by Robert L. Gisel
The competitive race in the commercial Electric Vehicles is starting to get interesting. While most of these are as yet not truly viable automobiles, the state of the art performance parameters of the commercial electric vehicles (EVs) are now closer to what is really needed to compete with existing autos. The question is will we get a road trip worthy plug in EV before we go broke on the price of gas at the pump.
The Nissan Leaf plug-in electric is now selling for about $25,000, after the tax credit, which is an attractive price. The downside of the Leaf is a range of 100 miles where an 8 hour fast charge is needed, or regular 120 volt home charge of about 16 hours (4days drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco). Speed and acceleration are not mentioned and the car is neo-Japanese styling,which to me, is rather on the ugly side of aesthetics. But it has only sold less than 500 since October and it has a long way to go to to be viable.
The good looking new Tesla Model S plug-in electric just announced for 2011 will have a range of 300 miles at a cost of under $50,000 and a spunky 0-60 in 3.7 seconds. Tesla currently sells it's high-performance electric Roadster that for about $100,000 and it can nail 0-60 mph in a mere 3.7 seconds with a top end up to 120 mph. It travels about 250 miles between recharging. The fast charge, however, can take up to 8 hours.
That stretches the 6 hour drive to Sacramento to 14 hours. That will never do. The high price and the range that is just short would account for the low sales figures since 2008, reported to be over 1500 in 30 countries.
With most current gas burners one can drive to Sacramento or San Francisco on one tank of gas, so paying top dollar for a car that won't make it there in one day is a tough sell, even for the pride of green pioneer exclusivity.
The Fisker Karma will be a 4 passenger Luxury sedan for the price range of $90,000 and an effective range of 300 miles in its gas and electric combo. Fisker says it will be released in December. But only 50 miles of that range is electric, so it is a plug-in hybrid which delivers 67 miles per gallon. The Prius Hybrid will do that. Even the Volt hybrid performance is in that ballpark and for about half the sticker price. However, the 0-6 in about 60 seconds and 125 mph top end are good performance statistics on a car which has good aesthetic appeal.
The GM Volt is probably a hybrid similar to the Karma, with on board recharging and an expected reach of about 300 miles, or effective mpg of high 60's, and priced in the $30-40,000 range. I don'e get how they have configured their fall-backi gas engine. The looks are American car appealing, that is to say, not unpleasing, and it doesn't have the offbeat configuration that is typical to a lot of EVs and Hybrids in the Asian styling. Some areas have started selling this so that about 1500 have sold since October, 2010.
One should be able to drive from Los Angeles to San Fransisco without stopping for recharge, and if you do have to stop it can't take 8 to 12 hours to top up the batteries.
Last I looked the English Lightening was trying to get together a US model. For now the English release is expected to do 0-60 in under 4 seconds and have a top speed of 120 mph. The range is said be 188 miles, but here is the kicker. The high voltage recharge (220 volts) will effect an 80% recharge in ten minutes. (That's what they said.) Their secret is their own battery development. Making a Lithiun Ion Carbonate battery they claim to have overcome the temperature problem associated with previous batteries, which get too hot in a fast recharge or are have to be warmed up to start in sub temperatures. An infrstructure is needed but we're getting closer to the real thing. Oh, did I mention, the price tag is around $240,000 USD for the Lightening. It is a great looking sports car though.
The industry overall has miles to go to measure up in its science. Battery Technology is still not up to speed, no pun intended, though there seems to be a race to get there. Tesla has contracted Pansonic to deliver a new battery to Tesla in 2012. My back-of-the-envelope calculations put this battery's expectancy at roughly 60% increase of what Tesla has now. Supposing that, and that Panasonic delivers, Teslas would probably make it to San Fransico without a recharge. It looks like in a few years the industry could go from almost to adequate.
Provided we make it past the Mayan apocolypse, superstition seemingly what the science is running on.
With my secret inventions I am postulating 400 plus miles and fast charge of 80% in 15 or so minutes in a Jeep retrofit affordably (depending on battery prices) that can even recharge 10 miles off road up Cripple Creek. You know, a real EV Rec Vehicle that can go somewhere. That is a stretch but doable (you haven't seen my secret weapon) and will put the EV into real competition on the automotive market.
