Detroit's gargantuan motor show starts on 9 January. When the doors open at 6am on Monday, more than 5,000 journalists from 50-plus countries will descend on the city's Cobo convention centre for a first look at the hottest new vehicles.
Once again the world's top car firms are showcasing electric cars and hybrid vehicles. BMW, General Motors, Lexus, Mercedes, Nissan, Toyota, Volvo – all have new electric or hybrid cars to show off. As usual they will garner huge amounts of coverage. But will anyone buy them?
The signs are not good. Last year GM's Chevy Volt was named car of the year at the Detroit auto show, beating the Nissan Leaf. The Volt runs on a combination of battery and old school combustion engine, the Leaf is all electric – they were heralded as the first mass market electric cars. Neither has proved a hit with consumers. Both missed their 10,000 vehicle sales targets for the year, Nissan by a fraction and Volt by more than 2,000. By comparison, Toyota sold 308,510 Camrys last year. As if to rub it in, the new year got off to a bad start for the Volt, with GM asking owners to bring in their cars to dealerships after problems with their batteries.
Some analysts are predicting this could be a pivotal year for the industry's flirtation with alternative fuels. After the worst recession in living memory, car sales are bouncing back. Overall, auto sales were up more than 10% in the US last year. But while consumers returned to the showrooms, sales of "alternative power source light vehicles" rose just 2.3%, according to the analysts WardsAuto.
Even industry executives are not optimistic. A survey of global car executives by KPMG recently found that they do not expect electric-car sales to exceed 15% of annual global car sales before 2025. This figure is still far higher than most independent analysts offer.
"This could be a crunch year," said Ed Hellwig of the auto analysts Edmunds.com. Consumers will have access to more supply and more choices in alternative-fuel cars than ever in 2012. "This could be the year when we see whether this is really ready to go mainstream or the public just aren't interested," he said.
Sales of hybrid cars in general have been flat for the past few years, said Anthony Pratt, director of forecasting at the car industry analysts Polk. Even in Europe, where petrol prices are far higher, the electric and hybrid market remained tiny, he said. And in the short term things could even get worse.
Alternative-fuel cars are competing with vehicles from manufacturers that have undergone a Damascene conversion to energy efficiency. Detroit's big three in particular suffered terribly after betting their businesses on gas-guzzling behemoths as the recession bit and petrol prices soared. Now all the major companies boast fuel-efficient technology and less thirsty cars that make the switch to hybrid or electric vehicles more difficult for consumers to make on a purely economic level.
Paul Taylor, the National Automobile Dealers Association's chief economist, said that, much to the chagrin of car manufacturers and the green lobby, consumers were conducting a "rational cost-benefit analysis". He added: "People are enthusiastic about hybrid and electric cars but when they see how much they cost, they want to test drive something else."
This lack of enthusiasm has been going on for some time. Even when oil prices reached record highs, sales of alternatively fuelled cars rose only modestly, Taylor said.
Brandon Mason, senior analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Autofacts group, said more efficient combustion engines are cutting consumption by 15%-25% in some vehicles. "There are a lot of very competitive and fuel-efficient cars out there right now."
However, new fuels are going to play an increasingly important role, Mason said. "With any new technology you need to bring the price down and get the infrastructure right. That is going to take some time."
In the long term, alternative fuels will receive some significant boosts. The US government has asked manufacturers to make 35.5 miles per US gallon (mpg) – equivalent to 15km a litre – standard by 2016, far above today's 22mpg average but still within reach of old technology. By 2025, the US wants manufacturers to have doubled fuel efficiency.
On top of that, some states, including California, require manufacturers to have at least one zero-emission car in their fleets. Over time these factors should help boost alternative-fuel sales.
Meanwhile, few expect the carmakers to cut back their heavy investment in new technologies. "It's the price of poker," Pratt said. Manufacturers have to be involved in the latest technology. But that technology is in its infancy, and the next five years could be even more challenging."
Comments
6 January 2012 10:39PM
Price is the deterrent
6 January 2012 10:46PM
489a and range and charging , and its getting increasingly clear long term batter life , although 5 years is hardly long term in reality .
