Study - Chevy Volt wrong path to plug-in success?
40 miles of EV range the wrong approach?Over that last few years a number of battery studies have suggested that, based on current lithium-ion technologies, small-battery plug-in hybrids offer the most compelling overall case to consumers in terms of performance and cost-effectiveness.
Obviously, this flies in the face of not just the Chevy Volt and it's 40 miles of EV range, but also the government's entire plug-in tax credit program, something Hybridcarblog has asserted since the program was conceived, most recently in Does the government have battery-powered cars all wrong?
A new study by UC-Davis also concludes that small battery plug-in hybrids seem to make the most sense not just technologically, but also for consumers, making the government's "4.0 kWh lower limit on battery size difficult to reconcile" according to the researchers.
Labels: Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, plug-in hybrid vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:43 AM
11 Comments:
This post has been removed by the author.
Not only is there less impact, but with the higher cost of EV's and ER-EV's you actually giving goverment incentive only to those who can afford a vehicle that costs $40,000 or more.
That sounds a lot like tax breaks for the rich.
The only question is: Why are Republicans against it then? I guess tax breaks for rich "greenlings" don't count...
i've said it before, but i think we're incentivizing complacency.
rather, it seems to me, we should be incentivizing real competition.
imagine for instance if hybrid tax credits had not been capped by manufacturer. would the auto industry have let toyota suck up all the credits, or would they have rushed products to market to compete so that toyota didn't get such a big handout?
my guess is that they would have become a lot more competitive in the hybrid space. instead, capping by manufacturer actually capped competition and created complacency amongst the big 3.
yet again we seem headed down that same path.
Let me get this straight.
Are you actually asking Congress to sit down and try to solve problems using solutions that make sense, and have nothing to do with money donated by lobbyists???
Considering the polarization of our Congress and power of lobbyists that's just not possible any more...
i have such high expectations!
Indigo Incarnates
If a $7,500 credit for the Chevy Volt isn't a tax break for the rich, I don't know what is.
hard to argue that it's not a tax break for the rich, although I don't think that was the intention.
my assumption is that this tax break was partially written the way it was to help GM develop the Volt.
and that's where congress always screws up. they lose sight of the bigger picture during the process of appeasing all the special interests to which most politicians owe their political success.
thus, well-intentioned legislation becomes ineffective because it simply ends up being too designed to satisfy the interests of such a small group of people at the expense of the larger population.
why is this the wrong path to success? The idea is to have a car that gets 50-60mpg at absolute worst and drive it across the country and back without ever plugging it in, just fill up the gas tank.
anon-
cost-effectiveness. plain and simple.
a mountain of studies demonstrate that lithium-ion battery costs will not ever drop enough - without significant technological breakthroughs - because of commodities pricing.
likewise, essentially all of the studies indicate that no plug-in vehicle will be cost-effective to become mainstream either. however, those with a chance to at least achieve the best market penetration will be those that use small battery packs, about 1/4 the size of GM's Volt battery pack.
If tax-breaks to the rich and to companies with lobbies were not the issue, the rebate should have got to a performance class- i.e. 4 passanger sedan with 50mpg or better.
absolutely, last anon.
we should be thinking volume, not battery size.
if 30 percent of the US fleet were 50 mpg hybrid cars - based on toyota prius-like technology as a reasonable example - by 2020, that would be 30 percent of the fleet that could be converted into plug-in hybrid vehicles when the technology is economically viable.
talk about legacy effects. a 20 mpg gas guzzler decreases in fuel economy as it ages. a full hybrid, on the other hand, could actually become more efficient as it ages. it actually offers legacy-positive potential.
maybe that's what scares both automakers and politicians?
anyway, toyota believes 30 percent hybrid is possible by 2020, without ANY government help. with the right kind of government help, what's really possible?
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