Electric Dreams
General Motors has announced it is temporarily suspending production of the Chevy Volt. Drive On reports: “General Motors is halting, for a month, the manufacture of its well-known but seldom-sold Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car, according to trade publication Automotive News.” It was the second shutdown this year. This may put the kibosh on the President’s well known intention to buy a Volt fresh off the line when he leaves the White House.
“I got to get inside a brand-new Chevy Volt fresh off the line,” he said, “Secret Service wouldn’t let me drive it, but I liked sitting in it, it was nice, I bet it drives real good.”
“And five years from now, when I’m not president anymore, I will buy one and drive it myself,” he said to the cheering crowd who chanted, “Four more years!”
Maybe they can restart the production line in 2016. The electric car has had rough sailing in the marketplace, even with government incentives to boost it. The administration wanted to get 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015 and was willing to help it along.
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.
The planned giveaway will likely prompt populist protests from GOP legislators, but it will likely also will be welcomed by auto-industry workers in the critical swing state of Michigan.
It’s a small price to pay for protecting the enironment. The President rejected accusations from political rivals that he was buying union votes. “Even by the standards of this town that’s a load of you know what,” he said.
Joe Nocera of the New York Times described the Volt as an “innovative electric car” whose prospects were sabotaged by Rush Limbaugh. “A month earlier, the Volt had been named European Car of the Year. It was coming off its best sales month yet, with some 2,200 cars sold. Its problems with the government — which conducted a severe rollover test that caused a Volt to catch fire — appeared to be over; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had given the Volt its highest crash-safety rating.” He attended an auto show at which the excitement was palpable.
Between bites of eggs and bacon, the Volt owners gushed about how well the car drove — and how much gasoline they were saving. They were early adopters, of course, willing to pay a high price ($40,000 before a $7,500 tax credit) to get their hands on a new technology. Many of them had become nearly obsessed with avoiding the gas station; for those with short commutes, it could be months between fill-ups.
But a shadowed dogged this sunny scene.
Yet there was also an undercurrent of nervousness at the breakfast. A reporter for Fox News had been prowling the auto show, asking nasty questions about the Volt. For months, the conservative propaganda machine — including Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Neil Cavuto, the Fox News business editor — had been mocking the Volt, and linking it to President Obama, who has long touted the promise of electric cars. Cavuto, who has called the Volt “roller skates with a plug,” was rumored to be going on the air that very night with yet another Volt hatchet job. …
In his regular blog at Forbes, Lutz has tried to counter what he has called the “rabid, sadly misinformed right.” But he has largely given up. The last straw came when his conservative intellectual hero, Charles Krauthammer, described the Volt as “flammable.” Krauthammer, Lutz felt, had to know better. Although he remains deeply conservative, Lutz told me that he has become disenchanted with the right’s willingness to spread lies to aid the cause.
At the breakfast I attended, many of the Volt owners wanted General Motors to fight back. But Chris Perry, a G.M. marketing executive, cautioned that that would only bring more attention to the Volt’s status as “a political punching bag.” He added, “We are looking at the long term, and we know this is going to pass.” Which it surely will — after November.
Patrick Michaels of Forbes, who called the Volt the “flagship of the government industrial complex” thinks the problem is that it is poor value for money. “Carrying a $41,000 base MSRP and a $7,500 tax break, the Volt is either going to be the biggest bust since the Edsel, or a niche car with very modest sales. It is not, repeat, not the wave of the future. It’s just too impractical for a large number of everyday drivers.” At one point it only sold 125 units in a month.
All the same if “after November” Obama wins, Chris Perry of GM is right to see sales at the end of tunnel. Obama will get his Chevy Volt in 2016. Count on it.
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The clown posse really missed the boat here.
The US Postal service spent 6.8 Billion on fuel in 2010, IIRC. The Clown Posse should have skimmed off a few bucks from Solyndra or whatever it was and had GM do a redesign of the Volt as a Post Office vehicle for letter carriers. While useless for RFD routes they could have been used in the ‘burbs and the cities. Not much profit for GM, but that would give them experience at designing and building electrics. Large scale fleet service would soon expose the flaws, which would allow GM to prefect electric vehicles without burning ups (customers) in the process. Plus having 80% of America seeing an electric everyday would have been valuable FREE marketing.
File under ‘road not taken’.
Celer, Silens, Motralis.
Back in the 70′s Ford had a car affectionately known as “the 4 cylinder, 5 passenger Stove”
(otherwise known as the Pinto).
GM now has a valid competitor soon to be widely known as “the electric toaster”. Think of the marketing opportunities!
I saw a Chevy Volt in a neighbor’s driveway and asked him about it.
The Volt’s a real neat car, he gushed
I like the way it amps
Of course on highways when you’re rushed
It can’t get up the ramps
I love it, love each single watt
I take the wheel and roam
But there’s one thing it hasn’t got
The range to get me ohm
What the Clown Posse still doesn’t get is that the Volt’s target customer is a wealthy suburbanite living in a leafy suburb, driving roughly 20-30 miles one way. Oh, and hopefully he or she isn’t very good at calculating life-cycle costs. Oops, some of them are – and they already love their Prius.
The rest of them wouldn’t be caught dead in a domestic nameplate. Once upon a time that would have made me angry, but after what the Clown Posse did to the bondholders and the non-UAW stakeholders, all I can do is laugh in a very sad, ironic way.
