By Joe Salimando
Salimando is a Fairfax, Virginia-based writer and contributor to energysolutions.necanet.org, eleblog.com, and tedmag.com.
Reach him at ecdotcom@gmail.com
Lately, I’ve been getting a bunch of dark-cloud-type communications on the future of the electric vehicle. A friend e-mailed an article with the headline Electric Vehicles Headed for a Crash. BYD, the Chinese auto-making company that produces EVs – in which Warren Buffet (!!!) is invested – has said it won’t bring the things to the U.S. because we don’t have enough public charging stations.
And the worst, from my perspective: John Petersen, a writer (on SeekingAlpha.com) on alternative energy investments who I’ve come to respect, is regularly using some of his space and time to bash the EV.
In football terms, all this seems all wrong to me. It is as if on the first play from scrimmage – just after our team got the ball, shortly after the marching band left the field and the other team kicked off – our offense lined up, the QB dropped back 15 yards . . . took the snap, and punted the ball.
Of course, the QB might pass, and throw an interception. He could try to hand the ball off, and it might bounce off the turf into the hands of the other team’s cornerback, who’ll race into the end zone. A lot of other bad things might happen.
But is thinking like that the reason we got out of the bed this morning?
Good news, if you look for it
What follows is a bit of EV good news. To be clear: I am a reporter by training. It is NOT ALL GOOD NEWS out there. You can find plenty of bad and (as hinted above) . . . you won’t struggle to find it.
1. There’s a car-maker in the U.S. selling an EV for “as low as $21,625.” Did you know that?
Above: Mitsubishi’s “i” car, an EV you can buy now for $21K or thereabouts; below, the BMW “i3” concept EV – which, when introduced in 2013, reportedly will go from 0 to 60 in eight seconds.
2. Nissan has said – out there in public, where people can hear it – that by the year 2015, it will have an EV with a 250-mile range. An affordable thing. Now, you know and I know that we’ll all forget this in a few minutes – and won’t remember it in 2015. HOWEVER: Japanese business executives are not known for their wild-butted statements, are they?
3. EVs are ridiculously expensive, you hear. Just the other day, I responded to a post on Facebook (on a site I monitor) that said EVs cost a lot too much. Of course, Tesla’s Roadster has outstanding single-charge mileage available from its battery – 245 miles! – but the car costs $109K.
I can’t pay $109K for an automobile. You?
BUT before we all go for a drink to drown our too-expensive-EV sorrows . . . here’s a reminder from a DoE blog:
Remember that plasma TVs, cell phones, personal computers and many other common products were once fabulously expensive luxury items, but quickly became a staple for middle class Americans. These price declines wouldn’t have been possible without the first, commercial scale marketing as premium products.
. . .posted within the context of a DoE explanation of government loans to Tesla and Fisker, another company that makes EVs.
4. On this NY Times blog, you’ll learn that Jay Leno – yes, a celebrity – drove almost 11,000 miles in a Chevy Volt (over nearly one year) . . . without hitting a gas station. The guy claims he’s used roughly half of the 9 gallons of gas he found in the vehicle when he bought it.
My question is: Aren’t the remaining 4.5 gallons of gas a bit stale by now?
Your question might be: How the heck did he do that? He drives less than 35 miles a day, round-trip. A Volt reportedly can go 40 miles on its battery. Apparently, in Jay’s case – it does!
5. In Fall 2010 at the Gridweek event, I sat through a bunch of presentations on one day about EVs. One speaker was from BMW; I was having trouble staying awake. One reason: His company’s EV wasn’t coming for a few years, he said. He talked a lot about carbon fiber . . . about how BMW was going to make the car out of this stuff, so it would be lighter. A lighter EV means you don’t need all that much batter to propel the car down the road, of course.
Carbon fiber? I was trying to understand battery technology, for Pete’s sake! So: I took a short walk to wake myself up.
Well, I should have found one of those 5-hour energy-shot things and stayed put. It will shortly be 2012, and BMW promises its i3 “concept car” for 2013 (more here) – a BEV (battery-only electric vehicle). This will be the answer to “can EVs be sexy,” I think, as the company says: “The BMW i3 Concept accelerates from 0 to 37 mp) in under four seconds and from rest to 62 mph in less than eight seconds.”
6. Political criticisms of any Presidential administration have been numerous over recent years; with what has (typically) been said about Clinton, Bush, and Obama, you have to wonder why anyone would ever run for President! But if folks of all political stripes could ever agree on one good thing done by the Obama Administration, it should be (it says here) to massively fund R&D into batteries.
Does this make it a “sure thing” that we’ll have better batteries in the near future? NO.
But it is doggone hard to imagine how we get to the 400-miles-on-one-charge EV without putting billions into battery R&D.
So even if we fail to develop next-gen batteries that give a lot more bang for the buck, at least we didn’t get the dang football and, as soon as we got a firm grasp on it . . . punt it on down the field!