YOU HAVE TO HAVE STANDARDS
Around the battery are novel hardware components. The pack has five connectors running from it -- one for cooling, one for heating, a third for charging, a fourth for monitoring the car's performance, and the last one for an onboard information and entertainment system. Each connector, cable, and component represents a race to create a cross-industry standard; each participant in each race has the potential to turn an innovation into a marketmaker.
Consider the lowly plug, the basic connection to the grid. A Japanese company called Yazaki developed a new design for recharging from virtually any wiring up to 240 volts. (The Volt will recharge in eight to 10 hours at 110 volts, in three hours at 220.) The design is now supported by all OEMs with electric cars in the pipeline, including Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla. It carries the name SAE J1772. This may seem a humdrum development, but it is hardly that: By comparison, cell-phone makers agreed only this past June, and under pressure from the European Union, to a standard for charging handsets through a micro-USB cable.
Ultimately, SAE J1772 will stimulate development of infrastructure companies of all shapes and sizes: installation of metered outlets in home garages, say, or even robotic solutions. Think of the way, back in 1993, the EPA mandated that the port -- the interface connector -- to the engine's main computer be of a standard size, so that every mechanic's scanner could be manufactured and programmed to handle all cars. The goal was to make it possible for local garages to check cars for a yearly roadworthiness sticker. But the standard also reinvigorated competition in after-warranty car repair, because it gave those local garages access to any car's digital systems. Today, 70 percent of such repairs are handled by independent shops.
More immediately, SAE J1772 is firming up the position of start-ups focusing on recharging stations in public areas such as apartment blocks, airports, and supermarket parking lots -- companies like Coulomb Technologies and AeroVironment, both based in California. "There are 247 million motor vehicles in the U.S. but only 54 million garages," Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb, tells me. "Fifty-one percent of all San Franciscans park their car on the street overnight. There are six times as many cars as there are home garages."
Lowenthal, a former Cisco executive, closed a first round of funding in January -- $3.75 million with a German venture fund -- and he has three term sheets for a $10 million second round. At this early stage, Coulomb claims 57 customers worldwide for its ChargePoint system, including the municipal governments in San Jose, California; Nashville; and Amsterdam; and companies like McDonald's. Business is doubling from quarter to quarter. "The key to our infrastructure and our venture funding is our network software applications," Lowenthal says. "Our chargers are smart enough to consolidate payment from subscribers to all the various power companies, or tell drivers over their phones where they can find incentive pricing, and so forth."
Finally, Volt-like cars will require a raft of components specific to the blend of engineering decisions embodied in range extension. Think of the onboard engine that will have to be monitored as the battery runs down or started in below-zero temperatures to warm the pack for a time. Or think of the sound it makes as the vehicle comes to a stop. If the engine is charging the battery, not powering the drivetrain, it could well be roaring uninterrupted, like a home generator, unless calibrated to the speed of the car. And there are going to be new components fit for all electric cars, even those without an onboard engine. "You want a new generation of regenerative brakes that capture energy when you apply the pedal," says Frank Weber, GM's global chief engineer for electric vehicles. "You want a sound system that worries about how much energy it is drawing. In conventional cars, air-conditioning systems were driven by belts. So were hydraulic brakes and steering mechanisms. Heaters borrowed from radiators. Now they all need new 'power dynamic' components -- electric motors for everything. None of these components can be developed by GM alone or will be for GM alone. We have to work closely with new, smart suppliers. As with ABS brakes, they'll start out with an add-on component, but they'll eventually turn to the integrations of chips, software, and new materials. Each generation will get cheaper and more robust."
Yet for all these innovations, the electric car's hardware will not really be where the action is. The Volt's most important new component will be a huge, evolving chunk of software, built up from federated sources, governing what Weber calls the car's "dialogue with the driver." Managing the cloud of information running in the car's digital circuits -- balancing the power for acceleration against the duration of charge, say, or locating traffic-free routes to inexpensive charging stations -- will be the Holy Grail. Posawatz anticipates the "connected car," beginning with an overarching operating system that monitors and communicates the car's charging needs, component faults, position, etc., to various service providers while simultaneously networking drivers to the Web. "Our car -- but I'm sure all electric cars -- will aim to create a seamless experience for the driver as he or she moves from the office or home to the road," says Posawatz. "We want charging, music, phone, GPS, and so forth to all appear in a kind of dynamic cockpit. The driver shouldn't have to fuss with the telecommunications platforms that provide the integration."
Seamlessness will require new communications standards. One, provisionally called SAE J2847, will shape communication between cars and the grid. Another, Smart Energy Profile, or SEP 2.0, will guide an application layer managing the efficiency, usage, and price of power. "We are focusing on the car and building in the capacity to roll up charging data, which can be placed at the door of the power company," Posawatz says. But GM is not committing to any communications standard just yet -- and for good reason. Volts are being designed to nest in GM's proprietary, satellite-based telecommunications platform, OnStar, which may prove GM's most underleveraged asset -- indeed, the company's chance to create a bundled operating and telecommunications system. OnStar already handles onboard monitoring of critical diagnostic codes and sends out 3.5 million e-mails a month to customers about the performance of their components. It responds to 2,000 collisions a month.
