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Plug-in hybrids: 100 miles per gallon or 59?
August 6, 2007
You did. You and the periodic table of the elements, with a little help from physics. Don't feel bad. Any individual responsibility seems to be spread pretty thin, but I figured it was about time to speak on the issue.
In the past few years, a theory has developed hinging on the notion that oil producers, in cahoots with auto manufacturers, conspired with each other in the mid-'90s to throttle the electric car in its crib. As a result, we've all been consigned to environmental doom.
The doom part actually seems to be on track, but the rest of the theory doesn't hold up that well upon closer inspection. Don't get me wrong: I think electric transportation (along with clean diesel) will become more prevalent over the next 20 years. And automakers have worked to keep emissions standards low. But here are some reasons why we're not witnessing a modern-day version of the Knights Templar:
1. U.S. automakers. Think about it. This is General Motors and Ford Motor we're talking about. U.S. automakers are the last bastion of industrial feudalism on the planet. The most innovative things they've come up with in three decades are the cupholder and the Lee Iacocca goggle glasses. (It was a huge fashion statement back in the '70s, kids.) These people are going to engineer a global conspiracy that eludes regulators around the world, financiers and competitors? GM execs are more concerned about who gets named to the Rolling Hills Country Club membership committee.
2. Japanese automakers. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor came out with electric cars in the '90s. Japan's economy at the time remained stuck in the doldrums and the government, fearful of competition from other Asian tigers, was scrambling to find a hot export. Instead of working with the government--something they've done in the past--Toyota and Honda were said to conspire with their natural enemies (GM and Ford) to help oil companies, which because Japan imports all of its oil, aren't well liked in that country. The conspiracy had the automakers, led by GM, touting reasons why there was no market for electric vehicles, including the vehicles' limited mileage range per charge. GM pulled its electric car, the EV1, off the market. Didn't you guys listen to what Sean Connery was talking about in Rising Sun?
3. Hybrids. Toyota overtook GM as the largest car maker on the strength of the Prius, the part-electrical car that came out in 1997, the same year GM came out with the EV1. (GM leased 650 EV1s while Toyota sold 323 Priuses.)
To believe the conspiracy, you'd have to think of the Prius as a cover-up to keep the real reason under wraps. It wasn't because the Prius worked better. Follow the money, as crazy people like to say.
4. Sales weren't great and neither were the cars. There was a lot of customer curiosity, but few walked out of the showroom with a sales contract, according to Mary Nickerson, national marketing manager for Toyota.
"The Rav4 EV had a 100-mile range. That range was not sufficient for most people in the marketplace," she said at a conference earlier this year. "If it is the only vehicle in your garage, it is not enough for a typical American household."
Elon Musk, chairman of electric-vehicle company Tesla Motors, put it to me another way in July 2006: "Until today, all electric cars have sucked."
5. The fans were visible, but small in number. "The people who had the car (the General Motors EV1) loved it, but battery life was a bigger issue for the larger market," said Alan Gotcher, CEO of Altair Nanotechnologies, which makes lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. "I don't believe in the conspiracy theory. The battery still only had a five-year life. It didn't last the life of the car, so how do you handle that issue?"
Again, Gotcher, like Nickerson and Musk, works at a company that wants to make money from electric transportation.
6. Batteries are tough to make. Why did computer notebooks begin to explode more than normal last year? Battery makers pushed too hard to improve their products and the volumes of production. There is no Moore's Law for batteries that allows them to get cheaper, faster and better at a steady rate over time. The gains are generally slow and incremental.
"People have tried all of the elements of the periodic table for a long time," said Alain Harrus, a partner at Crosslink Capital, which invests in semiconductors and batteries. "The cycles, charge times, etc., are well known."
Right now, car makers are examining both lithium cobalt and lithium phosphate batteries. Cobalt ones store more energy, but are more likely to have a runaway thermal reaction. The phosphate batteries, however, weigh 30 percent more, he added. Trade-offs. Ugh.
7. Batteries are expensive too. Making an electric Honda Accord would probably add about $30,000, estimated Ian Wright, CEO of electric sports-car company Wrightspeed, last year. Gasoline-fueled Accords on sale today cost less than that. That's a tough marketing pitch.
Battery expenses are one of the reasons plug-in hybrids haven't swept the world. The upgrade costs about $15,000. Even if gas cost $4 a gallon, you'd need to drive 150,000 miles--within the city--to recover the cost.
