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GM Pulls Plug on Electric Car
davebo writes "General Motors' EV1, the all-electric dynamo of a car, has been pulled from the market. You can read the letter GM sent out to current EV1 drivers here. When the EV1 came out, the chairman of GM said it would
"define the GM of the future". Guess he'd like to take that back now . . ." With Ford also cancelling their electric vehicle program, looks like hybrids are it for the next few years.
What were they expecting? This is like walking into a country as well-gridded as ours and saying, ok, let's try this new type of electricity! But it needs completely new power plants to do it, and it is less convenient. People will look at you like you're crazy.
Electronic cars - even ones you have to plug in every few hundred miles - may have their day, someday. But not yet. Not while oil is so cheap. Cost of gas + Convenience of being about to fuel up anywhere at any time = Lower cost, for most people, all things considered (remember, price is but one factor) than driving an electric car.
I want to know why only 1000 were made. They spent a billion on a program and only sent it out to a wishlist? Or did they withhold it from the market because the infrastructure didn't exist?
When the time is right, both the cars and the infrastructure will change as needed. The time is not right.
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
that the power plants that make the electricity probably spew more pollutants into the air
/.) and you see that electricity is a good step between the way you turn a natural source of energy and the movement you want in your vehicle.
That is if your electricity power plant is using fossils fuels. Look a little bit further (or back, a couple of days ago on
bash$
Nuclear
As long as we're burning fossil fuels to generate power, all an electric car does is move the pollution somewhere else. Just think about it:
Gas car: Chemical energy -> kinetic energy
Electric car: Chemical energy -> kinetic -> electrical -> long distance transmission (power lines) -> chemical (batteries) -> electrical -> kinetic
In the end, you get sucky performance for a couple times the energy cost. The idea of an electric car is utterly absurd, and I can't understand why it happened at all.
Maybe after get serious about cheap, clean nuclear power, and we make some major breakthroughs in batteries, the electric car can happen.
... IMHO.
An electric engine for the city and one of the new, very efficient diesel engine otherwise. My Audi A2 TDI runs around 50 mpq (4,5 l/100 km), which is quite good.
Remember that electricity is not emission free unless it's solar power/wind or water. Emissions are just made somewhere else.
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
I've had my butt reamed and my karma mugged for saying this before, but I've found a very effective way to solve my own personal transportation energy needs.
Being willing to haul my own ass around.
Talk about renewable energy. I just put a Macintosh Apple in the top hole (no not an Apple Macintosh), sooner or later it comes out the bottom hole, but in the meantime I get to move around.
Around the city center my ETA on a bicycle is about the same as a car. Between cities the bicycle ETA is about half a car's. Long hauls, well, the bicycle does drop to a third the average speed of a car.
I don't consider it a bad price to pay to make my fuel problem, "Hey, where's a good place for pizza around here?"
And to top it all off, it keeps my ass to a handy haulable size.
KFG
Long hauls, well, the bicycle does drop to a third the average speed of a car.
You maybe able to maintain a constant speed of ~25mph for a 50 mile journey on a bicycle, but the problem is that the majority of the population actually can't. Some people just aren't genetically programmed to be fit, others don't do enough excercise. They also don't like the idea of getting soaked to the bone when it's raining, or blown off the road when it's windy, etc...
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Yes, that would include the cost of the pollution generated by using fosil fuels.
Yes, that would include the cost of a war over oil.
Prices of $1000,-/liter anyone?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I knew you'd show up. Hi. :)
.*you have to work that many fewer hours to pay for it.*
Look, I'm not exactly unaware of the problems inherent in my choice. I live them every day, in upstate NY, year 'round.
I will make some points though. The reason I can do this and most can't is very simply because I do and they don't. I am not "genetically programmed" to be fit. In fact, if it were not for modern medical science I wouldn't even be alive. My own lungs are trying to kill me, and someday they will succeed. I am dwarf compared to the rest of my family and have a hard time digesting foods other people take for granted as standard fare. In fact, most of that standard fare will kill me. One of the side effects of this is arthritis in all my joints. I'm not Stephen Hawking, but I'm certainly not Mr. Olympia.
But an 11 year old girl who had never taken a long bicycle trip before pedaled with her family from California to NY. It really isn't that hard.
I can do what I do. And so could you, and 99.99% of the population *if they did.*
*Humans* are genetically programed for just this sort of energy output. Even the nearly dead ones without lungs, joints or digestive systems.
The downside is that they are clearly not as comfortable as an automobile. When it rains you get wet. When it's hot you sweat. When it snows you get cold. The wind is the cyclist's mortal enemy, not because it blows you off the road, it doesn't, because it slows you down.
If this stuff bothers you, don't do it. I'm not on a soap box saying you're evil if you drive.
However, I'm not going to say it's not a viable solution when I've found that it can be, and may be for you, even if you don't think so right now.
Fuel is cheap and pleasant to consume. Use makes you stronger instead of weaker. You spend nearly nothing on maintainence. You spend nothing on licenses, permits, insurance, etc. Having to worry about tickets is a virtually null issue, you never have to dig a bike out of a snow bank just to get started in the first place, and they're nifty, geeky little machines to boot.
