Seeing Future in Fuel Cells, Toyota Ends Tesla Deal

As reported by the NY Times: Toyota said on Monday that it would allow a battery-supply deal with Tesla Motors to expire this year and would focus instead on building cars running on hydrogen fuel cells, a next-generation technology that rivals Tesla’s all-electric systems.

Toyota Motor invested $50 million in Tesla to acquire a 3 percent stake in the Silicon Valley upstart in 2010, and signed a $100 million joint-development deal in 2011 for a version of Toyota’s RAV4 crossover sport utility vehicle that carried Tesla’s electric powertrains. At the time, the two automakers suggested that the RAV4 electric vehicle could be the start of a wider collaboration.

But the electric RAV4 has sold poorly, despite low-cost lease and loan offers Toyota introduced last year to promote sales. And Toyota has increasingly signaled that it sees fuel cells as the most viable zero-emissions technology, putting it at odds with Tesla, an evangelist for electric-vehicle technology. Toyota is also the world’s biggest manufacturer of gas-electric hybrids.

Toyota said in an emailed statement that it was “re-evaluating” its RAV4 electric vehicle, and that Tesla’s supply agreement for the model would “conclude this year.” Toyota said that its contract had called for Tesla to supply 2,500 battery-electric powertrains for the RAV4.

The Japanese automaker said its focus this year would instead be on its four-door sedan powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which it plans to introduce in California next year. The automaker will also focus on developing hydrogen refueling stations to support fuel-cell technology, it said.

Tesla said Friday in a regulatory filing that it expected the supply deal to end this year. Toyota said it would keep its stake in Tesla for now.

“It’s obvious Toyota doesn’t see a market for electric vehicles,” said John O’Dell, green-car analyst at the auto-research site Edmunds.com. “They really see the future of the zero-emission vehicle as the hydrogen vehicle,” he said.

“In partnering with Tesla, there might have been a message there that Toyota was looking at the possibility” of a wider partnership with the Silicon Valley manufacturer, he said. “But they can’t even give these cars away. Why continue doing this?”

The winding down of the supply deal comes just four years after the two automakers announced their partnership to much fanfare, in May 2010, when Tesla bought an assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that Toyota had closed.

The plant had been the site of a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. But G.M. ceased production there during its bankruptcy and restructuring in 2009, and Toyota closed the factory a year later.

In return, Toyota agreed to buy $50 million of Tesla common stock and said the companies intended to cooperate on the development of “electric vehicles, parts and production-system and engineering support.”

That came as a surprise to analysts, as Toyota executives had long talked down the all-electric car in favor of the company’s own gas-electric hybrid technology, which cost the automaker millions of dollars to develop.

And yet as momentum built in recent years around all-electric powertrains, Toyota was increasingly criticized for lagging behind in a crucial automotive technology. In 2010, Nissan released the Leaf, which it billed as the world’s first mass-produced all-electric car. General Motors followed with its plug-in Chevrolet Volt.

Toyota, for a time, appeared to be hedging its bets. In a joint news conference with Tesla in 2010, Toyota’s chief executive, Akio Toyoda, said the market had not yet chosen the best low-emissions technology. He said the company was preparing for all options.

“When customers do give us their answer,” Mr. Toyoda said, “I want the company to be ready.”

Toyota introduced its own all-electric vehicle in 2012, a car based on its iQ ultra-mini compact that the automaker developed independently. But Toyota has limited sales of that car to fleet customers. At the same time, electric vehicles have struggled to reach the mass market, hindered by consumer concerns over their range and high cost.

Alec Gutierrez, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book, said he did not see the deal’s end as a tremendous blow to Tesla. The boutique automaker would just shift its attention to the Model X sport utility vehicle, he said, which it is set to sell next year. Still, it came as a disappointment, he said.

“There was a hope that this would have taken off and that Toyota would plan a mass-market vehicle,” he said. “But now they’re heading in two different directions.”

