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It looks as though Tesla Motors will file for an Initial Public Offering of its stock very soon. Some are excited by this news; others skeptical. In a way, it doesn’t make sense. As LeftLane said,

Flush with cash, it’s unclear why Tesla is pushing forward with an IPO at this time. The company has said it has more than enough funding to complete development of its Model S luxury sedan and construct a plant to build it. But given CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious tendencies (he’s also the founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and SolarCity), we wouldn’t be surprised if the company is considering other projects.

It also seems this may be the time to capitalize on the company’s cash position and the green car techno-boom, such as it is. The LA Times feels the “overall market for new stock offerings has been flourishing lately,” and a successful IPO would surely put Tesla on the map. It would be the first U.S. auto IPO since Ford went public in 1956. A Reuters piece suggests that the allure of such a company for venture funds is considerable, and Tesla has already attracted some high-profile investors, not to mention $465 million in low-cost government loans.

The big drawing card, I think, is not just the Model S (starting at $49,900, after a federal tax credit of $7,500). It’s the 2010 Roadster (above), whose incredible performance has enticed some 700 buyers to shell out $109,000 a copy. With add-ons that any fool would add on, the total can easily come to over $150 K. Scott Doggett of Edmunds.com gave one a good thrashing in the Marin (Calif.) hills. If you read his piece, you’ll want one, guaranteed.

So the IPO, if it comes, should appeal through Tesla’s ability to produce a mid-price, appealing luxo sedan and a state-of-the-art electric sports car for the well-heeled. The fact that the company claims great advances in battery technology will also help.

Tesla is going to have stiff competition from Nissan (the Leaf) and GM (the Volt), among others. Will its niche status enable it to survive and prosper? Give us your thoughts.

—jgoods

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The auto writers are crowing about Cadillac’s decision to produce the Converj, the Volt-derived plug-in concept car, though its appearance will be “a few years” down the road. It sounds like a smart move. Cadillac sales are way down (39.2 percent this year), and the sharp-edged Converj will possibly inject some life into the moribund brand. After CTS-V, what?

Luxury buyers will thus be asked to kick in to help GM defray the cost of the lithium-ion battery packs (which may run $10-12,000 for the Volt). My bet is that they will because the Converj—if it looks like the concept (as Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said it would)—will become the first dramatically styled car that GM has produced in a very long time. And the performance, one assumes, will be more than adequate.

Performance is the name of BMW’s game with the 2010 ActiveHybrid X6. According to John Voelcker of Green Car Reports, the world’s most powerful hybrid doesn’t drive at all like a hybrid. The technical details are kind of amazing, and the car performs, achieving 62 mph in 5.6 seconds (equivalent to the xDrive 50i). Freeway driving produces around 21 mpg, and the ride and handling, says John, are “smooth” and “tenaciously gripping.”

The downside of the vehicle is clearly its dog-eat-dog looks and the fact that it will set you back about $90 large or more. Oh well, that’s what it costs to buy nearly three tons of high-performance hybrid.

As tgriffith told you, SEMA produced a bunch of weird cars, as it always does. This 3-wheeler is called the eVaro, in development by Future Vehicle Technologies since 2006. Plug it in for up to 90 miles of travel, and do 0-60 in under 5 seconds (probably not both at the same time). The rated mpg is anywhere from 92 to 275. Your mileage may vary. They want to sell 10,000 of these things, which seems a mite ambitious, but it is truly an advanced concept.

Finally, it seems that hybrid sales really stepped out in October, beating the car market as a whole substantially. Details are on Edmunds’ Green Car Advisor:

Sales of Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Toyota hybrids were up 12.1 percent, while sales of conventionally powered cars and trucks were flat. The one-month picture was even rosier, as October hybrid sales jumped 22.5 percent from September’s, versus a 12.1 percent hike in sales of conventional models.

Autoblog Green carried an interesting piece covering “The Business of Plugging In” conference in Detroit. Despite persistent high battery cost and infrastructure problems, the future looks bright, especially for hybrids.

