Owners charged up over electrics, but manufacturers have pulled the plug

[Coastie for Truth]

Owners charged up over electric cars, but manufacturers have pulled the plug - Michael Taylor - San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday April 24, 2005

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/24/MNGDTCEA9B1.DTL

It can make you dizzy, watching those numbers on the pump whiz by in such a blur that by the time you've pumped a measly 15 gallons of gasoline into your pickup truck, you've spent nearly $45.

But wait. What if you left your house in the morning, drove your 20 miles to work and 20 miles back -- by then, you'd have burned up $7 worth of gas - - and the whole trip cost a mere 50 cents?

That would be about the price of the electricity it costs to recharge your Ford Ranger electric-powered truck overnight. That's the truck that will go about 80 miles between charges, the one that looks the same as a gas- powered Ranger.

And there are other vehicles in this electric-powered class: the most original is General Motors' EV1, built from the ground up as a fast, economical two-seater, along with the Honda EV-Plus, the Ford TH!NK, Toyota RAV4 EV, Nissan Altra, Chevrolet S10 Electric and Chrysler Epic.

Pretty nifty cars, if you want to get out from under the thumb of the oil companies. There's only one problem: For the most part, you can't have them.

GM and other manufacturers have recalled most of their cars, leaving some in public agency fleets and others in museums or universities. In fact, GM has been hauling its EV1s out to the Arizona desert and crushing them.

For all intents and purposes, the hugely expensive electric car program - - created in the 1990s by the California Air Resources Board's mandate that the major automakers build a certain number of pollution-free cars -- is just about dead. The law requiring manufacturers to offer those cars for sale has long since been modified -- hybrids, compressed natural gas and "SULEV" cars (super ultra-low-emission vehicles) have taken up the environmental slack.

SNIP SNIP SNIP

A LONG ARTICLE AND WELL WORTH LINKING

Excerpts, comments, and annotations (from an "unbiased" GM EV1 Project alumnus)--

1) EVs were a "tiny and economically worthless niche."

Coastie asks - don't those dudes in Motown read Ken Deffeyes or David Goodstein or even James Howard Kunstler, don't they ever check the "Peak Oil Forum" on DU underground, don't they know anything about "Peak Oil" - aren't they watching unsold inventory, declining sales, declining "autos" stock prices?

2) Over the past few months, the electric car enthusiasts have conducted noisy protests and held round-the-clock vigils against Ford and GM in front of auto dealerships or storage yards.

3) The point of electric vehicle aficionados is that the auto industry is a tribe of idiots who will never break their reliance on the dwindling supply of fossil fuels, even with under funded and over hyped experimental forays into fuel cell technology.

4) The automakers, (dudes like Rick Waggoner and Bob Lutz - who are not exactly "enhancing shareholder values" or "protecting American jobs" any more) while politely thanking those who took a flier on their brief journey into the world of watts and volts, insist that the future of personal transportation lies elsewhere -- hybrid gasoline and electric, and, further down the line, fuel cells.

Coastie note: Don't Waggoner and Lutz buy gasoline on their personal charge card?

5) GM stopped EV1 production, because "after spending over $1 billion over a four-year time frame, we were only able to lease 800 EV1s. That does not a business make. As great as the vehicle is and as much passion, enthusiasm and loyalty as there is, there simply wasn't enough at any given time to make a viable long-term business proposition for General Motors.

Coastie note: I was on the EV project with the prime vendor - I was on the waiting list -- and they never ever got to me on the waiting list. Waggoner and Lutz couldn't run a Wendy's store. Stemple and Reuss couldn't even move me up on the list.

6) "Asked why GM didn't just sell the cars to the clamoring motorists, as Ford finally did with the Rangers, Barthmuss said that "parts are no longer available." Even though buyers might waive the right to sue GM over any design or production defects, he said, "in today's litigious society, there is no such thing as no liability." This aspect of electric vehicle ownership did not seem to be high on the concern list of the people who love these cars. Besides, there are numerous helpful Web sites catering to the electric vehicle community."

Coastie note: The standard GM poop. "Litigious society" They used that same argument with respect to anti-lock brakes, passenger car smart all wheel drive, active suspension. I lived in MI - I adjuncted at engineering schools in the auto belt - I worked in the Vendor community --- I know GM bull when I hear it.

7) Read what Tom Gage, a Chrysler alumnus quoted in the article, says-->

a)automakers were unenthusiastic about making electric cars because it was the first time a government agency -- in this case, the state air resources board -- had told them specifically what to do.

b) "The automakers saw this (CAL Air Resources Board "zero emissions rule") as a precedent they didn't want, something where regulators could tell them what to make," Gage said. "(They) fought it very hard, and one way to kill the mandate is to say it's a bad product, nobody wants to buy it, it's too expensive and its range is too short."

Here's a link to where Gage is now: http://www.acpropulsion.com/ . Gage is converting Toyota Scion xB and xA cars from gas engines to electric motors. The cars will cost about $45,000 to $65,000 each, depending on their accessories and battery power. Sadly there won't be many of these electric Scions. Each year, the big automakers sell a bit more than 16 million cars a year in the United States, nearly all of them with gas-powered engines. But Gage told the SF Chronicle that he figures he'll produce about 250 electric Scions a year. But if demand warrants, he can ramp up production to 500.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. What we REALLY need

A "microcar". Superlight, super-strong.

Build it out of fiberglas, but with ribs of high-tech superlight metals and/or compsite materials.

