Small Electric Car May Usher In Big Changes

An anonymous reader sends us to a profile in CNNMoney.com on a Norwegian car company that is building a compact, plug-in electric car, the Think City, that will go on sale in Europe early next year. It could hit US markets in 2009. The CEO is working with Silicon Valley VCs and with Google, Tesla Motors, PG&E, and Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Plans are to sell the car only on the Web. No dealers, cheap manufacturing plants, and a battery pack that you lease, not buy — there's potential here for shaking up the auto industry the way Dell did PCs.

Comments

Big Changes, huh?

[ExploHD]

Are those "big changes" similar to Segway's "Big Changes"?

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

People need automotive transportation. There are plenty of good economic reasons for a car like this, especially these days, and once someone Does It Right(TM) they'll be raking in the cash.

They don't need rolling gyroscope toys. There are few good economic applications of Segway; it's niche and its hype was, well, hype.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[Jhon]

They are pretty common on Catalina Island, too. You wont see them wizzing down Studio City or Long Beach. any time soon, though. Not 'street legal'.

The option is neat when it's available -- but it's not.

This is a good option, though -- which I've considered. Still too pricy for the options I want, but it's getting closer.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[vidarh]

Re-read the article. $34K is the planned retail price for the car in Norway including the battery, not the price of the battery alone. The other price is excluding the battery which you will then lease instead.

And for Europe the price isn't bad, particularly as many countries have lower taxes for electric cars. Most people commute short distances where speed is limited anyway (I'd challenge anyone to try to get anywhere near top speed with this car in London during rush hour - average speed is between 10 and 15 mph), and so the limitations of this car means very little to most people. Since gas is more expensive here too, it can be economical at quite a higher price point than in the US.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[reddburn]

The hype sounds similar to the last time an electric car went on the market. If you remember, the conditions of driving one were the same, as well: you couldn't "own" the car, you had to lease it. Yes, you can own the car this time, but without the battery, it's pretty damn useless, no?

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[Blakey Rat]

The reason a lot of American families own SUVs isn't because they just want to arbitrarily waste gas, but because they have things to tow. Maybe a horse trailer, or some jet skis, or a fishing boat. The reason people buy gas economy cars and not electric ones is that even the cheapest gas economy car has 4 seats (small ones, given) and a trunk, and people need to take their groceries and gymbag home.

Yet Another Electric Car that doesn't meet either of these needs is not going to succeed, period. An electric car that seats two people, costs a $34k, and has no trunk? Might as well buy a couple scooters for thousands less.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that leasing the battery is a good idea. With battery technology the way it is now, the battery is going to fail well before the car will, and it will degrade fairly quickly so that your miles per charge takes a nosedive. If the battery is leased, it is very easy to just get a replacement. In this instance, leasing actually does make sense.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[hey!]

You don't want to own the battery. Why in the world would you?

I suppose you own the gasoline that goes into your car, but your relationship to it is transitory. It is consumable.

Your relationship with your car battery is somewhat more enduring, but it still is a consumable, what's more it is a consumable that presents you with a disposal problem at the end. Leasing the battery saves you this trouble, and makes it much easier and more efficient for the manufacturer to recycle it -- into more batteries.

I think the magic number here isn't $5000, it's more like $20,000. You would not want such a small car with a 112 mile range to be your only car, but most households have two, and increasingly often three or even more cars. If you could buy it at the same price as your next ICE car, it'd be more than viable, and help alleviate the parking problem in many households. There are four people in the house next to me, and there are four SUVs and a motorcycle. One or two of these could easily be a car like this, especially if the Stirling engine was an option that could be bought for, say $5000.

Come to think of it, one of the cool things about the Stirling engine is that you could share it, or you could keep it when you traded in your old car. It'd be much more like a one time investment.

The main obstacle to this car in this country is that Americans have become such friggen stick in the muds. We've been top dog for so many years we've gotten allergic to change. I don't know if many people noticed, but the most significant thing in this article for me was how close this thing was to production, then was dropped by Ford when the CA regulations were dropped. Our big companies, it seems, only innovate when there's a regulatory gun to their head.

If a significant number of second household cars, and most if not all third household cars were like this, we'd take a pretty big bite out of our foreign oil dependency problem for no real practical inconvenience.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[Jhon]

I've been tempted by GEM in the past. If they can get that sucker down in price for a 4-seater with hard-doors and a better top speed (say, around $6k), I'd jump on it in a second.

I really don't NEED 100+ mile range. I'd be happy with the 30 mile range of the GEMs for all my local stuff.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[cayenne8]

"Well, i would hope that maybe the battery is swappable, meaning one could possibly own two batteries and be able to rotate (maybe if they take overnight to charge, etc) or be able to choose a different battery vendor after their lease expires."

I dunno, they may rename this to the iCar...in which case it does not have a user replaceable battery.

:-)

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[sunking2]

It was pretty cool. I drove ours to high school for a bit. Wow, a catch like you must have had all the girls lined up :)

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[BigDogCH]

Yes, plus then the old batteries do not end up in piles out in the country..........maybe lower capacity batteries could have a lower lease price (for those of us who don't drive much).

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[fm6]

Sure, a lot of people buy SUVs because they need a truck. But most don't. The vast majority of SUV sales go to urban drivers who think all that extra metal makes them safer. Which is an illusion, but hey, illusions sell cars.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[CodeBuster]

And for Europe the price isn't bad, particularly as many countries have lower taxes for electric cars.

This may be true, but using taxes to artificially distort markets into what some people in Europe would call socially egalitarian outcomes is generally very bad economic policy since it masks the inefficiencies of particular economic choices from the consumers actually making them resulting in a dead weight loss to the economy. If these technologies are better then let them compete on the merits, but it should not be the policy of governments to interfere in the market through taxes to "promote" a certain social agenda. This goes for subsidies for existing technologies as well, they should be slashed and ultimately eliminated. It is only through allowing the marketplace to determine the outcomes in fair and open competition that we will achieve the best results most quickly. This may require some regulation and enforcement on the part of the government to ensure that the competition is really open and fair, but the market will deliver the optimal solution if we allow the invisible hand do its work.

Re:Big Changes, huh?

[toddestan]

For a little while, I used to drive 20 miles one way to work, which would take slightly less than an hour during rush hour (average speed ~ 25MPH). I doubt that the batteries would hold out for 40 miles, but the top speed isn't that unreasonable for a commuter.

Of course, same drive during the non-peak hours was 20-25 minutes at an average speed of 50-60MPH, which only goes to highlight how incredibly inefficient and wasteful our 9-5 culture is.

ummm, no.

[Cutie Pi]

Dell succeeded because they simplified and streamlined the computer buying process, and had good prices for PCs with reasonable features, compared to the rest of the market.

