Electric cars are a pipe dream

The US is relatively resilient. Though the last oil shortages were only temporary they results in something worse then high gas prices: no gas at all, so compare a gas powered car that often does not have fuel to drive around at all, verse and electric that won't be hindered by oil shortage (assume its not in Hawaii)

The batteries will last longer that that, A123 batteries have regularly past over 10,000 full recharge cycle with little ware, that would come to decades long of service in a car.

This is not fucking india, you can't get a $3000 dollar car here, The Nano is expected to be sold in the USA at $8k.

Let recalculate assume cars by the same class, like a Tesla Model S vs BMW luxury sadan of the same upfront price tag. Or are you going to tell me luxury cars are a pipe dream as well?

by being a completely different class of vehicle. If I want a truck i'm not getting a mini, if I want a pollution free vehicle that not at the whim of Arabs, oil prices and oil reserves I'll get an electric car, Its just like how the 1970's oil embarges causes a drop in car sizes, modern eo-friendly, energy independent desires and real fears of peak oil make electric cars viable car option of their own class.

Oh it very possible to compete, take for example the Smart Car mini which sells for $12K by your logic everyone would be buying them up, but not so because its a mini.

 

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I have a corded electric, because I don't like the smell of the gas and mess with the dirty liquids.

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Or in other words, production is still insufficient in its first phase, not up to demand.

I think there are 100 million cars just in the US, so 100K is what?, like 1/10th of 1%....

Running up mass production is much harder then you think... Also did we solve the problem of battery material? Didn't somebody say something about rare metals from China???

 

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Could be, but high enough prices usually destroy demand and shortages.

Are we in dreamland again? I did notice you using future tense.Tesla guarantees the battery for 7 years only and one can opt for a prepay of $ 12K now for a future battery pack. Oh, when it isn't convenient, then I shouldn't mention Tesla I guess.

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Also batteries don't like extreme weather, I want to see their performances in the Michigan winter and in the Texas summer.

Really? I am sure they could sell them for cheaper, or buyers could get a taxbreak. If EVs can get a 7K taxbreak (paid by you and me) why can't cheap car buyers get the same??? By the way did you miss my other post? You can buy the cheapest sedan for 10K today, and if they strip it down, it could sell for 8K-9K, without being a different class,like the nano.

Oh really? NOW you finally understand why I was bitching about the Tesla when you guys where comparing it to a normal sedan. So if you had the right to bring that up (you didn't) then I can bring up completely different class cheapo cars. That's how the game is played.

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So I take you didn't really have anything against my math??? And the Nano still beats the Smart Car by being able to travel actually long distances....

 

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A short linkdump:

Zap! if my next cardentity isn't a leaf it might be an alias

EV World politically charged

Autoblog Green obsessive

All Cars Electric "The 2011 Nissan Leaf is a Mac.The 2011 Chevy Volt is a PC."

Solar Car & Tractor Git'r Done: "We will either take control of harsh realism [of excess population] or the laws of nature and math will cruelly do it for us. Extensive, honest education will be required to publicly pursue this taboo subject. " -Electrifying! I give it f-f-f-f-five jolts. So exciting that I celebrated, even enabled my webcam for lesser minds to admire:

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Electric Cars: a Guide (just another geeky link)

 

>The 2011 Nissan Leaf is a Mac.

This is true. Very small marketshare with overpaying geeks for brandname hype.

Zap isn't really a car. There are motorcycles with 3 wheels, so...

From your 2nd link:

"If German Chancellor Andrea Merkel has her way, there will be one million electric cars on her country's road within 10 years; and I guessing she's hoping they will be German-made, and not Chinese. ..... Especially since 1 million EVs represents just 1/45th of the number of registered vehicles on Germany's roads today. That's certainly better than the 1/250th called for in President Obama's One Million Plug In Car's goal by 2015."

Not exactly 50% I guess....

"One couple that seems to have pretty much overcome any anxiety they may have had about electrics are my friends, Paul and Zan Scott of Santa Monica. Co-founders of Plug In America, they have been driving a Toyota RAV4 EV for years now. I've ridden with both of them all around West LA and between their solar-powered charger at home and a number of still-working Magnachargers around Santa Monica, they seem to get around quite easily."

No comment, just showing that when something is a good design, it is a good design...

 

/whimper (deep sigh, listening to the soft whir of my G5).

well, I have a dream it's not really so unreasonable (how 'bout u?)

