Hybrid Hatred (Volt related)

[Huzband]

Oh, one more thing. Where do batteries get their power?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Couldn't help myself.

[moshe_levy]

Oh, that's a long one. 212 years, actually. Read all about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(electricity)

 

-MKL

[racer7]

Moshe,

I suspect you and I agree on many things and also that our differences come primarily from the fact that I'd guess I've got about 25 years of extra observing experience. I'd bet our educational backgrounds aren't all that different- I hold a tchnical Ph.D. from a world class university and have run everything from product R&D functions to multi-hundred million dollar manufacturing plants. There is little in the way of technical stuff I don't understand at least the basics of in fields all the way from biochemistry to physics to computers and other widgies and I took my first auto mechanics classes in high school in the era of musclecars.

 

So why do I hate Volt? Simple- I see it as govt prodded gadget that is worthless to most people. Various govt agencies have a piece of the prodding from CARB to the feds and without that it wouldn't exist. When govt tries to create something the marketplace doesn't demand it is usually a poor and overly expensive effort. And I wouldn't be at all surprisd to see next steps being the govt giving more tax dollars to municipalites to buy this piece of (admittedly novelly integrated) "junk" given the govt intervention to provide yet another temporary reprieve to an auto industry that is dying a slow death mostly due to lack of leadership and creativity. After all, just exactly how much improvment has occured in electric cars in the past century- almost nothing compared to the improvements in most technology. The improvement in the Volt is all in the integration with a very ordinary gas powerplant.

 

All forms of energy are fine by me as long as environmental concerns are accounted for in choices. Spent way too much of life appreciating nature to want to destroy it and I probably understand a lot better than many how human existence is impacted by other life on this planet. Coal plants need to get best current technology and keep improving beyond that. Nukes need better management in some cases and physical upgrades to best current. Solar and wind need to be facilitated- yes even with bits of govt cash for some of it but $500 million for Solyndra was lunacy as any private sector guy could have told them). But ultimately everything needs to fit into a reasonably free market situation to truly grow and be permanently useful in our society. I see no way for an electric car to fit in except as a bit of an oddity unless forced by circumstances not likely to occur any time soon- they're not good enough and there are no known battery technologies to allow the needed improvments for most potential users.

 

Re manufacturing subsidies- although I've spent a lot of my life in same, never at a plant directly subsidized by govt tax dollars except for a minor (and we didn't use it anyway) training subsidy at the last one (the training programs in many cases are simply welfare for local community colleges- we do better with on site training by own staff). I wish all manufacturing subsidies for plants, the movie industry, etc would disappear.

I had not looked up exactly how many $ VW got from TN but I would have been shocked if they hadn't gotten any - its been the way of the world for the past 15-20 years. I like my current 4 wheel stuff sanely priced, readily understood and serviced by multiple shops, and efficient and my driving style simply said diesel rather than hybrid (maybe I just like intercoolers). A few days ago I saw diesel for less than premium grade gasoline- something I never thought to see again in my lifetime.

 

I also don't put VWs plant subsidy this in the same category as govt bailing out a failed company be it a bank or auto maker. Bankruptcy can be a good thing- it can save what is of value while shredding the worthless. It would have allowed a more thorough and yes more painful restructuring than what has happened- which I predict will allow only temporary relief so is basically an illusion of a fix. Like Xerox and Kodak, the US auto industry is not capable of surviving natural business selection over the long haul as its history over the past half century makes very clear (I got to meet some senior guys at Kodak in the mid 90s and after that nothing ineffective they did surprsed me but that's another topic). It will eventually go the way of the Brit car manufacturing business- relegated to foreign-owned firms and boutique makers. I'm figuring another 25 years or so though.

 

A couple other attempts at electrics are even more laughable given their target price points. And for many potential uses where a Volt could go an electric golf cart might get it done at a fraction of the cost (obviously not including short 80 mph commutes). We've got a joint nearby, Bald Head Island, that is a few miles across with no cars allowed- golf carts only- and it works OK for the folks there. Granted its leisure and residential, not industrial.

 

The same govt that helped bring the Volt into being is also subsidizing farmers to waste food crops to make ethanol to burn.

Do you do any of your own food shopping and have you noticed that food prices for many common items are up 20% in the past year? Are you aware that corn inventories are at a historic low and that's going to continue? Yet the process of making ethanol from corn saves almost no petroleum - it takes way too much energy to grow and harvest corn compared the energy yield of the distilled ethanol result. That fact was first published in the mid 1970s (David Pimentel at Cornell among others) so its no secret to anyone who has followed the topic. I'll bet some folks think ethanol is renewable enery when its actaully only a lousy conversion of petroleum to another form.

 

Yeah, govt does a great job..I think the law of unintended consequences was invented to descibe what happens when govt do-gooders meddle in stuff. So how many new coal burners will we build to fuel electric cars? Or do we just do everything with the now abundant natural gas and hope that we don't lose so much methane to the atmosphere that we make global warming worse (given that it is by far worse than CO2). Or do we just push everone into cities and tell them to ride public transport.

 

 

Renewable enery and using it to do anything requiring energy can be a good thing but its moving slowly and is likely to stay that way partly due to inept and ineffective govt policies. Its going to have taken the better part of a decade from the first serious discussions to the time the first windpower rig appears in my vision off the NC coast. Even you will be long dead before renewables make much of a dent at current rate of progress because it is so much faster and cheaper to get stuff done when it can happen without direct govt involvement.

 

In todays's biz news - a possible deal between Russians and Exxon to spend up to $500 BILLION to drill in the Arctic. Gee, we can't pull a bit more out of ANWR using a miniscule bit of our own land but we can spend a bunch helping the Russians profit too. Makes sense to me..NOT. The caribou didn't mind the last time we built there according to the folks tracking them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lawnchairboy]

"Even you will be long dead before renewables make much of a dent at current rate of progress because it is so much faster and cheaper to get stuff done when it can happen without direct govt involvement."

 

no argument here.

[moshe_levy]

Racer-

 

I appreciate your post and obviously you have strong feelings about this issue. If your post is accurate you certainly have more professional experience than I do and a higher degree to boot. Some of your points are certainly valid in my view, though specific to the Volt it has become a poster child for something it is just member one of, the budding EV / Hybrid field. Why the Volt? I don't exactly know but it IS an election year, which explains most of it.

 

I appreciate your environmental perspective but to me, energy independence trumps that, because figuring out those environmental issues falls to Americans while continuing the status quo leaves us addicted to OPEC, a greater evil. Getting off of OPEC's tit becomes a grand American scheme to make America less dependent on unstable foreign oil sources. I know we can do it, because we have done so many great things in the past when it was demanded of us. History is a good guide and in the area of ingenuity, America's history is second to none. We can do it. And we will do it. It is already in motion.

 

The rest about gov't is hit and miss. We've been through this at length in this thread and while the overall theme of gov't incompetence is replete with many true examples, there are many others where it has been a success. "Free market" has very little to do with the car industry, where the products are amongst the most regulated on earth in any first world country like ours. Not only the product, but what it runs on (gas) and what it drives on too (roads). So it is in that context which we must discuss automobiles, not some abstract laissez-faire fantasyland that doesn't exist.

