Tag Archives: Business

Telsa 3, is it worth $60k

As many of you have a read my blog in the past know I’m a big fan of Tesla and Elon Musk.

Many of you may have read that Tesla is on track now to build 5,000 Model 3’s a week or more.

You also know that the Tesla game plan was to work their way down to building a car for the common man. Well, sorry, in my estimation they are no where near that goal, yet.

Apparently Tesla has invited all 500,000 or so people who put down a $1000 deposit to order their car. Remember when they said they would fill orders from the first to last but west coast to east coast? And we all know that right now that even if you don’t configure a single upgrade the car is going to cost $50k before sales tax and tax breaks. For me that would be $46,500 after the sales tax and $7.5k tax rebate.

In reality though once I choose a paint color other than black ($1k), the wheels that aren’t ugly($1.5k), the dual motor option ($4k) and the $5k advanced cruise control (auto-pilot) I’m at $60k is serious coin. O.K. so is $46,000.

This is not a Model S. Which configured about the same way would only be $20k more. Yet a far more useful car. A car that can fit the family for a long cross country trip. A car that gets free supercharging (with referral code). If you can afford $60k why not $80k?

And all this for a car brand that is about as reliable as Cell Phone service was in it’s infancy.

What’s it like to be turning left across traffic and have the the power steering stop working? Ask Marques Brownlee.

What’s it like to be driving along and have your screen go blank? Ask Ben Sullins.

Ben and his wife talk about why you really want this version because it’s the best battery for the buck and how having the most battery you can buy to get the best useful range possible only to say just a few minutes later how it would be great if the car could comfortably fit their family and gear for longer trips.

Like most people I want a Tesla because it doesn’t use gas, oil, spark plugs and mufflers. It eliminates the complexity of an internal combustion engine. The brakes last longer because of regenerative braking. But most of all the promise of autonomous driving.

Yes, I want a Tesla because of the advanced driving aids and potential of autonomous driving. But it’s still not that advanced. Adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist isn’t really that advanced by todays standards. Tesla is in the same stage the iPhone was at the beginning when people thought they could use it as a phone. I have no doubt they will get there, one day. Today they are counting on the threshold of pain theory.

Could I change my mind. Maybe if I get inside one and take it for a few test drives. After all, that’s how I ended up married. Also not a financially rational decision. I haven’t been attached to a single car as long as I’ve been attached to my wife though.

Are there other cars worth looking at. More functional, almost as pretty but not quite the trophy wife the Tesla 3 is?

If you’ve read my previous posts you know I’m not a fan of the Bolt. And probably never will be. I don’t fit in it and they will never overcome that obstacle. I’m still a big fan of the Ford Focus EV but Ford isn’t so that could be a problem in the future. I am intrigued by the new Nissan Leaf. A car possibly taking a second look at now that Tesla hasn’t yet met its promise of a $35k car without rebates. When it does and it’s not as stripped as a VW Golf EV S Model whose SEL Model I actually like they might have something.

I hope Elon sells his 400,000 or so reservations the higher priced models. Because that’s what it’s going to take to get to the $35k car. If 300,000 people are waiting for the cheaper car like me, I’m not to sure he will get there. But if a rocket can take off and land safely he might just pull it off.

I’m telling rooting for you Elon. Hopefully you don’t end up like Nicola did.

 

 

Trump, Reagan, Alternative Energy.

Back in Junior High I was a bit of an Alex Keaton (Michael J. Fox) from Family Ties. I wrote a report on how to invest in stock and why Tyco Labs was the place to invest. They had this great technology called a photovoltaic cell. Solar Energy was an idea whose time had finally arrived.

We had just been held hostage by OPEC and people had to wait in lines to buy gas, at was then, record prices of over a dollar a gallon.

Jimmy Carter had put solar panels on the White House to set an example of how we could start on our way to energy independence.

Then Ronald Reagan got elected. There was no way that in his America we were going to conserve. We drive big cars, heat and cool our houses to whatever extreme we want. We are a big and powerful nation and can afford to waste as much as we want. And for the next 30 plus years that’s exactly what we did. Only communists suffer shortages.

Bush gave tax breaks to people who bought Hummers. And lots of people did. You still see a few of them around today. But they don’t make them anymore. They went by the wayside when many American Automakers went bankrupt.

American Automakers also gave up a lot of marketshare to Japanese automakers in the 80’s. Because like most commodities that don’t have competition the price of gas just kept going up. And that drove people to buy the smaller, better built more fuel efficient imports.

But for those who study history we can often find examples of history repeating itself.

So lets go back just a few years. After a major recession the US elected one of those un-American leaders. The kind that doesn’t believe in American Supremacy and actually promoted the notion that once again Americans should conserve energy, invest in alternative energy and have a lofty goal of getting 1 million electric cars on the road in just a few years.

But the first order of business was bailing out American Automakers. Something Reagan did with Chrysler back in the 1980’s now had to be done again 30 years later. Because we forgot that gas can get pretty expensive and building lots of big cars that get crappy gas milage hurts the economy when gas hit’s $3 a gallon. And when the only cars on your lot don’t sell anymore bankruptcy is a given.

Well, the economy recovered because we have cheap gas once again. Or at least we perceive it as cheap because once you hit $3 a gallon $2 looks really cheap. Almost as cheap as $1 where gas hit at the height of the recession. I’ll bet if gas hits $3 now people will still perceive it as being pretty cheap.

