250 mile range, 0-60 speeds under 10 seconds (just), and 110 mph top speed. It is a normal sized vehicle with normal features.

Since most of my in town travels take me fewer than 20 miles at a time and even my out of town travels take me less than 100 miles from home – this might be the right vehicle. Four doors, seating for 4 or five people and a cargo bed to carry stuff home from the hardware store or bikes to the park or groceries from grocery store. In other words it is similar to the Subieroo Baja that disappeared a year or two ago.

This meets all of my needs in a vehicle and I will be SERIOUSLY looking into the further when I buy my next car. It is more expensive than I want to spend on a car/trucklet but we’ll see where the market is when I am actually BUYING one.

Question is – with the tech being available – why aren’t the mainstream companies building these already???

Oh never mind – dead horse… VBG!

The USA has a 100 year supply of natural gas (5th largest in the world) and that’s if every single car and home used natural gas.

The world has a 1000 year supply.

Yet we still have coal fired power plants and use 20+% of the world’s oil.

Then you should know that the Impact was a show car. GM only later produced the number of EV1’s that it did because of the ZEV requirement, that was imposed six years before GM began leasing the few EV1’s that it did.

The auto industry is full of show cars. Most of them are styling and PR exercises. You have to be really anxious to find a silver lining if you confuse a show car with an earnest mass production program.

You write this as if EVs are some sort of abstract thing that you can believe in or not.

They aren’t abstract at all. We’ve had them for over a century, and they continue to lag because of the same basic deficiencies of range and recharge time that they always have.

The fact that the failures of EV’s are not just an abstraction highlights the problem. As practical vehicles for the average consumer, they make no sense at all to anyone but a few rabid fans.

The lack of market support is far from abstract. People simply don’t want these cars. If you want to change that, then figure out how to eliminate the problems that make them unable to compete in the market. Until you do, expect them to drive something else, because only a tiny minority of drivers want them. You happen to be in that tiny minority, but it’s still tiny.

So I’m curious. When I say stuff, do you just automatically assume that I’m making it up? It would appear that is the case, and I only find out quite a bit later that the facts are again being dismissed as just coming from a fringe lunatic such as myself.

It seems that you have made up your mind on all this, and you want to massage the facts to fit your version of the situation. When they don’t fit, we just move on to other significant items of interest, like Americans NEED long range and fast refill times, and all car makers know this! The other details don’t really matter, apparently. The few EV drivers like me are wrong and are just dreaming about there being any benefits to EV ownership.

if having one was as fantastic as you believe it is
Well here’s something that I do feel strongly about. You write this as if EVs are some sort of abstract thing that you can believe in or not. My family has been driving electric for more than seven years now. We average just under 12,000 miles/year in electric vehicles. We use them for over 90% of our trips by choice. I have a Priusr at my disposal, and we use it when we need to. We have lived with EVs for a significant number of years and miles. We have direct experience with them and truly understand their limitations and their benefits. YOu have denegrated my situation to a “belief” when my situation is direct personal experience… while YOURS is nothing more than a belief. You believe that EVs have no benefits over gas cars. You believe that there never was, nor will there be, a market for EVs. Yet there is nothing to support those beliefs except that it is apparently OBVIOUS to any thinking individual. The details in the matter are just annoyances. Yes, you have the world of EV-ignorance on your side, so you argue from a strong standpoint. Doesn’t make it any more valid, however.

I know what EVs are capable of. I know what they are not capable of. I know the plusses and minuses of gas cars as well. I currently own one of each and can compare them directly. Bringing this whole equation down to range and recharge time loses site of the big picture, and *completely* ignores the benefits of driving electric, of course.

OK, have at it. I’m off the grid for the next week, so can’t even reply.

Best,
- Darell

You keep saying this, and this is false. The ZEV mandate was imposed in 1990. The EV1 program began specifically in order to comply with the ZEV mandate.

Knowing that the vehicles did not yet exist in 1990, CARB gave the automakers until 1998 to comply with the ZEV rules. GM launched the EV1 in 1996, most likely to demonstrate that the upcoming requirement was not realistic. Of course, we all know what happened as soon as it was no longer mandatory.

Do you contend that Toyota is NOT heavily invested in the ICE?

Toyota is heavily invested in making money. If they could build a successful electric car and make money from it, of course they would build it in a heartbeat.

If anything, they would dive into it because if having one was as fantastic as you believe it is, this super EV wundercar would give them a unique advantage that none of their competition would have.

The problem is that Toyota did no better with electrics than did anyone else. They also could not solve the range and recharge problems inherent to the battery-dependent car. They know that customers are not willing to buy such cars in large enough numbers to make them worth their while.

