Project Better Place founder Shai Agassi tells Auto Motor und Sport that his firm’s EV versions of the Renault Fluence will cost €3,000- €5,000 less than the gas-powered Renault versions. The only downside is that you have to live in Israel or Denmark to qualify. Oh yeah, and then there’s the “batteries not included” issue. To actually use the car you need to lease a battery (“The batteries belong to us,” scowls Agassi) which will run you about €250/month for about 1,500 miles (30k km/year). Unlimited mileage costs about €350/month. “Try to make a deal like that with Shell,” dares Agassi. But behind the posturing remains the fact that Better Place’s battery-swap scheme wouldn’t work if the Israeli and Danish governments hadn’t bought in. Agassi admits that his cars would cost more than Renault’s gas-burners if they backing governments didn’t heavily subsidize them. But Agassi figures these incentives will merely bridge the gap to higher volumes. “Electric cars are like other electronic devices: every two or three years the price will go down by half.” Hey, if that’s what it says on the business plan . . . .
Don’t you mean “for 15,000 miles”? 1,500 miles is not 30,000 kilometers. Of course, neither is 15,000 miles, for that matter, but it’s at least in the ballpark.
“Better Place” ???
Yeah, better for him.
He’s been selling this for awhile, and though there may be some overarching good inherent to standardizing the electric battery pack, there is no altruism line on the P&L.
A monopoly is a monopoly. One directly funded by a government is even more odious.
1500 miles per month equals 30000 km per year.
Pretty sure batteries don’t follow Moore’s Law.
Batteries are improving maybe 10% a year. Probably the best analogy to the PBP is the cellphone. You buy the (subsidized) hardware up front and purchase a contract covering a certain number of units per month, with overages being extra. This makes sense for Israel, which gets its oil reshipped from Europe, since Arab states won’t sell it directly.
Yes, the cellphone model is exactly what Agassi is looking to emulate, hence the reduced price per mile(km) with greater usage commitment, just like airtime minutes. If manufacturers will settle on just a few battery pack configurations around which to design multiple models, this concept could really take off in urban areas where most trips would require no more than a single (if any) battery swap.
Concerned about subsidy? Maybe people missed the announcement from the G20 that fossil fuel subsidies are to be phased out?
ClutchCarGo: Yes, the cellphone model is exactly what Agassi is looking to emulate
I hate cell phone plans. ’nuff said.
@Pete,
I’m just saying that it’s a different kind of subsidy. Akin to just giving breaks/subsidies to just one oil company.
(That, and after listening to a coupla interviews with this guy, I think he’s about as trustworthy as Malcolm Bricklin.)
Denmark ain’t exactly a warm place. I haven’t been there, but I seem to remember reading about kids and ice skating in Denmark. So, yeah, it gets cold there.
Electric car. Battery. Cold weather. How does one heat an electric car in cold weather greatly reducing range? I’ve had resistance heat in a house, and it did amazing things for the power bill during winter, albeit in Florida.
Next question about electric cars and batteries. So all my ecoweenie friends keep saying, “Oh, don’t worry Rod, electric car batteries will get cheaper as they produce more of them.”
I say, “Hey, that sounds great. Just one question. If that’s true, then why doesn’t the regular old lead acid battery in your car cost five dollars to replace? They’ve only been making those since, oh, THOMAS FREAKIn’ EDISON’s day. And they only make like, oh, 50 million cars a year, and each one has a lead acid battery, and probably another 12.5 million cars a year need a new battery. So, based on those numbers,a Sears DieHard battery should be almost free, less shipping, handling and marketing costs, right?”
Fact is, every time I buy a replacement battery for one of my cars or motorcycles, it ALWAYS costs more than the last time. And that’s just lead acid batteries or AGM batteries made from recycleable materials. Not some fancy-schmancy Lithium-Ion dingus.
So, uh, where are my meds, again?
This guy is nuts – the electric car tech curve isnt even close to Moores law. The physics just isnt there. He is suckering the governments and foolish customers taken with green.
@Rod Panhard
They’re going to put a dome over Denmark to keep it warm enough so the batteries will work.
