What About Electric Vehicles in Winter Traffic Jams?

Not to mention you also need electric heaters to stay warm.

I think it is a self correcting problem until batteries make an order of magnitude improvement. Anyway, electric vehicles are still the play toy of the rich at this point, so it isn't that big of an issue.

The way I see it, after the few lemmings jump into the sea and find that the reality of electric life is not as sweet as it looked, the rest of us will know better than to follow into shark infested waters and wait.

true about the lemmings argument. But why o why are electric cars prices SO HIGH? Think about it: no need for transmission, no need for radiator cooling system, no need for fuel pump, oil circulation system. no need for catalytic converter or entire "exhaust" system, no need for fuel / temperature gauges in your dash board, no need for fuel injectors, variable valve timing cylinders, no cylinder block. SO WHY ARE ELECTRIC CARS SO EXPENSIVE. it's a big scam hoist on a gullible public.

Interesting claim. There are a number of reasons.

I suggest you go out an price the batteries. You will find that the price is pretty steep. I also have contacts with engineers in the electric vehicle business and the quantity discounts are not that great. So, battery costs are a big share of the cost.

Second, there is a lot of NRE costs that need to be paid off. That means the initial batch of products are sold with much less profit potential than a mature product has. Once the NRE is paid off the prices will fall if competition remains.

Third, the electronics are more expensive. Price out motor controllers and see for yourself. We are talking about huge currents here and the silicon is not the same as what is in your electric drill.

Lastly, if it is such a lucrative, overpriced, product, then why not build your own and get rich? If anything, that will convince you of how much a scam it really is.

I agree, we should definitely worry about something more realistic. For the Volt, this is not an issue at all. For the LEAF and all the other EVs coming out with 100 miles range, it is also not an issue. The battery packs are large enough to run a heater for a long time -- certainly 15 hours in the case of the LEAF.

Four or five hours in a really extraordinary traffic jam is of little to no consequence for an EV.

That is true, but the overall performance of the battery pack does not work well when cold. That is why the Volt battery pack is climate controlled, which consumes power, too.

As these cars hit the street we will get some real numbers, but I would suspect that the actual numbers will turn out to be less joyful than what the factory claims.

The point being is that electric cars are an immature product and the performance will be far less than what it probably will be like as the product matures and advances in materials and batteries take place.

The solution is of course to wear warmer clothes for journeys in winter so you do not need to use the heater and have the windows down an inch or so so you dont need the fan to clear the windscreen. Our electric car has a range of about 25 miles in the summer and less in winter (16 or so) so we just live with it. I really appreciate the heat and comfort of our petrol driven car but the cost benefits of the electric in London (free parking -worth £20 a day, no congestion charge £10 a day) mean that we put up with need to wrap up warm in the car. I appreciate that this might be more of a problem in places with more extreme weather like Chicago say, but in London you should be able to cope.

Also given speed and range for electrics if the jam looked like taking more than an hour I would park and get out and walk - our journey is 5 miles to destination but in London I would walk to the nearest tube station which chouldnt be more than 2 miles.

This will be an issue once electrics get to the state where you can use them on motorways/freeways/autobahns but the principle stands

Interesting data point. So you are getting about 2/3 the performance in cold weather?

Have you been taking any comprehensive data with your car? What make/model did you get?

Oh yeah, really interesting zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wearing warm clothes whilst sitting down in a car is very DISCOMFORTING. First of all you're sitting down. you just don't feel as warm as even standing outside when your blood can circulate freely. it's hard to maneuvre. But i didn't realize that London gives you free parking! (worth it). How do they monitor the GBP20 limit? via RFID tag stuck to your windshield?

Yes here is the Ottawa region of Canada where the morning commute can is regularly down to -20C and can be as low as -40 C. Been lucky this winter to not have that really cold snap. Sitting in a coat at -20C with the windows open is going to lead to frostbite. Imagine battery life at -20C then sitting outside at that temp all day at work not plugged in and then having to drive home. The infrastructure is not here to support being plugged in all day at work. I like the idea of electric but it is not going to happen up here. Mike

I have to say, an electric car really does not apeal to me, partly because where I live you cannot get the vehicles to the house, so plugging in is not an option. Also, there is more than one vehicle in my house, and each person foots the bill for there own vehicle, that includes the fuel required; some do more miles than others and therefore use more fuel, but it would be difficult to determine who needs to pay what, when the costs are coming out of the electric bill.

