We’ve spent the last 50 years building up the infrastructure for gasoline though, so even if the cars are ready it’s going to take a long time to get the filling stations to support them. In the US alone there were 115223 gas stations in 2008 (census data).
As for 100% electric the technology is hardly mainstream ready. The charging times are far too long and the range far too short considering you can’t simply “fill up” in a 5 minute stop along your route like gas. Even once the charge time gets solved it’s not like our crumbling electrical grid is ready to step up and deliver all the electricity we’d need to replace gasoline.
No, we need cars like the Volt to bridge the gap while the infrastructure to support these “gasless” options is developed. And that infrastructure is going to be a LONG term build regardless of how much people want it tomorrow.
Honda’s working on an in-home system to refuel hydrogen cars.
But in the bigger picture, all of these new vehicle systems require the input of electricity. And even if we all drove these cars right now today regardless of cost, we’d still be using fossil fuels to charge them or convert water to Hydrogen. There simply isn’t anything cheaper out there to replace fossil fuels besides nuclear power. But that’s a conversation for another thread…
As for the Volt, at $40k even with government subsidies taking it down to about $32k it’s not going to benefit the owners wallet or the planet for that matter.
Compare it to a Cobalt for example for CITY driving:
Lets say I buy a Volt for $32k, drive it for 50k miles getting 230 MPG for the average city driver (as said by GM: LINK) And assuming gas goes up to $4/gal, that makes $867 in fuel costs. That means it would cost around $32,867 to drive it 50k
Now lets say I buy a Cobalt XFE for $16k for 50k miles at it’s average MPG of 25 in a city (LINK). Assuming gas is still $4/gal, that’s $8,000 in fuel costs. That means it would cost around $24,000 to drive it 50k
Gas would have to cost $8/gal to make buying a Volt come close to the same cost point as the cobalt. On the other hand, if you run the numbers for driving each car at 100k miles @ $4/gal, the Volt is still more expensive. And they’re both about the same size. And we’re not even talking maintenance costs.
If you’re looking to save money on fuel, it makes no sense to buy this car even if you live in a city… and at that point why would you even own a car? Just use mass-transit and avoid the added expense of parking costs.
It will really depend on how battery/capacitor technology evolves. Right now we have batteries with sufficient range and capacitors that can be charged incredibly quickly. If someone develops a battery that can take a charge as fast as a capacitor or a capacitor with the storage capacity of a battery range is no longer an issue. You would simply stop at an electric charging station and “fill up” in the same amount of time as getting gasoline.
I find this scenario at least as likely to happen as widespread hydrogen production and distribution.
Onyx, newman had a post on the first page (a while back), that states basically this. It is better to use fossil fuels at one centralized location. The mess is easier to clean up, and it leaves only one place to improve tech. Small number of plants vs. Large number of cars.
I still have really high hopes for the technology of the plug in hybrid, just not so much in the Volt because of the $40k sticker. Let the Volt break new ground and hope this technology trickles down to a $20k car.
Imagine how much less oil we’d use if 50% of the cars on the road could go their first 40 miles of each day without using a drop of gasoline or diesel? That’s would cover the entire daily commute for a majority of Americans. We’ll never get to 50% selling $40k four-seaters though.
That’s a noble point, but it’s assumptions that most consumers will purchase a car based on a perceived positive impact to the environment or getting us off foreign oil over the costs are simply unrealistic.
If your city driving in the Volt is less than 40 miles per day, you will use ZERO (or near zero) gasoline. The batteries will be charged at home through a normal 110VAC outlet, where that power comes from is a different argument, but the gas engine only turns on once the battery is depleted sufficiently. It then will turn on, and charge the batteries. The 230 mpg number comes from a drive cycle, which had to include the gasoline engine somehow. So, theoretically, you could drive 50k miles, without using the amount of gas used in your calculation. This is not completely reasonable to assume, but will be the selling point on the Volt.
Exactly, they are producing a niche car for a select few. They have only delivered about 900 cars in total.
They haven’t proven someone can build a practical (size), mass produced, reliable, affordable, 100+ mile range electric vehicle and turn a profit.
To be honest, I knew nothing about it until I clicked that link. With that said, I am surprised this isn’t getting much press. Probably because they are at least a year away from delivery.
The tesla roadster is the same deal, and they are doing quite well with it.
Also, with a 300 mile range, you could run A LOT of errands in a day, and still have a little breathing room. Charge while you’re sleeping and your back up to a new 300 miles. I actually think it’s pretty good. Sadly, there is no way to survive on a roadtrip though. I agree, if you’re going to do more than 300 miles per day, it’s stupid.
BigRon, I know what you mean. Also, there are 3 different battery options. You can be assured that for the base 50k price, you are getting a battery with a MUCH lower range.
edit: ok, here we go
Three battery pack options offer a range of 160, 230 or 300 miles per charge. With the 45 minute QuickCharge or a 5 minute battery swap, you can drive from LA to San Francisco, Washington to New York or take even longer road trips in about the same time as in a conventional car.
So for 50k, you’re getting 160 miles. However, if your pockets are deep (most tesla owners are ballers for sure) you can easily buy an extra battery pack for another 300 miles. With a 5 minute battery pack change, you COULD go 600 miles in one trip. For 99.9% of people, this accounts for all the road trips they will do. Any further, and you should just fly anyways.
So for me, the only drawback on this car, is the price
:lol:… it’s not like you take the pack with you. It’s HUGE. They’re talking about swapping them out at garages like a propane tank exchange. Yeah, that’s a viable solution with super expensive li-ion battery packs.
Though, the car has a trunk in the front as well as a hatchback style trunk. Plenty of room to carry a battery around.
Still, I’m not trying to argue that its a realistic car. I’m just trying to show, for the sake of conversation, that better implementations are on the way. I think this car shows that its not completely unrealistic to think you could DD an all electric vehicle.
Like I stated before they moved 900 by the end of 2009 and the current rate is about 25 a week and expanding their market. They just recently started selling to EU and CAN is supposed to start soon as well.
They are a start up with big plans and it will be interesting to see where they go with it.
People pay $5k for a tv when it first come out until the technology drops in price and then more people can afford it. They are trying to apply the same kind of marketing to auto sales.
