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GM and the New Plug-In Infrastructure

By Joel Makower
Published July 24, 2008

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This week's announcement by General Motors that it has joined with more than 30 utility companies across the U.S. to work on issues related to electric vehicles got a great deal of media play. But the coverage only began to scratch the surface of the complexity of bringing plug-in electric vehicles to market in mass quantities.

In reality, the GM-utility conversation isn't entirely new. It began in January, at a Vehicle Electrification Workshop held at GM's research center in Warren, Michigan. I had the privilege of attending the meeting, which was facilitated by my colleagues at the sustainability strategy firm GreenOrder. The meeting included more than two dozen utility executives, including a team from the Electric Power Research Institute, the industry-funded consortium that served as the co-convener of the meeting.

It was an eye-opener, to say the least. It turns out that building the infrastructure for the plug-in electric vehicle isn't simply a matter of, "Here's a plug, here's a socket. End of story."

First of all, not everyone has a socket — a secure place to park their car and recharge it. Those living in apartment buildings, for example, lack this ability. Even where a plug exists, it may not have sufficient amperage to handle the load. (I'm a good example: I have a socket in my garage, but it's on the same circuit as my bedroom. If you plug in a power-hungry appliance in the garage, TiVo gets grumpy.)

But that's the least of it. Building the plug-in infrastructure involves a mind-numbing array of technical challenges. Among them:

Connections — What does the connection between the car and the socket look like? Can it be standardized across vehicles? Doing so would avoid the rat's nest of incompatible connectors that we've come to expect from cell phones. And such connections will need to carry more than just electricity. They'll also need to enable smart communications, such as the ability to sell energy back to the grid, which involves billing or financial transactions. Incompatible connections may be fine for a phone, but not for a car, where a universal connection standard — akin to computers' USB cables and plugs — would ensure that any vehicle could connect to any plug, anywhere — and do so safely and durably.

Smart charging — In the new world of plugs-ins, your car should be able to sell energy you don't need back to the grid during times of peak power demand, such as in late summer afternoons, when both office buildings and homes are running air conditioning. Today, that peak demand is served by older, usually dirtier and less-efficient "peaker" generators that utilities fire up when needed. A national fleet of a million or more EVs, most sitting idle roughly 90 percent of the time, could serve as a massive national storage device that can be tapped as needed to meet peak demand. But you, the driver, will call the shots, determining how much power, if any, you'd be willing to sell to the grid on a given day. (Of course, your electric utility could call the shots, too, telling you what time of day you can, and can't, recharge your vehicle, at least without paying premium rates.) All this affects battery architecture, smart metering systems, communications protocols, a standard user interface, and common (and simple) messaging terminology — "bi-direction powerflow management," in the argot of utilities.

Mobile billing — It may be one thing for me to charge my EV at or near my home in Oakland, California. But what if I drive to Reno, Nevada? Will I be able to buy and sell electricity in another state — or even another utility district in my own state? Much like the early days of cell phones, where calling from outside one's home territory resulted in onerous fees — remember roaming charges? — there's the potential for EVs to lose their luster if they can't affordably do buy and sell power wherever you go.

Public interface — If EVs are to be ubiquitous, so, too, must be the charging stations — in homes, at work, on downtown streets, in shopping centers, hotels, highway rest stops, parking lots, tourist destinations, and a gazillion other places. These will need to be convenient, well designed, safe, reliable, and secure (so no one can unplug your car in order to charge theirs, for example).

There's much more. There's the need for public education, which requires understanding consumer habits and market expectations. There may need to be new financing mechanisms for customers, especially if plug-ins, as expected, cost more to buy, at least for the first decade or so. There will be infrastructure costs for cities, building owners, and others to build charging stations. What policy measures or subsidies will we need to incentivize them to do so? Will EVs get preferential treatment at toll booths, parking lots, and in HOV lanes? (Will today's Prius-style hybrids eventually lose their current preferential status?) What happens to fuel-economy ratings — will they need to be revised or rethought?

I'm just getting started, but you get the point.

It's not just GM, of course. Every car company large and small that wants to be a player in the EV market will likely need to hew to whatever standards are created — or risk being incompatible with the mainstream, the automotive version of Betamax. GM, in its wisdom, decided it wanted to be at the table where those standards were created.

