Re: Electric cars, cheap

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Focus. The Fusion Energi is a plug-in with an electric-only range of

21 miles.

Batteries.

Yes. The last figure I saw for the Tesla Roadster was $35,000 for the battery pack. But that one is kind of high-priced. It's actually around 6,000 little individual cells.

People are guessing that the battery pack for the Leaf is around $8,000. I don't know.

Small battery. No electric-only range. The Prius plug-in costs $8,000 more than the comparable Prius II, and it still has an electric-only range of only 11 miles.

Batteries for these things cost up the wazoo.

It is.

Most cars have planetary gears.

One has useable electric-only capability: it's a plug-in. The Prius C is just an ICE car that uses electric power to squeeze more efficiency out of the IC engine. They're different animals.

I'm sure all of the three or four dozen people who might buy it would be very happy with that kind of setup. d8-)

Gunner could pre-rust the parts in his back yard, for those customers who don't want to do it themselves.

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WTF would people have to GUESS the price of a Leaf battery pack???

I think we're being extorted. Carmaker collusion?

Hmmm...... both have batts, both have ice's.... just used diff'ly. But, on average, the prius gets sig'ly higher mpg's. ergo, Infinite time of ROI for the volt.

Sheeit, hang a cupla fuzzy dice off the rear view, pretend itsa PimpMobile.

The Angst-Gummer Think Tank & Welding Shop.

Here's da deal:

The fukn carmakers are tryna get the asshole Pubic to pay *up front* for development costs. Fuck dat. Yeah, R&D is r&d, but fugit, amortize it over a longer period of time! And get more gummint $$.

If the Volt smartied up its game a tad (slightly bigger batts, less ambitious genset/tranny sci proj), and shed a cupla airbags, cupholders, and charged $20 K, instead of 50,000 units at $40K, it would proly be 500,000 units wordwide -- $10 bil gross vs. $2 bil gross.

Any other car maker that does the same -- ie, provide an AngstMobile -- could expect the same. Almost everyone I know would jump on it. Yeah, fuzzy dice, 22" rims.....

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Because the way they're selling them -- a mix of "insurance," bought-down time payments and so on, they've successfully disguised the real price. As far as I know, you can't just go buy one for cash. And, if you could, Nissan has good reason to hide the price, even taking a loss.

They aren't building these cars to make a short-run profit. Every one is a part of some corporate strategy.

No. If anything, it's the other way around. Go calculate the kW-hr. one of these things require. You won't have to guess; there's enough data around that you can come pretty close without speculating or calculating from scratch.

Then look up the price of available Li-ion batteries. The $35,000 for the Tesla was Elon Musk's answer to some reporter's question about what they cost, when the car was still pretty new. I'm going from memory on that. You'll see that it's entirely reasonable when you finish your calculations.

A lot of the costs are being hidden, IMO. Their prices are the result of some kind of strategy. It's not like regular cars.

They're totally different concepts. And battery prices were the reason for the hybrids with full-time IC engines, like the Prius, in the first place. If batteries were cheaper, they would have been plug-ins from the get-go.

They aren't "hybrids." They're IC-powered cars. ALL of their power comes from the IC engine. The battery just buffers the output and the generator(s) helps recover some braking regeneration. But the power is

100% from the IC engine.

By buffering the output, they allow the use of a smaller IC engine, using the electric boost for acceleration and for climbing, and the smaller displacement means the engine can run at a higher compression ratio and a higher mean BMEP (if you're unfamiliar with the term, you'll find it worthwhile to understand it, given your interest in this). That means higher thermal efficiency. The engine is always running at a high percentage of its maximum output, and for a spark-ignition homogeneous-charge engine, which most cars have, that's the best for thermal efficiency.

The buffer also allows the use of a pseudo-Atkinson cycle engine, instead of an Otto cycle engine. Again, more efficiency. Atkinson cycle engines are not responsive enough to run straight in a car, without the electric buffer.

The Volt is a real hybrid. So are the Ford Fusion Energi, and the Prius Plug-In. Maybe they're better be called "hermaphrodites," because they have two complete prime-movers, but that would be a tough one for the advertising copywriters to deal with while keeping a straight face. d8-)

You should discuss this with GM's marketing people. I think they'd disabuse you of that notion in a hurry.

Look, ALL EV's are "early adopter" vehicles. The general public is waiting to see what happens. There is nothing you could do, IMO, to suddenly make them mass-market. That's going to take time, if it happens at all.

Meantime, I think you have the cost situation backwards. Despite what Nissan says, I believe the car is a loser if you do the accounting honestly.

