# Who Killed the EV?



## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Sunking
I have no facts or studies to refer to other than the statement made in the movie. I may not be quoting it exactly but it went something like:

The EV1 dealers complained that once the customer signed the lease and left the parking lot they rarely saw him again.

As my kids would say: "Well duh!"

So here is a case of what is good for the customer being bad for the dealer and eventually bad for GM. Individual dealerships buy their parts from GM. And they depend heavily on the service income. Ever have a 15K checkup at a dealership? My daughter just did on her 2008 HHR. Basically it was an oil change and tire rotation for $155.00 plus tax.

The Volt is a very different GM offering. Being a Hybrid there are lots of reasons to get you back to the dealership for service. Service = $$$


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I saw the film many years ago so details will be hazy but I generally agree with Voltswagen. Stripping out my donor vehicle over the past weeks has clearly demonstrated the pure quantity of consumable parts on a modern engine driven car. Parts = money. Also the complexity of engine management systems has added to this "benefit". Engine running rough? No problem just bring it to a main dealer. Cha-Ching!

Remove the engine and loose 80% of parts /service / fluid / oil / fuel requirements. The ev1 used an ac drive if i'm remembering correctly so it doesn't even need brushes! MTBF on an ac drive? Who knows. Hundereds of thousands of miles probably. 

Oil companies and government certainly play their part. Obviously oil don't like evs. I don't know what its like in the states but in Ireland about 60% of the price of petrol and diesel at the pump is tax. Enough said.

Battery tech is here. Nimh. 100 to 150 miles range in a rav4ev and still going strong with 100k on the clock. Need to go further? Borrow or rent an engine car. Not exactly brain surgery.

The volt? Where to begin. A lead sled would get better ev only range. As i've stated in other threads my opinion of the volt is its setup to fail. GM can then say well we tried. Technically its stupid as its neither an ev nor an engine car.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Whats the reasoning behind oil companies buying the nimh battery companies and patents and then straight-up cancelling the production? Production of batteries that were already used in EV-1 test vehicles and proven to give 100 miles per charge...almost 10yrs ago!!

On another note, did you see the part where they show the commercials for the EV-1? I've gotten a clearer sales pitch from a car commercial in a foreign language!


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

I'm a conspiracy believin' kinda guy.

I totally agree with VOLKSWAGON about the service=$$$ thing and the EV-1 just wouldn't generate the after sale money for GM.

If the GM Volt ever does make it into production, it could be the best of both worlds for GM. Engine parts to service plus a very sophisticated parts proprietary computerized generator system.

If OnStar can open your locked door for you, it, or the On Board computerized contol system, can throw a fault code or "Service System Soon" light out at you to cause you to take your Volt in for an expensive diagnostic session hooked up to their equipment just to turn the flippin' light off.

And If you don't take it in, eventually it can be progammed to go into "limp mode" and now when you HAVE to take it in because it runs like crap, you get the old "you shouldn't have waited so long to bring it in-now you need a new PWM SCR framistat modulation card...(cha-ching) and while your here you'll need a computer upgrade (so they can program a different fault code at the next predetermined service failure interval).

No thanks, I'll just plod along in my simple to maintain DIY electric vehicle until big oil and big business coeerce the regulators into forcing mine off the road and adding it to the Electric Vehicle scrap heap.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Sunking said:


> To say the least it was an interesting video with a mix of some facts, speculation, half truths, bias, and conspiracy theories about why the GM EV1 and other such type vehicles were canned by auto manufactures..




Seems you have made your mind up and think big oil is clean.


Best you read this as oil is dirty and corrupts, even to the point of releasing a convicted terrorist: 


The Sunday Times said the Government decided two years ago it was "in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom" to ensure Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi could at some point be sent back to Libya.

According to letters obtained by the newspaper, Justice Secretary Jack Straw dropped an attempt in 2007 to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya because of "wider negotiations" with Tripoli.

His decision came after discussions between Libya and BP over a massive oil exploration deal became bogged down, the paper said.

The deal was ratified by Libya soon afterwards.

from http://www.news.com.au/story/0,,26004944-1702,00.html


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

So far as I understand it it was all pretty simple, battery replacement became a big issue quickly and they weren't making back the money they were spending on program maintenance.

They couldn't sell the car because then they'd have to maintain a spare parts stock for 15 years from the last date of production according to Californian Law.

So the end result was that they couldn't afford to risk any being sold because people would be able to sue them according to Californian Law and they couldn't afford to keep leasing them because they'd still be responsible for battery and program costs.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Drew said:


> So far as I understand it it was all pretty simple, battery replacement became a big issue quickly and they weren't making back the money they were spending on program maintenance.
> 
> They couldn't sell the car because then they'd have to maintain a spare parts stock for 15 years from the last date of production according to Californian Law.
> 
> So the end result was that they couldn't afford to risk any being sold because people would be able to sue them according to Californian Law and they couldn't afford to keep leasing them because they'd still be responsible for battery and program costs.


Battery maintenance on those same nimh batteries that are still running fine in uncrushed Toyota Rav-4 Ev's that have over 100K miles and never had one dollar of battery maintenance...yyyyah ok...


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

Bowser330 said:


> Battery maintenance on those same nimh batteries that are still running fine in uncrushed Toyota Rav-4 Ev's that have over 100K miles and never had one dollar of battery maintenance...yyyyah ok...



In some of them, probably the vehicles of people who wanted to prove a point. Probably also people who weren't abusive with the throttle, drove short distances only and kept the batteries topped up. 

On the other hand there would have been people in the test program who didn't bother charging it until it was flat and drove it flat knacker everywhere.

Why don't you look at the converse argument, the one you seem to be advocating; That GM and Toyota, two independent car companies who are both solely profit motivated entities colluded do deny themselves a profit and to prevent the public from getting what they wanted. That doesn't make sense at all.

And before you say spare parts (as people above have) car companies HATE spare parts, I know, I've worked for one. Spare parts are the bane of a car companies existence because all the production facilities of all the suppliers are specifically designed to supply line volumes in a just in time fashion. Adding additional overhead from storing HEAPS of parts for 15 years in a big warehouse is a MASSIVE pain in the ass and one that I know that car companies and engineers who work for them go to pains to try and lower the overheads for.

And yes, spare parts are expensive relative to the piece cost of parts of cars, thats because the supplier delievers them specially to an alternate location, packaged differently to the line parts, they're then warehoused, the price contribution for which effectively 15 years as thats the time that the parts have to be available for, the parts are then hand selected to fill dealer orders and put on trucks in small orders and provided to dealers who then have to make a living out of them. Spare parts are not a cash cow.

If a car company could sell you a car which required no servicing and no maintenance then they'd do it, that would mean no parts storage, logistic overhead or shipping costs.

If a dealer could sell you a car which required no servicing and maintenance they'd do it, that would mean no service bay, no servicing staff and the only people who would be in the dealership would be salesmen making a killing out of dealer charges without having to support a spare parts overhead or servicing center.

Even the fact that the car breaks down into less subassemblies would have counted for it in a big way, but that wasn't enough to offset the risk of the batteries and the availability of spare parts for the next 15 years.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

watchIT said:


> Seems you have made your mind up and think big oil is clean.


No not at all. What I think is pure economics, or basically money. Also to some extent battery technology/

On the consumer side the EV is not too attractive. Ev's because of battery technology have very limited range, almost no charging infrastructure to speak of, and the EV itself is extremely expensive. Basically a consumer  would have to have two vehicles; An EV for daily commutes, and a ICE for longer trips. The public at large cannot afford that.

On the dealer/manufacture side of things, there was very little demand for an EV at the time, and true still today. In addition to low demand, almost no maintenance in theory except replacing a very expensive battery pack. Really no incentive for a dealer or manufacture to make or service them.

As for battery technology, IMO we are far from it. To get there we really need a battery chemistry with 300 wh/kg , $200/kwh capacity, 100% DOD, 6C charge/discharge rate, and a minimum cycle life of 2000 minimum. This will give the consumer a 300+ mile range with all the bells and whistles, make EV's competitively priced with ICE, and last at least 10 years. Otherwise EV's will remain a niche market.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

Drew, I disagree with most of your premises in that last post. Sales are only a small part of what makes a dealership profitable. Parts and services are HUGE to dealerships. That's why they'll work on any make or model, not just the ones they sell. Also, manufacturers know that profit on the sale of a vehicle is only the beginning of the revenue stream for them. There are so many add-ons over the life of that car.

Whether we're to believe everything that was claimed in the movie or not, it's clear that the major manufacturers did not want to produce an electric car, and that most still don't. The market is there; just not the product.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Drew
You want us all to believe that car manufacturers lose money on spare parts? Lose money selling those parts to dealerships and auto parts stores? 
That is quite a claim Drew!
Why then would some car companies design their own tools to remove
spare parts? Ever try to pull a Jeep Manual trans? You need their sockets.
Ever try to replace a Ford water pump? You need their special tool.
Who designed these tools? Not the dealership pal.
I could go on and on.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

PatricioIN said:


> Drew, I disagree with most of your premises in that last post. Sales are only a small part of what makes a dealership profitable. Parts and services are HUGE to dealerships. That's why they'll work on any make or model, not just the ones they sell. Also, manufacturers know that profit on the sale of a vehicle is only the beginning of the revenue stream for them. There are so many add-ons over the life of that car.
> 
> Whether we're to believe everything that was claimed in the movie or not, it's clear that the major manufacturers did not want to produce an electric car, and that most still don't. The market is there; just not the product.


On what grounds?

Dealership parts pricing is in the order of something like 10-50% markup which, in the grand scheme of things is nothing. Especially when you consider that people complain about spending a thousand dollars on a service if something goes wrong and of that thousand dollars the dealership probably keeps $100 or less (after all costs).

If you buy a car from a dealership they have a guy hover around you for maybe 2-3 hours tops, you take their car out which is provided by the factory and then you buy a car, which they take a few thousand dollars off the top of.

On the one hand you've got the service department busting their gut to move a few thousand dollars a person a week and on the other you've got a salesman who might move 10 cars a week at a total value of maybe $200000, they both take around the same margin so you tell me why parts sales would be a lucrative business.

And BTW everything other than the dealership part I'm telling you from first hand experience, as a car company spare parts are a pain in the ass, you have to put enough margin into them so that the dealer can keep their doors open and you have to deal with them on a specialist basis and store them for just about forever.

