Electric Cars Are Doing Just Fine

just fine for him. which is to say, it really doesn't matter, they won't be around long anyway.

 

Seems reasonable. If you could get a 300 mile range BEV for about the same price as a Prius Plug In, why wouldn't a Prius owner go for it?

Would it need to have a Prius badge?

 

No, but it can't be from a company with a crap record for customer service or warranty work.

 

So it would need a Lexus badge instead of a Toyota badge ?

 

A Prius owner might have a family of 5.

 

I generally like people willing to tell you how they have predicted everything correctly. They're fun at parties.

But if you delve too deeply into Lutz's history, you find at one time or another he's said just about everything about everything.

 

Do you think that a 300 mile range BEV would not be able to accomodate a family of 5?

The current Tesla Model S seats 5 adults and 2 children.

 

The article is all about Bob Lutz' "vision". His real work vision is the 4 seater Volt.

Secondly, you asked if you could buy a 300mile BEV for the same price as a PIP, please show me where I can buy this comparable price Tesla Model S and I'll trade my Prius Gen3.

 

Tesla plans to introduce a $30,000 model. I don't know if it will be a 5+2 like the Model S but I suspect it will be a skateboard design and seat 5.

 

That would be awesome because it would fit my daily commute demands for the right price.

Thanks

 

by the time someone has a 300 mile $30,000. car, i'll be retired, or dead.

 

So

Sorry to hear you have less than three years to live. Or happy to hear you have less than three years to retire!

Just kidding. I don't think there will be a 300 mile $30,000 BEV in than time.
I do think there will be a $30,000 (today's dollars) 150-200 mile BEV in three years.

 

Not necessarily. IMHO I think Air Lithium Batteries will be needed.

The BYD E6 (China) has 150-200 mile range BYD is currently selling the E6 in China for about $56,000 MRSP (369,800 RMB). BYD has been talking for years about selling the E6 in the USA for about $35,000-$40,000 MRSP. From what I've read in the auto news, the only thing keeping BYD E6 afloat is its limited field test sales to the local goververnment vehicle fleet and taxi fleet. The BYD E6 looks like a Mazda 5/Prius v/C-max - it's using a extra large LiFePO4 battery pack to get a range of over 150 miles. In China, the bigger BEV market segment is that of a metro BEV which have a max speed of 35 mph and a max range of about 50 mile (often using deep cycle heavy duty lead acid batteries with no safety feature at all) - they sell as local transporation in rural areas of China where there are not many road or cars. The main problem in China with acceptance of high end BEVs (like the BYD E6) is high cost and the lack of public recharging stations. Gasoline in China - like the USA- is subsidized and it isn't subject to high taxes like in Japan and in Europe to reduce consumption - so conventional gasoline vehicles are still more economical than BEVs wrt to fuel cost. However, in a long run BEV may end up having a lower maintenance cost than a conventional gas/diesel vehicle.

There isn't any large environment movement in China - so you don't have highly affluent section of the market (e.g. political leaders, top military brass, movie & rock stars) there buying ecologically friendly tesla or a prius - the celebrities there instead drive the classical luxury vehicles made by a mercedes, bmw, cadillacs, and buick.

 

probably more realistic. i'll say five.

 

I'm going to refrain from predicting when. What is more interesting to me is when pure BEVs would cannibalize Prius. That would be a very significant milestone.

 

Not really, since the cannibalization of traditional vehicles will be much much more profound. I suppose if there wasn't a plug-in Prius. But we all know the capacity & power will increase over the generations anyway. Also at the same, the engine will become more efficient. At the same time, the expansion of ethanol from waste biomaterial will skew the benefit of losing the engine entirely.

 

I agree .. conventional gas/diesel power vehicles are more wide spread than hybrids or plug-in hybrids so the cannibalization of the conventional gas/diesel power vehicle market will be a more significant change/shift in lifestyle and economics - dwarfing any change due to the cannibalization of the hybrid or plug-in hybrid market.

Officially/reportedly, BYD is having problems retrofitting the E6 to met USA safety requirements. Personally- I suspect that BYD realizes that the USA BEV market is too immature and small to be economically feasible for a BEV with a slim profit margin - hence, they are waiting for the USA BEV market share to expand before coming stateside.

 

He did say the prius didn't make any sense

But plug-ins are doing just fine. We have the radical BEVers that predicted that sales would be much higher by now, and the radical Gassers that predict that a thousand cars.

We are at the first gen of initial adopter cars. The plug-ins are doing much better at this stage than the hybrid cars were. We do have much more government money involved at this stage than hybrids, which also means much more choices of cars.

In hybrids we had the prius - slow econobox with great mileage if you drove it right, and the insight. Now we have the tesla S, leaf, imev, focus ev, rav4 ev, prius phv, volt, c-max energi, fusion energi, accord phev, fisker karma, coda, fit ev, twizzy, fluence.... you get the picture. There are many choices and many sales world wide. Some of these in the next generation maybe the next prius.

 

LOL

I'm starting to believe my Prius is very different from the others.

Is very quick and responsive...and in my wife's hands, that drives like in a arcade game, does great mileage at the same.