' A survey of global car executives by KPMG recently found that they do not expect electric-car sales to exceed 15% of annual global car sales before 2025. '
good luck with that idea but its an irony of EV that was the numbers become significant they will start getting hit for tax, to make up for the short fall in fuel tax, so they advantage of cost will disappear.
6 January 2012 11:04PM
All car manufacturers are dinosaurs.
Electric vehicles are so tied into weight the only real way forward is a tiny light single person vehicle.
6 January 2012 11:32PM
The battery electric vehicle (BEV) will be forevere stuck in a niche market. Think golf carts for the street. Now that still may be a large market. Retirees usually only drive a short distance per year and hardly use the freeways.
In California, there may be a subsidy for zero emission vehicles. BEVs will be exempt from smog inspection. This is something the hybrids and plug-in-hybrids will still have to put up with. Unfornately, diesels and trucks over a certain gross weight are also smog exempt. Someone that only drives short distances per year might just as well get a large truck or early Humvee to avoid smog test. At 4000 miles/y, 5 USD/gallon gas would still be less than insurance.
California indirectly subsidizes clean vehicles with the smog crusher fund. I drove an 80 Chevrolet Citation to the smog crusher and rode home on the bus with a 1000 USD check. I very much did not want to replace the rack and pinion steering a second time. So, if the State wants to subsidize clean air by crushing old card, it might also subsidize BEVs.
The latest BEV killer is the FAA:
USA FAA Emergency Airworthiness AD 2011-21-51 effective 11012011, pertaining to Cessna 525C aircraft to replace lithium-ion (Cessna part numberr 9914788-1) batteries with Ni-Cad or lead acid battery. "This AD was prompted by a report of a battery fire that resulted after an energized ground power unit was connected to one of the affected airplanes equipped wiht a lithium-ion batter as the main aircraft battery.
The Ni-Cad batteries also tend to have thermal runaway during constant voltage charging. Some of them have been replaced with lead-acid. Everyone seems to keep going back to the lead-acid batteries, at least in aviation. Hard to run away from a fire while in flight.
The othre BEV killer is "renewable energy." I have been unable to get the full boat cost of wind or solar busbar power below 25 cents/kWh. My own research on a BEV motorcycle got 10 miles per kWh. Cars get 1/3 the range, or 3 miles per kWh. At 25 cents/kWh, this is 0.08 USD/mile. At 50 mpg and 5 USD/gallon, diesel car fuel cost is 0.10 USD/mile. Hardly a significant difference.
Still might be hope for the hydrogen fuel cell. Problem here is weight. A 2 tonne fuel cell car that has 60% efficiency uses the same amount of hydrogen as a 1 tonne aluminum combustion car at 30% efficiency. Only outlier is fuel cell car could participate in a D2O enrichment cycle. D2O piles could produce the power to make hydrogen. Yess I have too much free time.
7 January 2012 1:18AM
I get around 55mpg from my 12 year old VW Golf.
Why would I want to pay tens of thousands for something that is no better?
7 January 2012 5:26AM
North America needs small diesel cars and small pick-ups,and enough bull about high sulphur diesel in Canada and the U.S.We can easily make low sulphur diesel in North America like Europe
7 January 2012 6:42AM
OCCUPY BIKE SEAT
7 January 2012 9:02AM
I make only short journeys, we've had solar panels installed. They make sense to me but I still have concerns over the cost of cell replacement, which is rarely mentioned.
The real key, here and elsewhere, is efficient and convenient energy storage. The person that cracks that will be a very rich person indeed.
Still, it's good that they're taking this seriously. Almost certainly the product will improve and drop in price. Carbon fuel has to get considerably pricier in the future, there has to be an alternative and so far, this is it.
7 January 2012 9:49AM
That is exactly the trouble! Because it has already been cracked and it is called the petrol/diesel tank!
Given the state of physics today...I reckon we are closer to a car-suitable small nuclear power plant or an engine that runs on water than to a "battery" which will give us the same range, costs and efficiency as a small diesel engine and a tank of gas.
You are right. We need that breakthrough. The present crop of cars are playthings for the rich and guilty.
7 January 2012 10:05AM
So is practicality. If you park in the street then you have no way to charge it. For this reason electric is quite simply not an option for many people.
7 January 2012 10:12AM
Electric cars are not the answer. They still indirectly consume fossil fuels and release emissions! I wouldn't buy one. I feel the super efficient cars of the future reaching 300mpg are better than electric cars.
