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I'll agree with you on that last part. The roof of a Walmart Supercenter or a huge warehouse would be the ideal place for solar panels.
I'd like to have one of these since it can be folded up when a hurricane is coming... https://smartflower.com/
But, I'm not going to spend $25k for one. I'd be willing to pay $5k for it, but that's about it.
Yea, they're good places for such. Walmart is putting them on their roofs as is Target and Amazon's putting them on fulfillment centers. I've seen some parking lots with them before and the nice thing is being able to park and walk in the shade of these solar panels. I think one thing with solar panels for home installation is that generally you'll need to be the home owner to move forward with that, have a bit of capital on hand, live in a home where you have control over the roof (so co-ops and condos are probably out) and have the intention of staying in that home for many years for the payback period.
I agree. Hybrids seem to run a gamut in quality. It’s hard to put it concisely, but it’s something along the lines of level of detail in thinking things through. It’s old and discontinued, but among the hybrids including plugin hybrids, the Chevy Volt to me was truly a well thought-through hybrid that unfortunately came in a form factor that its home market was rapidly turning away from.
I think press killed the Chevy Volt. I saw lots of them on the road, and it had the highest buyer loyalty of any make and model production vehicle. Much lobbying by Tesla, I believe, when their $40k answer wasn't quite ready yet.
I'm not a new-car buyer, but in principle I bear no opposition to EVs. Typically I buy cars >10 years old. The Tesla Model 3 looks to be reasonably appealing, especially in its higher-performance versions. I'l start to be in the market for a late 201X Model 3, around 2030 or 2035.
The one exception to this, would be buying a memorable sporty car, in its final year of production. This may happen for example to the Chevy Camaro, possibly as early as 2023, likely by 2030.
Rationale for growth of the EV market is compelling, but to regard the American new-car market as being 100% EV by 2030, or even 50% EV by 2030, is... optimistic.
I'm not a new-car buyer, but in principle I bear no opposition to EVs. Typically I buy cars >10 years old. The Tesla Model 3 looks to be reasonably appealing, especially in its higher-performance versions. I'l start to be in the market for a late 201X Model 3, around 2030 or 2035.
The one exception to this, would be buying a memorable sporty car, in its final year of production. This may happen for example to the Chevy Camaro, possibly as early as 2023, likely by 2030.
Rationale for growth of the EV market is compelling, but to regard the American new-car market as being 100% EV by 2030, or even 50% EV by 2030, is... optimistic.
Definitely not predicting 100%, more like 95% and inclusive of plugin hybrids that mostly operate as ZEV and the really long shot of fuel cells and fuel cell/battery hybrids.
I think press killed the Chevy Volt. I saw lots of them on the road, and it had the highest buyer loyalty of any make and model production vehicle. Much lobbying by Tesla, I believe, when their $40k answer wasn't quite ready yet.
Yea, it was a fantastic vehicle and it would be nice to see improvements to that powertrain and then to see it make its way into other vehicles. It would be nice to be now into a third generation of the Volt and with a Cadillac ELR that actually had a price that made sense.
I think we had this discussion before about BEV pricing, and I still stand by what I say for the most part. Most automakers are purchasing batteries and not making them so if their average purchase price is going down, then it's going to be very directly reflected in their cost of producing the vehicle since all the R&D and production facility expenses for the battery were on the battery makers side and they were willing to sell these to the automakers at those prices. Sure, the automakers can pocket the several to tens of thousands of dollars in battery pack savings per car, but like any industry, are they really going to collude without consequence and make sure all the automakers do that or is some automaker going to cut their price for a lower per unit profit, but higher sales and overall profit for themselves?
Manufacturers are spending on research too and need to recover that money. Battery makers are spending on research and need to recover their costs too, so they will not pass on all their savings. Again, they will market BEVs at a price level higher than ICEs and hybrids. They will extend range and reduce charge times (how much is a good question), but pricing will not change.
If what you say is true, the price of a Tesla 3 should go down by $5k+. It's not going to happen.
As a PHEV owner, one issue I see is lack of technicians that are trained to work on them. The Volt has been out since 2011, and still today it is very difficult to find a Chevy dealer that is qualified to work on them. Many dealers will throw out a very expensive repair estimate in hopes that the owner will just go away or trade the car for a Equinox. I tried to get my battery coolant changed at two different dealers (as the manual recommends) and both of them told me to just leave it alone. Most dealers it seems don't even want to touch these cars.
Manufacturers are spending on research too and need to recover that money. Battery makers are spending on research and need to recover their costs too, so they will not pass on all their savings. Again, they will market BEVs at a price level higher than ICEs and hybrids. They will extend range and reduce charge times (how much is a good question), but pricing will not change.