I feel mildly sorry for the GM Volt team, it *is* a competent rendering of the Prius to GM spec. Only, NO other hybrid has succeeded nearly as well as the Prius, afaik. Objectively it’s hard to find a reason. But speaking of that GM spec – that’s the problem, GM spec still sucks, so nobody trendy even glances at it, and objectively it’s mediocre. They *aim* for mediocre.
Neither Ford nor Chevy, nor them other guys at Chrysler, have yet succeeded in cloning either the BMW 3-series or the Japanese D-car Camry, Accord, Altima. That is, their best efforts are usually a generation behind and look cheap and break fast. I’d be willing to pay a modest (10%? 20%?) premium for an “all-American” version of these mid-market cars, but none is available, at any price. And actually the BMW 328 has gotten a little pricey recently.
I’d guess that other than Prius, every manufacturer is losing money on their hybrid efforts, don’t sell enough, can’t charge a realistic premium, just sell them as loss-leaders, PR projects, and because they can count a fantasy mileage rating into their MPG figures (actually rumor was that at least for the first couple of years Toyota even lost money on every Prius, even selling them over sticker). Besides that cheating there is NO way for a car manufacturer to meet the EPA standards. So what does that mean? If you buy a non-hybrid, you must be paying a few hundred bucks towards the hybrid someone else buys.
Feel a twinge of pain for the rabid green freak. Probably 90% of the huge Los Angeles traffic probably could be run in pure electric vehicles with 60 mile range (or even 30 mile range), especially with even a modest number that could recharge between commutes. And that might even save a little energy and pollution. But few people will voluntarily run a car with those limitation just in case they need to go 70 miles, or in case one day they want to use that car to go 300. Now you need a dual-engine vehicle, and it’s impossible to win with that, other than by government edict and absurd cheating on the mileage numbers.
Real energy savings could be had with internal combustion engines on 1500-pound 2-seater cars going zero to 60 in 10 seconds, but current DOT regulations make it impossible to put such a thing on the road, you can’t roll anything much less than 3000 pounds, and reviewers snark anything that can’t beat zero to 60 in under eight seconds so you carry around a lot of power that costs a couple miles a gallon even when you don’t call on it, and the car has to be heavier built to handle the power.
The Volt is competent, it’s the spec that’s broken.
Let’s see….little curly light bulbs so toxic they can’t be made in the states, yet in effect are mandated; using what used to be called food to make a gas additive which is bad for your engine and makes for lower gas mileage, not only subsidized but required; now an electric car, heavily subsidized, but really cool new technology (let’s pretend there is no electricity cost)….what could go wrong?? After all, it’s all from the government and they are just trying to help.
The progressive lefties-
1. The twisty lightbulb that makes any room in your house look like a Russian interrogation chamber;
2. The Volt-a $45-grand marshmallow roaster;
3. And this:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tampa-republican-conventions-code-pink-vagina-protesters-365541
Please don’t waste your tears on the Volt team. They knew 3 years ago the market wasn’t there. However, there were bailouts to be secured. Given the mindset of the new overlords, it made more sense to keep the project going than to go to DC with a tin cup, while the Greens were outside waving signs accusing GM of killing the electric car AGAIN.
As for profitability on hybrids, it all comes down to how the engineering is expensed. If it’s not on the books for the specific vehicle, a hybrid can show a profit. Revenue covers the cost of the components in the dual powertrains. As for the millions (billions?) in engineering dollars to calibrate the dual powertrains, well, that’s all a matter of accounting rules.
I would estimate that 70% or more of the auto companies’ powertrain engineering budgets are driven by regs that originated in California, and then got adopted by DOT. Most of said regs are exercises in shifting costs to non-California customers. In a sane world, the greenies would buy their $50k battery-electric for commuting, and keep a Lexus in the garage for the weekend. Problem solved. Oops, it isn’t that kind of world. The spoiled brats at CARB are now mandating production quotas of BEV’s, or you can’t sell the rest of your fleet in California. Their ‘logic’ is that if you produce enough, the per unit cost MUST come down, and it’s profits for as far as the eyes can see, donchaknow. Their evidence is that internal combustion was ‘subsidized’ in a similar fashion a century ago. Why, pray tell, am I supposed to feel sympathy for people who are willfully ignorant?
Volts For Dolts
GM is stolen property. To buy a GM car is to be a Receiver of Stolen Goods.
Hanto:
Back in the day, my girl friend called her Pinto ‘ the fire bomb’. Those were the days.
You can think of the Volt as the ultimate in flex-fuel. It runs 30% on coal, 40% on natural gas, 9% each for nuclear and hydropower. Of course, the overhead losses in generation, distribution, conversion, and storage are immense.
It is also worth noting that the current Administration is against coal, natural gas, nuclear power and dams.
One more and I’m done -
Prius succeeds, in large part, because of its appeal to people who view driving as a sin.
Toyota got the early adapters, but they also got the killjoys – and boy are there a lot of them. The early adapters accepted there was a price to be paid for efficiency. The killjoys, on the other hand, see the Prius, with its utterly joyless delivery of nothing more than utilitarian transportation, and think “I have met my mechanical soulmate.”
Nobody is going to pry the killjoys out of them. Heck, it serves Toyota well to make sure the darn thing remains lame, otherwise they’d probably lose customers.
The Prius and Volt are neat cars, and I’d love to have either one. Only one problem, they cost as much as a house (around here). I paid $400 for my first car (used). I can’t see paying $30,000+ for a car no matter how nice it is.
