Snowmobiles also cost less than an electric car, a lot less.
And if there’s nowhere to plug your car in? Cold to a gas powered car and cold for a battery powered car are two entirely different things.
GM never made a profit on the EV. Never.
Too bad, as it’s going to need them.
Name one with a limited market that retails for less than $25K.
Actually, it explains everything in these lawsuit happy times. Anytime anything went wrong, with the car, or with the driver, GM could expect to find itself subject to a lawsuit. Odds are, GM would win 99% of them, but even fighting them is expensive, and in case you haven’t noticed, GM’s not exactly flush with cash at the moment.
GM’s estimated cost for the EV cars was $100K each, which is what the Tesla roadster is selling for.
If you’ll notice, however, the companies selling electric cars tend not to stay in business for too long the Sparrow’s on it’s third owner. The demand’s just not there, and forcing car makers to build the cars, that no one wants to buy is a great way to ruin what’s left of the auto industry.
Actually, it’s quite relevant. the majority of people who buy cars don’t think, “Well, I only make short trips, so I’ll buy this type of car.” You’re offering them something that’s totally alien to them, and if you can’t show that it performs almost exactly like what they currently have, they’re not going to be interested in it. Technology that appears radically different than what currently exists tends not to get adopted.
Do you even see the difference in profit potential there? GM made a grand total of 1117 vehicles over a 3 year period, which also included at least one major recall for half that fleet. Whereas the four snowmobile producers are making 80,000 vehicles in a single year.
Here’s a link to the Wikipedia article on the EV1.
This quote I think is very telling:
So - GM was counting on a technological breakthrough to make the program profitable. Which didn’t come through as they’d expected.
Later in that article the claim is made that each EV cost approximately $80,000 to produce and for the purposes of the lease they were calculating it with a sale price of $35-45K. That doesn’t argue for much profit for GM.
Having come from about as far northeast as you can get I know how it works. It’s a problem but not an insurmountable one. The evenings are the biggest issue and then you’re plugged in at home. Not only that lots of people in the north own vehicles they only run from early spring to early winter. The market just isn’t eliminated as you claim.
Of course not. Given limited production and the fact that they leased them rather than sold them. It appears they had no intention of trying to make them for profit.
You’ve said that but haven’t shown it. My question is with the technology, as it now exists, as it existed with the many EVs already made and the ones still being made, is it possible to manufacture, market and sell them, to a limited market and make a reasonable profit? Evidently a few thousand people in a limited market were willing to. What if the market was expanded to more of the south. How many thousands of vehicles does it take to make it profitable?
If there truly isn’t a way to manufacture and market them for profit that’s one thing but so far nobody has demonstrated that to be a fact.
Why? What makes you think they have to sell for less than $25k What if they are sold to upper middle class and above who are willing to spend more to promote the technology and help the environment?
Do you have any reason to believe or evidence that EVs would be more prone to cause lawsuits than any gas powered vehicles? I don’t buy this argument.
Once again, That’s given very limited production. I imagine that’s true of many new models when you have to build new equipment to manufacture them. If they catch on you make a profit. It appears they didn’t want them to catch on.
Are they hobbled by demand or is there an effort to make them economically unattractive? There are examples of larger companies hindering smaller companies through their political and economic clout from making a product that might threaten their profitability.
I think you’re wrong here. New technologies take time and effort to enter the American consumer’s consciousness. They have to be marketed correctly and there must be a willingness to educate the public. If the major car companies are unwilling to do this it may not be a failure of the technology, but simple greed.
Then respond to him. He’s not posting here. I don’t think he claimed that anyway. It’s one phrase he spoke taken out of context. He was commenting on the fact that for most people the limited range of the EVs would be sufficient and that’s a fact. He wasn’t making a blanket comment regarding all the issues concerning the EVs.
It’s not a valid comparison given the new nature of EVs and the established market of snow mobiles. My point was simply that smaller regional markets can still be successful. Not only that I simply don’t agree that the Northeast is eliminated. More limited perhaps but not eliminated.
