Comments on: Big 3 U.S. auto giants plug electric cars

Ford debuts comprehensive electric vehicle strategy with passenger cars due in 2011 while GM shows off the Cadillac Converj with the same powertrain as the Chevy Volt.

[vitamincm]

I have a simpler plan for <a href="http://www.vitamincm.com/palm-pre-save-auto-industry/" >the big three to save the auto industry</a>. Copy their competition.

[expatincebu]

Have you ever seen a LI mobile phone or notebook computer battery explode? I saw my father in laws phone battery blow up. It shot the phone six feet in the air like a rocket, spraying hot toxic gas and liquid. Fortunately no one was in range at the time. Now imagine that sized up a thousand times! Now the people who brought us exploding gas tank cars and trucks are going to make these giant batteries. How many people will die in LI car explosions I wonder?

[subslug]

How many people die in cars that the gas tanks or batteries don't blow up?

What's your point? There's risk in simply getting into a car.

[expatincebu]

subslug, my point is that the era of personal transportation and the suburban sprawl it helped create is coming to an end. All these hybrids and electrics are just last gasps to milk idiot consumers. Peak oil has been achieved and with it the era of cheap energy ends as well. We can use other forms of energy, but none of them are, or will be, cheap like oil was. We must change our way of living. We can start doing it now and have a smooth profitable transition, or we can wait and suffer through a violent and chaotic change.

[solitare_pax]

Hopefully they have learned the lessons of the first generation of hybrids - those cars had the fuel and electrical cables sharing the same conduit along the outside driver's side of the car. Now there's an easy way to get blown up! So now, instead of using the jaws of life or some cutter to open the door, firemen will just rip off the roof of your car if you're in a crash rather than mess around with that hazard.

[tipoo_]

Woah, the Caddilac Converj looks awesome.

[darthstupid]

Really? I think it looks like a tin sculpture. Or at best a car in the design of a knight's shining armor. I'd be embarrased to drive it.

[solitare_pax]

It looks like something left over from "TRON"

[sartor1]

Why Hasn't Gm Linked up with Toyota and Begun making a Hybrid Prius like version of the
Pontiac Vibe (along with the Toyota twin) on their NUMMI line in California?
I think Ford has licensed the hybrid tech from Toyota Why can't GM???
That model could be coming off the line in 6 months if they really wanted to!
People would pay a little more for the GM version of the Hybrid Vibe!

[motenak]

And get a better, longer warranty!

[The_BossApplesauce]

Did anyone notice the picture caption, "GM vice chairman Bob Lutz drives up in an extended-range electric Cadillac concept car, the Converj." He is not driving. Ha Ha Ha!!!!!

[matthewbulat]

This coordinated strategy is good but is 2 to 3 years behind Japan and Europe. Lithium Ion battery are already in use in electric cars e.g. Tesla Roadster. This car has batteries from China, body frame from England and final assembly in USA. USA could gain an advantage by being the first to develop a ultra capacitor ceramic battery like Eestor is developing. This would all for quick charging, long range, low weight, high recharge cycles and life. The small engine requirement for plug in hybrid would no longer be needed. The community would be happier not having to pay for high priced oil. Electric cars are about 1/10 the cost to run. I have created a calculator to compare costs. http://www.matthewb.id.au/media/Electric_Vehicle_Calculator.html

[raptor310]

expatincebu, I do not believe that the era of personal transoprtation is at an end at all, who says that once mass produced that electric cars will have higher purchase / operating / *maintenance* costs than an electric vehicle? . They have far fewer moving parts and they are based on more reliable solid state electronics as opposed to 19-20th century thermal engine mechanics, yes, battteries will have to be replaced but these costs will diminish with market adoption, but I do think that I.C.E. cars will be playing catch up economically, should electric cars get mass-market support. With Ford's announcement, they are on the verge of doing just that, because everyone else will have to convert too just to stay competitive, hopefully the I.C.E. monopoly will come to an end.

[timcann]

As far as I was aware Toyota was limiting future development of cars using Lithium batteries due to future shortages of lithium as the computer lithium battery market was already driving up prices, and exposing supply issues with the majority of the worlds lithium coming from Chile. Do these auto manufacturers have a long term lithium supply strategy?

[knowles2]

Given that they could not even bothered to come up with long term strategies to continue to turn profit I doubt they can be bother to come up with long term plans for lithium supplies.

[lyntone]

One of the biggest reasons to get an electric car is to not pay for expensive gasoline. But if the electric car is twice the price of a gas fueled car that defeats the purpose!
We don't know how long the batteries will last and what the replacements will cost!
If you can't afford the gasoline, you probally can't afford the battery car!

[sartor1]

Touche' !

I started my retirement with my 403b, and got a chunk off the top to buy a new car...
BUT, now, I don't want to buy until a couple of years, when all of the hybrid or electric
cars debut! It would take me MANY years to save up that chunk again, so I simply
won't buy anything that will be obsolete in 3 years! (and then I'd be jealous of the newer
tech cars also... :-( )

[pebear]

Well electric cars powered by li ion batteries are all well and fine but you can't recycle them. When they die that it off to the land fill and these things are toxic waste. A better alternative would be a silver oxide battery that lasts much longer weighs the same or less and is recyclable. We have been recycling silver and zinc for hundreds of years now.

