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GM Cornered Into Defending the Volt
Al notes a story in Technology Review reporting on a CMU study (now over a month old) claiming that the Volt doesn't make economic sense, and GM's response. The study suggests that hybrids with large batteries offering up to 40 miles of range before an on-board generator kicks in simply cost too much for the gas savings to work out (PDF). Al writes: "Unsurprisingly, GM disputes the claims, saying 'Our battery team is already starting work on new concepts that will further decrease the cost of the Volt battery pack quite substantially in a second-generation Volt pack.' Interestingly, however, GM admits that the tax credits for plug-in hybrids will be crucial to making the volt successful. Without those credits, would an electric vehicle like the Volt be viable?"
Sure, it might cost too much, but hopefully enough rich, environmentalists will buy it, that the price will come down so that it will be economically feasible, and affordable for the rest of us. They can use the same selling model as the Tesla Roadster.
Ol' Rick Dawson had a farm EIEIO
It might not make the most economic sense *TODAY* without tax credits but putting the money into the technology being developed for battery and hybrids will make cheaper more efficient cars available in the future. The main cost right now is the battery pack but with more mainstream production as well as further research, this should come down in cost (higher capacity / cheaper batteries in future cars).
Considering that GM is surviving on taxpayer money right now, and is begging for more, I don't see how GM has any credibility on determining if anything makes Economic Sense. Maybe the Green Movement can buy the technology off GM, and produce the car themselves. Let's see if that is successful.
"...cost(s) too much for the gas savings"
Depends on the price of gas? Here in the UK we pay approx 0.90 GBP for a litre, = 0.90 x 1.42 (Pounds to Dollars) x 3.785 (Litres to US gallons) = 4.84 US dollars a gallon.
This is much less than a few months ago when gas here reached close to 1.20 GBP a litre and with the pound being stronger at that time it was over 8 dollars a US gallon.
Would you consider a gas/electric hybrid if gas was 8 dollars a gallon in the USA?
My thoughts, as well. The company is still supposed to be a profit driven company, government money or not (and I personally think they should have been allowed to go bankrupt... and I'm a huge supporter of American companies, so it's not like I'm just anti-America-Corporation or something). It's decisions like these, IMO, that make me think they should go bankrupt, too. =P They seemed to do pretty well, once upon a time, building trucks and whatnot. Nobody really liked Toyota or Nissan trucks 10 years ago, for anything heavy-duty, etc. To get into the electric/hybrid market, I think they really needed some good ... well, innovation and technology. Not play a catch-up-to-Toyota/Honda game with my tax money.
I bet the same thing could have been said about the Prius during it's development phase. GM could always offer the Volt for lease like the Honda FCX, another car probably even more expensive to be economically feasible at this time, not to mention that hydrogen stations are few and far between.
GM has made tons of stupid mistakes, and frankly they deserve to be in the situation their in for it. On the other hand, the Volt is actually ingenious and I believe a more logical application of a hybrid powertrain than anything else currently on the road. I think it's cool that, like in diesel trains, the gasoline engine generates the electricity which powers the electric motor which in turn motivates the vehicle.
And for a change, I think it looks nicer than either the Prius or the new Insight. Hopefully, GM will be in business long enough for the Volt to see production. I do acknowledge that the risk in this car being too expensive is that enough people won't be able to buy for it to help GM in any meaningful way.
Recently my car got crushed by stuff falling off the roof of a business. So I've been the market for a new car. I looked at toyota between the Corola and the Prius. Both are similar size, but the Prius gets about 10 miles more to the gallon...for $6000 more.