Other than possibly streamlining the car buying process, how does electric car company compare to Dell? It's not like people in the US are jumping to replace their SUVs and trucks with little electric cars.

Re:ummm, no.

[evilviper]

It's not like people in the US are jumping to replace their SUVs and trucks with little electric cars.

Almost...

Several years ago, when gasoline prices doubled, I noticed a hell of a lot more old and small cars on the road... Cars that you could barely sell months before, seemed to be at every stop light. Their only possible positive attribute being their 35MPG fuel economy.

Hybrids have been a huge hit over the past couple years. So, given the lack of any fully electric cars, that's about as close an equivalent as you can get. I'd say people are at least clamoring for SOMETHING different. The rich aren't going to toss their leather-clad Hummers, and those that need trucks will continue to buy them, but I expect there's a whole lot of demand in the market for some, ANYTHING that doesn't use up lots of gasoline.

Re:ummm, no.

[Yfrwlf]

Exactly, if more people bought smaller cars, this painful gas-guzzling excuse wouldn't exist. (except for semis unfortunately, but god damnit what ever happened to the rail systems here in the U.S.. Not to start a whole other debate or anything...

"Not a car"

[jonoton]

In europe these vehicles are not classified as cars and as such do not have to subject themselves to the Euro NCAP.

Recently Top Gear magazine paid for one of these to be subject to the most basic testing - the results were pretty horrific.

Re:"Not a car"

[arivanov]

That may change by next year. The entire quadricycle loophole may be removed. The horrific results of the test have put the wheels of the Eurocracy in motion. It may take a while for them to start moving, but it is nearly impossible to stop them once they do.

The reason for the horrific tests results for the Wizz was a horrible design. It is not something that is specific to electric cars in particular. The pseudoengeneers from one well known country who designed the Wizz have built it around the battery. The battery neatly slots under the seats and carries most of the kinetic energy with it. From there on the car shell cannot sustain structural integrity in the crash. This is broken by design. It is also trivial to solve by making the battery and/or drive train free floating in a manner similar to the one used in modern car designs. In that case in the event of the crash it detaches itself and the chassis "climbs" on top of it. As a result it no longer needs to absorb all the kinetic energy carried in it.

The consumer has generally wizened up and if a car that has publically failed safety tests it is most likely going to see abissmal sales even if selling it is still legal due to a loophole in the law.

Re:"Not a car"

[clonmult]

The car in question (G-Wiz) will reach a top speed of around 40mph. They say that "you will rarely hit such speeds around town". Sure, you're doing 30mph, car coming towards you is doing 30mph, closing speed of 60? You're almost guaranteed to die in a G-Wiz accident, but the other vehicle will hardly notice the bump.

Would you prefer to be in a vehicle that, in the event of an accident (head on at least) will keep you trapped, with crushed legs and chest, that can take an eternity to get out of, or a moped? Its a tough choice, but I'd go for the moped. Wouldn't look like so much of an idiot either.

Re:"Not a car"

[tom17]

Sure, you're doing 30mph, car coming towards you is doing 30mph, closing speed of 60?

If both cars are equal weight and the collision is straight-on, they will both experience a deceleration from 30mph to 0mph. Exactly the same as if they each hit a wall at 30mph. Only if they have identical energy absorbing crumple zones. Well, identical in that they absorb the energy at the same rate per distance/time of crumpling.

Re:"Not a car"

[Tony Hoyle]

Cyclist blindness won't go away.. they'll just run into you/cut you up in electric flimsy cars rather than petrol cars.

Not that cyclists help themselves sometimes.. driving in the dark with dark clothing and no hi-vis (I'd say the same about pedestrians too.. crossing the road in the dark with a dark jacket on and not near any street lights.. aargh!). I'd mention running red lights but car drivers to that just as much as cyclists (probably more, if round here is anything to go by).

Re:"Not a car"

[Calinous]

If you have a 4 tons Hummer and a 1 ton car. Each runs at 30 mph.
      After collision, you will have a (Hummer+car) construction, going 18 mph in the direction the Hummer went (assuming the cars lock in accident, and won't jump back).
      So, the Hummer just hit a wall at 12 mph, while the other car hit the same wall at 48 mph.

      Better to be in the Hummer

Re:"Not a car"

[tomatensaft]

Hey, cowboy, it's not Texas, it's Europe we're talking about! Nobody will ram your car off the street just like that!

Carbon Free?

[JuanCarlosII]

..carbon-free electric driving machine

I appreciate that looking forward a larger proportion of our electricity will come from sustainable and green sources, but given the current situation I can;t see how they can claim an electric car to be 'carbon free'. Admittedly the car itself emits very little carbon, but this just means that the carbon emissions are being diverted to the power generation (unless of course, the electricity is being generated using a perpetual motion machine). Also:

He points to the black steel chassis of a City standing on a nearby pallet; it's shipped preassembled from Thailand. At one station, workers attach the car's aluminum frame -- made in Denmark -- and drop in a French motor. At another station, prefabricated rust-and dent-resistant polymer-plastic body panels produced in Turkey are hung on the frame of a nearly completed car.

I'm not sure how shipping in different parts from all corners of the world necessarily helps the 'carbon-free' thing either. Basically, my thinking is that until electricity supplies are all (or at least mostly) from renewable and sustainable sources then a small electric car is no more or less environmentally friendly than say a small diesel car.

Re:Carbon Free?

[WegianWarrior]

You're forgetting two things.

First, this car is produced in Norway, where the overwhelming majority of power is generated by hydro-electric plants.

Secondly, the manufacturer was bought out by a company that specialices in solar energy.

So yes, it makes perfect sence for them to talk about a 'carbon free' car. Off course, the marketing blurb, reality in Norway and reality in [country of your choice] isn't always the same thing...

Re:Carbon Free?

[Bazar]

I'm not sure how shipping in different parts from all corners of the world necessarily helps the 'carbon-free' thing either. Basically, my thinking is that until electricity supplies are all (or at least mostly) from renewable and sustainable sources then a small electric car is no more or less environmentally friendly than say a small diesel car. There was a BBC documentary, about the death of the electric car. It went on about how the state of California, in its (now dead) initiative for electric cars, had worked out that even if the electric cars were fueled from the power generated from COAL, including the loss of power from the distribution grid. It'd still be more carbon friendly then burning petrol in a combustion engine.

The potential for a electric car to revolutionize the transit world is tremendous, but the oil companies, as do traditional the car manufacturers have a vested interest in not seeing it happen.

If you want to know more about the history of the eletric car, and the state of californa, and even the future of the eletric car, i'd STRONGLY advise you to watch

Chris Paine's 2006 documentary: Who Killed The Electric Car?

Re:Carbon Free?