You also have to remember, that whilst an electric vehicle does not produce any emissions itself, the electric required to run it has to come from somewhere, and that most likely is a power plant somewhere that is churning out a lot of emissions, so I have to ask, is it really making a positive impact on the environment? I'm also wondering if the energy conversion, storage and usage are efficient enough to make electric vehciles worth it.

Thank you Guest. I can't believe I read through the entire forum before someone with any sense wrote a comment. I can't believe the brainwashed masses have actually invaded the engineer population as well.

You are correct. The energy to move you and your vehicle from one place to another does not change with an electric vehicle. The electric energy comes from most likely a coal or oil fired power plant in the USA. So, if you are not connected to nuclear or hydroelectric power plants, you are naive to think you are saving the environment. You are actually quite foolish because you have paid way too much for your vehicle which is ill equipped to deal with a cold weather environment anyway. You are probably the type to sit around and sip cocktails revelling at how sophisticated you are. Come off it already and do something that really helps the environment like riding a bike.

another non perfect solution is the high performance engines which are on the market now. Especially the 4 cylinder diesels which can get an honest 400,000 miles, running on bio and good fuel. These engines should / could be installed on a whole range of cars and trucks. I have seen one installed in a nice '55 Chevy, and allot of older cars (people really like their older models) could be retrofitted. In fact I think that in '84 there was a small truck that had a 4 cylinder diesel. Dodge I think.

Electric cars & bio diesel high performance engines, should hold a valuable place in our marketplace because of the diversity of every day people, and should remain a smaller share.

"it's not a perfect improvement" but it does say IMPROVEMENT.

Good point.

I'm kind of surprised that GM didn't go this way with the Volt. Perhaps ensuring that there is somewhere to go with the next model :-)

or building a solar steam power plant.

the more solar steam/salt power plants come on line the better

While electric vehicles displace pollution to another source, the other source (being larger) is typically more efficient and cleaner than the individual vehicle was. Thus there is a net gain in cleanliness, and about a "push" in overall energy efficiency.

Where I live, gasoline is about US$3.20/gallon, and electricity is about US$0.13/kwh. Both of these are more expensive than in most of the "lower 48." My travel patterns are well suited to a car of range 50 miles, so I would look closely for a decently priced EV. Or maybe cobble something together with a forklift battery and a higher-geared motor.

And don't forget sled dogs. ;-)

I haven't yet tried to convert dog food dollars into a kwh equivalent....

(One dogpower = 200 watts?)

I don't know of any published data on it, but my WAG would be one chihuahuapower ≈ 50 watts, 10 useful and 40 acoustic.

ξ

A weakness of the all electric car is the limited range. It leads one to believe that we could take a page from the railroads, which are getting very high fuel efficiencies from diesel / electric drives. Develop a car with electric drive motors powered by a relatively small diesel engine coupled to a generator and a small battery pack. The diesel would be configured to run at its most efficient constant speed. The fuel consumption is determined by the power used not the speed of the engine. The battery would provide additional power for acceleration and hills.

A model for the snow belt could have an electric motor for each wheel, which would be controlled by existing technology to provide 4 wheel drive on demand.

That sounds a lot like the "plug in hybrid" that has been talked about lately. It seems to me the small, highly efficient gas powered generator would be a perfect source of heat in an emergency, for the vehicle occupants as well as the battery.

Just like there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one way to answer a question. Most individuals with any brains, or just plain old common sense, knows the green technologies of today are a general flop. That is due to the assumed overall general application. The one size fits all category. This has always been the wrong approach to the greens.

Here in the US, and just south of the Mason Dixon Line, 50% of the homes could be self sufficient when it comes to energy, using green tech. Those are the facts. Using the same green tech in Chicago would be a total disaster. And when it comes to electric vehicles, the rules of disaster don't change.

An EV running during January in Florida will not have the same stats if driven in Alaska. Trying to force the general application of an EV in different environments is quite dumb. Fossil fueled cars use no more energy throwing heat into the passenger compartment, it is redirecting the engines heat, not creating new compartment heat. The EV has to create it.

One of the key energy saving features in an EV is no power consumption when stopped. If you had to add a burden of heating the passenger compartment the efficiency begins to be compromised.

