Micro Hybrids: Going Green One Step At A Time

Electric vehicle is the latest and the greatest green technology currently available in the automotive sector. But despite all efforts, incentives and subsidies, electric vehicles remain out of the reach of an average consumer. In my previous blog posts, I have written about technologies such as plug-in hybrids, hybrids, turbo charged engines and micro-hybrids. This article will take a closer look into micro-hybrids and why I think that is the best technology for the current time.

In my opinion, the best technology is the one which makes a mass impact. You can always create a great prototype which is extremely efficient but it is difficult to create a commercial product for the mass market. Such prototype technologies are good for developing future products and defining future product trends but are not suitable for current needs. Considering these factors, I think "micro-hybrids" will be the best technology for current times.

When I talk about micro-hybrids, I am talking about vehicles with small battery packs with regenerative braking, engine start-stop and turbo charger engine technologies. Combination of these three technologies will provide green-house-gas emission reduction and operational cost savings. It will also provide a smaller payback period than electric vehicles or plugin electric vehicles. In the previous post "Efficiency: The Underlying Trend", I briefly wrote about micro-hybrid technologies and also explained why I feel these technologies are important.

Turbo Charged, Direct Fuel Injection Engines: By using high efficiency turbo charged, direct fuel injection engines, the car manufacturer can easily downsize the engine. Instead of using a 1.6 Liter gasoline engine to drive a small sedan, the automaker can use a 1.2 liter turbo charged engine producing the same power output but using less gasoline. As car needs less fuel, it will emit less carbon dioxide and will have a lower operation cost.

Engine Start-Stop Technology:  The technology allows the car to shut off the engine when it comes to a halt in the city traffic and when you put your foot on the accelerator peddle, the engine starts automatically. It eliminates the engine idling fuel consumption, eliminates particulate matter emissions, effectively improves efficiency and reduces fuel costs. The challenge is to keep air-conditioning, heater and auxiliary power systems running. Hence this technology needs bigger battery pack and independent air handling technologies. Some micro-hybrids cut off the air-conditioning systems when the engine shuts off which is not a good design as consumers will not choose such products. Developing a slightly bigger battery pack, electrically operated compressor and heat storage tank for heater application in addition to start-stop technology will match the current comfort level requirement of the consumer.

Regenerative Braking: This technology uses generators which capture the energy from braking and charges the larger battery packs. This allows the vehicle to capture kinetic energy which would have otherwise wasted as brake-pad wear or heat. All hybrids and electric vehicles have this capability but using this technology on a small scale without requirement of high-power electronics and motor will reduce the cost of technology. For example, Nissan Leaf has a 80kW motor which is also used to capture the energy from braking. Instead of using 80kW motor, smaller 5kW system can be used to capture partial braking energy which will help charge the batteries. This motor will not be used to propel the car but will be used only to capture the braking energy. This will allow reduction in the cost of the system and make it more attractive to the average consumer.

These three technologies combined together can add significant efficiency to current cars. I am excited about these technologies because the cost and possibility of the mass deployment. The incremental cost of adding these technologies to existing car models is 10 to 15%. With increasing gasoline prices, the payback period on these technologies will be far less than those on electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. I am a big fan of electric vehicles and believe that the electric vehicle is the practical long term future but in the short term these technologies will help us get closer to our goals of emission control and cost savings.

Many market surveys have shown that owners of Nissan Leaf were prior owners of hybrid vehicles such as Toyota Prius and Honda Insight. Technologies mentioned above can act as a catalyst to the consumer interest in zero-emission technology and will help improve the awareness about green technologies.

Focus :- Start-ups need to focus

I like to track developments in the start-up world and while doing that, I come across many interesting start-up companies. Electric vehicles, web technologies, mobile applications and many other innovative ideas are introduced by start-up companies every year. I have observed that many start-ups begin their journey with a unique customer problem. Start-ups do a wonderful job in identifying customer needs but then sometimes they try to do too much too soon. Companies lose focus and start solving many problems at the same time. Mentors and Angel investors do advice start-ups to have a laser sharp focus, but I think the definition of focus is not clear. I have read many articles on web, advising early stage companies to have a laser sharp focus on products and customer problems. These articles also suggest that start-up companies should not waste their energy on pursuing activities which are not core to their mission. I see a problem with this approach, because focus can also make you irrelevant. Defining the meaning of "focus" is very important and I am trying to come up with my understanding of focus.