So now after 8 years of that commie socialist we have once again elected a President who acknowledges the Supremacy of the United States of America.

His first order of business is to incentivize 19th century technology. Make coal great again. His second order of business was to make sure we can burn lots of fossil fuel. Keep it cheap so people can burn lots of it. There can’t be an iceberg hiding below the surface using that strategy. No,literally. All the icebergs are melting. Deny that this strategy has environmental consequences at all costs. Science is suspect. What do scientists know anyway.

And worst of all spreading the myth that restrictions on environmental pollution makes us uncompetitive in the world.

Trump is Reagan revisited. And I don’t mean that in a positive way.

This time the world is no longer looking for Americans to lead the way. We are way behind the power curve on implementing alternative energy.

Unlike the United States or China most of Europe and the UK does not have vast areas of unpopulated land mass. Most of France, Italy, Germany and the U.K.  have lots of people in very small areas. Their pollution problems are like ours of California prior to Nixon and The EPA or those pesky California Emission Standards.

Other countries are actually investing in technology to get off of fossil fuels. German automakers that were first pushed by Tesla and further pushed by their own greed and cheating emission rules with their diesel cars are now going all out on developing Electric Vehicles. Add that to their growing supply of solar power and other countries are leading the way into the 21st Century. Not the U.S.A.

What are American Automakers doing? Building as many SUV’s and Pickup Trucks they can churn out. And that is pretty much a sign that although many Americans feel that the economy still sucks that it really doesn’t. Poor people don’t buy $70k Automobiles, or do they? Well poor people don’t, but having a $1k a month payment and another $150 or more a month going to Mobil or BP can sure as heck make you feel like your broke. Especially if you have 2 of these in your driveway. Let gas hit $3 or $4 a gallon again and it won’t take long before another recession hits.

Another fallacy is that regulations make products cost more. Well let’s go back to the 1980’s. Factories used to just dispose of certain waste from production, much of it in small particles like the sawdust from mills.

Well there was this company called Torrit Donaldson. You might know who they are. They make filters for your car among other things.

They would also design collection systems that collect sawdust among other things. Now instead of these particulates being dumped in the air and garbage they make particle board and other products from them.

Both the mill and the filter maker, make money. Long term results are better. That’s how jobs and new technologies get created. Not by doubling down on burning toxins. Too bad Wall Street doesn’t care beyond the next quarter

So is their a silver lining in this Trump cloud?

Well just like the 1980’s businesses will continue to look for ways to make more money and people will continue to ask for innovation.

Tesla proved that you can make a compelling Electric Car. Germany and the U.K. have proven that solar and wind are competitive with nuclear and coal when you factor in the external costs that we in the U.S. don’t account for.

The only real question is will politics get in the way of the U.S.A. becoming a leader or will be relegated to the position of follower?

Will American Car Makers once again, for the third time misjudge where the market is headed. Maybe that’s why Tesla has a higher market cap than Ford or G.M.

One that it really doesn’t deserve as Tesla makes less cars in a year than the other automakers make in a week.

If only there was a military reason to develop alternative energy. When the Russians were beating us in space we moved heaven and earth to get their first.

And much of the technology that got us into space is driving most of the technology we have today. It’s not like we hadn’t given the Germans the lead in technology before. It took a World War to give us the drive to outsmart them as well.

I doubt beating ISIS will require a new modern energy that was easy to deploy almost anywhere.

Actually now that I think about it. What if we dropped a few solar panels connected to a battery that could power a radio or two and maybe some type of modern convenience that we could broadcast the truth to every village or town where the electricity infrastructure has been bombed out?

 

 

Tesla Autopilot kills driver? No, it didn’t.

The big debate going on lately is should Tesla have told investors Tesla might be subject to a lawsuit from the death of a driver while driving a Tesla X using the “Autopilot” function.

If you read this reddit thread started by the author of the controversial Fortune article you would think that it does. But if you read down the author talks about how he owns a Prius V with adaptive cruise control (ADC). He loves it and would gladly buy a self driving car. Well, the Tesla is not a self driving car. I seriously doubt that Toyota is telling shareholders anytime a Prius with ADC has an accident. And having a Prius V with ADC my self,f if anyone actually believes that you can let the car always keep a safe distance, you learn very quickly, just like the folks driving Tesla’s you can’t.

First of all “autopilot” on Tesla cars is no more than a really great adaptive cruise control with lane keeping ability. They do a far far better job than my Prius does at not hitting cars ahead of you and can actually bring the car to a full stop unlike the Prius. But neither one will keep you safe. You still have to pay attention. If not, at best you’ll wreck a car or two. At worst you’ll kill someone.

Of the 20k plus miles I have put on the Prius, many using cruise control the car has accelerated towards stopped cars or failed to slow down before I thought it would be prudent to intervene many, many times. So many in fact that I only use it on the highway or city streets with light traffic.

Today I was in a situation where a driver decided he was in the wrong lane abruptly pulled out in front of me. He was slowed on the beginning of an exit ramp doing about 35 MPH. I was on the highway doing 65. He cut out in front of me causing me (not the car) to slam on the brakes nearly avoiding his back bumper.

He politely waved sorry to me with cellphone in hand. Maybe he had to go left instead of right to get Pokemon. All I could think is what an asshole and I was glad that the truck behind me was keeping a safe distance. Something that most people don’t do as the Prius will keep about 6 car lengths from the car ahead of you at highway speeds.

