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Toyota Abandons Plans For All-Electric Vehicle Rollout
Soultest writes "Toyota has given up on plans to sell any significant number of all-electric vehicles. Citing 'many difficulties' with the project, the company says it will only sell about 100 of the battery-powered eQ cars it has been working on for several years. 'By dropping plans for a second electric vehicle in its line-up, Toyota cast more doubt on an alternative to the combustion engine that has been both lauded for its oil-saving potential and criticized for its heavy reliance on government subsidies in key markets like the United States. 'The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society's needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,' said, Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota's development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.'"
There will never be a large market for electric cars until the infrastructure has been upgraded accordingly. Where I have lived (Texas, Michigan), there are no charging stations. You can't expect people to buy the car if the infrastructure doesn't support the car.
... the seven sisters strike again.
We can't make it work with acceptable margins.
Toyota has been an innovator in how production operates, not in building game changing new vehicles.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The time has not yet come. If we switch to electric what are the Persian Gulf countries and Russia going to eat? Rocks? They are quite pesky when they are rich, imagine what will happen if they are poor and desperate.
Electric vehicles are coming. Toyota isn't stupid. Lithium air is supposed to make the energy density competitive with hydrocarbons. Why put your name on lithium iron phosphate only to disappoint when a better technology is right around the corner?
That must be it.
Behold the power of the Oil Industry...
The problem with all electric cars is the charging... until an electric vehicle can be charged in the same time that a gasoline based car can be fueled, they will all be unacceptable to vast majority of drivers.
What IS viable in the next few years is the plug in hybrid, like the Volt or the plug in Prius. The major problem here is getting unit costs down to where the cars become acceptable from a pricing POV. The Volt certainly has work to do here, and I'm guessing the Prius plug in faces the same problem. Incremental improvements in costs of the batteries will slowly bring these cars into the mainstream in the next few years. Cars like the Volt are, by all accounts, just like driving existing gasoline cars, and have the advantage of allowing most daily commutes to be done electrically.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
(hands over large brown paper bag, containing a huge amount of cash to director of Toyota)....
Now, how is your quaint little green electric car project getting on. I hear you've run into a few problems with it?.... Well, im sure you'll be able to put this inconvenience behind us both and get on with some good old gasoline powered motors like you have always done.
Kindest of regards, Director of ExxonMobile
Don't let those who say it can't be done, get in the way of those who are doing it.
Range? For 90% of my trips I need less than 25 mile range. I don't need a giant V8 truck to go to the fast food store. I need an electric vehicle to not idle at the 7 red lights in the 1.5 mile trip. Why is it the only electric pickup truck I can buy is one I build in my garage?
Tesla has some good batteries, and better batteries will be coming out in about 5 years that will make them work for long distance.
If people are too busy to wait a few hours for it to recharge, that is a problem with their lifestyle, not the car.
I'd love to have a plug in electric, for the 85+% of short drives people make, +plus+ a trailer with a gas engine and a generator to power this car for longer distances. In my mind I would not even own this trailer, but rent it at a gas station. In addition that trailer could carry some additional luggage (and may be powered by its own motor).
In that case I'd not even care if this trailer generates electricity from gasoline, from waste cooking oil, liquified gas or hydrogen. All I'd care about is if it gives me sufficient juice to drive my size vehicle and what it's range (tank capacity) would be.
And with all electric we could have a drive by wire system that drives the trailer much more comfortable. I could even see steering in the trailer (which is easy if you have one electric motor per wheel, just run them at different speed) to eliminate the skills needed to back up with a trailer.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
When the Oil runs dry, Humans will have no choice but to accept it. They can accept it, or do without, by golly.
tell that to tesla (the car manufacturer)!
We're not going to move forward until cars being made of carbon-fiber become cost effective. Hybrids and alternative fuels are okay, but the most important route to high efficiency vehicles is to reduce the weight. Go on youtube and search for "Amory Lovins" for more information.
The answer is not in an all electric vehicle but in the use of hydrogen fuel in internal combustion engines. There have been advances in the technology for storing and transporting hydrogen that make it fairly viable. Plus, large scale changes don't have to be made to the existing infrastructure. The large sums of money spent in all electric vehicles would have been better put towards hydrogen or hydrogen fuel cells.
While I would genuinely love to buy an all electric vehicle, the technology just isn't quite there yet. For an electric vehicle to be feasible it needs three things - 1) Performance competitive with internal combustion engine powered vehicles, 2) Range of about 150 miles, and 3) Recharge times under about 15-20 minutes. Item's 1 and 2 have been substantially accomplished. Electric vehicles are better in some ways and worse in others regarding performance, range, reliability and longevity but they have reached the point where we could call them competitive. The problem is the recharge times. Recharge times are a showstopper problem. Until electric vehicles can be recharged MUCH quicker, they have no hope whatsoever of making a serious dent in the overall market. Sure there are some niche uses for them and vehicles like the ones made by Tesla will have some place in the market - but even a market share of 1% is almost certainly not achievable without some serious advances in charging technology.
Plug-in-hybrids are how electric vehicles have a future. They do not share the range and charging disadvantages of electric vehicles but they do provide an incentive for development of charging infrastructure. They also familiarize the market with using electric vehicles and provide a test bed to expand range and recharging times. If you like the idea of an electric vehicle (and I do) the best way to someday get them mainstream is to support development of plug-in-hybrids.
Toyota has pioneered the hybrid-electric market, selling each one at a net loss.
I guarantee you that Toyota is no longer selling the Prius at a loss. There is absolutely no business case that could be made to sell as many Prius's as they have while making a loss on each one. They probably were losing money at first but not anymore.
until an electric vehicle can be charged in the same time that a gasoline based car can be fueled, they will all be unacceptable to vast majority of drivers.
It doesn't have to be the same - it just has to be competitive. 15-20 minutes probably would be acceptable given the other advantages of an electric vehicle. Not as fast as filling a gas tank but close enough that people are willing to accept the differences. What is not acceptable and I think was your main point is that recharge times measured in hours are never going to be acceptable for mainstream use.
It's simply a fundamentally impractical vehicle for people to use for 90-95% of their needs. Limited range. Recharge time sucks. Severely limited payload capacity. What people want is something that works as well as their SUV. A really useful all-electric vehicle needs to have a 300+ mile range, 400-500 would be better. It needs to fully recharge in the same amount of time it takes to fill a gas tank. And it needs to be able to hold four adults and all their paraphernalia comfortably. To a lesser degree, the battery pack needs to have at least a 5 year life if not 10 years. So, ultimately, it comes down to energy storage. Fossil fuels are a really efficient energy storage medium.
Beyond the practical issues are aesthetics. Every "green" vehicle with the exception of a Tesla, is a big dork-mobile. Excuse me, tiny dork-mobile.
