Gherardo Corsini, director of electric vehicle implementation at General Motors? Opel/Vauxhall unit, made his way to Geneva from Germany more quietly than most. He was at the wheel of a prototype of the Opel Ampera. “Getting lots of curious looks at the rest area,” one of Corsini’s passengers, Dietmar Thate, manager of social media for Opel, tweeted after the car made a short stop. The hybrid car, which was on display at the Geneva International Motor Show, is designed to run on batteries for about 60 km or 35 miles, before a gasoline-powered generator kicks in for longer trips.
Opel has displayed the Ampera at previous auto shows. But this time, the message?underscored by Corsini’s 560-km road trip?is that the darn thing actually works.
One of the big themes of the Geneva show, which is on till March 14, is that electric-powered vehicles are moving inexorably from prototypes to actual production?whether the auto-buying public is ready or not. “The time is past when companies only displayed studies,” said Ferdinand Dudenh?ffer, director of the Centre for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Duisburg, Germany. “Now the industry is moving toward hard facts.”
But the shift toward electric vehicles also represents a huge leap of faith for the automakers, especially as they emerge from a devastating industry downturn. To be able to produce electric cars in a few years, they must invest billions now without knowing how large the market will be.
In addition, there is no consensus on what kind of technology will prevail. The possibilities include pure battery power, some combination of batteries and internal combustion engines and more exotic solutions like hydrogen fuel cells.
“Right now, car companies don’t quite know what technology to bet on,” said Peter Wells, co-director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Wales. “It’s probably not safe to bet on just one.”
Pushed by governments eager to do something about global warming and fearful of missing a technology shift, companies are moving ahead anyway.
Opel, which already has its hands full trying to regain market share in Europe from Volkswagen and Ford, is scheduled to start commercial production of the Ampera?a cousin of the Chevrolet Volt?near the end of next year in R?sselsheim, Germany. BMW said last week that it would produce an electric vehicle made partly with lightweight carbon fiber at its existing plant in Leipzig, with market introduction no later than 2015.
Toyota, even as it struggles to repair a reputation battered by unintended acceleration in some models, is betting on the latest prototype of its plug-in Prius hybrid in Geneva. The car will be able to travel 25 km solely on battery power and is expected to hit the market in 2011. A few all-electric cars are already on the market or nearly so in limited numbers. And some industry experts believe that such vehicles present an opportunity for carmakers to create a new market among well-heeled, environmentally conscious buyers. “Interesting customer segments are waiting desperately in some cases for these products,” said Gregor Matthies, a partner at the consultant Bain & Co in Munich.
In November, Daimler began producing small numbers of battery-powered versions of its two-seat Smart car in Hambach, France. The company has said it plans to produce 20,000 a year, beginning in 2012. Mitsubishi’s MiEV, already in Japanese showrooms, is scheduled to be available in Europe later this year. Nissan plans to introduce its Leaf in the United States, Europe and Japan in December.
Even sports car makers, bastions of internal combustion, are moving tentatively toward electric power. Porsche is showing a hybrid version of its Cayenne sport utility vehicle, developed with Volkswagen, in Geneva. The car, to go on sale in the autumn, is capable of running solely on battery power for short periods. And Ferrari will show a prototype hybrid Italian stallion. The carmakers can take some reassurance from the strong demand for hybrids, which many analysts see as a way station on the road to all-electric vehicles. Sales of hybrids rose 33% last year to 7,00,000 worldwide, even as the overall market dived, according to SBI Energy, a market research firm in Rockville, Maryland. Japan accounted for half the hybrid sales and the United States for most of the rest.
The best thing that could happen to electric-car development might be a recovery in the market for conventional gasoline and diesel autos. That would give the big carmakers more money to invest in research. Dudenh?ffer of the University of Duisburg-Essen is optimistic, predicting a 5.7% increase in sales this year to 56 million vehicles worldwide. That is still well below sales in 2007 of 58.8 million. Most of the growth will come from Asia and the United States.