@PN
Come to think of it, I hate cell phone plans, too. that’s why I have a pay as you go.
TTAC on Better Place
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/does-better-place-have-a-better-plan/
That, and after listening to a coupla interviews with this guy, I think he’s about as trustworthy as Malcolm Bricklin.
If someone says something negative about China, TTAC’s corespondent in China will often say those negative views are based on stereotypes.
I’ll assume that your distrust of Agassi and Bricklin has nothing to do with their shared ethnicity.
For the record, Bricklin was pretty successful getting Subaru established in North America, and the Yugo is still the most successful initial launch in the history of the North American auto biz. Is he a hustler and a hondler? No doubt.
Cellphones =/= batteries. In fact, part of the savings on new cellphones is the fact that energy efficient new chips and lower-powered transmitters mean they need less battery than before.
Old CPs were a pain to use… it gave me a chuckle seeing Robert Downey Junior lugging that big old car battery around in Iron Man… that’s what it felt like… (and the unit was probably almost as heavy).
This scheme could easily be the standard for Europe. I don’t think anyone is closer to a “you have no worries” solution for the electric nay-sayers and early-adopters worries about range and the new technology. If I can swap my battery in just 5 places around in my town, that would easily do me. Especially if it is an automated 3 minute drive through procedure. Coffee Sir?!
It always amazes me that some think that multi-million dollar hardware will be troubled by issues such as a bit of winter in Denmark and won’t be tested to the n’th degree before release. Ever heard of Arctic testing??!!!
For example, my Lithium-Manganese bike battery (350w/36V) works comfortably down to -20 Centigrade according to manufacturer. I have used in -5 with no probs at all ?? Whose worried ?!
The point about Lead Acid coming down but haven’t is a very good point though and I think this is because they charge it because they can and it is not in their interest to better the tech as spares are a massive industry. This is indicative of the ICE as a whole. Regular repairs are necessary and hence costs to punter are unavoidable.
We are being ripped of by shit engineering being built in to allow future revenues. I have no doubt.
With electric the most common failure points are eliminated. Brake discs, oil filters, crap little battery, clutch, drive train, alternator, etc.etc. If leased, it is in the interest of the manufacturer to fully eliminate ANY future redundance or failure in the tech as it is up to them to change it, at THEIR cost. It is inherantly more reliable to start with though so I am already sure it will break down less than ICE, if only because a brushless motor has no wearing/touching moving parts and the power source can be uprated as it is further developed and swapped out!! So yes, your 100 miles today will probably 120 miles in a few months…wow a car that automatically gets better the longer you have it, now there’s a good advertising line !!
The world wide current production of Lithium is indeed somewhat limited currently (SQM being one of the bigger producers). About 160,000 tons currently I believe, but not because it is a rare earth, just that nobody wanted it before and so there aren’t many miners currently producing it. It is about as abundant as Zinc apparently. There are many companies now looking at producing in Nevada and other places once prospected by companies like Chevron in the 70’s and 80’s. Infrastructure is good there so it should be quick to market, so I only see a possible “shortage” in the next 18 months, but I really only think it is market hype to try and create another bubble sector…That said, there is no reason not have a punt on it just in case ! Lookat WLC, CLQ or GXY if you want to invest in a few prospective Lithium miners!
Just to give some perspective on “subsidizing” cars in Denmark, keep in mind that Denmark has the highest (>=confiscatory) automobile taxes in the world. A small compact like this Renault rolls out from the dealer for somewhere around a cool $50 K, so the possible “subsidy” from the government would simply be a little discount on the taxes, taking them down from beyond confiscatory to only exorbitant.
@Ronnie Schreiber:
“the Yugo is still the most successful initial launch in the history of the North American auto biz”. Now that is damning with faint praise!
And yeah, Moore’s Law does not mix with the auto industry. Did he honestly say that with a straight face???
so…pay $4500-$7500 less for a car (say, base new Malibu for $13-$14k), then pay $375 a month more or less for the battery and all mileage up to 18k/year.