What’s sad about electrics is that nobody who has built them has managed to fix the range and recharge problem. Not Toyota, not GM, not Honda, not Ford and not Tesla. Nobody.

They have had a century to overcome these barriers, but they have not, despite spending large sums on their development. Investing more money would have just lost them more money.

It’s no wonder that no one wants to bother — every effort ultimately fails. The only way that might make sense is to sell them as weekend cars at six figure prices, as Tesla is trying to do, and even that doesn’t seem to be going very well.

You keep repeating it, but you have not substantiated your position that Toyota doesn’t make EV’s simply because it’s addicted to gas engines.
I give you HUGE credit for at least mentioning this apparently frightening idea that all others have ignored until right now. Addicted is the wrong word. “Heavily invested” is the proper phrase. Do you contend that Toyota is NOT heavily invested in the ICE? Do you contend that throwing away the 100 years of (combined) ICE R&D would be a wise business decision?

Unfortunately, these efforts made for CARB created this small contingent of hopefuls
Quite true. Missing here again is the fact that GM’s first EV was introduced before the CARB mandate existed. The mandate scared the living poop out of GM, but the mandate did not force GM to develop the EV1. Just a little nit.

Clearly, you want to ignore the market.
Not at all. Not even a little bit. You contend that there is no market for a vehicle that has never been marketed. YOu seem to think this is so because the auto companies just “know” that there is no market for an EV. I contend that since EVs have never been marketed, that we have no clue if there is a market for them. Certainly we all agree that the market is different today than yesterday. Ignoring the market is what you seem to be guilty of – if there is in fact a market for them. But we don’t know, do we? We can sure guess and say that Americans are far too bright to want a vehicle with just 100 or 200 miles of range. But we haven’t asked them. WE haven’t asked if they’d like to commute in a more convenient car that saves them money, time… and that saves our resources and clean environment. I want to find out about the market and NOT ignore it. The tide has turned though, and no amount of sticking our heads in the sand will keep plug-in cars off the market for much longer. I would so love to revisit this thread in about ten years.

Toyota is in the business of making money, and they profit by paying attention to the market.
Then they never would have marketed the Prius. There was no market for that vehicle until Toyota created one – through great patience, expense and effort. If the CARB writing had not been on the wall, and Toyota had been as thick-headed about it as GM (and so many others) then they would not have brought the Prius to market – and would have continued down the same pure-ICE path as the others. They gambled in creating their market in advance of the mandates, and they won. They didn’t wait for the market to tell them what was needed – they created it. They created the greenest car they could that still used an ICE. A car that they could market as “electric without the plug.” A car that could be considered green but that required no alteration from the norm. The car had all this going for it, and it was still a tough sell.

Or.. maybe I’m full of it up to my eyeballs. I don’t discount that. And I agree that with cheap gas, nobody gave a damn about electric cars. From a short-sighted business perspective, the wise move was for all companies to terminate their EV programs as quickly as possible. Let’s fast-forward to today… to the long-term business perspective of ten years ago. What I see is people NOT desperately trying to figure out how to keep burning gasoline in their cars. My EV site now sees half a million visitors a month. And my site is just a little more than nothing in the grand scheme of things. When gas was $2.50, I had about 200 visits a month. People tail me on the freeway, and follow me off my exit to ask where they can buy a car like mine. Though I don’t drive all that much, I end up talking to 50-100 people a week about my car when they see me in it. (some days this is a real PITA when I need to get stuff done! My wife takes the brunt of it since she commutes in the car every day) This didn’t happen when the car was new. But it sure happens now. At $1.50/gallon gas, this car was a curiosity. Now it is all people want to talk about.

Every major car maker has promised a plug-in car (of some flavor – with or without a supporting ICE) in the next few years. They are doing this because the market is finally demanding it. The market is finally demanding it because of the cost of gas, and the concern for the environment (in that order, I’m afraid).

Toyota is a conglomerate that began by making looms. They are in the manufactured housing business, they have a biotech investment arm, and they make boats, plus they are in the finance business.

You keep repeating it, but you have not substantiated your position that Toyota doesn’t make EV’s simply because it’s addicted to gas engines. If Toyota was singleminded about internal combustion motors as you claim, they would have never bothered with hybrids in the first place.

Clearly, you want to ignore the market. Toyota is in the business of making money, and they profit by paying attention to the market. As a result, they dumped EV’s the first chance that they got.

Unfortunately, these efforts made for CARB created this small contingent of hopefuls who had far more hope for the projects than the companies that had to pay for them.

It’s easy to be a cheerleader for EV’s if you aren’t the company stuck with the expense of building, distributing and servicing them. They were heavily subsidized, yet still weren’t profitable or popular.

