Vroom Vroom!

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So, last March, I posted about electric vehicles, specifically about by position on the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. Many of you were correct, however, in that I may have been premature in my evaluations. Among the most relevant data shared was the Volt "selling every one [they could] make" and 20k preorders for the Leaf, and that it was a deliberately slow rollout. The consensus, at least at the time, appeared to be that we needed to have a year under our belt to really get a good grasp on the situation.

So what do we know now in 2012 that we didn't in 2011?

* GM predicted at least 10k Volts sold in 2010, and didn't even come close to that number, missing it by nearly 2400 cars, spurred in part by an allowance to sell the existing demo models. Inexplicably, GM intends to produce 60k of them this year even though demand has not been high. Granted: the Volt only reached nationwide status in the fourth quarter, but that did not seem to show significantly more demand.

* If the Chevy Volt isn't winning over hearts and minds, the Nissan Leaf isn't faring much better. It had higher sales year-long than the Volt, coming in at 9600 sold in the US. The Leaf, however, saw its sales peak over the summer and has mostly seen a precipitous decline from its height.

The issue with electric cars remains the same: they're expensive, they don't go far, and they cost too much to the taxpayer. A Volt costs the taxpayer $250k per vehicle sold on top of the ticket cost to the consumer - no wonder you have to be fairly affluent to drive one. The Volt runs for a whopping 40 miles on electricity (and then another 340 per tank on premium gas), the Leaf a significantly-better-yet-still-sad 110 miles at best, probably closer to 75 - I drove more than that to visit my friend last weekend. With the price tag in the high $20s-low $30s even with tax credits, it's not likely to find many more adopters, etiher - catching only 2% of the market overall isn't much of a splash for an industry with high expectations it set for itself, never mind what the rest of the people who supposedly know what they're doing thought. But, to be fair, even the execs are only thinking 6% market share 13 years from now.

The Jalopnik post above says it best, to me:

I can't look someone in the eye who's about to buy their first car and say, "Look, buy this electric vehicle. It's not very fun. It's not what you want. You can't really haul anything. It's very likely not any better for the environment. But it is very, very quiet. Especially for the hours and hours it takes to charge."

The reality is that we will see viable alternative energy vehicles sooner rather than later. I think, given what we know about the electric options available and the options coming down the turnpike, that electric vehicles are not ready for prime time, and perhaps aren't actually the answer at all. I could still be proven wrong on this, but when we sink literally billions of taxpayer dollars into a technology that so few people want or need, it may be time to say "enough is enough" on the electric car experiment. We now know who killed the electric car - the consumer.

Comments

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

My 'attitude' or anyone else's isn't the subject of the question I'm asking. I'm asking if your grounds for optimism in this particular case are grounded on more solid footing than the pessimists'.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll try a THIRD time.

Jeff says the "consumer killed the electric car". I would argue differently. The consumer has made the electric car inevitable. They did it by lining up like crazed Beatles fanatics to buy hybrids. As a result, most major car manufacturers have spent the past decade putting hybrid vehicles into development and production and have vastly improved battery technology. Even the major luxury marques are using hybrid assist systems now.

With this industry wide investment in batteries, it is absolutely inevitable that they would start looking to from hybrid assist drive trains to all electric drive trains. Any vehicle has to get power to the wheels -- and the all electric drive train is here now. It can be powered by batteries or by something like a hydrogen fuel cell, but at the end of the day it still an all electric drive train, and the Leaf and Volt prove that such a drive train can offer fine driving dynamics. Car makers are going to use mostly batteries now because the supply chain and industry for their manufacture is already proven, plus the infrastructure to supply electricity for charging them is almost infinitely more available than anything to support fuel cells. In 30 years? Maybe it will be fuel cells, but battery electric vehicles that plug in are here and it was the CONSUMERS' enthusiasm for hybrids that got them here.

They are NOT a "perfect" green solution and electric car enthusiasts who tout them as such are dumb. Batteries are neither clean to produce or dispose of. And electricity for charging comes mostly from "dirty" sources. On the other hand, electric drive trains greatly diminish engine emissions and can realign our energy consumption more towards domestic sources, so those a clear plusses.