On a side note: The price of an EV is based on the buyer. Most people who believe the EV is all that and a bag of chips is dumb enough to pay twice what they should pay. Again, those are the facts. Marketing set the price on the General Motors EV, not engineering or the cost of the batteries.

Continuing on: The only solution to the problem of heating an EV during winter is the addition of a correcting measure. Just like adding an air conditioner and a 10% bigger fuel tank to the fossil fueled car, you would have to add an electric heater to the EV and increase the battery capacity.

The sole simplicity of the EV is what makes it viable. It must be in the correct environment, under conditions it can tolerate, and without any bells and whistles. Otherwise, stay where you are, the fossil fuel wonder that has over 100 years of engineering and field testing under it's belt. No geographical, seasonal, or whistle limitations.

Currently, any discussions beyond common sense is a wet dream at best. An EV is what it is and you can not change it. It is not a new technology, nor are the so called advances in the EV earth shattering. You can buy off the shelf components and rival GM at 1/4 the price.

My conclusion is: If you want to stay warm in an EV driving across Canada in January, go buy a few more Diehards from Sears and stop by Hooters and get a couple of hand warmers and enjoy all those bells and whistles.

-Roy-

You wrote, "Personally, I think there is a niche for a very efficient simple vehicle, but the major manufacturers are going for high content, high profit vehicles."

Yes, it is the plaything of the well heeled.

EVs are not efficient when you look at the total cost. When you add up the whole cost and compare it to other gas fueled economy cars you can save money with a Kia and buy a whole lot of gas for the cost of an EV. So people buy it because it is a fashion statement.

Meanwhile, automakers are trying to recover their engineering costs and are looking at the next generation designs for EV.

At some point the EV could become a very cost effective alternative to a gas fueled car, but we are still a good bit away from that day.

I don't have the time to make all the corrections in your response. You have mixed in alternative fuel with green tech and made a few misguided statements on others. Example: Compact fluorescents have not even come close to the savings or life expectancy promised. If broken, the contents takes a Has Mat Team to legally clean up.

Making a product more efficient is the norm, not green. All based on the rising cost of energy.

The EV community is larger than the niche created by the big auto manufacturers. The EV home builders easily out number the manufactured EV by at least 100 to 1. So I was addressing the EV community not the manufacturers niche.

If you have read my comment you would see it approaches the issues in a different light by putting them into the proper environment to capture their success. Then let them evolve as other technologies have to be successful.

When I see every player get a trophy, winner or looser, It defeats the purpose of the game. Green tech should get the trophy when earned, not just because it's there.

I do not know where you are from, but here in the USA we like to give the trophy to the winner. And we don't care how cute the other players are. I don't care about your politics or theories, all I know is that the USA awards success and will not humor failure. Free markets baby, free markets. That is what has moved society forward in the positive direction. We have the best recipe.

The EV community is larger than the niche created by the big auto manufacturers. The EV home builders easily out number the manufactured EV by at least 100 to 1. So I was addressing the EV community not the manufacturers niche.

I'm in the EV Club of the South. Of the 5,000,000 people in the Atlanta area, about 50 are in the club. There are a few thousand DIY EVs nation wide. A month's production (25,000) of any popular car exceeds the grand total of all operating road-legal EVs nationwide. EV DIYers are not even a large enough population to be considered a niche, in any realistic sense.

I gather from this that you did not read the original post. In it, it says "But now suppose it's wintertime, and most of the cars in the traffic jam are electric vehicles..." That's not going to happen with the hobby cars: in the average traffic jam, less than one in 1000 is an EV. EV DIY enthusiasts have been making EVs for decades, but if GMs sales predictions for the Volt are correct (they've ramped up the numbers several times... although I have my doubts) one year's Volt production alone will exceed the total number of EVs currently on the road. If we get to the point, in 30 years, when "most of the cars in the traffic jam are electric vehicles" The numbers of EVs sold will be in the multi-millions, not in the low thousands that represent the DIY market.

Making a product more efficient is the norm, not green. All based on the rising cost of energy.