If they aren’t profitable, it’s because consumers won’t pay enough to cover the cost. Given the lack of benefit to the consumer, that reluctance to pay is understandable — for what little they deliver, they cost far too much. The only way to overcome the consumer’s range and recharge problems would be to lower the price, but that clearly isn’t possible.

And to answer your question, we already CAN recharge in astonishingly quick times. There is just no reason to for most situations. Still, we could install fast chargers all over the place for a heck of a lot less money than gas stations cost to build.

Apparently, either Toyota is staffed by dummies who underestimated electric car demand, or it took a hard look at current technology, the costs and benefits of said technology, what people want and expect from their vehicles, and decided that the gas-electric hybrid was the most practical way to approach this. I’m going with the latter…
Going with the latter, and ignoring the fact that Toyota is first and foremost a publicly-traded engine company. Do you, or ANBYODY, think that car makers are most concerned with what is best for the consumer? Or is it more likely that they are more concerned with what will sell the most units at the highest margin to make the most shareholder money? If you think those two concepts are one and the same, then there’s really not much more to talk about. If they WERE one and the same why would the auto industry spend billions advertising SUVs to people who will never drive off-road, nor tow anything bigger than the hitch that comes with the beast?

I agree that auto makers build what the public wants… but only after they tell us what we want and why. But of course advertising doesn’t work, right? And yet GM spends about as much on advertising each year as the whole EV1 program cost. Anyway… what we’re told we “want” and what is best for us is quite dissimilar.

Except that those internal combustion engines do a much better job of meeting the expectations of consumers
I keep hearing stories about how “inconvenient” $100 fillups are for those interal combustion engines? Is this one of the expectations that comsumers have? High fuel costs? And I know how much I like taking the car in for (or doing my own) oil changes and tuneups. Yes, people “expect” this, and don’t realize that there is an alternative.

And we’ll also check the price of those batteries that make it possible.
We should probably check the price of gas at that same time. And maybe even include all the external costs that we don’t pay at the pump for the pleasure of burning that golden juice.

The status quo is one of the strongest forces in nature. I amazes me how much energy people put into maintaining it, when it is self-supporting. I keep wondering what happened to that American “can-do” attitude that defined us a generation ago. Now I hear so much “we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing because it is good enough.” I’d rather strive for something better and risk failure than to stick with what we have now and fail for certain.

Last night I filled up my Accord. It took considerably less than 30 minutes. When an electric car can match that time, let me know…

crash94536: Well, once again you should do some reading. They have been in production and delivering since Feb. of this year. And yes, the range of the production model is over 200 miles. BTW the 30 hour charging time is if the owner chooses to use 110vac. Much lower charge time if 220 is the power source.

You seemed to have missed the Tesla Deathwatch series. I printed one entry in my earlier post. Here it is again…apparently, you and I have differing definitions of what constitutes “in production” and “delivering” to customers. Only problem is that the general public agrees with my definitions:

The mainstream media jumped all over the story that the Tesla Roadster had “begun full production” on March 17 (of this year), And then… nothing. How long will deposit-paying customers wait for their $98k– sorry, $109k lithium-ion-powered carbon fiber-skinned and modified Lotus Elise? Tesla must be wondering the same thing. The Stamford Advocate reports that the Silicon Valley start-up has taken their Roadster on the road, calming customers’ impatience with 20-minute demo drives. Potential Tesla owner and “media company executive” Gary Patrick was realistic about the car’s core appeal: “”You can still feel like you’re fulfilling your green responsibility and reducing your carbon footprint with a car like this.” We also learn that Tesla’s national sales manager reckons her customers could, in theory, recharge their Roadster using “smaller, 110-volt sockets used for a living room lamp or television set.” Only “charging that way could take as long as 30 hours, compared with eight hours on a larger circuit.” Hang-on; setting aside the fact that no one has confirmed ANY recharge time, what happened to the highly-touted three-hour recharge cycle? Same thing that happened to the Roadster’s 250-mile range. Or the idea of selling the Roadster as a “true” sports car. “For now,” Allen prevaricated, “Tesla plans to sell its luxury products largely on the appeal of its eco-friendliness.” Plans to sell, as opposed to selling, ’cause selling implies delivery, of course.

crash94536: Your reply has nothing to with my question.

Did the same person who told you that most new-car buyers want to keep their cars “until the engine wears out” tell you this, too?

crash94536: The whole point is that YES there is an existing market for an EV. Even if it is a small percentage of car buyers, there is a market.

Basically…because you say so, based apparently on a limited number of specifically chosen people who were allowed to drive an EV-1 for a limited amount of time.