EDIT: Voltswagen, special tools are a fact of life as well, unfortunately some times you can end up with a problem that you can't solve without designing a specialist fastener or a fiddly part. Specialist tools are simply to deal with that. I mean a great example of this is clutch pullers for motorbikes, just about every motorbike is different, its because of the power and torque of the bike and the RPM range, whether the rotational inertia is important etc etc. So they're all different sizes and you need different tools for different manufacturers to hold them when you undo them. 

Special tools are an even better example of what I'm talking about as well, because they're in the parts system they need to be available for the statutory period but each dealership only needs a few, so the overall volume is close to nil. But people break them so every now and again somebody has to go down to the back of the storage facility and dig into a small box which is just taking up shelf space and ]t]get out a new spindle holder or a special gear puller or whatever and put it on a truck and get it driven to the dealership. The part had to be designed too, so an Engineer had to spend hours designing a part where his cost gets amatised over a very small number of parts, so the price goes up. Etc etc.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

There are only two reasons in life why <edit - otherwise rational> people do things that seem to be "evil" to other people:

1. Love
2. Money

Automakers don't do it for love. Ergo, they don't think electric vehicles will make them the money they want.

As to WHY it won't make them the money they want, other posters have pretty much covered it. The equation will change radically if / when someone develops batteries which hold huge amounts of energy and last forever. Once that Genie is out of the bottle, it will never get back in and ICE will be dead.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

PhantomPholly said:


> The equation will change radically if / when someone develops batteries which hold huge amounts of energy and last forever. Once that Genie is out of the bottle, it will never get back in and ICE will be dead.


I agree and is basically what I said in my last post.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

Thats one of the main things that I'm looking forward to, companies like A123 scaling up production to suit EVs and maybe selling the prismatic cells that they developed for the Chrysler hybrid thats supposedly on the way.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Drew said:


> Thats one of the main things that I'm looking forward to, companies like A123 scaling up production to suit EVs and maybe selling the prismatic cells that they developed for the Chrysler hybrid thats supposedly on the way.


That is a start, but at what price per Kwh capacity? I suspect closer to $1000/kwh rather than closer to $200/kwh


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Drew
Your argument doesn't hold water. You tell me why the bell housing bolts
on a Jeep manual trans are all 18mm with the exception of the top two bolts (which by the way are the hardest to reach). Those top two bolts are a bastard pattern which only a Jeep socket will fit. Otherwise its just an everday 20 thread bolt so why did they change the head? To keep guys like me from fixing their own vehicle. Thats why.
Don't tell me theres no money in service or parts.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Sunking
Here in America the average family has two vehicles or more. So your reasoning that it's too expensive to have one vehicle for long trips and an EV for shorter trips doesn't make sense IMHO.


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## Stunt Driver (May 14, 2009)

to the subject - Let's not overestimate the dark forces

Just battery technology not readsy yet.
Have to buy $150 battery that will hold only $0.05 worth of electricity. And may die before it pays back. 

As soon as supercapacitors or something similar kicks in, with greater capacity and lower price - EVs will skyrocket in sales and producion. Or alternatively, if gas will go up to $10 per gallon. Until then - no ROI.

My own convertion will be positive ROI only because I do it myself, and raid for junk parts.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> Sunking
> Here in America the average family has two vehicles or more. So your reasoning that it's too expensive to have one vehicle for long trips and an EV for shorter trips doesn't make sense IMHO.


Huh? I suppose you might be correct if you are talking about well educated high income family could afford it. But the average working class American does have two or more cars, they bought used or a economy subcompact new one. Now you expect them to buy a $70K EV for short trips to fit your logic?

IMO what killed the EV is nothing evil or a conspiracy at work, just plain ole simple market supply and demand at work doing what it is suppose to do.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Sunking
Your estimate of $70K for a short range EV is way over. 
The Chevrolet Volt will price at approx. $40K
Take the gasoline engine out of that hybrid and you still have a 40 mile range on the existing Lithiums.
I believe an auto manufacturer could produce an EV with Lithiums in the 60 mile range for approx. $25K and still make a profit. IMHO


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> Sunking
> 
> I believe an auto manufacturer could produce an EV with Lithiums in the 60 mile range for approx. $25K and still make a profit. IMHO


Who would want it?

Now give the public a mid size 4 passenger vehicle with a 300 mile range, bells/whistles, long battery life, and performance of an ICE for $25K and you will be a rich man selling them.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Big Oil is the one that loses the most if EVs sell...

I will repear what I said before since it was omitted from a previous quote....Why did Big Oil buy the battery company and patents for the EV-1 Batteries and then shutdown the development and the production? To shut out the competing EV technology. How does this all relate to GM? Who knows??? This sh*t goes much deeper than anyone knows.

And before you guys start singing the song of the Big3, its been proven that the Big 3 Auto, specifically Ford, is VERY evil and underhanded when they stole the intermitent wiper mechanism from an inventor who brought it to them to sell it to them. As a result of the court ruling Ford was required to openly and for the court record admit they stole the inventor's technology maliciously.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

I am certainly no fan of oil companies but you do know Exon Mobile has developed a Lithium Ion battery for the EV market right?


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Sunking
You evidently know very little about Americans.
Lots of familys here would want an EV that has a 60 mile range for $25K.
The American Automobile Association reports that the average American drives less than 29 miles per day. And most utilities here in this country charge less expensive rates between 8pm and 8am. This is the time period that we would be charging our vehicles.
I charge mine between those hours and have never paid more than .79 cents for a full charge and my vehicle has a practical range of 35 miles - maximum of about 40 miles.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Sunking said:


> I am certainly no fan of oil companies but you do know Exon Mobile has developed a Lithium Ion battery for the EV market right?


I have heard about that and I think its great and should have been happening 10yrs ago...

The more R&D that can be pumped into battery technology the better.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Re the issue of gm not being able to sell the ev1 due to support requirements as far as i'm aware there is a caveat in the law that they could have been sold as "scrap" and be exempt from any legal obligations. The reality here is GM were scared. Had the ev1s been sold they would still be on the road today. People would have wanted them. People would have been interested. I reiterate my previous points. No major auto maker can afford to market a car without an engine. Loose the engine and you loose big oil who have invested in your company and bought bonds and stock. Loose the engine and you loose billions worth of tooling and facilities. Loose the engine and you loose years of parts and labor charges. The engine is the cash cow. 

Just today a friend of mine needed a drive belt , tensioner and idler pulley for a renault. Main dealer parts. 300 euros for a bit of plastic and a spring. Go into any auto parts store on the planet and look at the big thick phone book type parts manuals they keep on the counter. 90% engine parts. Now look at the "fast fit" type garages that sprang up over the past two decades. Batteries , exhausts , oil changes , spark plugs , brakes and tyres. Most of the revenue generated by these business comes from the engine.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> re the issue of gm not being able to sell the ev1 due to support requirements as far as i'm aware there is a caveat in the law that they could have been sold as "scrap" and be exempt from any legal obligations. The reality here is gm were scared. Had the ev1s been sold they would still be on the road today. People would have wanted them. People would have been interested. I reiterate my previous points. No major auto maker can afford to market a car without an engine. Loose the engine and you loose big oil who have invested in your company and bought bonds and stock. Loose the engine and you loose billions worth of tooling and facilities. Loose the engine and you loose years of parts and labor charges. The engine is the cash cow.....


+1000 
.


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## PartsMan (Aug 20, 2009)

Manufactures should be looking into EVs. The new emissions laws are making ICEs more expensive to make. Caterpillar is switching to off highway only engines because of the strict highway emissions.

Does it really cost more to make and EV anyway or is it just a low volume problem?


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> Sunking
> You evidently know very little about Americans.


Well I don't know only been an American since birth about 55 years ago. I am an engineer, married to a doctor, and don't know of anyone who would buy an EV like you describe, and we can afford it if we wanted to. 

And that is my conclusion of who killed the EV, the market did.


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## Stunt Driver (May 14, 2009)

well, there are couple companies who dare to build engine-less car. At least Tesla and www.Aptera.com 
I personally like second. Still price of $40k scares me a bit. However, as soon as they'll open testdrive - i'll be there to try it!

So my opinion - engine is not the most expensive part of modern vehicles. Loosing it - doesn't dramatically decrease cost, but adding large battery system with reliable charger (that can be sold to every fool out there) - adds alot of $$


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I agree the engine itself is not a major cost factor thanks to mass manufacture. Its the friends it brings to the show that are the problem. Tesla et al while great are fairly niche. A lot of people are sheep who believe any drivel thrown out so if a nice smiling big auto exec comes on tv and says we cant make an ev because of x , y and z then its believed as fact.


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## vpoppv (Jul 27, 2009)

I can't speak for every year and every dealership, but I can say with certainty that in California, in the mid 90's, for the makes of Toyota, Nissan, and Daewoo, parts and service accounted for over a third of a dealership' s profits. In other words, the dealerships where I was a parts and service manager could not stay in business without the parts and service departments. Furthermore, there were a whole bunch of service staff/service writers, and parts people whose faces were white as ghosts when the maintenance shedules were anounced for the Rav4 EV. They saw the future and didn't see their role in it. I think why people have a hard time seeing why parts and service departments are so necessay to a dealership is that, behind the scenes, a lot goes on. It's not just some weekend warrior showing up at the counter to buy an oil filter and parking light lens. Every time there is an accident, the dealership delivers a ton of parts. When a car is traded in, the service department does a thorough job before a car gets put back on the lot; all parts ordered through the parts department, all making a little money. So if a dealership cannot operate without parts and service in California at the time the EV's were being made, I can't imagine an astute general manager would be pushing EV's very hard. Now if dealerships are in fear of losing 1/3 of their business and quite probably failing, the factories no longer have a way to sell ANY cars....


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Sunking said:


> Well I don't know only been an American since birth about 55 years ago. I am an engineer, married to a doctor, and don't know of anyone who would buy an EV like you describe, and we can afford it if we wanted to.
> 
> And that is my conclusion of who killed the EV, the market did.


Perhaps if the car makers had done some advertising for the EV the public may have become aware of the alternative. Instead they advertised how global warming was good because it would increase food production.

Perhaps you have a vested interest, being married to a doctor, those body spare parts, operations for wounds, pych help etc. for the young soldiers sent to protect us from "weapons of mass destruction" (reality is to keep the oil flowing at US negotiated prices) would certainly keep the medical profession in business for decades after the wars.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

watchIT said:


> for the young soldiers sent to protect us from "weapons of mass destruction" (reality is to keep the oil flowing at US negotiated prices) .


