Who Killed the Electric Car?

Horses for courses. Given the right price, we'd buy a EV for local shopping and trips.

At one stage, we won a Nikki and I was briefly considering someoneelses lead and converting it to an EV for shopping, but it was that or pay off the mortgage.

Exactly. My 2c is on a proper hybrid where the ICE(petrol or diesel) simply runs a generator that tops up the battery bank.

I would really like to see if that works out more efficent that all the inefficencies of current direct drive ICEs.

I believe he is using H to refer to Hybrid.

Robert

** Posted from **

You will live where we (the central planning bureau) want you to. You will shop where we tell you to.

Our region (the Seattle area) is going through a fiasco called light rail that seems to be designed to feed customers and employees into one area (downtown Seattle). Any attempts to relocate the route, even a few blocks, to serve another major shopping mall (Southcenter) were shot down by the downtown gang. We certainly can't have shoppers go to the wrong mall.

The route was carefully designed to pass through neighborhoods (poor, low income neighborhoods) where friends of the planners had made shrewd real estate investments. A competing plan intended to serve existing residential areas was shot down. We can't boost the property values in areas where the good ol' boys haven't managed to corner the market.

The earliest incarnation of the project was supposed to run from Everett, through downtown Seattle (and be funded by Everett residents as well). Trouble was, the downtown Seattle planners refused to extend the line into downtown Everett. Instead, there would be a park-and-ride a mile or so south, where people could catch the train to Seattle. God forbid that someone might actually take it in "the wrong direction" to work, thereby propping up the economy of the Everett business district.

Don't get me wrong. I think mas transit is a decent idea. But only if the central planners don't try to use it as a tool to divert my money into the pockets of their favored business partners. Rail seems to be favored by these folks because, after sinking billions into a fixed system, they can argue for further tax funds to rescue the investment. If they went with buses, they could just change the routes to match demand.

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The EV1 was a research project. The lease payments came nowhere close to the cost of mantaining the vehicles. I doubt GM would have taken on the additional losses.

Had they charged tha actual costs of the vehicles, I doubt even the first 400 would have been leased.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Edison killed it by using the iron battery.

Sounds like it's you who missed the point of the movie.

Irrelevant.

Also irrelevant.

Plenty enough for the majority of people. Especially when you can conveniently recharge at home, at work, or at a shopping centre etc.

So what? price would come down in time. Thousands of people buy $80,00 cars every day.

No excuse for GM to go to ridiculous lengths to get back every one of the cars and then crush them literally out of existence. Especially when there were thousands who would have taken them off their hands and waived all rights to support. GM did an evil thing, just evil.

Everyone had better rush and get one of those Humvees with the $100,000 Bush government tax rebate before the new government gets in. Or has that fire-sale finished already?

Dave.

No-one has killed electric cars. They simply died of lack of interest, practicality and high cost.

Graham

Probably just ballpark guesses. Since such conversions are not in quantity production, estimating costs is tricky.

Nice article. (I use a few Freewave data radios). Did you notice the update at the end of the article?

Hymotion plug in conversion for $10,000. Add a 2nd battery pack (as was done in original article), and it will be perhaps $15,000. The plug-in installation doesn't seem to be a major project and shouldn't add much to the cost. The site says it only takes "a few hours" to install. Anyway, it's much less than the original $32,000. I guess it costs $$$$ to be a pioneer.

A friends son and former juvenile delinquent is building a hot water boiling solar generator. Central boiler on a 50ft Rohn 25 tower (so the intensified sunlight doesn't cook the neighbors) with some tracking mirrors. So far, he hasn't produced much steam, but has produced enough hot water to warrant serious consideration. So, visualize your hot water heater sitting on top of a pole or tower with squeaky reflectors all over the roof. It's not nuclear, but it's sure better than $80/month. Otherwise, look into tankless flash water heaters. They have a rather high initial cost, but pay for themselves in about 2-3 years (depending on consumption) in reduced energy costs.

Same here. My previous 1983 Dodge D50 diesel went for 285,000 miles and 23 years. I still have it an plan to rebuild it some day. However, my numbers and bad guesses are an effort to explain why the US manufactories continue to produce gas hogs. The discounted gas hogs continue to sell, while the overpriced economy cars just sit. It would be nice to be proven wrong and therefore restore my faith in the GUM (great unwashed masses).

My current 15mpg gas hog 1993 Isuzu Trooper SUV was purchased for about $2,000 with 150,000 miles. Before that was a 14mpg 1970 Land Rover Series IIa which I drove for about 135,000 miles. That was preceeded by a 9mpg 1972 International 1210 3/4t 4x4 monster service truck, which I bought new and drove for 140,000 miles. The plan was to run the current Isuzu for "a few years" until I could afford something better. Well, I'm now looking.

