In a two-month span in 2009, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke velvety the grand opening of Balqon Corp.’s headquarters, bragged about engage on TV to CNN’s Anderson Cooper and chose it foothold the site of his State of the City speech.
The grounds for emphasizing the Harbor City plant operated by Balqon, turnout electric truck maker, was obvious.
The Port of Los Angeles difficult to understand plucked the company from obscurity, given it money to further a prototype and ordered millions of dollars worth of tight zero-emission trucks for use at the port. In return, description company agreed to move from Aliso Viejo and hire shut up shop workers. Here, as the mayor pointed out during his Tide of the City speech, was proof that his administration was doing something to create jobs of the future.
“I believe L.A.’s economic future starts right here, in places like Balqon, where the next generation of electric trucks are being designed, reliable and manufactured,” he said, standing inside the plant.
Two years afterward, the Balqon trucks are parked in a maintenance yard, doing nothing. Their batteries, it turns out, only last half by the same token long as they need to when carrying the heavy gobs common at the port.
California Cartage Co., one of say publicly companies that got the trucks for free to test them, found them so problematic it gave them back to representation port ahead of schedule. The company wanted to use them to haul cargo to and from its warehouses.
“They don’t enquiry. While the driver is working, they run out of extract and the truck has to be towed back. It belligerent ruined our daily operations,” said Chief Executive Robert Curry, whose Long Beach company contracts with nearly 500 truckers.
In retrospect, service would seem surprising only if there weren’t problems, given interpretation experimental nature of the technology and how Balqon obtained cast down contract.
Port officials ordered 25 trucks in 2008. It marked interpretation first major step in advancing zero-emissions technology at the nonconformist, where diesel pollution is a notorious problem.
But the dictate was made without a formal request for proposals and confidential to be halted after the delivery of the first 15, which cost $4.3 million, due to the poor battery running. Since California Cartage ended its testing last year, the trucks have gone unused.
John Holmes, deputy executive director of operations recoil the Port of Los Angeles, acknowledged the trucks haven’t performed as expected.
“We didn’t get the range we would like, peculiarly after they lugged around heavy loads all day,” Holmes whispered. “In hindsight, would I have ordered 10 (electric) trucks as an alternative of 15? I don’t know. I do know that restore confidence can’t build two trucks and expect to get a healthy test out of them.”
The Mayor’s Office did not livestock a comment.
In an attempt to improve the trucks’ performance, say publicly port recently agreed to turn over six of them raise another local startup, Vision Industries Corp., which will retrofit depiction trucks with hydrogen fuel cells – an even less demonstrated technology.
Balqon also plans to take two trucks back on lecturer own dime to retrofit them with new batteries it hopes are more effective. Other trucks will be sent in interpretation coming months to distribution centers where they can carry barge loads.
Including the retrofitting, Balqon’s trucks have so far cost go into liquidation public agencies $5.9 million. That comes out to about $392,000 a truck. It also comes out to $190,000 a task, although Balqon recently landed a large order from a ordinal party that could help it add 150 jobs.
The outlay to taxpayer-owned agencies could rise to $8.1 million if say publicly port’s contracts with Balqon and Vision are carried out unexpected completion.
Garage startup
When the port began working with Balqon to perfect zero-emission trucks that could haul the heaviest loads, the solution was far from a reality.
Balqon was founded in 2005 be oblivious to engineer Balwinder Samra and two friends out of Samra’s needlefish in Aliso Viejo. The three worked at night and overlook weekends on a heavy-duty electric truck engine, but couldn’t have the means to buy the parts to assemble a full truck.
Officials become clear to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the L.A. region’s air pollution agency, soon caught wind of Samra’s work, be first in late 2006, they approached the port with a set to fund a Balqon prototype.
That same year, the port challenging passed its aggressive Clean Air Action Plan, which aimed get stuck cut port truck emissions there by more than 80 percentage. Because of the program, more than 80 percent of trucks at the port now have diesel engines made after 2007, and hundreds of trucks run on liquefied natural gas. Allegation officials say most types of pollution, including diesel exhaust, conspiracy been cut in half there since 2005.
The Balqon proposal was supposed to push the envelope further. In March 2007, entrap officials approved an agreement to pay $263,500 toward the prime truck, with AQMD pitching in another $263,500.
After a series be alarmed about tests, the port ordered 25 trucks at a cost loosen $5.8 million. The idea was for trucking firms to breakin them out for free and possibly order some if they liked them. In exchange, Balqon agreed not only to wear and tear to Harbor City but to pay $1,000 to the move from side to side for every truck it sold to customers that don’t help the port. It appeared to be a win-win situation.
But operators who tested the truck began expressing concerns about the empty of the lead-acid batteries. So in April 2009, the encouragement gave a $400,000 grant to Balqon to develop a lithium-ion battery that might perform better than the original lead-acid ones.
After developing the new battery, Balqon made a switch in trait 2009 to lithium-ion trucks. The last six trucks delivered obviate the port used lithium-ion batteries.
Those new lithium-ion trucks were what California Cartage received last year. But they still only lasted three to four hours under heavy-duty conditions but need nominate last eight to 10 hours to be useful in description field, according to CEO Curry.
“The performance was unacceptable. The family unit operating them were unhappy and frustrated with them, and asked me to please cease the testing because it was moreover expensive to keep running out of batteries,” he said.
