GM shuts down truck plants, considers cancelling Hummer

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0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
If you think cars can be engineered, developed, tested, and put into production in a month, start an auto manufacturer.

...I'll be looking to buy one of your $10,000 150MPG cars in July.

Why did GM kill the EV1? It's was expensive as hell! The CARB originally targeted that 10% of an auto manufacturer's fleet would be a ZEV in 2008, however GM was the ONLY company that actually got one to market in any way shape or form. It was largely unsuccessful.

As far as diesels go, I'm a big fan of them. The problem there is that the tree huggers have been trying to ban them for so long to get clean air that diesel cars are virtually impossible to make for the US, and until recently, the sulfur content in the fuel wasn't helping matters. Don't blame oil for that, blame your law makers and the "green" lobbiests. The same ones that pushed MTBE to be put in gas.


Dude, THE TECHNOLOGY EXISTS! There IS no engineering involved, there IS no development, no testing and no production lead times.

Hell, if you *really* wanted you could buy one of these in Europe and ship it here.

But as you said, its the tree huggers. If you re-read my posts I agree with you 100%. All we had to do was lift the tech from Europe and apply it here. As for sulfer, the lower sulfer takes more refining so its mroe expensive. Keep the sulfer and your fine as it also helps with libricosity (sp?).

Oh well. Fucking tree huggers and consumers who dont care. You get what we have today.


sure the tech exists....in ur freakin mind:p
beyond conspiracy theories the technology didn't exist at the time of the ev1. toyota is having enough trouble getting just a few miles worth of battery power into their current hybrids. and no, europe doesn't have some magical technology they are keeping from the rest of the world:p give me a break. europe sells plenty of cars in the us. nothings stopping them.

Have you heard of the Tesla Roadster? They've built like 50 of the extended ranger, all electric sports cars now. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, nearly 300 miles on a charge...rawr.

tesla roadster. 10 years on from ev1 and its still not out yet. and not anywhere near viable pricing for regular market, it is a rich mans toy because they know thats all the tech could support at this point. whats actually sold for a reasonable price? pos like the zap zebra. and btw the teslas range is only a bit over 200 miles, not 300.

It is out. 0.o

I've seen photos of them driving around California, and the company claims to have shipped about 50 models.

They just made a new, more efficent, more powerful transmission they said they will retrofit onto 41 existing cars, and are putting them into all the cars under construction currently.

last i heard they were still sorting out the transmission. its not so much more powerful ..as they had issues with shifting being rough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster#Sales
its not out.
 

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
25,375
142
116
Good riddens to bad rubbish.
 

Demon-Xanth

Lifer
Feb 15, 2000
20,551
2
81
Originally posted by: joshsquall
I love people who think they know what's best for everyone else.

Knowing what's best and actually doing it are two different things. If we always did what is best for us, this board wouldn't exist :)
 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
Originally posted by: brandonb
Originally posted by: Snatchface
Now maybe we can start moving forward as a country instead of allowing big oil to control our vehicle choices and destroy the earth. People are not buying fuel hogs anymore, are riding bikes, scooters and now electric vehicles scheduled to be sold by 2010. Without high fuel proces this would never have happened. People are pissed but in the end it is going to be a good thing for everyone - including the auto makers who are now being forced to innovate.

GM closes plants

Thank God for high gas prices? Do you realize that the price of oil has not gone up over the last year. The problem being that the dollar has declined in value, so it requires more dollars to buy the same oil as it did before. But the price of oil has remained the same as it always has been:

Dollar fell 25% last year, Gas went up 25% last year. ;)

It's not something I'm thankful for. I understand you want less gas guzzlers off the road, but I think the 'greater depression' is not the way to make that happen.

The price of oil has risen much faster than the value of the dollar has fallen. You cannot attribute the run up in oil prices solely to the decline in value of the dollar.
 

JulesMaximus

No Lifer
Jul 3, 2003
74,534
911
126
Originally posted by: joshsquall
I love people who think they know what's best for everyone else.

