Guest post by David Middleton
Even with up to $10,000 in federal and state incentives, only 4% of car buyers in California chose electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles last year. That’s a huge problem in a state with rising greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles, and with a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025.
How can the state kick-start EV sales and hit its target of 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles? To Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), the answer is simple: Spend $3 billion on dramatically higher state rebates — as in, upping the state’s ante from $2,500 to $10,000 or more per vehicle.
Under Ting’s proposal, AB 1184, the state rebate program would be redesigned to make the cost of a compact electric vehicle comparable to a similar gas-powered one.
[…]
But there are several problems that make Ting’s current proposal a no-go. For starters, there’s the staggering $3-billion price tag, which is six times more than the state has spent on rebates since 2010. There’s talk about dipping into the cap-and-trade auction revenue, but there already are lots of proposals for how to spend that money to reduce carbon.
More fundamentally, there’s no analysis of why Californians aren’t buying more electric cars.
[…]
Could it possibly be that 96% of Californian car buyers don’t want to purchase EV’s?
I work in Houston and live in Dallas. Last Thursday, I “evacuated” to my house in Dallas. Our downtown Houston office was partially up and running yesterday. We expect it to be fully operational by Tuesday. My Houston apartment complex never flooded and apparently never lost power. CenterPoint, the local grid operator, mangaed to keep the power on to 95% or more of their coverage area throughout the storm. They are now back to about 99%. Houston METRO, the local mass transit authority, was 50% operational yesterday and expects to be nearly 100% by Tuesday.
I plan to head back to Houston Monday or Tuesday. It’s about a 255 mile drive. My Jeep can go about 360 highway miles on a tank of gas. North Texas is currently experiencing a gas shortage. Most of the gas stations near my house were dry yesterday. I have to plan on not being able to buy gas between here and Houston.
What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?
An electric Jeep that can ford 2-3′ of water, with a 360 mile range and be rechargeable in less time than I might have to wait in a gas line in Houston next week… might be what it would take to persuade me to buy an EV… Only if it cost less than $40,000. But that’s just me… What about you?
Featured image from this article:
Bad Weather Guide: What to do if Your Electric Car Has Been in a Flood
BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD • FEBRUARY 13, 2014
It’s something we hope nobody who reads this has to encounter, but given the propensity for extremes of weather we’ve seen over the past few years — not to mention the weather the UK has been subjected to continuously for the past six weeks — waking up one morning to find your prized EV submerged in water is a real possibility.
Here at Transport Evolved, we’ve already discussed how you should drive in stormy, winter weather, but what should you do if your EV ends up in more than just a puddle? What if the water level is above the bottom of your car’s doors, and there’s muddy, wet water in the footwell? What if the only bit of your car you can see is above the water line?
[…]
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What would it take? From the previous comments, we know that bribery won’t work and even giving away current-technology EVs won’t work. Hopefully Gov. Moonbeam isn’t reading this, but the proven solution is to legislate against internal combustion engines. Think the VW debacle. They effectively legislated against the VWs by refusing to allow renewal of annual registration at vehicle inspection time. Jerry or AQMD could dig deep into the California Vehicle Code to find an endangerment clause that prevents ICE vehicles from being registered. Simples, the “problem” is solved in a year or two without CA money, and there is no messy glass from Bastiat’s broken windows. There would be some Constitutional issues with interstate transport with vehicles registered out of state, but I’m sure Jerry could creatively get around that impediment like he does with the 1st and 2nd Amendments. This reply contains only a vanishingly small \sarc.
Re what the flooded electric car- junk it. That is what the dealer will do. Same for a gas powered car. While the car may be able to be cleaned to look good as a group flooded vehicles of any type are rolling wrecks. The water and salt get into every connector and starts corrosion. The whole electrical system will have to be replaced at way more than the car is worth .
Wuite a few states have laws that make it a crime to sell a rehabilitated flood car without informing the buyer.
Loved the article from Transit Evolved’. What to do if your EV is under water? You may be able to open the doors but don’t forget to turn off the power to the charger first! Wise advice I feel.
An awful lot of ignorance here and all around about electric cars. That’s about to change, big time.
Why these Californians are worried about selling EVs is unknown, when Telsa has a waiting list of over 500,000 customers, each having plunked down $1000 for the privilege of waiting 12 to 18 months for a $35,00 Model 3 (average prices as optioned for the group – $44,000. Base car has a driving range of 230 miles, but for an extra $9,000 you can order a larger battery, which provides 310 miles of range, plus the further possibility of dual electric motors and extremely quick acceleration). The base model does 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds).
