When Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn starts talking about electric cars, it's easy to think at least one house on every block in America will have one in a decade or two.
The CEO, who as recently as 2007 was angling to essentially take over General Motors, is almost over-confident about electric vehicles while his peers remain, at best, cautiously even-tempered about the future of EVs.
Nissan's big EV gambit so far is the Leaf, an EV hatchback that is meant to get about 100 miles on a charge, but for me, only got 80 miles when I tested it last year. Nissan sold just under 10,000 Leafs last year.
"But that was only in nine states (including California)," notes Ghosn. "If we can't double that this year as we expand production and distribution, then we don't know what we are doing." Ghosn said this to a gaggle of reporters in a roundtable interview at the North American International Auto Show this week.
The eyes of EV critics and skeptics--and there are many--are on monthly sales of Leaf and the Chevy Volt extended-range EV. According to Ghosn, the company's only problem selling Leafs is lack of production. "If we had had more, we'd have sold more." he said.
Leafs are built in Japan for now, as are the lithium-ion batteries used to propel them down the road. Supply was curtailed in 2011 by the effects of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March. But Nissan is moving production for both cars and batteries to its Tennessee facility by the end of this year, which will not only provide more supply but help with the cost since the strong Japanese yen is driving up the cost of building the Leaf in Japan.
The acceptance of electric vehicles by consumers is still very much up in the air, so long as the price of regular gas stays between $3.20 and $3.75 per gallon. Another wild card is how many people will embrace EVs -- unlike the Chevy Volt, they rely totally on electricity and the ability to conveniently re-charge. Ghosn says research on early Leaf buyers shows that the average daily driving distance of owners is about 20 miles, well under the range of the car.
Ghosn also said that more than half the buyers have the Leaf as the household's primary vehicle, not a secondary one.
The logical question to be asking is what the ceiling is on committed "green" consumers and early adopters of new technology. For all the hype and popularity of the Toyota Prius, all hybrid sales account for less than 2% of the U.S. market.
Prius dominates that portion, which means all other brands are still fighting for scraps in the pool of hybrid buyers. And unlike EVs, there are no limitations or fears of running out of power with a hybrid. Sales of hybrids have been tied to gas prices. And the U.S. government is allergic to the idea of boosting gas taxes to help pay for roads and bridges, let alone to help along the sales of EVs, hybrids and fuel efficient clean diesel vehicles.
Ghosn is, above anyone else in the global auto industry, probably placing the biggest bet on EVs being a significant part of the world auto market by 2020. He says he believes they will represent 10% of world sales by then. That prediction hinges a lot on the adoption of EVs in Europe and China.
How much is he betting? He says his companies have invested a combined four billion euros ($5.6 billion U.S. at the current exchange rate) into EV technology, with even more electric tech spending to come.
Ghosn is clearly out to lead in a space that still makes many of his peers skittish. That makes him a bit of a gun-slinger in my eyes. His goal is to have Renault-Nissan become the worldwide leaders in the EV segment.
Hard to knock a guy whose goal is to lead his industry in something besides profitability.
http://www.ledgersentinel.com/article.asp?a=8072
Why the arrival of the auto was good for public health...
"We hear a lot of complaints these days about pollution caused by autos, trucks, and buses. But when it became clear that Henry Ford's perfection of the assembly line method of manufacturing automobiles was producing machines that virtually every American family could afford, it was considered a great ecological advance.
Right up until hundreds of thousands of Ford's cars began to replace them in wholesale lots, horses made the United States hum. They powered farm machinery, and they hauled freight inside and outside metropolitan areas. And they caused a variety of public health problems, many of them serious.
According to one estimate, each urban horse consumed roughly 1.4 tons of oats and 2.4 tons of hay and other fodder per year. One contemporary British farmer calculated that each horse consumed the product of five acres of land, a footprint, which could have produced enough to feed six to eight people. Some 15 million acres were needed to feed the urban horse population at its zenith, an area about the size of West Virginia. Directly or indirectly, feeding horses meant placing new land under cultivation, developing and growing new strains of crops, clearing it of its natural animal life and vegetation, and sometimes diverting water to irrigate it, with considerable negative effects on the natural ecosystem...."
http://www-new.evtradinpost.com/
so, in a way we already are.
Then you add the state "sales tax", and that also looked to be a fixed rate per gallon, not percent of price.
Usually, these add up to be around 50 cents or so, per gallon.
Bought it more because I did not want to support nations like Iran, Venezuela, & Libya and wanted to drive a clean vehicle and since the buses use it why not.
Funny thing is the rates are such it lowered my home heating bill in the winter - I pay summer rates!
