A product has to be commerically to be successful in the market at one point or another or the business will lose cash on the venture. (assuming I understand what you’re getting at) I brought up the book to point out that making an EV is so not a huge undertaking a determined shade tree mechanic with a good toolset can slap one together.

At any rate, all previous EVs have been a bust for a variety of reasons that are generally either cost or battery related. Electric motors are all over the world doing all kinds of shit reliably day in day out. The motor part is simple. To give the motor mobility it needs a battery (or some other form of mobile power) which is the details that kill the EV. Not an inherent complexity in the device which is why I call it a motor and a battery. This is why Ford is wise not to piss away tons of money on it. Especially if it takes a LOOOONG time (if ever) battery power and recharge time catches up to the convenience of a gas ICE.

The lack of infrastructure is nowhere near the issue unless we can come up with safe low cost ways to cram assloads of power into a battery on the fly.

The achilles heel of the EV is lagging battery tech. Battery tech is proving harder that people have thought. Otherwise you just figure out how to stuff the desired kW motor into whatever car you want to make and be done with it. If an upstart like Tesla can make an EV essentially outta nowhere like they did then clearly producing an EV ain’t no thang. Finding a good enough battery and quality recharge places right now is. Bringing infrastructure up to speed would be the easier part of the EV equation. Creating a long range affordable battery with low recharge times is what the EVs need right now. Until this occurs everything else is bupkiss. Right now if Ford can’t fix the other 95% of their business then they should spend as little on EVs as possible. The real sucker punch to Chrysler and GM is that Ford could upstage them on EV tech as little more than a Ford side project.

Besides, ask yourself this, would you rather have an Aveo with GM derived EV powertrain or a Fiesta or even a Fusion with Magna derived powertrains?

Also, to wrap this up I know that I grossly simplify things but simple things are not always easy. Benching 650lbs, easy concept, hideous challenge to execute. This is most Alt fuel programs in a nutshell. Yes a hybrid is just a car with big batteries, electric motor and regen brakes. Is it an engineering hassle and marvel to get these simple things to work well in tandem? Yes indeed. Still simple concept though.

Last I checked, there has been no successful EV (and, no, Ed Begley and associated EV1 fans, that car wasn’t successful, and if it was, it would still be in production). Based on what I see coming out soon, and unless there’s some kind of wholesale seismic market shift, there probably won’t be a successful EV either.

Ford is betting economy-wise on eco-boost (better known as direct fuel injection), and to me, this seems more sensible. Direct injection makes a four run like a six, a six like an eight, and so on. Anyone who’s driven the Cadillac CTS or the BMW 335 knows that this engine technology can do for a car, and the cost is a small fraction of that of other economy/performance enhancing technologies.

Car and Driver recently tested the new Lincoln MKS and MKT vehicles equipped with the Ecoboost system, and they are impressive.

The REAL payoff of direct injection techology will be in trucks and SUVs. While GM fiddles around with $55,000 hybrid Tahoes that still only get 20 mpg around town, Ford will be able to produce $40,000 SUVs that get marginally worse mileage. Which one will sell more?

I like what I see from Ford in the near future.

I disagree completely. You yourself said the Volt is a non-starter for profitability. Its only benefit will be the green credits it earns GM. Why waste all that money, money Ford doesn’t have anyway, to build such a vehicle when there is a cheap(er) way out?

This is a brilliant strategy if you ask me. EV’s will be a niche product for at least the next 10 years. In that time, if the market improves and Ford survives, they can develop their own platform for an EV and still contract out the powertrain and software development. At this time they need to focus (sorry) on building profitable cars, not pie in the sky niche products like GM.

In the very early 1980s, Ford was going to be slaughtered by GM, because GM had so much more money, and was switching faster to front wheel drive, and already had diesel engines in production, and was preparing the new variable displacement V-8 for use in Cadillacs, and was spending money like a drunken sailor on automated factories…

Well, it didn’t turn out that way. By 1987, Ford was outearning GM.