If what you say is true, the price of a Tesla 3 should go down by $5k+. It's not going to happen.
Right, they need to spend a lot on research and that's actually part of why I think it's possible that even the US shifts to almost entirely ZEV by 2030 even though we have less support for ZEVs and restrictions on ICE in comparison to certain other countries. Automakers operating in other markets, including home markets for some of the major automakers, are going to have to develop ZEVs and compete with each other in those markets. All that research money that needs to go into such is massive, and once it's done, what the automaker will want to do is to try to make sure they get as much in returns for that investment as possible which would mean selling in the US as well. They also need to then make the decision of how much money do they want to spend developing ICE vehicles if there's a massive amount that they *must* spend on ZEVs to remain competitive in certain large markets.
I want to reiterate that the battery makers are suppliers--they're selling the batteries at that price to their customers the automakers. The prices have been coming down for batteries with those r&d costs built in as those price drops are the average sales price per kWh that the automakers are getting for their quotes. You're right in that the automakers themselves will need to decide how to proportion the savings they got for those battery prices among greater profits per unit, r&d, and price drops for their respective vehicles.
Model 3 had a lot of odd pricing and options practice with Tesla. You're thinking of the Model 3 since launch in Q3 2017, right? That trim of RWD, long range battery pack is gone from the US. For about the same price of around $46K (I think the launch was $44K so it's close and maybe cheaper if factoring inflation), the Long Range AWD is the closest specs-wise which has an additional motor, slightly more range than the launch model and much of what was optional then is standard for this trim. Now do you get $5K's worth from having an additional motor for AWD and faster acceleration and torque and a couple things that were optional for the initial release became standard? Well, unfortunately, doesn't matter because you don't really get to make the choice since Tesla eliminated the RWD long range pack option and your ass is going to get a lot of torque whether you want it or not.
I do also think that's why generations matter. Part of doing an overhaul for each generation is also revisiting battery packs, form factors, and battery prices. If you built your vehicle around a certain pack, these things don't seem so modular that you can so easily swap it out for a cheaper pack. Perhaps the industry will move towards that or third parties will find it a profitable enough business to do such, perhaps not. However, you can plan for the next generation of your vehicle that works with the newer, cheaper pack available to you as you design that next generation. Tesla's a bit of a weird example for that because it doesn't do a clean break on generations, or at least hasn't so far, and has stated that they don't do such though I don't think that is or will be true.
The Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe though are more traditional in terms of mid-cycle refreshes and new generations and have definitely brought in a lot more range and larger battery packs for their price. Instead of dipping the price, they just greatly expanded the range. However, there's probably some limit at which people aren't going to really be clamoring for more range and would rather you just made a cheaper vehicle. Renault Zoe isn't that well known here, but the Nissan Leaf for about the same sticker price with inflation went from 73 miles of max range to 226 miles over the 2010s. Are there that many people who really need the Leaf to triple its range again in 2020s, or would most prefer they just bump the range by a third via a very modest bump in kWh capacity and lower battery weight, free up some usable space from volumetric energy density increases and bring down the sticker price instead? This would seem doable from battery price and density projections and the fact that Nissan would be iterating on its technologies rather than making an almost unprecedented transition--which again, brings up why the transition being enforced in some countries that are home bases for some major automakers and with large home markets right now means that a lot of R&D cost for the transition will be fronted in the next few years, but the release of subsequent generations of these vehicles won't have nearly the same R&D burden.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-21-2020 at 02:48 PM..
As a PHEV owner, one issue I see is lack of technicians that are trained to work on them. The Volt has been out since 2011, and still today it is very difficult to find a Chevy dealer that is qualified to work on them. Many dealers will throw out a very expensive repair estimate in hopes that the owner will just go away or trade the car for a Equinox. I tried to get my battery coolant changed at two different dealers (as the manual recommends) and both of them told me to just leave it alone. Most dealers it seems don't even want to touch these cars.
Ford Mach-e owners will face the same problem.
That's true, but with increasing models and sales, the dealerships will have to deal with them somehow especially if they want to make money on services. Will it take more than a decade to get that to a reasonable level? Yea, it's possible.
That's true, but with increasing models and sales, the dealerships will have to deal with them somehow especially if they want to make money on services. Will it take more than a decade to get that to a reasonable level? Yea, it's possible.
Many dealers just won't order them. They will claim it's because customers don't want them, but really it's them that don't want to be bothered with them. The biggest Chevy dealer in my area only has three Bolts on the lot last I checked.
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