+1000, oil war.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

watchIT said:


> Perhaps you have a vested interest, being married to a doctor, those body spare parts, operations for wounds, pych help etc. for the young soldiers sent to protect us from "weapons of mass destruction"


Well she is OB/GYN, not much of a demand for used uterus's and babies in the army do you think?


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> And most utilities here in this country charge less expensive rates between 8pm and 8am. This is the time period that we would be charging our vehicles.


That explains it, you don't live in America, you live in California. Where I live in the USA we pay 9.7 cents no matter what time of day it is. I worked for an Electric Utility for ten years as a substation engineer as a young man for AEP-PSO. Very few states have tiered or time of day rates, only left coasters and a few yankees do.


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

Like it or not people buy vehicles for the maximum utility they can afford. The vehicle that will fulfil most transport scenarios they are likely to encounter and or one that makes a strong statement about their wealth and status is the one they desire. Most people will also keep the minimum number of vehicles they can with out inconveniencing themselves. They won’t buy a vehicle for each transport situation. That is why you see so many large cars driving around with just one person in it and so many Ute’s with nothing in the tray. So the average Joe won’t buy an EV for their local driving and a gas car for their long distance driving. They’ll just buy the gas car as it will fulfil both needs. Peoples vehicle choice is not normally appropriately scaled for most of it’s use.
True or not GM has credited the EV1 with having had very limited appeal. The reasons from what I can make out are that it only had two seats limiting its utility and limited range. Like it or not, justified or not, range anxiety is real. The paranoid fear of being stranded due to a depleted battery would have cost them customers in droves. The other problem with the car was that it was never going to be low cost to produce, so if they had sold it for profit it would only be the rich who would buy it again limiting its market. Mass production would not have addressed this issue as the cost and volume of commodity metals required would have under pinned the battery costs ensuring they remained high. If you look at the Volt and how it differs from the EV1 you can see how they have attempted to address the EV1’s perceived shortfalls. The Volt has seating for four adults and four doors, it has a range extender ensuring that as long as there are gas stations around you need never run out of range. It is produced with a fairly small battery to try and keep battery costs under control and the car itself is small to help facilitate this and it will be mass produced with a steel body ensuring a large portion of the car will be cheap to make. Unfortunately despite all this effort the car will still be expensive. The EV1 died because it didn’t make economic sense to the company producing it. It only existed to satisfy an air quality mandate that ignored the economic realities of making such vehicles.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Sunking said:


> Well she is OB/GYN


Sure she is (not). She is a doctor. OB/GYN and their partners do not call OB/GYN's doctors.

Anyway, you obviously do like the ironic situation where the US sends innocents over to be slaughtered for oil and support terrorism because oil allowed a terrorist to be freed - to allow the oil to keep flowing.

The market is there for EV's. Just because you don't like them doesn't speak for all. All the US car makers said there was no market for the Prius too. Now the US has Government Motors - a socialist car company, in a capitalist country. A car company that is unlikely to be profitable ever again.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

Sunking said:


> Well I don't know only been an American since birth about 55 years ago. I am an engineer, married to a doctor, and don't know of anyone who would buy an EV like you describe, and we can afford it if we wanted to.
> 
> And that is my conclusion of who killed the EV, the market did.


I would have gladly bought an EV like that if one were available. Since it wasn't, I built my own. For far less. And fyi.. I use it for 90% of my daily driving. There's no doubt not everyone would buy a short range EV, anymore than everyone will buy a Miata or a Hummer... But they make these cars because SOME people will buy them. The market is there for EV's. This forum and many like it are living proof.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

watchIT said:


> Sure she is (not). She is a doctor. OB/GYN and their partners do not call OB/GYN's doctors.
> 
> Anyway, you obviously do like the ironic situation where the US sends innocents over to be slaughtered for oil and support terrorism because oil allowed a terrorist to be freed - to allow the oil to keep flowing.


Huh? What are you smoking? My wife calls herself a crotcher looker upper.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Sunking said:


> Huh? What are you smoking? My wife calls herself a crotcher looker upper.


Note to self: ask OB/GYN is partner an engineer. If so, get another OB/GYN.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Sunking
No I don't live in California, my city and state are right on my post.
And if your electric rates are only .09 cents per KWH (and I wonder if that includes the delivery charge?) then you should consider yourself lucky and an EV would be even more economical for you.
Night rates here are currently .128 cents per KWH (which includes delivery charge) and so traveling 35 miles for .79 cents is barely over .02 cents per mile for energy. Far more economical than gas not to mention the low maintenance feature and the lack of emissions.

I take my EV to many Car Shows here in New Jersey. There is always a crowd around the car marveling at the simplicity and the economical aspect of driving an EV. They ask a ton of questions. Many of them have even commented: If you can do this in your own garage....where has Detroit been for the past 30 years? Very few people balk at the limited range of 35 miles. So my first hand experience with the general public leads me to believe that many would have a practical use for a short range EV.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

Voltswagen said:


> Drew
> Your argument doesn't hold water. You tell me why the bell housing bolts
> on a Jeep manual trans are all 18mm with the exception of the top two bolts (which by the way are the hardest to reach). Those top two bolts are a bastard pattern which only a Jeep socket will fit. Otherwise its just an everday 20 thread bolt so why did they change the head? To keep guys like me from fixing their own vehicle. Thats why.
> Don't tell me theres no money in service or parts.


I haven't worked on a Jeep before, but I'm quite sure there would be a logical explanation to it, are they a larger diameter? or a different pitch? What pattern?

Also, if they're happy to sell you the tool they clearly don't care whether you service it or not and I've never met a dealer who won't sell you their special tool set. In fact I've met quite a few who are full of advice for home servicers.


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## Stunt Driver (May 14, 2009)

Voltswagen, what was total cost of your conversion? What would it be if you'd use all parts brand new?
Would those people be willing to buy EV if on top of that price you'd add labor cost and some margin?


In my calculations EVs just don't make sence yet, with current gas price. Even Prius hardly does (extra $2000 in price of Prius only pays back in 2-3 years for me, before starting any savings)


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

watchIT said:


> Sure she is (not). She is a doctor. OB/GYN and their partners do not call OB/GYN's doctors.
> 
> Anyway, you obviously do like the ironic situation where the US sends innocents over to be slaughtered for oil and support terrorism because oil allowed a terrorist to be freed - to allow the oil to keep flowing.
> 
> The market is there for EV's. Just because you don't like them doesn't speak for all. All the US car makers said there was no market for the Prius too. Now the US has Government Motors - a socialist car company, in a capitalist country. A car company that is unlikely to be profitable ever again.


watchIT, please relax and curb the negativity. We don't need personal attacks on job titles and what not, lets stick to talking about EVs.. Im saying this not as a moderator just as someone who has done it too, and its just not productive. cool? 

This thread was just a grenade waiting to blow... Many of us are on these boards to Do it Ourself to settle our own frustrations with the lack of turnkey EVs available...Thank you to those who have disagreed but have had patience with us frustrated members...me included! Please understand our frustration....

For several of us, dare I say most of us, It is not about the money savings we see by not using gas for 90% of our driving...there are other things about EV technology that have great value ...


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

vpoppv said:


> I can't speak for every year and every dealership, but I can say with certainty that in California, in the mid 90's, for the makes of Toyota, Nissan, and Daewoo, parts and service accounted for over a third of a dealership' s profits. In other words, the dealerships where I was a parts and service manager could not stay in business without the parts and service departments. Furthermore, there were a whole bunch of service staff/service writers, and parts people whose faces were white as ghosts when the maintenance shedules were anounced for the Rav4 EV. They saw the future and didn't see their role in it. I think why people have a hard time seeing why parts and service departments are so necessay to a dealership is that, behind the scenes, a lot goes on. It's not just some weekend warrior showing up at the counter to buy an oil filter and parking light lens. Every time there is an accident, the dealership delivers a ton of parts. When a car is traded in, the service department does a thorough job before a car gets put back on the lot; all parts ordered through the parts department, all making a little money. So if a dealership cannot operate without parts and service in California at the time the EV's were being made, I can't imagine an astute general manager would be pushing EV's very hard. Now if dealerships are in fear of losing 1/3 of their business and quite probably failing, the factories no longer have a way to sell ANY cars....


What you've said there just goes to further prove my point. How many people are in your workshop compared to the number of people on your sales floor? If they're making 1/3 of your profit then your sales guys are making the other 2/3 and I'm guessing there are a lot more people dedicated to parts and service than there are to sales. Probably a lot more floor space as well. So it would be bad business sense to maintain an area which costs most of your money and only earns you 1/3 of your total income vs sales which nets you 2/3 of your profit and a lot less of your total overhead.



And JackBauer, I'm not an American but based on what the TV tells me Americans are pretty Litigious and I'm pretty sure that GM actually looked into getting prospective owners to sign a waiver against warranty etc and determined that it wouldn't stand up in court.

Also, the way car companies usually operate is that they don't hold anything which is worth money and they don't need, which is why they would have sold off the battery technologies associated with any old project ASAP to recoup costs. Who bought it isn't any concern of theirs.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Drew said:


> ...Also, the way car companies usually operate is that they don't hold anything which is worth money and they don't need, which is why they would have sold off the battery technologies associated with any old project ASAP to recoup costs. Who bought it isn't any concern of theirs...


I wish it was that simple...

I would have to agree with you(on a previous post where you mentioned) how stupid the management is of the American car companies...which would include the stupidity in asset management...running the company into the ground doesn't say much to their management's credit...

These car companies were run into the ground by several bad decisions... I for one strongly feel one of the many was the lack of foresight on the future of automobile electrical technology...


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## gte718p (Jul 30, 2009)

Now everyone put your tin foil hats back on.

companies are driven by money. Yes there are true believes out there, but the lack of factory EV comes down to the money. GM and other followed the market. No conspiracy there. Yes it would have been nice if they where ahead of it, but as a general rule big companies are risk adverse and therefor reactionary.

For all of you who truely believe we are in the middle east for the oil. With the trillions of dollars spent on the wars there. We could have bought oil for every man woman and child for decades.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

Bowser330 said:


> I wish it was that simple...
> 
> I would have to agree with you(on a previous post where you mentioned) how stupid the management is of the American car companies...which would include the stupidity in asset management...running the company into the ground doesn't say much to their management's credit...
> 
> These car companies were run into the ground by several bad decisions... I for one strongly feel one of the many was the lack of foresight on the future of automobile electrical technology...


Unfortunately it is that simple, one of the things that used to drive me nuts was the risk averse behavior that was day to day practice. I've seen programmes cancelled when the finished product was ready to roll off the line because it still appeared on the books as a liability and wasn't yet turning a profit.

