IUV Technology Conference 2009:
Answering the Needs of Greater Efficiencies
and a Clean Environment
By Stephen Metzger, PhD, Senior Editorial Advisor
In many ways the IUV Technology Conference 2009 was a “green” seminar. Virtually all companies in the economy are factoring in the needs for greater efficiency in the operation of their particular utility vehicles, and at the same time, their strategic decisions are being framed by environmental policies emanating from Federal and State governments.
In this context, not only established companies, but newly formed, entrepreneurial ventures, are finding windows of opportunity for profit and growth. Thus, the conference kicked-off with a panel of four entrepreneurs, bringing relatively new products and services to the industrial/utility vehicle market.
Entrepreneurs and innovation: The bread of industry life
Ben King, founder and President of Martex Global Enterprises, LLC and Vice President, General Manager of Metro Golf Cars in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, led off the panel discussion with a look at ways to build a niche market into a broader-based sales effort. First, citing his experience in increasing market for his company and his own, specially-designed off-road 4 X 4 electric vehicle, the HuntVe™, King stated that initially targeting and securing a niche is the foundation to broadening the market. It provides initial opportunities for branding and can take advantage of marketing cost efficiencies. He also noted that having competitors is sometimes a good thing simply because their efforts, as well as your own, help to broaden the market for all participants. This is particularly true in developing markets for new technologies, where there is relatively little consumer knowledge of the product type.
Second, once a target demographic has been identified and is readily accessible through your distribution system, the issues then revolve around how far to expand within the niche. Diversifying product is one strategy but a healthy, sustainable market development plan should not commit you to doing too much, too soon. Where essentially new products and technologies are involved, user feedback is also critical, as is the willingness to modify and adjust the product based on such feedback.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a new product and its technology is a critical to the manufacturer as to the customer. The second presenter on the panel spoke to that issue:
As the chief executive of Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC), Richard Dell, Jr. and his father have overseen the development of a series of cutting edge alternative fuel developments. The AVRC is located in Danville, VA, the 16,000 square foot engineering facility and adjacent 266 acre testing ground financed, in part, by a grant from the State of Virginia.
As Dell explained, the AVRC is heavily engaged in conversions from traditional gas engines to a variety of alternative fuels, including full electric, hybrid, and fuel cells. In addition, the company is engaged in developing and selling charging stations and data logging software for tracking. The company is also engaged in two other key areas: educational projects to include workforce development programs, and in applied research for, and in collaboration with, transportation companies.
AVRC provides an independent testing service for new technologies, and this service is particularly important when groundbreaking technology needs the stamp of credibility and reliability.
Battery technology is consistently in the spotlight these days. While lithium ion batteries have gained most of the attention, the problems of cost and reliability are still open issues. New lead acid technology may well be a better alternative from both these perspectives.
Mil Ovan is a co-founder and Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at Firefly Energy Corporation. Firefly is developing a breakthrough in lead acid battery. Ovan pointed out that the problem with lead acid batteries is the battery not the chemistry. Specifically, lead acid chemistry is currently engineered to deliver only 20%-40% of its theoretical potential. The Firefly Microcell Foam Battery Technology is designed to move the chemistry to 90%+ of its potential. The key to this better performance is a lightweight, non-corroding and non-sulfating “Microcell” foam grid, offering many advantages including low self-discharge rates and high reserve capacity compared to conventional lead acid batteries.
Ovan outlined a number of barriers to acceptance of this new technology, including the fact that Firefly, as a startup, is relatively unknown, skepticism regarding other breakthrough claims, price, and perception that the current product matches up relatively well. To overcome these barriers Ovan and Firefly have undertaken a strategy to build awareness of the company, offer a class-leading warranty and open the new technology to third party tests, including the U.S. military, and give out “seed units” to industry influencers.
Lending further credibility to its efforts, Firefly has teamed with both private and public entities for purposes of funding, product development, and applications. These entities include Infield capital , KB Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Quecus Trust on the financial side, and Caterpillar, BAE Systems, and Husqvarna on the strategic, business expansion side.
New products and new technologies have a wider window than ever before, thanks to the internet. The internet, however, has its particular attributes that must be observed to assure its effective use. The final panelist spoke to this issue.
Brendan Elliott is principal of The Elliott Group, a company which focuses the effective use of the internet as a information directing and marketing tool. Elliott points out that in the age of the internet, the new customer realities are that the customer is, first, an information user, is self-directed, independent, in control of the information search, and proactive in that search. This, in contrast to the passive role as defined by traditional advertising. The new reality opens up significant opportunities for the entrepreneur and his business startup, but effective use of the internet requires an information strategy.