I see no problem criticizing someone for driving 70 miles a day in a 4 ton vehicle that gets 15mpg.
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,410
616
126
Originally posted by: Snatchface
Now maybe we can start moving forward as a country instead of allowing big oil to control our vehicle choices and destroy the earth. People are not buying fuel hogs anymore, are riding bikes, scooters and now electric vehicles scheduled to be sold by 2010. Without high fuel proces this would never have happened. People are pissed but in the end it is going to be a good thing for everyone - including the auto makers who are now being forced to innovate.

GM closes plants

Most idiotic post of the year.

OP is a retard and has no clue how the world works other than what he reads on the back of a cereal box.

no fuel hogs uh? HAHAHAHAAH have you ever looked at the MPG of very popular cars like the Mustang as one example?
 

meltdown75

Lifer
Nov 17, 2004
37,548
7
81
a guy a few houses down from me has an H2... my neighbour and i think it's amazing that that thing actually fits in a 2-car garage in an average-sized raised ranch.

not to chirp him or anything, i'm just sayin
 

TruePaige

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2006
9,874
2
0
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
If you think cars can be engineered, developed, tested, and put into production in a month, start an auto manufacturer.

...I'll be looking to buy one of your $10,000 150MPG cars in July.

Why did GM kill the EV1? It's was expensive as hell! The CARB originally targeted that 10% of an auto manufacturer's fleet would be a ZEV in 2008, however GM was the ONLY company that actually got one to market in any way shape or form. It was largely unsuccessful.

As far as diesels go, I'm a big fan of them. The problem there is that the tree huggers have been trying to ban them for so long to get clean air that diesel cars are virtually impossible to make for the US, and until recently, the sulfur content in the fuel wasn't helping matters. Don't blame oil for that, blame your law makers and the "green" lobbiests. The same ones that pushed MTBE to be put in gas.


Dude, THE TECHNOLOGY EXISTS! There IS no engineering involved, there IS no development, no testing and no production lead times.

Hell, if you *really* wanted you could buy one of these in Europe and ship it here.

But as you said, its the tree huggers. If you re-read my posts I agree with you 100%. All we had to do was lift the tech from Europe and apply it here. As for sulfer, the lower sulfer takes more refining so its mroe expensive. Keep the sulfer and your fine as it also helps with libricosity (sp?).

Oh well. Fucking tree huggers and consumers who dont care. You get what we have today.


sure the tech exists....in ur freakin mind:p
beyond conspiracy theories the technology didn't exist at the time of the ev1. toyota is having enough trouble getting just a few miles worth of battery power into their current hybrids. and no, europe doesn't have some magical technology they are keeping from the rest of the world:p give me a break. europe sells plenty of cars in the us. nothings stopping them.

Have you heard of the Tesla Roadster? They've built like 50 of the extended ranger, all electric sports cars now. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, nearly 300 miles on a charge...rawr.

tesla roadster. 10 years on from ev1 and its still not out yet. and not anywhere near viable pricing for regular market, it is a rich mans toy because they know thats all the tech could support at this point. whats actually sold for a reasonable price? pos like the zap zebra. and btw the teslas range is only a bit over 200 miles, not 300.

It is out. 0.o

I've seen photos of them driving around California, and the company claims to have shipped about 50 models.

They just made a new, more efficent, more powerful transmission they said they will retrofit onto 41 existing cars, and are putting them into all the cars under construction currently.

last i heard they were still sorting out the transmission. its not so much more powerful ..as they had issues with shifting being rough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster#Sales
its not out.

Dude, the first sentence in the link you just provided says..

"Tesla's "Signature One Hundred" initial set of fully equipped cars sold out by late August 2006."

then it follows with

Tesla Motors then began accepting reservation orders by September 2006 for their 2008 models with several payment options available to determine the 2008 delivery date of the vehicle. The second hundred had been reserved by October. As of January 15, 2008, all 650 Tesla Roadsters planned for model year 2008 had been reserved


How is it not out?
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,410
616
126
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Anubis
i wish we had europes diesels over here :(

BINGO. See my post above.

The tech exists, right now, today. All that was needed was to lift it from Europe and apply it here.