The really big problem with accounting based management is that you can turn a bigger profit today by pretending tomorrow doesn't exist, so all the American car companies seem to be minimising R&D expenditure to "Secure the companies future" and not having a product to sell tomorrow. It seems to have been going on for years now, its most obvious when you look at their reaction to emissions limitations, as its much easier to try and defeat legislation than to fork out 1/2 a billion dollars or more to develop a new powertrain solution from the ground up but that doesn't mean it isn't rife elsewhere in the industry.


Oh and personally I believe that everybody piled into Iraq/Afghanistan because the collective populations of all present countries wanted a little bit of a war. 

But if you want my 2c on war conspiracy theories then the most logical reasons to go into either country are; Iraq; Keeping the American economy rolling, an earlier version of the economic stimulus package. And Afghanistan; CIA war on drugs, Afghanistan is the worlds largest producer of a bunch of opiates and thats because the CIA spent so much money fucking up South America during the 80's and 90's... but again, they are just conspiracy theories, not my personal opinion.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

gte718p said:


> For all of you who truely believe we are in the middle east for the oil. With the trillions of dollars spent on the wars there. We could have bought oil for every man woman and child for decades.


You sure could have bought it....however if the oil-dollar had been set to the Euro, you would be paying a lot more per gallon....


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Stunt Driver
Get out your calculator.....
You asked what my conversion costs were. I can't give it exactly to the penny but $10,000.00 for the car and parts is in the neighborhood. 
I did use new parts...brakes, upholstery, suspension, steering, tires, controller, motor etc.
Whats my time worth? Lets say 300 hours at $15.00 per hr. Total: $14,500.00 and another $1,000.00 for the soon to be installed convertible top.
So $15,500.00
I am currently running a comparison on this vehicle vs my wifes 2003 Beetle which we bought brand new for $16,000.00 plus tax. Her vehicle gets 30mpg which is about 10mpg better than the national average.
Not really a fair comparison against an EV but I still think my car will average out better cost wise. So here goes.....

She drives the car approx. 10,000 miles per year. It currently has 57,000
miles on it and just went in for a new clutch.......$1350.00 plus tax...ouch! (VW wanted $2400.00 plus....those guys are crazy!)
My vehicle has no clutch. But I'm averaging all repairs on the vehicle over the 6 yrs we have owned it. So there is an additional $225.00 per yr she spends.
I'm leaving the tax off on everything as not every state has sales tax.

Brakes on both vehicles are about the same costs so we'll leave them off..

Some items are unfair to compare.....for example tires. The 15 inch tires on my EV were approx. $73.00 each......17 inch tires for the 03 Beetle run about $150.00 each for decent Bridgestone rubber not the Pep Boyz Special. But we have to put something down...so $48 per yr for me....$100 yr for her.

On a fuel comparison basis the EV easily wins despite the excellent mileage the 03 Beetle gets.
Gasoline here is $2.55 gal.....and she goes 30 miles on that. Her cost is .085 cents per mile....mine is .0225 cents per miles so far. I have never paid more than .79 cents to fully charge the car having travelled approx 35 miles. I use the popular Kill-A-Watt meter which is programmable for electric rates. I only charge at night when the rates are cheaper.
I only have a little over 600 miles on my EV. So her fuel cost is about $850.00 yr. while mine would be $225.00 assuming the same mileage.

Her car gets 3 oil changes per [email protected] approx. $45.00 per.
Mine...none. Theres an additional $135.00 she spends.

My batts are 8v Energizers and cost $1100.00 at Sams Club and assuming 10,000 miles per year they should last approx. 3-4 years.
So theres $275.00 - $366.00 per year my wife doesn't spend.
We could average my cost at $320 per yr.

Repair wise her car also needed an ignition module....$385.00
a Diverter valve for her Turbo....$320.00
Other than that her car has performed rather well.

Averaging all costs on a 6 yr basis if my math is correct.
The EV averages $593.00 per yr.
The 03 Beetle $1427 per yr.

I'm sure I have missed some items and you will correct me.
Anyone else want to add something....please jump in.


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## gte718p (Jul 30, 2009)

Bowser330 said:


> You sure could have bought it....however if the oil-dollar had been set to the Euro, you would be paying a lot more per gallon....


Doesn't matter. Even at 10 dollars a gallon it would have been cheaper to buy it. If we lost the entire middle east as an oil supplier and could only produce domestically and import from Russia and South America it still cheaper.

People are wrapped up on that point and the facts just don't support it.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

gte718p said:


> For all of you who truely believe we are in the middle east for the oil. With the trillions of dollars spent on the wars there. We could have bought oil for every man woman and child for decades.



In the last 30 years the US has only invaded and stayed in countries that have something they want - oil.

They never stayed in Rwanda, they never really did anything in Kosovo, the list goes on.


Even if what you said was true, which it is not, then as someone else pointed out, the wars also create stimulus in the economy through arms production and employment.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Bowser330 said:


> watchIT, please relax and curb the negativity. We don't need personal attacks on job titles and what not, lets stick to talking about EVs.. Im saying this not as a moderator just as someone who has done it too, and its just not productive. cool?
> 
> This thread was just a grenade waiting to blow... Many of us are on these boards to Do it Ourself to settle our own frustrations with the lack of turnkey EVs available...Thank you to those who have disagreed but have had patience with us frustrated members...me included! Please understand our frustration....
> 
> For several of us, dare I say most of us, It is not about the money savings we see by not using gas for 90% of our driving...there are other things about EV technology that have great value ...


Yeah, you're right. Some people come on here just trolling or because they can't see through their conservative views, or don't want to get their hands dirty in a physical sense, interesting that they have no viewpoint on some points like oil freeing a terrorist, by which we are all complicit.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

watchIT said:


> Yeah, you're right. Some people come on here just trolling or because they can't see through their conservative views, or don't want to get their hands dirty in a physical sense, interesting that they have no viewpoint on some points like oil freeing a terrorist, by which we are all complicit.


I agree with your comment about people and their views...human nature i guess...stubborness and close mindedness...We all can have these attributes at times though, so all we can do is respect ones views as long as they respect anothers..(However much it annoys us!!)


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

Voltswagen said:


> Stunt Driver
> 
> I'm sure I have missed some items and you will correct me.
> Anyone else want to add something....please jump in.


To be fair to the ICE, distilled water goes for $1 a gallon and you have to top your batteries off every once in a while...

And is an EV ever really _DONE_? 

Oh and wait a minute...where did I read EV conversions get 10% of their conversion cost off your income tax this year (up to a certain dollar limit) if you put it on the road after the President signed the American Recovery Act?


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Thats right TJ - Thanks
I forgot about that.

It's Form 8834 Qualified Electric Vehicle Credit available at www.irs.gov
So I prove $10,000.00 in receipts (which I have) and get a tax credit of $1,000.00
amortized over 6 yrs to be fair...Thats another $166 per yr less that my EV costs.
I wonder if I could charge them for my time?


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Sunking,

If GM wouldn't sell EV1's because of legal fears, how did Toyota manage to sell RAV4EV's? Why was Panasonic/Toyota taken to court and prevented from selling large size NiMH batteries? If there is no demand for EV's why are used RAV4EV's selling for more than original cost? Why are thousands of us building our own limited range EV's? We can buy lithium batteries right now for about $400/kwh that should last 2000 cycles or more, what do you think the cost would be for a large auto manufacturer buying directly from the battery builder, or building them in house?
Demand is there, cells are improving, costs are dropping. As with any technology early adopters will pay a premium, but as costs drop acceptance spreads. Very few could afford the early flat panel TV's, now they are everywhere.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Voltswagen said:


> Thats right TJ - Thanks
> I forgot about that.
> 
> It's Form 8834 Qualified Electric Vehicle Credit available at www.irs.gov


I don't see where that applies to home conversions?


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

JRP3
I'll check their website again as it has been some time since I downloaded that form.
But the form itself does not ask wether the electric vehicle was purchased from a manufacturer or a home built conversion. I got that form number from the NJ Electric Auto Association.
Roy


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

The form says a qualified vehicle is this:


> This is a vehicle made by a manufacturer that is propelled to a
> significant extent by an electric motor that draws electricity from
> a battery that can be recharged from an external source of
> electricity and has a capacity of not less than:
> ...


The "made by a manufacturer" part makes me think a conversion won't qualify.


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

JRP3 said:


> If there is no demand for EV's why are used RAV4EV's selling for more than original cost? Why are thousands of us building our own limited range EV's? We can buy lithium batteries right now for about $400/kwh that should last 2000 cycles or more, what do you think the cost would be for a large auto manufacturer buying directly from the battery builder, or building them in house?





JRP3 said:


> Demand is there, cells are improving, and costs are dropping. As with any technology early adopters will pay a premium, but as costs drop acceptance spreads. Very few could afford the early flat panel TV's, now they are everywhere.




There is definitely a market there but it is very small at the moment. There is a big difference in a few thousand EV'ers and the greater auto market of hundreds of millions of vehicles. What DIY EV'ers are doing is building an EV market by creating awareness and driving up the volumes of the lithium battery producers which is bearing fruit in falling prices and improving reliability. In some way the market needs to expand at a controlled rate. A sudden surge in demand for lithium batteries would cause the price of lithium to spike. Giving the raw material producers a chance to keep up with demand keeps prices sensible.

Vehicle lines get killed off all the time without there being anything sinister behind it. The original Honda Insight for instance was considered a failure and production shut down. If you consider it, it has some similarities to the EV1 with its alloy hyper aerodynamic body and two seats. The new Insight is also radically different to the old as the Volt is to the EV1.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

JRP3
Here is an explanation right from the irs website.
Scroll down to "Conversion Kits"

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=206871,00.html

You didn't think they would make it easy for us didja?


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

This has not popped up, but if dealers don't make money from service on cars, why was there a plan a few years ago to lock the hoods on cars, that could only be opened by DEALERS???

Also, replacement parts manufacturer's parts, would not be allowed to be installed on any car, until it was 10 years old?

These things were being considered.

If there is no money in replacement parts, why are there so many replacement parts being made that are not by the original factory?

Why do foreign parts makers even bother to make them?

There must be a damn large demand for them...............

Those of us that have built and are enjoying driving our EVs, know the advantages.

Why else would we continue to do it????????

And what is wrong with a 2 passenger EV? Most sporty cars with 4 pass advertised room, can't get anyone in the back seat anyway...

Just my 2 cents.....