[Alioth]

A small, efficient electric car even powered by conventional electricity sources will be pretty efficient.
Unlike the diesel, it doesn't have to idle when stopped. Unlike the diesel, it can use regenerative braking and not waste energy to slow down. Unlike the diesel, one huge powerplant is much more efficient than lots of very small powerplants (our local power station, a combined cycle gas turbine which uses any remaining waste heat to heat the nearby swimming pool has a pretty amazing thermal efficiency - I think with the combined heat and power it's starting to push 80%)

This is car enough

[zeromorph]

I think it's a good idea with a lot of potential here in Europe, maybe not in the US.

For me it's definitely enough car. For most people it would make a great second car.

From their homepage:
Range: 180km
Speed: max. 100km/h

A max. speed of 120km/h would be nicer, but range and speed are sufficient for all of the routes on which I prefer car over train.

Re:This is car enough

[Enderandrew]

If I hadn't already posted in the thread, I'd mod you informative.

There are already plenty of electric cars, but most don't go past 120 miles, and neither does this one. I have a small car with a small gas tank, and I have to refuel every 250 miles and I find it a hassle. Some electric cars can only go 70-80 miles before a recharge, and when you factor in having to drive home, that means driving 40 miles out and 40 miles home.

In a city like LA where people often live pretty far out from where they work, it just isn't feasible. Even a max of 112 miles (180km) is stretching it. A car isn't very useful to me if I can't really drive it much.

Re:This is car enough

[MichaelSmith]

In a city like LA where people often live pretty far out from where they work, it just isn't feasible.

How much of the driving in LA is at slow speed in heavy traffic? Under those conditions a petrol engine will be less efficient, and an electric drive line will be more efficient.

Re:This is car enough

[Corporate Troll]

Well, if it's payable.... Meaning much less than for example a Smart car, I'm all for it. When I was young and crazy, I bought an small roadster, which really is a gas guzzler at 10l/100km (~23.5mpg according to Google) and I still have it to this day. Selling it won't bring me enough money to buy an eco-friendly car and I don't want to invest in a new car. I mean if I have to add another 15k€ on the selling price, it'll take years before the savings start to kick in. It's stupid to replace a perfectly fine, but old car.

That said, I only work 10km from home and during peak traffic I need about 30 minutes to get there. Taking public transportation, I'm in for 45min at least. Taking the bike is 35min, but I'm all sweaty and we don't have showers at work. Sure, a towel some soap, a fresh t-shirt can do wonders, but it is sub-optimal.

A car like this would probably save me time and be environmentally friendly. I could keep the small roadster if I need to go somewhere further and faster...

Also, it's small, and while parking space is not an issue where I work, it's pretty much a big issue in the rest of the country. So, if it's in the 5k€ range (about the price of a small motorcycle), why not?

Re:This is car enough

[AGMW]

What I'd like to see is the Goverment doing something useful for a change (in the UK at least) and allow companies to charge their employees electric vehicles for free (ie a tax free perk) - sort of an green update on the old company car scheme.

So, drive 40 or 50 miles to work and plug the sucker in. It charges all day and you drive it home. A small overnight boost will get you back to work again!

Doing something like this would be a useful kick-start to the technology, and once it becomes more commonplace it should also get cheaper and drive the technology forward!

Re:This is car enough

[ajs318]

Yes, but the power points could be on a coin-meter which would pay for your parking and your electricity in one go. You just put in enough coins to pay for the juice it's going to use while charging, and plug in your car.

There are a few details to work out, for sure; but first look to the campsite industry, where they probably already use something similar.

Stirling Engine

[RAMMS EIN]

If I were to design a car these days, I would do as these guys did and use an electric motor for propulsion, and a Stirling engine for power generation. For those not in the know, Stirling engines are engines that run on heat. They can be powered by pretty much anything that generates enough heat, including but not limited to fossil fuels. Compared to conventional combustion engines, they Stirling engines are more efficient, but they take a lot of time to increase or decrease speed. That is a problem when using them for driving the wheels, but not when generating elcetricity.

Thanks to AKAImBatman for pointing me at Stirling engines; I first read about them on his blog.

Re:Stirling Engine

[jamesh]

I'm pretty sure it could run on flour for example, or haven't you ever heard of flour silo explosions?

Now that would be cool. The catalytic converter could be turned into a bread maker, so you have fresh bread when you get where you're going. "I get 1.25 loaves/100km" you would tell people.

More seriously though, i'm not sure that flour would provide adequate lubrication, and the 'fuel' delivery system would be a nightmare to design, as would the exhaust.

"mobility fee" of $100 to $200 a month

[More_Cowbell]

I fill my tank for ~ $70 a month (currently $3.45/gal), and I commute 30 miles round trip on workdays. True, there are plenty of people that can afford this (remember, the fee does not include electricity to charge), but this seems to be an elitist car at the moment.

Please wake me when I can help save the environment without declaring bankruptcy.

Re:"mobility fee" of $100 to $200 a month

[Ibn al-Hazardous]

Things are different in Europe. Here in Sweden there is a pretty heavy environmental tax on gas, so the price is roughly $1.60/litre. I only commute by car twice a week, and still I have gas costs of upwards to $200/month. With a new car for $15,000, and a battery lease for $150/month - I'd be lowering my costs significantly, while being able to commute every day (saving rougly 1,5 hours/day). I'd also avoid the congestion charges as a bonus.

All in all, this seems to be aimed at the European market.

Cheaper one from India

[ScorpFromHell]

did we ever discuss about the Indian electric car company Reva any time in the past? Their latest variant, Reva i, released this month costs around USD 9K (at exchange rate of INR 40 per USD).

Sure, it can only do a top speed of around 50MPH with a range of 60 Miles per charge, but I guess that's enough for city driving? I don't know, but is USD 9K too much for a small electric car that can carry two adults & two children in your place? In India, it is a viable option as a second car, for the growing numbers of nouveau rich at least.

Warning: Businessspeak

[RAMMS EIN]

For those of you who are about to RTFA: be warned, it contains businessspeak.

I have no idea what they mean by describing the car as "open-source". Also, they can't seem to decide whether it's a car, a glorified terminal, a power generator, or an iPod.

I also get the eerie impression that it is vaporware. Golden mountains are being promised, but will they be delivered? With so many rich people being enthusiastic about it, there is just a chance, but still, I don't want to get my hopes squashed again.

All in all, it looks very cool. I want one.

Right, Sherlock.

[zeromorph]

The price is actually from Germany. That's where I saw a Gas station this morning, now I'm in the Netherlands and here it's more around $1.90 or $2.00 for a liter.

For an international price list take a look at this (prices in EURO).

Car dealership is required

[ptbarnett]

Selling via the web may sound cool, but at least one state (Texas) requires that a retail automobile purchase be conducted through a brick-and-mortar dealer.

Nuclear + Wind

[Nicolas MONNET]

Current technologies exist to generate electricity carbon free.