 

My family has a Volt. We have lived with it for a year, and have direct experience for what it is good for, and what it isn't good for. For my father, who spends 90% of the miles commuting to work, it is perfect. He doesn't buy gas anymore, and that is exactly what he wanted to accomplish. For a host of other reasons, he loves the car, like most other Volt owners do, which is why they have the highest rating in Consumer Reports for customer satisfaction. That says something, as does the fact that I'm actually feeling something good about an American car, which hasn't happened in forever.

 

The issue of energy is a political one and in such cases it is very easy to argue against pure free market economics. For example, I can easily show you that China can build our warships, tanks, and subs cheaper than we do. Pure free market economics would say to just buy these items from China then. For obvious national security reasons, we do not do that. Same here with energy. Enough people are waking to the fact that market corrections, when they come, are swift and brutal, and that relying on our "friends" in OPEC to set stable prices for a limited resource is not a smart long term strategy. We've got to get off of it. We have to start somewhere.

 

And where you're most wrong is in the government's ability to make that happen. In fact, ONLY the government can make it happen in a meaningful way. You see, the single largest consumer of oil in the world, is the US Armed Forces. And the US Armed Forces have decided, for national security, to make energy efficiency a top priority. The thinking is, there is no point in having all of this machinery if some tin pot dictators can get together and starve us of the fuel needed to make it work. So they are spending HUGE amounts of money to find ways to make the entire apparatus from buildings to shelters to ships to subs to vehicles more efficient. To paraphrase Navy Sec Ray Mabus, they are such a huge consumer, that if the technology doesn't exist on the market to make it happen, they can MAKE a market. They have the money, the size, the influence, and the need. And it's happening. Navy's USS Main Island, its first hybrid ship, saved some 900,000 gallons of fuel on her maiden voyage. That's about $2m less in fuel on just that voyage. I see the RFQs every single day in my business, from little solar-powered shelters to retrofitting warships. It IS happening.

 

And to borrow a fiscally conservative idea, this technology will "trickle down," will get cheaper over time, and will be implemented in our cars, our planes, our houses, and our offices. And we will ALL be better off for it. Like the internet we're on right now. And GPS. And miniturization of components. And a thousand other inventions that came as a DIRECT RESULT of military (read: government funded) R&D. Which now permeates every facet of our lives, in a good way. Gov't as the answer to everything? Certainly not. Gov't as ALWAYS the problem? Usually not, too. Either extreme gets blown out of the water easily with real-life examples of success and failure, just like the free market itself. The truth lies in between and is far more complicated.

 

No matter your objections, the alternative of the status quo where we enrich unstable theocracies and tin pot dictatorships who then use that wealth against us is not something that anyone has mounted a serious defense of. We're going to get off that tit!

 

-MKL

[moshe_levy]

Ooops. That's USS MAKIN Island. Sorry 'bout that.

 

-MKL

[racer7]

Moshe,

I've got no issues with govt R&D whwther its in energy or at NIH.. Where it runs amok is when it tries to transition to manufacture of something especially for non-govt use. The success of GPS is due to firms like Garmin, the internet to software and other computer industry firms that make cheap tools to use it. They DO NOT exist for the average person because of govt making them available. The spinoffs from the moon efforts of years ago were also made available by private organizations. Govt needs to stay out of direct commercialization in most cases.

 

I'm glad your Dad likes his Volt and it meets his needs. At his age (likely similar to mine) he (we) are entitled to spend our $ and time driving as he (we) see(s) fit having used most of it for the needs of others from employers to family. But the price delta for Volt would buy a whole lot fuel and if he's never buying gas, he's basically not going far so his true needs are minimal. The fact remains that the Volt is more than most can afford to spend and won't do what most want from a mixed energy vehicle. I'd love to see the GM internal memos arguing to make this thing- surely they can't believe its saleable in any numbers so what did they hope to accomplish? Hyundai/KIA folks look like geniuses compared to GM and a lot of their stuff traces to old generation stuff originally purchased from Mitsubishi and others, then modernized..

 

Apparently no one in govt can do even simple arithmetic- paying off a $500 million investment like Solyndra takes a solid and serious plan, time, and a whole lot of luck. Just getting a plant like that to run well AFTER you've spent the money to build it will take at least a couple years in a new industry. What in the heck were they thinking and is there even a single person who passed his first MBA finance class involved with this in the govt? Without enough customers you're screwed before you start- building a business takes more than field of dreams stuff. Jobs saved Apple by understanding what consumers wanted even though they didn't know it yet- NOT by making a widgie and going out to pedal it. Apple continues to make money mostly by taking profits from slow thinking industries that don't want to adapt to reality- from its about to happen pillaging of the publishing industry to its swiping of music distribution profits and the slaughter of RIM.

 

Re cars being regulated- that's a yes and no. Its useful to understand the difference between "performance std" regs that say what has to be achieved vs those that say exactly how it has to be done. Most industries have some aspects where performance stds exist in regs (and many of those actually came from industry practice or prodding) and although industries often grouse about the costs and the govt always (and deliberately) underestimates them, typically meeting them doesn't cause much disruption. One type of job I've had a couple times is head of quality for drug firms- a legally required position with powers confered by law and regulation that not even my CEO would try to mess with given the criminal penalties in the Food and Drug Act. Lots and lots of performance regs and many other things incorporated into the law and regs by reference like all the requirments in the USP (several thousand pages of fine print) that is published by a private organization. The job makes one part teacher/coach and part cop. Despite all that, mostly the regs aren't a hindrance to doing whatever needs to be done. The few that are typically are antique and obsolete stuff that say exactly how something has to be done and in many cases one can substitute a better, more modern approach with no consequences. Eventually those regs get updated to reflect reality. I don't personally see most regulation as a huge barrier except the type the keeps productive work from getting started expeditiously and in the energy field there is way too much of that. For the auto industry there are mostly performance stds and smart folks ought to be able to cope with minimal problems- other industries do.

 

I've got no arguments with you about energy independence mostly because it is easily doable WITH MINIMAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES in my opinion- and could in fact be achieved in a fairly short timespan with focussed effort. Govt isn't doing much to lead, defense dept or not. Imagine what a very clear national govt policy of 100% independence would say to the rest of the world. (Oil producers would suddenly become our best friends and we could save trillions and 10,000 or so lives, many unfortuneately likely wasted trying to make places like Afghanistan into something they are not) Although my hobbies include a lot of time spent in nature (eg technical level diving, astronomy, bird watching, hunting, fishing, boating in many locations) I don't side with the rabid greenies living in metro areas who think meat is born in plastic wrappers and energy from wind or the sun will magically appear. The pathetic state of American's technical knowledge and ability to do basic quantitative estimates of anything guarantees that many of these folks are somewhere between being zealots and idiots, not realists. I'll bet most of them think native Americans were great conservationists taking only what they needed when in fact they were pretty destructive folks who radically altered what was here before them. I'll bet the average New Yorker knows almost nothing about where his drinking water comes from and how it gets there yet at its core its based on one of the great civil engineering triumphs of a century ago, not sticking straws in the Hudson.