Now up until this point I have put autopilot in quotes. That sort of implies that autopilot as Tesla bills it is not really an autopilot. The problem here is most people don’t really understand what an autopilot is. I do. I use one every day I get in an Airbus 320 and fly across the country. My day job is as a pilot for a major airline. I am a Captain with Type Ratings in both Airbus and Boeing airplanes. Specifically the A320 and Boeing 737 families.

The Tesla is not a self driving car and airplanes do not fly themselves. Autopilots are used to reduce workloads. They do not allow you the luxury of not paying attention.

There are several levels of automation in an airplane just like in a car. In their simplest form they might just hold the airplanes heading and altitude. This is what’s known as a two axis autopilot. That’s what we had on the 737. The A320 has a three axis autopilot. That adds Yaw control. This function moves the rudder. Those are the basics.

Now lets add on the Flight Management and Guidance Computer (FMGC). This does much more. This is the system that allows you to program in a course and follow it. This interfaces with the autopilot. Think of it as adding GPS to lane keeping or steering.

We haven’t even gotten to the cruise control system or what’s known as auto throttle or auto thrust. . This function allows you the set a fixed (not distance from a plane in front of you) speed and keep it.

All these things combined are what most people think of as autopilot. Yet as a pilot we don’t really need any of these things to fly airplanes. They just make it a heck of a lot easier or safer.

But there are several things that all of these tools cant’t do. They won’t keep you from hitting a mountain, flying off the end of the runway, hitting another airplane in mid-flight or flying through a thunderstorm. All of those things require somethings that computers, at least today, can’t do, Make complex decisions that require human intervention.

There are warning system on airplanes that let the pilots know if they are about to hit a mountain or another airplane. There is weather radar. But none of these interact with the auto flight systems. So when you hear people say that modern airplanes pretty much fly themselves, they don’t. They still need pilots. At least two of them. If one dies or becomes incapacitated they aren’t going to drop in another pilot or a passenger isn’t going to land the plane. For that would require a lot more knowledge than you can learn in a couple of hours.

I’m not sure if you will see an airplane without pilots or a self driving car first but don’t make the mistake of thinking an “autopilot” will allow the operator to totally give up control of the vehicle.

You don’t want your pilot to be asleep at the wheel and you don’t want your driver to be asleep at the wheel either. That’s another reason there are two pilots on commercial airliners. It’s always ones job to FLY THE AIRPLANE. Autopilot on or not.

But I will tell you one thing. An airplane in flight is far more forgiving if the pilots are not paying attention than a driver on a road.

In cruise (at altitude) the closest airplane is going to be at least 5 miles away and 1000 feet above or below you. On the road you have cars within a few feet of each other going 70 MPH. In most big jets you have at least 2 pilots at the controls most of the time.

In an airplane I will get about 20-30 seconds to react if someone comes closer than they should. In a car you might have a few seconds if you’re lucky. Today if I hadn’t reacted immediately, I would have been in that guys back seat. I didn’t even hear the collision warning indicator go off. It felt like the car was never going to stop or slow down quick enough to not hit him. Braking distance in a Prius isn’t all that great.

Back to the Tesla accident. Maybe since the same guy who died had previously made a video of the car saving him he got far to comfortable with the technology. Maybe it works so well that people think it can do far more than it can.

Autopilot isn’t set it and forget it. And if you remember that you will be safer than any other driver on the road who doesn’t understand what autopilot can and can’t do.

Tesla’s stock might have taken a hit but their bottom line won’t. At least not because of this.

I’m all for more safety features in cars. I love backup cameras and sensors. I love blind spot warnings and many things available in the newest cars. I think all cars should have them. But none of these things should let the driver think they don’t have the responsibility to look.

Tesla may not have invented any of these things but they are making people aware of them and other manufactures have taken notice. Let’s not let this accident or any other accident hamper the advance of safety because some people are too complacent to use them properly.

These things will save lives. Look at how few planes crash now days.

 

Tesla Stock Down! Cheap Gas Kills EV Car Sales, or Does It?

Will lower gas prices have a large effect on EV sales?

To a certain extent but there is a way that car makers could diminish the cheap gas advantage.

The Tesla has never been a car whose sales have been driven by high fuel prices. It’s appeal has been in performance and technology as well as status and muted luxury.

Anybody who has driven an EV loves the real world acceleration. By real world I mean 0-30. The burst of energy to change lanes or get on the freeway.

The average car takes much longer from a full stop to 30 MPH than an EV. From 30-60 it’s about the same time but the gasoline car spend from 30-60 catching up.

0-60 in 4 seconds is nice but in an ICE car that requires tens of thousands of dollars and an average MPG of around 12 MPG everyday to do that the very fews times you need that power. You just don’t need or can’t really enjoy your 700HP vehicle as much as you would like to.

Your 2 seat loud and obnoxious sports cars are the proverbial 12 inch penis. Impressive looking but not to many places that can handle all of it.

The only place cars like those have any use other than getting you a superficial mate are on the track. And they are actually more likely to get you tickets than they are a mate if you are not that good looking anyway that you need to buy the car to have women look at you.

Add to that most people with cars like that never take them to a track like many Jeep or 4×4 owners never take them off road and you have probably explained why most Americans think they are broke and don’t like to pay taxes.

