Executive Ramblings: Phoenix Motors Unveils All-electric, Freeway-ready Sport Utility Truck
Photo by Mike Magda
As a rule, I avoid all things LA. The traffic, the sprawl–it’s an intimidating place, and it certainly doesn’t seem very environmentally conscious. Then again, life thrives in the most inhospitable environments; challenges spur innovation. Where better than the city with more roads and freeways than any other to introduce the next generation in transportation?
Phoenix Motorcars is doing its part. Last night, the company held a major event to celebrate the launch of its first line, an all-electric sport utility truck (SUT)–appropriately enough–at LA’s famed Peterson Automotive Museum.
Company engineers were offering up test drives all evening, and I was lucky enough to be one of the first in line to get behind the wheel. All I can say is: wow. This was my first time driving an electric, so I didn’t push it too hard, but test-drive-mate J. Karen Thomas (of Who Killed the Electric Car?
While all 500 SUTs Phoenix plans to produce this year are already spoken for by high-profile supporters and corporate fleets, the company will introduce an SUV version later this year, and expand its production capabilities to make thousands of these beauties available in 2008.
Phoenix CEO Dan Elliot (who showed off his SUT to President Bush recently) was hell-bent on creating an all-electric vehicle that could meet the daily needs of a wider range of users, “from the grocery store to the hardware store.”
The Phoenix SUTIt’s obvious that the truck was specifically designed to undercut all of the traditional knocks on electric vehicles: it fits 5 easily, has 1,000 lb payload capacity, and cruises at 95 mph on the freeway. It still only has a range of 130 miles per charge (which runs around $3), but the company is aggressively pursuing partnerships to set up high-powered charging stations that can flash-charge the vehicle in 10 minutes or less. Reps from multiple companies who want to make this happen explained to me that these stations could be fed from on-site renewable resources, with grid-connected or fossil backups to ensure reliability.
So, someone remind me again why we’re spending billions in California on developing one “hydrogen highway” when we could be making “electric highways” the new standard in transportation, using technology that exists today? There must be some powerful interests at work here…
Despite the threat that electric vehicle (EV) technology poses to the auto and oil industries, the public holds a trump card. As long as it was GM making and then aborting the EV prematurely, they could control the technology’s public image. But as companies like Phoenix and Tesla prove themselves in the market, the auto giants are going to have to adapt. Now that others are commercializing it, the power to control public perceptions about such new technology (as GM tried to do with the EV1) is quickly fading.
After last night’s event, it was clear that the electric vehicle is back, and this time, it’s here to stay. The technology is mature; all that’s left is to allow mass production to bring costs down. As that happens, the advantages of coupling transportation with our other energy needs is a no-brainer. First, it’s more efficient than internal combustion, meaning less energy gets wasted as heat, and more goes into pushing the vehicle. Also, it’s completely scalable, from the 3-wheel ZAP to performance sports cars that destroy the best muscle cars head to head.
But for me, the major advantage of EVs is that they allow us to decide where our fuel comes from. Even though your new electric SUT will be powered by the same dirty energy that powers the rest of our lives, going electric gives you options to do something about it. You could buy green power for your home with your savings on fuel and still come out ahead, or take the plunge and make your own power with a set of solar panels. As the event’s host and green activist Ed Begley, Jr. put it, “you can’t make gas on your roof.” It might not be right for everyone yet, but moving in this direction is the smart thing to do for families, for our oil-addicted country as a whole, and for the earth. It’s time.
March 12th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
The naysayers have always been around - especially when a new technology or concept is presented to the public. Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell the telephone patent to Western Union (which back then was a telegraph company) but the president of Western Union just laughed at Bell and said the telephone was just a toy and would never have any practical use! And before we had airplanes the ignorant public would laugh at the idea that man could ever fly - “If man was meant to fly, man would have been born with wings” was often heard by the Wright Brothers. But did Bell and the Wright brothers give up because of these naysayers? No, and it is a good thing they ignored those naysayers otherwise we’d still be communicating with Western Union’s system of Morse Code using telegraph keys instead of telephones and going to far-away places by horse and buggy instead of flying in planes!
What makes today’s naysayer so negative toward the emerging technologies of electric cars and solar electricity? Perhaps they own a lot of stock in the oil industry or maybe they fear they will have to change their careers if the public no longer needs people who change the oil and oil filters , replace mufflers, tailpipes, fuel injectors, air filters, spark plugs, radiator fluid, radiators, hoses, belts, catalytic converters, smog pumps, repair transmissions, etc. Yup, those dirty jobs will disappear and they will have to train for new technology jobs such as solar panel installation on homes and businesses.