Improved public transport, a reduction/improvement in air travel, more efficient vehicles would have a bigger benefit than electric cars. They are simply masking the problem. Until electric cars can be fully fuelled by renewable energy, and that is a way off I suspect, then they are no better than FF powered cars.
7 January 2012 10:18AM
How would one get the kids to school in one of these?
7 January 2012 10:51AM
Finally, we have an issue where the die hard petrol heads, and die hard greens can speak as one. Current electric cars are a pointless diversion.
7 January 2012 11:03AM
Electric cars are obviously going to be the future eventually, but as the article says it's all about getting the cost down and reliability and range up first before they become realistic mass market competitors. The science of batteries and electric engines is rapidly moving improving the technical specifications, but because it's all fairly cutting edge technology there aren't any cheap manufacturing techniques or scaled processes to produce them without significant extra cost. Electric cars aren't intrinsically more expensive to produce than petrol/diesel ones, it's just the lack of a large scale supply chain to get the parts produced efficiently in enough numbers that is the issue.
7 January 2012 11:15AM
Obviously not if people don't have anywhere to plug them in. Most city dwellers live in flats and do not have drives or garages with power points. If I bought one right now I could drive it until the battery drained and then it would become useless as I have nowhere to charge.
7 January 2012 11:57AM
Its a complex problem and the outcome is impossible to predict.
As a technophile I rather assume that the key to resolving the issue is technological.
The biggest problem that EVs face is the current state of battery technology. Batteries are heavy, and store comparatively little energy. This is offset, to some extent, by the simplicity of the drive train (no gearbox, water cooling, alternator etc) but even so a very large proportion of the mass of an EV is its batteries.
Herin lies the big imponderable: will technology allow us to develop batteries which manage to combine high energy density, long life and easy recyclability?
If the answer is yes, then EVs will secure a decent niche, if not then we must look to more 'blue sky' technologies for our low-carbon personal transport.
A final thought is that maybe our rulers will enforce a 'low carbon' solution that makes it difficult or impossible for the common man or woman to use cars.
At present, insulated in their comfy leadership bubbles they see the private car as a political problem, not a 'real' one. Putting up fuel prices costs votes.
In the not very distant future the enormity of the effects of Climate Change will start to filter into their insulated lives. When this happens, expect the 'market' suddenly to discover the true costs of the private car. Expect to do a lot more walking.....
7 January 2012 1:36PM
Oh why why why are electric cars "green"? Where does electricity come from?
7 January 2012 1:52PM
Is that Imperial Gallons or US gallons?
7 January 2012 1:53PM
@HenryBlince
Not sure anyone has a firm idea what price solar panel cells will be in ten years time. Price at the moment has dropped a lot because the Chinese started manufacturing them in bulk.
It's in the sellers interests not to suggest prices will rapidly go down, as then people may decide to wait another year rather than buy now...
7 January 2012 2:30PM
The 55mpg is imperial
In US gallons I get about 46mpg
7 January 2012 2:41PM
Might I recommend that you take a look at e-bikes.
Pedal/Electric hybrids.
Ideal for your short journeys.
A perfect partner for your solar panels.
Easy to use, the steady gentle pedalling gets you fit.
After a few weeks to limber up try towing a trailer for those heavier loads, the weekly shop.
7 January 2012 2:59PM
The only way to make electric cars viable would be to have an overhead wire system on all main roads. Then your smallish battery would get you far enough to hook up to the power line and away you go.
Of course to overtake you would have to disengage and go back to battery power.
Meanwhile, as someone said it's strictly a niche market.
7 January 2012 3:13PM
Very odd that people are not willing to shell out a few bucks. Perhaps the public does not understand that global warming is an imenent threat that will kill us all very soon.
7 January 2012 3:39PM
LOL
7 January 2012 3:42PM
And switching to a car powered largely by coal fed plants is the solution?
7 January 2012 4:08PM
I assume you are joking. If not would you care to provide us a link to evidence that backs up this prediction?
7 January 2012 4:12PM
If I owned an electric car and had enough solar panels to be able to charge it independently.
Then how would the government justify taxing me?
Are you saying Road Fund will be approximately £4000/£5000 per annum?