Nanotechnology to the Rescue: A New Fuel Cell Catalyst is a Game Changer for Hydrogen Vehicles

As reported by The Motley Fool: Fuel cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs, may have just taken a giant step closer to widespread adoption. Why? Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have jointly developed a new type of fuel cell catalyst that has more than 30 times the catalytic activity than conventional catalysts and uses 85% less platinum.
 

Nanotechnology to the rescue
One of the main barriers to widespread FCEV adoption is the high cost of fuel cell catalysts. This is because they rely on platinum. In fact, the Energy Department estimates that platinum can account for 50% of a fuel cell's cost. Luckily, the new class of catalysts being developed by Argonne and Lawrence Berkeley help solve this problem. Here's how.

Uniform polyhedron.

Fuel cell catalyst researchers conventionally use polyhedra, or small, solid nanoparticles of pure platinum. However, when scientists at the labs combined platinum and nickel nanoparticles to make an alloy -- and then exposed that solution to air for two weeks -- it reacted with oxygen and dissolved the particle's nickel interior. The result was a dodecahedron nanoframe, which is a three-dimensional, 12-sided, hollow structure a thousand times smaller in diameter than a human hair.  

Further, the Energy Department states: "The research team then took the nanoframes a few steps further -- applying heat to form a thin topmost skin of platinum atoms over the remaining nickel and encapsulating an ionic liquid in the nanoframe to allow more oxygen to access the platinum atoms during the fuel cell's electrochemical reaction." 

To put the above in layman's terms, what researchers did is create a hollow frame of the original polyhedron so, instead of a solid particle of pure platinum, what's left is just a frame with platinum-rich edges. Thus, the amount of platinum needed is greatly reduced. Moreover doing this makes the catalyst more efficient because the surface area is increased, and the catalyzed molecules can contact the structure from more directions.

Future promise
Right now, the new catalysts are still in the early stages of research, but scientists at the labs believe they hold strong promise for fuel cell vehicles. Furthermore, the nanoframes have already been lab-tested with conditions associated with vehicle use, and the result was that after 10,000 cycles, the nanoframes showed no decrease in activity -- that's pretty impressive. 

2015 Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell.

The above is especially great news for Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai because all three are betting on a hydrogen fuel cell future. Plus, they are actively pursuing ways to make their vehicles more cost-competitive and thus, widely adopted. In fact, Reuters reports that Toyota is willing to sell its FCV at a loss just to popularize the new technology. This is the same strategy Toyota used with its Prius, which Reuters states, "with other hybrids, now accounts for 14 percent of Toyota's annual sales, excluding group companies, of around 9 million vehicles." 

What to watch
Currently, there are still barriers to widespread FCEV adoption. However, these barriers are becoming smaller by the day. Furthermore, a fuel cell that uses 85% less platinum and has 30 times more catalytic activity is a great step toward furthering an FCEV future. 

NTT DOCOMO to Trial Ericsson 10Gbps 5G Mobile Broadband Technology in Japan

As reported by ISPreview: The standard for the next generation of 5G mobile communications technology is still being debated, yet that hasn't stopped telecom giant Ericsson from teaming up with Japanese mobile firm NTT DOCOMO to test its own 10Gbps+ (Gigabits per second) capable solution in Yokosuka; albeit using the 15GHz radio frequency band.

NTT DOCOMO has always been one of the first pioneers of new mobile communication technologies and thus their plan to achieve “ultra-high bit rates” of more than 10Gbps as part of a 5G trial should thus come as no surprise.

Meanwhile Ericsson claims to have developed advanced antenna technologies with wider bandwidths, higher frequencies and shorter transmission time intervals, as well as radio base stations built with base-band units and radio units developed specifically for the 5G trial.

Seizo Onoe, NTT DOCOMO’s Executive Vice President and CTO, said:
“5G studies are starting to gain real momentum as we point toward 2020. We appreciate that 5G will provide significant performance enhancements to support future new applications that will impact both users and industry. We look forward to showing the potential of 5G radio access technologies via this experimental trial.”