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## Stunt Driver (May 14, 2009)

So about tax credit on conversion kits - do we qualify?
It doesn't say you have to buy certain kit? But if you can gather a few receipts - you can get 10% back seems like?


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Stunt Driver said:


> So about tax credit on conversion kits - do we qualify?
> It doesn't say you have to buy certain kit? But if you can gather a few receipts - you can get 10% back seems like?


_Conversion Kits (Section 1143): The new law also provided a tax credit for plug-in electric drive conversion kits. The credit is equal to 10 percent of the cost of converting a vehicle to a qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle and placed in service after Feb. 17, 2009. The maximum amount of the credit is $4,000. The credit does not apply to conversions made after Dec. 31, 2011. A taxpayer may claim this credit even if the taxpayer claimed a hybrid vehicle credit for the same vehicle in an earlier year._

you can get 10% up to 4,000 (original cost $40,000)...

does the cost of converting also include the cost of the donor car?


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Bowser
My plan is to file that form and load every total from every receipt I have onto it. I'm even including the sandpaper and paint I purchased.
Let the IRS come back and question it if they want to. I'd be very surprized if any of their poorly trained personel did so. And if they disallowed it....OK...I'll reduce my claim. 
Remember.....you cannot go to jail for agressive deductions....only for *failing* to file and pay your taxes. 
I run a consulting business from my home and I even include the cost of a bottle of 409 cleanser to clean my desk as a deduction. Everything counts if it's related. And you'd be amazed by how much is related. It adds up.
Also consider this....if a Prius owner can deduct the total price....some $40,000.00.......I don't think the IRS should have a problem with my $10,000.00 deduction. Remember...you don't get the total as a tax credit....just 10% of it.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Coley said:


> If there is no money in replacement parts, why are there so many replacement parts being made that are not by the original factory?


Indeed, and they are usually much cheaper than from a dealer, yet they still make a profit. This idea that service and parts don't make a profit is ridiculous.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

John said:


> There is definitely a market there but it is very small at the moment. There is a big difference in a few thousand EV'ers and the greater auto market of hundreds of millions of vehicles.



I'd say there is a much greater demand than is represented by us DIY'ers, most people would never even think about doing what we are doing but they would love to have an affordable EV even with somewhat limited range. Many people have more than one vehicle and have short daily commutes, but there is just nothing available for them to buy. Obviously Nissan sees this demand and they are releasing the 100 mile range Leaf to meet it.



> Vehicle lines get killed off all the time without there being anything sinister behind it. The original Honda Insight for instance was considered a failure and production shut down.


 However they weren't confiscated and crushed, and their technology wasn't held under lock and key, and Toyota wasn't prevented from selling the Prius. Big difference.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> However they weren't confiscated and crushed, and their technology wasn't held under lock and key,


Hey JRP,

Confiscated? GM owned those vehicles. They have the right to do with their property what they wish. You may not like their decisions, but they may not care.

What technology was held from anyone? Anything used on the EV-1 was in the public domain. Possibly some process techniques developed by GM were not shared. But again, that is their prerogative. Certainly the EV-1 propulsion system and controls and other parts and systems on the car could have been duplicated or developed by anyone else willing to put the effort and money into it.

I think the GM EV-1 story was a great achievement which end ended in a travesty. But GM had every right to do what they did. To my knowledge, they broke no contracts or leases or confiscated anyone's property. This is evidenced by the fact that the S-10-EVs which they sold are still out there and were not confiscated and crushed.

Here is the way I see it. GM responded to the CARB mandates of the 1990's by developing the EV-1. Early in the 2000's the army of lawyers and lobbyists were successful in getting those mandates repealed. GM had been savvy in the manner in which they managed that product to keep their options open. They simply made a business decision to discontinue the product in the best manner possible for their bottom line.

Some would have you believe that it was the marketplace responsible for the demise of the EV-1. Well, you got to admit that an awful lot of SUV's were being sold during that period. And those were a big profit marker for the auto companies. 

I have had contact with a number of EV-1 leasers and have to say all were pleased with the product. Most loved it. I don't know of any real dissatisfied EV-1 leasers. Yet there were complaints about the manner in which GM chose to lease. Careful scrutiny of potential leasers. High lease payments. Recall at the end of lease term. But all was done by GM to manage risk.

I have worked on a number of EV-1s. It is an excellent designed and engineered and manufactured car. But there is nothing there that someone else could not have done if they were willing to make the investment. We should be pleased that GM took the risk and made the EV-1. It serves as a great example.

My take on it 

major


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

Coley said:


> This has not popped up, but if dealers don't make money from service on cars, why was there a plan a few years ago to lock the hoods on cars, that could only be opened by DEALERS???
> 
> Also, replacement parts manufacturer's parts, would not be allowed to be installed on any car, until it was 10 years old?
> 
> ...


Most auto manufacturers have actually encrypted their ECUs and wanted to prevent customer access to the mechanics of their vehicles because of an increasing number of warranty claims related to "performance parts" which inevitably killed the engines or whatever. People will fit aftermarket headers, flash ECUs, whatever, then when something goes wrong return to stock and complain about warranty. Its that simple.



The big problem with 2 seater EVs is the same problem with vehicle range, something like 50-60% of all car trips are taken with only one vehicle occupant, and another 25% or more with only 2, but people for some reason want a car which seats five. Range is the same thing, I'm not sure on the exact figures, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 90%+ of all personal vehicle usage is in trips of 25km or less per trip, Maybe more, but people want to know that if they really wanted to they could drive to the next large city, or maybe do 20 laps of theirs or something like that. I don't understand it, but then again I ride a motorbike, 2 seats at most, designed for 1 and enough fuel to get 200km if I'm lucky.


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## PartsMan (Aug 20, 2009)

I can tell you that parts sales is a big business.
Ag parts are different because farmers drive there tractors FOREVER,
but most dealers I know would break even for the year on parts sales alone.
Any labor or whole goods sales are for profit.

I also know of dealers that do very little if any service and parts business that make good money. Auto dealers will just have to change the way they do things.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

major said:


> Hey JRP,
> 
> Confiscated? GM owned those vehicles. They have the right to do with their property what they wish. You may not like their decisions, but they may not care.


100% correct, all of the EV1's were leased. None were sold




major said:


> Hey JRP,Here is the way I see it. GM responded to the CARB mandates of the 1990's by developing the EV-1. Early in the 2000's the army of lawyers and lobbyists were successful in getting those mandates repealed. GM had been savvy in the manner in which they managed that product to keep their options open. They simply made a business decision to discontinue the product in the best manner possible for their bottom line.


Again 100% percent correct, it was a pure business decision. Had there been any real demand for a production run they would have done it like any other business. It is sad, but that is the irony. 

What is interesting is a common denominator of the GM EV1, Toyota RAV4. Ford Ranger EV, and Honda EV Plus were are born as a result of creation of CARB, and all discontinued as CARB was repelled. Between the four manufactures it appears about 2500 vehicles were made, and about 400 to 600 still exist mostly in California with the Rav4 having about 385 units of the 600 or so. All the rest were destroyed.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I agree that GM had every right to do what they wanted with their property. Many people wanted to buy their EV1's but were not allowed to do so. Did it make more economic sense to crush those vehicles or sell them? Why did they not crush the S10's? 
As to the technology I was referring to the NiMH battery Panasonic and Toyota were prevented from manufacturing, not the drive train elements.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I agree that GM had every right to do what they wanted with their property. Many people wanted to buy their EV1's but were not allowed to do so. Did it make more economic sense to crush those vehicles or sell them?


Good question. It cost GM roughly $1B to build the 135 EV1's or $833K per unit. What price could they have sold then at to justify liability and service support? IMO it was a sound biz decision to cut the losses and be done with it to stop the bleeding.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> Did it make more economic sense to crush those vehicles or sell them?


Don't know about economic sense, but that was the business decision GM chose to make.



> Why did they not crush the S10's?


Like I said, the S-10-EVs were sold, not leased. Just speculating, but those looked just like the gas versions, whereas the EV-1s were distinctive.



> As to the technology I was referring to the NiMH battery Panasonic and Toyota were prevented from manufacturing, not the drive train elements.


Most of the EV-1s had Pb-Acid. The whole NiMH battery thing is a different deal altogether.

Regards,

major


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## gte718p (Jul 30, 2009)

Sunking said:


> Good question. It cost GM roughly $1B to build the 135 EV1's or $833K per unit. What price could they have sold then at to justify liability and service support? IMO it was a sound biz decision to cut the losses and be done with it to stop the bleeding.


For 135 Ev-1s there was no way it made sense to maintaince the parts and support trail required to keep the cars on the road. 

The logistical trail would have been millions of dollars. You probably don't understand that b/c you don't see it. But if the cars where on the road GM would have to continue manufactoring spare parts. No OEM would pick up that line. That means custom manufacturing spares. It means maintaining an entire factory, machines, machinist, and overhead. It would also mean having the program office staffed with engineers to adress technical question. It would require GM to continue to offer certification classes for factory techs. All of that costs money.

The EV-1's where great cars but it was not a conspiracy that killed them. Actually a good amount of tech came out of that project. It should find its way into the Volt.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Hypothetically lets say gm had its ev1 buyers sign a waiver that was iron clad and sold off the ev1s. What do you guys think would be different , if indeed anything , in the ev / general automotive world today?


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

gte718p said:


> The logistical trail would have been millions of dollars. You probably don't understand that b/c you don't see it.


 I see it and agree. It would have been a big money pit to throw money into never to be seen again.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

major said:


> Like I said, the S-10-EVs were sold, not leased. Just speculating, but those looked just like the gas versions, whereas the EV-1s were distinctive.


Major that is not entirely accurate. Here is the dope on the S10

Short story is 492 made, and of those 492, 60 were sold to electric utilities for fleet vehicles. All leased vehicles were destroyed.

_Unlike the EV1, of the 492 S-10EVs assembled about 60 were __sold to fleet customers (Electric Utilities), rather than just leased through restrictive programs, mostly due to the prior Department of Transportation crash-worthiness evaluations done on stock S-10 pickups. As a result, a few Electric S-10's can still be found in use today. The fleet life of many of these are ending in 2007 and 2008 and they can be acquired in government and business auctions. Those 440-some that were not sold were collected, dismembered and crushed just like their EV1 siblings._


----------



## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Sunking said:


> Good question. It cost GM roughly $1B to build the 135 EV1's or $833K per unit. What price could they have sold then at to justify liability and service support? IMO it was a sound biz decision to cut the losses and be done with it to stop the bleeding.


