The fuel cell industry has seen numerous tie-ups, acquisitions, and investments in the last 6 months.

• Plug Power secured a $6.5 million investment from its hydrogen infrastructure partner Air Liquide to support its fuel cell forklift partnership
• Ballard secured an investment from Anglo American Platinum and partnered with Azure for distribution of its ClearGen system in China
• ClearEdge acquired UTC Power’s fuel cell assets
• A number of automakers announced technology development partnerships: Daimler, Nissan, and Ford are working jointly on a fuel cell system, BMW and Toyota are partnering in a similar fashion, and Volkswagen signed an engineering contract to use Ballard’s automotive fuel cell expertise.

This industry covers a huge range of applications across the stationary, portable, and transportation sectors, so trying to discern broad industry trends is a bit of a fool’s errand.  Nevertheless, two things jump out about these moves, and they tell two very different stories about the state of fuel cell markets.

One is the strength of the “pure play” fuel cell companies over the large multinationals.  Ballard, Plug Power, and ClearEdge are all focused exclusively on fuel cell technologies, in contrast to UTC and the auto OEMs.  Large companies would seem to be at an advantage in an emerging market because they have the resources to wait for the market to develop.  In my analysis of EV charging equipment vendors, for example, I noted the strength of the large multinationals who are able to wait out the early days of the electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) market while demand ramps up.

Pay to Quit Playing

But the pure play companies are rather more, ahem, motivated to find a way to make the market work, and will tend to be more flexible and nimble.   In the case of ClearEdge, you have a very small fish swallowing up the fuel cell assets of a very big fish, UTC Power.  Even odder, United Technologies was so anxious to shed its fuel cell business that UTC actually paid ClearEdge to take it.  It seems that UTC simply lost patience with the slow development of its two target markets, prime power and buses.  (UTC’s bus business thus far is a casualty of this deal, as it does not appear to fit into ClearEdge’s business plan and, to date, there has been no announcement of a buyer.)

One conclusion here is that whether a large conglomerate persists in an emerging market depends on whether it sees the new technology business as complementary to its core business.  In the case of multinationals in the EVSE market, EV charging becomes one more offering in its portfolio, serving its existing customer base.  For UTC, although the company had long-standing expertise in fuel cell technology, executives are increasingly focused on its aerospace, elevator, and cooling products.

The second story is about another group of large multinationals – the automakers.  Practically speaking, it is challenging for a dedicated fuel cell manufacturer to compete in the passenger car market – just look at the troubles that battery vehicle companies have had.  The global auto companies are able to spread their bets among a range of clean technologies.  However, they are finding the pathway to a cost-competitive FCV challenging to navigate.  Thus Daimler’s partnership with Nissan and Ford, which will allow the companies to order components at much higher volume and spread their costs among more vehicles.  Unfortunately, Daimler has also pushed back its commercialization date from 2015 to 2017.  Let’s hope that this deal, along with the Toyota-BMW and Volkswagen ones, does not turn out to be a paper-only partnership that never sees real products introduced.

Automotive analysts – including this one – have been predicting a comeback for diesel cars in the United States for several years.  Demand in the United States has indeed been steadily rising in recent years.  According to the HybridCars Dashboard, sales rose from just over 58,000 in 2009 to 125,522 in 2012, a compound annual growth rate of 29%. Despite these rising sales, though, diesel’s share of total passenger car sales has persistently remained well below 1%.  In 2010, diesels captured 0.7% of U.S. passenger car sales, while in 2012, diesels captured 0.87%.  So why the hype over clean diesels in the United States?

First, the reality is that all alternatives to conventional gasoline cars are but a tiny portion of the total U.S. car market.  Hybrids are selling around 3 times the number of diesel cars – which means that, more than 15 years after the Prius was introduced, hybrids still only capture 3% of the market.  Plug-in vehicles are receiving a huge amount of attention, as they represent the potential to be a disruptive technology.  However, while we’ve seen a significant uptick in sales in the United States, from roughly 18,000 in 2011 to 53,000 in 2012, PEVs are an even smaller percentage of the U.S. car market than diesels.

Annual Sales of Clean Diesel and Hybrid Passenger Cars, United States: 2009-2012

(Source: HybridCars Dashboard)

Second, as has been discussed in this blog, automakers must come up with an array of fuel-efficient options to meet the stringent federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for 2017 and beyond.  While automakers will primarily focus on modifications to conventional gas cars, diesels may well appeal to a different demographic than small, fuel-efficient gas cars.  The diesel Chevrolet Cruze, to be introduced for model year 2014, offers an example.  The diesel Cruze gets 42 mpg on the highway.  While this is the same highway mpg as the gasoline-powered Chevrolet Cruze Eco, the Eco is equipped with a manual transmission, and U.S. drivers are not big fans of manual transmissions.