And it may take you a bit longer to get where you're going, but. .
Am I an advocate? Yes, just as I'm an advocate for free software, and for the *same reasons.*
Am I a zealot? No. If you don't want to don't do it. But that's not the same as saying you *can't* do it. It's a choice.
KFG
Oil isn't going anywhere.
It will become increasingly difficult to find and extract, on a gradual basis. This difficulty will be reflected in the market price for oil, as it happens. It may be that, eventually, oil will be more precious than gold.
But I'll say it again: Oil isn't going anywhere. Even if it's as scarce as diamonds, it will still be available in some amount. The cycles which produce oil have not ceased: Believe it or not, even our own decomposing corpses will someday become a small puddle of crude.
It is not as if, 75 years from this moment, all oil will instantaneosly cease to exist. Instead, as the price of crude increases, our reliance on it will automatically decrease.
At some point, it will become more economically viable to drive an electric car which is plugged into a wind-powered grid than something which burns dinosaurs.
At the same point, there will plenty of oil left for manufacturing of the requisite wind machines, albeit at somewhat-elevated expense.
As the price continues to increase, other alternatives for crude will become apparent.
Another example:
We make consumer merchandise out of plastic because it's cheaper than other materials. And we make those plastics from crude because it's cheaper than other materials. When oil becomes so expensive that it's cheaper to make goods out of, say, hemp or soy, then that's what the market will direct companies and consumers to do.
An example in reverse:
Aluminum used to be amazingly valuable stuff, due to the difficulty in consolidating it. A big chunk of it tops the Washington Mounument, mostly for this reason. Nowadays, it's cheap enough to throw away after one finishes a can of Coke without thinking much of it, just as one currently burns through 20 gallons of gasoline without a second thought.
This isn't rocket science, nor does it take a PhD in microeconomics to understand and forecast these issues.
The market, with its greedy corporations and frugal consumers, will take care of the "oil problem" just fine by itself.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Kid-proof tablet..
But diamonds are a plentiful commodity in the earth's crust.
It's an effective cartel -- DeBeers -- which creates the impression that diamonds are scarce, that you need to give one to your fiance to show your love, and that second-hand-diamonds and artificially produced diamonds are an insult instead of a "gem."
Good! I like the way you think man. I am thinking about doing the exact same thing because I live less then 8 miles from work. It would take me as much time to ride to work probably as waiting for the bus, riding the bus, waiting for the bus, and riding the bus and then walking from the bus stop to work. All of that waiting time, I could be moving. All of that walking time, I would be moving faster. So I figure it would take me at least as much time to get to work by riding a bike as it would riding the bus. As always, I could still ride the bus when the weather is bad and soon, my cities bus company will be putting bike racks on the front of the bus. I can put my bike on there, ride the long distance from point a to b, then bike the rest of the way with less transfers (only have to ride to closet bus down town, then ride the bus to down town, then ride from the main bus stop downtown to work.....probably a couple miles both to and from work).
:) The war in Iraq has never been about oil. France, Russia and others will still be able to get the oil currently in Iraq....in fact it may even be better priced under a new regime. The war with Iraq is because even after the Gulf War and Gulf War II, Iraq has still not disarmed. Plain and simple.
Also, it was not the parent that said this but others have said we only have 75 years of oil left.....BS! There is TONS of oil. There's alot of oil we just can't get to because it's not economical to get to. Current oil prices are also artificially high because the oil companies think that the war in Iraq might affect the oil supply. Watch this..after the war (this summer or 4 weeks....depends on the when we start the war), gas will drop to below a dollar a gallon (at least in the US). Gas is still, at current prices, cheaper then a gallon of bottled water. SO I am not complaining about the price much!
The EV1 was a failure because GM built it to fail. The fact that all EV1's "purchased" were leases (only thing allowed) and that they practically excluded 48 of the 50 states (I think it was only available in CA and AZ) did not help as well as their choice of using a heat pump for Heating and Air Conditioning. They did not even include a small bank of solar cells to help maintain charge during a sunny day trip! Also, the fact that the battery tech in the ev1 has now been superceded and the fact there was no real incentive for GM to sell the thing were just two more things on why the EV1 failed. With current electric motors, the best choice for a reduced emission car is a hybrid. It prolongs the use of Gas which makes all of the R&D that the automakers have done last longer and lets them make money while they can research making more efficient batterys and more efficient electronic and electrical parts. Eventually they can make a battery (or fuel cell) that will make operatining a electrical car econmical. I think that Fuel Cells will power electric cars eventually. Fuel Cells coudl even be made to run off of Gasoline, Diesel or Hydrogen. The first two could be used while the last one is developed. They could even include 2 tanks....one for gas and one for hydrogen in the same car. And I think since a electric motor and a fuel cell will take less space then a ICE engine, it would not even be a space issue to include a duel tank. The future will have different cars. Back in the 50's, they thought we'd all have air cars and be flying from point a to b. Boy were things wrong there!
Gorkman
I drive a VW Jetta TDi car, that is, a Diesel car. I can get 50mpg on highway driving at normal speed.