I did the back of the envelope calculations and there was no way that I'd make up the $6000 price difference in the time that I am likely to own the vehicle. Even if gas goes back to USD 4.00 a gallon.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
How can it make economic sense? I'd much rather have a VW Sharan that gets 7 and still gets 40+ to the gallon. Why on earth are we trying to build electric cars that make no sense instead of using cheap, proven turbo-diesel technologies? Why can't I buy a car that will ride 7 and get 40+ to the gallon in the US? I'm baffled...
apt-get install redhat please god - Me (take it easy, I love Debian)
It doesn't make sense, right now. Right this second. But last time I checked they didn't have it in any showrooms yet, so that point is moot. Just because a global economic meltdown happened that made driving a gas-guzzling GM make sense for approx 6-12 more months, doesn't mean GM should bet the future of its company on gas prices staying low. That's basically what they've been doing. If gas prices stay low it will be because the economy is horrible, and GM will go out of business because no one buys their trucks. If gas prices rise GM will go out of business because they still don't build vehicles that anyone will want to buy at $6/gallon of gas.
The Volt is the ONLY thing GM is doing that makes the tiniest bit of sense. For goodness sakes, they released a passenger car hybrid that costs about the same as a prius, but gets about the same gas mileage as a minivan.
I don't see that anybody on the GM board has anything to do with an oil company. Perhaps you can tell me more specifically whom you are talking about? (Or is your remark just uninformed rhetoric?)
What the hell does that mean? GM doesn't have oil company representatives on their board. If you'd like to see, I suggest you Google search GM's board and check out the board member bios.
Also, if oil companies are stopping GM from bringing electric cars to market, then how do you explain GM betting the ranch on the Volt? Wouldn't GM have *accepted* this argument that electric cars don't make sense, rather than defend their electric car project?
But hey, didn't stop this post from being modded to 5. I guess any paranoia about oil companies automatically gets modded up...
Ahh yes... Big brother knows best. People don't make good decisions on their own. They need someone else to make decisions for them.
Consumers are complacent about fossil fuels, but they are not complacent about their wallets. Why do we continue to buy fossil fuel cars? Because they are the cheapest technology right now.
Take an economics course. Government mandates HURT ECONOMIES. There is no exception to this rule. The government produces nothing and does not act in the best interest of the people with tax dollars.
As far as your points below:
1) yes, and as it becomes cheaper, electric cars will become viable, but they aren't today
2) once again, fossil fuels getting more expensive will move us towards electric cars, but today oil provides the cheapest energy and that allows us to use the savings to invest in the next energy source
3) Regardless of where the oil comes from, it costs money. Us not buying it from the middle east will not stop terrorism. They will simply sell to China. The problem in the middle east is a lack of education and unfair governments. You are suggesting we bring that here rather than fix the real problem.
4) Yes, CO2 is bad for the environment, we need to mitigate the effects of this. However, the effects are HUGELY blown out of proportion, with Al Gore being a major contributor. I suggest that we focus on switching from coal to nuclear, which is economically viable and will reduce carbon output much more than electric cars.
Oh wait, the government is preventing nuclear power plants from being built an operated efficiently... Maybe your theory is flawed after all.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I've seen terrorists kill people. So far, I've seen no one die from Global Warming.
Yes, we know people are terrible at risk assessment and balancing immediate risk against long-term risk. You don't have to show it off.
Oh, please! GM doesn't make a gas-sipper. Never have. Over the past 20 years I've tried in vain to buy a good fuel-efficient car from the Big Three. The only things any of them have made that satisfied my efficiency standards have been cheap, poorly-made boxes with few amenities (e.g. Ford Festiva) that deliberately pushed the comfort-loving American buyer toward their more expensive (read "profitable") models.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The second law of thermodynamics says that pushing the problem down the road is the best we can do.
we Americans have just been brainwashed into thinking that diesel==bad
The interesting thing is that America's dislike of diesel passenger cars is in some part due to none other than GM, due to GM's horrible Oldsmobile diesels of the 1980s. Instead of just giving GM cars a bad reputation, it gave diesel engines a bad reputation in the mind of American buyers, and American manufacturers didn't offer another diesel car after that.
