Tesla Still On Top In US Electric Vehicle Sales, GM Close Behind (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Americans bought more electric vehicles in September than any other month this year. According to Inside EV's monthly sales report, 21,325 battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs found homes last month. That's 20 percent more than this time last year and the second highest number ever. 2017 looks like it will be a record year; a total of 159,614 EVs were sold, a figure that should easily be eclipsed by the end of October. Tesla leads the pack, thanks to healthy increases in both Model S and Model X sales this month. Tesla may suffer some good-natured teasing about frequently missed deadlines, but you could set your watch by the regularity of its quarter-ending jump in deliveries. Barring some unforeseen circumstance, the Model S will remain the best-selling EV for the third year running. Like the overall trend, sales for the startup EV maker are up compared to last year, and even if the Model 3 continues to frustrate, we expect it to break the 50,000 car barrier by year-end.

General Motors is the only other company within reach of Tesla, whether we're talking about range or sales volume. The Chevrolet Bolt EV is now on sale in all 50 states and finding traction -- 2,632 sold in September and more than 14,000 on the road in 2017 so far. That still only gets it to fifth overall on the score chart, and there are three months left to go. The Chevy Volt, the Bolt's plug-in hybrid EV stablemate, is still the second-most popular EV among American buyers, but its sales have leveled off for the last few months. Toyota is the only other OEM to make the top five, less than 300 units behind the Volt.

Comments

Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

When we bought our last new vehicle in 2016 we were willing to consider electrics, but basically there were no four door 100% electrics with conventional styling that had the range we we wanted and the cost we could bear. Ford had a hatchback that had acceptable styling but its range was too low. Tesla's Model S was far too expensive even as a used car. Basically everyone else's styling was stupid, with unnecessary panels that only existed to say, "look at me, I'm an electric!"

I guess I'm in the minority since I like wide, long, low vehicles rather than tall narrow vehicles, but if car makers would offer 100% electric variants of their conventionally-styled combustion-engine models, where styling changes are relatively conservative, we might be more inclined. Weird styling and this one-upsmanship of it is just gaudy.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

I suppose I add that I think Ford's was actually a two-door. Fiat has a 500e, but apparently it's only sold and supported in California since its only reason to exist is to satisfy California emissions laws, they have no interest in wider sales even though it actually has good visual appeal.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[crow]

Yup. Even if the shape of the vehicle is fairly normal, they seem to always add weird "electric" colors to make it look different. BMW is the worst at the weird colors. Nissan just does it with their logo, so it's not as obvious as others.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

Eh, the Leaf's headlights are the straw that breaks the camel's back for me. I've heard their assertion that the headlights act to make the airflow over the mirrors less problematic, but they're just so ugly...

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

The Leaf's range is dependent upon it's aerodynamics... like all cars. Owning a Leaf now, just putting a bike rack on cuts range.

I'm not complaining.... it's just physics.

Great car, and the most reasonably-priced electric on the market currently. Electric transport is the future.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to be a common problem: leading edge stuff tends to be, well, ugly by design - which is to say whatever some designer imagines is futuristic, modern or whatever. You might call it "look at me, I'm different and unique" styling: not so bad if it's something small you can hide in a pocket or leave at home, but a bit of a deal breaker for something like a car.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[drinkypoo]

You could have waited a year and bought an Ioniq. That looks and drives like a normal car, according to reviewers. It also has a lifetime battery warranty.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[drinkypoo]

Lumpy headlights are now very common for aero reasons. They are easier to shape than the metalwork, so you can put sharp aerodynamic details on them (like vortex generators, to break up the airflow passing over the mirrors) cheaply. It's not just the Leaf.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy electric cars to be smug. How can you be smug when your car looks exactly like everyone elses?

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

When we bought our last new vehicle in 2016 we were willing to consider electrics, but basically there were no four door 100% electrics with conventional styling that had the range we we wanted and the cost we could bear. Ford had a hatchback that had acceptable styling but its range was too low. Tesla's Model S was far too expensive even as a used car. Basically everyone else's styling was stupid, with unnecessary panels that only existed to say, "look at me, I'm an electric!"

I guess I'm in the minority since I like wide, long, low vehicles rather than tall narrow vehicles, but if car makers would offer 100% electric variants of their conventionally-styled combustion-engine models, where styling changes are relatively conservative, we might be more inclined. Weird styling and this one-upsmanship of it is just gaudy.

I read a lot of Tesla news sites (I am a Tesla fan) and one of the big reasons that people who can afford a Tesla bought it rather than something cheaper is that most other designs have the weird styling.

