Video The Coda Electric Car at the Detroit International Auto Show (Video) 284
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Last week Timothy Lord looked at the Tesla Model S. He also took a quick look at the CODA electric car. Like Tesla, CODA is based in California. Like Tesla, CODA is building purely electric, "plug-in" cars. But unlike Tesla, CODA is making a bland but practical sedan that can go up to 150 miles on a charge and costs about $37,000. That's not exactly a Kia-competitive price, even though Tim says it looks kind of like a Kia. But it's 100% electric and costs less than a Tesla -- really, hardly more than a Nissan Leaf. And it has a fully-usable back seat and a decent-sized trunk. And unlike the Nissan Leaf, it's made right here in the good old USA.
Made in the USA (Score:2, Interesting)
6.6 kW/240VAC input (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:6.6 kW/240VAC input (Score:4, Informative)
Even with that,
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>Even with that, .33 KWH is still less than $3/gal gas. And I doubt that we will see 3/gal gas.
no it's not. MotorWeek tested the Nissan leaf vs Chevy Volt, with $3.25 gasoline according to the Volts's computer it produced electricity at $.10/kwHr. My work is Diesiel generator only, they are averaging (with a widely varying load) $.22/kwHr from $3.50 diesel, so I doubt the Leafs computer, but it is within belief.
Also If you look at Tesla's numbers, they claim 120MPG equivalent of $3 gasoline using $.05
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what gasoline are you using? gasoline has 33.41 kWh/Gal [wikipedia.org] so it is only claiming a 30% conversion ratio, very possible.
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sorry, your number is correct, I didn't calculate for $3 per gallon so it should be around that $.25kwhr electric rate to generate from a $3 gallon of gas (which is about the current price if you take out the road tax that should be charged equally to electric from the pump price.)
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And if you buy one you are going to need to hire an electrician. And if you rent or live in a condo/apartment try finding a 240v plug in the parkade. Or a landlord that will let you install one. And power in 15c a kW/h plus transmission charges 33c per kW/h.
33c per kwh? wat? Is that canadian dollars? "expensive" in the US is 14c.
(yes i know that the exch. rate has been even for some time)
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$255 for 780 kW/h on my last bill and the next bill is supposed the be an extra 2c per kW/h.
zomg where do you live, the north pole? ~600kw/h is my monthly average and that runs me about $70 USD.
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Your Alberta oil corps are making electricity far more expensive so it doesn't compete with their gas and diesel products.
If you keep living under the tyranny of these oil corps everything is going to suck. That's no yardstick for anywhere else, except other oil tyrannies.
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It has gotten steadily worse since the Conservative party deregulated power saying it would get cheaper.
You know what really pisses me off about this? In the history of humans providing electricity, politicians always say this. And in the history of humans providing electricity and politicians saying deregulated power would be cheaper, while regulated power would make the Baby Jesus cry, IT HAS NEVER, EVER HAPPENED.
On average, power costs always go up. The only real exceptions are the power utilities that are owned by the local government. Like the LA Dept. of Water & Power.
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Judging from the weather report and his post history, I'd guess around the Alberta-NWT border.
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There's gotta be something you're not telling us here. Looking up residential electric rates for Alberta [energyshop.com] and I found numbers in the 11-13 cents/kWh range. Understandable that they probably add surcharges and other bullshit, but I can't see all that being twice as much as the rate itself.
Could you perhaps break down that bill a bit further?
=Smidge=
Re:6.6 kW/240VAC input (Score:5, Informative)
All a 240V plug is, is two 120V plugs that share a ground, on two separate circuits from the panel. Adapters that combine them at the outlets cost $50 each retail or less. An electrician will charge something like $100 to run a new pair of 120V circuits from your panel if necessary. At 6.6KW, 240V means 27.5A, so each 120V line needs only 30A. Which means the whole thing is exactly like installing an electric oven, which is a pretty common little project.
Once there's more than one or two plugin cars in a parking lot the owners will install the 240V outlets. Because they'll attach a meter that charges more than they pay the grid. A grid that doesn't charge $0.33:KWh; the NYC Con Ed rate is highest in the country at $0.21:KWh. And that's if you don't have Time Of Use (TOU) rates, which charge under $0.15:KWh at night and through the Winter, which is when you'd charge your car at home.
