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Electric Cars: Drivers Love 'Em, So Why Are Sales Still Low?
cartechboy writes "The electric car challenge is what insiders call "getting butts in seats" — and a lot of butts today still belong to humans who are not yet buying electric cars. The big question is: Why? Surveys show drivers are interested in electric cars--and that they love them once they drive them. EVs also cost less to maintain (though more to buy in the first place) and many experts say they're simply nicer to drive. So what's the problem? Disinterested dealers, uneven distribution, limited supplies, and media bias are some potential challenges. Or maybe it's just lousy marketing--casting electric cars as a moral imperative or a duty, like medicine you have to take."
...when I can buy a used one for $5,000 and expect it to last me five to ten years without major maintenance.
A cheap electric car that performs well will sell like crazy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's as simple as that.
I live in an apartment building. I've discussed the matter with the building management but we haven't come up with an answer. While new buildings must have electrical hookups for electric cars, there is no incentive to retrofit old buildings.
...laura
Let me know when a used one is in my working-class budget range, and we'll talk.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
PRICE!! I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they were a sane price compared to a gasoline equivalent.
Seems obvious to me. I, like many others, live in an apartment. My parking spot doesn't have an electrical outlet anywhere nearby, and neither does my office parking lot.
You forgot cold weather.
Om, nomnomnom...
One Word: Price.
They look nifty, but for the price, you can have an extra nifty gas burning car - why spend $30K on an econobox when you can get a "real $30K car" instead?
They will do this because it offers a competitive advantage, the same way that offering free wifi does.
You have got to be joking - do you have ANY concept of how much it costs to add a WiFi router to an internet connection the business already has, vs. running a high-load electrical connection out to even just TWO parking spaces? Not to mention cost of the electricity, not to mention the high likelihood of outside connections being vandalized...
There is no way you can justify the cost of adding car charging outlets to every small business.
This is the reason Electric is failing, because there's just so large a gap between the fantasy and reality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yep, you got it. When I run the math, it just is not in my favor yet.
I drive a truck now, and have been looking to get a second car to commute with to keep the miles off the truck, as I like having a truck but never want to have to buy another one. When I run the math on a Leaf, or Focus EV the break even point is way out there. $35k ballpark vs. ~15k for gasoline. At $4/gallon that is 5000 gallons of gas for a break even point of roughly 200k miles. Given my commuting use of about 5k miles per year I am looking at a 40 year break even compared to a 40 mpg econobox. I'll still be racking up about 5k miles per year on long trips in my truck. So for me, despite the desire, the math stinks.
I have seen this trend on a lot of the for sale Leaf's, commuting modest distances doesn't rack up many miles. Lots of folks end up selling simply because they change jobs and end up with a long commute, but the range isn't adequate. Sort of a catch 22.
Price, range and infrastructure.
Maintenance, schmaintenance, when was the last time you heard of an American spending more in something and thinking ahead to spend less later? (see: phone contracts)
Anything that only goes only 60 miles at a time and then takes all night to be able to start again is worthless other than for very short, painstakingly planned, local trips.
Even if the infrastructure *was* there, who is able to stop every 60 miles for several hours on end?
Even if you're buying it to be "green" (ugh), how much energy was needed and how much pollution was created in the manufacturing process vs. that of a dead-dinosaur automobile? There are reports that these figures are tremendously high *just* for the batteries. Are you really causing less pollution or just relocating it?
Speaking purely in terms of range capability, I think the Chevy Volt has the right idea. The propulsion is 100% electric. The batteries are charged by plugin or an gas-powered generator, so you use no fuel for short trips but can still make longer ones when you need to.
running the heater fan could account for more...
anyhow, in finland I never noticed that much of a difference in fuel range from +30c to -30c.
besides, with colder weather areas comes sparser population density which is the real problem... the trips you're taking are longer.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Nuclear could be 75% of our power, that is the base load. Renewables could be the other 25%. (the percentages could vary, it could be 50/50, or 65/35, the principle remains the same)
Within a generation, if we wanted to, we could rid ourselves of fossil fuels completely.
For some reason, we just don't want to. I support it, but I feel like I'm in the minority.
None of the EVs are actually price-competitive at purchase time without a big rebate.
This is indeed the primary problem. I can afford an EV, I can afford to spend $20K more on an EV if I wanted to. But I didn't get to where I am by making emotional decisions with money. When it makes economic sense, I'll be first in line to buy an EV, I do believe they are the future. Burning dead dinos in our cars and trucks really has no long term future in it.
On the other hand, the Denali's name is a barely-transposed acronym. Get a smaller car.
Actually, I use every bit of it... I have 3 kids, and we're often driving around their friends as well, plus hauling stuff. I also use it for work, picking up and dropping off computer equipment.
I know that some people buy a truck like that and drive it around empty, but in my case, I really do need the space, both for kids and for cargo.
Lets compare..