A quick glance at one of Ericsson’s 5G white papers suggests that their technology would be designed to operate in all sorts of different frequency bands, although it’s unclear why 15GHz has been chosen for the trial. This might be more difficult to implement in the UK / Europe where such frequencies are often already allocated to Satellite, military, point-to-point communications and maritime systems.

Ofcom’s recently published radio spectrum strategy (here) also seems to be focused on much lower frequency bands, which are generally better for coverage but not so good if you want to deliver a lot of capacity (note: high frequency but shorter range gives you the best speeds).

At any rate we've already seen various different so-called “5G” trials from companies like Samsung and Huawei, although as yet these are all just possibilities and the various political or regulator forces will still need to make the ultimate decision about which direction the future technology takes.

Clearly any solution will need to operate at both a lower frequency, to help coverage, and a higher frequency for more capacity, such as in urban areas. But at least everybody seems to agree on the 2018-2020 time frame for introduction. In the meantime, USA/UK based 4G networks are still a long way from reaching their maximum potential of 1Gbps+ via LTE Advanced technology, with only EE currently looking at the next step via summer 2014 trials of 300Mbps+ planned.

In related news the Government of South Korea has committed around £940m ($1.59 Billion) to roll-out its own 5G service, with trials due by December 2017 and a commercial deployment set for 2020. No specific technology choice is mentioned, although local Smartphone giant Samsung has been testing its own unique twist on 5G connectivity using some high frequency bands.

Previously the developed Asian countries have led the way with new mobile services but this time around the UK and Europe have also been trying to steal a march on their rivals. But sooner or later somebody is going to have to choose which standard to use and as before it looks like we might end up with different approaches for different parts of the world.

After the Loss of Flight MH370 - Airlines to be Given Access to Inmarsat Near-Real-Time Aircraft Tracking Service

As reported by the Seattle Times: Inmarsat Plc, a provider of global mobile satellite communications services, said it will offer free basic tracking services for planes flying over oceans in the hope of preventing another incident such as the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The British company said Monday that the service is being offered to all 11,000 commercial passenger aircraft already equipped with an Inmarsat satellite connection -- most of the world's long-haul commercial fleet.

"This offer responsibly, quickly and at little or no cost to the industry, addresses in part the problem brought to light by the recent tragic events around MH370," said Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce.

The Boeing 777 with 239 people on board was en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 when it disappeared. The plane automatically sent signals to a satellite belonging to Inmarsat after the plane's transponder and its communication systems had shut down -- but researchers were unable to find the plane before the batteries in the black box flight recorder shut down.

Malaysia's government said the plane's last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth, and that the flight ended there. It has not been found.

Inmarsat, which made its offer ahead of a conference in Canada on aircraft tracking, said it anticipated the adoption of further safety measures following the loss of MH370.

The company said it would also offer both an enhanced position reporting facility and a 'black box in the cloud' service that would stream historic and real-time flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder information when a plane deviates from its course. These would not be free.

Inmarsat PLC started out in 1979 as an intergovernmental organization that helped track ships at sea, but became a private company in 1999.

Its customers now include airlines, broadcast media, oil and gas companies and aid agencies who use hand-held satellite phones, laptop size Internet devices and antennas linked to the company's 10 satellites to communicate.



Chris McLaughlin, a senior Inmarsat executive, said the uptake of the service could be almost immediate on 90 per cent of the global fleet of widebody aircraft as they have the necessary equipment already installed. He said a simple software upgrade would extend that to “virtually 100 per cent” of long-haul aircraft flying today.

The service would enable the aircraft to transmit data about its speed, height and direction over the Inmarsat network every 15 minutes.

Long-haul aircraft flying over the world’s oceans are out of radar contact for prolonged periods and normally use a combination of radio communications or transmissions via satellite to report their positions. The latter has been a voluntary premium service until now.

The offer by Inmarsat comes ahead of a meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the UN agency that sets global aviation standards, in Montreal on Monday to discuss real-time tracking of aircraft in the wake of the disappearance of MH370.