So in fact the economics of plugin cars makes a lot of sense. Which is why many thousands have already been sold. Of course as that number turns to millions the grid needs upgrades for the switch in power distribution from gas to electric, even though at greater efficiency (fewer source joules per mile travelled). But that problem isn't here yet, and the solutions are already in the works (including decentralized generation, like onsite where the charging happens).
I don't know where you're getting your numbers from. Is there some oil corp chain email going around?
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That sounds so good that we're building the Champlain Hudson Power Express [wikipedia.org] HVDC line from you to us. So you can rip us off too :). Though by adding our demand to your local supply, I wouldn't be surprised if your prices go up. Welcome to New York!
With any luck this 1GW line will help replace the insane Indian Point 2GW nuke plant in NYC's backyard. Thanks, friendly neighbors to the North!
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Yay, you've just proven that they're not for everyone. Which is what the entire industry has been saying since the fucking beginning.
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Gotta love how in the EU, 120V is something special.
What are you talking about?
Electric Charging Stations (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast this past weekend. Oddly enough, they had three electric car charging stations near the front entrance. I had to laugh because in all three parking spaces was parked a gas guzzler. For the concept to work, you'd need to instate laws to ticket non-electric vehicles or put the spaces so far away that fat people would stay away from them. Unfortunately, you only need an IQ of about 50 to drive and absolutely no manners whatsoever, so it's going to be a difficult problem to solve.
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And when you talk about law you have to remember whose interests are involved: Who Killed the Electric Car? [imdb.com].
Everybody should watch this documentary, and be revolted with those in command.
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Yes and watch my new documentary: "Everything Is A Conspiracy Even Things That Failed On Their Own Merits!"
Find out who THEY are and why THEY don't want you driving electric cars!
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Watch the fucking documentary before saying shit please. Then you can contest the specific arguments. 'THEY', as you wrote, are explicitly exposed, with the reasoning for 'THEIR' actions.
I was about to write some of the arguments presented in the documentary, but what for? In your mind I'm a conspiracy theorist, and no evidence would prove otherwise.
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Jesus, it was just a joke. Relax.
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I can't wait for the sequel when Tesla declares bankruptcy and goes out of business. They will claim that the illuminati in league with the oil companies using the Free Masons infiltrate and sabotage Tesla.
Why go to that trouble? They will just blame it on the bad driving habits of Jeremy Clarkson...
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I'm a proponent of EVs (and electric hybrids), but that documentary is so full of inaccuracies. I wish people would stop citing it.
Would you care to elaborate? Or give us some pointers to reliable sources? Perhaps I'm being naive, but the arguments the documentary presents are pretty convincing.
EVs died-off for the same reason passenger rail died-off in the early 1900s [...]
You meant in the US and other Big Oil dominated countries, right? Here in Europe passenger rail continues to go strong (to the best of my knowledge, myself being a customer in Germany, Italy and Portugal). Sadly for my mother nation Brazil, we don't have a good rail infrastructure not even for agricultural transportation (which comprises most of
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You meant in the US and other Big Oil dominated countries, right?
He probably did, but you can't overlook the time he mentioned as well. I don't know who backed light rail in Europe. I'd be interested to know and now that I'm writing this comment I think I'll go look into it later. In the US, light rail was often backed by land developers and power companies. Light rail is one of the things that facilitated power lines spreading out from city centers into suburban areas in the US. And suburbs would spread out as far as light rail could take people in some cases. A m
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The documentary sounds like something Alex Jones would produce. (I'm serious; it has almost exactly the same style and flawed presentation.)
EVs didn't die-out because of some secret government of corporate conspiracy. They died-out in the early 2000s because nobody could afford the $45,000 pricetag it cost to buy a Toyota Rav4 or Honda EV. Even with the state of California handing-out 15 thousand dollar checks to customers, these models still experienced poor sales.
And it's not just EVs. The Original Ho
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FIX
The documentary [views] like something Alex Jones would produce.
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You don't need a law. You need a store willing to self-police its own private parking, the same way my local bank tows people who are not banking. If a gasser is sitting in an EV spot, then cracker barrel should have them removed.
- "$37,000"
Waaaay too high in price. Solectria made a car similar to this in the early 2000s, and it failed to sell because of that high price. They need to find a way to make the car less than an Lexus or Acura, otherwise people will just buy the luxury car.
For now I think th
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"Gasser" is going to become the new "hooptie." I say this as someone who drives an 18-year-old, gas-powered Jeep Cherokee with peeling paint.