Would the people swallow this?
7 January 2012 4:44PM
Energy is the problem(and has been since the beginning of the human race. the average car has maybe 70HP(52 Kw) even ben hur had to make do with 4HP (3Kw),about the same as a moped, the human race has simply been spoiled for the last century, prepare to walk,(human being 0.6Kw).
7 January 2012 5:02PM
...called a bicycle !
7 January 2012 5:03PM
Read what Mackay has to say. Electric cars are much more energy efficient so even if you burnt oil to produce all the electricity for them you'd burn less oil. More to the point we're going to need to reduce carbon intensity of energy anyway so they'll only get more low carbon with time. Lastly they could actually increase the proportion of fluctuating renewable energy on the grid as the batteries could effectively absorb what would otherwise be wasted energy. Similarly if they were charged at current low demand times they could increase the proportion of baseload energy which is economically provided by nuclear and reduce the cost of producing electricity by reducing the proportion of idle capacity on the grid.
Whilst as someone who works in arhcitecure/urbanism I don't have a very positive view of the effect automobiles have on our urban environments I think we have to be realistic about the urban environments we've inherited. In the US in particular where cities have already done the bulk of their growth they have been designed by the car. Whilst high density European cities are more easily modified to make cycling and public transport a mainstream choice (Groningen, Amsterdam and Copenhagen) your Phoenix or LA will remain super low density cities structured around cars. Car clubs and electrification of cars are a viable means of lessening this impact, in combination with decarbonising electricity supply.
As for your super efficient 300mpg car I'd love to hear about it in more detail. That sounds to me like it's testing the laws of physics!
7 January 2012 5:15PM
These new electrics are cute and efficient. The technology is amazing and will get more amazing over time. A simple example of what electric can do for you: there are led flashlights out now that are as powerful as a car headlight and require a battery the size of a penlight. Look at the high end flashlights and then tell me that the electric car is the wrong path! Some day we'll be powering a trip to the store with a battery the size of your fist. Get on board with new technology or get left behind.
7 January 2012 5:47PM
it would be in the future man and the kids would be teleported to Mars for their hyperdrive physics lesson...
7 January 2012 5:51PM
As a 'die hard greeny' that the pro-pollution, kill the poor, climate deniers, love to hate I ran an electric car for 5 years. I thought it was a great car but the lead acid battery has a limited range. So I had to look at other options for the occasional longer journey. But lead acid batteries can certainly meet the needs of most people, most of the time.
But will they pay so much more for fewer miles? Certainly very few people are going to pay out a heck of a lot more for next generation batteries.
Here in the UK, as petrol gets more epensive, people simply use their cars less. During the period Jan to Sept 2011 UK motorists consumed 1 billion fewer litres of petrol compared to the same period the year before. So, as petrol gradually increases due to 'peak oil' we can be reasonably certain what will happen - people will go back to walking, cycling and using the bus !
This proves what the environmental has been saying for years - politicans should stop squandering money on more roads and invest in public transport & cycle paths. We were right all along !
7 January 2012 6:03PM
"All these electric cars – who's going to buy them?"
Presumably, those who delude themselves with the belief that electric cars are zero emission, implicitly ignoring the emissions generated throughout the manufacture of each component, through the supply of electricity, and through the processing at the end of the life cycle.
Of course, there will be those car buyers who, having viewed the Jetsons animated series, will be waiting for the Flying Car, and those who watched Back To The Future, will be looking to buy a "Mr Fusion" energy source as an alternative to hydrocarbon fuel.
7 January 2012 6:06PM
With respect, the flashlights are amazing, but the LED motor is unfortunately impossible.
The laws of physics demand much higher energies for that sort of thing.
What is important with the flashlight is the increasing capacity of its rechargeable batteries over the years.
My oldest AA,s are 1600mAh, the newer ones 2500.
Whether they can realistically power a direct replacement for the infernal combustion engine is yet to be seen. Will we really have a suitable energy source so that we can afford to continue charging around at 70mph in individual steel cages.
Perhaps, shock horror, part of the solution would be to slow down a bit, relax, enjoy the view.
7 January 2012 6:21PM
I'm no expert but I'm I believe electric engines are already very efficient in terms of converting energy to power output. I'm sure Tesla is claiming 88%. If that's true don't expect any massive gains in the electric motor department that will enable an electric car to run on a motor the size of your fist.
