Gigafactory

Quote: Pacomartin

Limited remote control is certainly not unique to electric vehicles, but it is often associated with them. It does seem that there are millions of people who don't live in suburban homes with attached garages. They really want to be dropped off at their doorstep, or to be able to send for their car. This applies to many people in urban environments.

But people seem to want to own a car. So I think the ability to summon your car remotely might be the ticket to making the niche bigger, if not making it a mass market item.

I keep hearing the remote-car/car share thing. Usually on Autoline Daily. They are pie-in-the-sky. Summon a car you share so the car can be used 20 hours a day instead of sitting idle. Of course it could happen on a small scale. But I don't see it. And I am a guy who sees self-driving Uber cars almost once a week outside my office.

First is where will all these cars be parked? The idea of your car in NJ (or Long Island) with you in Manhattan means >$10 each time you use it in tolls alone plus maybe an hour or more wait. The car is in an accident who to trade insurance info with? Refueling an electric in an automated way might be doable, but at what cost?

Say a more normal city. Same thing, do you want to wait for your car to commute to you? What about when parking is a bit easier?

Then to "sharing." Will people really want to share cars en masse? Sure. ZIPCar shows people will on a small scale. But many people like myself want their car because it has their stuff in it. Any mess is their mess. Shared cars might be like taking cabs everywhere. Bleah.

So at the margins, yes. But a generation to get past that IMHO.

Quote: AZDuffman

First is where will all these cars be parked? The idea of your car in NJ (or Long Island) with you in Manhattan means >$10 each time you use it in tolls alone plus maybe an hour or more wait. The car is in an accident who to trade insurance info with? Refueling an electric in an automated way might be doable, but at what cost?
Say a more normal city. Same thing, do you want to wait for your car to commute to you? What about when parking is a bit easier?

Well the Manhattan thing was a bit of a stretch. But given the price people seem willing to pay for parking, it makes the cost easier to bear. It's not uncommon for even a fairly normal Joe to pay over $30 a day to park his car.

But a more normal situation might be a development where you have a shoddy portion of land that is unsuitable for residential homes. However, it is also a scary place or just a long walk to park your car and walk to your door. You might be able to develop a custom ramp so the cars can drive up to the door without venturing on the open road. If the cars park themselves you can probably take advantage of the fact that most cars are 6' wide while most parking is 9' wide.

Quote: AZDuffman

Then to "sharing." Will people really want to share cars en masse? Sure. ZIPCar shows people will on a small scale. But many people like myself want their car because it has their stuff in it. Any mess is their mess. Shared cars might be like taking cabs everywhere. Bleah.

Well I agree with you there. Back to the story of my friend in Manhattan. I said you only leave the island once a month at most. Why not rent a car instead of spending hundreds of dollars to garage a Honda? When he eventually left the city he bought a Jaguar with the money he was saving on garage payments.

On a more mundane level I had another friend who was given a corporate car which he could drive anywhere in the urban area. If he left the urban area he was risking his job. Once again, maybe 5-10 times a year he wanted to drive somewhere more distant. I said call Enterprise and rent a car for those trips. It will be a fraction of the monthly payments, the insurance, the gasoline, and the maintenance of a car. He rented a car one time, then he bought a beater for long distance trips. So now he had the insurance, the maintenance, and the risk of driving a beater for hundreds of miles. PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO SHARE!

Quote: Pacomartin

Well the Manhattan thing was a bit of a stretch. But given the price people seem willing to pay for parking, it makes the cost easier to bear. It's not uncommon for even a fairly normal Joe to pay over $30 a day to park his car.

But a more normal situation might be a development where you have a shoddy portion of land that is unsuitable for residential homes. However, it is also a scary place or just a long walk to park your car and walk to your door. You might be able to develop a custom ramp so the cars can drive up to the door without venturing on the open road. If the cars park themselves you can probably take advantage of the fact that most cars are 6' wide while most parking is 9' wide.

You could save some due to doors not opening but the tracking needed to clear I don't know how much. Either do the math to find out or go to a suburban mall and watch for women parking large cars in too-small spaces to avoid the longer walk. On the latter, then add 6" for the self-parking car to get your number!

Quote:

Well I agree with you there. Back to the story of my friend in Manhattan. I said you only leave the island once a month at most. Why not rent a car instead of spending hundreds of dollars to garage a Honda? When he eventually left the city he bought a Jaguar with the money he was saving on garage payments.

On a more mundane level I had another friend who was given a corporate car which he could drive anywhere in the urban area. If he left the urban area he was risking his job. Once again, maybe 5-10 times a year he wanted to drive somewhere more distant. I said call Enterprise and rent a car for those trips. It will be a fraction of the monthly payments, the insurance, the gasoline, and the maintenance of a car. He rented a car one time, then he bought a beater for long distance trips. So now he had the insurance, the maintenance, and the risk of driving a beater for hundreds of miles. PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO SHARE!