You can thank the hippy clean air bullshit for blocking it.

bingo what? diesel is 4.98 a gallon at the stations around where i live, why in hell would i buy a diesel. plus with the added demand for diesel if we had a bunch of cars running diesel the price would go through the roof.

 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: lokiju
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Originally posted by: Anubis
i wish we had europes diesels over here :(

Diesel cost anywhere from .50 to 1.00 more then reg. gas. So even with better milage it does nto save money, let alone the upfront cost as well.

Diesel here in N.VA is almost $5 a gallon at 2 places near me. Reg gas was $4.07 at the same gas station and $3.81 at costco.

The average passenger car milage in 2004 was 27. Lets call it a nice round 30.

A Jetta TDi can get 50 (I've seen reports of well over 60).

30 mpg, $3.81 / gallon = 0.13 cents per mile.
50 mpg, $5.00 / gallon = 0.10 cents per mile.

Doesnt save money??

2005 Volkswagen Jetta Gas

2005 Volkswagen Jetta Diesel

Lets not go making stuff up now.

Since your links don't work, here are the stats:

VW Jetta Gas (manual transmission): 21/31 city/highway
VW Jetta Diesel (manual transmission): 30/41 city/highway

31 mpg, $3.81/gallon = 12 cents per mile
41 mpg, $5.00/gallon = 12 cents per mile


yes except normal gas is 4.18$ here is i dont see that dropping any time soon
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Have you heard of the Tesla Roadster? They've built like 50 of the extended ranger, all electric sports cars now. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, nearly 300 miles on a charge...rawr.

But it took them how long to get there? About 5 years for a limited production, and they cost about how much compared to an Elise?

You gotta pay for the upsides one way or another. I'm not saying it's a bad car in any way, just that you need to make other compromises. :)

I can understand that..I just think if they can do such a highly tuned, powerful machine like that..

...and considering the EV1 was an AMAZING acheivement for the time...got great range and had good batteries in the 90's...

That today it is completely feasible to make a working man's electric car.

things don't automatically scale down. other companies have been trying hard to build viable evs and they've all been failing. electric motors aren't new tech. so thats not amazing. tesla didn't develop the battery chemistry as far as i know. they just had the resources and price point to be able to use a massive number of cells for their car to make it viable as a rich boys toy. scale that down to reasonable prices and what do you have? an electric scooter.
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
If you think cars can be engineered, developed, tested, and put into production in a month, start an auto manufacturer.

...I'll be looking to buy one of your $10,000 150MPG cars in July.

Why did GM kill the EV1? It's was expensive as hell! The CARB originally targeted that 10% of an auto manufacturer's fleet would be a ZEV in 2008, however GM was the ONLY company that actually got one to market in any way shape or form. It was largely unsuccessful.

As far as diesels go, I'm a big fan of them. The problem there is that the tree huggers have been trying to ban them for so long to get clean air that diesel cars are virtually impossible to make for the US, and until recently, the sulfur content in the fuel wasn't helping matters. Don't blame oil for that, blame your law makers and the "green" lobbiests. The same ones that pushed MTBE to be put in gas.


Dude, THE TECHNOLOGY EXISTS! There IS no engineering involved, there IS no development, no testing and no production lead times.

Hell, if you *really* wanted you could buy one of these in Europe and ship it here.

But as you said, its the tree huggers. If you re-read my posts I agree with you 100%. All we had to do was lift the tech from Europe and apply it here. As for sulfer, the lower sulfer takes more refining so its mroe expensive. Keep the sulfer and your fine as it also helps with libricosity (sp?).

Oh well. Fucking tree huggers and consumers who dont care. You get what we have today.


sure the tech exists....in ur freakin mind:p
beyond conspiracy theories the technology didn't exist at the time of the ev1. toyota is having enough trouble getting just a few miles worth of battery power into their current hybrids. and no, europe doesn't have some magical technology they are keeping from the rest of the world:p give me a break. europe sells plenty of cars in the us. nothings stopping them.