The Leaf and the Volt are not going to be sales leaders any time soon. The Leaf's range limits currently make it a very expensive second car, and the Volt is very expensive for its size and amenities. Both cars face stiff competition in the C-segment from an array of well appointed vehicles that push the boundary of 40 mpg. So, sure, we won't see THESE EVs flying off lots in Prius numbers soon, but the electric car is far from dead -- it is an inevitability unless someone has a power plant under development that uses neither gasoline nor electricity to make the wheels go that can be in the market in 10 years.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Third time for you, first for me :) .

Thank you for presenting a positive case for optimism, even if it didn't come from the person I asked.

*Tips hat*

I still shy away from making statements of inevitability, if for no other reason than technological developments, among many other things, have a way of defying those claims, regardless of how well thought-through the presentation.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I never tire of that macro :)

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'The consumer has made the electric car inevitable. They did it by lining up like crazed Beatles fanatics to buy hybrids. As a result, most major car manufacturers have spent the past decade putting hybrid vehicles into development and production and have vastly improved battery technology.'

I disagree. GM built a prototype car back in the 90s and while trialing it determined that battery development was not there for a fully electric vehicle. In a way, the Prius proved it. It used a small battery pack and only took the edge off of idling and low speed driving.

Battery development has made huge strides and that more than anything has made them feasible.

Look at it like DVD and Blu-ray. Not many people wanted a $1,000 DVD player, same for blu-ray. As the tech kept getting developed to make it cheaper it hit a good consumer price level. Well that's what EVs are experiencing right now.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Jeff doesn't want the technology developed at all, full-stop. But of course it's worth noting that libertarianism would have ensured a world where the USSR had a monopoly on the atomic bomb and none of the democracies did, as libertarians would never pay for pricey but necessary things like space travel or nuclear weapons.

[404.livejournal.com]

That's an unfair assessment, why do you keep doing this?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because it's a blunt truth. Developing technology that's new costs a lot of money and in its first generation is extremely unprofitable. This is why the government has traditionally been the one to develop such technology as it doesn't need to worry about profit. If, however, the USA followed libertarian ideals we'd still have our most advanced farming technology being the ass end of a mule and be using muzzle-loading smoothbores that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Which is why Samuel Langley and his 50k government grant did more to advance avionics than the Wright Brothers.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Wright Brothers' bi-plane simply started it. The actual advances were made by European states, and airships were still a major commercial contender into the 1930s. But why let facts intrude upon a good story?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Why are you being this dense?

You stated how crucial it was to aviation that gov't funded it. And yet the actual birth of aviation stemmed from guys who got no gov't funding while those that did (Langley) are forgotten about because they contributed so little.

You're refusing to acknowledge history because it's inconvenient for you. Stop that.

Your argument has no merit on the bare facts.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I stated how crucial it was to aviation's development that government funded it. That I said aviation in general is your assertion, not mine. The Wright Brothers did invent the airplane as private citizens, yes. They no more have credit for the development of aviation afterward than Marconi does for subsequent development of the radio. It is not I who refuses to address history, but you who refuse to even acknowledge the point of the influence of World War I on development of commercial aviation, or to recognize that in the form of the airship commercial aviation already existed at the time.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

It's always distressing when someone's comment boils down into "You (insert target of derision)...", the likes of which I could find on LGF if I could tolerate reading it.

