Brief news by Ryan Maue
The recent oil price shock likely hasn’t figured into the February sales numbers at GM or Nissan, which announced their electric vehicle sales numbers for the month. Actually, there wasn’t an announcement, but you can find the information buried in a PDF file:
GM “delivered” 281 Volts in February, which is a function of the extremely slow nationwide roll-out of the newfangled buggy. This is clearly the window of opportunity with the much higher gas prices to take advantage (of) consumers who may spring the cash for an electric car. Then, they can watch their new PG&E Smart Meter spin wildly in delight. Either way, it’s very early in the game.
Indeed, with gasoline prices soaring past $4 a gallon in California and elsewhere, the demand for the Volt and Nissan Leaf should continue to soar. Coupled with generous government subsidies provided by Uncle Sam, a new Volt may provide quite a charge to the US economy, or not. With the announcement of Ipad 2.0 yesterday by Steve Jobs, early adopters will be lining up again to buy a thinner, better version of favorite toy. It’s early in the game for the Volt, Leaf, and other electric buggies, but when supply ramps up to meet the burgeoning demand, we can expect the marketplace to expand with many more options. However, until then, outfits like Consumer Reports aren’t exactly enthused with the efficiency of the Volt of the Leaf, considering the sticker.
It gets worse. CR figures the cost of recharging the Volt would work out to about 5.7 cents a mile for electric mode and 10 cents a mile for gas. Yet a Toyota Prius, which gets about 50 miles a gallon, would cost 6.8 cents a mile to operate. A Prius costs half as much as a Volt.CR seems to feel a little better about the all-electric Leaf. It borrowed one from Nissan while it awaits delivery of its own. The $35,270 electric car had its range severely restricted by the cold weather that has gripped the East, much like the Volt. The range has been averaging 65 miles, not the 100 miles that Nissan bills. Plus the mileage gauge isn’t that accurate in the cold when electric heaters gobble up kilowatts. Instead of the 36 miles of range that the car said it had, one tester got 19.
Yet CR said other than range, it liked a lot of things about the Leaf. It accelerated rapidly and climbed hills well. It said it would be a good second car in urban area if it is in “a temperate climate.” Guess that rules out the Northeast, Midwest, deserts and a bunch of other places.
GM sold more cars in China last year than in the US. I suspect their attention is now directed there than on satisfying the US green market.
Let’s see…. I commute 50 miles/day; 25 each leg with no way to recharge at my workplace. And, I live in the Northeast where at the present moment it’s 25 degrees at 4:30 in the afternoon just as the afternoon commute cranks up.
I think this qualifies as one of those ‘no-brainer’ decisions as to whether this sort of car has any practical use for me at all. Oh, yeah,,.. we also pay 20 cents/kWh here.
Pay for gas, or pay for Coal?
Other than the fact the range renders it useless… we love it.
If I’m only driving to work, why not buy an old Geo, Tercel, Metro, whatever, for probably $1000? Oh yes, that does not appease Gai, nor feed her crusaders coffers. Sorry, forgot.
As you say, early days. If battery tech meets expectations and energy/weight doubles or triples every 18 months (as expects) these become pretty useable everywhere pretty quickly.
I think electric vehicles are fine for urban commuters who don’t have to go more than 10 miles round trip. But for most people they are still impractical. I’d rather have a Prius (and pocket the savings) versus either the current Leaf or the Volt models.
By the way, any idea what happens to the battery contents when one of these new generation electrics is in a rear end collision?
Edmunds paid 42,000 for their volt. Its been an interesting read, If the price hand not already turned me off, the fact that it has a chin spoiler that makes this car lower then most sports cars was another huge turn off… it would make the car basically unreliable in snow. Edmunds has already damaged the chin spoiler since it is pretty rigid , making some think its there to survive only long enough to fudge the MPG ratings
Here is a link http://blogs.insideline.com/roadtests/2011/01/2011-chevrolet-volt-spoiler-alert.html
A conversion to natural gas costs some where around $2,000 I think. Natural gas is roughly $0.75/gallon. For a car getting 30mpg, this equates to 2.5 cents per mile if my math is correct. Why the heck are we not doing this???
I’d avoid that guy in the car.
He looks like he is winding up to a full blown case of “road rage.”
And here is another one:
In the WSJ, Thur. March 3 by Jason Dean, p. B3
TITLE: Start-Up Preps Electric Car for U.S.
———————————————–
Here’s my take on this:
A Santa Monica, California, company called Coda Holdings is using a Chinese manufacturer as a supply of electric cars to be sold in the USA. They hope to sell 10,000 – 14,000 in the first 12 months after introduction in the second half of this year. The currently expected retail price for a sedan is $44,900.
The price is expected to be reduced to the buyer by about $12,500 using federal and state subsidies. So, make that purchase price $32,400.
The sales pitch is to rental car companies and other fleet operators. That final cost is not for the poor or lower paid workers. As it is electric and rather small it will most probably be purchased as a second vehicle, if purchased by individuals.
