In July 2008, the average gas price reached an all time high in the U.S.: more than $4 a gallon. That month, the best selling cars in the U.S. were the F-150 and Silverado. Just like today.
I’ve no idea what your point is. The Volt is a boringmobile. Nothing wrong with that, per-se–lots of people buy boringmobiles. But the Volt doesn’t seem to quite hit the right combination of price, performance, efficiency, etc. to succeed. The Model 3 is targeting a different market segment. They may or may not succeed, but if they fail it won’t be for the same reasons the Volt isn’t doing well.
Personally, I don’t want there to be an ICE at all in my next car. I don’t want oil changes, I don’t want a clunky transmission, I don’t want smog checks, and I don’t want to have to fill up when I visit my parents ~120 mi away. I want the smooth, quiet acceleration of a pure electric and 200 mi range is quite adequate for me.
How dare you call the most honored car in the history of the universe mediocre. It has 39 awards to it’s credit.
Why do I keep bringing it up? Because it fits the cost profile. Because we’re having the same conversation about Tesla that we had about the Volt:
- It’s the perfect car for a lot of people. It’s going to sell well.
- It’s got a major flaw (charging down time) and that prevents it from selling well.
OK. Chuckles to himself… If the highest selling vehicles are purchased by people who don’t care about gas mileage… and are trucks… What does that tell you about the mindset of new vehicle purchasers?
I’ve been driving economy cars for decades. I don’t understand why so many people are buying trucks that rarely see any use as a utility vehicle. But I don’t have to understand it to know that the buying habit exists. People like driving big shiny giant vehicles. News at 11.
If anyone here should be crowing about the Volt, it should be you. It takes gas you know, and that appears to be a requirement for you to consider something transportation.
I honestly draw no more conclusions than that Americans like trucks. Seems obvious.
Because a large number (probably the majority) of vehicles sold in the US are sold to businesses, not individuals.
And all those construction, plumbing, electrical, furnace/AC, lawn care, farming, etc. businesses want trucks to carry all their tools & supplies, and don’t care that much about gas mileage, because they usually operate in a limited geographic area.
The truck market is different from the passenger car market, and it’s pretty hard to compare trends between them.
Takes too long to recharge to get the benefit of an electric. Or did I not mention that?
The Volt charges at 10 miles per hour. The Model S charges at 400 miles per hour. Again–your point?
nobody wants to wait an hour to continue on their way and even if they could they’d have to seek out a fast charging unit which is a further inconvenience if not impossible.
Other than that, great car.
The initial charging is faster than the topping off. And fast chargers are beginning more common.
I looked up some of the longer routes I drive. Sure enough, fast chargers located along those routes, where they would be useful. Yeah, I’ve seriously considered buying this car, if it is produced as advertised.
And as has been mentioned before people have the option of swapping batteries in 90 sec. That pretty much solves all the objections you have.
The Tesla charging stations have a 90 second battery swap machine?
Ummm…that depends on whether there’s a swap station on every corner.
I can pump gas into my car in about 90 seconds anywhere I happen to be.
Which leads me to an somewhat off-topic question, but relevant:
How did they solve this same problem 100 years ago?
We are in the early days of electric cars, and there is a similar problem as in the early days of gasoline carsL People were hesitant to buy a horseless carriage because they didn’t know where they would find a gas station.
It was a chicken-and-egg question, yet obviously the market somehow solved the problem. What’s the history behind it, and how did it work? A car would have been useless to a rural person if there wasn’t a gas station nearby, so who invested in the first gas station in an area where nobody had yet bought a car?.
Same way it is working today: there was always a large enough set of people who were unaffected by the limitations, but gained the advantages, to support the next round of infrastructure development.
Horses were–figuratively and literally–a shitty form of transportation. Cars had massive advantages over them even in the early days. “But my horse can ride cross-country; I can’t even leave town in a car” is irrelevant if you almost never leave town. For the exceptional cases, you went back the horse.
Electrics, and the Tesla specifically, are in a much better position now than horseless carriages were early on. You actually can cross the country, and it’s only slightly less convenient than with a gasoline car. That slight disadvantage weighs against the massive advantage you have the rest of the time: the fact that every morning you start with a fresh “tank”.
That’s not to say they’re for everybody. But there’s a large enough set of people waiting in the wings for the price to come down a bit more or the range to get a bit better, and will purchase as soon as that happens.
Technological bottlenecks do happen. We had to wait about a century for battery technology to reach the point where electric cars could compete at all. That development was funded by cellphones and other consumer electronics–it couldn’t have happened with cars on its own, since you never would have sold enough of them to fund the research. But we’re there now, and it looks like there’s a long road of better batteries, charging systems, and so on.
You can’t have it both ways: you say the Volt is a lousy car, then you talk about how it is the most honored car in history.
Holy flippin’ turkeyburgers, why must there be an argument over whether the Volt is a great car? You said it sucks. I said it’s mediocre. Then we have your sarcastic post about how great the Volt is. Dude, are you not reading what I’m writing? We agree. The Volt isn’t all that great. Why is it so hard to agree with someone on a message board?
There is an inherent difference between gas stations and electric fast charging stations. You can’t fill up a gas powered car at home, ever. 100%* of miles driven by ICE cars are powered by fuel pumped from a gas station.
As has been mentioned over and over again in EV discussions, when you have a range of 100-200 miles, 95%+ of those miles can be powered by electricity from the home. This leaves maybe, if you’re lucky, 5% of EV miles powered by commercial charging stations, and much of that is going to happen along the Interstates, as people generally need recharging only for long trips. Many of those miles are also going to flat out be avoided as people use their ICE second car when they would need an in-transit recharge.
As the technology improves, ranges increase, and a lower % of EV miles will require commercial recharges. I’d expect there to be some charging capacity, but not enough to justify the huge infrastructure and design needs of a battery swap.
*give or take a fraction of a percent - waste oil diesels.
One good thing about electrical recharging stations is that the infrastructure is probably quite a bit cheaper than one for a gas station, no big buried tanks and pumps. And the distribution network is definitely cheaper, no tankers driving around with volatiles inside. It would take a lot less capital expenditure for a network of charging stations. I’d expect every roadside restaurant to have a charging column next to every (or maybe like the first dozen) parking spaces, and some would probably even make them free.
As a happy Volt owner, I must chime in. If it suits your driving pattern, the Volt is a wonderful car. Practically zero maintenance, advance electronics, fun to drive, and a lifetime (over three years so far) 233 mpg. I go about 60 days between stops at the gas station for my 10 gallon tank. For comparison purposes, I’d say the Prius is “mediocre,” other than very good fuel economy (which is important). The Volt is as nice as most of the upscale cars out there.