Who killed the electric car.

GM or the US NRC?

It was a natural death. It was born premature.

Exactly what oil price did these people use? $75? Lets see the market penetration rate at $200 a barrel.

DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its what I have been trying to get you to understand for years now.

Lith ion batteries wont improve massively in cost because THEY ALREADY DID. Most of the cost reductions happened before they even entered power tools and lap tops.

Lith ion batteries arnt blue ray players they are glorified 8 track tapes with a new and improved tape.

A Prius-III HEV gets about 60 mpg with a 1.3 KwA battery.

An EV-14 Phev Prius should get about 130 mpg with a 5.2 KWh battery.

What could you get with 2.6 and 3.9 (approx) KwH?

If you make the battery sizes modular, even if smaller, you may end up with a very sweet solution in terms of mpg, or in terms of gallons of gasoline / 10,000 miles (or whatever you do in a year).

Once you get to 100 mpg, there is very little benefit in going higher - does it really matter if you can do a year's driving on 100 gallons, or 80 ?

The main thing is to stop using 500 gallons to drive 10,000 miles per year.

We are actually very close to that, if we just build "small battery" PHEVs and focus on gallons / year, rather than Electric miles.

Future cost of mass produced standardized lithium batteries, made in China, South Africa, Brazil, India, Indonesia, etc may be grossly exagerated.

Increasing HEVs batteries from 1.3 Kwh to 5.3 Kw to make it a limited e-range PHEV will not cost much more than $2k in about 2 to 3 years.

Most of the extra $2k could be recovered with a much smaller, ultra light (15 to 25 kw) genset instead of the current 1.8L to 2.4L, 4 cyls units.

Another cost reduction approach would be the use of standardized mass produced smaller (1 to 4 Kwh) battery plug-in modules, distributed in various places, under the vehicle seats or elsewhere.
First generation PHEV buyers would start with minimum number of modules and add more as cost come down and performance increases. An extra module a year, from fuel saved, could be an excellent selling strategy.

BYD and other manufacturers will certainly come up with similar configurations soon.

@mahoni:

Financially, diminishing returns kick in seriously at mileage rates much lower than 100mpg. Once you get to 45-50 mpg, the average consumer of gasoline is not going to see much ongoing pocketbook benefit by going to 100mpg, while the up-front costs of doing so are large. The cost-benefit sweet spot can be filled with enhanced ICE technology (downsizing, turbo, direct injection, idle-stop, etc). Large scale adoption of EVs, PHEV, EREV, etc. will depend on incentives that make such vehicles cost-competitive with less-expensive 45mpg ICE vehicles. There are only so many people with both the means and the motivation to spend more than they need for wheels.

And slightly off topic: we suddenly seem to be swimming in natural gas, so why aren't we looking to this clean-burning, domestic resource as a transportation fuel?

Baloney. Aand its assumptions are already outdated. GIGO.

It's easy to think that large organizations are monolithic. If we've seen good work from an organization, we assume it's other work will be reliable.

Unfortunately, large organizations are built up of many individuals and departments, with varying levels of competence and integrity, and different interests and biases. We have to review each new product with fresh eyes.

In this case, the reports flunks.

"However, factors such as high cost, limited availability of places to plug in, and market competition suggest that 13 million [ by 2030] is a more realistic number"

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Oh please ..... there are only 13 million people in the US with access to a wall plug where they park their car? Right there, this report has lost its credibility.

In case the authors didn't notice, Nissan is offering the Leaf BEV for sale next year with 100 mile range, with an overall cost of ownership of LESS than an equivalent ICE car.

And lithium batteries aren't our only options. There are also these things called Nickel Metal Hydride batteries, that Chevron kept off the market for 5 years via patent manipulation. And they are CHEAPER than Li ion and Nickel is in no short supply. Their only drawback is increased weight but this is of minor importance for PHEV's with relatively small battery pack sizes.

Get with the 2010's, NRC.

That's an interesting idea Harvey. The consumer could decide how much range they want and simply buy more modules and insert them. You buy 10 km range for $xxxx and put in in your car.