So here is my gripe: The $12,500 subsidy is paid by all who actually pay taxes. That’s currently just north of 50% of the folks that pay to or get paid by the government when tax accounting is done. Very well-off types that can afford to buy such vehicles (this isn’t to be the only one) and then have their charging stations likewise subsidized (and don’t pay gas tax for highway maintenance), but do hire tax accountants to reduce their own taxes – these folks sponge off of the real middle class tax payers. And remember the car is imported from China.
I fail to see how this benefits anyone or anything except the person buying and the person selling the car. Unlike the “cash for clunkers” boondoggle, this deal doesn’t even take any cars off the market.
How many recharges can the battery take? and how much for a replacement pack? depreciation? When all the ‘real’ cost considerations are taken into account the actual cost per mile adds up significantly.
It’s all well and good claiming that electric vehicles can save the environment but it will be many, many years before the average person can afford to run one.
And until the major source of electricity becomes either nuclear-derived or hydro then emmision claims are just hogwash.
Yea, I think that’s exactly what they said in 1920.
Brad says:
March 3, 2011 at 1:42 pm
As you say, early days. If battery tech meets expectations and energy/weight doubles or triples every 18 months (as expects) these become pretty useable everywhere pretty quickly.
Brad,
I’m curious as to who is applying “Moore’s Law” to battery tech.
Try high efficiency diesel powered cars for size:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/volkswagen/8293372/Volkswagen-XL1-review.html
OK, the VW XL1 is really a concept car, but there are family sized diesels already doing 74mpg, small cars doing 82mpg – and the promise is that the technology from the XL1 will get these sort of cars doing over 100mpg in the near future.
Who needs a limited range electric car??
They forgot to include the depreciation of the batteries in the cost per mile. Also, it will likely double in cost as the batteries age and their capacity diminishes.
MikeEE
Why all the negativity on electric cars?
I’m hugely skeptical regarding AGW, but I still am a fan of figuring out how to create workable electric cars.
To me, basing some portion of car transportation on electricity allows us to be much more flexibile on the type of fuels we use to power the stock of cars. If one type of fuel becomes expensive, having more ways to substitute away from that fuel source seems valuable.
In addition, the market for oil is highly inelastic. Even a relatively small decrease in aggregate demand for oil could significantly lower prices.
I do think electric cars need to make sense without major government incentives, but assuming they do, they strike me as a very valuable addition.
James
Evidently there is a loss of battery life with the fast charging system. Just one of those little irritations that is likely to make people mad.
We really should be pushing hybrids before all electric! Last year, I averaged 48 MPG in the Washington, DC, area. I could easily take long trips, or unexpected trips, without changing cars. And I can own this car even though I live in a condo and have to park my vehicle 2 stories underground, where charging will probably never be possible. (I can’t understand people who say electric cars will be good for city dwellers. Exactly where do they think they’re going to be charged?)
Nissan made a conscious decision to cut corners on the Leaf’s battery in order to keep costs down, and it appears they’ve gone too far.
My theory is that somewhere around 120 miles is a ‘comfort spot’ for potential EV buyers*, and for every 20 miles below that number the vehicle loses about 50% of its potential buyer base – e.g. with a 100 mile range the vehicle has 50% of the market it would have had at 120 miles, 80 miles 50% of the 100-mile range, etc.
65 miles is not only very poor compared to Nissan’s marketing, it’s also no improvement over where we were ten years ago (substantially worse than the later EV1s, and comparable to the RAV4 EV, now admittedly the EV1 was a 2-seater and the RAV4 bog-slow, but…)
EVs are all about battery economics.
All this about range, cold weather, charging times and sticker price, are widely known criticisms. But not talked about is the depreciation.
This is not a mere academic question. The problem of depreciation arises because the cost of the battery is greater than the rest of the car – and the car will last longer than the battery! How do you value the resale value of say a 5 year old prius, volt etc which is nearing the end of the battery life when this will cost £15,000 to replace? Would the car have depreciated by £15,000 plus one half of the rest of the cars value?
I don’t know the answer to this question, because it is completely untested by the market. We will know in 4 or 5 years. But how many people placing their orders today have given it serious consideration, I wonder?
John F. Hultquist,
You read my mind.
I read somewhere that the cold effect on batteries (I don’t think there is a heat effect) is solvable. It was likely one of many things that were not “solved” before the market debut. Recall, GM rushed the Volt 2 years into production before it was ready.
Oops, forgot the “EV buyers*” part.
For various practical reasons, if you:
a) Do not live in a temperate area (for useful battery life/range),
b) Do not own your house (for charger installation),
c) Do not already have other vehicle(s) for doing the things the EV can’t
You are probably not a potential EV owner.
While I like the Leaf, I think I’m gonna hold out for Mr. Fusion.
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/02/500x_mr-fusion.jpg
jeez – folks have been working on battery cost/capacity issues for decades. There have been improvements, and there will continue to be improvements, but we’ve seen nothing resembling a Moore’s Law scale of improvement.