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Will electric cars be soon dinosaur?

are there any other fuel-cell players in the game?

TURBO2GO said:
You forgot fuel cell...
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Ha... yea, too bad my application for the Clarity FCX must've got lost in the mail! :D

With the industrial might & infrastructure already in place along w/ endless raw-material availability (whether rubbish or organic by-products), I'm surprised that there hasn't been more initiative towards bio-mass fuel derivation. Kudos to Brasil for seizing their future...
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A big concern of mine is whether or not the new natural-gas boom in the US (namely Appalachian region) will be akin to the coal generations of past, meaning re-tarding/languishing the incentive for other potential & tenable fuel/energy sources.
 
Hybrid cars are useful and have great economy in city driving but no advantage on the freeway. Pure electric cars are useless and will never be more then a couple of percent of the fleet. They are just fancy golf carts, range and charging is a problem as is heating and cooling which if used kills the range.

Less then 50% of today's Hybrid owners will buy another hybrid so even that is not going anywhere. If you do the math the extra cost of a hybrid is not recouped in fuel savings even in 100,000 miles so they make no sense on a cost basis.
 
Briank said:
Hybrid cars are useful and have great economy in city driving but no advantage on the freeway. Pure electric cars are useless and will never be more then a couple of percent of the fleet. They are just fancy golf carts, range and charging is a problem as is heating and cooling which if used kills the range.

Less then 50% of today's Hybrid owners will buy another hybrid so even that is not going anywhere. If you do the math the extra cost of a hybrid is not recouped in fuel savings even in 100,000 miles so they make no sense on a cost basis.
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I think you shouldnt pile all hybrids into the same category either. There are clear clunkers in the category, ones that you are right, don't pay off. They have lower loyalty rates for a reason. But some, like the Prius, and the Highlander, have very high loyalty rates, way above the rest. So you have to look at the models. You know if I had an old Accord hybrid, I probably wouldn't buy another either. But the Prius is like 80-90%.

Also that ABC poll is just not that accurate because most cars, AREN'T hybrid. So what are you asking people? How many times do people buy the same car anyway? People buy bigger cars, smaller cars, switch car types all the time. There is no hybrid in almost all of those "other" categories. So the poll is of rather dubious value.

On pure electric cars. "Golf cart"? Come on....

The Tesla S is heralded by almost every magazine test as being a terrific car even if it wasn't electric.There are good ones available.
 
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TURBO2GO said:
The Tesla S is heralded by almost every magazine test as being a terrific car even if it wasn't electric.There are good ones available.
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Terrific car as long as it doesn't brick LOL. Yes it's a design flaw and not necessarily endemic of battery powered vehicles but come on, what were they thinking by not including some sort of low battery shutoff?

Another uphill battle facing all-electric cars is the issue of energy cost parity. In the US gasoline prices are basically the same across the country, give or take about 35 cents/gal mostly due to differing state taxes. This is a 10% difference across the country. Electricity costs vary way more widely, by over 100%. So if/when electrics finally make economic sense in areas with cheap electricity, they still won't make sense in those areas where electricity costs twice as much and the cars cost twice as much to operate. Can this be addressed with subsidies? Perhaps, but that just fiddles with the underlying economics.
 
TURBO2GO said:
Toyota itself buys back Prius batteries and recycles them. The 100K thing is pure fiction. Almost all go waaaaaay over that. With a million priii on the road, only a handful have had battery replacements. A new reaplecment with the trade-in is now roughly $900, not 5K. I specifically just had a service manager look it up.
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That's interesting. I just searched the Prius forums and it looks like that $900 is less than what people are paying for refurbished batteries. About half.
They're saying the trade-in for a battery is $200 and a new one is $3,500 + install.

Point is, whether it lasts 100,000 miles or 150,000 miles(going by cellphone battery technology, I would bet on the former), regardless, you have $3,500 battery + install(~$500) + timing belt/WP ($1,200). So $5,000 of service for a car worth, what, $7,000?

It turns into a throw-away car is my point. And that is HORRIBLE for the environment.
If you're right about the battery cost, and the prius forums are wrong, then that changes things. I don't know...