An interim report into the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner, which has still not been found despite the biggest international search in history, recommended that aircraft should be tracked in real-time.

This is a repeat of the recommendation made by French air accident investigators following the crash of an Air France aircraft in the South Atlantic in 2009. It was revealed in late March that ICAO had ignored their proposal to introduce a mandatory requirement for all commercial airliners to regularly “transmit basic flight parameters” such as position, altitude, speed and heading.

“By doing this at no cost we are looking to take the immediate stress out of the system as no doubt ICAO will be discussing what to do for the rest of the year,” Mr McLaughlin said.

He added that providing the basic service for free would cost Inmarsat about $3m a year. “It is a marginal cost to us but we think it is worth it.” He said the company hoped to recoup those losses by convincing more airlines to sign up for its premium services which allow the aircraft to transmit information back to the maintenance base about the performance of its systems, such as its engines and fuel consumption.

The take-up of satellite-based communications services by airlines has been slow because of the cost. Inmarsat was originally set up by the UN’s International Maritime Organisation 34 years ago to offer tracking and communications services to the shipping industry. It was privatised in 1999 but has continued to offer a free global maritime distress service.


The search for MH370 has been scaled back in recent weeks after the authorities failed to locate any wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean off the Australian coast. Investigators have focused on this area as the only clue to the whereabouts of the aircraft came from brief “electronic handshakes” that an Inmarsat system on the Malaysian jet had made with one of the company’s satellites.


The Inmarsat system on MH370 was not active because Malaysian Airlines was one of the many airlines around the world that had not signed up for the satellite services.

FCC Chairman Will Reportedly Revise Broadband Proposal

As reported by CNET: The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has revised details of its proposed plan to rewrite Net neutrality to add assurances that Internet service providers will not be able to segregate Internet traffic into fast and slow lanes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to reveal the new proposal as early as Monday, the Journal reported. The rules revision is an apparent attempt to quell concern that broadband providers will be allowed to degrade traffic speeds to some sites while allowing other sites to strike deals that assure preferential delivery of their web content to customers.

While not a dramatic revision of Wheeler's proposal, the new draft is expected to include language that will allow the FCC to ensure that broadband providers don't degrade the traffic of nonpaying customers. The new proposal will also seek comment on whether such "paid prioritization" should be prohibited altogether.

The commission's proposed plan ignited a frenzy of criticism on the Internet last month after being spotlighted in news reports. The reports suggested that the FCC had changed its position on certain aspects of its Open Internet rules, including shifting its stance to allow Internet service providers to charge companies for a faster lane of service.

The redrafting comes just days after the world's top tech heavyweights made a plea to the FCC to lay down the law and safeguard Net neutrality, which traditionally has prohibited blocking access or discriminating against Internet traffic traveling over an ISP's connections. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, eBay, and dozens of others wrote a letter (PDF) to the FCC on Wednesday asking for a "free and open Internet" and rules that protect users and Internet companies. In all, nearly 150 Internet companies signed the letter.

Over the past few weeks, Wheeler has worked to calm critics of the proposal saying that he is all for an open Internet. A couple of weeks ago, he wrote a blog post in which he pledged to use "every available power" to prevent ISPs from degrading service for the benefit of a few.

After the letter was released, Democratic FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn both issued statements questioning Wheeler's proposal. Clyburn wrote a blog post that called for a free and open Internet, as well as prohibiting pay-for-priority arrangements, and Rosenworcel issued a statement (PDF) asking the commissioners to "delay our consideration of his rules by a least a month. I believe that rushing headlong into a rulemaking next week fails to respect the public response to his proposal."

Wheeler's proposal will be voted on by the four other FCC commissioners at the agency's open meeting on Thursday.

Evaluating the Promise and the Pitfalls of the EOBR/ELD Rules

As reported by FleetOwner: As the commentary period for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking regarding electronic logging devices (ELDs) begins to wind down, trade groups, industry suppliers, and others trying to analyses the potential promise and pitfalls not only of such devices but the specific regulations governing their use.