I’ll believe that GM and Chrysler are beating Ford – even with government help – when I see it.

Really, Ford buying components or tech shouldn’t surprise or worry anyone. There is no reason to inhouse develope anything new at this point. It is only a waste of resources at a time not to be wasting resources.

The Euro-American buyer is not going to change his habits overnight. Even if the Tesla was $9,000 and came with a $300 a month charging credit, not enough people would jump on the band wagon. There is still enough business for pickups, SUV’s, sports cars, family wagons, and boring hide in the crowd cars.

When the future of transportation is more assured, Ford is a large enough company to come in and take the industry by storm.

The caveat (always a caveat) is China. China could easily focus on EV’s for it’s home market. Who ever is developing there stands to make (what’s bigger than trillions? – Gazillions?)

1) Build a battery that can be quick charged (15-30 minutes while you do your shopping) or trickle charged overnight at home. Currently you can design a battery that likes to be charged one way or the other, but not both.
2) Build a transmission that can handle the torque of an electric motor. I got a ride in a converted electric van last week. It used the stock transmission except it was locked out in second gear. Top speed was 65mph and the real world range was about 100 miles. A proper multi speed transmission should improve both those numbers dramatically (shouldn’t it???).
3) Smart Grid needs to be fully rolled out which will take about 10 years in my country if everything goes to plan.

Suppliers (1 & 2) and governments (3) are best placed to solve these problems.

The Magna deal gives Ford a taste of what it takes to build an electric car without having to pay anything. It can wait until the above problems are close to being addressed and then develop their own electric powertrain quickly if necessary. They might not be the first to mass produce electric cars, but they’ll be close to the front of the pack. If electric cars are indeed the future, (rather than a niche, as hybrids currently are) then that’s good enough.

A good-selling book informing people how to make an EV is in itself – a successful product. But the underling EV is not. The major automakers have all tried EVs over the past few decades with almost no marketable/pragmatic result.

Yes, the infrastructure is a big hurdle; but EVs cannot even make sense in urban centers with a stable power grid and brief commutes. For the normal consumer, only GEM vehicles have any road worthiness as well as a reasonable business case behind it to motivate a firm to actually build the vehicles.

If we blame the lack of infrastructure as a barrier of entry – we wouldn’t have an airline industry, cell phones, or the consumer-available Internet.

The problem is that thus far no EV has been able to be designed where it could make money. So I will continue to contend that a proper EV is not a simple battery, motor, and a switch. A People’s EV is a bit more accessible than a flying car; but not by much. The alternative of my position would be the existence of many EVs being driven in developed urban centers to the delight of everyone.

Let’s assume Magna were able to provide Ford with the EV of the future for sale in 2016. If EV becomes the technology that underpins transportation then Ford has effectively outsourced a significant core competency. If EV from Magna is just another foray that gets mothballed, then Ford probably comes out of this with less invested than a stand-alone effort. But nowhere along the path will EV be a simple solution that involves a cursory idea of a motor and a battery.

Unfortunately EV’s generalizations will always be binned with alternative fuels and powertrains. The generalization is frequently made by the hybrid crowd where they assert that a hybrid is just a regular car with an extra motor and a battery. And you often hear people say that fuel cell cars are just regular cars with a fuel cell and motor in place of the regular engine and gas tank. And today you have people thinking that CNG cars are just regular cars with funky gas tanks.

More often than not – when someone supports an alternative vehicle technology to the regular petrol ICE, the complexity necessary to execute that alternative is less than the requirements for the other ideas.

Jazz the basic idea up with better batteries and a better motor control and I give you the EV of 2912.

Yes, essentially with an EV you have the electric motor (old ass tech) and a battery (also old ass tech) integrated into a car. A hybrid is far more technical than an EV. EVs by nature should be easy peasy in comparison to standard ICEs.

If we had better battery and electric power grid to give better range/performance and fast recharge times we’d have bazillions of EVs out there. As it stands battery tech is not cheap/good enough.