WARNING about Tesla Motors and their vehicles – service is a nightmare – just getting an appointment can easily take 60 days (each service center is responsible for over 2000 vehicles) and owners are also upset about the quality of the service – 50% report that they needed two or more trips to the service center to resolve a problem. Tesla’s Supercharging stations – are pretty sparse and only can handle travelling customers and not too well at that. This with less than 140,000 vehicles on the road. When the Model 3 reaches full production next year (200,000 per year, all pre sold), two things will happen – the service centers and the charging stations will be overloaded unless Tesla does something about the situation, They have announced a two-fold increase in charging stations but that ain’t gonna hack it. Ditto for their service centers, especially if the new Model 3 has significant quality issues. Tesla is building their own network of charging stations, a huge blunder in my opinion, sinnce all of the other two dozen automakers will be using a different charging protocol for their DC fast chargers, which are required for travel – German and American automakers are using SAE COMBO charging protocol and Korean and Japanese are using CHAdeMO protocol. Anyone can install and build a SAE COMBO or CHAdeMO station, but Tesla Supercharger stations are proprietary. The importance of this is that there is about to be an avalanche of electric models from ALL of the world’s automakers. BMW will sell electric versions of EVERY single model they make, including their Mini. Ford has an electric Mustang, F100 and SUVs ready to roll, Mercedes will follow BMW’s lead, and GM has a Chevy Bolt right now
and a Buick version the coming year and GM’s CEO said they have many,many other versions in the works. Volvo has already announced they will only build EVs and hybrids after 2019 I believe.
Honda has given upon hydrogen propulsion and has an electric ready to go, as do all of the Japanese and Koren automakers. Nissan already has the Leaf, scheduled for a much-needed increase in driving range. The Chevy Bolt is selling pretty good, despite its limited area of release
and some fictitious media articles that claimed it wasn’t selling and production had been halted. The truth is far different – the halt in production was planned, in order to reconfigure the production line, which was producing both the Bolt and the slow selling Sonic. Up to now the Bolt had only been sold in 18 states. Their unsold inventory at their dealerships was only 6 Bolts.
Virtually all the electrics will have a 230 + mile driving range and quite a few with over 300 miles. What this means is that charging stations for non-Tesla charging protocols will dominate and be everywhere.
My prediction is that the most likely scenario would be the transition, over several years, of gas filling stations to combination gas fueling and electric charging stations. It’s a natural – the stations are already in place and are EVERYWHERE, and are often a satisfactory place to wait for the 15 to 30 minute recharges.
Tesla owners can buy a plug for use on either SAE COMBO or CHAdeMO chargers, I believe.
But Tesla’s biggest problem is that their Fed tax subsidies will run out before they sell half a year’s production of Model 3s, and thereafter ALL of their competitiors will enjoy a $7500 price advantage over Tesla vehicles. Any subsidies California provides will be good for all electrics, not just Tesla vehicles, and those subsidies will only be available in California. Tesla now faces, for the first time, competition that will have no problem matching their vehicles and , as one stock analyst pointed out: Tesla Motors has no “moat” – no patents that would protect their products from competition.
Any automaker can buy and install the same motors Tesla uses for their cars. Ditto for batteries, and now comes areport that Tesla’s battery giafactory, which Musk had claimed would cut batery prices by a third, cannot produce the cells as cheaply as Samsung. They are using Samsung batteries for the battery storage facility they are building for the South Australian grid.
California needs to provide subsidies for electric cars like they need to subsidize beer drinking.
OK. Whatever…
Good Summary Arthur. I would disagree on two points. Firstly Tesla’s proprietary fast charge network is far ahead of today’s Chademo and SAE Combo – the peak chart rate is far higher. Secondly the supply of batteries is an issue for all the other makers: unless they get organised and start thinking about cell production the same way they think about engine plants, they are toast
And… There’s no Moore’s Law for batteries… http://www.pnas.org/content/110/14/5273.full
Dave Middleton: “And… There’s no Moore’s Law for batteries…”.
Lifted from Wikipedia “The Zoes produced until June 2015 are powered by a 22 kWh lithium-ion battery pack….In October 2016 at the Paris Motor Show, Renault unveiled a 41 kWh lithium-ion battery…” Similar story for the Nissan Leaf. It may not be doubling every 18 months but the trend in capacity is strongly up
Moore’s Law would be doubling capacity in the same volume or area.