Car makers have to stop only building tiny compact EV’s as well. While they might get the job done they aren’t impressive at all, don’t tell me that size doesn’t matter. Small might be able to fit in any parking spot but only the city dweller sees that as an advantage.  We don’t live in Europe.

Most Americans don’t fit in a Smart EV or Fiat EV.  We are large people. Many of us are over 6 feet tall and many are over 200 pounds. Or both. We need cars we fit in.

In order to get more people into the cars they need to be real world cars. The e-Golf and Mercedes B-Class are a nice start but they are still too expensive for only having 80 miles of range.

The new cars being announced with 200 mile ranges will start selling if you really build enough and sell them outside of the few CARB States.

They will outsell the Chevy Volt which still isn’t a 5 passenger car. The rear leg room is still to small. And the battery down the middle is just as bad as the Ford and their batteries across the truck or cargo bay. They will not find many new buyers. They will just keep many of the buyers they have. Unless they change to a flat battery pack under the floor.

The greatest thing about owning an EV, or even a Hybrid,  is rarely or ever having to stop to buy gas. Even if the price of gas is $1 per gallon. The approximate equilibrium price of gas to electricity as fuel for cars.

It really is nice to come home at night and just plug in your car instead of having to wait in line and pump gas.

The worst part now about driving any car is filling up the gas tank. It’s rare that I ever get the gas station to myself. Then after waiting in line for 5-10 minutes, I have to get out, swipe my card and spend 5 minutes looking at the guy next to me that cut in front or committed some breach of gas station etiquette.

With an EV you just pull into the garage, plug in and walk into the house and go about your normal business. You wouldn’t even think of buying a phone where you had to go to the store and buy new batteries every few days. Then through the dead batteries on the street like the emissions form your tail pipe.

With the advent of the 100 mile plus battery, which is enough for most peoples daily commute, that will be shortly followed by the 200 mile battery, the plug it in at night car that can work for 100% of your daily driving needs will be all you really need.

Add to that, no more oil changes, tune ups and all those other regular maintenance items that an internal combustion engine car has and you will be hooked.

That doesn’t even included all the environmental benefits.

A 200 mile range, 5 seats and a price tag of $30k in a sporty car like a VW Golf or Kia Soul might just be what it takes to get this evolution in transportation to catch on.

It will be interesting to see how Tesla responds to these challengers that are now taking the 200 mile advantage away from Tesla.

I don’t think it will be long before my 12 year old son looks at driving a gasoline powered vehicle like he does someone smoking a cigarette. We know smoking is hazardous to your health and does cause cancer. The same thing is true of ICE vehicles.

We are just not willing to admit it yet as we love our cars.

The automakers are just starting to give us EV’s we can love.

Thanks Elon. You’re the guy who got this party started. Hopefully you keep leading the way and not letting the Big 3 kill the EV like G.M. did in the past.

I don’t think the big automakers are going to rest unless you stumble and fall.

I don’t think Apple and Google will really be a threat to the Big 3 like Tesla. For some reason you’ve got them really scared even though you only build less than 10’000 cars a month.

I might just have to buy Tesla stock now that it back down to the Moon instead of Mars, a place you want to go. Once the price comes back down to Earth people wont think your shooting for the stars.

 

 

 

 

When will car makers get serious about EV’s? Can Electric Companies Help?

There is a big promise by car makers being told, or should I say, sold.What is it? That the next generation or EV cars will get 200 miles or more of range and be sold for about $35k.

That only solves half the problem.

What good is a 200 mile battery when your useful range is really only 80 miles?

Why do I say only 80 miles? Because if you don’t have a place to charge where you are going then you have to turn around when you hit half you range.

But isn’t 100 miles half your range? No, not really. You can never count on 100% of your battery potential. There are several things that can change that. Going up hill, going over 65, and don’t  forget what temperature extremes can do to range. Then you have things like detours, construction delays and traffic.

Another problem that is brought up all the time is, how will people who live in cities or apartments who don’t have access to Level2 Charging be able to own EV’s. This is one reason GM and others aren’t looking past hybrids.

This is where Tesla has started to solve that problem. The Supercharger network. They have put chargers where people can go 200 miles or so and stop for 20-30 minutes and then keep going. Not going back home. These chargers are spaced across the Country so people can actually drive coast to coast or border to border. Not just to work and back.

They also have what they call destination chargers. They give chargers to hotels and some businesses where people might spend the night or stop for a while. Level2 Chargers but still, people will bring there Tesla’s there before they use other like businesses. Nothing like having people who can spend 100k plus on a car wanting to spend money at your business.

If the other cars companies aren’t willing to put in DC Charging in strategic locations, that 200 mile battery will still pretty much be an around town errand car, and not the once in a while drive to grandma’s or Disney Land for vacation.

I can do most of my daily driving and just recharge on 110v power. If I used my 75 mile range every day before i got home I would have to use Level2 charging to refill to capacity by the next day. Double the capacity of my battery and Level2 would be the minimum needed, not the exception.

Get enough 200 mile range cars out there and actual commercial charging stations could become financially viable. More so than hydrogen. Hydrogen stations are expensive. Yes, you might be able to fill up in 10 minutes or less but is that really what businesses want. There is a reason that Walgreens says it’s going to be at least 20 minutes to fill your prescription, even if all they have to do is grab a bottle and print a label. The longer you have to wait the more likely you are to buy something you don’t really need. Marginal Revenue.

