AutoblogGreen

Yep.

And has a huge electric car fan, this is the biggest issue facing electric cars. Martin Eberhard will tell you otherwise, but right now there is no way to make a mass-market electric car.

This is what should have been the central piece of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and still weasels its way in there in a few places despite the director's efforts to demonize GM and CARB.

Current electric cars, despite all efforts, are really only viable for those who are willing to accept their limitations of:

high initial cost
high cost to get a 240V/30A plug installed in your garage (of course, first you have to be in a house/condo so you can even modify your place at all, renters need not apply)
reduced range
can make do with two seats and often almost no storage area
Also note the two seat thing hurts families most, and most occupants of houses/condos are families, a nasty double whammy.

Now, I know there are a lot of people on here who are willing to make sacrifices to get into an electric car. But you have to look at the customer base for cars in general. They're used to buying more car than they will ever use. They buy SUVs even though they will never tow anything or go offroad.

Now you're trying to not only sell them less car than they might use (esp. with the 2 seat limitations, a killer for families) but you're going to charge a premium up front for it.

All this combines to narrow your market hugely. It's just not the electric car's time for the mass market yet. But it is important we have these groups like Tesla investigating it, because it'll take time to develop the electric powertrain technologies and such we'll be using when the storage systems (be them batteries or some liquid fuel) finally catch up to what is needed to hit the sweet spot of the market.

Reply

This time the electric car is here to stay. People nowadays are aware of the oil situation. People are aware of the necessity to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere. And because of the good energy effiency of the EV:s, they will for sure be the next type of mass produced vehicle in the world.

Reply

To the NY Times, I would answer with a big "Duh!" Saying that electric cars today can't compete against gasoline cars in the mass market isn't news. When one comes along that can, that will be news.

The implied argument from NYT sounds like, "It hasn't happened yet, therefore it's never going to." It's a non-sequitur. Following that pseudo-logic would mean that nothing ever changes and no progress is ever made.

Beyond that, however. . . There are a lot of different questions and aspects to this issue.

The Tesla Roadster looks like it will compete successfully in its niche, as an exotic sportscar. That's news. If electrics can get a toehold in one niche, then why not another, and another, and eventually go mainstream? That's Tesla's whole plan -- but it's only a plan, and NYT is perfectly entitled to point out that it hasn't happened yet. It's going to be tough.

What about PHEVs? If they work as planned, then you've got something that can work on grid electricity most of the time, but without the compromises that BEVs have always required. Toyota and GM are both racing to develop these, and I don't think it's because they're dumb.

$8/gal gas hasn't happened yet. Shortages and rationing haven't happened yet either. It's not far-fetched to imagine that they will happen as global demand for petroleum outstrips the supply in coming years. Then BEVs and PHEVs will start to look a lot more attractive to a lot of people.

The question has been asked, "What kind of sacrifices will people be willing to make to drive an electric car?" That's really the wrong question. . . The question should be, "What kind of sacrifices will people be willing to make to keep driving a gas car?" Will they be willing to wait in long lines at the gas pump, when they are lucky enough to find one with gas available? Will they be willing to wait until they are issued a ration ticket? Will they be willing to shell out $8, or $10, or $12 per gallon? Or will they take the cheap-and-convenient route of getting an electric car that they can charge at home and drive whenever they want?

Reply

The biggest problem is actually not the technology, as anything produced in high volume eventually becomes cheap enough for the Average Joe. No, the issue is that US consumers always want the full-fat version from Day One yet have unrealistic price expectations for that.

Some BEV enthusiasts claim that they are completely independent of foreign oil. Well, the groceries and other goods they buy are still delivered by diesel trucks. If they live on the East Coast, chances are heating oil keeps them warm in winter.

If you want to contribute toward getting electric drive technology into high-volume series production, the key thing to look for is Li-Ion batteries and/or supercaps, even if these are only used in a supporting role (e.g. Valeo Stars-X).

We may also see POPHEVs (peripheral-only PHEVs) in which all of the vehicle peripherals except oil pump and probably, valve actuation are powered using grid electricity. This includes engine start, A/C compressor, power steering, lights and passenger compartment goodies, optional cabin and diesel fuel heaters (for cold climates), an optional AC outlet inside the cabin plus the locked external AC outlet (if you're camping or something).