As for Natural Gas powered vehicles. Natural gas engines do not last as long as gas or diesel powered internal combustion engines. The lack of lubricity in the natural gas fuel is an engine killer. The internal combustion engines for natural gas really need to be re-engineered from the ground up. Also not everyone is hooked up to the natural gas grid in the US, I'm not, wish I was and don't know why no one has ever pushed the pipeline up my way. I do live on a major road on the MA, CT boarder, go figure.
Fuel cell vehicles are still pricey because the costs of the plutonium and other valuable metals used to create them.

Hydrogen cars are a cool idea and are somewhat related to fuel cell vehicles. The downside is the immense costs of hydrogen production. And one of my personal pet peeves is these things leave a water trail wherever they go. You might think it's funny but as a year round motorcyclist I don't appreciate the roads getting wet and slippery and in the winter that wet stuff becomes ice.

Flex Fuel cars is a great idea as long as the fuel used is not tied to the food chain. World crop yields as of late have not been optimal. We need investment and development of fuels that use unconsumable bio matter, like leaves, grass and stalks, to make the alcohol that these things burn. Also if we are going to burn alcohol then we need to re-engineer the engines on these things because of the lack of lubricity in the fuel. Can't be that hard we have been using alcohol for years in dragsters and the like.

The long short is there is no free lunch all these things have pluses and minuses and each consumber of these products will have to weigh the pros and cons of each of these technologies.

[willdryden]

Don't know much about batteries or natural gas, do you?

A123 claims their lithium batteries are 100% recyclable. There just has not been the need because they are non-toxic (or so they claim).

Gas engines that have been converted to natural gas or propane last 5 times longer and run cleaner than when used with gasoline,. The problem is loss of range and limited refueling points.

[solitare_pax]

What - no coverage on the ZAP! cars?

I don't think they were in D.C. begging for cash like the "Big Three"

[willdryden]

Zap is not a real car company either. They are marginally better than an NEV.

[naynaykins]

Check out http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=2827 which has a plan for safely recycling lithium ion batteries.

Hydrogen cars are not cool. They actually produce the same amount of pollution as gas powered cars. They are a red herring that the car industries have been chasing so they did not have to make electric cars a decade or so ago. Think about it. There are more than 100k gasoline stations in America. There are not nearly as many or will there be in 2 decades enough hydrogen refueling stations. Think about it. The electricity grid blankets America. When the electric car debuted the potential to have a plug-in electric car was a VERY real reality (your home or office could be your filling station). That threat along with the petroleum companies lobbying the Federal government, killed the electric car a decade ago.

The only reason that these car manufacturers (and thankfully they are) are making these cars is because consumer opinion may finally be changing. With the election of a President whose position includes getting off oil dependency and investing in alternative energy resources and a more aware young voting population that cares for the future, we are finally seeing real change.

Check out the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car".....I just watched it.

[stvlush]

Pathetic offerings from the big 3. Search electric cars. See the Tesla that is on the road today, does 0-60 in 3.9, and goes 244 miles per charge, not 40 like the Volt. I know, it's $110,000 but next year they'll have a 60K sedan. The Tesla can charge in 3.5 hours on 240VAC. Batteries last 100,000 miles. Back yard mechanics have been making electric cars for a while now. Check out the White Zombie that does 11 sec 1/4 miles and blows Vettes and everything else off the track. Why can't Detroit figure out how to do stuff next year that little guys did last year? Makes me sick. They must not want to. Wonder why?

[dickstarie]

Where is Zenn the Canadian company that will be powered bu EESTOR capacitors instead of batteries.
They are keeping this pretty quiet, even here in Cedar Park Texas, the home of EEstor. If this concept goes into production with its rapid and cheap recharge, big look out big oil!

[Stinky109]

DickStarie wrote:
[[Where is Zenn the Canadian company that will be powered bu EESTOR capacitors instead of batteries.
They are keeping this pretty quiet, even here in Cedar Park Texas, the home of EEstor. If this concept goes into production with its rapid and cheap recharge, big look out big oil!]]

It is too bad no one has seen a working prototype of the EESTOR battery and they are already late in delivering it to Zenn. It should have been delivered by Dec 31st 2008. They only thing EESTOR has come up with are excuses. IMHO I don't believe EESTOR has such a battery. If they had it working then they would be showing it off by now in order to get more customers lined up. ZENN only has an exclusivity for the battery in small cars under a certain weight. There are many companies working to produce a capacitor battery and the first one to commercialize it will make billions of dollars. Unfortunately I don't think it will be EESTOR.

PB

[cancercomesfromoil]

If you care about alternative energy cars, if you ever hoped to drive one. If you ever wanted to be supportive and help make cars happen then now is the time to act on a VERY SPECIFIC ISSUE:

There is no more investment money for alternative energy cars. The Venture Capital market is dead and may never come back. IF, it comes back, Tesla?s problems have put such a bad taste in the VC?s mouth that they will never invest in cars again and those few that did invest in a few car companies have proven that they have no comprehension of how a car company works.

Detroit and the oil industry has managed to block alternative energy cars for decades.

BUT, now, a single door, a last chance has opened. Money was approved and banked, on a emergency fast track basis called the Section 136 DOE ATVM but it was supposed to be released last year and it has been either stalled intentionally by Detroit and Big Oil or mismanaged by those with no idea what they are doing or mis-used by those exploiting the interest revenue on the $25B sitting in Treasury.

Most of the alternative car companies have applied for this money, they are dying in this economy and they all planned for receipt of funds long before this.

What can you do? Tell those in charge to get this money released today.

Today: Call the White House at 202-456-1414

Today: Call Steven Chu, the new head of the DOE at 1-202-586-5000

Today: Call CNN and demand an expose at 800-CNN-NEWS

Please re-post this and forward it to your friends.