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In 2 years, we will all be driving GM.

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Originally posted by: Deeko
Originally posted by: FoBoT
electricity isn't free, they need to state the cost of electricity too

how much is my electric bill going up per month?

making is sound like it is free is stupid
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"In three short years, consumers could be celebrating the arrival of an affordable electric vehicle (GM's target sticker price is under $30,000) that would cost a driver travelling 100 kilometres a day only $1,000 a year in gas and electricity. "

edit: I spend roughly $1500/year on gas, and my average daily mileage is probably close to 25.
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Well, I suspect it wouldn't cost you the $1000 mentioned in the article then. It seems you drive far less mileage than what the $1000 figure was derived from.
 
Originally posted by: FoBoT
they need to list the cost in terms people are used to

maybe instead of MPG, they do DPM, dollars per mile or something
an easy way to compare the cost of the electricity to the cost of gasoline

right now, my commuter cars get 32 and 34 MPG, gas is $2.80/gal
my commute is 100 miles/day

so it costs me about $8.50 a day to drive to work, say $9 with gas at $3/gal

i want to know if the electricity will cost me $5 a day or $10 a day or what to drive to work if i bought that car
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Well, if 100km/day is EVERY day, that's roughly 22,600 miles/year, right? At $1000, that comes to 4.42 cents/mile. My car gets about 19 mpg. At $3/gallon, that comes to about 15.69 cents/mile.

My math could be wrong somewhere, but it seems right to me...
 
Glad to see someone is thinking outside the box. I'll be very interested in seeing this when it arrives. Gotta find a company that will install power outlets in the parking garage to plug these in at work...
 
Originally posted by: FoBoT
they need to list the cost in terms people are used to

maybe instead of MPG, they do DPM, dollars per mile or something
an easy way to compare the cost of the electricity to the cost of gasoline

right now, my commuter cars get 32 and 34 MPG, gas is $2.80/gal
my commute is 100 miles/day

so it costs me about $8.50 a day to drive to work, say $9 with gas at $3/gal

i want to know if the electricity will cost me $5 a day or $10 a day or what to drive to work if i bought that car
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If we take their $1,000/year figure in terms of a 5 days a week commute, that works out to $1000 / 260 days = $3.85 per day for a 100 km commute.

That's still in kilometres - so take that figure and multiply it by 1.6? So for you, it'd be a daily cost of $6.15. Assuming gas stays steady at $3/gal for the foreseeable future, you'd save $2.85 a day, or $741 a year.
 
No we won't, since GM told everyone this Honda is going to make a better, cheaper one. They are stupid and shouldn't have said anything.
 
Originally posted by: Queasy
Originally posted by: dainthomas
So it's largely powered by electricity (likely) generated from a coal-fired plant? No thanks. Call me when Mr Fusion is invented.
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Sounds like more nuclear power plants need to be built.
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:thumbsup:


Cost of electricity needs to be considered like others have mentioned. However, I have an economy car and my gas bill is still about 160 a month. I doubt that this car will end up costing more or near the same. It will be less of a monthly cost for most people.

The only other thing I want to know is the lifetime expectancy of the battery like the article mentions. I have heard of this new GM battery before and I believe it costs over 10k just for the battery.
 
deregulation = cheap electricity at night. charge your car overnight during off-peak hours and you will save much more money.

the battery is suppose to be 16kWh - its about 0.08/kWh during off peak hours in NYC. it'd cost you $1.24 to fully charge the battery. the battery will last you 40 miles (roughly), so it would cost you $0.03 per mile.

a prius will get you about $0.06 per mile, assuming u get 46mpg and gas is $3/gal.


so if you cruise along with just the electric motor, fuel costs will be halved.

this is great stuff, but i'd rather wait for fuel-cell powered cars. you can generate 100kWh with one car, thats enough to power a city block 😛
 
You guys are doing your math based on todays gas prices. In 2010 we may be paying double for a gallon of gas, maybe even more than that.

 
Originally posted by: bonkers325
deregulation = cheap electricity at night. charge your car overnight during off-peak hours and you will save much more money.

the battery is suppose to be 16kWh - its about 0.08/kWh during off peak hours in NYC. it'd cost you $1.24 to fully charge the battery. the battery will last you 40 miles (roughly), so it would cost you $0.03 per mile.
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Just as increasing crude production - if the refining capacity isn't there the end product (gasoline) isn't going to be there. Same with electricity. Not enough transmission capacity. At first it won't be an issue but as more people buy these electric tin boxes it will. Mandatory load balancing/shedding will be required. (see the thread about CA controlling thermostats!)

