Making electric-car battery exchange possible

NAPA – A recently retired principal of a major North Bay civil engineering firm is putting his know-how to work to help make electric-powered automobiles feasible throughout the Bay Area, particularly Napa Valley.

Peter Riechers was looking for a worthwhile cause to occupy his time when he stepped down as president of Napa-based Riechers Spence & Associates three years ago. He heard about a new Palo Alto-based company with a money-for-miles approach to on-the-go power for electric-car drivers and approached the startup to help design infrastructure for its planned network of stations.

The 53-year-old civil engineer is working with Better Place on design of locations where subscribing drivers will be able to plug their cars in for a long charge or have an automated system swap the depleted battery for a fully charged one.

“The first target is BART stations,” Mr. Riechers said.

He and the company are working with Bay Area Rapid Transit on demonstration battery-service locations at some train stations next year.

He’s also been talking with Sustainable Napa County, a Napa-based group started by the Gasser Foundation, on encouraging developers to include charging stations in their projects. Owners of some new hotel and winery projects have been receptive to the idea, according to Mr. Riechers.

“There are a bunch of commuters who go back and forth from the greater Bay Area and the North Bay,” he said. “More importantly, we have tourists who may eventually rent an electric car in San Francisco and drive to Wine Country.”

Key to infrastructure design are the sizable electrical lines supplying the battery station. For example, individual car charge points consume 3.3 to 6.6 kilowatts. While the conduits and wiring is relatively inexpensive, the cost of cutting through and patching concrete and asphalt to put them in can get pricey, according to Mr. Riechers.

That’s why some manufacturers of charging stations have created units that can be affixed to light posts and use their electrical conduits. Such chargers started appearing on light poles in San Jose earlier this year.

The city of Santa Rosa and the county of Sonoma are exploring such technologies as part of pilot program with automaker Renault-Nissan to bring 1,000 electric cars to Sonoma County as soon as late 2010.

Better Place, launched October 2007 with $200 million in venture capital, plans to take battery charging a step further by offering battery exchange. A big limitation with electric cars is the common 100-mile limit, potential recharge time of one minute per mile of driving and the cost of exchanging a car’s battery for a new one in several years.

That’s why Better Place wants to replace battery ownership with a cell phone-style subscription plan based on miles driven. A motorist would pull into a Better Place station, and a car wash-style conveyor would move the vehicle into position and replace the battery with one in storage for the same make and model, supposedly in the time it would take to fill a car’s gasoline tank.

The company says it’s working with carmakers to use batteries that allow such quick replacement. Renault-Nissan early last year committed to do just that, with such cars set to roll into Better Place’s first stations in Israel in 2011. The startup has battery-development agreements with Automotive Energy Supply Corp., a joint venture between Nissan and NEC of Japan, and A123 Systems.

In the Bay Area, the 100-mile limit may not be as big of an issue for most drivers, including those traveling to Sacramento, as long as they have charge points at home and at their office or destination, according to Mr. Riechers. Until battery-replacement stations become prevalent, the common two-vehicle household probably will make do with a gasoline-powered vehicle for long-distance travel and an electric car for errands and commuting, he said.

The other part of the electric-car strategy voiced by Mr. Riechers and the Sonoma County Water Agency, which is spearheading the effort in that county, is attracting companies and governments to change large parts of their fleets over to electric vehicles or convert existing gasoline-electric vehicles to allow them to be plugged in and run first off just electric power.

For more information, call 650-845-2800 or visit www.betterplace.com.