The entrepreneur should realize that information is as important as the form of the message or company image, and he has a new, explicit role as an information provider. Compared to tradition market demographics, customer segmentation in the internet age is based on new variables, variables which Elliott dubs as a customer Infographic™. This customer profile consists of tracking content and sources used, online/offline behavior, decision-making frameworks, problem-solving behavior, transaction preferences, and communication needs.
Elliott emphasizes that information about the product is, itself, a product and that the website is part of the product, which, logically, adds a new dimension to the competition. In this new competitive framework, the customer researches and defines his or her needs, which are information-driven. An effective website will attract the customer as a constituent; that is, a member of a user group which builds and thrives on the information content that is provided.
Improving energy efficiency and alternative fuels
A significant portion of the conference dealt with energy saving technology and alternative fuels. John Updyke, Drive Train Engineering Manager for Hilliard Corporation, spoke about “Enhanced Vehicle Traction and Automatic Locking Differentials.” Hilliard is focusing on increasing efficiencies and developing green technology. In particular, with regard to drive trains, the company is developing technology that maximizes energy transfer, focusing on vehicle movement and attempting eliminate spinning wheels.
The technology, branded as Auto-Lok™, acts like a locking differential when engaged, but like an open differential when turning, and provides positive engagement of both front wheels in forward and reverse. While the machine moves in a straight path, both wheels have positive drive. When the machine turns left or right, the inner wheel becomes the drive wheel and the out wheel can rotate at any speed, independent of the inner wheel. If the inner wheel loses traction, the out wheel will immediately transmit torque.
Auto-Lok technology is potentially applicable across a wide range of products, including two-wheeled walk-behind equipment such as snowblowers, brush cutters, commercial mowers, trenchers, lawn and garden tractors, as well as two axle vehicles such as utility vehicles, UTVs, and ATVs.
In the same vein, Benny Forsman, Business Unit Manager for Kollmorgen, demonstrated why hybrids for off-highway machines were the best of hybrid applications. Such machines are characterized by high fuel consumption, many hours of use per year, intermittent duty cycles, often with a considerable amount of idling, and low rpm torque requirements. The electric hybrid solution opens up the possibilities of improved drivability and productivity, the potential to electrify other machine functions, and significantly reduce operating, including fuel, costs.
Forsman spoke of major reductions in fuel costs from 5%-50%, depending on the application, via recapture of braking energy, anti-idling, optimization of engine operating RPM. Further benefits include reduced emissions of 30%-50% and reduced maintenance costs. In certain applications, hybrid systems would reduce horsepower, enabling the machine to conform to emissions standards, with no loss of capability.
Forsman went on to point the three different strategies to achieve hybrid operations: parallel hybrid, series hybrid and diesel electric. All had their respective advantages given the application involved.
In the realm of alternative fuel solutions, Michael Stark, Alternative Fuels and National Account Sales Manager for Freightliner, presented the Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation’s 2010 offerings. The engine configurations for 2010 include a selective catalytic reduction system, compressed natural gas, hybrid electric, hydraulic hybrid, bio-diesel, and a four-cylinder engine.
The selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system is comprised of a diesel oxidation catalyst, a diesel particulate filter, and a diesel exhaust fluid. The latter is a solution of 32.5% automotive-grade urea and 67.5% purified water. In this system, diesel exhaust fumes pass through the particulate filter, at which point the urea solution is injected into the exhaust stream before entering the final stage of the SCR catalyst. The resulting exhaust consists of nitrogen and water with traces of carbon dioxide and is fully compliant with EPA 2010 emissions standards.
Engines powered by the alternative forms of energy and energy systems mentioned above are also fully compliant with the 2010 standards. Each has its particular advantages, giving purchasers a wide choice of technologies with which to meet the new emissions standards.
Are we on the right track? A strategic perspective on the U.S. competitive system
Todd Sauey, President and CEO of Columbia Par, delivered a strategic and, to some degree, a philosophical overview of the competitive environment in the United States. His presentation, entitled “The Original Equipment Manufacturing Revolution” (and subtitled, “Or, Where Have All the OEMs gone”), essentially dealt with the need to maintain a business environment that encouraged competition.
Invoking Darwinian principles of the survival of the fittest, Sauey contended that the current system was far too willing reward weakness and punish excellence. We have stopped asking why we are in business. The giant companies, which once dominated the economic scene, have, in effect, rewarded poor performance with the result that these companies have pretty much lost their market leverage.
What, in fact, allows us to stay fit? Sauey stated that we require a system that encourages competition (and competitors), gives customers a wide choice of product, and fosters a vigorous and competitive supply chain. He noted that a symptom of our difficulties is the predilection to achieve product differentiation via branding, rather than distinctive physical attributes.
