Battery-electric cars will struggle...

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To clarify, I thought that the article was too one-sided because the topic headings (which I've subsequently edited them to be in bold as the article was originally written) don't address the topic with pros and cons but draw the conclusion for you. For example "Not Ready for Prime Time", "No Shortage of Negatives" (hmm... what about the positives?), "Devastating Conclusion", "Not too Late" (for golf carts).

I might mention that I looked up Mr. Peter Wells that was quoted in the article. Want to know where he works? He works at "Neftex Petroleum Consultants, Ltd" http://aspo-usa.com/aspousa4/confirmedspeakers.cfm?bid=510. Now interestingly enough take a look at Trend Tracker and tell me if you think they are as critical of EVs as the article quotes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/electric-vision/beginners-guide-to-electric-cars

I applaud NIssan for taking on Goliath.
 
As usual, this article assumes we can continue our current driving patterns forever, ignoring energy costs. It completely ignores the two most important factors:

1. The range WILL improve even if only incrementally.
2. Gasoline will only get more expensive if the peak oil claims are true.

Both of those make BEVs look better and better.
 
Smells like FUD to me. I believe that EVs ARE ready for prime time. And that's not to say that an EVs are ready to replace all ICEs. But as fuel prices push up over the five dollar per gallon mark, people are going to start to notice EVs. They are going to start to figure out that they don't need an ICE vehicle 95% of the time.

The author of the article is an oil shill. It's in his own interest to put EVs in the worst possible light. I find it rather satisfying that the oil industry is concerned enough to hire a hatchet man to smear EVs. It tells me that they know they are about to lose big time. :lol:
 
ERG4ALL said:
This appeared in the Detroit News. Comments?

"Neil Winton

"The technology would be very suited for a golf cart," said Roland Berger's Blanchet, "but the car manufacturers are not in that market today. They are selling volume and they will hope that short range mobility will be more than a niche market. They aren't going to make a car that isn't a car."

Neil Winton can be reached at: "[email protected]"

Ford Think Neighborhood cars, one of which I own, have been around since 2002. Golf carts have been roaming neighborhoods for years now. Mr. Winston's vision of the future could eventually become part of the list of 10 stupidest statements about the future, which currently includes statements such as (taken from The Seven Habits of Successful Teens):

10. In 1977: "There is no reason for any person to have a computer in their home."
9. 1911: "Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value."
8. 1967: "Man will never reach the moon regardless of scientific advances."
7. 1946: "Television won't be able to hold onto any market after six months because people will get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."
6. 1962: "We don't like their sound. Guitar groups are on the way out."
5. 1969: "For the majority of people, tobacco has a beneficial effect."
4. 1876: "The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
3. 2nd Century: "The Earth is the center of the universe."
2. July 4, 1776: "Nothing of importance happened today."
1. 1899: "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Each of these statements was made by a mover and shaker of the field at that time, such as #5 was said by the U.S. Surgeon General, and so on.
 
Unfortunately - most of these writers already form an opinion and write a piece that supports the opinion. That is the difference between these kinds of "research" and real reasearch.

Anyone who says "oil runs out by, say, 2050" can't be taken seriously.
 
can someone tell me why it makes sense that our government subsidizes - through tax purchase incentives -- having a 110 woman drive a 3-ton car to get a bag of groceries or pick up two children or a 150-pound man who drives a jacked-up all-terrain vehicle that never goes off the blacktop?

Until we get a handle on such abuses and stop the tax credits for vehicles such as this, there is small hope of getting us to cut our oil wars and oil consumption.

here is a list of some of the clients of the company that authored that article:
K PLC Accenture PLC Akzo Nobel
AM (EMAP Automotive) A T Kearney Audatex UK Ltd
Audi AG Automotive World AutoExCeL 2005
Automotive Distributors Federation Bain & Company Bank of Scotland
BMW Bodyshop Magazine Boston Consultancy
Caravan Club Carter & Carter Castrol Business Services
Citroen DaimlerChrysler Delloite & Touche
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein DuPont UK Ltd Ethical Corporation Institute
ETTAR Factoring Services Group GMAC
GM Daewoo Hartwell plc Haymarket
Honda ICDP Inchcape Plc
International Labour Organisation KPMG Lease Plan
Lex Vehicle Leasing McKinsey & Company Motorhome Information Service
Motorola Nissan Europe PSA Peugeot Citroen
Porsche AG PriceWaterhouseCoopers R.L. Polk
Renault UK RiverSimple LLP Royal & Sun Alliance
Toyota Valeo VW Group