All of this may seem somewhat futuristic, but it isn't. The first-gen plug-in hybrid vehicles (not counting the relatively small number that have been retrofitted by hobbyists and EV fanatics) will hit the market in 2010 — a scant two years from now — from GM, Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen, and others. Given the slow pace of gaining consensus — not to mention building a national infrastructure — the GM-utility partnership could play a key role in advancing the conversation, building some, if not all, of the many pieces we'll need for our petro-free transportation future.

standard interface

why plug into anything?
why not they just swap batteries at an gas station? then the only thing that needs standardizing is the batteries.
To make it catch on, take advantage of the existing distribution infrastructure, keep the economic interests (gas station owners, energy companies) on the team, and avoid the headaches of starting everything from scratch.
Stephen

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 08:20 — Anonymous

while stationed in alaska

while stationed in alaska they had outlets to plug our cars in that kept the cars oil from freezing overnight they had them all over the base why cany we do that here seems simple (they were connected to a warmer in the oil pan)

CRTC fort greely alaska

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 11:33 — Anonymous

Its the $, silly

Here are the solutions:
1. Ditch the idea of selling electricity back to the grid - its ludicrous and wasteful. Batteries deliver DC power and the heat generated in turning it back into AC makes this prohibitive and frankly stupid.

2. Charging a battery at home? Easy. the power company traditionally sells you as much power as you need. If you don't have a electric car then great. But Battery charging at home should be done with a hard wired system that will not charge - or charge slower, if you are running your TV, A/C, Hairdryer, and electric stove all at once. Preference is given to the rest of the house. This means people will naturally charge batteries at night or turn everything else off to catch a charge during the day - without going over average usage for the domicile.

3. Your car comes with multiple batteries - switch em out.

4. If batteries are too big to switch-out at home, those guys who do the Blue Rhino canisters for gas grills have the business model all figured out. No worries. or get a hand truck. they can design one that will do the switching and save your back at the same time.

5. Smart chargers communicating with the grid? Total B.S. with the connectivity we already have, if you don't like my idea in #2, all you need is a small cell phone that can make a 3 second call to get the grid info. Location is already part of the infrastructure, as cell towers are very local. This is not difficult technology for LG or someone to figure out. No cell service? fine - a landline call can do the same thing. No land line? You are probably still driving a Studebaker...carry on.

6. Public Interface? Its called a garage. with the small margins in operating a gas station or garage these days these guys will happily get into this business. Seems to me a car company would have an interest in setting up garages to charge their batteries - it would make you more likely to buy THEIR electric car.

7 AND to avoid the charger wire issues, have all congress has to do is decide on a standard and make it a law. Once you tell Honda and TOyota and everyone else that their batteries must be 12v and have x-connector, they WILL fall in line. None of this letting the market sort it out. this is growth industry and we, as citizens, through our governement, have a right to decide how they can sell us X, Y or Z.

This is all about government dollars and the real easy solutions are right in front of everyone. When they try to tell you this nonsense is neccessary, they are lying and just trying to create wasteful spending and work it out so that they can still extract the same dollar amount, in profit, per mile driven - because their expenditures were so high in bringing us this vaunted technology that we already have.

CAN YOU BELIEVE I put this out there for nothing? I should be getting paid big bucks to come up with these ideas.

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 11:49 — Anonymous

Excellent article!

Interesting... In my own online article, "The New American Crisis", I point out large-scale energy storage as a critical element for a refurbished grid capable of meeting the demands of millions of plug-in vehicles. The approach I suggest is the building of UltraCap farms close to high-demand consumers.

A "smart" interface, however, (like the V2Green interface) would allow those many millions of electric vehicles to serve the same purpose! Brilliant!!

Regards,

Brad

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 13:04 — Anonymous

Plug-in hybrids not so complex

Most of the "problems" that you are describing are not an issue with plug-in hybrids. Huge numbers of people commute less than 30 miles a day and could complete their trips under only electric power. They would need to charge their cars only at home. Anyone who must drive more than 40 miles a day would simply rely on the internal combustion engine to complete their trip. A trip from Oakland to Reno would be powered primarily by the internal combustion engine, as it is with today's Prii (plural for Prius).

You're right that relying on pure electric vehicles would present "a mind-numbing array of technical challenges."

