If you follow the electric car market, you may have noticed a curious business phenomenon taking place in China. Leaders there are said to be scaling back plans for selling 500,000 electric vehicles (EVs) per year by 2015. The problem, it seems, is that the new breed of EVs are selling sluggishly.
"Developers have yet to achieve breakthroughs and will be lucky to sell 2,000 cars this year, mostly taxis. The government has hedged its bets by broadening the industry's official goals to include cleaner gasoline engines," according to a recent Associated Press article on the subject. "Officials including Premier Wen Jiabao started acknowledging last year that progress was slow and developers need to improve quality instead of rushing models to market."
Electric vehicle sales are sluggish in China. (Source: BYD)
For many EV proponents, China's struggle with EV technology must come as a surprise. For years, the electric car cognoscenti have been warning us about falling behind in the EV race. In a 2010 article called "Their Moon Shot and Ours," Thomas Friedman of the New York Times notably urged US leaders to keep up with China. "Moore's Law of electric cars" would enable the electric car battery's cost per mile to be "cut in half every 18 months."
But there is no Moore's Law of electric cars. That may be why EVs and EV batteries aren't doing very well in the US, either. Sales of the Chevy Volt have been slow. Nissan sold 370 Leafs in April, 579 in March, and 478 in February. A123 Systems, an EV battery maker that was granted up to $249 million in funding from the Department of Energy, posted a first-quarter net loss of $125 million and is said to be struggling.
Moreover, as we've reported before, industry analysts expect huge lithium-ion battery gluts over the next few years. Bloomberg News reported recently that venture capitalists are hesitant to lend support for EV-based efforts. "The only thing that would cause America to be all electric cars is to lose the economic trade war with China and have it imposed on us," a venture capitalist told Bloomberg.
If there's a lesson in all this, it's that EV development is difficult everywhere. China doesn't have a magic bullet, any more than we do.
"There's a general view that, if you throw money at it, you can do whatever you want," David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research, told us. "But this technology isn't at that point yet." Cole and many other engineers in the auto industry have repeatedly told us that hybrids and plug-in hybrids are still needed to serve as a bridge to the electric car, which may not be ready for prime time for many years. Even then, Cole has said that plug-in hybrids, such as the Volt, will need to bring their MSRPs down by about 40 percent before they can be really competitive.
I suspect that if you canvassed engineers around the auto industry, you'd find that many agree with the Chinese belief that it's best not to rush models to market. At this point, investments in basic and applied battery research might be wiser than funding commercial products. The reason for that is the same as it has been for 100 years: If you can't build a battery that's remotely competitive with gasoline, it's going to be hard to wean consumers from their internal combustion engines.
Even in China.
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For a close-up look at GM's Chevy Volt, go to the Drive for Innovation site and follow the cross-country journey of EE Life editorial director Brian Fuller.
@tekochip: I've seen a bunch of reports on the soaring use of electric bicycles in China along with Europe and the rest of Asia. Here a link to an article chronicling the trend from the New York Times, albeit several years back. I don't have a sense if the EV car craze cut into their popularity of if they are still widely used.
Beth, The use of electric bicycles is an interesting insight. It makes sense that it could be making an impact on the adoption of electric cars. Thanks for the link.
Thanks for the link Beth, that was a good article. I put an ebike together a few years ago and use it for commuting. While the bicycle purists at the office sneer at me for using an ebike, I don't see any of them using a regular bicycle for commuting either. The little motor makes the bike practical for commuting because you don't show up at the office needing a shower, and you'll still use the ebike on a windy day when you would avoid using a straight pedal bicycle. Yes, you still have to pedal an American ebike, but the motor will flatten the hills and always turn the winds in your favor. It cost me about $500 for the parts required for the conversion and I broke even on expenses the first year.
The E-cat will change everything. The battery concept is a waste of time. Some form of chemical reaction in a small container will be the answer to our energy problems.
If given a chance then LENR will be the future of energy production. Our way of thinking has to change. The old ways of using combustion type engines and generators needs to come to an end and start thinking outside of the box for newer radical ideas.
We need a modern day Tesla to step forward and to present their ideas.
MyDesign, that is called life cycle cost. For an automobile used for normal consumer use (which means lots of variability) the gasoline engine still has the lowest lifecycle cost for moderate time frames. Depending on the hybrid and the price of gasoline, it may take 3 to 5 years to recover the cost of the hybrid. At least with the hybrid you have the same flexibility as a standard gasoline vehicle.
Seems the whole "green" industry is infested with companies trying to make products which don't make economical sense. No doubt the reasons for this are varied - depending on which industry we are talking about. This article was only discussion the one corner - we could probably say similar things about solar, wind, biofuels - and the list goes on. Companies in these markets absolutely need to find ways to make their products viable economically. What's particularly aggravating is the fact that government money (our tax $$$) is being poured into these ventures only to have them fail. Even the Chinese commies realize that it's hard to fight against market forces and the economic needs of consumer.
As very simplistic example - My garage has a hot air solar furnace which I built for cheap. This might cost about $300 using retail purchased goods. Mine was build for less because I'm a scavenger. A similar unit at northerntool.com is priced at around $1400. Quite frankly my heater works ok but not great However, I wouldn't even consider buying the $1400 retail model because payback would be so poor.
1000 lb composite cars would most likely not pass any safety standards, thus, the overweight vehicles we have now.
By the way, a while back, Consumer Reports ran an article about the quickest-payback hybrid and they specified the Toyota Camry hybrid (at only $2000 more than an ICE Camry) paid for itself in as little as a couple of years (if I recall correctly). Hybrids are the way to go right now, not pure electrics.
I don't think I believe in the oil company conspiracy just yet. Not that it couldn't happen.
In my feeble opinion, the fundemental problem with EV is the battery. It takes (x) energy to move (y) mass from point (a) to point (b). The amount of energy stored in a gas tank far exceeds the energy stored in any comparably sized battery, even given the relatively low efficiency of the ICE. (Less than 40% at best).
Batteries need to have a technological break through before they compete well with the ICE.
EV's are also not the "Green" device eveyone is hoping for. The power used to charge them comes primarily from coal fired plants. I also expect to see a lot of battery components in land fills in the next few years as these batteries out live their usefulness. I don't really know how much will be mitigated in the recycling process. Not to mention all the environmental damage done in the REO extraction process.
E-cat, I wouldn't recommend that we bring the ICE to an end till we have something to replace it with. That doesn't exist yet.
Also that chemical reaction in a small container you refer to is called a battery.
Another might be the fuel cell where hydogen and oxygen combine to form water and generate electricty. There are variations on this theme where methane is used to supply the hydrogen instead of pure hydrogen. None of these are zero emmission if you follow the entire supply chain.
The real goal is a zero greeen house gass emission source. What ever that may be.
I appreciate the subject of the article and love the comments but the quality of the article is troubling. From the title on, it has a very "neener-neener" tone.
If the article just covered developments in China without the "no better than ours" appraoch, it could have been a more informative.
Kudos to all of the comments so far. The subject of electric cars seems to be polarizing and stimulating here at times.
Tesla Motors plans to roll out a “compelling, affordable electric car” that will sell for about half the price of its high-profile Model S by the end of 2016, company chairman Elon Musk said last week.
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