In theory a pure electric car has fewer components. The transmission is scary because it requires both electric motors to work in tandem. The motors themselves aren’t scary but the electronics behind them are because they handle all the power going into the motors.
But all automatic transmissions are scary. We’ve managed over the last 50 years to squeeze out 150,000 miles or more from them but that’s 50 years of beta testing at our expense. This is certainly one of the things holding back buyers of the Volt. It’s one of many variables getting weighed. In contrast, Toyota has a huge stockpile of customer satisfaction with their Prius and are in a much better position to sell an extended range hybrid. And they’re not knocking themselves out to promote it at this time.
I keep beating the Volt down like it’s Satan’s revenge on the world but I really don’t hate the car. I just think it needs better batteries to sell and also that GM had absolutely no business selling it. Their track record at implementing new technology has a long history of train wrecks. And they should not be building anything that knowingly loses money since they just came out of bankruptcy.
Did they happen to mention who was building these charging stations? Because there is no friggin way they could afford it. There’s a handful of cars on the road that can use them and of those cars, there needs to be a regular need to use them.
the Prius and Volt both have 2 electric motors and an ICE engine. They both tie all the engines/motors into a planetary gear set.
here is a site that shows how the Prius motors react with each other. You can see how they interact with each other to create the variable speed function of the transmission. move the points on each motor to see how they affect the speed.
Yes, no doubt. About half of all cars are older than 10 years. You are confusing average fleet age with life expectancy of a car, a completely different metric.
That’s nice. Does it have anything to do with Sam’s speculation about modular power options being developed for future use? Or this thread?
I’m not sure what I think about Sam’s concept - do I really want to arrange a larger rental battery for my trip? Might as well just as simply rent a different car if I need that. Is it worth having the extra space left open and unused most of the time? But some are working this similar idea, not quite what he is suggesting, but still being to convert from a BEV using no gas for any reasonable daily commute, to a hybrid that can travel cross country. And truth is that most BEVs and Fuel Cell vehicles share the basics with the only difference being whether the electricity is stored in the battery or generated by the FC. Which does not mean that the spaces in the vehicles are such that one unit could be swapped with another. Or that the weight factor of different units would not impact handling. Or hosts of other issues.
As far as the Volt goes … GM had sunk most of the cost of developing that car before they went bankrupt. Start at new GM on day one. You have this car now just about ready to go, it’s development costs having been spent by a company that now really no longer exists, old GM. From that point on do you invest the marginal costs to produce it? Or do you try to recover by bringing out “new” cars that in no way technologically surpass anything your competition produces? Play catch up by aiming a bit behind where those in the lead already are? GM hasn’t so much failed in the past to produce new technology; they haven’t introduced new technology.
The Volt is not a perfect car and the biggest reason for it is of course the cost to utility ratio. And the cost of batteries is a large part of that cost right now and will be likely for a few years to come. The long term success of the basic concept of using electricity to power as many vehicle miles traveled as possible is predicated upon two things: the costs of using of gasoline in America (both the actual cost of the gas and the indirect costs of emissions and dependence of foreign energy albeit those are not monetized to the consumer); and decreasing the battery costs. Letting the competition, especially Toyota, leapfrog into that space, rather than investing to get ahead of the curve, would seem to me to be a recipe for never recovering.
Understood that you do not believe that the cost of gasoline at the pump is going to rise substantially (or still hold out hope for algae), and apparently do not believe that government has a role in subsidizing technology that decreases the indirect costs. (And agreed with those who state that monetizing those costs with increased gas taxes is too regressive, better to monetize the point of vehicle purchase through the tax credits and perhaps by a gas guzzler tax as well.)
Niply’s point is quite correct. The average car on the road being over 11 years old implies a significantly longer average longevity and that many are lasting beyond 20 years before being scrapped. (Similar to how the median age of humans in America is 37 but the average life expectancy is 78 with a sizable portion living much longer.)
Regarding keeping cars for >20 years: there are huge numbers of old pickup trucks on the road-frequently you see old trucks with new beds or doors-when the old one rusts out, go to the junkyard for a used one.
I wish you could do this with cars-there is no reason why a vehicle cannot remain serviceable for 30-40 years.
The biggest issue with purely electric cars is that they are a retrograde step in terms of usability for most people and when in human history have we ever done that?
The technology of the ICE is pretty well sorted to the point where 60 mpg/700+ mile range fairly luxurious family cars are affordable and reliable and packed to rafters with techno gadgets and driver aids with the infrastructure already there for speedy refuelling on pretty much every street corner.
Electricity? it has some benefits for some people but requires a major change in habits and expectations for most for (as has been pointed out) an overall minor running cost benefit.
There just is no real benefits to choosing electric for the majority.
Were we inventing personal transport right now with current technology and no existing infrastructure what would we choose? I still suspect that energy density would be a major deciding factor and that some device would be created to utilise the superior energy-density of a hydrocarbon fuel.
It maybe that the biggest change will come with personal transport. It may be inherently more suitable for batteries and motors to power single-person vehicles, mopeds etc. that only get used for a few miles at a time and can be recharged more quickly in a domestic setting for far less capital outlay.
In that way the reliance on ICE’s can be reduced for many journeys but I suspect not for main family transport until the energy density and recharge/refuel problems are solved.
Average lifespan is the correct metric. Yes, there are 20 year old vehicles on the road. There are even 50 year old vehicles on the road. All those old classic Mustangs and Camaros are in their 40’s.
