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Extremely Confused After Watching - Who Killed The Electric Car
- Thread starter ggies07
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Ok, I just finished watching "Revenge of the Electric Car" and I'm still confused by GM. hahaha. Bob Lutz said he got his company on board to build the Volt because of what Tesla was doing with the Roadster. But then why did he think and build a hybrid instead of an all EV? As we know his company was able to make an EV over a decade ago, but he still decided to promote a new idea of the future as a hybrid? That's nothing like the roadster. It's almost as if he half-assed the problem and just wanted to look like he was keeping up with innovation while really doing nothing. Man, the more I learn about this stuff, the more I think GM is a joke.
It is possible there were considerations to the business model. The impact of a BEV has ripple effects throughout the industry - supply lines, service centers, parts and auto supply stores. Producing a hybrid maintains the same suppliers in addition to battery technology used in hybrid systems.
I definitely get that, but then he makes it seem like it's some revolutionary idea. Like GM is bring cars into a whole new world. If they had never produced an EV before, sure I could see that, but that's not the case. To me, it's a lazy move. It says he wasn't willing to make enough ruckus in the industry for the cause, unlike Elon. It looks like he was just playing the game. But that's just my take after watching these docs.....
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Man, I, like many of you had not heard of the ev-1. This really pisses me off, I own and love(d) my Volt, but now feel like I should sell it and buy a Leaf while waiting for GenIII. Can not believe that I never knew about this, what a horrible shame on GM. I will never look at them the same again.
jeff_adams
Member
It wasn't just GM. Ford pulled their pick-ups and Toyota stopped selling electric RAVs. It was all a farce to try and prove to the state of California that their was no market for EVs and California should relax their air pollution guidelines.
Very true. It was all the automakers that took back their EVs and crushed them. In the movie there is a long scene of Honda EVs being shredded in a junkyard while the junkyard owner is being interviewed. Even Toyota crushed their RAV4-EVs as well, but did stop after public pressure from dontcrush.com. Ford shipped all their Th!nks back to Norway. It seems that everyone only remembers GM for some reason.
We should pay attention to history, or we will likely repeat it.
GSP
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
Absolutely. A lot of the exact same things that happened before the CA cars were crushed in 2005 were happening again...half-hearted car conversions, no (or poor) marketing, hostile dealers, FUD campaigns ("you'll be stranded on the freeway", "they're not really green", etc), uninformed media repeating the FUD, automaker petitions to CARB looking to relax quotas, etc. Until recently I was really worried about this; it's why I've been volunteering full-time at Plug In America for a few years.
Tesla showing that a great EV could be made, and that people would really want it, has done an awful lot to change perceptions. The general public is starting to think differently about EVs in general (they are moving from "nobody I know has one of those green penalty cars, they must suck" to "those sound like the cool new thing, I should take a look") and it's getting hard for automakers to credibly argue that nobody will buy an EV, though there is still a small amount of room to say they won't be profitable to make.
Some other automakers have been helping too. Nissan was the only automaker in the 90's that used lithium batteries; and even though they took all of their EVs back to Japan, they kept doing research on the batteries. Like all the other automakers, they didn't plan to make an electric car until CARB changed the rules and stopped giving credit for hydrogen research - they announced the Leaf program the next month. But they decided that rather than just "complying" with a minimum number of cars, they would try to live up to their "innovation for all" tagline (Nissan had a real public identity problem a few years ago!) and leapfrog the Prius with an EV and try to make it mass-market. While they have made a number of mistakes (GOM instead of SOC meter, overpromising on range, no temperature management, relying on one-time training for dealers, odd styling, advertising based on environmental friendliness - all things Plug In America advised them against years ago) they are correcting what they can and making some real progress. They still see it as just-another-car inside their brand (which is why they don't mind if it's seen as just a green car; and why increasing range to make gas cars uninteresting is not a priority) and are mostly excited about the fact that it draws new buyers to the brand, but they are serious about moving a lot of them and they are definitely setting the pricing floor and turning around the general perceptions of EVs as expensive (something Tesla on its own couldn't have done yet). My Dad has one; the only new car he has ever purchased. If I couldn't afford a Tesla, I'd have bought a Leaf - and I'd be very happy with it as a daily driver.
