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Electric Car – It Dies Anew!
In February of 2012 I wrote a brilliant, prescient, and far-too-early prediction of the death of the electric car.
A123 is toast. Fisker is toast. Tesla is done for. All these hyped battery and superduperhypercapacitor companies are running aground, on the hard ground of a simple reality: gasoline/diesel are far, far, far better energy storage media than anything else. It is not even close.
….
The upshot is that the industry is falling back: it will adopt only those technologies that pay. Start-stop technologies work. Perhaps a series hybrid will pay,
And May of 2017, I doubled down, admitting that I was still too early, but still right.
And now…. The Chevy Volt was just cancelled.
Six years ago, President Barack Obama promised to buy a Chevy Volt after his presidency.
“I got to get inside a brand-new Chevy Volt fresh off the line,” Obama announced to a cheering crowd of United Auto Workers activists. “Even though Secret Service wouldn’t let me drive it. But I liked sitting in it. It was nice. I’ll bet it drives real good. And five years from now when I’m not president anymore, I’ll buy one and drive it myself.”
Now it looks like Obama will not get his chance to make good on the promise. General Motors announced Monday that it would cease production of the hybrid electric plug-in Volt and its gas-powered sister car the Cruze. The announcement came as part of a larger restructuring by the car company as it seeks to focus production around the bigger vehicles in favor with U.S. consumers.
And if the government subsidies would be pulled, I think the original prediction will still hold true: the cost-benefit analysis for electric (not hybrid like the Prius, but pure electric) makes it a terrible business on the basis of utility. The market will remain for people who have enough money to overpay for an inferior product in order to show their superiority.
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I’d have to buy a bigger car to haul that one home. And maybe a crane to lift it on. I should let Mrs R know of its existence, though. I’d want to stick with a two-wheel upright bicycle as long as I can. This one looked like fun:
I wouldn’t try to use it on climbs like that, though. I’m impressed that the younger guy on a regular bicycle has a voice for talking on those climbs. I’d be spending most of my time catching my breath at the side of the road. The closest I got to that was a climb up and over the ridge into Death Valley this March. It wasn’t nearly like that, and I did a lot of huffing and puffing at the side of the road.
OK. I’m 65. I rode a bike with a Shimano internal gear hub 5 miles through mild hills on an errand, and then back. About halfway back, one knee started to tell me “I don’t want to do this.” I got back, but the knee didn’t feel good for a month. As I started to build my ebike, I did all I could to use an IGH, but the guy at the shop said to me: “Dude, at your size this hub isn’t going to last under heavy use even without a motor. We replace a lot of them for guys who weigh more than 200 lbs. A pro cyclist cranking hard up a big hill produces maybe 500W.”
I said that the guys using high power mid drives on their ebikes were using derailleurs and treating the cassettes and gears as consumables and he said that was about right. My motor can put out up 1500W continuous power. OK, I’ve detuned it to 750W.
But if my knee goes wonky I can get home.
They use the hybrid diesel electrics in the New York area, because the city banned non-electrics into Grand Central and Penn Station a century ago due to an underground fire. Even now, the hybrids still have more problems than either the pure electric or the diesel trains (which have to start their runs either in Queens or in New Jersey).
Otlc,
So what you’re saying is that this thing suffers from “mission creep”, taking on too much as an engineering goal. This is the $100,000 Tesla of electric bicycles. Needs to be lighter, needs to be cheaper, needs to be totally reliable, 45 mph means it isn’t a bicycle and you’re going to pay insurance + license + registration.
Just for the engineering stuff alone, it was interesting. Some of their small solutions can probably be implemented on much lighter cheaper designs. They won’t have 150 miles of range but that’s not the niche of an electric bike anyway. Get me 10 miles and back, safe & sound, at under 25 mph without me breaking a real sweat. That’s the real niche for the electric bike.
Great comment thanks.
Regards,
Jim
With only small hills that’s easy. There are very nice ones available off the shelf that will reliably do that today, and more coming every year. A 250 or 300W Bosch mid drive and a Rohloff hub. Elegant.