Build two engines into it: The first one, an electric, and the second one, a convertable gasoline/kerosene/alcohol/biodiesel engine.

In addition, give it the ability to be driven by pedaling.

Two passenger capacity is fine. Or one passenger and up to 300 pounds of cargo.

Mass produce them instead of the big-assed metal monsters we now use.

Yes, I know -- "Keep dreaming, Piggy!"

--p!

[Coastie for Truth]

2. My uncle told me that some truck company made that

in "The Good Old Days" - a diesel truck and an electric motor (with a battery you charged off of either the truck gen or the power lines). You could charge it up over night in the garage - and run off of electric battery until it got low. Then you switched off the electric motor, started the diesel, and "shifted" a "transfer case" ahead of the transmission to run off of the diesel.

It may have been some kind of a custom or conversion or limited production job, jury rigged up during the gasoline rationing days of WW2. The green grocer at the end of the block had one (at least that's what my uncle told me).

On the subject of tiny electric vehicles--->I had breakfast on Friday with a guy who has one of those Corbin "Sparrow" electric cars.

http://www.sparrowelectriccars.com/

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[Dogmudgeon]

3. YES!

This looks very close to what I have in mind. They look like they incorporate Bucky Fuller's "Dymaxion Car" principles.

Thanks for the link!

--p!

[htuttle]

6. I've really been liking the idea of that 'reverse tricycle' design...

..with the two steering wheels in front, and a single drive wheel behind. They seem to be a lot more stable in corners than traditional tricycles with a single wheel in front.

In addition, with a single drive wheel, you get rid of the need for a differential and drop a lot of weight and complexity. The traction isn't as good as having two drive wheels, but that wouldn't be much of an issue if you stay on roads and streets. And with the climate changes in progress, we probably won't need to worry so much about driving in snow anyway (I know it's gotten to be much less of a problem up here in South Central Wisconsin over the last 10 years).

[Massacure]

4. Fiberglass isn't the best choice for cars.

Carbon fiber is a quarter the weight of steel and half that of fiberglass. Plus it is stronger and more durable than fiberglass.

The only problem is that it has high costs.

[One_Life_To_Give]

10. Recycle?

The European WEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment)directive is essentially banning these composits from use. So I wonder if using composits in new vehical design will be restriced as well and if it is even the wise thing to do. Of should we use somehting like aluminum so we can completly recycle it?

[Massacure]

11. I can't find any information about the WEEE banning carbon fiber.

[htuttle]

5. I got a wild hair the other weekend to build something just like that

So I started googling around on commuter cars and alternative engines first to see what others had come up with.

I found scores of people who've been building small efficient cars in their garages and dozens of people working on all sorts of engine ideas, from electric/biomass hybrids, to steam powered Wankel rotary engines, to turbine powered hybrid cars, etc... If you have an idea for a vehicle, odds are that it has been thought of, if not built and tested, already. Most of them seemed to have good performance characteristics, and all had excellent mileage.

So why don't we use them? Because the very last thing on our list of priorities for almost all of our technology since the beginning of the petroleum age is the efficient use of energy.

Good example from the past: The demise of the Stanley Steamer (holder of the world land speed record of 121 mph in 1906). It was a steam-engine car that had almost all the things you'd want in a car going for it. Fast, powerful, reliable, efficient (and omnivorous on fuels!). The thing is, you had to warm up the car (ie, the boiler) for about 10 minutes before you could take off in the morning. Internal combustion cars were capable of going as soon as you turn the key. I'm sure that over time, the ten minute warm up could have been at least shortened if not eliminated (through advances in monotube flash boilers, etc...). But the market had already decided, even though in theory the Stanley was capable of running on anything from fuel oil to alcohol to even wood chips and garbage. Fuel efficiency just wasn't a factor in the market at the time. The ten minutes saved was more important.

We don't need a brand new technological idea to 'save the planet'. We already have almost all of the technology we need to deal with this. Our problems are cultural and economic, and are unfortunately much harder to solve than merely coming up with a new technological innovations.

If you really want a car that gets the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon and can run on garbage, you can already build one yourself. You just can't buy one at a dealership anywhere. What is needed here is not smarter inventors, but Kapitalists with a longer term vision than two quarters from now and the will to get there. Hell, if we could just get someone like Steve Jobs to take a look at commuter cars...

[jpak]

7. My uncle and a cousin owned and restored several Stanley Steamers

They were as quiet as a church mouse below 5 mph, but crank those puppies up and they sounded like freight trains.

[htuttle]

8. Back in 1906...

...Internal combustion cars were loud as hell, too.

:)

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Urban Legend of Electric Cars

This one repeatedly makes the rounds.

Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison were good friends (Edison's original "shop" has been restored and moved to Ford's Greenfield Village where it is on display).

When Henry was getting ready to the make his universal car for the American farmer and working man, Edison advised him to make an electric car, with energy stored in a conventional battery - and running an electric motor.

Henry decided against it and went with gasoline.

Henry's reasoning - the farms did not have electricity (were talking 1907 or thereabouts) - and he wanted a universal car for farmers.

So, the "Ford Model T" had a gasoline engine.

Think where we would be if 100 years of creative engineering had gone into electric cars instead of gasoline cars.

-The same hundred years went into air craft.
--Ninety years went into radio.
---Eighty years went into television.
----Starting with Einiac - only 60 years went into computers.

So. Where are we with electric cars (Look at what happened to batteries after the cell phone, the laptop computer, the digital camera -- "was it the chicken or the egg?")