The one “green” innovation that I have found to be truly economic, although coming with a high upfront price tag, are LED light bulbs. We’ve installed some in the areas of our home where our lights are on quite a bit and it looks like a 2-3 year payout. Pretty good when money markets are yielding zero. The light is good quality, they are efficient in that they don’t give off a lot of heat which one has to then air condition away here in TX, and they should last a long time. And the leading LED chipmaker is a US based company by the name of CREE. My apologies for the unpaid commercial announcement.
“The electric car has had rough sailing in the marketplace, even with government incentives to boost it.”
Don’t sail cars through crowded markets – sail them on the road instead.
Computer-controlled actuators to maximize the wind thrust… Use diesel when there isn’t any wind…
My great-grandmother owned an electric car — before WWI. Back then, they were about a third of the cars on the road. They always had an inherent manufacturing advantage on ICE vehicles. Fewer parts, simpler mechanisms. Despite that they failed in the market place. Nothing has happened in the last century that would change that failure.
Move along. There is nothing to see here.
2009R @ 8: Revenue covers the cost of the components in the dual powertrains.
My guess is that maybe it covers variable costs but none fixed, not tooling much less engineering – and never will, unless they put a couple of grand government fee on purely gasoline-powered cars, forcing all car prices high enough to cover the hybrids.
Prius isn’t so bad, it’s a cute, small car. Of course so is the Yaris at half the price, probably saves a third of the net energy over the first 100k miles in manufacturing and operating.
In a world where a billion people pay $100 per month for a smart phone so they can hold a video screen up to their ears, I just dunno any more.
The post monster got my post. Or I was censored.
This is a test of the PJM robo censor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX145Tu4MHY
The song is a cover of “the drifter”. Not sure who does it. The feme fatal is a 6 at best. The beer drinker is an ozzie and I think the beer is also, although I didn’t care enough to grab the video and run it thru GIMP.
That is the only reason I could think of for the robo censor to Jill slap me.
If this post bites the dust, I’ll know.
2009Refugee @8
That is too true. The California bureaucrats have been and continue to distort the automotive market.
I truly wish one manufacturer would stand up and say, “Forget the California market” and just pull their products and dealerships from California.
A recurring thought that I have had is that high energy density batteries are inherently unstable. To equal the fuel density of gasoline or diesel (and gasoline can be dangerous), you would have to create a battery with so much stored electrical energy (as chemical potential) that I fear the battery would be rather dangerous and chemically unstable in the long term.
The Volt has a sophisticated cooling system to keep its battery from overheating. Charging and discharging create a tremendous amount of heat as chemical energy is stored (charging) and released (discharging).
The joys of central planning–the economy produces crap that no one truly wants to buy and fails to produce much of anything that people do want to buy.
And yes, that’s what we have in the US in the automotive industry. Its just done by indirection–CAFE standards, DOT regulations, subsidies–the bottom line is that its all a product of central planning by the wise people in the government who aren’t wise enough to realize that this approach has failed miserably in every place it has been tried.
But as I have said before, and am saying again, the most dangerous thing in the world is an idiot with an ounce of power who is convinced that he is a genius.
In California, we just need the Volt to tide us over for a few years until we get our high-speed trains. Then everything will be fine again. You’ll see!!
Ex: You left out the part about the unicorns. Tell us about the unicorns! And the oceans not rising! F
To power an all electric car you MUST utilize a series wound DC Motor.
Adequate size starts at 20 Horsepower—–easily equal to 300 HP reciprocation.
Said motor uses 15 Kilowatts at run but when starting or accelerating the power surge is 7 to 1 or 105 KW>
Plus you have to run your accessories—like power steering and brakes and airconditioning and heating—-with electricity.
All in all you will need 125 KW on tap at all times.
That means either put generating power of 125KW inside thhe block of a V6 or V8 or go invent that superbattery Robert Heinlein labeled the Shipstone.
A compact packages of not more than 50 lbs holding 875 KW hours which would give you 6 hours at full discharge with an hour reserve. That translates into 300 miles in urban gridlock—-and alot more on the open road—-before time to pull in to the station and get a fresh one. You will N-O-T be wanting to recharge at home and pay household rates for that much juice.
Perfect either approach and there will be no neede for any damned tax subsidy to make sales. 20HP SWDC eats Corvettes for lunch and can get up to 100 Miles Per Gallon on the freeway.
“Green product” has become code for “inferior product way overpriced”. Most people buy the cars they can afford to want, not what someone else tells them they want to afford.
But if someone spends a $20,000 premium up front for a Volt that they will never recover from reduced fuel costs over the next five years then stand back and watch them go do their thing. It’s odd that so few people lined up to pay the Green premium that GM had to periodically stop producing Volts. Maybe they should charge less.
As for the mobile half walnut shell they call a Prius – the Green premium is less than for a Volt but – have you ever tried to get a pair of skis and your luggage into a Prius that is pretending to be a taxi?
Mother Nature loves a desert or an ice sheet as much as she loves a rain forest. She demands competition between species and within species, between ecosystems and within ecosystems. Her ecosystem markets determine the survival or demise of new products (mutations and genotypes). Nature has no subsidies. So far (except for LED lights) I like to think that she’s laughing out loud at human Green products and at their Green human producers.
It is also worth noting that the current Administration is against coal, natural gas, nuclear power and dams.
Well then, the Volt should be the idea car of the Obama future. Just remove the batteries to lighten the load* and wait for the floorboards to rust out. You’ve got a perfect Fred Flintstone mobile.
* – no need to remove the motor if you live in CA, as thieves will have already taken it to strip out the copper.