[J.D.] Power’s good-news predictions: the number of hybrid models available in the U.S. will increase from 22 today to more than 100 by 2015, and the number of “pure” (battery only) EV models will swell from one (the Tesla roadster) to at least 13 by 2012. Bad news for pure EV fans: Power says just 0.5 percent of sales (fewer than 100K units) will be pure EVs by 2015.

This doesn’t account, however, for any breakthrough in battery technology which, I’m betting, will happen within two years.

Anyone want to challenge that two-year prediction? Battery technology will improve markedly and relatively soon: Do you agree?

—jgoods

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The new BMW ActiveHybrid 7 was recently spotted by an alert Autoweek reader in Los Angeles. Car and Driver gave it a skeptical first-drive review, suggesting (without saying so exactly) that this is a somewhat ridiculous, redundant car in the BMW lineup.

What makes the ActiveHybrid 7 strange is BMW’s boast that it is the quickest hybrid sedan on the market. If speed is the objective, we’re not sure why a hybrid is the answer. Likewise, if fuel economy is the end goal, tuning the twin-turbo V-8 gas engine for an additional 40 hp and 30 lb-ft of torque seems silly. However, if a 7-series customer believes he needs a car more powerful than the 750i but doesn’t want to step up to the 12-cylinder 760Li—which we think he should—and also wants 15 percent or so better fuel economy, BMW has just the model.

Looking at the many entrants in the rarefied-price stratum of hybrids, the question we finally ask is “Why?” Particularly since the BMW goes head to head with the Lexus LS600h L, available now for at least two years. Why would one spend all that money to get a car that offers minimal performance and fuel economy advantages? To be hybrid hip, I guess.

Fisker has a different idea. They don’t want to build $110,000 BMW or Lexus-type hybrids but “affordable” plug-ins. We wrote last week that they were in negotiation for the old GM factory in Wilmington, Delaware, where they will reportedly build in three years a “family-oriented plug-in hybrid sedan that will come in at around $40K” after federal tax credits. The Karma S sedan (right) will start at $87,000. CEO Henrik Fisker isn’t all that concerned about engines. He told Autoweek that he “envisions a future where hybrids will get their own niche powerplants, specially tuned to the need of alternative technologies. A hybrid for example, probably doesn’t need to rev to 8,000 rpm.”

Fisker got a very good deal from a Department of Energy grant to buy and refurbish this plant, and that surely will give the company a leg up on the competition. Tesla just received a $29 million tax break from the state of California, which makes that state the likely home for the company’s future production.

Another stimulus, this one for electric car production, has come to Seattle to build a network of more than 2,000 car charging stations. “By December 2010, drivers in Seattle should be able to buy mass-produced, plug-in electrics that create no emissions and run for pennies a mile.” And the state has aggressively pursued not only federal money, which will fund this effort, but also the efforts of many hi-tech businesses that are greening up.

Another reason is that lots of “Generation Y” folks live in the Northwest, and they are partial not only to hybrid powertrains, but also to considering the purchase of Chinese or Indian brands of hybrids. This according to a study by AutoPacific reported in egmCarTech. If they are really hot for hybrids, they would do well to use the Hybrid Payback Calculator, which you can download here. It helps you determine whether the cost of a hybrid is really worth it. You enter in the car’s cost, miles per gallon, price per gallon of gas, and the estimated miles you drive in a month. Clever, eh? Maybe a prospective BMW ActiveHybrid 7 purchaser could use one.

What’s your opinion on high-priced hybrids? Are they worth it—and to whom?

—jgoods

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With a population of 20 million growing at 2 percent a year, Mexico City has long been the smog capital of the hemisphere. It’s the third-largest urban area in the world and has been fighting air pollution with greater and lesser success for years. At the heart of the problem, of course, is the automobile, and specifically the proliferation of old, stinky, polluting taxis.

