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BMW's New Electric Car Just Became a Major Problem [a problem for its competitors]
fool.com ^ | July 23, 2013 | Katie Spence

Posted on 07/24/2013 1:27:04 AM PDT by grundle

click here to read article


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To: Reaganez

The new diesels’ have them all beat. I’m considering a VW in a year or so.


61 posted on 07/24/2013 5:20:20 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (zerogottago)
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To: Sherman Logan; cunning_fish; Sooth2222; meyer

>>>>Why won’t bring hi-end diesels here?

>>Excellent question.

The real reason we don’t get more here, vs. what is offered in Europe, is over-regulation. EPA mileage and NHTSA crash test certifications are very expensive, and must be performed for every body/engine/transmission variation.

And Sooth, see my previous regarding what Audi is doing.


62 posted on 07/24/2013 5:23:22 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: grundle

all you have to do is make a commercial where zombies are chasing people in an electric car and they are at their range limit......


63 posted on 07/24/2013 5:25:27 AM PDT by Walkingfeather
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To: Hot Tabasco
..BUT, the electric company will pay the first $2,400...

No, everybody else does. He's getting a subsidy for his plaything.

64 posted on 07/24/2013 5:30:21 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: JosephW

Tax Credit For Electric-Car Charging Station Is Back
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081776_reminder-tax-credit-for-electric-car-charging-station-is-back


65 posted on 07/24/2013 5:35:01 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: cunning_fish

I agree so much with this. In EMEA, the Smart car has or had a 0.75 liter turbodiesel that could deliver 60-70 MPG. Now we’re talkin’. Of course, the EPA won’t let them use that engine in the US...


66 posted on 07/24/2013 5:35:43 AM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Wingy
6) Once I was driving home from work and instead of going right to home, just decided to go left and spend the long weekend in Florida. That's 1000 miles out of the way. Any electric/ hybrids out there that will allow me to do that?

If I understand your question correctly, any hybrid will allow you to do that. A "hybrid" car is gasoline powered, with a complex electro/mechanical drive train and an electrical storage battery. It is refueled at a standard gasoline station, using standard 87 octane gasoline, at the same rate as a standard gasoline powered car with a purely mechanical drive train.

67 posted on 07/24/2013 5:38:39 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: grundle

I had an ‘89 Jetta diesel that I paid $2500 for in the mid 90’s. It could go 750 miles on a tank of fuel. It got 45 MPG with the AC on and my foot on the floor most of the time, which was where it needed to be because it only made about 55 HP. If I drove it easy, I could get over 50 MPG. I drove that thing well over 100,00 miles without any drive train parts failing.

Battery powered cars are asinine except for a very small niche of applications.


68 posted on 07/24/2013 5:44:13 AM PDT by Jack of all Trades (Hold your face to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.)
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To: noprogs

>>>Anyone purchasing and driving a diesel vehicle should have to sit behind and idling one in traffic for thirty minutes a day.

I am so over all these farm punks and their chipped up, fartpiped Rams, F350s, and Silverados with stock turbos blowing a cloud of lingering particulates every time they leave an intersection.

Diesels are for heavy duty lawn mowers, construction equipment, tractors and semi trucks. Come out with your high end oil burners and try on my DOHC, turbocharged, intercoooled, direct injected GASOLINE powered ride sometime. Just please let me have the lane opposite your exhaust outlet.<<<

You certainly haven’t seen any modern European diesel vehicle. I’m sure you won’t tell it from a gasoline one in 5 minutes after engine started. No noise, no smell. More power.


69 posted on 07/24/2013 5:45:23 AM PDT by cunning_fish
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

You do know that all the new diesels require a special “exhaust fluid” that needs to be refilled after 6-10k miles.


70 posted on 07/24/2013 5:50:34 AM PDT by SoothingDave
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To: grundle

It would be perfect for my commute: about 40-50 miles round trip, normal side jogs included, 5 days/wk.

Sometimes if a product does not meet your needs the product is not for you and you were not the intended customer. New technologies have to start somewhere and satisfy a small audience before reaching everyone.


71 posted on 07/24/2013 6:01:53 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (Making good people helpless doesn't make bad people harmless.)
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To: SoothingDave
all the new diesels require a special “exhaust fluid” that needs to be refilled after 6-10k miles.