Yes I’m simplifying EV powertrains by a large margin. I understand it’s not ACTUALLY that simple but on paper they are easy as hell to make. There’s literature for sale at bookstores on how to build your own EV. EVs are not that complicated. Aside from the energy balancing act there’s not much to them. If we figure out how to fill them quickly then gasoline is over.

Alt energy and hybrid drives (which got lumped in with EVs in response to my post for whatever reason) are NOT simple. Fuel cells are a hassle, bio fuels are largely a sham which leaves well, only the really exotic stuff.

I still stand by my reasoning that who cares if Ford buys their EV powertrain from some one else. All makes by everything from some one else.

Yes, were it my business, and I know this feeling all too well for the last year or so, I darned sure would sacrifice the long term so called “opportunities” for my short term survival.
And considering when Ford began that process, they should be hailed as far sighted geniuses, not myopic DIMWITS. Sounds pretty shrewd to me.

Does any car manufacturer ever get the benefit of the doubt on this site?
Or is automatically added to the current “Death Watch” column.

One of the things that struck me in this column was the purported ability to see the future in crystal clear Focus, no pun intended.
But I think there should have been a few “maybe’s” “if’s” and “possibly’s” sprinled in for journalistic integrty’s sake. But maybe it’s anothe form of PR? Maybe its like the nightly news where the headline “DEATHWATCH FORD” gets more page views that “FORD TAKES A CAUTIONARY PATH”

The other thing that appears somewhat naive is the contention that any blogger, auto writer, OR “journalist” gets a unrestricted view behind the real curtain at these billion dollar corportaions, let alone a glimpse into the White House. Move along, there is nothing to see here.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, the law of unintended consequence wil assert itself in helping GM and Fiat/Chryco become more successful that Ford. I personally am skeptical since these things generally have a way of balancing out.
As I also beleive that there probably have been discussions at the highest levels, that the “good kid” shouldn’t be penalized just because the “bad kid”‘ has to have an intervention and be coddled for a while.

This approach can also make Ford more viable, because Ford can take over Cadillac and scrap its own, stagnant Lincoln division. The Jeep brand can come over to Ford intact because there is no direct competing product line at Ford.

“What about Ballard, who had been actively developing fuel cell technology, using the Focus platform as their test bed? I seem to recall something about Ford buying their entire fuel cell division. Has that gone anywhere? Could that be where Ford is concentrating its alternative fuel research?”

Ballard basically has gone under, and what is left has exited the fuel cell research & design market entirely after burning through literally billions and not being able to make the concept work at a usable price point for other than government owned demonstration projects. Though I believe that Ford did have some money in Ballard, there is no indication that fuel cells have any reasonable distance future use for automobile sized personal transport.

pax, smn

Cars like the Volt have more to do with progress made on Li-on batteries, than on some magical R&D done by GM, so they’re hardly “ahead” of anyone. Just look at Tesla and others. The Volt isn’t some Prius 2 in the making. It will be old news less than 2 years after launch, when mostly everyone will have an electric car on the road.

Far more important in the short to mid term, will be the now affordable, traditional hybrid tech. While GM will be selling Volts at a loss, Ford will be putting their hybrid system into the Edge, Focus, etc. and more importantly, they will be doing it profitably.

I would say it’s GM and Chrysler the ones who should worry about being behind Toyota, Ford, and Honda when it comes to affordable & profitable green tech.

An automobile is orders of magnitude more complex than a PC. The day you speak of may come, but it’s a long way off.

And anyway, I think most people would be very unhappy if their car had only the day-to-day reliability of a typical PC.

Sounds good in theory, but the toughest problems in a design come from the integration of systems or subsystems, not in the design of the systems themselves. Integrating a bunch of systems that you yourself designed or specified is a big enough nightmare . . . trying to integrate a bunch of ‘black boxes’ would be hellish.

Yes, it was hellish buying main frame and mini computers in the 70’s and 80’s. IBM, DEC, and Wang all wanted us to buy their computers, their accessories, their operating systems and even their software. But when the PC’s started to come out and Microsoft and then Linux was able to separate the hardware from the operating system the customers benefited tremendously.

