General Motors Corp. aims to manufacture 10,000 plug-in electric Chevrolet Volts in 2011, the vehicle's first full year of production, and 60,000 the following year, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told the Free Press in an e-mail Thursday.
So thru the end of 2012 only 70,000 will be on the road. Do not expect these cars to save you from $200 per barrel gasoline if the price of oil goes that high in the next 5 years.
GM will not make a profit on Volt sales.
Lutz said the first-generation Volt will retail for about $40,000 and generate no profit for GM. The company hopes to make money as it rolls out later versions of the vehicle and other plug-in models.
Tougher environmental and fuel-economy regulations make electric vehicles "the only path to salvation," Lutz said. These government mandates could also help keep the momentum if oil prices fall, he said.
Assuming all that, Lutz said, by 2020 or 2025 between a quarter and half of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. will be electric or hydrogen-powered.
That's a quarter of all new vehicles, not a quarter of all vehicles on the road. But it could happen quicker if battery prices fall fast enough. Wish I had insight on that one.
GM wants a $7k tax credit for buyers of the Volt.
General Motors is lobbying for a $7,000 tax credit for buyers of the
$30,000$40,000 2011 Chevy Volt — more than double that originally offered for Prius buyers.
GM argues that the battery in the Volt is at least twice the capacity of the one in the Prius (actually well more than double), saves that much more oil, and so deserves a bigger subsidy. Gotta say, a bigger tax credit for the Volt makes sense for another reason (and someone tell GM's lobbyists): The tax credit for a Prius buyer subsidizes Nickel Metal Hydride batteries that are a technological dead-end. Whereas GM will use some sort of lithium battery (maybe the A123Systems lithium nanophosphate batteries) which is the future of car batteries according to many experts. Better to subsidize the future than the past. GM is working on the future with this Volt.
My take on all this: People will have to reduce their oil demand by driving smaller cars and conventional hybrids and by reducing the number of miles driven. In the next 5 years few will be able to reduce their gasoline consumption by plugging their car into a wall socket.
My question: How high do gasoline prices have to go to deliver a large enough shock to cause a rapid decline in demand? I just did a post where I asked and most responders in the first day basically said they aren't changing very much. Basically, without explicitly saying so they are insisting on $5, $6 gasoline before they make substantial changes. Okay, so we are going to get $5, $6 gasoline. Your choice. So no complaints please.
Update: It is perhaps too early to judge how much consumption will drop due to current prices. SUV sales are tanking in the last 2 months. Also, As we head into the summer driving period gasoline consumption has actually dropped for 8 weeks in a row.
Record gasoline prices are causing consumers to cut back on fuel purchases. On June 17, MasterCard Inc. said U.S. gasoline demand fell 3.2 percent from a year ago, according to its weekly SpendingPulse report.
Consumers purchased an average 9.305 million barrels of gasoline a day in the week ended June 13, down from 9.614 million a year earlier.
Given that Gasoline consumption rose 3% per year from 1985 to 2004 American drivers have given back 2 years of that growth in the last year and most of that in the last few months. At least into April gasoline consumption hadn't fallen by much. But some sort of tipping point has been reached. At least in the United States I expect to see a continued decline in fuel consumption. But in China, India, and other developing countries demand will probably continue to rise as buying power increases.
By Randall Parker at 2008 June 23 08:17 PM Energy Transportation | TrackBackThis is just one data point but my mom's old minivan just lost its brakes. She's not getting it repaired and not getting a new car. Instead she's going to take public transport and, for the few times she actually needs a vehicule, is going to join an auto-share club here in Montreal that's gaining a lot of popularity called CommunAuto (tr: Common (as in shared) Auto). That group charges a pretty low yearly fee and you can just take a car from one of their many locations and return it to any other. Seems like a pretty good deal if you only drive once or twice every week or two.
One possibility is the US government could give 20,000$ to the manufacturer per 40 mile plug-in hybrid they sell. And 5,000$ for a 20 mile plug-in hybrid. Scaled to each range in between. In addition they could mandate that a certain percentage of the manufacturing of the car including the battery had to be produced in America to qualify for the reward.
Make that reward available for the first 20 million plug-in hybrids sold in America. Cost if every car that got it was a 40 mile plug in: 400 billion dollars.
Two advantages.. after the rewards ran out you'd have a massive plug-in hybrid manufacturing base, including the batteries in America.. And would be well on the way to solving the challenges of oil.