Is that difficult or relatively expensive? Seems easy to do while changing the oil.

72 posted on 07/24/2013 6:07:09 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Reaganez
what the salvage value of used batteries are(they will be perfect for home solar systems)

Not perfect at all. The spent cells won't hold a charge and have to be reprocessed. I don't know what a spent 1200 pound lithium battery is worth but my guess is a couple grand since raw lithium is about $3 a pound.

Tesla is offering an 8 year unlimited mile warranty

I'm sure it has fine print. Discharging lithium results in death in some number of cycles regardless of miles traveled and number of years. Using the car heater to stay warm or driving at night will result in full discharge in a lot less miles than the advertised range (which is exaggerated to begin with).

73 posted on 07/24/2013 6:08:03 AM PDT by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
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To: thackney

I did not say comparable car.

The average transaction price of a new car in 2012 was just a tick over $31k.

A Prius can be had below that.


74 posted on 07/24/2013 6:09:33 AM PDT by Reaganez
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To: Sherman Logan

>>>Why won’t bring hi-end diesels here?

Excellent question.

BTW, why not hybridize a hi-tech diesel car?<<<

There is no sense to do it at all. I think one of the most fuel efficient cars on any market is a diesel Kia Rio CRDi. It makes 88 mpg and sells at about 12 thousand euro.
Now imagine you are making a hybrid out of it to add some miles more. First of all it will be at least twice more expensive car. Add a battery issues and no sane greedy German will ever buy it even if it won’t eat any fuel at all. It is the most efficient vehicle already!
And there are about a dozen other models by Seat, Fiat, Skoda, VW and Vauxhall making over 60 mpg.
I believe there are a compact French diesel-electric SUV by Peugeot and similar sub-compact car by VW but they are a niche vehicles and never had any decent sales. I’m not sure if both are still being built.


75 posted on 07/24/2013 6:11:19 AM PDT by cunning_fish
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

Diesels produce way too much nitrous oxide and fine particle emissions.

More importantly, they still feed the OPEC-Al Qaeda terrorist complex.


76 posted on 07/24/2013 6:13:55 AM PDT by Reaganez
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To: JosephW; thackney
No reason to automatically assume the cost is passed to the neighbors.

Does the electric car get plugged in at peak usage times (i.e. 6-8 pm)? Then the cost is passed to me, the neighbor. If done in the wee hours, then not as much. Another cost that will be passed to me is upgrading the wires. Full electric cars require an enormous amount of power and therefore new copper has to be strung.

77 posted on 07/24/2013 6:15:31 AM PDT by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
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To: cuban leaf

It means exactly what it says.

The key to compelling electric cars is managing the batteries.

That is highly complex software.


78 posted on 07/24/2013 6:18:10 AM PDT by Reaganez
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To: grundle
Electric cars are as stupid as wind turbines and solar panels. Socialists have created multiple generations of people that are panicked about our environment, whether it be about "global cooling", "global aquifer collapse", "global famine", "peak oil", "global warming", and the latest but equally inane "Climate Change". I guess they got sick of being proven wrong in their constant "end is nigh!" scams so they now coined a term that means whatever they want it to mean.

So we have people that will actually go out and buy a 40k electric car that has a higher total cost of ownership than almost any other vehicle in it's price range all out of some panic state that they have been propagandized into believing.

Want to save the environment you whiny moronic sheep? Go buy a Harley. They have better resale than almost any car and even their big bikes average low 50's MPG on highways. When it's all used up you can sell it to a yuppie dentist that is having a midlife crisis. Assuming you don't become an organ donor that is...but hey it's all about the circle of life isn't it?

79 posted on 07/24/2013 6:22:43 AM PDT by Durus (You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Ayn Rand)
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To: Sherman Logan

In MN?

Tesla will do very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ5PqPeOPT0

Tesla Model S cold weather testing in Norway.

The batteries are cooled in hot weather and warmed in cold weather.

Will also do very well in Phoenix but don’t have a video.

Tesla is not Fisker.

It is a serious engineering company not an exterior design and marketing firm.


80 posted on 07/24/2013 6:24:37 AM PDT by Reaganez
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