Now we can buy software and all kinds of video boards, sound cards, hard drives, and all kinds of communication add-ons and just just plug them in or on to our computers.

The idea of the “Wired” article is the same thing might happen to car manufacturing.

Change might be hellish for awhile but maybe in a few years I will be able to buy a Ford body and attach a Lotus suspension, a Toyota hybrid power system, controls from Red Hat Linux, and plug them all together or have the components sent to a local garage with the necessary lifts.

The future could be a lot of fun.

However, maybe the idea of Magna building the mechanicals and OEM’s designing the body isn’t such a bad idea. Magna’s full name is Magna Steyr. As in Steyr-Puch. As in the folks that gave us the Pinzgauer:

http://www.staufferclassics.com/pinzgauer.html

I kinda like the idea of letting them have another turn at building a car.

So what if Ford is buying tech for a BEV from Magna. All automakers do the same thing. Not every part in a car was conceived and developed solely by the automaker selling it.

By the time GM and Chrysler get the deck chairs rearranged, Ford will be busy designing the next next generation of their cars.

Ah yes…the Fiesta. The car that has been overhyped as much as the Camaro.

By the time Ford stops dragging their feet and the Fiesta actually gets here, it will be old, stale, and outclassed by just about everyone.

And, judging by Ford’s latest pricing trends, outragesouly overpriced as well.

There is no point in having long term opportunities if you don’t survive in the short term.

As for the political realities of the carbon credit system – I’ll believe it when I see it. If congress will even vote on such a bill you can bet that it will be loaded with loopholes just like the bogus CAFE standards. The are very good reasons why asking Americans to either give something up or pay more for something in the name of the greater global good is generally not associated with political success.

For just how pointless the proposed cap and trade legislation is check out the following Economist article:
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13702826

Some of the earliest automatic transmission for passenger cars were developed by Borg-Warner and sold by Ford. Toyota gets most of its automatic transmissions to this day from Aisin-Warner, which in turn started as a licensee of Borg-Warner.

Much of the modern engine and chassis management expertise in the world is developed by the likes of Bosch and other suppliers. An automaker sourcing direct-injection and turbocharging technology from expert third parties is not seen as a fatal strategic weakness.

Ford faces many challenges, but there is no way GM and Chrysler are going to suddenly gain the upper hand in vehicle development thanks to their new sugar daddy.

If for some reason Ford finds it just must have more in-house electric propulsion expertise they can buy it either by hiring the people or buying someone like Lotus. The talent is all readily available.

Given all the hatred of minor technical tweaks like CVTs and lesser changes like hybrid electrics, public acceptance of EVs is not a given even if they are technically practical and far cheaper to buy and operate.

Electric motors with limited battery capacity (similar to today’s hybrids) with gasoline or diesel engines for charging batteries offers nearly all the performance benefits of electric drive without the disadvantages of limited range and excessive weight.

Re: King Bojack I really don’t understand why so many intelligent people hold the belief that well executed hybrids, EVs, and alternative fuel vehicles are just regular cars with fancy batteries and motors.

I wonder if it has to do with past efforts out of Detroit where they just took a car that on the outside appeared plain and normal, and kept touting them as the future of automobile powertrain technology. I guess it’s easy to assume that if it looks pedestrian on the outside, then there must be very little fancy stuff going on the inside.

Although based on prior comments from others, I am wrong in thinking this issue is complicated. Unfortunately all of the other major automobile manufactures and suppliers hold the same belief as myself.

So please submit your resume to the nearest hybrid or alternative powertrain engineering firm that focuses on automobile technology. Assuming you know the secrets of implementing these new powertrain with minimal change to the underlying vehicle architectures, you hold some knowledge that would benefit humanity very greatly. I highly doubt these business will spend billions of dollars of R&D and investment just to prove some bloggers wrong.

If you have the real answers, there’s a lot of money to be saved and made. Taking it one step further – based on this article you could go save Ford’s future.