E.C.P.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

The e-Golf looks pretty normal. It's almost identical to the normal Golf, which is more or less the car most people think of when they hear the word 'car'.

Re: Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

2017 Nissan Leaf 40kWh has conventional styling. Should be for sale in US soon?

Re: Lack of conventional styling

[dougdonovan]

i like my tesla. it starts and runs. chevy, ford and dodge are so yesterday. you have to invest to profit.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why people keep saying that.

The original Leaf is a pretty car. It looks really good.

The range is just way too short compared to the Bolt, which made sense back in 2011, but they just did a new model (which doesn't look as good, it's ok, but...) and they didn't bother fixing the range issue.

There's not a day in the past year I'd have even had a concern about range in the Bolt. There are quite a few days where the Leaf would have been a serious problem.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[crow]

Range isn't usually an issue in my 2012 Leaf, but it's our second car, so we manage our use appropriately. The newer one has a lot longer range than mine. What's a reasonable range is different for different people.

I think it's a bit odd looking, but not ugly.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[HumanWiki]

Ask hipsters... They've figured it out.

Re: Lack of conventional styling

[Anonymous Coward]

what??

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[myth24601]

There is are reasons they don't offer an electric version of a conventional vehicle but a major one would be that the directly comparison becomes possible between electric/non-electric. When people can look at the price jump to go from gas to electric, the extra cost becomes hard to justify. I suspect this was a problem for Honda when they offered hybrid versions of the Civic and Accord.

Re: Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

That swoop between the C-pillar and D-pillar, WHY?!

Why can't they just make normal looking cars?

Take the Hyundai Geneis coupe. The window behind the B-pillar cuts down into the beltline. Why did they do this?

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

Well for my wife and I, 150 miles is a reasonable range. 150 miles is about 50% over the longer drives we make in a day in our city, and is basically the equivalent of a half a tank of gasoline, and thus gives us enough reserve that even if we visit friends clear on the other side of the county we can still make side-trips on the way home if necessary.

The issue is that with a gasoline-powered car we know we can fill-up in a five-minute stop if we get low on fuel. The amount of time filling is almost so negligible that if we had to fill-up daily it wouldn't be that big of an inconvenience. An electric running out of power is a much bigger problem, both out of less opportunity to recharge, and out of a much longer recharge cycle. A five minute delay usually isn't a problem and it's fairly easy to just pad arrival times by five minutes anyway, but thirty minutes or more can't really be padded into trips as a matter of course. For electric cars to be accepted, that kind of problem must be worked out. Fast-charge may help, but simple range is the best approach.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

We could not have waited a year. We bought a new vehicle when the old one no longer suited our needs. We saw the need coming and had spent the better part of a year researching. When we made our choice it was the best fit for that time, and luckily that choice, made before we had kids, was also a good choice after having a child.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[TWX]

We had considered a Tesla to the point of going to look at them at the local retailer. They were just too expensive and frankly the touch-cockpit was a worry both from a safe-to-operate standpoint and from a long-term maintenance standpoint.

Re:Lack of conventional styling

[crow]

My Tesla experience is that we save that 5 minutes every week because we never have to think about charging except on trips. During trips, we make longer charging stops, but on a whole we spend less time fueling. It's a tradeoff that I feel I'm winning on, but I can see how others might feel differently.

Going forward, I expect charging will get faster, and batteries will get larger, bringing charging during trips into line with fueling with gas, eliminating any advantage perceived with gas cars.

Re:Battery improvements

[TWX]

With the MIT lithium battery improvements today with asphalt and carbon nanotubes, it might very well be the gigafactories are better than predicted. Oops. They tested their v0.1 batteries at my site and explosion and ignition characteristics were determined. How many gigafactories?

Are you a bot? I think that you're a bot.

Total Sales

[fatwilbur]

Why isn't the simple piece of data on how much of overall sales this is included? A quick search tells me about 1.5M cars per month, or in other words, 99% of buyers are still choosing ICE vehicles. I guess this is why we're hearing talk of banning ICE.. if left to the freedom of the people, it's clear what the choice is.

Re:Total Sales

[aberglas]

It is purely a technology issue. When battery prices halve again EVs will start to dominate sales.

A decade ago the carbon problem seemed unsolvable. How could we survive without such a basic commodity. It would be massively expensive.

But, just in time (or maybe just too late) the technology of PV solar became practical. It now looks like Trump is right to ignore the Paris accord, because it will simply become irrelevant as people move to renewables for price reasons. (And the Paris accord was a toothless tiger anyway, so toothless that even Australia signed up.)

