Why Can't Other Plug-In Hybrids Copy Chevy Volt's All-Electric Running?

If they wish too, they can. The costs will be about the same as giving away free gasoline. Electricity for cars is just likely cheaper for the employer than either of those options.

The question is moot though for at least 3 years, since the cost of hydrogen is in the lease price of the lease. The only thing keeping the owner from driving all over the place, around the refueling infrastructure, is the mileage limits of the lease. Which wouldn't keep a person from powering their house from a Mirai for all the time they are at home. To chill the house, heat the pool and spa, arc weld, etc.

How do you feel about people charging their phones and such at work?

It works because because most owners won't be using a supercharger for all their charging. Then those that do may discover that using high rate DC charging all the time isn't good for the battery's life, and it may not be covered under warranty.

I also think Tesla installs some PV in addition to each Supercharger. It allows claiming of the chargers being green, but they also get to sell power while the chargers are unused most of the time.

Back to the OP, we haven't seen many EREVs because of the cost of the batteries. Not just in dollars, but also in space. The Volt lost a seat, the Energi's a sizable portion of cargo area, and even the PPI loses the spare and under floor storage. I don't think the i3 REX gives up much for the range extender, but its handicapped form for CARB leaves it with an underpowered and short ranged hybrid mode.

Batteries are getting to where this may start to change though. The new Volt gets a partial seat back with more EV range. Then if CARB completely cuts off REx's from ZEV credits, we would hopefully see ones with better hybrid operation.

 

Back to Plug Ins, Yay !

>'Likely'? I would think ALWAYS ! I can't get an answer to the electric rates on the Commercial 3 phase building I work at. I was told it can be 1/3 of my ~$0.12/kWh home rate. Only in the winter do I come close to topping up the whole 10.5 kWh battery. So maybe it costs $0.42 per day in the worst of times for my employer.
And around half of that in nice weather. ( How about that guy that is drinking coffee ALL day?)

>> Charging of your phone at work is unauthorized use of company resources and is NOT tolerated.This must stop immediately. MNGT.

>>> The Tesla fans say hitting those little 18650's like that is "just fine". Only time will tell...

 

Let me rephrase and restate that a little for you. For the EREV phev model to work, it needs to be designed from the ground up as a EREV phev. The only car that really was designed this way is the i3-rex, and this design seems quite nice. Now carb paid them with zev credits to cripple the software and put in a tiny gas tank, and for the first gen bmw didn't have the best ice (like chevy) and didn't see the volume to design a new one, so grabbed a motorcycle engine off the shelf. It has plenty of power if the software is not crippled.. Those problems are easily solved by regulatory changes, or cost reduction so bmw doesn't need the money from the credits. I expect both to happen in the next decade. The reason that the leaf doesn't get a range extender option, is the same problem, nissan wants the money from the zev credits and would need to do a new design to make it a BEVx complying to CARB.

So the reasons toyota and ford didn't do one is easily what you said, too much volume for the battery in an existing design.

I would argue that even the volt is not a new design, maximizing placement of the ice and batteries. It really is mainly the same layout as the ev-1 after adding a range extender. The gen II is not a clean sheet, and this is smart from a marketing point of view, as a radical redesign might not pay off.

The clean sheet voltec will have to wait for anouther car. IMHO this should be a CUV, a morph between the best of the cr-v (best selling cute ute), cruze, volt, and some luxury options of the escalade. And here is the strange key, there is no reason anymore not to add a blended sport mode with higher acceleration. Give the driver the option to be in a full performance ev mode, but give them the option of a higher performance sport-hybrid mode. The US and california regulators are giving gm 0 bonus points for leaving out this mode, to get the bonus they have to cripple the gas tank and software, and that just seems wrong.

Tesla seems like its got a better clean sheet design than, full performance EV + sport and extended range hybrid (i8, porsche 918, etc), but the tesla design may be more expensive so smaller market share. I can see a $30,000 cuv doing this extended range thing without government money, but its going to be tough to do the same for a 200+ mile bev. Tesla says they can do it, but we need to wait and see if they can pull it off.

