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Posts Tagged ‘Think City’

Think to sell electric cars at Swiss supermarkets

Posted in electric cars, green cars, green marketing, Think, tagged , , , on June 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

photo: Think

This post first appeared on Grist.

“Honey, could you run down to the store and pick up some milk, tofu and one of those new Think City electric cars?”

That could be a conversation you’ll be hearing soon in Switzerland (in French, German Italian and Romansh, of course) now that Norwegian electric automaker Think has struck a deal with Swiss retailer Migros to market the City.

Sort of a cooperatively owned Costco, Migros is Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain and operates more than 600 stores across the country. In a deal announced Wednesday, Migros will sell the battery-powered Think urban runabout through a new division called M-Way.

“We have the key central retail locations all over Switzerland and beyond, now we want to use these bases to spread the news and sales of electric vehicles such as the Think City,” Herbert Bolliger, President of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, said in a statement.

The announcement caught my attention because it’s a reminder that, one, not all green tech innovation is destined to happen here in California, and two, business model innovation will be just as important as technology itself in transforming electric cars from a niche to a knockout.

From its reincarnation a few years ago under the leadership of then-chief executive Jan Olaf-Willums, Think sought not to sell so much a car as mobility. Internet-enabled and connected to your mobile phone and the power grid, the plastic-bodied City was designed to plug into the transportation and electric power networks rather than be just another isolated hunk of metal rolling down the road.

You might buy the City but lease it’s battery or drive one when needed through a car-sharing service like Zipcar. Or from your neighborhood grocery store.

James Andrews, a Think spokesman, told me that sales of the City will begin this summer at Migros supermarkets. M-Way will initially set up retail outlets at Migros stores in urban areas.

It’s a smart strategy to expose consumers to electric cars. After all, how often do you casually stroll through car dealerships, which, in the United States at least, tend to be isolated in “auto rows” off the beaten path.

Now how often do you pop down to Whole Foods or Safeway for a gallon of milk? You’re probably likely to check out the City or another electric car if you pass it on the way to the wine aisle. Maybe you’ll even take one for a test drive around the block.

Migros’ M-Way already has sold a fleet of 60 Citys to Alpmobil, an eco-tourism company that will provide them for the use of its guests at a resort in the Swiss Alps.

Back in the 1990s, Think leased a previous version of the City to San Francisco Bay Area residents as part of a pilot project that let them plug the cars in to charge at train stations. Among the Think early adopters was a guy named Sergey Brin.

San Francisco is likely to be among the first U.S. cities to receive shipments of the latest City when Think begins selling the car in America later this year. Who knows, you might even be able to buy one at the farmer’s market one day.

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Norway’s Think is back in business — in Finland

Posted in electric cars, environment, green cars, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , on August 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

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photo: Think

Norwegian electric car maker Think has exited bankruptcy protection and brought on board new investors. As I write in the New York Times Green Inc. blog today:

Norwegian electric car maker Th!nk is back on the road.

The company on Thursday said it has exited bankruptcy protection and secured $47 million in new funding to restart production of the Think City, a highway-capable urban runabout with a range of about 112 miles.

Think had shut down its assembly line outside of Oslo late last year when the global financial crisis cut off access to new capital.

But is Think still a Norwegian automaker? The company did get some local street cred Thursday: Among its new shareholders is Investinor, an investment fund backed by the Norwegian government.

Still, in another sign of the globalization of the nascent electric car industry, the Think City will now be made in Finland at the plant of one of its new investors, Valmet Automotive. (Valmet assembles the Porsche Boxster and Cayman and will begin producing the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid electric sports sedan.)

You can read the rest of the story here.

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States compete for Think electric car plant

Posted in electric cars, green cars, green collar jobs, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , , , on April 6, 2009| 3 Comments »

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photo: Think

Not too many car factories are getting built in the United States these days, especially in the midst of a global economic meltdown. So the prospect of landing Norwegian electric carmaker Think’s North American plant will have Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski and Senator Ron Wyden turning out Tuesday to take a test drive of the Think City in Portland with company CEO Richard Canny.

