Interesting notes on Electric cars, premature?

As one can quickly see reading these pages, there is enormous support for Plug-Ins and EV's in America, among a limited but significant following. The Fed gov't and some states are heavily subsidizing EV, making those who claim Plug_Ins are too expensive, totally and utterly wrong. Something like a Leaf can be the cheapest car to own, depending on where you live. The Plug_In preference seems to be mainly a US-centric political choice, not seeming to be followed by many other countries. So that limits the growth. In USA once we give another technology such as ethanol and now Plug_ins a portion of the gaso market, due to lobbies/subsidies etc that will be set in stone. So I see Plug_in growth in America as more folks realize it is a cheap option that many can eventually fit into their lifestyle.

PS- The other important thing is the Volt, etc have been a success technically (if not by sales) so the autos have done a pretty good job getting quality/reliability into the first Plug_ins, so it works. It would be a different story if the first Plug-Ins had flopped technically, but they did OK.

 

I think Zythryn answered this. Plug-ins definitely are not dead, they just had a bad month. The prius phv, Tesla S, Ford c-max and fusion Energi only short years and should sell much better than in 2012. The leaf and volt both should do better in 2013 than 2012. After tripling in sales last year, plug-ins in the US should experience strong growth. The goals aren't being met, they were set too high. That doesn't mean the market is not rapidly growing. Instead of Obama's goal of 2015 for a million plug-ins it looks like 2017. I don't think many thought 2015 was ever realistic.

I expect some good growth for non-plug-in hybrids as well, but its going to be slower than in 2012. 2012 was coming off a bad year and 2013 was coming off a very good one. The two biggest hybrid hits were the prius c and redesigned camry both available most of the year. The c-max, redesigned fusion hybrid, and others that weren't available should boost sales, but they won't have nearly the impact of those other cars. A big percentage might choose the Avalon hybrid over the Avalon but these are not likely to give a boost like the redesigned camry hybrid just because of the number of sales in the segment.

Well Toyota in the article I also posted in fuel cell thread, said something like maybe in the 2020s or 2030s. Toyota has only said they are going to sell a fuel cell vehicle in 2015 at $50K. They have not said even the smallest challenges have been solved. They have only said price is less of an issue. With a leaf after California and federal rebates going for less than $20K its hard to see how pricing is more of a problem for bevs than fuel cells.

NOw you are saying a strange thing about batteries. Toyota has had more press releases about battery price drops as has Tesla, Nissan, and GM. That also should happen much before there is a hydrogen fueling infrastructure.

I never was for the battery grants, but your numbers are way off. The bankrupt battery makers took about $500M. Nissan, LG chem, Tesla, and Ford are not in chapter 11.

See you in 2015. 65 stations is nothing for a country in infrastructure. Austin has 2 hydrogen stations and over 200 public charging stations. You can charge at home with plug-ins. How long does the prius phv or ampere need to refuel with gas? How many stations are in England?

Well your reasonable prices for fuel cells are much more expensive than the too expensive prices for plug-ins. Use your words. Is $50K inexpensive for a fuel cell, but the prices for plug-ins expensive?

Just a slow 7% improvement every year. For fuel cells there were supposed to be thousands in California and Japan by now according to Toyota and Honda. There are hundreds. There will probably be about as many fuel cell cars in 2020, as plug in cars by the end of this year.

 

50K used to be a rule of thumb based on competitive price pressures.

I don't care how many Nissan leafs (ves?sp) you put out a year, at that price point I don't think it will be profitable.

The Tesla S probably would be profitable at less than 10,000/yr. The volt is likely profitable with variable costs now, but won't be able to pay off R&D until a second generation. That's where it becomes an accounting question. Most outside analyst didn't think the prius paid off its R&D until 2007 - or 10 years and hundreds of thousands of cars to profitability. I don't think the idea of main stream number makes any sense. The Miata certainly is more mainstream than the volt, but it has much lower sales.

