The drama circling around the New York Times test of the Tesla Model S doesn’t surprise me one bit. Why? Because I understand, perhaps at a deeper level than most of the motoring press, how batteries work. Perhaps that has to do with growing up in a family of engineers and scientists, but battery technology has always interested me. So when people from Phoenix came to me crying in their soup about their LEAFs in the heat and friends started wagging fingers at Tesla and the New York Times, I figured it was time for a battery reality check.
While following the he said he said back and forth between the New York Time’s James Broder and Tesla’s Elon Musk, over Broder’s unsuccessful drive from New York to Boston in a Tesla Model S, it seemed to me that one important factor affecting consumer acceptance of EVs is being obscured by all the Sturm und Drang of the NYT and Musk both working this story for maximum bad publicity for their respectless enterprises. That factor, ironically, is why Tesla set up the media road trips in the first place, the fact that EVs will need a publicly accessible charging infrastructure if they are going to be seen as anything other than town cars. The Model S press trips from DC to Beantown were supposed to demonstrate Tesla’s expanding network of locations equipped with Tesla’s “Supercharger” quick charging stations.
Three years ago, at a groundbreaking ceremony for an LG Chem Battery plant in Holland, Michigan, President Obama promised that this and other pants will be “a boost to the economy in the entire region.” Instead, the plant has become an example for what is wrong with a state-directed command economy. It also is yet another chapter in the Chevrolet Volt debacle. (Read More…)
EV sales had shown minor signs of life in the last quarter of 2012, only to collapse sharply in January. “Sales of the Chevrolet Volt, the Toyota Prius Plug-In and Nissan Leaf each had deep dropoffs in January from December,” Reuters says.(Read More…)
America, land of wide open roads and big cars, listen up: On the sidelines of Nissan showing its new day care center at its Yokohama headquarters to reporters, Nissan’s COO Toshiyuki Shiga made a comment that should resonate well with American customers: (Read More…)
Wanxiang Group, China’s largest maker of auto parts won the auction for A123 Systems, Reuters says. The maker of batteries for electric cars was funded partly with U.S. government money, but went bankrupt nonetheless. (Read More…)
Ford has set itself an ambitious target. According to a Reuters report,the company “expects to wind up with 11 percent of the U.S. market for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles this year.” Not next year. This year. By our calculation, Ford would have to sell more than 50,000 of the electrified cars this year to stand a chance. By end of October, it had sold a little over 20,000. They better get going. (Read More…)
Yesterday, we told you about that miracle battery, Toyota allegedly has developed. The Nikkei [sub] said it will double the range of an EV. The Tokyo wire quoted researchers as saying that they “may also be able to achieve a driving range of between 500km and 1,000km” (310 to 620 miles), You possibly noticed the skeptical tone when we reported on the report . As it turns out, the Nikkei was a bit – exuberant. (Read More…)
The Nikkei [sub] claims that Toyota has done the groundwork for a new battery that could “potentially more than double the driving range of electric vehicles,” possibly up to 1,000 km (620 miles). And it’s even cheaper. (Read More…)
Our other man in China, (the Dutchman, not Bertel) has some spy shots of a new General Motors EV. It looks like a Chevrolet Sail, but may not be dubbed as such.
With sales of the third-generation Ford Taurus lagging, the Blue Oval decided that an entry-level variant would be just what was needed to help kickstart sales. Faced with slumping sales of their Leaf EV, Nissan is apparently taking the same route.
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