An Alkaline Long-life D-cell battery has ~20 times the capacity of an Alkaline
Long-life AAA battery… And nearly 20 times the volume.
The Moore-equivalent for batteries is a doubling roughly every 60 years.
I had solar panels confused with batteries. The energy density of solar panels has a ~60-yr doubling period. It’s ~30 years for batteries…
http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Service.FreeContent.ImageService.svc/ImageService/Articleimage/2011/EE/c0ee00777c/c0ee00777c-f2.gif
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2011/EE/c0ee00777c#!divAbstract
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-moores-law-doesnt-apply-to-clean-technologies
His stopgap solution is:
He obviously lives where driving on snow covered roads is not typical.
In reality EVs get less than their advertised range in snowy cold areas. Cold battery, heater lights wipers on and then the often over looked range stealer. Pushing through a snowfall with unplowed or semiplowed roads.
In my town in northern Canada the goofy city administration leased a Leaf to “test”. Well that Leaf will barely make from city hall to the university five miles with a long hill in winter. If there is snow on the ground the heater cannot be used or it will die on the hill. They renewed the lease for another 4 years.
There is and will be insufficient power from the grid to charge all these electric vehicles. But please let California, UK and France go all electric. California will no longer force ICE standards on the other 49 states and all three will become brownout states much to the amusement of the others.
Seems like a heluva lot of trouble to go to over a “problem” which doesn’t even exist. I’ll keep my Tundra, thanks!
In the dead of winter, how am I supposed to heat up my electric car and still have enough juice left to drive somewhere? I have never understood how EV are supposed to address that MAJOR problem. Not everyone lives in LA LA Land.
AC sucks as much or more power than heating, so most of the Southern states have issues with EV’s on that issue too.
Not true. I designed HVAC systems for off-the-road vehicles (construction equipment) and the heater systems were much much larger than the AC. For a wheel loader, we were doing 10k BTU/hr for AC and 60k BTU/hr for heating. Of course the heat was free and the AC wasn’t. In an EV, your option for heating is resistive heat so your COP is max of 1 and probably more like .8-.9 (ain’t no chance of using a heat pump in Minnesota in January). So you’re looking at 15-20kW of heating and they say the range is only going down 19%. Also, in MHVAC systems, even when you use AC, you are still using heat. The air is blended over both the heater core and the evaporator core to get the desired cabin temperature. I have been wondering how they are accomplishing that in an EV. They might have more control over an electrically driven AC compressor. And of course, they’ve included using HVAC systems on max usage as part of their stated range, right?
Absolutely, and battery performance seriously diminishes with cold temps. It is a doubly whammy.
How are most people even going to charge their EVs? I’d bet that most people don’t have garages in which a costly charging station can be installed. Extension cords are not supposed to be used, and even if a 120VAC outlet is close enough, charging at that volatage takes forever.
But some people DO use extension cords to charge their EVs, contrary to manufacturers’ instructions. If you decide to go that route what are you going to do if you park your car on the street. Run a $100+ extension cord across the sidewalk and risk a lawsuit or theft?
ICISIL-
You have hit on a major problem. Drive around the older apartment areas in LA, where single family homes were torn down to build 6 unit apartments. With no parking except street parking. An extension cord isn’t going to work. If you come home late, you may have to park a block away from your apartment!
Recall – The Electric Launch Company, later renamed Elco Motor Yachts:
[ By 1900, electric-powered pleasure boats outnumbered the combined number
of boats powered by steam and explosive engines (as gasoline-powered
motors were called). By 1910, the advantages of the range and power of
gasoline came to dominate the market and Elco converted to motor boats. ]
“Range and power” were the two qualities that led to the demise of the Electric Boat in favor of gasoline powered boats. Seems those same two qualities are what describe the Electric vs ‘Explosive engine’ motor vehicle debate of today.
Strange, no electric boats? Better tell the submarines that.
I run one car the goes about 12,000 miles a year. Most are shortish journeys but one tenth are around 300 miles each way. An electric car would need t guarantee the round trip with no recharge and a battery life of at least five years at a reasonable cost. A lawn mower battery costs £100 and lasts only about five years so car batteries need a huge improvement to be viable in both life and operational journey duration to become even remotely practical.