Companies are currently trying to figure out ways around this. Tesla and Wrightspeed are aiming at the high-end market, where performance rules over price. India's Reva makes cheap cars for emerging market customers whose governments have begun to pass strict emissions requirements. Phoenix Motorcars and others target fleet buyers whose vehicles don't need to go more than 100 miles before a recharge. How they tinker these pitches will be interesting to watch.
8. A car company is about the worst thing you can do to yourself. Ben Rosen helped found Compaq Computer and had a hand in a number of other tech enterprises, including Ask Jeeves. He was also behind Rosen Motors, a short-lived car company idea. Making cars involves constructing huge plants, assembling massive supply chains and undergoing millions of dollars' worth of crash testing. Then you have to visit a whole bunch of dealers and drink some really bad coffee in those glass showroom cubicles before they will agree to pick up your cars. Good luck. I'd rather sell air fresheners.
So to sum up, consumers are cheap and don't want to be inconvenienced by a car that will die on the freeway before they get to Ikeda's produce and burger stand when they're driving from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe. And the people who win worldwide fortune and fame by bringing you an ideal mode of transportation have had more trouble than they thought.
I might be wrong, but I doubt you're going to read about me getting strangled with a piano wire.
Biography
Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas. He has worked as an attorney, travel writer and sidewalk hawker for a time share resort, among other occupations.
See more CNET content tagged:
automobile company, Toyota Prius, conspiracy, car, vehicle
sucked."
Practical EVs are coming. The question is whether you want to be buying them from China or Detroit?
in that lying, lying film, "Who Killed the Eelectric Car?" Aside from the fact that three, not one, automakers crated and killed electric cars, is the fact that an electric car at that time with that battery technology was doomsville.
The main reason GM got involved at all was because of rumors of some new "super battery" coming along. Unfortunately, when it showed up it was short on the super part and long on the expensive (and unimpressive part). The EV-1 of 2002 was really no better in the all-important characterisitcs of cost, range and recharge rate than the Detroit Electric, another doomed vehicle first built in 1907. In 90 years, electric cars hadn't improved one iota. The EV-1 has over $25,000 worht of five year lifespan batteries, making the per mile costs the higest of any vehicle, including the M1 main battle tank. Look
to GM's Chevy and Opel Volts in 2010 as the first PRACTICAL electrically driven vehicles ever built. They will sell a million of them and they will accomplish the main task of avoiding oil and emissions better than any all-electrics.
up. The EV1 had far greater speed and range than 100-year-old
antiques like the Detroit Electric. Those cars were very much
like what we would call NEVs today. They were fairly successful
in their day, much as NEVs are proving fairly successful today.
The EV1, however, was in a completely different performance
category.
You might be able to squeeze 100 miles out of a Detroit Electric
by fitting it with special tires and running it a steady 12 MPH
around a specially prepared, smooth-and-level course until the
batteries went dead. Electric car companies in the old days did
these kinds of stunts to promote their wares. The EV1, in
comparison, could achieve 100 miles driving on real public
roads at modern highway speeds, with traffic, hills and
everything.
Now zoom forward to 2007...GM has put the Chevy Volt on the fast-track development to production. Come 2010 (just 2.5 years from now) you will finally get a real electric car. In fact recent testing has proved that the Volt will travel farther than the Toyota project in development. So just wait a bit longer...they are coming.
Corn is not an answer like everyone think as it it a 5-8 ratio. $5 to return $8 dollars. However, sugar cane is a currently 1-10 ratio.
We should be growing sugar cane, not corn.
sugar cane. Maybe other parts of southern Louisiana- oh, wait, I
think they already grow it there, or at least they did when I was a
kid back in another century.
By the way, how do electric cars do in cold country in the winter?
Do you use battery capacity to keep windows, not to mention
passengers, defrosted? Not too much waste heat to work with as
with IC engines.
GM is planning to manufacture 60,000 electrically driven vehicles starting in 2010.
http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/
http://www.gm-volt.com
http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/
http://www.gm-volt.com
were not allowed to. Once their lease was up, they had to return
their vehicles despite the fact that they loved them and would
have loved to purchase them.
_____
PS - the format of CNETs talkback forum SUCKS. Forcing users
to click 'next' to view the next comment is asinine. C'mon, how
about 10 comments on a page before I need to click 'next'
The "Volt" car makes me yawn - it's just another car for the sub-40 mile range market...which is no market. Yes that's probably all people really need but for whatever reason consumers don't want to buy such a car.