In my opinion, start-up companies should focus on a single customer problem they wish to solve. For example if any company is solving a problem X then it should only focus on solving that problem. Combining solutions for different customer problems into one product is just going to make your product expensive and unsuitable for the mass market deployment. So according to me, the focus should be on the problem the company is trying to solve and not on products, sales and market segments.  Let me give you an example, let us imagine a start-up company "XYZ auto" '(I am not suggesting any company here but my thought was influenced by one company I came across in real world) is trying to solve a mobility problem of senior citizens and differently-able  people. They have created a nice innovative product to help people move from point A to point B without hassles. Now the primary problem the company solves is "Mobility". So the company should only focus on solving that problem. Now while designing the product, the company will have many choices such as, whether to use high end material, whether to use electric batteries instead of gasoline engine and whether to have low speed or high speed vehicle etc. The company should choose the technology and the product design which effectively solves the primary problem and once they have chosen the technology for that, the next step should be to cut costs, make the product available to entire market and make it affordable for entire target audience. There may be different opinions of experts on this topic, but for me, solving the customer problem and making the product available to everyone who faces that problem is far more important than making cool product. Profitability is important but that should never be the driver for the product design decisions in the beginning.

Reason why I think defining the focus is important, because start-ups face a huge risk of being irrelevant. The technology is reshaping landscapes of all industries. If the start-up is focusing on some technology without paying attention or without evaluating different options, then there is a huge risk of failure. Many people believe that start-ups should never diversify as it takes more money, efforts and time to diversify. But I think start-ups should always work on associated technologies which will enable them to make quick adjustments to products in case of failure of selected technology. This approach will help them achieve the mission with which they started their journey.  

So the statement "Focus is very important" is true, but how you define the focus is also critically important. My simple approach is to focus on problems and try to solve only one problem at a time.

Let me know what you all think, write your opinion in the comments section. I will love to read your point of view.

Efficiency -- The underlying trend

Efficiency, a simple word, but it underlines the major trend in almost all sections of life. Every industry and business is pursuing efficiency. This trend is gaining momentum due to declining natural resources, increased competition and regulatory pressure to reduce green-house-gas emissions. Automotive industry is the most affected by all these limiting factors and hence it aggressively pursues efficiency. Toyota invented "Just-In-Time" management to improve the manufacturing efficiency. The auto industry was first mover towards robotic assembly process to reduce assembly time and improve manufacturing efficiency. All these attempts were focused to reduce cost, improve speed and improve quality of the product.

Now companies are focusing more on reducing cost of ownership and reducing emissions. It may be heavily influenced by government regulations (Like CAFE regulation passed in US) and increased gasoline prices but as I see, first wave of efficiency helped companies, second wave of efficiency will directly help consumers. What I mean by this is the first wave of efficiency helped companies to reduce their operating cost, reduce the cost of production and reduce the warranty costs. All these cost savings helped companies improve their profitability. This enabled auto companies to pass some benefits to the consumer by reducing vehicle prices but it also increased overall sales of automobiles.

Now second wave of efficiency is focused on reducing total cost of ownership. Companies are introducing automobiles which are little costly at the start but are extremely efficient and require low maintenance costs. Take example of Ford Eco-boost engine vehicles. Ford's eco-boost engines provide excellent fuel efficiency and are having lower maintenance costs. Hence reducing total cost of ownership. Hybrids are another great example of this trend, these vehicle cost more upfront but over the lifetime of the vehicle, these vehicle cost less to operate. 

This trend excites me because Electric Vehicles are most efficient and have smaller operation costs than gasoline cars and hybrids. See the comparison chart below developed using tools from Alternative Fuel Data Center.

Nissan Leaf has the lowest cost per mile. This is encouraging as the trend of companies pursuing lower cost of ownership will be beneficial to consumers and specially to environment. I see this trend continuing for a long time and expect companies to bring the cost of ownership down further by using smart diagnostics.

To make vehicles more efficient, companies are using techniques such as using innovative materials like carbon fiber, developing manufacturing techniques such as aluminum-steel welding, designing lighter frames, using lower volume engines, using turbo chargers, direct injections and improving engine compression ratios. All these efforts are focused towards reducing cost of ownership. These techniques sometimes increase the cost of vehicle upfront but provide superior performance, more miles per gallon and emit less green-house-gases. 

To sum it all up, I observed two trends, one was improving efficiency at the factory floor and the second one is focused towards improving efficiency on the road. Overall the consumer and the environment will be the combined winners.

