From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Electric Vehicle
Date: 15 Dec 92 17:07:37 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Dec11.173643.1@vax.sonoma.edu> oberland@vax.sonoma.edu writes:
>
>Expect gas prices to raise to near 1.75-2.00 a gallon in the next few years.
>They are going to tax gas so much that electricity will REALLY be cheap by
>comparison.

Except that "they" are also bent on crippling the electric industry. The
latest wrinkle on that front is mandatory "conservation" energy. The GA
PSC has mandated that GA Power reduce demand by 10% through "conservation"
energy strategies. To do that, they are being granted a 20% rate increase.
So the power company is going out and paying industrial customers to install
more efficient equipment, and sticking the consumer with the bill in the
form of permanently higher rates for their lights and TVs. Add in the
Clinton/Gore carbon tax, and electricity is going to double or triple
in price over the next few years with a net *decrease* in supply.

>About the mileage "thing": Every bit helps.
>Imagine the cost of rising gas and then figure that 130K miles is about 10yrs.
>so, over the next ten years, HOW many $1300 dollar savings is that?
>(acutally, you would have to factor in the new taxes and such as well)
>more like 1500-2000*all those vehicles...

Swell. We lose money on every sale, but we make it up in volume?
Nonsense. If we save $1300*10*200,000,000, and we spend an extra
$30,000*10*200,000,000 to pay for the increased vehicle cost, and
we lose performance, range, and payload in the process, how are
we coming out ahead?

>This may be fun(returning to Electric vehicles thread):
>Figure in the cost of maintaining a vehicle for 100K miles.
>now an electirc vehicle(no transmission probs(WHY you use a IV transmission))
>no cooling system. on tuneups. no oil changes. no muffler changes(this just
>cost me 150 lately-they had to fix the exhaust system as well), etc...
>
>This is why an electric vehicle is so good, imo. You can finance the cost of a 
>more expensive vehicle, but the higher cost of maintaining a gas vehicle is
>soimething that you have to live with on a monthly basis.
>"..gheez... they want HOW much for a new muffler?"
>"..600 for a clutch job!?!?"
>"..<whine>I can't afford a new transmission.  Guess I'll have to sell the car"

Jeeze, they want HOW MUCH for a new battery pack every 200 charge cycles?

>I would quite gladly spend a bit more to get this peace-of-mind.  Adding a
>new(whatever) usually comes at a time when you cannot afford it.

Just because you can't rationally budget is no reason to pay more money.
Put that extra money you'd be paying up front for the electric in the
bank where it'll draw interest and pay maintenance costs out of that
and pocket the difference.

>As I see it, only the problem of range is what makes them unwanted.
>IF they can make one that would do 400+ miles with Ni-H batteries,
>(simply replce the ni-cads for Ni-H in that 300+ vehicle.  In fact, you may
>exceed 500 miles!)
>why not one that could do 200 with the same technology, but a larger car?
>It may even PASS the crash-tests(heh)

Lead acid battery packs are going to cost $3000-$4000, NiCad packs about
$10,000-$15,000, and Ni-H packs about $25,000-$35,000 and have a cycle
life of 200-500 charge cycles. That means a new pack every year. But
think of that $130 worth of gasoline you save. :-(

>I know, someone will scream about the Impact being 30K...
>DO you really think GM is interested in selling these things?
>Or are they saying:
>1:"we TRIED to sell 10% electric and nobody would buy them"
>2:"we are targeting the rich eco-yuppies who can afford the gouging"
>Either way they get what they want, namely:
>
>I think that they know that if they used better technology and lowered the
>price to, say, 20k, they would loose a LOT of business on their IC designs.
>The profit margin is really high for IC designs compared to Electric, and
>the IC designs almost SEEM to be made to require dealer-replacement

GM's margin per car is under 15%, currently way under 15%, in fact they're
losing about $2.5 billion dollars this year on operations. Now you want
them to market a $30,000 car for $20,000 and make it up in volume. Join
the real world.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.energy