The other issue that has conspiracy overtones is the fact that you have to have access to a public utility to drive it and in places where rapid charging is available. That means a major city. Want to drive out into the wide open spaces? Nope. You are now restricted to the city limits. There are five boxes to be used in defense of liberty: Moving, soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. By restricting your ability to move freely, the easier it is to control the populace.
We can't make it work with acceptable margins.
If a company cannot sell a product for a profit, there is no point in making the product. Current technology for electric vehicles has one huge showstopper bug in the recharge times. Until this problem is solved there is no mass market for all electric vehicles. There will be room for niche makers like Tesla (maybe) but nothing more. Plug-In-Hybrids are where there is a market and where the car makers can and should focus their efforts.
Toyota has been an innovator in how production operates, not in building game changing new vehicles.
I disagree. The Prius was a game changing vehicle. It is the first genuinely popular hybrid vehicle and it proved that there is a market for hybrid powertrains. While I will concede that Toyota's most important innovations have been in manufacturing processes, they have had some genuinely innovative products.
Like: http://www.toshiba.com/ind/product_display.jsp?id1=821 and direct drive Switched Reluctance motors.
But, since they insist on Neanderthal ways of thinking, extinction is the result.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
when will everyone figure out we should be driving around methane powered cars?
yes, fracking the marcellus shale has the potential to make us energy independent, and also to unleash the worst ecological disaster in the history of mankind, poisoning water tables for millennia. however, if we actually allow ourselves to prevail over the greed of corporations and do it right (which means more cost, which means dragging the corporations kicking and screaming into the world of smaller profit margins for the sake of of ecological integrity), why aren't the major car companies rolling out natural gas powered cars?
heck, homes are already piped in natural gas. it would be interesting if you could refuel at home, as well as the road. propbably as quickly and easily as petroleum derivatives
yes, it does seem more dangerous. volatile highly combustible gas is more frightening than volatile highly combustible liquid. but there it is: we pipe this stuff into our homes. a house blows up now and then. we live with THAT. so we can get this into our cars
i know methane powered cars already exist. but why isn't a major car company seeing the potential of the marcellus shale and preparing us, and them, for true energy independence?
wouldn't it be nice to know when the straight of hormuz gets shut off it won't mean a damn thing for our commute to work or our nation's economy or our international commitments?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Its BS. When I analyse my driving habits, most of my drives are short in town trips, less than 40 miles. There is a substantial market for an electric car using current technology. You just have to get past this idea that an electric car has to "replace" the current line up of gas vechicles. I'd gladly get rid of my Impala, start driving a 100% electric and keep the wife's Subaru for out of town trips.
By the time an electric vehicle could charge so quickly as to be useful, we'll probably have self-driving cars. When self driving cars become a reality, we can throw the idea of car ownership out the window. As it stands, 99% of cars spend probably close to 99% of their time parked and unused. That is inefficient.
If self-driving cars become a thing, a company could purchase huge fleets of cars. Then, instead of letting your own car sit in the parking lot forever, you could just use an app on your smartphone to send a self-driving car in your direction. Or you could just schedule your car to arrive at your location at some specific time (for instance, schedule to be picked up before and after work at precisely 8:00am and 5:00pm). Who needs car ownership--with costs of insurance, maintenance, gas prices, etc--when you can call for a cheap robotic taxi wherever, whenever you want? Relatively few people, I'd wager. It could start with cities, but eventually there would be so many self-driving cars on the road that you could have a self-driving car pick you up to take you wherever you wanted within minutes. Want to go to a restaurant? Send a request for a robot car to pick you up. Fortunately, there's a car that just dropped somebody else off to go shopping a mile away.
Since these cars are self-driving, they could be electric and manage their power efficiently. If you call for a robotic taxi to take you to another state and it only has 50 miles left on its battery, the car could automatically schedule a car with a fresher battery for you to transfer to 50 miles down the road. The entire system would always make sure to minimize the number of transfers and recharge the cars whenever necessary.
With a system like this, even electric cars with 200 mile range would be reasonable. That is more than enough for 99% of one-way passenger commutes, and for those trips that are long, you just hop in a new car 200 miles down the road. Heck, with this kind of self-driving car system, the system could even have tour guides and whatever else programmed in. The more cars on the road, the better the service. The better the service, the better the adoption rate. The better the adoption rate, the more cars. The possibilities are endless.
Well, there are other reasons the Aptera died, but it's a damned shame that it did.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...of gasoline. Not sure about natural gas, but I'm reasonably sure the energy density is higher than that of a lithium battery. Natural gas vehicles are used widely outside of the USA, and we do have a bit of the stuff. Capitalism, exhibiting its usual bacteria colony behavior, will almost certainly push us in that direction unless there's some sort of breakthrough in battery tech.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Perhaps if we could have multiple batteries, approximately the size of a candy bar, that could be rapidly exchanged between recharging station and the vehicle using some sort of pneumatic transport system, and would be stored inside vehicle in fashion similar to way cartridges are placed in AR magazine? There would have to be an intricate wiring and multiple individual battery management systems that could tap multiple the batteries ("batterylets"?) in parallel, to allow for smaller individual battery discharge currents. I think something like that was depicted in some anime whose name I can't recall.
The idea of all electric cars has always seemed so appealing. Zero emissions (well, I'll get to that in a minute), and economical (I'll get to that too). It's development always seems to go in fits and starts. And we always seem to run up against the same issues time and time again...namely:
1) Battery technology, although improved, is still not where it needs to be to make all electric cars a viable alternative for the majority of people. America, unlike much of Europe and many large cities in Asia, is very much spread out geographically. That means long drives for many people and it means cars that can travel a long distance without having to refuel or recharge.
2) Lack of charging stations. Sure, I can plug the car in at home and charge it overnight but what happens after that? I'm then limited to how far I can drive unless I can find a charging station somewhere along the way. If you live in New York of San Francisco you've got a much better chance of finding one than if you live in Montana.
3) Convenience. Plugging a car in on a 110V charge will take most of the night to fully charge. A 220V outlet lessens it but you're still looking at 2-3 hours to fully charge the car. I can fill the gas tank in a few minutes. Electric cars are going to need some sort of trickle charge system (solar roof panels perhaps if you live in a southern state?) to lessen the need for daytime charging.
4) It's not as "clean" as it's proponents would have you believe. Yes, the car itself emits no pollution but the process of making electricity is often a pretty dirty process.
5) Cost. I believe that the Chevy Volt costs around $40,000, give or take. That's a lot of money for an economy car. For 40K I can buy a really nice car that runs on gasoline. For about 20K I can buy an economy car that gets about 40mpg.
So for those reasons, and probably a few others, the electric car remains a niche vehicle. They are mainly being bought by "save the planet" types (fairly well off ones at that). It's a noble cause but for such a small market it's a money loser for car companies unless they can get giant subsidies from the government. When governments spend money on transportation they have a choice - build more roads or invest in electric cars and public transportation. Unfortunately most of the public wants more roads.
