Year of the electric car dawns-

Two bizarre quotes:

1) "I know we have to have an electric car," GM Chairman Edward Whitacre said last week

Normally, one thinks of GM still being against manufacturing EV's ... and even here, rather than being excited ... it's almost as though Mr Whitacre's reluctance is showing through. But at least they're finally acknowledging that manufacturing EV's will mean the U.S. gets to manufacture more of the vehicle's fuel here, and that cheep fossil fuel is closer & closer to its end ... and there'll be one less reason for the U.S. to have it tentacles all over the world's dwindling fuel reserves ... or maybe I read too much into it.

2) The only major automaker with a fleet of new all-electric vehicles priced for mainstream consumers is BMW

What? BMW "BUYS" EV guts from another manufacturer, then retrofits them into an already existing ICE vehicle, and that counts as "new all-electric" ... even though the mini is not new ... even though the battery/controller arrangement isn't new ??

What? $850 - $900 month Lease is legitimately considered "priced for mainstream consumers" ?? You'd pay $30,000 for a 3 year lease, and at the end you own nothing, and that's "mainstream consumers" ??

Wow ... am I ever NOT mainstream


And then there's the Chinese BYD E6 ... launched way before the mini ... and actually sold for less than the pricey mini lease, and sold in larger quantities. Whoops ... the article must have forgot to include the word, "sold in the U.S." too. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like news articles about EV's forever has a funny slant to 'em.

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I expect to see the day when we have one ICE or hybrid and one pure EV. We could use the EV around town, most of our driving. I know technology will improve considerably but even if there were charging stations all over, we (collectively) are not going to wait an hour or three to resume our trip. And ironically the more EV's, the less demand for gasoline which will slow the increase in the unit cost of gasoline - which will make one ICE and one pure EV viable for two (or more) car families for a long time.

I think the day when there are only EV's is beyond most of our lifetimes, unless we're dumb enough to ignore EV's in the short term until gasoline is literally so costly and/or scarce that we're forced to park our last ICE vehicles.

 

I'm on a list for the Phoenix SUT. If I can sell the Prius for what I want, I'll be going EV. I have an old Buick I can drive if I need to drive farther than it's range. I'll reserve my excitement as Phoenix seems to have had some problems financially.

In the meantime, I'm pumping up my mileage with a plug-in conversion!

 

(sigh) . . . if I had $100 for every day I've been waiting for the Phoenix to come out, I'd be retired. Yep ... I've lost track of how long I've been on their list. Heck . . . I'm on the short list for every list available. And as for the PHEV prius? I'll be on that one too, once it becomes available.




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