 

Politics or more accurately, political self interest warfare stoked by media reporting, is the most pressing problem of the country. NOT the deficit, not who gets elected next and not even energy. Nothing useful is happening in DC except obstructionism from all sides which is not in keeping with American values- how long now since there was a budget? - and is why the govt is now held in utter contempt by most citizens. With only a tiny bit of my tongue in cheek, I'd suggest that simply picking the legislature, president and judges by random drawings from lists of registered voters would likely produce a major improvement. If I were a senator or representative these days I'd be paying a lot of attention to my personal security- given the number of armed folks in this country and the extreme divisiveness the political class is fueling, I'd expect it to boomerang on a few of them eventually just like it has in earlier times. I'm a little surprised we haven't seen a few repeats of 1960s era riots yet- maybe the media serves as a venting mechanism for the violence-prone and is why none of this has happened yet??

 

IMO, one of the biggest mistakes we ever made was doing away with a draftee military- sure our pros are a great military organization BUT their very existence has made in possible for us to fritter away trillions on wars that couldn't be fought with a draftee army any more than Vietnam was. I remember watching Colin Powell show those aerial photos "proving" Irag had WMDs at the UN and noting the the photos proved nothing at all and he didn't sound convinced himself. It didn't surprise me when he parted ways with Cheney and Bush- even a good soldier can only stomach so much BS.

 

It was more fun to listen to DC news when Wilbur Mills and the strippers were skinny dipping in the fountains. Then, govt at least had entertainment value....

 

Thanks for the hybrid ship info. I'm a naval histtory buff with a fair library covering US and foreign from the 1860s onward so I need to get more current of that stuff.

[moshe_levy]

Racer-

 

Again, we're likely closer than you think, and all of this has been covered before in this thread, but:

 

1) EV buyers these days are obviously early adopters. They are NOT buying these cars primarily for personal economics (i.e., I will eventually save enough gas to pay off the price premium on this car). They are buying them for other reasons - energy security is one of them, and my major reason. Like all early adopters, they can afford to spend more to buy something they believe is the right product for them. It is foolhardy to apply a purchase standard to a product which the actual buyers themselves are not using. If you are stuck on personal economics as the end-all-be-all and quantifying payoff periods, this isn't for you, yet. It may be if we have another gas crunch which throws all your numbers off. It may be as prices of these vehicles drop. And so on.

 

In time as economies of scale leverage, prices come down and mass acceptance is easier. Just wait - next year LG Chem moves their battery plant from overseas to Michigan and the price of Volt's battery will drop significantly, which will help bring down MSRP more than anything else would.

 

2) When you say "Imagine what a very clear national govt policy of 100% independence would say to the rest of the world." My friend, I could not have said it better or agree with you more. That, by definition, is only possible through government! So why buy a fuel efficient car? Because as you correctly say gov't is stuck arguing and not deciding on these issues. It's been that way for decades, since the Dept. of Energy itself was created. So we can sit around and wait for them, which may or may not happen. Or we can aim our individual behavior to accomplish that goal right now, as best we can. That is EXACTLY the reasoning behind many purchases of EVs and hybrids, because that's a family's largest user of oil, far and away. We're not sitting around and waiting for government - but taking matters into our own hands, and reducing our personal dependence on oil to the largest extent we can. Notice: No personal economics in there. We pay more, happily, because we believe in this cause. We pay more, because that extra money goes towards manufacturers in exchange for the technology which increases efficiency, not to King Abdullah for more gas. I would have thought that would be quite the conservative, hawkish position, based on what that ideology purports to believe in. But I don't care what you call it - I call it "the right thing to do."

 

You see the political irony here is that many hybrid / EV buyers are buying their cars specifically because they don't want to sit around and wait for Uncle Sam to do something about energy independence, and meanwhile the cars are depicted as "government mobiles." Funny how the labels don't fit.

 

Finally you said private firms bought GPS, internet, miniturization, etc. to market to the masses. Of course they did. The government certainly isn't adept at bringing product to mass market at low cost and high quality. Never has been, never will be. Its organizational structure is far from suitable. But gov't R&D did CREATE those important technologies, and many others. To discount the creation of a new technology entirely and only focus on the mass marketability of it is pure folly. Free market theory dictates that if there were profit potential behind said technologies, private industry would have been the one to invest the R&D and get the creation done. But they didn't, did they? Sometimes, like miniturization, these technologies are created solely for a purpose government has. Sometimes that purpose, as with NASA, cannot be shared or publicized for security reasons. So again, it WAS government that did the R&D - and make no mistake, that's the heavy lifting. You know that if you're in technology, period. Hell, Americans invented half the consumer electronics in use today, but we don't make them here, do we? Does that mean we don't deserve any credit for said products existence?

 

In my view if someone cannot find one good thing to say about this role of government, they're as insane as those people who think every solution lies with government. It just isn't true, either way. Successes (A123), and failures (Solyndra) - plenty of examples on both sides, just like the free market itself.

 

In the case of true energy independence it simply cannot - will not - happen without government, because obviously it is a matter of policy. As I said the military is leading the way, as usual. And if the past is any indicator, which I am always a believer in, we will see tremendous benefit out of this on many levels of life. Meanwhile, many of us do not want to wait, and do whatever we can (within our needs and lifestyles) to accomplish energy independence on our own, within our own lives.

 

-MKL

[moshe_levy]

Update as of this AM - for anyone interested, I am quoted by Motor Trend as part of Detroit Editor Todd Lassa's blog posted today.

 

See Will Chevrolet Volt Politics Disappear After November?

 

 

-MKL

[Ken H.]

Oh, one more thing. Where do batteries get their power?

It’s very rare that I agree with Danny on much of anything here, but actually I think he makes the key point to the whole subject. When economic, political and environmental impact of generating the electricity (yes even when discussing solar panels made of rare-earths in or from some of our ‘enemies’) is amortized over the vehicles themselves, it’s a tough argument to win. Or at least I’ve never seen any hard cradle-to-grave numbers that support it. Somewhere/day there may be a critical mass number where electric vehicles cross over into a net positive, but again, where’s the data?

 

I think there are some parallels to be made to the whole ethanol debacle. At least how it’s executed in North America. At first it seemed like a good ‘get off of foreign oil’ strategy. (Including by me BTW, I bought one of the first flex-fuel vehicles.) But as the total life cycle cost became better understood, it became clear it was, and still is, a net-loss. Now days it only continues because of the strong political lobby to boost farm prices. Irrespective of the value of or its impact on society.

 

Eclectic cars will prove to be much the same I suspect. When/as we start to better understand the full picture of them, the support arguments fall apart. All your really doing with them is shifting uptream the conversion point of fuel (usually fossil fuel) to energy to create motion. Instead of doing it within the vehicle, you’re doing it at the electricity creation point. And with the introduction of additional transient losses in between to boot.

 

I’ve said before, I think the whole idea of trying to create energy efficient (which by extension means political and environmental efficient/effective) personal transportation is a fools errand. Because basically, regardless of the incremental gains made, a couple of percentage points gains made here or there – it’s all just nibbling around the edges.