QuickTrip and CircleK want to sell you food and Big Gulps. Candy, pizza and cigarettes. They probably make as much on a Hot Dog as a tank of gas.

Get enough EV’s out there with QC capability and that 20 minutes to fill up might just be perfect for Costco, Target or Whole Foods to colocate with Charging stations. Think of all the places people spend 20 minutes a day or two a week.

Those truck/rest stop restaurants might not be as filthy if more people actually spent 20 minutes filling up while they get a burger or a slice while on a cross country trip.

Instead of Electric Companies worrying about losing all their business to solar panels maybe they should start thinking ahead and getting the wiring in place for a few DC Charge stations. That way when the scales get tipped they are the new oil companies. Out with the old and in with the really old. Edison and GE predate Standard Oil.

I find it odd that electric companies will provide incentives to buy LED light bulbs and Energy Star fridges and AC units yet they have problems with people putting up solar panels. They preach conservation yet when it comes to the ultimate conservation they cry foul.

If you want people to buy more electricity then imagine a kilowatt sold per 4 miles driven. Do you know how much Americans drive? That’s about 10kW a day. Based on a 40 mile average. About 2600 kW a year. or about $364 a year at 14 cents per kWh. Multiply that $354 by 200 million and imagine how much that would add to the bottom line of the Electric Companies.

And most people consume that power during the day but fill up at night. Win, win. Add 200 mile batteries to the mix and all those solar panels will provide the peak demand the cars who can’t fill up at night need.

If I were the CEO of an Electric Company I’d be getting solar panels on peoples roofs now and building out the infrastructure to get ready to charge all those cars.

You might even want to give as much of an incentive to buy an electric car as you do to upgrade to a higher SEER AC unit.

You can help start the next great change in technology. Look at what Cellphone companies did to land lines. Look at how the internet is hitting TV and Newspapers.

You can be on the forefront by providing the infrastructure and shifting income from Oil Companies to Electric Companies. I’m still surprised you guys haven’t cashed in on internet services. You do have a wire going in to almost every house.

Why sell power to the refineries when you can cut out the middle man.

California, Arizona and Nevada. Lead the way.

 

 

What if everyone started using electric cars?

In the U.S.A., what would happen if everybody started driving electric cars?

About 9 million fewer barrels of oil would be used each day.
If you  have a car that gets 28MPG and drive it 10k miles per year, you would use just over 300 gallons of gas and produce 5.6k  pounds of CO2.
My Ford Focus Electric gets about 4 miles to a kWh. The worst coal produces 2.17 pounds of CO2 per kWh. So 10k miles per year produces 5.4k pounds of CO2.
So whats the big deal? Looks like a wash, right? No. It takes about 6kWh to distill one gallon of gas. So burning the coal to produce one gallon of gas produces about 13 pounds of CO2. Multiply that by 300 gallons of gas and you get another 3.9k of CO2 a year just making the 300 gallons of gas.
So by eliminating the gas engine and the process of refining oil into gas, you eliminate a duplication of effort and excess CO2 production.
You also eliminate the extra toxic pollution from burning gas, and the production of gas produces all kinds of toxic substances on top of the toxins burning coal produces.
Produce the electricity with natural gas and you get less CO2, but, there are  still many bad side effects in the production of natural gas. Fracking uses lots of clean water and turns it into toxic water.
Produce the electricity with solar or wind and get rid of all the by-products of combustion of fossil fuels. Then the only pollution is from making the solar panels or generators.
Lets also take a look at how gasoline gets to market.
Oil is extracted from the earth and transported long distances by ship or pipeline. By ship requires burning more fuel to move the oil over long distances.
Once the oil is refined, it gets put on a tanker or pipeline again, to get to it’s next destination. More fuel is burned for transportation. And all along the way there are many opportunities for leaks and spills. That doesn’t even include the potential leaks, spills and disasters at the point of extraction. The Gulf of Mexico, Exxon Valdez, waste from tar sands piling up on the south side of Chicago. The list goes on and on.
Most Americans have electricity in their home. Most Americans drive less than 50 miles per day. All they would need to do is plug in their cars at home each night like they plug in their Smartphones. You don’t need to add a huge new infrastructure like you would for hydrogen.
If every car in the USA were electric we would use 374 million less gallons of gas per day. That’s 811 million less pounds of CO2. Wait, we figured that the CO2 burned in gas was close to the same amount used to produce the electricity needed by burning coal. OK, that’s a wash.
But, if it takes 6kWh to produce 1 gallon of gas and 2.17 pounds of CO2 is produced per kWh then the amount of CO2 produced is actually 6 times 2.17 or 13 pounds of CO2 produced or 13 times 374 million gallons of gas. Thats 4,862,000,000 more pounds per year of CO2 than our hypothetical all EV Nation needs. That’s a massive difference.
What else could go along with that. No oil changes. No air filters. No spark plugs. Fewer brake pads. That’s just a few benefits. No pollution controls needed on an electric car. No emissions inspections. I’m sure you could find a few more.
So lets sum it up.
Air polution, less.
Water pollution, less.
Noise pollution, less.
Oil Spills, less.
Carbon Monoxide deaths, less.
Burn Victims, less.
Lower Hospital Costs.
Fewer wars? Probably not?
Where’s the down side? Fewer gas stations? High School kids can’t put sugar in the gas tank of their  ex-girlfriend?
Next year almost every carmaker has at least one if not more hybrids that can actually run on electric 90% of the time.
If you can afford a car that is partly or fully electric you should buy one.
It’s time to actually conserve the resources we have.
It’s time to stop polluting our air and water.
This is not a political issue anymore. It is a financial issue. It’s cheaper to burn coal to make electricity to drive a car than to make fuel to drive a car.
It’s cheaper to  drive an electric car than pay for hospital costs for people with diseases related to air pollution or water pollution.
If you want make solar panels and wind power the political issue, go for it. It is still 3 times the cost of coal if you don’t price in the pollution and medical costs caused by coal. We are maybe 3-5 years away from cost parity with coal.
We are probably 3-5 years away from your next car being electric as well.
Maybe it’s time for electric companies to embrace people putting solar on their roofs instead of fighting it. But that’s a subject for another post.