Lots of oil, lots of existing car companies; no nissan, no solar. lotta spin for existing clients, who include only one or two auto companies even playing with EV.
 
davewill said:
As usual, this article assumes we can continue our current driving patterns forever, ignoring energy costs. It completely ignores the two most important factors:

1. The range WILL improve even if only incrementally.
2. Gasoline will only get more expensive if the peak oil claims are true.

Both of those make BEVs look better and better.
Well you're not supposed to factor reality into the formula. ;)
Anyway, here's the part that seemed the MOST corny to me:
" ..... Business strategy consultancy Roland Berger reckons electric cars will face a crisis by around 2015, when the limited demand created by early adopters becomes more like a mass market, and electric cars have to compete with internal combustion engines and plug-in hybrids on level terms. ...."
Limited demand? Um, 20,000 list holders? and the list closes down because it gets too huge? Wow ... if that's a limited demand, I'm sure glad demand isn't moderate or huge.
:D
 
hill said:
" ..... Business strategy consultancy Roland Berger reckons electric cars will face a crisis by around 2015, when the limited demand created by early adopters becomes more like a mass market, and electric cars have to compete with internal combustion engines and plug-in hybrids on level terms. ...."
Limited demand? Um, 20,000 list holders? and the list closes down because it gets too huge? Wow ... if that's a limited demand, I'm sure glad demand isn't moderate or huge.
:D
I actually agree with him, but it's not news of any sort. There is a group of early adopters that the 20,000 are part of. After that, EVs WILL have to demonstrate their mettle, or face yet another die off. I happen to believe that we are looking at the right time for EVs, but there are plenty of things that still need to occur. IMHO, work place charging may be the most important.
 
The real shake out will be when every dealer has ten on the lot to present to the masses in a more typical method of buy & sell of vehicles.
Very very few consumers would put their name on a list and wait a year or more for a car. Especially that cannot even be readily test driven.

IMO the 20,000 reservationists do not reflect anything to the potential market demand.
 
I think this is the absolute KEY question that cannot be answered now-- and it is the question that other manufacturers are asking themselves before they decide whether to commit to BEV's.

If I ran a car company (which I think I am perfectly qualified to do-- but no one in the industry seems to agree) I would bet more on plug-in hybrids.. especially because once the PIH is designed it can more easily be converted to full-electric than the other way around. But I would want to see the post-tax credit demand before I spent billions on R&D.

I am pretty sure Nissan/Renault committed to BEVs for the halo effect on their brands and not because they were certain they could make a profit. They were tired of the halo effect Toyota got from the Prius.
 
hill said:
Limited demand? Um, 20,000 list holders? and the list closes down because it gets too huge? Wow ... if that's a limited demand, I'm sure glad demand isn't moderate or huge.
:D
To play devil's advocate here:

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 6,813,369 passenger vehicles were sold in the US in 2008. 20,000 represents ~0.3% of that volume. In this perspective, that's VERY limited demand.

But with respect to this:

hill said:
" ... and electric cars have to compete with internal combustion engines and plug-in hybrids on level terms. ...."
I think it's going to be just the opposite: Gasoline powered vehicles are going to have to compete with BEVs in the daily commuter/city car market where BEVs already have an advantage, and that advantage will only increase with time. The only real advantage ICE vehicle have in that area is sticker price.

You'll probably never convince the people who buy an F150 pickup because they might one day need to haul something for a friend that they can get by with an BEV though.
=Smidge=
 
I believe that the next three years will be critical and will be successful:

1) If employers and some major retailers install an adequate supply of chargers,
2) If a 200 mile battery and car at a reasonable cost is on the market.
3) If gas continues its inexorable rise.