Have you heard of the Tesla Roadster? They've built like 50 of the extended ranger, all electric sports cars now. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, nearly 300 miles on a charge...rawr.

tesla roadster. 10 years on from ev1 and its still not out yet. and not anywhere near viable pricing for regular market, it is a rich mans toy because they know thats all the tech could support at this point. whats actually sold for a reasonable price? pos like the zap zebra. and btw the teslas range is only a bit over 200 miles, not 300.

It is out. 0.o

I've seen photos of them driving around California, and the company claims to have shipped about 50 models.

They just made a new, more efficent, more powerful transmission they said they will retrofit onto 41 existing cars, and are putting them into all the cars under construction currently.

last i heard they were still sorting out the transmission. its not so much more powerful ..as they had issues with shifting being rough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster#Sales
its not out.

Dude, the first sentence in the link you just provided says..

"Tesla's "Signature One Hundred" initial set of fully equipped cars sold out by late August 2006."

then it follows with

Tesla Motors then began accepting reservation orders by September 2006 for their 2008 models with several payment options available to determine the 2008 delivery date of the vehicle. The second hundred had been reserved by October. As of January 15, 2008, all 650 Tesla Roadsters planned for model year 2008 had been reserved


How is it not out?

i honestly don't care. apparently if they shipped any yet its the botched model with the old tranny. its been a product that was delayed from its original release date and the rest preordered with a limited run. the original point was that despite conspiracy theorists claiming that ev's were viable back in the 90s, tesla has taken this long to deliver what is essentially a rich mans toy which is just more proof that it really was never viable way back then, never mind now. the tesla is no proof of viability as it is often touted as.
 

TruePaige

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2006
9,874
2
0
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Have you heard of the Tesla Roadster? They've built like 50 of the extended ranger, all electric sports cars now. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, nearly 300 miles on a charge...rawr.

But it took them how long to get there? About 5 years for a limited production, and they cost about how much compared to an Elise?

You gotta pay for the upsides one way or another. I'm not saying it's a bad car in any way, just that you need to make other compromises. :)

I can understand that..I just think if they can do such a highly tuned, powerful machine like that..

...and considering the EV1 was an AMAZING acheivement for the time...got great range and had good batteries in the 90's...

That today it is completely feasible to make a working man's electric car.

things don't automatically scale down. other companies have been trying hard to build viable evs and they've all been failing. electric motors aren't new tech. so thats not amazing. tesla didn't develop the battery chemistry as far as i know. they just had the resources and price point to be able to use a massive number of cells for their car to make it viable as a rich boys toy. scale that down to reasonable prices and what do you have? an electric scooter.

Well why not sell an EV1? That is old battery tech, which is significantly cheaper than it was then, or we could use new, better battery tech and still come out ahead. The car was about the size of a Honda Civic.

US$33,995 to US$43,995 was the cost of the car they used to compute lease payments.

The car required almost NO MAINTENANCE, other than the fact that the crappy battery tech of the 90's required a replace after about 35,000 miles.

In this day and age, it'd be much cheaper.

Read about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

GM shredded the idea for BS reasons, today it would be an even greater car.
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
81
the first company to come out with a cheap usable electric car or a cheap alternitive fuel source is going to fucking rich. I am willing to bet in the next ten years we will see a decent (not great) electric or fuel source.

 

Specop 007

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
9,454
0
0
Originally posted by: lokiju
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Originally posted by: Anubis
i wish we had europes diesels over here :(

Diesel cost anywhere from .50 to 1.00 more then reg. gas. So even with better milage it does nto save money, let alone the upfront cost as well.

Diesel here in N.VA is almost $5 a gallon at 2 places near me. Reg gas was $4.07 at the same gas station and $3.81 at costco.

The average passenger car milage in 2004 was 27. Lets call it a nice round 30.

A Jetta TDi can get 50 (I've seen reports of well over 60).

30 mpg, $3.81 / gallon = 0.13 cents per mile.
50 mpg, $5.00 / gallon = 0.10 cents per mile.

Doesnt save money??

2005 Volkswagen Jetta Gas

2005 Volkswagen Jetta Diesel

Lets not go making stuff up now.

You might want to speak to people who actually own and drive these cars every day.
people like.....Oh, me.

