January 2014 - Dashboard Report

It should be about time diesel versions be swiped from this dashboard...

 

Yep, diesels have an uphill battle due to the fuel price. They are here because they can be a viable alternative to gasoline. Audi has recently announced a partnership with Joule, a alternative, zero carbon diesel producer. I haven't seen any details on what exactly their process is, but the latest GREET model has a biomass to diesel pathway that can be negative carbon. That is a carbon sink.
Argonne GREET Model

It is also a report on US sales. The diesels on the list are clean as, if not cleaner, than a gasoline car.

Some of the sales loss can be explained on the weather. It has been colder and snowier that it has been in the past couple years. Most people don't want to be out car shopping in that. Those that did, probably found it easier to get a deal.

Gas prices have dropped, and some of the models are nearly the end of their cycle. Speculation on the next Prius and Volt have liken gotten some to wait.

The MKS isn't available with the base 4 cylinder or 1.6 ecoboost. For the FWD model it is the performance 2.0 ecoboost or the hybrid, and they are the same price. So no 'years of pay back' argument and greater mpg difference between the two. That likely helps in keeping its sales up.

 

If you're on the fence, now's the time to buy a hybrid!

 

Definitely on the prius liftback and phv side we are close enough to a new release (this year or next) that people may be waiting. On the volt side it is not that iminent, there are other problems.
January 2014 Plug-In Electric Vehicle Sales Report Card

I don't see any excuse for the inventory situation, and it is likely we will see anouther disapointing number in febuary for the volt beause of inventory and bad weather. The plug-in market disapointed, but at least it grew yoy. The leaf, ford energis, and new comer porsche panarama more than made up for the volt's disapointing month.

The midsize/large/luxury hybrid market is an interesting one, and I think it can experience a lot of growth if dealers start understanding them better and gas prices go up. I am expecting the first this year, but not the latter.

The sonata/optima hybrid did a little better than last year, while the accord hybrid is new, but grew over december. These are the side show though, but all can grow.

The big market is camry hybrid and its variants avalon hybrid and Lexus ESh, and the fusion hybrid and its variant MKZ. On the camry/avalon/esh hybrid, camry's simply sold poorly last month. I think it is simply short term, and may be related to poor camry sales which may be related to this.
Seat issue halts sales of Toyota Camry, Corolla, Sienna models - latimes.com
If that is the case we can expect a poor febuary, but I think it will go back to normal in march if they fix the problem. The ESh is not affected, so I don't know what is going on there.

The ford side looks much better. MKZ hybrid is new. I simply think it canabalized the fusion, and when you add them together sales on that platform went up. Also if you add the energi to the hybrid then ford fusion hybrids and plug-ins increased year over year.

The c-max seems a little sick in sales, after the mpg controversy. Ford may be able to do something to get it back on track, but if not I would expect c-max sales to end up going to the fusion, escape, and prius liftback. The prius v is also declinging, and these may flow to the prius liftback and camry hybrid, but it isn't doing as badly as c-max.

 

....very interesting re: Joule:

Frequently Asked Questions

apparently Joule are developing microbes that secrete diesel oil. Oh man, I am sure that works on a small scale for brief period of time. Scaling something like that up to work economically and continuously 24/7 and make suitable product quality would be a breakthru of enormous proportions.

I am recently reading a book (Power Plays, by Robert Rapier) who trys to explain why it is so hard to scale up these alternate fuel ideas (he was on 60-Minutes recently). I may try to re-write that chapter as I am not sure he exactly explained the magnitude of the technical challenge.

 

Considering the amount of beer we could make in a batch, it is surprising that scaling these up is such a challenge.

 

i wonder how ice vehicles faired? this is pretty disappointing.

 

Prius sales are down, because the price of gas is down.
On 2-5-2014; I paid $ 2.97.9 per gallon; in Tyler, Texas. Exxon!!


Toyota still needs better TV ads. Their ads do not do the Prius justice !!
The Prius is the best hybrid over all , on the market right now. And I put mine to work; and the Prius will surpise you.

I love my Prius.

 

^^^...see post above, there you go, beer gets what? I calc $10 bucks a gal

 

+1

Craft brew costs much more ;-)

I am absolutely sure this or algea will scale. You are right though. The trick is to have it scale affordably. I am confident that this will happen eventually, but I don't beleive it will happen very soon.

 

And some bottled water costs more than gasoline. Price doesn't always reflect cost, and our cars don't care how hoppy their fuel is, or if it has a coffee note. Milwaukee's Best is fine. The wholesale price of ethanol in Nebraska is $2.44 a gallon. Which is fairer to compare to a cheap vodka than beer.

Algae and cyanobacteria, which is what it sounds like Joule is using, are going to take more energy to grow than a yeast just from the aeration. Then more if artificial light is used.

 

Hybrid sale always follows the gas price.

Statistics

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Sacramento USA Trend
Today 3.353 3.264
Yesterday 3.397 3.262
One Week Ago 3.402 3.268
One Month Ago 3.533 3.299
One Year Ago 3.827 3.515
* Average Regular Gas Prices - Updated: 7:35 AM

 

Most manufacturers were down across the board.

 

Car sales were down 3% yoy January, Hybrid sales down 21% in the same time period, Plug-ins were up 19.5% (inside ev, hyrid cars claims 26%, but I think they overestimated some cars). Toyota and Ford which sell 80% of hybrids were both down 7%, which may be a better indication, hyrids were down tripple that.
Polar Vortex Froze Ford, GM And Toyota January Auto Sales - Forbes

The three possible indications if we don't think hybrids are broken have to be people are less likely to buy hybrids with relatively low gas prices, hybrid sales suffer more than regular vehicles in the cold, or hybrids may need more discounting to continue their growth. IMHO bedrock8x is the most likely explanation, low gas prices, but it may be a combination. I doubt sales are really broken, I expect higher hybrid sales this year than last.

 

I start seeing people driving their Hummers on the street again, at least I see one of them a day including the original Hummer, H2 and H3. The lowest gas I seen is $2.91 for regular which is unheard of since 08.

 

We see a lot more teslas than hummers here. I thought if you held onto your hummer (they don't make them anymore) you would drive it. I don't believe in the hummer indicator, but I do think that some people may be holding off on prius purchases until they are discounted or the next generation. Low gas prices make that wait easier. Gas spikes about $5, and people trade for a more efficient car when they look at the fill up price. I don't expect $5 gas this year unless we put harsher sanctions on iran or raise gas taxes.

 

They hold their values relatively well for some reason too. I did notice one or two over the past few weeks actually, and was surprised that I hadn't seen one in quite some time.