I’m sure that SOME people want an all-electric car – just as some people would happily drive dead-stock 1955 Chevrolet Bel Airs if they could. But car companies have been in the mass-production business since Henry Ford I applied the assembly line techniques to the automobile industry. They can’t afford to tool up for every kind of vehicle for the whims of a few.

crash94536: I never claimed it was a “HUGE” market. There is also not a “HUGE” market for the Z06, but chevy keeps making money off them.

Once again, let’s compare apples to apples, please.

The Corvette Z06 uses the basic body, engine technology and platform of the base Corvette. There is no really brand-new technology in that car. Also note that the way for Chevy to “make money off of it,” even though it based on an existing car, is by charging over $73,000 for it.

crash94536: Niether you or I can judge the potential size of said market because none of the car manufacturers wanted to produce the quantity to test or develop the market. But as I pointed out there certainly IS a market.

And yet, Toyota, after years of work, brought out the Prius, instead of an all-electric vehicle. (I certainly hope that no one is still claiming that Toyota developed the Prius in response to the Chevron battery case, given that it came out and was under development well BEFORE that case was decided.)

Apparently, either Toyota is staffed by dummies who underestimated electric car demand, or it took a hard look at current technology, the costs and benefits of said technology, what people want and expect from their vehicles, and decided that the gas-electric hybrid was the most practical way to approach this. I’m going with the latter…

crash94536: Once again, that has nothing to do with what I originally pointed out. Even with all the state of the art tooling/manufacuring/knowledge currently in place for the mass production of ICEs they are more expensive to produce and maintain than an electric motor.

Except that those internal combustion engines do a much better job of meeting the expectations of consumers, so they are willing to pay the higher cost. And the electric motors still require a battery. The higher cost isn’t in the engine; it’s the batteries.

When an electric motor/battery has the range, flexibility and recharge time (i.e., almost the same amount of time it takes to fill up the car with gas) of an internal combustion engine, we’ll talk. And we’ll also check the price of those batteries that make it possible.

crash94536: The crash testing and other dribble you pointed out is irrevelant to the comparison.

No it’s not, because at this point, all-electric vehicles will have to be lighter and more carefully engineered and designed than conventional vehicles, which will require more expensive materials to meet customer expectations and government mandates. You aren’t going to just drop an electric motor and batteries in a conventional car and call it a day. The EV-1 was about as far from that as we can get…

Doesn’t matter whether GM builds the next EV or not. They will likely lose that market to the Asians too.

Guess my next car won’t be a domestic either… My last domestic was an ‘81 Mustang. Not bad but not great either compared to my Dad’s Celica of the same era.

Sorry, but if GM had put the EV-1 on the market, it would have sold in extremely limited numbers at first, and then been completely eclipsed by the Prius.”

Your reply has nothing to with my question. The whole point is that YES there is an existing market for an EV. Even if it is a small percentage of car buyers, there is a market. I never claimed it was a “HUGE” market. There is also not a “HUGE” market for the Z06, but chevy keeps making money off them. Don’t even claim “car companies are not tooled up to mass produce electric motors”, they are off the shelf items available from several companies. Niether you or I can judge the potential size of said market because none of the car manufacturers wanted to produce the quantity to test or develop the market. But as I pointed out there certainly IS a market.
BTW, most cars out there are currently being “eclipsed by the Prius”, not a good comparison. The demand is so high for the Prius that in the area I live in, dealers are contacting Prius owners and asking if they want to sell the car back to the dealer in order for them to turn around and resell to someone else.

geeber typed; “Except that none of those wonderful electric motors offers the convenience and flexibility of a current engine. I have the sneaking suspicion that to do this, those batteries will have to be come much more complex and expensive. Same for the engine.

And the electric car will still have to come equipped with safety equipment (air bags, safety belts, collapsible steering columns), sound system, climate control system and power equipment (windows, seats, mirrors). It must still be crash-tested by the government, which takes time and money.”

Once again, that has nothing to do with what I originally pointed out. Even with all the state of the art tooling/manufacuring/knowledge currently in place for the mass production of ICEs they are more expensive to produce and maintain than an electric motor. The crash testing and other dribble you pointed out is irrevelant to the comparison. Besides, if electric motors were produced in the same quantities as ICEs the manufacturing cost would drop considerably.

With the Quick Charger System, i-EV could be charged via a Quick Charger plug located on the left side of the vehicle. Using a 3-phase 200V 50kW Quick Charger System, i-EV could be charged to 80% peak in as little as 30 minutes.

