surfingslovak said:
can you name another lithium-ion EV, which will lose 10% of range with moderate use in a temperate climate? I can't think of one.
And they hit 10% and keep dropping. What other cars have survived from such a HUGE (cost wise) design failure? I can't think of another car that has such an expensive single part (battery assembly) except another modern EV. I can buy one of the more powerful production car engines in the world for under $10k directly from the manufacturer.
The Chevrolet Vega is gone, with it's "high tech" oil burning aluminum engine.
The late 1950's Edsel failed for non-technical reasons, but it shared one LEAF feature... pathetic sales. The car was the victim of a classic mistake that has doomed many a project by many a company:
over hype in marketing. America was made to believe that the Edsel was going to be some kind of heavenly super-car that broke all the rules and stretched the limits of the automotive industry.
The 1934 Chrysler Airflow was far ahead of its time. In actuality, it was quite a good car featuring engineering genius including 50-50 weight distribution and steel space-frame construction. Its biggest downfall appears to be that America was simply not ready for it yet..... the few who did buy were often shocked by the car’s biggest mechanical issue:
its engine had a tendency to fall out. I see a lot of parallels with LEAF on this one.
1958 MGA Twin Cam - Classic looks and abhorrent engineering sum this one up..... Needless to say, he who wishes to go racing and winds up with a dead, smoking hole where the engine used to be is not a satisfied customer.
It wasn’t long before word spread and the engine was taken off the market. They didn't have the internet yet.
1970 Triumph Stag - The car represents a grand bait-and-switch, for
after consumers paid the requisite thousands of dollars to roll out of Triumph’s lot in a sexy little convertible, they are soon contending with a sheer nightmare of an engine that failed in a multitude of horrible ways, all of them rendering the car a nice lawn ornament.... About the only thing the Stag did reliably was break down.
1971 Ford Pinto - Due to the placement of the gas tank directly behind the rear bumper and tendency for the doors to jam shut in rear end collisions, the car became an exploding deathtrap for anyone involved in rather mundane traffic accidents. To make matters worse, the
fatuous executives at Ford actually calculated out the cost of repairing the Pinto’s killer design against the cost of potential lawsuits, and found that it would be cheaper to let their drivers roast. The cost-benefit analysis argued that Ford should not make an $11-per-car improvement that would prevent 180 fiery deaths a year... yes, a TMS for the LEAF would cost far more than $11, and nobody will die for lack of a TMS.
2000 Ford Explorer - The Firestone tires were criticized for missing what turned out to be a critical safety feature in tire construction,
plus the heat from Texas, Arizona, California and Florida roads made for an especially dangerous combination. This is the most like our baking LEAF batteries.
2001 Mitsubishi Montero - tipped onto two wheels at just 37 miles per hour !!!
1960's Chevrolet (GM) Corvair was made infamous by the 1965 Ralph Nader book, Unsafe at Any Speed, which used it as an opening example of a car with a dangerous design. General Motors (Stock Quote: GM) knew of the issue, but executives chose not to add a roll bar in the car for added safety, which would have cost between $4 and $6 per vehicle. Thanks to concerns about the Corvair, however, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was formed in 1966....
We need some regulations on EV's; vehicle range, battery life and battery capacities that are standardized