Or perhaps the naysayers of electric cars are just resistant to change even if the change is for the betterment of mankind. Or maybe they have no vision or inventive/creative spirit themselves and anytime they hear about a new way of doing something they just can’t see beyond the current way of doing things.
I have worked in technology all of my life and look forward to the day I can purchase the Phoenix Motors SUT and photovoltaic panels for my home. I’m tired of living in the dark ages of technology when it comes to energy production and ground transportation. Yes folks, going green is not just for the so-called “wacko left-wing extremists” anymore. Going green should have never been a political choice. Perhaps we are finally seeing the political barriers being removed from this global issue.
In closing I’d like to thank those in the technology fields that can see beyond their nose and turn a deaf ear toward the naysayers that say it can’t be done or shouldn’t be done. We need more people like those that formed companies like Phoenix Motors to free us from the blood-stained oil of the Middle East!
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Whichever methodology is the most cost efficient: lithium-ion polymer batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, or a combination of both, or maybe some other fuel cell source, electric vehicles will gradually replace ICE technology, once the price of such vehicles decreases substantially. Right now, they simply cost too much. Eventually, once the necessary federal legislation is passed, only zero-emission vehicles will be allowed on the roads, possibly with a realization date of less than twenty years. The issue, then, is both an economic and political one: how best to lower the average consumer’s cost per vehicle, so that even more zero-emission vehicles can be produced and made available for customer purchase.
April 4th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
It would be really cool for fast food places to have parking spots with recharge stations built in. After driving on the road a while the driver walks in order what ever to eat and tells the cashier he wants to charge his car too. To make it really spiffy the remote for the car could have an extra button on it that sends out a unique id. This is picked up by the station and it polls the cars in the recharge spots to determine which one belongs to the customer’s remote. Clever places could factor in the recharge with a combo meal.
To facilitate this scenario the receptacle could be under the car with cover which is pushed back by a recharging armature affixed to the charge station. The cover could have sensor markings or other aids to help the recharge armature locate where it should go: the entire process should be completely automatic. Of course there should be a human accessible port to plug in a 220 or even 110 plug for a full range of options. Now is the time for electric car manufacturers to think about this sort of thing.
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I am so looking foward to this, I work less then 5 miles from my home and shop within a 15 mile range. Would I completly give up my gas vehicle? No but I sure wouldn’t need it very often, just for extended runs.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
I have signed up for the wait list and it’s sad that it will probably be at least 5 years before folks in Kansas City can get one, but I’ll wait. I’ll drive my gas powered vehicle into the ground in hopes of replacing it with an all electric car. I feel so used by big auto and they will not be getting anymore of my money if I can at all help it. 45k for an electric? Sure, I’ll pay it because giving the consumer some control back is well worth it.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Hooray for the hopeful. I can hardly count the numbers of people I have personally heard dismissing electric transportation because of the cost of the vehicles, the lack of infrastructure, the limited range and yadda, yadda, yadda….
I don’t care. I would like to use electric transportation if I have to buy a vehicle at all!
If the same arguements were listened to in the 1890s - and I am certain there were plenty of horse-owners who voiced them - we wouldn’t have ever progressed as we did through the 20th century… hmmmm, fair enough, but let’s keep this discussion limited to the direct topic.
I had one good friend recently tell me that all the ifs, ands and buts should be fully researched and compared to the present system before deciding to redirect transportation policy. I say, give me what I want because it is unlikely to prove any worse than what I think we have already gotten ourselves into.
As for the initail costs of the vehicles… I refer you to what I said earlier about the 1890s! There are too many underutilized vehicles on the road now, so I have no problem with fewer people being able to afford them.
If someone builds it, customers will come!
February 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Oh, and a recent statistic was published showing that more than 80% of we 32-million Canadians now live in urban centres of more than 10,000 people. How many of them need a vehicle that has to do more than 100km/day?
Let’s get real about our personal transportation needs and stop wasting resources carrying the 5% of need outside the daily grind! How many of us would go on a trip with one full suitcase and 4 empty cases for just-in-case?
April 1st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I would like to see someone completely automate a plant to produce a 2 passenger (seated in line, like on a motorcycle) 3-wheel, fully enclosed vehicle. Licensed as a motorcycle, it would not have to meet auto regulations. Because of it’s small size & automated production, the price could be significantly less than what is currently required to purchase a Phoenix vehicle.