Plug-in Hybrids Will Make a Big Impact

The referenced National Research Council study on PHEVs is based on numerous omissions and false assumptions:

New technologies are rapidly developing for alternative vehicles. Realistically, why bother analyzing EV-10. We already have EV-40 and above. And since the average person drives 25 miles or less per day, with a PHEV or an EV, a much higher percentage of their driving will be all electric. The study way underestimates this, just as it way underestimates what petroleum based fuels will cost 10-20-30 years down the road.

My view is – The very first plug-in hybrid that rolls off the show room floor will have an impact. Every PHEV will take tons of pollution out of the air every year - mostly out of urban air. And in electric mode most of the time, the power source will shift from 60% imported oil and 40% domestic oil – totally to domestic fuel, such as coal, natural gas, biogas, biomass, wind, solar, and alternatives. 20-30 years from now, or less, we are going to have biofuels, algae, cheap solar, and numerous other alternatives coming out of our ears. Solar will be integrated into the roofs, walls and windows of buildings and also integrated into the entire bodies of PHEVs and EVs. People are already charging their vehicles with their own solar roof panels. Just 10% of the population doing this will have a huge impact.

Even when you buy power from the grid, and operate in electric mode, the fuel cost of a PHEV is 5-6 times cheaper per mile than a same size and weight gasoline powered vehicle. Also, it is much easier to scrub coal or natural gas exhaust at a central location – than to scrub millions of tail pipes. With an electric car in front of you, you are not sucking-up toxic fossil fuel exhaust. What exhaust is produced to make electricity for a PHEV, is outside of urban centers. You are not directly exposed to it. So urban air will become cleaner and cleaner as PHEVs and EVs gradually replace conventional vehicles. This will improve urban health, reduce respiratory disease, and lower health care costs.

Chances are, 10-20 years from now, the extended range e-vehicle will have a compact multi-fueled turbocharged engine or turbine, that won’t rely exclusively on imported or domestic oil. It’ll burn bio oil, biodiesel, ethanol, 50-50 ethanol-water, natural gas, propane, butanol, synthetic fuel – you name it. Take the emerging Cyclone Green Revolution Engine, for example. That’ll run on just about anything, even raw algae. GEET may also be perfected, so you may be burning water with all your fuels. Either that or directly splitting the water (mixed with a surfactant such as ethanol) into hydrogen and oxygen onboard your vehicle. That could alternately be mated with a small, 75% efficient fuel cell, just large enough to recharge the batteries.

There are numerous other movements that will put PHEVs and EVs on the map: Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), solar paint, advanced battery chargers (see John Bedini), more efficient electric motors and generators, advanced batteries and ultra-capacitors, lighter weight materials and bonding methods, and many other advancements in the works.

The study also makes the false assumption that PHEVs have to be priced the same as conventional vehicles, before they become competitive. There are millions of people who will buy alternative vehicles - And Pay More - in order to serve the clean air cause. Then there are many others who will want to use domestic fuel in their vehicles, in order to displace foreign oil. Then there’s the added benefit of the money you’ll save - by cutting your fuel cost to about 20% of a conventional vehicle. That offsets the higher price of alternative vehicles, until they’re mass produced and further refined.

At $18K, the study way over states the cost of a PHEV battery pack. The actual cost of the Volt pack is only $8K, and battery cost is expected to drop. Nissan says in half within 10 years.

The defective study put out by the National Research Council is obviously done by unqualified and under-informed government officials - puppetted by a hidden agenda to maintain the cash cow of the status quo. Technology is pushing the envelope a lot faster than the study predicts.

AK - Very well said.

Is sombody within NRC trying to slow the transition to electrified vehicles, with what seems to be an extended status quo approach, instead of active promotion?

With that type of approach and lip service, the transition may effectively be streched one or two more decades than neccessary.

More aggressive pro-active approach with appropriate national programs could make those forecasts whorthless.

I dont know why this confounds you. Everyone including the battery companies themsevles are been talking about this level of developement for years now. You just chose to look at only the most rosey edge of those reports.

THIS report is just the middle of the road estimate its not even anywhere near as bad as it could be it just isnt as rosey as some dream.