In meetings held during the 2014 Zonar Systems user conference in San Antonio, TX, last week, Fred Fakkema, the company’s VP of compliance, cautioned that as things stand right now the soonest FMCSA could issue a final rule regarding ELDs would be the spring of 2015, meaning a final adoption deadline for the devices wouldn't be until the spring of 2017.

“Once a final rule is posted, that’s when the adoption clock starts,” he explained. “But right now there’s a huge push on to extend the comment period another 30 days past the May 18 deadline because this is just such a huge rule; it is 268 pages long.”

One sticking point in current deliberations regarding ELD operation is the issue of “personal conveyance,” when a driver goes off duty but must use his or her tractor to go home, travel to overnight parking, or get something to eat.

“Right now there’s no limit on personal conveyance,” Fakkema (seen at right) said. “For example, if they drive from the terminal yard to dinner or a movie, the device will not record that as on-duty drive time – as long as they are not getting paid.” For authorized in-yard moves, such as shifting a trailer between docks, that time would be recorded as “on-duty not-driving,” he added.

However, other scenarios confuse that issue, such as if a driver uses his or her tractor to go get lunch yet gets paid for that time. “That’s one of the difficulties with this rule – it’s open to multiple interpretations,” Fakkema explained.

Another big issue regarding ELDs – one that sank FMCSA’s first attempt to mandate them three years ago – regards “driver harassment,” which Jack Van Steenburg, FMCSA’s assistant administrator and chief safety officer, revolves around preventing motor carriers from disrupting a driver’s off-duty time via the device as well as giving drivers “ownership” of the hours of service (HOS) information recoded by the devices.

“The big key to this rulemaking are the anti-harassment provisions.” Steeburg explained at the Zonar conference. “It mandates a ‘mute option’ for when the driver is in the sleeper berth, establishes a compliant process and [harassment] penalties, and gives drivers access to their own HOS records.”

Yet in an ironic twist, the proposed ELD regulations also require drivers to provide paper documentation to back up their electronic records from one of five categories: payroll data, schedules/itineraries, trip records/bills of lading, expense receipts, or communication records.

Rob Abbott, VP-safety policy for the American Trucking Associations (ATA), said many in the industry believe that documentation requirement is “too broad,” though he stressed the trade group supports the overall initiative to mandate ELDs as they will improve HOS compliance and thus safety.

Zonar’s Fakkema put it more bluntly: “Is it defeating the entire purpose of ELDs by requiring paper documentation?” he asked.

ATA’s Abbot said the trade group is also expressing concern over what he called the four-year “grandfather period” being provided within the ELD rule for carriers currently using electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs) systems.

“Is four years long enough? Can older [EOBR] devices be upgraded with simple software to comply with the new rules or will carriers need to switch over to new technology?” he asked.
Collin Mooney, deputy executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), expressed his group’s concern about the tamper resistance of current ELD technology and whether the FMCSA’s “phase in” approach allowing older EOBRs to be used alongside new ELDs could create difficulties on the enforcement end of things.

As it stands now, FMCSA’s proposed ELD rulemaking would allow fleets using “ELD-like” devices meeting current standards to keep using them until two years after the final adoption deadline for ELDs, which would be four years until after the final rule becomes effective, whenever that may be.

“But that ‘two plus two’ phase-in could create a situation where law enforcement may be reviewing three different types of HOS recording systems – EOBRs, ELDs and paper logbooks – for two years,” he said.

Then there is the ongoing debate over the technical requirements for ELDs within the rule, stressed Zonar’s Fakkema.

“FMCSA is trying to get interoperability of ELDs into the rules, with standard file formats to ease the exporting of data,” he said. “Basically, it’s trying to get all the devices to play together.”
The difficulty is not only in harmonizing electronic HOS data but also how to transfer it to law enforcement during roadside inspections. “Right now in the rule, ELDs must be capable of transferring the driver’s log electronically or by printing a paper record,” Fakkema explained.