If those things happen then the oil industry will have a very difficult time holding back the floodwaters. Right now with some "spin master journalists" they are trying to put their finger in the dyke. A lot of "ifs" but number two may be the most difficult to achieve.
 
ERG4ALL said:
1) If employers and some major retailers install an adequate supply of chargers,
I'm sure you mean charging docks, not chargers. The only place chargers are needed is on the freeways. But I don't think even 240v charging docks are needed, or at least not many of them. 95% of all drivers could get by on L1 charging, except for long trips, if they could plug in wherever they park. And businesses can install hundreds of 120v plugs for the cost of one 240v charging dock.

Ray
 
planet4ever said:
ERG4ALL said:
1) If employers and some major retailers install an adequate supply of chargers,
I'm sure you mean charging docks, not chargers. The only place chargers are needed is on the freeways. But I don't think even 240v charging docks are needed, or at least not many of them. 95% of all drivers could get by on L1 charging, except for long trips, if they could plug in wherever they park. And businesses can install hundreds of 120v plugs for the cost of one 240v charging dock.

Ray
Or at least just a dumbell 16a 240v EVSE or even 7a 240v. 240v still makes sense to reduce copper and voltage drop running electric out to the lot. If they get to be everywhere it will about make CW obsolete except for navigation.

The companies that supply EVSE seem to envision collecting money at every spot and they are trying to be the market leader in supplying power and a network of EVSE.
I think the whole model will collapse within a few years once business owners figure out they are not needed.
 
planet4ever said:
ERG4ALL said:
1) If employers and some major retailers install an adequate supply of chargers,
I'm sure you mean charging docks, not chargers.
Ray

Given that my car only has a 3kW charger, I'd like to see some of my customers install chargers. Even a small DC semi-quick charge station (perhaps 15-20kW) would be awesome. If some of my further away customers had this, I could sell my Prius.
 
This question and debate will go for many years and just some folks will prefer ICE as a matter of choice just like some prefer manual shifting over automatic. But I like pointing out how cell phones are replacing land lines as a disruptive technology and EV have the same potential to replace ICE vehicles but it will be a long process.
 
ok, another one of these. in the past 12 weeks, 54% of my driving has been done on the Leaf. now, this is winter so the longer trips are not as common. and it has nothing to do with weather. we dont have real bad weather here so travel issues are simply not.

its a light thing. in the winter, its dark when i go to work, its dark when i come home. yes, i am that far north. In the summer, its light 5 hours after i get home. hard to NOT want to go somewhere. So, the Leaf's mileage will certainly go up in summer, just as its percentage of our vehicle miles will go down... but what does all that have to do with this article?

well, the article has nothing really to do with reality, so why should my post?

the article makes a lot of valid points

one person stated, but did not elaborate. since the article is all garbage, i am afraid YOU need to elaborate because i read thru it twice (yes, it was painful) and found nothing

people do not welcome change and the reason why is that successful money companies foster the "status quo" and that is all this guy is doing. there is no doubt in my mind, he works for oil.

so, we can follow his advice which is all the article has. there ARE NO POINTS made here. it is all speculation.

so we can follow his advice which apparently means to allow car companies to invest all their money into improving technology to meet our transportation needs. (like what have they been doing since the mid 70's when the Oil Crisis first became news)

or we can do what we already suspect to be the right thing and determine that what we have been led to do over the pas 35 years aint working and we need to go another direction.

now, i should have gone thru and done a cost analysis on those $7500 government perks and determined how wise that was...

hmm, 1500 miles a month that is a 1½ barrels a month on 30 mpg car which is 18 barrels a year at $1800 to a foreign country, or we could take the cost of electricity which would be about hmmm.... $1800 A YEAR paid to an American entity which will pay an American worker who will pay American taxes who will also buy from an American store who will employ American Workers, who will pay American taxes...