Volt headed for the dustbin of automotive history?

“The Chevrolet Volt, meanwhile, seems headed to the dustbin of automotive history, like GM’s original EV-1 and the entire Saturn division.” At least that’s what Alex Taylor, III of Fortune Magazine says. To read the entire article Click Here.

Actually I think he has that part all wrong. While the volt is heavy and slow and pretty much everything else he says about the car, it’s not going away anytime soon as long as GM doesn’t get cold feet.

Yes they stopped making the old Volt and have reduced prices to sell what they have left. That’s what technology companies do. And the Volt is technology as much as it is car.

But where the next Volt will succeed, it will not be in beating out the Tesla, because sorry folks, it’s no Tesla. What it is, a Prius Killer. That’s right, you heard it here first. Why spend $30k for a Prius Plug In that can go a whopping (sarcasm) 11 miles on the battery before you need to plug back in. And then it gets the same gas milage as a regular Prius, about 50 MPG.

The 2015 Volt gets 38 all electric miles while the 2016 is projected to get 50 miles on a single charge. That’s enough so most people will rarely if ever put gas in it. I should know. I currently drive a Ford Focus EV and rarely do I drive more than 50 miles in a day and I hardly ever drive more than the average 80 mile range.

Sorry but Toyota better watch out. And Tesla, they aren’t even in the sub $50k market, at least not yet.

This is a place where thanks to Tesla American Car Manufactures have the potential to really shine.

Toyota is betting that Hydrogen is the next big thing. Wrong. That’s why the Prius doesn’t get better, only bigger (Prius V) and Smaller (Prius C). They gave up on the Rav 4 EV. A car loved by almost everybody that has one. I know 3 people that have them. Sadly that’s actually a lot of people to know with an electric car. Two of them cut their EV teeth with a Nissan Leaf and one still has his.

The Prius is pretty much everything Alex Taylor, III says about the Volt. Heavy, drives like a washing machine. My mother has a Prius. I like riding in the back seat a lot more than I like driving it. Maybe that’s why cabbies or at least their passengers like them. (Edit) And as one person who read my post stated. The Volt is very responsive from 0-30 MPH. Actually most EV’s are. It’s fun to beat most cars from 0 to the posted speed limit of 45 or less. Be careful though.  You would be surprised how many kids in a Camaro or Mustang don’t like that.

By the way, I said the Prius was slow and heavy, Alex Taylor, III said the Volt was slow and heavy.

Tesla will continue to build the “BMW” of electric cars, at least as long as BMW keeps building half ass EV’s like the i8 and i3. Cool but not Tesla cool. Both way to expensive for mere mortals.

The Ford Focus EV is the only real EV Ford makes and it’s just a compliance car. Try to buy one out of a Compliance State and you will come up empty. The rest of the Fords are just Hybrids and Plug Ins and no better than Toyota. They need to redesign the Focus so the batteries don’t take up all the cargo space. Maybe they should ask Tesla for some help. The battery pack, the rear view mirror (needs HomeLink) and no moonroof are my only complaints. And that’s only because when my son farts in the car I have to roll down the windows to get fresh air.

Sorry Alex, The Volt is a great car technologically and is getting better in the next model. Greater range, both gas and electric. 5 seats instead of 4 and some more advanced driving safety options as well.

And, I almost forgot the best part. The price. It’s going to have a sub 30k price tag after the tax credit. That puts it smack dab in Prius territory. If you have ever talked to a Volt owner they rarely ever use the gas engine.

Right now I own one American Car. The Focus EV. While it’s heavy it’s actually fun to drive.  If the Volt handles as well and is as nice inside as my 2015 Mazda 6 I will without a doubt consider putting the Mazda to the curb and I love the car. It is everything Car and Driver says it is. Actually it would be really nice if it could have a Tesla conversion. Elon? The Volt may just do it. Make me want to sell my Mazda.

Then the only car to get rid of is the Honda Pilot my wife drives. The 18MPG wonder. With gas prices headed back up and global warming becoming more of a reality every day Honda better hope Elon doesn’t figure out how to make a sub $50k SUV.

Americans may have finally figured it out. Nissan may be the Japanese’s best and only hope. They have sold the most EV’s of anyone. And they are actually really good as well. They are just to expensive still.

The Volt is here to stay. If not we will be stuck with Pri-i. Is that what you call more than one Prius?

Remember when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor?

