Hybrids and EVs: The Volt and batteries are not a fraud
Is the Volt, or foreign oil dependence, the real fraud?
Innovation, batteries, and the new energy revolution
For almost a week now the IBD article Volt fraud at Government Motors has been bouncing around my head.
For years I’ve advocated for the purchase of hybrid cars while longing for a big move to plug-in hybrids, even though most hybrid purchases are not cost-effective for most hybrid buyers. Nonetheless, eating a local, organic diet might not be cost-effective compared to a McDonald’s value meal, but it’s still far healthier, and a commitment to ending foreign oil dependence is just as healthy.
Yet, after a decade on the market, hybrids can’t even achieve 3 percent market share, despite the government pumping billions of tax payer dollars into these vehicles. That reality, as unfortunate as it might be, is reality.
Now come electric cars and billions more already committed, with the possibility of tens of billions more – exactly what I advocated for years ago - to turn even less cost-effective and unwanted plug-in cars into real world vehicles for the 5 percent of the population that is absolutely committed to going green and/or fighting foreign oil dependence (Also the 5 percent of the population that can most afford a third vehicle and/or afford to buy a Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius without any government help.)
Consequently, in some ways hybrids, plug-ins and the Volt do feel like a fraud.
But they are not.
Without any question, the Volt is far too much about marketing rather than GM profits. Still, the Nissan Leaf and the Toyota Prius are more about marketing than sales. All, however, have been worth the investment. Whether they are worth tax credits or not is another question, but that’s not the focus of this post.
Certainly, those following this blog know I’ve been terribly critical of the Chevy Volt. Nevertheless, I’ve never thought of the Volt as a fraud, never. Sure, I’ve been very disappointed that GM has, much like Nissan, used the Volt and plug-ins as an excuse not to take greater action on hybrid cars – the battery powered cars with the greatest interim potential according to the latest science – but the more critical issue is R&D into electrification and the innovations such a focus create.
While the potential of hybrid and electric cars is still very much in question, and there is a chance that lithium-powered vehicles will be viewed as the biggest hoax ever in the auto industry, lithium-powered vehicles could, nonetheless, still revolutionize the auto industry.
And that’s the rub. Anything is still possible.
The oil-driven economy, however, is nearing its end. Yes, that end could be fifty years away, even a hundred years. Or, it could be just a decade away from its peak. Regardless, history has demonstrated that revolutionary technological breakthroughs are inevitable when it comes to energy, and such revolutions are occurring ever faster. Considering the fact that world could need 40 percent more energy by 2030 – around the same time the population of the world DOUBLES – energy revolution is inevitable.
It might not be the battery, or at least not the lithium-battery, that revolutionizes the auto industry. Instead, something like the Volt might just be the spark that ignites the real revolutionary breakthrough. Regardless, change is coming and that change will be led by innovation – the kind of innovation that hybrids and plug-ins like the Volt are breeding.
Consequently, if the Volt is a fraud, it is far less fraudulent than assuming that America can secure its future upon foreign oil dependence for several more decades without revolutionary technological breakthroughs. And the only way such breakthroughs will be achieved is by developing vehicles like the Volt.
And with the technology available today, such an offering isn’t that far-fetched.
Electric vehicles are pretty much hyped marketing ploys. Until some company has the guts to design and market a middle-class affordable, light weight alloy/plastic frame/body with sports car styling and leaves off the economy killing high-classed amenities including air conditioning, power steering, automatic transmissions and gimicky electric accessories, I won’t buy one.
Give me a basic but classy looking econo-car and I’ll be happy. How about modeling one after the style of a classic 1950’s British roadster? After all, it probably costs the same amount of money to stamp out beautiful light weight parts as it does to stamp out ugly heavy sheet metal! Come on! An automobile should be fun to drive and show off…not just something to haul your coffee mug around in.
Well, we aren’t even at 3 percent, and I to drive and would only buy a hybrid or plug-in vehicle, so I don’t think the technology is insignificant. It’s fantastic. But the market share, combined with plug-in technologies, market only expected to be 7 percent by 2020 according to JD Power, which has been pretty good at such predictions so far.
Thus, after 20 years, we’ve achieved almost nothing compared to Brazil. Even if we move up to 20 or 30 percent by 2030, we’re still heavily dependent upon foreign oil after 3 decades, compared to Brazil.
It took Brazil THIRTY YEARS to finally reach the break through point with the last piece of the ethanol puzzle, the flex fuel car. From 1973 to 2003, Brazil and it’s people went through one crisis after another until they won.
In 2006, Brazil became a net exporter of energy for the first time in it’s history.
The success of the Prius was over a decade in the making. The original Honda insight failed in the same period. The market place is a tough,brutal place with no saftey nets and no consolation prizes.
That you call 3% market share insignificant, I don’t agree. I think it is a great acheivement and the market is only getting better as well as the technology.
I began driving a Prius 3 years ago and I look forward to some type of plug-in/