“It was coming off its best sales month yet, with some 2,200 cars sold. Its problems with the government…appeared to be over”
Problems with the government?
It’s a CREATION of the government!
Big enough to give you everything you want…big enough to take everything you have.
The Volt and other electric cars get an gasoline-equivalent of 35 mpg. This is quite good compared to most gasoline/diesel cars, but it is inferior to high efficiency gasoline/diesel cars.
Also, if you drive in Ohio, where 80% of the electricity comes from coal, the Volt’s carbon dioxide emissions are higher than that of a conventional gasoline/diesel car.
Then, of course there are the range and charging time issues. This basically depends on the battery, and battery science and engineering hasn’t changed substantially since the days of Galvani and Volta. And a breakthrough isn’t going to happen.
The hybrids generally do better, but even the Prius (the best of them) has life cycle operating costs well above that of efficient gasoline/diesel vehicles. And there is the hidden cost of battery replacement. This has to be done at less than 100,000 miles, and the cost is around $4,000. Consequently, there will be no used car market for hybrids. And used gasoline/diesel vehicles have very low operating and purchase costs.
We will be driving gasoline/diesel cars as long as we have an industrial economy and freedom. And the quantities of fossil fuels they will need are to all intents and purposes infinite. The Ice Age will return and end our nonsense first.
Then there are those hilarious Volt commercials with happy Volt owners gushing over the fact that they almost never buy gas. If instead they had bought Chevrolet Cruzes, which is built to virtually the same frame as the Volt, they could have gotten proven technology, 42 MPG, and saved $20,000. Imagine putting that on a prepaid gas card, and never having to pay for gas for 200,000 miles. Of course it would be stupid to think of that as “free gas”, but no more stupid than buying a Volt in the first place.
The “Green” Utopia, windmills with piles of dead birds beneath them, filth everywhere untouched by bleach or detergent, predators stalking the few remaining herbivores into decaying urban wastelands down unlit streets, while a select few have toys with no electricity to charge them.
11. cthulhu
You can think of the Volt as the ultimate in flex-fuel.
…
I think the Nissan “Leaf” qualifies more, as it uses no liquid hydrocarbons in its drivetrain, only electricity. Produced of course by the aforementioned coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydro sources. Should we talk about the battery chemistry and resources used in manufacturing, and disposal and …
The Tesla Motors products are almost worse, in that if you happen to let the battery pack discharge too much, it cannot be charged, and must be replaced at owner cost. Something like $40k each, and the disclaimer in the owners manual is apparently enough to get them off the hook.
If truth in advertising were required, the LEAF advertising copy should read:
“I present to you the all-new for 2012 Coal Powered Nissan Leaf…. for your enjoyment.”
But of course the ignoranti will claim it is ‘emissions free!’, and there are unicorns and a pony in that closet somewhere… “New Math” strikes again.
So Obama wants to buy a Chevy Volt after he leaves office…hmmm. At this rate it won’t be in production much longer. Anther reason to get him out now.
Bob @ 27 says “Then, of course there are the range and charging time issues. This basically depends on the battery, and battery science and engineering hasn’t changed substantially since the days of Galvani and Volta. And a breakthrough isn’t going to happen.”
It is not through lack of effort. High Density Energy storage, at a realistic weight is a b***h. In fact the best measure is Energy/Kg/meter cubed. (Units of measure your choice).
Entropy lives.
The Volt is proof that communism does not work. When the batteries are shot the Volt will have less resale value than the Lada or the Yugo. So yugo buya lada volts.
MSRP $41,000
After having their income gutted for the last 10 years and their savings depleted, the middle class would have to finance this gem. Or they could buy a car that gets 25 miles to the gallon for around $1000 from somebody who is at the end of their savings and has no job. That would leave $40,000 for gas. At $4.00 a gallon that would equal around 10,000 gallons or 250,000 miles of driving, enough to drive around the world 10 times. This is a middle class dream? Sounds like a rich snobs dream. Maybe they can get it to run on Soylent Green.
The same administration that wants to put us in electrical cars also want to shut down every coal fired electricity generating plant.
Re LED lights, I have to admit to skepticism, just because everything that liberals promote and like is, by its very nature, a disaster in some way or another.
However, I will remain open on this one. When you say the light is good, are you saying that they match the warmth of incandescent bulbs, or are they still a tad like the lights on those creepy fish in the deepest part of the oceans? I’m not interested in sacrificing the natural, human part of the spectrum for efficiency.
And how do they do in the cold? I’ve noticed that florescent lights become darks in the winter when they’re used outdoors.
Finally, there’s the question of what they’re supposed to do and what they really do. Guaranteed “for 6 years” usually means “until you probably will have lost the receipt or we’ve morphed into another company.”
We are, it seems to me, looking at pretty close to a hundred percent failure rate for the whole green thing since the early days of getting companies and cars to stop spewing obvious poison into the waters and air. Even recycling, it turns out, is another feel-good waste of time and money.
14. Steeple
The one “green” innovation that I have found to be truly economic, although coming with a high upfront price tag, are LED light bulbs.
That’s all fine and dandy, but did the incandecent have to be all but banned to eliminate competition? Are you “praising” these new bulbs because you really like them, or are you rationalizing because they are the “new normal?”
The point never as whether the new bulbs were good or not, but that it was a coercive mandate.
Re: LED LED lights have many advantages over flourescent. Their light quality is much better and warmer. They are easier to dim. They use much less electricity than incandescent and last longer. The only problem I’ve found with the LED is that they burn much hotter than incandescent so you have to be careful where you use them.
