Why the Peapod Will Change America and Save Chrysler in the Process
On Earth Day, April 25, 2009, Chrysler announced a new car called the Peapod. This revolutionary product will change the face of the American auto industry. The world has been clamoring for all-electric vehicles that allow ease and mobility within a short range. On average, Americans spent four percent of their annual income on gasoline in 2008. The Peapod will cut these costs dramatically, ultimately costing about 2 cents per mile. This will make it by far the cheapest option for auto travel on the market.
The Peapod, a neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV), allows drivers to take their kids to soccer and pick up groceries without emitting any carbon dioxide. This cute car (its front appears to smile) offers more inside. It offers iPod and iPhone connectivity as well as an app that shows the amount of carbon dioxide saved by using the Peapod.
Many already know that the Chrysler group is in dire straits and its future is uncertain. This product might be the magic elixir that will save the company by becoming the most relevant form of transportation for the new generation. Much like the Beetle in the 60s, the Peapod may develop into a form of affordable, fashionable transportation for the masses. Yet if it proves to be the new Beetle, the Peapod will not only be stylish but will also protect the environment from millions of tons of CO¬2 that is released into the air.
Although this car comes with the hefty price tag of $12,500 it is one of the cheapest to keep on the road. If the Peapod proves to be the future of the short-range drive, all I can say is "where do I sign up?"
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This is silly. For $12,500 I can buy 5,300 gallons of gasoline and go 159,000 miles in a small car that gets 30 MPG. And I can go all day and all night if I want, v 57 feet in this Peapod thing.
Chrysler needs to contract with MDI. They could create a special license with this company as Tata motors has in India. The Air Car is less expensive than the Pea Pod, the amount of electricity to fill up the air cylinder is by far less than the electricity need to run an electric car. This technology is the greenest of transportation technologies. America: embrace this.
http://www.mdi.lu/english/index.php
Sorry, but I could never see myself getting a Peapod. It is described as a vehicle for getting the kids to soccer and picking up groceries, but guess what? Every one of those things for me requires going on streets with 35-45 mph speed limits, some of which is uphill. The peapod is listed as a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour, which I presume is on flat ground. And I live in suburban Los Angeles, not some remote place. So the peapod could safely take me to absoluetly no place that I don't already walk to.
Sorry, but a practical city car must be able to, fully occupied, be able to maintain a steady speed of 45mph on an incline to be considered marketable in my estimation.
Exactly.
There already is a zero-emissions vehicle capable of more than a 30-mile range that costs as little as $300. It's called a bicycle!
One of the reasons that most posters have stated for not being interested in a Peapod is safety. This is also one of the same arguments against bike commuting. Bike commuting safety can be increased with dedicated bike lanes and motorist education (not to mention cyclists are much more attentive and defensive in traffic). What can be done to overcome this objection to the Peapod?
No. If you bicycle you burn a lot of calories and you have to eat more and that uses a lot of resources. Petrol is the best bang for the fuel buck, beating human power by a large amount. See Jared Diamond, GG&Steel, human power is not the way to go.
i just checked out the Peapot on Google. How many billions have we flushed to keep Chrysler alive. Cut the cord, the patient is dead.
I live in a town that bows to the altar of the Harley and pickup truck. The only way you're gonna get these guys in a Peapod is to first get them in a dress. Not likely.
There will be more than enough demand from other places to sell at least a quarter million of these a year. The goal isn't (nor should it be) to shove everyone into a Peapod (or an Insight, Prius, Volt, Telsa, etc.). It is to get households like mine which would like a short range 2nd car to have a non-fossil fuel option.
My current lease is up in 15 months, and I have put less than 16,000 on our family's 2nd car in the past 21 months. 80% of my trips are less than 10 miles roundtrip. The Peapod or it's competition would be ideal for me and probably at least 15 million other households in urban/inner suburb areas. That's a pretty large market that's worth targeting and supplying.
80 percent of your trips may be less than 10 miles but are 80 percent of them less than 25 mph on flat ground?
Mr. Schoen, I hope you are right. I myself own a GEM car which I bought off of eBay for $7K and I drive it all over central Austin, TX. It is possible to live a "hybrid lifestyle" in a big city with the simple formula of short range = electric and long range = gas. BTW, those who knock the 30-mile range of this vehicle, remember that is “on a single charge” – there is also “opportunity charging.” That is, drive 20 miles to work, plug in all day, and drive 20 miles home.
Driving around, I get more looks and comments than high-end sports cars and many curious folks want to know all about the car, especially since last year’s high gas prices. That financial wake-up call may be the difference this time around for electric cars.
That being said, the $12.5K starting price for a Peapod is still too high for most Americans as a second short-range vehicle. And even with high gas prices, it still takes too long to offset this kind of expense via gas savings. The government already offers some incentives to buy a new electric vehicle, but they should do more, like allow buyers to write off the entire cost of the vehicle. It’s an investment in cleaner air.
Speaking of that, those that decry these vehicles as not 100% clean and therefore somehow futile, give me a break – they are a HUGE leap forward.
30mph should have been the goal
There is a world of difference - 25mph vs 30 - to where you can (realistically) go within a congested city.
I'm still mystified about the cutesy look. I'd be concerned about some prankster tipping it over. Just because.
Just make a car that looks like a car. (But stubby enough to park perpendicularly to a curb).