Today's plug-in hybrids are crap. The plug-in Prius goes about 15 miles before it has to use the engine, and the Volt does about the same. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with the hassle of storing the power cable each morning just to save half-gallon of gas (assuming I had a conventional car that gets 30 mpg). I believe that both vehicles are designed to sell plug-in capability as a sort of environmental gloss, the way ethanol/gasoline vehicles were built a few years ago with tiny ethanol tanks so people could have "flex-fuel" vehicles back when ethanol was believed to be a good, environment-friendly fuel source.
Current all-electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi MiEV make ideal second cars for a two-car household like mine. Plenty of people drive less than 60 miles in a typical day, and both vehicles fill the bill. They do this without the extra complexity introduced by having a gasoline engine and an electric motor. (Maintenance on the Leaf consists of rotating the tires periodically and changing the brake fluid at 100,000 miles.) One major problem is that their expense front-loads the cost, and one doesn't see any cost savings until the vehicle is near the end of its life. The last time I checked, neither manufacturer was providing a price for replacement batteries, which are needed to turn the cars into real money-savers.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
What you need is one of these: http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion
Maybe in USA where diesel fuel is frowned upon, and engines are huge and cars are unnecessarily heavy & big, prius was a game changer.
Here in Europe, where it has to complete with all modern 1.6l diesels, the added price & complexity & weight don't make much sense- fuel consumption will be very close. Well, people still buy it, but mostly as 'green' fashion statement.
--Coder
I haven't looked back. The Volt is far more agile in traffic and more fun on the twisty roads where I live than even the Camaro - and easier to see out of. It's not an econo box like a prius, it's a lux car. No, it's not as fast as the Camaro, but it's in some senses quicker, and eats ricky rice-racer for lunch on mountain roads.
Despite claims to the contrary by ditto heads, GM is at or near breakeven on this car, by the car, now. Some of the hate on electrics is due to taking all the NRE and billing it to the number of cars sold already - by that metric, the first hamburger sold at a new burger joint franchise is losing a million bucks per. Check the facts. By all means do NOT drive a Volt unless you can afford to take it home - because you'll just be upset if you can't.
You will also find a lot of the hate coming from funds provided by big oil, who get even more subsidies, not even counting the deaths overseas we create to keep oil "cheap". You don't think astroturfing was invented just for slashdot, right? GM's drivetrain is unique here - 2 electric motors and an ICE all connected to a dual input shaft CVT - patents Toyota doesn't want to have to buy, yet it's clearly the best way - and the clutches can be made to drop only at matched revs so they don't wear, and you don't feel it.
I used to chuckle at the fanbois of other product lines. Now I understand. This thing is game-changing.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
If you live close enough to work and a store to commute on a single charge, and have a second vehicle in the household for longer trips it makes sense. I think that this niche is a lot bigger than the current market - electric vehicles are still much more expensive than equivalent compact cars.
Exactly. Whether an electric car is practical or not depends on application.
There are millions of people for whom electric cars perfectly fit their requirements. If you're thinking "replace 100% of the cars in use"-- well, yes, that is impractical. But there are large segments of the market for which electric is practical today.
In 2009, the average length of a car trip was 10.1 miles; the average length of a commute to work was 12.6 miles. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2010_fotw615.html
My commute to work is considerably shorter. Most usage of cars could be done easily with electric vehicles, with recharge overnight at home. Not all-- however, for a second vehicle (and most households in the US have two or more vehicles), electric is completely practical.
The point is to make electric cars for the uses for which they are well adapted. If you want a vehicle to take a family of four on a camping trip from New York to Yellowstone, an EV is not the right choice. If your application is a seven mile commute for one person in Atlanta, along with occasional trips to the grocery story, it may be exactly what you need. It may be a "niche" market by some definitions, but there are a 443 makes and models of cars sold in America-- there's room for many niche vehicles to sell perfectly well.
(Another interesting point is that electric vehicles are more practical in regions south of the snow belt, unless you have plug-in stations at the destination that can keep the batteries warm. A practical EV for Alaska is a harder technology than making EVs for Los Angeles!)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"apartment complex" , "gas station"? These are not terms the average Brit uses. Unless you're an american ex-pat of course.
Indeed, I believe the equivalent British words would be "wide/tall flat stack" and "unpotable fire water dispensatorium"
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
I'm not sure pancakes and beer really go together.
Try block of flats and petrol station, but thanks for playing. Next time you try to be funny - actually try.
If you want to make electric cars more popular and push the technology, then start holding electric car races with a really big winning purse. Then you'll have millions of innovators in garages all over the country working on improvements to electric vehicle technology.
Toyota failed because they approached it as a different type of car instead of a new type of transportation.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Natural gas vehicles are used widely in the USA also. Anybody old enough to remember when diesel was the dominant fuel for buses will atest to this. The conversion of buses from diesel to gas did wonders for particulate air quality in cities. Many fleet cars that were formerly powered with gasoline (petrol) are also now NGVs. Fleets are a logical starting point for alternative fuels because they fuel up at dispatch centers. That solves their "chicken and egg" problem. I have seen more NGV fleet vehicles than I can count (they often advertise it to let you know they are being green). I'm not aware of any electric fleets, and I'm in the Bay Area which is as green as you can get.
Can the US electric grid support a mainstream consumer switch to electric cars?
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
My requirements for an electric car are simple. I must be able to drive it at highway speeds for 4 hours before I need to recharge it. At that point I should be able to recharge the vehicle in under an hour.
I choose these requirements because these are the same requirements of a typical human. We typically eat around every 4 hours, and while many of us scarf down our food in 20 minutes, a leisurely meal takes about an hour. This would require a slower pace of travel than we are used to these days, but it would enable the return of road side diners, which disappeared in an era of fast food.
If I were in a position of power at Denny's corporation, I would look into installing 1 hour fast chargers at all of my restaurants. When electric cars do meet these requirements, (hint: one already comes close) I'd want to be the first to capture that market.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Waiting with bated breath for Elon Musk's gay sex partners Teancum and WindBourne to chime in, extolling the virtues of a 3 inch South African dick in their ass.
I don't think it is worth the (huge) investment in re-charging infrastructure yet. Electric vehicles are too expensive at the moment, and when you add in 'well, if there's nowhere to charge, I'm not going to buy an all electric' there's the chicken and egg problem of no market to support said infrastructure.... Even if you have charging stations nearby, you have to wait a considerable time for a full charge. A journey of several hundred miles/kilometres would have a lot of 'wasted' time tacked onto it, which is unacceptable for most people (unless they are on some sort of touring holiday). Also, as someone has remarked above the size and weight of the current battery tech pretty much practically rules out swapping stations. IMHO, I think we should just spend more money for now focussing solely on the underlying battery technology rather than the cars or the infrastructure. Once we get ultracapacitor tech (or whatever the solution may end up being) nailed a lot of the infrastructure problems should go away, without perhaps having lost money on infrastructure 1.0 (for instance battery swap out stations, or the current 'long charge' types)
I'm posting on a website with a largely US audience. I know what the US terminology is and it does no harm to use it - and helps to eliminate the occasional misunderstanding.