 

What’s needed is a massive re-think of both the how and the need to be moving people (and to a lesser extent things) around in huge numbers on a continuous basis. Improving the effective mileage of a personal transportation device from 30 mpg to 50, or 70 or even 200 mpg isn’t going to get the problem solved. When we reduce the need to move people and created better ways to mass do so when unavoidable, such that we’ve created a net equivalent savings of 10,000 mpg; then we’ll be taking about being able to make a real impact. Until then, we’re still in a have your cake and eat it to wishful thinking mindset.

 

[Paul Mihalka]

OH well. We are running out of oil and it comes from bad countries. Drilling in the ocean is dangerous. Fracking for gas is costly and bad for the environment. Nuclear power? Oh no! Coal, while we have some, is terrible polluting. Solar power? For the panels we need materials from bad countries (this is the first time I read something bad about solar). Wind power? Not in my backyard, kills birds. Well, the human race developed a unstoppable demand for energy - and we can't get something from nothing.

[racer7]

Moshe,

The MT article was interesting and I got a chance to do a quick look at the basic design of Makin Island. Hopefully, it won't get a head to head combat test of whether the high voltage elctrical bits and software dsigns are truly combat worthy. Certianly the isn't much all that novel about the diesel or gas turbine bits but the way electrics are employed and combined is interesting.

 

I understand and respect those who vote their beliefs with their wallet. So no issue with folks wanting to buy a Volt if they can afford one and believe it a useful contribution to energy self sufficiency. But those folks sure don't need the tax break. Just one more example of the govt feeding the relatively well off who don't need it.

Only now is the Prius becoming less of a politcal statement by its owners and an almost practical choice.

 

I don't connect the Volt to any political party- not relevant to me. Only to govt meddling which is.

 

But that's only part of the reason I hate the Volt. The other is that as a total package of price and performance I think its a mediocre effort at best without any real impact in its current form. If a $20-25K pricepoint had been met and electric range about doubled this could have been a home run and instead it will simply be the pilot project that will be forgotten after other makers do or don't do something to make or not a better version. Just one more time in my lifetime I'd like to see a smashing commercial success from an American car maker- the last I saw was the Ford Mustang whose market justifications and target couldn't have been more different than the Volt..

 

I don't call the Volt an electric extended range vehicle like the MT guys. Maybe for urban folks that applies but out here its just an electric boosted gas powered car that comes with a tax subsidy. Too many miles at a pop. It would do about half of my usual one way run before going to gas. And though it would deliver better mpg per gallon of petrol it burned than my Passsat, to me that bit of difference isn't worth the extra cost. I'll do somethings useful to reduce my carbon footprint (I use only modest electric plus my vehciles) but I'm not going to invest $50K in panels on a roof plus extra $ in my vehicle in hopes of some possible 5-10 year ROI that might never happen. Neither are most others.

 

Not obvious to me why onshoring a Volt battery should allow for a big price drop. Generally onshoring choices are about improved logistics more than reduced costs. And I don't know that the battery represents the biggest part of the price.

Generally, price reductions are driven most by competition and secondarily by economy of scale.

 

So the success of the Volt will be easily judged by seeing if it draws some serious competition (not the Leaf....). Won't take long if it looks like a good bet to other makers. Even the best "use" and "design" patents are easily bypassed with a bit of time and effort or might even be licensed. To the extent that anyone at GM thinks the Volt is a way out of some of the hard core competition in the mainstream car biz they're suffering from delusions,

The only way to avoid competition in a desirable market space is to manipulate govt to protect it for your benefit.Which is why Exxon makes so many contributions to Republicans compared to what other largefirms do, as the MT guys noted (Disclosure- my father worked for Esso/Humble/Exxon for most of his career and I got a scholarship funded by a foundation created by Standard Oil's second president that paid my undergrad bills. Got no personal gripes with Exxon other than the fact that their PR is often heavy handed and clumsy. Big oil is also a rough game..)

 

The current economy is imposing other restraints on the Volt.

The unreliability of any kind of steady employment in American industry given the way Wall Street folks trade companies is causing many to decide where they want to live and then finding work in a commuting distance, knowing that work will be a few years at best and then a different commute will take its place. So commute distances are going up for many. It is nothing at all to find folks doing 150 miles per day around here- which would equate to a day of farting around in NJ traffic.

 

For most buyers though obviously not Volt purchasers, its the size of the monthly payment that matters. Doesn't appear that the Volt has much to offer there though if the design is any good and and the electric bits can be serviced or replaced, residuals should be quite high so lease costs should be low- unless the industry sees it as a throwaway prototype. After all, the gas motor ought to never need much attention or wear out given how little use it will see by typical buyers so one ought to be able to run it until the body dissolves from sun and water...

[upflying]

 

 

 

What’s needed is a massive re-think of both the how and the need to be moving people (and to a lesser extent things) around in huge numbers on a continuous basis. Improving the effective mileage of a personal transportation device from 30 mpg to 50, or 70 or even 200 mpg isn’t going to get the problem solved. When we reduce the need to move people and created better ways to mass do so when unavoidable, such that we’ve created a net equivalent savings of 10,000 mpg; then we’ll be taking about being able to make a real impact. Until then, we’re still in a have your cake and eat it to wishful thinking mindset.

 

To some extent, that's happening today.

Telecommuting means you don't have to drive to work

Home schooling means you don't have to drive the kids to school.

A few computer clicks and you can have anything in including groceries delivered to your home.

Visiting relatives can be done with Skype, texting, Twitter and Facebook.

Motorcycle riding and flying can all be done with simulators.

Doctor consultations can be done with email.

Taking kids to soccer practice and Little League games can now be done on a Wii.

Going to church can be done on Webcam.

If you need to go somewhere, mass transit is cheap, fast, safe, clean and convenient.

No need for a car, no need to leave the house, energy problem solved.

[Ken H.]

The other is that as a total package of price and performance I think its a mediocre effort at best without any real impact in its current form. If a $20-25K pricepoint had been met and electric range about doubled this could have been a home run and instead it will simply be the pilot project that will be forgotten after other makers do or don't do something to make or not a better version. Just one more time in my lifetime I'd like to see a smashing commercial success from an American car maker.

I agree, that’s what it boils down to in a nutshell. If you look back at the original design concepts and target specs, vs. what we got, it’s a quite a let down. Sure it’s a nice enough car, with some novel features, but that’s about it. I’m glad Moshe’s dad likes his, and I’m sure there are other owners that feel the same. But if GM had really hit one out of the park, created something really unique and new, we’d be applauding all the direct subsidies as a smart move on the part of the gov’t instead of lambasting/lamenting it.

 

I think it’s kind of a sad commentary on the state of engineering education & expertise and the state of companies & manufacturing in North America today that given all those dollars, and all those years, the car as we see it today is the best we could come up with. How are we going to regain a global leadership position ever again if the Chervolet Volt represents our best effort?

 

[moshe_levy]

Eclectic cars will prove to be much the same I suspect. When/as we start to better understand the full picture of them, the support arguments fall apart. All your really doing with them is shifting uptream the conversion point of fuel (usually fossil fuel) to energy to create motion. Instead of doing it within the vehicle, youre doing it at the electricity creation point. And with the introduction of additional transient losses in between to boot.