I am visiting Europe now, and I have traveled more than 600 km on a trip, with a Volkswagen Lupo car, which is a 5 seat compact car made of very light weight metal alloys to make it efficient enough to have a mileage of 3.7 liters of diesel fuel per 100 km (which should be approximately 60 miles per gallon). There are several models of Lupo, but this version is really getting such a great mileage, as I have personally seen it. This is as good as what Chevrolet Volt would deliver, but at a much lower price.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo
And by 2011, another experimental German company will start selling the Loremo (low-resistance) car made of very light composite materials, with a fuel economy well over 120 miles per gallon, selling for less than $15,000 Euros (less than $25,000). This is a 4 seat car, and it should be viewed with great attention because a 120 mpg fuel economy will be far superior to the current
The new Loremo car's web site is here. Apparently, they have already demonstrated the 4 seat diesel car with 120 mpg fuel efficiency, but commercial production will be at the end of 2010.
http://evolution.loremo.com/content/view/98/141/lang,en/
Another commentator correctly pointed out at Futurepundit a few weeks ago, that although petroleum is more expensive to mine than electricity production, liquid fuels are efficient for storing the electric power once cheap electricity is available. Perhaps it will be a good idea to produce liquid fuels by using nuclear power. This would be the best of the two worlds. Soon there will be cheaper fuel cells that can burn alcohol to make electricity (in an electric car), and nuclear power can be used to generate hydrogen which might then be combined with carbon to make alcohol for fuel cells.
Here is a description of solid oxide fuel cells, which are much cheaper than the versions with rare metals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-oxide_fuel_cell
So people need to quit their jobs to find another job closer to where they live. Good luck with that. Or, move out of their suburban home to move back to the city with its higher crime, pollution, noise and stress. People will be paying a ridiculously high heating bill this winter. They also need to forego any vacation plans involving driving or flying.
Pretty much kiss much of your disposable income goodbye. But whatever you do... don't complain.
If my wallet wasn't bleeding, I would find that funny. But hey, a 40 something thousand dollar car is coming that promises to change everything. But maybe it is for the best that the car will be priced out of the hands of people that will need it the most. California already has power issues with brownouts and blackouts. So does New York. No one is talking about building more powerplants that will eventually be needed to help recharge the batteries of electric cars in the year 2020.
And to think I thought that the U.S. should have started drilling for more oil back in the 90's.
The way technologies like this catch on is not all in one swoop, but by gradual accumulation of experience, working out bugs and inefficiencies in the product and its manufacturing processes. It was naive to think that GM would introduce this on a large scale from the start. Real technologies don't work that way.
Using an outdated consumption curve from a government website on fuel efficiency (engines have improved and cars are generally more aerodynamic), I calculated that at my pay gas would need to cost $6.88 for it to make sense for me to slow down at 70MPH. At $3.60 is makes sense if you are worth less than $4.97 an hour. You may be able to infer something from that.
The Chevy Volt actually will save you from buying any siginificant amount of gasoline,
$200 per barrel or otherwise. If a fleet of Volts weere on the road, crude would be
selling for less than $10 a barrel. GM's biggest problem right now is how to stop
gasoline in the Volt tank from going sour thru non-use.
The typical commuter using a Volt will obtain almost 300 MPG doing so - that's no
estimate - that's based on DOT commuter trips statistics. Allow for 1/4th of the workforce
to recharge and the Volt can exceed 650 MPG while commuting, an activity which accounts for
over 50% of gasoline consumption. That eliminates 98% of any need for liquid fuel, and
ethanol can easily supply what's still required for trips. For housewives and retirees,
expect higher mileages.
Plug-ins like the Volt can easily eliminate crude oil as an import. It doesn't require any
faith to believe this, just look at the DOT stats, realize that while running on liquid fuel
the Volt obtains 50MPG in both city and highway, and can travel a bit over 40 miles on a single
charge and then do the simple calculations. Why it's so simple even the extremely math-adverse
journalistic crowd can do it. I'm not sure about cavemen.
Wow, if 640 miles on a full tank (Chevy Volt Info Site) does not seal the deal, I don't know what will! Between this and elimination of SUVs from the lineup Chevy might be in good shape by 2010?
I just wish they'd put a serial hybrid drivetrain (no 'all electric' mode) in a Mazda3. Simpler, cheaper, and they could start putting them out in under a year.
Contrast this article with the one Randall linked to below regarding the OX electric car. Money quote:
'The company's business model, says James, is similar to that of PC maker Dell (DELL), which fueled its rise by ruthlessly optimizing its manufacturing and supply chain. Think's ultralean manufacturing system lets it build production facilities for about $10 million, compared with the billions invested in new plants by old-line manufacturers. That means more factories closer to customers, further cutting costs.