It also stresses the law doesn’t it? Once they successfully lobbied to remove the law there was no reason to pursue the vehicle since gas powered cars are more profitable. There’s no doubt in my mind that there were issues that needed to be resolved but given our need to reduce our oil addiction and environmental issues I think a technology this close to working seems well worth pursuing. I’d rather see ax breaks given to the manufacturer and owners to move it forward. Instead they give much larger tax breaks for the Hummer which is not a vehicle the average citizen will drive. At some point we have to choose less profit for more benefit in other areas.
I think we’ve already covered this. New models cost more to produce. More production cuts production costs.
As I said, I don’t embrace the film as being 100% accurate in how it portrays the situation. My experience tells me that companies will squash working and somewhat profitable technologies for more profitable technologies that are not necessarily for the betterment of mankind. I don’t blame any company for looking to profitably but at some point it gets incredibly out of balance and the overall cost in other areas is too high.
Wait a sec? Now there’s issues that needed to be resolved? I thought you were saying it was a “good technology” back in the OP. Make up your mind.
Let me repeat: GM says that they were counting on technological breakthroughs to make the EV1 profitable, after about ten years in use. The EV1 was effectively the equivalent of the smallest subcompact starter car that would, at the time, market for ~$10K, IIRC*. But for all that, the EV1 was being priced, artificially, at three to five times that range. I say it’s an artificial price, because the real costs to GM to make the vehicles were approximately $80K. Which means the retail price should have been anywhere from $90-100K. This is not the sort of history that makes one accept the assertion that GM killed a profitable, or even a potentially profitable, product.
With those numbers, if you want to get us skeptics to believe that increasing the production run would have eventually brought the manufacturing costs down to where the price GM was using for calculations would be a profitable concern - I’m going to insist on seeing some kind of extrapolation, preferably from GM, but at the very least from automobile manufacturing experts.
Can I ask a snarky question? Would you own an EV1? No talking about “with improved technology” either - that’s not the question. If you were offered the later model EV1 would you buy it?
I’ll grant that there are a great many vehicles that won’t appeal to any given person, but unless you’re one of the few who do want an EV1, I think it’s a touch dishonest to claim that there will be a market for them, simply because you think there should be a market for them.
Claiming that there should be a market for a given vehicle or vehicle type is the continual argument of those people who insist that the subcompact should be a more prevalent bodystyle in the US private vehicle fleet. And the market continually rejects said argument. Even with the current jump in gas prices people are still avoiding subcompacts, choosing instead to look for hybrids to satisfy their desire for a more fuel efficient vehicle.
*I can’t seem to figure out how find what the sticker price for what would be an equivalent US market subcompact for the time that the EV1 was being marketed. The best model match I’ve come up with was the Ford Aspire 1997 model - being a vehicle of approximately the same size, and general arrangement. I think that for purposes of price comparison it’s fair to call it a similar gasoline powered vehicle. Unfortunately, all I can find are used car prices, now. I do know my Ford Escort wagon from the the same era (1997 bought after the 1998s were on the lot) sold to me for about $12K.
Yes, but what about us folks in parts of the world where we’re not normally equipped for the cold? It does get cold enough down here to kill batteries from time to time and how would nightshift workers plug in their cars, since they wouldn’t be at home?
This is going to come as a shock to you, I’m sure, but the reason that GM leased them was so that they could have a hope of making a profit. They knew that selling them at $100K+ would never be profitable, so the lease program was an effort to try and recoup some money off of what was essentially the largest run of prototypes in automotive history. Gearing up to go into mass production for automobiles is expensive. The development costs for a new model car, built using conventional technology range from several hundred million dollars to one billion dollars. When you add in the unconventional nature of an electric vehicle, the costs rapidly head towards the high end of the scale.
Apparently not as electric car makers have a very short lifespan.