 

I would say as we get the full picture, the support argument gets stronger. Because in fact the true cost of oil is far higher than the cost at the pump. The cost in blood and treasure to secure these sources, the costs of being held hostage to speculation, to the OPEC cabal's price fixing, and so on - the externalities (environmental included). Obviously you are shifting the energy production upstream - that the whole point!!! Shifting it from sourced in unstable regions who are our enemies to right here at home. Is it perfect? No. Are there issues to overcome? Of course. Are these issues any reasonable argument for maintaining the status quo? I would say - no.

 

-MKL

 

PS - What do you mean by "transient" losses? The BEST internal combustion engines are barely 20% efficient. Diesel, maybe 23-25%, at best. Electric is exponentially higher than that. And no maintenance, either. What losses are you talking about?

[moshe_levy]

I think its kind of a sad commentary on the state of engineering education & expertise and the state of companies & manufacturing in North America today that given all those dollars, and all those years, the car as we see it today is the best we could come up with. How are we going to regain a global leadership position ever again if the Chervolet Volt represents our best effort?

 

I'm entirely perplexed by all of this. When you say it is a sad state re North American engineering today, what exactly are you comparing us to? The Japanese? They don't have a better solution - the Leaf is their star player and it needs a flatbed truck after 75-100 miles. The Germans? Nope, nothing. The other Europeans? The Koreans? Nope, and nope. What real-life product are you comparing Volt to, that shows us as being second class engineers?

 

To me this whole discussion is like a quadriplegic stuck in a chair, miserable. You tell him you have a solution that will allow him to limp slowly, using a cane. Instead of hailing the progress, the guy who is now stuck in the chair with no hope looks at the cane solution and immediately complains bitterly that the solution won't allow him to run like Carl Lewis. Give me a break! The fleet average isn't even 25mpg, for God's sake! Of course we need to find ways to get 10,000 mpg. Of course we would all like a car with 10,000 mpg that looks like a Lamborghini and does 0-60 in 2.9 seconds and carries 10 people and never ever breaks, and costs $15,000.00 too. Maybe it even cooks and cleans as well. But that doesn't exist. What exists now IS, by definition, the state of the art. And someone who laments the Volt as anything but a technological state of the art in EVs / hybrids simply doesn't understand what is available today, either through ignorance of the technology or through ideological delusion. He is comparing what exists to some divine ideal - and compared to the divine ideal, doesn't EVERYTHNG fall short?

 

-MKL

[Ken H.]

I think its kind of a sad commentary on the state of engineering education & expertise and the state of companies & manufacturing in North America today that given all those dollars, and all those years, the car as we see it today is the best we could come up with. How are we going to regain a global leadership position ever again if the Chervolet Volt represents our best effort?

 

I'm entirely perplexed by all of this. When you say it is a sad state re North American engineering today, what exactly are you comparing us to?

Obviously I’m comparing to, for all the time and money spent on the Volt, it should have been the breakthrough technology that the Prius was when it first came out.

In all fairness, can one say with a straight face that the Volt breaks any new ground in any way? Is it an incremental improvement? Yes? Is it ground breaking? Hardly. With all our woopy-ding-dong engineering talent working at the thing for 5+ years and millions of $$ and all we could come up with is that!?! A rather ordinary car that is a poseur for 45 miles then is just an overpriced compact sedan?

 

Of course we would all like a car with 10,000 mpg that looks like a Lamborghini and does 0-60 in 2.9 seconds and carries 10 people and never ever breaks, and costs $15,000.00 too.

You miss my point about 10,000 mpg. I’m not talking about wanting a 10,000 mpg car. I’m talking about new and better ways to not move people around so much or do it more efficiently when needed. Such that the math compared to the current way we do things would be an equivalent as if we had a 10,000 mpg car.

 

Some of the things Bob touched on above are indeed a start. But it’s only a start.

 

[Huzband]

And someone who laments the Volt as anything but a technological state of the art in EVs / hybrids simply doesn't understand what is available today, either through ignorance of the technology or through ideological delusion. He is comparing what exists to some divine ideal - and compared to the divine ideal, doesn't EVERYTHNG fall short?

 

-MKL

 

And here we are. Has the gasoline/diesel engine been perfected to their full & maximum possible mpg & emissions reduction? No. The technology of those platforms are still, after 100 plus years, still in progressive development. And it gets better every year.

 

Yet, the enviro crowd is all to anxious to throw it off the mountain for EV technology, which by all accounts, is not much further along than fossil fueled engines were some fifty years ago. They, too, have a long way to go before they are viable replacements to what has long been established as long term, reliable transportation. Develop them? Yes, by all means.

 

But that's where you lose me. I'm fine with progress, but don't insult my intelligence by triying to convince me that if I don't jump on the EV bus NOW, I'm dumber than a caveman. (Just an analogy, but I've read as much in posts here & elsewhere.)

 

 

[moshe_levy]

Obviously Im comparing to, for all the time and money spent on the Volt, it should have been the breakthrough technology that the Prius was when it first came out. In all fairness, can one say with a straight face that the Volt breaks any new ground in any way? Is it an incremental improvement? Yes? Is it ground breaking? Hardly. With all our woopy-ding-dong engineering talent working at the thing for 5+ years and millions of $$ and all we could come up with is that!?! A rather ordinary car that is a poseur for 45 miles then is just an overpriced compact sedan?

 

Ken, of course I agree with you fully and wholeheartedly on the aspect of developing alternative means of transportation and efficiency. But your take on the Volt is simply wrong unless your definition of "breakthrough" is something of biblical proportions. To whit, the average American's work commute is 26 miles - the magic number. The Volt allows that plus another 50% on top of it, gas free. So for my father, if you read the Motor Trend blog, an average of 440MPG (a strict definition of how much gas he's purchased into the total mileage he's put on in 11 months - obviously most of the energy came from electricity and is not factored into that figure which is pure gas use). On my commute, which is substantially longer - 105 miles per day give or take - as you see just a few posts ago, I averaged over 90MPG!

 

Now, the most efficient hybrid in existence - the Prius - averages less than HALF that on my commute. On MY commute - a long one. On my dad's annual tally, it uses NINE TIMES the gas.

 

Surely if you look at real world data and see the world's most efficient hybrid eclipsed by a factor of 2 on my long commute on a factor of 9 on my dad's shorter commute, that would be called a breakthrough. In fact it beats the Prius on my loop by more than the first Prius beat the average fleet MPG in its day (back circa 2000). So by your own standard of using the first Prius as a breakthrough, there is simply no way NOT to call Volt one too. It is the only extended range EV, in the world. And it is a breakthrough in terms of how it accomplishes its efficiency without the range anxiety of a pure EV like Nissan Leaf, which would never work for Americans like me with long commutes.

 

When you see efficiency jump by these sorts of numbers, it is something to laud.

 

-MKL

 

[moshe_levy]

And here we are. Has the gasoline/diesel engine been perfected to their full & maximum possible mpg & emissions reduction? No. The technology of those platforms are still, after 100 plus years, still in progressive development. And it gets better every year.