 

For those of us who don't know, what's "commodity cell tech"?
A system where you can plug in whatever kind of battery cell is out there, interchangeably???????

 

Tesla uses battery cells that were designed for consumer electronics. This gives them lower price per cell and greater energy density than automotive designed cells. Tesla because of its small volume could not afford to get a company to build battery cells just for the roadster. Using these consumer grade cells requires a more robust bms system and liquid cooling/heating, but benefits from advances in these cells.

Tesla has higher volume now, so Panasonic worked with it to create the cells for the model S and Toyota Rav4. It is very similar to the off the shelf cells in the roadster, but with small changes to make them better for automotive cycles.

All the other plug-ins use batteries that were designed for automotive applications. The technology will always lag consumer electronics, but the gap is rapidly tightening. Car makers should not have to wait for a new cycle to change batteries for a car. The volt updated their battery for the 2013 model year. Unlike consumer electronics though, these new chemistries go through at least a year of testing before going into a car.

 

Is there a nice graph somewhere comparing range of Prius to the Volt?

Because I keep hearing how bad the Volts fuelefficiency is with empty batteries, whereas the PiP is still very frugal (uses about half the fuel a Volt uses iirc?).

So the Volt will have a (great) edge below trips of 50 (?) miles, but above 80 or so, the Prius will have surpassed it.
This comparison would be a great way to fuel the debate about batterysize and people wanting a bigger battery because they want to be prepaired for longer trips.

BTW, I was i initially far more impressed by the Volt than by the PiP. On paper at least...

Edit: finally found a nice one (link to page):

 

Detail often differs from first impression.

That particular graph is a good example. You start running alternate scenarios... which is quite realistic, since real-world driving varies... and you end up with a number of different pictures.

Seemingly simple things really make a mess out of the generalizations people seek out to help make purchase decisions.

 

Yes- all the graph shows is that there's a differential between the two cars, but it all depends on how the purchaser plans on driving it. Our driving is weighted somewhat evenly, but with a hefty percentage on trips beyond that 70 mile breakover point. And of course a graph like this leaves so many things out.......

 

I get what you're saying - and I don't know profitability one way or the other. However, the wildcard is CARB compliant offerings (even at a loss) might be the magic offset that still makes such offerings worth while, despite low numbers.

 

I hope you realize the plot is incorrect. The cost advantage below 11 miles is for the volt (same MPGe but no use of the more expensive fuel source), it also used the EPA average for CS mode, even though its taling about long-distance (where it should have used EPA highway). Also the plot uses a very long axis (up to 300 miles) to make the volt advantage look small..

 

I set my tripmeter to 'miles left to empty' while driving to work and it was about 250 miles left. I thought, what if I was in a Leaf whose miles left said 70. Hmmm.

I commuted about 50 miles round trip to work today, then came home for less than an hour to run down to San Jose to see the Model S. I would have hated to wait to charge up before going to San Jose.

In short, Leaf would not seem to work for me for a lot of trips. I might feel tethered to a pole with its limited range and unknown charge opportunities. Same would be true for Fit, Focus and all.

 

Yes, I understand (btw, it was made by a Volt-owner). The main reason for wanting such a graph is that many people have range anxiety, even with a range extender (=fuel=more expensive). Therefor they want a bigger battery. Understandably, I am exactly the same, even though it is unnecessary 95% of the time.
The graph helps me to put it into perspective: Volt's bigger battery vs. the somewhat different approach from Toyota. As mentioned by a responder, you would, apart from the corrections you propose, also need to incorporate a graph with number of trips of a given length (e.g. a bargraph with triplengths with 5miles increments to show that e.g. 70% is in the 5-10 and 10-15mile trips and only 2% is 50+ miles).

I simply like pics

 

And then, you'ld need to another graph to show percentage of total distance driven for each trip length--one long day of driving may equal a whole lot of short days.