Now we have a far-out proposal from industrial designer Alberto Villareal for a fuel-cell-powered, drive-by-wire, solar-paneled (on the roof) taxi called MX-Libris (above), which may be just radical enough to do the job. The car won the Red Dot Design Award in 2008, and two Mexican firms have shown interest. Funding would come from the Centro de Transporte Sustentable, which promotes green transport. Go, Alberto!

Toyota FT-EV-II

Why do most electric cars look so ugly and commonplace? Do their designers deliberately turn out plug-ugly plug-ins because of some kind of group-think? These and other questions are delightfully addressed by Alice Rawsthorn in a New York Times piece. They are boring and ugly, she says, because of the problems inherent in new-car design, the reluctance of the industry to experiment and take chances, and the fears engendered by the huge investments required. As ever, however, there can be no reward without risk. Tesla has done it. Why can’t others?

New (U.S.?) Mazda 2

The Japanese want to take the lead in green car technology and production, and they are making noises as if they can and will do it. In particular, Mazda is working on the feasibility of diesels for the U.S. and, not surprisingly, they are looking at VW’s ability to market the diesel here with some success. The Mazda2 might be a diesel candidate, and there has been much speculation on what the 2008 World Car of the Year will look like, what will power it, etc., when it comes here. The car will get to the U.S. most likely in late 2010.

Honda CEO Takanobu Ito spoke out last week to a group of journalists (we mentioned it here) on Honda’s commitment to hybrids, EVs, fuel cells, and a really green, i.e., hydrogen-powered, sports car, “not like the Lexus” (the V10-powered, $375,000 Lexus LFA supercar). Plans include hybrids for the larger Honda models (Accord, etc.), but all this will take time. In any case, the CR-Z is coming soon, and that is good news.

Proof that green technology is catching on comes with the increasing competition for manufacturing facilities. Reva, the Indian carmaker, announced it was opening a plant in upstate New York; the Nissan Leaf will be made in Tennessee as well as Japan; and Fisker is redeveloping a GM plant near Wilmington, which event will naturally be announced by Delaware arch-booster Vice President Joe Biden.

Finally, we were caught up last week by a Wall Street Journal piece on “Five Technologies That Could Change Everything.” One of these is truly pie in the sky (space-based solar power panels), and another would trap and bury CO2 underground. The rest are: advanced car batteries, utility storage, and next-gen biofuels. Each clearly involves the concept of storage, which, as all car gurus know, is what finally, instrumentally, enables our vehicles to move. The costs and engineering challenges will be enormous, but in the end what choice do we really have but to move ahead? Just where to put the bets down will be the first problem.

How about letting us know what kinds of energy topics you would like to see covered in future Green Updates? Please leave us a comment.

—jgoods

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“Sources” close to Panasonic have been telling the world that it has better and much cheaper batteries on tap for Tesla’s Model S sedan, to go into production in late 2011, but it may not be able to supply them before 2013-14! Nor is it clear what firm will supply the initial batteries for the car.

The story, briefly reported on Autobloggreen, confused the hell out of me, so I looked at another source on GreenBeat, which explained things as follows. Last December, Panasonic bought out Sanyo, one of the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery producers. The news is that Panasonic has found a way to bind those kinds of batteries used in personal computers to give the car greater range and (perhaps) reliability. There is some question about the latter, as the comments on the Autobloggreen story reveal. Anyhow,

the Model S will minimally require battery packs of 5,500 lithium-ion cells, capable of carrying the car 160 miles per charge, at least. Tesla says 8,000-cell upgrades will also be available to push this range to 230 or 300 miles.

Given the state of the art, that would be a tremendous accomplishment, and the batteries reputedly would cost about half what they do now.

News has also been selectively leaking about Chrysler’s presumed-dead ENVI plan, which presently includes four EVs: the Dodge Circuit (shown here), two Jeeps, and the Town & Country. At least one of these cars will go forward, said Fiat executive and Chrysler board member Alfredo Altavilla, yesterday. Of course it has to be the Dodge Circuit: Who wants an electric Town & Country or a couple of tanky Jeeps filled with batteries to schlep the kids?

