The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 2154; Electric Cars

ROBERT MacNEIL: This is an experimental electric car developed by General Motors. It does most of the things a car should do. In addition, it`s clean, quiet,, and it doesn`t use precious gasoline. But is it really going anywhere in the United States?

Good evening. President Carter may be about to slam on the energy brakes for cars, but the American consumer isn`t listening -- just yet. Automobile sales rose above one million vehicles a month for the first time since the Arab oil boycott made us all gas-conscious in 1973. More significant, the fastest growth appeared in the larger cars, especially Fords -- precisely the cars President Carter appears ready to penalize to induce fuel economy. With all this emphasis on conservation there is revived interest in electric vehicles. Tonight we examine the plusses and minuses of electric vehicles and whether this country is dragging its feet in developing them. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, electric vehicles are actually in the process of being born again, because they`re anything but a new development. Back in the early 1900`s they were one of the most popular forms of personal transportation in this country. In 1904, for instance, one third of all vehicles in New York City, Boston and Chicago were electric. There were large fleets of electric trucks operating by 1915. And Thomas Edison drove around in the most popular electric car, the Baker Electric. Then came Henry Ford`s Model T and other vehicles powered by the combustion engine. The electrics just couldn`t match the competition. Gasoline was then only ten cents a gallon, so it was cheaper, and a gasoline-powered car had more range. When the self-starter came along for the combustion engine, that was really it -- by the end of the twenties the electric vehicle had all but disappeared. Robin?

MacNEIL: Electric vehicles may have faded away in this country, but in Europe, where gasoline has been less abundant and more expensive than it is here, they are very much alive. Battery-operated vehicles are a familiar sight in England, for example, although compact little commuter cars like this one are not presently threatening to outsell the gasoline-powered models. But city dwellers in Britain and other European countries have never been as dependent on personal automobiles as Americans are, so much of the thrust of electric vehicle development has gone into mass transit.

Buses, for instance, that operate on rechargeable batteries are quiet, easy to handle, reliable and long-lasting. This particular model accelerates just as rapidly as a diesel-powered bus, without the fumes and pollution problems of a diesel. Its top speed is about forty miles an hour, and it can cover up to forty miles before its batteries need recharging.

One of the most commonly sighted electric vehicles in Britain is the ubiquitous milk float, used to deliver milk all over the country. It has been the basis for the development of a wide range of battery powered commercial vehicles which their supporters claim offer a level of reliability and cost effectiveness unsurpassed by any other form of transit.

An electric power unit is an incredibly simple system that involves very few moving parts, making it very easy to repair and maintain. It consists of three basic components: an engine, a control unit, and batteries. The electricity used to operate the vehicles is only a small part of the total running cost, and fuel is always as close as the nearest electrical outlet.

But many operators don`t want to put up with the hours of down time involved in waiting for the batteries to be recharged. This German company, therefore, has opted for a simple battery exchange system. It takes a very few minutes and permits the vehicle to be on its way again as soon as the used batteries have been removed and fresh ones inserted. And while the truck is in operation the replacement batteries themselves are being recharged. This is the system the German federal railways have used for seventy years. Battery-powered locomotives; which have a range of about 400 miles on one battery load, are used on the feeder lines for the main routes. Their operating schedules are planned in such a way that they can always make it to their home stations or the nearest recharging station. A small maintenance crew looks after the batteries at regular intervals.

For years now European manufacturers have been tinkering with their electric vehicle designs in an attempt to improve their range, speed, weight and cost. No one claims to have fully succeeded yet, although the secretive Japanese are thought to be even closer to the goal. But they`ve all come a long way from the Baker Electric. Some people in this country believe that we are very far behind the European development. One of them is Victor Wouk, an electrical engineer who has worked in this field since 1962. He is currently the representative from the United States to the International Committee on Electrical Road Vehicles -- and he`s obviously off to a posh dinner in a few minutes. Mr. Wouk, you said in a letter to the New York Times last summer that the United States was disgracefully behind Europe in the development of battery-powered electric buses. Does that apply to all electrical vehicles, do you believe?