I'm not necessarily trying to be the first there in these goals but for sure I want to force the standards to be more than an "almost vehicle", one where you can actually go somewhere in a plug-in EV. Only then can we begin think of being done with the gas stations.
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Showing posts with label EV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EV. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
It's a Trojan Horse
by Robert L. Gisel
The new Chevrolet Volt released by GM looks appealing on first glance but don't be fooled -- it's a Trojan Horse. A company that could and should be giving value is shorting value and that, sooner or later, is going to bankrupt GM.
The GM site for the Volt says the car is revolutionary but these words are hollow. All you get from this car is the first 40 miles for free, or the price of 8 hours domestic charging of the lithium ion batteries, then it runs on gas or ethanol for hundreds of miles "until you have to stop to refuel". The 1990 Dodge Dynasty will do that, 385 miles from LA to Sacramento on one tank of gas. So what is new?
I think they could have done a lot better. In fact they did with the abandoned EV-1. It wasn't just green, it worked as a plug-in electric vehicle. GM's answer to that was to recall all the EV's when their lease ran out and send them to shredder at the junk yard. So you can understand my sarcasm for their new solution that is anything but the much simpler and more workable solution, in my mind, that GM trashed. GM in fact trashed a lot of good will in how they handled the EV-1 production.
The Volt is reputed to release in 2010 so it comes years late for the emerging EV market as well as too late for a revival of GM's diminishing market share. Way too little too late is just the economic view that cautions one not to go out and purchase GM shares; the story gets worse.
Technologically the car 's reputed breakthrough is factually a shortcoming. The actual range on electric is only 40 miles after which the extended mileage is provided by an ethanol (or gas) powered engine. One is not clear from the vague initial PR release information whether that is simply a generator for recharging purposes or it actually runs the car while running on ethanol, i.e., an ethanol hybrid. With more research and later PR releases from GM I find that it is apparently an on-board charging generator. For the company that produced the workable plug-in EV-1, which they took off the market amid lies and false justifications, showing they can do it better, this is not to be taken too seriously.
"Twenty months ago, in January 2007, we set for ourselves a very tough challenge… to develop an electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, that could not only travel 40 miles on pure battery power… but then, thanks to a small engine capable of generating electricity along the way… travel hundreds of additional miles without ever stopping to refuel."
To put this in perspective any car that gets 25 miles to the gallon will do "hundreds of additional miles without ever stopping to refill". Today most cars apart from trucks and SUVs will do that. Granted this: the refill won't consist of dropping a hundred dollar bill for a full tank of gas and and the significant amounts of greenhouse gas carbon emissions.
Furthermore the release says the car will require 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Where do you get ethanol in driving across the country? If you only want to drive around town get an all-electric glorified, street equipped golf cart. Yes, you can plug it in to your home outlet but this is by definition in meaningful terms not a full-blown plug-in EV.
By further comparison the Tesla battery packs take it 221 miles until you need to recharge; the Lightening takes you 250 miles. Even GM's EV-1 went 60 miles with a poorly planned Delco battery set up. Recharging of the Volt is "less than 8 hours" or 3 to 4 hours with a 240 volt quick charge versus overnight recharging for the Tesla and overnight charging or 10 minute 3 phase (240 volt) quick-charge for the Lightening.
So this is the best GM can do, while calling it revolutionary, 40 miles electric and a semi-hybrid beyond that? They must think the consumer is stupid or on drugs.
Exceptional value in automotive production points to some very famous casualties. The DeLorean DMC-12 did this with its now famous albiet defunct stainless steel over fiberglass body, Elastic Reservoir Moulding chasis and gull-wing doors. For that, I believe, John DeLorean was entrapped into a drug dealing bust and out of business. With production of an updated version underway we might see this one revived.
Other innovative and high value production cars were the Tucker, the Packard and the Studebaker Avanti as well as the full line of Studebaker cars. The story is different on each, of price wars and underhanded dealings that lend one to believe that they did not die due to their value, each being exceptional but by reason of interferance. One can assume a lot as these all were very popular with the public.
GM dramatizes lack in value in other aspects as in, for instance, the lowest miles per gallon compared with it's competitor car manufacturers. Just good enough to sell and not good enough to get excited about, this delivery attitude is going to bankrupt GM one of the days.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080916/ap_on_bi_ge/gm_centennial
Advancing the project to establish Electric Recreational Vehicles needs funding so your contributions of any amount forwards the cause and is greatly appreciated.
