Who Killed the Electric Car?

Yeh i saw this on foxtel only about 1 month ago. I was amazed at GM's blind approach to taking back the EV1 and crushing it despite having customers willing to pay for them with no wish for support ! utterly amazing.

In spite of leftist weenie conspiracy theories the real facts are that the economics weren't there... and leaving the cars on-the-road has some legal and cost aspects you haven't considered.

...Jim Thompson

David L. Jones a écrit :

Hello, I wondered about its disappearance too! But I knew some thirty years ago about the existence of electric cars : I read Truman Capotes "other voices other rooms" or was it "The Grassharp?. At least I hope my memory is reliable (anyway it was T. C.) He tells about his aunts driving around with it and causing a near accident, or so they imagined... Peter

e/tt0489037/

The electric car killed the electric car.

The concept of electric cars is a whole lot older than 30 years:

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Seems to be very real.

And really expensive.

I'm waiting to see if they survive long enough to roll out their "economy" concepts. Are Elon Musk's pockets deep enough?

Here's one that seems more practical, but the company isn't going anywhere fast after years of publicity.

Battery technology is critical. I think a deep hybrid would be more practical and affordable, but an all-electric with a reliable 100 mile range would meet nearly all of my needs.

--Damon, wondering if his electric service would be adequate

There is a major stumbling block in areas like ours: Monopoly, plus baseline usage rules the monopoly imposes. The millisecond you exceed baseline by IIRC as little as 30% electricity becomes painfully expensive. Anyone who dared to use their A/C in summer knows that. Unless this changes or one can line up a sweet and most of all longterm night-time deal there won't be a realistic future for electric cars.

I have a repair manual for an electric delivery vehicle made prior to WWI. It was used for delivering milk to homes (no refridgeration) in the pre-dawn hours. Since noise was then considered a serious problem, electric delivery vehicles were the only option.

Note that there are several Li-Ion conversions for Prius hybrids effectively making them electric cars.

The new battery and plug-in charger extends the battery only range of the Prius from about 7 miles to about 20 miles.

However, gas, electric, and such will soon be out of fashion. What we need is a nuclear powered automobile.:

Joerg,

How much of your electricity cost is actually California taxes?

How come electricity is dramatically cheaper in AZ than CA when you have (or should have) lots of water-generated electricity?

...Jim Thompson

One former EV-1 owner has a solution to the electric power cost problem:

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The EV-1 is GM's Edsel. Except that it worked and they couldn't make enough to satisfy demand.

Beancounters killed it. And they took away a marketing advantage GM could still be milking.

Joerg wrote in news:YMjXj.285 $ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com:

Yeah, that's a gotcha I've been wondering about. Seems like a smart charger would have to monitor total household current and toe the baseline--especially during peak use hours. Result: no quick charge when one might need it most. Hence the thought about a deep hybrid...

Should electric vehicles start to appear in significant numbers, this and electric grid capacity issues will pop up like red flags. The electricity infrastructure will have to adapt, which will not be inexpensive.

--Damon

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

p-B11 fusion had better work, and be scalable down to that level. Aneutronic fusion might indeed be about to happen, but the scalability seems to be in the other direction.

Maybe a home reactor. Not likely either, at least in my lifetime.

--Damon

When I was young they didn't have noise qualms. Clippy-clop, clippy-clop ... a horse-drawn wagon brought the milk.

But those extra miles can cost you. This month's IEEE spectrum has a story of a guy who spent another $32k (!) on top of the Prius price tag to get his Li-Ion conversion. That's a bit steep.

:-)

Right now Priuses are being bought in California as if it was the best thing since sliced bread. The big three are in for another round of hardship. Don't know if they can afford another round ...

A coarse peek shows about 20% fees, charges, bond measures. A.k.a taxes.

It probably is but since deregulation prices have skyrocketed. There is a hockeystick effect in that up to a limit it stays a bit under 15c/kWh, then shoots up sky-high. This stifles start-up business in the area but politicians seem to fail to understand that.

In muni-supplied areas it's much better. I am not much for gov-involvement but for electricity the fact is that people like us who are served by private sector utilities must pay through the nose. Because they gave them a monopoly and monopolies never work. With monopolies they usually sock it to you.

Smart charging won't help. Baseline is counted over one month, no matter when you used it. Night-reduction deals are available but then the cost of running my biz will skyrocket because that has to be during the day. At least it used to be that you only get the deal when you accept very high "peak time" charges. For us that never made any sense.

Yep. But more important are longterm utility deals. In Europe we were able to negotiate a 10-year deal before deciding to invest in a heat pump system. Still, only a handful of people in town did, some hesitated because 10 years wasn't enough planning security.

Car?:

And the result is that they now produce a lot of Silverados 1/2-tons that nobody wants to buy. Deju vu :-(

For GM? Enlighten us.

If Charles Cagle is right, there's a good chance:

I think Big Oil had a lot to do with influencing GM to abandon and sabotage their own EV program, just as they have tried to reverse any trend toward greater fuel economy by encouraging the glorification of horsepower, size, weight, speed, and competitive driving.

There are a lot of options for efficient vehicles:

Paul