We are using green in two different senses, apparently. I am using it as presented in this article. It is the whole assortment of technologies aimed at reducing our negative impact on the environment, and includes efficiency improvements, alternative fuels, recycling, LEED building initiatives, etc. -- all the hundreds of things we have done to reduce energy consumption, reduce pollution, slow the depletion of non-renewable resources, etc. Some of the most obvious of these things, like the emission controls on cars, have been a boom to the economy, and most are implemented with profit motive in mind. Many (again like emission controls) have secondary benefits, with, for example, the same technologies that permit low emissions also promoting higher horsepowers per liter than we've ever had before, more flexibility in engine performance (with 500 hp Porsche Panamera engines as docile as a Civic engine in ordinary driving), greater reliability, and elimination of tune-ups.

My shop requires 1600 watts of lighting, which used to cost about $1.30 per day to run. CFCs for the same light output cost 35 cents per day. I can pay for the bulbs (16 at $2.50 each) in less than 2 months. Many "green tech" initiatives are more profitable than the alternative.

I don't care about your politics or theories, all I know is that the USA awards success and will not humor failure. Free markets baby, free markets.

Surely you jest. Are you unaware that we have bailed out banks and auto companies? Bush's TARP was not designed to award winners. I used to be from Pittsburgh, and know that some people there read the newspapers.

Was there something you misinterpreted to lead you to think I am not in favor of free markets? I would have let the banks fail.

The reason the Volt sells for $42,000 is because that is what the market will bear (and obviously because GM knows that the car is subsidized by you and me... increasing their income, and reducing your's and mine.) A $42,000 BWM or Volvo doesn't give you anything to talk about at a cocktail party, and suggests that you can't afford a real luxury car. A Volt gives you plenty to talk about.

If broken, the contents takes a Has Mat Team to legally clean up

Sorry, completely wrong. Read the EPA guidelines.

If you have read my comment you would see it approaches the issues in a different light by putting them into the proper environment to capture their success. Then let them evolve as other technologies have to be successful.

I read your post, but assumed that you were writing about the issue in the original post -- production EVs and their need for heat. Production EVs have heaters, which obviously consume battery charge. People have successfully used production EVs (the GM EV1, the Solectrias, the Ford Ranger, the Toyota RAV 4EV) in cold areas of the country. Volvo anticipates offering a gas heater (like VW used to have as an option). Heat is not a problem in production EVs. There is no need to sequester EVs to the south, and heating/cooling issues simply effect range somewhat. The buyer can easily decide if the effect on range is a deal breaker. Buyers already put them "into the proper environment to capture their success" That's ordinary economics at work, not "a different light". Of course EVs will "evolve as other technologies have"... that goes without saying. Not sure what point you are trying to make here.

When I see every player get a trophy, winner or looser, It defeats the purpose of the game. Green tech should get the trophy when earned, not just because it's there.

Not sure why you mention this, but I agree.

if you are in traffic jam ( and we all know exactly what that is ) most of the cars and trucks are all jumbled up and changing lanes, speed up / slow down, don't leave too much space in front of you lest someone sneaks in and takes cuts in line. If we just use a little bit of technology, our cars ( which are more and more being outfitted with a ton of it) could "link up" with every driver and vehicle in this traffic jam. Maybe have all the trucks link up all together and become the engines and the autopilot for the pack, and tell the whole train what speed (s) to travel at. This "autopilot" could allow drivers to take their foot off the break and gas if they wanted to. and really travel with the pack during this time of great frustration and humongus energy waste. All cars ( electric, bio diesel, diesel, gasoline etc. ) could be outfitted with this new technology. And like any network, people would pay their dues and support each other. Let's remember, that we're ALL stuck in this "dream jam", and it's 14 to 114 degrees, 7 feet from each other for how long?, and this is only for the slow speed traffic jams. If all the cars in this jam were elect, they could link up exactly the same way. Bottom line, fuel savings up the ying-yang, and people feeling a little bit better about them selves.

This new network of cars, trucks and drivers, with "smarts" could be a cool option, since we all get caught in these jams, some times every day.

rcf-jr - We know, and you know you are right. Just let it go.

According to this article it sadly looks like it is a non issue.

With a total sale of 281 Chevy Volts for the month of February it seems there will not be that many people complaining.

The good news is the grand total sales between the Volt and the Leaf has the Volt outselling the Leaf 928 to 173. Go USA!

The good news is the grand total sales between the Volt and the Leaf has the Volt outselling the Leaf 928 to 173. Go USA!