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There are hybrid parking spaces at the local transit station I use daily. I don't agree with limiting parking spaces in a publicly funded parking lot for those who can afford a new car and especially one that is a hybrid.
If I had more than one car and actually drove to the transit station myself to park (instead of being dropped off, walking or biking as I do) I would park there with my "gas guzzling" Mazda3 (yes, it is a gas guzzler even though it's very compact).
Perhaps instead of having "no manners whats
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Perhaps instead of having "no manners whatsoever" they simply don't agree with such ridiculousness?
I think that applies to this conversation if your local Cracker Barrel is publicly funded.
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150 miles is far more than enough for most people's day-to-day driving. A typical family has a car and a minivan or SUV. This would replace the car, not the minivan.
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:5, Informative)
The malls/some stores around here have special parking spots for hybrid/electric cars that are closer to the entrance than the handicapped spots in some cases. .... Driving an EV does not make you more worthy of a parking spot than anyone else.
It does. You/everyone is paying a couple bucks per foot for that buried heavy gauge wire, so the closer the charger is to the entrance, the less you are paying the electrician, who is paid by the mall owner, who is paid by the shopkeeper, who is paid by ... you.
So its in everyones financial best interests to have the charger as close to the building as possible. Even if you drive a gas guzzler.
The only people who benefit by putting it further away are the copper wire manufacturers.
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Special EV parkeing spot does not mean "Free Electic car charging station" - it simply means a specially-designated patch of asphalt in the parking lot.
Your justification based on the cost of running wires doesn't apply.
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's in everyone's financial best interest for plug-in electric car owners to charge their car at home, and not soak the local shop owner for the electricity their cars consume.
Here's an interesting article on the growing number of charging stations [wsj.com] from the WSJ last October:
With less than 20,000 EVs on the road today, that works out to over $6,500 per EV, and since the subsidies only pay for a part of the expense, which can run $2,000 - 7,000 per charger, it's safe to say we have at least two chargers for every EV in the country.
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which can run $2,000 - 7,000 per charger,
Having worked with large industrial scale battery chargers for forklifts and telco C.O.s in the past, I see there is around a 5x to 10x corruption level going on there.
I'm sure its possible for there to be $5K of profit on the table ready to be taken, but corruption doesn't prove the actual cost is that high.
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i find it more likely that you don't realize that costs you're calling 'corruption' likely include the costs of the support infrastructure (I.E. new power drops, new wiring, etc...) as well as the costs of the charger.
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i find it more likely that you don't realize that costs you're calling 'corruption' likely include the costs of the support infrastructure (I.E. new power drops, new wiring, etc...) as well as the costs of the charger.
Well yeah, its probably a lot of "this garage is too small for the charger. Lets build a new garage and file it as a charger project expense" and "The owner would just as well hang it on the wall, but my brother owns a trenching company and there's an open spot 50 feet away"
I redid a bunch of plumbing in my basement (heck, most of it) about a decade ago to install a new bathroom while installing an instant hot water heater. That does not mean it costs $2000 to install a hot water heater, but a hack trying
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Do you think that the Federal expenses were spent on just buying chargers?
Or don't you realize that the money is an investment in inventing and producing the chargers, and the batteries, and the rest of the infrastructure, for the next years and decades of plugin vehicles?
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I'm sure it has more to do with how easily power can be routed to these spots and the marketing value that these spots may possess. If your trying to appear to be trendy and "green" you want to make sure people have to walk by your charging stations. You don't want to hide them at the back of the parking lot.
Also, I think it is meant to incentivize buying an electric vehicle. Power companies usually sponsor these sites and want to entice people to buy electric.
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:5, Insightful)
my second car is a 95 neon that gets almost 40 mpg when the motor or transmission breaks I go to the wrecking yard and buy a used one for $100 to $200. One sometimes two Sundays and it is back on the road and I take the old motor to be melted for scrap, fluids are recycled, rubber is recycled and when its time for another neon (neons are my car of choice due to parts availability and ease of repair) my old one goes the the wrecker and I get $75 a ton for the scrap. Now which is more environmentally responsible my neon or a super expensive EV that most people can not afford.
The more environmentally responsible is a car that you don't have to change the motor / transmission every year.
You should try a good car for a change, maybe a Toyota or a Honda. I've run a Tercel to more than 600,000 km on the original engine/transmission.
Those Neons are junk, even when new.
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How is a car's higher cost less environmentally responsible? Especially when that higher cost is an investment in burning less petrofuel, which damages the environment less.