Nuclear (70%+ of all electricity around here)

Wind is already competitive price-wise with coal. Its main problems are that they require massive initial investment, and that it takes A LOT of time to get over all the Nimbys. Wind also happens to be unpredictable, but that's a non issue as far as battery charging is concerned. All that's required is a broadcast flag to tell the charger to stop sucking current when not enough power is available.

Re:Nuclear + Wind

[Yfrwlf]

Getting your electricity from a carbon-free source is no where near as important as getting rid of your gas motor or moving to a motor that consumes less gas at least. Combustion engines are insanely less efficient than having the electricity produced at a coal plant. A combustion engine produces lots of heat that is (usually) all wasted.

Strawman argument.

[nietsch]

these vehicles are not the same as the vehicle that the article is about. It is not about to go on sale this year or the next. There is nothing that you can order yet, so there is nothing you can crash test. The test was with a totally different vehicle. If one SUV did bad in a crash test (like killing some bystanding dummies that were not even in the test), does that make all SUVs bad? (well OK, SUV are still bad, but for other reasons).
Some other poster pointed out your strawman is called g-wiz(made in India), which is a different vehicle ,made in different factory. Or are all electric vehicles the same?

Re:Refill?

[Enderandrew]

Assuming that there is an outlet where ever I have to park, which simply isn't the case. And how long does it take to recharge?

Do you think cities are going to put outputs in front of every parking spot in a city? Who is going to pay to install them? Who is paying for electricity used to recharge the cars?

Frankly, a plug-in car can really only be charged at your house. And until they can go 200 miles (100 mile each way) before a recharge, I don't believe they are feasible.

Email from Think

[meador]

I emailed Think with a few questions after they announced their battery pack deal with Tesla.
Here's the text:

Dear xxx,

Thank you for your e-mail and interest in Think!

Think is currently in the process of preparing the new TH!NK city for production in the fall of 2007. The new TH!NK city meets all US and European homologation and safety requirements. It has a range of 110 miles, a top speed of over 60 mph and has comfort and convenience features you would expect of a normal car such as, A/C, electric windows, mirrors, etc.

Due to production capacity limitation and a desire to become very visible in the markets we enter, we will sell exclusively in Norway and the UK in 2007 and the first few months of 2008. Unfortunately, I am unable to confirm the timing of a US launch.

About your questions:

1) How many miles / years will the batter pack last? --> 7 to 10 for Norway
2) Can the top speed governer be altered? (Part of my daily commute is on the highway) --> NO
3) Do you have any plans to bring the Think back to the US? --> YES
4) What is the cost of the car and cost for the replacement battery pack? --> Not yet known for USA, in Norway 200.000 NOK

I have added your name to our list of interested parties and we'll send you information on prices and launch dates as they become available. Please contact me if you have any further questions. For more information please visit our website: www.think.no.

Thanks for your interest and all best.


Kind regards

Alejandra Hagbartsen
Market assistant

THINK GLOBAL AS

Sandakerveien 24
0473 Oslo
www.think.no

Tel: +47 23 40 84 04
Mob: +47 993 88 329

Re:Email from Think

[Rogue Pat]

Please please don't calculate US car prices by converting them from the price in Norway.
I just configured a basic car on the Norwegian volkswagen homepage, a Jetta, with a 140hp engine and basic color and no extras for NOK 308 710 (which according to Google is USD 52 597)....

A Volvo XC90 with some extras quickly reaches USD 125k here...

Re:Refill?

[Enderandrew]

They only have parking meters downtown. And the company I work for just did some massive construction downtown and it was a nightmare getting approval to do anything underground, so getting all the wiring done underground for an entire city is no small feat. And there is a different between plugging a quarter or two into the meter to park and paying to refuel my car. I imagine it will take a sizable amount of electricity and I can't simply pay for it with pocket change.

Clueless

[SoupIsGood Food]

Tiny cars don't sell well. They're difficult to schlep kids to school and a dozen bags of mulch home from Lowe's. Small cars are seen as unitakers, and most americans need their cars to fill a number of roles.

Plus, without a way to recharge the battery in roughly the time it takes to fill up a gas tank, what the hell are these things good for? Short distance commuting? Corbin already tried it, with a better looking mini-car, and failed. Miserably. Americans generally have no use for automotive unitaskers - most of them have long highway commutes and the occasional road-trip, and they want to do both in the same car.

Ugly cars also don't sell well. I don't mean "Quirky styling" like the Scion xB or Suzuki Aero, or bland styling, like a Chrysler Sebring or Toyota Corolla. I mean, East German levels of "Couldn't Be Bothered With It" styling: truly and deeply misguided design choices no-one paused to give a second thought to, complete with panel gaps you can see with the naked eye from low earth orbit and colors chosen for their complete inability to catch the eye.

Efficient and cheap isn't going to get you anywhere near public acceptance. It's got to offer a lot more... the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius look goood, they're slick productions with a lot more to offer than 50mpg. The Prius in particular has been successful because it offers near-luxury comfort and conveniences with econobox mileage and futuristic styling. (The other hybrid makers are also having a hard time grokking this, so we get Hybrid Civics and Mariners no-one is particularly enthusiastic over.)

The Smart FourTwo is a tiny, inexpensive car with great styling and sybaritic creature comforts, and Daimler =still= won't bring it to the US because there's no real market for it here. The Think, an ugly plug-in doo-dad, is doomed before it even starts. Dell? Try Osbourne.

SoupIsGood Food

Re:Clueless

[SoupIsGood Food]

You're European, so you can be forgiven if you've never seen 1) a real American SUV and 2) a real American Home Depot. Jetta wagons generally don't cut it when there are sheets of plywood to be hauled around.

The typical American family is a two car family. One of these cars will be a sensible sedan. One of them will be a truck - Pickup, SUV or minivan. This is because big trucks are practical for moving people, carrying stuff anf towing things. Otherwise, they'd be spending like no tomorrow on muscle cars like the Mustang, which are much more bad-ass and look-at-me-cool than a bland-as-stale-bread Chevy Tahoe or Ford F150.

Also, the "Estate Wagons" the SUV's replaced were in some cases considerably larger than the SUV's now. Do a GIS for "Caprice Station Wagon" sometime.

So, the cars just won't be getting smaller due to cultural influences I don't expect you to understand... it's just so. The trick is then not to sell smaller cars, but to make larger cars more efficient and lighter. The whole deal about "the mountain coming to Muhommed" and King Canute with the waves thing. The Prius makes a mid-size car subcompact efficient. This is the right way to go.

SoupIsGood Food

Re:Clueless

[Alioth]

Really? Most Americans I know have at least two (if not more!) vehicles - for example, a normal car, a giant SUV and a pickup. The normal car is used for nothing but the man's commuting. The wife uses the giant SUV and the pickup gets taken on camping trips. So at least one of the vehicles is a "unitasker" already.

