As the electric vehicle market grows, few companies in Northeast Ohio are rushing to support the trend. Advocacy groups say Ohio is leaving innovation in the industry to Michigan and other states.
Clik here to view.
General Motors installed a charging station for Chevrolet Volt plug-in vehicles at its Lordstown plant this month. It expects to complete one at its Parma Metal Center in August.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- General Motors has lured a company to Michigan that makes solar-powered charging stations for electric cars. Nissan plans to make car battery packs in Tennessee, and Toyota has teamed up with electric vehicle maker Tesla to make sport utility vehicles in California.
But in Northeast Ohio, few companies are getting into the electric vehicle craze. A handful are working on components, but they're not developing into a dense industry cluster the region has promoted around medical devices or is trying to support with wind power.
"We're not going to be the drivers in the core technologies where research and development is going on," said David Karpinski, director of the advanced energy initiative at NorTech, an advocacy group that promotes high-tech businesses in Northeast Ohio.
Over the past year, NorTech has studied the needs electric vehicle producers will face as that market grows, and it has looked at how Ohio companies could supply solutions. The group didn't find many matches.
For the immediate future, that lack of involvement shouldn't provide a major challenge to automotive employment. With fewer than 7,000 electric vehicle and plug-in hybrids sold so far this year, they make up a tiny slice of the industry. But if upcoming fuel economy regulations and changing consumer tastes make the vehicles more popular, Ohio won't get the jobs or investments that come with a growing industry.
Why not Ohio? Karpinski said one of the biggest challenges to developing an electric vehicle supply industry in this region is lack of interest. NorTech identified several companies that make parts that could be used in advanced batteries, electric motors or other vehicle components.
"Many companies could play in (electric) transportation, but they don't," Karpinski said.
The auto industry is notorious for pushing for constant price cuts from its suppliers, and many large companies have cut their reliance on car manufacturers in recent years.
Canton-based bearing maker Timken, for example, spent much of the first half of the past decade looking outside of the auto industry for new customers. Fairlawn-based plastics additives company A. Schulman has also made diversifying away from the auto industry a corporate goal.
In other cases, NorTech found big Northeast Ohio companies already involved in vehicle electrification, but they weren't doing the work here.
Industrial giants Parker Hannifin and Eaton Corp. both produce hybrid systems for large commercial vehicles. And Eaton is a major producer of electric motors. But the companies do their automotive research and development in Michigan and much of their manufacturing in states other than Ohio.
If electric vehicle sales grow, those companies will benefit, but they're not likely to add jobs in Northeast Ohio.
Charging ahead While NorTech didn't see enough activity to build a cluster of electric vehicle suppliers in Northeast Ohio, Karpinski said there are several smaller companies doing interesting work.
Late last year, Gates Mills-based Recharge Power put the first commercial electric vehicle charging station in Northeast Ohio at the Baker Electric Building in Cleveland. A showroom for electric cars in the early days of automobiles, it was an early display of Recharge's system.
Company president Nathaniel Smith said he's installed 14 more stations in the region since last year. So far, the highly visible charging stations have attracted notice, but not use.
"There hasn't been much traffic in the way of usage because the cars aren't available in Ohio yet," Smith said. GM offers the Chevrolet Volt plug-in vehicle in California, New York and Michigan but does not plan to offer it in Ohio until late this year or early next year. Nissan is only offering its Leaf electric vehicle in a handful of coastal states as well.
Smith said he sees huge potential for commercial vehicle charging stations. His company is working with parking garage companies and others that sell equipment such as ticket printers used at garage entrances. Recharge Power's equipment lets people pay for charging through the paper tickets and with credit cards. Soon, it hopes to launch cell-phone payments for its charging stations.
While Recharge Power struggles to develop its niche, bigger players in that market are moving to Michigan.
Last week, General Motors announced it was investing $7.5 million into Sunlogics, a company that makes solar-powered charging stations for electric cars. The company built a 12-vehicle station at GM's Lordstown plant last month and expects to finish one at GM's Parma Metal Center in August.
As part of the deal, the California company will move its headquarters to Detroit and build a 200-job factory there.
Smith praised GM for expanding access to charging stations, saying his company is focused less on big station projects and more on making charging stations commercial.
"I think there's a real opportunity for a market-driven company such as ourselves," Smith said. "We have more payment options than most of the other manufacturers."
Making better motors Jim Doutt, manager for the EBO Group technology company in Sharon Center in Medina County, said much of the focus on electric vehicle startup companies has been battery technology. EBO subsidiary EZE Hybrid Drives instead has chosen to try to improve electric motors used in cars.
EZE won a $1 million grant from Ohio's Third Frontier Foundation in 2008 to build an oil-cooled electric motor for use in cars. Oil cooling allowed the engine to spin faster, generating more power, than traditional air-cooled models.
In 2009, EZE converted a 10-horsepower electric motor into an oil-cooled model, boosting its power performance to 80-horsepower. Still, he said there was little interest from automakers.
"When we got the power requirements that they had, we realized that the motor as we designed it wasn't capable of those levels," Doutt said.
This year, the company has been working with engineers at the University of Akron to combine its oil-cooling technology with a different type of electric motor. Engineers at the university have been working with switched reluctance motors - small motors that use less copper wiring and have none of the rare-earth metals used in more common induction motors.
Doutt said the newer engines are noisier, and the power inverters used to convert their output into usable electricity are expensive, but EZE hopes to overcome those issues.
Not getting left behind Karpinski said NorTech hopes to support Recharge Power, EZE and companies like them, even if it doesn't see enough interest in the region to build a cluster or similarly oriented companies.
If electric vehicles eventually overtake gasoline-powered cars, he said Ohio's automotive suppliers should be able to continue selling parts such as metal stampings, axle parts and structural components.
Such a strategy may not generate as many jobs as attracting a new industry, but he said it could protect many of the jobs already here.
"[Ohio has] been a very strong supply chain partner, and we can continue to do that for electric vehicles," Karpinksi said.