Why the DrudgeReport is wrong about the Volt and plug-ins
The Chevy Volt is bigger than Obama
Time to take a little hype out of the plug-in movement — good and bad
Did plug-ins fail in 2011? Is 2012 a make or break year for plug-ins? Should automakers pull the plug on plug-ins if they don’t sell in 2012? Is a Volt failure synonymous with an Obama failure?
No. No. No. And No.
Yesterday, the Financial Times noted Electric car sales fail to spark into life, pointing out that both GM and Nissan fell short of their 2011 plug-in sale’s goals. Likewise, even EV analyst bulls have cited 2011 as reason to lower their overall plug-in sale’s forecasts. For instance, Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst, lowered his 2025 EV forecast to 4.5 percent from 8.6 percent based on disappointing 2011 plug-in sales.
Likewise, the Bottom Line is claiming that 2011′s plug-ins sale’s disappointment makes 2012 a critical year for assessing plug-in vehicle success.
I say, chill, everybody.
Yes, there will be more plug-ins available in 2012 and that should help push overall sales higher in 2012. Likewise, recent worries about battery safety in the Chevy Volt and the Fisker Karma appear to be over-sensationalized. Still, I don’t think safety is limiting plug-in sales. Most consumers are worried about EV costs, and 2012 is going to provide little relief for those concerns.
2012 is not the year of the plug-in vehicle. And that’s OK.
It’s going to take time for plug-in vehicles to move into the mainstream, something even hybrid cars have not achieved as a segment even after more than a decade on the market, and numerous forecasts claiming that hybrid mainstreaming is inevitable. Sure the Toyota Prius has achieved mainstream-like sales, but that’s just one car. Unfortunately, it will probably be several more years before any plug-in achieves Prius-like sales.
So what?
Despite the DrudgeReport’s many fans whom tie plug-ins like the Volt to Obama’s success or failure, there is no connection. Yes, Obama is a plug-in supporter, but the Volt and its tax credits were conceived before Obama took office. Consequently, whether Mitt Romney’s auto restructuring plan was enacted or Obama’s, I’m pretty sure the Volt would have become reality. Maybe it would have taken a bit longer for the Volt to hit the streets under Romney’s plan, but the Volt was inevitable. It had to be.
Ultimately, GM needs the Volt, just as every automaker needs a plug-in. Sure, today, the Volt is mostly about PR, but the Volt isn’t just a marketing gimmick. It’s a real world laboratory that GM needs to stay in contact with the future of the auto industry. Still, the Volt is much more about the future than it is today, as are all plug-in vehicles. Therefore, 2011 and 2012 Volt or plug-in sales are an interesting benchmark, but effectively irrelevant in terms of long term success or failure.
Hopefully, 2012 will be a great year for plug-in sales, at least relatively. Even if every automaker sells every plug-in planned for production next year, however, the numbers are still largely meaningless in terms of overall vehicle sales. Thus, even the very best 2012 still doesn’t mean that much.
Likewise, even the worst 2012, in terms of plug-ins sales, doesn’t mean that much.
Electrification is an inevitable trend, whether that electrification is powered by batteries, fuel cells or some combination of both. Inevitable. Sadly, however, the preponderance of evidence — the bulk of the science — available demonstrates quite clearly that plug-ins probably won’t be made or broke in the next decade, regardless of what the President or any other politician does.
Thus, maybe instead of talking about plug-in successes and failures for the next several years, more attention should be focused on what is going to be done in the interim to an electrified future. That means hybrid cars and natural gas fracking instead of just a focus on the plug-ins, especially through the next decade. Instead of dissing the Volt and plug-ins, therefore, maybe Drudge should focus on that issue if he and his fans really care.
Regardless, while DrudgeReport fans might revel in plug-in and hybrid failures, instead favoring “drill, baby, drill”, it’s obvious that even if the US embarked upon such a drilling policy, energy costs would increase. The resources are more difficult and costly to access, making new technologies more cost-competitive. More important, it isn’t just finding cheap fossil fuels that will again make America great, but innovation. Ultimately, fossil fuels will be inadequate to power the technological revolution currently taking over EVERY element of human life. In the very near future, we’ll need more energy than we can hardly imagine today.
Thus, seeking the failure the of the Volt and plug-ins is akin to seeking the failure of human kind. Neither are ready to yet change the world, but both are headed in a direction that is inevitable.
KP,
I can’t say it didn’t hurt when I signed the paperwork. :-O But I felt a lot better once I got the keys.
As far as Honda & Toyota hybrids being half the price? Hogwash….
I owned a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid before the Volt. The Sticker price was $24K for my HCH II with the options it had, and this did not include blue tooth, XM radio and heated leather seats, all which I have in my Volt. At the time my Honda dealer wanted even more for the Insight, and it was stripped to the point where it didn’t even have cruise control. Compare it to my Volt after rebate, the gap is $10K not $24K.
I would say the Volt is definitely worth an extra $10K compared to my Civic Hybrid, just on performance, smoothness and luxury.
