The Volt: GM is, slowly but surely, screwing it up...

[patsparks]

I wonder why no one ever stole an EV1?

[daniel]

Originally Posted by Jimmie84

... But, Heres the kicker. The vehicles of the future will soon be here. Most electric vehicles that will require an overnight charge. Now electricity will be in high demand.

Does it matter what we do? It seems were screwed in the long run.

If someone (GM??? Not!) were to magically plunk down ten million EVs on car lots, and the next day ten million American families went out and bought them and that night went home and plugged them in, assuming they were set to spread out the charge over the 12 hours from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., it would be roughly the same as each of those families leaving on ten hundred-watt light bulbs on overnight.

I don't know if that would strain the off-peak electric-generating capacity of the country.

But that's not going to happen. What's going to happen is that as gas prices rise gradually, more EVs will appear on the market, and the electric demand will rise slowly, and electric generating capacity will be built to meet it.

If we're smart, we'll build wind and solar. If we're stupid we'll build nuclear fission plants. Because of the relative profit potentials of concentrated vs distributed generation, I expect that we'll be stupid and build nuclear. We'll contaminate the Earth gradually, assuring the eventual extinction of the human race in several generations, or several tens of generations, but for now we'll keep driving.

And even if we built coal plants, coal plants pollute less and are more efficient than cars, and use domestic rather than imported fossil fuels. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. But switching from gas cars to electric cars run on coal would be an improvement.

Originally Posted by darelldd

The NIMH EV1 went better than 120 miles. I could go well over 100 miles in the lead car. I only drove a NiMH car for four days, and my best was 165 miles on a charge. My best in the lead car was 113. These were real-live freeway miles, not back-road hypermiles.

Thank you for the correction. My point, however, which you agree with, is that 40 freeway miles would be easy for GM to achieve with the Volt.

Originally Posted by darelldd

... Yes, Li-Ion is more energy dense - but it also will require liquid cooling and all kinds of pumps, plumbing and radiators...

Li-Ion, as used in the Tesla requires aggressive cooling. LiFePO4, as in the A123 batteries, and as presently installed in my Xebra (40 miles of range) does not require cooling as it is stable at much higher temperatures and does not experience thermal run-away.

Originally Posted by Sitting Duc

I for one would love a purely electric car for my all-of 7 miles round-trip daily commute; not that the Volt will ever make it this far south and since this isn't the Pancake forum, I can't say what I think of the electricity supply down here anyways.

Recognizing that Zap is not sending Xebras to New Zealand, your situation is ideal for the $11,000 Xebra. With such a short commute, the stock battery pack would be adequate, assuming you don't have hills.

(Parenthetically, I spent 2 weeks in NZ and it's a beautiful country. I loved it. I also loved the fact that you told the U.S. to keep its damned nuclear navy out of your waters. My favorite was Fiordland and the Hollyford trail, which I chose in lieu of the more popular and crowded Milford trail. If NZ wasn't so far away from everything I'd consider moving there.)

[daniel]

Originally Posted by patsparks

I wonder why no one ever stole an EV1?

I heard a rumor that someone did; that GM knows about it; and that GM is prepared to swoop down and grab it if the guy ever takes it out of its hiding place and drives it in public. Supposedly the guy takes it around the block and then hides it again, on very rare occasions, at night. I don't know if this is an urban legend.

Since the cars were leased, GM knew who had each one. Very few were built, making them statistically unlikely to be stolen, and unappealing to thieves, since a stolen one would be easy to spot, and there'd have been no market for black-market parts.

[hill]

GM ... slowly screwing it up. Well? Yesterday, Nissan very well may have just mooted GM's ongoing screwups.

Nissan-NEC to make lithium-ion batteries: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Isn't it an irony? While GM hoots it up over the Volt, all about what they're GOING to do ... the other manufacturers (only Nissan so far, is showing their card ... 4 of a kind, to GM's chincy pair of 4's) are likely all plodding along, working on re-introduction of pure EV's ... as the end of cheep / affordable gas has arrived.

GM, bragging on new technology leadership ... only to find out that if the Volt ever gets released, it'll still be at least one generation off, from what the others are doing.

[Jimmie84]

I guess GM figured that when the Prius was released that nobody would buy them so they would not even think of creating a Hybrid. Well, Now that these Hybrid cars are indeed in high demand they basically screwed up not creating it.

had they done it from the get go they would have the huge market right now over Toyota. Of course, That all depends on the quality.

I see the screw up and I hate admitting it but I really hope GM turns there issues around and gets back on track.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by daniel

<snip I don't know if that would strain the off-peak electric-generating capacity of the country. <snip>

No, of course not. If things get tight supply during a hot day, just set the home A/C at 78 F instead of 72 F. Home A/C uses far more than a Tesla does, or the imaginary Volt

Originally Posted by daniel

<snip> And even if we built coal plants, coal plants pollute less and are more efficient than cars, and use domestic rather than imported fossil fuels. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. But switching from gas cars to electric cars run on coal would be an improvement.

