Even China can't jump-start the electric car

I’m somewhat skeptical of natural gas as a vehicle fuel. From what I know, it combines the hassle of a gas station with limited range. Not as short as an EV, but a lot shorter than gasoline. So I do wonder what the point is. That said, for short range, city vehicle fleets whose owners have a natural gas tank on premises, I could see it.
The tax issue is worth mentioning. I didn’t get into it because my post was long, and there are lots of ways to skin that cat. Suffice to say that, if my EV paid an equivalent tax to what’s levied on gasoline, it would be 0.5 cents per mile. Not enough to move the needle. WA State charges a flat $100 a year on EVs, which is way too much and makes a straight comparison impossible. This fee is partly counterbalanced by a sales tax exemption for EVs purchased new within the state.
Another way to compare would be to the pretax price of gasoline, which cuts the operating cost of the equivalent gas car from 13.3 cents a mile to 11.4 cents a mile. Taking it out to that decimal place, the EV’s cost is 7.5 cents a mile.
The U.S. doesn’t do a lot of monkeying around with the price. The effect of the $7,500 federal tax credit is somewhat overstated because a lot of people don’t qualify for the whole thing on account of the income tax structure here. (Perversely, the higher the income the more likely you get the whole thing, which means that those $100,000 Rolexes, er, Teslas always get the whole thing, while a lot of Nissan LEAFs get very little.)
Because iithium-ion batteries are so expensive, EVs are almost always more expensive than the gas equivalent, especially given the reality of how the tax credit works. So, buying an EV is very rarely, if ever, a true economy move. I save money with mine, but that’s because Think went bankrupt and made them available for $8,500 net of the full credit, which I was able to claim. But this was a special situation, and economy was never my motive.
To toss a further curve into this, most of the cheaper EVs, i.e. the top-selling LEAF, are leased. I frankly don’t know how the tax credit works for leased EVs, but I do know that Nissan subsidizes those leases. I’ve done the numbers, and concluded that someone who leases a LEAF rather than the equivalent Versa pays a premium of about $25 a month to drive an EV, including fuel savings and lease costs. I’d also note that leasing removes the battery degradation cost.
I regularly fight elsewhere online with the “EVangelists” who portray these vehicles in world-saving terms, and who vastly overstate both the cost savings and their performance. In particular, the Tesloids simply cannot bear to be told that a Model S is not an authentic road trip vehicle, the so-called “superchargers scattered along major highways notwithstanding. I’ve provided excruciating factual backup, but just like the cultists of The Worldwide Church of Climatology ™, you cannot bring facts to a Tesloid.
I think there’s a strong theoretical case for electric motive power apart from the Green Crapola ™, and I do support EV subsidies for the same reason that I generally support subsidies for all emerging technologies with wider benefit. But I don’t see EVs being anything more than a niche for quite a while. It’s all about battery cost and energy density, and regardless of what the insufferable blowhard who runs Tesla bleats out this week, I regard lithium-ion as a transitional stage that will not bring these vehicles into the mainstream.

Again, thank you CWP for your thoughtful and worthwhile comments.
A few comments on Alternative Energy, Natural Gas Prices, and Excess Winter Mortality:
Grid-connected wind power and solar power are uneconomic nonsense at this time. Intermittency is the biggest problem. This may change if a “super-battery” is ever developed, but this seems unlikely.
Corn ethanol is uneconomic at this time – as are most other biofuels, with the exception of waste product and novel feedstocks such as tallow, wood chips, straw, algae, etc. that may be economic now or in the future.
Cheap abundant energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When uninformed politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer.
My main concern at this time is with Excess Winter Mortality across the Northern Hemisphere – our problem is North America is that both Environment Canada and the USA National Weather Service have predicted a warmish winter, and it is going to be very cold in the central and eastern two-thirds of Canada and the USA – much like last year – so people may be unprepared. In Europe and across Russia it will be even colder compared to seasonal norms, but at least they have a realistic cold weather forecast so are forewarned.
The great advantage of North America is cheap energy – even though natural gas prices have risen sharply in the past two weeks, wholesale natgas is still just over $4/GJ on NYMEX. In Europe, natural gas prices are 2-3 times higher, thanks in large part to greens who oppose fracking of gassy shale formations.
In Northern climes, many more people die in Winter than in Summer.
For Europe and all of Russia:
Assume a very low Excess Winter Mortality Rate of 10% (it varies from about 10% to 30% in Europe);
About 1% of the population dies per year in Europe and Russia, or about 8 million deaths out of about 800 million people;
The Excess Winter Mortality of this population is (4 months/8 months) * 10% * 8 million = at least 400,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year.
This is an average number of Excess Winter Deaths across Europe and Russia – it varies depending upon flu severity, cold etc.
Many people in Europe, especially older people on pensions, cannot afford to adequately heat their homes so are especially susceptible to illness and death in winter.
The population of North America subject to cold weather is less than half the above.
I hope I’ve slipped a decimal or two – these numbers seem daunting.
In any case, please bundle up and stay warm this winter.
Regards to all, Allan
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Excess Winter Mortality in Europe: a Cross Country Analysis Identifying Key Risk Factors
http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/10/784.full

Table 1 – Coefficient of seasonal variation in mortality (CSVM) in EU-14 (mean, 1988–97)
CSVM 95% CI
Austria 0.14 (0.12 to 0.16)
Belgium 0.13 (0.09 to 0.17)
Denmark 0.12 (0.10 to 0.14)
Finland 0.10 (0.07 to 0.13)
France  0.13 (0.11 to 0.15)
Germany 0.11 (0.09 to 0.13)
Greece  0.18 (0.15 to 0.21)
Ireland 0.21 (0.18 to 0.24)
Italy   0.16 (0.14 to 0.18)
Luxembourg 0.12 (0.08 to 0.16)
Netherlands 0.11 (0.09 to 0.13)
Portugal 0.28 (0.25 to 0.31)
Spain   0.21 (0.19 to 0.23)
UK      0.18 (0.16 to 0.20)
Mean    0.16 (0.14 to 0.18)

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http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2012/liquid-batteries-0214
RE MIT super-battery.
Thank you CWP – we’ll see what works – I remain pessimistic about super-batteries.
Years ago I proposed a super-battery that may someday materialize…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/polar-sea-ice-changes-are-having-a-net-cooling-effect-on-the-climate/#comment-72001
Storage of electricity is much easier said than done.
One interesting idea for electricity storage is a “super battery”, consisting of many plugged-in electric cars. This could be possible in a decade or two.
Regards, Allan