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How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

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Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#71

Post by JshWright »

S_A_P wrote: post #43
pmontra wrote: post #13

A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas…

I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size can equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one h…

The thing 'size' gets you is crumple zones. A bigger vehicle has a lot more material that can be engineered to deform and absorb the energy of the impact, spreading the deceleration over a longer period of time.

A small car can be designed to prevent intrusion into the passenger compartment, but it can't do anything about the g-forces of the collision (which can seriously ruin your day...).

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#72

Post by madaxe_again »

TheCowboy wrote: post #60
madaxe_again wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orders of magnitude doesn't mean 1000x - just 10x is enough. As to fracking - the wheels have already fallen off, low oil prices forced a production hiatus, stop/start is inefficient and costly, and you need only look at the headlong rush in the UK that kinda petered out to get an idea of where fracking is going - nowhere. The fossil sector is in big, big trouble - this chaotic oscillator will not stop until the mark…

Where are you getting the information that stop/start is inefficient and costly for fracking? It's less than conventional oil wells. I've found a significant cost of fracking is establishing the wells. If the price goes up that much, fracking is viable and will happen. The only way fracking is out of the equation if when low prices keep it from being profitable. Fracking presently functions as a cap on the price. If…

Info mostly comes from banter with energy market traders who are getting ready for a mixture of feast and bloodbath. I used to work a futures desk, mostly on intermediates. I got a decent sense of the market in those few years, and watching it is an ongoing pastime. Re: the specifics around fracking start/stop - it's staff. You either retain salaried workers who are unproductive for stretches, or you work contractors, which is expensive. Either way it drives up cost.

Re the demand driven bit - I explained that poorly. Oil is a very "special" commodity, in that it has spectacular investment costs, incredible levels of state funding (and debt), and a price determined by anticipated demand more than anything else I'm aware of - you need only look at the volume curve across futures to see this - and the fact that we are still in a contango market. This adds up to the price of oil being driven by overall economic growth forecasts, which are theoretically demand, but aren't. This results in expenditure (exploration and exploitation), which has a several year time lag. Fracking has been oh-jesus expensive and may never turn a profit. Investors (states) are getting shy.

I'm still explaining this poorly - I'd need to write an essay to convey what I'm trying to get at - there are a few dynamics at play and I will be amazed if we don't start seeing even more instability.

Confidence in the market is very, very low. Talk to traders, not what the press says. Of course the press says it's rosy - nobody wants a premature sell-off, even if there could be some tasty dead cats in it for the vultures. We still need oil for energy for the time being.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#73

Post by mywittyname »

S_A_P wrote: post #43
pmontra wrote: post #13

A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas…

I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size can equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one h…

Safety also works both ways in a multi car situation. You're better off hitting a new Golf in your 90s Corolla than another 90s Corolla.

Also, a little talked about statistic is that most vehicle fatalities occur in single car accidents. Turns out, even a big ol' SUV is more forgiving than a telephone pole.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#75

Post by ljf »

grandalf wrote: post #58

When you buy a car in the US, most of what you pay for is fancy molded plastic and attractive sheet metal work, cleverly organized by the manufacturer into trim level "tiers" intended to create maximum perceived value. The package is then financed or leased with incentive financing and the sights are set on getting you to replace it after 2-4 years whether it needs to be replaced or not. I think a 6 passenger mini-va…

I like this idea, but as someone that recently survived a fairly nasty car accident at less than 60mph, I'd want to see what safety measures you also got for that money. Nothing makes me more happy than that I had the accident in my volvo. It was a decently priced 2nd hand car, but it's safety features are what saved me.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#76

Post by roel_v »

madaxe_again wrote: post #22
jblok wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea buying property on busy roads, but why would they become less busy solely because of electric cars? Yes, they may be quieter and cleaner, but you still have the eyesore of a road, and the associated people that roads bring.

Because with EVs we will see the rise of autonomous vehicles - once you have a car that is run by a computer and powered by electricity, and self-driving tech is available and affordable, it becomes a no-brainer. Once autonomous vehicles become prevalent, traffic volume should drop, as we'll see less car ownership and more car use, meaning fewer cars parking, better traffic flow, etc. I believe the future of road tra…

"Think A-roads in town centres, with houses on one side and a park on the other."

Where are those houses so cheap that it becomes profitable to bet on the emergence of autonomous EV's only? Cheap houses are cheap in most places because they're in undesirable locations. I can imagine houses in commuting distance of major job centers becoming more attractive with autonomous vehicles (I mean, the commuting distance will become larger, i.e. the 'ring' expanding) but that expansion won't be hundreds of miles. And houses within this distance aren't that much cheaper that it becomes feasible to buy in bulk and hoard (well maybe you're spending hundreds of millions, I don't know).

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#77

Post by petra »

pmontra wrote: post #13

A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas…

What's the range, how does the charging situation and swapping cars between people works in such rental business ?

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#78

Post by overcast »

S_A_P wrote: post #43
pmontra wrote: post #13

A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas…

I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size can equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one h…

Have you seen the smart car crashes? Those cages can survive head on 60mph crashes to a brick wall. The issue here is that the soft human inside will not. Larger cars incorporate crumple zones, which absorb a ton of the impact, while small cars with extremely strong frames do not. The passenger absorbs all the energy = death.

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#79

Post by Someone1234 »

S_A_P wrote: post #43
pmontra wrote: post #13

A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas…

I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size can equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one h…

This issue was covered in great depth when the Smart Car (e.g. Fortwo) got popular in Europe. Smart Cars have a lot of safety features, seat belts, airbags (4x), ABS, stability control, but the question was really about impact distribution.

They put in a tridion protection cell[0] and moved the engine to the back to offer SOME crumple at the front. The Euro NCAP rated it 4/5, IIHS rated it "good" but it later failed the partial frontal collision test ("poor").

A Smart Car likely would do alright in most collisions. Although it somewhat benefits from the large crumple zones of every other vehicle has on the road. If two Smart Cars collided head on, the results might be worse than if a Smart Car collided with any other vehicle type.

That all being said, just because Smart managed it, doesn't mean every small car is equally safe. Without the tridion cell and SOME crumple zone, it would be a much less safe vehicle.

[0] http://auto.howstuffworks.com/smart-car1.htm

Re: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

#80

Post by madaxe_again »

brooklyndavs wrote: post #68
madaxe_again wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume a constant price for gasoline, which is a bold assumption, given that the oil markets are currently gyrating wildly, and have been for some time - we're likely to see prices at the pump go up by orders of magnitude over a relatively short timescale, which will provide a big push towards EV adoption, and will drive people away from older vehicles which guzzle gas. No, it isn't going to be overnight, but lik…

The irony, or market working I guess, is that as demand for gas and fossil fuel goes down so does the price. This keeps the incentive to keep burning gas. During this recent price drop larger vehicle sales with worse gas mileage increased. I live in a city myself and its hard to realize this when all you see are smaller cars around, but in suburban, rural, Texas, larger gas vehicle are still the rule vs the exception…

I just posted a reply elsewhere in this tree that expounds my thinking on oil.

In short, I think uncertainty and credit risk will cause the oil market to collapse rather sooner than most anticipate. Read up on the current contango oil market - it's unnerving stuff.

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