Are tax breaks the answer to gain entry into the electric vehicle marketplace. Short term thinking, let the market decide!

It seems as if we always look to our government to bail industry out. How short term thinking is it to lobby congress to gain large tax breaks so that big business can get a price point, whatever happened to the free market, commerce and capitalism. The marketplace will determine if GM is pricing the vehicle right, if you design a vehicle that people want and desire and it has the appropriate comfort levels and design that has appeal, I do not believe there will be a shortage of customers lining up to purchase the Volt.

I have heard from countless people that say they want one [Volt] and they will pay way more than the sub $30,000.00 that GM wishes to price the vehicle. Why? Because initially the vehicle has some style and appeal, all based on the press that GM is serving up. If GM delivers on its performance promises and the final production version maintains its initial design cues, they should have a winner, without government assistance. The $7,000.00 they are asking for could and should be passed on to the customer, I have read and heard that GM wants the price point under $25,000.00, so my simple math is $25,000.00 plus $7,000.00 equals $32,000.00. I believe the public would bite the bullet and pay, then with production they can drive the battery cost down even lower for future lower priced "babyvolts".

Our U.S. energy policies should be focused on other things like, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, expanding refineries, nuclear energy, solar/wind/oceanic power. Because the eventual problems with our energy consumption , even with hybrid technology and electric technology is foreign/crude oil, coal and the like, we are still powering up our electric grids with "OIL". So more electric vehicles on our roads today means more oil being used right now, we have to change our long term energy policies period.

Otherwise the foreign and domestic oil dependence cycle continues....

Enjoy Today!
Kevin Kimbrough
That Car Guy

>>>>Check out the article below for more thoughts and opinion:

No $30K Chevy Volt without Congress' help
by Sam Abuelsamid

Since the inception of the Chevy Volt program in 2006, GM's goal has been to offer the range extended electric vehicle for a sub-$30,000 price point. That level has always been seen as the threshold to get high-volume sales of an electric car. Unfortunately, lithium ion batteries remain far too expensive to be able to sell the car at that price profitably. GM has always indicated that they expect the car to remain a money loser in the early years of production, but given the financial difficulties of all the domestic automakers, they can only go so far in subsidizing the car. In order to help make the Volt less financially painful both for the manufacturer and consumers, GM is lobbying Congress to pass a new batch of tax breaks for plug-in vehicles. There has been on-going debate in Congress for some time about tax credits for plug-in hybrids and GM wants to make sure that ER-EVs are specifically included. A credit of $7,000 for the purchase of such a vehicle seems to be the target point. According to GM sources cited by Automotive News (subs req'd) a $30,000 price seems unlikely unless tax credits are passed by Congress and the White House. The House of Representatives already passed a bill last week that included PHEV tax breaks but the White House has threatened a veto. More than likely, nothing will happen until early in 2009 when a new President is in office.

*Courtesy Autoblog Green

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Ok does Detroit really get it... or do they really live in a bubble? America is screaming for alternative fueled vehicles... READ ON!

The following article represents everything that is wrong about GM. Even GM Vice Chairman Lutz, who is supposed to be a "CAR GUY", an individual whom the press calls a maverick for innovation and design. However it seems that as much discussion that goes on about what it takes to bring a vehicle to market, GM, Ford and Chrysler could have had plenty of vehicles on the road now, that delivers high fuel economy and dare we say alternative fuels, hybrid or yes even electric vehicles.

Ok, maybe not the EV1, but hey it was a start, short on design, but an effort none the less, if we could inject some youth into the corporate landscape, then maybe just maybe, companies can realize who they should be targeting. And maybe if the design appealed to people, some would have even purchased an EV1 when they first came out, I had a friend of mine who always stated when selling a vehicle, "The Car is the Star", meaning if it has design appeal, it will sell.

However when it comes to what people desire clearly the manufacturers have a lot to learn, did anyone notice who was buying the Honda Element and that Scion boxy thing, it was a whole lot of middle aged men. Manufacturers miss the target market all the time, they believe that a segment is meant for a certain demographic, however I see older ladies in sports cars all the time, wake up Detroit. A well designed vehicle sells, even a hybrid or electric vehicle period.

I have said for years that for every focus group and for every discussion with the top 2% of the manufacturer's dealer body, there should be ongoing discussions with the general public and the middle tier dealer body, I believe that some real answers about what the public desires in a vehicle would be found in these discussions. The public has been saying for a few years now that it desires better fuel economy and that it wants innovative alternative fueled, hybrid or electric technologies, however these cries fall on deaf ears because the manufacturers have stock holders and with the high profits realized in the SUV and Truck market who needs small vehicles.

Well let's see... how about the American public, the demand is outpacing production on hybrids and more production means more vehicles being sold which means more profits. How many people are buying SUV's and Pick-ups now?