The biggest difference? Not only is the Volt a lot faster, but the Volt doesn’t have the big drop off in performance when the battery runs out (Which happened at least once during my daily commute in the Civic). The Volt performance is still the same even when running on gas.
The Prius price gap is even less.
Most of my friends who bought a Prius paid over $30K by the time they added all the options they wanted. I got basically the same options for $41.5K. That makes the gap less than $5K compared to a Volt as long as the tax credits hold out. The Volt is definitely worth an extra $5K compared to a Prius.
I took a friend who owns a 2010 Prius for a test drive today (Yes. He paid over $30K). He was blown away at how fast it was, and how smooth it was. He was extremely jealous. He told me he would definitely have paid an extra $5K for a Volt….
Smurf likes their Volt. After only a month you better. For nearly twice the price of a Prius or Insight, you better LOVE it. They also save gas. Lots of it.
The narrow market that you define it leading sounds like the kind of statistical trickery that Madison Avenue shoves down the mainstream media pipeline. When it comes right down to it the Volt really doesn’t compete with BMW/Lexus/etc., it competes with hybrids.
Tom G says “Therefor most Americans believe that a cleaner form of energy would be good for the country.”
That number should be closer to 100%. All it truly implies is that clean energy is better than dirty energy. It says nothing of price, quantity or source. When you throw price and amount into the question you’ll find those surveyed throw their grandchildren under the bus for a cheap gallon of gas or shovel of coal.
“the Volt is too expensive and unimpressive.”
I can agree that we need a Volt-like vehicle with a lower price, but I can’t agree with this comment.
The Volt ranks number one among all upscale mid-size vehicles in its price range ($40K). As a “vehicle” (not an EV) it ranks ahead of BMW, Lexus, and Audi on sheer performance, comfort and feel….
People who have driven the Volt love the performance of the electric drive train. (I can vouch for this. I’ve had mine for a month now.)
Oh yeah. I almost forgot…. It also saves you money on gas….
LarryG said:
there’s a separate California chart there that shows a very wide variation of natgas costs:
Coal 74–88
Gas 87–346
any idea why the costs of nat gas vary so wildly?
Don’t have any idea Larry. It might have something to do with the age of the chart [2007] or maybe imported vs domestic fuel but that is of course a guess.
Also if my memory serves me; there is a ballot measure in the process of gathering signatures to shutdown CA’s last 2 remaining nuclear plants. That could have a significant impact on their energy mix. There is a large amount of solar and wind coming on-line in the 2012-2015 time frame however that is not base-load energy.
This is the kind of car that has a real chance to go mainstream IMHO:
The Jeep Grand Cherokee goes all electric
http://www.gizmag.com/electric-jeep-grand-cherokee/20957/
if you provide the car that the masses want and make it a hybrid – even if it is more expensive – as long as it has a reasonable ROI – there will be a market for it.
In order for hybrids to catch on – you’ve got to go from niche to mainstream.
obviously the early adopters of mainstream hybrids are going to be people who have enough discretionary income to pay more for a car up front as long as the payback works out.
The aging Ford Hybrid Escape SUV by the way – sells better than the newer sedan/coupe-based Fords…..
” Without going into more detail, I would estimate that if you plugged in a car in CA it is quite possible your electricity would be at least 80% carbon free.”
California is a bit of an anomaly though.
In the Midwest and East, way more than 50% of the power comes from coal.
In the Midwest/East – natural gas is used primarily as “peaker” plants to supplement the grid at periods of high demand.
Now that we seem to be having a natural gas renaissance from fracking… it’s possible that we’ll see more base load from natgas rather than adding new coal plants but natgas is still horrendously expensive compared to coal last I heard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
there’s a separate California chart there that shows a very wide variation of natgas costs:
Coal 74–88
Gas 87–346
any idea why the costs of nat gas vary so wildly?
at the low end, it’s competitive with coal… at the high end – electricity rates would have to quadruple for peak hour use.
kpdriscoll says: “I agree that “the right” and the misguided press that leads it are wrong for their cries of climate-change being a scam.”.
The last survey I saw indicated that about 70% of the American people want the use of renewable energy to continue. Therefor most Americans believe that a cleaner form of energy would be good for the country.
I also recently read that large scale solar PV in California (CA) [and Arizona] is now competitive with natural gas generation in CA which means we are almost at grid parity with coal. In fact a Concentrating Solar Power Plant about 65 miles from my house is being redesigned to use the flat solar panels instead of concentrating mirrors. The training of local crafts by local unions and a community college have been put on hold until the final design has been completed.
As a mostly right leaning individual [with some liberal tendencies] I think there is a very real possibility that the Republican Party just might shoot itself in the foot if it tries to kill renewable energy. It could cost them the election if they are not careful. I got a real kick out of watching Bill O’Reilly [FOX] bad mouth solar for months. He even went so far on air to say there was no one on the East Coast to even give him a bid. Of course the next day he had 9 contractors lined up to give him bids. He is now silent when it comes to solar.