During roadside inspections, primary electronic information transfers can occur one of three ways: by email, by wireless web service, or by Bluetooth. Two backup transfer methods must also be available; one must be law be a USB port, with the other either a scanable quick response “QR” code or by “bumping’ electronic devices together.

“And if you can’t show the logbook information in a ‘grid/graph’ format on the ELD display screen then you must print it out,” he added.

Fakkema stressed, too, that there will be information delivery issues regardless of the type of technology involved. “Take QR codes: you can only load so much data into these, so will there be enough room to fit all of the HOS information in one?” he said.

Then there are what he called the “malfunction” rules, which allow a driver to revert to paper logs in case of an ELD failure for up to seven days – though drivers can apply for a five day extension with the FMCSA. “An ELD though must be repaired and back on line in eight days under the rule,” he pointed out.

That’s why Fakkema believes the industry won’t see a final ELD rule for at least another year. “We still have all those issues to get through, plus OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] needs at least eight months to sign off on it,” he said.

SpaceX Injunction Dissolved; US Can Buy Russian Rockets for Space Launches

As reported by arstechnica: Last week, the United States Court of Federal Claims granted an injunction that prevented US-based companies from purchasing Russian RD-180 rocket engines. That injunction was put in place to give the court time to examine whether or not buying those engines contravened Executive Order 13,661 designed to sanction persons in the Russian government over the ongoing Russian-Ukraine crisis. Yesterday afternoon, however, the same court sided with the US government’s appeal—to the best of the court’s knowledge, the purchase of RD-180 rocket engines doesn't violate the executive order.

The injunction was granted in response to a lawsuit by SpaceX and was specifically targeted at the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed-Martin and Boeing that manages space launches for the US government. SpaceX argued that it hadn't been allowed to compete for the contracts currently being serviced by the ULA. It also said that the money ULA uses to buy RD-180 engines for the Atlas V launch vehicle benefits Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

Rogozin, SpaceX reasoned, is head of the Russian space program, and the RD-180 engines are manufactured by state-owned company NPO Energomash. Since Rogozin is also on a "Specifically Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List" (due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict), payments made to NPO Energomash were effectively made to Dmitry Rogozin—something that, if true, would be explicitly prohibited by Executive Order 13,661.

The injunction had been granted primarily on the basis of that potential violation rather than on whether or not SpaceX had been unlawfully prevented from bidding on the launch contracts. The US government formally filed a motion to dismiss the injunction on May 6; yesterday’s decision to grant the dismissal hinged on a number of letters filed with that motion, coming from the Departments of State, Commerce, and the Treasury.

When issuing the injunction last week, the court specifically stated that it would consider the opinion of those three departments in determining whether to extend or dissolve the injunction; it has now weighed in, with State and Treasury both saying that Executive Order 13,661 is not being violated and with Commerce deferring to the judgment of State and Treasury:

These letters collectively explain that “to the best of [the relevant Department’s] knowledge, purchases from and payments to NPO Energomash currently do not directly or indirectly contravene Executive Order 13,661.” Ex. A at 2; Ex. C at 2 (same); Ex. B at 1 (explaining that the United States Department of Commerce “defers to the Departments of the Treasury and State regarding whether... Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin... controls NPO Energomash and if so whether that control contravenes Executive Order 13,661”).

Much in the same way that the injunction remained open on its potential dissolution, the dissolution order notes that if any agency of the US government does determine that there might be a chance that the rocket engine purchases are violating the executive order, the injunction might be resurrected:

If the Government receives any indication, however, that purchases from or payment of money to NPO Energomash by ULS, ULA, or the United States Air Force will directly or indirectly contravene Executive Order 13,661, the Government will inform the court immediately.

At this point, whether or not SpaceX was unlawfully barred from competing for the contracts remains an unaddressed issue. It's a pretty good bet that we'll see further legal wrangling from SpaceX on the matter.