.
 
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jond said:
Point is, whether it lasts 100,000 miles or 150,000 miles(going by cellphone battery technology, I would bet on the former), regardless, you have $3,500 battery + install(~$500) + timing belt/WP ($1,200). So $5,000 of service for a car worth, what, $7,000?

.
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If Toyota warranties the NiMH batteries for 10 years in California (8 in other states), then I'm not worried about battery replacement. In order to extend lifetime, Toyota oversizes the capacity and then only utilizes about 60% through the normal charge/discharge cycle. Yes, kinda a waste, but that extends battery life and the customer doesn't "perceive" any change in performance.

If/When my battery needs replacement, I will buy the Engineer battery plug-in conversions with Li-something batteries AND electronics for only $3500. This will only get cheaper over the next 8 years too, and I will have pure electric mode driving for ~20+ miles going less than 47MPH. Perfect for an around-town beater.

Oh yeah, Prius TB/WP are only $450 at my Toyota dealer. Brakes last the life of the car. Oil changes are 4.0qts synthetic every 10k miles.

After 2 years with mine, I would buy another in a heartbeat.

Dave
 
Briank said:
Hybrid cars are useful and have great economy in city driving but no advantage on the freeway. Pure electric cars are useless and will never be more then a couple of percent of the fleet. They are just fancy golf carts, range and charging is a problem as is heating and cooling which if used kills the range.

Less then 50% of today's Hybrid owners will buy another hybrid so even that is not going anywhere. If you do the math the extra cost of a hybrid is not recouped in fuel savings even in 100,000 miles so they make no sense on a cost basis.
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I think just because hybrid cars are optimized for aerodynamic efficiency, they do great on the highway too. Cruising at 80 MPH, I easily get 45MPG+ on long 500 mile trips. Now, I don't like driving in windy conditions because it is a tall, slab-sided vehicle so it is more susceptible to cross-winds. That's no fun. But head and tail winds are fine. All vehicles could benefit from this in the future though.

I don't know where you get your 50% statistic, but I doubt that for Toyota and Ford owners. GM and Honda use simple, cheap virtually useless belt-driven "hybrid" technology for no real gains because they were too late in the patent area. Maybe that's who they polled.

Like I said before, I'd rather pay money to Toyota or Ford than the big oil businesses or the Middle East. And, at roughly $3.5+ a gallon for gas, then hybrids (and VW diesels) make a good case for saving money overall. Factor in other reduced maintenance and depreciation, then these really are cheaper.

Dave
 
There's a lot of assumption here and not enough fact. Fact is, while some of you guys are painting a rather gloomy scenario for buying a hybrid from a financial-only perspective, with a proper one like the Prius, it is actually quite a wise decision. That car has consistently, if not always, had one of the lowest costs of ownership of any vehicle in its price range, period. This is fact. You can go to intellichoice, see all the stats, and see each category.

It has always been in the top 5 for highest residual, least number of problems, lowest cost of maintenence, least cost of fuel, and relatively low insurance costs.

If it was in fact a "throw away" car with a battery problem, the stats and resale value would bear this out.

Jond, you say you would bet on the former.... Meaning the batteries last only 100K. You would lose that bet. Again, the facts don't bear it out. Very few actual battery replacements take place on these cars at 100K, and those are under some extreme conditions. I've known lots of Prius owners, including personal experience with at least 3 of them now, all with very high miles, all 100% functional and with no need in sight for a battery replacement. I believe the warranty is 8 years and 100K. On average the life goes way beyond that.

Dave, the poll was really meaningless if you read the details, but it was all over the place on the Internet. Basically it asked all hybrid owners, will your next car be another hybrid. Some models like the Prius had a very high loyalty rate and some were extremely low, and so they averaged just under 50%.