That’s a really good deal…arguably better than the Prius, which to date has seemed to be the best overall hybrid/electric car value in terms of what you get vs what you pay.
I think it’s a great idea. It overcomes the greatest shortcomings of electric cars: high initial expense, short range, slow to charge. It’s also great that you don’t have to worry of the huge expense of battery replacement in 10 years- your car will hold its value much better. In fact, electric cars will be vastly more reliable, durable, and low-maintainence.
I do have qualms about subsidies though. But, for places like Isreal it is in their national security interest, so I guess that’s OK.
@sutski:
“With electric the most common failure points are eliminated. Brake discs, oil filters, crap little battery, clutch, drive train, alternator, etc.etc”
There are many problems with this statement. First, brake disks will not be eliminated with electric cars and I have no idea why you think this is one of the biggest failure points. Sure electric cars may have smaller brake discs, but fully eliminating them will take a very long time. Just imagine that your car can probably go 0-60 in less than 3 seconds. That would require massive motor/generators to absorb and batteries do not like being charged that fast.
Second, alternators? Sure they do fail alot, but that should make you worry more about electric cars than ic cars. I mean if alternators are such a big point of failure, won’t now being fully electric be the same or worse?
Really I am just amazed that people think that electric cars are going to be so much less maintence and worry than IC cars now. From my experience and people that I know, the actual phyciscal engine of most cars is just amazingly bulletproof. Any problems people have with cars nowadays are things like the electric fans for the HVAC or somebodies new lexus that the radio keeps turning off after driving for 5 minutes or a BMW where the navigation keeps wanting you to drive a 500 mile loop to make a trip that should be 15 miles on the highway. The thing that seems to go wrong with the actual engine are all electronic like position senors or temp sensors, electric cars will have tons of sensors also and even fancier electronic controllers to fail. This goes along the the conspiracy that car manufacturers are not making electric cars because they do not need to be repaired, it just blows my mind that people think that.
Chaparral,
Good points about car maintenance. Modern cars contain so much technology that it amazes me that they run at all. Electric cars will have their problems, even more so with the big amount of software they contain.
Yet electric cars may still cut down on failures. Even the best gasoline engines get worn down with all the heat and friction after a few hundred thousand miles. Comparable electric motors routinely go the equivalent of a million miles with no maintenance at all. No fluids changed, no filters replaced. Just reliable service.
To start with, electric cars will have their problems, as you point out. But they have the potential to outperform gasoline cars. Gasoline cars have, over the past century, improved a lot. But we’re pushing up against performance barriers, and we may well have wrung the towel with them.
The point about Lead Acid coming down but haven’t is a very good point though
How much did lead acid batteries cost in 1906, when adjusted for inflation? The costs HAVE come down, undoubtedly, but eventually get limited by materials costs (at which point they slowly creep up over time like the cost of everything else.) That, and the price you pay at the store includes the costs of transportation of a small number of (heavy!) batteries to the store, and the number of batteries that die on the shelves before they’re bought. By comparison, a manufacturer buys a lot of batteries in bulk, reducing shipping costs and losses, so the price they pay for a battery is a lot less than you do.
The battery costs will go down, as bulk purchases allow profits on quantity rather than quality, and as manufacturing processes become more efficient (witness flat panel television sets getting larger for less money as they learn to manufacture LCD panels with fewer defects.) Citing moore’s law is certainly a fallacy, sure, but costs will reduce until the materials and shipping costs are the limiting factor.
Meanwhile, the parts that make up the car itself are already in lock-step with the same costs for gasoline and diesel cars, except for the electric motors and controllers; those will come down in price or go up in efficiency (or both) as bulk purchasing of those components (designed specifically for automotive use) goes up. This has already happened for use of similar components in factories and such, but those are for factory-optimiized parts purchased in bulk, whereas these car parts are low-volume or one-off optimizations. Ultimately those components will hit a shipping/materials cost limit as well.
Electric car. Battery. Cold weather. How does one heat an electric car in cold weather greatly reducing range? I’ve had resistance heat in a house, and it did amazing things for the power bill during winter, albeit in Florida.