Oregon is one of eight states Think is considering for the assembly plant. The company has been coy about identifying those states and has only said that Michigan and Oregon are in the running. About Tuesday’s media event, Think said in a statement that “the future of electric car manufacturing in Oregon will be the topic of a news conference.”

When it comes to electric car factories, there’s a certain Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown risk for prospective hosts. Silicon Valley electric car company Tesla Motors, for instance, so far has signed and then canceled agreements to build a factory for its new Model S sports sedan in New Mexico and San Jose. Los Angeles, the latest factory site, hopes the third time’s a charm.

Nothing nefarious at work here, just the tenuous economics of startup electric car companies. Think, for example, is on the hunt for additional capital so it can restart its assembly plant in Norway. It idled the factory and laid off workers late last year when the credit crunch dried up funding. The company has some heavyweight backers, including General Electric (GE), and marquee venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Rockport Capital have invested in its North American operation.

Think says it will  apply for a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy under its Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program to help pay for its U.S. factory. Undoubtedly part of the bake-off with the eight states under consideration is to see which can offer the best tax breaks and incentives.

After the first-year startup phase, the U.S. factory will initially employ 300 workers and is projected to produce 16,000 cars annually, according to Think. Capacity would eventually be expanded to 60,000 cars and a workforce of 900. A research and development center will employ about 70 people.

Green Wombat is betting that Think will try to locate the assembly plant on the West Coast. So far Think has targeted densely populated, environmentally friendly cities — London, Amsterdam — to roll out the Think City, a two-seater urban runabout that goes about 112 miles on a charge.  Former CEO Jan-Olaf Willums told Green Wombat last year that the San Francisco Bay Area was a likely gateway market in the U.S. In November, the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland inked a deal with Better Place to build a $1 billion electric car charging network in the Bay Area.

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Think rolls into Austrian electric car market

Posted in carbon neutral, electric cars, environment, green cars, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on April 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Präsentation der Studie „Auswirkung von Elektrofahrzeugen auf die Stromwirtschaft“

photo: Think

Norwegian electric car maker Think has started shipping its City urban runabout to an Austria utility as part of a government project to test the impact of EVs on the power grid.

The €4.7 million ($6.3 million) Vlotte initiative is placing 100 electric vehicles with companies, municipal governments and individuals in Austria’s Bregenz region. The project is being managed by utility Vorarlberger Kraftwerke and will evaluate how well the cars perform in an area where most people drive an average 50 kilometers (31 miles) a day. The Think City has a range of about 180 kilometers (112 miles).

Solar arrays will be used to charge the plastic-bodied cars to ensure they remain carbon neutral, according to the utility. In 2010, Vlotte will offer electric cars for lease if there is sufficent demand from local residents.

Think CEO Richard Canny said Think is expected to supply most of the cars for the project.

It’s the latest deal for Think, which continues to seed the City across Europe despite financial problems that have stalled its Norwegian assembly plant. Earlier this month, Think signed an agreement to supply 500 cars to a Dutch auto leasing company and announced plans to open a factory in the United States in 2010.

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Think goes Dutch in deal for 500 electric cars

Posted in electric cars, green cars, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on March 18, 2009| 6 Comments »

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photo: Think

For a company in the breakdown lane of near-bankruptcy, Norwegian electric carmaker Think keeps hitting the accelerator. On Wednesday, Think said it has signed an agreement to sell 500 of its City electric cars this year to a subsidiary of Mobility Service Netherlands, a Dutch automotive leasing company.

The deal follows Think’s announcement last week that it plans to open an assembly plant in the United States by 2010 to produce the urban runabout.

Think sales director Richard Waitz told Green Wombat that the company will supply cars to ElmoNet, a subsidiary of Mobility Service Netherlands that will lease only electric cars. Earlier this year the Dutch government launched a 10 million euro ($13 million) incentive program for electric cars.

