EVLN(EV phase-out coincides with GM & D-Chrysler's CARB lawsuit)
[The Internet Electric Vehicle List News. For Public EV
informational purposes. Contact publication for reprint rights.]
--- {EVangel}
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=12600
ENVIRONMENT: Automakers Park Electric Cars Despite Loyal
Drivers Katherine Stapp
The world's biggest automakers are abandoning their
experiments with battery-powered cars, saying most drivers
are unwilling to give up their cheaper fuel-burning
vehicles.
NEW YORK, Sep 30 (IPS) - The world's biggest automakers are
abandoning their experiments with battery-powered cars,
saying most drivers are unwilling to give up their cheaper
fuel-burning vehicles.
Companies like Ford and General Motors (GM) also say they
will focus on producing hybrid gas-electric vehicles and
other cutting-edge technologies that offer greater
versatility than electric vehicles (EVs).
But electric-car advocates say carmakers are just offering
excuses so they do not have to give up producing gas
guzzlers.
�They're the cleanest cars ever made, and they want to take
them off the road. It just baffles,� said Greg Hanssen,
co-chairman of the Production Electric Vehicles Drivers
Coalition, a group that is lobbying GM, the world's largest
car company, to extend the leases on their electric cars.
Ellen Spertus, another enthusiastic EV driver, said: �I
don't expect that we'll be able to save (GM's) EV1. I just
don't want the car companies to get away with claiming that
electric cars are no good and nobody wants them.�
Spertus and others say that electric cars are being
jettisoned as �unfeasible� because carmakers don't want to
comply with tougher clean air regulations.
The companies say the often quirky-looking vehicles never
caught on with the public, mostly because they are expensive
(34,000 to 53,000 dollars) and have limited driving ranges
of 50 to 80 miles per charge.
Last week, U.S. carmaker Ford - number three in the world -
declared that it would no longer sell EVs on the domestic
market and dropped Norwegian production of the Ford EV
called the Think City.
Ford says it was only able to sell 1,000 of the cars in
three years, far less than anticipated.
Meanwhile, GM claims it lost about a billion dollars on the
EV1, the world's first mass market battery- powered car. It
has stopped making the vehicle, and plans to recall the
1,100 or so now in circulation.
�The electric vehicle market failed to materialise, not for
lack of effort but for lack of customers willing to
sacrifice the utility of today's gasoline-powered vehicles,�
said Sam Leonard, director of GM's Public Policy Center.
Some environmental groups and electric car fans disagree,
accusing GM of deliberately failing to market the EV1, which
made its debut in 1997. For example, they say, most U.S.
citizens own two cars and could use a battery-operated
vehicle just to run short errands.
The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that 80 percent
of U.S. households travel under 50 miles a day, well within
the range of most EVs.
Although some electric cars - like the Think City - look
like souped-up golf carts, the EV1s are nearly
indistinguishable from gas-powered vehicles, except they do
not pollute.
The battle over emissions is raging hottest in California,
the nation's biggest car market and the U.S. state with the
strictest environmental codes.
Proponents of battery-run cars note that their phase-out
coincides with a lawsuit brought by GM and Daimler-Chrysler
(the world's second car company) against the California Air
Resources Board to block rules forcing carmakers to build
zero emission vehicles (ZEVs).
Passed in 1990, the ZEV mandate requires carmakers to derive
at least two percent of their sales in California from
totally clean �zero-emission� vehicles. Currently, electric
cars are the only ones on the market to satisfy that
criteria.
The ZEV mandate was supposed to come into effect in 2003.
But this summer, GM and Chrysler won an injunction from a
federal judge temporarily suspending the ZEV requirements.
The case is due to be heard in October, although the Air
Resources Board now says it will probably just rewrite the
regulations next year to make them more flexible.
While automakers insist that EVs are not practical, most are
continuing to pursue alternative power systems like
gas-electric hybrids and cars powered by fuel-cells, a
super-clean propulsion system whose only by-product is
water.
Experts say hybrids are the most immediately promising. They
combine a gasoline-powered engine with an electric motor
that recharges using the excess energy thrown off during
braking.
Unlike electric cars, they do not need to be plugged in.
They have lower emissions and about twice the fuel
efficiency of regular gas-powered cars.
The two most advanced hybrids now on the market are the
Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius. Much cheaper than 100
percent electric cars, they cost about 20,000 dollars and
can go as far as 600 miles on a single tank of gas.
Already 8,000 Insights are on the road. Toyota, which is the
fourth carmaker overall but dominates the hybrid market,
says it has sold about 100,000 of its various hybrid models
in nearly two dozen countries.
The revamped Prius model has an electric motor capable of
running the car if it runs out of gas - an advantage over
other hybrids that rely primarily on gasoline.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the
environmental benefits of hybrid vehicles depend on how they
are designed. The group advocates high-efficiency,
low-emissions hybrids operating on renewable fuels.
Fuel-cell technology is even cleaner, although it will be
years before any significant number of fuel-cell cars hit
the market.
Fuel cells produce electricity through a reaction between
hydrogen and oxygen. They have hydrogen tanks that power
batteries, and their success would also depend on a wide
network of hydrogen filling stations. They emit zero
tailpipe emissions, just like electric cars.
Toyota plans to roll out the FCHV-4 (Fuel Cell Hybrid
Vehicle 4) later this year, although it will only be leased
on a test basis to government agencies, research
institutions and energy companies.
All the major carmakers are racing to build prototypes, but
have no plans to mass-produce fuel-cell cars until at least
2010. (END)
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. http://geocities.com/brucedp
. EV List Editor & RE newswires
. (originator of the above EV ascci art)
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