Reversible heat pump. Preferably with the “cold” heat exchanger being near the motor, inverter, and battery pack.
Next question about electric cars and batteries. So all my ecoweenie friends keep saying, “Oh, don’t worry Rod, electric car batteries will get cheaper as they produce more of them.”
Well, they’re just repeating what the manufacturers of those very cells are saying. And, FYI, batteries are not the only expensive component of EVs; the drivetrain components are equally overinflated in price. Most are still handmade.
I say, “Hey, that sounds great. Just one question. If that’s true, then why doesn’t the regular old lead acid battery in your car cost five dollars to replace?
Wait a minute — you’re complaining about the price of *lead-acid batteries*? Lead-acid batteries are dirt cheap! Even a pack the size of the Tesla Roadster’s would cost just a few $k if it used lead-acid.
Most of the costs in automotive-style lithium ion batteries are capital costs and labor. Their raw materials are dirt cheap (lithium salts at ~$5/kg are the most expensive element, and despite the name, lithium-ion batteries only use a small amount of lithium). Prices will continue to go down until they approach the cost of raw materials.
They’ve only been making those since, oh, THOMAS FREAKIn’ EDISON’s day.
Wait, you think lead-acid batteries back in Edison’s day were the same price they are now? HA!
I completely agree that the newest generation of cars (OBDII and up) are pretty bulletproof – I can say I expect EVs to be even less maintenance intensive.
A quality ICE powered car is bulletproof for what? 100K miles. Very little maintenance. Hardly any failures. MUCH different from the used 50s and 60s cars of my childhood that constantly needed a little of everything. Heck cars today seldom even need wheelbearings. Same bearings from the factory to the junkyard in same cases.
I buy 100K mile used cars. At one time I bought and sold cars for spare cash. I like new cars but can’t justify the depreciation. Most of the cars I’ve owned with that mileage needed a rash of things during a period between 120K miles and 140K miles. Then they settle down and are fairly repair-free for a good while after that. The best ones needed hardly anything until north of 200K. They get ugly long before they fall apart.
My current daily driver has needed a whole laundry list of new parts – exhaust system (car was up north), clutch, cables, minor injection parts, cooling parts, hoses, minor sensors, gaskets, water pump, and so on. If it sounds like a POS think again. My annual maintenance bill is less than a single new car payment and I do my own work.
The amount of work needed to keep the electrical system intact, the body rust free and clean, the interior in good shape, and so forth has been almost nil. Wash and wax. Vacuum and scrub stains when they occur. Give the weatherstripping and molding some protection.
An EV is going to be trouble-free when it is young and old. What has failed on all of my cars has been mechanical. Very few secondary system parts such as HVAC or electrical problems. There will be some electrical gremlins in early versions but I think those will quickly become uncommon.
The only maintenance I can think of would be changing the oil in the transmission and keeping things clean. A fan motor might wear out, the brakes are still going to wear out if slower with regen braking, and suspension would still wear out at some mileage north of 200K miles unless used off road and I do realize some cities have roads almost as bad.
Oh I am sure that the aftermarket and the dealer service departments are dreading the EV. Alot of company’s product lines simply aren’t in an EV. No fuel system, no exhaust, no ICE engine, etc.
I think the Volt is marketed as a way to help folks cope with the false idea that they are not going to have enough range to get home in a battery car. So they added an ICE engine and all it’s thousands of parts that keep the parts suppliers in business. Never mind they could have left the ICE out and put in more batteries.
Never in my life has my daily commute required more than 100 miles of driving – the range of the RAV4-EV from 2003. If it did I simply would buy a VW TDI/Corolla/Prius/Civic/Focus/Astra instead of an EV.
Got to use the right tool for the job. Expecting an EV to be a cross-country touring vehicle anytime soon is like driving a 6,000 lb truck to go get milk alone. Oh yeah – some folks do that. Guess they might need to drag the Titanic home… VBG!
Get the tech out to the people who want it, let them (me) mature it further, and let us help it evolve. For the folks that need the HD trucks and long distance touring cars – keep driving them, you’re not bothering me.
