Owners charged up over electric cars, but manufacturers have pulled the plug - Michael Taylor - San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday April 24, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/24/MNGDTCEA9B1.DTLIt can make you dizzy, watching those numbers on the pump whiz by in such a blur that by the time you've pumped a measly 15 gallons of gasoline into your pickup truck, you've spent nearly $45.
But wait. What if you left your house in the morning, drove your 20 miles to work and 20 miles back -- by then, you'd have burned up $7 worth of gas - - and the whole trip cost a mere 50 cents?
That would be about the price of the electricity it costs to recharge your Ford Ranger electric-powered truck overnight. That's the truck that will go about 80 miles between charges, the one that looks the same as a gas- powered Ranger.
And there are other vehicles in this electric-powered class: the most original is General Motors' EV1, built from the ground up as a fast, economical two-seater, along with the Honda EV-Plus, the Ford TH!NK, Toyota RAV4 EV, Nissan Altra, Chevrolet S10 Electric and Chrysler Epic.
Pretty nifty cars, if you want to get out from under the thumb of the oil companies. There's only one problem: For the most part, you can't have them.
GM and other manufacturers have recalled most of their cars, leaving some in public agency fleets and others in museums or universities. In fact, GM has been hauling its EV1s out to the Arizona desert and crushing them.
For all intents and purposes, the hugely expensive electric car program - - created in the 1990s by the California Air Resources Board's mandate that the major automakers build a certain number of pollution-free cars -- is just about dead. The law requiring manufacturers to offer those cars for sale has long since been modified -- hybrids, compressed natural gas and "SULEV" cars (super ultra-low-emission vehicles) have taken up the environmental slack.
SNIP SNIP SNIPA LONG ARTICLE AND WELL WORTH LINKING
Excerpts, comments, and annotations (from an "unbiased" GM EV1 Project alumnus)--
1) EVs were a "tiny and economically worthless niche."
Coastie asks - don't those dudes in Motown read Ken Deffeyes or David Goodstein or even James Howard Kunstler, don't they ever check the "Peak Oil Forum" on DU underground, don't they know anything about "Peak Oil" - aren't they watching unsold inventory, declining sales, declining "autos" stock prices?
2) Over the past few months, the electric car enthusiasts have conducted noisy protests and held round-the-clock vigils against Ford and GM in front of auto dealerships or storage yards.
3) The point of electric vehicle aficionados is that the auto industry is a tribe of idiots who will never break their reliance on the dwindling supply of fossil fuels, even with under funded and over hyped experimental forays into fuel cell technology.
4) The automakers, (dudes like Rick Waggoner and Bob Lutz - who are not exactly "enhancing shareholder values" or "protecting American jobs" any more) while politely thanking those who took a flier on their brief journey into the world of watts and volts, insist that the future of personal transportation lies elsewhere -- hybrid gasoline and electric, and, further down the line, fuel cells.
Coastie note: Don't Waggoner and Lutz buy gasoline on their personal charge card?
5) GM stopped EV1 production, because "after spending over $1 billion over a four-year time frame, we were only able to lease 800 EV1s. That does not a business make. As great as the vehicle is and as much passion, enthusiasm and loyalty as there is, there simply wasn't enough at any given time to make a viable long-term business proposition for General Motors.
Coastie note: I was on the EV project with the prime vendor - I was on the waiting list -- and they never ever got to me on the waiting list. Waggoner and Lutz couldn't run a Wendy's store. Stemple and Reuss couldn't even move me up on the list.
6) "Asked why GM didn't just sell the cars to the clamoring motorists, as Ford finally did with the Rangers, Barthmuss said that "parts are no longer available." Even though buyers might waive the right to sue GM over any design or production defects, he said, "in today's litigious society, there is no such thing as no liability." This aspect of electric vehicle ownership did not seem to be high on the concern list of the people who love these cars. Besides, there are numerous helpful Web sites catering to the electric vehicle community."
Coastie note: The standard GM poop. "Litigious society" They used that same argument with respect to anti-lock brakes, passenger car smart all wheel drive, active suspension. I lived in MI - I adjuncted at engineering schools in the auto belt - I worked in the Vendor community --- I know GM bull when I hear it.
7) Read what Tom Gage, a Chrysler alumnus quoted in the article, says-->
a)automakers were unenthusiastic about making electric cars because it was the first time a government agency -- in this case, the state air resources board -- had told them specifically what to do.
b) "The automakers saw this (CAL Air Resources Board "zero emissions rule") as a precedent they didn't want, something where regulators could tell them what to make," Gage said. "(They) fought it very hard, and one way to kill the mandate is to say it's a bad product, nobody wants to buy it, it's too expensive and its range is too short."
Here's a link to where Gage is now: http://www.acpropulsion.com/ . Gage is converting Toyota Scion xB and xA cars from gas engines to electric motors. The cars will cost about $45,000 to $65,000 each, depending on their accessories and battery power. Sadly there won't be many of these electric Scions. Each year, the big automakers sell a bit more than 16 million cars a year in the United States, nearly all of them with gas-powered engines. But Gage told the SF Chronicle that he figures he'll produce about 250 electric Scions a year. But if demand warrants, he can ramp up production to 500.