P.S. I have been driving my Prius since July 2004. I'm currently averaging 53 MPG.

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 16:19 — Anonymous

Swapping is not easy either

Then the batteries would have to be standardized. The size, shape, weight, connection, voltage, charging time, chemical makeup, operating temp.

Have you been to the Battery section at an auto parts store? You might as well be in a candy shop or cell phone store with all the choices/standards.

What may be right for a Smart car will never be enough for an SUV.

Who owns the batteries? What if they give you an 5 year old battery that only hold 80 percent charge?

Is a fueling station a vast warehouse (next to a power station) of batteries charging? Is this self service for the mom or man in a suit?

That said, swapping is great for fleets like USPS, FedEx or Taxis.

All power company vehicles should be mandatory electric in 2 years.

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 18:19 — Anonymous

Swap batteries?

Cause its not a little battery up by your engine meant to give enough juice to the starter and then being recharged by the generator. Its a huge battery, usually down in the center of the undercarraige, but also in the trunk. And they are fork-lift heavy.

Seriously, now....

This would be great tho, a lot of people live in windy areas and could have a little windmill on their house, which would charge their cars.

Fri, 07/25/2008 - 22:54 — Anonymous

Independence

Swapping batteries at the gas station is a great idea!

Why don't we also focus on better mass transit? Not just in cities, but between them.
I'm not talking BioFuel busses. I'm talking about non vehicular people movers.

The whole problem is that we're having essentially one car being manufactured for one person. It seems like the energy needed to move that person, including the energy used to manufacture the car, is overkill.

We should look at this in terms of "energy in, waste out, goal accomplished". Rather than "how do we convert an existing infrastructure" that was built under completely ignorant circumstances relative to our impact on the environment and real sustainability.

I imagine that we could use all the metal in cars to build truly useful devices.

YetiMan

Sat, 07/26/2008 - 03:13 — Anonymous

Benchmarking Other Countries?

Just got back from France on business and couldn't help but notice all the vehicle plug in stations all over Paris. If the French can do it, why can't the US? Add a credit card machine and voila', new business opportunity...

Brent Quebman
Executive Director
www.energyQue.com

Sat, 07/26/2008 - 11:04 — Anonymous

Dedicated Solar Panels

What about dedicated solar panels and special inverters just for the plug in?
Could possibly also tie a wind or hydro generator directly into the system.
Maybe tie into the grid with this system to get credit for those cloudy and no wind days.
Wouldn't it be nice to drive for free (excluding maintenance costs)most of the year??
Now if we could just see some decent tax incentives in this regards or is this too utopian of an idea?

Sat, 07/26/2008 - 13:05 — Anonymous

Excellent Article (Follow-Up)

Sorry, I screwed up the hyperlink to my online article "The New American Crisis". This one should work. Thanks, again for your terrific article.

Mon, 07/28/2008 - 09:46 — Anonymous

Relax fella, give it a chance.

The news that electric cars will hit the streets en masse is a VERY VERY GOOD THING.

Stop fretting about the details, even the Model T lacked air conditioning and power windows.

Give the technology a chance before all the armchair QB's try to tear it down. Besides, do you have a better choice other then a bike.

As for batteries and charging, yes, solar will help as will wind. Also you can "fill batts right at the utility for large scale shipping. I was once told, we lose about 50% of the electricity just transmitti8n it over long distance.

This is a fanatastic breakthrough which will only get better as storage devices come down in price and up in performance. The TESLA specs are exactly whats needed for urban vehicles.

Mon, 07/28/2008 - 11:00 — Anonymous

How to eliminate the plug from plug-in cars

Technologies will soon be in production that eliminate the need to plug in to recharge electric cars.

This revolution can turn future cars into power plants when parked.

See our website: magneticpowerinc.com

The energy sources have never before been utilized in practical systems.

They are abundant, renewable, available everywhere, and make possible inexpensive electric and mechanical power.

Mark Goldes
Chairman, Magnetic Power Inc.

Fri, 08/08/2008 - 10:30 — Anonymous

Been There Done That

These are all questions that Shai Agassi has answered, a long time ago. Project Better Place is implementing the EV revolution in Israel, Denmark, amongst other locations right now. You need only take a trip across town to Silicon Valley, where Mr. Agassi is HQ'd, to understand these issues.