Posted on 10/02/2017 1:33:13 PM PDT by NRx
After nearly a century of building vehicles powered by fossil fuels, General Motors — one of the world’s largest automakers — announced Monday that the end of GM producing internal combustion engines is fast approaching.
The acceleration to an all-electric future will begin almost immediately, with GM releasing two new electric models next year and an additional 18 by 2023.
At a media event at GM’s technical campus in Warren, Mich., on Monday, Mark Reuss, the company’s chief of global product development, said the transition will take time, but the course has been set.
“General Motors believes in an all-electric future,” Reuss said. “Although that future won’t happen overnight, GM is committed to driving increased usage and acceptance of electric vehicles.”
[Tesla’s Model 3 has ‘mass appeal.’ That doesn’t mean you can afford it.]
Reuss avoided naming the year when the auto giant will cease producing gas and diesel vehicles, noting that the company is too large to make such an estimate, according to USA Today.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Well, I buy Toyotas, so......
Buh-bye GM!
Well, I buy Toyotas, so......
Buh-bye GM!
Where’s your sarc. tag? :)
“Maybe some day batteries will be good enough to get good range AND recharge in minutes, not hours“
Maybe the laws of thermodynamics and physical chemistry will cease to apply on this planet, but that’s not the way to bet.
Never going to work, unless charging the battery takes no more time than re-fueling the car.
Never going to work, unless charging the battery takes no more time than re-fueling the car.
Worst. Company. Ever.
I read that the Chevy Bolt comes with a $7500 tax credit. (Another source said $6000, IIRC.) Great. Another case of the gov’t taking money from the people, siphoning some off, and returning some as a “gift” to modify our behavior. If a Bolt will cost $36,000, it still costs SOMEONES $36,000, plus the gov’t’s cut to give a buyer a credit. For a TINY car. And I say that having owned compact cars (plus something bigger) for almost 40 years.
Charge time is, as you say, a biggie.
Let’s say you can get charge time down to 16 minutes, and 1/4 of the cars out in some area need a charge away from home or work. Now you need either 2x the “energy” stations, or 2x bigger stations, or some such combination, than presently exist. This is not “impossible”, by any means, but it is a consideration.
What is the relationship between charge time and charge efficiency, looking at ALL factors involved, included keeping the battery and charger cool (or at least not too hot) when charging, and transmission to charge stations?
What is the relationship between battery reliability and charge time?
What % of batteries will fail within, oh, say, 10 years of car life, assuming non-optimum usage and conditions?
How badly will self-discharge harm these newer batteries if allowed to go “too low” over an extended period? It’s one thing to have to replace the battery in one’s laptop, or a std. lead-acid car battery. Batteries to power an automobile are a whole ‘nother matter. My experience is that if major IC drive train components are not abused and fluids are changed per maintenance schedule, said components usually last indefinitely with regard to time, and at least 150k miles. Capacity (power available) reduces only slightly. Batteries deteriorate to 60% capacity fairly rapidly — check the warranties in EV’s and Hybrids carefully...
LG has done a pretty good job with battery reliability & stability (though I still question it long term). Will new, higher capacity / faster charge batteries really be better? How many years until we are sure? Engineering almost ALWAYS involves tradeoffs.
Having a lot of experience with rechargeable batteries, I am just NOT impressed with their reliability with time, even when cared for as best as practical. (I still use many[!] of them, in apps small and large, but find them frustrating.) Is planned obsolescence back with a vengeance?
I keep hearing / reading torque, torque, torque. Can average drivers handle this, or will it, given average human response times, attention, etc., get them into trouble? I could burn rubber with every vehicle I ever owned, and none were close to being muscle cars. (Ok, I really had to dump the clutch in my Honda CRX 1.3 to burn rubber, back in the day, and really wound it out on on-ramps, on occasion, but, it went over 200k miles B4 I needed a new clutch, and the engine never did show any sign of failure — just somewhat lower mpg, which was partially due to tire choice.) In any event, I’m not so sure I want the bulk of drivers around me having high-end sports car acceleration, for their sake and mine.
What happens when, not if, the power grid, even assuming it can be upgraded to handle all this, goes down for any length of time, over a large area.? Think PR now, or the 2009 ice storm in the mid-south. In our 2009 ice storm, most gas stations were back up pretty quickly w/ generators, and many individuals & critical operations had enough gasoline stored to get by until the stations were up. Individuals’ storage of electricity is a much more expensive proposition, and “backup” supplies at local charge stations seems totally unfeasible to me.
Most of the people I know who owned hybrids liked them, but did not go back to them, and no one I know has graduated from a hybrid to a fully electric vehicle. Why, I do not know, but decreasing disposable cash for middle class families is perhaps part of the reason.
Some of the above is addressable. I even agree that large numbers of all electric vehicles will be on the road in my lifetime. But, I will be very surprised to see MOST of the vehicles on the road all-electric in, say, 15 years, barring very drastic gov’t intervention.
As one comment points out, electric needs to be generated by some other energy source. Solar makes more sense in places like our west and south, and Puerto Rico. There is also wind power being generated in quantity by some countries and in some of our states, like West Virginia where I own property and elsewhere. We will also need our other energy sources for some time to come. I for one will be happy when we need enough less (since we import 1/2 our needs) to say adios to Venezuela, the Middle East, and Russia.
Technical problems are major. As one person pointed out making a universal plug rather than several kinds. Ever hear of the National Thread Screw Comm. (or something like that) which was formed so screws, nuts and bolts would have compatible thread sizes. Also, how do you carry a gallon of electricity from the station to your stalled vehicle? What are some of the others?
I would add:
What is one of the biggest problems for most families not on the government dole?
Lack of time.
Let’s hear it for “rage” and snow. ;-) Seriously, more energy produced in US and not imported from troubled areas is a good thing. Nevertheless, it is harder to get uniformity in a multi focus industrial environment than in a state run operation. On the other hand multi focus leads to more creativity and competition. If industry could get something like thread screw size right (see my Comment 229) then many other solutions are also possible with cross industry cooperation on the essentials. How about a National Electric Power Utilization Commission or something like that?
So... you are saying the problem of electrical infrastructure can be partially addressed with a greatly expanded natural gas infrastructure. I wonder what the relative costs would be.
Another interesting effect will be lowered prices for gasoline as demand decreases, but then the lower price will slow down electrics. There is no similar parallel to this in the Windows / Mac world you reference. The oil companies will fight, and fight hard.
They are working on faster quick charging networks. Right now there aren't any cars on the market that can utilize them. The Bolt was designed around the current 50KW fast chargers. I've read that part of the VW diesel cheating penalty, they are going to help seed the US with $2B worth of faster charging stations. I'm sure other car manufacturers will be happy about that.
I had a good talk with the woman re. this same very topic. I’m all for alternative sources of energy as I believe, in the long run, it will be needed especially if we ever do decide to make an off-planet expedition.
Her grandfather is an avid pipe-liner, and has been for 40+ years - started when he was 16 years old in Northern Ohio. Here is the problem: If you want to go full electric, you have to match or exceed the convenience of the internal combustion engine.
Those electric cars do not charge as fast as the 2 minutes it takes to fill up a car at a gas station, and no amount of this “new” and “electric” crap they force down everyone’s throats is going to account for the convenience of gas.
However, if they wanted to reduce pollution and increase performance, they could simply convert all of the new cars to diesel, as it is cleaner more efficient.
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