Or you could go here

Highest posted milage thus far is 71. I have no idea how he did it, but point being your numbers are horribly low as an average.
 
Aug 23, 2000
15,509
1
81
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Originally posted by: Linux23
These auto manufacturers are fvcking stupid. Gas prices has been going up steadily for the past few years, and they still keep introducing big fvcking SUV's??? These are CEO's that make these decisions, yet the little guy suffers when they lose their jobs.

We have the technology, so give people the choice to buy electric only vehicles now regardless of the range. My commute is only 3 miles to the subway. I could bike if I wanted to, but I live in a bad area, so i'm not going to risk my life to save a few bucks.

Why do we have to wait until 2010 to get an all electric vehicle? What have they been doing for the past 5 years? Planning for more big SUV's?:roll:

Yeah, it's automotive companies who are forcing us to demand big vehicles, people would never do that. :roll:

No, actually it's marketing that makes us think we NEED these big vehicles.

How do you get a sheet of plywood home in a Cooper Mini? How about a BBQ grill? or a new dog house, or play sand or a bunch of plants to landscape your yard?

And now MARKETING is saying we all want tiny ass small vehicles because they are trendy and better on gas mileage, guess what, these small trendy gas sippers will soon cost more than the gas hog trucks and SUV's because MFGers will now they can charge a premium on those since they are in demand. I wouldn't be to surprised if the cost of ownership didn't equal what a vehicle with a lower MPG rating costs.
 

preslove

Lifer
Sep 10, 2003
16,754
63
91
Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Originally posted by: Linux23
These auto manufacturers are fvcking stupid. Gas prices has been going up steadily for the past few years, and they still keep introducing big fvcking SUV's??? These are CEO's that make these decisions, yet the little guy suffers when they lose their jobs.

We have the technology, so give people the choice to buy electric only vehicles now regardless of the range. My commute is only 3 miles to the subway. I could bike if I wanted to, but I live in a bad area, so i'm not going to risk my life to save a few bucks.

Why do we have to wait until 2010 to get an all electric vehicle? What have they been doing for the past 5 years? Planning for more big SUV's?:roll:

Yeah, it's automotive companies who are forcing us to demand big vehicles, people would never do that. :roll:

Intelligent planning requires executives to look down the road in order to innovate. Had GM continued to work on its electric vehicles, taking short term losses, they would be in an extremely advantageous position. What did the idiot executives do? They pulled their electronic vehicles and built more SUVs for short term profit and long term fail.

The current oil price shocks didn't take anyone who was actually paying attention to the supply/demand numbers by surprise. Peak oil is upon us, and smart planning by Honda and Toyota have put them in position to clean up, while short cited idiocy has put GM even further behind.
 

AgaBoogaBoo

Lifer
Feb 16, 2003
26,108
5
81
Why cancel Hummer? They have large profit margins from what I've heard and do the people buying them really care about gas prices?
 

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
13,140
138
106
Originally posted by: joshsquall
I love people who think they know what's best for everyone else.

:thumbsup:

Yep. I know what's best for me, not the OP. He can pry my truck keys out of my cold dead hands.

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
I see no problem criticizing someone for driving 70 miles a day in a 4 ton vehicle that gets 15mpg.

Criticize all you want, but when you start trying to tell me I don't "need" my vehicle choice, well, that's when you need to start zipping your lip. I don't want to hear it, and it's not your business or place to tell me what I "need".
 

TruePaige

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2006
9,874
2
0
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: TruePaige
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: Specop 007
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
If you think cars can be engineered, developed, tested, and put into production in a month, start an auto manufacturer.

...I'll be looking to buy one of your $10,000 150MPG cars in July.

Why did GM kill the EV1? It's was expensive as hell! The CARB originally targeted that 10% of an auto manufacturer's fleet would be a ZEV in 2008, however GM was the ONLY company that actually got one to market in any way shape or form. It was largely unsuccessful.

As far as diesels go, I'm a big fan of them. The problem there is that the tree huggers have been trying to ban them for so long to get clean air that diesel cars are virtually impossible to make for the US, and until recently, the sulfur content in the fuel wasn't helping matters. Don't blame oil for that, blame your law makers and the "green" lobbiests. The same ones that pushed MTBE to be put in gas.


