The Centrist is following the developments and announcements that Michigan would receive more than $1.35B in federal grants for advanced battery and electrical vehicle manufacturing. The best news is that ‘First, it means thousands of new, good-paying jobs. Estimates are 6,800 new Michigan jobs in the next 18 months and up to 40,000 jobs by 2020.
The Centrist wonders if the leadership of Michigan has been following the evolution of the fine state of TN as also being a pioneer and leader for the development and deployment of EV’s, charging infrastructures and batteries.?
Michigan may have received the largest of the federal grants for the batteries but now the most challenging part remains and that is delivering the batteries.
The Centrist believes that Michigan will be competitive in the EV industry. But Tennessee has not only been conducting EV and electric grid research for a lot longer than Michigan but they also have a premier global partner in Nissan that is ready to mass deploy the EV Leaf in 2010 to the US.
So will this who has the better EV technology become one of Camry vs Malibu insofar that one is an industry leader and the other has a good product but not a mass hit with consumers in sales? Stay tuned.
Via Detnews.com
August 7, 2009
Commentary
Battery grants give Mich. a charge
Gov. Jennifer Granholm
There was a seismic shift Wednesday in Michigan. Did you feel it?
The epicenter was Detroit where Vice President Joe Biden announced that a dozen projects across Michigan would receive more than $1.35 billion in federal grants for advanced battery and electric vehicle manufacturing.
At that moment, the world center of a global industry with huge growth prospects shifted from the shores of the Asian Pacific to the shores of the Great Lakes. Michigan will now become the advanced battery capital of the world
Centrist Notes:
Tennesse is still one of the advanced electric vehicle, battery and infrastructure capitals of the world.
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn, with a $1.6 billion U.S. loan commitment in hand, wants capacity to build more than 100,000 electric vehicles a year in Tennessee as early as 2011.
We are intending to assemble batteries and assemble cars, and the site that we have selected is Smyrna," Ghosn said here today after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting. "The capacity that we are envisioning as a first step is even above 100,000."
Four companies receiving project grants will build advanced battery manufacturing facilities all over the state, from Metro Detroit to Midland and Holland. Our Big Three automakers will each invest in new technologies that will reinvent the automobile to operate on an electric drivetrain. And the advanced batteries and electric vehicles manufactured in Michigan won’t be just for the domestic market — they’ll be produced for a worldwide one.
What does this mean for Michigan citizens?
First, it means thousands of new, good-paying jobs. Estimates are 6,800 new Michigan jobs in the next 18 months and up to 40,000 jobs by 2020.
Also, in an era of globalization, Michigan is proving that smart, advanced manufacturing can happen in the United States. The companies that will win the advanced battery race will not do so by chasing the lowest-cost labor. They’ll win by unleashing the world’s most innovative engineers and a highly skilled manufacturing work force. And they’ll find them in Michigan.
Those engineering and manufacturing skills will be needed because there still are technical challenges with advanced batteries. The primary technological barrier to widespread adaptation of electric vehicles is mass producing batteries that are affordable, durable and lightweight.
Anyone whose laptop or cell phone battery receives a charge today that lasts a fraction of what it did a year ago also knows there are problems with batteries holding charges. But Michigan knows the rewards for solving difficult problems are huge economic benefits. And we are very, very good at solving problems.
Biden’s announcement was the culmination of nearly three years of work to make sure this new economic sector takes root in Michigan. As part of our strategic plan to diversify Michigan’s economy, we targeted the battery industry in 2006 as a terrific growth opportunity and implemented a detailed plan to attract battery manufacturers and their suppliers to Michigan.
We knew Michigan was uniquely suited for this pursuit. No other state was home to more automotive research and development. None could match the research resources of our great universities or our number of engineers. And no other state could offer anything close to our commercial-scale manufacturing capabilities.
