More EV price decreases

Toyota has join the races with their Rav4EV leases. They are giving back the $7500 Fed credit into customer leases.

So the deal now is $15,400 Toyota cash (Toyota and Fed credit), $3999 down, and $299/month. It is nothing like the FitEV lease, but it is a lot cheaper than it was before for a lot more car than the FitEV.

From what I heard on the Internet, they are flying off the shelf now on this new lease deal. There is supposed to be a lease pricing for unlimited mileage too, but could not find what that price is.

 

When Ford announced pricing, there were loud complaints that it was too high compared to the leaf. Ford did this car on the cheap, using its supplier - Magna - to do most of the R&D. Compact power supplies the battery cells to ford like it does for chevy in the volt, and ford is buying panasonic cells for its other plug-ins. Its likely that both magna and compact power have cut their prices to ford in hopes that ford sells more EVs.

GM selected A123 for the spark ev, now owned by the Wanxiang group. It is likely wanxiang is offering very low prices to keep A123 production alive. Compact power needs to keep the volt and focus ev design wins and is likely discounting batteries to keep the factory running.

Magna and compact power might worry that Ford will choose to partner with tesla or JCI instead of them on the next go round of an EV. Both Tesla and JCI have designs to have a battery pack flat on the floor instead of taking up trunk space as the current focus EV does.

 

Toyota isn't joining the races, they just want to dump their 2600 RAV4 EVs, and move on to hydrogen. If you're lucky enough to live in CA, you can enjoy the benefits of the lackluster sales, but that's about it, I don't consider this a real EV effort.

In theory, Ford sells their car in many states (but it's a pain in the #@$% to find the car, or a dealer which is EV certified), and while it's no LEAF, it isn't a bad car (assuming you ignore the one problem which forces you to pull over right away).

 

The Smart ED has me intrigued. Longer ranger and cheaper than the i-MiEV, it also has an optional battery renting plan. They have released by how much, but it will make the car even more affordable. As the second car only needed for getting to and from work, two seats are plenty.

Let's hope Smart carries through with making it available nationwide.

 

Jumping to conclusions about productions costs or profitability based on lowered msrp prices is a fool's errand when CARB quotas are in play.

When these EVs are offered outside of CARB compliant states at prices the manufacturer loves and wants to produce as much as a generous advertising budget will support, I'll pay attention. A manufacturer lowers prices for only a few reasons in a market not skewed by regulation:

1. A price war with a competitor. Selling at a loss is better than not selling at all.
2. Stale inventory. Selling at a loss is better than not selling at all.
3. When overall profits rise from increased sales volume.

I see no evidence of (3)

 

If you want something smaller than the leaf, the korean spark ev is likely to be much better than the smart ev. I've driven the smart as part of my car2go plan, and its great for getting to a dedicated spot down town, but it isn't really very nice, and it isn't very happy at highway speeds. I'm not sure when the spark will get a nation wide roll out, as it is just getting a west coast introduction now, but gm plans to offer it.

 

The 2013 Smart ED has a higher highway speed, but the chassis wasn't designed for a home on the highway.

The Spark EV, and ICE, is a better option over both Smart fortwos. I hadn't heard anything about the Spark EV going nationwide. The smart ED does have recuperation paddles like the ELR does for regen brake control though.

 

GM has said they will have US wide distribution of the spark, but they haven't given us a date. I'm sure that they want to see if there are any problems in California and Oregon before a bigger roll out. Europe isn't until 2014.

 

If only I had a dollar for every time GM said they would do something and then failed to carry through.

 

Some good news about at least conditioned battery longevity.
Results of Tesla Roadster Battery Capacity Tests Show Pack Should Retain Up to 85% Capacity After 100,000 Miles; Heat Not an Issue

Also Nissan's production
Nissan Needs More LEAFs – Now Says It Will Take To “Late Fall” To Catch Up To Demand

 

Not surprised, if you calculate the number of full cycles it will take to do 100K miles.
Assuming 200 mils per charge,
100K/200= 500 cycle.
500 full cycles is typically Li ion batteries are rate for.
Just another spin of the same thing.

 

It is not surprising, and the statistics are sparse, so I would not be highly confident of the results as they are extrapolated.

It does show a lot of the FUD against Lithium in BEVs, at least when conditioned is wrong. Remember these are the inexpensive consumer cells in the roadster. The Tesla S has cells that tesla helped specify with panasonic, so they should last even longer.

 

Least conditioned, as in what Tesla qualified as least conditioned right? There were a few where people trashed the roadster's battery, guess they don't count in Tesla's eyes.

 

The study wasn't done by Tesla, and it exceeds their 70% capacity after 5years/50,000miles prediction. It was done by Plug In America. The data comes from owners that volunteered for the study. Here is the study PDF: http://www.pluginamerica.org/surveys/batteries/tesla-roadster/PIA-Roadster-Battery-Study.pdf

Are the trashed Roadster batteries the ones in which the car was put into long term storage without plugging in, against user manual instructions? Lithium batteries can brick if their charge gets too low. That's why they shouldn't be left dead for too long regardless of what they are powering; phone, laptop, or car. Not doing oil changes for an ICE will eventually trash it.

 

"At Least" not "least" , I meant batteries that were conditioned by fluid heating or cooling, as opposed to air cooling where we have seen degradation in hot climates. This was about battery capacity loss on batteries used as directed.

It has nothing to do with battery failure because of owner negligence of leaving the batteries discharged and unplugged. We also should not look at a tire longevity based on a user driving with air pressure too low. Telsa has taken steps in the tesla S to avoid the bricking process, so that failure of proper owner maintenance will be much less likely to cause problems on the Tesla S.

 

I wonder how much money upfront. I thought to check the website and realized I don't know what they are called LOL

$140 a month is outrageously attractive. I presume CA only ? Fwiw, IMO the Smart is a crap car but I would salivate at that kind of deal for an EV IQ.

 

Supposedly the Spark will offer as an option, the GM/SAE quick charge port ... originally designed to compete with/defeat/slow progress of the Chademo QC format. I duno how soon there'll actually be any SAE/frankenplug chargers rolled out. Considering how constipated the Chademo process took to get numbers - versus actual users ... I'd guess it'll be a while.
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