Here in the UK our grid is clearly right on the edge thanks to solar and wind farm both of which are unsuited to our weather patterns and demand characteristics producing mainly when not needed and certainly not at night to recharge car batteries.
The reason why people are not buying electric is that Apple didn’t fabricate one yet 🙂 Happened before with touch screen phones, tablets and other stuff. Some say that Tesla is the new Apple of electric automobiles, and maybe they are right, but so far it was only producing something that few people can afford. With Model 3 this may start to change, but there is one more thing needed, they need to be able to mass-produce it. Having to wait 2 years to get your car is not cool.
People complain about prices and whether it makes sense economically to buy one. But car buying nowadays is not so much about making economical sense but about showing one’s status. People buy what they can afford regardless of whether it is the cheapest thing that covers their needs, and sometimes they do their choice DESPITE it doesn’t cover their needs. Many people buy this car or this other based on how it makes them feel or how cool they think it makes them look. And the price or the characteristics, while playing a role, are not the biggest players in that decision. Otherwise “expensive” brands would not sell many of their cars, only the really-top-of-the-game ones, because for their “normal” models there is always a similar car in other brands at a much cheaper price. So those models do not make economical sense, but they get sold anyway, because it is not about making economical sense. It is about making the user want to have one and feeling good about it.
‘Round here any dweeb can now lease a BMW for under $300 a month. Cachet = 0. So Maserati is the “new” BMW for nouveau trogs who want everyone to think they’re “cool.” Range Rovers for soccer mums, extra points if it handles like a box full of rocks.
I’d probably pay $5000 for today’s technology. $10K? No. Not worth it.
Since I have experience with EVs, my dad having owned one for about 12 years, and therefore know about their practicalities, I guess the only thing that would persuade me to buy one is if they were so heavily subsidised that you could buy a new one for less than 500 bucks. Anything more than that and I would have to seriously think whether it was money well spent.
“…….LA Times: “What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?”
@LA Times: I guess it would depend on how many millions or billions you have in your bank and investment accounts L.A. Times. I can’t be bought off cheaply.
If you need the state to bribe people to get them to buy something you want them to buy, then logic dictates that there must be something wrong with the product you want them to buy, right? But then Greenies like yourselves have never shown that logic is one of your strong points.
Oh, I am so sorry. Did I use the the word “bribe” in my comment above? I meant “subsidy.”
What would it take?….How about an electric car that can perform the same functions of my current car? 400 miles to the charge with everything running….heat, AC, radio, etc. Ten minutes to fully refuel. Ability to tow. And around $35,000 without having to steal money from other people to artificially lower the price.
Apple is famous about fabricating stuff that does NOT perform the same functions as their competence, like phones without earphone connectors, laptops without USBs or HDMIs… and yet they manage to sell their stuff. The key is that, if you do not offer a few things BUT you offer others that the user may want and will not find anywhere else… then you can make business. And I tell you, there is something about electric vehicles that the average user does not appreciate yet only because they didn’t try it. But it is a matter of time that they get the experience and they start to like it.
Inside the politician’s mind: First, we get them all in EV’s. THEN, we start taxing autos by the mile, not before.
Third Offer: Give me the value of the sales tax exemption given to newspapers like the LA Times and I’ll think about it.
Meh, I would have no problem owning an electric vehicle.
If.
If there is a readily available charging station at every gas station. If that charging station took less than 5 minutes to charge my vehicle. If they can engineer the vehicle to provide needed torque and power when I want it. If the batteries are not a fire hazard. If I can see sufficient proof that the EV has an expense ratio on par or less than a comparable gas powered vehicle. Last but not least, if there is a truly a need to have one.
Check back in 20 years after the driverless EV market has consumed the Federal and state budgets with tax credits for the rich. (That’s a credit and not a deduction by the way.)
Money for the rich? Say it isn’t so.
All the governments along the west coast of North America (California Oregon Washington and British Columbia) have been thinking about a mileage tax / toll for electric cars. As more and more fuel efficient and electric cars come on to the roads, governments will collecting less money in gas taxes. That shortfall in revenue has to come from somewhere.
Example:
Washington Road Usage Charge Pilot Project
Test Drive the Road Ahead
GAS TAX WON’T MEET FUTURE NEEDS
https://waroadusagecharge.org/
Your post makes it plain that EV’s are an awkward “solution” in search of a problem.
I had to calculate total cost of ownership for a few options of such cars for the past few years, and I can only say those cars are dedicated for the math-challenged folks.