Automobiles

I love to talk and write about cars. I am an electrical engineer and not a mechanical engineer but amazing shift in technology has made it easier for me to talk and write about automobiles. Yes, I am talking about shift from massive engines to battery powered electric vehicles. The future belongs to efficient cars. I am careful in using the word "efficient" instead of "electric". The technology is still evolving and there is no single technology that has claimed victory hence auto companies will have to keep evaluating different alternatives. 

I believe that proposed technology should make a business case, you can sell electric car with zero emissions to customers who can afford the high cost and have passion towards zero carbon transport but you cannot sell it to the normal consumer. Outside developed world, even the rich people will not buy those expensive electric cars. Plug in electric vehicle such as "Chevy Volt" and "Prius plug-in" are good option for those who want to drive electric cars but don't want to limit their driving range. Then there are more affordable hybrid vehicles such as "Prius". With current gasoline prices, these hybrid vehicles make most business sense but still the cost is out of reach of mass market. To make a real impact, the technology has to be in reach of average consumer. 


Diminishing resources are pushing world to be more efficient. All industries including housing, automobile, aviation and manufacturing are looking for solutions to be more efficient, conserve fuel and water and reduce pollution. The advancement of technology in automobiles is critical as the industry accounts for almost 25% of our energy consumption and is vital for development and economic prosperity of any country.  

So in my opinion no single technology can be a solution. Governments all around the world should acknowledge this fact and should stop making huge claims and should not set targets without addressing implementation issues. For example president Obama announced a target to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2020. Now such targets can disrupt the evolution of technology on its merit. I am a big fan of electric propulsion technology but that does not mean it is the best. Many other competing technologies such as clean diesel, CNG and hydrogen fuel cell are evolving. Favoring one technology over other will not help. I agree that in the long run fossil fuels will run dry and we will have to develop alternative technologies. But at the same time we can not ignore technologies which can clean up current systems quickly and in a cost effective manner. 

It is important to have efficiency. Energy can come from any source. People say we have to get rid of fossil fuels, I agree but when you think rationally, you will agree that it will take many decades. CO2 emissions saved by having 10,000 electric cars will be lesser than emissions that we can save if we have technology to make all cars efficient by even 5%. I agree that investment in new technology and systems is critical but incremental upgrades and improvements can not be neglected. These technologies get limelight when gasoline prices reach $5 a gallon but disappear when prices fall.


Two technologies which I believe have potential to replace gasoline powered cars is plugin electric and hydrogen fuel cell. Plugin electric vehicles will still use some amount of gasoline but these systems provide higher benefits per dollar spent. Hydrogen fuel cell can really make a mass impact but there are huge challenges that need resolution. We are fortunate to live in this time when new technology is revolutionizing the way in which we move from one point to other. Which technology achieves market parity and wins the next revolution is still not decided but the race is getting exciting every day. 


Signing off
Nikhil Parchure 

Entrepreneurship

I always think about “which qualities will make an entrepreneur successful?'”. I tried to list few qualities which I think are essential.

1. Persistence: This is one of the most important characteristics. Many people think passion is more important but I give importance to persistence. Passion can motivate you to pursue things of your interest but if you want to be a successful entrepreneur then you have to be persistent with boring and least interesting things. These background tasks can make or break a business. You may have a great idea and a nice product but in today’s business world regulations, administrative functions and paperwork is equally important. Just your passion will not help you get through these hurdles, but if you are persistent enough then you will.
2. Spontaneity: Today’s world does not wait. If you don’t act now then your chance to grab an opportunity is gone. World is becoming extremely competitive. Internet has opened doors to many entrepreneurs and everyone is looking for that next big thing. So if you do not act right now, then you should just forget about catching up.
3. Vision: This quality is recognized by almost everyone. Unless you know where you are heading, you cannot take correct decisions and identify strategy to reach your target. Vision is pivot on which your wheel of business is going to revolve. Connecting the dots (As Steve Jobs says) is important and again web provides easy access to these dots. But presence of vision is critical in identifying these dots.
4. Resourceful: Gone are days where entrepreneurs could survive by being an expert in a particular field. Today, world demands networked and resourceful managers who can make things happen. Internet has played a major role in this. Knowledge is available more easily than ever before and hence people who are resourceful can catch up with the extremely knowledgeable.
5. Flexible: Days of ego are gone. Today you have to be extremely flexible. Accept partnerships and co-operate even with your rivals. Those who resist this either shut down their business or remain a small insignificant company.

There are many other attributes I can think of, but those are all related to one or more of these attributes. Again, having all these attributes does not guarantee success. This unpredictability makes entrepreneurship such an exciting adventure.

“Stay hungry, Stay foolish”- Steve Jobs.

Signing off

Nikhil Parchure