The energy costs might be 0.03/mi traveled but what about real costs? That battery costs a LOT of money and it won't last forever. A well treated Li-Ion pack gets 500 cycles and its capacity will diminish along the way to that cut off point. So if the battery has to be replaced two or three times during the life expectancy of the vehicle operating costs inch upward.
 
WIth this car and MIT's development of wireless power. GM could rule the world. Imagine it. Just drive up to the post in your driveway or garage and the car charges itself. As far as the fuel to create the electricity I would rather burn coal than gas. New coal plants are far less polluting and I know in Texas wind towers are going up all the time. Everyday I go to work I see semi's hauling blades for the turbines. They have to be going somewhere. We need more wind towers, more hydro based plants in the ocean and more nuclear.
 
Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven
I also wonder about how these type of cars would perform in the cold conditions I live in. Batteries of various sorts have shortened life spans in the conditions up here.
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One of the problems is that since electric motors are so efficient, they don't generate much heat, which means your car heater won't do much unless you're running the diesel engine as well. In a gas/diesel car, the heater is basically just a second small radiator in the dash. I don't believe electric cars normally even have an engine cooling system because there is just no need.
 
Too bad GM has the worst customer service of anyone I've ever dealt with. I'm on my 3rd GM and I will NEVER EVER buy another one. Their mechanics do lousy jobs and management will lie for them and refuse to correct problems that they cause by their sloppy work. They fix what you bring it in for but always break 1 or 2 things, don't put all of the screws back in because some of them are hard to get to, and treat customers like dog shit. I hope the company goes under.
 
Originally posted by: Rubycon
Electric cars charged from power created by burning fossil fuels seems to be an oxymoron? With the current struggle to maintain power across the 'States what happens every evening when John Q gets home and plugs in his battmobile to the socket in the cave? There's going to be a surge in lighter fluid as folks flock to backyard grills to cook food when their electric stove won't work in mandated evening rolling blackouts. :laugh:

The only way electric powered cars are going to work is if the power comes from nuclear plants. Wind, solar, hydro, and geo are good too but will never generate enough to make up for the extreme demand placed on the system. Then the transmission infrastructure itself needs to be upgraded costing billions too.
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Putting the chargers on timers that only recharge the batteries at night (lowest demand) in residential applications would probably go a long way to avoiding straining the grid too badly. It also isn't like 50 million of these things would show up overnight, it would probably take a number of years before the amount of cars charging would cause problems for the existing grid.

Shifting the fuel source alone from petroleum to coal, NG, nuclear, and hydro has enormous economic benefits.
 
Yeah sure it will. more likely it will be 40 MPG in ideal conditions, look like a mole and have horrible performance. They will just say oh this is the first version, we will perfect it by 2015.
 
Originally posted by: senseamp
At my company, you can charge your electric car for free in the parking lot. But in fairness, they should not do any plug in charging to compare to prius.
Just run it long term recharging the battery off the gasoline engine, and see what the mileage is.
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560 miles on 11.8 gallons is about 48 MPG.
 
By the time this car rolls out most states will have extremely high taxes on any vehicles that use little or no gas because they wouldn't be collecting gasoline taxes that keep up the highways. One method is using odometers that report your mileage every time you fill up and adjust the price based on distance traveled. While this sounds great, with the exception of the initial price tag, we're still all screwed if we have to depend on oil.
 
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
WIth this car and MIT's development of wireless power. GM could rule the world. Imagine it. Just drive up to the post in your driveway or garage and the car charges itself. As far as the fuel to create the electricity I would rather burn coal than gas. New coal plants are far less polluting and I know in Texas wind towers are going up all the time. Everyday I go to work I see semi's hauling blades for the turbines. They have to be going somewhere. We need more wind towers, more hydro based plants in the ocean and more nuclear.
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Nikolai Tesla FTMFW!
 
I want to hate on this totally, but it does have *some* potential. However, it'll probably look retarded and get poor performance...all the while costing twice as much as a traditional econobox and probably not living up to its lofty mileage claims. However, most electric grids have off periods that would be a good time to recharge the car every night. That doesn't mean rates aren't going to go up or that we won't need additional capacity. But I guess its better if we're burning good old American coal then oil.

Frankly, GM hasn't even mastered building a traditional vehicle much less a complicated one. It doesn't even matter who makes it, the first one is probably going to be a barrel of problems.
 
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