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Toyota Shows Distain: Even for their Own RAV4-EV

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by hill, May 6, 2014.

  1. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    GM should have sold european operations during bankrupcy. They are making all kinds of money in the US and China, and bleeding badly in europe. I don't think the management at opel/vauxhall/etc are competent. This doesn't have much to do with the volt/ampera but the general management of the company. Part of the US government money for the bailout has been going every year to bail out european operations that gm hopes may stop losing money in 2 or 3 years now. GM announced Monday that they lost $284M in europe just last quarter, a run rate to lose over a billion this year again.
     
    #261 austingreen, Jul 23, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2014
  2. 70AARCUDA

    70AARCUDA Active Member

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    The "Good Ship Lollipop" called GM is slowly becoming an automotive TITANIC.

    In my best Julius Ceasar voice: "...beware the id's of (european) icebergs..."
     
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  3. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    Incorrect..... GM just had its best sales month since 2007.

    Lead-acid versions of EV1 were rated only 39 highway MPGe. The NiMH was better at 94 but still not fantastic. Modern subcompact electric cars get 110 or better.

    The 1990s GM CEO may think it was a "mistake" but that really doesn't excuse him. He spent many, many years fighting the CARB's zero-emission requirement, and at any point he could have decided to stop going down that path. Instead he stubbornly pushed & pushed until he won the court case and destroyed the EV1. That's not a "mistake"...... it's a calculated, ongoing ruthlessness that spanned several years of deliberated behavior.

    And now I see the anti-EV people at Toyota, Honda, CARB, etc imitating that same ruthlessness.
     
  4. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    Hyundai Fuel Cell car..... I'm test driving one. :) $21,000 is a pretty steep price though for a car I can only drive 36,000 miles (and then the lease ends). 60 cents/mile. Normally my cars last 200,000 or more at a price of ~9 cents/mile.

    As for GM, not only the Ampera but also the ELR (cadillac volt) is failing. Dealers are overstocked with two years worth of ELR inventory & only selling 50 per month! The Ampera probably failed because Europeans are unimpressed with 40 mpg highway rating (versus 50-60 for three-cylinder petrols and diesels). And the ELR is simply overpriced. I could get a leather-decked Volt for about half as much.
     
  5. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Hmmm my memory serves me differently. It's been a decade + since watching the documentary WKTEC . . . but 'fantastic' is exactly what the NiMH battery was to the EV1. Modern EV subcompact Fiat 500e range is 87 miles. Scion gets an EPA range rating under 50 miles. Chevy Spark range is 82 .... even
    the Nissan Leaf's larger battery platform (rated as a mid size car) only gets an EPA range of 75 miles .... but ... then when you also factor in how EV1's NiMH technology is now about two decades old .... then yeah you have to acknowledge nickel metal hydride batteries are in fact quite fantastic.
    But GM downplayed the nickel chemistry because they were already fed up with EV's. One of NiMH's primary inventors responsible for bringing the chemistry about was Ovshinski (sp?). He wanted to run independent ads for the battery's great characteristics. GM actually tried to get an injunction against him for attempting it.

    As for the best GM sales year since 2007 - lest we forget (and similar to then & now) - GM's piss poor leadership back then, coupled with economic bubble bursting, lead to GM's bankruptcy. History will likely repeat itself very soon (even as the auto industry pulls a modern day "Hummer" purchase, ah - la preferential hydrogen tech) because we're flooding the economy with endless paper money streams, as though that can't have catastrophic consequences. That's why imo a great year on GM's books is pretty meaningless.
    .
     
  6. 70AARCUDA

    70AARCUDA Active Member

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    Completely "re-arranged" chairs on the TITANTIC did absolutely nothing to delay its inevitable sinking.
     
  7. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    I was not dicussing range. Please re-read my post (note the bolding). The 500e blows-away the EV1 by getting 108 highway MPGe.
    Combined MPG:
    Fiat 500e == 116
    EV 1 == only 85
    :D :)
    Moore's Law? Nah. I was just discussing simple supply economics. :) Lithium batteries used to cost a few thousand dollars in 1990, but as the supply went upward the price came down. Now one can be attached to a laptop for a mere $60. (I expect the same to be true of cars... as more battery factories come online, the cost will come down.)
     
    #267 Troy Heagy, Jul 24, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2014
  8. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    duplicate.... ooops
     
  9. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I believe he was referring to my post. GM lost $284M in Europe last quarter, and has been losing billions of dollars there for years. Many other badly managed european car companies have also lost billions. Opel is german, and the other german makers with better management have been able to make profits. GM management also killed saab.

    In the US and China gm appears to be better managed and has made money. In the US it would have been hugely profitable, except from the recalls. The recalls are an example of past management shooting the company not just in the foot, but arms and legs. Barra seems to be doing better but she has taken over a bleeding company. Most of the serious wounds were patched during bankrupcy, but more dead wood needs to be tossed overboard, and that may be all of gm europe.

    OK first the epa is reporting funny, but lead acid and nimh don't have very different efficiency.
    Compare Side-by-Side

    nimh got 91 mpge, lead acid 85 mpge, both on the old epa test. The big difference was range, with nimh giving an old epa range of 105 miles, lead acid 55 miles. We can project from the spark's lithium, that that tech would give you about a 150 mile range (more if you used the better tech in the bmw i3 for electronics, etc).

    Next up ... I never said admitting the mistake excused the decision makers. We don't talk about it, because it is no longer controversial. Even those that think the ev1 would have lost more money and sold like crap, now think killing it and spending money on hydrogen was a mistake for wagoneer and his team, even wagoneer and lutz. Lutz has said that wagoneer really believed in hydrogen despite many in gm thinking it would not work for decades.

