Electric cars held back by battery life, charge stations

PLUGGED IN: Chevrolet’s Volt – being shown by Paula Gauthier, sales professional at Balise Chevrolet in Warwick – can run on a full charge for 38 miles. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
PLUGGED IN: Chevrolet’s Volt – being shown by Paula Gauthier, sales professional at Balise Chevrolet in Warwick – can run on a full charge for 38 miles. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

As electric-car charging stations sprout up across New England, local auto dealers say improving the range and cost of battery-powered vehicles is the real key to improving their popularity.
“Horribly,” is how Brian Benoit, vice president of Anchor Nissan in North Smithfield describes how sales of the all-electric Leaf have gone so far. “Even sales of hybrid models aren’t what they hoped they would be. With the improved mileage of gas vehicles now, it is difficult to make more expensive electrics or hybrids pay off.”
Using federal electric-vehicle stimulus money, Rhode Island is building 50 new charging stations at locations across the state over the next three months.
Benoit said while those new stations, and similar facilities being created in other states, will help electric-car viability somewhat, its well below the level of infrastructure needed to make a large difference.
“I don’t think we are anywhere close,” Benoit said. “They would have to be in enough public places – malls, Home Depots, supermarkets – enough places where you’d be running into them often. For 100 percent electric vehicles there is still range anxiety: ‘How far can I go?’ ‘Can I charge it?’ ”
Anchor has sold five Leafs in the past two years, Benoit said, and for the cars to break through to a larger market, another leap in battery range and charging speed is needed from Nissan and other manufacturers.
“If you had a 300 mile [per charge] radius, instead of 100 to 130 miles, then it becomes something you don’t have to think about,” Benoit said.
For any alternative to the gasoline-powered car to gain traction, infrastructure is essential. After all, traditional gasoline automobiles would never have become ubiquitous without the independent service stations that dot roads across the country.
But it’s unclear whether the kind of charging stations being set up now are the essential infrastructure to make plug-in cars work.
Unlike gas refueling, most electric charging is designed to occur wherever the car is parked at night, not necessarily the places they drive during the day.
“As the battery technology improves and costs go down, you will see longer-range batteries in vehicles and then less of a need for public charging stations,” said Al Dahlberg, founder of Project Get Ready Rhode Island, a group advocating for electric vehicle adoption. Rhode Island’s 50 new charging stations are being built under a $781,225 contract with California-based ChargePoint Inc. Locations for most of the new stations have not been announced yet, although the first was activated at Roger Williams University in Bristol.
In addition to building charging stations, Rhode Island is also using its federal stimulus money to convert its fleet of about 900 state-owned passenger vehicles to electrics or hybrids.
The switches will occur gradually whenever cars are replaced, and the grant money will cover the cost difference between the electric and a comparable gas-powered ride. The state already owns 30 electric or hybrid cars.
Right now a drawback with the type of charging stations being built with federal grants in Rhode Island is they still require several hours to complete a full charge.
Looking for a way around that problem, the venture-capital-backed Israeli company Better Place tried to build a business based on a network of battery-swapping stations that would resemble gas stations and quickly exchange members’ empty batteries for fully-charged ones.
But Better Place needed car manufacturers to settle on a common battery design that they could purchase and easily switch out. It never happened and Better Place this month filed for bankruptcy.
Perhaps a better solution will come from manufacturers actively trying to fix the range problem themselves.
Tesla Motors Inc., the most successful entirely electric car startup, is in the process of expanding its network of charging stations to allow owners of its cars to fill up their batteries much faster than at public stations. The company has announced growing from eight to 27 charging stations by the end of summer and to have 98 percent of the country covered by 2015.
There are no Tesla showrooms or charging stations in Rhode Island. The closest charging station is in Milford, Conn., and the closest showroom is in Natick, Mass. The greatest drawback to Teslas, which can travel more than 250 miles on one charge, is their price, with the least expensive model costing about $70,000.
Dahlberg said if the technology improves enough, you won’t need too many stations to relieve most of the fears about range.
“If you have a vehicle with 400 mile range, and if you can fuel up at home, you won’t have to worry about charging stations,” Dahlberg said.
Some electric cars already direct drivers to the nearest charging station using GPS, easing some of the pressure on locating them.
Benoit at Anchor Nissan is looking to the manufacturers to improve the key price-to-battery-life ratio that now forces buyers to pay a premium for a vehicle that still comes with range concerns.
“Personally I don’t know if the manufactures, if they really wanted to, couldn’t figure out how to get 400 to 500 miles out of batteries,” Benoit said. “We can land on the moon, after all. But I think manufacturers have profits in mind, and I don’t know if they are ready to give up gas.”
Benoit said despite the soft electric sales, he is committed to electric vehicles, as the charging stations, tools and equipment invested in them at his dealership alone required an investment of several thousand dollars.
Balise Auto Group Vice President Mike Balise, whose company has 20 dealerships in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, said he sells about one to three all-electrics per month and maybe double that of hybrids.
“The Leaf is selling pretty well, the Volt doing better than the Leaf, but they’re not going to be high-demand vehicles,” Balise said. “The people who have them love them, but it is not a huge part of our business.”
The good news, Balise said, is the traditional perception of electric cars as slow and poor handling has been dashed by the current generation of vehicles. Now many prefer the instant acceleration of electric motors to gasoline powered engines.
“I think the minute they get the range figured out, the charging places will sprout up and the infrastructure will not be an issue,” Balise said. “Because performance-wise they are awesome. The response is fantastic. They have very quick pickup.” •

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