The Electric Car Bubble: Let's Hope It Bursts in 2012

@ Francois B.,

What Laurent has presented is a view of reality, not the fancy, naive situation that you're depicting.

There're already many incentives in place, globally, for EV purchases. Still, automakers aren't making money selling EVs. Apparently, incentives alone won't work.

And where do you think the money comes from? Trees? China?

Remember, EV advocates are, in a way, a lobby group, just like big oil, farmers, teacher. Whatever we get, the others demand too!

A much deeper issue than you think. A halo vehicle, not even an EV but a hybrid, won't make a difference at all.

Simply google "The Case for a Carbon Tax" and read.

With 80 million new cars sold worldwide each year, there isn't enough oil to make them economic. We'd better hope these Evs succeed. Otherwise, there won't be very many people with automobiles in the next 30 years.

@jim1961: 100% correct!!!
This article is pointing to the wrong direction. There is actually no topic to it at all. All companies mentioned are start-ups with no reliable financial resources; therefore it is no surprise they're slowly dying out.
As any other kind of new developed car component, the electric car in itself has to face several years of unprofitable performance before even getting close to black ROI numbers.
Questionable are companies which base their whole strategy to 100% upon electric vehicles, completely neglecting the still vital and profitable market of traditionally operated cars (e.g. Renault, BYD, Tesla). Considering the fact that this year has been the most profitable year for car manufacturers, bringing them highest profits in their history, the high R&D costs for EV are fully covered (even for the next two of three years if wisely invested).
The problem is not in the low selling numbers or the small diversity of EV models on the market. The problem starts in consumers' mind-set. Foolish are those who believe that electric mobility will come overnight and everybody will be able to afford an EV in the next two or three years. The electrification comes from the top market segments where new technology can be priced at profitable numbers. This profit will push the research process, decrease technology costs and lower the prices in the long term by using scale effects.
Looking back at the market of consumer electronics shows that the flat screen TV didn't appear in everybody's household after Santa left the house on the Christmas Eve (Marry Christmas to everybody btw). Instead the new technology was priced very high at the beginning and slowly settled down to where it became affordable, completely superseding the old tube TVs.
This IS the normal product life cycle and the WILL be lots of companies (especially start-ups with a poor business strategy) which will be exterminated as the technology race is revving up.
Therefore no hard feeling but I think this article is meaningless.

If the concern is about the recession, then the recession should be pointed out and not the poor performance of small start-ups.

The author of this article is rehashing the same tired old naysaying that was used back in the 1990's. This was an attempt to excuse the fact that GM spent millions to defeat the CARB standards and then crushed the EV1 which enabled other American automakers to do that to their OEM EVs, too. The reason EVs were not cost effective was because GM never intended them to be. EVs have a very low rate of repairs and parts costs. Automakers never wanted that phenomena.
The difference now? Some automakers have dropped out of the good ole' gas boys club, and have created some really viable EVs - like the Nissan Leaf. Too late now, boys. EVs are here to stay!

The EV industry is making a statement in Paris,which, given the scope of your article ,should have been mentioned. I have seen the Autolib E vehicles and their charging stations in various location throughout the city. These are designed as 4 passenger rental units for travel around the city, a concept that is beginning to catch on.

I completely messed up what I was trying to say. What I meant to say is that it would not be profitable for automakers to produce and sell EVs with 1990s technology. The fact that Toyota did not mass produce RAV4s seems to support my claim that Toyota did not believe they could make a profit. None of the big seven automakers mass produced EVs in the 1990s. Even if there was only a niche market you would think that one of the big seven would have mass produced EVs in the 1990s.

It's been a while since I've seen WKTEC. I'm tempted to rent it again and take copious notes about all the distortions. I'll name one that I remember. One that I have not discussed on this forum. At one point in the film there is some guy who shows off his custom EV and he says something like, "The EV1 could use the same batteries that this car uses" I believe he used NiMH batteries. I can't remember the exact name of this car but it was bright yellow and I remember reading about this car. This car had the quality of a kit car and the guy was asking $300,000 for this car. Why did they not mention the asking price of this car in WKTEC??

One thing I absolutely agree with when it come to WKTEC. There are huge technological and infrastructure hurdles to overcome for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. BEVs are superior to HCVs in many ways.

Darreldd,

"...To say that there was no market for EVs because the gasoline car makers didn't put much effort into it rings a bit hollow..."