Re:Total Sales

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Don't worry, we will never ban the ICE. It will die a natural death. The way incandescent bulbs are dying. Do you still have the trove of 1000 incandescents you stashed in the basement because you bought the hype Obama is going to take away your precious incandescents?

Re:Total Sales

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

See what is happening to incandescents? Same thing will happen to ICE. You will buy an electric car in your lifetime, mark my word.

Re:Total Sales

[fatwilbur]

I have nothing against electric vehicles. I hope I do buy one, because that would mean they are cheaper and better than ICE vehicles. Ford didn't replace the horse and buggy because he offered a crappier solution for transportation, it was better and cheaper. Let's face facts, the real reason is the ridiculous amount of time it takes to recharge an electric vs. refueling a gas engine. And the range in that short time is far superior.. for it's intended task, at our current point in time, it is a far better product.

Re:Total Sales

[DontBeAMoran]

You can already buy a sub-$1K electric car today.

Re:Total Sales

[MouseR]

They are already cheaper when you calculate the entire cost of ownership over the period of the EV's warranty (typically 8 years).

No brake pads to replace until well after 100,000miles, no oil changes, no fluctuating gas price fill ups, no waiting in miserable weather for minutes on end to fill up every week (or more depending on car and guzzling rate).

My Gen2 Volt costs 1.59$CAD per every full charge of ~90km range average for 9 months of the year, and ~65km in dire winter.

I'm currently at +3400km on the same gas tank (it has range extender gas generator). It's the best car I ever bought. By a long stretch. Ironically I had bought it to have a dependable maintenance-free car while I rebuilt my turbo 4-banger. End result: looking at selling my rebuilt car. Drove is less than 200km this season.

Doubt me? Here are my starts for my car, Time Lord, since I've owned it in Dec. 2015.

I'm not telling you to buy a Volt (but it's the best IMO). Chose an EV that can sustain 80% of your daily commute in EV mode without recharge. And you'll wonder why you didn't do it before.

Re:Total Sales

[stabiesoft]

Ah, but you are excluding the cost of maintaining the roads, excluding (as far as I know) every manufacturer is losing or at best not making a profit on the electrics. Also when you did your calculation did you add back the federal incentive in your cost calc? That is 7500 and would buy alot of gas. The problem is if everyone buys an electric, there cannot be a 7500 rebate, there has to be some way to maintain roads (probably by a 5c/mile tax on your electric) and manufacturers have to make a profit as there are no ICE's to subsidize the electrics. Add it all up, I think it will take longer than predicted to go total electric. Even your volt has an ICE for longer trips and kicks in for extra power on hard acceleration. I like the volt's and the basic idea of the volt. A friend has one. But I see a day where something has to give on for road tax and the 7500 is going away probably around next year as GM hits the 200K vehicle limit. Even the current gas tax is insufficient to maintain roads due to inflation/better mileage ICE's. I hope some smart state starts to do the tax/mile and phase it in.

Re:Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

I would choose an electric car if there were any worth choosing in my market niche.

And I'm not talking range anxiety or the other stuff that gets trotted out, I'm just looking for a nice electric car. Take an Audi TTRS, make it electric with a modest 200 mile range, keep it at more or less existing TTRS pricing, with no other changes to the interior or exterior, and I'll buy one tomorrow. Seriously.

Or a BMW 4-series even. Or something else that isn't a basic hatchback stuffed with batteries (Bolt), designed to look like a Jetson-mobile (i3) or a poorly assembled fugly car that has an interior worse than a basic Camry (anything Tesla).

I'm interested in what the European manufacturers (Volvo, Audi, Mercedes) bring out in the next 3-5 years, but right now the options are too limited. That's actually reasonable, given the current state of the market and the batteries, but it doesn't make for cars I want to buy.

Re:Total Sales

[rtb61]

Likely it will still be some what economically safe to buy an infernal combustion engine, right up to 2020 beyond that resale losses would become difficult, so still adamant for infernal combustion, buying second hand would be smarter. From 2020 on electrics will start to have real impact on sales and that includes resale impact. A lot depends upon how long you keep a car, the longer the more questionable the infernal combustion choice, keep you car a decade and that is real problematical as to when to make the switch. Beware the ban of infernal combustion vehicles in inner metro, the city centre, that is likely to happen much earlier, than for other zones. So regional less of a concern, you can run your fossil fueller for likely a decade longer than in the metropolitan area. It will be interesting to see the development of conversion kits, design and cost, over time, without government subsidies it is unlikely to be successful but that economic pain does need to be shared. Personally I am aiming for my next vehicle to be electric as to when, probably I will delay it until it is competitive choice and simply extend the life of my current infernal combustion vehicle (very low mileage I dislike driving after a very negative experience, 10K in three years).