When I lived in Houston, I was quite unusual amongst my friends having only one vehicle.

Re:Clueless

[AlXtreme]

I'll bite!

The interesting thing is that many Americans think the same way (I _need_ a big car), however compare an American suburb to a European one. There isn't much of a difference. So why on earth would you need a SUV to drive to the mall while us euros do fine with our Peugeot or BMW?

You need to haul plywood around. So do we. But we tend to rent a trailer, which is always possible at our Home Depot-lookalikes. And honestly, it's not like you need to haul plywood around every fracking day. The same if we to move: you can always rent a van. Hell o' a lot cheaper, and works better.

The bottom line is that the big American car manufacturers hit upon the SUV-goldmine ten years ago (before that, it's not like everyone in the 'burbs had a pickup). Despite all the disadvantages (awful fuel consumption, a higher center-of-gravity causing an increased risk of tipping over, lack of close-proximity sight due to increased elevation) the SUV was successful because Americans thought they needed one. Afterwards they try to validate their purchase with (IMHO unsound) arguments.

Feel free to mod me down for this, but us euros frown upon these huge vehicles near our schools and children (think of the children!). They might make you feel safer, but the little ones aren't. If you live in the middle of nowhere, drive through the mud all day, sure you have plenty of reason to buy a big truck. But not if you live in a suburb and hit Home Depot twice a year. Get real.

(For the record: I know two people who have a Commander and a Grand Cherokee. I've driven in them, and those SUVs scare the shit out of me)

Re:Clueless

[StrawberryFrog]

Tiny cars don't sell well. ... most americans

That's why a European company is doing this. In Europe. Where small cars sell.

Re:Clueless

[*weasel]

There isn't much of a difference.

The problem is that there is.

American residential lots are bigger and mixed commercial/residential areas don't really exist in suburbia.
The practical differences of all that space are much larger than you're giving them credit for.

We can't walk anywhere. We don't have mass transit worth a damn. So we drive. Everywhere. And even we don't like all this driving, so we combine trips. Alot. Can a mini get an adult, two kids and groceries back and forth? Sure. But not when you throw in football/hockey equipment and/or an instrument or two, and/or a couple bags of softener salt, and/or a dog or two, and/or a couple bags from clothes shopping, and/or school supply shopping and/or a couple week's worth of non-perishables and maybe some dry cleaning. Even in a full-size sedan mixing two or three of those trips will be a squeeze at least a couple times a month.

Sure, we could split those trips up and still use a sedan comfortably. But who the hell wants to? The shops are all on one end of town, and your house on the other. You'd wind up burning even more gas and time going back and forth. And it's not like suburban shopping is itself an enjoyable diversion, as it might be in a city with sane zoning laws.

The landscape is cut up, the destinations separated by space, concrete barriers and often pedestrian-hostile traffic-flow. So we Drive. Park. Shop. Load up. Drive to the next store. Repeat. It's another one of those reasons we get head-scratchers like indoor malls, strip malls and giant one-stop behemoths -- all built around our annoyance with our own suburban zoning and our propensity to combine trips.

We also have an outdoor/roadtrip culture that sees the family + luggage + recreational gear jumping in the car and driving a couple hundred miles a few times a year. (Skiing/snowmobiling/fishing/camping/etc). Not even full-size sedans are really suited to that task -- which is why the station wagons sprung up shortly after American suburbia exploded. As style changed, mini-vans replaced station wagons and now most SUVs are just 'more stylish' wagons or minivans.

But its not like they're buying an Escalade instead of a Camry. 90% are buying the SUV because they're in mini-van-denial.
As previously noted: most American families have more than one vehicle, and in the vast majority of cases they have a reasonable sedan too. We just move around enough junk, often enough, that the alternatives make less sense than having an SUV.

Still the wrong battery model

[frisket]

Lease or buy isn't important. What's important is that batteries become standardized. Recharge at home by all means, but when your car is running out of juice on a trip, you pull into a juice station, slide out the battery, slide in a recharged one, and slide your discharged one into a rack for recharging. You pay for your "refill" like you pay for a tank of gas, and drive out.

OK, so maybe we need small, medium, and large batteries, plus a couple of bigger sizes for trucks, buses, RVs, and those 4x4s needed for all that rugged terrain around the suburban malls :-) but the last thing we need is some dipshit marketing droid inventing new and proprietary batteries that you have to get from the manufacturer. Suppose you bought a Toyota but you had to go to a Toyota garage to get your gas...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"No dealers" - but what about maintenance?

[hcdejong]

The notion of not having a showroom sort of makes sense, but the savings will be limited. After all, they're going to have to set up that car-sharing franchise instead, and that franchise will have to employ someone who can talk to prospective owners, and they'll have to vehicle available, which may mean investing in a demo car.

Also, where will these vehicles be maintained? Independent garages aren't usually the first to invest in new equipment and training to service unusual cars (e.g. handling high-voltage equipment and large batteries that can discharge at 1000 A).

I expect these cars will need less maintenance than internal combustion vehicles, though. I just had my car in for its 15 Mm checkup, and of the E 370 bill, maybe E 40 was for items unrelated to the engine (an interior filter and balancing two tires IIRC). This means routine stuff could be handled by any garage (or tire fitter, for that matter). It's just the high-voltage electric stuff that needs a specialist.

i'm all for it!

[dirgotronix]

i'm a cab driver. i drive 300-500 miles a day.

the taxi company buys old police cars, gigantic, gas-guzzling V8's, because they're easy to get parts for and easy to fix. the drivers are the ones paying the $500/week to keep them moving, so they don't care.

i think this car is a great idea. increase the range, up the max speed to 75, and make it large enough to seat four people, and it'll be the next big thing.

as far as speed is concerned, i drive all night long. there's no reason for the max speed of a commuter car to be higher than 75. driving faster is your own impatience. if you stop and realize that you're not the most important person on the road, you'll stop wanting to burn gas going so quick.

the shared power grid features of the car are the amazing part. not only is it a mode of transport, it's a mobile capacitor to help the city's power demands. that is truly thinking different. i can't wait to see this concept go worldwide.

i'm all for it.

Hybrid SUVs are coming... and they will rule.

[Shivetya]

and their bottom mileage figures are going to be closing in on 20mpg... at that point many who thought of switching when gas gets over $3 are simply going to get a hybrid tech'd SUV.

Combine this with the fact that many new technologies being developed to create hyper efficient small cars can also easily be adapted for big vehicles and pretty soon you'll be back to where you started.

In fact, its far easier to make the big SUV and trucks this way. They have more slack in their price than small cars meaning some of the new tech's cost can be absorbed and the final price more tolerable for consumers.

In other words, the world of big SUVs isn't going anywhere, its going to transform into more fuel efficient forms because it has to. People want big vehicles and all this gee-whiz fuel tech works just fine in that size too. Hell, a series hybrid would be very easy to do in the space afforded by most SUVs. They even have loads of space for batteries under the chassis.