In addition, an electric supercharger and/or torque boost motor can be fitted and activated as needed. All this lets the engine concentrate on propulsion alone, at least until the grid charge is depleted. POPHEVs would be a natural evolution of BMW's EfficientDynamics approach. It would let manufacturers transition to a higher voltage grid (e.g. 42V) and kick-start the market for automotive Li-ion batteries using small packs.

You wouldn't be driving a single mile on grid electricity alone, but unless you're a CARB bureaucrat, so what? For an manageable premium up front, you could get a car with a sharply downsized ICE - preferably turbocharged - and save perhaps 20% in fuel cost.

This way, the car you buy after you sell your used POPHEV may be a full PHEV or true BEV that you can actually afford.

Reply

I had never heard of that Exar-1 before. Interesting reading! http://www.amectran.com/amectran.htm

For the record, I am not a CARB bureaucrat and I don't want to have to buy gasoline just to go a mile. Or 40.

Reply

BTW, does anybody know what happened to www.teslamotorsclub.com?

It's been offline for a couple days now.

Reply

Why does everyone forget the solelectria? Guys from MIT were making them back in 1997 or so... I saw one at the University of Florida about that time.

Reply

info on 4-door solectria:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/avta/pdfs/fsev/eva_results/solectria_car95.pdf

And you also didn't mention in this post that Fisker is planning a car to compete with the Tesla:

http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/

Reply

The reason we don't have any electric cars for the masses is because of supply and demand. It's the chikcen and the egg story all over again!

There hasn't been enough demand for EVs to actually mass-produce them on a reasonable scale, until about maybe 5 years ago. In the past five years NiMH (now illegal to use in an EV because of patent issues) and lithium-based batteries have shown that they offer enough range, life, and power to make the EV market signifigantly larger than ever before. Along with the green-craze going around in cars, and ever advancing electronics, EVs are looking better than ever.

The only reason we don't have a 30k 150 mile range, 4 door EV is that auto-companies, along with obviously not liking EVs, don't want to make a niche vehicle because it is risky. What if people don't want EVs?

I think that PHEVs, like the Chevy Volt, are a giant bridge toward pure EVs. As the LS2/LS7 person said aobve, people are used to buying so much more car than they need. People think, for whatever reason, that they need a vehicle that tows thousands of pounds and can go a thousand miles in one day. When people, hopefully, own the Volt, they'll see how rarely they have to go beyond 40 miles. Then, they'll think, "Heck, with 150 miles of range I'll be perfectly fine. I'm gonna get a Tesla." That's how it'll all work in my dream...

This article fails to point out what I am saying. This is why I can't stand, most, journalists.

Reply

Tony, I believe it is called electric performance or something now.

Reply

The NYT is wrong.
The Smart EV is selling in Switzerland at infovel. And the Doblo EV SUV is selling in Italy. These are both mid market priced and freeway speed EVs:
Smart:
http://www.infovel.ch/eng/veicoli_lista.asp?prop=ok&propulsione=1&cat_ID=1

Doblo:
http://www.micro-vett.it/english/dobloing.html

Reply

I think the most promising BEV on the radar - if they actually deliver as advertised - is the Miles. Their $30K, 150 mile range, four door sedan seems to have the right mix of range, price, practicality and ability to pass the LA freeway test. When I can put my name to the title and plug it in in my garage, this argument will be history.

Reply

What about these two vehicles:

http://www.lionev.com/Vehicles.html

Reply

Interesting website, michael e. v. knight. Maybe one day some green car blog might investigate the company and it's products a little.

Reply

I'm puzzled by the New York Times attitude towards Electric Cars and PHEVs. They publish largely puff pieces about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles which are decades away and then they have this guy do a supposedly "hard-hitting" expose' of what is deemed to be marketing hype about electric cars. In the lengthy series of hydrogen cars none of the obvious drawbacks were discussed at any length and instead much room was given to the 'promise" of hydrogen. Interestingly the NYT technology columnist David Pogue did a largely positive piece ON CBS News about electric cars. I'm not even sure which master they are trying to please or which consumers they think they are protecting by publishing this type of journalism. In this piece there is no room given to any of the substantial promise of electric vehicles. It also entirely ignores the substantial resistance of major carmakers to mass producing electrics until very recently, using instead a "just world" attitude towards their failure...i.e. electric cars deserved every negative heaped on them.