So: what is the real underlying issue?
First: we taxpayers are subsidizing a virtually nationalized industry that is being run stupidly.
Second: we get to subsidize an upper middle class indulgence to the tune of $7500 (soon to be $10,000) a pop for a car most actual income tax payers can’t afford or won’t even budget for. Millions of Americans are being asked to fork over money to people who are better off then they are.
Talk about subsidizing the rich!
And I’m still angry about “cash for clunkers,” where we 1) subsidized the destruction of perfectly good cars, and 2) saw the used car market prices soar because of the reduced inventory. So who’s exploiting and victimizing the little guys again?
“Adequate size starts at 20 Horsepower—–easily equal to 300 HP reciprocation.”
Where is this from? Back when I was an engineering student there was a conversion for torque but not horsepower. Google gave me this;
http://www.kc9aop.net/Doc/link_pages/electrical_conversions.htm#TO_FIND_HORSEPOWER
E x I x EFF / 746
Horsepower is work done per unit of time. One HP equals 33,000 ft-lb of work per minute. When work is done by a source of torque (T) to produce (M) rotations about an axis, the work done is:
radius x 2pi x rpm x lb. or 2pi TM
When rotation is at the rate N rpm, the HP delivered is:
HP = radius x 2pi x rpm x lb. / 33,000 = TN / 5,250
For vertical or hoisting motion:
HP = W x S / 33,000 x E
Where:
W = total weight in lbs. to be raised by motor
S = hoisting speed in feet per minute
E = overall mechanical efficiency of hoist and gearing. For purposes of estimating
E = .65 for eff. of hoist and “connected gear.”
Note that I dropped out of the engineering program. Fourier Transforms did me in.
So either I didn’t get far enough or I have forgotten.
Anyway, a 20 HP motor being equal to a 300 horsepower IC engine doesn’t feel right to me.
s @ 40: Anyway, a 20 HP motor being equal to a 300 horsepower IC engine doesn’t feel right to me.
It’s a bit optimistic. As a heuristic, they say it only takes about 15HP to move your sedan down the freeway at 60MPH. Now, whether that’s 15HP at the wheels or 15HP at the crankshaft is another matter that can throw off numbers by 3x (?? I forget the specifics). But that’s also constant speed, on a flat road, it’s not acceleration up a hill with a ton of bricks in the back and the air conditioner going. A 300HP engine can do a lot more – but the top 200HP of that is seldom called on in normal driving. So it’s not quite as far off as it seems, at least if that 20HP is at the wheels. However, in most hybrids today it is NOT, so most hybrids have much more, the Prius advertises an 80HP* electric motor, for example, and it won’t get you over 15MPH.
*You can see various numbers from about 36 to 80, depending on model and maybe where it’s being measured.
http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2012-toyota-prius-c-news
39. Don Rodrigo
So: what is the real underlying issue?
Again a bit OT but I urge all Clubbers to read D’Souza’s two recent books on Obama in order. I believe it will transform your thinking; it certainly did mine.
Reading about his life and imagining it were yours will give a certain wry sympathy for the guy and appreciation(?) for what he’s done with himself. But most strongly it will cause enormous alarm and fear over the man’s cleverness and low cunning and our country with a president in charge with such a weak and flawed ego and damaged personality. You will understand Valerie Jarrett’s influence.
Most of all you will realize that we’ve all missed the boat on this guy. When we say, ”He doesn’t understand the first damn thing about economics! He’s ruining everything!” we’re not seeing that the economics are working out just the way he intended. He’s accomplishing everything!
If nothing else, consider how much he’s accomplished in under 4 years—he doesn’t understand?
Let’s recognize facts — the US Political Class has destroyed the US auto industry. Gulliver held down with lots & lots of red tape. Interesting that, in a competition between Union workers and Watermelons for the ears of the movers & shakers in the Democrat Party, the Union workers did not stand a chance. Who would have predicted that?
Meanwhile, a report from the front lines of an automobile-worshipping Middle Eastern state. Lots of German battlewagens and pedestrian Lexuses, of course. (“Lexus” — Japanese for “Please may I pay extra for my Toyota”. “Toyota” — Japanese for “boring”). Not a Pious/Prius anywhere to be seen, of course; nor even a Smart car.
But the streets are packed with the products of the once-proud US auto industry — Suburbans, Yukons, Durangoes, shiny Dodge Chargers, bright Camaros. Those little new Fords are about as common as French cars (which is to say, not common at all), but old Fords are the envied Kings of the Road — Crown Victorias and Lincoln Continentals that are obviously being immaculately maintained, since they are now irreplaceable.
There is a global market for the kind of vehicle that Americans once made. It is a pity that American politicians would rather create an economic desolation and call it environmentally sound.
life cycle operating costs well above that of efficient gasoline/diesel vehicles. And there is the hidden cost of battery replacement…
Curious, but besides the (costly and environmentally unfriendly) battery replacement, what are the other life-cycle costs? Electric motors are much simpler machines than internal combustion engines and should be far, far more rugged. Our railroads have been functioning with electric drivetrains for decades (a diesel engine is really a diesel-electric, with the diesel engines driving generators to produce enough electricty to run the electric traction motors), so it would require some incompetence to create a high-maintenence electric car… (edit – I mean aside from the batteries that is)
jmh @ 44: Electric motors are much simpler machines than internal combustion engines.