VICTOR WOUK: Yes.

MacNEIL: And what are the reasons?

WOUK: The main reason is that in the United States, up until very recently, the electric vehicle industry has been characterized by entrepreneurs, well-meaning but people inexperienced in the manufacture of vehicles. In Europe, on the other hand, the automobile manufacturers have been involved in all of the programs that you saw in the movie films. The vehicles have been built not by amateurs but by such companies as Volkswagen, Daimler- Benz, M.A.N -- the big bus manufacturer in Germany -- and in Europe, equivalently large manufacturing companies. In the United States the big automotive manufacturing companies have not been interested in building electric vehicles.

MacNEIL: Why?

WOUK: I can`t answer why they haven`t been. I can tell you that in 1970 when the Electric Vehicle Council, which is part of the Edison Electric Institute, decided to build 400 electric vehicles for testing by public utilities as electric work vans, the automotive industry was approached to help design and build the vehicles; we received a negative response.

MacNEIL: Who are the other villains in this? Is it the interests of oil and gasoline sales, and all the other interests that go to make up the present automotive industry, or what?

WOUK: I wouldn`t say there any villains involved. On the contrary, there have been some great indications of cooperation,-for example, on the part of the automobile industry and the oil industry, and my particular efforts in the field of hybrid vehicles, which we won`t get into right now.

MacNEIL: Hybrid meaning partly run by the internal combustion engine and partly by batteries and electricity.

WOUK: Correct. So it`s not a matter of a villain. For some reason or other -- which possibly the gentleman to my right can explain -- the automobile industries in the United States have not felt it worthwhile to get into electric vehicles.

MacNEIL: We`ll come to the gentleman on your right in a moment and let him explain. I just want to ask you, what is the largest technical obstacle to the much more rapid development of successful electric vehicles?

WOUK: That is the battery. There is not enough energy stored in the common garden variety lead-acid battery to take an automobile far enough or fast enough for ordinary use. But there are plenty of applications for road vehicles besides automobiles, and these applications include the buses that we saw recently on the TV screen, the utility vehicles which were shown also briefly. I believe that in the United States there is ample room for use of battery-powered vehicles for work vehicles and for buses.

MacNEIL: Thank you; we`ll come back. As Mr. Wouk has just said, many believe the biggest obstacle to the wider developments of electric vehicles has always been the state of the art of battery making. A lot of the emphasis in this country has gone into research to improve batteries. The government spent $7 million on it last year, will spend $10 million on it in 1977. One man who knows a great deal about the battery problem is James Holzwarth, Technical Director at General Motors Research Laboratories. He`s responsible for overseeing R&D in electrical engineering and electronics. Mr. Holzwarth, what exactly is the problem with the state of the art in the lead acid battery today?

JAMES HOLZWARTH: Victor Wouk and I may not agree on everything, but we do agree on that one item -- the battery. In an electric vehicle the limited energy that can be stored in state-of-the-art batteries overshadows all other problems with an electric vehicle.

MacNEIL: Can that kind of lead-acid battery be improved, or do we just have to forget it altogether and try and develop a new kind? We`re talking about the kind of battery we all know presently in our cars, the battery with lead plates surrounded by acid.

HOLZWARTH: Right. I do happen to have one of those types of batteries here. This is a single-cell lead-acid battery; it will store 120 watt powers of energy -- that`s enough to light two 60 watt bulbs for about one hour. This happens to be a single cell. If we would put fifty of these together they would make something like you might use in a small passenger car or a small van. But this battery weighs twelve and a half pounds to store that small amount of energy.

MacNEIL: I see. How much energy does it take from a battery to drive a small car like the GM experimental one we saw at the beginning?