After reporting all this I bet the CO2 footprint for my car is lower thanthe average Leaf driven in California!
Anyone want to take the bet?
love cng & love that honda is doing this car
kudos dude/ette
did u also know honda have a NG home generator which uses the waste heat for water & assume - space heating
http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/360/5406/Motorcycle-Article/Green-Speed-Air-Motorcycle.aspx
the idea received favorable comments
Advances have been made on safe 500 psi storage tanks.
New engines are very efficient.
54% from fossil fuels in California in general
But L.A.D.W.P. still gets about half it's electricity from old coal plants in Nevada & Arizona. Take L.A. out pf the mix and that dramatically reduces the market for the Leaf.
big problem is cng stations - so easy but US cant even do that
Ad infinitum.
that same tigers tail around the tree.
The cooling effect when compressed air is released could provide AC too.
http://www.mdi.lu/english/
It's actually another type of electric car, since the air compressor runs on electricity. But the car needs no batteries - the energy is stored as compressed air. Hybrid versions, with gas engines, are also sold.
It's actually a great idea.
speaking of vessels - u r an empty one
Decrease NOX and unburned hydrocarboÂns.70%!
Fuel Vitalizer
Sonic Spark Plugs (Piezo) or Halo or Pulstar
Tornado Vortex Generator
Even More Mpgs Torque & HP.
http://www.hydrogenboostnow.com/HHO-Dry-Cell.htm
My car cost me $1,000 and works great. I average about 25 mpg.
The Leaf starts at about $37,000, but we'll call that $30,000 with the discounts.
At $4/gallon, the $29,000 difference will buy about 7,250 gallons, which will take me about 181,250 miles. For most folks, FAR past the sell-by mileage.
Plus, I get to use that $29,000 for other things while driving that 180,000 miles.
Where did you get a new car for $1000?
Sorry, but that just doesn't sound believable.
http://evalbum.com/775
My electricity cost in this car is about two cents per mile, and periodic battery replacement (old car, old battery technology) adds another four cents per mile.
So, six cents per mile, total. Pretty hard to beat.
Your price for the Leaf is way off. It's about $25,000 after rebates. Here's a spreadsheet that helps show cost of ownership for various gas, hybrid, and electric cars:
http://www.squidoo.com/a-free-calculator-for-economy-hybrid-and-electric-cars
Every car maker is working on electric cars because they all know that this is the beginning of the end for cheap oil.
We have to get off oil, and there are multiple ways to do it.
Probably not here but somewhere - can all you NIMBY environmentalist live with that?
Lead is used in conventional car batteries and is poisonous and a hazardous waste. Lead is not used in electric cars, they use lithium which is not a hazardous waste. So you have that exactly backwards.
The resulting increase in the price of fuel will push more drivers to EVs and hybrids, and the increase in their market size will translate to better, cheaper batteries.
Many reliable research organizations are pegging the price of oil to be between $150 - $200 per barrel by 2013. There are 4 specific reasons that support the escalation of oil costs to these lofty levels. Economic growth in Chindia, an irreversible decline in oil production in 40 of the 50 largest oil producing countries, exploding population growth and the media who doesn't have the temerity to do investigative reporting on the problem.
Media's failure to make this a perpetual headline story reflects the ongoing conflict of interest of collecting advertising dollars from those who stand to gain the most from maintaining the status quo of ever increasing consumption of a finite resource that is on the cusp of peaking in supply. The more writers like Davis Riley focus on the pitfalls of electric cars rather than the looming energy crisis, the less the world will be prepared for the looming shortage of oil. Those who prepare for the coming shortfall of oil will survive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/11/peak-oil-energy-disruption
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8797
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4041
Gasoline in the US will cost $4 a gallon in the US this summer. Over the next 3 years it will go over $5 and stay there.
Go out and buy yourself a fastfood drink and suck on the straw. When you hear a gurgling sound then you will understand where the world is with oil production.
I drove 12,000 on my household current last year, with no trade-offs. A car has to be fun to drive for American consumers to buy it. That is why electric cars will sell very well once the public gets to know the thrill of plugin electric cars. Driving electric is a unique driving experience unlike any gas car. Smooth, quiet and powerful. All it takes is a test drive and you will know.
Electric cars allow you to use American made electricity instead of foreign oil. Buy American.
I love being part of the solution. I love not being a slave to gasoline. I look forward to driving my electric car every day still after a year of ownership.
I spend my money on things I want and not gasoline.
we seem at last to be hearing how nice silent driving is - worth a sacrifice in convenience
i may sound hostile to ev - am not - just most demographics still need an ice in the shed