... A solution like that would fit well in Australia."
HVAC control from PDA?
Reinert painted a picture for us of a technologically sophisticated future in which the environment is under control once more. While we presume that such things as Blackberries (the hand-held communications device, not the fruit) will eventually give way to devices more complex and sophisticated, Reinert makes the point that there's a lot we could do with existing technology right now -- if the infrastructure were available.
Are you getting this? There's a pattern emerging... But if the infrastructure shortfall can be overcome -- and Toyota is working with other car companies and Shell on the hydrogen side of the ledger -- there's a lot to anticipate in the next 20 to 50 years.
As far as electric cars go, Reinert sees far-reaching possibilities for vehicles charged in situ, as proposed by Better Place (see below).
"If I'm getting ready to leave work," he told CNC, "and I'm going to leave in 10 minutes... I'll call my car, pre-cool the car, transfer that [electrical load] down to the grid -- and then I won't have to worry about the cool-down, I can reduce the size of my air conditioner and I can use that load for traction."
Reinert also anticipates intelligent satnav systems that can reserve a spot at the recharging station for you.
No Better business model?
While Renault Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn seems to be onside, the electric vehicle infrastructure evangelists at Better Place have few fans in the established automotive world... Particularly not within the senior ranks of the wider Mercedes Benz and Toyota organisations.
Though the company has made major announcements Down Under and even attracted the 'defection' of cashed-up ex-pollie Evan Thornley to head its local diocese, serious electric vehicle projects are readying themselves to hit the roads both here and closer to the Better Place's Palo Alto (California) head office without involving the organisation.
Carsales Network Confidential (CNC) spoke with Mitsubishi's local CEO this week regarding the possible involvement of Better Place in its EV study and confirmed no discussions had taken place. Supposed Better Place 'partner' Nissan had had no localised discussion with the EV infrastructure 'pioneer' when we last spoke to the Japanese marque, and Holden is pushing ahead with its Volt plans without any need or involvement of the Californian connection.
In the USA, both Toyota and Mercedes-Benz will roll out larger scale EV/hybrid/fuel cell programs that do not involve Better Place. In fact, in discussions with both companies during and after the recent Detroit motor show both the auto giants seem to be at best ambivalent about the EV infrastructure start-up.
In particular, key alternative and established technology Benz executives were dismissive of the company and more than one commented about his concern of amount of money Better Place has raised on what he said was "no business model".
When CNC spoke to the head of the jointly Mercedes-Benz and Ford owned Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation, Corp (AFCC), Dr Andreas Truckenbrodt, the hybrid and fuel-cell vehicle pioneer said simply: "They have no business model... Or at least no business model anybody I have spoken to can understand..."
According to Truckenbrodt, no manufacturer seriously considers Better Place's battery swap out system as a viable technology option for EVs. He states that the quick recharge systems the company is floating are also problematic.
Truckenbrodt says in his opinion any potential cooperation between the major automotive entities with which he has worked and Better Place is unlikely. Given Truckenbrodt reports directly to the Daimler board his opinion counts.
Mercedes's Vice President Passenger Car Engines and Powertrain Dr Leopold Mikulic and Vice President Group Research & Advanced Engineeing, Professor Herbert Kohler, both were cautious when the Carsales Network raised the B word.
"Better Place..." laughed, Mikulic. "I would say usually it's not our position to comment on other people's business models -- whether they have some or not...
"I would like to comment like this. It's not the first time the world is looking into battery electric vehicles... The concept of having electric terminals where you change batteries has been discussed [and dismissed] 50 years ago. Some of the electric vehicles 100 years ago were based on the concept like this... We are concentrating on improving battery technology [so that this sort of system is not required]."
According to Mikulic the automotive world is, err... a world away from the level of standardisation the Better Place system would require.
Toyota's fuel cell and EV main man, Bill Reinert agrees in principle with his counterparts: "I'm a little bit concerned about the ability to change out a battery pack," he told CNC.
"Because if you do that, there's one or two things. One, either you get a battery pack that everybody uses, which then probably reduces the competitive juices and progress to the design more of a refrigerator -- or the battery pack replacement area has to stock lots of different battery packs for lots of different cars to be totally efficient." [Ed: given that both Reinert and Benz execs says the lithium ion batteries that will power EVs for the forseeable future might account for "up to 40-50 per cent of the cost" (says Benz's Kohler) the financials of stocking such an inventory of batteries is at best problematic.]
Continues Reinert: "Go to a Toyota dealer... have them show you all the connections on a Prius battery pack and all the safety/nanny stuff. You probably want that to be done pretty well... You really don't want 240 Volt wires flopping around in the car. Underneath that, there's a water-tight, air-tight battery case. The shielding and the seals of those aren't necessarily designed to be taken on and off every day.
"I'm not going to say it's not going to work. It's premature," the surprisingly diplomatic Reinert stated.
Locally, CNC believes that wider automotive community and individuals within state government are concerned that Better Place may be positioning itself to drop a bucket in the Federal Government’s new Green Car Innovation Fund (GCIF) well.
"And even leaky buckets hold some water," CNC's insider said yesterday.
Next week's briefing sessions on the 'terms of reference' regarding funding via the GCIF should make for interesting theatre... It will also be interesting if Better Place's local contingent attends.
Note: since Betterplace's local infrastructure announcement in November 2008 (more here), Carsales Network has requested interviews with a Better Place spokesperson (either in Australia or California) directly and via Nissan, but at this stage the requests have not been acknowledged.