Comments on: Ford expects 10% to 25% of fleet to be electric by 2020, Toyota plans up to 30,000 plug-ins in 2012, GM to “do the heavy lifting” to help Obama meet goal of one million plug-ins by 2015.

By: larry tucker

larry tucker — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:03:39 +0000

I suspect the 18-20 dollars for a 3 hour quick charge is detrimental to sales. The price of electricity is small at a charge. The costs of setting up a large parking lot to contain a few dozen cars for 3 hours is very high.

By: Pangolin

Pangolin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:43:01 +0000

At least in California a charging station has a considerably smaller cost to the property owner than the land value of the parking space. If a retail establishment builds business by having convenient charging stations its worth the cost. Operations with their heads in the sand may suffer.

The proposed VMT tax is simply a way of leveling the playing field for SUV owners. Any traffic engineer will tell you that it’s vehicle weight that causes road damage. An SUV at double the weight of a Prius causes well over twice the road wear. Since that asphalt has many barrels of oil in it heavier vehicles should be taxed more.

My personal take on the drop in Prius sales is that I’m seeing a lot more Smart cars on the road. With the various electrics and diesels the Prius is getting some needed competition. Some of that competition is from bicycles too; bicycle sales have defied the economic trends.

By: Wonhyo

Wonhyo — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:35:36 +0000

I’d like to make a plug for Aptera, which is scheduled to start mass-producing a 100 mile all-electric highway capable 2-seater by the end of this year with an expected price of $27k. Their plug-in hybrid with 50 mile (projected) all-electric range is expected a year later.

One thing Aptera gets that Chevrolet and Tesla do not is that battery size drives the cost of an electric/plug-in and reducing battery size requires extreme efficiency. Tesla is too expensive for the masses. The Volt will be priced as a semi-luxury car.

Toyota may be Aptera’s closest competitor. The plug-in Prius 15 mile all-electric range suggests the battery capacity will be about 4-6 kWh, a much more economical solution that Volt’s 16 kWh battery. And still, the Toyota plug-in is expected to be $48k?! I don’t see how the Volt will match that price, unless its battery is also reduced.

By: BBHY

BBHY — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:38:39 +0000

James Thomson the second, I think you are not taking into account the drain on our economy caused by the need to import foreign oil.

By continuing to use oil to power our transportation, we will likely spend $7 Trillion on imported oil over the next ten years. That’s money being sucked out of the economy that’s not available for investment in the things we need.

By using electrics instead, we could have that $7 Trillion dollars to invest in clean energy from wind, solar, geothermal and whatever other renewable sources we want. with money left over to build a smart, efficient distribution grid and improve health care, education and create new industries and jobs.

Oh, and by the way, we could dramatically reduce our CO2 emissions and save our environment.

By: Rick Covert

Rick Covert — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:58:11 +0000

Joe,

I’d like to address a question posed to aprevious poster, “What makes you think you won’t be able to charge from the office?” In short the company I was contracted to wouldn’t allow it, PERIOD. They even got rid of their electric utility carts.

By: dhogaza

dhogaza — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:38:21 +0000

Toyota reports U.S. sales of its Prius hybrid are down a whopping 45 percent so far in 2009. It’s a far cry from this time last year, when Toyota dealers were tacking on a premium to the sticker price and had waiting lists for the cars.

Toyota says it has sold just 42,743 Prius models through the first five months of 2009, compared to 79,675 during the same period last year.

1. We’re in a recession

2. Prius 3 – everyone’s waiting

By: GFW

GFW — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:10:57 +0000

Um Larry, it’s a hybrid. If it runs out of electric power, you just use a little gas.

By: Bob Wright

Bob Wright — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:06:06 +0000

Ford is also about to launch the new gasoline Fiesta with promised hybrid-like mileage on the highway. Maybe even 40+ mpg. It could be a good, affordable, “domestic” (Mexico) car to drive until the transition is made to affordable electrics and plug-ins.

It sounds like Ford and VW are having quite a spirited diesel mileage competition in Europe, parallel to Toyota and Ford hybrids here.

By: larry tucker

larry tucker — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:28:11 +0000

Toyota’s plug-ins will be able to run 20-30 km (12.4-18.6 miles) on battery power alone at full charge, the paper said.

18 miles from the office. That means not a side trip errand on the way home.

Quick chargers are 6,000 dollars for a Mini E?

[JR: And what makes you think you won't be able to charge from the office? But, in any case, you look to have a relatively long commute, and it doesn't make sense to design a car for a very long commute (and/or with the assumption of only charging at home.]

By: paulm

paulm — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:54:57 +0000

I think this is an under estimate. Everyone wants to buy an electric car really even if they don’t know it now. The minute the right environment – especially political & supply, is there the sales are going to go through the roof.