25

May

Who Killed The Electric Car? Part 3/9

Posted by Car Guy  Published in cng



Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology. Consumers Lots of ambivalence to new technology, unwillingness to compromise on decreased range and increased cost for improvements to air quality and reduction of dependence on foreign oil. Although these allegations are made about consumers by industry reps in the film, perhaps explaining the film’s “guilty” verdict, the actual consumers interviewed in the film were either unaware an electric car was available, or dismayed that they could no longer obtain one. Batteries Limited range (60-70 miles) and reliability in the first EV-1s to ship, but better (110 - 160 miles) later. Research says the average driving distance of Americans in a day is 30 miles or less and that 90% of Americans could use electric cars in their daily commute. Towards the end of the film, an engineer explains that, as of the interview, lithium ion batteries, the same technology available in laptops, would have allowed the EV-1 to be upgraded to a range of 300 miles per charge. Oil companies Fearful of losing business to a competing technology, they supported efforts to kill the ZEV mandate. They also bought patents to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in US electric cars. Car companies Negative marketing, sabotaging their own product program, failure to produce cars to meet existing demand, unusual business practices with regards to leasing versus sales. The film only explains this behavior once, saying that electric cars needed fewer expensive repairs and would hence not make the car companies as much money over the long term as gasoline-powered cars. The film also describes the history of automaker efforts to destroy competing technologies, such as their destruction through front companies of public transit systems in the United States in the early 20th century. It also, in one interview, mentions that automakers introduced important safety and emissions innovations including seat belts, airbags and catalytic converters only when forced by government legislation. Government The federal government joined in the auto industry suit against California, has failed to act in the public interest to limit pollution and require increased fuel economy, has promoted the purchase of vehicles with poor fuel efficiency through preferential tax breaks, and has redirected alternative fuel research from electric towards hydrogen. California Air Resources Board The CARB, headed by Alan Lloyd, caved to industry pressure and repealed the ZEV mandate. Lloyd was given the directorship of the new fuel cell institute, creating an inherent conflict of interest. Footage shot in the meetings showed how he shut down the ZEV proponents while giving the car makers all the time they wanted to make their points. Hydrogen fuel cell The hydrogen fuel cell was presented by the film as an alternative that distracts attention from the real and immediate potential of electric vehicles to an unlikely future possibility embraced by automakers, oil companies and a pro-business administration in order to buy time and profits for the status quo. The film backs up the claim that hydrogen vehicles are a mere distraction by stating that “A fuel cell car powered by hydrogen made with electricity uses 3 to 4 times more energy than a car powered by batteries” and by interviewing the author of The Hype About Hydrogen, who lists 5 problems he sees with hydrogen vehicles (these are his paraphrased claims, along with exact quotations): 1. Current fuel cell cars cost an average of $1,000,000. This cost, in his words, “has gotta drop.” 2. Current materials cannot store enough hydrogen in a reasonable space to “give you the range people want.” 3. Hydrogen fuel is “wildly expensive.” In his words “even hydrogen from dirty fossil fuels is two or three times more expensive than gasoline.” 4. The need for an entire new fueling infrastructure. Thousands upon thousands of hydrogen refueling centers would need to be built before even a small percentage of the nation could begin switching over. 5.Competing technologies will improve over time as well, so all the money spent on hydrogen now will be a complete waste.

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theTruth45 said in May 25th, 2008 at 6:39 pm

