There was a panel discussion at this week's SAE Congress that I couldn't pass up. Titled "Fuel Cell Vehicle Panel: Challenges Remaining for Commercialization," the session was a bit of a brainstorm on just how we might one day drive hydrogen-fueled cars with some of the people who are working quite diligently on the problem today. The panel featured Dr. Massimo Venturi, CTO of NuCellsys GmbH, Germany, Dr. Kev Adjemian, senior principle engineer, Nissan Fuel Cell Laboratory, Michigan, and Dr. James Miller, director, Electrochemical Technology Program, Argonne National Lab (for DOE), Fuel Cell Laboratory, Chicago. The three spoke and answered questions for about 30 minutes. Needless to say, the big problems weren't solved in this half hour, but it was enlightening to hear from another industry panel where things stand today regarding the automobile and the hydrogen economy. Considering that the public's perception of hydrogen fuel is currently defined (for many) as the Hindenberg explosion, there are more than just technological issues to deal with.

Because of the nature of the SAE Congress, I did not have permission to post the audio of this panel. Instead, I've detailed some of what was said and given a few of my own thoughts after the break.

In a back corner of Cobo Hall during the SAE Congress this week, we came upon the Emitec booth featuring the company's line of diesel filters. We spoke with Markus Downey, an application engineer at Emitec, about what makes these filters different from others on the market, and you can listen to our talk by clicking on the audio widget player below.

Emitec produces a partial flow filter (as opposed to a wall flow filter) made of metal and uses a passively regenerated cleaning system. This means that the soot collected from the exhaust is catalytically combusted with NO₂ generated upstream in the engine. Downey explained that the benefit to this system is a more stable operating system, which makes it easier to be retrofitted. The DPFs can be used on large diesel engines (i.e., buses or trucks) or on diesel engines in smaller passenger cars. Some companies, like MAN, use Emitec filters as a first-fit. Downey said that most of the company's testing is done in Europe using ULSD, but he figures that a standardized biodiesel - should such a thing ever be widely available - would not pose a problem for the Emitec filters.



Emitec's press release is pasted after the jump. (UPDATE: updated release)

About a month ago, we spoke with Dr. Prabhakar Patil of Compact Power, Inc. about CPI's lithium-ion battery technology. We didn't want to miss the chance to chat in person during the SAE Congress this week, so we stopped by the CPI booth. The reason most AutoblogGreen readers would be following the fortunes of CPI is the company's work with GM on the Chevy Volt (CPI, along with A123 Systems, are supplying the test battery packs for the Volt. BTW, the Volt/Malibu mules are on the track) but Dr. Patil again mentioned that CPI is working with other, unnamed OEMs. We're anxious to learn more about that.

But let's talk about the battery deal we do know about. Based on the packs currently being tested in the Volt, Dr. Patil estimated that a li-ion battery that could move an electric car 100 miles between charges would weigh about 800 pounds. This is double what the Volt's batteries weigh, but would get you 2.5 times the Volt's EV-only distance, because the Volt's batteries reserve some power for the hybrid operations. Regenerative braking can get you the rest of the way. Considering all the studies that show that most people drive well-under 50 miles a day, carrying around all that extra weight for capacity that won't often get used doesn't make a lot of sense, he said. Patil also sees the benefits of the recent CARB ZEV mandate decision. Give a listen.



In the CPI booth was the company's ER2 racer which was setting speed records back in 2002. The ER2 uses an 11 kWh li-ion battery pack and a 165 kW AC induction motor to go from 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. More details here.

Photo by psd. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

At the SAE Congress this week, the director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, Margo Oge, said that in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent compared to 2000 levels (something the Detroit News called a proposal that is "widely backed" in the scientific community), a new CAFE standard of 75 mpg would need to be implemented. And you thought you heard a howl when the 35 mpg by 2020 limit was imposed late last year. How could cars reach that goal? Oge suggests improvements in both engines and fuels. Glad that was figured out.

While 75 mpg is a fanciful fight we'll leave for another day, this line jumped out at me in the Detroit News piece: "Oge said the auto industry should be able to meet the 35 mpg standard by 2018 with the same size fleet, with cost-effective technology improvements, based on an internal EPA study." By 2018? Cool. Where's the pressure to move the CAFE law's implementation up two years?

[Source: Detroit News]

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There are a lot of booths here at the SAE World Congress that's going on in Detroit this week that promote one county or another. Poland's got one. There's a French diesel consortium something or other (will be looking into that tomorrow). And then there's the Mexico booth. This booth happens to be near where a mean-looking G.I. Joe toy vehicle called the HY-DRA is parked on the Cobo Hall floor. Not quite sure if anyone over in the Mexico booth is worried at all.