Re:Total Sales

[thinkwaitfast]

No, I switched to all LED.They all died within 5 years.Sure, I'll buy more LEDs because I like the color, but their marketing of them "Lasts 10,000,000 hours: is a complete lie.

Re: Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont expected any electric Innovations from Euro Car companies. They hate batteries.

Re: Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Volvo from 2019 will be electric. Google it

Re: Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true. But at least they know how to make a decent interior.

Re: Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Hybrids not full electric.

Re:Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's "left to the freedom of the people" they'll shit in their neighbors' water supply. And I mean that literally, if it weren't for regulations preventing it, there are lots of people would shit where the runoff would contaminate the downhill neighbor's well.

After having driven plug-in hybrid for a year, I'm never going back, and my next car will be pure electric. Instant torque kicks ass. Having no clunky gear changes is amazing.

Re:Total Sales

[DarkVader]

Weird. I've only had two LED bulb failures, both of them replaced under warranty.

Re:Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

What does a US tax credit have to do with a Volt in Canada?

Re:Total Sales

[jeremyp]

I guess this is why we're hearing talk of banning ICE

It's easy for a government today to say "we'll ban ICE" by some far off due in the future. It makes them look green without having to actually do anything today.

Re:Total Sales

[MouseR]

The day the federal incentive (or your location's equivalent—here provincial) can no longer pay for itself will be a win for everyone.

There are other ways to finance the roads. But that's beside the point I'm answering: EVs are, today, cheaper to operate when you factor everything.

Re:Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Who buys a car with a consideration for resale value? The last car I got rid of was 27 years old, 295k miles, and had a KBB value of $220 mint (and it was far from mint).

Re:Total Sales

[ranton]

You can already buy a sub-$1K electric car today.

But my kids' Power Wheels have trouble reaching highways speeds.

Re: Total Sales

[ranton]

Dont expected any electric Innovations from Euro Car companies. They hate batteries.

That is exactly why I am looking forward to getting an all electric BMW / Audi / etc. in 3-5 years when they are among the few manufacturers which still qualify for the $7500 tax credit in the US. The innovative companies will have already exceeded 200,000 US deliveries (with Tesla hitting that figure in 2018).

Re:Total Sales

[jedidiah]

> Do you still have the trove of 1000 incandescents

Nope. Living in the desert cured me of the idea of using light bulbs that waste most of their energy trying to be little space heaters.

Re:Total Sales

[DontBeAMoran]

Damn, I had a link to amazon for a kid's electric car and the link got removed. At least you got the joke.

Re:Total Sales

[jedidiah]

EVs are cheap crap. They are the modern equivalent of cheap crappy ICE econoboxes. They are a menace to the driver. This is more important to some of us than whether or not we think we're "saving a buck".

Not everything is about being a mindless cheapskate.

For some things quality matters. (Actually it should matter all the time but that's a different flame fest)

Re:Total Sales

[jedidiah]

....and if you leave it to state we will all be forced to use total crap. We will be forced into tiny crap cars we don't fit in, that are unsafe to drive due to being underpowered, and have crap range.

The current options all SUCK.

Being forced to buy stuff that sucks is hardly a convincing case for government intrusiveness.

Re: Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see a electric car make it through a Midwest winter. How do you heat your car @ 15 below and drive through several feet of snow. My truck has no problems with that.

Re:Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

People need to admit it's more than price (although price is a factor.) I live in a townhouse. I don't have a garage. Where would I charge my EV?
Where my sister live people have to park on the street. How do they charge an EV?
I use my SUV to carry my bike and Kayak. When aerodynamics grossly reduces my range how do I use an EV to get where I want to go?
That also totally ignores the trips I take every month to nearby towns and out of state beyond the round trip range of existing EVs.

Re: Total Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Heating in an electric car is like any other car - you turn up the heath. If it is built for winter driving, it will get hot enough. Usually faster than an ICE car - the electric car doesn't wait for the motor to heath up first. Those who thinks the heater limits range too much installs a fuel-powered heater. Most don't have to - if the car is mostly used for commuting and shopping then there is range enough in winter too.

Driving through snow is not a problem - you put snow tires on the car, obviously. You step harder on the accelerator due to the high rolling resistance in deep snow. And wimps who don't like driving in deep snow waits for the next snowplow.