More than a few thousand. Even “boutique” car manufacturers who rework cars built by the big automakers tend not to stay in business very long, unless they make small runs of a few hundred and charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for them.
I would think that the number of various companies who’ve attempted to do so and gone under would be ample demonstration, but apparently not.
Unless they enter mass production on a scale similar to that of conventional cars, they’re not really helping the environment. Not to mention that many of the exotic materials used in making the cars are really bad for the environment.
You do know that car makers are subject to constant lawsuits over their vehicles, right? When you add in a technology most people are unfamiliar with, you increase the odds of a lawsuit. If you read the thread I linked to earlier, people lay out a number of reasons why folks would be more inclined to sue.
Okay, earlier, you were saying that they were just the thing for limited production, and now you’re saying that they could be mass produced. Which is it? You do know where my user name comes from, right? You do know the story of what happened to Preston Tucker, don’t you? Don’t you think that if there was evidence that GM deliberately screwed the pooch on EVs that I, of all people, would be screaming it from the rooftops, because it would be further proof that Tucker got screwed?
Again, you simply have no idea of how expensive building cars is. Tesla Motors required several hundred million dollars to get off the ground, and that’s without the high labor costs of the Big Three, or any of the other car makers.
Leno, BTW, was a Mercedes dealer mechanic before he became a comic. Leno knows more about cars than a good many of the people who run car companies.
It was the producers of the film who took it out of context, if they did. And Ed’s certainly not going to listen to me. He’s already made his mind up, and he’s not going to let anything like a bunch of silly facts get in the way of his beliefs.
Actually, it isn’t. Yes, from strictly a mileage point of view, it appears that EVs would work for 90% of the population, but when you start looking at the conditions people drive their cars, it rapidly becomes apparent that EVs won’t work for them. The max range, on average, is 100 per charge, provided you don’t use anything like the lights, radio, climate control systems, etc. When you begin to use those things (as 99.999% of people do) the range drops considerably. See Una’s comments in the thread I linked to above for real world examples of what’s wrong with electrics from an engineer (who works for the coal industry and thus could be expected to make big bucks if electrics were to catch on).
Ah yes, the old “If you don’t go bankrupt you’re obviously evil” line.
Buddy, you might want to consider that it’s not a company’s moral mission to spend millions to try and convince people their product doesn’t suck. They can always make another product - one that people might actually want to buy. Greed? They’re a business, not a school!
I hope you didn’t think that was a serious question.
Then they shouldn’t get one. See how simple and obvious that is? This kind of argument is a bit goofy.
Please explain to me how leasing them helps them make a profit. This looks like nonsense to me.
Have those companies been discussed in this thread? Did I miss it?
I tried to read through that thread when you first linked to it. I found some of your arguments there to be silly and noticed they were easily picked apart by other posters. I went back and read it last night and there is a good post from some one else that makes sense. I’ll be more specific later.
Is this a serious question? I said limited markets could still be profitable. Mass production indicates the difference between making 4000 and gearing up to make tens of thousands which would still be a limited market but cut production costs.
Oh yeah I know. I saw your discussion in the other thread with the master mechanic. It was pretty revealing.
One sentance taken out of context. Neither you or I have anyway of knowing what he meant in context. It’s irrelevant anyway since nobody in this thread is arguing what you think he meant.
The post in the other thread I found to be the most concise and reasonable was from Sam Stone
It seems reasonable to me that it may have cost GM more to support the vehicles than destroy them. It also occurs to me that considering the limited market they would appeal to the oil companies wouldn’t be all that threatened by them.
This information is also available in the Wikki article.
That doesn’t mean I’m 100% convinced but it seems reasonable. I also noticed this in the Wikki
So there were waiting lists and positive feedback. I’m not going to assume GM was telling the whole truth about the potential profitability. I know some people hate conspiracy theories but looking at the facts and some of the heinous things done in the name of economics it doesn’t seem outrageous to entertain the possibility that companies would choose more profit over reasonable profit at the expense of the consumer and our environment.