If you're going to throw in $ figures, then reference a scholarly reference, else it's off the top of your head and has no credibility.

When (if) you do provide that reference, remember ALL new product (including any new car model) has start up costs. Nothing can be built from scratch for free so your argument is ridiculous. They didn't want the car because no ongoing income stream from spares.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Sunking said:


> Short story is 492 made, and of those 492, 60 were sold to electric utilities for fleet vehicles. All leased vehicles were destroyed.


Didn't know that. Thanks. A number of them made it to military bases and occasionally come up for auction. I bid on one a few years ago.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

gte718p said:


> The EV-1's where great cars but it was not a conspiracy that killed them. Actually a good amount of tech came out of that project. It should find its way into the Volt.


You were'nt in the boardrooms or golf courses when the decisions were being made so you cannot use absolute comments about what did or did not kill the the EV-1.

You are entitled to your opinion that it the killing of the electric car was all on the up'n'up and there were no underhanded motives...

Likewise, I and many many many others are entitled to believe that there were some shady dealings involved and it wasn't "just about the market demand" or whatever it appears to be on the surface.

I do agree that a lot of good technology was created for these pioneer EVs..and that technology got people thinking again about using electrical motors for cars....albeit used forklift motors, but whatever works right!....The motor technology didn't really leak to the public but it did get some smaller independent firms thinking, like AC-propulsion, etc...what about those left over ford ranger EV siemens motors that dont have an available seimens controller...haha...yah, that must be just some odd coincidence that they dont want to sell inverters for those motors...probably some "market demand" thing again...

On the battery front, it is just very disappointing that the future growth of the panasonic large format nimh batteries is being held back and stunted by Chevron..I mean its "just business" right?? But as fellow DIYers you have to agree that it would be nice to have some advanced nimh battery technology released for public use along with the lithium tech...give us DIYers some options...you know what i mean...


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

watchIT said:


> If you're going to throw in $ figures, then reference a scholarly reference , else it's off the top of your head and has no credibility.


I provided reference. Try to keep up.


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

watchIT said:


> They didn't want the car because no ongoing income stream from spares.


Nobody here really knows the reasons behind GM's decision and that may have been a factor, but that would be a legitimate reason why the vehicle would have been less profitable and would still be true today. I personally don't think it would have had much bearing on the decision.

If you think about it the electric car for the first time in decades provides the opportunity for new vehicle manufacturing start ups to emerge and take away the big players market share. That is probably a bigger threat than having to down grade the spares industry. EV's are simpler machines than ICE cars.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

major said:


> Didn't know that. Thanks.


You are welcome. Since I am a supporter of EV's, an EE, and own my own business, I had an interest in the title of the movie and was interested in hearing the opinions of like minded people who might have seen the documentary.

Personally I found it full of half truths, and the conclusion of the producer flawed. Basically if you watched the film, they try to impress it was a conspiracy.

IMO once you look at the technical details, business, and consumer demands, there just is not a market as of yet. Again IMO the key is a battery technology does not exist yet. 

I am confident in the next to 5 to 10 years we will have a battery that can do the job. We just are not there yet to have mass appeal.

All technology exist right now except the battery. When a battery becomes available to give 300 mile range with ICE bells and whistles, at a competitive price EV's will take offf. The infrastructure will follow like the internet followed the home PC


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Sunking said:


> I provided reference. Try to keep up.


Are you sure you are a Uni grad? I said a scholarly ref, not wikipedia.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Anyway, at the end of the day, this forum is not about you and your opinions and glossing/ignoring other viewpoints, it's about people who are capable of building something at relatively low cost that the car-makers have been incapable of (unless they spend "billions").

As long as the DIY'ers are happy building EV's that can go ~100 miles, they are obviously happy and it meets their needs and there would be many other people that would have one if they knew the option was available or if they had the skills/confidence to make their own.


------
DIADH


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Sunking said:


> IMO once you look at the technical details, business, and consumer demands, there just is not a market as of yet. Again IMO the key is a battery technology does not exist yet.
> 
> I am confident in the next to 5 to 10 years we will have a battery that can do the job. We just are not there yet to have mass appeal.
> 
> All technology exist right now except the battery. When a battery becomes available to give 300 mile range with ICE bells and whistles, at a competitive price EV's will take offf. The infrastructure will follow like the internet followed the home PC


The batteries do exist, as I mentioned. Lithium can give you a 300 mile EV right now, Tesla gets 240 in their Roadster, which is not optimized for distance. Yes it's expensive but the point is that it's possible, and there are millions of people who don't care about 300 mile range, or even 200 mile range. Hence the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi iMiev which should both go on sale next year. Apparently some auto companies do think there is a market, and I bet they are correct. It's a different marketplace now than when the EV1 was introduced and the battery technology has improved. Again, if I can buy a lithium cell at $400 kw/h what do you think large companies can get it for?


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

JRP3 said:


> The batteries do exist, as I mentioned. Lithium can give you a 300 mile EV right now, Tesla gets 240 in their Roadster, which is not optimized for distance.


Tesla get 240 miles but about 1/3 of the roadster weight is battery weight and it uses lithium cobalt cells which are considerably more energy dense than LiFePo4 and it's not a steel bodied car but a light weight plastic and alloy bodied car. Tesla's sedans will have considerably less range. Unfortunately the requirements for high performance out of the battery are also give high range. So scale back the performance requirement means the range gets scaled back as well so that battery cost can be similarly reduced.


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

major said:


> Hey JRP,
> 
> What technology was held from anyone? *Anything used on the EV-1 was in the public domain.*
> 
> ...


err...ahhh..._was_ in the public domain? shhhh....


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

John said:


> Tesla's sedans will have considerably less range.


That's interesting since they are planning a 300 mile range version of their model S sedan. Which still misses the point that 300 mile range is not necessary to sell many many vehicles. Just because Sunking has chosen that as his magic number doesn't make it so.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Bowser330 said:


> The motor technology didn't really leak to the public but it did get some smaller independent firms thinking, like AC-propulsion,


Hey Bows,

Not sure, but I think Alan C. and ACPropulsion were around before the EV-1. The technology flow may have been the other way. 

Regards,

major


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

JRP3 said:


> That's interesting since they are planning a 300 mile range version of their model S sedan. Which still misses the point that 300 mile range is not necessary to sell many many vehicles. Just because Sunking has chosen that as his magic number doesn't make it so.


My mistake sorry. I think they must be rellying on energy density improvments that have occured since they introduced the Roadster. $50k = 160 miles. They don't say what 300 miles will cost you or when that model will be introduced. I take your point on unnecessarily large range.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I thought Alan worked on the Impact then left GM and started ACP? I could have that wrong


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Looks as if ACP was founded in 92, not sure if Alan ever worked at GM or developed the Impact drivetrain as an independent contractor.
http://www.acpropulsion.com/company/history.php


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

tj4fa said:


> err...ahhh..._was_ in the public domain? shhhh....


Sorry tj,

I don't get your point. The product was on the streets. All you had to do is tear one apart. That is pretty public. I don't know what all was protected intellectual property wise on the EV-1 and suspect some code was. But aside from that, what rocket science was secret about an induction motor drive?

Regards,

major


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

major said:


> Sorry tj,
> 
> I don't get your point. The product was on the streets. All you had to do is tear one apart. That is pretty public. I don't know what all was protected intellectual property wise on the EV-1 and suspect some code was. But aside from that, what rocket science was secret about an induction motor drive?
> 
> ...


Still in the public domain...


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

tj4fa said:


> Still in the public domain...


Still don't get your point tj,

There is no technology that I am aware of which was used on the EV-1 which you would be legally prohibited from using. Just develop it, make it and use it. And even sell it.

Regards,

major


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Large size NiMH batteries are not allowed to be sold in the US except by Cobasys, who doesn't seem interested in selling them.


> Chevron/Texaco received "...GM's 60 percent stake in [NiMH] batteries, and a 20 percent stake in ECD itself...", giving Chevron effective control of NiMH. On Mar. 6, 2002, just months after inheriting control of NiMH batteries, Chevron's subsidiary filed suit against Toyota, Panasonic, their PEVE joint venture, Sanyo et al. On December 12, 2001, Chevron's affiliates filed an arbitration demand...with the International Chamber of Commerce...In December 2002, an arbitration agreement...on Nov. 4-19, 2003, the hearing was held, and concluded on Jan. 21, 2004. On July 7, 2004, the settlement agreement ended in complete defeat for Toyota, Matsushita and their joint venture, PEVE. NiMH was only mentioned for "hybrids", those which cannot plug in, and Cobasys, Chevron's unit, became distributor of PEVE batteries, received $20 million licensing fee, in addition to $10 million paid to Energy Conversion Devices. "Cobasys will also receive royalties through December 31, 2013 on certain NiMH batteries sold by [Toyota] in North America."


http://pppad.blogspot.com/2007/05/nimh-held-hostage-by-chevron-texaco.html


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> Large size NiMH batteries are not allowed to be sold in the US except by Cobasys, who doesn't seem interested in selling them.


Yes JR,

NiMH batteries were used on a few of the later EV-1s. But the EV-1 was developed with Pb-Acid and the basic technology of the EV-1 didn't change with the battery chemistry. What I was discussing here is the EV-1, not the battery. The NiMH deal is a whole different issue. Besides, it appears we have better battery choices now anyway. 

Regards,

major


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

major said:


> Hey Bows,
> 
> Not sure, but I think Alan C. and ACPropulsion were around before the EV-1. The technology flow may have been the other way.
> 
> ...


Hey Maj,

http://www.acpropulsion.com/company/history.php

Look at the bottom of the page (the start of the company history).

_*Alan Cocconi developed the drive system for the GM Impact EV prototype in 1989, setting a new standard for EV performance.

In 1992, Cocconi founded AC Propulsion to develop electric vehicle technology.*_

I think the above justifies my statement...But i did not know of A.C.'s literal and direct involvement with the EV-1 drivetrain...Tesla, Mini, different car companies...its a great product...

in 2007 they were making 2000 units per year in China...yet they were charging 25,000$USD...I am thinking thats creating a healthy margin....


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## Daanii (Sep 3, 2009)

Chevron is out of the battery business. Chevron Technology Ventures and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) sold Cobasys to a joint venture between Bosch and Samsung.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

Not to flog a dead horse, but I forgot to address the point that somebody raised about aftermarket parts suppliers making a good profit out of aftermarket parts sales.