 

I hate CNBC

Ok, it’s not just CNBC but pretty much all so called news outlets They don’t report news as much as sell you something.

I was on Yahoo.com doing some financial research on Tesla. While I’m looking at the research there is a video from CNBC with some talking heads and a so called expert from Garage Monkey  or some crazy name telling people that we will never give up our loud sounding big horsepower muscle cars. Or at least he won’t. We love the sound and the smell. Just look at how many classics are still around.

Well, yeah, there are lots of classics still around. In garages and museums. Unless you count the thousands that are rusted out and decaying in the barns and backyards of America. About the only place people still drive Classics everyday, Cuba. And I doubt that’s because they want to.

I remember the days of my youth riding in my fathers ’67 (maybe ’68) Dodge Charger. I remember what a cool car it was at the time. It was also a real piece of crap. It always had trouble starting and it didn’t have air conditioning . The sad part is I was to young to drive it. Had I drove it I surely would have never look at a classic ever.

In the late 70’s and early 80’s I got to drive classics like the Chevette, Chrysler K car, and Nova. There are more as I drove a lot of real junk back then. They sure didn’t make them any better. I can’t or don’t want to remember all those really bad cars of the day.

But like many folks in their late 40’s and feeling flush with cash after the market boom of the early 2000’s I went out and bought not just one but 2 classic cars. A 1967 Chevy Chevelle SS. Wow, what a cool car. Well not really. It would make a lot of noise and sounded really neat but it really drove like crap. It’s amazing people drove those things more than 10 miles a day even when they were new.

But being a glutton for punishment I bought a more luxurious classic car. A 1964 Chevy Impala. Also the SS version. This was a boat. I should have driven it before I bought but I got it sight unseen off eBay.

What these cars did most of the time was sit in my warehouse. I had to move them every time I got a delivery. After the market crashed in 2008 I decided they were just to much trouble to keep moving. They were so crappy that I never wanted to drive them. They were pretty to look at though. If I want to do that there are plenty of people who have them in garages all around me. My best friend has a 1964 Corvette sitting in his garage. He’s not a big fan of driving it either. He’s afraid that if he leaves it parked to get something to eat that someone might steal it or crash into it. It’s around 64k of wasted potential. While it keeps going up every year if he had taken the 22k he paid for it ten years ago and bought almost any decent stock it would be worth twice what it is now. And instead of parking his Kia Soul in the driveway he could fit it in the garage. That’s right, he’s driving a Kia Soul. At least when he doesn’t need his big Dodge Diesel for moving motorcycles everyday. He buys and sells them.

So as long as we are giving opinions, here are some of mine.

Just like people hated answering machines when they first came out or cellphones (the people who didn’t have one yet). The technology and price of the electric car gets more attractive every few years. It might take 10-20 years to get to the point where that’s what people want or can afford but there is no question that the technology is here and if automakers actually build them and sell them in every market people will buy them. As more people get them, more people will want what everybody else has. Just like the Navy Converted from Coal and Wood to Oil back in the day.

Used cars will hit the market as well. Just like some people wait for last years iPhone before they buy it there will be people buying 5-8 year old electric cars and loving them.

No buying gas. No oil changes. No filters to change. The scheduled maintenance is pretty much rotate the tires every 10,000 miles.

I have about 2000 miles on my Ford Focus Electric and there has only been one day where I was afraid to take it on the trip I had planned. If I had known I was going to be where I was for as long as I was it wouldn’t have been a problem. They had a charger there and in 2 hours I would have been good to go. I was there all night.

While todays ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars are really pretty good, O.K. really good they still burn gas. A product that we fight wars for. A product that we have no control over the pricing or production since most of it is imported. We use almost 80-90% more than we produce. And while people still debate if fossil fuels cause global warming there is no debate that they cause pollution. Oil spills cause catastrophic losses to wildlife and livelihoods.

Do we want to go back to the days where air pollution was so thick in many cities you couldn’t see more than a couple miles. Do we want Los Angeles or Chicago to look like Mexico City or Shanghai. Should we go back to the days where Lake Erie is dead and the rivers of Ohio burn when you light a match?

The price of gas in Phoenix is over $2.70 a gallon again. Up more than a dollar a gallon in less than 4 months. The cost of my electricity is down. At least between midnight and 5 AM. The electric company wants me to charge my car at night. They need people to use all that excess capacity that’s available at night when people are sleeping and the temps are cooler so the AC doesn’t run as much.

Another thing is there are no refineries in Phoenix using a ton of electricity to turn all that crude oil into gas. Yeah, it takes a lot of electricity to make a gallon of gas. Then it takes a lot of diesel to truck it to the gas station. Then it takes more electricity to pump it into your car.

Almost everybody in the U.S. now days has electricity already coming to their house. It doesn’t take any more modification to get it to your car than it does to hook up an RV.

The only reason I go to a gas station now is to buy a snack and use the washroom.

The Tesla Power Wall

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla has been talking about uses for the batteries in his Tesla Cars and other electric cars after their useful life for quite a while now.  But it appears he isn’t going to wait for them to be available from used cars to get this idea going.  Just a few days ago he announced the Tesla Power Wall.

While this is not a new idea, using batteries to store electricity you either gather from your own solar panels or even buy from the electric company at night while power is cheap and use during the day when its not.  He’s now making it a commercial reality. One where just like his Tesla cars the production is sold out for months to come.