In 2007 they drove 100 miles on one charge, and that’s been increased now.

http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/futuremodels/index.asp

Well, once again you should do some reading. They have been in production and delivering since Feb. of this year. And yes, the range of the production model is over 200 miles. BTW the 30 hour charging time is if the owner chooses to use 110vac. Much lower charge time if 220 is the power source.

geeber typed; “Sorry, but no. Those are HUGE challenges,…

That is not correct, none of those are what anyone I know in engineering would consider a “huge” challenge. I work in this area and especially with the knowledge and tools that engineers currently have at their disposal it actually amounts to more of an opportunity than a “huge” challenge. To most of us a “huge” challenge is completing something that has never been done (and guys like me LOVE those types of challenges). It is SOP and especially for a company that has already travelled down that particular path it is considered more of a “no problem dude”. Keeps guys like me out of the unemployment line.

I remain confident that “all of a sudden” the car makers will start selling EVs as if the technology just arrived yesterday. They coudl do that today but they’ll do it only when the profit in ICE designs is used up due to high fuel prices. Hopefully this won’t be after we see the “Greenhouse Effect” argument proven (undecided on this myself) or after we get a glimpse of some MadMax scenarios.

I also expect that this date of “revolutionary” EV arrivals will be around 2010 when Chevron’s patents expire.

I predict that the car makers would then begin a “education” program (marketing) to show consumers how to incorporate an EV into their daily lives in order to build “consumer awareness”. Am still commonly hearing from folks who don’t know any better why a Prius is a bad idea (expensive battery replacements, magnetic fields = cancer, short battery life)…

Folks believe what they want to believe I suppose (myself included) but I’ll continue to praise the EV as the next forward thinking step in American life – one that would make what resources we already have last much longer and help our “ruling class” from leading us to more wars to “secure regional influence for American Interests”.

I maintain that the EV is the right vehicle for most of us commuters and plan to build one if I can’t buy one when my budget allows me to. Will likely take my daily driver and just convert it to a Siemens AC motor and controller and whatever the best battery tech I can afford above and beyond lead acid batteries which I know to last not more than 20K miles. Yes, batteries are the key but we have the tech we need right now to build EV batteries that last.

You’re welcome. One hopes that you have all learned something, too.

That’s wrong. Every auto company knows that there isn’t a market for a car that can’t go very far and that takes hours to refuel. They don’t need to lose billions building 100,000 of the things and watch them rot on the docks, when the market barely got excited about just over 1,000 of them.

People won’t buy something they know nothing about – or worse – that they’ve heard negative rumors about.

The short range and long recharge times are not rumors, they are facts. Really inconvenient facts that make them difficult cars to sell.

Compare the Prius to the RAV4 EV. Notice how the Prius addresses the technology problems and components of market demand faced by EV’s. Notice which one of these sold in greater numbers.

It’s not a coincidence. If Toyota wanted to build more EV’s, it could have done so. But it didn’t.

It’s pretty obvious. Toyota didn’t really believe in the product. Had they believed in it, they would have pushed it as they did with the Prius.
I know precisely why Toyota only leased their cars. It is the same reason all the makers did it. And it isn’t what you say here.

This is reminding me of the “defense of domestic cars” thread, in which the committed fans just refuse to accept the realities of the marketplace. Consumers don’t want what you got. Until you fix what’s missing, they are still going to reject it.
Instead of making up facts about the EV programs in an attempt support this very simple, and accurate statement, we all could have saved a lot of typing had you written it much earlier.

Here, you are correct… right up to the point where you assume there ever was a market for EVs. My contention is simply that we do not know if there could have been or currently IS market. Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it couldn’t or wouldn’t. People won’t buy something they know nothing about – or worse – that they’ve heard negative rumors about.

thanks for your most recent post, my co-workers and I are still laughing!

Have you considered why that is?

It’s pretty obvious. Toyota didn’t really believe in the product. Had they believed in it, they would have pushed it as they did with the Prius.

Obviously, Toyota could have pushed it if they thought that it had potential. Since the car was an effort to get CARB off of their backs, it got a very low priority.

And this comparison is significant for what reason?

See above. If Toyota thought that the RAV4 EV was had market potential, they would have built a market for it.

Instead, they did as little with it as they could get away with, and focused on the Prius instead.

All of the automakers that got into the EV game did it because they wanted to prove to CARB that the ZEV plan was not going to work. As soon as they got CARB to surrender, they ditched their EV efforts.

Once again — if EV’s made sense, one of the successful automakers would have grabbed up the market, or an entrepreneur would have already succeeded with it. (They are happy to innovate when it is profitable to innovate.)

Clearly, they know how to build electric cars. Yet they choose not to.

They haven’t done it not because electric motors are difficult to build, but because the batteries aren’t up to the job. Too costly and heavy, for too little range and too long of a recharge time. Until the battery problem is addressed, it isn’t worth their while.

This is reminding me of the “defense of domestic cars” thread, in which the committed fans just refuse to accept the realities of the marketplace. Consumers don’t want what you got. Until you fix what’s missing, they are still going to reject it.