There are plenty of good reasons that its more lucrative for aftermarket parts people than OEMs when selling parts;

1. The parts go from the manufacturer to the seller, they don't go through the OEM supply chain and so there are 2 markups on the part not 4-5

2. The aftermarket person doesn't have to carry out any R&D they just copy the OEM part

3. The aftermarket person doesn't have to maintain a back stock for any length of time, when their tools wear out or they're not shipping enough units for it to be cost effective they pull the pin.

4. They don't have to meet any sort of quality standard or deal with warranty issues. The OEM does.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Drew said:


> 1. The parts go from the manufacturer to the seller, they don't go through the OEM supply chain and so there are 2 markups on the part not 4-5


OEM makes a part, sends it to a dealer, or has a part made and sent to dealer, 3 markups at most. Aftermarket makes a part and sends it to a store, or has it made for them and sells through a dealer, 3 steps, no difference.


> 2. The aftermarket person doesn't have to carry out any R&D they just copy the OEM part


Sometimes they R&D to improve the part. The OEM spent the R&D to build the vehicle, the work is already done by the time they are making spare parts.


> 3. The aftermarket person doesn't have to maintain a back stock for any length of time, when their tools wear out or they're not shipping enough units for it to be cost effective they pull the pin.


Then how do many aftermarket suppliers have parts that OEM's no longer make?


> 4. They don't have to meet any sort of quality standard or deal with warranty issues. The OEM does.


Not true, if they sell junk parts they have warranty issues, and quite often aftermarket parts are better than OEM. 
I have to say you're wrong on all points.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

major said:


> Yes JR,
> 
> NiMH batteries were used on a few of the later EV-1s. But the EV-1 was developed with Pb-Acid and the basic technology of the EV-1 didn't change with the battery chemistry. What I was discussing here is the EV-1, not the battery. The NiMH deal is a whole different issue. Besides, it appears we have better battery choices now anyway.
> 
> ...


In my opinion the NiMH cells turned the EV1 into a much better vehicle which could have made it a more viable product, and could have made other EV's much more practical and allowed EV's to be farther along in development than they currently are. Maybe Toyota would have continued to sell EV's if they weren't prevented from using the battery. I do agree that NiMH is no longer the best technology but we could have more EV's on the road today if it were available previously.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> OEM makes a part, sends it to a dealer, or has a part made and sent to dealer, 3 markups at most. Aftermarket makes a part and sends it to a store, or has it made for them and sells through a dealer, 3 steps, no difference.
> Sometimes they R&D to improve the part. The OEM spent the R&D to build the vehicle, the work is already done by the time they are making spare parts.Then how do many aftermarket suppliers have parts that OEM's no longer make?
> 
> Not true, if they sell junk parts they have warranty issues, and quite often aftermarket parts are better than OEM.
> I have to say you're wrong on all points.



I was wondering if maybe you could tell me how many parts in any car you own are made by the company with their badge on the front...

I'd start with the badge on the front for a laugh... someone else... basically from there back, discounting the body panels and the maybe engine (which is typically developed by a third party) the whole car is bought from suppliers.

These suppliers of course have suppliers as well... all the way down to and past 3rd tier... so thats a lot more markups than you've factored in...

So heres the process to buy a part from an OEM; teir 3 to teir 2 to teir 1 to OEM to warehousing to dealership to customer, the only part that doesn't charge a markup ON TOP OF freighting and handling is the warehouse. Thats 5 markups.

Aftermarket supplier; Aftermarket to distributor to retail outlet (note that the distributor may be the outlet, meaning that best case may be 1 markup.


Aftermarkets can also cherry pick answers as well, make much higher quality low volume versions of 10c parts and sell them for megabucks.

And its exactly the same deal with "Classic" car parts or rare spares. People produce generics which fit a role and thats that.

It seems like your facts are up the creek


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## gte718p (Jul 30, 2009)

Bowser330 said:


> You were'nt in the boardrooms or golf courses when the decisions were being made so you cannot use absolute comments about what did or did not kill the the EV-1.
> 
> Likewise, I and many many many others are entitled to believe that there were some shady dealings involved and it wasn't "just about the market demand" or whatever it appears to be on the surface.


 
Your rigth I was not there. However, I have spent a fair amount of time with people who where. In college I was fortunate enough to run the solar car team. One of our sponcers was a little company that built a solar car called the sunraycer about 20 years ago. Its actually the same division of GM the designed the EV1. As of 6 years ago the division was still around though under a different name and leadership. Still sponcering solar and electrical teams all over the country and cherry picking the best and the brightest engineers from the teams. Anyway they love the car and are passionate about what they do. None of them felt there was a conspiracy involved. I guess they could be bias as they work for GM, but I kind of doubt it.

In a modern car company no single person can make a desicion. Its one of the largest compaints. There are no more carl shelbys or an of the other great designers who can have a vision and develop it. Everything is buy survey, economics, and committee. Look at the debates over the stylings of the corvette or Mustang. You don't think its funny that in all the 100's of people who have to touch a decision no reputable insider as stood up and said yep it was a conspiracy by big oil?

Yep your intittled to you opinion, but seeing ghost behind every tree, doesn't help your cause.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Drew said:


> I was wondering if maybe you could tell me how many parts in any car you own are made by the company with their badge on the front...
> 
> It seems like your facts are up the creek


Sorry but your whole argument falls apart since the process you describe is the same process by which manufacturers build and sell cars, at a profit. So they can go through the whole process and sell whole cars at a profit but you're trying to tell me that they can't make a profit on those same components if they are sold individually, and at a much higher price? Add up the cost of every part of a vehicle if you bought it from a dealer and it's probably 3-5 times the total cost of a completed vehicle. You might want to look for a paddle yourself.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> Sorry but your whole argument falls apart since the process you describe is the same process by which manufacturers build and sell cars, at a profit. So they can go through the whole process and sell whole cars at a profit but you're trying to tell me that they can't make a profit on those same components if they are sold individually, and at a much higher price? Add up the cost of every part of a vehicle if you bought it from a dealer and it's probably 3-5 times the total cost of a completed vehicle. You might want to look for a paddle yourself.


Go back and read my (I think) second post in this thread, it contains the exact explanation as to why that is the case.

And I think you'll find that its more like 10 times the piece cost to the manufacturer as to the spare parts counter.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I didn't buy your reasoning then and still don't. For one thing after 100 years of building autos I really think they would be trying harder to design better parts if it actually cost them so much to replace defective parts.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I didn't buy your reasoning then and still don't. For one thing after 100 years of building autos I really think they would be trying harder to design better parts if it actually cost them so much to replace defective parts.



Cars are designed to survive roughly double their warranty period, usually something in the range of 6 years and 200000km which means that they can forget failures during warranty period as anything other than an outside occurrence. The problem with the 15 year (or 10 where I'm from) year availability of spare parts laws is that they don't take into account distances.

For instance, two examples of cars which would need spare parts no matter how they're designed.

A car which is owned by somebody who has an accident, any accident damage which isn't a write off is going to require spare parts from the dealer, if the dealer can't provide them then they're in breach of the law. Even if the car is a write off then somebody can legally buy it and repair everything they want, if one part on the car isn't available then they're in court again.

A taxi can cover up to 1000000km in its usual lifetime (typically 6 years) and taxi people replace everything, transmissions, engines, struts, axles, accident damage, whatever. If any part on pretty much any area of the car isn't available then the company is back in court.

Most people, even in 10 years of ownership don't have a single breakdown from a reasonably well treated reasonably well maintained car, so I would say that they ARE good enough quality and work well enough. Believe it or not though, reliability actually INCREASES the cost of spare parts though, as the company no longer needs to hold or maintain such high volumes of parts the parts can't justifiably be continuously manufactured so warehouses have to be bigger for life of type buys and personnel have to be available to inventory and handle every one of those parts.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Drew said:


> The problem with the 15 year (or 10 where I'm from) year availability of spare parts laws is that they don't take into account distances.
> 
> 
> A car which is owned by somebody who has an accident, any accident damage which isn't a write off is going to require spare parts from the dealer, if the dealer can't provide them then they're in breach of the law.



Which "spare parts laws" are you referring to? Please provide reasonable proof of the existance of these supposed "laws".


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Drew said:


> Believe it or not though, reliability actually INCREASES the cost of spare parts though, as the company no longer needs to hold or maintain such high volumes of parts the parts can't justifiably be continuously manufactured so warehouses have to be bigger for life of type buys and personnel have to be available to inventory and handle every one of those parts.


So now you're trying to tell me that making fewer parts that you claim are not profitable to begin with costs more? I'm afraid we are just going to have to disagree on this one as I've yet to hear any reasonable explanation how making spare parts who's R&D and tooling cost has already been paid for by selling the initial vehicle isn't profitable for OEM's yet is profitable for after markets, often at a much lower price.


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

Costs for spare parts used to be held down by making similar body styles/drivetrains that cross-utilized parts for several years with just a few styling changes. 

That's where parts could be profitable.

Trying to capture more market share by building different models with different parts is a more risky and costly proposition.

Imagine the cost of retooling and parts non-interchangeability the EV1 had as compared to the other ICE models produced at the time. There was no way that GM could make a profit with a car basically targeted at California to reduce SMOG emmisions.

The only way a manufacturer could transition into building vehicles of a totally new technology that involves retooling and a non-traditional parts supply infrastructure and survive, is to either take an incredible risk and hope for the best or have a backer with deep pockets that wouldn't takeover the company (enter Uncle Sam).

Let's face it, back then the EV1 was ahead of it's time. It just wasn't profitable.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

watchIT said:


> Which "spare parts laws" are you referring to? Please provide reasonable proof of the existance of these supposed "laws".


I was told of the requirement when I worked for a car company, however I'm not a lawyer so I don't have references in whichever law, if you do a bit of reading then you'll find that pretty much every relatively unbiased review of the issue notes it, along with the Californian requirement of 15 years parts availability.



JRP3

It would be nice if it worked the way that you're describing, where somebody just pencils down a part one day at 0 cost and then it gets made in unlimited numbers after somebody pays for the tool.

In real life however parts take hundreds of hours to design and test, which is a cost which is added to EVERY part, not just the ones you choose, then its manufactured on tools which wear out, so EVERY part bears the cost of production. On top of that the manufacturer will have to pay off costs associated with prototyping tooling, failed or prototype parts and their engineering support to the car company, which is a major overhead in its self.