HOLZWARTH: Perhaps I could use a small delivery van as an example, where the vehicle itself might weigh 3,000 pounds and it might have 1,000 pounds of batteries. One cell like this would accelerate that vehicle just once at a reasonable rate to about thirty miles an hour, and the battery would have expended its energy.

MacNEIL: What are the alternatives to the lead-acid, and how are they developing?

HOLZWARTH: There are a number of potential candidates. At General Motors we have been working on two advanced batteries. One is the zinc-nickel oxide battery. This stores the same amount of energy as this twelve-and-a-half- pound lead-acid, but it only weighs about five and a half pounds.

MaCNEIL: And is just as rechargeable and everything, is it?

HOLZWARTH: We hope it is. It`s still experimental, but we do have high hopes that within the next ten years or so batteries like this will be powering electric vehicles for personal use and for commercial use.

MacNEIL: And what do you see coming in the future? What is the ultimate battery that people are aiming for?

HOLZWARTH: We also have been working on a much smaller battery still. This one only weighs one and two-thirds pounds. It`s a lithium-iron sulfide battery. But it is perhaps twenty years away as far as the developmental technology is concerned, because that one will operate at high temperature, at almost a dull red heat.

MacNEIL: We are a long way off, in your view, then.

HOLZWARTH: Incidentally, each one of these three cells you see here stores the same amount of energy and by the way, that`s the same amount of energy that`s stored in that much gasoline. That`s about four tenths of an ounce, a small shot glass full.

MacNEIL: That looks like propaganda to me, Mr. Holzwarth. (Laughing.)

HOLZWARTH: That`s where the problem is.

MacNEIL: To what extent is General Motors interested in developing an electric vehicle?

HOLZWARTH: We began seriously to experiment with electric vehicles about fifteen years ago, and over the period starting about 1963 to 1970 we built a series of eight electric or hybrid vehicles to get a feel for what the problems were, what the range is, what the customer acceptance might be, what the market might be. We learned a great deal from that program. But about 1970 we stopped building very many electric vehicles and started concentrating our efforts on developing the battery because that`s where the problem lay.

MacNEIL: What do you say to the point that was suggested by Mr. Wouk and is raised often by critics of the automotive industry in Detroit in this connection, that they aren`t really very interested in developing electric vehicles because they don`t see any substantial market there down the line?

HOLZWARTH: We do believe that with the current alternatives the economic alternatives -- that have been available to us, the electric vehicle, with its rather limited performance capability, was not a highly desirable thing for the customer. That may change in time; we expect it will.

MacNEIL: But it isn`t here now.

HOLZWARTH: But it isn`t here yet, and it won`t be here, in my opinion, until we get a battery that will give us a greater vehicle range.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEH RER: The federal government`s research on electric vehicles is under the wing of the Energy Research and Development Administration, known as ERDA. Dr. Gene Mannella is Assistant Administrator for Conservation for ERDA, with direct responsibility for that project. First, Mr. Mannella, what`s the status of your research on the electric vehicle?

GENE MANNELLA: We have a rather substantial program in battery research, and we`re kind of fortunate here in that we have other applications for batteries besides electric vehicles; batteries are a very versatile storage device, so we have been developing batteries for use in electric peaking applications in storing solar energy and things of this sort. Much of this technology is directly applicable to the electric vehicle, and we have, as I mentioned, a substantial program in this area which, incidentally, will increase this year and next year as a result of the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Act that was passed last September.

LEHRER: That was passed over President Ford`s veto, was it not?

MANNELLA: That`s correct. We have contracts with Gould Corporation in a consortium led by GE and including ESB, a battery manufacturer in the Chrysler Corporation, to do overall vehicle optimization work. And the bulk of our activity right now is in implementing the rather substantial number of requirements in the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Act which includes two demonstrations of electric vehicles in the fleet size of 2,500 vehicles within about two years, and 5,000 vehicles within about six years.