Toyota leased about 800 RAV EV’s.
Close enough in numbers. 100% of these were to fleets only. Public was not allowed to lease nor purchase. These were built as fleet vehicles, not as private cars. I won’t count this as a second missed fact since it ties into the first one.

During this same period, Toyota sold almost 53,000 Priuses, outselling the electric car by about 67 to 1.
And this comparison is significant for what reason? How many bicycles were sold during that same period? How many peaches were picked? The Rav was fleet-lease only. The Prius was sold to everybody.

Looks as if the facts for the EV are pretty grim.
To me it looks like my message isn’t getting through. Unless you include all the facts, this information doesn’t have the teeth that you imply.

If Toyota was interested in the EVit had the opportunity to build EV’s, instead of building Priuses. But it chose not to build them, and to put its priorities elsewhere.
Nobody is arguing that. GM decided to put their efforts into squeezing that last dollar out of their SUV program.

If Toyota was interested in the EV, it wouldn’t have killed the project the day after CARB’s elimination of the ZEV requirement. But it did kill it.
Yes. Because as we all know – they did not want to build EVs. Just like all the other car makers. You may be interested to find that all the car makers desperately tried to avoid positive crankcase ventilation, catalytic converters, seatbelts, etc. Just good business!

If the public was that interested in the EV, it would have clamored for the product. But instead, the public chose to buy other cars, including the Prius.
Because the public could NOT buy any production EV, except for the eight months of the Rav4EV program. And then it had to live very near, and actually find the 25 dealershipds in the entire nation that offered these cars. And had to choose between zero trim options, two colors… and wait three (or more!) months for an expensive hand-built car. Oops, another pretty big fact missed.

I keep asking a question that is being ignored and sidestepped: If EV’s are so great and if demand was so strong, why didn’t Toyota simply build them in volumes equal to or above those of the Prius?
I have answered it at least three times in the thread already, and I’ll answer it quickly one more time since you seem to have missed it all those other times when I answered directly. Toyota – just like the others – have most of their capital tied up in gasoline engines. Honda is officially the “Honda Motor company.” Car makers build engines. Then they put some sheet metal around them and add seats. They build engines and own all the companies that build the parts for those engines. To suddenly switch to EVs means throwing all that invenstment away and started a new tech that OTHER companies control – llike the batteries. Was I clear enough this time?

Before you claim conspiracy, notice how many Priuses were built between 1997 and 2000, before Chevron bought the battery patents and filed the lawsuit in late 2001.
No conspiracy is needed as I’ve said countless times already.

Before you claim that demand was high, notice how few EV’s were sold, and consider how many other vehicles were sold by Toyota during the same period.
How many of those cars were only sold from 25 dealerships? For twice the money of a comparable EV? With a 3-month wait? With no trim options? With EXTREMEMLY limited advertising? I’ve considered it. No “market” can be determined until the car is actually marketed. None of the EVs ever has been.

Toyota filled every sales order for the RAV4 EV that it had.
Oops. Non-fact alert! How did you determine this one? It is patently untrue. Nothing more to be said, except that with the “facts” that you are working with, I can see you perspective pretty easily.

Here’s the accurate story on Tesla Motors, from an article posted on this very site:

The mainstream media jumped all over the story that the Tesla Roadster had “begun full production” on March 17 (of this year), And then… nothing. How long will deposit-paying customers wait for their $98k– sorry, $109k lithium-ion-powered carbon fiber-skinned and modified Lotus Elise? Tesla must be wondering the same thing. The Stamford Advocate reports that the Silicon Valley start-up has taken their Roadster on the road, calming customers’ impatience with 20-minute demo drives. Potential Tesla owner and “media company executive” Gary Patrick was realistic about the car’s core appeal: “”You can still feel like you’re fulfilling your green responsibility and reducing your carbon footprint with a car like this.” We also learn that Tesla’s national sales manager reckons her customers could, in theory, recharge their Roadster using “smaller, 110-volt sockets used for a living room lamp or television set.” Only “charging that way could take as long as 30 hours, compared with eight hours on a larger circuit.” Hang-on; setting aside the fact that no one has confirmed ANY recharge time, what happened to the highly-touted three-hour recharge cycle? Same thing that happened to the Roadster’s 250-mile range. Or the idea of selling the Roadster as a “true” sports car. “For now,” Allen prevaricated, “Tesla plans to sell its luxury products largely on the appeal of its eco-friendliness.” Plans to sell, as opposed to selling, ’cause selling implies delivery, of course.

That doesn’t sound all that impressive to me…

If they ever deliver one, we can accurately determine what the range is.

crash94536: None of those issues are a challenge to even a small auto company. It is SOP.