After I bought my Ford Focus Electric I had wondered if, when you are not using the car to it’s full capacity every day, if you could run your house from it?  After all, The average U.S. house uses 32KWH per day. In AZ most of that is AC. And in the summer that peak demand goes up to about 18 cents per KWH from the 6 cents per KWH I pay at night. My monthly bills go from about $100 a month to $300 a month. Being able to buy at night rates would save me quite a bit. Even when it’s not summer. I could probably lower the bill another $50 a month by doing that.

I had even thought of buying a used Nissan Leaf with a degraded battery to achieve the same thing. The Leaf has a 24KVH battery or double to triple what Tesla is selling. A first year leaf can be had for around 9k.

Nissan has even developed a car to home power convertor that they started selling a while ago. They developed it after the tsunami.

Once again Elon Musk is challenging the status quo in areas where entrenched ideology makes it almost impossible to bring new ideas to market.

I’m almost beginning to think that one day in the not to distant future their might actually be people not only going to but living on mars.

I think it’s a pretty good thing that he chose the U.S. to immigrate to, illegally at first. We might have to get his permission if we want to immigrate to mars.

Nissan Leaf to Home Power Station.

Tesla Power Wall.

My favorite line from the video. We don’t need to win the Darwin Award.

Finally, an affordable Electric Car that isn’t ugly.

The Ford Focus Electric.

The 2015 Ford Focus Electric Car has a list price of $31,990 with Leather Seats,  Without leather seats it’s almost $1k less.

If you are in a Compliance State they have many of them and not so many buyers.
They should have more buyers but people fear all electric cars. They shouldn’t.
If you live in a non-compliance State like I do they sell for a premium. That’s why I went out of State to get it. Actually I never left my house to get it. It was all done using email, phones and FedEx.

I bought this car in March.
Sticker Price:                 $30,990.00

Ford Focus

2015 Ford Focus

Negotiated Discount:   $-2,057.40
Price before Rebates:   $28,932.60
Sales Tax and Title:       $ 1,428.23
Out of State Delivery:   $   300.00
Ford Rebate:                   $-3,500.00
Total Out the Door:       $27,160.83
Federal Tax Credit:       $-7,500.00
5 years of tags:               $    60.00
Price after Tax Credits: $19,720.83

Or about $60-80k less than a Tesla S. To get the max tax credit you have to have paid at least that much in Federal Taxes in the year you purchase the car. Check with your accountant to make sure you qualify. It might make more sense to lease if you don’t get most if not all of it.

In Arizona the License Plates are only $30 a year and you have access to the HOV Lane. In California the plates are more but they give an extra $2500 tax credit which more that offsets that. There are other incentives available depending which State you are in.

To find currently available Federal Tax Credits Click Here. For current incentives and tax credits in you State Click Here.

I did get the windows tinted with SunTek CXP for $370 plus a set of wheel locks for $35 off eBay so I guess I have a few more bucks in it but I still consider that a smoking deal.

That’s a lot of car for 20k. Try and find a used one for that price let alone a gas model Focus with the same trim level.

And to date I have never got home with less than 20 miles of charge left on it. Thats running the AC in the Arizona Sun. I’m also not hypermileing.

My utility company also has a EV value charge plan where midnight to 0500 is 6 cents a KWH and I’m averaging 4 miles per KWH so 1.5 cents per mile. The average car in the same class as the Focus gets 30 MPG.

So if my math is correct, 30 miles in this car costs 45 cents. Compared to a gallon of gas today at $2.19 I’m saving the equivalent of $1.74 per gallon.

That’s almost 6 cents per mile. I doubt gas is going much lower. But even if it did, I haven’t seen 45 cent gas since 1971.

If gas goes back to $4 a gallon then I’m saving close to 12 cents per mile.

Should we see $1 gas again then it’s still a savings of $3k over 100k miles. $2 gas,  $6k savings and $4 gas $12k savings at 100k miles.

And don’t buy the BS that an electric car will be worthless in just a few years. After 3 years the car will be worth at least 14k. Even if the battery loses 10% of it’s range. The odds of that are slim. The Ford Battery is liquid cooled unlike the Leaf.

My 2011 Miata which cost $25k out the door sold 3 years later with 31k miles on it for $14k An $11k loss. It also needed 3 oil changes during that 3 years and only got 26 MPG with $3 a gallon gas average.

Any car should easily get 100k miles and if taken care of 300k miles or 15 years before repairs cost more than its worth..

The Focus Electric is much more practical than the Miata with room for 4 and some Cargo space. The back seats also fold down. I have put a bicycle in the back with both wheels on it.

In the 3 years I owned my Miata it only went more than 70-80 miles in a day twice. Those two times we could have rented a car. It went 600 miles in 3 days and it would have made more sense to rent for those trips.

If you are interested in a Nissan Leaf you won’t get as much car for the money. I spent about 2 weeks negotiating on one before I decided it wasn’t a sound financial decision. At least not yet at their current prices. A fully loaded Leaf is almost $6k more than a Ford Focus. A bare bones Leaf S is comparable in price after dealer incentives but with far less luxury.

Thanks to Justin Tezano at Santa Monica Ford for making this deal happen. Mossy Ford in San Diego and Frankie Musilli had the deal first but their F&I guy got greedy and blew the deal.

A version of this post is in my other blog at www.imreallycheap.com