Chevy Volt. How do you get that "it's just another car for the
sub-40 mile range market"? According to GM it's range is 640
miles using the range extender! By my math there's a pretty big
difference between 40 and 640 that you need to explain.
After all, all other components are readily available and in use from a number of industries.
As an aside, like most consumers, I don't care what powers my car! As long as I do not have to push it! Meaning: give me a car with comparable performance / life cycle / price ratio and I'll buy it. Since that car does not yet exist, neither myself nor the majority of consumers will "bite"
Very little "conspiracy" needed, just common sense.
I go to work 11 miles (17.6km) one way, to flow with traffic in a safe manner and nnot get run over by a dump truck I need at least 62 miles (100km) top speed. A range of 50 miles would be ok except for when I want to visit my family, that is a 500 mile (800km) trip. So either I need a longer range or a way to "refill" just like with a gas powered car.
Solve these issues and make it a "normal" car, not some goofy "bubble car" aka "Kabinenroller" and the market will open quickly :)
feels so compelled to debunk? I haven't seen any claims of
conspiracy.
Those of you who actually watched the Who Killed movie already
know. . . It paints a pretty believable picture of various parties
opposing electric cars: each in their own way, and each for their
own selfish-but-understandable reasons. The movie neither
claimed nor implied any kind of underhanded, secret deal made
in a smoke-filled room.
The movie does have some bias. It glosses over the limitations
of the EV1 and other electric cars of that generation. It also
starts from the assumption that all parties were morally
obligated to support and promote electric cars rather than look
after their own interests, and it further assumes that
government mandates are more valid and important than the
free marketplace. It's rather a socialist viewpoint. However. . .
There are a lot of socialists in this world, and if you are coming
from that viewpoint, then the movie completely works.
Not even a fuel efficient small car...
See "Trabant", "Syrena", "Shaporoshez"
And agreed, in the end all work in their own interest and rightfully so.
Seems odd that all the friends of No-Profit and other socialist idea's get quite upset when their pay check bounces...
Perhaps I am an odball for refusing to pay my employer for the privilege of working there?
Government mandates usually manage to make a bad situation worse and should be strongly discouraged!
Makes me wonder....
I have a severe intellectual problem with people who hijack planes and run them into buildings killing innocent people. And with companies who pay the Middle East for oil, the money to be used to finance terrorism.
Let me put this into a simple structured form so that even those who have difficulty thinking understand this: If I can cut my contribution to oil companies and the Middle East in half - or even better down to one third - I am the happiest guy on the face of this planet. Moreover, if I find a car that goes - let's say - sixty miles on electricity, that gets me back and forth to work and I do not pay for ANY gas.
Now do your math!
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=48
A Prius, which you can buy today, will get at least 45 mpg. That means, over a 150,000 mile lifetime, it will burn 3333 gallons of gas. At $3 a gallon, that is only $10,000. If we invent a car that generates its own energy for free, it will still only be worth $10,000 more than a Prius.
From what I understand, plug-in hybrids or electric cars may get double the mileage of a Prius; which means they are only worth $5000 more than a Prius, if the batteries last 150,000 miles.
Of course we can make all sorts of predictions about how much gas will cost and how much electric cars will cost; but if gas doesn't get significantly more expensive and batteries don't get significantly cheaper, I don't see how future electric cars or plug-in hybrids will be able to compete with existing hybrids.
It is hilarious that you accuse Kannelos of failing to do his research, then prove your own basic inability to READ. In addition, Tesla has reduced the Roadster's estimated range from "over 300" to "over 200" miles. Talk about the pot calling the kettle uninformed. Amazing!
The very existance of the Tesla Roadster - the first of which has YET to be delivered - supports Kannelos' argument against some loony conspiracy to kill the electric car. We don't have affordable mass-produced electric cars because it isn't technically feasible or economically possible at this time and won't be for at least 10 more years, not because of any loony conspiracy. It was even less feasible eight years ago when GM was assessing the market viability of a production electric vehicle.
