Published: September 12, 2008 08:53 pm            

Mark Bennett: With candidates’ plans for America-powered cars, voters need to check under the hood

TERRE HAUTE — You can put lipstick on an SUV, and it’s still an SUV.

(It’s also vandalism, but we’re digressing unnecessarily.)

However, if you put plug-in hybrid power under its hood, then we’re talking a real Miss Alaska runner-up on four wheels. That is, when beauty is relative to America’s energy independence.

On his campaign stop in Terre Haute last weekend, Sen. Barack Obama made no mention of cosmetic products or farm animals, even though he spoke inside a 4-H arena. Instead, the Democratic presidential candidate discussed some slightly more pressing issues, including the development of renewable-fueled vehicles.

Like his Republican opponent John McCain, Obama’s energy plan features plug-in hybrid cars rolling through America’s streets. McCain would offer a $300-million prize to the company that creates a battery with the strength, endurance, size and cost needed to make such an automobile go. McCain also wants a sliding scale of tax credits for buyers, with a maximum of $5,000 for the most efficient cars.

By contrast, Obama set a goal of having 1 million plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads by 2015. He would commit $4 billion in tax credits and loan guarantees for American automakers to “retool” their plants to produce alternative-fueled vehicles, and those super batteries. He also would give consumers of advanced-technology autos, such as the plug-ins, a $7,000 tax credit.

In that Terre Haute visit, Obama praised the unconventional thinking by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, despite their divergent political stances. The billionaire recommends the United States shift to trucks (and later cars) powered by natural gas — drawn from America’s reserves — while the nation converts to wind-generated electricity. Natural-gas-fueled transportation would be temporary, while electric- and hydrogen-powered vehicles are developed, according to the oil man’s plan.

Obama didn’t endorse that idea, but emphasized it reflects the urgent need to curtail the escalating U.S. consumption of foreign oil.

Shifting to natural-gas cars “can displace some of the oil that we import from the Middle East,” Obama told the Terre Haute crowd. “Now, that may not be the best solution over the long term. It may be that electric cars are the best solution. But we’ve got to develop the batteries here in the United States, and right now we’re behind the Japanese in developing the battery technology that’s needed so that electric cars can run for a long time.”

Is that possible? Can McCain’s research prize, or Obama’s manufacturing conversion give America homemade, home-powered vehicles?

A resounding maybe, perhaps, best summarizes the opinions of auto technology experts. All agree, though, the development of a long-lasting, compact, affordable battery is the top priority.

“The battery is the key impediment to getting long-range electric vehicles on the road,” said Zac Chambers, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Chambers also is co-adviser for a team of students who are re-engineering a Saturn VUE for greater fuel economy and reduced emissions, as part of a national competition organized by the federal government, automakers and Canadian researchers.

GM already plans to introduce its own plug-in hybrid, the Volt, in 2010, at an estimated initial price of $35,000 to $40,000. (Later, that could drop.) Its battery, though, will have only a 40-mile capacity. To go beyond that in one use, a small gasoline engine will kick on to recharge the battery. Otherwise, you plug it into your garage outlet overnight, and it’ll be ready in the morning.

That will satisfy people with short, home-to-work-and-back commutes, said Wally Tyner, an ag-economist at Purdue University.

A battery capable of running hundreds of miles, without resorting to a gasoline-powered recharger, will be more complex, but not impossible, Tyner said.

Obama compared that challenge to President Kennedy’s 1961 declaration that, by the end of the decade, America would land a man on the moon. “At that time, we didn’t have any clue how we were going to get there,” Obama said. “When he made that speech, the engineers didn’t know how we were going to do it. But the thing about America is, when we decide on a goal and put our minds to it, and are unified, then we make it happen.”

To do so, a similar investment of federal resources, like those pumped into NASA a half-century ago, will be required. Obama’s target of a million plug-in hybrids by 2015 is a prime example.

“If you want to do that in seven years, you have to make the same sort of commitment to the auto industry,” Chambers said.

Power companies and state regulators will have to get on board, too. “Time-of-day pricing” systems should be implemented, Tyner said, to maximize the cost efficiency of plug-in hybrids and plug-in electric cars. Instead of the standard flat rate for electricity — such as 6 cents per kilowatt hour — time-of-day pricing would allow plug-in car owners to juice their vehicles at a lower rate, such as 4 cents per kilowatt hour during the non-peak 10-p.m.-to-5-a.m. window.

Adapting the country’s current electrical grid to a vastly larger pool of plug-in cars is one of several hurdles to such a nationwide conversion, said Gregory Shaver, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue. The development of an elite battery is the primary project, but “even if you do that, it’s not going to solve all of the problems,” Shaver added.

For example, converting over-the-road trucks and heavy equipment from diesel to electricity probably isn’t practical, Shaver said. Even if trucks shifted to natural gas power, as Pickens suggests, the infrastructure to supply that fuel isn’t ready, Tyner said. Flex-fuel car owners already know the frustration of trying to find a station with E85. In his Terre Haute visit, Obama noted that oil companies have pressured fuel stations “to not do what they need to with E85.”

“The nice thing about the plug-in hybrids is every garage is a pump,” Tyner said.

The reformation of America’s energy use will take time and investment, said Dave Cole, chairman of the Center for Auto Research. Obama’s goal of a million plug-in hybrids by 2015 is overly optimistic, he added. McCain’s offer of a $300-million prize for the first super battery is good, Cole said, but the potential profits from such a creation are so “huge,” companies are aggressively working on it anyway.

Political candidates “tend to simplify things, and life is not like that,” Cole said.

Still, it’s refreshing to see the presidential aspirants pitching plans to reverse the country’s course, instead of being led by two guys who, until recently, could see only oil in our future. Obama plans a 10-year, $150-billion investment into new fuel development. McCain, whose energy ideas are less aggressive, nonetheless is pushing a plan for tax incentives to companies developing renewable energy.

Voters should demand the plug never be pulled on such progress.

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.

        

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