I don’t know which is stronger : the urge to
delight in poking fun at the numerous stupidities
and crackpot conspiracy theories in that crockumentary
produced by the always-unreliable Chris Paine, or
challenge dupes like the producer of this absurdly dumb
blogspot who obviously only knows EV/battery technology
as presented by the film and parrots the many silly lies
it contains. Call him an unknowing accomplist to slander
and a con. Anyone pushing a technology as faulty and
impractical as the EV-1 should be sued for defrauding the
public, and would be if they were selling an EV-1 type
product. Start with the claim that the EV was economically
attractive because electricity is cheap. Unfortunately, the
batteries that contain that electricity are anything but
cheap : the 1200 pound (!!!) NiMH battery pack of the EV-1
cost over $20,000 and lasted about 4 to 5 years, making
the per year cost of batteries 4 times that of gasoline,
not counting the electricity costs. And the idea that the
EV-1 was more reliable than a gas powered car and would save
significant amounts of money thru lower maintenence costs is
pure BS. My gas powered car requires a tune up every 100,000
miles and costs less than $100. The EV-1 had a myriad of
mechanical problems, resulting innumerous recalls. The EV-1
had 97% the sameparts that a regular gas powered car does and
can expect exactly the same lifetime costs for those
non-powertrain components. The differences between the EV-1
and a gas powered car in terms of shared parts is small. They
both contain mostly identical parts. Most of the EV-1 parts,
in fact, came from GM’s parts bin and had been developed for
gas powered vehicles. A gasoline powered vehicle actually
contains mostly electrically powered parts.
The EV-1 costs 4 times more than a gas powered vehicle and
wasn’t even remotely viable as an alternative vehicle. No one
can own just an EV-1. You have to own at least two cars,
whether you want to or not, making EV-1 ownership even more
expensive. And you need someplace to plug the car in. The idea
that an electric powered car is made for the city is absurd -
few who live in the city have a means to recharge the batteries
in their EV. The EV-1 required 8 HOURS (!!!!) to recharge. No
family emergency trips, please, I’m recharging my batteries.
Also amusing is the fact that the film (and this blogger, who’s
clearly shilling for the film) has one of its lies contradicted
by another. It makes the absurd claim that a car that can only
get you to your destination 90% of the time is OK, and that NiMH
battery technology was so good that an oil company bought the patents
in order to suppress the technology,then claims
that the driving range could have been easily extended by going
to (far superior) lithium batteries, implying that the limited
EV-1 driving range (75 to 110 miles, not the 110 to 125 miles
claimed by the film) was a problem. So which is it? At 75 miles,
the owner only has a driving radius of 35 miles. Any destination
beyond that is iffy. The film also fraudulently omits the fact that
the battery packs is constantly losing capacity and will be less than
85% by the end of five years. Thus every year you can reach fewer
destinations. Which ones? That’s where the fun of guessing how far
away those destinations are and guessing how far your charge will
get you. Get stuck in traffic and 90 degree heat and the AC will
drastically reduce that driving range. What about detours?
Historically, any car that failed in
transporting its owner even 1% of the time to his destination would be
considered the worst lemon ever produced. Chris Paine stupidly and
fraudulently claims a 10% failure rate should be plenty good enough.
Of course, large cell lithium batteries weren’t even available at the
time frame mentioned, and plopping in enough to go 300 miles (an
complete absurdity - the Tesla, much lighter than the EV-1, can only
manage 220 miles from its battery pack) would be simple. Well, simple
or not, it would have been unbelievably expensive, especially during
that time frame. The Tesla pack costs almost $30,000 (it contains 8671
batteries !!!!)- to go 35% further would require over $40,000, at today’s
much lower battery costs for 1st generation li ion batteries. At that time,
the cost would have been absurdly high.
As for the silly and totally false claim that “the oil industry”
garnered the patents for the NiMH batteries (it was Chevron, to be specific)
and witheld this supposedly valuable technology from the market, just
exactly where do these morons think that Toyota is getting its NiMH batteries
for its Prius, a million seller, or all those other hybrid models? In other
words,Paine clearly lied in claiming that the oil company bought the patents to
suppress the technology. Actually, no one would ever again attempt to build an
electric car using NiMH batteries. NiMH batteries currently cost only 1/4th
that of the most practical lithium batteries. However, despite this cost
advantage, they are niche players that only are practical for limited storage
requirements, like the battery capacities of modern hybrids (the non plug-in
variety). They have never (excepting one short period by Toyota) ever been
considered qualified to provide even a 10 mile plug-in driving range hybrid.
At those limited pack size capacities, the NiMH batteries simply don’t have
enough power output, and they weigh too much. So the film contradicts itself
by claiming that the NiMH batteries had a sufficiently large range, but then
throws in the lie that li ion batteries could have tripled the driving range,
which clearly acknowledges that the EV-1 range was too limited. A 300 mile
range is hardly any better : that range can be a short as 250 miles and the
realisitc driving radius therefore barely over a 100 miles. There’s not one
single vacation spot I’ve ever gone to that was less than 100 miles away.
Thus even a claimed 300 mile range (economically absurd and impossible, costing
well over $30,000 just for the battery pack alone) would still be way too
limited. And that would extend recharge times using a 110 volt line to over
50 hours.
Angus MacKenzie , senior editor of Motor Trend magazine recently penned
an article that pointed out that the EV-1 was hardly killed by anyone - it
was DOA. For some reason, Paine claims he cannot understand why this car, which
costs 4 times more than a far more practical and viable Honda Accord, cost
over $4,000 per year in batteries, took 8 hours to recharge, has a driving
radius as short as 35 miles, which decreased every year by over 3 percent,
along with power output, was such a flop with the public. I guess there’s no
explaining stupid. Especially when it garners millions in profits by slandering
a company like GM, which Paine inexplicably claimed killed the EV, despite the
fact that GM was only one of the three automakers (Honda, Toyota) who produced
and then cancelled their EV programs. Actually, GMkept their failed EV-1
program going for 4 years more than Honda and longer than Toyota
as well. Turns out that Paine made a backroom deal with Toyota and paid them
off by not making them villains in the film.
The silly claim by the film that the EV-1 was a viable alternative to a gas
powered car, especially during those days of cheap gaspoline, is about as
transparent a lie as can be imagined. The public thoroughly rejected the EV-1 ,
and for very good reasons. And those who fraudulently claim it to be a zero
emission vehicle have been screwing the public by shilling for a failed technology.
They are totally dispicable creatures who should be forced to own an EV themselves,
as their only vehicle.

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