7 January 2012 6:27PM
Try that in an electric car and you will have plenty of time to 'enjoy the view' - when the juice runs out well within the hour.
A better option in the near future could be the natural gas vehicle
At least it can be refilled in a short time.
7 January 2012 6:40PM
Die hard gas users, fifty years ago the computer you are using would have filled the empire state building. I'm sure the vacuum tube fanatics were very upset when someone invented the transistor. And the transistor fanatics were down in the dumps when there was a micro sd card. Move on. Get real. Times are changing. You will be left in the dust of some new invention very soon. And guess what: you will shell out the dough for it just as you do for your latest-thing computer.
7 January 2012 6:55PM
Polyphase induction motors are usually around the 95 to 98% efficient mark.
The overall oil-well to roadwheel thermal efficiency of an electric car is around twice that of a petrol car, a little less than twice for a modern diesel car.
Contrary to the views of some on these pages, the electricity grid distribution losses are quite small at around 7 or 8%. Gains in electric vehicle range will come only from improvements in battery technology.
7 January 2012 7:03PM
Personally, I think e-bikes are perfectly good for most of the short journeys undertaken, for a much smaller expenditure of energy.
A few years back, I built a recumbent trike with a motor and a solar panel fitted.
A joy to ride, and for the very low duty cycle involved, the panel provided adequate recharging.
Unfortunately, as long as the roads are populated by blacked out chelsea tractors, I am not willing to risk my neck to test it fully.
I'll carry on playing with it off road, but it remains a toy.
When the dinosaurs are gone, and the speeds come down, I'll be ready.
7 January 2012 7:10PM
Not many seats on a bike though.
7 January 2012 7:10PM
You are not asking the right question which is: Where does the electricity come from?
Since the UK generates close to 80 % of its electricity with gas, coal and oil, your electric car is in fact fossil-fuel powered. Ditto Germany, the US, China, Japan, Denmark etc.
7 January 2012 7:16PM
I could take two adult passengers or four kids on the back of my trike.
With a 5mph speed limit around a festival site.
Until I bolted the solar panel onto the seat instead.
You will just have to get your own.
7 January 2012 7:20PM
Thanks, that's the point I was trying to make. Electric motors are about as efficient as they physically can be so we are not expecting any big future improvements in that area.
7 January 2012 7:24PM
The most straightforward way to increase range is to increase the energy storage capacity of the batteries. This is difficult to do for the simple reason that batteries have to carry their own oxidizer and then they have to lug around the oxidized products after they discharge. Internal combustion engines, in contrast, get their oxygen from air, and then they dump their combustion products into the atmosphere. Thus an IC car starts out lighter than a fully fueled BEV and gets lighter still as it burns off fuel. According to ExxonMobil (and you can check their math), "A typical car’s gasoline tank contains less than 100 pounds of gasoline but can power a 3,000 pound car for 400 miles at 60 miles per hour." This is a severe standard for batteries to equal, particularly in countries that have spent decades building everything around the performance characteristics of IC cars.
The scope for battery improvement is constrained by the need to use light elements which give the highest energy per gram when they react. This limits the set of potential battery chemicals to the light end of the periodic table of the elements. Pretty much everything about their physical chemistry is probably already known, and has been known for decades, so don't expect shocking breakthrough discoveries of new, drastically more energetic reactions for use in batteries.
Another problem with highly energetic batteries is that they must contain all the reacting chemicals in a package together. Such chemicals typically "want" to react rapidly (i.e., explode) and the trick with battery design is to slow down the reaction to a controlled rate. It is hard to come up with inherently safe designs with inherently dangerous chemicals in tight proximity.
A tank of liquid hydrocarbon fuel is also hazardous, but to explode like a bomb its contents must be mixed with a large volume of air. Military aircraft are equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks which are designed to prevent the fuel from mixing with air, and it is possible to shoot 20mm shells through such tanks without making the fuel explode.
Secondary methods of extending battery range can make incremental improvements: better vehicle aerodynamics, better roads to minimize rolling resistance, better traffic controls to minimize unnecessary stops, driver education for fuel economizing behaviors, etc. However, these secondary methods also improve IC car fuel economy and so provide no competitive advantage for BEVs.