In addition, factories "could also be the retailers," says James, which would add a unique element to Think's branding. The company, he says, will be profitable if it can sell 10,000 vehicles a year. At 20,000 to 30,000 units in annual sales, Think can cut its component costs in half.'
By borrowing a business model from a seemingly nonrelated world, the small electric car manufacturer can be profitable at a much lower sales volume than GM, and can experience significant economics of scale at lower volumes as well. I don't agree with the idea of letting the factories sell retail - car dealers are what make the car world go 'round. But other than that, this is interesting.
For the 1st time evah I'm considering leasing a car when my old Ford Contour dies. A 3 year lease would put me in the market for a flex fuel hybrid, possibly rechargeable, at the right time.
I see A123 as the leading low cost, new tech contender for batteries, but I hope they face strong competition.
Meanwhile, we need to drill in ANWR and a hundred + miles off the FL coast and build that wind farm where Ted Kennedy likes to sail.
Chevy might be in good shape by 2010?
Given that the market capitalization of GM is currently less than Starbucks, The Gap, or even GameStop, they'd better hope so.
seems the Loremo is first buing built in the electro version. Seems it's about equivalent to 0.6 liter Diesel per 100km ! See the Blog at their website. (Read it in German so it may not be up in english.) I love this car!
Wolf-Dog,
Some of the high fuel efficiency Euro cars can't pass US safety regs without putting on some weight.
aaron,
Yes, higher income people do not have a financial incentive to slow down. But some will do it because it makes them feel better.
Chevy Volt Fan,
The Volt will only start helping GM when GM can sell them for a profit and in large numbers. That is not coming before 2013 at the earliest.
Kerry Bradshaw,
To make a big dent GM would need to make tens of millions of Volts. The US has about 250 million registered vehicles:
According to the US Bureau of Transit Statistics for 2004 there are 243,023,485 registered passenger vehicles in the US. Out of these roughly 243 million vehicles, 136,430,651 (56.13%) were classified as cars, while 91,845,327 (37.79%) were classified as "Other 2 axle, 4 tire vehicles," presumably SUVs and pick-up trucks. Yet another 6,161,028 (2.53%) were classified as vehicles with 2 axles and 6 tires and 2,010,335 (0.82%) were classified as "Truck, combination." There were approximately 5,780,870 motorcycles in the US in 2004, which accounts for 2.37% of all registered passenger vehicles.According to cumulative data[1] by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) the number of motor vehicles has also increased steadily since 1960, only stagnating once in 1997 and declining from 1990 to 1991. Otherwise the number of motor vehicles has been rising by an estimated 3.69 million each year since 1960 with the largest annual growth between 1998 and 1999 as well as between 2000 and 2001 when the number of motor vehicles in the United States increased by eight million.[1] Since the study by the FHA the number of vehicles has increased by approximately eleven million, one of the largest recorded increases. The largest percentage increase was between the years of 1972 and 1973 when the number of cars increased by 5.88%.
The problem with Lithium based batteries is that there will be a shortage of Lithium in the world if millions of such cars are built. While China and some South American countries have a lot of Lithium, North America and Europe do not have significant Lithium resources. This would end up like a terrible shortage for the rest of the world. For this reason, it is a good idea to develop in parallel the zinc-air batteries, which have more than 400 Wh/kg energy density (more than lithium), leading to cars with ranges over 350 miles. The trouble with zinc-air batteries is that they cannot be recharged, but this is compensated by the fact that the zinc gets recycled fast and new batteries can be swapped like ammunition clips at the gas stations. This would also save the world from putting wires in every street to charge cars. Thus while North America and Europe are working on other batteries, China and South America should build Lithium batteries for themselves.
Most of the weight of a lithium battery is not lithium, so the current contribution of the mining cost of lithium to the cost of the battery is small. Lithium could become much more expensive without ruining the economics of Li batteries. At those higher prices, resources that are currently subeconomic could be brough on line, possibly including the 150 ppb Li dissolved in sea water.
I looked at a Loremo as well.
It will never pass the "wife test". It's very very small, and the 120 mpg version has a 0-60 in the 13-15 sec range. That's so slow as to be unsafe.
The more reasonable turbocharged 88 mpg version gets about 8 sec 0-60, which is fine. But then you're only talking 88 mpg. The Volt will be a more reasonable vehicle and will most of the time run solely on electricity, which IMO is really the future of transportation anyway.
The Loremo may be a reasonable stop gap until battery prices fall (and solar prices) because of its low cost.
It's better than a Smart Car, IMO.