Americans do not like cars like they did pre-1973, but they do still want "their" car. A car in Manhattan might also be a symbol of freedom. Leave as soon as you want? No matter what the reason, it shows the flaw.

I see so many "smart" people pushing the car-share thing. It is where I talk about being over-educated. This kind of person looks at the numbers, looks at research, and looks at focus groups where people are given an idealized scenario and say they love it. Then they rationalize why it simply must work.

Meanwhile we can sit here and just brainstorm an idea or two as to why it will not. But the first group will drop millions trying to make it so!

Computers promised everything in 1980 when the PC was offered in practical form for the first time. It was a curiosity in one form or another for nearly 20 years, even the early internet was not all that useful pre-2000 or so, and people were afraid of it in many ways. This car thing will be the same way. First, it will be an urban thing. Soccer Mom and Dad and even side-hustle-happy-AZD simply use their vehicle too often to make sharing worthwhile. Then expect a "war of formats" as places figure how to make it work. It may become normal, but that may be 2030.

Quote: AZDuffman

It has been said above in the thread and is the case, much of the growth is due to force of government.

Sure, in Europe & China, this is certainly true.

In the United States? Not really from the consumer's perspective. The U.S. has tax incentives, but the government doesn't really force Americans to purchase an EV, at least not like they do in China. And consumers who purchase a $100,000 Model S are doing it because the performance rivals that of a $300,000 Lamborghini. The $10,000 tax incentive isn't much of a motivation to acquire a $100,000 Tesla. (AZDuffman and I might find common ground on whether the government should be offering tax loopholes to people wealthy enough to drop $100k on a car.)

Quote: AZDuffman

On the range side, I see a similar thing to leases. People lease a car with a low mile cap figuring they do not drive as much as they do. I can see on EVs people underestimating the times they need the longer range and the ability to charge at the end of that range.

Possibly, for a Nissan Leaf with only 90 miles of range. You might occasionally underestimate how many miles you're burning through.

But this would rarely happen with a 200 mile range Chevy Bolt. You don't accidentally drive 200 miles. That's 3 hours in the car, and just finding 3 spare hours in my day takes some planning, regardless of what kind of car it is.

Quote: Pacomartin

I was trying to think of compelling reasons to grow this market. The somewhat misplaced "environmental concern" will only go so far. The payback time in reduced fueling costs is measured in years, after which it is cancelled out by the resale value of an old battery. The wow factor of the high torque is impressive, but you average Joe is not going to spend a fortune on a car because it has a button that makes it take off like a rocket.

Gasoline cars are inconvenient.

For example, the oil change light has been on in my Toyota for over a week, and I haven't gotten around to doing it. There's a Jiffy Lube not too far from me, but it's in the opposite direction of my daily commute, so once you add in the driving and the service itself, it's 25 minutes out of my life. Three oil changes per year. Not the end of the world, but a minor inconvenience nonetheless. Then you add in 7 minutes at the gas station twice a month. Spark plugs, drive belts, transmission, water pumps, air filters, mufflers, the list goes on and on. All that stuff falls apart.

Now suppose you're a business operating a fleet of 15 vehicles that drive predictable local routes-- taxi cab, package couriers, plumbers, food distribution truck, cable TV installers. You really want to pay an employee to take care of 3 oil changes per vehicle per year forever and ever?

Quote: reno

The U.S. has tax incentives, but the government doesn't really force Americans to purchase an EV, at least not like they do in China.

They do in California. A certain percent of vehicles must be EV. It is more a force to sell a certain amount, but same result.

Quote:

Possibly, for a Nissan Leaf with only 90 miles of range. You might occasionally underestimate how many miles you're burning through.

But this would rarely happen with a 200 mile range Chevy Bolt. You don't accidentally drive 200 miles. That's 3 hours in the car, and just finding 3 spare hours in my day takes some planning, regardless of what kind of car it is.

It happens more often than you might think. People who live in the northeast tend to not have as long of a commute or drive as far. But talk to someone in FL and see how often they rack up the miles. Ditto places like Texas, Phoenix, and others. What EV believers miss is that you don't need to be doing long drives daily, but that just a few a year will tip the scales for most people.

It does not need to be one 200 mile drive, either. 200 miles is best-case. Run the radio and A/C and you will cut that range. Go away for a weekend even 80 miles away. Throw in the driving you may do there and you are near your range.

My brother had a neighbor had a Leaf on a lease, guy replaced it with a regular car. I forget why, but makes me wonder how many people try and quit an EV.

Quote: AZDuffman

They do in California.

Agreed. California has the toughest air pollution laws in the U.S.

Los Angeles receives 0.01 inches of precipitation in a typical July, so there’s not much rain to wash out the exhaust from the 7,533,131 motor vehicles registered in Los Angeles County.