Subaru is showing pictures of its gullwing hybrid AWD Tourer concept that will be seen in the flesh at the Tokyo Motor Show. The company has been working for some time on this technology, and they could sure use a follow-on to the SVX, as their image has become stodgier and stodgier.

Powered by a 2.0-liter turbo, direct-injected boxer four, the Tourer uses two electric motors, the typical (we think) l-i battery pack, and embodies some elements that may well go into production. Good. We’re waiting.

And now from China comes Green Tech, opening a $6.5 billion plant in Tunica County, Mississippi, to employ 4,500 people and produce up to 250,000 cars—three hybrids and one EV. Well, at least that’s what they are telling the press.

Owned by Chinese businessman Xiaolin “Charles” Wang, GreenTech pulled the cover off of a four-door midsize hybrid built to get 50 mpg, an all-electric car, a high-efficiency gas-powered subcompact designed to get 65 mpg, and a hybrid sports coupe that the company says will get 45 mpg and go 0-60 in less than 5.9 seconds.

We say good luck, Charles, even though you chose Harrah’s Casino for the unveiling. The Chinese grin on the sedan doesn’t look as good as the Mustang-ish sports car, but you couldn’t find a better location than Tunica County.

Battery fans: Does the Panasonic announcement really mean anything at this stage? Drop a comment on us.

—jgoods

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Unless we’re all dead in two years—more likely for some of us than others—we can expect to see the Audi e-tron on the road, another entry into the silly EV supercar sweepstakes. Roomier, bigger, heavier, and very likely much more expensive than the Tesla Roadster (one of its presumed competitors), the e-tron is another excuse for Audi to get press on a car that few will buy and whose technology will filter down to the real world in perhaps six years, if it filters at all. The e-tron is a two-seater carrying lots of batteries and four electric motors. The press machine says it gets up to 62 mph in 4.8 seconds with a range of about 150 miles.

Back in the real world of developing hybrids, there is other, more relevant news. Ford has got a bunch of hybrid Escape and Fusion taxis on the streets of San Francisco, and they seem to be doing well, plus gaining customer approval. Take a look.

If you’re not sure and need reasons to consider buying a hybrid, here are five reasons to buy and five reasons not to buy. Basically, the financial benefits aren’t really here yet, even with hefty government tax rebates. But the environmental benefits will outweigh that factor for some, perhaps many. We hope so.

Mazda is late to the green ballgame and hopes to play catch-up by raising up to $1.1 billion in capital for new, presumably hybrid, technology. The company is way behind the curve, since Ford has sold its controlling interest, and Mazda, despite work to make its IC engines more efficient, can’t compete on those alone. If the company wants to zoom-zoom in future Japanese and U.S. markets, it needs this investment badly.

BMW must be awash in money, since it creates more crazy experimental vehicles (look at the Vision EfficientDynamics concept it showed in Frankfurt) than most any other automaker. This one, called the Lovos, has 260 photovoltaic cells in scaly flaps that are positioned down to absorb solar power, up to air-brake the car. Designed by a 24-year-old grad student in Germany, it looks like something that could have come from Hasbro’s R&D lab. Or from a mutant alligator.

On a somewhat more practical note, we have the Coda, an all-electric sedan that seats five, has an 85-mph top speed, and will sell for under $30,000. This one won’t win any beauty contests, but its selling point is a “revolutionary” battery system, developed with a Chinese firm. The full story is here. Look for delivery in late 2010. These guys sound serious.

Finally, here’s a city car called the Option 1, just shown by Toronto Electric, that looks not only functional but stylish. And the specs sound good. It’s more than your typical plug-in neighborhood cruiser,

with a top speed of about 60 mph and a roll cage under the fiberglass skin in case the worst should happen. Equipped with 27 kWh of batteries from Valence, range is calculated to be 130 miles. Its Azure Dynamics 49kW AC motor can bring it from a standstill to 37 mph (60 kph) in four seconds, quick enough for the environment its [sic] meant to be driven in. As with many of its recent electric friends, the Option 1 has an LED touch-screen to offer GPS services and Google maps while a separate LED is used to serve as the instrument panel.