In fact making cars more expensive is good for the environment. Because it means less driving per person. Making the expense consume less polluting fuel per driving per person is even better for the environment.
The cheaper car that gets gas mileage competitive with the source fuel mileage of plugin cars, and which you completely recycle,
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The government also didn't subsidize the other HW it was competing with, the way the government does subsidize the petrofuel car industry that plugins must compete with.
Oh wait, the government did subsidize the other HW. And it subsidized the 3D and CPU development, the way it has subsidized all microchip development.
How about that your CPU addiction isn't pumping filth into the environment that the government has to pay more to clean up after? Oh wait, it is, which is why the government subsidizes the ener
Re:Electric Charging Stations (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's fair to say that you are an extraordinary person (especially if you are an American). Bill. If you take a look at what waddling in and out of the doors of Wal-Mart, you will find people who have taken any opportunity to sit on a sofa with a giant bag of chips and a Super-Mega-Gulp of high-fructose corn syrup.
There's a kind of fat going around now that's "not natural" as my grandfather used to say. You don't get that fat just from packing away an extra pork chop or helping of mashed potatoes with dinner. This is genetically-modified fat, science-experiment-gone-wrong fat, industrial-accident fat, out-of-control-tumorous fat. I went to the humongous hardware store a couple of Saturdays ago, and my daughter wanted to stop at Wal-Mart to buy some girl thing. I thought I had crossed some threshold in the metaverse or something. Everybody looked like they were wearing the fat suit that the comedian wears in the movie ("Fat Bastard weighs a metric ton..."). Then I got it in my head that these gargantuan people were looking at my daughter and me like we were some interlopers into their fat world and we didn't belong there and like Children of the Corn Syrup they were going trap me and my daughter in the sporting goods section and sacrifice us to their god of fat. I swear I hurried outside and stood with the few people who were not hugely fat, the smokers, just so I could feel normal again.
My daughter wanted to stop for lunch, but I couldn't possibly eat. This is a true story. There's something serious going on around here. Some 1950's sci-fi horror story of fat. It scares me.
Yes, I'd rather walk from the back of the parking lot, too. Plus, my hooptie is less likely to get scratched that way.
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*Not* made in the USA (Score:5, Informative)
Final assemby is in the USA. Most of the chassis is made in China, and the rest of the parts are sourced from various places around the world.
Unlike, say, a Hyundai which is almost entirely made in the US.
Business Case Analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's compare. At 15 MPG for my 30 mile commute, that $14/day in gas. At 48 work weeks a year, that's $1680 a year in gasoline for my beat up, unstoppable pickup. Back of the envelope math says about $650/mo in payments for the $37K car at 2%. 20 years to pay off if electricity is free? Yes, I'm using 30 years of data that shows that the price of gasoline is pretty constant, but also ignoring the whole PG&E assraping. There's a reason that the average age of a vehicle on the road is growing. That beat up old pickup, at $75/fillup is making me rich.
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Don't forget that the electric car can't do much other than be a metro runabout.
Your truck will go places (not even gnarly off-road terrain, think plain old rutted roads) that will have the small, high MPG vehicle's axles for lunch and the oil pan for dessert.
I fear that you have too much sense. There is a push to force people to buy high MPG cars... but I'd rather keep a paid off pickup and pay the higher gas cost than have to deal with a $600+ car payment. MPG-wise, but pound foolish. Plus, it takes a
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Don't forget that the electric car can't do much other than be a metro runabout.
Which is good enough for the vast majority of people.
I fear that you have too much sense.
I fear you're an idiot.
NOT MADE IN THE USA (Score:5, Informative)
This car is 99% Chinese.
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So you mean, it's just like Apple was with the Macintosh? II series anyway... Boards made by Foxconn, plastics made in China, shipped here and assembled in Sacramento by minimum wage fanboys who were nonetheless happy to claim they "worked for apple"
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Just like every GM car made.
You want american made? Buy Toyota or Honda.
Re:NOT MADE IN THE USA (Score:4, Informative)
Standard arguments (Score:5, Insightful)
Well lets get the standard arguments out of the way so newer, more interesting discussions can happen
1) It ONLY GOES 150 MILES? I always drive 151 miles per trip, even if its only to the corner store I drive around the block 604 times because I love to drive! Why my commute is over 5 hours per day, each way, because I'm a True American (TM) and you "30 minute commute" people are wimps, democrats, terrorists, or whatever..