Perhaps CARB should give partial credit for electric range instead of giving it for not having a big enough gas tank. I mean we know that leaf owners are using another car from surveys, so the zev credits rules partially just mean use another car to slow adoption of phevs. That doesn't make any sense.

 

The flat battery pack with rear engine is probably the best package for an EREV at this time.
If only we could use drop fuel drums like some Russian tanks did.

 

...... not at all the same.
1 - You don't HAVE to ever use a super charger to run free of fuel costs - as many Tesla owners already own fully amortized pv systems. But let me know when you hear about hydrogen residential rooftop refineries & storage
2 - The tesla doesn't have to depend on a super changer every 200 miles ... but the hydrogen car will have to be towed back home if it gets too much farther than a 100 miles from the handfull of stations that Calif taxpayers are being tax raped of (100's of millions), just so the flawed experiment can continue.
..... unless of course - all states start getting tax raped - so hydrogen stations are built every 150 miles or so (how many trillions?) ... then i'm sure it'll be just fine -
or at least it'll be ok until we hit peak fracked gas in a half decade or so ....
(shaking head)
.

 

If a company wants to do it, then go ahead.
But I'd argue that it is not a good idea, if the intent is to install their own hydrogen refueling station. If there were to just provide a H2 gift card, then it might make sense. As it is today, if a company, installs a L2 charging station it might cost $2000 - $10,000 (if parking lots need to be dug up, etc.). Each station likely lasts 10+ years, more if maintained properly. It requires no one to operate it and maintain it unless something goes wrong...but this can be reported via phone/internet. And it can charge 2-4 cars per day.
Whereas, a hydrogen refueling station probably costs $1M or more. I'm not sure how many people to operate and maintain. Depending on scale it can refuel dozens of FCV per day. But it will be a long time before any one employer has a critical mass of FCVs to need this kind of capacity. Many, many employers in my area have installed L2 chargers, maxed them out and installed many more.
In my case we have ~800 cars at my building. We went from 4 chargers 3 years ago to 10 and now to 14. Next year we'll get more. We have 40-50 EVs that share all these chargers.

Mike

 

that would be a taxable event to the employee.

 

My work place, the L2 charging stations are always full during the day. As a result, an L3 charging station was installed. Unfortunately, with a lot of parenting threads to take rights away from use, because of crappy behavior of leaving car unattended at the L3 charging station.

That tells you how popular EVs are at my work place. And the fact that Nissan gives partner discount meant Employees got hell-a-cheap leases that it looks like Nissan's HQ now.

 

I've finally reached the knowledge level where "free" anything usually results in more problems than solutions. This is especially true in the long term. Whether it is electricity or hydrogen or whatever does not matter. Here is the reality:
1) Someone, somewhere is paying for it. Invariable most of those paying do not get the benefits.
2) Free = Abuse. Sooner or later, some big tanker truck will pull up to the free H2 dispenser. Why not become a millionaire on someone else's nickel?
3) Free = Someone not able to exploit the free benefit will whine (maybe justifiably).
4) Free = Wasteful use of the resource. When it is free, why conserve since I can always come back for more.
5) Free = Bitterness when the spigot is turned off.

There are more.

 

"Free" $7,500 dollars!

FL_Prius_Driver is right! Free means someone else will pay for it. The employer will pass it on to the taxpayers.

 

That is why EV is perfect against FREE loaders on the run.

You want free electrons? You can sit and waste your life away. Believe it or not, I have seen Nissan Leafs in the Silicon Valley with Engineers sitting in their cars for hours waiting for a charge. Hint, and they live in apartments.

And for those not smart enough with Finances, here is the Cliff's Note with government EV charities. Almost everyone can get a state rebate as long as you keep the car for 3 years. So pay your monthly car payments and you get a handout too. Oh, you don't make enough to get $7500 in tax credit. There is a workaround for that too. Lease the dang car first before buying then. Most car lease deals are giving that $7500 into the financing of the car now. Again, if you pay for your car loan, you get that money.

 

This is incorrect.
How often do you see abuse of office coffee pots or donuts?
I've never seen someone loading up on donuts and then running out and selling them.

"Free" perks at work are there to raise morale, increase productivity, attract job seekers, etc.
The cost is more than made up for in most of these cases.
Heck, if it works well, it will LOWER the employers costs and either lower prices or increase profitability, or a bit of both.

