Japan EV's run out of juice?

Lutz and others did try the security arguments.. as have various supporters of the Volt. Many over at gm-volt.com are volt owners for that reason, and many others are for volt drivers for the drive and tech.



Early marketing in Japan was focused on reducing consuption and the environment. The EV "security" argument there is harder since japan also has to importa coal, oil and natural gas.. they don't have enough fuel for electricity which is why they shifted to Nuke and now that they are moving away from that Solar may help but its going to be slow and expensive so EV does not really help their security.


But I think it is the nature of the "argument" and the media. When people attack, especially smart people, use focused attack on the weakest point. Big oil, as well as many conservatives that are very anti-green and so its a natural point of attack. Since that is where they attack, the defenders become vocal and the argument grows from there. Since no one is "attacking" the national security side there is not the "two parties" arguing about it so it does not drive new cycles.

There are many other arguments, but often not picked up as much. On this site its more one dimensional than others, maybe because its a prius site.

 

Are you kidding? Did you read the article? I am quoting directly here: (my comments in bold)

Not that the Japanese don't care about CO2 emissions. - This Was The 2nd Sentence!!

But the new reason to hate the vehicles now is they are tainted by association with the electric power company that suffered and, in many minds, helped cause the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns. (So now the Japanese public has been brain-washed that getting your power from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is now a bigger sin than getting oil from OPEC or Russia?)

Nissan says it still hopes to sell 1.5 million of its green-mobiles by 2016

prices and limited range haven't deterred a minority of rich Japanese eco-enthusiasts

Much innovation centers on the development of energy-generating fuel cells as a greener proposition that offer more exciting possibilities compared to plug-in EVs. (Yeah, exactly. Instead of sending 'costly' electricity to a battery, let's instead use it to make hydrogen from water, then run it through a $100k fuel cell. Yup.)

 

You hit the nail on the head. Since no one could plausibly make a credible argument that it would be bad for a nation to reduce its energy dependence -especially from hostile regimes- there is not opposing points of view, hence this aspect is completely ignored in our conflict-obsessed media.

 

...you are laying out the USA-style, pro-EV advocacy political position. Interesting question would be does Tokyo have a smog problem? But Prii are so clean, I don't really think anyone would claim Prii are causing smog problems.

Answer by the way seems to be Tokyo does have a smog problem from power plants outside the city (China)

 

Scorpion I liked your post. Long but good.

 

Whoa, I was not stating you didn't have a point. It's that good discussions are improved by having a very specific focus. Nothing more or less was stated or intended. What you just did above is very tightly focused on one article and makes for a higher impact posting. I liked that. Back to your topic---

Since when has any corporate media journalism been unbiased? (Serious question that I ask myself first.) Forbes definitely has a target audience and I cannot see any Forbes managing editor allowing any EV article other than what resonates with a corporate audience. I see the real issue being with the audience more than the magazine.

When I got my 2001 Prius, I had quite a few folks make comments about it. Most all of them were rather loony in one extreme or another. Some examples:
"The batteries on those things go bad after a couple years" (That one's been going on 12 years now! Wow.)
"It does not make economic sense" (This from SUV owners whose vehicle choice actually does not make economic sense!)
"Repairs cost a fortune after the warranty runs out in a couple of years" (Clueless about actual warranty coverage.)

Note these were all statements made to me, not questions. At the same time, all kinds of nasty articles about hybrids were written to feed the masses desperate for written confirmation of their misconceptions. It quickly become clear that accurate journalism and popular journalism are mutual enemies of each other. EV articles are no different. A very large chunk of the public wants articles showing that EVs are a fad. They will get them.

 

it sounds like you're simply restating what the op's article states. Yes Japan imports coal natural gas uranium. Japan imports gasoline and oil as well ... so what does any of that mean. It just means all of their fuel sources are expensive and getting worse...
And so what does the author speculate then?
Hydrogen? You distill hydrogen with electricity - (then you're back to evil electricity use - and its source fuels) and the result yields one fourth of the usable energy towards mileage - when compared to what you would have had, if you'd just used the electricity to charge your ev.
Use natural gas to distill hydrogen and you have lots of other issues ... And all of this doesn't even begin to mention the outrageous hydrogen vehicles' costs. The irony is the article says that theJapanese bitch about the high cost of electric cars. Well last time I checked you can't pay for hydrogen cars with sunshine & children's laughter.
As for Toyota's high hopes of having hydrogen cars for consumers on the road by 2015 (what is that ... about 18 months away? ) ... They're already back peddling on that boast ... just like every auto manufacturer has done since the 1970s as the deadline gets closer and closer. Surprise surprise ... time to concoct another "just 10 more years" time line.
Most important of all ... Japan doesn't rely on autos to get around their country. They have way better infrastructure for mass transit then we do. The United States ought to take notice of that fact before we end up in as bad a situation as they are in ... namely trying to scramble to have more energy even as energy sources continue to be strained by a growing world population.
.

 

Fuel Cells......it's the energy of tomorrow.....and it always will be!

 

Hi FL_,
Sorry, didn't mean to be snappy, but it is infuriating to see EVs being slandered in the media.
Yes, I picked on just one particular article from Forbes - but I think it is a pretty representative sample.
I haven't done the research, but I am willing to bet that any EV article in a 'mainstream' media outlet (as opposed to ones dedicated to alt.energy cars, such as GreenCarCongress, HybridCars, PriusChat, etc.) will mention environmental words such as "green", "co2", "earth", etc. more times than "national security", "trade balance", "OPEC cartel" or "peak oil". It is sad!

You bring up some good points. It is sad to hear people actually repeating these misconceptions about hybrids to you in person, which indicates they are outright accepting the media EV/hybrid lies, instead of being skeptical.
And you are right, even 12 years later (and billions of miles on the road) hybrids still get slammed with flat-out untruths. That is beginning to change......but even delay is still victory for Big Oil

 

I agree with you that if every motor vehicle out there had Prius' HSD or Volt's Voltec tech inside of them, smog and most types of pollution would be non-issues.
I did not mean to insinuate that (1) smog/pollutants and (2) energy imports/security are in any way of equal weight.....it depends on the country.
I would say that in countries such as Japan and South Korea, (2) is of greater weight. So, hybrids may (wild guess) lead to 50% improvement in (1) and 33% improvement in (2) , but EVs would lead to 75% in (1) and 90-100% in (2) as compared to ICE.....the question is whether the economics justify a switch all the way to EV without the interim hybrid step.
In a place like Europe, I would say (1) has greater weight, since you would be replacing a lot of diesel engines in dense urban environments.....and EU has higher oil/gas production than Japan/Korea

Yeah, I heard about the pollution from China traveling across to other countries, in fact IIRC, particulates traced to Chinese coal have been found as far as Lake Tahoe. It's a pretty sad state of affairs.......

 

Yikes its the mercury too I think pretty much spreads gobally.