Volkswagen (VW) just released the results of a survey that found that the likely clean diesel customer is also different from the average hybrid customer.  VW’s survey indicated that, while both groups are concerned with fuel efficiency, diesel buyers tend to be more concerned about torque and acceleration, while the hybrid drivers are more motivated by the car’s eco-friendliness.  These results suggest that the soon-to-be-introduced hybrid Jetta will not compete with the diesel Jetta – the best-selling diesel in the United States – but will expand VW’s appeal to a different type of efficiency-conscious consumer.  This survey will be heartening to automakers as they marshal a combination of diesel, hybrid, start-stop, plug-in technology, and other options to meet the CAFE standards.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced a proposal to lower tailpipe emissions levels from passenger cars and trucks.  To be phased in from 2017 to 2025, the proposed rule also calls for average sulfur content in gasoline to drop to 10 parts per million by 2017.  Meanwhile, the Obama Administration appears to be giving up on a carbon tax and there are warning signs that the EPA will retreat on its power plant greenhouse regulations.  This new announcement thus seems like a return to the EPA’s comfort zone – regulating criteria pollutant emissions from passenger cars.  

However, the proposed regulation does in fact support the EPA’s efforts to limit carbon emissions.  The timing for these proposed standards is clearly aligned with Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which will begin to ramp up from 35.5 mpg in 2017 to 54.5 mpg by 2025.  The automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are going for an “all of the above” approach to complying with the 2025 regulations.  They know they cannot get there just with alternative fuels, so they need to squeeze everything they can out of conventional gas cars.  Low-sulfur fuel allows them to do that by using technologies like direct injection engines.

Indeed, it is clear from the auto industry’s response to today’s announcement just how on board they are with the proposed regulation.  The Association of Global Automakers and Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers both expressed support, citing the benefits of a single, national low-sulfur fuel standard.  Automakers will not only be able to improve fuel economy, they will also be able to sell the same cars in all 50 states – since the EPA rule harmonizes with California’s more stringent standards.

It’s good that the Administration has Big Auto in its camp, because Big Oil is not happy with this proposal.  In fact, the rule will force major investments in refinery upgrades in the United States.  Petroleum refineries are already engaged in a battle with the EPA over its cellulosic ethanol blending mandates, so this new ruling will add more fuel to their argument that the EPA is placing an undue burden on the oil industry.  

Another aspect of the proposed requirements that may cause controversy is that the EPA is in favor of changing the emissions “test fuel” from gasoline with no ethanol to an E15 blend.  While most gasoline in the United States is close to an E10 blend (i.e., with 10% ethanol), the new test fuel will actually leapfrog over this level to the more aspirational E15 target.  As such, this proposal could face blowback from both automakers and refiners.

If I had to make a prediction, the broad rule on emissions and fuel sulfur will stand, though some details such as the E15 test fuel may be tweaked, since automakers can more easily meet stricter CAFE standards with the new rule in place.  If the proposal does stand, the White House would gain an early environmental victory in its second term.  Such a victory would also buttress the ambitious fuel economy goals set in the Obama Administration’s first term by giving OEMs more options for compliance and thus holding off potential challenges to the regulation.

The ChargePoint/Ecotality joint venture, announced last week, underlined the fact that the EV charging sector is experiencing a bout of consolidation.  Earlier, Car Charging Group acquired New York-based Beam Charging, which will strengthen its presence in New York City.  This will be especially interesting if Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to add 10,000 public parking spots by 2020 comes to fruition.  Better Place closed operations in North America and Australia.  In the United Kingdom, Chargemaster acquired Elektromotive last year.  These were two of the biggest charging equipment providers in the United Kingdom, so Chargemaster’s move positions the company well for the growing U.S. market.

This inevitable consolidation will continue, and it’s healthy for the industry.   There are too many companies chasing after too small a market right now.  This is not to say the EV charging market is small – please, no more stories on the “dying EV industry” – but Pike Research has found that there are well over 100 companies competing in the EV supply equipment (EVSE) sector globally.  These include not just companies that sell their own EVSE units but also “third party providers” that sell and service EV charging equipment made by others, like CarCharging Group.  Many of these companies are competing primarily for the commercial charging market – that is, units installed for use at offices, fleet depots, apartment buildings, parking garages, and a slew of public facilities like airports and retail outlets.

Globally the market for EVSE was around 180,000 units in 2012.  Half of those were residential units, so that means just 90,000 in commercial sales.  It doesn’t take complicated math to figure out that, if the market were evenly divided among the 100-plus companies offering EVSE, that would be a pretty small revenue base.

Catch-Up Time

Looking at the U.S. market alone, we estimate that sales of commercial EVSE were around 20,000 in 2012.  These units serve a total fleet of plug-in vehicles that reached around 71,000 at the end of 2012.  That is simply not enough demand to maximize utilization of these EV stations.  The PEV market is growing fast, so station utilization will rise and begin to match the expectations of the EVSE providers.  But for the near term, the EVSE market is out ahead of PEV sales, and the market will struggle to sustain the number of players wanting a piece of it.

So more consolidation is ahead, as companies look to secure a single geographic market or expand their portfolio of EVSE offerings by partnering with companies that have complementary technology.  For the moment, the industry would do well to focus its resources on the current EVSE equipment and networks in order to give PEV drivers the most seamless user experience possible.  This means keeping track of the basics, such as making sure equipment is working when drivers show up.  But it also means focusing on “interoperability:” making it easy for drivers to find and use all available EVSE units, something that the industry has been working on – by featuring stations from competing providers on a network app or enabling drivers to pay for charging without needing a network pass – but is still a long way from achieving.