The Electric Duds

Dealers can’t seem to give away Nissan leaf electric cars or Chevy Volt series hybrids.

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/02/01/chevy-volt-sales-drop-to-603-nissan-moves-676-leafs-in-january/

Pretty shabby numbers. As a point of reference. Ford dropped the Excursion (despite a hefty per-unit profit) when sales dropped under 15,000 per year.

Whatever their merits, people obviously do not want to spend their money on these cars.

 

Is that why there are still waiting lists for the Leaf?

Or why the Volt outsells the Corvette? Guess that proves America hates sports cars.

Yeah, it's still too expensive for the average consumer. Give it time. Early adopters always pay a premium. They're both sweet vehicles, but a little too pricey. Couple years, when the price is down and any bugs worked out, I'll probably bite.

 

The Volt outsells the Corvette?

Do you know how rediculous that sounds.

 

Since sales of both the Leaf and the Volt are up year-over-year, this sounds a lot like seasonal variation.

December 2011 Volt sales: 1529
December 2011 Corvette sales: 1038

 

comparing that rinky dink volt to a $100,000 sports car is apples and trees.

 

Dealers have lots of Volts gathering dust on their lots.

They sell every Corvette they can get their hands on.

 

Here’s another electric dud: Fisker.

http://gas2.org/2012/02/07/its-time-to-pull-the-plug-on-fisker/

The Volt and Leaf languish. Aptera collapsed. Fisker has taken a half-bill of the taxpayers’ money down the tubes.

Electric cars don’t work outside a very narrow niche.

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/02/07/electric-vehicles-spur-concerns-over-range-fire-consumer-repor/

Many of these same problems manifested themselves a century ago as the original electric cars were driven off the market by superior products driven by gasoline engines.

We are coming up on the century mark on the year the last US car company was successfully started from scratch. BTW it was Chevrolet in 1915, started up by Billy Durant (who founded GM).

The car biz is tough. It is no place for enviro-ideologues or taxpayer money.

 

No, the last US car company was successfully started from scratch would be Tesla Motors, founded in 2003. And Tesla makes ... gee, what kind of car was that again?

 

Oooh, I know this one:

Exotic sports cars and luxury cars that cost nearly as much as a house.

 

There are more Veyrons on the road than Teslas.

Does Tesla make any money, or are they headed down the same path as Fisker?

 

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-hikes-subsidy-wealthy-electric-car-buyers-191058674.html


Obama hikes subsidy to wealthy electric car buyers



"The White House intends to boost government subsidies for wealthy buyers of the Chevy Volt and other new-technology vehicles — to $10,000 per buyer.

That mammoth subsidy would cost taxpayers $100 million each year if it is approved by Congress, presuming only 10,000 new-technology autos are sold each year.

But the administration wants to get 1 million new-tech autos on the road by 2015. The subsidy cost of that goal could reach $10 billion...."

So he has to increase the subsidies by another 33%.

 

Obama doubling down on a bad idea?

 

I see where Obama wants to increase the bribe to buy the Volt.

 

New worry for Tesla Roadsters: “bricking”

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/02/22/tesla-roadster-facing-brick-battery-problems/

Wow! $40,000 for a new battery.

 

Already debunked on the other thread someone started specifically about this bit of idiotic propaganda.

 

More ignorant BS and spin. Fisker is still doing OK for a start-up, their plant in Finland is still rolling out the 'Karma', their initial car model, and those are still being shipped to dealers and sold. They had obtained a $529 million dollar Federal loan to build a production plant in the US to produce their second, less expensive car model and they had used about $190 million of it when the loan was put on hold last May because Fisker missed some deadlines for production that were in the loan agreement. Production delays in start-ups are fairly common. Both Fisker and the DOE say they are renegotiating the loan and the rest of the money will most likely end up becoming available to them again sometime soon. Meanwhile they just got another $260 million in private capital funding bringing their total in that area to $850 million. As a result of the Federal loan delay, the company had to lay off some workers who were working on the project of converting an old GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware into a production plant for building the next model of Fisker's planned autos, the 'Nina', which will have a price tag about half that of the Karma's.

The ultimate fate of start-ups is never certain so what will happen with Fisker is still up in the air. Nevertheless, even if any one particular company doesn't make it, the electric vehicle industry as a whole is set to take off and become the dominant form of ground transportation in the near future as major advances in battery technology result in fully electric vehicles that have a range of 400 miles or more and a recharge time of less than ten minutes and a price tag about the same as conventional IC gasoline powered cars and trucks. The inevitably rising price of gas will make electric vehicles so much cheaper to operate that no one will want to drive the old dirty gas-guzzlers any more.