But then, there are a lot of cars that die long before they are 10 years old. I remember a friend who had a Chevy Citation that was still being paid off and less than 5 years old, and it was ready for the scrap heap.
How many of those 2000’s era minivans do you still see on the road? Ford Windstars, the ‘Dust Buster’ Chevys, older Chrysler minivans? How about the PT Cruiser? They were everywhere around here, and now it’s almost impossible to see one.
I had a Ford Windstar that blew its transmission in the first 500 miles, and was in the shop five or six times in its first year. I got rid of it in year 2, and I’ll bet that thing was in the scrapyard within 5 years. Lemons happen.
You also have to remember that some people are terrible about maintaining their vehicles. A car that would last 15 years and 300,000 km might not get half that life if the owner never changes the oil and lets that strange clunking sound persist for years without checking it out.
Another risk factor with electrics in in collision repair. How many shops are set up to repair them? What does it cost if you get rear-ended and damage the battery, or if that hella-complex electrical system gets banged up? Do we have insurance data yet on the cost of collision repair of these vehicles? Are the regenerative brakes more expensive to maintain?
Very well put. I don’t understand why we do not explore conversion of natural gas to methyl alcohol-the reaction is simple and low tech.
We could then use the existing infrastructure (gas stations, pipelines), and any car that will run on e85 will adapt to methanol easily.
No disagreement from anyone to my read. And average age of car on the road is not average lifespan. What is the average lifespan? I can find articles that state 13, 15, so on … but nothing authoritative. Even this recent NYT article “As Cars are Kept Longer, 200,000 is New 100,000” doesn’t offer up anything. Still the market talks: Kelly Blue Book tells me my 2003 Honda Civic hybrid in good (i.e. just barely average) condition and just under 100K will bring me $5200 on trade in and $6800 if I sell it myself. The market is not betting that it is scrap in a year or so. I am fairly sure it has another 100K on it.
Looks complicated, and it also looks like the simplicity of a single electric engine has been de-simplified by the two additional power trains. If only battery tech were better, I’ll bet much of that would go away.
There can’t be that many, if the average age of the fleet is 11 years.
If sales are roughly flat year to year, an average age of 11 gives us an average lifespan of 22. If some die early, others have to life longer to keep the average at 11.
Just for yucks, call up a dealer and find out the service cost if any of the following develop a large fault:
Engine
Transmission
Battery
Generator
differential
What you’re not getting is that if your car blows a transmission, it’s probably going to the scrapyard. Or at least it will in a couple more years if it blows it then.
Cars are much higher in quality today, and if the major components continue to work you can run them a long time. Like I said, my 9 year old Escape looks new and drives like new. I can afford to buy a new vehicle, but I don’t see any need because I feel like I’m driving a new-ish vehicle right now. However, I’m am now at the mercy of any major component failure, because all of the things I listed above (except battery and generator) would cost more to replace than the vehicle is worth. So it could wind up in a scrapyard in six months.
Things have gotten worse since then. The new 6-speed auto transmissions are incredibly expensive and complex. More vehicles are being made with stability and traction control, which requires more complex differentials. The new high efficiency engines like Ford’s EcoBoost 4-bangers are very expensive to replace.
So, while the car itself should last longer, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep cars on the road by replacing/rebuilding major components as they wear out.
You’re right that average fleet age isn’t the same as average lifespan. For one thing, the fleet average includes vehicles taken out through accidents. However, the other cite I posted says that Consumer Reports is reporting an even lower average lifespan of around 8 years. That seems a little low to me, but in my experience 10-11 years is actually a pretty accurate number as an average.
As a reality check, I just spend a few minutes looking at the residual values of used cars from 2002. The Japanese sedans are still in the 4,000-5,000 range, which would indicate they still have some life in them, but the domestic sedans and SUVs are all down in the $2,000-$2500 range, which is getting awfully close to their scrap value, and well into the range where they’ll be scrapped if they break down and need any kind of major work.
The Japanese cars (I looked at Toyota and Nissan) get down into the $2000-$2500 range if you go back to 1999. So, 13 years for them, 10 years for the domestics, before they’re at the point where they’ll be scrapped the first time anything serious goes wrong with them. And that’s for good condition vehicles. Most cars on the road are not maintained in good condition. Many aren’t maintained at all, and don’t see the inside of a service shop until something breaks.
How exactly does an ‘average age’ translate into twice the ‘average lifespan’? You could have half the cars die at 8 years, and half die at 12 years, and still have an average lifespan of 10 years. I think you’ve done your math wrong.
Also, you could get an average age of 10 years by having 90% of the vehicles die after 5 years, and 10% of them last 55 years. So it all depends on the distribution of vehicles as well. And I suspect that’s part of the clue: There are a lot more cheap cars on the road than expensive ones, and there are a lot of fleet vehicles out there that rack up a hell of a lot of miles in very few years and die early. That makes up for the long lifespan of those mid-range Hondas and Nissans owned by the middle class who take care of them and manage to keep them running for 20 years.
Average age is exactly what it is - the average age of a vehicle. Yes, some last 50 years. And some die in 5. The only thing you have to correct for here to get a good measure is the number of vehicles taken out of service due to an accident.
But like I said above, there are other metrics like the residual value of used vehicles which gives us an insight into their lifespan, and it seems like 10-13 years puts most of them near their scrap value. Remember all those Dodge Neons that were everywhere you looked? The residual value of a 2002 Dodge Neon in average condition with average miles today is about $1800. The scrap value of the vehicle is probably around $750. And that’s of the ones still on the road - I’ll bet you most Neons of that age are already gone due to major breakdowns.