With the US car market on its knees, petrol prices breaking records almost weekly and concerns over greenhouse gases now a factor in car-buying decisions, the electric car has never made better sense. Even Australians, who in 2008 are buying cars of all sizes (but only one means of propulsion) at record levels, might look at buying an electric car. So where is it?
The 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? tells a story of environmental vandalism, financial stupidity and political incompetence of the highest order. With electric cars able to carry you and your shopping home for around 1 cent per kilometer, why isn’t the public screaming for them? Given the recent spike in oil prices and devastation that has brought to the US car giants in particular, maybe they are.
An electric car has no emissions and could travel even using old technology (the Electric Vehicle Program began in the mid-1980s) around 120 kilometers without a charge. While electric vehicles aren’t completely emission-free (the electricity has to come from somewhere, usually coal or gas fired power-stations), it is still more efficient and environmentally sustainable option than petrol (and at least has the potential to utilise renewable energy down the track).
Way back in 1990, California passed a bill requiring car companies to manufacture a specific proportion of their cars as “non-emission vehicles”. That proportion would rise to 10% in 2003. GM (and others, including Ford) started selling electric cars in 1996. According to the company, it spent more than US$1 billion on advertising, recharge stations and other infrastructure. Abruptly in 2001, GM terminated production of the electric vehicle, firing staff and closing manufacturing facilities. GM proceeded to sue the Air Resources Board, the Californian regulator which had demanded the emission-free vehicles.
By 2004, all the EVs were off the road, repossessed by General Motors. Actor and EV driver, Peter Horton, noted that he had “never seen a company be so cannibalistic about its own product before.”
Rather than pursuing electric cars, General Motors purchased the Hummer brand from AM General and continued to push the sales of the then profitable gas-guzzling SUVs. However, skyrocketing oil prices have shown just how financially shortsighted Detroit was in dismissing electric vehicles. Dr Joseph Romm, Executive Director of the Centre for Energy and Climate Change Solutions described GM’s move as being “one of the biggest blunders in the history of the automotive industry.” (Ahh, hindsight.)
Further, the ease of creating electric cars shouldn’t be understated. In June, The Independent reported that a white-goods salesman in Gaza City built an electric car himself. According to inventor, Fayez Annan, “a six or seven-hour charge provides enough power to cover 110 miles at a cost of just over 90 pence. And all you need to charge the batteries is a simple mains plug. “It is like charging your mobile,” says Mr. Annan. “You can do it anywhere – even while you are shopping.” If an amateur mechanic in Gaza can produce an electric car, one would hope a car company with revenues of US$180 billion in revenues could come up with something.
GM shares currently trade at around US$10 per share – the lowest level in fifty years. Many suspect that the world’s largest automaker could soon slide into bankruptcy. GM announced last week that it had managed to lose US$15.5 billion for the three months ending 30 June 2008 (fellow Detroit-car maker Ford lost US$8.7 billion for the quarter).
To stem the red ink, GM recently announced that it would close four pickup and SUV factories, reducing production by 35% and laying off 10,000 workers. In an ironic move, GM also stated that it would also commence producing 100,000 electric powered Chevrolet Volts each year. Presidential candidate, John McCain stated that “the eyes of the world are now on the Volt. It’s the future of America and the world” while GM’s GM’s vice-president of global programme management, Jon Lauckner, claimed that “together we can transform automotive transportation as we know it, and get our nation and the world past oil dependence and heading toward a future that is electric.”
At last the world’s vehicle empires have seen the value in electric cars. Sadly, about a decade too late.
…and I thought I had been shouting into a vacuum for the last ten years. Where is political leadership and vision when you need it?
