# Greenpeace Says Electric cars a Bust-Do You Agree? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 28, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152 "2012-09-28T16:52:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/41 "2012-09-29T00:47:53Z")
> [@Mdcastleman](#): > > I often drive more than 350 miles a day, and I don’t consider myself unusual in that regard. The average American drives 50 miles a day, not 350 (and that’s the mean–the median is probably less). You’re several standard deviations out. You really don’t think you’re unusual? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/42 "2012-09-29T00:54:08Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] Eventually, we’ll have to go over to electric cars, if we’re not going to just give up on cars entirely. There is a hard, finite limit to the amount of petroleum in the Earth, and we’ve gone a nonneglible way towards that limit. Now, one can certainly debate precisely when petroleum-powered cars will be gone, but what’s indisputable is that it will happen. [/QUOTE] I disagree that we necessarily have to give up on IC cars, though it’s hard to say what the next generation will be. You could be right and its’ electric (though that includes hydrogen/methane fuel cells), but it could be some synthetic fuel as well, as long as worries about Global Warming don’t kill the market that way. > [@](#): > > Of course, there are other ways it could go, too. Maybe we’re suckers for trying to move the energy storage around with us, for instance. Maybe the car of the future will have induction plates in the bottom to continually draw power from the road, or something of the sort. Again, it’s debatable exactly how the electric car will work, but we’ll have it somehow or another. That’s certainly another alternative, though I shudder to think what such a system would cost (and, you’ll probably need to solve room temperature super conductors or some sort of highly distributed electric grid technology first to really make it work). I think it will be interesting to see how it pans out…I believe I might just live long enough to start to see the change over to whatever the next generation personal transport system will be. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/43 "2012-09-29T00:58:28Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Strangelove] No, of course not–every tech has successes and failures. We’ve lived with the failures of gasoline so long that we’ve worked around some of them and forgotten the rest. Electrics won’t work for every application, but neither does gasoline. [/QUOTE] But, you see, it won in the only place that was important…in the market place. Electrical (and steam for that matter) lost, at least at the time. Electric is making another go at it, but thus far it’s failing again, despite newer technology and tons of money spent to develop it. It’s the same problem really…energy storage. Maybe that problem will be solved, and maybe electric cars will eventually win out in the market, but right now, today, they are still just a niche technology for rich yuppies to feel good about themselves, or even richer types to have a really cool sports car (hell, if I had the money I’d have a freaking Tesla too!). ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/44 "2012-09-29T01:20:23Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The average American drives 50 miles a day, not 350 (and that’s the mean–the median is probably less). You’re several standard deviations out. You really don’t think you’re unusual? “Often” does not mean every day. I drive 500 miles a day a couple of times a year, and a lot of people I know do to. So to me that’s “often” enough I won’t consider an electric car until they can go 500 miles without charging, or else several hundred if they can be rapid-charged. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/45 "2012-09-29T01:46:53Z")
> [@Mdcastleman](#): > > “Often” does not mean every day. I drive 500 miles a day a couple of times a year, and a lot of people I know do to. So to me that’s “often” enough I won’t consider an electric car until they can go 500 miles without charging, or else several hundred if they can be rapid-charged. We have different definitions of “often”. I will round “a couple” up to 3. So, three times a year you will have to wait 30 min for a charge instead of 10 min for a fillup. In exchange, you don’t have to go to a station at all the rest of the year, because the car is charged in your garage overnight. This saves 10 min every week or so, or around 500 minutes total. I don’t know about you but this sounds like a huge net win to me. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/46 "2012-09-29T04:31:57Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > My Volt didn’t cost me 3 to 4 times the cost of a conventional vehicle. I also find it has all the utility I need. It’s not for everyone. But few cars are. Well that’s simply not true. You can buy quite a few energy efficient full function cars today for much less money than a Volt. The car is simply a bad choice for environmental concerns because it’s too expensive and doesn’t deliver the full functionality of a regular car. If the desired end result is to reduce co2 emissions then introducing more cars that people can afford (and will buy) is the logical solution. The Volt is literally a waste of money. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/47 "2012-09-29T04:48:36Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > We have different definitions of “often”. > > I will round “a couple” up to 3. So, three times a year you will have to wait 30 min for a charge instead of 10 min for a fillup. > > In exchange, you don’t have to go to a station at all the rest of the year, because the car is charged in your garage overnight. This saves 10 min every week or so, or around 500 minutes total. > > I don’t know about you but this sounds like a huge net win to me. The Volt takes 4 hrs to fully charge using the more expensive charger. when fast charge batteries become viable then the car will gain more utility but as it stands now nobody wants it. The government money pissed away on tax incentives could have gone toward battery research. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/48 "2012-09-29T04:54:33Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You are neglecting the possibility that electric cares are economically feasible after a certain volume of sales. That’s exactly it. The losing $10k a car figure is based on simply dividing the R&D expenses over the number of units sold, so yeah it’s going to come down as they sell more cars. By that same logic, Toyota “lost money” on the Prius for many years. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/49 "2012-09-29T05:10:43Z")
I don’t know… I think we’re too hard on the Volt sometimes. It really is a marvelous piece of engineering. Hats off to the engineers and designers who built that thing. I also think it makes as much sense to buy a Volt as it does to buy a Ferrari. Both are cars that give up serious practicality in favor of stimulating an owner’s senses and values. I fully understand why a geek with a passion for the environment would get tremendous value out of a Volt. And in the meantime, they’re the early adopters that every market needs to succeed. Just as we early adopters in the computer age pretended we were doing highly practical, productive things by spending thousands of dollars on weak-assed computers that could actually do very little but make us wriggle in geeky happiness. But I’m sure glad we did it. GM should sell it like that. Give it geek cachet. Make it hackable. That iPhone app that lets you talk to your car is a perfect example of what they’re doing right. But they are still trying to sell the car on the rationale that it will save you money, and the mass market people who are looking for a good transportation tool will do the math and realize it doesn’t really work that way yet. So it’s not penetrating the general market. At all. Another problem for the Volt is that other manufacturer’s cars are just getting really damned good. They’re becoming more fuel efficient at a faster rate than the government mandates, because the market is pushing them hard in that direction. I’m amazed at the fuel economy they’re pulling out of even the old big-block V8’s, and the new turbo 4’s coming out from several manufacturers are awesome. This means that conventional cars have been closing the gap with electrics, which makes the equation even worse for the electrics. If my choice is electric or an 18 mpg boring sedan, I might take the electric. If my choice is instead between it and a 247 HP practical car that gets 40 mpg, is great fun to drive, and costs half as much? Well… The energy density of gasoline is very hard to beat. So far, we’ve had to make serious compromises when trying to replace it. It’s a difficult engineering problem, and as of today we have no real ability to solve it. But we’re getting there. Patience, grasshoppers. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/50 "2012-09-29T06:31:33Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > That’s exactly it. The losing $10k a car figure is based on simply dividing the R&D expenses over the number of units sold, so yeah it’s going to come down as they sell more cars. By that same logic, Toyota “lost money” on the Prius for many years. Do you have a cite for this? My understanding, which is perhaps flawed, is that Chevy is losing $10k+ per unit on the manufacturing side, not counting the R&D costs, but that they make up for it by, well, selling more regular cars (i.e. while they lose money on the Volt, they make up for it in sales of, say, the Camaro, which has a nice profit margin). ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/51 "2012-09-29T06:37:01Z")
Never mind, I found [this](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910). It seems to back up what I was saying about Chevy losing money on the manufacturing side, not even counting the R&D costs: > [@](#): > > Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce. > [@](#): > > But the Volt’s steep $39,995 base price and its complex technology — the car uses expensive lithium-polymer batteries, sophisticated electronics and an electric motor combined with a gasoline engine — have kept many prospective buyers away from Chevy showrooms. So, it’s worse than I thought. It costs $89k to produce, and they are trying to sell it for $40k…and at that price, folks aren’t buying it (because, if you think about the ROI on a car like this, even without paying for gas you are talking years or even a decade to break even, as you can buy a pretty fuel efficient car with the same or better styling as the Volt for, say, $20k). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/52 "2012-09-29T06:53:11Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Tesla is already building 30 minute charging stations. That’s fast enough, IMHO, since it would only be relevant on long trips; the other 95% of the time, I’m _saving_ a huge amount of time by charging at home. It’s also likely that the 30 minutes for long trips can be folded into lunch time or other rest breaks. [Here’s a link.](http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1079383_tesla-supercharger-fast-charging-system-has-landed) 1/2 hour to charge 180 miles worth of driving. I think the station they are building just south of me is in an outlet mall. They will be solar powered, which is why Tesla can make them free. (And they only work on their model S.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/53 "2012-09-29T06:55:26Z")