Tesla Motors has only managed to sell (but not deliver) an electric car to a tiny miniscule niche market consisting of a few thousand multi-millionaires who can afford the exorbitant price of an exotic two-seat sports car, only a few hundred of which will be manufactured per year. If an affordable mass-produced electric car with broad market appeal was so 'do-able' seven years ago, why didn't Tesla Motors do that instead of a $100,000 two-seat roadster with exotic styling and performance? Because an affordable mass-produced electric car can't be done today, that's why. Yet, this is what some insist GM could have done seven years ago, but for the conspiracy and all.
As for ZAP and ZAP-X...lmao! The ZAP Xebra is little more than an upscale golf cart. In spite of its teensy size and feather weight, the Xebra can only manage a range of 25 miles and top-speed of 40MPH. This is hardly some shining example of advanced electric vehicle technology. Electric golf carts with similar ranges and speeds have been around for 20 years, though admittedly not as stylish.
The ZAP-X is vaporware. Unlike the Tesla Roadster, ZAP has not even demonstrated a working drivable prototype of the ZAP-X. Forbes recently did a story on how ZAP Motors appears to be using press releases to manipulate its stock price in order to pay employees. ZAP keeps "announcing" products that sound really exciting on paper, but thus far has delivered nothing (except for upscale golf carts, that is).
Heck, anyone can do that. For immediate release: "I am developing an all-electric four door sedan that will have 250 mile range, quick recharge times, long battery life, and it will sell for only $40,000." See? Paper announcements are easy. Let's see the cars, not in 2009...2012. TODAY.
Although I do agree that Ethanol is a bad idea and rather expensive to boot...
Exotic sports cars have never made economic sense, that's not
what they're all about.
However. . . In the long run there's no reason for electric cars
to remain more expensive than gasoline-powered cars. Making
the batteries affordable is merely a high-volume manufacturing
problem.
And then there's Peak Oil to consider. Let's imagine for a
moment that it's 2014 and gasoline is $8/gallon -- if your local
filling station has any, and if you have a ration card allowing you
to buy some. Now electric cars look a lot more appealing, don't
they?
My car costs me 1 cent per mile in electricity. The cost of replacing the batteries every few yeras works out to another 4 cents per mile.
That's 5 cents per mile. Gasoline alone costs 10 to 30 cents/mile.
How does that not make economic sense?
be equipped with a device called a carburetor. This gizmo took the fuel, mixed it
with air, and sprayed it into the intake manifold so the engine could run. There was
a conspiracy theory for decades that alleged the existence of a carburetor that
yielded 100 mpg mileage. The evil auto and oil industries conspired to keep this
wonder device off the market. They bought the rights to the device and then
shelved it away never to be seen again.
Sound familiar? That conspiracy theory was false and so is the current one. We, the
consumers, are the reason there are no electric cars on the market. We don't want
them unless they cost the same or less than gasoline powered cars. We don't want
them unless they have a 300-400 mile range like current vehicles, the same
performance as current models, and the same headroom, features, accessories, and
luxuries.
Get it through your heads. The technology to do this doesn't exist. It isn't a
conspiracy. Battery technology alone will require a quantum leap in performance,
longevity, and cost before anything can happen. Same goes for all alternative fuel
technologies. For all the crying and whining the price of gasoline is still relatively
cheap and as long as that is true it will continue to be the primary fuel for
automobiles. Market forces are driving this, not some ethereal conspiracy, no
matter how much some would like to believe it.
your totally off the wall reply! What a troll!
The people behind global warming and peak oil theories I have debated with before. They always argue against alternative energy theories like electric cars, cars that run on ethanol, cars that run on solar power, cars that run on water, and other things by claiming one of two things. Either it costs too much to use the alternative energy than it does to produce it, or they claim for some reason that it is bad for the environment.
So when a company tries to come out with such a product, they are sabotaged by these so called environmentalists running smear campaigns against them, and suing the company for ruining the environment, or some other way to help drive up the costs of the company to finally come out with the alternative energy based car, and by then it is very expensive to cover all costs. The people who do these things only pretend to be environmentalists, but secretly own oil stock, and do whatever they can to sabotage alternative energy projects, or discredit them, or find ways to drive up their costs until oil is cheaper to use than the alternative energy, and it drives up their oil stocks.
