Apparently, the marketing arm of this company has never heard of the Darwin awards myth about JATO units and automobiles.
Guest essay by John Hardy
The best-selling EV worldwide has been the Nissan Leaf. In Q1 2018 it was overtaken by a model made in China by BAIC, a domestic Chinese company. There were three other domestic Chinese manufacturers in the top 10. Forget CO2 and all that greenwash: the Chinese mean to eat the Western auto industry for breakfast.
Image copyright JATO Dynamics. Used by permission.
https://www.carscoops.com/2018/05/baic-ec-now-worlds-best-selling-electric-car/
Yes the BAIC EC is small, range is limited, at $22k it could be cheaper (although if you figure in lifetime fuel costs it is competitive with the cheapest cars on the US market). It won’t haul a ton of logs up a muddy track or take 6 people from LA to NY without recharging or whatever is today’s excuse for dismissing EVs.
EVs are getting better all the time and if the Western auto industry waits until the competition are shipping big volumes of cheap 300 mile range cars the game will already be over. As a start they need to put serious money into battery gigafactories (The Chinese are running off with that football too).
Oh and for our US friends, BAIC have parked their tanks on your lawn. They are setting up a plant in Mexico. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201802/22/WS5a8e8636a3106e7dcc13d696.html
Up here in northern Canada some officials at the local uni and city hall wanted an electric toy. So under the guise of research using taxpayer money they bought a Leaf. Now in the winter when it gets really cold, cold battery, heater, wipers, lights, pushing snow it is next to useless.
They get around the useless part when it gets very cold by only publishing an average performance drop off over the winter, sneaky.
When I first saw the headline to this story I thought to myself, wow, they got it to work. An urban legend has been blessed with flesh and blood reality. The urban legend held that some nitwit strapped rockets to his old Buick which was later discovered as large, paper thin remnants of smashed, shattered, flattened, steel and glass spread across a hillside at the end of a very gentle bend on an otherwise straight rural highway. 300 mph in an old Buick and he never considered that he’d have no way to turn off those rockets.
Where’d he get the rockets? From an old Air Force base. They were Jet Assisted Take Off rockets normally strapped to aircraft to reduce runway length.
So a Chinese automaker perfected an urban legend involving JATO bottles.
Oh good. The Chinese have finally taken the bait.
A staggering number of comments on such a small story. I’m wondering if Elon Musk’s propaganda is starting to work.
That’s a fair point Forrest. I’m not interested in virtue signalling either. I’d just like the Western auto industry to wake up and smell the coffee in time to prevent them following Kodak, Hasselblad and the mass market Swiss mechanical watch industry in either extinction or marginalisation
Re your headline “New electric car–the ‘JATO’ “, JATO is the company presenting the market intelligence (the car sales statistics), the car is the BAIC-EC. Or is there something ironic in the title that I am completely missing (wouldn’t be the first time!).
What’s the fun in that?
Well, two thoughts.
The first is that the death and injury rate from cars, globally, is totally unacceptable. No proposal to introduce a transportation with these human costs would get serious consideration today.
The conclusion is that anything which limits car use and ownership is going to be a good thing. This includes raising the price of cars by compelling everyone to move to electric.
The second is that exhaust pollutants from ICE cars are one main thing impairing quality of life in cities. Electric cars would still crash, because that’s inherent in the system of swarms of un-networked vehicles under independent human control, they would still be making it unsafe and unpleasant to walk and cycle when they monopolize roadways, but at least they would not be polluting the air we all breathe.
Yes, absolutely. Stay home where you’re safe. Totalitarian much?
Not in the least totalitarian. Just a rational person struck by the total insanity of our present transportation system and its human cost.
Just as a rational person cannot fail to be struck by the irrationality of people in some developing countries defaecating everywhere including into their fresh water sources. Yes, that is how bad and stupid it is, our present transport system.
People wrecking neighborhoods by driving through them on the way to their own, which is also wrecked by other people driving through them to get to theirs. Killing and polluting as they go, and getting obese from lack of exercise with it.
The “things” that impair city life is crime, corruption, greed, socialism/marxism, drugs, violence, crowding, taxes, cost-of-living, apathy, poor education, trash, etc, etc, etc.
How will deaths from car accidents going to be reduced by replacing ICE cars with EV cars?
Is it safer to wreck a Tesla or a BAIC EC than a real car?
