US NRC Report Says Plug-Ins Not to Make Headway in Market for Decades Posted on December 17th, 2009
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In brief: A U.S. National Research Council report find that plug-in hybrid (PHEV) costs are likely to remain high and thus their impact on the market will remain low for decades.
The word
The costs of light-duty PHEVs is high, largely because of their lithium-ion batteries, and a decrease in those costs aren’t likely in the near-term. So says the report from the NRC.
The report looks at two configurations of plug-ins: a 10-mile range and a 40 mile range (all electric). Both have a larger battery pack than most standard hybrid electrics like the current Toyota Prius.
While the smaller 10-mile pack is much cheaper, it has little impact on the vehicle’s overall fuel economy and thus would be hard to rectify in any kind of return-on-investment scenario for consumers.
The cost difference between the average mid-sized sedan (gasoline ICE) rises by about $6,300 when it is instead manufactured as a PHEV with a 10-mile range and by $18,100 when fitted with 40-mile range batteries. That’s cost to manufacturer, not consumer.
The NRC predicts that it will take some time for the costs of lithium-ion batteries to fall enough to change this, as the chart above demonstrates.
And so …
While the study doesn’t look at battery electrics, the same scales of economy apply. While a BEV might recuperate its investment cost to the consumer faster, the total cost of these vehicles is still very high.
Photo credits: NRC
Bosch Says Electric Vehicles Won’t Become Pervasive for at Least 20 Years Posted on July 21st, 2009
Full electric power trains like battery electrics, hydrogen fuel cells, and so forth are coming, but slowly. Let’s face it: most of those on the market so far are nothing more than curiosities. The Tesla Roadster and the Aptera 2e, while they look really good and are desirable vehicles, aren’t exactly mainstream.
Whether it’s the price tag, the limited occupancy, or just the limited numbers available, full electric cars aren’t here yet. While the next five years promise to see many new models from several manufacturers hitting the streets of the world, it will be a long time before these vehicles are totally accepted and are available to everyone.
Read the rest of this at Zoomilife.com.
Eva Håkansson’s ElectroCat Gets Licensed in Colorado! Posted on July 16th, 2009
Someone I follow in the electric vehicle world is the Swedish Biker Babe Eva, whom I’ve covered a few times over on Zoomilife.com. While she’s famously affiliated with the electric dragster motorcycle KillaCycle (fastest in the world), she has also built her own street bike called ElectroCat.
Eva lives in Colorado for part of the year and has struggled to get her motorcycle, with its electric drive, licensed as a motor vehicle for street used there. She finally got it done, thanks to several people in Jefferson County and her insurance carrier, and is now street legal!
I hope that one day she’ll bring her bike up my way to the Cheyenne, Wyoming area so I can finally meet her and check out her sweet, electric machine.
Congratulations, Eva!
Bicycle Lasers (Peww, Peww, Fzzzzt) Posted on June 14th, 2009
I’ll give TreeHugger.com props for one thing: they know bicycles. They seem to be completely in love with the things. Maybe too much. In fact, the way TreeHugger talks about these things, and if they had their way, we’d all give up all our nasty modern, pollution-emitting contraptions and go back to the 18th century. Except for bicycle technology, of course.
Anyway, editorial on TreeHugger aside, there’s a cool article that published on June 9th about a nifty little laser doo-dad that attaches to your bike and creates a “halo” around the bike and rider to give cars around you much better visibility. It even detects when something has broached that radius and changes color to alert them.
“Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” Peww, peww!
OK, maybe not like that, but you get the idea. Read the full article here and wonder at all this modern technology. Then move to the city and get a bicycle.
Introducing the Robo Taxi Concept Posted on June 11th, 2009
Obviously, the idea of automated personal transport is not new and neither is the idea of taking transport that goes from relatively fixed locations to other fixed locations (say airports to hotels or hotels to sightseeing spots). This concept is similar to those, but Robo Taxi ads a twist: it’s electric and it’s a taxi rather than rail or something on a fixed track.
The Robo Taxi idea is from a designer named Kubik Petr and is meant for large metro cities. It uses electric motors to move itself, can carry two passengers (and some luggage) and is sized to be as compact as possible, while still comfortable.
It opens like an amusement park ride and has four wheels under that two-wheeled-appearing carriage. Riders simply climb aboard and use the touch-screen interface to tell the taxi where to go. Sort of like your in-car GPS, I’d guess.
The concept is meant to operate for about 20 hours and drive at city speeds.
Apart from the very obvious road blocks to this concept becoming reality (like how it’s supposed to navigate traffic on its own), it’s a pretty cool idea. Thousands of cabbies would be out of work, of course, and would have to learn English and to drive like normal people, but small price to pay for something as cool as “Robo Taxi.”
If it starts squeaking like Wall-E or says “I’d buy that for a dollar!” then I’d get nervous…
