Range Anxiety(R)

Cammy Corrigan
by Cammy Corrigan

People have a lot of fears with electric cars/extended range electric cars. Will the government subsidies distort the market? Can manufacturers be able to sell them profitably? Are they really that environmentally sound? But the one which gets everyone is “range anxiety”. Will I have enough juice to get me home? It’s an issue which manufacturers are dealing with in their own ways. GM has come up with their own way of dealing with it; they’re trademarking it: With range anxiety being trademarked, someone just dreams the word, and GM’s lawyers will be on top of him, and make him surrender the illicit dream.

The Register reports that GM has applied to trademark the term “range anxiety”. A GM spokesperson (via Jalopnik) said “It’s something we call ‘range anxiety’ and it’s real…That’s something we need to be very aware of when we market (the Volt). We’re going to position this as a car first and electric second…people do not want to be stranded on the way home from work.” Even Joel Ewanick had a few words to say about this. “We’ve been here before,” probably referring to GM’s EV-1, “We have first-hand experience with what the issues are.” GM-Volt.com also quotes Mr Ewanick as saying “We’ve got a lot of education to do with Volt because it’s a whole new category of vehicle”.

The NY Times reports that Rob Peterson, GM spokesperson said of the application “We’ve been told the process will take nine months or so…but I’m not an attorney so I can’t say for sure.” A good trademark attorney will lecture his client on the “first use” principle. I mean, “range anxiety” already has a Wikipedia entry, and no “citation needed.” Quick! Everybody fire up Google! Who said it first? Now if GM can produce a 50 year old calendar that has “range anxiety” on it, they have a good chance of prevailing.

And what says Tesla about GM gaining the monopole on range anxiety? Ricardo Reyes, spokesperson for Tesla said “By all means, GM can have ‘range anxiety’. To Roadster owners, the term is as irrelevant as ‘gas stop’ or ‘smog check’. We are, however, looking into trademarking ‘Tesla grin'”. Trouble is when a Volt runs out of juice, it can pull into a petrol station and fill up. When a Tesla runs out, it needs to find a power outlet and charge for days. Not hours, DAYS. Could this be the start of a war between GM and Tesla, with Nissan (and their Leaf) getting involved later? I hope so. That means there will be plenty to write about.

Gotta go. I’m searching my posts for range anxiety.

Cammy Corrigan
Cammy Corrigan

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  • Greg Locock Greg Locock on Sep 02, 2010

    While they are at it, they could trademark "50 new ways to fail".

  • Joeaverage Joeaverage on Sep 12, 2010

    Electric cars will just be another class of car that some consumers will avoid just like four cylinders. These consumers claim they need a V-6 for the "poweh" when they don't use more than four cylinder power levels. These same people will claim they need the ability to suddenly drive 500 miles while their car hasn't left the county in the past year. Oh well. To each his own. I'll be perfectly happy with an electric car for a first and second car. The third car (we currently have four) can be a turbo diesel powered VW for trips.

  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
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