2) If it can't charge in 5 minutes its dead to me. I only sleep in 3 hour shifts before moving to a new location because the T9000 is after me, so it would never get a chance to charge and I only travel to and from places that have no AC power service because otherwise my tinfoil hat sparks excessively.
3) One model vehicle cannot meet the needs of all buyers, therefore all electric vehicles are useless, because one model of gasoline car meets all human needs. What you say, there are more than one model of gas vehicle? Oh.
4) It doesn't work too well below -40 degrees C/F so I can't buy it. Sure, I live in southern Florida, but I'm worried about resale value. Oh you say my gas vehicle doesn't work too well at -40 either? So what, everyone knows that, I just felt the need to point this out about electrical cars, because I'm sure none of you lowly serfs would think of that yourselves.
5) My gas car's SLI battery was carefully engineered to fail in 3 years to maximize corporate profits, and surprise, surprise, it fails every 3 years. I'm sure an electric car will fail in 3 years too, and I don't care if the average Prius battery was engineered to last the life of the car, and in fact it does last the life of the car, you can't force me to think so I won't. Nahh naahhh nahhhhhh! I don't believe in engineering and you shouldn't either.
6) I will not be satisfied until an automated robot tentacle snakes out of the wall and plugs itself into the charger socket, mostly because I want to watch youtube videos of what the tentacle inserts in women wearing miniskirts. I don't care if everyone north of the mason dixon line already has a block heater and battery heater and battery trickle charger and they perfectly successfully use it every time it gets below zero, because I'm certain no one will ever be able to plug a car in when they park, after all, I don't, so no one in the whole universe every has, can, or will.
7) What is the charger connector going to be, there is no standard. I don't care if there actually is a perfectly good deployed standard which I could find on wikipedia if I wanted, I just like to post this every singe time there is an electric car article. Also, did you know there is no standard low voltage DC connector? Oh wait, there is. Oh how I love to post this over and over.
8) Thousands of american military personnel have died for oil, and its disrespectful of their memory not to burn as much gasoline as humanly possible, after all you don't want their relatives to think they died for nothing. My Chinese imported yellow support the troops ribbon sticker on the trunk of my 8 MPG SUV absolves me of all guilt, much like purchasing a pre-reformation indulgence.
I think that'll do it, does anyone have anything NEW to offer to the standard lineup of /. electric car stories?
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Personally, wrt your 1st point, some kind of long haul system would make this point mute. I make infrequent, but regular trips of > 400 miles. If I could pop my car on a train, everything would be gravy. I can't see it being too hard to get the infrastructure in place.
Failing that, I see many lorries carrying new cars to showrooms. If someone with enough clout and ingenuity could realize that with the growing number of electric cars, some kind of courier service for cars would make a lot of money, I'd be
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I make infrequent, but regular trips of > 400 miles.
Rental. Been there, done that. Frankly, if I'm moving something big and heavy I'd prefer to mess up the heavily insured rental rather than my daily driver anyway. Besides its fun to drive something new once in a while. I've rented and driven a giant F-350 duallie, the GMC equivalent diesel truck, and several different "moving vans".
If you're just moving yourself, you're better off taking public transport like a plane, and renting a car at the site. Or, if available, rent a completely impractical but f
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Perhaps, but not ideal in my situation. I want to load up the car, get to Edinburgh, spend a month there or so, and get back. Putting the car on a train would mean I could load luggage at home and have /my/ car available to me in Edinburgh which I can pootle around while feeling smug (that is if I owned an electric car).
Rental would leave me with a petrol car (not exactly the point of the exercise) to do trips that, once I get to Edinburgh, are ideal for electric. It would also mean a long drive which I don
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It really depends how regular "regular" is. If you make a 400 mile drive, that's probably a 2 day rental minimum, and more likely 3+. (I figure it's roughly 6 - 7 hours of just driving to get there, and unless you're acting as a courier you're probably going to spend some time at your destination.)
That adds up pretty quickly ($36 a day for an Aveo at Enterprise) to the point that, if it's a monthly trip, you should probably just buy a suitable car.
If you have a family, and it's a regular trip with the famil
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"Oh you say my gas vehicle doesn't work too well at -40 either?"
I regularly drive my gas vehicle at -40. Works fine so long as we plug it in at work to keep the engine warm enough to start easily.
