Despite the promise of “green” transportation – and despite billions of dollars in investment, most recently by Nissan Motor Co – EVs continue to be plagued by many of the problems that eventually scuttled electrics in the 1910s and more recently in the 1990s. Those include high cost, short driving range and lack of charging stations.
The public’s lack of appetite for battery-powered cars persuaded the Obama administration last week to back away from its aggressive goal to put 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015.
The tepid response to EVs also pushed Nissan’s high-profile chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, perhaps the industry’s most outspoken proponent of battery cars, to announce in December a major strategic shift toward more mainstream gasoline-electric hybrids, which overcome many of the shortcomings of pure EVs.
The move was widely seen as a tacit acknowledgement by Ghosn that his all-or-nothing, multibillion-dollar bet on EVs is falling far short of his ambition to sell hundreds of thousands of battery-powered Nissan Leafs.
More – Electric car sales plummet in January
“The move was widely seen as a tacit acknowledgement by Ghosn that his all-or-nothing, multibillion-dollar bet on EVs is falling far short of his ambition…”
Good. Nissan can better spend its time and $$$ improving the fuel consumption of its gas-sucking pickup trucks…
wishin don’t make it so
It’s ironic….
Diesel Electric drive for railway locomotives was developed prior to WW2….yet adoption was delayed until postwar…by government fiat. In fact the largest steam locomotives (Union Pacific’s “Big Boys” and the Yellowstones) were erected just prior to and during WW2.
In fact not just submarines relied upon diesel electric by some USN heavy surface units cruisers used turbo-electric drive….one during refit/repairs powered Greater Seattle allowing the local coal plant to be refurbed….them wuz big generators.
As far back as WW1 electric drives were employed by the French with their St. Chammond tank…..cost, vulnerability and unreliability made them impractical….seems drivers in tough going jammed the switches full power and smoked the motors…and then the poor design allowed easy destruction with vulnerable fuel tanks.
Cost was always the crunch.
Problem was electric drives used up scarce copper and were expensive to boot.
Postwar the building expense was overcome by the low maintainence and then Multi-unit control(one driver could control several units) lowered labour costs.
UP built the biggest diesels but their reign ended with multi-unit control…..lower maintainence, more flexibility and lower manpower.
IMHO the costs of the drive-line…generator/motors dooms both EV and hybrids….modern engines and drive-lines are cheaper and fuel efficient.
With fracking/oil sands supply, fuel will be less and less a factor as well…we can’t afford to save money on fuel.
This why OBOZO and the donkeys block XL and are bent on stopping fracking….all their renewable/EV wet dreams become MORE impractical.
The laws of physics are absolute. Unlike laws made by people they can’t be flouted or ignored no matter how many future taxpayers you enslave by throwing government dollars at the problem.
If I was a Nissan shareholder I would be calling for the firing of Carlos Ghosn.
If I was a Nissan competitor I would remember to never hire Carlos Ghosn.
While I’ve defended electric vehicles here in the past, I always thought there would be a limited market for electric only cars. They have all the problems noted repeatedly here – limited range, long charging time, limited utility.
But every single one of these problems is overcome by an electric/gas hybrid, which are sneered at here as much as electric-only cars. Are so many of you unable/unwilling to tell the difference?
Nissan Motor Co can GFTS
They have installed pressure sensors in the wheels of new vehicles which are $140 from the dealer each. The valve stems in those are made of aluminum. The valve cores seize in them after several years on the road, partially because as opposed to valve stem replacement with every tire replacement the expensive units remain. When your valve core is seized, you are up for replacement of a perfect working pressure sensor and simple $10 fix turns into $200 job.
They also placed ECM (computers) of the Nissan Quest vans under the hood where their tin cases are susceptible to corrosion from salt and otherwise perfect working 4-5 year old vehicles experience intermittent stalls including at full speed on the highway. It’s a $2500 part.
I could mention power side door and tailgate that love to open and close all by themselves including while driving on a highway to utmost enjoyment of the vehicle behind you. It’s a $600 job to fix sensors in either door.
You can figure I am unsympathetic to Nissan. They made some really bad decisions in order to rob unsuspecting customers who cannot be expected to ask informed questions line ‘Is your valve stem worth $2 like in every other vehicle, or several hundred dollars?’ or ‘Is your ECM located in the place open to splashes of brine from the road?’.
F them! They deserved their losses.
Sorry, totally forgot to mention that aluminum valve stems in Nissans also come from the factory with aluminum caps that seize to the stems and folks driving their Nissan trucks offroad have a rude awakening when they snap the stems trying to unscrew seized caps knee deep in mud.
Effin robbers at Nissan – you be cursed!
Diesel Electric drive for railway locomotives was developed prior to WW2….yet adoption was delayed until postwar.
Incorrect. Diesel electric locomotives were used in WW2. Both in the European and Mideast theaters. They were used almost exclusively in Iran where the many long tunnels and scarce water made steam locomotives impractical. Diesel electrics were widely adopted after the war because maintenance was significantly lower as compared with steam locomotives. see: R.Tourret’s “Allied Military Locomotives of the Second World War”
Today’s hybrid vehicles are essentially the same concept.