Go check out the spec's on the new hybrid-Tahoes coming out. Then think down the road how new technologies will further increase their efficiency which at the same times decreases the desire to be rid of them

Better Idea

[JamesRose]

Rather than all these crappy mileages, what they should do, is get a distribution with the big petrol stations, make the power cells easily removable, you pull into the traditional petrol station, and instead of sitting there for the next few hours charging the battery, just slip the used one out and slide in a new one stored at the petrol station, of course the petrol station recharges your old one and charges a fee for the fully charged new one, it would be cheap, greatly increase the range and all the recharging worries that are currently around would be gone.

The only problem

[Dachannien]

...with selling such a tiny car in the US is that "Escalade" is French for "trash compactor".

Damned Right!

[Overzeetop]

Why does every damned economical car have to _look_ like an economy car? Why not put an all-electric concept into a Miata, MR2, RX-8, S2000, or other coupe (or coupe+)? Give me a damned spyder hard-top. I would really like an electric car. I drive a 5.4L V8 F150 for work - and I need it for some of the construction sites I'm on - but it gets absolutely horrible mileage, about 14mpg. I commute about 1 mile to work (yes, I do bike from time to time, and walk occasionally, too) and many of my in-town meetings could easily be done from a little 2 seater. I could probably put about 1/2 the mileage on my truck if I had something smaller. I'm no fashion diva (see F150, above), but there is no way I'm going to be seen in some fugly eco-box. If you're going to make me feel cool by driving a green car, at least keep me from being taken for a dork by driving something that looks like it came out of the back end of a chicken.

Re:Diesel is coming... and they will rule.

[0100010001010011]

VW's Toureg can already get up to 25 MPG, real world. Semi trucks can see 7-8 MPG, as good as a Hummer and they're actually pulling a load.

Diesel is going to make a bigger impact that hybrids in the coming years.

Re:SUVs and electric cars

[Paulrothrock]

Electric power plants are significantly better for the environment than a gasoline powered vehicle. First, they extract more energy per ton of carbon released than a small engine. Also, it's a lot easier to regulate or sequester the emissions from a power plant than it is from a million cars. And finally it's relatively easy for a lot of people to buy renewable energy to power this vehicle.

Diesel-electric hybrid is coming

[Flying pig]

You don't mean, I think, the kind of Diesel-electric common in ships and trains. It's very inefficient - you generate power with the engine and then use it in the motors, so you have extra energy losses. It is more efficient than the old hydraulic auto boxes, and allows you to have a large gear ratio without mechanical complexity and fragility, e.g. in a ship you can step down electrically by 30 to 1 in one stage. It isn't that it doesn't scale, it's that its benefits outweigh the costs only when you have systems with difficult gear ratios and layouts.

I think you mean the Diesel-electric hybrid. In this there is only one combined motor generator. The engine can charge a battery while moving, and the battery can move the vehicle slowly in town and restart the engine almost instantly when needed, just as in a gasoline hybrid. The truth is that gasoline hybrids have been mainly cosmetic environmentalism with poor payback of the initial excess energy investment in the batteries and electric motors. Diesel hybrids could do better, especially since it's easy to design a Diesel engine for a 6000h-plus life and thus achieve much better dust to dust costs. (300000 mile service life versus maybe 120000 for a Prius.)

Re:It's not a fee

[Jhon]

Keep in mind that this car is produced in Norway where prices for cars and gas/fuel is very high.

Um... so? Keep in mind that the article points out an attempt to target an AMERICAN market.

Right now it's about 11 NOK for 1 metric liter. There is 3,785 metric liters in one gallon, so that makes one gallon cost aprox. $7,3

And at an estimate of $7.3 per gallon, you can expect to get about 27 gallons of gas for the same cost of the estimated $200/month "battery fee" (not counting the cost of electricity). With a very conservative estimate on a gas-car, you can expect 30 mpg -- or over 800 miles for about the same cost. That gas-car in the US would most likely run less than this thing, too.

You'll need to travel more than 800 miles a month to make this thing cost effective at $7.3 per gallon for gas. Far more, if you calculate an economy car which gets closer to 40 mpg... In the US, with gas at ~$3 gallon -- I just don't see me using this to travel over 1300 miles a month to save "gas money"...

Re:More like the big changes on terror

[mh1997]

Has anyone else noticed that they now have robot planes that can be flown from the other side of the world, and shoot missiles at people on the ground, but yet the average citizen's flying car is yet to materialize? Now we're being told that they have to make cars smaller to make 'em run on batteries, even with fuel cell technology etc. Seems to me that there might be something going on here besides technological limitations. I wonder when governments realised it would be hard to track and chase people who could travel in three dimensions easily?

Has anyone else noticed how many people run out of gas on the roads everyday? At least they are on the ground and not falling out of the sky when they do it!

Re:Your all MORONS!!!

[Paulrothrock]

I don't drive up mountains with deer in the back. I do, however, drive about six miles each way for work, and short grocery runs during the week. I bought a scooter that gets 80mpg, but I'm definitely interested in something that can get the same or better mileage but keep me out of the elements.

Just because you don't think something is useful doesn't mean other people don't.

The United State of America is BIG....

[jellomizer]

This is the main cause why this will most likely fail. Because of the size of the United States. People in Europe, Asia and New York City, Don't really apreate the size of the United States. Geographically The United States is a little smaller then all of Europe. There is a far amount of distance people needs to cover from residentual areas to comerical areas. For me it is about Ten Miles (I am considered to be living close to the cities) For other people they will need to drive Twenty Miles to get to the closest store that sells anything of value. Granted we don't need SUVs to get from here and there but we do need some type of car with a long range and can relialibly maintain a top speed of about 70-80 miles per hour (I know the speed limit is 65 but if everyone else is going 80 you better be too or you will get rear ended) for 200-300 miles minimum. Living in Cities are generally not desirable living conditions when there is plenty of space out there where you can buy a bigger house with more land outside the city for less and also deal with less Crime and Noise from the City.

For these electric cars to succeede they will need to be very cheap (no more then 2k) Roomy enough to cary children and cargo, and safe enough for people to use. Any thing less then these specs would probably make it a huge deal breaker making americans still stuck to gasoline cars for all their driving. If they can meet these requirements then there is a chance that many americans will have a car for short distance driving and a long distance car.

Re:Diesel is coming... and they will rule.

[hcdejong]

Diesel is going to make a bigger impact that hybrids in the coming years.

They already have, in Europe. Diesels account for 50% of car sales in some countries. But diesel isn't without its problems. Governments worry about particulate emissions (and are considering road tax increases to dissuade people from buying diesels).