> [@XT](#): > > So, it’s worse than I thought. It costs $89k to produce, and they are trying to sell it for $40k…and at that price, folks aren’t buying it (because, if you think about the ROI on a car like this, even without paying for gas you are talking years or even a decade to break even, as you can buy a pretty fuel efficient car with the same or better styling as the Volt for, say, $20k). I suspect the reason they are doing it is to get up the learning curve. They had their ass handed to them by Toyota on hybrids. They are willing to invest to make sure it doesn’t happen again. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/54 "2012-09-29T07:20:08Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Never mind, I found [this](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910). It seems to back up what I was saying about Chevy losing money on the manufacturing side, not even counting the R&D costs: Here’s a related factbox from the same article: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-volt-idUSBRE88904V20120910](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-volt-idUSBRE88904V20120910) The actual unique costs to make one Volt come up to about $24k. Reuters took the R&D and tooling costs and spread them out over the number of Volts that had been sold as of August, arriving at that $80k figure. As GM sells more Volts, the percentage of those fixed costs belonging to each car by Reuter’s logic is going to go down. Granted, it is pretty unlikely that GM is actually going to break even on the first generation of Volts (probably about 5 years worth), but in the end it is going to cost them less than the $80k a car the figure currently stands at. Also, I don’t think it’s accurate to say they lose x amount of dollars on every car because in terms of actual non-sunk costs to produce a car, they make a pretty respectable profit. ---
**Author:** ![NamelessKing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b38774/32.png) [@NamelessKing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NamelessKing)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/55 "2012-09-29T07:45:34Z")
I imagine that electric cars will only really be efficient at emissions reduction when our power comes entirely from Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Hydroelectric, etc. Using coal and natural gas means that the cars still contribute to the problem. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/56 "2012-09-29T08:14:22Z")
Oh, also regarding the “GM loses $x per Volt,” I’m not sure this is going to bolster my case much, but supposedly the R&D costs for the Volt got attached to the “motors liquidation” company that got all of GM’s bad assets. So General Motors as it currently exists definitely isn’t losing $80k a car, although that’s probably not likely to impress people complaining about iffy accounting and wasted government money! ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/57 "2012-09-29T09:51:26Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The average gas station in CA sells [4,400 gallons](http://www.energyalmanac.ca.gov/transportation/summary.html) of gas per day. That’s nearly 7 megawatts in pure energy terms, but isn’t a fair comparison. You’re right, it isn’t. It’s not 7 megawatts per gas station, it’s 7 megawatts per PUMP. When a car is hooked up to a gas pump, it’s taking on about 10 gallons of gas per minute (limited by law). That’s a rate of 600 gal/hr x 36.6kwh/gal x 33% efficiency = net 7.2Mw while hooked up. Tesla’s “super fast” charger linked above is .12Mw, which makes a bland everyday gas pump 60x faster than a charger that pushes the limits of technology, and hasn’t even been built yet. .12Mw would be based (roughly) on a 400V 300A electrical service. I’m asked to handle some serious industrial level electrical wiring in order to get a charger to do in 30 minutes what a gas pump can do in 30 seconds. Also, once you get your 300+ mile range, 99% of electric car driving would be home or destination charged, which leaves no market for superfast roadside chargers. You have to make money charging cars, or you’re not going to build the station. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/58 "2012-09-29T10:17:27Z")
> [@Mdcastleman](#): > > I often drive more than 350 miles a day, and I don’t consider myself unusual in that regard. If I’m driving to Chicago, I could put up with a few minutes fast charging, but I don’t want to spend hours and hours cooling my heels in Rockford. Then an electric car is not for you. The same way a hatchback is not the right car for someone who needs a pickup truck. A person who needs a pickup truck twice a year might decide to buy a hatchback and spend $100 renting a truck when they need one. Electric cars are currently a novelty, and fill a small niche in utility. Expand the range and they’ll be able to fill a much larger role than they do today. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/59 "2012-09-29T10:17:46Z")
If you consider only their relative cost and usability as compared to regular vehicles then sure they are a bust. But they are a loss leader of sorts. Buying them is an investment in further refinements of the various technologies involved. Think of it as a kickstarter goodie. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152/60 "2012-09-29T12:44:41Z")
From what I read, the economics of electric cars get worse, the larger they are. For example the Fiskers car (5300 ponds);( of which 1800 ponds are the batteries.) This car has less carrying capacity than a gasoline powered car of 2000 pounds…moving around that extra 3300 pounds uses a lot of energy. One of the sillier features of the Fiskers car is the solar panel roof-it supplies such a miniscule amount of power, that it returns the added cost-in 500 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenpeace-says-electric-cars-a-bust-do-you-agree/636152.md?page=4)