 

Yet, the enviro crowd is all to anxious to throw it off the mountain for EV technology, which by all accounts, is not much further along than fossil fueled engines were some fifty years ago. They, too, have a long way to go before they are viable replacements to what has long been established as long term, reliable transportation. Develop them? Yes, by all means.

 

But that's where you lose me. I'm fine with progress, but don't insult my intelligence by triying to convince me that if I don't jump on the EV bus NOW, I'm dumber than a caveman. (Just an analogy, but I've read as much in posts here & elsewhere.)

 

Danny, this is pretty much wrong all the way around. First, speaking for myself, I do not believe anyone is dumb for not jumping on any bandwagon. The thread was started to try to understand HATRED directed at these cars. If you don't like them, that's your call. I don't see you on the level of active seething hatred like the Cavutos of the world. A joke at a Prius' expense once in awhile is not hatred - God knows I make enough of them myself, such as when I'm being overtaken by a moped.

 

Second you ought to do a little research on efficiency of internal combustion engines, and electric ones. Nobody is willing to "throw ICE off a cliff" but to claim as you did that electric vehicles are somehow 50 years behind in efficiency is preposterous. One more time - the BEST internal combustion engines, after over 100 years of development as you correctly stated, are around 18-20% efficient. Diesel, 23-25%, at absolute best. Most are far lower.

 

A lousy electric motor is 85% efficient. A good one is over 90%. Hence, people have been trying to develop EVs for a long time, to exploit that inherent advantage. Now there is some political will behind it because of energy independence, and the fact that fuel economy standards are finally rising and this is one way to make the fleet average go up. If you don't like them that's OK too. They do not work in every application and regionality plays a big part. But we've got to keep the facts about efficiency and development straight.

 

-MKL

[Huzband]

I made my argument, you made yours. We disagree, & I'm okay with that.

[tallman]

Danny, Caveman smart, don't insult us, thanks.

 

FWIW sales of electric/hybrids soared in March.

Unit numbers, while still a small percentage (under 4% of total) have doubled in a year I think and projections are that will increase to 8-10% as ga$ price$ continue to rise.

 

The time for ROI, payback is here for hybrids

[moshe_levy]

You'd have more accuracy trying to predict the weather in 4-5 years than you do gas prices, which is why these ROI articles aren't worth the paper they're printed on. How the hell does anyone know where gas will be in 4-5 - if they did, they'd be speculating, beat crap out of the market, and get filthy rich. Instead they're columnists working for peanuts. Don't be fooled by these predictions. NONE of the past gas crunches were predicted with any accuracy, and as usual if history is your guide....

 

My stance on hybrids is as much for production (our country) as it is for consumption as a consumer. When I got my Prius in 2007, a gas crunch hit shortly thereafter I took delivery. You know what happened? People started trading in their big, heavy vehicles en masse for more efficient ones, and in this case, hybrids.

 

You know what we (USA) had to offer these consumers in 2007-2008? Nada. Zip. So our lots piled up with Durangos and Silverados and Explorers and Jeeps, and the Japanese couldn't keep a Civic or a Prius on the lot. Waiting lists formed at Japanese and Korean dealers. $3-5k over MSRP was charged. And they got away with it, of course. Supply and demand!

 

The key here is this: Once you lose a customer, you may lose him FOREVER. That former Durango customer may decide he loves his Civic. He may then stay loyal to Honda, and never come back to you. His influence on his family and friends, which used to work for you, now works for Honda. It was a MISTAKE to leave that segment wide open and not compete in it.

 

Incredibly, the Americans have learned from this mistake - not a common theme in Detroit - and of course, they now offer many good fuel efficient vehicles and hybrids, and of course the Volt. Our hybrids are as good as anyone else's. That is a FACT.

 

And it's starting to work for us now. You know where most Volt sales come from? The Japanese, specifically Prius owners. "Conquest sales," it's called. Customers who come to you from elsewhere, giving you a first shot at their dollars. And these customers, extremely happy with their Volts, are now buying other Chevies, including larger crossovers for family-sized outings where a Volt isn't appropriate. You see where this leads? You see why this is good for American engineers, designers, and workers?

 

So, again, it is NOT about ROI in and of itself. Not for producers, not for consumers. When the gas crunches come, they come brutally, and swiftly. Will we Americans have a product to offer our own people when this happens?

 

That is one of the questions a Volt is here to answer, and it answers it well.

 

-MKL

[lawnchairboy]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/04/electric-cars

 

 

[tallman]

Moshe,

That is like saying no one knows if stocks will go up and down, if they did they would be speculating on them.

 

I can guarantee that the gas wars I saw as a kid/teenager where gas dropped under $0.20 threshold are gone.

I can pretty much anticipate gas costs will rise and go from there.

BUT, if I'm wrong, and they plummet, having a high mpg car will cost me even less to own.

 

Anyone have long term data on gasoline costs compared to electricity?

ROI is an important factor, Ford states they are moving in the direction they are (successfully) becasue their customers mention the cost of ownership and specifically in the truck segment a 1-2 mpg dif influenced consumers.

Ford is a leader in smaller/higher performance/better mpg technology, and I'm a GM guy.

My '08 Malibu is averaging 32mpg.

My commute is 94-110 miles/day.

My next car will get 40+mpg and allow me to sit in it comfortably.

Price point is @50% Leaf.

Right now Hyundai sure makes a nice compact.

Plus much more front leg room, actually an unbelievable amount compared to others I've looked at.

By the time I seriously consider replacing mine, I expect at least another 5-10 options out there that meet mpg/price point/room/warranty factors for me.

YMMV

[moshe_levy]

Lawn,

 

Good article in the economist, getting into some nitty gritty. A few faulty assumptions there, such as using a Prius' "real world" MPG of 44MPG, while glossing over 9 cars in the "40 MPG Club" which, as anyone who has read any testing of these cars knows, doesn't happen unless you're going downhill with a tailwind behind you. 40MPG is the absolute best case highway mileage, usually for manual versions of those cars (which is less than 10% of how any of them are actually purchased). "Real world" figures are typically in the low 30s. Kinda changes the picture when you do an apples to apples that way.

 

The Economist, again, spends much time on personal economics. And the average hybrid / EV buyer doesn't. The average Volt owner makes $175k at present, just as 10 years ago the first Prius owners were generally well off. Do you really think high gas prices are choking people with that kind of income? It's not personal economics, it's what he says at the end:

 

"He welcomes electric cars, whether pure plug-in or hybrid, for the way they can help curtail the country's appetite for foreign oil. "

 

And that is where I have been coming at this all along. From a political perspective. I pay more for a car, and I don't give a damn about payoff period. I would rather pay more for a car, and send that money to the manufacturer for technology, for the satisfaction of knowing less of my money goes to OPEC starting immediately. So, in this case, the Economist and I are on the same exact page.

 

Tim, your take on stocks is not a valid analogy. I am saying you cannot accurately predict ROI for hybrids 5 years out, because gas fluctuates wildly. MUCH more wildly than the stock market's traditional indexes, historically. So some ROI calculation done in 2007, 5 years ago, when gas was under $2 - how would it hold up today when gas is $4? The ROI calculated would be wrong by more than 2x if they figured gas would just creep up with inflation, and not that we would see massive unbridled speculation and politics used to manipulate pricing. Kinda proves my point that if people actually knew where gas was headed, they wouldn't be writing columns about ROI - they'd be filthy rich.