As with so many other entrants in this segment, the route to full financing, development, and distribution (not to mention marketing), will be fraught with stumbling blocks, hazards, and potholes. But this little EV, we think, is one to watch.

Have you seen or heard about any other EVs that look promising? Put in a comment and tell us about it.

—jgoods

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We thought it would be worthwhile to give you a weekly update on what’s happening in the world of green cars—by which we mean hybrids, diesels (bio- and others), electrics of various stripes—all energy-efficient vehicles, in other words. So your humble correspondent has taken on the daunting task of providing news, resources, websites, and commentary in an area which right now is just exploding.

The big news this week has to be the spectacular plug-in hybrid 2+2 BMW Vision EfficientDynamics concept, powered by a 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbodiesel and twin electric motors. One motor, placed between the engine and transmission, couples with a second that drives the front wheels. Net output is 356 hp and 590 lb-ft of torque. The company claims 0-62 mph in 4.8 seconds and 62.6 combined mpg. We claim to be impressed.

The only U.S. car we can compare it to is the Volt, which is like comparing a hog to a racehorse. Both cars will use lithium polymer battery systems, but BMW’s is lighter and more efficient, recharging on 220-volt current in just 2.5 hours. There’s a good discussion here of the technology involved.

Unlike the Volt, which is designed to give its full performance from the electric drive system, the BMW concept gets its full capability from the blended power delivery. The concept is able to run about 31 miles on electricity alone and complete the NEDC test procedure on electricity. The efficiency of the diesel engine means that the 6.6 gallon tank can propel the car another 400 miles. The electrical energy consumption of the concept is 28.16 kWh/100 miles which compares to the claimed 25 kWh/100 miles for the Volt.

Not only is it gorgeous (though you can bet a production version won’t look quite like this), but the car represents a kind of engineering prowess that we just don’t seem able to master here in the U.S. With a few exceptions, the Asians and Europeans are clearly beating us to the punch.

The most viable green car prototypes developing here seem to be coming from Tesla and Fisker. The former company claims that its Model S (right) electric sedan in one year will use three new battery packs to give it a range of 300 miles before recharge. Present batteries give 165 and 230 miles of range. The Model S will become real, we hope, for $57,400 (and a $7,500 federal tax credit) in late 2011. But there’s a whole lot of “iffiness” with this car.

Fisker’s Karma (right) will cost anywhere from $87,900 to $104,000, depending on model, and seems to be in some ways further along than the Tesla S. Henrik Fisker told Autopia he wants to build 100,000 cars a year and has ambitious plans to do so. The car was recently seen at the Rolex Monterey Historic Races and did one lap. Stepping out, Henrik! The Karma seems like basically Volt technology in a much more attractive package.

Other News from Abroad

Chinese automaker BYD says it will bring an all-electric EV sedan to the U.S. next year. The car will cost around $40,000, seat five, and have a 250-mile range. Warren Buffet is an investor.

The Japanese are not idle. Nissan’s Leaf, as tgriffith told us, is promised for the U.S. in 2010. Honda, it was reported, has committed to selling electric vehicles in the U.S. “early in the next decade,” which is surely the loosest of commitments, but they will have an enormous market here. Last week there was noise about some kind of minicar coming by 2015.

Finally, we learned that the German government plans to put $705 million into electric vehicle technology, and you can bet that will be the tip of the iceberg. Besides BMW, Volkswagen aims to have its first all-electric cars on the market in 2013. The lesson in all this? Where is the U.S.?

How are we going to play catch-up to the rest of the world in creating outstanding electric car technology? Give us your thoughts.

—jgoods

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Wait a minute, a car that gets 230 mpg in the city—as claimed by General Motors? Well, you’ve got to read the fine print, Jack, as the story has gotten played out all over the web, courtesy of GM’s press machine.