“What,” Sauey asks, “are we measuring and why?” The metrics of sales volume and quarter-to-quarter financial results do not go to the core of long-run success. We are, indeed, collecting the wrong data, Sauey contends.
Sauey offered some of the rules and insights reflected upon from his days in kindergarten—such as, picking your battles, keep moving to win, art time, a time to be creative, and even kick’em while they’re down. His company having just won a major government contract for electric utility vehicles, who is contradict these pearls of wisdom?
Robert Rose, Executive Director of the U.S. Fuel Cell Council, made the case that fuel cells and hydrogen were a cost competitive, low-carbon alternative to other forms of alternative fuels. He noted that the latest, albeit dated, tally of global sales for fuel cells were over $380 million.
In the general utility vehicle application segment, forklifts using PEM technology, were making the most headway, with numerous demonstration projects underway, including those in collaboration with Wal-Mart and Wegmans. These companies, in fact, have opted to convert their forklift fleets to fuel cell power. In the residential market in the 1 to 7 kilowatt size, the United States is lagging, whereas Japan and Korea have been highly active in pushing this segment.
Rose noted that natural gas is a readily available source of hydrogen, and supplies are, for the most part, domestic. The biggest challenge to the mobility market is, however, the cost of hydrogen generation. There are two options in hydrogen fuel supply: onsite electrolysis and onsite natural gas reformers. A typical warehouse operation might require 1,000 kg. per day of hydrogen. At this level, an on-site hydrogen generator would be sufficient to assure this level of supply, but there are cost issues at this point. Rose strongly emphasized the need to bring these costs down, and the Council is working with Linde and Air Products to do this.
Electrification of the transportation systems is also faced with an infrastructure problem in that electrical charging stations can be very expensive. This point was emphasized by Ted Bohn, Principal Investigator at Argonne National Laboratory. Bohn reviewed several advances in simplified hybrid electric vehicle powertrain systems and matching storage technologies. He noted that developments in capacitor-battery combinations were particularly promising. He also noted that in the world of plug-in hybrids, average fuel consumption per period was a much better performance metric than miles per gallon. If the electric charging infrastructure were sufficient, miles per gallon would be virtually infinite.
On the vehicle production side of the supply picture, Craig Sleep, Account Manager for SI Systems, demonstrated the wide range of production systems available to the manufacturer today. For the most part the variety of systems consists of different combinations of sequential systems (the product moving from one work station to another, pulled by some type of conveyor belt) and holding stations (where remedial work or quality control can be attended to). Hybrid manufacturing systems are used mainly in off-road utility vehicle and on-road, non-automotive vehicle manufacturing. Manufacturing systems featured were, among others, Harley Davidson and Club Car.
An indicator of the importance of component parts in increasing vehicle efficiency is the hydraulic fan technology of Sauer Danfoss. Chet Seymour, Application Engineer, Advanced System Engineering Team at the company pointed out that full potential energy available from a vehicle engine often results in only 20%-30% of that energy potential at the wheels. Some that potential energy is drained off by the vehicle’s cooling fan.
At temperatures below 112 degrees, Seymour made the case that a hydraulic fan is much more efficient than a belt-driven fan. A variable pump attached to the diesel engine can actively turn flow off, or moderating it, when not needed to its full extent, thereby saving energy. A belt-driven fan, on the over hand, tends to run consistently at its maximum level. Additional benefits of the hydraulic fan system are less noise and reduced radiator face area.
Total system costs, or costs of ownership advantages were emphasized by a number of speakers at the Technology Conference. Rob Hoysgaard, Manager, and Dan O’Callahan, Department Head, Utility Business Development, Customer Information Systems at Automotive Resources International took the integration theme a step higher to total cost of fleet ownership. At this level there is a myriad of factors which impinge on costs. The broad categories of costs are related to asset management; e.g., vehicle selection and acquisition and vehicle replacement optimization among a number of other variables; cost management, such as maintenance, fuel purchasing and usage, and accident management and driver safety; and information technology used for collecting, analyzing and capitalizing on business intelligence.
In their presentation, entitled Using Your Garage Management System to Put Money Back into Your Company’s Pocket”, Hoysgaard and O’Callahan demonstrated a software system that accumulated the data across the multi-variable factors impacting costs, analyzed the data consistent with fleet policies, and produced multiple reports that allowed virtually real time operational adjustments where needed.
In summary, the IUV Technology Conference hosted a wide range of solution-oriented presentations on the cutting edge of technological developments. Given the recessionary state of the economy at this time, the need for greater efficiency in operations, in the use of human capital, and in material inputs is ever more urgent, and the answer to these issues is technology. The promise of new technologies was reflected in all the presentations and the audience response was appreciative.
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