Solar costs have dropped 30-40% in the last 2 years. This next year almost every company is projecting to be at less at less than $1.00/watt for panels.
I just checked a few states for the number of coal plants in each state [did not check megawatts of each plant].
CA=7, NV=4, Or=0, UT=8, ID=0, AZ=7, Wo=6 WA=0, NM=6. About 30 coal plants total in these states. In just 2 Eastern states of TN[11] and NC [24] there are more coal plants than in the entire Western part of the U.S. Clearly CA has the cleanest grid with only 7 plants and about 3 or 4 are small co-generation plants.
Without going into more detail, I would estimate that if you plugged in a car in CA it is quite possible your electricity would be at least 80% carbon free.
While the grid is interconnected, where you live makes a difference.
Electric cars are not a solution until we have cleaner electricity and better battery technology. They are a niche vehicle at best. I agree that “the right” and the misguided press that leads it are wrong for their cries of climate-change being a scam.
That said, the Volt is too expensive and unimpressive. Until there’s a quantum leap in clean electric generation in this country, there’s no better answer than the Prius unless its not driving at all.
those are all good points Smurf but they are all totally rejected by the right-wing and Obama-haters.
it’s a full scale culture war and if the other side wins – I would predict a fossil-fuel future will replace the green future.
I totally agree that didn’t get failed in 2011, and thanks for pointing out that “GM and Nissan fell short of their 2011 plug-in sale’s goal”. I really like Volt and I think that it will get out of the political mess which is surrounding it.
There were “some” that wanted GM to go down back before the bailout, but they would have been wrong… That number grew “significantly” after the bailout because at that point Obama’s name got attached to it.
In the end, Obama had no choice in the bailout. Had we not taken action, millions of jobs would have been lost, not just at GM, but at all of the companies that supply parts and support. That would have created a domino effect in the entire auto industry that would have taken out Ford as well. It would have ended the American auto industry as we know it. This country’s entire economy still hinges on the auto industry, so this would have destroyed the US economy even more. Conservatives would have loved to see this happen as it would have pretty much guaranteed an Obama defeat in 2012. (Sink the ship to drown the Captain)
But, Obama made the right call and saved the US auto industry, and kept the economy from falling off a cliff. We have now had 21 straight months of positive job growth since the GM bailout. Its not great, but it is sustained movement in the right direction.
Conservatives only option left is to criticize the bailout and do everything in their power to make GM fail before the 2012 election. This is why Chevy Volt sales numbers are so important.
The fact that Chevy was able to complete development of the Volt and get it into production (and put out such an amazing vehicle) in this political and economic climate is quite an accomplishment.
the right wing (and others) believes that GM should have gone broke and disappeared.. that the unions deserved to die, that “green” credits are scams for worthless “green weenie” technologies, etc, etc.
If Obama thinks it’s good for a “green energy future” – Obama Haters automatically assume it’s socialism that need to be stamped out.
When Solandra (sp?) went belly up… they believe that GM should have also…
energy credits are an endangered species especially so if the next election sees both houses of Congress go to the GOP.
It is a shame that the Volt has been caught up in the political landscape of this country.
I get daily email alerts on Chevy Volt new articles. I am finding lately that 75% of the news articles written about the Volt are coming from right wing political web sites.
Never in my life have I seen such a campaign of negative dis-information against an “American” car company. Such activity could be considered TREASON in other countries, but here it is simply called Freedom of Speech.
The scary part is the number of politicians that seem to be following the same pattern of behavior. I expect this behavior from Drudge, but not from a politician (Am I being naive
)
The only way to deal with these guys is to say “NO”.
- Don’t go to Drudge and increase his hit count
- Don’t vote for any politician that is willing to “sink the ship to drown the Captain”
The Volt’s battery is said to cost about 10K.
At 3.50 a gallon, that’s about 2850 gallons of fuel. A conventional ICE that gets 30mpg would run up about 85K miles.
Take note that the Volt itself running only on ICE alone would get 40mpg and about 100K – without the battery.
so… when will people buy a PHEV in nunbers?
1. – when VOLT II comes in a more utilitarian, practical version
2. – when people become convinced that 10K more for a car up front – is, in the long run a more inexpensive car.
3. – either the car comes with a range-extender or the battery can compete in range and re-fuel time.
This would include the right wing that hates Obama…
I think the range extender is the path to the future.
it will “save” the PHEV concept until batteries can operated without a range extender.
GM knows the US car market and I think if anyone knows the right approach to a PHEV future, they do.
Toyota..IMHO.. seems to be either:
1. AWOL from the PHEV track to the future
2. keeping their power dry until they get it right and release a “winner”.
the proposed Prius PHEV seems to me to be a LITE version of he VOLT (with it’s much reduced battery range) but if that car hits the market with a better ROI than the Volt, then the Volt could be toast because at the end of the day, Americans are about the money not the technology.