I suspect that if we got EVs to the roads today that in 20 years we’ll think carrying around 25 gallons of an explosive liquid under our backseat is dangerous.
If someone says something negative about China, TTAC’s corespondent in China will often say those negative views are based on stereotypes.
I’ll assume that your distrust of Agassi and Bricklin has nothing to do with their shared ethnicity.
For the record, Bricklin was pretty successful getting Subaru established in North America, and the Yugo is still the most successful initial launch in the history of the North American auto biz. Is he a hustler and a hondler? No doubt.
@Ronnie,
I’ve been gone for awhile, has discussion here fallen to that point? I made, nor implied, any racial/ethnic/religious origin in my remarks. My distrust of both of them is based on listening to what they said, and how they said it. (And with Bricklin, the last 30+ years of his ‘career’)
I recall listening to some very WASPy guys from this little corp called Enron and knowing they were full of crap too.
Hustlers are hustlers. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. I just call ’em as I see ’em.
As to Bricklin’s success with Subes, sometimes everything goes wrong, and the grift becomes a successful enterprise. But, everything else he’s been involved with has been sketchy, at most generous.
Greg
@Daanii2 and joeaverage:
I agree that over 100k and more like 200k you are going to see the internal combustion engine starting to fail. But many engines now, are starting to look like they will be as low maintenance and reliable from 100k to 200k as engines were between 0 and 100k. In theory the electric motor should be more reliable than the piston motor and it probably is, the issue is that the piston motor is just unbelievably reliable right now, the gains are small. And 95% of other problems still exist and we will probably have even more new features to go wrong.
I am guessing though as we see electic cars evolve, they will be moving to liquid cooled motors and electronics for more power and efficiency (remember as temp goes the resistance also increases, so low temps are good). Not to mention already the cooling systems for batteries.
What I am trying to say is that repair shops and manufactures should not be afraid of being out of business by these bulletproof EVs.
Just a crazy idea…
Why not purchase the car without the battery and then put in a smaller battery and an emergency motor, and make a Volt-like car?
Wait, screw the motor, just put a 30mile battery in it, and it’s a second car that will cost you nothing to run to the grocery shop
The range of a volt-like battery is rather good (it’s not that much hard to make one), so even without the motor, it should do the trick
If you think it’s too complicated to do this in your garage, I think that if there are tuner shops fitting massive turbos in honda civics, shops fitting volt-like batteries in renaults shouldn’t sound that strange.
Unless there is a “The buyer must rent an original renault battery in order to purchase the car” written somewhere in the terms of the contract, which would condemn the little renault in the same fate of other electic cars that were just too damn expensive to buy (electicity is not that much cheaper to cover the horendous rental cost of the original renault battery)
The thing that lead people to replace their cars isn’t usually an engine failure but a critical mass of small problems with supplemental systems. I don’t see that electric cars are going to be any sort of improvement in vehicle longevity.
At best, you can argue that the cost of replacing the battery at some point will be less than the cost of repairs to an internal combustion engine whose problems would give you the same lack of drivability as a failing battery.
Problems with rust, ball joints, sensors, shocks, brakes, tires, steering systems, bearings, transmissions, air conditioners, and power window components are going to be about the same regardless of the manner of propulsion.
However, the ICE has one advantage right now – auto parts stores are full of cheap replacement parts. It will be some years before electric cars have enough following for their replacement parts become available anywhere except at a dealership.
“the Yugo is still the most successful initial launch in the history of the North American auto biz”. Now that is damning with faint praise!
Not really. They sold something like 250,000 Yugos the first year. The launch was successful. Since the cars were 70s vintage Fiats assembled by a communist government enterprise, the quality was predictably bad and things petered out as people realized what junk the cars were – but the initial launch was successful.
I’ve been gone for awhile, has discussion here fallen to that point? I made, nor implied, any racial/ethnic/religious origin in my remarks.
Nor did I say that you did. In fact, I said I assumed that you didn’t.
As to Bricklin’s success with Subes, sometimes everything goes wrong, and the grift becomes a successful enterprise. But, everything else he’s been involved with has been sketchy, at most generous.