“We’ve entered into a similar agreement in Austria,” Waitz said. That deal, signed last month, calls for Think to supply up to 100 cars to a consortium of Austrian companies.

First, however, Think must raise the capital to resume full production of the City. The Oslo company idled its Norwegian assembly plant and laid off workers late last year as the financial crisis cut off funding. Think obtained a $5.7 million bridge loan in January and said last week it expects to raise more money from its existing European and U.S. investors.

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Think to open U.S. electric car factory

Posted in electric cars, green cars, green policy, green startups, green tech, Tesla Motors, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2009| 18 Comments »

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photo: Think

Norwegian electric car company Think announced Thursday that it will open a factory in the United States in 2010 to produce its City urban runabout.

Think CEO Richard Canny, a former Ford executive, is in Ann Arbor, Mich., this week meeting with officials from eight states vying for the factory. But don’t put in your order just yet – only 2,500 cars will roll off the assembly line the first year and they will be reserved for demonstration projects and fleet sales.

“The U.S. is quickly overtaking Europe as an attractive market for EVs and is an ideal location to engineer and build EVs,” Canny said in a statement. “We see ourselves playing a small but potentially growing role in re-inventing the U.S. auto industry by bringing back new manufacturing jobs to the U.S.”  Think has not yet responded to Green Wombat’s inquiry about which states, other than Michigan, is in talks with the company for the factory.

How Think will finance its North American expansion remains an open question. Just three months ago the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as the global financial crisis cut off capital and forced Think to idle its Norwegian factory and lay off workers. The company obtained $5.7 million interim financing in January and recalled some workers. A report on Treehugger Thursday cited sources that said Think was contemplating relocating to Sweden or the U.K.

Think spokeswoman Katinka Von Der Lippe told Green Wombat on Thursday that the interim financing has been extended but that the company is still seeking a new infusion of capital to resume full production of the City, a two-seater that goes 112 miles on a charge with a top speed of about 62 miles per hour.  Update: Think’s U.S. spokesman, Brendan Prebo, tells Green Wombat that Think will raise most of the new capital from its existing European and U.S. investors, which include General Electric (GE), so it can resume full production of the City in Norway.

The company said that it will apply for a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy under its Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program to help pay for the factory. Prebo declined to reveal the size of the DOE loan the company will seek but noted it “will be a substantial investment for Think” but small compared to what some of the big automakers want.

After the first-year startup phase, the U.S. factory will initially employ 300 workers and produce 16,000 cars annually, according to Think. Capacity would eventually be expanded to 60,000 cars and a workforce of 900. A research and development center will employ about 70 people.

But calling a Think facility a factory is somewhat misleading. It’s really an assembly plant and the one Green Wombat visited in 2007 in Aurskog, Norway, was more Ikea than Henry Ford, with plastic-bodied Think City models quietly gliding through clean well-lighted spaces.

The question for Think, Tesla Motors other EV startups is whether they can gain a foothold in the market before the major players big-foot them with their own electric and plug-in electric cars. Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Honda (HMC), Toyota (TM), Renault-Nissan and other global automakers all are accelerating plans to introduce electric vehicles.

Thursday’s announcement follows the formation of Think North America, unveiled in April 2008 at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference.  A bicoastal group of venture capital firms – Silicon Valley’s Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Boston’s Rockport Capital Partners – signed on as lead investors.

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Electric carmaker Think recalls workers

Posted in electric cars, enviro startups, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on January 23, 2009| 1 Comment »

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photo: Think

Here’s a bit of good news from the otherwise dreary alternative automotive world: Norwegian electric carmaker Think has put 44 laid-off employees back to work following the completion of a round of interim financing.

In December, Think halted production of its City battery-powered urban runabout and laid off half its workforce as financing to expand the company’s operations dried up. Then last week Think announced that it had obtained a $5.7 million bridge loan from investors led by Ener1, a battery maker who is supplying the City with lithium-ion power plants.