The energy model for electric cars has never been discussed. Consider. Most of our physical service delivery models are one way. Water and sewage move in one direction and we have always considered energy networks the same but with increasing efficiency in solar panels the energy network model is changing, Individual households can generate energy, send it to the grid when unused and retrieve it when required. So we now have the concept of using the energy netwoks across this country as storage batteries. When this model is developed we have an ideal support system for electrical energy use. Of which electric transporattaion is the most obvious. Millions of individual generators, located on roof tops supplement the energy requirements for an expanding fleet of electric cars. Governments at the moment lack the political will to allow electric cars (even thoughg they are the obvious solution to a large part of the CO2 emmission problem) as these vehicles will extract subsidised energy from the grip designed for working families to boil water for a cup of tea.. Electrical energy is cheaper than petroleum because it is subsidised. So we have to change the model.
The new model looks something like. Electric cars for domestic use and light delivery with domestic usres drawing and replacing energy as required; encouraged by a visonary government. New techniology diesel vehicles for medium and heavy transport. Nows here’s the sting. We need to also consider nuclear energy as well; one for the obvious reason that it is free of CO2 ( the argument that nuclear creates some thousnads of tons of waste per year looks silly beside several billion tons of CO2) and the second is that fusion energy is about 50 years away and we need to develop an entire industry to support it so we had better start now.
Back to the battery model. We have most of the network infrastructure now; we have the solar technology now and it can be packaged for easy installation across most of the coutry; we dont have to punish our industries; the battery model is affordable and progessively implementable.
We have access to more solar power than any country on earth; why on earth dont we use it.
Great article, Adam, but methinks there’s method in the madness of the car companies ( as Robert has suggested) and governments, including ours. In 2006, the Solar Shop brought in a model of the Reva car, the Califonria designed Indian-made electric car that sells for around $12000. The Howard government refused to allow it on our roads and threatened the SS with a fine of over $60,000 if they drove it off the lot. The WA government said they’d trial 50 of them, but didn’t get Fed. permission either. I wrote to the then Federal transport minister and was told that the car was not safe enough. Yet I can buy an electric scooter for $3500 in WA – as well as an array of electric bikes for less – and they are challenging to a geriatric like me compared to four wheels – so how can safety be the issue? The problem is that e-cars are very energy efficient and require very little maintenance. Our whole economy is based on the internal combustion engine – what politician can take on the car and fossil fuel industries and survive? Now that it is clear that the planet is threatened, it’s time to write to every politician in Australia and shame them into allowing the importation of the e-cars that are running happily around London and the rest of Europe. Or convert your own – that IS legal. Michael Symons in Kenthurst NSW has been driving his for the last twenty years and is a fund of information. And he told me that the local Woolworth’s allows free charging to customers, as many others in the town have converted.
I know that when given the choice between seeing some disastrous policy as the result of conspiracy or cock-up, the smart money usually come down on the side of ‘cock-up’ – but when GM does something as monumentally stupid as dumping the electric car AND buying the Hummer, you have to wonder.
So tell us Crikey, how much overlap is there between oil company and auto manufacturer boardrooms?
Alan Kennedy writes: Re. “Time for carmakers to plug electric cars into the transport grid” (Friday, item 24).
I beg to differ:
1. You may not have noticed that over 600,000 homes in NSW now buy green electricity from the grid. That’s an indication of how many people are prepared to pay more for electricity – if it’s pollution free. And that’s before we can even buy plug-in electric cars.
2. The same sort of people, me included, are looking forward to the time when we can cut our petrol bills from around $3,000 p.a to around $450 for green electricity to cover the same annual Kms. Didn’t you know that?
So please cease propagating that tired old myth that EV’s pollute because they use coal-generated electricity. That’s just F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty & doubt) spread by those who profit from fossil fuels. And you wouldn’t want to be thought of as one of those now, would you?
Australia’s own Angus MacKenzie over at Motortrend USA has a different (and more plausible) critique;
http://blogs.motortrend.com/6247007/editorial/no-one-killed-the-electric-car-it-was-dead-on-arrival/index.html
Also, electric cars should be referred to as having no LOCAL emissions, not NO emissions.
GM (Holden too), Ford and Chrysler have had incompetent management for the last 30 years. They’re examples of the very worst short-term business thinking that will be (basket) case studies in years to come.