Carbon credits are a scam, they aren't regulated, and sometimes the same tree is planted over and over again thousands of times just to make it look like it is not a scam. You never know what the company you bought carbon credits from will do with the money. Sometimes instead of alternative energy research, they just buy the patents on alternative energy devices and then just sit on them and sue anyone who tries to make one like it.
nearest safe nuclear power plant is the Sun, and the cost of dealing
with nuclear waste is vast. If you think burning oil is a good plan
then really, you need to study. Instead of slagging people off for
wanting to have a future on the planet, whether you agree with
their opinions or not, wht not be positive. In short - grow up.
a lot of discussion about it. But that doesn't fit your blinkered
world-view that keeps you insulated from having reasoned debate.
bringing it up. See here. . .
http://tinyurl.com/2bm55y
Gasoline or diesel are a convenient products of crude that also have conversion losses in the refinery after the crude has been produced using a lot of energy to find and get from thousands of feet from under the ground. Often steam, fresh water or salt water is needed, also by the Saudis, to force it out of the hole. Then the water has to be filtered out, the crude shipped in pipelines, ships, trucks to the refinery only to be transported again to the consumer filing stations. We just do not see the thousands of miles it has travelled and all the energy used to get it into our tank. It is the massive quantities involved and the demand for convience that makes it possible.
The conversion losses of fuel from oil sands or shale are much worse; Canada is using massive amounts of natural gas to produce the considerable amount of fuel it sells to the US market. The good news is that there is a lot of oil sand and their process works at good price point.
Electricity generation can be a rather direct, efficient and clean process even when burning hydrocarbons. It quickly pays economically to invest in better generation plants due to the scale. Once in the grid, electricty is of cource a clean and convenient energy for a multitude of uses. As opposed to ethanol, hydrogen or other biofuels, the infrastructure for distribution is already established. This means that a shift to more electric vehicles can be done quickly and with less disruption. We need the cars and better batteries. It would be somewhat like the shift a hundred years ago from oil lamps for light and coal fired stoves heating in most homes in the US to electrical, gas and fuel oil heating we have today. The points of pollution and efficiency became less, which has not just brought a lot healthier air, but a better life quality.
We will need to develope cars that are more flexible in the fuels they burn and have a variety available to counter our dependence on crude oil which is getting more difficult and expensive to find and produce. The US has the most mature oil production of any country because we have been sucking it out of our ground in a major way for over 120 years. The consumption level of crude oil is so high now that it is only a matter of decades until nearly all of the world's easily reachable deposits have been tapped as is the case already here in the US. Electric and hybrid electric cars are a necessary step in finding other sources of fuel than crude oil for transportation. Electricity is flexible in that it can be used for a lot of things we need as well. We are already late in starting the change over from our overdependence on oil since it will likely take 30 to 40 years until a significant difference is made.
A majority of American families already have more than one vehicle; one of them could be an electric since most of usually do not drive more than 100 to 150 miles/day. We just need to admit it. That was why the VW beetle was so successful: it was a simple little car that one did not drive very far. The trick is to build an electric car that is affordable enought so that saving $2000 or $3000 per year on gas, oil changes, tune-ups and repairs makes sense for a lot of people even at $3/gal gas prices.
I advocate developing / researching any alternative to oil.
Something has got to change.
The suffering endured by populations caught-up in the on-going conflict to secure access to oil has to end.
This "war on terrorism" has now been seen for what it really is ..... securing oil reserves.
The only way to put an end to this fiasco and future conflict is a decrease in oil dependancy.
We can't afford not to change.
We won't change unless we look at alternatives.
For all the pros & cons, a hell of a lot was learnt from electric car developments.
Right or wrong, at least enviro-nuts recognise the indisputable need for change.
The bottom line is what matters. EVs are far more efficient; fuel burns more efficiently in power plants; and transmitting power by wire (95% efficient) beats the wasted energy of trucking gasoline everywhere. The improved efficiency means far less pollution per mile is created - no matter how much dirty fuel is burned.
manufacturers'.
- Gee Common sense about e-cars? How Odd
- by tombekefy August 28, 2007 6:50 PM PDT
- Its nice to see a cogent article about e-cars written by someone who is not infected by the conspiracy theory virus. I mean try to think clearly about the topic for a moment people. GM conspired with Toyota et al so it could lose 1/3 of its market share?
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 3 pages (153 Comments)By the way did you know that back in the 80s my barber invented a car that ran on cement? Sadly a secret cabal of Detroit car moguls and petroleum company execs bought him off by offering to reupholster his barber chair and to provide a life time of free oil changes. He refused but finally caved in under pressure when they threw in a free oil filter. Then he used the prints to line his birdcage. True story, if you don't believe me just ask my barber or if he is busy, ask me.