Unintended Consequences of this plan: ALL EV’s nationwide will be purchased in California and sold as nearly-new to buyers in other states. Several websites will spring up out of nowhere to facilitate the transfers. Some people will make a career out of delivering nearly-new vehicles to buyers in other states. Some Californians will buy as many EV’s per year as the government will subsidize, even quitting their present jobs if that limit is set high enough. Due to the above, the budget for this program will be underestimated by a factor of five to ten times as CA subsidies drive all EV ownership across the nation.
$10,000 is a lot of money. The free market will find ways to distribute it, just not the ways the politicians intended.
Are they planning to offer these subsidies for electric motorcycles too? Give me $10k and I’d get a Zero.
Reduce cost and charge time, and increase range and charge station availability on the road.
I fueled up my diesel RAV4 the other day. There were six pumps going constantly and about 2 more queuing for each pump . It took about 7 minutes start of queue to driving away. I put in 555 miles worth of diesel according to the gauge. So when an EV comes along that can do 500 miles on a 7 minute charge AND drive across my copse to pick up logs AND tow my dinghy across Northern France AND tow a trailer full of fence slats to my holiday home 50 miles away AND costs less than a used RAV4 I’ll consider it. Not before.
Diesel rav4? You are obviously an enemy of the people 🙂
We have a petrol rav4 . Very good it is too.
We looked at getting a second hand renault Zoe electrc car.
The trouble is that it may be ok as a second car but we have lots of buses round here . To justify its cost it would need to be the ‘first’ car.
Would we drive it across dartmoor and back especially in winter, with headlights on, heater going, windscreen wipers working? Or take it on holiday four up with luggage to Wales?
No we wouldn’t risk it although the total mileage would be less than 100 miles in the first instance but could be hundreds of miles in the second instance
So it needs to make this leap from second to first car
Tonyb
I wouldn’t mind one for my wife, who is the primary commuter. But it would need to cost the same for a similarly equipped ICE car of the same class. It would need to have the same range capability (300 miles with all equipment running while cruising at highway speeds). And it would need to recharge in the time it takes to refuel a car.
One of those things might be possible, maybe, one day in the future. But as for me, I love the sound and the fury, plus the sweet exhilaration of a perfectly timed downshift to ever give up internal combustion. So for me, there’s nothing that could convince me to buy one.
A cheap battery that actually works.
Sadly that’s still in the realms of science fiction.
I’m waiting for a practical spindizzy instead.
Yup, ultra-cap or something will eventually come along and make all the gigafactories useless. Toyota is touting solid state batteries for 2020 which apparently are still lithium based and would likely be as expensive, but will have 25% to 33% more energy density and safer. I’d want to be able to go at least 500 to 600 km, with a fast charge time.
I like the idea of no more oil changes, no O2 sensors, no radiator fluid… and make it in my price range. I could get a new gas vehicle under $10,000 if I wanted… better t I might spend $30,000 on a new electric with available good portions of torque.
IF I could use the subsidy for a GEM car, I’d buy one. I live just outside of Ventura, CA, have a motorcycle for my longish rides into the city (lane splitting is a god-send in SoCal!), and a nice convertible 2015 Mustang GT for other stuff. Having a small, 2 seat GEM electric for the 2-10 mile runs around town for shopping/errands would be great, and with the car being 100″ long, would fit right in front of my motorcycle in the garage.
But I can’t. Because even though the GEM is NHTSA and DOT approved for use on-road, it’s considered “too small” to be a real car, and thus won’t qualify. So no rebate to buy a small electric to cover my short-distance errands.
I guess it’s not all bad – just more reasons to drop the top and listen to the glory of the 5 liter V8 sing down the road…
I live in Toronto, and make frequent trips to Northern Ontario.
I would need, say, 25 years of study concerning how well these cars work in Canadian winter conditions (i.e. snow and cold, and a car with WiFi, satellite radio, heated seats, heated mirrors…).
What, you expect me to give up all my modern driving conveniences?
I’ve seen too many automobiles stranded on the roads due to running out of fuel while stuck in a winter storm.
No thanks, but come and see me in 25 years, ok?
No need, your government will find you.
If gasoline was over $10 per gallon and they didn’t jack up the price of electricity to match.
Government employees have to shop the same place you do currently, generally, and when they jack up your prices there’s no way, they’re not going to steal more of your money to cover their own losses they instilled, when they stole from you the first time.