"New Car every 10 years or Used Car every 5 years"?

You don't drive a 2CV. You wear it.

The modern versions of shrink to fit automobiles is the Smart Car:

About 50mpg for gas. 80mpg for the diesel hybrid version. There's a rather large waiting list for one. I did a test drive in San Jose about 2 weeks ago, but decided it wasn't for me. It's like riding an enclosed motorcycle.

That was before smog was an issue. For example, when it was new, my

1983 Dodge D50 diesel got 35 mpg. In the 1984 model, the same engine was smogged to reduce soot emissions. The gas mileage dropped to about 28 mpg. Kinda like dragging an anchor.

If you need some entertainment value, try calculating the REDUCTION in CO2 emissions that would be produced by removing all the smog junk from infernal combustion engines. The official rate is 8.8kg (19.4 lbs) of CO2 produced for each gallon of gasoline. If we suddenly used perhaps 25% less gasoline, that would correspond to a reduction of about a 1/4th of the 5 metric tons of CO2 produced by each car annually.

In the 1970's I used to drive by the GM plant in Fremont CA and noted the rather large number of imported cars in the employees parking lot. In my recent search for a new vehicle, I ran a spreadsheet and graph of the resale value history for various prospective vehicles. American cars loose value much faster than imported cars. My guess is that if American manufacturers will ever learn to make a reliable automobile, that actually has some backing and support by the factory, then perhaps they have a chance. Otherwise, I'm afraid that you're generally correct.

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That's how the Toyota Prius works. Gets between 40mpg and 60mpg according to what owners told me.

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Regards, Joerg

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Use another domain or send PM.

True. But Li-Ion charge cycles are pretty well researched out by now. I doubt one can ever get to 200k miles with one set. But one can on the first engine, and then some.

I am not a fan of those. My sister has instant heaters and often you either get pelted with an arctic shower or boiling water. Ok, that's an exaggeration but it ain't comfy.

The rationale in that article is a bit on the naive side IMHO. One has to factor in the pitfalls of used cars. What if the previous owner drove it sans oil to reach a gas station but never told you? What if he never slowed down at speed bumps?

I saw lots of the in Germany. They call them "elephant shoes".

It's like oxygenation. I get 25mpg on California gas and 28mpg on Nevada gas.

We all need to drive less. It's possible. I reduced from 10k+ miles per year to under 3k miles per year and more than half of that is for business. That's it. I often do oil changes based on age, not miles driven.

The NUMMI plant? They also produce Toyotas there, such as my wife's 1995 Corolla. I don't think it's onwed by GM but could be wrong.

It takes many, many years to build a reputation for reliability but less than a year to destroy it.

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win

I was pretty sure the Prius was a parallel Hybrid (the electric motor was in parallel to the ICE drive train). As opposed to a serial hybrid where the final portion of the drive train is all-electric. Some of the proposed hybrids appear to be of the latter.

The parallel hybrid does mean that neither motor needs to be sized large enough for the full load.

Robert

** Posted from **

The motive power is more related to vehicle speed (aerodynamic drag) and acceleration. The energy you spend hauling a weight uphill can be largely recouped when going back down.

Having a second car is an excellent alternative. Also, you can get a motor-generator set on a small trailer that can be used for longer trips.

See above. Also this will become more convenient when demand is there.

The poor diddums will probably turn out to be GM, Ford, et al. There are plenty of competitors poised to enter the EV market, and GM has simply followed the lure of quick temporary profits with the promise of an infinite source of fossil fuel and a power-hungry horde of motorists with plenty of money to spend on overpowered bloated vehicles that were cheaper to make. The inevitable economic downturn has erased that scenario, and the Detroit guys are themselves too big to make changes quickly enough to respond.

Paul

Not if you live in an area where electricity cost versus monthly usage has the I/V characteristic of a silicon diode. Out here when you reach

130% of baseline that would be the 600mV point. Go beyond that and you'll hear a huge slurping sound. That sound would be coming from your bank account. And that happens in a lot of other places, too.

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http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

The only relevant thing is how much range you get and whether or not that suits your requirements.

You can have a small second car, better battery packs with larger range, and there are other options. The majority of driving the average person does is completely predictable.

My home has a power point in the garage, doesn't yours? Easy to add if you don't. My work has power points in the garage. Also easy to add. My local shopping centre even has a special electric car spot.

The EV1 range would do me just fine for a full work days driving with some unexpected detours. And I live a long way from my work.

If you claim to use it for business purposes you could claim the entire cost of an SUV off your tax in many cases, up to $100,000 maximum. Google popped these up first:

But as I don't live in the US, I don't know all the in's and out's of that one. Sounds like they had to tighten up that shocking loop-hole a bit.