Aptera

 

The latest from Tesla's founder, Elon Musk:

"The founder of Tesla Motors, the electric car company, said in a court filing connected with his divorce case that he ran out of cash late last year. According to the filing, and reported by VentureBeat, Musk has been living off personal loans from friends since October 2009 (he's spending $200,000 a month). Tesla itself is dealing with cash flow problems - the company has been drawing down on a $465-million loan from the Department of Energy. His finances were not always so strained. In other documents filed in the divorce case, Musk reportedly made $9,551,753 in 2008 and an average of $17.2 million a year from 2005 to 2008. As of Dec. 31, 2008, he also had extensive holdings in venture capital and private equity partnerships,"

Tesla is planning an IPO where they hope to rise another 100 million.

"Tesla itself is dealing with cash flow problems - the company has been drawing down on a $465-million loan from the Department of Energy. Tesla lost almost $30 million in the first quarter, not all that surprising since the company largely remains in its start-up phase. The obvious answer, for Musk as well as the company, is to go public (Musk owns a third of the business), but that could take time. Meanwhile, the company has agreed to pay $42 million to buy the NUMMI plant in Fremont (Toyota has promised to buy $50 million in stock once the IPO goes through)."

http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2010/06/elon_musk_is_broke.php

 

To extend of course, but if prices and supply fluctuate fast enough, which is a prediction outcome of peak oil with violent swings in pricing and supply, complete shortages will occur. As seen in the oil crisises of the 70's and 80's though for completely different reasons (Americas oil peak and arab oil embargos)

Your average gas powered car is only warranted 5 years or less so I don't see the point. Nissan and Tesla Claim with proper usage the batteries will last long unfortunately we will have the wait and see and A123 batteries and being installed in hybrids and EV kits today.

That why they have a temperature control system for their batteries. They have done multiple years to testing in extreme climates you can go to there website to see for your self.

Because its a cheap car, generally you don't get tax breaks on cheap things. EV get tax breaks because they enhance energy independence and reduce pollution.

Yeah in India, not in the USA.

I been speaking of the Tesla as competent against hot rod since the beginning, the working model is to compete with cars of the same price and performance class until battery prices drop from mass production, and thus dropping to lower price classes. So far the model is working, the Roadster has been a big hit, now they have made enough to begin selling luxary sedan EVs, GM has put all they got behind a EREV (the Chevrolet Volt), Nissan putting in a E, Toyota and honda are also entering also extend the battery capacities of their hybrids and making them plug in hybrids. This representing a different strategy inserting bigger and bigger batteries into gas powered cars until the gas engine is useless. I'll quote Bob Lutz a higher chairmen at GM on this:

"All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion technology is 10 years away, and Toyota agreed with us -- and boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, 'How come some tiny little California startup, run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do this, and we can't?' That was the crowbar that helped break up the log jam."

The car companies are moving to marketing EVs, we have been seeing the evolution as battery prices and capacity per price increased over the last decade of first hybrids and now pHEV and EREV and the EV opening on the high end car market. The EV market is real not a pipe dream, even if it was to remain limited to high end vehicles of decade, hot rods and luxary sedans are not real products not pipe dreams.

Your math does not take into account the market realities of pricing in other countries or demand for minis.

 

I picked the 5 years arbitrary, because most cars shouldn't have any major expenses for at least 5 years. After that all kind of costs can muddy the picture.

We shall see. Tesla also claims a 20% effectiveness drop after 5 years.

You know what kind of testing I like? Thousands of costumers driving them and their feedback... So far only the RAV4 passed the test of TIME...

The government can decide to give taxbreaks to anything they like. If mass transportation will depend from the suburbia to the workplace on it, they could and will give taxbreaks to cheapos...

The Chevy Aveo is selling in the USA. Are you saying US costumers wouldn't buy stripped down cars? My guess is that driving culture is going to change in the coming years. If your job depends on getting to the workplace in a cheap way, you will drive a cheapo...

Contrary to your missbelief, Tesla isn't a profitable company yet.

This little business is using a pretty decent 465 million low interest loan.

One reason for that is California's zero emission law, that requires every carmaker selling cars in CA to sell a certain % of it with zero emission. I have just read about BMW's EV, they only do it to comply with the law, not to make millions of it...

 

Exactly, and EV are actually less prone to this lacking a complex transmission and high wear engine, the only question mark is the battery life.

There is no political motive for cheapos, maybe if you market it as low fuel usage cars you might have a chance.

No I'm saying the markets are non-competive, EV and mini can live together. By the same logic bicycles and public transport will also increase. After the 70's oil crisis we sa and usually situation of both small and large cars selling well, many needed more then just cheap transport they need to move 5-7 people around, they needed cargo capacity, minis as a class of car could not do that, but EV can do much more, heck even city package delivery

Never said they were, only that they garden enough interested to shack up the business and to gain financial support for the next lowest class of car below hot rods.

What your point, GM almost went bankrupt.

Did you see "who killed the electric car" they basically circumnavigate the law, but the laws did inspired hybrids which have been profitable and are now moving into plug in hybrids.