The new Chevrolet Volt released by GM looks appealing on first glance but don't be fooled -- it's a Trojan Horse. A company that could and should be giving value is shorting value and that, sooner or later, is going to bankrupt GM.
The GM site for the Volt says the car is revolutionary but these words are hollow. All you get from this car is the first 40 miles for free, or the price of 8 hours domestic charging of the lithium ion batteries, then it runs on gas or ethanol for hundreds of miles "until you have to stop to refuel". The 1990 Dodge Dynasty will do that, 385 miles from LA to Sacramento on one tank of gas. So what is new?
I think they could have done a lot better. In fact they did with the abandoned EV-1. It wasn't just green, it worked as a plug-in electric vehicle. GM's answer to that was to recall all the EV's when their lease ran out and send them to shredder at the junk yard. So you can understand my sarcasm for their new solution that is anything but the much simpler and more workable solution, in my mind, that GM trashed. GM in fact trashed a lot of good will in how they handled the EV-1 production.
The Volt is reputed to release in 2010 so it comes years late for the emerging EV market as well as too late for a revival of GM's diminishing market share. Way too little too late is just the economic view that cautions one not to go out and purchase GM shares; the story gets worse.
Technologically the car 's reputed breakthrough is factually a shortcoming. The actual range on electric is only 40 miles after which the extended mileage is provided by an ethanol (or gas) powered engine. One is not clear from the vague initial PR release information whether that is simply a generator for recharging purposes or it actually runs the car while running on ethanol, i.e., an ethanol hybrid. With more research and later PR releases from GM I find that it is apparently an on-board charging generator. For the company that produced the workable plug-in EV-1, which they took off the market amid lies and false justifications, showing they can do it better, this is not to be taken too seriously.
"Twenty months ago, in January 2007, we set for ourselves a very tough challenge… to develop an electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, that could not only travel 40 miles on pure battery power… but then, thanks to a small engine capable of generating electricity along the way… travel hundreds of additional miles without ever stopping to refuel."
To put this in perspective any car that gets 25 miles to the gallon will do "hundreds of additional miles without ever stopping to refill". Today most cars apart from trucks and SUVs will do that. Granted this: the refill won't consist of dropping a hundred dollar bill for a full tank of gas and and the significant amounts of greenhouse gas carbon emissions.
Furthermore the release says the car will require 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Where do you get ethanol in driving across the country? If you only want to drive around town get an all-electric glorified, street equipped golf cart. Yes, you can plug it in to your home outlet but this is by definition in meaningful terms not a full-blown plug-in EV.
By further comparison the Tesla battery packs take it 221 miles until you need to recharge; the Lightening takes you 250 miles. Even GM's EV-1 went 60 miles with a poorly planned Delco battery set up. Recharging of the Volt is "less than 8 hours" or 3 to 4 hours with a 240 volt quick charge versus overnight recharging for the Tesla and overnight charging or 10 minute 3 phase (240 volt) quick-charge for the Lightening.
So this is the best GM can do, while calling it revolutionary, 40 miles electric and a semi-hybrid beyond that? They must think the consumer is stupid or on drugs.
Exceptional value in automotive production points to some very famous casualties. The DeLorean DMC-12 did this with its now famous albiet defunct stainless steel over fiberglass body, Elastic Reservoir Moulding chasis and gull-wing doors. For that, I believe, John DeLorean was entrapped into a drug dealing bust and out of business. With production of an updated version underway we might see this one revived.
Other innovative and high value production cars were the Tucker, the Packard and the Studebaker Avanti as well as the full line of Studebaker cars. The story is different on each, of price wars and underhanded dealings that lend one to believe that they did not die due to their value, each being exceptional but by reason of interferance. One can assume a lot as these all were very popular with the public.
GM dramatizes lack in value in other aspects as in, for instance, the lowest miles per gallon compared with it's competitor car manufacturers. Just good enough to sell and not good enough to get excited about, this delivery attitude is going to bankrupt GM one of the days.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080916/ap_on_bi_ge/gm_centennial
Advancing the project to establish Electric Recreational Vehicles needs funding so your contributions of any amount forwards the cause and is greatly appreciated.
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