It’s still perfectly legal to buy a big Ford Expedition or Chevy Suburban or Cadillac Escalade in California, and there's no sin tax on the purchase of an SUV. No one puts a gun to your head to force you to buy an EV. But yes, the automakers are forced to offer EVs, so there are lots of money-losing models produced in small quantities that are sold exclusively for compliance purposes: Kia Soul EV, Ford Focus EV, Fiat 500e, Honda Fit EV, Toyota RAV4, etc. The electric Fiat in particular is extremely popular in California, but the car is sold in no other U.S. state (besides Oregon).

Has the state’s tough restrictions worked? Sort of. As of 2014, the number of high-ozone days in Los Angeles had dropped 21% since 2003. Fine particle pollution in L.A. in 2014 had dropped nearly in half since 2002.

In contrast, China's rules are far more tyrannical: With only 150,000 new car license plates issued every year in the city of Beijing, 60,000 of them will be reserved for electric cars, meaning the competition for a license plate will grow exponentially for owners of gas-powered vehicles. That would never fly in Los Angeles.

Would California's tough restrictions be appropriate in Nebraska or Montana? Of course not.

But Nebraska doesn’t look like this:

Quote: reno

Agreed. California has the toughest air pollution laws in the U.S.

Los Angeles receives 0.01 inches of precipitation in a typical July, so there’s not much rain to wash out the exhaust from the 7,533,131 motor vehicles registered in Los Angeles County.

It’s still perfectly legal to buy a big Ford Expedition or Chevy Suburban or Cadillac Escalade in California, and there's no sin tax on the purchase of an SUV. No one puts a gun to your head to force you to buy an EV. But yes, the automakers are forced to offer EVs, so there are lots of money-losing models produced in small quantities that are sold exclusively for compliance purposes: Kia Soul EV, Ford Focus EV, Fiat 500e, Honda Fit EV, Toyota RAV4, etc. The electric Fiat in particular is extremely popular in California, but the car is sold in no other U.S. state (besides Oregon).

Has the state’s tough restrictions worked? Sort of. As of 2014, the number of high-ozone days in Los Angeles had dropped 21% since 2003. Fine particle pollution in L.A. in 2014 had dropped nearly in half since 2002.

Way I understand it is the are forced to SELL that %, not just "offer." I doubt the electrics are responsible for much if any of the cited decreases given their small share of the vehicle pool and that the electricity still has to be generated. I just look at CA and cannot understand why people live there. Detroit with palm trees is truly the best way I ever heard it described. You have to be crazy about pollution, traffic, overcrowding, and high-prices for everything. I remain amazed the society there has not collapsed more than the parts that have already.

Quote: AZDuffman

I just look at CA and cannot understand why people live there. Detroit with palm trees is truly the best way I ever heard it described. You have to be crazy about pollution, traffic, overcrowding, and high-prices for everything. I remain amazed the society there has not collapsed more than the parts that have already.

It's the weather, primarily. I lived there for
7 years, it's unbeatable. It's never humid,
ever. It gets hot in the summer in the
south, but the rest of the state is a
dream for good weather. You can plan
anything outdoors and except for a
couple weeks in Jan Feb Mar, you
will have a nice outing. I would still be
there if there weren't so many asshats
and it wasn't so expensive. Never saw
a mosquito in all the years I was there.
Even in LA, if you go where the rich
live, it's a paradise.

It's a funny thing to think about what kind of weather people wanted in older times. Hawaii was one of the most densely populated places in present day USA before the European people took over. Of course, they lived on the wet rainy sides of the island, because the blistering hot lava fields where the population is today wasn't very desirable.

Quote: Evenbob

It's the weather, primarily. I lived there for 7 years, it's unbeatable. It's never humid, ever.

But you would think that California would have had weather that 19th century people would have loved just as much as 20th century people. California became a state in 1850. Out of the top 100 cities in USA there were only 2 in 1860 and 3 in 1900.

1860
#15 San Francisco city, CA............. 56,802
#67 Sacramento city, CA................ 13,785

1900
#9 San Francisco city, CA............. 342,782
#36 Los Angeles city, CA............... 102,479
#56 Oakland city, CA................... 66,960

1940
#5 Los Angeles city, CA..... 1,504,277
#12 San Francisco city, CA... 634,536
#29 Oakland city, CA......... 302,163
#43 San Diego city, CA....... 203,341
#53 Long Beach city, CA...... 164,271
#85 Sacramento city, CA...... 105,958

1950
#4 Los Angeles city, CA..... 1,970,358
#11 San Francisco city, CA... 775,357
#27 Oakland city, CA......... 384,575
#31 San Diego city, CA....... 334,387
#41 Long Beach city, CA...... 250,767
#67 Sacramento city, CA...... 137,572
#91 Berkeley city, CA........ 113,805

2010
#2. Los Angeles, CA – 3,792,657
#8. San Diego, CA – 1,301,621
#10. San Jose, CA – 945,942
#14. San Francisco; California 805,235
#34 Fresno; California 494,665
#35 Sacramento; California 466,488
#36 Long Beach; California 462,257
#45 Oakland; California 390,724
TOP 50 ONLY