**edit** just updated stats. so after 87 days of ownership and 3178 miles driven, i am ALMOST up to the cost of a single barrel of oil. Just hit $100 in electricity spent to power my Leaf. now i know all you Solar Jockeys are LMAO at me for blowing my money, but for you others who think this guy has valid points, lets post your gas bill for the past 3 months
 
ERG4ALL said:
...
"For electric-vehicle sales to grow significantly several things need to happen. Vehicles need to be much lighter, battery technology needs to be cheaper and offer greater performance, urban authorities have to promote zero emission zones, industrial capacity to support the technologies needs to be created, petroleum prices have to rise, renewable energy prices have to fall and consumers have to be re-educated in terms of how they think about personal mobility.
....

Neil Winton can be reached at: "[email protected]"

I want to applaud Neil for sticking his neck out like this for his fellow cronies in the oil industry. This article and ones like it will surely become classic relics of a bygone era in short order and stand to embarrass their authors in perpetuity.

Oh I guess anyone who owns a Leaf at this point will be considered a cool-aid drinking fanatic that can't see anything objectively. Call me what you will, but after just 700 miles on our Leaf and starting to crunch the numbers, it appears to me that this article is wildly biased and fundamentally uninformed. IMHO, economics are going to drive the ICE off the road, driving EV, at least for now, is way less expensive!

I have never really analyzed my driving habits until now, but it's becoming abundantly clear that the vast majority of my driving is remarkably short distances, as has been claimed by many. Even with an L1 charger, if I simply charge the car whenever I can, I'm good to go for most of what my wife and I want to do. Turns out we even have an outlet built in the side of our post light... on a 20 amp switch, it's charging out there right now on L1, from our post lamp!!! We've plugged it in three times today without thinking much about the end and start time of charge or the amount of total capacity, as each trip we did was well within capacity... we simply did what we wanted to do. I agree with Ray in his previous post, simply providing 20 amp plugs at curbs might just be the best way to provide simple, cheap and abundant options for folks as charging while I'm shopping would add up to even more freedom. But it's hardly needed with the capacity already provided by the first round of Leafs (assuming it's a families second car). The most eye popping thing that has me jumping up and down is the realization that I'm spending something like the equivalent of 70 cents a gallon for "gas"!!! And I'm lucky enough to live in an area where, whith a simple call to my utility, I have signed up to have 100% of my electricity generated by Geothermal, Wind, Bio-Gas and solar.

Neil Winton, I don't know what planet you're living on, but surely you've got a horse in the race that you are not telling us about. The Leaf is light enough, the battery technology is doable in terms of cost and performance, the electric grid is already there and ready for relatively simple modifications to make it even more available than gas stations are today, petroleum prices have risen to alarming heights priming consumer demand for an alternative, renewable electric energy prices have fallen to just over 10% above dirty coal, at least her in Washington state, and I for one am getting a fast re-education about how I think about my personal mobility.

I think the timing is perfect for EV right now, a veritable perfect storm of forces could easily cause this technology to take off.

I have to commend Nissan for taking the substantial risk and pioneering this product for the mass market, so far, it appears to be a job well done!

g
 
the City needs to get on the ball, put these L1 charge stations up like parking meters. charge a rate that will cover cost, maintenance and billing and run with it. we already have parking enforcement. they could double as EV enforcement.

if L1 (yes the slow thing) with J1772 connector (do not want to haul my EVSE around!!) was widely available, i could easily make my range 150 miles or more.

right now, i have found that the range of the Leaf is a bit short of a handful of people i talk to and its just a little bit. my IP chief has a 42 mile one way commute and its freeway with half being 70 mph. so the Leaf would barely make it in the summer at 60 mph. but if he could L1 it at work and on various trips he is occasionally required to make, then it would work for him

being in Olympia, i find a lot of people commute from the outer counties especially from the Aberdeen and Centralia areas, both of which are just outside the Leafs viable range.

we need to get the state in to start requiring employers to provide at least L1
 
Gas cars struggled during transition from horses. Same for electric now. Manufacturers need market data from early adopters to help create the next generation of EV. So the article is short sighted. Eventually oil will go away. The cost to run personal cars maybe too high in the future. So we will probably go back mass transit and some electric cars. Who knows, horses may return. In any case waiting until the crisis happens is too late. Nissan and others are seeing the writing on the wall and want to get in the game early. Great job Nissan!
 
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