 

As for ICE cars getting more efficient and better, hell yes! It's great to see. If one of them floats your boat, do it. I'm happy just seeing a lower efficiency machine replaced with a higher efficiency one. Every little bit helps. It doesn't have to be electric or hybrid, but more efficienct in my view (political) is always a good thing.

 

-MKL

 

[Rougarou]

Enjoy, real world mpg's.

[Paul Mihalka]

Enjoy, real world mpg's.

Very interesting!

[moshe_levy]

Yes, Fuelly is a variation of the calculator on Uncle Sam's site - http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ - Amazingly, Uncle's site is actually pretty useful and easy to navigate. There is a TON of data on there and the fuel economy guide is apples to apples, unlike many articles on the subject, recent one in Economist included.

 

-MKL

[Boffin]

Interestingly the average mileage for the Honda Accord on that site is about 24mpg - I assume it uses US gallons, not real ones.

I bought my 2007 Honda Accord 2.2 i-DTEC EX in November 2011 and since then I have covered 4000 miles, split roughly 75/25 commuting and longer journeys. My real-world overall mileage for that period is 51.2mpg (imperial) - a tad over 40mpg US.

 

As my commute is 10 miles each-way, an affordable electric car would make a huge amount of sense to me, but I would also need to keep my diesel for the other trips I make. That means the cost-burden increases, the space for parking (a premium resource in the UK) is doubled and my insurance costs increases. The UK currently does not charge annual road-tax on electric vehicles (£130pa for my Diesel, £190pa for my son's higher CO output car) but once they become less niche-market, then that will change.

 

I would love to get an electric car - I am just unable to justify it on cost or practicality. The political argument makes sense - but I would face a choice of car or home at the moment, so I choose to blind to that.

 

Andy

 

[moshe_levy]

Which site, Andy? Fuelly or the gov't's site?

 

I must say to anyone interested, the gov't site http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ is truly worth a look. Not only do they give you MPG figures using the new EPA guidelines (which are stricter and therefore lower MPGs than previously reported using the old cycle) but they give you the old cycle too. Better yet - they show your specific car and based on its MPGs, show you how much domestic and how much foreign oil would be required to power it for a given year based on some constants (mileage per annum, etc.). It's really a cool site to play with. Lots of info there.

 

-MKL

[moshe_levy]

All-

 

The "Union of Concerned Scientists" has released an interesting new report which I learned about in this month's Car & Driver, comparing EV emissions to those of traditional cars by region (so that we can get a picture of the true pollution caused by an EV which charges using available utility power). The results are encouraging - much of the country is already well ahead of the curve, making an EV much less polluting than the best traditional hybrids and MUCH better than straight ICE cars. Here's the map:

 

 

As you all know I do not justify EVs based on environmentalism - my reasons are political. But for those who put the environment as reason #1, your case has just been bolstered a bit.

 

-MKL

[upflying]

Looks like an EV battery maker is in financial trouble. Due to the DOE funding, could this be another Solyndra in the making?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/battery-maker-a123-systems-in-financial-trouble/

[Bill_Walker]

Looks like an EV battery maker is in financial trouble. Due to the DOE funding, could this be another Solyndra in the making?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/battery-maker-a123-systems-in-financial-trouble/

 

The thing that lots of people seem to forget about that DOE loan program is that, from the outset, it was expected that some of the companies would fail, and that fact was included in the program budget. If the companies were failure-proof, they wouldn't need government loan guarantees, now would they? They could easily borrow in the commercial market.

[moshe_levy]

A123 is far from just an EV battery maker. I referred to them many times in this thread. They are THE state of the art in terms of battery technology development and R&D in this country. Their next-gen lithiums are being codeveloped for many uses with many manufacturers, including Boeing, for over 10x the already mind-blowing power density of today's lithium ion packs. Two things to keep in mind:

 

1) Having this technology homegrown will allow other homegrown products like OUR cars and OUR planes and OUR military vehicles to be self-sufficient. Are ALL the products they make perfect? Hell, no. (Are the European and Japanese and Chinese batteries all perfect? Hell, no. The nature of state of the art!) Is it worth it to keep such development and production here? Oh, HELL yes. It is nothing short of absolutely moronic to argue otherwise.

 

2) There is NO battery house with anywhere near a fraction of A123's R&D capability ANYWHERE in the world that hasn't been funded by government to an EXPONENTIALLY higher degree than A123's paltry loan here. Keep in mind what they have accomplished with so LITTLE public investment.

 

Next gen batteries are the future of clean tech, not just EVs. The potential is HUGE for the economy and national security as an extension, and we need to keep that capability in design and manufacture HERE if we expect to truly compete.

 

-MKL

[Whip]

This seems like a great vehicle.

 

 

[moshe_levy]

That is a great achievement. Somebody here has a Passat diesel - bought it after reading this thread, if I recall.

 

Jeremy on Top Gear did something similar with an Audi A8 diesel, not available here either. It's a great episode as he stretches the car for each available drop. I'd bet a 1.6L in a car the Passat's size would be kind of tepid, though. But still, very impressive range!!

 

-MKL

[Huzband]

 

The thing that lots of people seem to forget about that DOE loan program is that, from the outset, it was expected that some of the companies would fail, and that fact was included in the program budget. If the companies were failure-proof, they wouldn't need government loan guarantees, now would they? They could easily borrow in the commercial market.

 

This I just don't get. Maybe because it makes no sense. Failure is built in to the loan program? Huh? Granted, no company is failure proof. But to design a failure percentage into any loan program is insane. And that's why privately owned banks won't go for it, but politicians will. Campaign donations & all that.

[Bob Palin]

But to design a failure percentage into any loan program is insane. And that's why privately owned banks won't go for it, but politicians will. Campaign donations & all that.

I think you'll find every single loan program has a failure percentage built into it, it's part of the interest rate. Just like prices in stores include the cost of shoplifting, except in Whip's stores, where they include the cost of rewarding his staff for victimizing the poor underclass just trying to put a crumb in their kiddies mouths.

[Huzband]

But to design a failure percentage into any loan program is insane. And that's why privately owned banks won't go for it, but politicians will. Campaign donations & all that.

I think you'll find every single loan program has a failure percentage built into it, it's part of the interest rate. Just like prices in stores include the cost of shoplifting, except in Whip's stores, where they include the cost of rewarding his staff for victimizing the poor underclass just trying to put a crumb in their kiddies mouths.

 

Point taken.

[Whip]

But to design a failure percentage into any loan program is insane. And that's why privately owned banks won't go for it, but politicians will. Campaign donations & all that.

I think you'll find every single loan program has a failure percentage built into it, it's part of the interest rate. Just like prices in stores include the cost of shoplifting, except in Whip's stores, where they include the cost of rewarding his staff for victimizing the poor underclass just trying to put a crumb in their kiddies mouths.