Greg
Like I said, the guy’s a hustler. He got into the car biz via the distressed merchandise route. He had unloaded a few thousand Lambretta scooters, couldn’t get more and was looking for a new opportunity so he decided to try and import Japanese cars to Israel.
Still, he got Subaru off the ground in a couple of countries, actually got the Bricklin SV1 into production, and like I said above, he was successful with the intro of the Yugo. Sketchy, perhaps, but the guy can legitimately point to some success, if not complete success.
It is inherantly more reliable to start with though so I am already sure it will break down less than ICE, if only because a brushless motor has no wearing/touching moving parts and the power source can be uprated as it is further developed and swapped out!!
You think that a brushless motor has no wearing parts? How’s that? They using some kind of air bearings for the armature shaft?
While it’s true that electric motors are mechanically simpler than ICEs and have fewer moving parts (typically one, the armature), electric motors still fail. My brother routinely replaces stepper and servo motors on industrial equipment. Starters fail, as do alternators.
Very few secondary system parts such as HVAC or electrical problems. There will be some electrical gremlins in early versions but I think those will quickly become uncommon.
Sorry, but my experience with beaters is that the electrical system and electrical components are the first to go. Wiring harnesses are notoriously unreliable.
I’m really interested in seeing how the complicated control systems on hybrids will work after 15 years and 150K miles.
I’m really interested in seeing how the complicated control systems on hybrids will work after 15 years and 150K miles.
Why wait? The answers are in now. Hyrids are some of the most reliable cars on the road.
There’s no reason to believe that in terms of electrical control systems (pretty similar to any other type of ICE control system) that reliability should diverge from any other type of vehicle.
The electrical system of the Hybrid Camry is “so complicated” it even has the same count of fuses as the “regular” Camry. That suggests to me there are no more (or less) failure paths.
Pete – we agree with you =
“there are no more (or less) failure paths.”
I think the aim of recent posts has been at disproving Sutski’s premise (quoted below) that electric cars are going to be a lot less troublesome than ICE cars…
This is indicative of the ICE as a whole. Regular repairs are necessary and hence costs to punter are unavoidable.
We are being ripped of by shit engineering being built in to allow future revenues. I have no doubt.
With electric the most common failure points are eliminated. Brake discs, oil filters, crap little battery, clutch, drive train, alternator, etc.etc.
@ Lokkii
Actually, I’m afraid I agree with Sutski, perhaps not the bit about brakes etc.
My “there are no more (or less) failure paths” applies only for comparable components and specifically (in this case) to Ronnie’s remark about wiring looms.
A pure EV drive train is extremely likely to be more reliable than any ICE based design, Prius included. It’s not this simple, but; the part count is lower, there are no gears, there is no reciprocating motion, there is no high pressure fuel system etc….
Besides that, electric motors are the most reliable machines we have.
Yes, any other subsystem is going to be no more or less reliable than a regular car.
We’re building a proof-of-concept car that takes simplicity of the drive train to an extreme.
We have two motors and controllers, one for each rear wheel. Each motor is just coupled directly to a half-shaft. The rear wheels have no friction brakes — braking is done dynamically by putting a resistive load across the motor (we decided regenerative braking was not worth the trouble).
Front-wheel brakes are by wire, with electric actuators pushing on the disk brake pistons. Front-wheel steering is by wire, with an independent linear actuator hooked to the steering knuckle for each wheel.
A microcontroller controls the throttle, steering and brakes. We’re using a two-axis joystick for the driver controls. The forward-backward axis is throttle and braking. The right-left axis is steering right and left.
The microcontroller does the differential by software. It does the Ackermann angle for steering by software. We have a bank of batteries with a gasoline generator to recharge them. That electrical power source is the weak link in the drive train, one that needs to be improved.
We think this design can be rock-solid reliable and durable. Much more than a gasoline car. But we will see how it works in real life.
@ Daanii2
we decided regenerative braking was not worth the trouble.
Why would you do that? Please excuse me being superficial, but without that feature, and depending on the driving types, you place yourself behind the Volt and likely behind the Prius.