Rohloffs are hand built and fitted in Germany; the gears sit in an oil bath. They’re basically bombproof for unpowered use, have sacrificial pins that protect the hub from excessive torque. (If the pins “work” the hub doesn’t work and you have to have it rebuilt. That only costs around 10% of the cost of a new hub.)
300W of assistance to a normal human rider seems to be reliable from what the salespeople and mechanics tell me.
The biggest San Francisco hills and/or hauling heavy stuff, you’re pushing the envelope.
People do run BBSHDs through Rohloff hubs and say they haven’t had to baby them too much. But… Rohloff apparently cautions against using the Schlumpf reduction gear bottom bracket with it due to potentially excessive input torque; IIRC that’s a 1.5:1 or 2:1 reduction. I’m no engineer but if unaided human output maxes at about 500W, doesn’t that suggest that the safety pins might fail at 750 or 1000 watts?
That sounds like a decent safety margin for the drive in its intended use, but… the full capacity of a BBSHD with upgraded electronics (the Chinese went cheap on critical MOSFETs) is 1500W continuous output which would mean the only thing standing between you and breaking the pins is how well you control the thumb throttle. Speaking of which, for that use, get a long bike or long frame recumbent to do that; 750W geared for hill climbing will do a wheelie on a standard frame. Don’t ask.
A high powered ebike with a Rohloff is basically a hot rod, not a daily driver for a non-hobbyist. Tough there was a guy I talked to when I was a kid who used a Ford Cobra as a daily driver… but then he “only” had the 289. I walked by that thing on the way to school. It still makes me drool remembering it.
Otlc,
The outrider is using a belt drive separate from the bicycle gear hub to deliver the big power. Are you sure that this would be unreliable?
Regards,
Jim
You’re right. You’re not using the motor in the most efficient way, and using the rear axle to couple the human and motor drives is kind of a brute force approach, but why not? Build it heavy enough, and brute force can be strong.
Even with light materials, I’d be surprised if the bike itself weighs much less than 50 -60 lbs with one battery. (The catalog seems to avoid this information, though it does say that the rider and gear can weigh up to 250 lbs.)
A Catrike, which is a nice human powered lightweight trike, runs about 35 lb. The motor alone is probably 10 lbs, the batteries probably about 10+ lbs each (a 1500 kwh battery from another vendor is about 15 lbs.)Curb weight with four batteries has got to be well over 70 lbs. Riding on pedals alone really would be a workout. Especially up a hill, and the NuVinci limits how low you can gear it to protect the hub.
In real life, this is a motorbike with pedal assist, which is why it works for people with disabilities. As long as you can move the thing with the pedals, it’s not a motor vehicle. For now. Sorta kinda. Regulations on the way.
One other aspect: if this is going to be a commuter, you really want secure parking. The batteries alone are $1500 each.
My ebike experience: I ride more often; if I’m in a hurry I use pedal assist to get another 3 – 5 mph over what I could do unassisted on the flats and I can ride back home (uphill) on leg day after lifting to failure. The motor is really nice for getting off a stoplight without annoying my knees, too.
Oltc,
Maybe Ret should take a look at the Catrikes. These lightweight recumbants are tempting without the battery as well.
Regards,
Jim
Nice kit, but that, like most of the ebike reviews on YouTube are on the flats. A 350W hub motor isn’t really good going up hill, so if that’s a factor in your ride you can do better.
For anything involving much hill climbing you want a mid drive for efficiency or the brute force approaches of a monster hub motor or a dual power rig like the Outrunner.
One problem is that the most efficient operating rpm for the motors is faster than even a fast pedaling cadence. That’s why people get involved with gearing, which has its own issues.
Two problems: 1) Recumbent. 2) Tricycle.
A time comes in a person’s life when a tricycle is good. But I ride where there are potholes to avoid and sometimes detour onto gravel roads where I weave back and forth to find the narrow lane where the surface is just so. Hard to manage a vehicle that’s two-wheels wide.