Sorry, but no. Those are HUGE challenges, but the companies overcome them through size, cash reserves and a depth of talent. Designing, engineering and building automobiles is a huge undertaking that requires large amounts of cash, experience and capital.

And even the smallest of the mainstream companies – Honda – is a HUGE enterprise by virtually any standard. The very small, boutique manufacturers sell vehicles in limited quantities for VERY high prices, and most of them are still affiliated with a larger company, as they cannot make it on their own.

crash94536: What does your statement have to do with the fact that over 90% of the customers wanted to keep their leased car?

The problem is that you keep extrapolating from the opinions of a very limited sample of customers (who did not represent typical new-car buyers) that there exists this huge untapped demand for electric cars.

Sorry, but if GM had put the EV-1 on the market, it would have sold in extremely limited numbers at first, and then been completely eclipsed by the Prius.

crash94536: Simply not true. How many precision parts are there in a fuel injected DOHC V8 verses a brushless electric motor? What about the maintenance? If it’s an old style electric DC motor, turn the commutator replace the brushes and it is good. Manufacturing and maintenance the electric motor has it hands down. Even considering the recycling of the batteries those costs are a small fraction. Please do some more reading.

Except that none of those wonderful electric motors offers the convenience and flexibility of a current engine. I have the sneaking suspicion that to do this, those batteries will have to be come much more complex and expensive. Same for the engine.

And the electric car will still have to come equipped with safety equipment (air bags, safety belts, collapsible steering columns), sound system, climate control system and power equipment (windows, seats, mirrors). It must still be crash-tested by the government, which takes time and money.

crash94536: You missed the point on this one. As an amateur mechanic I can make pretty much any car last 500000 miles (yes, I can outclass most professional mechanics). At what cost? When the maintenance exceeds the value of the car that is the point when the majority of car owners will choose to replace their car (or at least the majority of the car owners I personally know).

Yes, most of your CUSTOMERS keep their car until it wears out, but that is why they are probably your customers – they want to keep the car running as long as possible. You help them do just that providing honest, reliable service at a reasonable cost.

Your customers, however, do not represent the typical new-car buyer.

The people who AREN’T your customers are trading their cars well before 100,000 miles, and they represent the majority of the new-car market.

crash94536: Yes, I will acknowledge range and recharging are an electric car’s weakpoint, but certainly not a deal breaker for many of the consumers out there that are certainly interested in the purchase and use of an electric vehicle.

The problem is that there aren’t enough of those customers to make mass production of said vehicles worthwhile at this point. Automobiles need volume production to keep the price down (Henry Ford I proved this and got very rich doing so); otherwise the price is too high for most customers.

crash94536: I am not sure where you get your data, but I have a hard time beleiving your statement that “most” people (BTW, most implies over 50%) of the car owners sell before 100000 miles. Do you have any actual data for that one? Everything I have read contradicts that figure.

The figures I saw said that the typical new-car buyer trades his or her vehicle at about 36 months. This figure may have grown with the recent economic downturn, but most people who buy brand-new cars do not keep them for 100,000 miles.

Otherwise, there would be no used-car market. Most people do not want a used car with over 100,000 miles on the odometer.

crash94536: It seems like your mind has been made up in regards to your opinion on EVs. When the television came out people doubted that too.

My opinion is based on a knowledge of what automobile buyers need and want, and the state of electric car technology available TODAY.

Incidentally, television was hailed as an exciting new technology. The main concern was cost. Television was initially very expensive. But no one doubted that it would work. It just took awhile until people could afford television sets.

My father told me of visiting Wanamaker’s in downtown Philadelphia in 1946 and seeing an early television set in demonstration. He and his family were in awe of it…the main concern was that early sets initially cost too much for them to afford. They did not buy one until 1953, and it represented a major purchase for them at the time. But they never doubted that it would work as advertised.

Stein X Leikanger: Battery technology, charging times and capacity has improved significantly — and now substantial R&D monies are being diverted to the category.

Yes, batteries have gone from 100 miles to 200 miles. Still not enough for most of us.

Stein X Leikanger: A few posters here argue the need for a Swiss Knife car, obviously ignoring (maybe on purpose) the fact that most U.S. families have more than one car.

That is because, unlike many activists and analysts, we live in the real world. This comes in handy when determining what people will accept in new vehicles.

My wife and I have two cars (a 2003 Accord EX four-cylinder sedan and 2005 Focus SE sedan). Guess what – we aren’t going to replace either one with a current electric car, based on the limited range and long recharging time. We BOTH need the flexibility and range offered by our current vehicles.

The simple fact is that most people demand maximum flexibility in their vehicles – and this includes range between refuelings and short refueling times. Gasoline will have to become MUCH more expensive before people accept the current limitations of all-electric vehicles over current gasoline and hybrid vehicles. And even then, many people can still trade down from, say, an Explorer to a Civic or a Fiesta (coming soon).