I dunno about that, given equivalent power levels. You can buy a one-cylinder model airplane piston engine for about the same price as an electric equivalent. Get into rare-earth magnets and transistorized power electronics, rechargeable megawatt/hour batteries cooled and fireproofed, the silliness of regenerative braking, … the real problem is when you have a car with *two* engines, the life cycle is gonna be OTOO 2x that of one engine.
k @ 43: the US Political Class has destroyed the US auto industry
Well it’s an old story of how it was all socialized to the mutual convenience of labor, capital, and government in the 1950s and 1960s, planned obsolescence, yada yada – and then those durn Japanese and their crazy idea of quality came along and upset the applecart.
The execrable design quality of all the US companies for *decades* was influenced by the economics and politics, but basically was inexcuseable and not imposed by anybody outside Detroit and the companies themselves. If there has ever been a case for creative destruction, the US car industry is it. Yet it is also crucial to our economy, even with foreign car manufacturers at least assembling here. There’s room for some discussion, but the blame is 98% their own, IMHO.
I passed a Volt yesterday and it was running and driving up a small hill, I shifted into the middle front gear and dropped into the next smaller rear gear and pedaled around it on my Giant ATX 860 mountain bike. L’il car was straining it’s guts out to keep up.
#24 stevesmith
“Green product” has become code for “inferior product way overpriced”.
Consider that officially so-o-o stolen for a T-shirt, as soon as I find a suitable set of graphics.
#44 JMH
Curious, but besides the (costly and environmentally unfriendly) battery replacement, what are the other life-cycle costs?
My niece and her husband have a Prius. My wife and adult daughter borrowed it for a trip across Kansas in the summer, and for two adults it is cheap and easy transportation. Add a kid, and I suspect it would be one of Dante’s circles.
That said, from what I gather from my niece; there are a whole bunch of critical electrical modules that are Prius specific and OEM only. If something breaks, it is gonna cost a bunch; plus you pretty much have to go to a Chevy dealer for all repairs, there not being a whole lot of mechanics trained and cleared to work on them.
So ANY maintenance of the drive train and transmission is going to cost a whole lot. So that probably has to be added to the life cycle cost, and I do not see them lasting long enough to develop the infrastructure for repairs.
Compare to my cars, all of which are old enough to vote, drink hard liquor, and own real property in fee simple in any state of the union. They get >30 mpg and if they break are reparable in most cases by myself and my son. If we can’t handle it, then there are multiple mechanics that can. And we can get parts at several competing outlets even in my small town.
Subotai Bahadur
That said, from what I gather from my niece; there are a whole bunch of critical electrical modules that are Prius specific and OEM only. If something breaks, it is gonna cost a bunch; plus you pretty much have to go to a Chevy dealer for all repairs, there not being a whole lot of mechanics trained and cleared to work on them.
So ANY maintenance of the drive train and transmission is going to cost a whole lot. So that probably has to be added to the life cycle cost, and I do not see them lasting long enough to develop the infrastructure for repairs.
Well, then that’s just poor engineering. The only complex components needed for an electric drive are the governors (and associated sensors), which are basically dedicated computers. But even then, they should cost maybe a grand or two at most and last years. “Repair” should amount to:
Step 1: plug USB cable into test bus, get diagnostic readon on standard laptop computer (reading published codes).
Step 2: If diagnostic code indicates malfunctioning unit, unplug old unit.
Step 3: Plug replacement unit in.
Nothing the average car owner couldn’t do if the car was designed properly. Serioiusly, an electric drive train is mechanically much more simple than something that runs off thousands of small explosions per minute and require intricate timing of fuel and spark delivery! But then I guess it all gets back to the way the car companies have been ruined.
The advantage of an ICE is that it uses the most efficient portable fuel storage system we know about (gasoline or diesel). Electric engines should have every other advantage… Aye carumba.
Electric motors are indeed simpler than internal combustion power equivalents. But they cost a lot more. A 1.5 HP 220VAC motor, such as for a swimming pool, costs about $300 – lately increased by a factor of 5 or so due to new “green efficiency standards.” I think you can buy a 3 hp gasoline engine complete with attached lawnmower for around $125.
Diesel Electric RR locomotives use AC motors, which are said to be more efficient. Obviously, they do not have electric energy storage, although hybrid locomotives are starting to be used that only run their much smaller engines as required to top off their batteries. They are useful for switch engines, since they are only used for short trips and also do not have to idle their engines for hours on end like conventional locos used in assembling trains.
Exactly why hybrid cars are so expensive remains a mystery to me. Note this was even the case with the first generation Prius, which had a battery the size of 10 D cells and that cost no more than a few hundred dollars. It is true that when you drive a Prius you are in reality driving a computer, and it feels like it, too. But as JMH says, computers now be cheap. Computer controlled fuel injection systems are around an order of magnitude cheaper than the old 1970′s carburators and are far more reliable and easier to fix, as well.
By the way, per the EPA, the computer diagnostic system has to be OBD II or later compatible, which has its own special connector (could not use a DB-25, dammit!). I now have my own checkout interface and laptop-based software, having vowed to never again give Toyota $70 to have them provide me with the wrong answer.
RWE @ 49 said:
“Computer controlled fuel injection systems are around an order of magnitude cheaper than the old 1970′s carburetors and are far more reliable and easier to fix, as well.”
A brand new Power train Control Module (PCM) costs about $1000. A brand new Mexican Solex carburetor for an air cooled VW costs about $100. It’s a given that a modern computer controlled, fuel injected, electronic ignition engine has much better fuel economy and is more reliable than the old carburetor / distributor-points system but the old system was cheaper to manufacture, repair and easier to understand. If the PCM malfunctions then you’re just screwed and have no options. Also, diagnosing a faultly PCM is really hard to do.