The lower the volume the higher the individual parts cost because each and every part has to pay its designing engineer and manufacturer as well as entire supply trains. I think I've gone through this in enough detail and I don't think that repeating the same points over and over again is helping. If you want to understand the issues in more detail than I've already laid out go work for the engineering department of a car company.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Drew said:


> I was told of the requirement when I worked for a car company, however I'm not a lawyer so I don't have references in whichever law, if you do a bit of reading then you'll find that pretty much every relatively unbiased review of the issue notes it, along with the Californian requirement of 15 years parts availability.


And now I'll quote that famous Aussie saying: "You're full of sh!t".


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

watchIT said:


> And now I'll quote that famous Aussie saying: "You're full of sh!t".


You're welcome to your opinion, but unfortunately that doesn't make facts not facts.

Anyway, I have a suspicion that no matter what I say or how much evidence I provided you'd be picking at it.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Drew said:


> You're welcome to your opinion, but unfortunately that doesn't make facts not facts.
> 
> Anyway, I have a suspicion that no matter what I say or how much evidence I provided you'd be picking at it.


I, and any people wanting to make decisions should do so based on fact, not unsubstaniated claims.

If you can link to any .gov and .gov.au websites showing proof/evidence of these "spare parts laws" then your credibility increases - and I'll believe you.

If you cannot, then any posts you make come into question - that is the reality.

If you provide real reference material, then the facts are facts, otherwise you are writing fiction.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

watchIT said:


> I, and any people wanting to make decisions should do so based on fact, not unsubstaniated claims.
> 
> If you can link to any .gov and .gov.au websites showing proof/evidence of these "spare parts laws" then your credibility increases - and I'll believe you.
> 
> ...


At risk of getting miles off topic... What decisions are you making in a general discussion thread anyway?

I'm not stopping you getting out there and proving me wrong, why don't you go and call the ACCC in Australia or whatever equivalent there is in whichever country you're in and check up on it.

Meanwhile I'd like to think I'm pretty credible but thats (again) your decision to make, and I'm not going to go out and do a law search to back up the instructions that I've been given in the past and I also don't see a reason to doubt the validity of any of the sources which state that California has a spare parts law period of 15 years. And before you ask me for a source on that type it into google.


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## watchIT (Jan 19, 2009)

Drew said:


> At risk of getting miles off topic... What decisions are you making in a general discussion thread anyway?


As to whether you or your posts and opinions are credible. You haven't backed up the posts you've made so that decision is easily made. It's not for me to prove you wrong. You made the claims so you should either put up or shut up. You may as well be stating perpetual motion is possible.

Anyway, I can only repeat the request for proof so many times and in so many different ways, you obviously have no proof to back it up and so readers will see your posts for what they are - your opinion - but no substance.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Drew said:


> In real life however parts take hundreds of hours to design and test, which is a cost which is added to EVERY part, not just the ones you choose, then its manufactured on tools which wear out, so EVERY part bears the cost of production. On top of that the manufacturer will have to pay off costs associated with prototyping tooling, failed or prototype parts and their engineering support to the car company, which is a major overhead in its self.


Yes the costs are spread out over the number of parts made, but the R&D costs are a fixed cost incurred in the building of the vehicle. If building enough parts for 100 vehicles to be built and sold at a profit is possible, making another 100 vehicles worth of parts would have to be more profitable as you are spreading out the costs. Your reasoning would suggest that if a car company only built and sold those initial 100 vehicles those same parts that make up said vehicles would suddenly become un profitable, even though they bring a much higher premium as parts than as whole vehicles. Doesn't make sense. Fact is even if tooling has to be redone over time the initial R&D never has to be redone, so all subsequent parts have to be cheaper than the originals.


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

Because of the high R&D, warehousing, the high cost of labor, environmental stipulations and other costs you guys mentioned, it became more practical to outsource parts from other countries and parts vendors.

As far as the OEM manufacturers having to maintain a certain stock of parts to honor things like 7 year bumper to bumper warranties, it would seem that they would have to have some parts available and others "close at hand" from their parts sources.


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## Tahoe Tim (Feb 20, 2010)

Drew,
I hate to burst your bubble but the service department in a dealership, wheteher it's cars, tractors, or washing machines is the MOST profitable. New sales margins are very small to gain the ongoing service. 

Your logic is all wet. I know from first hand experience in the business at the executive level responsible for dealership bottom line profit. 

I smell a troll. You just want to argue to see how long people will debate you. to teh original post, I have watched the movie at least four times. I have also sat in on CARB hearings shown in the movie. CARB is another example of corrupt government. 

It is satisfying four years later to see Hummer gone, GM bankrupt, and Toyota losing ground. They all made the bed and now must lay in it.


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

Hi
The battery's back then would not support that vehicle for very long.
When parts are tested before going into production sometimes things that look good don't work out that wey in the real world. If you don't think so take a look at the recalls for cars & truck over the years do you realy think they make parts bad for the fun of it. Automotive manufacturers build vehicle to make money not to sell parts to the dealers. The dealers get the repair money not the manufacturers also the manufacturers must maintain a supply of warranty parts. When the dealer is working on a vehicle that is not under warranty that dealer can buy the parts from a loco auto parts store for less money and charge you more. That is the dealer making the money and not the manufacture. P.S Find a good repair shop.


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## Ryeno (Mar 25, 2010)

This is a pretty interesting thread. To answer the question. Big oil killed the EV(1). If you look at the actual gas prices you can see they started dropping in the late 90s; once the EVs hit the scene. Then right as soon as GM sold the NiMH patent they went up; to insane levels before 'the recession.' It does not take a genus to figure out what happened. The fact that GM crushed the EVs v recouping part of the cost and sold the NiMH patent to Texaco kinda shows who was really pulling the strings. IMO even if GM wanted to make EVs they couldn't. Toyota and the rest had to file suit once their battery technology was suppressed/limited.

A couple of points in this thread.

-GM couldn't make money on the EV1/EVs/R&D costs too high.
I am sure that was true, at first. But the same could be said of the iPhone or any other piece of technology. If anything GM would make more money after a while since sales would increase.

-Dealerships hate EVs
I am sure that is true. But it is a gross exaggeration to say they would all go under. I'm sure they would downsize and more importantly cut salaries but they would still (mostly) be here.

-We have better technology then NiMH
NiMH is CHEAP and if you want to bring down the cost to own an EV then the battery is where you need to look. It also works which is proof by the RAV4EVs with over 100k miles.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi
I agree with Tim
Spare parts make money!
I used to work at Cummins -
Cummins made more much money from parts than engines

There has been discussion about 15 year laws
Even if a company has to keep parts for 15 years there can be no restriction on price and time to supply must only be reasonable

Yes you can have that part - it will be $10,000 dollars and will be available in 3 months

What are you going to complain about? - the part is "available"

You are going to take GM to court because a spare part price is too high??????

If somebody did pay in advance for it You get it made - you still have the drawings

If its a complex part then $100,000 - the supplier sets the price


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Ryeno said:


> -We have better technology then NiMH
> NiMH is CHEAP and if you want to bring down the cost to own an EV then the battery is where you need to look. It also works which is proof by the RAV4EVs with over 100k miles.


Yes NiMH works, but lithium is simply better at this point, and cheaper. It's also available in large format which NiMH is not.


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## procupine14 (Mar 17, 2010)

JRP3 said:


> Yes NiMH works, but lithium is simply better at this point, and cheaper. It's also available in large format which NiMH is not.


isn't it also a lot lighter?



Ryeno said:


> -GM couldn't make money on the EV1/EVs/R&D costs too high.
> I am sure that was true, at first. But the same could be said of the iPhone or any other piece of technology. If anything GM would make more money after a while since sales would increase.


 Yeah this is very true. I guess the underlying problem was that GM may have been afraid of being made a fool with their EV and/or they simply felt that since their numbers weren't skyrocketing into the heavens immediately that it was just a waste of time and money. I still think that they made a mistake in the way that they quit producing and basically single handedly destroyed the technology behind them...seems a little silly to me


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> Yes NiMH works, but lithium is simply better at this point, and cheaper. It's also available in large format which NiMH is not.


How many years later........?


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## Ryeno (Mar 25, 2010)

procupine14 said:


> isn't it also a lot lighter?


Depends *some* have higher energy density and all Li batteries have a higher voltage but that comes at a price; Namely price. They are only cheaper then NiMH because is not able to be produced in the large format needed for EVs. Simply put the best market for EVs, non high performance cars, would be more economically viable with the cheaper NiMH over the more expensive LiFePO4 based batteries. 



procupine14 said:


> I guess the underlying problem was that GM may have been afraid of being made a fool with their EV and/or they simply felt that since their numbers weren't skyrocketing into the heavens immediately that it was just a waste of time and money.


I really don't think so. Any company that sees a future market will eat the costs now. The best example is Sony with Blu-ray. They made the PS3 cost a lot, it sold (relatively) worse because of it but in the end they are going to/are recouping the costs since BD is now taking off. The fact is GM didn't do what was best for them (corporate) but what was best for the oil companies. Oh and the dealerships (franchises) too.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Ryeno said:


> Depends *some* have higher energy density and all Li batteries have a higher voltage but that comes at a price; Namely price. They are only cheaper then NiMH because is not able to be produced in the large format needed for EVs. Simply put the best market for EVs, non high performance cars, would be more economically viable with the cheaper NiMH over the more expensive LiFePO4 based batteries.


I don't think that LiFePO4 are more expensive at all and I'd like to see some backup to your assertions. The base materials as I understand it are cheaper with LiFePO4 than with NiMH. NiMH also suffers from greater self discharge and has more problems with extreme temperatures. Lithium has better energy density, better power density, are cheaper to manufacture as far as I can tell, and, most importantly, are improving very quickly and have a lot more potential. Even if NiMH is better in some way at this moment, which I doubt, that advantage is going to quickly disappear. Yes we would probably be further down the EV road if large format NiMH hadn't been locked away from use, but it's also possible that we wouldn't have seen the extreme advances in lithium we are experiencing if NiMH were more established. Years ago I was very annoyed that I couldn't get my hands on large format NiMH, now I don't care at all. That's the past, lithium is the future.


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## Ryeno (Mar 25, 2010)

Oh LiFePO4 is better but people don't always buy what is better. Look at the sales of the Camry I4 v V6. It'll be interesting to see what happens in 2014/2015. My personal prediction is unless LiFePO4 gets 2x-3x cheaper or some new technology comes out NiMH will see a return as the cheaper option (i4) Remember car manufactures are a LOT more pressed into using cheaper technology then DIYers for profit margins. Even if you had reduced range (still reasonable) and reduced acceleration it may still make sense if you can now get your production EV into the 20k- range for cars and 30k- for SUVs which is most people believe "limited range" EVs belong in.


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