The financing has been completed and Think said Friday that it had rehired 44 workers in management, sales and supplier operations. But Think is hardly out of the Norwegian woods yet. The company still needs to raise around $40 million to resume full-scale production of the City and proceed with its plans to sell the electric car in select European markets outside Norway before expanding to the United States. Think has raised more than $100 million from European and U.S. investors, including General Electric (GE) and Silicon Valley and East Coast venture capitalists.

“We are very content that this first visible step in our plan towards restart now is in place,” said Think CEO Richard Canny, a former Ford (F) executive, in a statement. “We still need to raise the permanent capital, but this first call-back signals both internally and externally that Think is committed and able to turn the situation into a positive direction for the company.”

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End of the road for the Think electric car?

Posted in Better Place, electric cars, enviro startups, green cars, green policy, green tech, PG&E, plug-in electric hybrids, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , , , , on December 16, 2008| 16 Comments »

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photo: Think

Think Global, the innovative Norwegian electric car company, has temporarily halted production of its City urban runabout and laid off half its workforce as it considers a sale to survive the credit crisis, Think CEO Richard Canny told Green Wombat Tuesday.

“Think is in a situation where we can’t grow anymore,” Canny said from Think’s Oslo headquarters, where the management team was still working at midnight. “We have started an emergency shutdown to protect our capital and our brand. We’ll need a new and stronger partner, whether that is a 25% owner or a majority owner or someone who buys the company.”

The Norwegian government said on Tuesday that it would not make an equity investment in the automaker but is considering Think’s request to guarantee up to $29 million in short-term loans. “Even a small participation from the Norwegian government will give investors confidence,” Canny said, noting that the company needs to raise $40 million to continue manufacturing its electric car. “The financial crisis has hit at a very critical stage as we’re ramping up production and when external financing is hard to bring into the company and internal funding is limited.”

He said a rescue package might include aid from from the Norwegian government and an infusion of cash from new investors or strategic partners. “We’re putting a hand out. People who would like to work with us should pick up the phone.”

Ford (F) acquired the startup in 1999 and sold it a few years later. Norwegian solar entrepreneur Jan-Olaf Willums and other investors rescued Think from bankruptcy in 2006, aiming to upend a century-old automotive paradigm by changing the way cars are made, sold and driven to create a sustainable auto industry.

As Green Wombat wrote in a 2007 feature story on Think, “Taking a cue from Dell, the company will sell cars online, built to order. It will forgo showrooms and seed the market through car-sharing services like Zipcar. Every car will be Internet-and Wi-Fi-enabled, becoming, according to Willums, a rolling computer that can communicate wirelessly with its driver, other Think owners, and the power grid. In other words, it’s Web 2.0 on wheels. ‘We want to sell mobility,’ Willums says. ‘We don’t want to sell a thing called the Think.’

The company sells the car but leases the battery so buyers don’t have to fork over cash upfront for an electric vehicle’s single most expensive component – an idea subsequently adopted embraced by everyone from Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car infrastructure company to General Motors (GM).

The failure of the new Think would be a blow at a time when the auto industry desperately needs to reinvent itself. While Think is a niche player and faces formidible competition as Toyota (TM)  and other big automakers go electric, it has pioneered  the idea of a new automotive infrastructure that includes tech companies and utilities like PG&E (PCG).

Whether Think can survive the global financial crisis remains to be seen, but Willums, who stepped aside as CEO recently but remains on the board, is a prodigious networker with deep contacts in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. In little more than a year he raised around $100 million from an A-list of U.S. and European investors that includes General Electric (GE), Keiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and Rockport Capital Partners – the latter two marquee venture capital firms formed a joint venture with Think to sell the City in North America. Canny said the U.S. expansion plans are now on hold.