The winters in Norway matches Midwest winters - and electric cars are popular here. (Due to taxes on ICE)

Re:Total Sales

[BostonPilot]

similar here - compact fluorescents were terrible, but I switched my entire house over to LED and haven't had a failure yet...

Nissan Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

For what it is worth, in New Zealand (Dunedin) there are many as in (1 in 400 or so I would guess) Nissan Leafs about.
With the price of fuel at about ~$9nzd per gallon, it is no wonder why.

Other car manufactures are missing the market.

Re:Nissan Leaf

[Smidge204]

I was wanting to say, in the US the LEAF is only about 4-5% behind the Bolt in year-to-date sales as of a few months ago.

https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

"General Motors is the only other company within reach of Tesla" my ass. (Maybe if you cheat and include the Volt)
=Smidge=

Re:Nissan Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how cold it is in Dunedin in the winter I'm surprised the Leafs manage to keep going. Would have thought the batteries wouldn't be capable of holding enough of a charge.

Leaf?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the Nissan Leaf not in that list. Did the company ship its entire production to my town or does it lack something to be considered an EV? There are 6 of them in the parking lot at work (of 80 people). They are common as, well, leaves around here.

Re:Leaf?

[Amouth]

agreed, we love our leaf, other than the random tesla they are the only other EVs we see. looking to get another one, just wish insurance was cheaper on them (a 2013 leaf is 2x the insurance cost of a 2008 Tundra)

Re:Leaf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Love my leaf too. We drive it about 40 miles daily to work and back in all weather. It's about time to take of the Pirellis and throw on the winter tires.

Volt and system

[DCFusor]

My 2012 Volt integrates nicely with my off-grid solar system. It's never been charged from the grid. No, I don't drive all day every day - it's used to run my errand loop - but in a very rural place (26.5 mi round trip for beer and munchies for example).
While it voids the warranty, I added a 1.5 kw inverter to its 12volt system (which has a 175 amp switcher from the main Li battery) so it can also back up my homestead in times of need (thick snow on the solar panels for example) - even if it has to run its amazingly efficient engine - it's a generator that is able to get to the store to be refilled, and no spilled gas or issues with starting - meant to be in the weather. I've only used it like that once to prove I wired it up right, but it's nice to know it's there.
I'm showing 224 lifetime mpg on the thing as I try and keep my trips in it to the range - which is consistently around 10 miles more than they claimed, at least in summer time. In winter, the heater is a pig...it's about the one time a gasoline car makes sense, as you capture your waste heat to heat the cabin.

Re:ROFLMAO

[Anonymous Coward]

You are either trolling or delusional.

It is normal (and even expected) for companies focusing on long term growth to have little or no profits in the beginning. Tesla is only 14 years old, and it's inventing its own segments.

But... but...

[AlanObject]

I thought Elon was delusional and full of shit and no way he would ever get Telsa Motors to a sustainable business model.

No, really. I read it here on /. over and over again. So it must be true.

Re:But... but...

[drinkypoo]

I thought Elon was delusional and full of shit and no way he would ever get Telsa Motors to a sustainable business model.

Tesla is still losing money hand over fist, and Elon is nowhere near hitting his production targets for the Model 3. It remains to be seen how long Tesla will last.

Re: But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk certainly is also a sleazy american bizman. Like Ellison or Gates.

Re: But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla is not profitable. They won't last much longer.

This is good.

[Gravis Zero]

Whenever Tesla is mentioned, it always brings out the financial trading guys who do nothing but praise or shit on the company because of their own money interests. I think it's important that everyone remember that the entire point of Tesla Motors was to show that electric vehicles were viable and to hopefully get the ball rolling with moving society to electric vehicles. The fact that other companies are being forced to throw their hat in the ring shows that there is a real demand for electric vehicles. Nothing is ever done perfectly on the first try (or generation of vehicles in this case) but we're progressing toward a sustainable automotive option which is extremely important. Yes, not all sources of electricity are sustainable but we're marking progress in that area too.

There is still hope, we can still salvage this planet before the ecosystem goes pear-shaped, even if we have to drag the people in denial, kicking and screaming with us.

Re:This is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, they are totally viable long as the American tax payer is funding their shit hole of a company.

Re:This is good.

[Gravis Zero]

Tell me when we start charging adding a tax to gasoline for the amount of money required to remove from the resulting CO2 from the air. Until then, you are just stealing money from the future because we are going to have to start removing CO2 from the air and that shit isn't going to be free.

Re:This is good.

[AmiMoJo]

It's interesting that they have to include hybrids in GM's numbers to make this story work, otherwise their EV sales look pathetic and are way behind rivals like Nissan.