Fisker is not another Solyndra
CNNMoney
February 8, 2012
(excerpts)
Relax, it's a start-up: Production delays are nothing new in the auto industry, analysts pointed out, especially for brand new automakers. "Look how many times Tesla had to delay the roadster before it came out," said John O'Dell, a "green cars" analyst with the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

Elaine Kwei, a business analyst with Jefferies & Co, agreed. "We often see delays for introductions of new technology, especially for a product as complex and regulated as an electric vehicle," she said. "We've seen delays from manufacturers as large as Toyota as they perfect vehicles for release."

 

If the business plan was sound, why couldn't Fisker get private capital instead of mooching off Uncle Sam?

 

Is starting from scratch where you get millions from the taxpayers and give thousands to the politicians who gave you the taxpayer money in the first place?

Actually, I thought "Electric Duds" was going to be about underwear that gives of sparks.

 

And another one

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Electric car battery maker Ener1 filed for bankruptcy Thursday, three years after receiving a $118.5 million grant from the U.S. government."
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/26/technology/ener1_bankruptcy/index.htm

Time to send the boy industrialist back home to Chicago.

 

Yet another electric car company founders on the rock of poor battery performance.


Everybody goes at this wrong. There is a perfectly good means of using electricity for transportation: electrified freight railroads. Proven, off-the shelf technology. Very efficient (trains coming downhill go to regenerative braking and put the electricity back into the catenary where an uphill-bound train uses it to climb the hill. Equipment is very low maintenance and lasts for decades. Almost impervious to the weather.

Drawbacks:
High upfront costs. Existing electric transmission lines run at nearly right angles to rail mainlines.
Where do you get all that electricity? The US power grid is stretched tight as a banjo string now. You'd need to build scores of big power plants - something the US hasn't done since Jimmy Carter.

Forget commuter cars and minivans to haul the little darlings and groceries about in. Electric cars will never beat IC engines for that.

 

Here's a bit on electrified railroads.

A little puffy but it gets the idea across.

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/its-time-to-electrify-the-railroads.html

 

And a totally different application whose parameters do not meet the need of individual transportation. Trains use electricity because of the tremendously heavy loads they pull and the high torque required to get it moving. The highest torque an electric motor produces is in it's first revolution. And it takes a LONG time to get up to speed. Gas engines don't reach peak torque until they are turning several thousand rpms and why they must be geared in order to stay in that operational range. But they can get you going fast. Trains also operate on fixed metal tracks with solid metal wheels to cut rolling resistance. Also means it take a LONG time to stop the things. And try to make a 90 turn and see how large the radius must be or climb a hill and see how much the incline you can climb is restricted.

 

Perhaps if you bothered to read the information that other people post, you would have noticed that Fisker did indeed get private capital to the tune of $850 million.

If all of the government subsidies and tax credits and military protection were removed from the oil industry, the price of gas would be about $15 per gallon.

China is currently providing massive subsidies and incentives to their renewable energy and electric vehicle industries in an attempt to dominate world markets by undercutting these developing industries in other nations and driving them out of business. American governmental support for our nascent renewables and EV industries is entirely appropriate and very necessary if we are to compete in the world marketplace.

 

Maybe if you actually bothered to read the article.....???

Some excerpts from your article:

"Ener1 promised its business will proceed as usual. The company said the "voluntarily initiated" bankruptcy filing won't impact any of its subsidiaries, including EnerDel. "The restructuring will not adversely impact their employees, customers and suppliers," the company said in a press release, noting there will be no layoffs as a result of the action. The company blamed the bankruptcy on a slower than expected demand for electric vehicles.

Analysts have also said any electric car battery maker faces stiff competition from Asian firms, which are largely considered to be well ahead of the curve due to their long experience making batteries for electronics. Ener1 was thought to offer one of the best chances for an American company to compete in this field. The company said that's still the case, and that the restructuring will allow it to reduce its debt and free up $81 million for capital spending. "Our business partners have an appreciation for our future business opportunities," CEO Alex Sorokin said in a statement. "We expect the new funding to provide ample liquidity for our subsidiaries to meet their ongoing obligations to employees, customers and suppliers." The Department of Energy, which awarded the grant, agreed. "While it's unfortunate that Ener1, the parent company, has entered a restructuring process, the new infusion of $80 million in private capital demonstrates that the technology has merit," DOE said in a statement. Ener1 received the grant in 2009 as part of a $2.4 billion stimulus effort to jump start the electric car industry.

 

Ridiculously wrong!!!

The Future of Transportation - Part 1