Just don’t turn on the oven. By 2042 we’ll certainly have coerced wind turbines to achieve maximum production during the optimal hours for car charging, but the dinner hour will have to adapt.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/national-grids-thoughts-on-evs/
EVs are getting better all the time , and yet the rang of this car is little better than the rang of the first EV cars from 100 years ago ! And it was this shortfall with price and charging that meet this idea was overtaken by ICE cars in the first place .
Seems like the more somethings change the more the stay the same , still there will be free beer tomorrow as there always is when it comes to EV.
EVs are reaching their limits and that already today. You do not need 100 years of our future for this.
Actually, the electric motor has been around since 1820. Nevertheless, it has not prevailed in these 200 years. That must have a reason. Or was great big oil hiding the perpetuum mobile in the drawer for 200 years. Years of dizziness, so to speak.
EV drivers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your bikes:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/chinas-bike-share-graveyard-a-monument-to-industrys-arrogance
As soon as mechanisms and necessities such as profitability and profit come into play, the house of cards collapses. Green politics works only with two pillars: government support and propaganda. That is not enough.
What’s that thing on the left side of the pic? Looks like a nose-view of a Zeppelin lying on the ground….
Nobody knows the future. The e-mobility seems to conquer the world within the next decade. The reasons put forward by its supporters are:
* more efficient / lower cost per mileage
* less noise
* less emissions
* simpler technology
* every carmaker around the world is investing billions in new e-models
While every single reason might be true there are the same arguments on the other side. The efficiency is very much depending on the grid. In Germany for example, with one of the highest contents of renewables in the grid, emissions, efficiency and costs (without taxes) are the same for a diesel car and an e-car. Only if you add taxes the e-car will have lower costs per mileage. But if one thing is for sure, it will be the future rise of taxes on electricity as soon as e-cars would dominate the market and the tax revenue of fossil fuels would collapse. There are already discussions in the EU to force e-cars to produce artificial noise in order to avoid accidents with pedestrians. So, even the noise argument is not 100% true.
On the other hand there is plenty of unresolved problems like available ressources (lithium, cobalt, rare earth) the recycling of batteries or the capacity of the grid. Even if the whole grid was capable of supplying enough energy for the e-mobility, many local grid cells won’t. In order to prepare for e-mobility all (!) cells with a too low capacity would have to be upgraded upfront because you never know where the next e-car buyer is located. That will again increase costs. The same with a complete new loading infrastructure all over the country. This produces costs and they will one way or the other be handed over to consumers / tax payers.
At the end of the day there is no real advantage of battery driven e-cars except moving emissions from urban areas to places where the energy is produced. But even the relocation of the emissions has no real benefit for the driver himself in his car and in case of CO2 (if you really want to believe in its danger) it doesn’t make any difference at all, where the emission takes place.
So why should anyone sacrifice cheap and everywhere available energy, flexibility and driving range, when he doesn’t get anything in return? In my eyes, the proclaimed success of e-mobility still has a long way to go, probably with never ending subsidies (see the sharp drop of e-sales in china in the first quarter of 2018 due to subsidy changes). Also, it will be interesting to see how subsidies will do in the near future with (sharply) rising interst rates. Although the success of e-mobility might seem certain the e-road is paved with many, many question marks after looking into the details.
Maybe someday in the distant future fuel cells will make it, but battery e-cars simply aren’t smart enough to guarantee a fast, global success.
EV – drove one for 2 years, loved the performance, hated the recharge time after I’d used the performance.
Rumors persist that a BMW i3 will reach in excess of 95 mph, after which, one would need 22 hr to recharge it using the “free” charger that comes with the vehicle. The recharge time sure would cut down on the effective range.
Without a long-life, easily rechargeable power source an EV is just a local vehicle, fast, quiet, but local. That means that real logistically effective EV is still quite a ways off.
And it is also questionable how long EVs are still quiet. There are also protectable interests of other road users, such as cyclists and pedestrians, who do not participate in a coat of sheet metal in traffic. There are already considerations to artificially make EVs artificially louder. Gone are the advantages of the quiet engine.
In 20 years,,most people will be driving around in cars motivated by Mr Rossi new power plant.
He now can get 100kW from something the size of a tin biscuit box.
Steam cars may be back?
I hate to be a doubter, but Mr. Rossi’s powerplant is a few years late.
Consistent results are found by people using the pre-assembled M-Nanor(tm) products. See JCMNS Vol25 for details. I think that a 1.25 gain factor puts LENR at the same level as early experiments on steam power, it’s not ready for prime time by a long shot.
The sales chart posted by Willis Eschenbach near the top of this thread reminded me of the old story about shoe sales in Africa a century or so ago.