RWE also said:
“By the way, per the EPA, the computer diagnostic system has to be OBD II or later compatible, which has its own special connector (could not use a DB-25, dammit!). I now have my own checkout interface and laptop-based software, having vowed to never again give Toyota $70 to have them provide me with the wrong answer.”
I always carry my Saturn’s OBD-II scan tool in the trunk. It cost about $90 and was money well spent. Today, my Saturn’s Malfunction Indicator Light (MIL) was flashing. I pulled out my trusty scan tool and read P0304. A quick google search indicated that a P0304 means the engine is missing and could cause damage to the catalytic converter. I also noticed that the engine was missing (didn’t need a scan tool for that). If my 1964 Rambler American started to miss, I would have simply felt it missing. Fixing the Rambler would be easy, e.g. replace the plugs or play with the points. With the Saturn, I’ll first replace the plugs and plug wires. If it still misses then I’ll replace the coil packs with a junk yard spare. If that doesn’t do the trick, I may have to buy fuel injectors that cost $140 each (Ouch!!). If it comes to that, I have a set of junk injectors and maybe I can mix-and-match a working set. I’m now driving my reliable old Rambler while the Saturn is back home in the garage awaiting repair.
Getting back on topic: Battery driven electric cars are a bad idea. The power-to-weight ratio for batteries suck and batteries can charge/discharge only a limited number of times. A far better technology for an electric car is something based upon fuel cells. Unfortunately the problem of a fuel cell that runs on hydrocarbon fuel is still in the “too hard box”. Supposedly that sort of fuel cells exists but has issues.
P.S. There are issues with Pjmedia’s server software. I normally hit the “submit” button, then go back and hit the submit button a second time to get the “already submitted” error message. By doing that, I know my submission made it to Pjmedia’s server. I had two comment submissions go “poof” without a trace after following my standard procedure. Something is broken in Pjmedia’s server software.
Putting on my tin foil hat: It would not surprise me in the slightest if an Obama operative got a Stuxnet type virus into Pjmedia’s server and started playing games with it. Pjmedia should consider reloading their operating system and server software directly from the DVDs.
I’m hoping that Obama will be able to buy a Volt on Jan 21st 2013….
$40,000 for a mediocre compact car. I read a bunch of owner reviews and every one of them focused on how long they could go before buying gas. It was sad really – to see so many really stupid people that couldn’t figure out that they paid an extra $20,000 – money they could’ve spent on the modest fuel consumption of Toyota or Honda and had money left over and a higher resale value.
But hey, I know folks will vote for Obama again, so I know there are Volt buyers out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nvhAZ0vr0
Eggplant #50:
Well, you can’t compare an old VW carb to the one in my 1978 Celica, which I have had apart a few times and is more complex than an Atlas rocket engine or a nuclear power plant. It has verified the Car Talk observation that “If you take something apart and put it back together enough times you end up with two of them.” And that’s because you give up and buy another one, or another one just for parts. Or another one just so you can see how it comes apart so you can see how it goes back together.
I read back circa 1991 that a typical carb cost $400 to make and a fuel injector $19.00. This may not reflect the actual price you pay for replacement parts.
I think that a plug-in hybrid makes a lot of sense, as long as it is not taken to extremes. For 30 miles or even less worth of short trips around town you run on the battery. That would work for most of my driving. For longer trips the engine kicks in. But making such cars capable of freeway driving is dumb, though, and that can be a problem in some areas. I can’t go more than 2 miles without getting onto a 3 lane 45 MPH highway and I have to get it up to 55 or so just to go to Cocoa Beach. And full electric-only cars make no sense unless you are on a golf course or have more money than good sense.
A friend of mine has an early Prius and brags about the time he got in late from a trip and had left it parked at the airport, almost out of gas. He ran out of gas on the way home and had to creep at low speed a mile or so to a gas station on battery power. He says that an ordinary car could not do that. I responded that the rest of us handle that issue by not running out of gas.
Note that the original Prius as well as some of the current models use a modified Tercel engine, with a different head that changes the engine cycle to make it very fuel efficient but at the cost of low power output. The electric motor is an “afterburner” that is only good for acccleration and runs off the small batteries that are charged solely by regenerative braking. A computer controls all this, and why it is all so expensive to build I do not know. The motor is quite small, about the size of two dinner plates, I hear.
A simple hybrid is an excellent approach to increased fuel economy. Problem is, nobody wants to make a simple one.
I think there should be a tiny single-occupant hybrid commuter car that costs no more than the equivalent motorcycle. Something like that would make sense. The Chevy Volt doesn’t make sense.
Also, since Obama likes the Federal government picking winners, the Feds should buy out the patents on Nickel-Metal-Hydride battery technology and put it in the public domain. I think it might spur some hybrid vehicle innovation.
The problem with electric cars is they need gasoline engines to get out of the driveway or else a 250 mile long extension cord. They are a solution without a problem and toxic waste dumps on wheels to boot.
Electric cars were designed and built to solve a non-existent problem. A shortage of petroleum. The greenies wanted a technology advance that would replace OIL as an energy source. Instead they got better ways of locating and extracting hydrocarbons.
It is no longer 1973 and the 1973 solution isn’t working. We are still stuck with the rules and regulations created to solve that 1973 problem that wasn’t.
Next time you see a Pyrus driver, point out that AGW is a scam and they fell for it.