That caught my eye. As you know, I'm a consulting engineer, and have a lot of work in petrochemicals. I think it's insane, borderline CRIMINAL, that we're even *thinking* of deriving transportation fuel from tar sands or COAL.

I realize there are a lot of ignorant folks out there who believe in a mystical friend in the sky, the tooth fairy, santy clause, magically renewing oil reserves, etc. At the same time, do these folks automaticaly reject EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) ??

Apparently, they do!

We're not running out of oil, far from it. What we are running out of is "cheap" oil. I define cheap oil as oil having an EROEI of 100:1 or higher. some fields were +250:1.

Tar sands and coal gasification likes to pretend to have 25:1 EROEI, but in reality are 15:1 and lower. Don't forget that syncrude isn't really that great for straight-run gasoline extraction, it needs a lot of intensive processing.

You have to dink around with things like FCC - Fluidized Catalytic Crackers - and the like. One issue I haven't seen raised by the tar/coal proponents is the *enormous* water consumption required to make this work

One barrel of oil is precisely 42 us gallons. Depending on crude source, straight-run gasoline yield is around 28 gallons for Light Sweet Brent, to under 10 gallons for Venezuela crude, is which "sour" in that it has high sulfur

A typical North American refinery will convert around 250,000 BPD - barrel per day, or 10,500,000 us gallons. Can you guess the process water consumption? I'll hint it's pretty high due to all the cooling needed, the steam for tray reflux/pumparounds, etc

Around 10-12 million us gallons

As a rule of thumb, an oil refinery uses crude and water in an almost 1:1 ratio. For coal and shale, the water-to-oil is much higher, 4:1 and more

A modern coal power plant with pulverizer, water injection, electrostatic and water scrubbing, with co-gen, is light years better in efficiency than turning coal into transportation fuel. With tightly regulated emissions, actually much more environmentally friendly

I'm sure you will also agree our energy appetite is just like our food appetite: we have turned into a nation of fat-ass, lazy, spoiled people. We want it all and we want it RIGHT NOW

[jayman]

Originally Posted by Jimmie84

I guess GM figured that when the Prius was released that nobody would buy them so they would not even think of creating a Hybrid.

Yeah, folks like Lutz had quite a few bad things to say about hybrids, energy efficiency, etc. Explain to me why the shareholders and all those laid off workers didn't revolt and at the very least, fire his ass?

I actually believe in market forces. If a company fumbles, they deserve to fail. You know, get rid of bad genes and let stronger, younger, better ones flourish. I don't believe in extending credit, forcing future generations into indentured servitude, to brush off a dramatic fubar

What really irks me about the Big Three is all the DOE money they got in the 90's to develop something like a Volt. Kind of ironic how an independent like Tesla can actually do so

Oh, anybody take your truck yet? What with all those evil California emissions, Tier 2 Bin 5, SULEV, etc. I like PM10 and NOx, thins the herd

[daniel]

Jay: I was not suggesting we derive transportation fuel from coal. I was talking about using electricity from coal-fired plants to power electric cars. And I was not advocating that as a good idea, merely pointing out that it's not as bad an idea as continuing to power our cars on gasoline.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by daniel

Jay: I was not suggesting we derive transportation fuel from coal.

Oh I realize that. However, as I'm sure you're aware, there are *plenty* of folks out there who are proponents of coal-to-gas and shale-to-gas, which is nutty. Even nuttier is their believe it can be done *cheaper* than current crude refining!

We are very close to discovering that oil has far more value as a petrochemical feedstock than as transportation fuel. A lot of the coal/shale proponents would rather pretend that isn't true

How about those who insist on chasing after small deposits of low EROEI really expensive oil? Yes, I'm thinking of GBS platforms in deep water, and especially of ANWR (Or Anwar as dumb-asses are likely to spell it)

Hint: there is a *huge* difference between "inplace" and "recoverable."

It's easier to conserve than to chase after diminishing returns. After all, the North Slope peaked in the late 1980's, and is now well into decline. ANWR may peak even faster, based on initial exploratory reports

[daniel]

Originally Posted by jayman

We are very close to discovering that oil has far more value as a petrochemical feedstock than as transportation fuel. A lot of the coal/shale proponents would rather pretend that isn't true

I thought "we" knew that a couple of decades ago.

Originally Posted by jayman

It's easier to conserve than to chase after diminishing returns.

We voted Jimmy Carter out of office for saying that. Good thing you moved to a civilized country. It can be dangerous to say that down here.