"I'm sure an electric car will fail in 3 years too"
Last I read Honda Civic Hybrid owners were suing Honda, supposedly because the batteries were failing so fast that Honda reprogrammed the computer not to use them much so they'd survive the warranty period... wihch made them pointless.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/0 [autoblog.com]
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"Whooooooooooooosh.... That's EXACTLY his point."
No, it's not. Gasoline engines work fine at -40, they just don't like starting; EVs suck ass at those temperatures at all times because batteries really don't like sub-zero temperatures. If you don't heat the battery you'll probably lose at least half the range and you'll then need to suck more power from it to heat the car.
"If you don't plug it in, you don't have a working vehicle either."
I've started it without plugging it in, but there's just no reason to
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How about:
I've never paid more than £1000 ($1500) for a car in my life, and they all give me at least 30,000 miles before dying and often that's after 100,000 miles of usage by other people? My maintenance costs are never more than about £500 ($750) over the year for any one particular car because if it costs that, it's cheaper to buy another car in the long run.
I have no more reliability or service issues than any other car driver (in fact, probably a lot less) and I don't really c
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Mostly agree, but the market for used hybrids (at least in the US) remains strong, and I don't expect plug-ins to be different in the short to mid term.
The Smug Poor want to flaunt their eco-credentials nearly as much as the Smug Rich, and it'll take a while before everyone knows someone whose cousin bought one of those damn electronical cars which then crapped its $7K battery all over the floor the next month.
Of course, in civilised nations, if we want "eco", we buy a small turbodiesel returning 88 of
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That's a good list. Did you furiously jackhammer that out on your keyboard when you saw there was an EV post on /. or did you have it ready to go and just cut in paste?
(And, to be clear, the first sentance is serious, the second is mildly sarcastic.)
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1. No electrical infrastructure to support these.
2. All of the things you mentioned are true to a degree, that's what makes the market for these things so tiny right now.
3. We need more nuclear power, small nuclear power right on board of these cars.
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1 - there is electric infrastructure for these. even my podunk town has several electric car charging points. Problem is some moron in a Pickup truck or SUV is always parked in front of it. The city is doing a tow and impound on them starting this year, no tickets the police tow trucks just hook up and take your vehicle, so maybe that problem will fix it's self.
2 - The real problem is true range and price. They claim 150 miles, I am betting real world is 1/2 that. Also the real price is over $40,000
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"even my podunk town has several electric car charging points. Problem is some moron in a Pickup truck or SUV is always parked in front of it."
Why should pickup drivers be forced to pay an EV driver's fuel bill?
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You missed a few:
<sarcasm>
The electric grid can't handle any more load and there's too much government regulation preventing us from upgrading it.
Using electricity in this country means burning coal and obviously it's much harder to mine coal and haul it by train across the country than it would be to extract oil from unstable countries, move it around the globe in a boat, refine it, then truck it to filling stations, and then for me to personally go get it every week or three. Oil is just so much
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WRT point #5, what is the life of a Prius? My daily driver is nearly 30 years old, and I plan on driving it until I die or until I find one from '76-'77 that I like. My summer saily driver is nearly 50 years old and I'll be driving that until I die. I don't envision people driving a Prius in 50 years as I suspect the useful life is far less than that. It's a point A to point B until it dies cookie cutter car. Most new cars are not made to be serviceable. Look at how undersized critical componenets like tie
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So yeah, same old arguments, the question is why are they not being addressed?
Eh, but they are? For instance, as far as I know, the U.S. is supposed to get out of Iraq?
I think Tesla maybe has better business model (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me the problem with trying to create a new technology sedan for the "everyman" is that, in order to get "everyman" pricing, you need the kinds of economies of scale you just can't get when you make 10,000 or 12,000 cars.
I think that GM made a huge mistake with the Volt. I love the idea of a volt - a plugin hybrid that uses electricity till it can't, then uses gas when necessary.
The problem is, it seems they made a car with no glamour or mystique to it. If you're going to only make 10,000 vehicles and they are going to be more expensive than most people can afford, then just go ahead and make it a luxury car. The volt should have been a Cadillac, not a Chevy. It should have had lots of interior luxury and beautiful exterior that was to die for. Maybe it should have cost $50,000+.
GM should have done everything it could to make it the year's "It Car", getting tv, movie, music and athletic celebrities, the children of the rich, and hipster-CEO's to buy it as a green conspicuous consumption item. Then, use those profits to ramp up the economies of scale. Meanwhile, the "average joe" sees all the "cool rich people" driving them, and maybe has increased desire for one of them.