Mocking the ridiculous terms Brits use is always inherently funny.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
It's clear the electric car technology out there is stll too primitive and too expensive to handle most users vehicle requirement. I think we need to continu on the track GM has been with the Volt. The idea of a vehicle that can charge quicly on 120V and has a tiny gas generator to charge as you drive is amazing. The volt can satisfy most users needs. If we continue developping those vehicles it will automatically allow continued research to store energy in batteries while allowing us to reduce our carbon footprint.
This doesn't look good for Tesla: Toyota will probably pull out of the partnership: http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-motors-and-toyota-motor-corporation-intend-work-jointly-ev-development-tm
It's their language. Where it differs, it's the Americans that have screwed with it.
I think Toyota has made very good decisions on fuel economy. I think Prius tech is the way to go. I think very short range plug in hybrids are another smart decision. It is going to be at least a decade before electric cars become competitive with fossil fuel, if it ever does. Toyota will have time to BUY electric car technology in the future.
Tesla makes a nice complement to Toyota in a high fuel price world. I don't know if Martin Eberhard or Elon Musk were aware of this, but electric's big advantage is in high power cars, and big batteries, for high use, short, frequent trips. ie, a taxi. The price of energy is cheap. The cost of maintenance is low. The battery life is extended, and the charge rate is fast. I think Tesla should avoid the low cost consumer market, and focus on heavy use, like taxis, police cars.
Haven't been 'shaggled' in a while, eh?
Don't worry, you can always just suck on a fag.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
You make some good points, ones that I was thinking about myself, though the way you phrase them make them seem a bigger problem. First step, my assumption: People tend to buy a car to cover 90-95% of their needs/wants, not 50%(average). Especially those outside of the cities. Once you buy a more capable vehicle, it's extremely difficult to justify a smaller vehicle economically. Have a truck because you tow every weekend or have a sideline construction business? Unless your truck is unusually inefficient or you drive way more than average, you can't justify the cost of a commuter car during the week off of saved gasoline.
Anyways, that's why they're making EVs with a range of 100-300 miles, or 'plug in hybrids' with a 30-50 mile battery. Because then you can do the 15 mile commute and still have enough miles left for the store.
Still, we're back to my old saying: There's nothing wrong with EVs that a battery that lasts twice as long at half the cost wouldn't fix.
I don't read AC A human right
I visited the new Tesla store in Roosevelt Field Mall in Long Island yesterday. According to them, you can fully charge the car overnight from a regular outlet. A full charge will take you 300 miles. Americans drive an average of 29 miles/day, which means in one night's charge you can drive for 10 days.
Tesla is building a network of supercharging stations across the country along interstate highways, too. So for your daily commute, you're covered. For your Thanksgiving trip to grandma's house, you're covered.
As far as everything else, there are these big cables running everywhere that carry the stuff called electricity, which happily is the same stuff you fill your batteries up with.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
The Volt goes 40 miles on a charge, not 15 miles. I haven't used gas in my Volt for about 3,000 miles. It is worth plugging in the cable for that.
We live in Brooklyn, in Park Slope. We have a car, because it's vastly easier to move our small children around (plus their strollers and diaper bags and toys and snacks, etc, etc) in a car than it is to heft all that up and down the stairs in the subway and ignore the glares of other riders because you're taking up too much space in the car. Same goes for the bus. Once a kid is old enough to carry their own backpack, sure, the need for the car drops a lot. But as someone who has traditionally been anti-car, there are legitimate reasons to have one even in NYC. Now, if you don't want to lose your mind on an on-going basis, you ought to pick a car that is small so you can find more parking spaces you can fit into.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Was talking this over with a friend last night over a few beers. Ok, more than a few. The real problem with electric cars is the time to charge and the distance one can travel on a charge. One possible solution is to have a charging system that continually charges the cars en route. No, solar panels won't do it; not enough output for the square footage of the car exposed to sunlight.
Then we got an epiphany: Put the charging system in the road, using that wireless charging technology that's starting to become popular with electronic devices. Even if the charge isn't enough to keep the car going at reasonable speed, it would help extend the range.
But then, how do you power the grid? With environmental concerns regarding hydroelectric dams, and the furor over nuclear, and the environmental concerns of windmills, and the deployment issues with centralized, monolithic solar, from when does the energy come?
Then we had a solution. It's brilliant. Gasoline generators.
I can't remember much of that night. I'm going by the notes scrawled on my arm.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"... - dependence is to get off oil completely"
"In 2010 - for the first time ever - investments in renewable energy surpassed those in fossil fuels"
"...electricity generated from coal has dropped below 40 percent...after 150 years of mining, America's mountains are tapped out"
Hydrogen baby. Bring it. Hydrogen is the only solution that reduces hundreds of millions of tailpipe emissions to H2O while concentrating the problem of environmental impact at the single source of hydrogen manufacture. Economy of scale enables control and capture of the pollution stream at source toward a sustainable ecological economy.
Finally we have a company with balls to stand up to political corectness of the Chruch of Gaia and stop wasting money on a product that does not sell and will not sell in a foreseeable future. Electric cars don't sell period. Only few true belivers buy them. Most people including those who are praising "green" cars end up buying petrol powered. Electric cars are not practical until they have over 300 km range at over 100 km/h speed on a single charge, charge back to full in no more than five minutes and have decent size to seat at least 4 if not 5 comfortably and cost the same as the same size econobox.
JAM
It's their language. Where it differs, it's the Americans that have screwed with it.
Not necessarily.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're living the dream. Thanks for posting such a strong testimonial. I keep saying, "What if we stopped shipping $365 billion/yr overseas to buy oil and spent the money here?"
Have you posted info about how you went off-grid? I've been thinking about doing the same thing but there's not much cut-and-dried info out there that I've been able to find.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
I'm talking about a model where the cars have easily-swapped batteries, which the driver leases, rather than owning.
It's actually one of the common proposals. Now that I'm thinking about it in economic terms, I think I know why it's not going to fly.
Benefit of the battery swap system:
1. Owner of EV doesn't have to pay for cost of battery up front(though they might require a deposit), which would be an estimated $18k(Leaf)-$32k(Roadster) up front savings.
2. No need to install chargers in a person's home.
3. "instant" recharge in a swap shop.
Downsides:
1. The car battery would have to be of a standard size(or set of). The Leaf uses a 24kwh battery, the Roadster a 53kwh one.
2. The battery, weighing between 660-992 pounds, is a significant factor to the handling of the vehicle - thus placement is fairly critical. A standardized size in a fast-swap position is a significant engineering challenge
3. The battery, at $18k-32k, is a significant (though steadily dropping) expense. Standardized sizes reduce the opportunity to 'right size' the battery to reduce capital cost.
