Jed Rothwell wrote:
Zell, Chris wrote:
Cold weather makes electric cars even worse. The public wants wasteful,
gas sucking monster SUV's , not dinky, "75 mile range", recharge - over
night Toys.
I think you are wrong about that. Millions of people would love to have
an electric car with a 75-mile range if it costs about as much as a
comparable gasoline model. I would love to have one! I seldom drive the
Geo Metro more than 10 miles per day, and it does not go over 55 mph
(except maybe downhill). (My wife drives the Prius.) Hundreds of
millions of people may prefer gasoline vehicles, but a vehicle with a
75-mile range would be a strong niche product with more than enough
people to support profitable production. A lot stronger than
motorcycles, I think.
One reason GM is in such trouble is that they can't make money selling
niche products. They can't make money on a model unless they sell a
major giant-sized boatload of them (I don't recall the actual numbers
off hand unfortunately).
If Nissan (which also has its problems) had been selling them they might
have thought the sales numbers were great, but Nissan has a long history
of selling into niche markets in Japan.
A number of Japanese manufacturers have figured out how to sell
low-volume models at a profit -- but not GM.
Clayton Christensen wrote an interesting chapter about this in the book
The Innovator's Dilemma. He said, among other things, that parents with
teenage children might want to buy underpowered limited range electric
cars precisely because they cannot go 120 mph or 100 miles away from
home. Most American families already have a gasoline car, so this would
be a second car for urban dwellers. As such, it is a lot more practical,
safer and faster than a bicycle, motorcycle or taxicab. Millions of
people live in cities after all.
These cars have advantages besides eco-friendliness. As noted in the
article they cost less to run and to maintain. They are simple and
long-lasting. Traditional lead acid batteries may not last long but they
can be recycled. If GM had engineered and marketed their EV properly
they would be selling 100,000 a year by now.
And maybe that would be enough for GM to make an adequate profit on
them, or maybe it wouldn't.
The folks who make the Excalibur would faint at the thought of such
numbers, and before being bought by Ford I dare say Mazda would have
been happy with quantities like that too. But the Elephant of Michigan
needs real volume to be happy with a model.
However, the hybrid
gasoline car makes pure EVs obsolete, and the plug-in hybrid makes all
other vehicles obsolete and not worth considering -- and that includes
ethanol fueled vehicles. The only reasonable alternative to a gasoline
plug-in hybrid is a diesel plug-in hybrid.
Is this really true? A pure EV car would be lighter, simpler, and
cheaper than a hybrid. The only place it falls down on is range.
For decades people have been saying there's a niche market there for
cheap and efficient range-limited vehicles, and I don't see how the
presence of hybrids changes that. But regardless, General Motors won't
be one of the companies making them.
- Re: Who Killed the EV? Stephen A. Lawrence
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