Re:This is good.

[VanessaE]

because we are going to have to start removing CO2 from the air and that shit isn't going to be free

Oh I dunno, planting trees isn't THAT expensive is it?

Re:This is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The "American tax payer" has spent trillion (with a "T") defending Gulf oil supplies since the 1970s. Unless you think we station thousands of troops over there to defend sand supplies?

Re: This is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, is it? Do you have to buy the land? How many are needed?

Re:This is good.

[Whorhay]

There is a lot more that has to happen than just planting trees. Trees are typically just a temporary way to tie up carbon. Forests are essentially carbon sponges, they'll hold carbon but have a saturation limit and once sufficiently mature start releasing old carbon as they intake new carbon. We could go in and harvest trees specifically to lock them up somewhere to sequester their carbon, but we'd have to do this on a truly massive scale to make a dent in just our current carbon output. For the USA we output 16.4 Tons of carbon per capita per year.

Re:This is good.

[Gravis Zero]

Trees do not permanently remove CO2 from the air, they only hold it for a brief period before releasing almost all of it back into the air. There is also the matter of the acidification of the oceans which wouldn't be addressed by trees because they resperate annually causing the ocean to become a giant CO2 sink. Anyway, trees have been around a lot longer than humanity's CO2 problem, so don't you think they would have completely exhausted the CO2 from the air if they were good at absorbing CO2? Trees are little more than carbon neutral and microbial/animal life on Earth lived within the margins of what trees could handle for billions of years. We've blown past those margins and just to deal with our current output we would need to cover 1/3 of the Earth in trees.

The good news is that we made large machines that are orders of magnitude better at removing CO2 from the air but we need to build one hundred thousand of them. However, that will not be free and will cost money and doesn't even deal with further processing CO2 so that we can return the carbon into a solid form.

About 1% of Electric Vehicles are Fuel Cell

[Anonymous Coward]

... based on numbers from Toyota for September and guesses for Hyundai, Honda, and BMW. Not a lot, but in CA they are quite visible.

Re: About 1% of Electric Vehicles are Fuel Cell

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in ca and have never seen one, ever. See electrics all the time of course. Fuel cells have been rendered pointless and the fact that Japanese companies are still promoting them is a good testament to why Japan has been in recession for the last 25 years or so.

Charging a Nissan Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that you can charge it up in about 8 hours when plugged into 220V 20-amp, if I had a gas generator that could supply that much and could fit in the back of my Leaf could I finally go on a camping trip?

Re:Charging a Nissan Leaf

[blindseer]

I'll go on road trips and stay at campsites instead of hotels to save money. The sites I've seen offer AC service. Generators are typically frowned upon on a campsite.

Fate of Alternative ICEs?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is hydrogen and biofuels pretty much a dead end at this point?

Re:Fate of Alternative ICEs?

[Anonymous Coward]

FC is at about 1% of all electrics. My Mirai serves me quite well.

Re: Fate of Alternative ICEs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well fuel cells use internal combustion to convert hydrogen into electricity, which is an important distinction to make especially since countries are pushing to ban ICE vehicles and lots of articles only talk about fossil fuels only.

Re:Fate of Alternative ICEs?

[blindseer]

So is hydrogen and biofuels pretty much a dead end at this point?

Hydrogen is not an energy source so any vehicle that burns hydrogen is really running off the energy that created it, which in the USA is a mix of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. Same for electric cars, they really run on coal, nuclear, and natural gas. Some places with an abundance of flowing water will have some of the energy from hydro.

Biofuels is also mostly a means to convert a low quality energy source (coal and natural gas mainly) into a high quality energy for storage and transportation (liquid fuels and electricity). Given that people are debating whether or not biofuels give a net energy gain is evidence to me that the benefits to using biofuels are small if they exist at all. If the gain wasn't so small then we'd be debating how much of an energy gain it gives, rather than if it gives one at all.

Electric cars, without nuclear power, might give some reduction in CO2 introduced into the environment but we'd do much better with nuclear power. Wind and solar have shown no real reduction in CO2 output since it needs backup power from peaking power sources like natural gas turbines. Natural gas turbines produce nearly as much CO2 per energy produced as coal, add in the carbon footprint of the wind and solar, and it becomes debatable if there is a net reduction in CO2 output. Germany is given as an example of a failure of switching from reliable nuclear power to unreliable wind and solar. The only CO2 output reduction they've seen recently has been due to a reduction in demand. The demand reduction may or may not be caused by the higher prices they've paid.