4. While eliminating the need to charge at home reduces expense there, it increases expense that you now need a local swap point to 'refuel' your vehicle. Assuming it's as busy as a normal gas station, you're looking at needing a power hookup there sufficient to charge a several hundred batteries(assuming a gentle 24 hour charge cycle for highest efficiency/battery preservation)
5. While we're at it, we also need the SPACE to hold several hundred to a couple thousand charged/charging batteries.
6. Oh yeah, and those batteries are, say, $10k/pop, so you're looking at a battery station with upwards of a million in stock.
7. While fast charging and fancy EV stations can cost a lot of money, a basic charger only runs $800, plus install($3k typical; it's about the same as installing a dryer circuit) - Given that, it's cheaper to simply install a charger than to have a gas station buy another battery to swap with you.
8. At home charging means no time spent swapping batteries, and you might be able to get work to install a charger for you. Commercial chargers, needing security/billing features, are substantially more expensive, of course, but still less than another battery.
My figuring:
First, rich/upper class green types will buy these first; they'll generally have the latest home service, 200A, which is plenty(unless you're Al Gore). Even the 60A service at my old home(ancient) would work; I'd just have to be careful to not run the water heater, dryer, and car charger at the same time. They don't care about the install cost.
Then it'll trickle down to the home-owning middle class as an economical move. Eventually some apartment owners will start putting charging stations in their parking lots. At which point it'll become a selling point - an EV owner is(at least at first) likely to be a 'premium' renter unlikely to cause damage, plus the apartment owner can charge a rent premium(~$40/month?).
I don't read AC A human right
Well, I'm in Alaska and I've given a serious look at the electric motorcycles precisesly because of the sockets all over. While 110V@12A is a 'cripple charge' for most electric cars, it's often less than an hour to 'top off' an electric motorcycle...
(resistor around the engine block or something)
Step 1: Heater into the engine block to heat up the coolant (South/North Dakota area)
Step 2: Heater onto the oil pan/heated dip stick.
Step 3: "Battery Blanket" style heater on the battery, or a trickle charger(I use a trickle charger; first it makes sure the battery is topped off, then when it gets really cold and the battery voltage dips it thinks it needs charging; while the battery is fully charged it acts like a resister - the energy goes to warming the core of the battery, much more efficient than a battery warmer on the outside).
I don't read AC A human right
One of the ideas I've seen for EVs up here is to install a small tank of kerosene/ethanol and put an auxiliary heater in. You don't need to burn the fuel in a 10% efficient engine in that case, but in a 90% efficient burner, when all you need is heat.
That way you're burning maybe a gallon every two weeks, not 10 gallons a week.
I don't read AC A human right
The range extended EV type, of which only the Chevy Volt is available is really the only choice for anyone with a greater than average commute length. I just don't want to be that tied to "the grid" (I wonder how poorly the ranges degrades if I tow a solar panel array.) Even the Volt as a second commuter car purchase is a tough ecomonic decision.
Even Chevrolet is telling you this in plain English.
Chevrolet Volt - $40,000
Chevrolet Cruze Eco $20,000 and gets 42mpg.
Plus, a little math problem.
That 42mpg really off sets my fuel budget much better than the Volt. I drive about 14,500 miles a year just for the commute. Not all highway driving so lets I am guessing that I might get 32mpg on avearge. 14,500/32=455 gallons a year. 455x$4.50 a gallon for gas in Northern California = $2047.50. That is about the cost of the charging station I believe.
So, even if electricity cost is zero and gas gradually increases to $8.00 per gallon costing $3640.00 per year, I can drive the Cruze for another 5-8 years before the Volt starts to get the advantage.
Sorry, I want an EV and the Volt has the technology type I like best. I just cant justify the cost right now. I will check back in 5 years. Until then, please keep the government subsidies for the people that can keep this technology alive in order for it to become affordable.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I've actually done some work on this, and still think it's an interesting option.
On the upsides:
1. Higher efficiency for the most common use(tooling around town) - without the gasoline motor, you enjoy higher efficiencies, plus you either get a smaller vehicle or more trunk space.
2. For a long highway trip, it's only logical to make the trailer a touch larger than it has to be for the engine/generator - bam, instant additional storage space for your luggage. I don't know about you, but I haul more for long trips, and if you're hauling kids... I should note that I'm picturing a still relatively small two wheel trailer.
3. Don't buy; rent. If you only need it twice a year, rent it! If you need it more often than twice, at some point you're probably better off just buying a hybrid in the first place.
4. Efficiency loss shouldn't be much - you only need the thing to be big enough to make up 'most' of the energy cost of going down the highway.
Downsides:
1. Cost - said trailer will likely run $8k or so
2. Training - driving training in the USA sucks as is; most don't know how to haul a trailer(though this one would be simple).
3. Cars might need to be reinforced a bit - many light cars today, even EVs, can only haul 800 pounds of trailer once you put the hitch on. This isn't much, especially if you figure on putting some cargo in the trailer as well. Plus you'll need to put a charge point in a spot suited for the trailer, and program the car to account for incoming power while moving. 'Shouldn't' be hard, but still a fringe case.
I don't read AC A human right
Thanks for the correction. Forty miles is still a bit short, but it beats heck out of 15.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Most Americans drive around 20 miles a day (the actual stats are in another comment). 40 miles is more than good enough for a huge majority of Americans. But if you drive more than 40 miles a day, you get the first 40 or so for around $1.50 then get 40mpg for the rest of them. I'm going to guess that this is better than what you currently get in your car.
Maybe in USA where diesel fuel is frowned upon, and engines are huge and cars are unnecessarily heavy & big, prius was a game changer.
The Prius is among the best selling cars in Japan and one of the top sellers world wide. It proved there is a sustainable market for hybrids which was not something that anyone could be sure of prior to the Prius. So yes, it is a game changer regardless of where you call home, even if that happens to be Europe.
Here in Europe, where it has to complete with all modern 1.6l diesels, the added price & complexity & weight don't make much sense- fuel consumption will be very close.
For long trips, particularly on the highway, a diesel will be competitive with a hybrid and better in some cases. However, for short trips where the hybrid can go battery only or for stop and go traffic at lower speeds a hybrid optimized for fuel economy (like a Prius or Volt) can easily be more economical on fuel than most diesel power cars. Diesels perform best at constant speeds which means they typically get great highway fuel economy but not-so-great around town fuel economy. Hybrids tend to be the reverse.
What I'd LOVE to see is a diesel-electric plug-in-hybrid where the only function the diesel has is to provide electrical power. Basically the same sort of technology used for locomotives on a smaller scale. I know Peugeot has developed a diesel hybrid but there is nothing like it available outside Europe that I'm aware of.
[2]: There just seems to be no interest in better batteries in the US. This is a crying shame because of how this would cure a lot of problems.