Dude, THE TECHNOLOGY EXISTS! There IS no engineering involved, there IS no development, no testing and no production lead times.

Hell, if you *really* wanted you could buy one of these in Europe and ship it here.

But as you said, its the tree huggers. If you re-read my posts I agree with you 100%. All we had to do was lift the tech from Europe and apply it here. As for sulfer, the lower sulfer takes more refining so its mroe expensive. Keep the sulfer and your fine as it also helps with libricosity (sp?).

Oh well. Fucking tree huggers and consumers who dont care. You get what we have today.


sure the tech exists....in ur freakin mind:p
beyond conspiracy theories the technology didn't exist at the time of the ev1. toyota is having enough trouble getting just a few miles worth of battery power into their current hybrids. and no, europe doesn't have some magical technology they are keeping from the rest of the world:p give me a break. europe sells plenty of cars in the us. nothings stopping them.

Have you heard of the Tesla Roadster? They've built like 50 of the extended ranger, all electric sports cars now. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds, nearly 300 miles on a charge...rawr.

tesla roadster. 10 years on from ev1 and its still not out yet. and not anywhere near viable pricing for regular market, it is a rich mans toy because they know thats all the tech could support at this point. whats actually sold for a reasonable price? pos like the zap zebra. and btw the teslas range is only a bit over 200 miles, not 300.

It is out. 0.o

I've seen photos of them driving around California, and the company claims to have shipped about 50 models.

They just made a new, more efficent, more powerful transmission they said they will retrofit onto 41 existing cars, and are putting them into all the cars under construction currently.

last i heard they were still sorting out the transmission. its not so much more powerful ..as they had issues with shifting being rough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster#Sales
its not out.

Dude, the first sentence in the link you just provided says..

"Tesla's "Signature One Hundred" initial set of fully equipped cars sold out by late August 2006."

then it follows with

Tesla Motors then began accepting reservation orders by September 2006 for their 2008 models with several payment options available to determine the 2008 delivery date of the vehicle. The second hundred had been reserved by October. As of January 15, 2008, all 650 Tesla Roadsters planned for model year 2008 had been reserved


How is it not out?

i honestly don't care. apparently if they shipped any yet its the botched model with the old tranny. its been a product that was delayed from its original release date and the rest preordered with a limited run. the original point was that despite conspiracy theorists claiming that ev's were viable back in the 90s, tesla has taken this long to deliver what is essentially a rich mans toy which is just more proof that it really was never viable way back then, never mind now.

The old tranny wasn't botched, it worked fine, but wasn't very smooth, so they are retro-fitting it with a new tranny.

The whole issue there is something I think all electric car manufacturers will come to find, that a single-gear tranny is best.

So the fact that it went from you saying that none shipped, to me showing from your own article that they've sold out constantly any that they offer is proof that it was never viable. 0.o

The savings in maintenance costs alone with an electric car is amazing, these are easily better deals than a car priced $20,000 below them in price, I'd say that about most electric cars.

This is the high end, like a lambo for normal cars, cheaper ones can be made that work well, it's been done before, several times over.

Hell a ton of companies have prototypes and pricing facts if you just look them up.

Aptera Motor Corp. for example

The PROBLEM is that the big companies, that can get huge pricing discounts, and push the market, REFUSE to produce these highly viable, powerful electric cars.

Instead Chevy is going to wait till 2010, put out the Piece of CRAP that is the Chevy Volt (it's WORSE than the EV1, over 10 years later!?) and then claim no one wants an electric car.
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
Businesses will make whatever they think consumers will buy - and it's obvious it's easy to sway consumers' minds, especially with gas prices and their willingness to even wait 30 minutes in line for cheaper prices. Many people WILL do whatever they can to save, including buy more efficient / alternative vehicles even if it means a bigger up-front cost. It's just the way their minds work.