BEVs are unlikely to compete with IC cars purely on the basis of performance for the foreseeable future (say in the next 30 years). However, this assumes the availability of liquid fuels for the IC cars. If the supply of liquid fuels cannot meet demand, for example if China and India add another two billion cars to the present global fleet of one billion, and the oil industry does not discover the required number of new Saudi Arabias, then BEVs won't be competing with IC cars at the margin, but rather they will compete with bicycles and electric trains.
The picture would change if consumers generally started to believe climate science and recognize that continuing to burn fossil fuels is not compatible with the long-term survival of organized civilization. In that case, the comparison between IC cars and BEVs will not be solely on the basis of performance (i.e., short term benefits to the users), but also on the basis of whether people feel comfortable contributing personally to climate genocide.
But in that case it is better still to ride bicycles and telecommute than to commute by any sort of motorized personal vehicle, so the most natural market for BEVs would consist of people who would rationally prefer to not drive at all.
7 January 2012 7:27PM
That's true, but it is still markedly more efficient to have a car powered by fossil generated electricity than by fossil fuels directly.
This is largely because small is not good when it comes to power plant. A modern fossil fuelled power station will be around 35-40% thermal efficiency for oil or coal, and about 50-55% for CCGT. By contrast, the engine in your petrol car is about 20-25% efficient.
Interestingly enough, similar inconvenient facts apply to micro-generation, a folly popular amongst the metropolitans - overall, it is rather less efficient than centralised generation and grid distribution.
7 January 2012 7:32PM
Liquid fuels for cars can easily enough be made from coal or natural gas, of neither of which is there a particular shortage. Crude oil is not necessary for the production of petroleum fuels, although it does make it a little easier.
But that isn't happening - quite the reverse. That's your real problem. Still, likely too late now.
7 January 2012 7:47PM
True, and would such people be willing to pay more than their fuel-burning friends for a vehicle that gets little use? It may not even be possible to build millions of battery-powered cars per year, even if people did want them.
Does it though? You seem to have overlooked the existence of natural gas as a vehicle fuel. It's already making headway for city buses (e.g. 100% for LA public buses), and light trucks could follow. Pakistan has over 2.7 million cars running on CNG, and there over 12 million worldwide. Not always as convenient as liquid fuel due to shorter range, but easy to refill compared to electric.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_natural_gas
7 January 2012 7:58PM
Since the UK generates close to 80 % of its electricity with gas, coal and oil, your electric car is in fact fossil-fuel powered. Ditto Germany, the US, China, Japan, Denmark etc.
That's true, but it is still markedly more efficient to have a car powered by fossil generated electricity than by fossil fuels directly. This is largely because small is not good when it comes to power plant. A modern fossil fuelled power station will be around 35-40% thermal efficiency for oil or coal, and about 50-55% for CCGT. By contrast, the engine in your petrol car is about 20-25% efficient.
Turbodiesel thermal efficiency is around 42-43%. Electricity transmission losses are 6-7 %. And there is the range issue... my diesel car gives me the range of 1000 km before refueling and that extra heat keeps you warm when temps are -20. For city driving electric car probably works fine.
Are the electric cars designed for winter use? With seat heaters, defrosters and proper heating?
In my opinion coal would be OK for CHP. 90% efficiency.
7 January 2012 8:06PM
Peak, in steady conditions at the most efficient load profile - i.e. in circumstances which virtually never apply. Power stations are designed to run at as stedy a load as possible, whereas car engines are designed to cope with the maximum possible load envisaged and still run with reasonable efficiency at more normal loads - the average real-world thermal efficiency is rather less than the 42-43% you quote.
Depends. In the UK, the average road vehicle journey (including trucks and commercial cars) is about seven miles. Over three quarters of all road journeys in the UK are less than three miles. For most people in the UK most of the time, the range of battery electric vehicles is emphatically not a problem.
There's no reason why a BEV coul not have a small diesel generator set in an optional trailer for longer distance journeys.
They can be. One could, for example, have the electrobuggy on charge overnight with a timer controlled heater such that it is defrosted, warm and comfortable when the driver needs it. The difficulty is not in this, it is rather in ensuring that there is mains power available at the other end of the journey so one can have the same benefit coming back.