GM's Volt was a clever move, given what they learned with the EV-1 - their dealers won't sell BEVs (and due to dealer protection laws, GM can't go around them). Even though people with multiple cars and a garage generally prefer BEVs, their PHEV addressed (or at least "should have" addressed) range anxiety, single-car families, non-home-owners and dealer concerns about consumer fears and lower maintenance all at once. And the mostly-serial (as opposed to the Prius' mostly-parallel) architecture really helps give owners what they like - pure electric drive, most of the time. Here is a drop-in vehicle that ANYBODY can buy; you don't have to install infrastructure or learn a new way to use it - and yet if you just plug it in, you can automatically electrify most of your miles. Too bad about the huge FUD campaign aimed at; not to mention GM's own schizophrenic marketing that spread FUD about BEVs when they knew full well that most consumers didn't know the difference between BEVs and PHEVs. There are still a lot of non-owners confused about just what the car can do, but it's got higher owner satisfaction ratings than any other car. GM has been using it mostly as a halo car ("Look at our technology! Better than Toyota! Now buy a Cruze"), but they seem to recognize that they can re-use the platform and get volumes up and prices down and make something out of the platform without having to spend time on infrastructure or dealers. If I couldn't afford a Tesla, my wife would be driving a Volt and I'm positive she'd love it.
Fiat, Honda and Toyota are just doing the compliance thing; their cars are only sold in ZEV states. Which is OK (well, aside from the fact that it means I can't buy one); the problem with regulation mandating that companies make something often results in them...making what you insist they make. The regulation doesn't insist they really try to sell a lot of them. The funny thing is that the quick-electric-conversion versions of their cars are far better than the gas versions - without really trying, they are proving that the cars are great; it's just consumer misconceptions (and dealer reluctance to address them) that have been standing in the way. If they really try, and produce them in volume (rather than just a few by hand, which is very expensive) to get the prices down, they could have some hits. Fiat especially, despite all of their complaining, really seems to be trying to see things from the customer perspective and make things work despite reluctant dealers. I suspect they are small potatoes in the US and looking for a way to grow, and they have figured out that EVs are great conquest vehicles. Now we just hope they also figure out that EV owners don't want to later switch to a gas car, even if it's from the same brand.
I consider Ford to be compliance too; but they have an interesting twist. They have done multiple vehicles, and are selling them in every state (or will be; the rollout is slow). They clearly don't want to be seen as doing compliance vehicles; but the cheap conversions with little cargo space due to battery placement, non-existent marketing and hostile dealers make it clear they are not planning to move a lot of these. I suspect they didn't have cash for a big new vehicle program and were scared of entering a new and uncertain market; they are just providing a few vehicles so that any Ford loyalist that wants an electric car can get one without leaving the brand, but they are not going to lead the market. Their approach may change rapidly if they are watching the market to see what competitors are succeeding with; I don't think they are going to find a lot of success with what they are doing. But at least, from their perspective, they have not invested much.
Mitsubishi was serious about building an EV before the CARB rule changes - but the i-MiEV was not meant for the US. US dealers were hurting - seriously so; the brand considered leaving the US - and begged for something new when other manufacturers started announcing US EVs. US sales have been predictably low (though it is kind of fun in town; and with new discounts, incredibly cheap). Going forward, they appear to be roughly following GM's footsteps. Too bad their AWD PHEV SUV has been delayed.
The Smart, Mercedes and BMW entries are too new to figure out exactly what they are going to do with them. I'm intrigued by BMW though. They obviously are going to a lot of effort to build an EV from the ground up and create an optimized vehicle, like Tesla. And yet, its styling doesn't begin to match any other BMW and they are clearly only trying for a city car despite the clean-sheet design. I think they are trying to get a "new type" of customer; one that is younger and doesn't spend a lot of money for a specific brand. Perhaps it's all part of their move from selling cars to mobility services. It will be interesting to watch; especially given that the i3 will have an optional range extender. By the way, BMW was like Nissan - they had no EV program until the CARB rules changed (early 2009?), and they announced the Mini EV test program with ACP the next month. But they appear to be trying to make a serious go of it, rather than doing the minimum allowed by law.
