Tesla co-founder: Hybrid trucks not EVs are key
The most important truck in America?
Tax credits for hybrid trucks?
Battery costs, even if reduced by 50 percent, will not make the Chevy Volt nor the Nissan Leaf mainstream vehicles unless gas prices reach $10 per gallon according to Tesla co-founder Ian Wright, although they will work for some and early adopters will buy them.
Besides, trucks are the biggest consumers of gasoline and should be a bigger focus of energy policy according to Wright, and he believes his new hybrid powertrain for such vehicles could return its gasoline-powered investment in 3 years.
Additionally, Wright doesn’t see any move beyond lithium any time soon. “I don’t see anything outside lithium chemistry now,” he said. “Anytime I’ve done the calculations you are better off just using more batteries than ultra caps,” he added.
Likewise, Wright slammed Better Place’s battery swapping idea, as well as other battery-charging infrastructures, as too expensive. “The economics don’t work without massive subsidies,” he said, which seem hard to justify when “we can’t even afford to fix potholes”.
Whether Wright is right regarding EVs, it does seem that more attention should be paid to trucks. For instance, maybe plug-in credits should be reserved for plug-in pickup trucks rather than cars since cars offer much better fuel economy without batteries compared to trucks.
Additionally, GM already makes very capable hybrid trucks, such as the Chevy Sliverado hybrid. Maybe incentives or stricter CAFE requirements for pickup trucks could make such vehicles more cost-competitive until battery costs scale down? While a 50 percent reduction in lithium battery prices might not make EVs cost-effective, it could make hybrid pickup trucks cost-effective.
Joe-
I think it very interesting that a lot of new energy storage research is using a combination of lithium and fuel cell technologies and ideas. Convergences also seem to be the key to technological breakthroughs!!
When I was a student back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I heard that 90 percent of American wealth was owned by just 10 percent of the population, and that, roughly, this statistic could also be applied to the world’s wealth.
Control. It seems to me everything is about control. What do multinational corporations care about US jobs? The priority is profits. If higher paying jobs lead to higher profits. Fine. If not, time to cut wages and outsource.
Somehow, we as consumers and voters, have to make better choices. Unfortunately, we are just so easy to segment and divide…..so easy to control. Collectively, we might not own the wealth, but together we can force any change we want. Yet, our entire political system, despite it’s democratic nature, seems founded on division, which isn’t surprising, since it is the key to control.
And this from former Sec. of Labor Robert Rich:
“The fact of the matter is that, as late as 1980, the top 1 percent by income in the United States had about 9 percent of total national income. But since then, you’ve had increasing concentration of income and wealth to the point that by 2007 the top 1 percent was taking home 21 percent of total national income. Now, when they’re taking home that much, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy growing.”.
Tom G comments: I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have said: We need to start making things in America. We can’t build a society based on using our credit cards at department stores. Manufacturing jobs pay $20/hour. Service industry jobs pay $10/hour. Which would you rather have?
Tom G.
Yes dahcredyns expense is certainly one of the major stumbling blocks and there are others like:
1. Government regulations are slowing transition to hybrids
2. No unified automotive industry strategy
3. Lack of leadership in industry and government
4. Hybrids are still too expensive.
5. No identified or believable crisis for America to solve, and;
6. Profits are up so who cares.
Of course you can probably add another 20 things to this list but in response to your question; “how is this going to get addressed?”.
By the way anything gets done in America. With a lot of hard work and by electing some people who care.
Tom G.
I didn’t think I’d see anything beyond Li-Ion either, but I’m becoming convinced the zinc-air fuel cell could be it. The reason it didn’t work the first time around is the manufacturers were trying to reconstitute the spent zinc by electrolyzing within the fuel cell, a process that was very hard to do and would take a long time. Now, two companies are talking about reconstituting the spent zinc outside of the fuel cell in zinc charging stations. The fuel cell would use the zinc in pellet form. The spent zinc becomes a slurry that is collected and removed from the fuel cell and fresh zinc pellets go into the cell. The process will take 10 minutes. Leo Motors of Korea will demonstrate the process on 9/28. Also Kalispell, Mont.-based Zinc Air, Inc. licensed technology from Lawrence Livermore labs to develop the same process.
Still pretty expensive though, isn’t it Tom?
I’ve had a number of conversations with a team working on fuel efficiency solutions for one of the major refuse companies. based on their studies, they believed parallel hybrids and natural gas vehicles seemed to offer the most cost-effective fuel efficiency and CO2 reductions for the money. in fact, they were bearish on the Chevy Volt – my contacts with them started with the 230 campaign – but they were very interested in the possibility of natural gas hybrids.
Of course, that’s just one company. A Fed Ex truck i would assume is much lighter than trash truck. Probably not a one size fit all kind of solution, i’m sure. However, any and every solution at this segment seems to offer great potential. Series hybrids might work for some applications, full hybrids at others, and maybe even mild hybrids in others.
i guess my big thing, is how is this going to get addressed? why does it seem our focus isn’t upon the real problems?
Series hybrid my friends. A few heavy trucks are trying it, some trash trucks already do it, UPS is experimenting with it, many buses do it, a few FedEx trucks do it and trains do it all day long.
There is no reason on earth why you can’t make a 250-400 ft. lbs electric motor as the primary engine in a truck.
not necessarily, but ‘plug-in’ is much more politically acceptable than mere ‘hybrid’.
not plug-in trucks.. dual engine hybrid trucks so they can run on the electric engine when empty and kick in the ICE when carrying a load.
or they’d work like a diesel-electric locomotive where the diesel generates electricity for the electric engine.
I would think that a plug-in (only) pickup would be a disaster.. it would have a range of 10 miles… and then be done….
have I got this wrong?