Also, an upright bicycle gives me more power when I pedal up hills. And I like the view from an upright. Sometimes people switch to recumbents when they have back problems. And this year I thought about it when getting some physical therapy for a back problem that was also interfering with my riding. I had the same problem a few years ago after running my garden tiller and mowing on a bumpy lawn early in the year. This year it happened again and the problem didn’t go away very quickly. I got some physical therapy, and learned some exercises that help. The other thing that helped was more riding and staying in better riding condition. Someday I may have to switch to a recumbent, but not yet.
Another problem with recumbents is that they are a religion. People who ride them are tireless proselytizers, preaching them as a moral virtue. At least that’s the way it was 20 years ago. In more recent years I run into more people who go touring on recumbents sometimes, and on upright diamond-frames at other times, without getting all religious about it.
Yet another problem with recumbents is that there are different styles, and it’s a long, expensive process figuring out which one is right for you.
Three problems, if like me you had a fall which injured your coccyx, which made even a recumbent bicycle unworkable. Wanna buy a Cruz Bikes conversion kit cheap? It comes with a free bike attached.
Another problem with recumbents is the high dork factor. And without flags, you’re less visible because of the lower height; a plus is that you’re leading with your feet instead of your skull if you hit something or are hit head on.
The base bike for my ebike is a hardtail, so I looked at suspension seatposts and did a lot of research. I really like the Suntour I bought.
BLUF:
Thudbuster, the most well known. Probably the best under $200 for big hits.
Suntour: Better on vibration than the Thudbuster. That makes it better for typical urban riding if you have a bad disc and probably reduces fatigue overall if you don’t.
Cirrus Body Float: supposed to be good at both; at $250 it should be.
This, by itself, would get me killed in my normal rides.
cirby,
This is an obvious problem. However, the simple solution is a whip antenna with a bright orange flag (or multiple flags) that is tall enough to be seen by all. The second easy solution has been provided by the super-bright low power consuming LED lights (now there are tall whip antennas with LEDs). Are you sure that falling off your two-wheeler isn’t a greater threat? Also, if you are biking with 20 other people they will see your flock coming but if it’s just you will they see you any better just because you are little higher off the ground? Motorcyclists who make enough noise to wake the dead are always complaining that the cars don’t see them.
Regards,
Jim
Many (many) years ago (1984-1985 timeframe), I worked in sales for a personal computer dealership (selling mainly IBM and Apple) in Pittsburgh. Both companies were trying to get into the home computer market, where the main competition at the time was from companies like Radio Shack, Commodore and Atari. IBM’s PCjr was a dud, and Apple had great difficulty translating its success in schools into the home market.
The newspapers and trade magazines were full of the brilliant things that pioneers willing to wade into the new technology at home would be able to do with the new machines. We were sure we were on our way to a killing. But somehow, it took much longer than we anticipated to get a foothold in the home market, and we had a saying, “This is going to be the year of the home computer. It always is and it always will be.” I sort of feel the same way about electric cars.
All who are not DUI and are paying attention, anyway.
It might be a good idea but I wouldn’t call it a solution. A human body will catch the eye in places where a little flag won’t. A big flag could cause problems with stability and wind resistance.
Personally, I don’t like to ride with other people in part because it’s more dangerous. I suppose a pack of bicycles is more visible, but they are more difficult for drivers to pass. And it’s harder for a driver to know just what he is passing, and how far the pack extends. If I’m alone, a driver who passes me and ducks back into his lane isn’t going to find out that, oops!, there’s another bicycler there. And then another.
Another reason I ride alone is that I’m not very fast and don’t care to try to keep up with others. Or in the rare case when I’m with slower people, I don’t have to slow down for them. Also, I stop a lot for photos where others don’t care to. However, at this stage of my life I’d be more than willing to learn to ride with others if Mrs R found that an ebike made it enjoyable enough to come along.