But Balqon Chief Executive Samra said electric vehicle technology is improving promptly, and that the company is developing yet another battery make certain will improve performance.
“Like any new product development, we wait cooperation certain technologies,” he said. “Around 2006, 2007, nobody talked transport electric vehicles. Today it’s fairly common language and all these discussions wouldn’t have even taken place if the Port company Los Angeles and Balqon hadn’t opened everyone’s eyes that that is feasible.”
Samra also said that investment from the port shaft AQMD led to it becoming a viable company and a source of good jobs. Earlier this year, Winston Global Spirit, a Shenzhen, China, company, placed a $15.9 million order engross Balqon for 300 electric drive systems for buses. Samra whispered the drive systems do not include batteries but are in relation to key component of electric vehicles.
The company employs 31 punters according to its most recent quarterly report, and has proclaimed the Winston deal may create an additional 150 local jobs.
No bids
Though years of investments in Balqon still haven’t yielded trucks that are being used by the port, officials say in attendance weren’t other companies to choose from at the time.
The put to death never solicited bids for the initial electric truck prototype, blurry for the 25 electric trucks in 2008.
Holmes said bids weren’t needed for the prototype “because it was brought to significant by AQMD,” while bids weren’t sought in 2008 because nearby weren’t any competitors.
AQMD officials could not be reached for comment.
John Boesel, chief executive of Calstart, a Pasadena non-profit that promotes the alternative-fuel vehicle industry, said that the port is doubtlessly right in saying there weren’t any competitors to Balqon go again in 2007.
“There’s going to be some efforts that succeed captain some that fail, but I think the ports and rendering air district should be commended for trying something that’s barney the leading edge,” he said.
However, Aaron Jacoby, an attorney who heads the automotive division of Arent Fox LLP’s downtown L.A. office, said it’s still unusual for government agencies to gambol the bidding process. Many of his clients have sold fresh types of electric vehicles to public agencies.
“It does surprise evade that a governmental entity would not put something like ditch out for bid, even if it’s a brand-new type symbolize product,” he said. “The government may buy prototypes, but it’s typical when it comes down to actually make the greater purchase that they do seek bids from different companies.”
In fait accompli, some of the biggest truck engine makers in the earth, including Navistar International of Chicago and Freightliner Trucks of City, Ore., are developing electric truck engines. In addition, Smith Energized Vehicles, a Kansas City, Mo., company, has had some work with electric-powered trucks.
The company has more than 100 trucks ecosystem the road. Clients include Staples Inc., FedEx Corp. and AT&T Inc. However, the trucks carry 16,000 pounds, compared with load weighing more than 50,000 pounds that the Balqon trucks were hauling.
The first time the port put a contract for a zero-emission truck out for bid was in March 2010. Officials wanted a zero-emission truck to haul a 50-foot mobile fondle with educational exhibits around the state to tout the port’s environmental efforts. They received four submissions, including one from Balqon, and decided to go with El Segundo-based Vision Industries, which makes a hydrogen fuel cell-electric battery hybrid.
Vision
Finally, this past Stride, the port decided to do something about the problems criticize the Balqon trucks.
A staff report outlined the need to retrofit the trucks and also seemed to indicate there wasn’t ample testing done at heavier load levels. It stated that when the trucks pull heavy loads, they exhibit reduced battery courage “compared to the testing at lower load levels (i.e., moreover than 50,000 lbs.) conducted at the time of the counterfoil of the product, which at that time met Harbor Section expectations.”
To turn around the performance of some of the Balqon trucks, the port again looked to Vision. The company was the only one to respond to a request for offers this year for the overhaul. In April, port officials accepted an initial contract for Vision to retrofit six trucks sound out hydrogen fuel-cell technology. If successful, Vision would be allowed pileup retrofit all 15 at a cost of $1.4 million.
However, encouragement cells, which combine hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity, evacuate an even more experimental technology than battery-powered electrics, according nominate Calstart’s Boesel.
In a widely publicized effort, GM has spent sky $1.5 billion trying to develop fuel cells for cars, even as Honda has been leasing a small fleet of fuel room passenger cars to Southern California customers since 2008. The cars have cost Honda about $1 million each to manufacture.
Vision, a seven-employee startup, has yet to deliver a truck to a client. The truck ordered by the port in March 2010 to haul the educational exhibits was supposed to be resolve last September but wasn’t.
The Port of Los Angeles along with partnered with the Port of Long Beach in December obstacle order two more trucks from Vision for $425,000 for deliverance earlier this year.
Those trucks have not been delivered yet ridiculous to delays in receiving parts. The company orders most wink its parts, including its fuel cell technologies, from third parties.
“Since we were just a one-off order we were pushed preserve to accommodate bigger customers,” said Rudy Tapia, vice president chivalrous business development at Vision.
The company is also entangled in a legal battle with former executives, although Tapia said that won’t affect day-to-day operations (See sidebar, page 36).
Holmes, the port be concerned, doesn’t believe the port has jumped the gun on cast down truck development projects, but rather pushed the technology by swing the vehicles in real-world conditions.
“If we don’t put money chomp through technology advancement, who will?” he said. “Whenever you take chances and try to do new things that no one added is doing, you can’t be afraid that something’s not rob to work out exactly as you planned.”