The Chevrolet and Nissan cars, straight from their sites. These are all "starting from..." prices. We could compare options all day. I've excluded the high end sports cars (Corvette and GT-R respectively)
Really, a $1,190 difference between a Leaf and a 370Z? $19.83/mo difference with 60 month financing? A buyer would switch up the the 370Z if they want performance, or they'll happily save $3,570 by going down to the Altima Coupe.
The same applies to Chevy, except stepping down to a gas car saves $7,325. Stepping up is a bit more expensive.
The EVs are a great idea. They aren't priced to sell to most consumers. They're priced to sell to people who want to brag they have an EV, much like pricing on high end sports cars.
I *want* an EV. If I had to buy a new car today, I wouldn't buy one. Besides the above average costs, I see longevity being a problem. The car I have now is over 10 years old. I have serious doubts in the longevity of the current EVs, and part replacement costs. As I understand it, the Volt battery pack is $8,000. Nissan Leafs batteries cost $15,000. Nissan has a payment plan deal, which still ends up costing you thousands.
There are other pesky issues, like the cost of recharging.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
What southern tier state do you live in where you can say cold weather is only a problem in Antarctica?
Range is certainly the issue but price is equally the issue, and mostly because of range.
If people have to buy a second car for longer trips, they aren't going to want take that long trip in a piece of crap tin can with no amenities.
So that means two fairly expensive cars.
Extend the range, make recharge station more frequent, shorten the charge time and the cost problem goes away. But mostly you have to double the range.
No, 280 miles is not far enough, even when you can charge while eating lunch. Ten hour drives are more common than lots of people think.
Right now, all you have is the commuter market. And forgetting to change one night means you go no where the next day, which makes even that market nervous.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I have nothing against trucks or SUV's, but it sounds like what you really need is a minivan.
You forgot cold weather.
I own a Miev, and cold weather (Upstate NY) barely affects my range. The effect on the batteries is basically nil. The only real difference is the need to use the heater, which does affect range a bit. (Maybe takes 5% off the range for any given trip).
The real problem is complete lack of quality marketing. Even the local Mitsubishi dealership complains that corporate does basically no advertising, and what little they do is centered around the "save the planet" thing. This is stupid. You're not going to get people to cough up an extra 10 - 15k in one lump sum in support of the environment. Their marketing should never even address environmental issues. The most effective marketing they could do would be a total cost of ownership comparison between themselves and a corolla, or civic. You might throw in a little bit about safety ratings, but not a peep about the environment.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
On top of all that there are a few bad design decisions. First is they keep trying to put too big a battery in the cars; this is just stupid until batteries get cheaper and better. Just meet the average commuter's needs for a round trip with margin and you will sell them a car. The next design disaster is when they try to simulate a real gas car by putting a piston engine in as in the volt. The best solution would be to have a low power gas turbine (5-10hp) that can charge the car's battery slowly. This way you eliminate range anxiety by allowing the person to realize that they don't have enough juice to complete the journey so they kick in the turbine (or automatically when they set a destination that is beyond the battery's range) which will buy more range. If the turbine doesn't provide enough immediate range the driver could pull over and get a coffee while the turbine adds a mile of range every minute or two.
Gas turbines have been tried in cars, but the problem is that a large mass spinning at extremely high speeds doesn't work out well in a car environment. The sudden changes in direction (both turns and especially bumps) are horrible for large turbine bearings. Something the size of a turbocharger can handle it, but the equivalent of an even a small aircraft APU is a different beast.
Lastly there are all kinds of engineering gaps in these cars. One interesting one is heating in colder climates. In the winter around here a smaller battery would be eaten just keeping me warm, especially if I am waiting in the car. One simple solution would be to have an alcohol heater which would be simple and single purposed for keeping me warm. This would be great if you could turn it on 10 minutes before you get into the car and it would warm up the car and maybe even the batteries.
Note that resistance heaters have given way to far-more-efficient heat pumps, so it's no worse a range hit than using air conditioning in summer. The HVAC on even a Leaf can be remotely fired up while still hooked to the charger.
Then the last and most important bit which is battery life. That is how many years will these batteries run the car. We all have laptops where the batteries have cacked after a year or two; often fairly suddenly, one moment we had a battery life and then the battery is complaining seconds after unplugging the laptop. So the car companies need to either warranty the batteries and maybe even set an eventual replacement price in stone.
Setting the price in stone might be a bit of a problem, but they are putting warranties on batteries. The Leaf's battery warranty is 5 years/60,000 miles, Tesla's 60 kWh pack is 8 years/125,000 miles, and their 85 kWh pack is 8 years, unlimited mileage.
Even with all that, an electric still isn't workable for my own use case, though it comes close. It's still the whole road trip issue for me. A Leaf would fit 90% of my driving, but it's that last 10% that's the deal-breaker. Sure, I could rent something for the long trips, but that can get expensive.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!