RE: (ET) gm car

["Elie, Larry (L.D.)" <lelie ford com>]

We are off topic, and I want the thread to end, but...

GM lost money on the EV1; but they knew that from the start.  We lost 
money on the Electric Ranger, the EcoVan, and so on.  We dropped the 
Think! Electric for the same reason.  The Think! was as close to an ET as 
you are going to get.  Honda and Toyota lose money on each electric they 
ship.  The real problem is that even your ET pack only carries around the 
energy content of perhaps 10 lbs. of gasoline, and it weighs many times as 
much.  I know all the 'make the vehicle lighter/efficient' arguments.  
Yes, you can, but if you applied them to an IC engine, it would still be 
lighter.  I don't want to be a naysayer, but hybreds from any manufacturer 
won't make money in years, and I DO have access to the data, I know the 
people in the planning for the Escape Hybrid.  We won't make money for 
years.  Even for a proven technology it takes 6 to 8 years to pay for 
tooling a plant that is selling well.  These vehicles are exercises 
because no one wants to be caught flat-footed.  I saw !
this decades ago with gas-turbine engines.  They were easier to carry to 
production, but when racing essentially 'banned' them, a product that 
would have gone to the performance models first, the idea died.

H2 economy?  DC and us have very tight agreements with Ballard (probably a 
mistake...) while GM has been using Delphi.  These things don't scale well 
and aren't close to being cheap enough to buy.  If H2 economy happens this 
decade it will be in an H2 IC engine.  Even I am working on such a 
project.  That one is 'cheap', but LP is cheap, relatively clean and never 
made a dent in sales (except in Alberta, where it's subsidized).  Economic 
decisions are made in Wall Street.  

Sorry Peter, our best studies are not published.  But you are right, it 
isn't a conspiracy.

Larry Elie
Physicist
Ford Research


-----Original Message-----
From: Pieter Litchfield [mailto:plitch attglobal net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 7:12 AM
To: Discussion List Electrac tractor
Subject: Re: (ET) gm car


Well don't condemn GM too soon.  There isn't any infrastructure out there,
little public acceptance (except here).  I think they were leased because 
GM
didn't want to have owners "stranded" down the road, giving the perception
that GM was acting unethically by selling a product that it wouldn't
support.  At least with all the leased vehicles off the road, we can't say
GM unfairly abandoned us.

For the moment, it appears that hybrids are gaining acceptance.

Does anyone know of a study that attempts to quantify all the costs of
building and operating a vehicle?  Manufacturing, raw materials, fuel, fuel
transpiration,disposal, etc?  I love my ET, but I'm not convinced when all
is taken into account that it is an economic choice.  For example, while 
the
vehicle itself is "clean", the power plant that made the Kws to charge it 
is
not.  But it can be or a cost.  IInterestingly, the pollution from the
mid-west falls where I live, so my advocating for more electric vehicles
could have a real personal "cost" to me.  Anyway, that Kw must be
transported on the grid with losses, transformed (producing heat) to charge
the battery, and stored in a medium that produces a chemical reaction
resulting in a bit of gas discharge. In addition, the batteries contain 
lead
which has a disposal cost encountered every few years.  And we have barely
scratched the surface of costs. So what are the "true" costs of producing
and using an ET (or any EV) compared to, say, a John Deere of comparable 
HP?
No taking sides, just curious.

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Korthof" <wkorthof earthlink net>
To: "Neil Dennis" <wombat dssinternet net>; "Elec-trak"
<elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: (ET) gm car


> Yeah, by hook and by crook GM is yanking away
> each of the EV1 electric cars from the "owners"
> as quickly as they legally can. It's a shame GM
> stopped EV1 production (a long time ago!). But
> it's also disappointing that they refused to allow
> anyone to buy an EV1 (lease only!) for _any_
> price from the start to the end. Many thousands
> of EV1 wannabe "wait list" EV customer were
> turned away as well, and now every single EV1
> ---1000+ or so---is being taken off the road.
>
> Boy am I glad GM is so enthusiastic about
> building technology for the future. not.
>
> /wk
>
> At 06:59 PM 3/11/03 -0500, Neil Dennis wrote:
> >An announcment in the news tonight, GM is recalling their electric car
> >and going out of the business.
> >
> >Kinda a downer {)-{
> >
> >wombat
>