So yes, I think it was a good thing gas prices went up so technology can truly advance (there's a bigger market now). I just bought a gas vehicle a couple months ago and fully expect to keep it 10+ years - hopefully by then alternative fuels will be the norm and I'll have a great reason to get another vehicle then.
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
Well why not sell an EV1? That is old battery tech, which is significantly cheaper than it was then, or we could use new, better battery tech and still come out ahead. The car was about the size of a Honda Civic.

US$33,995 to US$43,995 was the cost of the car they used to compute lease payments.

The car required almost NO MAINTENANCE, other than the fact that the crappy battery tech of the 90's required a replace after about 35,000 miles.

In this day and age, it'd be much cheaper.

yea but thats the cost they used to compute the lease payments as said, we don't know what it would have really cost them to sell and support it. beyond using a battery there was nothing really special about the ev1. if it were so viable some other company could easily pick up where gm left off, but its been 10 years. so you are going to tell me theres a world wide conspiracy keeping some company from exploiting this gold mine...:p and i doubt it would be cheaper. our best batteries now are not cheap. and deep draining them is not a good way to get good life span out of them.

 

FeuerFrei

Diamond Member
Mar 30, 2005
9,144
929
126
Typical environ-"mentalist", fixing problems that don't exist, consequences be damned.

How does one define "hogging" fuel? It's a relative term that depends on the current norm. 30 years from now 50mpg could be a "hog." Maybe SUVs aren't "hogs" at all. Compared to a tank, they are paragons of fuel efficiency. Getting 10 mpg is only "wrong" and "harmful" in your tiny brain. Just admit you have a hard on for the environment, and don't prescribe vehicle choices on others. Who wouldn't want a vehicle that could haul most anything you own, and handily acquit itself offroad when necessary? It's NOT "big oil" foisting those vehicles on us. It's common sense + a touch of marketing. The proper response is to mourn the loss of vehicular capability for the average consumer. We are becoming poorer.


 

TruePaige

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2006
9,874
2
0
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Well why not sell an EV1? That is old battery tech, which is significantly cheaper than it was then, or we could use new, better battery tech and still come out ahead. The car was about the size of a Honda Civic.

US$33,995 to US$43,995 was the cost of the car they used to compute lease payments.

The car required almost NO MAINTENANCE, other than the fact that the crappy battery tech of the 90's required a replace after about 35,000 miles.

In this day and age, it'd be much cheaper.

yea but thats the cost they used to compute the lease payments as said, we don't know what it would have really cost them to sell and support it. beyond using a battery there was nothing really special about the ev1. if it were so viable some other company could easily pick up where gm left off, but its been 10 years. so you are going to tell me theres a world wide conspiracy keeping some company from exploiting this gold mine...:p and i doubt it would be cheaper. our best batteries now are not cheap. and deep draining them is not a good way to get good life span out of them.

Since the time of the EV1 things have changed a lot.

Gas has spiked tremendously, making people WANT to change. The EV1 would of been a big deal, but wouldn't of sold nearly as many units as it would today.

Also then batteries were a lot more expensive.

The batteries they used in the EV1 are dirt cheap these days.

Lithium batteries have also had a lot more research and went down in cost with the advent of so many more technologies that use them.

And FYI, it's not some conspiracy per-se, but the charge, quick charge, and battery life management has been a concern, and a few large oil companies hold a LOT of super-capacitor and battery patents.
 

Wheezer

Diamond Member
Nov 2, 1999
6,731
1
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Now maybe we can start moving forward as a country instead of allowing big oil to control our vehicle choices and destroy the earth

that is probably the most asinine statement I have heard in a while.

Do some research...it was not the car makers choice it was the choice of the AMERICAN PEOPLE

Find out why we did not follow the lead of Brazil and seek out alternate opportunities when the gas crunch hit in the late 70's early 80's.

One of the reasons is that we simply wanted smaller more efficient cars that still ran on oil, while GM was working with the Brazilian government to develop FlexFuel cars that would run on either regular gas or the fuel they manufactured from sugar cane...which is renewable and the scraps are burned to fuel the refining process.....pretty self sufficient.

When asked why they did not develop it for the American people...it is because they catered to what we wanted......cars that still depended on oil.

Don't blame the car companies, blame the American people and the administrations since '79 who failed to ween us off oil.