Are you kidding me? There's lots and lots of interest. It's one of the reasons why EVs are switching to LiIon. The first version of the EV1(developed for California) used lead-acid. It sucked. The car weighed 3.1k pounds with them and only had 60-100 miles range. They transitioned to NiMH, which sucked a lot less; increased the energy available 45% while reducing weight by nearly 200lbs, which doubled the range. LiIon wasn't ready yet back then; they degraded too quickly. That's been mostly solved, so they go with it today, allowing ~twice as much power per pound over NiMH. Which is how a leaf manages to give 109 miles of charge on only 24kwh of battery pack.
Technologies I've seen in development are improved LiIon batteries(also seen in things like cell phones and laptops), LiFe, even flowing liquid batteries.
There's lots of interest, but right now improving on LiIon is proving tough.
I don't read AC A human right
The real solution is fast recharge & higher capacity batteries, not phone/laptop-esque fantasies about swapping batteries. You don't swap a gas tank to 'recharge' it, so why do expect to swap a battery pack that will drive a car hundreds of miles? I own a Nissan Leaf and it quick charges in 15 min from half full and 30 min near empty. The idea of swapping a couple hundred pound high current battery is dumb.
The automobile replaced the horse because it was so much more useful. An electric car is less useful than an ICE car. People will have to be forced to change to electrics to replace more than a small percentage gasoline powered cars. It is still more economical to drill in the Arctic, fight the Arabs, and make synthetic gas from coal than to convert to all electrics. If you want to start an other civil war try to take away people's SUVs and make them drive glorified golf carts.
Er... what good are those stats? Is your commute to work to only driving you do? Do you ownly make one trip in the car each day?
Here is what I stated: "...for a second vehicle (and most households in the US have two or more vehicles), electric is completely practical."
So: if I make a longer trip, I'd use my wife's car. I suppose that there could be days in which we both, separately, need to make long trips; but I can't think of it having happened offhand.
If 25% of the time I am going to be driving well beyond the electric range the car is worthless, even if my 'average' trip is within that range.
What I'd written was: "Whether an electric car is practical or not depends on application." If your application is one in which 25% of the time you're driving beyond the electric car range, well, for your application an electric car is not practical.
Electric is practical for some applications, not all applications. For your quoted requirement of extended range 25% of the time, a plug-in hybrid instead of an all-electric might be the right choice. Or maybe not; depends on what exactly you need. Some applications.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Almost all the problems with electric are gone. IF you have a private garage.
That IS about 80% of people in the UK with cars, but it is still a large 20% who can't.
As for range, unless you're one of the ~5% who have a journey of over 40 miles to work, or your job requires long long trips (analyst hired out for example), RENT A BLOODY CAR. You can get a people carrier that will hold your kids, the dog, the telly, Nanna, food for a week and in comfort and you won't have to pay a huge cost to keep it each year. Nor have to find some place you can park the monster when shopping or taking the kids to school.
I reckon 60% of people could manage EASILY with an electric car.
That's stupid even by hippie standards.
Current technology for electric vehicles has one huge showstopper bug in the recharge times.
Personally, as long as it's less than 8 hours for 2 days of average driving I'm good. What's killing it for me right now is the cost of the battery. Fix that and I figure you'll see them right and left.
I don't read AC A human right
You don't know much about cars, do you.
"I want a torque monster."
"...up to nearly 500 HP..."
Torque isn't measured in HP.
And electric motors get much better torque, and most importantly, get it 0RPM, like when you want to drag race off from the lights.
In 2009, the average length of a car trip was 10.1 miles; the average length of a commute to work was 12.6 miles.
Most usage of cars could be done easily with electric vehicles, with recharge overnight at home.
The problem isn't the averages, the problem is the variation. Most of the time you are correct that people could get their business done as the average distance traveled per day is around 35 miles. But long road trips are not unusual in the US. My daily round trip commute is around 40 miles but my daily miles driven is around 92 miles. (I drive around 35,000 miles per year) That means I take frequent longer trips, well beyond the range of any current electric vehicle. I'm not particularly unusual. I'd love an electric car but there is no way I could presently justify it as a primary vehicle - my daily driving needs vary too much. So I have to buy an entire second vehicle which is rather wasteful since I already have a gasoline powered vehicle. A plug-in-hybrid makes a lot of sense for my needs but the range limitation of an all-electric car is just a deal breaker. The problem isn't my average day - the problem is the variation in my average days
for a second vehicle (and most households in the US have two or more vehicles), electric is completely practical.
That's not the same thing as saying most individuals have two or more vehicles - most do not. Many households do have second vehicles because there are multiple drivers. For the reasons above the problem is that you still have to justify the electric vehicle as a primary vehicle for at least one of the household members. That means one household member has to give up going beyond a certain range in a day. That's a harder sell than you seem to think even ignoring the presently higher cost of electric vehicles. Why? People choose vehicles for reasons other than their actual needs.
As an example the Ford F-150 has been the best selling vehicle in the US for decades but only a single digit percentage of people actually utilize its off road capabilities. They buy it for image (both self and projected) as much as for features. Actual horsepower needs are far more modest than what is available and the pickup bed will be empty most of the time. So long a fuel remains relatively cheap, the advantages of electric vehicles are insufficient to overcome the limitations of the charging infrastructure. People do not want to worry about needing to wait somewhere for 8 hours while they charge their car even if that would be a very rare event in reality.
For generations we've used old technology based on FREE energy. We must start solving the problem and do a little suffering if we are going to ever transition without huge disasters.
ALSO, realistically FREE energy costs less than actual energy production (green or nuclear,) it only becomes "even" when collection, processing, distribution and most importantly, limited supplies demand higher prices.
What is FREE energy? Free energy is harvesting stored energy - such as millions of years of solar power stored chemically in the ground or the cosmic forces that created uranium. Horribly inefficient processes that have TIME on their side.
Either we go more direct and lose the benefits of TIME with solar at greater cost, go 1 level removed (wind, wave, bio) or find a better source and technique for cosmic power extraction (uranium peaked already.) Oh, I see little mention of tidal power which is gravity power. Geothermal is part cosmic and part solar. Given how we don't want to give up the free ride, I'd think we'd be investing a ton in finding the next "atomic battery." We've not put much money into fusion, other nuclear, or geothermal.
Make a real impact beyond your mortality, stop selfishly cranking out babies!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
There's nothing wrong with EVs that a battery that lasts twice as long at half the cost wouldn't fix.
I prefer the opposite. There is nothing wrong with EVs that gasoline at twice the price wouldn't fix. Tax gasoline up to $8.00 a gallon and you'll see some serious interest in electric vehicles even with present limitations.
You spend far far less than four hours at highway speeds. You can't even get to run on the highway, let alone attain such speed.
Most of the commute that keeps USians locked in their cars for two hours each way is sitting at traffic going less than walking speed.
In more sensible countries, the commute is two hours max each way and most journeys by car are less than four miles.