The question now is whether Think’s investors, absent a government bailout, will step up to save the company just as it has started to gain a foothold in the market. In a presentation made Monday, Canny, a Ford veteran, said eight to 10 two-seater City cars a day had been rolling off the company’s assembly line outside Oslo.  Think has a blacklog of 550 orders and 150 cars will be delivered by January.  The company was set to begin selling a 2+2 version of the City in mid-2009. (Think had planned to begin selling its next model, a five-seat crossover car called the Think Ox, in 2011.)

“There are limited possibilities of funding working capital through bank credits without extra guarantees in today’s financial market,” Canny said, noting that the company hopes to resume production in the first quarter of 2009. “Think’s automotive suppliers are severely hit by the overall industry crisis, leading to tougher terms of parts delivery to Think.”

Green Wombat will throw out one potential savior of Think: Google (GOOG). Many aspects of Think’s innovative business model were born at a brainstorming session that the search giant hosted in 2006 for Willums at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif. Given that Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, has poured tens of millions of dollars in green energy companies and electric car research, an investment in Think would be another way to drive progress toward its goal of a carbon-free economy.

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Ford exec jumps to Think Global

Posted in electric cars, environment, green cars, PG&E, plug-in electric hybrids, Southern California Edison, Think Global, tagged , , , , , on August 12, 2008| 3 Comments »

photo: Think Global

Norwegian electric carmaker Think Global, once owned by Ford, has tapped Ford executive Richard Canny as its new president and chief operating officer. Canny previously served as president of Ford South America, president of Ford Argentina and managing director of Ford Malaysia.

Think also announced Tuesday that it has hired a veteran of Volvo and Saab, Mikael Ekholm, as executive vice president for engineering and manufacturing. The appointment of the Australian-born Canny comes as the Oslo company ramps up production of the City, it’s Internet-enabled, battery-powered urban runabout.

Green Wombat chatted with Think CEO Jan-Olaf Willums via e-mail Tuesday about the rollout of the City in Europe, its next model – an electric crossover SUV –  and the company’s plans for the United States market. (At Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference in April, Willums announced the formation of Think North America with marquee venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Rockport Capital Partners. Other investors in Think include General Electric (GE) )

“The factory completed its planned build of 100 cars for the local market prior to the Norwegian summer shutdown,” says Willums, a longtime entrepreneur and sustainability expert who made his fortune as a co-founder of Norweigan solar company REC Solar. “Of course, like any new vehicle launch we are having occasional new issues arise and teething problems to overcome.”

The cars are now on Oslo roads racking up high mileage under real-world conditions, he adds.

(You can still spot the previous generation of the City, built under Ford (F) ownership, tooling around Oslo, as I did when I visited in 2007 for a story I did on Think.)

Willums says Think will boost production in the second half of the year to support sales in Norway and elswhere in Scandinavia. “During 2009, we are planning a roll out to a number of other European markets with our plans for the major cities (Paris, Amsterdam, Nice, Zurich, Basel) being the priority,” he says. The order of the rollout, he notes, will depend in part on where the government and private sector incentives for electric vehicles are strongest.

To that end, Willums says that the timing of the City’s debut in the United States will be determined in part by state incentives and the policy of the incoming administration in Washington.

Think is in a race to get its cars on the road as the big automakers accelerate their plans for plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars for the mass market. General Motors (GM) is hurrying to bring its Chevy Volt plug-in electric hybrid to showrooms while Toyota (TM) is working on a plug-in version of the Prius. Mitsubishi will supply its i MiEV electric car to California utilities PG&E (PCG) and Southern California Edison (EIX) for fleet testing.

Meanwhile, work continues on the Think Ox, the company’s planned five-seater crossover model. Think showed off a concept version of the electric car at the Geneva auto show earlier this year. The addition of Canny, Willums says, should help the company “grow and mature to a larger scale electric car producer.”

Along with gearing up production of the City, Think has been energizing its marketing efforts, judging by the slick promotional video it created for the Ox below. (For a higher-def version, go here.)

