WCA MAY 2015

From the Americas

In several regions, utilities – big companies experienced in financing, building, and managing power infrastructure as well as selling electricity – are getting into the vehicle charging business. Their goal, Ms Cardwell wrote, is nothing less than making the electric car a viable alternative for millions of consumers; and, “in the process, helping shore up their own flattening business” of supplying electricity. (“Utilities Push Into Fuel Stations for Electric Cars,” 19 th February) In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the main utility is building a network with more than 1,000 charging stations for the metropolitan area. But Ms Cardwell sees California as the spearhead of the trend. Although it leads the nation in electric vehicle sales, with about 40 per cent of the market, California is under pressure to meet aggressive goals that would require 100,000 chargers that are faster than traditional home outlets – enough to support one million vehicles – by 2020. Accordingly, three major utilities envision building as many as 60,000 chargers in California. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) recently became the last of the three to file a proposal with regulators that would allow the installation of 25,000 public chargers – cost: $654 million – in a state that currently has about 6,300 public chargers at some 2,000 stations. (For context, the US Energy Department says that nationwide there are approximately 22,900 public chargers at about 9,000 stations.) “We’re looking to really remove barriers to EV adoption, to really build to scale where all business models can work,” James Ellis, director of electrification and electric vehicles at PG&E, told the Times .  Mr Ellis would seem to have the wind at his back. Automakers in the US market face strict federal mandates to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. By 2025, their fleets must average at least 54.5 miles a gallon, more than double the current average of around 25 miles a gallon. To reach that goal, analysts consulted by Ms Cardwell say, automakers have little choice but to expand the consumer market for vehicles that require a plug-in charge beyond the 120,000 sold in the USA in 2014.  But another of the Times ’s interviewees pointed that EVs may not have the field all to themselves. Questioning the fairness of burdening California ratepayers with building up the EV charger network, Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, noted that Toyota Motor Corp appears to be betting on hydrogen-powered vehicles. “They are not a fringe player,” the consumer advocate said. “So that makes me wonder. Is [hydrogen] the technology that at the end of the day takes off?” Automotive

Toyota Motor Corp in car sales in California. Honda’s Accord took the lead last year – if only by a razor-thin margin – with a 17 per cent increase over its 2013 sales. The sedan edged out the Toyota Prius, the popular hybrid whose sales were up two per cent over the previous year. Mr Hirsch noted that Honda has seen higher sales for the Accord, both nationwide and in California, since the automaker overhauled it for the 2013 model year. Japanese brands accounted for six of the top ten sellers in the USA last year, and for eight of the top ten sellers in California. “California just doesn’t have the ‘buy American’ culture of the Midwest and other places where the American car companies manufacture their vehicles,” Jake Fisher, automotive test director for Consumer Reports, told the Times . “The environment also has been a bigger issue in California car sales, and that helps brands like Toyota and Honda that have pioneered fuel-efficient and less polluting vehicles.”  In other news of Honda, the company said 11 th February that it will be investing $85 million in its assembly plant in East Liberty, Ohio. Brent Snavely of the Detroit Free Press noted that Japan’s number two automaker already produces the Acura MDX – the brand’s best-selling model – at a plant in Lincoln, Alabama, but needs the ability to increase its production capacity to meet demand for the popular, three-row luxury SUV. “The importance of the MDX for the Acura brand is hard to be overstated,” Mr Snavely wrote. He reported that Acura sold 65,603 MDXs in 2014, a 23.7 per cent increase over the prior year. Sales of the model accounted for 39 per cent of Acura’s total US sales for 2014.  US safety regulators levied fines of $14,000 a day on Japanese auto parts supplier Takata Corp, alleging failure to cooperate with a Department of Transportation investigation into defective air bag inflators implicated in at least six deaths and more than 60 injuries in the USA and overseas. Some Takata inflators, which use an explosive charge to quickly inflate the air bag to provide a cushion for vehicle occupants in a crash, are blowing apart, sending shrapnel into the cabin. Most recently, Honda said, an air bag inflator in a 2002 Accord exploded on 18 th January in Texas, killing a 35-year-old man. “Safety is a shared responsibility and Takata’s failure to fully cooperate with our investigation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Anthony Foxx, US Transportation secretary, said on 20 th February. “For each day that Takata fails to fully cooperate with our demands, we will hit them with another fine.”  Kobe Steel, which supplies aluminium sheet to half of Japan’s auto industry, is considering building a plant in the USA to provide the product to Japanese carmakers operating in North America. North American sales of aluminium sheet for automotive body panels are seen rising from 150,000 tons in 2014

Japanese brands account for six of the top ten sellers in the USA

Jerry Hirsch, automotive editor for the Los Angeles Times , reported (13 th February) that Honda Motor Co has overtaken

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2015