LEHRER: I was very fascinated with Mr. Holzwarth`s show-and-tell thing on batteries. Do you agree with him that it`s going to be twenty years before the little one can be developed in any way and ten years on the zinc one? Why is it going take so long?

MANNELLA: I think I disagree in two very important areas. First of all, I don`t agree that it`s going to take twenty years. We think with the kind of vigorous program that we`re developing that we will have substantial numbers of these advanced lithium-sulfur, or sodium sulfur batteries to be testing in five years and that you could see them in mass production in ten years. Secondly, I also don`t believe that we are not going to see electric vehicles until we have reached this very high level of battery development. We can have electric vehicles actually in a short term with advanced lead- acid batteries that we have now. Most of the trips -- about forty percent of them -- that we make with the automobile are twenty-five miles or less, and you can have suitable vehicles powered with lead-acid batteries that will provide that kind of transportation.

LEHRER: Provide it right now, without any further development.

MANNELLA: Right now. And the important thing is whether or not we`re going to wait until we have a completely developed vehicle or whether we`re going to get serious about saving energy and cutting down the amount o f oil that we have to import.

LEHRER: I`ll give you an opportunity to answer your own question. Are we going to do it?

MANNELLA: We`re very optimistic about the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Act; we think that it will give us an opportunity to go out there with these two substantial-sized fleets to test the consumer reaction, to help begin to build the infrastructure that we would need in order to support a viable electric vehicle fleet, and through a series of loan guarantees and planning grants and what not to help create a viable electric vehicle industry in the United States.

LEHRER: Create a market, too, which you would have to do.

MANNELLA :That`s right.

LEHRER: Mr. Wouk mentioned that the development here in the United States - - and I take it that you would agree with this -- that ERDA development, too, is all geared for the small, personal-car type vehicle. Why has the United States not gone for buses and commercial vehicles as well?

MANNELLA: I understand what Victor is saying, and I do agree that perhaps the most immediate area of application would be in something like buses. However, all of our programs in the ERDA Conservation Office are geared towards maximum energy saving, and it`s really the passenger vehicle market that we`re going to have to penetrate if we are going to save any substantial amount of energy and save any substantial amount of gasoline. So we have primarily, but not exclusively, addressed the problem of what would it take to get people to use this electric vehicles for their commuting, for their neighborhood driving and that type of use pattern where the bulk of our gasoline is actually burned today.

LEHRE R: Dr. Wouk, do you want to make your pitch to Dr. Mannella for the bus again? You haven`t convinced him, obviously.

WOUK: No, I have not convinced him; I`ve tried. The bus and the delivery van would represent the beginning of experience in the use of electric or battery-powered vehicles, or hybrid vehicles. We have to start someplace. We know that the batteries that are available today are commercially suitable to buses, delivery vans, as has been seen in the movie at the beginning of the program. These vehicles would not be built unless it was felt by the users that they represented a commercial advantage. So if we get started with a reasonable program of electric buses and electric delivery vans, we will obtain the experience necessary in the ancillary aspects of electric and hybrid vehicles, such as battery recharging and distributing electricity. Let`s get started at a low level now.

LEH RER: Mr. Holzwarth, where do you and GM come down on this go for the biggie versus the small car argument?

HOLZWARTH: In many respects the commercial application looks like it would be easier to manipulate, easier to handle. When batteries need maintenance there are skilled crews to maintain the batteries. They usually run on fixed, prescribed routes, whereas the homeowner-motorist likes to have a certain amount of freedom to go where they want to go when they want to go, without regard to route limitations. But the big market, of course, would be in the consumer market.

LEHRER: So in other words, General Motors is not working on the development of any buses, right -- electric-powered buses?

HOLZWARTH: Not in this country. Our overseas group is looking at buses.

LEHRER: You`re not doing it here but you`re doing it somewhere else. Why?

HOLZWARTH: The electric bus market does not look like a very attractive market in this country.

LEHRER: I see. But it is in other countries.

HOLZWARTH: Yes, for example in England.

