On 14 Sep 2014 at 12:10, Martin WINLOW via EV wrote: > singling out one section of > the population on a racial basis for criticism - certainly in this context - > is at best rather non-PC and at worst, a bit, well, ... offensive...?
Sorry to say, I have to agree that some folks might take offense at the wording in the post. No matter how valid and good the other ideas expressed are, this can end up being used as a argument against them. Regrettably, there still seems to be a LOT of folks looking for arguments against EVs. I don't speak for Bruce, but reading between the lines, I took the piece more as considering how to market EVs to a segment that (for better or worse) demographers break out. That said, if it's a truly useful demographic split, I think it'd be mostly applicable to the US Southwest. I can tell you that here in the East- Midwest, the penchant for massive vehicles seems to cut across many demographic groups. Before I go any farther with this, a note about big people and big vehicles. At one time I tended to dismiss this issue. That was partly because back in 1972 I knew a truly king-size gentleman, a good 6' 8" or more tall with the weight to match. He very happily owned and drove a Honda 600! It was pretty entertaining to watch him fold himself into that car. He LOVED its size, manuverability, and efficiency. Over the years, though, I've come to understand that aging magnifies the discomfort of that kind of contortion. I've also gotten to know some folks who have significant physical challenges and have a LOT of trouble getting into and out of most small (or even large) sedans. Although I personally don't need or want a large vehicle, this has changed my views about what some folks really need. And like it or not, here in the US with our mostly hopeless public transit systems, there are very few places where you can have a productive life without (at least access to) a personal vehicle. If you don't have vehicles these folks can use, you are effectively grounding them. I also acknowledge that there are lots of other reasons that a person might need (or might think he needs, which is effectively the same) a large vehicle. Some folks have already mentioned some of these, and you can find more of them in archived discussions here and elsewhere. Beyond that, the market for big vehicles has been hugely and deliberately amplified by the automakers and their marketing because (1) selling trucks and truckish vehicles lets them bypass CAFE regulations, and (2) trucks and their relatives are WAY more profitable for them than cars. I could spend too much time expanding on how that all happened, but the salient point is that THIS IS WHERE WE ARE. Billions of dollars in auto industry advertising have stuffed us into this corner. We as EV advocates just don't have the bucks to get out of it. We have to make the best of it. As I see it, we really have only two ways to go. Either we look for ways to make EVs that match those massive ICEVs in utility, or we concentrate on making great EVs that do other things really, really well. The first of these is pretty tough. When you make a vehicle heavier and larger, you need more torque to accelerate it at a rate that drivers will accept. You need more power to keep it going at a speed they like against wind and rolling resistance. You need more energy to keep it going for as many miles as those drivers want to go. In an ICEV, you drop in a bigger ICE and a bigger fuel tank. These don't really increase the vehicle manufacturing cost much. But they increase the vehicle's appeal to certain buyers even more, so the manufacturers make more profit on each one sold. That's why vehicles keep getting bigger and bigger. But in a EV - at least for a now - a gruntier motor and heftier controller push up the manufacturing cost more than a larger engine. Worse, while increasing the ICEV's fuel tank size from 20 to 30 gallons costs just a few bucks, increasing an EV's battery from 24kWh to 36kWh costs THOUSANDS. This means that the bigger the vehicle gets, the harder it is to make a price-competitive EV. Twenty years ago, the cost of the most modest EV parts, and the cost of advanced batteries, were so high that making a small car EV cost-compeitive with a small ICEV was darn near impossible. However, we found that when we shifted down several notches in vehicle size, buyers were a lot more willing to pay for the difference between an ICEV and an EV. I'm talking about E-bikes, so far EVs' biggest success story worldwide, and this is where we get to my second "what to do" alternative above - concentrating on making really, really good EVs that do non-large-vehicle things well. The other big thing that E-bikes had (and have) going for them is that rather than being compared with mopeds and scooters, they were (and are) often compared with non-powered bikes. Instead of seeing them as a lower- range version of a gas moped, consumers saw them as enhanced bikes. E-bikes were and are just about as clean and quiet as bikes. They can go almost anywhere bikes can. However, they're powered vehicles. Bike purists may hate them, but for many of us, they're more comfortable, more convenient, and more USEFUL. Instead of comparing E-bikes to mopeds and seeing that they have less utility, consumers compare them to regular bikes and see them as having MORE utility. Instead of trying to REPLACE their ICEV equivalents, E-bikes succeeded by opening their own niche in the market - people who wanted something more than a non-powered bike, but didn't want a noisy, smelly moped or scooter. Here we are, 20 years later, and I'm going to stick my neck out and say that part of the reason we see 4-wheeled EVs that dare to try replacing small ICEVs is that E-bikes helped to clear the way. They (and also small handheld electronics) helped advance battery technology to where small car EVs are getting close to being price-competitive with small car ICEVs. I think that with time, maybe this trend will continue to migrate upward in size toward those larger vehicles. It may turn out that Tesla is a force that makes that happen sooner, by the way. However, if we get too impatient and try to force EV technology beyond its current niche, we're just going to get frustrated wasting our time and energy. Thus I think we should keep on making small-car EVs as good as we can and as appealing as we can. Let smaller EVs' advantages speak for themselves. Concentrate on keeping those advantages in the public eye. Heck, maybe we could even find a way to position small car EVs as a step up from E-bikes, rather than a step down from small ICEVs - like E-bikes were and are a step up from regular bikes. IMO, eventually this will build grassroots demand for larger EVs from below, as the technology matures into what's needed to make those larger EVs cost- competitive. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