In contrast, the "hybrids" with full-time ICEs and puny batteries, like the Prius, probably are profitable. But they aren't EVs by any stretch of the imagination. They're just tricked-up ICE-powered cars with a complicated energy buffer. But in terms of fuel economy, they work pretty well.

Good luck. Don't bet the farm.

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Hahahaha! How long have you been pontificating about this subject? And you have to ask that stupid question! You're lucky that Ed is from the "speak no evil tribe." He keeps explaining these patently obvious facts to you politely, but it couldn't be more obvious that he gets that you refuse to get it.

Mine was in the low $30's, including tax and rebate. I've read that some people get it down to under $30k. EA will never see prices like that though because he likes being a lender's bitch.

Party pooper!

Yeah, but what good would it do? EA is convinced he knows better.

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3,000,000 vehicles to date, 80-90% of that in the last 3 years. AND, I don't think that's counting ALL the models!!!

313,000 units, 2012 So an AngstMobile should *easily* do 500,000 worldwide. They could have two models: the uphill-fast model, and the up-hill slow model. :) :) And, as per my link on swappable batteries, not so far-fetched, eh? And swappable gensets proly not far behind.

Think about it: A 50 mile all-electric range with a never-get-stranded bitty genset for $20K. YOU wouldn't jump on this? If I was naked in the pink champagne room of a Manhattan strip club, and I heard first-come-first-serve (no pun intented) for a waiting Angstmobile, I'd be sliding down bannisters bare-back, throwin elbows....

Altho.... there is the Versa for $13K..... New ROI calc? LOL

The Gen 2 Volt might be that turning point.

Heh, I've already bet the farm on sumpn else.... lol But, 3,000,000++ priuses, yo.....

" In an automatic transmission, however, the gears are never physically moved and are always engaged to the same gears. This is accomplished through the use of planetary gear sets."

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That's not an EV. That's an ICE car, all the time, always, amen.

Again, EA, the so-called "hybrids" of that type, which can't go anywhere on electric power, are a different class. They're conventionally fueled cars that get good mileage with the aid of a battery and a motor that buffer the output of the IC engine.

The problems -- both the marketing and the technical problems -- are with the cars that run part or all of the time on electric power alone. And the problems all stem from the limitations and the costs of batteries.

Neither the cost nor the charge/discharge behavior are big issues with the "hybrids" that are running 100% of the time on the IC engine.

So if you're going to compare the Prius with something, compare it with, say, an Audi with a turbodiesel. They represent two different approaches to getting great mileage. Neither one is an electric vehicle.

No, it's a good idea. So far, it's an expensive idea.

I don't see that happening -- even though that's the kind of electric I'd like to have, if I had one. That is, if you're just talking about a genset that you hook up, via a trailer or whatever, or not.

For $20k? Maybe, although I hate driving with a trailer.

The hybrids are just awful contraptions. It's a very complex way to get a few more MPG. OTOH, they're important because they pave the way for fully electric vehicles.

I don't get folks whining about new technology being expensive and clunky. That's pretty much how new technology is. Those guys are betting that batteries or whatever will be powering EVs in the future will not be developed. Sounds like a sucker bet to me.

I agree. From an engineering POV, there are two sides to them: They're inelegant as hell, but they solve a variety of fuel-efficiency problems. So they'll probably be with us for a long time to come.

Meantime, if you follow the SAE papers, there are several IC technologies that may push up against hybrid's current levels of efficiency: homogeneous-charge, compression ignition (HCCI); stratified-charge, direct-injection (SCDI); and turbodiesels. The question is, if one of them looks like a simpler solution, will hybrid technology be able to exploit them and push efficiency even higher? So far, based on some of the machines available in Europe (Citroen, I think, has a diesel hybrid), it looks like it will. But an engine that runs on other fuels and that doesn't require a stoichiometric mix (compression ignition, or some trick with direct injection) may overcome the hybrid advantage.

I anticipate a bigger split between European and American technology. The potential for much cheaper fuel in the US is looking brighter all the time. It may not be worth it here to complicate a car that much for a sake of a few mpg.

Yes, and there's some action now with nanotech and graphite. Just last week there was an announcement that some university had solved the intergranular weakness of graphene. That make it several hundred times stronger than steel. Thin membranes and other components of imagined batteries are going to be possible.

But, again, we're increasingly likely to have a fuel glut, especially if Congress is able to resist the oil industry's push to allow liquified-gas exports. I'm not usually in favor of screwing with free international markets, but that one would benefit the oil companies at the expense of a manufacturing advantage for the US. I'm opposed to it. One upshot would be cheaper cars and cheaper operation.