Centrist Notes:
NASHVILLE – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today said that Tennessee is one of five states participating in what is being described as “the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure ever undertaken.”The multistate project will be funded through a $99.8 million DOE grant to Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. (eTec), a subsidiary of ECOtality, Inc., a Phoenix, Ariz.-based leader in electric transportation and storage technologies. eTec, in partnership with Nissan, will take advantage of the early availability of the Nissan Leaf, a newly unveiled zero-emission electric vehicle, to develop, implement and study techniques for optimizing the effectiveness of charging infrastructure that will support widespread electric vehicle deployment.The project will install electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and deploy up to 5,000 Nissan battery electric vehicles, in strategic markets in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. In the Volunteer State, the initial investments will focus on Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville. Approximately 2,500 charging stations will be installed to support as many as 1,000 cars that are expected to be purchased for use in commercial and government fleets and by individual consumers.In a news release earlier today, Nissan described the project as “the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure ever undertaken.” In its news release, DOE cited the project and others as initiatives that will help “establish American leadership in creating the next generation of advanced vehicles.”
So we enacted the nation’s most aggressive tax credits to draw the world’s best battery companies to Michigan, and now have issued nearly $700 million in credits. We developed an innovative Centers of Energy Excellence program that puts Michigan’s tremendous university research talent to work commercializing next-generation battery technologies. And we worked with state legislators, our congressional delegation and the Obama administration, which helped make an announcement like Wednesday’s possible.
Centrist Notes:
From Earth2Tech.com
August 7, 2009
The biggest grants awarded this week under the Department of Energy’s $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery initiative went to big-name companies: battery giant Johnson Controls, IPO-hopeful A123Systems, General Motors, Dow Kokam and LG Chem’s Compact Power all snagged more than $150 million each. But some lesser-known companies also hit the jackpot, and may see rising prominence over the next three years as a result.
Take EnerG2, eTec and Smith Electric Vehicles — companies that together represent three legs of the stool for mass deployment of electric vehicles: energy storage, charging infrastructure and the vehicles themselves, but have lower profiles than many of their fellow grant winners and competitors.
Smith Electric Vehicles: The DOE awarded UK-based Smith Electric Vehicles $10 million to develop and deploy up to 100 electric vehicles, such as the Ford Transit Connect EV, Ford F150 EV conversions, Step Vans and so-called Newton medium-duty trucks in Kansas City, Mo., and Michigan. When Smith, part of the publicly traded Tanfield Group, struck a deal with Ford earlier this year to develop an electric version of the auto giant’s Transit Connect compact van, a Tanfield spokesperson explained the division of work to us this way: “Ford provides the chassis and we integrate everything else…Our IP and know-how is in the drivetrain, the battery packs, the control systems, and how all of that is integrated together, and also how it integrates with the existing vehicle systems.” The company’s strategy is generally to “sell into major fleet operators for demonstration purposes,” and once that cycle’s complete, “expect them to come back and purchase many more.”
eTec: Founded in 1996 and acquired in November 2007 by Arizona-based ECOtality, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec) has relatively deep roots for a company in the nascent field of electric vehicle charging infrastructure (infrastructure startup Better Place, for comparison, has been around for less than two years). The company, which snagged a $99.8 million grant this week, often works behind the scenes on alt-fuel vehicle projects, providing battery and vehicle performance testing, life cycle cost estimates and comparisons, as well as management and maintenance services for electric fleets. In addition, eTec’s smart fast-charging system was deployed, as Green Car Congress notes, for GM’s EV-1 program, as well as Chrysler’s EPIC minivan and Ford’s electric Ranger programs.
At this point, eTec — which reportedly has about 20 employees at its Phoenix headquarters — now says it has installed more than 400 charging stations for on-road electric vehicles, and a total of 5,500 systems if you include installations for airport ground support and other applications. The DOE grant will go toward installation of some 12,750 charging systems (in partnership with Nissan as it rolls out the 2010 LEAF electric sedan) in five states, including Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington. According to the Arizona Republic, eTec will also be working with Starbucks, Walmart and other retailers “to determine if they can make money off charging stations, either by charging money for parking or by driving traffic to the locations.”
When we look back at the 20th century, the development of the internal combustion engine triggered the growth of a world-class automotive industry centered in Michigan and created a broad, middle-class prosperity.
Looking forward, we’re poised for another monumental breakthrough. Advanced battery technology will be the critical element in developing a new green auto industry, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and preserving the middle-class way of life that we enjoy in Michigan.
Jennifer Granholm is the governor of Michigan. E-mail comments to letters@detnews.com.
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