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PG&E chief’s green crusade

Posted in Ausra, BrightSource Energy, climate change, corporate green, corporate sustainability, endangered species, energy, energy efficiency, environment, global warming, green policy, nuclear energy, PG&E, renewable energy, solar energy, solar power plants, Southern California Edison, Tesla Motors, Think Global, wave power, wind power, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2008| 6 Comments »

“Years ago we came to the conclusion that global warming was a problem, it was an urgent problem and the need for action is now. The problem appears to be worse and more imminent today, and the need to take action sooner and take more significant action is greater than ever before” — PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee

The head of one of the nation’s largest utilities seemed to be channeling Al Gore on Tuesday when he met with a half-dozen environmental business writers, including Green Wombat, in the PG&E (PCG) boardroom in downtown San Francisco. While a lot of top executives talk green these days, for Darbee green has become the business model, one that represents the future of the utility industry in a carbon-constrained age.

As Katherine Ellison wrote in a feature story on PG&E that appeared in the final issue of Business 2.0 magazine last September, California’s large utilities — including Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) — are uniquely positioned to make the transition to renewable energy and profit from green power.

First of all, they have no choice. State regulators have mandated that California’s investor-owned utilities obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010 with a 33 percent target by 2020. Regulators have also prohibited the utilities from signing long-term contracts for dirty power – i.e. with the out-of-state coal-fired plants that currently supply 20 percent of California’s electricity. Second, PG&E and other California utilities profit when they sells less energy and thus emit fewer greenhouse gases. That’s because California regulators “decouple” utility profits from sales, setting their rate of return based on things like how well they encourage energy efficiency or promote green power.

Still, few utility CEOs have made green a corporate crusade like Darbee has since taking the top job in 2005. And the idea of a staid regulated monopoly embracing technological change and collaborating with the likes of Google (GOOG) and electric car company Tesla Motors on green tech initiatives still seems strange, if not slightly suspicious, to some Northern Californians, especially in left-leaning San Francisco where PG&E-bashing is local sport.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Darbee, 54, sketched sketched a future where being a successful utility is less about building big centralized power plants that sit idle until demand spikes and more about data management – tapping diverse sources of energy — from solar, wind and waves to electric cars — and balancing supply and demand through a smart grid that monitors everything from your home appliances to where you plugged in your car. “I love change, I love innovation,” says Darbee, who came to PG&E after a career in telecommunications and investment banking.

Renewable energy

“On renewable energy what we’ve seen is the market is thin,” says Darbee. “Demand just from ourselves is greater than supply in terms of reliable, well-funded companies that can provide the service.”

PG&E so far has signed power purchase agreements with three solar startups — Ausra, BrightSource Energy and Solel — for up to 1.6 gigawatts of electricity to be produced by massive solar power plants. Each company is deploying a different solar thermal technology and uncertainty over whether the billion-dollar solar power stations will ultimately be built has prompted PG&E to consider jumping into the Big Solar game itself.

“We’re looking hard at the question of whether we can get into the business ourselves in order to do solar and other forms of renewables on a larger scale,” Darbee says. “Let’s take some of the work that’s been done around solar thermal and see if we can partner with one of the vendors and own larger solar installations on a farm rather than on a rooftop.”

“I like the idea of bringing the balance sheet of a utility, $35 billion in assets, to bear on this problem,” he adds.

It’s an approach taken by the renewable energy arm of Florida-based utility FPL (FPL), which has applied to build a 250-megawatt solar power plant on the edge of the Mojave Desert in California.

For now, PG&E is placing its biggest green bets on solar and wind. The utility has also signed a 2-megawatt deal with Finavera Renewables for a pilot wave energy project off the Northern California coast. Given the power unleashed by the ocean 24/7, wave energy holds great promise, Darbee noted, but the technology is in its infancy. “How does this technology hold up against the tremendous power of the of the Pacific Ocean?”