Electric vehicles will be a failure in the goal to reduce CO2 output unless it is paired with nuclear power.

Re: Fate of Alternative ICEs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuel Cells are not combustion. The Hydrogen is not burned. It does not produce compression. DC electricity is directly generated. The process is not 100% efficient, but is much more efficient than ICE.

You can call it oxidation, but not combustion. It is more like a battery that gets the electrolyte constantly replaced.

I'm starting to warm up to the idea ....

[King_TJ]

Haven't bought an electric yet, but a couple of things are making them more attractive for our family.

#1, I live in an area where you have a lot of highways with HOV lanes. During rush hour in the morning and evening, it's often the case that the whole interstate is clogged up except that far left HOV lane, that's traveling along near the speed limit. Electric cars are allowed to drive in the HOV lanes legally at these times, even if you have no occupants other than yourself as the driver. The idea I could cut all of that time out of my daily commute almost makes buying one worthwhile.

#2, There are finally enough electrics sold so you have a decent used market of them to choose from. If I want to buy one as an extra vehicle, mainly for the teenagers to use to get to school or work after they learn to drive? I can actually buy something like a used 2012-2014 Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt hybrid electric, or Smart-4-Two electric in that "$10,000 and under" price range. (Remember, with the Volt -- the reviews when it was new consistently said they liked the car but the ONLY real issue was the price point. If you did the math, you just couldn't ever save enough money in gas driving one to offset its high cost.)

The problem I still see with the technology, though, is the lack of available charging stations. The cheaper electrics (like the used Leafs) just don't have enough range to do much with them besides short trips or one longer work commute. If I knew I could always plug one in, in any parking space I used in one of the municipal garages by my office? That would be kind of a game-changer, since it'd have a full 8 hours to recharge while I worked. Realistically though? The places with charging stations tend to be retail stores or restaurants with only 2 or 3 designated spots for them. Parking garages aren't interested in the type of electric bill they'd have if a whole bunch of people were charging cars off of their electrical system every day, in 6 stories of parking! So what you have to plan for with these cars is that you're only really going to charge it up overnight at home, and whatever range you get with that is as far as you can go in a day with the vehicle.

Re: I'm starting to warm up to the idea ....

[Anonymous Coward]

How far is your commute? There's no doubt that the 80 miles sucks, but personally my commute is 30 each way and that is much shittier than the average commute.

Re:I'm starting to warm up to the idea ....

[Bender Unit 22]

Ditto. I drive 45 miles every day. Sometimes 70. I have a garage where it can charge.
3-4 times a year I drive to a location where I will need to charge to get home again.
Sadly, around here in Denmark, our anti-green goverment have added the taxes back on EVs. So we will after a few years have a 150% on EVs too, like reqular cars.
Right now it is "only" 40% tax.
And so, Chevy/Opel, won't even bother to sell the Bolt here(as the Ampera-e). I would have bought it if I could buy it at the old price without anything except the 25% sales tax, without th 40% on top.

Re:I'm starting to warm up to the idea ....

[BostonPilot]

I previously leased a BEV for my daughters (but one of them crashed it). I replaced it with a 2013 Volt (Gen 1) for $11,000. Both daughters specifically requested a PHEV rather than a BEV because they wanted the flexibility to do longer trips without having to worry about how they were going to charge the car back up. It's worked out well because 99% of their driving falls within the electric range of the vehicle (it consistently gets 45-50 miles before running out of charge).

I put a dryer outlet in the garage for the BEV, and we still use that to charge the Volt. The only negative thing I'll say about the Volt is that it's on-board charger is too slow (it takes much longer to charge the Volt's 10 kWh pack than the old BEV 19 kWh pack).

There are lots of variables that determine who can use a BEV, and how much range they need. In general, I think it's fair to say that unless you have a dedicated parking space at work with a charger, it makes sense to be able to do the entire round trip from home to work and back on a single charge, rather than risk getting stuck. At my last job I could easily do it (the car had 105 miles of range), in fact if I was careful I could do two days in a row on a singe charge, but there was a charging station just a few blocks away, so if I knew I needed to run errands after work that would be pushing the range I could always plug in.

I've been working out of my home office the last few years so thankfully I don't have to worry about a daily commute, but I still drive into Boston, with the occasional long drive up into New Hampshire, but I figure the Model 3 with the LR battery will be sufficient for all but a couple trips a year, in which case I'll either swap with my wife for her car, or just rent a car. Even with the 105 mile BEV, I was only needing to use my ICE car about once a month - it became a problem because the brakes kept rusting in place because I wasn't driving the ICE car enough.