There's nothing to prevent hybrid systems where the ICE component is a diesel. There isn't one available now, because the European car makers were concentrating on diesels instead (and on catching up with the Japanese in manufacturing efficiency and reliability). They were caught off guard on the whole hybrid idea.

A hybrid drivetrain can be more efficient than is possible with an ICE (petrol or diesel) only.

The next trend that's going to have a big impact is smaller, more efficient petrol engines. We're seeing the first cars come out now where a 2-litre engine has been replaced by a 1.4 with a turbocharger, with the same max. power output while using less fuel and better emissions figures.

$10k with the lease fee and I'm in

[rAiNsT0rm]

I sold my turbo'd Focus for a 2006 Scion xA in 2005 just to realize some savings in fuel costs, then when things went even higher I was feeling pretty good about the little bugger. I thought I'd miss a lot from the performance/power side of things but honestly it's grown on me. I don't think I could go back to less than 35MPG, and it has become a past time to see how much I can get (44MPG is my best so far). I get the same or better mileage as a Prius, paid ~$8,000 less than a Prius, and have no battery or complexities to worry about.

Now for this plug in vehicle. I am a strong believer that any company who can bring back the $10k new car will clean up. My father works for GM and I know it can be done, but has been squashed just about every step of the way. If this vehicle could get to $10k (even 11k) and include the battery fee for the first year, then I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

I have a odd car dealer by my house that sells replica's and oddballs of all sorts (Once I almost bought a Delorean there) and they have been selling the Mercedes smart cars. People are flying in from all over the country daily for them and the waiting list is up to 18 months right now. The price? $60,000. Honestly, people are dying to drop 60 g's for a tiny smart car like this one... the market is there at any price, but for mass adoption and disruption of the market $10k would be it.

Who killed the (Norwegian) electric car?

[TeknoHog]

Killed? It's not dead, it's pining for the fjords.

most Americans live in urban/suburban areas

[Goonie]

Only about 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas and need to drive twenty miles to the shops (which, incidentally, is well within the round-trip range of these vehicles).

Re:Diesel is coming... and they will rule.

[MightyYar]

Diesels are more efficient, but some of the perceived "efficiency" is actually that diesel is a more dense fuel. A gallon of diesel contains more carbon than a gallon of gas, and thus releases more CO2 when burned. It also takes more crude to make it.

Don't get me wrong, I am very excited that clean diesels are coming to the states, and that more diesel cars are available - diesel engines are more efficient... I just wanted to point out that comparing MPG is kind of meaningless, since diesel crams more energy into a gallon.

Your numbers are a bit off, BTW... You can make an H2 get as low as 8 MPG if you really try, but they get about 13 MPG on the highway. Road and Track even got over 15. Take a semi trailer off of the highway, and you'll be far below the 7-8 MPG number that you state. The average for semi trailers is actually 6 MPG, IIRC... but it really depends on the load and conditions. 4-8 is probably a better range.

praise be, /.ers are back to shooting down ideas

[avi33]

It's funny, every time details about some "cutting edge" idea or business model surface, this forum (which used to be populated with physicists, engineers, and geeks of all stripes) piles on with their own particular angle on why it won't work.

Good thing slashdot isn't a frickin' VC company...I can just imagine the comments:

• Are you kidding, no one will pay half a billion dollars for a site that just has free web-based email. I could knock that out in a weekend with perl...
• No way anyone will pay two billion dollars for a video sharing site...I could knock that out in perl in a week
• What? *Another* search company? Who needs that? We already have Lycos and yahoo, and their results are pretty good...besides, I could knock one out in perl if I really needed to...
• An overpriced mp3 player with 5 buttons and a scroll dial? L4m3.

No, instead, we have the run of the mill peanut gallery, with their particularly ignorant insights. Don't get me wrong, a strong dose of skepticism is a healthy thing to have, but do you really think that Sergey and his band of PhD.s are not quite as clever as you when it comes to spotting and growing ideas? I'm no fan of the Segway, but you have to admit, much of the pesky unwanted energy in our machines shows its face in the form of heat, and if you can find a *relatively* cheap way to convert it to some other form, well, that seems like a pretty handy little model...

But slashdot has all the answers...it's too small, too expensive, the batteries should be $free, it's failed x times before, it's a toy, it's not safe, Joe sixpack wants a hummer, ponzi!, l4m3, FUD, w00t...whereas a couple of commenters actually get it: this could work in x conditions, but not in y, for z reasons...at least there are still a couple people left around here that haven't grown up thinking a forum is a place to pile on, the snarkier, the better.

I'm not saying it will succeed just because some heavy duty investors are behind it; plenty of ideas that fit that bill haven't made it. The point is, it could, and maybe one day something will happen that might cause people to think about energy differently, and this model will be ahead of its time, or at least some lessons will have been learned. Like a HOWTO on overclocking your chip with a stirling engine that charges your iPod...

Instead of analysis, we have negative comments modded as insightful. I suppose it's true what The Onion says, it turns out that a majority of Americans are actually NOT entitled to have their own opinions...

Informative? Hardly.

[An Onerous Coward]

The Top Gear test was performed on a G-Wiz, and has nothing to do with the Norwegian cars being discussed. The G-Wiz basically an electric scooter with a metal enclosure, has a top speed of 40MPH, and isn't intended for highway use.

According to the article, the Think cars have a top speed of 62MPH (which their agreement with Tesla hopes to raise to 85-90MPH. It will very much be a highway car, and therefore subject to American and European safety standards. Lumping the Think and the G-Wiz together as "these cars" is like lumping your pet rabbit and your sister-in-law together under "these animals". Did that analogy make sense? No? That's my point: it's nonsensical. If Chewbacca lives on Krykkit, you must acquit.

Economies Of Scale

[wjcofkc]

Really big lithium ion batteries are not exactly common. When was the last time you bought one? Lesser scale production equals higher production costs which then equals a higher cost to the consumer. Just like we have seen with the computer industry, as the demand of PCs increased, manufactures of PC components went to greater production scale and greater production sale to meet the demand of computer manufacturers who now paid less for mass produced parts who then in turn past the savings onto the consumer.

Greater demand for and larger scale production of these batteries must come before the prices can drop significantly.

Re:Economies Of Scale

[budgenator]

Well actually they are more common than you'd expect, I was reading in Popular Mechanics that people are going to Lowes and Home Depot and buying Li-ion batteries for rechargable tools in $5-10K batches to convert their Hybrids to plugins now. Ok I know your thinking these people are whacko fringe cases and your right, but eventually the fringes become mainstream.

and how much do you spend on gas a month?

[circusboy]

personally I bike everywhere now, but most people that I know who commute with a car fill the tank once or twice a week.

at current prices, even for a small car, that's $35-$40 a tank. generously, that's $140 a month for gas.