Your comments typically demonstrate a level of literacy and intelligence well above the average comment on LGF, but on substance, I can't see this as anything but a draw.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Jeff thinks it's too expensive to develop the technology, leaving aside that the government developing such technology is for precisely that region: new technology is too pricey for the private sector to use and remain profitable. And as a converse to his and Bogey's point of view, I offer every single attempt to replace the F-16 by private industry here in the USA. All of it's overengineered and breaks down if you fart next to it, because the private sector can't develop new technology *and* remain private at the same time. The other flip-side of Bogey's argument is that railroads, canals, and the like were all done by the government because individually wealthy citizens weren't about to put good money into something that cost an arm and a leg to build and would provide distant, ultimate results. Good sense from a business POV, bad for technological development.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Then part, if not all of the problem here as I see it is that you interchangeably use the "You libertarians" line with a handful of people you have issues with here on LJ. It's the "you libertarians" schtick that I'm having difficulty with. It's just as annoying as when I see conservatives and neocons use the "You liberals, and your wharrgarble..." There are about a thousand and one ways to come to a libertarian-type conclusion (I exaggerate, but seriously the ways to get to a destination are numerous and varied) but you reduce it to shallowness when you pick and choose your examples of it and comfortably slap the libertarian label on it. I've got issues with other libertarians at times myself, and I count myself as one if only because of the proximity of end-result positions I have with that group, though my reasons for getting there are as individual as my taste in music.

Some of your actual points about ideology-driven economics and analysis actually have been addressed by certain libertarian thinkers, and I might even be able to discuss those elements with you as a point we have in common- a launching point as it were, but I'm discouraged from doing so anyway by your much more frequent "you libertarians are all like this, and those 'x' are all like 'y' tactics. Why would I want to even test those waters? What hope is there in venturing there?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The odds that someone might actually use a point instead of their "intuition" and Anatoly Fomenko-level "analysis"? FWIW, you're the exception to the rule in almost all occasions, and it's refreshing to meet one libertarian who's able to avoid using science fiction to prove points in an argument or simple drive-by snark.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

The odds in this case, I would suggest matter all for naught. That I exist at all is enough to suggest that others do to (I've met others as well, though you'll have to take my word for it), and as long as those of us see you maintain your particular style, we're going to do as any sane liberal would avoid the "You Liberals" conservatives. Give a wide berth and walk the other way.

It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy you're setting yourself up for. You don't present yourself as someone most level-headed libertarians would want to open up to. It doesn't even just apply to political discussions. People should always present themselves to others as people they themselves would like to meet were they in others' shoes.

I appreciate the kind words, of greater appreciation would be someone I feel like I don't have to begin every conversation with "Yeah, but that's not how I approach it."

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Battery development has made huge strides and that more than anything has made them feasible.

You disagree by agreeing with his point?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

How have I agreed with him?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

malasadas: The consumer has made the electric car inevitable. They did it by lining up like crazed Beatles fanatics to buy hybrids. As a result, most major car manufacturers have spent the past decade putting hybrid vehicles into development and production and have vastly improved battery technology.

mrbogey: Battery development has made huge strides and that more than anything has made them feasible.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Malasadas attributes improved battery tech due to R&D on electric cars. I disagree that it cam about naturally due to the demand for electronic devices.

When GM made their first electric car they used NiMH batteries. Since then LIon, LIFe, etc have all come into popular usage driven by demand for more power for portable devices. The Prius still used the same battery design until fairly recently from the first model that rolled off the production line.

It's not cars pushing battery tech.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

...no, you've got it backwards. He's attributing rapid battery improvement to their use in hybrids. This rapid improvement was lucrative because consumers were buying lots of hybrids, which had become feasible because of the previous slower improvement in batteries. The rapid improvement is then making fully electric vehicles more feasible than previous electric cars.


It's not cars pushing battery tech.

Nothing you've said has demonstrated that.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'He's attributing rapid battery improvement to their use in hybrids.'

Riiiiiiiiight... because hybrids that became popular used the same batteries they did almost 10 years ago.

Clearly they made lightspeed advancements in making the same product for roughly the same cost.

'Nothing you've said has demonstrated that. '

I've stated how they design them. You're claiming otherwise because... Good luck on that proof by fiat thing you got going on.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Who said I was optimistic? I said that there would be multiple tries and that the problem's in the engineering. What I'm saying is why not let the free market decide and keep trying to market products like this? Why you hatin' on the market, dude? Sochulizm's evil, so why do you favor restricting the rights of others to choose as they please?