“Because of its shortcomings — driving range, cost and recharging time — the electric vehicle is not a viable replacement for most conventional cars,” said Toyota’s vice chairman, Takeshi Uchiyamada, in a Reuters report. “We need something entirely new.”This is the problem when governments start setting technological decrees. It's one thing to put a man on the moon in 10 years -- it's quite another to assume you can somehow circumvent the limitations of chemistry that are involved in battery storage.
Toyota Motor Co. — the world’s largest hybrid manufacturer, Reuters reports — recently announced a plan to drop pure electric-car development, also.
The announcement follows a White House decision last week to reduce its goal of 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015, Reuters said.
So what are the Japanese carmakers working on now? Fuel cell technology that would use hydrogen. Who was touting that technology years ago? Gee, I wonder.
14 comments:
I am unclear on the point of your last paragraph. Are you saying: 1) GWB is vindicated because he supported fuel cell technology in 2003 and Toyota is pursuing it now or 2) fuel cells are doomed to fail because GWB pushed it back in 2003 -- more government interference in the market?
#ObamaEpicFail
This madness has to stop! Hydrogen cars produce water vapor, which is a greenhouse gas and causes global warming!
In other news, GM was actually prototyping fuel cell cars 10 years ago, just waiting for the technology to mature. Something about a thing called the Hindenburg, apparently.
J. Ewing
I am unclear on the point of your last paragraph. Are you saying: 1) GWB is vindicated because he supported fuel cell technology in 2003 and Toyota is pursuing it now or 2) fuel cells are doomed to fail because GWB pushed it back in 2003 -- more government interference in the market?
If I had my preference, government wouldn't interfere in the market at all, but that ship has sailed. So if the government is going to interfere, I'd prefer they pursue technologies that are at least feasible. Obama and his cronies love to talk about their fealty to science, but if you want to get a product to market, you're better off talking to the engineers. And W understood that.
Having said that, it's mostly a tweak at Obama. We do a lot of that around here.
I'm not quite sure that even fuel cells will get there. The basic design requires a good chunk of gold and platinum, two materials that have gone up significantly in price since W made that speech. They're really a hodge-podge of fairly exotic materials, and (likely optimistic) estimates from the DOE are at $50/kW.
Still a better deal than full electrics or full hybrids, but still not worthy of governmnt money. Why is it that the DOE cannot clue in that subsidizing profitless companies is not the way to energy independence?
I'm not quite sure that even fuel cells will get there. The basic design requires a good chunk of gold and platinum, two materials that have gone up significantly in price since W made that speech. They're really a hodge-podge of fairly exotic materials, and (likely optimistic) estimates from the DOE are at $50/kW.
And this is why you talk to the engineers. Thanks, BB.
Engineers and economists, but the trouble even there is that both are becoming more and more beholden to the government. As a result, it's getting harder and harder to get honest feedback from either group.
Put gently, both groups should have come out viciously against the Volt--technically and economically, it's really a no-brainer. Instead, GM assigned one of their rising stars to shepherd the project, and IEEE Spectrum did a nice puff piece on her.
(and yes, there is the thought in my head that she, like our President, is an Affirmative Action hire)
Put gently, politics is getting more and more and more pervasive. BTW, did you read the bit by Kevin Dutton about psychopathic tendencies being far overrepresented in law, corporate managers' offices, and....politics?
It makes sense.
has anybody here actually test driven a Volt, besides me?
loved it.
but like a porsche 911, i would never buy it, or be able to... even if i was able, i would not buy it.
straight up: thatt is it's problem.
straight up: that is it's problem.
No disputing that here, Gino. It might be a lot of fun to drive, but it's not practical.
How about a Tesla? That looks like it would be a hoot to drive, and reasonably practical?
J. Ewing
I've never understood why nobody has pulled out the patent on the ideal solution, here-- A large li-on battery pack, AC pancake motors in the wheels for superb traction, efficiency and control, and a small onboard gas-turbine/aircraft generator to keep the batteries charged on long trips. Eliminates all the supposed problems except for the noise of the engine, and that's just engineering.
J. Ewing
J. Ewing, the problem with either the Tesla or the full hybrid is really simple: $$$, and there's not a clear path to solving that issue. Same thing with the Volt; great car for $20k, but unfortunately list is twice that.
I don't mind if someone with the money buys one, but I do mind taxes and borrowing to help someone buy one.
Bubba is right -- $$$ is the issue. If you happen to have $52,400 lying around (after subsidies, of course), you can get one.
That would be the base model, naturally.
I don't know that demand solves the issue, since the big cost drivers with Li-ion batteries, pancake motors, and fuel cells are the materials going into them. In generally, you don't spike the demand for commodities and expect the cost of things made from them (lithium, rare earths, gold, platinum, etc..) to go down.
This is the big place where government research into the area goes wrong; they are assuming that the technology and such will follow demand, while the real problem is that the "environmentally sound" solutions they're using are heavily dependent on fairly rare commodities. And so they put a price support on the use of those rare commodities and in doing so, drive the actual competing technologies (some of which might have a chance) out of the market.
Put bluntly, there are few bigger enemies of affordable energy than the DOE.
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