That seems to be the model that Tesla is pursuing. I think GM could have had more clout to get the Volt to be an "It Car" if they had pursued that strategy, but since they didn't, I wish Tesla luck.
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Get rid of that last zero and it's a winner (Score:3)
However, qualitatively less performance for a much smaller price of entry is justifable. Netbooks did this. Of course their performance rather laughable compared to a proper laptop - but you couldn't get laptop for $200. It satisfies the need of a basic mobile universal computer for a price below all other offers. The same would work for cars for a lot of commuters - it need not be all or even most. There are 300 million americans, even if it only appeals to 3 in 100 people, that's 10 mio customers.
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$3700 is the kind of price when people would be much less bothered whether a car can go for 600km or 60km. Qualitatively less performance on almost all counts for over twice the price of an ordinary car just doesn't make sense beyond the idealistic fringe with very deep pockets, trying to polish their better-than-thou attitude to the rest of the world.
However, qualitatively less performance for a much smaller price of entry is justifable. Netbooks did this. Of course their performance rather laughable compared to a proper laptop - but you couldn't get laptop for $200. It satisfies the need of a basic mobile universal computer for a price below all other offers. The same would work for cars for a lot of commuters - it need not be all or even most. There are 300 million americans, even if it only appeals to 3 in 100 people, that's 10 mio customers.
Generally you are right, but... Those in the US "trying to polish their better-than-thou attitude to the rest of the world" make up a staggeringly large percentage... Oh, and netbooks are dead.
And lastly (on a more serious note) not everyone in the US has a car (far fewer can actually drive one,) and the typical run rate for cars is 6 million a year. Capture 3% of that market and you are moving 180k units a year. Sounds easy? Volkswagen (no slouch when it comes to marketing and diversity) does 300k in
This is Slashdot (Score:2)
"it has a fully-usable back seat"
This is Slashdot. They probably think the back seat is for passengers!
Federal subsidies, grants, and loans (Score:2)
I'd be very interested to know how much money this company took/was given by the federal government to get started.
A range of 150 miles is suitable for someone that spends less than 3 hours a day driving, which includes many, many people - but how many of those people can afford a $37,000 (list price est.) sedan? With all the federal and state "gifts" (subsidies, loans, and grants) available to deploy charging stations at owner homes, apartments and stores/offices I don't think the "where are you gonna plug
In Summary: (Score:2)
They have a terrible looking electric car that can theoretically drive about 10 miles further per charge than its closest competitor (the Leaf), but is more expensive and unlike the Leaf which is primarily produced in Japan/USA it's produced in China/USA. Oh, and they introduce the car with showtunes.
I get the feeling this CODA company isn't going to be around so much longer.
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The leaf has less than a 70 mile range. this has been proven everywhere. These guys are claiming 150 mile range.
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150 miles is theoretical under idea circumstances. Nissan calculated the range theoretical range under ideal cicumstances at 140 miles. The 70 mile range for the Leaf is a (more realistic and generalized) calculation for the Leaf using a calculation defined by the EPA. I can't find any numbers from CODA where they note any calculations but their own.
If they get 150 miles for the EPA calculation it will be impressive - but for a small no-name company to more than double the performance of a vehicle from mega
Powered by... Coal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Powered by... Coal? (Score:4, Informative)
Coal transport from mine to plant requires less carbon than oil from Saudi Arabia to the pump, plus refinement. Also, I'm not sure what the combustion energy effectiveness of a highly specialized generator turbines is, but I suspect it's a bit better than a pocket piston combustion engine that you'll find under your hood. Please consider city driving conditions for the combustion engine efficiency, because that's the niche for the new electric vehicles.
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As such, electric cars are MUCH cleaner than oil to run. In addition, they use LOCAL fuel, as opposed to supporting terrorists.
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Where did he het the $37,000 price? (Score:2)
Their website shows it's $40,798 for a BASE MODEL.
Come on, if you guys at Slashdot are trying to act like journalists, at least get some of your facts right.
This car is a failure out of the gate. It's smaller than a honda civic and costs as much as a BMW 325i.
Cut the price in 1/2 and there is where it has a chance of selling.
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Which is exactly why I think everyone but Tesla is going about this wrong. The only way EVs are going to launch is as high-end luxury status symbols. Do that for a few years to begin to develop economies of scale, then try to down-scale the cars into the mid-range market around $25,000.