It’s sad really. In unguarded moments the utter stupidity of Democrat voters just makes me want to scream and break crockery against a brick wall. These people truly believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Perpetual Motion Machine, and yet they are the first to say conservatives believe the earth is flat. I don’t know a single Dem who will acknowledge that the electric/hybrid vehicle works only when charged by current generated by hydroelectric, coal, oil, or nuclear power facilities, at an incredible LOSS of efficiency over merely using that same current to power all the things it powers already, for which it has already been VERY MUCH OVER-SUBSCRIBED for more than a decade.
There was already insufficient electrical power generation capacity for all the industrial, government, and consumer demand, before the fanatics mandated electric cars.
What do those Dem-bulbs think causes Rolling Brown-outs, anyway?
One day, we may be able to put to work all the redundant Public School Administrators and under-trained babysitters digging highly useful post holes for fences and telephone poles. Maybe even some foundations for outhouses. It will take a century to undo the intellectual fraud they have inflicted on this nation.
RWE @ 52:
“.. you can’t compare an old VW carb to the one in my 1978 Celica, which I have had apart a few times and is more complex than an Atlas rocket engine or a nuclear power plant.”
The basic concept of the carburetor was incredibly elegant, i.e. the Venturi effect. You could easily model it with the Bernoulli equation. Then necessity required automobile engineers to layer complexity upon complexity until they ended up with the GM Quadrajet carburetor. I have an old Holley bug spray on my office desk that I use as a pencil holder. The Holley bug spray is very similar to the classic Stromberg “97″ carburetor that was a beautiful piece of engineering (mechanical perfection?). When I was a kid, I trained myself to take that Holley apart and reassembly it with my eyes closed. I doubt that I could do that with a Quadrajet. (Un)fortunately, fuel injectors have made the carburetor obsolete. Fuel injectors work but they’re completely uncool.
Actually, what I want is a small diesel runing a generator hooked up to traction motors, with a relatively small battery bank used to temporarily store the energy produced by regenerative braking. That would be the most sensible vehicle, but it doesn’t solve the imaginary greenie CO2 problem. (The problem is imaginary, not, alas, the greenies).
[edit - oh, and I agree with Eggplant about carburetors being very cool. I fondly remember an old Holly 650 spreadbore...]
How could an electric car be cost-effective when the energy cost per Kwh makes $5.00 gas seem cheap?? Particularly in California, where we have an escalating rate scale, where if you use more energy than it takes to run a 25W florescent light bulb and an 18CU freezer, you’re paying “Tier 4″ rates which I believe are something like $0.45 per KWH!!
So, the greenee’s want us on all-electric, no carbon based energy, yet have sworn themselves against anything nuclear. Hey there, Mr. California Lefty, can I help you hook up that 100 mile extension cord between your Volt and your backyard Windmill??
The problem with the leftist is (a) they are statist who intend to force you to do their bidding, and (b) their “bidding” is nonsensical. Hell, we’ll all starve to death before any of their dreams are realized.
O.S.
Old Salt @ 59:
Green politics to Leftism boils down to seizing power through other means. The KGB man who dreamed up Green politics was probably awarded the Order of Lenin.
The great tragedy of the Soviet Union is they did not come up with Green Politics and Liberation Theology about 10 years sooner. Had they done that, the Soviets would have won the Cold War and today we’d all be wearing red stars and singing “The Internationale” as liberated proliteriat.
The metrics for ICE and three-phase induction motors ( i.e. electric motors ) are so skewed that it’s really true that a 30hp electric will leave rubber all over town.
ICE hp is based upon taking a given engine all the way to total stall conditions… with the max product of rpms and torque dictating the proclaimed value.
In utter contrast, electric motors are rated for CONTINUOUS output — as in all day and all night.
Electric motors have immense starting torque.
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The REAL problem with EVs is that they are fair weather vehicles ONLY.
They can’t tolerate cold and high heat. You have no waste heat for your cabin — and any attempt at air conditioning will devastate speed and range.
Meaning: they can NEVER take the place of ICE machines even if astounding breakthroughs occur in batteries.
———–
To correct an earlier poster — none of the new EVs use classic DC motors. Instead VFDs ( variable frequency drives ) use IGBTs ( insulated gate bipolar transistors ) to chop DC into transients that are then ‘stacked’ to create THREE PHASE A/C power — its frequency swinging up and down to match driving demands.
This change merely replicates the shift that has happened in railroad traction motors in everything from BART cars to Electromotive giants.
Likewise, all elevator motors are being, stepwise, changed over. Series compound DC schemes are dated.
————
The ONLY areas that can suffer the limitations of EVs are Hawaii and the Virgin Islands — and, perhaps, a spring campus commute.
For about the cost of the Volt’s subsidy, the Feds could just buy us a whole new 90mpg car and be done with it!
The legendary British Formula 1 designer, Gordon Murray, has already designed and produced a marvelous 3-seater small car: The T-25 city car. It holds the road well at 70mph, the gas-powered model gets 90 mpg, and he says a diesel version would get 130mpg.
He has also reinvented the car factory itself, (calls it iStream) to be 1/5th the size of current factories. Murray says the T-25 can be profitably built and sold for $12K apiece. It has already passed its European crash tests with flying colors.
Here’s his website: http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/t25.php
He also has an electric version: the T-27.
And, he’s designed a really nice-looking electric sportscar called the Teewave AR.1
http://www.gizmag.com/gordon-murray-designs-an-electric-car/20040/