    One of the things sited about killing the ev1 is how far this set back gm in producing plug-in hybrids. Back when they burried the ovonics patent they already had a phev ev1 and a 4 seat ev1. Killing the ev1 not only set back bevs at gm, but with the batteries, killed phevs and bevs at other manufacturers. GM did work with CARB and Toyota, Ford, and Honda to put up the fcv promises and kill bevs for awhile. The death was short lived. The tesla roadster got some engineers at gm and nissan excited for plug-ins, and helped get the bush administration to start subsidizing them along with the fcv that gm, ford, honda, and toyota had said was the future. Ford and GM are now firmly in the plug-in camp.
     
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  10. mozdzen

    mozdzen Active Member

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    I'd be careful using the word "never". Technology is moving fast. Two or Three key breakthoughs and you might have something.
     
  11. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I would say never is wrong, but the clock is ticking pretty fast against 10,000 psi hydrogen fuel cell non-plug-in vehicles. Many of the assumptions supporting rapid adoption, which were controversial at the time they were made, are turning out to be wrong.

    1) Fuel cells as range extenders for plug-in vehicles seems like it is getting close to viable. These are vehicles ford and gm are talking about and quite different from the story toyota is presenting. plug-in solves part of the problem of inefficiency of getting hydrogen from renewable sources, and the inconvenience of infrastructure (plugging in at home, work, or one of the thousands of public chargers is much more convent than driving to far away hydrogen station).

    2) Governments can pay enough money to get 10,000 psi fuel cell vehicles on the road. This is much more doable in smaller markets like japan or korea. Large markets like the US and China are simply too expensive. Japan is paying about $30,000/vehicle between hydrogen stations and subsidies to toyota and honda. If we are seeking 10% of the 16M vehicle market in the us, or 1.6 million vehicles that would cost $48 B, not one time but in some peak adoption years. China would probably cost even more.

    3) metal hydride storage or direct methanol fuel cells or inexpensive methanol to hydrogen converters would greatly reduce the cost of the infrastructure and the cars. 10,000 psi refueling and tanks are very expensive. If methanol or metal hydrides end up the method, any hydrogen infrastructure the tax payer buys will be as worthless as those paddle chargers california installed for the ev1.
     
  12. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    Please note the corrections. :) :D Here are the actual official numbers using modern testing (for comparing to modern EVs):
    EV1 (lead-acid) == 85 MPGe combined
    EV1 (NiMH) == 35 MPGe combined
    GM Spark == 119 MPGe combined


    The EV1 was really nothing to brag about. Even if GM had not crushed the car, by this point of time the EV1 would be considered an obsolete POS with extremely poor efficiency. (The NiMH version wasn't even chargeable off standard 120 volt lines!) It's used market value would be about the same as a Yugo.

    Living With an EV for a Week – Day Seven (EV death and resurrection) | The Truth About Cars

    - "Ugly cars don’t sell well."
    - "Two-seaters don’t fly off showroom floors."
    - "Toss in shopping cart-like handling when the market clamored for go-kart manners, limited range, ginormous/expensive home charging stations, and lead-acid batteries that have a limited lifetime..... Lease payments were steeper than a Cadillac."

    This seems kind familiar.

    Hyundai wants me to lease their fuel cell car, but the lease payment is $500/month. I am only allowed to drive the car 36,000 miles but will have spent $21,000 in total (60 cents/mile). I could lease a luxury car (Cadillac ELR/volt) for about the same cost.
     
    #272 Troy Heagy, Jul 25, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2014
  13. 70AARCUDA

    70AARCUDA Active Member

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    Sounds like the EPA and state gooberments have adopted the Pharmaceutical Manufacturer's marketing strategy of having the customers (rather than their investors) *pay* for the development co$t$...last time I read my Investing 101 book, it said that INVESTORS (the money gamblers) are the ones who take the RISKS, not the customers.
     
  14. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    you gotta give 'em credit. After all - on the one hand they or saying your hydrogen fuel is free. On the other hand they're telling you 60 cents a mile? It's pretty plain to see they're rolling the cost of fuel into the lease. You gotta admit it's kind of clever. Slimy - but clever
    .
     
  15. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    This is where it is important to understand the difference between needing engineering breakthroughs and the laws of physics & thermodynamics.

    We can also debate the marketing issues around adoption due to lack of hydrogen refueling stations vs you can recharge an EV almost anywhere, even if slowly, etc.

    But fuel cells (based on refueling with hydrogen) aren't truly honest in their comparisons...wanting to use NG reforming which only solves the local emissions issue but not the CO2 issue. Trying to solve that as well doesn't work (financially compared to EVs) until you break the laws of physics. While with EVs there is at least a path to get there.

    Mike
     
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  16. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    They are being forced too(not saying they don't like the arrangement) by California's refusal to allow hydrogen stations to charge the user at the pump.
     
  17. 70AARCUDA

    70AARCUDA Active Member

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    CARB could (maybe should) sink into the Pacific with no perceptable loss to most people (me)...and...EPA could follow them.
     
  18. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Having experienced California smog before and after CARB, they did good. That the rest of us have commercial hybrids, EVs, and other fuel efficient options simply means CARB motivated ('blackmailed'?) the car companies into doing the right thing. Car exhausts don't lay lead over everything and the exhaust is not toxic enough to commit suicide. It is also true that 'facts and data' mean other countries that are CARB free have been able to ride their coat tails.

    As for the current hydrogen fuel cells, the experiment is on and we'll see. I would not mind being proved wrong but I have too much education.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  19. 70AARCUDA

    70AARCUDA Active Member

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    True, but merely 'good intentions' do not 'good results' always make...to wit: CARB and EPA.
     
  20. kensiko

    kensiko Member

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    What car is doing 60 mpg? I used to have cars that were doing 60 mpg, heck I was using UK gallon