Selling a car which has gas-equivalents at 2x the price, seemingly targeted at the average income family, makes no sense.
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They quoted "about $37000" to Tim at the auto show, and when I checked their website Saturday it showed $37,400. It seems to have changed since then. Interesting.
I wouldn't mind having a low-power, very cheap electric car for in-town use. Think glorified golf cart, which is now being called a "neighborhood electric vehicle" (NEV) here in Florida, and is legal to drive on roads with low speed limits in some jurisdictions. To attract me, an NEV would need to be able to comfortably hold 45 mph into a headwind,
Uuuuuuglyyyy (Score:3)
Premium price for truly crappy looks? How is that supposed to work? How would that look next to the stylin "long trip" vehicle in the driveway?
The Prius is ugly enough as it is, but what's with the race to produce the worlds first paper bagger car?
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This is actually a very serious marketing issue. My wife is willing to spend her life savings to drive a hip car, which does include electric, but will not be caught dead in an ugly car. How can these companies overlook the fact that people willing to put down dumb amounts of money for trendy niche products are the types that care about looks?
Electric is not yet into the utilitarian buyer's niche. Folks who buy electric are currently doing it because of the social status and the need to strut the trendiest
Re:Final Assembly in USA (Score:4, Informative)
That's the town right next to where I live. They've had billboards up in the area talking about how the Leaf is coming to Smyrna and how awesome it's going to be to live in the same area as they are made in. However, as someone pointed out. Pretty much the only thing they will do there is put the pieces together. All the parts will be sourced from elsewhere.
Total impact? Well they aren't opening a new wing (you can tell when they are doing that because Nissan Blvd and Enon Springs road becomes a nightmare with all the heavy construction. Traffic usually backs up onto US 41/70S (aka Murfreesboro Road). So no one new is getting hired at the plant. Instead I think they are phasing out some sort of truck they use to make. So no new construction, no new hire, pretty much the Nissan Leaf has brought zero new jobs... Oh I take that back! CSX hired sixty some odd workers for about nine months to expand the capacity of the rail yard at the Nissan plant.
However, aside from the job issue. The local malls (Stones River, The Avenue, etc...) have added EV charge stations to welcome our new Leaf overlords. So I'm guessing that's good that we are suddenly going from zero EV charging stations to now twenty-six, three packs, and counting.
However I will say that Nissan is doing something with their site in the back. You can see that they are leveling the ground from Florence Rd but there has yet to be any structures added. So more likely we'll be seeing little white canopies going up soon or we'll see the start of, hopefully, a new building.
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I was under the understanding that they would be manufacturing battery packs in Smyrna as well, with the electric motors being made in Decherd.
=Smidge=
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Re:But why? (Score:5, Insightful)
$37k for a car that can travel *up to* 150 miles on a full charge? My diesel fiat cost less than half that, can go *up to* 400 miles on a tank of the dirty stuff and when I put my foot down it goes like a scalded cat (gotta love turbos).
150 miles means that most commuters never need to charge it anywhere except at home. They just park it in the charging spot each night and it's ready to go in the morning. No more visits to petrol stations to fill up the car, except when you're making a long trip.
Still not seeing the market viability for full electric cars amongst the real road warriors (30k+ miles p.a.) who, let's face it, are the group of drivers that pollute most.
Per capita? Sure. In total? I doubt it. The people doing their daily 30 mile commute each way outnumber the road warriors by a huge amount. Get them all into electric cars, and you can easily switch the energy source to nuclear, solar, or whatever.
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But just how many sources of electricity for these cars is renewable/clean/carbon neutral/whatever?
Doesn't matter. Because the great thing about our grid is that it can easily adapt to new power sources being hooked up into it.
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While you make a good point that you will get the most benefit from people who drive the most using an EV, there's also the reality that we need to start *somewhere*, and if you're ever going to hope to be able to get to the point of helping the heaviest users, you might just have to start with helping lower-mileage drivers first to develop the technology further.
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This makes a really, really bad assumption that the price of electricity will double in some unspecified time while the price of gasoline will somehow not. It assumes that no new additions to generating capacity or improvements to infrastructure will be made. It also asserts that an electric car is only cleaner than a gasoline powered one if the electricity source is renewable - which is false. Even a "coal powered" electric vehicle emits less carbon per mile than a decent (30MPG) gasoline automobile.
I know