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One of the big problems...is the cost of the batteries. Seriously.

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Hmmmm...... I see..... So the Leaf has ALLLLLL those horrible, terrible, evil expensive batteries, way more than the Volt, YET it's $10,000 cheaper..... Yeah, OK, I see your point..... Oh, was your point that you are an idiot??

As in automatic transimission, moron. And in $2 BILLION sci projects.... like, uh, the Volt.

I'm convinced that OUR interests are such a distant second to their own agenda that we can't even be seen. But people like you, deep-throating GM et al, belie that truth. Please, Sir, May I have another Wad, Sir?? Please?

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Well, I don't disagree with much of the above except in perception. The hybrid technology is still a new-ish type deal for the consumer, that is apparently taking root, according to those stats.

An all-electric, in which you CANNOT get stranded, would, IMO, be the

*next* step. Given the radically cheaper cost-per-mile stats of all all-electric (in many, but not all scenarios), AND given the success of hybrids, I'm saying that the right "strategy" of batts and a get-me-TF-home backup genset -- ie, an AngstMobile -- would be almost a no-brainer. Esp. a swappable genset, which is not that much of a leap from swappable batts. Well, at least a no-brainer for non-materialistic non-conspicuously consuming non-Kiddings.

No, think of the real quiet Honder gensets, amp'd up to 20kW. Have a kind of separate or split trunk/nook, where it simply wheels/slides in, and locks up, with +/- ouiput connections, and of .course input controll connections. Like, well, a big battery, with some extree wires.

Mix'n'match yer batts/genset size as you like -- All batts, or (almost) all genset, preserving some bitty batts for the regen braking. I think this R&D, given that pretty everything already exists, would be MUCH cheaper than the GM $2 bil sci proj. Which in principle can be wired and controlled with wall toggle switches, it's that simple. Not for Kidding, of course, who needs the GM HyperComplexity Wad of Approval.

So you make a magic battery that stores 330kWh worth of energy in a ten gallon package, that only weighs 80 pounds (i.e, the same energy and weight as ten gallons of gas), that doesn't have wear issues, etc.

The current average price of electricity here in the Portland area is about 10 cents per kWh, or $33 to fill the tank.

The same space, filled with gasoline, will be $40.

Now you hook that battery up to a car that has to sell to someone with a lead foot -- basically, the kind of folks that currently avoid hybrids and electric vehicles like the plague. So their energy usage is going to be on par not with granny driving a Leaf, but with my son driving my car. In other words, that battery will be totally flat in 300 miles, just as a 10-gallon tank in my 30 MPG Escort would be after the same distance.

Now give everyone in the Portland area such cars.

Now -- where's the electricity going to come from? Hydro? No -- hydro power is maxed out. Wind -- only at certain times of the year, and it's slow to build. Nuclear? No -- we don't do nuclear out here on the Left Coast. It'll come from gas, or coal. Or, after those stocks are depleted, the oil that we would have made into gasoline.

And as the demand goes up, the price will, too.

This is an overall improvement how?

Or something with a Fuel Cell in it.

No... see below.

Oooh, OOOOHHH, I know the answer, I KNOW THE ANSWER!!!!

Cuz 330kWhrs of gas has to be de-rated by mebbe 75% by the time you get the energy to the rear wheel. Boucou driveline/engine friction, Carnot efficiency (the biggie), etc.

330kWhrs of electricity is "nearly" 100% effic, and if you figger 20 hp to maintain 60 mph, that battery pack will last.... 1,330 miles!!! Therein lies the diff -- and the attraction.

That's why I keep bleating: As many batts as will do the average commuting job, with a shitty li'l get-me-TF-home backup genset.

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You earned your fees.... already!!!

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Here are the actual numbers and the history:

I hear ya'. I just don't think it would sell.

Tell me again -- why the swappable genset? Why not just one built-in, or one that you load at home, on a trailer or in the back, or whatever?

Still, it won't sell. d8-)

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Good Q. More later. Quick answer: Swappable may be ambitious. Start with just mix'n'match batt-sets/gen-sets, for the best anticipatable avg driving condition. Theoretically you could change them, say, if yer job moved another 100 mi away. Or 50 mi closer.

It's all political and brand bias. If GM, Toyota and Honda had a lock on shirt-pocket cell phones, but Acme sold crank-powered brick-sized cell phones for 5 bucks less, you'd have plenty of Acme customers with bricks hanging on shoulder straps. EA would probably be in their number.