In any case, the vehicle in the foreground and on display in the gallery below is technically called the Hybrid-Defense Recon Assault. The military ride - built in collaboration with Bluwav, Raytheon, Tuscon Embedded Systems and A123 Systems - uses a 5.1 kWh, 316V lithium-ion battery and four 46 kW hub motors that generate 250 hp. Those numbers are enough to move the beast from 0-60 in six seconds and offer an "All Electric (Stealth) Attack Mode" of 75 mph. The HY-DRA has an all-electric range of just 15.5 miles (25 km) and gets 35 mpg when used in series hybrid mode. Watch out.

During a panel discussion at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit today, a group of industry executives projected that diesel engines with grab 20 percent market share in the US by the end of the next decade. BorgWarner CEO Tim Manganello also projected that hybrid powertrains would grab about ten percent of total sales in that same time frame. Toyota Engineering VP Ed Mantey and Ford Product Development VP Derrick Kuzak were were in agreement with those numbers. At their current rate, Toyota alone might be selling a pretty large percentage of those hybrids. While diesel engines are less expensive to produce than hybrids diesel, fuel prices are currently quite a bit higher than gasoline in the U.S. Increased availability of biodiesel in the coming decade may alleviate that problem. It's not clear what percentage of vehicles will end up in both categories as the 35mpg US CAFE standard approaches.

[Source: AutoWeek]

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One nice thing about cars destined for expo floors is the fancy paint they sometimes get. The Mahinrda & Mahindra Scorpio hybrid SUV has been given such a treatment, as we discovered at the SAE World Congress in Detroit today. We'll be sitting down with Mahindra later this week to learn more about the introduction of this full parallel hybrid that uses a 30kW electric motor and a 2.3kWh nickel metal hydride battery and should be on sale in the U.S. in 2010. For now, here's what the SUV looks like. Whaddya think?

Ford's Derrick Kuzak

It's interesting how the overall tenor of the presentations and speeches changes depending on which conference, which collection of auto industry people, one attends. You'd think there'd be some consistency, but the reality is that the auto industry is mighty varied. We shine a light on one corner here at ABG, but there's a lot more to what's going on than just green tech.

To wit: the SAE World Congress opened this morning with five speakers in a session titled "Climate for Change." Featuring keynote speaker Frank Klegon, executive vice president of product development for Chrysler and panelists Derrick Kuzak, Ford's global product development group vice president, Timothy Manganello, chairman and CEO of BorgWarner, Edward Mantey, the vice president of engineering design at the Toyota Technical Center and Donald Walker, co-chief executive officer at Magna International, the session was billed as a gathering of minds on how the industry is changing. The sad news for green car fans is that increased fuel efficiency and reduced emissions are not necessarily at the top of everyone's list. I've written up what each of the five speakers said after the jump. There's audio, too.

The three-year Challenge X program from GM will end in May with a championship announcement in Washington, D.C. 17 student teams are adding biofuel, hybrid, PHEV and/or hydrogen fuel cell propulsion systems to the Equinoxes. Before the student get to find out who's re-engineered a Chevy Equinox into the best green ride, there are still tests to run and promotion to be had.

The Challenge X vehicle from Michigan Tech will be in Detroit this week and we'll try to make time for another spin in the SUV during the SAE Congress. In mid-2007, the MTU vehicle's belt-alternator starter system (similar to what GM uses in the production Saturn Vue and Aura) felt smoother to us than some production hybrids, even though the team was sitting in the lower half of the pack in the overall rankings.


[Source: GM]

The theme of this year's Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress is "A Climate for Change" and the host company is Chrysler. Chrysler's VP of Regulatory Affairs, Deb Morrissett, spoke today at an SAE luncheon in Detroit in advance of the Congress next month. Morrissett spoke about the new fuel economy regulations and what it would take for Chrysler and other companies to meet the standards. She talked about how efficiency has actually been improving at the rate of 1-1.5 percent annually for the past two decades. However the improvements have been consumed by increasingly large and powerful vehicles with more features.

The new energy bill will require real increases of 3.5 percent a year for the next dozen years. To meet that standard, Chrysler and other manufacturers will have to use every available option including more efficient internal combustion engines, increased electrification, diesels, biofuels and new transmissions. While Chrysler may realize what they need to do, actually accomplishing it will be particularly difficult for them given their precarious finances. They also have a more fundamental problem of a vehicle lineup that contains few vehicles people actually seem to want to buy. The full transcript of the speech is after the jump. ABG will be at the SAE Congress the week of April 14 in Detroit.