 

They are making a sequel called The revenge of the electric car. Due at the end of this year or so...

My point with the 465 million loan was that it wasn't just a small family business, it needed massive capital injection to get off of the ground.

Now if we get to the point that it is either social unrest or cheap transportation, the government who owns GM anyway, can just order them to make cheapos and cost won't even be an issue, the government can just back them forever.

I am going to look at the ingredients of the batteries, because this Chinese source intrigues me....

Are we sure we have the resources to make let's say 10 million batteries? There is a slight difference between making 10K and 10 million cars a year...

 

Excellent, Smysysygys: Revenge of the Electric Car

mu

wa
haha

 

"Oblivious to Germany's dreams of becoming the leader of the EV market and to the US' push for a quick electrification, China is planning a more covert approach with the aim of reaching
the same goal.
According to a study conducted by Pike Research, China will become within the next five years the leader of what is expected to be an 8 billion market: battery manufacturing. The outlook is China will account for 53 percent of the world's battery sales."

" The findings were, to say the least, impressive: 4.7 million charge points installed worldwide from now and until the year 2015. In parallel, there will be around 3.1 million EVs on the road by the same year."

http://www.autoevolution.com/news/china-to-become-ev-battery-market-leader-21011.html

 

The oposition to EVs are business related and because they have the government in their pockets, it is mostly political and legal not technological. That has been my point since a few pages ago.

The RAV4 has showed that they could make a fairly decent EV back in 1998. So why basicly no improvement in 10+ years? Because it isn't in the interest of big oil. Carmakers eventually could switch to make just EVs, but right now they are too much mixed up with big oil, thus they are not pushing for changes as much as they could.

Another reason is how they make money, not just by selling cars, but spare parts and services. When you don't have an ICE, it doesn't need to be serviced, that is not going to make profits for Big Auto.
They are well aware of peak oil and that eventually they need to change, but they still have the power to influence policy and they will make it not so easy. So that's why you get the hybrids first and maybe 10-15 years later the fully electric ones...

About making cheap cars: It has to do with profit ratio. making a 50K car isn't much more complicated than making a 10K car, but they can make 5-8 times more profit on it, so they get way more profit for little extra hassle. Now imagine if it is a dirt cheap car. Again, the hassle making it is quite a lot but the profit would be minimal. So they are not really interested in making those, but that doesn't mean they can not if they wanted to...

 

Great conspiracy theory but the economics of if make for hybrids one of the few practical ways for mass producing batteries, increase research and development and bring down battery prices. So it does not matter if even the 5 jewish bankers that control the world from their space-station behind the moon choose hybrids or not, it was the best option available.

 

How I love that dream... "kill them all!" I scream. Ah, yes...

/ok kidding, I'm so not a Jewish Banker. Weren't we talking about cars, or girls, or something?

 

Thanks, also known as FACTS. I thought you did see the Who killed the electric car?, you read the Chevron buying (and supressing) the battery patents post and you use common business sense...Maybe I was wrong...

You tell me why an oil company needs to own a battery making patent, but not really letting it to be used.... Any good reasons???

P.S.: Sometimes a conspiracy can be just business sense. Hey, they want to be in business or what....

 

The battery for a hybrid doesn't need to be as powerful and as big as for an EV, so they can be perfectly happy with batteries of yesterday and today and don't need to try to make them so much better.
Again, their goal here is still to keep the ICE part of the car. Imagine if there was suddenly a super-duper battery on the market that could take a sedan with 5 adults to 300 miles and recharge in 30 mins or less and it would be just as cheap as an engine?

Who the hell would buy ICEs anymore???? The car makers are evil, not idiots.

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That the who point, they bring up battery production for larger batteries, hence why plug in hyrbids are entering the market now, as more and more hybrids a purchase the bigger the batteries get and the more the engine is phased out.

Such a technology or manufacturing is simply not here yet, to achieve that high price EV and hybrids are needed to open up the market, bring in money for manufacture more and larger batteries and money for investing in the technology, Existing battery technologies like A123 or nanosafe could achieve those goals if manufacturing was capable and certainly with investment metal air flow cells could produce a cheap, very high energy density battery that can be recharged/refueled rapidly. Car companies aren't evil, their just companies, they are driven by profit and financial stability which means once they are tool for a specific product it really hard to change. Thankfully interest in "green" energy and the instability of oil has made marketplaces demands on car companies to get into the EV market a must.

 

I'm green with angry (trust me it's not easy) and I know a lot of people who are just starting to feel that way too. For many USis there's a hole in the bottom of the sea (so to speak) that is terrorizing us; vital opportunity for practice at switching our collective thinking with some efficiency.