So what? There are waiting lists and positive feedback for suborbital spaceflight and space tourism, too, and there’s no sign that anybody is going to make a mass profit on that, even at six figures a pop.
There’s no question that GM took a bath on the EV1. Unless they could[list=a][li]Reduce per unit production costs to a level comperable with a high end compact car,[]Recoup their investment in research and development, and[]Expand the range and capability to be comperable with at least a significant market segment rather than being limited to a niche product for a fractional percent of car buyers[/list]there is just no financial reason for them to have continued producing it. Selling the EV1 directly to customers would have opened them to liability and the obligation to produce spares, which would have been an ongoing financial drain on top of their existing loses. From a standpoint of costs versus benefits, it was a clear choice, particularly for a risk adverse auto manufacturer.[/li]
And no, there are no major backroom conspiracies between automakers and oil producers. Car companies don’t give a livid salmon if you’re getting 20 mpg or 50 mpg, as long as you’re buying their product. Indeed, if one could figure out how to produce a vehicle using an alternate fuel or electric that didn’t require heavy investment into speculative technologies and produced performance and capability comperable to a gasoline or diesel engine they’d do it in a heartbeat, because it would be an instant new market and would position them to expand when (not if) petroleum becomes to expensive or scarce.
The problem is that no alternative to date offers anything like what can be had from a gasoline powered vehicle. The EV1 was basically a subcompact 2 seater with very modest performance, range of a riding lawnmower, and enough cargo capacity for a trip to the market, provided you’re only cooking for two. Modern automakers think in terms of tens or hundreds of thousands of units per platform for profitability; GM would be lucky to sell more than a few thousand EV1s over an entire production run of several years, with no hope of expanding to the bread-and-butter family car segment or lucrative luxury performance market. It was a demonstrator project that demonstrated that the technology just wasn’t there to compete with existing IC platforms; no cigar-smoking darkened-back room conspiracy required.
Ahh, the old “I said something not-very-bright and am covering for it by pretending I didn’t say it” routine.
It’s a business, not a school. It’s not their job to try and figure out weird niches for nigh-unusable products just so you can feel good about yourself, or because a measely thousand people might have wanted to buy one.
I read somewhere that automakers make more money on financing than on production. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) Granted, that would mean financing on the most popular vehicles, which could well be cheap sedans and large trucks.
More or less, yes. Selling the car can be good, but they can always drop the price now in favor of financing it themselves. That’s always a good deal for them.
If you can quote me exactly where I made the statement you then exaggerated then please do so. …if not,…well we know what that means.
Never made any assertion even close to this. If that’s what you read you were wrong. Snide remarks are not a discussion. I won’t spend time refuting ridiculous comments I never made.
Unless of course you can show me where I made them. Can you?
Are you denying that you claimed companies were pure and simply greedy if they decided a particular item wasn’t sellable or useful to customers? “Educate the public”? :rolleyes: Did it ever occur to you that maybe the public knew what ti wanted it didn’t happen to be what you want?
This thread reminds me of something a cash register techie once said to me. Something trivial enough needed to be done to our cash register (I think ink cartridge had to be replaced or something to that effect) and the guy was called out 'cos none of us had a clue how to replace the ink. The cash register we use is a Japanese model, a Fujitsu I think and we’ve had it for probably 20 years now. The techie commented that that model wasn’t popular here because it was too well built. Once it was sold there was very little maintenance and people like himself made their money from callouts rather than on the initial sale.
Once more, instead of putting words in my mouth and misquoting me just quote where I said what you claimed I said. That’s all I’m asking. Back up your claims.
Well, they make enough money to have their own finance companies. But in recent years, financing has often been a loss-leader, with 0% or low interest financing. I suspect they’re still breaking even with fees and overages, but I don’t know that they’re raking in the dough like they used to.
But in recent years, financing has often been a loss-leader, with 0% or low interest financing. I suspect they’re still breaking even with fees and overages, but I don’t know that they’re raking in the dough like they used to.