Personally, I think a lot of people who are reluctant to go electric should try a used Volt or other PHEV. After a few years of experience with a PHEV, you'll have a good feeling for which BEV will fit your needs (and, by then, you'll have lots more to choose from).

We've burned less than a gallon of gas in the Volt since we got it in April. My daughters really enjoy the car. I enjoy not having to mediate between two teenage girls about who needs to put gas in the car. My personal plan is to wait a couple years for the Model 3 - I want AWD and whatever passes for Ludicrous mode on the M3, plus I want to give Tesla a chance to get the quality up before I buy it. I figure I'll end up paying 50-60K for it (no tax incentive, but I don't care about that). Should be a fun car!

Re:I'm starting to warm up to the idea ....

[RespekMyAthorati]

The only negative thing I'll say about the Volt

Are you positive?

do you never get tired?

[dAzED1]

Do you people never get tired of this nonsense? Electric cars are most popular in California. My house is on solar. Both California, and the city I live in, have 100% renewables targets. Me - that's who drives electric cars. Not you rednecks out in where ever running off coal or whatnot.

Re: do you never get tired?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you Know how much CO2 has been emitted in China in Order to produce your solar cells and batteries ???

Re: do you never get tired?

[toadlife]

Do you Know how much CO2 has been emitted in China in Order to produce your solar cells and batteries ???

Over the lifetime, it ends up being far less than a internal combustion powered vehicle. Oil company propaganda is (literally) bad for your health.

Re: GAY NIGGERS FOR TESLA - NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta hand it to you guys. Trolling slashdot consistently for 20 years. I always get a good chuckle from these posts though it would be nice if you guys mixed them up a bit with new content on occasion.

If Tesla fell to #2

[thinkwaitfast]

would we still get daily updates on them, or would /. switch to daily updates on GM?

Re:If Tesla fell to #2

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. Musk's shills will won't go away.

Oddly US centric results

[hraftery]

Easy to miss the fact that this article only considers US manufacturers. The body of the article seems to suggest that GM and Telstra are the only horses in the race. Not only does that exclude a great deal of manufacturers in a highly global market, it happens to exclude the leader. In fact, Renault-Nissan sells more EVs and PHEVs overall, and they also sell the most popular EV.

Just can't believe I was so completely wrong

[lfp98]

When Tesla came on the scene I thought, what is this? What is point of making a $100,000 EV? You might sell a few to left-leaning celebs but the potential mass market for EVs is earthy, practical-minded former hippies like myself. What you need to make for us is a cheap vehicle to get from point A to point B without pollution, not a flashy status symbol. How wrong I was. Now mass-market EVs are plentiful, you can easily get a used one for under $10K, but the mass market itself has yet to materialize and Musk's high-end EVs still dominate. Seems my eco-friends are all buying gas Priuses instead. Of course it might be different if the big auto makers as well as the dealers hadn't fought EVs tooth-and-nail for so many years.

Re:ROFLMAO

[jedidiah]

If it's 14 years old then it's not a "new" company anymore. There are car companies that have come and gone in the space of 14 years.

If they've really been around that long, it's time for them to get their act together already. They're like a pre-Ford boutique manufacturer at this point.They need to get past that already.

Considering the hurricanes

[pecosdave]

and the fact insurance adjustment can take a while expect October to outshine September. Yes it has a bit to do with a shift in mindset, it also has a LOT to do with shit-tons of cars with water up to the windshields in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

EVs have already won here in Norway

[Terje Mathisen]

Last month both VW (e-Golf) and Tesla (S+X) sold more than 2000 EVs here:

https://electrek.co/2017/10/06...

Currently EVs sell more than plug-in hybrids and both of them outsell diesel or gasoline ICE cars.

We are definitely on target for the planned 2025 date when all new vehicles should be either pure EVs or plug-in hybrids with some serious range in battery-only modus.

The reasons are not to hard to explain: Due to Norway's extremely high vehicle taxes which are waived for EVs, a low-end Tesla like my S70D cost far less than any car, of any make, that is capable of similar acceleration. At the high end a Model S P100DL costs just 50% of the starting price (before options) of an Audi R8 Coupe, and that Audi is a second slower from 0 to 100 km/hr.

We also get a reduced road tax, no toll road fees, access to bus lanes, free parking and free public charging. I save 59 NOK (almost USD 8) in toll fees every day just on the morning drive to my office, so my monthly cost (inlcuding appreciation) is actually lower than for my previous car, a Skoda Octavia 4x4 diesel.

Terje