 

anyone can eat a donut. only employees with ev's can get a free charge.

 

....... Mmmmmmm!...... Before anyone notices, i WILL grab a couple powered sugar-lemon filled donuts if given 1/2 a chance.

.

 

I have. The majority of folks, especially if they know each other and like each other want proper behavior. But a few can destroy the whole operation. There is an excellent description of the economics of bagel abuse in the book Freakanomics:

What The Bagel Man Saw - NYTimes.com

You sound like you are surrounded by good folks. Don't take it for granted.

In all fairness, Office sharing of office stuff for the common good can work and often does. The office situation is far removed from the situations where real significant resources or high monetary values are involved and/or a lot of strangers are involved. Once the economic reward exceeds the cost of being identified (if there is any cost at all !), then the dynamics I was discussing apply.

Again, they are not free, but subsidized. At work when times were better we had unlimited sodas. For health reasons I realized this was not a perk so much as a bad diet concept so I abstained. Later the choice became keep the perks but lay someone off. The decision was to give up the perks. Morale would have been worse by keeping the perks. So now everyone wanting snacks contributes a small fund to pay for the operation. I actually like that better. Being free was not the key, but being considerate is the key.

Again, thanks for putting up with me. Contrary opinions are highly respected by me. (You do have a valid point.) I will leave with the latest problem "free" has caused a close friend of mine. He lives in a neighborhood where reclaimed water is "free" to the residents for sprinkling lawns. The cost is actually included in the monthly association fees. Yet the result is a couple of neighbors believe that they must water their lawns everyday for hours. My friends lawn has the grass dying because it is so waterlogged from runoff. If it were just one offender, then maybe the problem would be survivable. But a whole slew of folks feel they get "extra value" by going nuts letting extremely excessive amounts of water eventually run out into the ocean via my friends lawn.

 

And only employees where I work that use public transit can pay their commuting costs with pretax dollars.
Smokers probably don't like paying all those extra taxes on cigarettes either.
There is no one that is completely happy with what taxes are collected and what they pay for.

The businesses putting in chargers likely got government incentives to do so. The Ca government is the one paying for the hydrogen stations. Whatever horse you back, the primary goal of both is to reduce gasoline and oil consumption, and our government(state or federal) feel that it is a valid use of tax funds..

 

That is why I put Free in quotes
I do agree with you, somebody provides the service.
Most suburban places of work provide "free" parking. When using the term "free" in this context it means "free to the employee".

Perks definately have a place the the hierarchy of values.
That does not mean they don't provide a morale or productivity bonus while they are offered.
In your case, it simply meant that the perks offered a smaller morale/productivity bonus than having a fully staffed workplace.

As you said, consideration is they key.
This problem was not caused by the "free" water. It was caused by your neighbors lack of consideration.
And likely by their lack of looking at the annual association utility bills.

Yes, there are cases of "free" stuff being abused.
However, properly designed incentives that include "free" perks can provide greater benifit to the provider than cost.

And thank you, I enjoy different viewpoints, and you state yours well

Neither my wife, nor I can.

 

Dang it.. I never thought of that before.....
Great!! Bring this up today, of all DAYS...

Now I have to redo my taxes and include this imputed income. I was so close to licking the envelope, sticking a stamp and mailing it at lunch.

It's not an L2 charger with usage data. It's three weather-protected outdoor 120V outlets that 2 of us share and in the winter a diesel driver plugs in his block heater. How do we calculate the amount of income benefit? I'll pass this info along to the other users.

Fortunately for me, I'm a Tax and Spend Liberal and I enjoy paying taxes and seeing the benefits, mostly...
So I'll tear up that first check and make out a slightly larger check to send out today.

Thanks again for the heads up !!!!

But wait, wouldn't coffee and donuts be a 'taxable event' also?????

 

L3 at the workplace makes no sense.
Install 3X as many L1's instead.
Assuming the cars are going to sit there for 8+ hours, noone should need more than L1.

 

Worse, an 'in your face' politicizing article showed up on Google News. I've started a separate thread for those who would like to beat the spot where the dead horse was dragged away. Let's try to keep this thread technical.

Bob Wilson