At the end of the nineteenth century, just as colonial Africa was opening up as a market, all the manufacturers of shoes in Victorian England sent their representatives to Africa to see if there might be an opportunity there for their wares. All duly came back in time with the same answer. ‘Nobody in Africa wears shoes. So, there is no market for our products there.’
The exception was the Bata rep. He came back saying, ‘Nobody in Africa wears shoes. So, there’s a huge market for our products in Africa!’
BEV “to eat the Western auto industry for breakfast.”
Let’s see if BEV takes the whole auto industry. 2017 global car sales is 96 million. Weight of Li-ion car battery is 540 kg. That’s 51.84 tonnes of lithium per year. Global lithium reserve is 16 million tonnes. Well that’s good for 4 months of car sales. It looks like the auto industry will eat the lithium mining industry for snack
A spoonful of Li-ion snack
http://www.businessdayonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Cereal.jpg
Typo error – that’s 51.84 million tonnes
And you’re going to get a lesson in supply and denand, and one of those lessons is the evet surpring role of substitutions in energy and technology transitions.
More immediately, claims that Li will run out, is the same old failed Club of Rome BS mentality, barely even repackaged, and it’s got zero chance of occurring btw.
Ask yourself in December this year why there was no lithium battery crisis. And promise yourself that you’ll never listen to such misleading useless doomer guff again.
People laughed at the first Japanese car exports to Europe and the US too.
This is why the auto industry apparently sided with the global warmers the other day; they want some regulations that will hinder the Chinese exporters before they become problem for Western/Japanese manufacturers.
ROM
Outstanding essay!
Bob Hoye
I’m a bit ignorant about these EVs but does the quoted mileage include power steering, headlights, air conditioning /heater?
EV’s are useless in the winter and hills of Virginia, Pennsylvania, North/South Carolina welllll pretty much anywhere where its either hilly or gets cold, so lets just say they’re a rich mans hobby toy or for someone who thinks they should buy an indulgence for their perceived CO2 sins.
Has anybody crash tested it yet? if it is like most Chinese cars it will disintegrate if it crashes into a sparrow.
I would suggest that the initial surge of purchasers of EV autos in China is due to the governmental perks given to those who purchase one. Namely, preferred parking locations at charging stations. The vast majority of city dwellers in the PRC live in multi story apartment/condo buildings. The vast majority of these buildings have minimal allowance for personal automobile parking. If you own a government-preferred EV, you have may have access to these preferred parking/charging facilities.
What will be the key factor in future expansion of EV sales in the PRC will be whether the government can sustain the huge numbers of parking and charging stations which would be necessary for this expansion.
For now, the wealthy Chinese citizen can buy an EV and tromp on his neighbor with special privilege perks of EV ownership as well as compliance with Big Brother’s currently preferred product.
I’m not afraid of the Chinese, economically. They suffer from the same handicap that the Soviet Union suffered—a government determined to do central planning. In the long run, this makes an economy inflexible.
From the perspective of electric cars, I do see an advantage (energy-wise) to use an electric motor, but I don’t see the logic in using a battery as the primary energy storage device. The energy density is simply too low. I see the investment in battery cars as a waste of money. If you aren’t going to see a 10-times improvement in performance it isn’t really much of a development.
https://www.autoblog.com/2016/06/23/sweden-test-electric-trucks-wired-road/
We need more rolling toxic waste dumps.
I have a 2012 Mitsubishi Miev, paid $4000 for it at an auction, like new condition with 12k miles. Factory warranty 10 years.
I drive it to work to save miles on my truck, and it’s cheaper to drive.
We also own two hybrids.
The trick is to sell your EV/hybrid shortly before the warranty runs out. Any long term savings is purely imaginary unless you get them used. Whether or not the public buys into the scam doesn’t change the facts.
Only a leap in battery technology will change my mind.
Maybe some of you should look at something small that may take over Asian and African countries that could lead to these regions becoming dominated by electric vehicles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/18/as-china-chokes-on-smog-the-biggest-adoption-of-green-transportation-in-history-is-being-banned/#4955a288141b
I own an ebike and from personal experience, it is much much cheaper to operate and maintain than a motorcycle or a car (no oil, not much gears, no gasoline tanks). My weekly cost in electricity is around 30 PhP (0.70 USD). I charge every other day. It has a range of 50 Km and runs at 36 Kph. No, I don’t use it to run to the city but it’s perfect for driving to our local grocery and errands around town.
Pedicab drivers in our area have converted from using bicycle to e-bikes.