$100 monthly fee for a battery? sign me up! there's flexcar or rentals for long hauls.

twice in the last 6 years I've had commutes of between 40 and 60 miles, which was costing me upwards of $80 a week, and that was at lower prices. this is well within the range of one of these cars.

Re:Batteries not included

[Zobeid]

The price issue is not a scientific problem, it's not an engineering problem. . . It's a manufacturing problem. I like to compare with LCD panels. Color LCD panels are some of the most difficult items to manufacture that have ever been invented, and I'm sure you'll recall how expensive they were at first. Companies like Samsung and Matsushita saw the demand, invested huge sums of money to build large, sophisticated, automated factories, worked hard at refining the production process, and now LCDs are almost given away in boxes of cereal. The price reduction has been about 90%.

The same thing can and should happen with lithium-ion batteries. They are made out of common elements, mostly lithium and carbon. (That's unlike hydrogen fuel cells, for example, which require a platinum catalyst.) It's just a question of investing the capital in large-scale production and refining the process.

Re:praise be, /.ers are back to shooting down idea

[jpatters]

It's funny, every time details about some "cutting edge" idea or business model surface, this forum (which used to be populated with physicists, engineers, and geeks of all stripes) piles on with their own particular angle on why it won't work.

Far be it from me to stick a pin in your nostalgia, but slashdot has never been any different, really. And in this case, we're right, this product has "going nowhere" written all over it.

L.A. traffic

[Mal-2]

My drive home -- about 32 miles -- fluctuates wildly between a dead stop and 50-55 mph. If I am lucky enough to hit a relatively open freeway, I may hit 70-75 mph, but that is by far the minority of the trip. Acceleration is crucial. I know electric vehicles have plenty of acceleration when required, but just how much does this reduce the operating radius?

For an electric car -- or fuel cell, or anything else -- to be practical for me, these are the requirements:

* 0 to 60 mph in 11 seconds, max. This would put it on a par with most economy cars in decent condition.
* A range of 100 miles per charge or refueling, minimum, regardless of traffic conditions. Not 100 miles on a good day, but 100 miles, every day, including those days it takes 3 hours to go 3 miles. OR, the ability to recharge in 3 to 5 minutes, and half that range, perhaps by swappable fuel cells or batteries.
* A top speed of 70-75 mph, minimum. 80 would be better, but 70-75 would suffice. The catch is that it has to be able to do this up moderate hills, not just level surfaces. It will not do to drop to 50 mph every time I have to go uphill. This means that the car only has to be designed to handle 75, but the powertrain probably has to be capable of considerably more to account for uphill slogs.
* Air conditioning. This is a considerable power draw, and it has to be designed for, not just bolted on.

That is what it takes to get the average L.A. commuter to and from work every day, with a trip to the store on the way home. A car that does less will find itself roundly ignored.

Mal-2

Re:praise be, /.ers are back to shooting down idea

[Shadowlore]

It depends on the article. If the article makes grand claims, it deserves a nitpick or two. Grand claims require grand evidence.

In this submission it was questioned whether this would "Usher in Big Changes" in the automotive world. The veracity of that is entirely up for discussion and if you've evert tried to get funding for company, you'd want to post the idea here. That way you'll know all the possible failure modes.

Will this make a big change in the automotive world? No. It is not cost effective nor space effective for most people.

For single persons having two cars that carry the same amount of people is wasteful, and takes up more parking spaces in their apartment complexes - spaces they may not have available. Most families of >2 members already have two vehicles, so this would make a third one. Again most families have at most a two-car garage (and many of those are actually wide opening single-car garages). Thus the space issue hits home, no pun intended, for them.

Further, the cost of this car versus their current car makes it cost more to buy and use than to continue driving their existing car, for most people that it is alleged would be the target.

All that boils down to who the real market, targeted or not, is. People who only need this car and are OK with it's limitations (all cars have them). That market is demonstrably small. I
d even suggest that teenage drivers make the most logical target market. These markets are a small, small measure of the overall market. From this standpoint the answer to "big changes" is a flat "no".

On the standpoint of whether the method of selling will usher big changes, again, no. The reasons are different here. The existing model consists of manufacturers selling their product to dealers, who then sell it again. The automaker is already selling direct in this model. Selling directly to the customer would represent a breach of contract with their dealers. It would also put them in competition with their largest block of customers. So no, that won't change either.

It isn't a matter of opinion as to whether or not the questions asked represent a likely future, it is an analysis. Just as with the hype of the Segway. Does the Segway work as a means of transportation? Yes, it is functional. Is it cool? arguably, yes. Did it represent a fundamental shift of how we the people would get around? No. Did it cause a "rethinking" of how we get around? No.

See, that is the problem. Every "new idea" is touted as a funadmental shift, a paradigm change, a "world changing idea", or some such notion. So of course, we the thinkers, analyze that. And due to the nature of the frequency of truly world changing ideas, more often than not the answer is "no it is not a world changing idea". An idea can be a good one without being a world changing one.

Then again, if you believe that the majority of people are not entitled to their opinions, you probably believe they are entitled to your opinion.

Metallurgy

[Flying pig]

I started my R&D career in a company which probably knew more about the use of aluminium for automotive use than anybody else in the world at the time. During the first Middle East oil crisis the economists looked at the prospects for energy saving by a switch to Al for engines and other parts and concluded that the US economy could not afford a change in the necessary timescale. The reason is quite simple. There is actually so much steel in the world that the US (and much of Europe) is basically self sufficient in steel. We do not really need to make very much more. However, a widespread conversion to aluminium would involve refining huge amounts of the metal from ore. The energy used to make Al is many times greater than for steel, because (put simply) aluminium is a trivalent and high energy atom which is extracted by an inefficient electrolytic process, while steel is made from a less energetic transition metal using a very efficient thermal process.

So, while you are correct in that aluminium can be recycled, a widespread conversion would involve making an awful lot of it.

There is a subsidiary issue, unfortunately. It is very easy to convert steel from one alloy to another, e.g. recycled mild steel can be used as the basis for inox, but a small quantity of inox in a steel melt will not harm the resulting alloy. However, there are many aluminium alloys which vary in content for specific purposes (copper in aircraft alloys, magnesium in many car parts.) Recycling of aluminium requires a lot of metallurgical intervention to get the desired resulting alloy. Other than the pure Al used in cans, there is currently no recycling scheme to distinguish alloys. With steel, this is not really an issue. Aluminium alloys can contain copper, magnesium, zinc etc., and contamination of an alloy with the wrong metal will affect the ability to heat treat it, corrosion resistance etc. So while it is possible to, say, recycle cans into auto wheels or aircraft, it is not possible to recycle auto wheels into cans. Recycling aluminium is NOT trivial.

Believe me, I have sat in on very heated exchanges between aluminium and steel metallurgists - two of them once came close to blows in a meeting with Government representatives present - on this precise issue.