Show me a result that you are seeking, and I will show you how to word a poll question to get the results that you want. It's like asking someone that bought a Chevrolet Malibu, "is your next car going to be another Chevy Malibu". Hybrids aren't widely available in every category of car, let alone good hybrids. So anyone that plans on a different type/brand/model of car says "no" and there is your poll result. Then the next thing that happens is you'll be at the car wash with your Prius, and some know it all who read a poll on the Internet says to you "hey did you know most people polled would never buy your car again?"
 
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Yes, I think there is a lot of misinformation about hybrids and electric cars being mixed up. If a hybrid direction is not viable for the future, then why does every major car company have a flagship sports car with hybrid tech in the mix? Some obviously will do better than others in this category depending on their level of engineering and design. Even Ferrari and McLaren have KERS tech being instrumental whereas Porsche and Honda decided to utilize a bit more batteries and motors.
 
Hybrids are expensive purchased new, but so was the NSX. How many of us waited to buy a few years old NSX so it would be more affordable? I know I have twice....I took delivery of a 2008 Toyota Highlander Limited Hybrid yesterday with 44k miles and in almost mint condition. I bought it for under $25,000 and a new one 2013, is over $55,000. The Hybrid system is warrantied by the Toyota corporation for 96 months or 100K miles. Its gets about 29MPG in the city and hold 7 people......There are some good deals out there, but like the NSX, if you don't mind buying a few years old model, you don't have to get killed on the purchase....Just my 3 cents......:cool:
 
P.S. What they need to design is a diesel- hybrid.....Tons of torque from even a small diesel motor, and the instant torque of an electric motor, that would be cool. Maybe BMW will come out with one......Diesels are coming, look up the new models, even Audi put one in a R8, it kept destroying trans, with all the torque.......:eek:

Interesting info, 2008 Toyota Highlander with 3.5 litre V6 is slower than my 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid which has a 3.3 litre V6 with electric motors.:cool:
 
Texas91Brent said:
P.S. What they need to design is a diesel- hybrid.....Tons of torque from even a small diesel motor, and the instant torque of an electric motor, that would be cool.
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In CA, diesel is $4.45gallon. It is not practical for daily drivers when they want to save the $.
 
The problem is the quality if diesel fuel in the U.S. a lot is needed to be done by various emissions devices on the car to have it pass. It complicates things and raises costs. In Europe much higher quality diesel is available so more cars are made and more are sold there.
 
If battery costs come down (which they are) and a network of fast charging stations (like Tesla's Supercharger) is establish and battery performance doubles or triples (likely in the next 15 years) then the electric car is a no-brainer.

-J
 
Another thing to consider is that these knucklehead car manufacturers have countered all the improvements they have made in gasoline engines (direct injection, better fuel injectors, port design, coatings and finishes) by making their cars heavier and running larger wheels.

The Honda Accord used to weigh in the 2400-2600 lb. range; now they weigh 1000 lbs more :eek: We don't need to drive in mobile living rooms...

Finally, I'd like to start seeing more carbon fiber used in body panels; the new Boeing Dreamliner weighs 30,000 lbs. less than an aluminum-framed equivalent thanks to a carbon fiber shell. If it's good enough for a jetliner, I'm sure it's good enough for a car.
 
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Google received approval last week for use of their self driven cars in the HOV lane in CA. I have seen some estimates that over 50% of all vehicles on the road will be self driven within a decade. Once that number reaches a high percentage safety concerns will be a thing of the past. These vehicles are just not going to crash. Once that happens you will not need strong materials you will you be able to use plastics.
 
jond said:
This was on Business Insider this morning:

"STUDY: Electric Cars May Be Twice As Bad For Global Warming As Regular Cars"
http://www.businessinsider.com/are-electric-cars-bad-for-the-environment-2012-10
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I read that whole study. Fairly well done but with some clear assumptions as well. There is a lot involved, and this is the kind of study oil companies love to talk about. In that very study while it "can be" twice as bad it also "can be" twice as good, it depends on how you play with the data and what assumptions you make regarding longevity, manufacturing, etc. saying "can be" is pretty deceptive.

The best one so far clearly seems like hydrogen fuel cell. FCX Clarity. To me the infrastructure that should be getting put into place is for fuel cell vehicles.
 

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