 

I believe in positive reinforcement.

 

[moshe_levy]

But to design a failure percentage into any loan program is insane. And that's why privately owned banks won't go for it, but politicians will. Campaign donations & all that.

I think you'll find every single loan program has a failure percentage built into it, it's part of the interest rate.

 

Of course, Killer is correct here. (How many failed companies has Wall Street bet on recently?). More importantly re A123, there is an ENORMOUS amount of private capital invested in that company (makes the DOE loan look like peanuts). AND co-development going on with many companies (US car companies, Boeing, etc.) as well as some foreign firms as well. Imagine that - foreign firms (including BMW) coming to an American company for battery technology AND production? Let's all hope A123 survives this. The country needs a company that can make it in this field.

 

-MKL

[Huzband]

Moshe, this isn't about Wall Street betting. It's about government throwing tax payer money (i.e., your's & mine) at losing businesses. If you were a venture capitalist, would you put up your personal money into a number of companies, knowing that some would fail?

 

I know I wouldn't.

[moshe_levy]

Moshe, this isn't about Wall Street betting. It's about government throwing tax payer money (i.e., your's & mine) at losing businesses. If you were a venture capitalist, would you put up your personal money into a number of companies, knowing that some would fail?

 

I know I wouldn't.

 

Then you simply do not understand finance. Finance and especially high finance / venture capitalism is about quantifying the risks involved with investment in various businesses in order to maximize profit and minimize risk. The two have an inverse relationship - the higher the risk, the lower the chances of profit, and thus the higher the profit to reap should things go well. It is not an art (or science) for the faint of heart or for the conservative (I don't mean that politically). It is for people comfortable with risk, and the ones who do well long-term have a good track record of not losing too much.

 

It is absolutely unrealistic to expect captial investment to have a 100% successful track record. That goes for the small lemonade stand on the corner to a Fortune 500 corporation, from your local bank to Citi, from a completely private investment firm to government subsidy. Some WILL fail, period. (Wall Street shorted against its own bets, KNOWING they would fail, remember?)

 

The person who looks at this like a snapshot is seeing a very shallow and simplistic picture, painting an entire economy with the brush of one company (e.g., everything Uncle touches is Solyndra. Everything Wall Street touches is IAG.).

 

The person who looks deeper sees the complexity and that the reality is NEVER this simple. There is an overall record of millions of investments to look at, and see a track record, for one. Run of the mill profit and loss isn't sexy and doesn't grab headlines, but that's what happens 99% of the time. And second - and MOST importantly - many of these companies are amalgams of BOTH private AND public investments. A123 IS such a company.

 

So A123 satisfies and upsets both sides of the isle. If you think government is stupid for throwing money at it, then you can look to the dozens of private firms (biggest names in energy and transportation) that did the same, and realize that by extension, they are just as stupid, aren't they? Boeing is stupid. Ford is stupid. GM. MIT. All real dummies. OR, vice versa.

 

Vice-versa's right. You can't have transportation and energy without being in the game of homegrown R&D and production. There is ALOT of private money to be made in that game. There is ALOT of national security and politics at play. That's why private and public investment happened in this case of A123.

 

My prediction? A123 is "too important to fail," and will not be allowed to, primarily by the private firms who have so much tied into the company via co-development of new technology which is so vital to our national interests.

 

-MKL

[moshe_levy]

Back to the cars.

 

Larry, your post on FB got me looking for incremental improvements in range for 2013 vs. the 2011-2012 model years. Guess what - they're there! 2013 will have total battery storage capacity going up from 16KW to 16.5KW, and the usable window going up also from 10.3KW to 10.8KW. This will translate into ~2-3 more miles per charge, or about a 7% bump, over our 2011 Volt. This, as I described to you, is how it's going to happen. Incrementally, technology will be leveraged in order to increase range, increase MPG while on gas, and increase overall efficiency. A beautiful thing!

 

-MKL

[upflying]

Hopefully the extended EV range in the Volt will be mileage taxed.

Wouldn't want Green cars riding on the road for free.

[upflying]

But to design a failure percentage into any loan program is insane. And that's why privately owned banks won't go for it, but politicians will. Campaign donations & all that.

I think you'll find every single loan program has a failure percentage built into it, it's part of the interest rate.

 

Of course, Killer is correct here. (How many failed companies has Wall Street bet on recently?). More importantly re A123, there is an ENORMOUS amount of private capital invested in that company (makes the DOE loan look like peanuts). AND co-development going on with many companies (US car companies, Boeing, etc.) as well as some foreign firms as well. Imagine that - foreign firms (including BMW) coming to an American company for battery technology AND production? Let's all hope A123 survives this. The country needs a company that can make it in this field.

 

-MKL

Ener1 didn't survive and filed for bankruptcy.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/ener1-parent-obama-backed-green-company-files-bankruptcy/story?id=15456414#.T9OjgsV2M-0

[Whip]

Back to the cars.

 

Larry, your post on FB got me looking for incremental improvements in range for 2013 vs. the 2011-2012 model years. Guess what - they're there! 2013 will have total battery storage capacity going up from 16KW to 16.5KW, and the usable window going up also from 10.3KW to 10.8KW. This will translate into ~2-3 more miles per charge, or about a 7% bump, over our 2011 Volt. This, as I described to you, is how it's going to happen. Incrementally, technology will be leveraged in order to increase range, increase MPG while on gas, and increase overall efficiency. A beautiful thing!

 

-MKL

 

It seems to me the VOLT should be able to match the Leaf in Range and the Chevy Cruse in MPG.

 

Maybe I am just hoping.

 

L

[Bill_Walker]

It seems to me the VOLT should be able to match the Leaf in Range and the Chevy Cruse in MPG.

 

Maybe I am just hoping.

 

L

 

If you're talking about single-mode, you're hoping for a repeal of the laws of physics. The Volt has a smaller battery pack than the Leaf (24 kWh), but weighs 400 lbs more because it has an internal combustion powertrain to haul around (and is a slightly larger car). The Volt weighs 700 lbs more than a Chevy Cruze, because it has a battery-electric powertrain to haul around.

 

Of course the combined electric/gas range of the Volt is far better than the (electric-only) range of the Leaf, and the combined electric/gas MPG equivalent of the Volt is better than the MPG of the Cruze.

[Natche]

That is a great achievement. Somebody here has a Passat diesel - bought it after reading this thread, if I recall.

 

Jeremy on Top Gear did something similar with an Audi A8 diesel, not available here either. It's a great episode as he stretches the car for each available drop. I'd bet a 1.6L in a car the Passat's size would be kind of tepid, though. But still, very impressive range!!

 

-MKL

 

That would be me, I think. Had it 6 months now and I'm still amazed. I average 45 MPG overall and have gotten as much as 56 MPG on a trip. I usually can go 725-750 miles on a tank and then it only takes a hair more than 16 gallons to refill it. I am sure I could get over 60 MPG if I wanted to drive like a twit. Although my wife says I already do.

 

Originally I toyed with the idea of the Volt but it just didn't meet my needs. Then I remembered the diesel rental I had over in Italy last year and so I started looking at the VW diesels. I am as thrilled now as I was when I got it.