EVs Unplugged? Is the battery car a failure – or will the real test come in 2012?
http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2012/01/evs-unplugged/[font size=4]Is the battery car a failure – or will the real test come in 2012?[/font]
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.03, 2012
[font size=3]If the White House hopes to meet its ambitious goal of putting 1.5 million battery cars on the road by mid-decade it better hope that 2011 wasn’t a good indication of what Americans think of electric vehicles.
Add them all up, hybrids, plug-ins and pure battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs, and they accounted for little more than 2% of the U.S. automotive market last year. Remove conventional gas-electric models, such as the Toyota Prius and Ford Fusion Hybrid, from the equation and more advanced battery vehicles generated barely 20,000 sales.
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General Motors had declared a goal of selling 10,000 Volts but will likely end the year at around 7,000. The good news for the maker was that momentum had been building during the final quarter but then Chevy found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why several Volts caught fire weeks after being subjected to federal crash tests.
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Nissan came closer to its 2011 target, though it will likely fall a little short of the 10,000 mark when December sales are revealed later this week. The maker can explain at least some of that away by pointing to the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that interrupted production for several months. But Leaf sales have been slipping for several months, a worrying sign as Nissan prepares to open a new facility in Smyrna, Tennessee capable of churning out 200,000 battery cars annually.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Remember that the Nissan Leaf (for example) is serviced by Nissan dealerships
and said dealerships have got to maintain their profitability regardless of the mix
of vehicles (and hence the work) involved.
Given the novelty factor of the EV, the places that are capable of servicing them
are *guaranteed* to be also servicing the other ICE models from the same
manufacturer. The physical operations required to service an electric car are,
as noted upthread, significantly less than for an ICE (both in terms of materials
required and labour required).
This means that the garages have a choice:
1) Cut their service charges to match the level of work required
2) Milk the premium of the novelty + lack of competing service providers by
keeping the service *charge* in the same ballpark (albeit slightly cheaper)
as that for their ICEs?
What is their incentive to throw money away like that?
Q: Why does a new product cost more at first release than the one it replaces?
A: Because it can.
This is especially relevent when, as you noted upthread, the primary market for
such EVs is currently the top 15% or so - people far less likely to try working
around such obvious profit traps than the folks who have to count every penny.
With increased penetration comes increased competition and that, in turn, leads
to a decrease in the blatant profit-mongering.
and read any of the waiting list threads. Look at this for total Leaf sales to get this "decline" (production variation) in perspective - the US doesn't get 'em all - they have to keep the home market happy.
Hell try and even get ON the waiting list in MO or KY or UT or 17 other states. You think there is zero demand there?
It's also worth comparing these numbers to other models. It's tempting to think "with millions of cars sold a year, a few hundred a month is an abject failure" but there are hundreds of models, and after the big hitters like Camry and Altima, the numbers get small quickly. Here is a sampling of models the Leaf outsells in the US, even with waiting lists, limited availability, range etc
Nissan Cube
Nissah 370z
Infiniti EX
Honda CR-Z
Acura ZDX
Lexus LS
Lexus HS
Scion Xd
And that's from a short article focusing on imports only!
http://wot.motortrend.com/not-out-of-the-woods-yet-toyota-honda-down-in-september-nissan-up-25-3-percent-122873.html
I simply cannot find documentation to support the idea that they cannot build them fast enough to satisfy demand.
They’re expanding the sales area, and selling fewer cars.
http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/End_Use_Electric_Transportation/EVs-Are-they-really-on-the-way-4326.html
By Doug Peeples
SGN news editor
[font size=3]Any major change in technology has its share of skeptics and electric vehicles are no exception. But if the researchers, consultants and other observers are right, you will be seeing them more and more on the road and in the driveway. It will be a gradual wave – certainly not an eruption – but they're coming. The car makers touting their new all-electric and plug-in rides certainly believe it. And so do the organizations, technology companies and electric utilities working to ensure they can be successfully integrated into the smart grid.
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What's new...
Nissan is growing its U.S. market for 2012 and taking reservations for its Leaf electric in Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. For 2012, the Leaf will include more standard equipment, including fast charging and cold weather features. And Mitsubishi Motors delivered its first all-electric built for the U.S. market, the Mitsubishi i, to a couple in Hawaii earlier this month – somehow fitting in that Hawaii is a hot bed of smart grid activity.
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What about the EV market? Will consumers really buy in?
IBM recently released a research report, The shift to electric vehicles: Putting consumers in the driver's seat, that offers a rational, well-researched view of consumer thinking about EVs and how the manufacturers and other stakeholders can nudge the car-buying public to more sustainable, if unfamiliar, transportation. 'Unfamiliar' is the word to fasten on here. In the consumer survey segment of its study, IBM found that while "average consumers" like the idea and sustainability benefits of EVs, they don't particularly like the idea of paying more for them. The range anxiety issue hasn't gone away, either.
And, they don't know much about EVs. Half of the potential EV drivers surveyed said they "know little to nothing about electric vehicles." IBM makes a number of suggestions beyond the obvious one: education. The report suggests where to focus consumer attention, but it also recommends zeroing in on technology to distinguish the consumer experience "based on connected features embedded throughout the vehicle and surroundings" and developing business models with creative partnerships outside the current industry ways of doing business. In other words, yes, EVs are coming. But there's work to be done to support consumer adoption.
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Here’s an interesting quote:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3e42e4f0-228b-11e1-8404-00144feabdc0.html
[font size=5]Nissan to drive sales of Leaf electric car[/font]
By John Reed, Motor Industry Correspondent
[font size=3]Nissan expects to double sales of its Leaf electric car to full capacity of 40,000 next year, according to a senior executive.
The Japanese carmaker’s bullish forecast comes despite slow initial sales of the industry’s new electric vehicles, which have been hit by Japan’s supply-chain problems and some consumers’ doubts about their price and driving range.
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Andy Palmer, Nissan’s head of business strategy and corporate planning, told the Financial Times that the car’s sales performance this year was “slightly behind our expectations”.
However, he added, orders for the car were such that Nissan could double sales to 40,000 next year, when it plans to begin selling the car in more European countries and US states. “That’s our aim: to double that volume, which is basically buffering up against our capacity,” Mr Palmer said.
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Here we have the monthly US sales figures for the LEAF:
They appear to quickly ramp up to a peak in June, and then generally decline.
What I find particularly intriguing about this is that the (March) Earthquake/Tsunami doesn’t appear to have played much of a role. Nissan said in April that post-earthquake cars would start arriving by the end of that month. Sales peaked 2 months later.
OK. Not really a surprise then.
[div class=\"excerpt\"]U.S. Drops Research Into Fuel Cells for Cars
WASHINGTON — Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development.
Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration’s budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly.
The retreat from cars powered by fuel cells counters Mr. Bush’s prediction in 2003 that “the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.” The Energy Department will continue to pay for research into stationary fuel cells, which Dr. Chu said could be used like batteries on the power grid and do not require compact storage of hydrogen.
...“We’re very devoted to delivering solutions — not just science papers, but solutions — but it will require some basic science,” Dr. Chu, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in physics, said at a news conference.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/science/earth/08energy.html
Why?
The difference in the amount of upstream carbon free infrastructure.
A Cost Comparison of Fuel-Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles
http://www.metricmind.com/data/bevs_vs_fcvs.pdf