Electric cars

Darbee is an auto enthusiast and is especially enthusiastic about electric vehicles and their potential to change the business models of both the utility and car industries. (At Fortune’s recent Brainstorm Green conference, Darbee took Think Global’s all-electric Think City coupe for a spin and participated in panels on solar energy and the electric car.)

California utilities look at electric cars and plug-in hybrids as mobile generators whose batteries can be tapped to supply electricity during peak demand to avoid firing up expensive and carbon-spewing power plants. If thousands of electric cars are charged at night they also offer a possible solution to the conundrum of wind power in California, where the breeze blows most strongly in the late evenings when electricity demand falls, leaving electrons twisting in the wind as it were.

“If these cars are plugged in we would be able to shift the load from wind at night to using wind energy during the day through batteries in the car,” Darbee says.

The car owner, in other words, uses wind power to “fill up” at night and then plugs back into the grid during the day at work so PG&E can tap the battery when temperatures rise and everyone cranks up their air conditioners.

Darbee envisions an electricity auction market emerging when demand spikes. “You might plug your car in and say, ‘I’m available and I’m watching the market and you bid me on the spot-market and I’ll punch in I’m ready to sell at 17 cents a kilowatt-hour,” he says. “PG&E would take all the information into its computers and then as temperatures come up there would be a type of Dutch auction and we start to draw upon the power that is most economical.”

That presents a tremendous data management challenge, of course, as every car would need a unique ID so it can be tracked and the driver appropriately charged or credited wherever the vehicle is plugged in. Which is one reason PG&E is working with Google on vehicle-to-grid technology.

“One of the beneficiaries of really having substantial numbers of plug-in hybrid cars is that the cost for electric utility users could go down,” says Darbee. “We have a lot of plants out there standing by for much of the year, sort of like the Maytag repairman, waiting to be called on for those super peak days. And so it’s a large investment of fixed capital not being utilized.” In other words, more electric and plug-in cars on the road mean fewer fossil-fuel peaking power plants would need to be built. (And to answer a question that always comes up, studies show that California currently has electric generating capacity to charge millions of electric cars.)

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is one of the hotter hot-button issues in the global warming debate. Left for dead following the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters, the nuclear power industry got a new lease on life as proponents pushed its ability to produce huge amounts of carbon-free electricity.

“The most pressing problem that we have in the United States and across the globe is global warming and I think for the United States as a whole, nuclear needs to be on the table to be evaluated,” says Darbee.

That’s unlikely to happen, however in California. The state in the late 1970s banned new nuclear power plant construction until a solution to the disposal of radioactive waste is found. PG&E operates the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, a project that was mired in controversy for years in the ’70s as the anti-nuke movement protested its location near several earthquake faults.

“It’s a treasure for the state of California – It’s producing electricity at about 4 cents a kilowatt hour,” Darbee says of Diablo Canyon. “I have concerns about the lack of consensus in California around nuclear and therefore even if the California Energy Commission said, `Okay, we feel nuclear should play a role,’ I’m not sure we ought to move ahead. I’d rather push on energy efficiency and renewables in California.”

The utility industry

No surprise that Darbee’s peers among coal-dependent utilities haven’t quite embraced the green way. “I spent Saturday in Chicago meeting with utility executives from around the country and we’re trying to see if we can come to consensus on this very issue,” he says diplomatically. “There’s a genuine concern on the part of the industry about this issue but there are undoubtedly different views about how to proceed and what time frames to proceed on.”

For Darbee one of the keys to reducing utility carbon emissions is not so much green technology as green policy that replicates the California approach of decoupling utility profits from sales. “If you’re a utility CEO you’ve got to deliver earnings per share and you’ve got to grow them,” he says. “But if selling less energy is contradictory to that you’re not going to get a lot of performance on energy efficiency out of utilities.”

“This is a war,” Darbee adds, “In fact, some people describe [global warming] as the greatest challenge mankind has ever faced — therefore what we ought to do is look at what are the most cost-effective solutions.”

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