Stein X Leikanger: I was quite shocked to learn that the average in private/gated communities was 3.7 a few years ago.

You’ll be even more shocked to discover that most people in the United States don’t live in gated communities, so this interesting fact really isn’t all that relevant to the discussion.

Stein X Leikanger: Do we need to mention the price of gasoline? Which is still cheaper than Coca-Cola in the U.S., but definitely trending upwards. The world is not going to run its non-essential transportation on petroleum for much longer, and it’s necessary to understand and accept that. We need the oil for a lot more important things than to be shifting people about inefficiently in ridiculous vehicles.

While I agree that days of $1-a-gallon for unleaded are over, the fundamentals point to an asset bubble as the prime reason for the wild escalation in prices, not any underlying shortage.

Stein X Leikanger: And the argument that “if there was money in it, Toyota/Honda, etc would be making EVs” is stupid – on a lot of levels. They are, and not just the Prius, etc. The Toyota sustainable mobility program contains a range of vehicles and mobility devices (including a walker robot!), many carmakers are working on significant EV vehicles, Mercedes is creating an EV Smart, I could go on-on-on.

You’re changing the argument. No one is saying that companies shouldn’t be exploring all possible technologies, including electric vehicles. So let’s dispense with that strawman argument.

The argument is being offered that there exists this huge, untapped demand for all-electric vehicles, and that most consumers will simply ignore the disadvantages with range and recharging times to embrace these vehicles. Therefore, Toyota, Honda, Ford and GM are missing this huge opportunity by failing to offer said vehicles to the public.

Which is not accurate, as the demand for these vehicles is extremely limited at best, given their current prices and technology. Sorry, but given the choice between a current-technology all-electric vehicle, and a hybrid Prius, Civic or Escape, virtually everyone is going to go with the latter three choices.

Stein X Leikanger: GM screwed up badly and is now forced to look for solutions; a few other carmakers created parallel development tracks, and look a lot better as we’re now facing the future.

Yet, amazingly enough, all of those other automakers brought out hybrids for sale to the general public, not all-electric vehicles.

Where GM “screwed up badly” was in ignoring the potential for hybrids, and not applying the lessons learned from the EV-1 to a hybrid vehicle, not in abandoning the EV-1.

Stein X Leikanger: The U.S. “it’s my birthright to drive stupid” mindset is creating a world of hurt, in the U.S.

Prices would still be rising if SUV drivers were in Focuses, Civics and Yarises.

Fair enough, let’s do that.

Both the RAV4 EV and the Prius were launched in 1997.

Between 1997 and 2000 (the year before Chevron failed its patent infringement lawsuit against Panasonic et. al.), Toyota leased about 800 RAV EV’s.

During this same period, Toyota sold almost 53,000 Priuses, outselling the electric car by about 67 to 1.

By the end of 2003, the final year for the RAV4 EV, Toyota managed to sell or lease somewhere in the range of 1200 to 1500 RAV4 EV’s. By then, about 153,000 Priuses had been sold worldwide. Based on that, the Prius was beating the EV by more than 100 to 1.

Looks as if the facts for the EV are pretty grim.

If Toyota was interested in the EV, it had the opportunity to build EV’s, instead of building Priuses. But it chose not to build them, and to put its priorities elsewhere.

If Toyota was interested in the EV, it wouldn’t have killed the project the day after CARB’s elimination of the ZEV requirement. But it did kill it.

If the public was that interested in the EV, it would have clamored for the product. But instead, the public chose to buy other cars, including the Prius.

I keep asking a question that is being ignored and sidestepped: If EV’s are so great and if demand was so strong, why didn’t Toyota simply build them in volumes equal to or above those of the Prius?

Before you claim conspiracy, notice how many Priuses were built between 1997 and 2000, before Chevron bought the battery patents and filed the lawsuit in late 2001.

Before you claim that demand was high, notice how few EV’s were sold, and consider how many other vehicles were sold by Toyota during the same period.

Toyota filled every sales order for the RAV4 EV that it had. Over the course of a year, this amounted to just a few hundred cars. That is about the same as the number of Corollas that Toyota sells in the United States in only a few hours. Even the costly exotic Lamborghini beats it several times over.

There is no way that anyone can claim based upon the facts that the EV was popular, profitable or had the potential to succeed, given the tiny numbers involved. The only way to make such claims is to ignore the numbers and pretend that a minuscule pool of customers was the equivalent of a social movement. That wouldn’t be a fact, of course.

And I really enjoyed your informed perspective on the “Who killed the electric car?” DVD on your blog.

Thanks! I’m putting the link here for those who missed it above:

http://www.stevelovescars.blogspot.com