LEHRER: Let me ask Mr. Wouk and you, Dr. Mannella, who are both very interested in the development of electrical vehicles, is it possible to expect any kind of realistic development of the electric vehicle unless you have the absolute commitment of the automobile industry?

MANNELLA: I think that in terms of development it is possible, although we do have participation on perhaps a limited basis now of the automobile industry. Now, if you had asked the question is it possible to have a substantial number of electric vehicles in our fleet by the year 1990 or the year 2000 without a substantial commitment by the automobile industry, I would probably say no.

LEHRER: Do you agree, Dr. Wouk?

WOUK: Yes, I would agree. An automobile, whether it`s an internal combustion engine vehicle, all electric or hybrid, represents the combination of a large number of engineering disciplines. A small company just cannot gather all of these engineering disciplines and produce a reliable vehicle. One of the problems that has existed in the United States is that the electric vehicles built to date have not garnered a reputation for reliability. On the other hand, the vehicles built in Europe are reliable because they have been built by large companies with the necessary financial and engineering capabilities.

LEHRER: And of course, Mr. Holzwarth, I`m sure that General Motors would respond that they`re ready and willing and able to do it when there is a market here, or it`s not economically feasible, right, Sir?

HOLZWARTH: By all means. Incidentally, I did not mean to convey to Dr. Mannella that we would not see any vehicles with these advanced batteries in less than ten years; I only meant to convey that I don`t believe we will see substantial numbers of them.

LEHRER: All right. Robin?

MacNEIL: I`d like to ask a couple of questions. Will electrical vehicles just always serve as second or third cars in the private family, or are they ultimately going to replace the internal combustion engine cars?

WOUK: This is a question to which I`ve been addressing myself for quite some time. The battery that was shown here will be more than adequate for, let us say, ninety-five percent of all applications, but what happens if you want to visit Grandma who lives 150 miles away or you want to go on a camping trip and it will be a 300mile drive?

MacNEIL: So you`re presuming that the range power capabilities of the battery, even with the most optimistic development, is never going to give you sufficient reserve power for the extended trip?

WOUK: Never is a long time. In the foreseeable future there will not be a battery that will give you the range for a long trip and hence the act is the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Act, because the hybrid overcomes the range problem.

MacNEIL: But if batteries got very much smaller, like this? What about having way stations along the way where you just gave up your spent ones and put in new ones at some nominal charge, rather like the Pony Express changing horses as they went across the country? You recharge the horses, and you can recharge the batteries.

WOUK: This is a possibility, and that`s what the film has shown in the battery exchange system. That was developed in Germany from the ground up by a large company, and that will be absolutely feasible. However, it requires time to build up the infrastructure.

MacNEIL: Yes. Dr. Mannella, I`d like to ask you, in conclusion, a question: is the energy conservation that could be achieved by electric vehicles -- what will the difference in consumption really be since you have to burn fuel to make electricity to charge these batteries?

MANNELLA: This is a very interesting question that I`m not sure the answer to which is completely understood. Conventionally it`s very comfortable to say that a gasoline-powered vehicle operates in perhaps twenty-four to twenty-six percent efficiency, and an electric vehicle operates on electricity which, generated at the central power station, has about a thirty-three percent efficiency, and then you have to transmit it, you have to store it in a battery and you have to take it out from the battery; and you wind up in about a break-even mode. And in a preponderance of the electric vehicles at this point we`d say, "Ah, yes, but it allows you to power your vehicles with something other than gasoline." You can power your vehicles with nuclear-generated electricity, with hydro or with coal- generated electricity. But I think that the way that the electric vehicle will actually penetrate the vehicle fleet is in a use pattern where it displaces the automobile in its least efficient mode; that is, in commuting and bumper-to-bumper traffic.

MacNEIL: I think we have to leave it there, Dr. Mannella, but I think we get the point. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Jim, and good night. Thank you, gentlemen. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.