Is it too good to be true? The Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t verified the claim, as it hasn’t actually tested the Volt. And there’s debate about EPA’s testing procedures, its conclusions, and most of all, its methods for rating plug-in hybrids, or EVs. The agency is still working on the methodology, but there is much skepticism afoot. Check out the story and comments here on the Car Tech Blog, for example.

The Volt, as you may remember, has a 100-kilowatt electric motor, a lithium-ion battery to power it, and a 1.4-liter gasoline engine driving a generator to run the electric motor as the battery discharges. You plug in at night for a complete battery recharge at minimal cost. But—and it’s a big “but”—the car will cost at least $40,000, and you can buy a lot of $3.00 gas for the difference between that and a Prius’ cost. Someone calculated you would have to drive 113,000 miles to make up the price difference. And there are other factors.

Autopia mentioned some of these, quoting a former Tesla exec (no axe to grind here?) who talked about the difficulty in measuring “energy equivalents,” e.g., batteries, house current, power losses, gasoline—not to mention driving cycles. The Volt can run 40 miles before the engine kicks in, so if your commute is less than that, you’ve achieved infinite mpg, not counting use of other resources. Well, that is impressive.

The Tesla exec, Darryl Siry, says in his blog that GM’s 230-mpg claim

isn’t an “untruth”, as long as the main thing you are concerned about is the burning of gasoline as a resource, as opposed to the actual energy efficiency of the system. The problem is that this number will be broadly discussed as a comparison to other cars, particularly the Prius. People will improperly conclude that the Volt is about 5 times more efficient that [sic] the Prius, which simply isn’t true.

So why is GM making so much noise about its admittedly impressive but unverifiable estimate? Well, to co-opt the Prius, of course. And Siry is right when he says it’s also because of the increasingly demanding CAFÉ standards. GM will get a lot of mileage off their 230-mpg claim, even as it’s challenged.

Is the Volt’s claimed 230 mpg more GM marketing hype—or something to celebrate? Let us have your opinion.

—jgoods

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Forget Tesla.

Forget Nissan’s ambitious electric vehicle plans.

Mercedes wants to build an electric Gullwing supercar? Let ‘em cater to the super rich.

Take the Chevy Volt’s 40-mile range and laugh in its face.

In fact, forget all the corporate EV hype and overnight-recharging technology.

I’m looking to a group of college students to solve the electric-vehicle conundrum of creating an EV with an extended driving range and a quick recharge.

Check this out: A student-built electric car can fully recharge in just ten minutes, travel 200 miles on a charge, and do the 0-60 run in just 9 seconds. A group from MIT (naturally) took a 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid and then added 7,905 lithium iron-phosphate batteries to achieve the goal of creating a little something they call rapid recharge. So far, the big manufacturers haven’t been able to do what these college folks did.

Get this technology into mass production, and bingo, we can put a check mark next to the “create electric vehicle” box and move on to the next big innovation. Come on MIT – we want flying cars next!

Should we rely on auto manufacturers to bring us electric vehicles, or should we be open to looking at college campuses, too?

-tgriffith

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Finally, Ford gets rewarded for staying out of bankruptcy. Today it got a $5.9 billion loan from the Department of Energy to develop more fuel-efficient cars. Nissan got $1.6 billion, and Tesla (yes, Tesla) got $465 million—all coming out of a $25 billion pot to help car companies retool and get green.

GM and Chrysler got nothing, as they were not “financially viable,” per the terms of the loans.

Reportedly, Ford will use its money to “upgrade factories in five Midwest states to produce 13 fuel-efficient vehicles.” Nissan will build a new battery facility and advanced vehicles in Smyrna, Tennessee. Tesla will build electric vehicles (presumably the new Model S, below) and powertrains in Silicon Valley.

Interesting coincidence: $5.9 billion is the same amount Ford reported losing in its fourth-quarter 2008 report. GM lost that amount in its first quarter of this year. This activity is what the media calls “burning through cash,” and you’ll note that nobody rounds up to $6 billion.

Did these firms deserve it? Should other, smaller firms have gotten a piece of the pie? Give us your opinion, please.

—jgoods

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