:)
When speeding (I've done 115mph and there was some more left) and doing mostly city traffic I go down to only 44 mpg.
In Germany they have the VW Lupo, a car that gets ~80mpg. And also the bigger sedan VW Passat TDi, with ~45 mpg IIRC.
Now, those cars need zero modifications to use BioDiesel fuel. BioDiesel is vegetal oil. Nothing else could be more ecology-friendly. And, if needed, you can mixe it with regular petro-diesel, for older engines.
Now, Diesel fuel used here in the US are waaaay too dirty (this is what kills Diesel cars in the US when you look at EPA statistics). There are some laws in place to reduce pollutants in US Diesel to European/Japan levels (1/100th of current sulphur contents).
Also, my car drives like a sports car: very nice handling (corners, break...), it has side aribags and all kind of safety features... and I have to really try to drive it under 85 mph, 'cause it wants to go fast.
Then, the Wagon version has about the same cargo room as a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Good for soccer moms...or for carrying those plasma TVs and huge monitors for our computers
I say that current technology (Diesel/BioDiesel) is good to reduce pollutants and fuel consumption. In Europe, Diesel represent more than 50% of total new car sells.
The US has lots of land. The tobacco industry s looking for a replacement... Maybe all can go to soy for BioDiesel (or similar crops). This way we decrease our dependency of foreing oil, decrease pollutants in the air, provide a good income to our farmers (the new "bio-oil industry") and Detroit has a new field to innovate and generate new jobs. And Diesel engines last 200,000 - 400,000 miles. Not bad.
What do you all think?
In reality, if you want more energy, you stick a hole is Saudi Arabia, who spends $2/barrel to extract it, put it on a boat to the US, and stick it in a plant.
While some of our energy comes from other sources (coal, nuclear, hydropower, etc.), the variable sources of energy are oil based. The reason we can't get alternative energy is because oil is SO cheap and plentiful. Sure, the current "cheap oil" will run out in 20 years (it will ALWAYS run out in 20 years, that's how you extract oil), the newer technology expands the amount of oil that we can get cheaply.
Now, oil power plants can/should be more efficient ways to get energy from oil than cars are... however the amount of increase is the problem. Are power plants 20% more efficient? 50% more efficient? 100% more efficient? What about getting the power from point A to point B?
Your point about upgrading missing something. Power plants are operated for a LONG time. Taking one down for an upgrade is expensive and reduces power output... you can't do it unless there is a lot of spare electricity. And given the desire to not build extra plants, there isn't a lot of spare. As a result, plants are upgraded less frequently that you'd desire.
Cars on the other hand, are in service for between 10 and 20 years (sure exceptions on each side, but I'd say that the average car is probably in use for 10-12 years). This is a guess, maybe I'm over/underestimating how long cars are used. However, that process of replacing cars frequently means that they ARE upgraded regularly. Once you have a new way of converting gasoline to energy (say, reducing gas use by 20%), within 3 years, a LOT of cars have that in place, and within 5 years, at least half of the cars on the road have it.
Compare that to power plants, where you need a massive change to take them down, and new ones aren't that common.
Will a power plant shut down for 6 months for a 5% increase in efficiency? Will all new GM owners get the new generation capacity if it happens to be in the hood of their car when they buy it?
Alex
I like the bit about spending a billion dollars. What they aren't telling you is most of the money came for the US Gov't. So we payed for GM to take a half assed approach to energy efficiant cars.
What's ironic is it's so short sighted. Every year the Toyota and Honda get that much further ahead. When I go car shopping I look for cars made in Japan. They are made better, and more fuel effient, and usually cheaper.
Great joke, but my theory remains that the EV1 may yet (positively) define the future of GM and that pulling the plug like this has always been part of their plan - and not because of some oil and automotive industry co-conspiracy to keep electric vehicles of the market forever.
You'll notice that the EV1 and other first generation automotive technologies like the first hybrids are almost always small, ugly, and generally impractical (but very expensive) vehicles with very little appeal to the masses. These vehicles are purposely marketed to appeal ONLY to the early adoptors (usually geeks and hobbyist types with relatively large disposable incomes).
These clunky vehicles are simply beta versions and their drivers are simply beta testers that are being used to work out the bugs prior to the first release. The automakers never expect to make a cent off these individual cars and programs, but set the prices sufficiently high (and limit the features) to scare off the average joe and to recoup a (minor) percentage of their R&D costs.
Limiting the availability of these beta units to a small group of enthusiasts allows automakers to understand the technical and (perhaps more importantly) the behavioral issues associated with the various innovations WITHOUT turning off the mass market due to the known and expected bugs and limitations. Removing these products from the market is the same as removing support for a beta program once the real deal has been released. Cost and liability may be factors, but the real issue is removing the association of electric/hybrid/fuel-cell vehicle with some sort of early generation and experimental toy.
Many of the lessons learned from the introduction and road-testing of the EV1 have led and will continue to lead into the eventual (hopefully) mass marketing of more promising technologies such as hybrid vehicles and fuel cells. While it is a total shame that GM is treating their EV1 innovators the way they are, this probably has much more to do with very poor PR and Legal advice than a reflection of their commitment to alternative energy.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!