Jan 12 2009
Give Us Electric Cars and Lots of Them
Dear Auto Makers: we would like some seriously fuel-efficient cars for 2009.
Like a lot of people, I’m interested in new cars, in part because I don’t have one and I would like to buy one. However, the only cars I would consider buying right now are hybrid, or electric. So this year’s Detroit Auto Show is interesting to me because I want to see how the car companies we gave all those billions and billions and billions of dollars to so their businesses could survive are going to pay us back. Will they pay us back by giving us good fuel-efficient cars we want, or the usual flashy and/or mammoth junk we don’t want? You see, most Americans just want to get from Point A to Point B without polluting the planet and causing the end of endangered species, including humans. We don’t need to impress anyone, really, we don’t.
I know people who are really into cars and even they just want something more practical and affordable to drive around. Many of those people “get” climate change, but not quite enough of them. Car manufacturers could help with this. Even if they don’t, they need to give us cars that are incredibly fuel efficient, since we are past peak oil and gas is already going up again and will continue to rise now into the stratosphere, and climate change marches on. After President Obama urges Congress to increase CAFE standards and work on climate change, asking us to sacrifice as I expect him to, do they only expect rich people to be able to drive? Rich people won’t be rich anymore if the peons can’t afford to get to work.
The good news is that this year at the Detroit Auto Show we have the debut of some electric cars including the Chevy Volt and some hybrids like the giant Ford Escape plug-in pictured above. I would call these two vehicles “good starts”. We need to make a lot more progress than this, however. And oddly enough, though the car show was mostly without dazzle this year, Volkswagen did something kind of unusual: “Volkswagen Uses Breakdancers, Child Labor To Show Off New Car”. (I think that was meant to be humorous).
Here is some actual progress– an electric Cadillac, joining the “Volt” fleet of GM cars. About time!
Read about it here. OK, OK, let’s tone it down a bit for the rest of us. Toyota debuted an electric car, and so did China’s BYD car company. It will give the Chevy Volt some good competition as it’s expect to cost around “$ 30,000 - $40,000″. I have news for them. If they want the average Joe or Jane to buy these electric cars, and that’s who drives cars the most, they better lower the price. With prices like these, it looks like I’ll be riding a new bicycle instead of driving a car this year. Even so, this new Chinese car is sounding pretty good. If I wait a year, the price will probably go down, or I’ll buy a used one. Here is the BYD F3DM electric vehicle (EREV):
Well, it’s not the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, but if it’s electric and cheap, I’ll take it. This car will run on the “ferrous oxide battery-based hybrid system”.
“Though our first experience with the BYD hybrid system came when the company’s CEO took Mr. Hardigree on an impromptu test drive of the BYD F6DM inside Cobo Hall at last years Detroit Auto Show, the first real world implementation of the ferrous oxide battery-based hybrid system will be in the BYD F3DM. We’re told the F3DM will operate for up to 62 miles in all-EV with a motor making 300 lb-ft of torque, when the battery runs low power comes from a 1.0 liter gasoline engine. Compare that to the Chevy Volt which will only have a 40 mile range in all-electric and will be mated to a 1.4-liter gasoline engine. But, we’re presuming the Volt will be a bit safer (?) than the first for-the-street BYD models. The batteries can be charged in several ways, with a standard wall plug it’ll take about 7 hours, a dedicated high power charging station will do the job in about 3 hours, and a half charge can be achieved in as little as 10 minutes.”
From Jalopnik.com. A half-charge in ten minutes!
One benefit to electric cars in the cold winters of Minnesota (while we are still having them, that is) — is that they will start right up. We often plug in our cars here in Minnesota, to keep the battery warm enough to start. Electric cars will remove the worry of whether the car will start after a night of below zero temps.
I like what I’m seeing at this auto show, but they need to lower the prices. Then we need the country-wide charging stations, and if they are building the cars, the charging stations will come. Could we now get some major tax breaks to buy electric and hybrid cars?
