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48 Wire & Cable ASIA – March/April 2015
From the Americas
The new results are considered especially significant
for photovoltaic power towers being developed by the
Australian company RayGen Resources, which provided
design and technical support for the high-efficiency
prototype. Another partner in the research was Spectrolab
(Sylmar, California), a subsidiary of Chicago-based
planemaker Boeing Co that provided some of the cells used
in the project.
Electric utilities in the USA take Tesla the
car maker in stride – but Tesla the battery
maker is another story
An article in the 7th December edition of FierceEnergy
is titled “Should Electric Utilities Worry About Tesla’s
Batteries?” Having considered the $5 billion battery
“Gigafactory” under construction by Tesla Motors in
Nevada, the author, Doug Peeples, is inclined to think that
worry is entirely appropriate.
Some USA utilities accept the necessity for integrating
distributed renewable energy and energy storage into their
electric grids.
Wrote Mr Peeples: “It makes strategic sense for them to
do so if they want to keep up with today’s changing energy
environment.”
He said several utilities see renewables combined with
storage as opportunities. But Tesla (Pala Alto, California)
sells both electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain
components, including lithium-ion battery packs. This
makes it a kind of hybrid of the automotive and energy
industries; and, according to Mr Peeples, its battery project
makes the utilities “a bit edgy.”
The attitude of the utilities toward all-electric electric
vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids is evolving. Originally
dubious about them, the industry has become more
supportive of EVs. Several large investor-owned utilities
have asked regulators to allow them to enter the charging
station business.
But Mr Peeples cited a recent Bloomberg News report to
the effect that Tesla and SolarCity (San Mateo, California),
which builds charging stations for electric vehicles, are
moving more quickly than the utilities to meet growing
consumer demand.
The two companies, which share a CEO, provide solar
systems and batteries in combination, although on a limited
scale at this point.
That will probably change when the Gigafactory is
completed and more batteries can be produced both for
cars and for solar-storage installations.
Tesla is ahead of the game in serving its own needs, having
already installed 135 fast-charging stations for Tesla EVs.
In another plus for Tesla, some analysts interviewed by
Bloomberg also said the battery cost reductions achieved
by the company have not been adequately acknowledged.
In their view Tesla may be able to offer substantially lower
prices once the Gigafactory is commissioned.
 FierceEnergy noted that financial services firms such as
Morgan Stanley say Tesla’s storage offerings for homes
and businesses could be ‘disruptive’ for the utility
industry both in the USA and Europe.
As the cost of storage systems falls, more utility
customers all the time will likely elect to take charge of
satisfying all or most of their electricity needs.
Automotive
 With the approach of the 31st January deadline for
filing claims under the General Motors victim compen-
sation programme, administrator Kenneth Feinberg on
8th December issued an update.
Mr Feinberg said that, of 239 death claims and 2,023
injury claims received since August 2014, 89 were
deemed eligible for compensation.
At least 38 people have died and 51 have been injured
in crashes involving GM cars with defective ignition
switches. The switches can slip out of the On position,
which causes the cars to stall, knocks out power
steering, and turns off the air bags.
GM, which established the fund and engaged
Mr Feinberg, has acknowledged that it knew about
faulty ignition switches in Chevrolet Cobalts and other
small cars for more than a decade. It issued a recall in
February 2014.
 Takata, the Japanese auto parts supplier at the centre
of an expanding air bag recall, in December hired
three former secretaries of the US Department of
Transportation to advise the company on management
of the crisis. The former cabinet officials served under
Presidents George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and George W
Bush.
The Transportation Department oversees the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which at last
report was seeking to widen the Takata recall for
driver-side bags from Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and
the Virgin Islands to the nation at large.
Greg Gardner of the Detroit Free Press reported
(4th December) that at least four people died and
many others have been injured as a result of the
rupture of Takata air bag inflators, which caused the
bags to deploy with excessive force.
One of the former government secretaries is to head a
quality assurance panel that will consider how Takata
can rupture-proof the apparatus.
 Ford has a long way to go to overtake General Motors
and Volkswagen in China, but the Detroit automaker
did exceed one million sales in that market with a 20 per
cent increase through the first 11 months of last year.
The come-from-behind effort has been boosted by
heavy investment to expand the company’s line-up
and build more of its fuel-efficient and smart vehicles
locally.