We all remember when the Chevy Chevette and Vega, the Ford Escort and Tempo and Chrysler and Dodge Omni ruled the day and the next thing you know the manufacturers are getting drunk on the profits of Minivans, SUV's and Trucks, who needs a small car. I did!... as a dealer and my customers did in my market as the small car was my bread and butter, I sold a lot more Tempo's and Escorts than Ford Explorers. I sold more Chevrolet Chevettes than Silverados, maybe in Texas the Ford or Chevy dealer sold more pick ups, however in a Midwestern City where people commuted to work the desire was a fuel efficient vehicle, even twenty years ago.

Detroit lost it's way, gave the small vehicle segment away and they are now clamoring to get it back. They better get it back soon (domestically) and stop talking about how long it takes to get a vehicle to market. They should have been refining the technologies years ago. It has been no secret to them that Cafe regulations/requirements were going up and that China and India would have an impact on crude oil and oil supply prices, they pay millions of dollars to analyst to forecast these things (I would get my money back if someone supplied them with misleading info, however I am inclined to believe that they paid for the services and ignored it or dismissed the reports). So what happened, someone at the top focused there energies and resources where they were making the most money as opposed to putting some resources toward the future where the market was headed. They lost sight of where the market was headed trying to push product that no one was buying, instead of having the product pulled because it is in demand.

In addition, these manufacturers act as if the technology has not been invented to tweek an engine to get better fuel economy. Uh, remember the Metro and Fiesta... Hello! Ford Motor Company implemented a strategy to use technology in there engines to improve fuel economy this model year (2008), technology that had been on the shelf for over 20 years. A basic search on the internet will reveal a plethora of info on regular gas engines that get high miles per gallon, with simple modifications. So the public is to believe with the resources, including the engineering talent that GM, Ford and Chrysler have, they cannot improve upon these technologies and make the technology work in mass production.

I sure hope that the domestic manufacturers invest some resources in these new technologies, so that they can right there sinking ships. Listen, Look and respond, the buying public is speaking loudly to you...

Enjoy Today!

Kevin Kimbrough

That Car Guy

Lutz talks EV1 and Volt with the Detroit News; first lithium Volt now running!
by Sam Abuelsamid

When GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz speaks, controversy usually follows closely behind. Unlike many high ranking executives Lutz often wanders off the defined script such as when he recently commented on global warming being a crock of .... I sure wouldn't want to be one of the PR handlers having to spin his words. In his latest chat with Detroit News columnist Manny Lopez, the electrification of vehicles was obviously front and center as it often is these days at GM. The EV1, of course, comes up and the accuracy of Lutz's claims will certainly seem open to debate. As recounted by Lutz via Lopez, GM tried and tried to find buyers for the EV1 but no matter how much they dropped the price, only about 800 people were willing to step forward. That was the reason for leasing the vehicles, according to Lutz. That statement seems highly dubious if EV1 fans are to be believed. Certainly the market for the EV1 was extremely limited because of its practical limitations and the high cost, but it sure seems like more than 800 people were interested. Or maybe its a case of the hindsight that revealed there were actually 40 million people at Woodstock. Lopez and Lutz apparently also talked about how out of touch some (actually most, based on my own experience) people are with the realities of building a car. That's an area we try to address here on ABG regularly by discussing the technology that makes these modern machines go and what it takes to make it happen. One-off prototypes are easy to build but they aren't going to cut it when you have to meet modern customer and regulatory expectations. On a final note, Lutz revealed that the first Volt mule is now running with a lithium battery pack in it.

[Source: Detroit News]

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Introducing the Volvo ReCharge... TA DAAAAAA!!!!

Green Wheels: Volvo's ReCharge
Volvo’s plug-in hybrid concept heralds a wheel-motor revolution.