All of this is silly. The electric motor has been around as long or longer than the gas engine and finally there is someone out there who is making it work; Tesla. 300 miles on a charge and fifty thousand dollars to buy a sedan (four seater with a trunk and it looks like a real car for those who are so individual and free that they have to look like everyone else). If Tesla had the corporate welfare that GM and Chrysler get, you know, we'd all be driving electric on 500+mpc (miles per charge) and the gas engine would be a part of the antique circuit. It's a crime that our lawmakers are still kissing up to the big three and not making it mandatory to convert their production to a real electric car, one that isn't a golf cart that has been repurposed. These greedy automakers will stop at nothing to kill you with their emisssions and take you to the bank and the war on foreign oil. It's time to change the structure of the auto industry and that involves replacing the creaky old skeleton that it's run by.
Totally agree! The roadster is so cool. This recession put Tesla in kind of a slump right at the time when they were working on a sedan. They should kick some money to Tesla as long as they are throwing our money around. We bailed everyone else out and found out that we basically threw it in a gigantic black hole (inside the wallets of the world's wealthiest people). Giving money or tax breaks to Tesla would be the best automotive move ever.
The PEAPOD! OMG!! Nobody is going to rush to the store to buy a peapod! WTF?? Call it something cool so people won't instantly laugh at the people driving them. The VW Beetle wasn't the coolest name, but it fit (and the number of beetle species outnumber all other species on the planet, besides being very efficient ). They don't have to call it the "Viper" or anything way too cool. Call it the "Eco" (economically or ecologically, you can't go wrong). I lost track of stupid car names long ago, so that name might be taken already. They are probably running out of car names, but I never knew what a Countach (Lamborghini) was anyway and didn't care because the car was so cool. Bad on gas though. I think that model gets 7 mpg or something ridiculous. I'd like one with an electric motor.
The Beetle wasn't originally called that. Beetle was the nickname given by the public and later adopted by the company. I agree Peapod is dumb as dirt, both in looks and name. They should go with FIATs Phylla if they want a cool electric.
I'd blame the 'greedy' consumers of the vehicles, they are the enablers. The Democrats are just trying to keep votes 'kissing up' to the union filled big 3.
I would have been first in line to buy one of these cars until we had a head-on collision on a residential street a few weeks ago. Our mid-sized car was totaled, we were all ok, but I have no doubt that the story would have been different if we had been in one of the new mini cars. The verdict is in: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posteddriving/archive/2009/04/14/size-matters-in-vehicle-crashes-report.aspx. These cars may be a great concept, but until everyone's driving one, the safety issues can't be overlooked.
I would love an electric car. However, it must be able to take me however far I need to go. So, it would need to have a gasoline option for when the battery runs out. I will not buy a car that will just leave me by the side of the road.
Most of the time, 30 miles round trip would do me. Occassionally, I like to take a trip to a city about 4 hours from my home. I do not want to buy 2 automobiles to accomplish this.
Let's get real.
Check this out then. BTW the Model S also has a battery switch that takes 5 mins. Basically you carry a fully charged backup for additional mileage on top of what it already has.
http://www.teslamotors.com/
You're kidding, right? You do realize that the Tesla is out of price range for a good majority of Americans, right? It's a nice car to be sure, but 1) it's not available in most areas, and 2) the cost of even their lowest end model is on par with a Mercedes Benz.
The Tesla is a car for those who can afford to be green.
12,500 is hardly hefty, considering a lot of people pay 20,000 for a car that they almost never drive more than 5 miles away from the house, then go and pay a thousand or two on gas during that year just doing short errands.
Many families have a second car for that very purpose, in the traditional nuclear household image. And many more would be able to use such a vehicle in conjunction with mass transit by parking them at a parking garage at a light rail stop, like many people do here in Portland, OR.
If the future hopes of Chrysler are to be determined by the Peapod than they might as well close down now. I'm not knocking the vehicle...it just won't be nearly enough to save the company.
How much coal is burned at the electric plant to make the car go?
None, after we get rid of that obsolete, dirty, and dangerous industry. Send all the people who support coal into the mines to get it. While we're at it, send the people who support hegemonic wars for oil there to fight them. I don't care how old they are, trigger fingers work well into the 80's, and if they take one for their country, they were close to the end anyway. I'm fully prepared to go a few years without electricity and walk everywhere if we can have clean, abundant, cheap energy from the sun, wind, geothermal (Yellowstone), and tidal energy without unnecessary and expensive wars. Almost every organism on this planet is solar-powered (the only exception is the thermophiles at the bottom of the ocean and in hot springs, which get their energy from chemosynthesis). Humans are solar-powered, but people are too dumb to realize it. "Science bad, tax cuts good". Thanks, retards, go throw some more tea in the harbor and leave the adults alone to find solutions.
Gosh Joe, that was an awesome post. Wanna grab a beer? But seriously you made some great points and there is a better way to live and we see in other countries. In fact, Bill Maher had a hilarious piece about France and their way of life.
Thanks for the insight and the chuckle.
Bill Maher's Clip below:
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=0m5ravh445
If it's so cheap, why haven't we already switched? I would think all those 3rd world countries would like a CHEAP source of electricity. "Science good, but ECOMOMICS kicks it's pansy ass".
If Chrysler wanted to save themselves they should have thought of this:
http://www.teslamotors.com/models/index.php
NOW we're talking!!
People should check out that website whether they are in the market for a car or not. That is the future. Check out the braking system. That's where the big three need to take a collective field trip. Just make sure they all hold hands so nobody gets separated.
I'll be more impressed when the Model S reaches the same stage as the Volt has. At the moment, the Tesla S is a slow, lumbering, barely functional prototype. By way of contrast, apparently all the major systems are working on the Volt, and it's got one or two handling issues (the result of the drivetrain being in the wrong body).
Three hundred miles on a charge is a step up, but I still want to hear what the battery life is, and how well it performs in subzero and over 100 degree temperatures (yes, I experience both where I live).
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