Vinod Khosla plugs into the electric car

Silicon Valley green tech investor Vinod Khosla caused a stir recently when he dissed plug-in electric hybrid cars as “toys” that would not contribute much in the way of fighting global warming. The blogs were buzzing from red-faced EV enthusiasts taking umbrage at Khosla, who has made big bets on biofuels and is never shy at expressing his opinions on all matters green.

But an investment Khosla Ventures announced this week in EcoMotors, a Detroit startup developing a high-efficiency diesel engines, shows that the legendary venture capitalist is more eclectic when it comes to electrics than his public pronouncements might make him seem.

EcoMotors founders Peter Hofbrauer and John Coletti, veterans of Volkswagen and Ford (F) respectively, are engineering engines that they hope will achieve 100 miles per gallon, run on gasoline, diesel or biofuels and be used to power — wait for it — plug-in hybrid electric cars.

What drove Khosla to change his mind on hybrids? He didn’t, really. To understand why, we need to look under the hybrid hood. There are two types of hybrids. A parallel” hybrid contains two drive trains — an electric motor to power the car at low speeds for short periods of time, and a conventional gasoline engine for higher speeds. The Toyota (TM) Prius and Honda (HMC) Civic hybrid and most other hybrids on the road today are parallel hybrids. (A plug-in version would allow for a more powerful battery pack that could be recharged from a standard electrical outlet.)

In contrast, a series hybrid takes some of the complexity — and presumably the cost — out of the design by using only an electric drive train to propel the car while relying on a small internal combustion engine to power a generator that charges the battery and provides power to the electric motor when needed. The Chevrolet Volt, General Motor’s (GM) plug-in electric hybrid under development, is a series plug-in hybrid. And the EcoMotors’ engine will be designed for use in a series hybrid.

“He was referring to parallel hybrids,” says Khosla Partner’s Ford Tamer of his boss’s anti-hybrid comments made in a speech at an investor conference. “We do believe a series hybrid is the way to go. He was also referring to the fact that the hybrid platform is inherently an expensive platform.”

So is a series platform at this point, but Khosla’s vision is to drive that cost down by creating high-efficiency engines and batteries. Hence the investment in EcoMotors. And hence the hiring last September of Tamer, a former top executive at chipmaker Broadcom and a co-founder of another chip company, Agere (later acquired by Lucent). “I’ve been focused on the efficiency side of Khosla — engines, motors, turbines, even solar and batteries,” says Tamer, Khosla Ventures’ operating partner.

Khosla is the sole funder of EcoMotors – and no, Tamer won’t reveal the size of the investment – which officially launched this month and remains so stealthy it doesn’t even have a website yet.

Tamer says EcoMotors CEO Hofbrauer developed a high-efficiency engine under contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, of DARPA, for use in military vehicles. EcoMotors has now licensed the technology for commercial use.

Here’s how it works, as explained by Tamer: the EcoMotors engine is built of 2-cylindar “modules” that can be stacked depending on the need for power – one or two modules for a car, three or four for a big truck. “If you have two modules, you can shut down one module for city driving,” says Tamer. “But when you need to need to go uphill or need power for highway driving, you engage the second module. That gives you better fuel efficiency and reduces emissions.” (EcoMotors’ renderings of the engine’s design are above.)

With the recently enacted energy bill mandating automakers raise the average fuel efficiency of their fleets to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, EcoMotors aims to demo its first engine to potential customers by early 2009.

A plug-in electric hybrid drive train will be further down the road but Khosla Ventures already has made investments in companies developing components for such a system. One such startup is Seeo, a Berkeley, Calif.-based company whose website cryptically says it is “developing advanced materials to revolutionize electricity storage and delivery.”

“Our belief is that we have to get a fuel-efficient, emissions-conscious diesel engine on its own,” Tamer says. “Then going to a hybrid becomes a bonus.”

One of Vinod Khosla’s mantras is that green technology must become cheap and scalable enough to be adopted in China and India, countries whose impact on climate change is monumental. In other words, a $25,000 plug-in hybrid doesn’t stand a chance against a Tata Nano, the Indian people’s car unveiled last week.

Remarks Tamer: “$2,500 will buy a Tata  – that’s a DVD upgrade on a Lexus.”

Comments

[Jeff Baker]

This engine looks real promising! But, there are several other engines that will compete with the EcoMotor: (1) The Cyclone Green Revolution Engine – It will run on any fuel, including 65% or less hydrous ethanol (ethanol combined with water), crude bio-oils (like Dynamotive makes from forestry waste and biomass, to replace heating oil and industrial oil), and other forms of combustible biomass, such as a slurry of unrefined oil-rich ultrasound fractionated algae. (2) The MDI (Tata) that runs on compressed air – not to be underestimated – which will quickly be hybridized with a small liquid fuel engine to compress the air onboard, for unlimited range. (3) and numerous other power plants in the works. If I were EcoMotors, I would speed things up, to get a jump on the market. Their time-table for applying this engine to a hybrid is way too late. Build a hybrid prototype ASAP and get it out there now.

[Medhavi]

This is great piece of information. I didn't realize the difference between serial and parallel hybrids. My philosophy on green is same though - green has to be cheap enough so people don't have to make a sort of decision which they cannot sustain in the long run. Khosla's argument goes further about China and India. I am a regular blogger on technology and green. You can read some of my stuff at:
http://techpiper.blogspot.com and
http://greenmoli.blogspot.com

[Kunkiw Lee]

I want to study further about green energy

[Ron Wagner]

Vinod Khosla seems to be the real mover and shaker in alternative energy. Tata is another. I am looking so forward to seeing a compressed air, and a serial hybrid. It seems that there must be homemade serial hybrids now. Any references? I thought of this idea myself, a year ago, before hearing about the Volt. I remember being derided about it on a website. The Green Revolution Engine sounds great. Plan to look at it immediately. We seem to be on the edge of great things. Just watch out for those trying to slow things down, and keep the big auto companies in charge. Regulations will be their weapon!

[Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay]

Jan25,2008
Electric car is welcome!
What about only non-stop Electricity and no fuel!
I dream Electricity of alternate ORIGIN and is eager to progress with that!

[Fred]

If I recall correctly there was a 8 or maybe 12 cylinder ICE, I think a GM, in the past that engaged or removed the number of cylinders being utilized to improve fuel economy. And if I remember correctly this turned out to be a disaster.

I'm not convinced that a 'truly' green diesel exists. Chemicals added to the fuel to make it burn clean just add a different kind of pollutant to the exhaust. Okay, so this pollutant may not deplete ozone, but what about our lungs?

I sure don't get the efficiency calculations, if you are going to charge batteries with a less than 50% efficienct diesel engine using a 90% efficient generator the actual efficiency ends up being 'less' than that of just using the diesel engine alone. The more energy conversions a system uses the less efficient, plain high school physics.

Good luck Vinod, I won't hold my breath on this one