In 2000 Honda introduced the first hybrid car to the U.S. market, the first generation Insight. The fuel efficiency was phenomenal. The first generation Insight was cancelled in 2006 due to slow sales. Meanwhile, people were buying SUVs by the millions, literally. I don't blame Honda for this. I blame consumers, myself included.

There are some other parts of WKTEC I take issue with. The notion that automakers don't want cars that are simple to maintain. I worked as a quality engineer both inside and outside the automotive industry. Warranty costs are a huge expense that every manufacturing company would like to reduce- down to zero, if possible. With this in mind it's beyond ridiculous to believe that automakers would purposely want cars that are more difficult to maintain. When cars break down under warranty it COSTS automakers big time. When cars break down out of warranty it's the dealers that make the profits. Manufacturers would rather not be in the business of supplying parts for auto repairs. There are laws on the books that require automakers to keep parts in stock for the repair of cars. These laws would be completely unnecessary if there were huge profits to be made in the spare parts business. When I saw WKTEC I remember seeing a stack of car parts when they talked about this conspiracy theory. In that stack of parts I saw oil filters and air filters. Nobody takes their car to a dealer for oil changes. They take their car to Jiffy Lube. Even if they did take their car to a dealer, it's the dealer that makes the profit, not the auto manufacturer. Only a person is prone to believing in conspiracy theories would believe auto manufacturers purposely want their products to be difficult to maintain.

One of the key scenes in WKTEC is when GM crushes the EV1. In the scene before the EV1 is crushed a GM representative says something like, "We are going to recycle these cars. We're not going to crush them and bury them in the ground" The scene quickly changes to EV1s being crushed. I believe Chris Paine wanted people to think this guy was lying. I imagine there were some viewers who believed the crushed cars were buried after they were crushed. Crushing a car is part of the recycling process. So the guy was not lying. Only a person who wants to believe in conspiracy theories thinks crushed EV1s are buried in the ground.

The more I think about WKTEC the more tidbits of information come back to me. In WKTEC they made the suggestion that GM had placed subliminal messages in their EV1 advertisements to discourage people from buying an EV1. That's pretty damn paranoid in my opinion. By the way, I've put WKTEC in my Netflix queue. I'm going to watch it again and take notes. I think I have OCD.

Darrell,

I plead guilty to using arguments that seem to be black and white. I feel like a lawyer defending a client that's assumed guilty until proven innocent. Allow me to point out an argument that seems very much like black and white thinking. In WKTEC batteries were found not guilty of killing the electric car. Batteries were not even partially guilty? Really? You said, "I only hope you will learn a few more facts to base those opinions on". I don't want to sound arrogant but I know everything I need to know about batteries when it comes to the question of "Why is it so damn hard to mass produce an affordable EV?" It IS the batteries, it's ALWAYS been the batteries and even today it's STILL the batteries that limit the range and add several thousands of dollars to the cost of EVs.

I'm not a big fan of oil companies. I think it's criminal the way oil companies spend $millions buying politicians and disseminating misinformation about climate change. Having said that I don't believe the conspiracy theory about Chevron killing NiMH battery technology. In an interview with the Economist, Stan Ovshinsky stated, "I think we at ECD we made a mistake of having a joint venture with an oil company, frankly speaking. And I think it’s not a good idea to go into business with somebody whose strategies would put you out of business, rather than building the business." In a later interview, however, when asked, "So it’s your opinion that Cobasys is preventing other people from making it for that reason?", he responded "Cobasys is not preventing anybody. Cobasys just needs an infusion of cash."

If NiMH batteries were being suppressed how did Toyota and Honda produce hybrids using NiMH batteries? These very hybrids were shown in WKTEC. Can you reconcile that?

NiMH batteries were the best technology available in the late 1990s for EVs but they just aren't good enough, in my opinion. Lithium ion (Li+) batteries have an energy density that's nearly twice that of NiMH. Even if Chevron had to power to suppress NiMH batteries it would not matter because NiMH is vastly inferior to Li+.

I agree that some people at GM were trying to kill the EV1 but not at first. In the beginning there were probably overly optimistic estimates about the costs involved. As the technological hurdles and cost issues became more evident over time that's when people began to want to pull the plug on the EV1. At one point in WKTEC there was some guy who said something like, "Of course the auto companies will lose money at first but after six months they will begin to make money" I don't know who this guy was but he doesn't have a clue. If an auto company did the math and could forecast a profit after six months THEY WOULD JUMP AT THE CHANCE!