Reply

I'm flattered that this site I read regularly embedded the video I uploaded. Amectran's videos are buried on their site and I was surprised to find no Exar-1 stuff on Youtube so I got it up there.

Reply

Tony,

No clue about teslamotorsclub.com, but hope it will be up again. Hope it isn't another hacker....!

Reply

No, you can't meet hose specs today for $30,000.

It costs $100,000 for a 150 mile range EV, and that one is a small 2-seater with almost no cargo space, sold only in a limited area.

If a 4 door 150 mile range EV could be sold in 2007 for $30,000, everybody would be selling them already.

Hopefully, with advances in lithium battery technologies, and an enormous drop in the cost of lithium-based battery packs we will see $30,000 EVs with a 40 mile or better electric-only range by 2012.

>The only reason we don't have a 30k 150 mile range, 4 door EV is that

Reply

No, I think Chris Paine had it right to demonize GM and CARB. If the California EV prgram had continued, and by now would have likely spread to other states, then the vehicle evolution would have certainly advanced well beyond the EV1. Nothing spurs innovation like market demand. The costs of the vehicles would have dropped dramatically as the technology matured and production volumes increased. The Tesla, like the EV1, is built by hand either one-at-a-time or in very small batches. The Ford Focus would cost $100,000 if it was produced that way. Does anyone remember when VCRs first came out, and they cost $1500? Saying that EVs aren't viable because of the prices is ignoring where they are on the product maturity curve.

Even though I think CARB was wrong for killing the EV program, I think they were also wrong in how they went about it. Making it a mandate was quite authoritarian and certain to foster extreme efforts by the car companies and others to fight it. Such an approach is stupid from a psychological aspect.People respond better to influence than they do to direct commands.

A better plan would have been to first offer tax incentives to car companies for producing the vehicles, then later tax penalties for not producing them, combined with tax incentives for the people who buy them. The final stage would be tax penalties of gasoline vehicles and gasoline fuel.

Reply

stevejust -

Solectria is a rare bright spot in the used sedan EV world. That said, they're difficult to find (their small pickups are easier to find than their 4-door Corolla/Prizm conversions, though they’re seen on eBay occasionally), and command a premium price. A typical working person might have problems paying in the $15K-$20K range for a vehicle that is already pushing 10+ years old, may need several thousand dollars in batteries soon, and no longer has OEM service support. If you can spend that kind of money on an EV, and are willing to get involved in the details of supporting the technology in the car, it’s a serious option for the few who can own the limited number of these vehicles still on the road.

susan.kramer -

Actually, your examples tend to support the NYT thesis. Info I could quickly find on the Smart EV indicates its first market is commercial leases (i.e., not private individuals) and is available only in Europe. Of course, with only two seats, it doesn’t meet the NYT’s definition of “normal”. More importantly, this format isn't useful for families. The micro-vett looks interesting – but based on its size and construction, I suspect they’d be considered NEVs if marketed in the US – and therefore not particularly suited for typical family use. For full-road use, you’d have to factor the cost and weight of US safety equipment (ABS/airbags/impact/crash test) – that aren’t likely part of their current design.

The NYT claims there are no new, affordable 4-seat-or-better EV sedans available today in the US. After much research – and with great sadness – I am inclined to agree with them.

michael e. v. knight –

I’m interested in the Lion EV vehicles – but have been disappointed at how little information is available about them, particularly beyond their own web site (the web site is short on useful detail, too). I’ll be more inclined to take them seriously when current owners are willing to share their ownership stories on-line.

In that regard: I’ve been searching for Lion EV owner stories. If you know of any Lion EVs that are in the hand of private owners, I’d really like to hear about it. I’ve asked the ABG staff to research this vehicle; if others submit tips to ABG, I hope this will build up to an in-depth article on this vehicle.

Reply