GM has no choice at this point. They have taken so much government cheese that they will build whatever they are told to, no matter the cost.
That said, as much as I liked and wanted a Prius, the numbers did not add up. I could get a Fit that averages 38/41 on my commute for $10,000 less than a Prius that averages 45/47mpg on my commute. The Prius no longer has a tax subsidy and 10 grand is a huge nut. I went for the cash in hand.
My VW Rabbit in high school got 60mpg, and my friends' Civics and CRX's got 40+ in the 1980's....why do even small 4cyl cars get such bad mileage today? Is it just the weight of added safety features?
we Americans have just been brainwashed into thinking that diesel==bad.
Almost all of the refineries in the US produce a fixed ratio of gasoline:diesel. If consumption doesn't match that ratio, the price of one will skyrocket compared to the other.
It's not a matter of one being "bad", and the other "good".
I've been reading Slashdot for many years, but never registered. This one got me.
IMHO, you can summarize the whole article with this:
1) Heavier cars have worse fuel economy.
2) Batteries are much heavier than gasoline per joule.
3) Carrying around batteries on a trip that you aren't going to use wastes energy.
That's pretty much it. The only conclusion you could draw for the Volt is that in the opinion of the paper's authors, the Volt's battery should be smaller. GM disagrees. Personally, I think the ideal solution would be to offer 3 versions of the Volt with batteries that will take the car 10, 20, or 40 miles depending on how much you paid for the battery. I believe that would make the authors of the paper happy. The problem from GM's POV is that the Volt is a very low volume car. Adding options like that is probably something they would like to do when the volume is higher.
What the paper authors are missing is that electric vehicles are much cheaper to operate than gas vehicles. Tesla estimates it costs about a penny a mile to operate the Roadster. If the cost of operation is 10% higher because of the extra batteries being carried around, I don't really care. 1.1 cents per mile is not a problem.
The authors just glance at what, IMHO, the real problem with pretty much all electric cars is. The cost of the batteries is HUGE. The cost has almost nothing to do with the materials in the batteries. This is an assembly problem. The only way I know of to solve that is volume.
That means that, IMHO, the government tax credits to subsidize the PHEV vehicles based on battery size are a good solution. If mass production can dramatically lower the price of the batteries, then the subsidies won't be needed in a few years, and the batteries will be cheap. If they can't figure out how to make the batteries cheap, well then we are screwed. But the government subsidies do have caps on them so after the experiment, the government money turns off automatically.
You should really educate yourself before making such sweeping, idiotic, statements. Chevy alone makes more models with 30+mpg than Honda or Toyota. I had a 2003 Cavalier that was rated at 32 mpg highway and got 38+ on a cross country trip. I now have a 2006 Cobalt rated at 34 mpg that still gets 37-38 highway on the few long drives I've taken it on. Nowhere else can you get a 400+hp car that can hit 30 mpg highway, like the Corvette, and still have the performance which that car has.
Please stop repeating fallacies based in the 1970s and 80s.
However, as pricing currently is distance per volume of fuel, I have no interest in how much energy a certain fuel packs. If gas stations start charging me by the joule, we'll talk.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'm not sure if you are trolling, daft, or just asking a legitimate serious question...
> How can it make economic sense?
You mean like how can the government afford to "bail out" a failing business model of the very same businesses that were against electric vehicles??
>Why on earth are we trying to build electric cars that make no sense
Right, we don't need sense like far less pollution, safer, stilumate R&D, etc.
> I'm baffled...
Here's a clue. Short-term last-millennium greed and thinking needs to be replaced with long term sustainability.
Who Killed The Electric Car
and
But your S2000 gets the same mileage as many a 'large vehicle', so it's rather a moot point. It's not like you're doing the environment any favors by shunning SUVs in favor of a sports car. That said, I drive an RX-8 in the summer and love every minute of it. But I have no illusions that it's a more environmentally conscious vehicle than, say, a Ford Windstar or Expedition.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.