If these numbers are correct, this would be bad news for GM, because the serial numbers of Volts delivered are now up to about 1800. That would suggest that more than 800 have been produced but not delivered to customers... leading one to think that they are sitting around at dealerships.

That would make sense.

I'd like to chalk this up to just a sales slump, but GM's sales have jumped up 42%, so I would think that people are spending their money.

Unfortunately, it may be that there are two major players here:

1. People just do not have cash to make frivolous purchase which have large sums attached to them, even with hefty rebates.

2. The technology is too young and few people are willing to be early beta testers.

A third possibility is that most people are not feeling squeezed at the pumps. That may change. But...

The bottom line is, with such dismally low numbers of EV sales I think the hype just does not match the reality. In fact, it appears that it is a long distance call between the hype and reality.

Even the beloved Tesla motors has sold only about 1,000 cars in the course of one year. Compare that to about 200,000+ cars GM sells in the US each month!

Even the beloved Tesla motors has sold only about 1,000 cars in the course of one year. Compare that to about 200,000+ cars GM sells in the US each month!

Unfortunately, I think it could be the case that the Tesla and Volt are closer in actual customer profile than GM realizes. Although I have talked to people for whom the Volt and its $350 lease price seem appealing for somewhat pragmatic reasons, these people are "fantasy" buyers, enthusiastically thinking that they could save a lot of money. But before they buy, they do the math, and find that they can't justify the cost vs a Prius. They'd like to "stick it to the sheiks", they'd like to buy American energy, but they are pragmatic. So the real buyers are the die-hard enthusiasts, just like the Tesla buyers. There are all sorts of stories of people who bought the first Volt in a state (typically travelling to get it). That's the stuff hobbyists do. Ordinary car buyers buy locally.

Tesla has sold 1000 units, and we might think that the low number is because of the price. But the similarly-priced Porsche Panamera has sold 22,000 units, in the same time. Many people can afford $100,000 cars. Few people buy Teslas... despite a cachet that is hard to beat in many circles.

Also troubling (if these cars are to sell for pragmatic reasons) is the number of people for whom the LEAF is perceived as a real electric car, and the Volt as a sell-out, or just a glorified Prius, etc. For many people, the Volt will use almost no gas at all: it goes 15,000 miles per year on electricity alone. If electric car buyers were more rational, I think they would see the Volt for what it is: an electric car without the range anxiety. But I see so many references on the web and in EV club meetings to wanting a real electric car, as if the very presence of any gasoline at all taints the purity of the car. More power to them... but these are not pragmatists: far less gas is used when you fire up the engine in a Volt 5 miles from home than is used in the far longer, far less efficient trip of a tow truck retrieving a dead EV.

Nissan is in the awkward position of saying that the "production problem" with the LEAF is occurring because they are concerned with quality. (Are they saying: "All our other cars are junk. We want this one to be OK." ??) Are they saying that they are inexperienced at building cars, unable to correctly plan production, unable to create valid preproduction prototypes? Are they incapable of getting good quality products off the line in volume? If there are these line holdups and reworks, what is wrong with the design? Are Nissan amateurs? They promote the supreme simplicity of electric cars on the one hand, but the incredible difficulty of building them to plan on the other.

It just doesn't ring true. More likely, it seems, is that they are hoping to get people to rush in to get theirs now while they are in "short supply." They do not want to build them too fast for fear of having stock yards full of them. The $99 reservation is far too low to gauge meaningful interest. Maybe their conversion rate is dismal.

When you go to one of their test drive events, you see historic pictures of all the many electric cars that Nissan has made, a few in production. Can they claim to be both steeped in the history of electric cars, but unable to actually build to plan?

I have wondered if part of the issue in forecast-vs-real has to do with a fundamental shift in buying behaviour. People are now being more careful in taking out loans, saving more, spending less... having learned their lessons from the recession. But if that were the case, the rest of the new car market should be suffering, and Panameras should be tanking. The next several months will be telling.

All good points. I think the consensus here is that 99.9% of buyers are simply not interested in buying an electric car. At least at this time.

This may be one of those things that will only gain acceptance gradually and that is not going to be something that manufactures are going to be excited about pouring time, money, and resources into to wait for the market to warm up. So the whole thing becomes a catch-22.