 

I think more useful than trip length is mileage between charges.
Some people have access to charges at the end of every trip, some solely at home.
An interesting addition to the general graph would be average miles driven.
This site has some great data although it is 2009.
Can EVs handle the distances we drive? • A Study

Basically, 11-13 miles actually covers about 80% of trips. However only about 25% of people's daily distance driven would be covered by a 15 mile range (slightly less for 11-13 miles).
So if you are willing and able to charge at each place you stop, 11-13 mile EV range covers a very large part of the market.
If on the other hand you want, or are only able to charge once a day, the a 11-13 mile range has a much smaller market.

The above is assuming minimizing gas usage/driving under electric propulsion is the goal of the consumer. And doesn't take into account any seasonal variability of the AEV range. That is covered extensively in other threads.

 

For all three of these companies - Nissan, Tesla, and GM these cars are strategic. That means none of the companies built the cars for short term profitability. None of the cars IMHO is mainstream, but each company has the potential to be highly profitable with plug-in technology in the long run. None of these companies is even that concerned about CARB, they plan to sell many more of the cars than CARB will require. GM is concerned about café standards, and needs high enough volume to offset less efficient vehicles in its fleet. Nissan and GM are both hoping for halo effects. Tesla wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for its BEVs, so its all in, no hedging bets on Pick up trucks or anything else.

That's what makes this article based off the Reuters one so bad. The short term numbers are actually good for Tesla and GM. They suck for Nissan, so they concentrated on them. But let's kill the idea that you need 50K or 100K or to beat the prius in 2 years to be successful.

Toyota is a non-believer in plug-in technology. They are doing the minimum right now for CARB compliance, they did the minimum on the prius phv to not loose customers to competitive plug-ins. They seem to be pushing this Fuel cell media push and got reuters to by in, then yahoo also. If they can push plug-ins as dead they take away the halo effect of the tesla S, Leaf, and volt. They also get governments to waste more money on their own R&D. I think Toyota actually has to see plug-ins are the future, and will put out a much better prius plug in in the near future. This is about some fake anti-plug-in marketing campaign.

 

OOOPS - that's what I meant ... corporate average fuel economy ... or is that économy

Then . . . another graph for each trip layover. It'll get mighty complex.
.

 

I think drinovation has that graph for the average US driver. IIRC 20 mile range covers about 40% of miles but then the numbers drop off quickly as long trips take a bigger chunk, a 38 mile covers about 60%, 100 mile range covers about 86% of miles. Please correct this with the right figures.

But you need to plug in your own numbers. The average days are easy, and most of mine are under 25 miles, its the long days that skew the numbers. Jeff N and devprius swapped volt and prius phv in another thread with some interesting ev% and gas mileage. YMMV

For the volt and c-max energi, real world highway mpg seem to be the most important gas figure to use for long trips. Wayne gerdes has just tested the c-max and graphed the fuel use by speed. The volt doesn't seem to suffer as much from the prius phv on the highway, the c-max looks like it will do the worst, but still has a respectable 38 mpg at 70 mph with cruise control, IIRC the prius will be in the high 40s and the volt somewhere inbetween. The volt will drink premium gas which will add to costs if you are at a high percent of CS miles.

 

Don't have a plot as described. I think the right way to look at this is what is the Utility, the total fraction of average driver miles that will be EV.

This thread gets into that
How will the Chevrolet Volt be better than a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid? | Page 57 | PriusChat

And here is the utility factor chart

 

BMW ActiveE Motor Failures: The Price Of Leasing A Test Car?
"In the case of this sudden failure--experienced by more than a dozen BMW ActiveE drivers--the loss of lubrication over time would cause the gear to grind on the electric motor output shaft until one or more splines failed.

At least 16 such failures among lessees have occurred, one as early as last August, but the recall notice came only after multiple failures were reported."
BMW ActiveE Motor Failures: The Price Of Leasing A Test Car?

 

So it isn't a motor failure, it is a gearshift lubrication issue?