Volvo's ReCharge features a lithium-polymer battery and four electric motors, one in each wheel. A small flex-fuel engine serves as a backup generator.
Volvo's new concept car looks like a regular C30, but a plug on the front and some very different insides make this a big step forward. Plug-in hybrids will soon change the way we drive, and Volvo's ReCharge concept car foreshadows a handful of technologies that push the envelope.
With the rising cost of fuel and falling cost of batteries, these advanced hybrids seem to become more inevitable with each passing month.
Unlike fully electric cars, plug-in hybrids still retain a small internal combustion engine that serves as a backup generator or power assist. Volvo's ReCharge, which made its public debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2007, pushes beyond other concepts such as the Chevy Volt into even more ambitious territory.
View Pictures: Volvo ReCharge Plug-In Hybrid Concept
The ReCharge was developed in California at the Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center (VMCC), a focal point for new automotive ideas. Ichiro Sugioka is the science officer at VMCC, and the ReCharge project is his baby. "I'm not a car guy," Sugioka admits. "Actually, I'm a rocket scientist," he says, referring to his Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering.
The ReCharge isn't quite a spaceship, but in some important ways it is breaking apart the traditional notion of how a car works.
Motors Where You Need ThemThe ReCharge is the definition of four-wheel drive. Electric motors are housed within each wheel, eliminating the need to deliver power from a central motor through a mechanical driveshaft. Even the backup motor, a small flex-fuel engine, works to charge the battery; it never drives the wheels directly.
According to Sugioka, kicking out the transmission yields a 10 to-15 percent spike in efficiency, meaning the car's battery can be that much smaller, and the car will use that much less electricity. Also, having all components built into each motor pushes their peak efficiency into the 95 percent range.
Watch Video: Sugioka talks about the design and function of the ReCharge
The maker of these unique motors is PML Flightlink, a British company whose technology is also favored by electric carmaker ZAP. The units are made of layered electromagnets that can be stacked within the wheel's hub like sideways pancakes. Thirty-six of them in a ring were just enough to encircle the ReCharge's hubs, putting 300 volts inside each wheel — more than enough torque to drive and stop the car.
And because electric motors become generators when turned in reverse, Volvo's completed car will have no disc brakes (or wasted energy from braking friction). With wheel motors, close to 100 percent of the energy from slowing the ReCharge is returned to the battery.
Green Behind the WheelsCurrently the only people enjoying the ReCharge are Volvo engineers on the test track in Sweden. But the technologies rolled into this modified C30 are holding up well.
The car can do 0-60 mph in about nine seconds, with a top speed of 100 mph. On a three-hour charge it will go roughly 60 miles. When the remaining battery level hits 30 percent, the gas/ethanol motor starts charging the battery. Drivers also have the option of toggling manually between electric and internal-combustion modes.
As for emissions, the ReCharge releases nothing when running on electric power. When the four-cylinder flex-fuel motor kicks in to recharge the battery, efficiency will step into the 40-mpg range.
When the ReCharge is "used as intended" it will contribute 66 percent lower carbon emissions compared to the best hybrids now available, says Magnus Jonsson, Volvo's senior vice president of research and development.
This will save money as well as greenhouse gasses. Driving on electric power from a home electric outlet is expected to be about 80 percent cheaper per mile than a comparable car running on fossil fuel.

Safety in NumbersNesting the electric motors within the car’s wheels creates more interior space (getting rid of the centerline hump that typically runs from axle to axle). But distributing the car’s motors into the wheels has safety benefits to boot (remember, this is Volvo). The four-wheel drive and independent traction from the individually controlled motors will stabilize the car, says Sugioka.
Using the motors themselves as brakes eliminates pads and other physical mechanisms, and means that all four wheels work in sync to slow the car. Signals from the car’s pedals pass through quadruple redundancy, and the ReCharge’s unique configuration means that “if one motor fails, the other motors could... adjust their output to compensate.”
Crash safety also improves with wheel motors, says Sugioka. Eliminating the driveshaft means that the firewall between the engine and passenger compartment can be uninterrupted.
For batteries, Volvo went with lithium-polymer. Not only lighter than lithium-ion, li-poly batteries are more resistant to impact and, believes Volvo, more crashworthy.
A New Kind of GridlockPlug-in hybrids and fully electric cars are more than novelties; driving on electricity changes the equation, making cars part of our electrical infrastructure. To explore this, Volvo announced a partnership in March 2008 with the Swedish government, a battery maker, and energy producer Vattenfall.
The deal will produce a small fleet of plug-in hybrids like the ReCharge that will test the potential for car/grid connection. “[T]he electric utilities should be able to access the power electronics and the battery energy for their own uses to maximize the efficiency of the . . . infrastructure,” said Jonsson. We have something “that’s much more exciting than just a car, here.”
Volvo will not be the first company to put a plug-in hybrid on the road, but the Swedish company is patient, and the ReCharge is a forward-looking response to what’s ahead. “We’ve projected the future of energy and fuel scenarios out to the year 2100,” says Sugioka. “Around 2050 we won’t have enough conventional sources of energy to meet the demands of the world.” Tapping into solar energy will be the key, and plug-in hybrids are a means of storing that energy.

*Courtesy of Jacob Gordon of treehugger.com

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I see a Metro or Fiesta in your future... Maybe!!!

Nerd Alert! Geo Metro: the new "it" car?

Posted May 16th 2008 3:08PM by Jeremy Korzeniewski

It's not uncommon for owners of the late, lamented Geo Metro XFI, which USA Today refers to as "nerdy," to report fuel mileage rivaling and sometimes beating hybrids such as the Toyota Prius. The lightweight structure and very small engines - just three-cylinders and 49 horsepower for the Metro - allow these little runabouts to post great mileage figures. With gas prices at an all-time high, the efficiency of vehicles like the Metro, Ford Fiesta and Apsire and Hyundai Excel is raising their prices to levels sometimes above what they cost new. Don't believe us? Check out this recent eBay auction for a low mileage Metro and see for yourself. So, should you be running out and purchasing a used fuel-sipper of your very own? Maybe, but consider that these vehicles would not be able to meet the safety regulations required by law today and the fact that they would likely not pass current emissions requirements. Additionally, the fuel savings of these vehicles makes for pretty poor performance. At AutoblogGreen, we're apt to overlook some of these deficiencies in the name of efficiency, but we also recognize that older vehicles such as these can present problems to their future owners. Our advice, therefore, would be to look hard in order to find a good deal if you're really interested in the ultimate in fuel savings, and remember not to discount the first-generation Toyota Prius in your search.

* Courtesy AutoBlog Green

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