Dave.

Car?:

Not the bean counters, the "executives".

Silly boy. The conversion cannot happen quickly because of generation and distribution issues. That kind of huge infrastructure changes require major long term capital investment. Where is that going to come from?

Pure electric-only EVs aren't the answer. It'll be HEVs that most likely win the day.

Graham

Not really. The A123 Systems batteries are HD Nanophosphate technology which is allegedly better than conventional Li-Ion and LiPO batteries. Although commonly used in overpriced battery operated power tools, there's really not enough field experience to predict reliability and lifetime.

"Thousands and thousands" of charge cycles lifetime:

Sounds a bit vague to me.

Fast Charging:

That's high luxury compared to taking a shower with a rooftop solar water heater. I got introduced to those in the 1970's in Israel. Israel has lots of sun, lots of rooftops, and isn't insterested in wasting power heating what water it pulls out of the Jordan River. Haifa was literally covered with apartment buildings. The ground floor was reserved for businesses. The rest were apartments which were sold, not rented. Every apartment had its solar water heater on the roof (along with multiple TV antennas at the time) which made things rather crowded.

Anyway, when you first turn on the water, you get the somewhat warm water that was sitting in the pipes. About 15 seconds later, you get scalded by maximumly hot, near boiling, water directly from the solar water heater. That slowly tapers off in temperature as the rooftop heater slowly empties. I learned to take a shower with one hand on the valves.

I've done the same with flash water heaters. They do a somewhat better job of temperature regulation, but without a ballast tank, constant adjustment is required. Still, it's more energy efficient than a tank type water heater. Sacrifices must be made.

Well, the assumption was made that the used car came from a "reputable used car dealer" (a classic oxymoron) who checked out the vehicle, prerformed any required maintenance, and offered some semblance of a warranty. For used car buyers that buy their vehicles without running the VIN number through CarFax, checking the DMV history, or having it checked out by a mechanic, I suspect there will be problems. Todays OBD-II diagnostics will often uncover signs of drive train abuse, damage, and neglect. Many other things are obvious after driving a few miles.

Slow down for speed bumps? My paved dirt road is nothing but speed bumps.

Good name. I suspect the next step will be a true wearable automobile. LIPO electric powered. You sit down on the drive train and wheel platform, wrap the fenders, cowling, and roof around you, and drive away merilly. Maybe an inflatable body for light weight and crash resistance. When done driving, pack it back in it's case, attach a handle to one ond of the wheel platform, and carry it away like a hand truck.

They also oxygenated diesel in the early 1990's using 15% ethanol. That raise the head temperature on my Dodge/Mitsubishi diesel sufficiently to crack the head. What was interesting was that I was driving it for about 6 months with a cracked head. There was no obvious deterioration in performance other than a slight drop in diesel mileage, and the mysterious disappearance of radiator water to no obvious destination. I eventually figured I had a problem when I ran the engine with the radiator cap removed, which simulated a volcanic eruption of exhaust gasses belching from the radiator.

Welding the aluminium head was problematic so I opted for a factory new replacement head. Those arrive a few thousands thicker than stock which lowered the compression ratio slightly. The result was the diesel milage dropped from about 30mpg to 28mpg, but the engine stayed quite cool using the new diesel formulation.

Yep. I must admit that I haven't tried to economize very much. The best I've done is bum rides from friends and customers. I'm still somewhat in the service and repair biz doing service calls to customers. That works out to about 12,000 miles per year for business (i.e. deductable) and 5,000 miles per year for personal use. I can probably cut both in half, but then I would have to juggle appointments and errands by location. It's easier for me to just buy a smaller economy car and not carry a warehouse full of parts with me.

Yep. That's the one. However, this was in the 1970's, before 1984 when Toyota saved GM's ass by literally taking over the plant on GM's behalf.

Sorry, it's not in Milpitas but Fremont. Anyway, across the street from the parking lot was an excellent Chinese restaurant that we frequented as often as practical. The only problem was that the drive went by a cattle stock yard. The smell would ruin any lunch. The yard was also very close to Altos Computers, which may explain their premature demise.

The common observation is that American buyers are nearly clueless. I guess the same applies to Australian buyers. See:

"Large car sales on the increase"

This is from June 2007, but still interesting.

It?s encouraging to see a consolidation in the Large and Upper Large segments which reflects both the introduction of exciting new product and the response of brands to the competitive challenges of the market. The resurgence in sales of SUVs and Large cars demonstrates that family-sized vehicles continue to meet the preferences of a significant number of Australian consumers because they suit their lifestyles and transport requirements,? said FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar.

Yep. Lifestyle and image is everything.

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# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
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