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jeff_adams
Member
I am dying to know Tesla's conquest numbers.
Yeah, I guess 5.9 billion dollars does not buy as much as it used to
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
That's easy - 100%! Well, yeah, slightly less than that as some Model S buyers had already bought a Roadster. They are definitely pulling people away from other brands, though - and making people loyal to their own brand. Commodity brand management doesn't work with disruptive technology. But the major automakers have been doing the same thing for so long they have a very hard time wrapping their heads around this concept.
Well, it bought a lot of EcoBoost engines. But yeah, I'm disappointed in how that went too. Ford has some great engineers, did some really good work with hybrids (I think their mistakes were mostly marketing mistakes in deciding what cars to build and what features to include; the engineering was good), and seems to be producing some really nice cars now. I like the Fusion interior and exterior a lot, and the one I drove had great steering feel...but the Fusion Energi's Roadster-size trunk caused by their easiest-path conversion and sudden jerking and wailing when you hit the accelerator because the gas engine has to come on (not enough batteries to do the job) was not a great experience.
At least they are providing the experience! Ford, like Nissan and GM, has realized the importance of test drives to get people interested in plug-ins, and they have cars out on tour. The employees (probably contractors) giving the rides really seemed to understand why what they were doing was important to get Ford to move some of them. They said moving the batteries under the car, and having more of them, were there most frequent requests; in fact they kind of sounded frustrated that the cars weren't built that way.
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It prevented Ford from going bankrupt like GM and that was what the money was supposed to do. The government was willing to give them more than three times as much as they actually loaned them to prevent Ford from following in GM's shoes. We're just lucky that they had to give Tesla their loan as good PR for the Ford loan.
I suspect the reason Lutz wasn't able to get GM to make a BEV was almost entirely internal resistance. A non technical CEO cannot drive his own company forward like a technical CEO can. Engineers are famous for being hard headed pragmatists and will typically sit across from you with arms folded and sneer at a visionary's vision. It can't be done! It won't be reliable! It'll be too expensive! The range issue! A technical CEO can actually show the engineers a path to success.
Btw, Tesla's two major innovations are its greater than 200 mile range, and the supercharger network. Those two things added together make EVs a no compromise car. Elon, of course, went further and re-engineered almost every aspect of the car to produce the Model S, but that's just icing on the cake.
Btw, Tesla's two major innovations are its greater than 200 mile range, and the supercharger network. Those two things added together make EVs a no compromise car. Elon, of course, went further and re-engineered almost every aspect of the car to produce the Model S, but that's just icing on the cake.
I don't think there are any parts in common between EV1 and Volt.
There were some experimental EV1s with prototype range extenders (turbine & diesel).
To me, the Volt may have come about because GM was continuing the get grant money for fuel cell vehicle research and so they had cars with small battery, electric motor, and the fuel cell range extender. Substituting the ICE for the Fuel cell may have been the quickest way for them to create an EV like vehicle when Lutz saw all the positive PR Tesla (and WKtEC) was generating for an EV resurgence.
GMs Own Turbine Car Program | The Truth About Cars
Lutz did ask for an EV and was talked out of it by Tony Postawatz and others. This has been documented in interviews with Bob Lutz, Frank Weber, and other high level GM employees. I suspect that GM's experience with the EV1 taught them that most (but not all) customers want (but don't need) 200+ mile range. In the car biz, you have to give the customers what they want. So far, only GM and Tesla have addressed this issue. Each company used its strengths to achieve 200+ mile range. Tesla understands batteries more completely than any automaker. GM has ICE expertise and some hybrid experience.
As a person that wants (but does not need) 200+ mile range, and fast recharging for road trips, I just can't see buying any other cars besides the Volt and Model S.
GSP
bollar
Disgruntled Member
Typical for pirated content. It's still available for purchase on Amazon or iTunes.
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