You'd need to tax it even more than that. Look over in Europe, where gas prices are up there NOW and you still aren't seeing EVs everywhere.
Remember, I'm proposing a 4X improvement in batteries. To do the equivalent to gas, you'd need it to be $16/gallon. Ouch... Besides, I'd rather look forward than back - I want electric vehicles to improve to beat gasoline ones; not handicap gasoline ones so EVs win despite their disability. One implies that the state of humanity has advanced, the other means we're simply picking the 'least worst', and we're all worse off(on average).
I don't read AC A human right
I'd be more than happy with a low cost electric vehicle with a range of around 50-100 miles as long as it's clearly priced and marketed as a supplementary vehicle (ie you'd be expected to buy one in addition to a regular car)
Really? You'd buy a $10,000+ extra vehicle to save money on gas? You can buy an awful lot of gas for the cost of a second vehicle. I like electric vehicles too but I can't even begin to pretend that they make any kind of economic sense, even as a second vehicle.
*COUGH* GM *COUGH*
Now maybe all the naysayers and conspiracy theorists will stop blaming GM for everything to do with the EV-1 and move on finally.
Do you think they use something OTHER than gasolene in their tanker to drive that oil to the station?
Then YOU drive up (do you live at a gas station?) using what?
That's right: gas.
Toyota's model cars looked like crap in comparison anyway.
This is one company that had 250 million invested in it of US tax dollars, which got handed to China on a silver platter.
I would love to be wrong about the disinterest in battery tech in the US, but money talks.
655 mpg so far.
Silent, moves quickly in traffic and on the open road.
I charge at work, so even the whopping $2.50 a week it would cost me to charge it at home is gone.
The only time I've had to use the gas engine was the time I purposely drove to another town for a Greek restaurant, just to prove the engine actually worked. Otherwise, my commute and errands don't come close to using a 50 mile charge. In fact, it's usually 20 when I really push it. So I can charge every 3-4 days depending on my destinations that week. I plug it in every day though since my company put up the 240V chargers, it gets me front row parking.
It is absolutely not the car for everybody. But for me, living 7 miles from work, it's awesome. And knowing I can hop in and drive a couple of states away if I have to is mighty nice.
I've been to a gas station twice since I bought my car. Both times because I needed a large Dr. Pepper.
My mom says I'm cool.
It meets our NEEDS.
But it doesn't meet the demand, which means it's not highly profitable for them...
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Pick up a fresh battery at the 'gas station' which you can swap for your near-discharged battery.
You are spot on.
My only car is an EV, a Nissan LEAF (and I love it btw), which can be fast-charged. On average it actually takes me *less* time to juice it up than fill-ups for my previous 28mpg vehicle.
98% of the time, as I charge at home, it only takes me seconds to fill up: open the charging bay, plug in -- done.
Sometimes I stop at a station like http://www.blinknetwork.com/chargers-commercial-dc-fast.html . The LEAF's quick-charge port (CHAdeMO) gobbles up to 125A at about 400V DC (50kW).
This fills up half the battery, or 30 to 50 miles of range, in just over 12 minutes. While I certainly wouldn't want to do this daily, I find this perfect to occasionally extend the range as needed. The battery capacity is no longer the limit.
Of course everyone's situation is different, but for me (12~15k/y), the combination of home charging and quick-charging as it exists today is not just merely practical, it's already better than gas. And it doesn't even need to be to be successful.
I routinely saw cars in line at cheap gas-stations (Costco), people ok waiting 5+ minutes for what's maybe a 10% discount. Now imagine 80%...
The only real problem is that those EV quick-charging stations are still rare to non-existent in most areas, and IMHO, understandably, unless/until this changes, EVs will remain too range-constrained (and/or too pricey, extra batteries are $$) for most people to make the switch.
I think it is funny reading all of these posts as it comes down to two issues. People have list of requirements (A) over here, and then they have finances (B) over here. They need to make the best cost benefit analysis to their existing lifestyle. If you go off roading every weekend in a raised Chevy truck with 50 inch tires and then drive that to work every day, a hybrid (no matter what type) is not for you. If you frequently make 100 mile round trips with your spouse and 5 kids, then a small hybrid will not be for you. If you cannot afford one as a primary or secondary car, then it is not for you. If you live in a city (or suburb) and can afford the expense of the vehicle, and can charge it, don't have 2.5 kids and don't haul a boat every weekend, then it is for you.
Americans typically have a "I want it all" mentality and wont compromise on anything. This is the reason why diesel's wont take off here, why we have such stringent standards for car safety, why the environment is such a big thing when dealing with cars. We had cheap cars that got 60 mpg but congress deemed them too dangerous and made us add air bags, 200 pounds of steel to re-enforce the interiors, anti-lock brakes, etc. to add 500 pounds of weight in all to them. Now the car that got 60 MPG gets 40 with the same engine. All this in the name of safety. Now add a highly efficient catalytic converter to minimize the bad gasses, now it chokes the engine and that same car with the same engine gets 32 MPG. Now they have spent the last 15 years trying to figure out how to squeeze more MPG out of engines with all these restrictions.
Again - you have to look in a mirror. If you can only afford one car, which has to do 100 things, then you have to buy a car which can do the 100 things. If you can afford two cars, and one does 95% and the other does the other 5% .. what is the issue there? Again this comes down to a lifestyle choice, and cost.
Unless you drive a lot of miles per year brake fluid is not good for 100K miles. You will be sorry.
I also seriously doubt brake pads will last 100K, even with regenerative braking.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In Europe, people tend to take the car less than in the USA. Cars tend to be smaller and more fuel economical. In other words, $10 a gallon which is where we're at right now in some countries, isn't that much of an influence on the average driver as it would be in the USA. People get on bicycles or use public transport already, just to avoid the traffic jams or because it's more convenient for shopping anyway. That doesn't apply to all of Europe, but for areas where you would expect electrical cars it usually does. Governments tend to give big tax breaks on electrical and hybrid cars and that does work for business drivers that tend to get leased cars as part of their job benefits. Those lease cars are heavily taxed in a lot of countries and electricals and hybrids get large tax exempts usually. Most people driving these cars don't care about the environment, they just want a tax break so they get a cheaper car.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Why isn't everything modular and swappable/replacable?
I think from an energy savings perspective that designing the entire *vehicle* to be upgradable (power train, interior, braking, suspension components, etc) would be a bigger savings than the throwaway model we have now. Even the body panels shouldn't be that difficult within reason.
The only reason this isn't practical now is that the components like transmissions and engines are largely design to fit specific frame platforms and once they stop making a given platform, the existing components available to rebuild the car are either rebuilt themselves, used or super expensive because they are no longer made and their replacements won't fit without custom machining.
Car makers design in a certain amount of modularity when they build cars, so they can sell a Cadillac, a Buick, and a Chevrolet from 50%+ of the same parts with only interior and finish components changing.
I think the entire car should be modular. Why shouldn't a newer/better drive train be something I could drop into my car? If they kept the mounting system the same I should be able to unless the dimensions of the new drivetrain are radically different (a platform designed around a sub-3 liter engine shouldn't be expected to accommodate a 6 liter engine).
The same goes for interior components, body panels, suspension components (although I expect there are legitimate limits relative to frame design).
If you could essentially (and relatively simply) upgrade your car with a new interior and new drive train with just those components, the energy savings in not building an entirely new car seems like it would be huge.
15-20 mins is not competitive
I don't pretend to know exactly where the tipping point is. Might be 10 minutes or even less but I suspect 15-20 would be acceptable to enough people to get people to look more closely at the advantages of electric power. What I am certain of is that it does NOT have to be just as fast as a gasoline fill up - it just has to be close enough. Most disruptive technologies are inferior in some ways early on but have other advantages that make them worth it.
With all the extra waiting you now have to have larger stations, which will have problems for cities, or you make it so that parking lots provide fueling which has other problems.
That's actually a potential opportunity. Gas stations typically don't make much money on gasoline. They actually make money on groceries or repairs or some other part of the business. If people can be induced to hang around longer there is more opportunity to sell them things.
I'd rather look forward than back - I want electric vehicles to improve to beat gasoline ones; not handicap gasoline ones so EVs win despite their disability.
Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer the same thing. However we know how to raise the price of gas. Dropping the cost of EV powertrains is a lot less certain and more unpredictable. It's unclear how much or how fast the technology will advance though I'm fairly confident that a significant rise in the cost of gasoline would likely be followed by a lot of research and a subsequent drop in the cost of EVs.
why not EVs with 100 mile range or less paired up with a rental car system for longer trips? Even provide charging stations at the rental company for your EV. Maybe it's even the EV dealership handling these rentals?
It's been researched and stated many times, most people drive less than 40 miles each way so the EV would do the trick except the occasional longer trips. Wouldn't it be great to have nice rental car to use for those other trips and it's as easy as swiping a credit card or membership card to pickup your rental?
Don't look to your standard ICE(Internal Combustion Engine) selling dealership to get involved in this because they don't want to sell EVs since they make tons of profit from servicing your vehicle's ICE and drive train. Doing tires and wiper fluid on EVs doesn't allow for many trips to the bank depositing profits.
It'll probably have to be companies like Tesla who kickstart programs like this. I just don't see the standard auto makers wanting this nor the government backing it with so much lobbyist money at stake.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
These stats are really the justification for the Volt. Which I own. I commute (11 miles each way), using no gas all week. Standard errands fit well within the 35 mile range. And when I want to drive to the local Serpentarium, and hour each way, the gas motor kicks in and I get 41 miles to the gallon for the 2/3rds of the trip that is out of my electric range. I burn one gallon of gas for every ~280 miles driven.
It's not "pure greeness" of the non-existent perfect-EV, and it's not the frugality of buying a used low-torque motorcycle to make the same trip at 60 mpg (against which the Volt will never pay for itself). But it's something in between and it has cut my payments to the oil companies (I charge it during the hydroelectric times of day here) down by a factor of 9.
So, I'm a fan.
Tulsa, OK recently opened its first CNG filling station.
As another poster pointed out, you are basically advocating people own two cars unless by chance they fit into precisely the range of an ev 99% of the time.
Not at all. Once again, here is what I said: " ...(and most households in the US have two or more vehicles)..."
I'm not "advocating" that households own two cars, I am stating that most US households already do have two cars.
Again: electric vehicles are good for some but not all applications. About the only comment I have on all the replies to the effect of "but they're not good for all applications!" is that this agrees entirely with what I said: some but not all.
...And of course, the far larger unsaid is the giant fail that EVs are on the power grid were they to be widely adopted. Ignoring the question of sourcing of raw materials for the necessary power, the grid in most major metro areas is barely able to handle today's peak demands.
No, I'm sorry, but no. To the contrary: currently, the peak electrical power usage is typically early afternoon. If electric cars charge overnight, when power is in oversupply, they fit superbly into the existing power structure.
If it turns out to be a problem that people plug in their cars at 6pm but the off-peak hours don't start until 10pm, that can be easily solved with a timer. Implementing a time-of-day dependent rate structure would also help, but no change in the grid itself is needed.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This is what they told us when we looked at the Leaf a year or two ago. Considering that most preventive maintenance consists of oil changes and replacing various filters, it seems credible. FWIW, my previous two motor vehicles got along fine over the course of 13 years and 120,000 miles each without replacing brake fluid, and one of them, a Ford minivan, got its first replacement set of brake pads at something like 80,000 miles. I believe also that my first new car, bought in 1982, lasted me 8 years and 100,000 miles without replacing the brake fluid. Replacement brake pads, by the way, have never shown up as a maintenance item in any owner's manual I've ever seen; they've been lumped in with other unscheduled repairs like mufflers, radiators, etc.
The thing I look forward to about an electric car, when we get around to it, is not having to deal with oil changes, mufflers, and radiators.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Thanks for that link. Quoting the most relevant passage from it:
"Many experts agree that, on a national level, the United States is ready for a vast expansion in electric cars. According to a 2008 Energy Department study, the effect of a vast expansion in electric vehicles could be minimal. Electric vehicles are expected to account for around one quarter of the market by 2030. If those vehicles are all charged after 10 p.m., when electricity demand is low, the nation would require no additional power generation. "
Which is pretty much just what I just said.
Later--after repeating "In most residential areas, an EV can easily be accepted into the charging infrastructure"--the article goes on to point out that if you get too many EVs in one area, you will need "'some kind of a strategy for adapting to it,' according to Allan Schurr, vice president of strategy and development for energy and utilities at IBM."
Fine. Most residential areas have no problem, but, OK, some areas may need "some kind of strategy" to deal with a high number of vehicles all in one place. So we may have to deal with it. That's not "a giant fail" (your words) on the electrical grid.
Oh, and yes, electric vehicles require energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. Yep, that's true. Nobody that I know of ever claimed that they didn't.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The only problem an electric car poses is the pending "no-sale" of their corporate gasoline investments.
oil will never run dry, there are centuries of supply of fossil fuel
Your two statements, one on each side of your comma, contradict each other.
Centuries_Of_Supply != Unlimited_Supply
To break it down a little more finely:
InGroup (Limited_Supply, Centuries_Of_Supply) == True
InGroup (Limited_Supply, Will_Never_Run_Dry ) == False
InGroup (Unlimited_Supply, Will_Never_Run_Dry ) == True
But thank-you for playing, and better luck next time!
THINK! It's patriotic
Interesting that this comes at the same time that Tesla is rolling out "S" models, announcing a hatchback and aiming at the $30,000 sedan market AND announcing a push into super fast charging stations (45 minutes to a full charge). Is Toyota afraid of the competition, or do they not want to move into a niche market (what? after the success of the Prius???) It really makes no sense for them.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.