Plus the fact that people riding in packs tend to ride as if they own the road. Back in the remote past when wearing bicycle shorts and a jersey meant something, it seemed to be a point of pride that if you were riding on a street with traffic to keep up with the traffic. I used to know a guy who had been riding with his club; the whole pack got pulled over for doing 35 in the 25. He framed the ticket.
My worry isn’t about them seeing me – they won’t. That’s just a rule of bicycling.
The cute little flag? Might as well not exist. Maybe it could be useful if you wrote your blood type and emergency contact information on it, though. The lights would only really be effective at night, too.
I’m much, much more concerned about me seeing the other drivers as I approach intersections and such. There are far too many places where a low-height recumbent/trike rider won’t be able to see that moron who’s getting ready to blow through an intersection because of some carefully-tended hedges or a parked car.
Recumbents will be missed entirely by all the crossovers and SUVs, cute flag notwithstanding.
My kids bike all the time – and they are lit up like fire engines with lights all over. They still get hit by drivers that don’t see them. But I won’t get them electric assist – kids need the workout.
We thought 3 speeds were the bee’s knees back in the day. How my parents could afford them I have no idea.
iWe,
Sounds like the real deal. Drivers don’t see bicycles or perhaps our brains don’t process the information that our eyes deliver. Whatever it is it isn’t fun if you are riding. The electric assist idea really is about short distance commutes to work (under 10 miles) without having to take a shower when you get there. If you stay under 25 mph fully assisted you don’t need insurance, license, & registration.
The reason that I’m sort of pushing this is that over the course of my life I’ve seen huge strides in bicycle technology and huge strides in electric vehicle technology. Yet, neither have been employed to the end of lowering the cost of transportation. Bicycles are often just a rich man’s hobby (instead of paragliding or windsurfing) and electric vehicles cost more, not less. With all this great tech available you’d think that somebody would try to do something for the ordinary person trying to get to work or to the store to buy a bag of groceries.
The automobile was a rich man’s toy until Henry Ford built the Model T. The T didn’t innovate new technology, it innovated low cost & reliability that the ordinary person could afford.
Regards,
Jim
Funny you should mention Ford. They’re big into ebike share:
Otlc,
Are they selling their bike stand alone to the individual? This is still aimed at urban tourists who want to tour around San Francisco for fun. Not that this wouldn’t be a good proving ground. Hills, traffic, inexperienced riders who may abuse the equipment. If the bike’s good enough to handle all of that why aren’t they selling it straight to the public already?
Regards,
Jim
I see a lot of them being ridden around Berkeley and Oakland, too. The model is to not have people own them. The original version gets redocked and locked in a charging station; I think the station independent ones are serviced like the increasingly omnipresent shared e-scooters: they broadcast their location and are picked up by roving service vehicles. I don’t know how heavily subsidized it is, or the long term business plan. Here’s a link to their map.
Lime is a competitor for bikes and does scooters.
The urban planners in SF, Berkeley, Oakland, etc. want to eliminate cars as much as they can, which I think is why they’ve fast tracked approval for the docking sites in tandem with measures to increase the cost and inconvenience of owning a car in the city.
Otlc,
That’s classically what is wrong with the whole transportation mess. Urban planners using subsidies to manipulate outcomes while they try to kill the proven technology by eliminating cars. They invariably create amusement park rides that taxpayers are paying for and increase the cost of owning the car by unnecessarily making it more expensive.
Stupid, stupid, stupid (the three things to remember about environmentalists and their pals the urban planners). First, we want to know if the bicycle can stand alone and really service an owner without the mother ship hovering overhead. Second, if we need to use a car we don’t want you to penalize us unnecessarily for doing so by making parking exorbitant. Third, if we choose to own a gasoline powered vehicle we don’t want you to force the price of gasoline through the roof making transportation costs for the average person still higher all based on the lie of global warming.
Americans don’t naturally protest but if they did they’d be out in the streets with the yellow vests in Paris. The average person has been abused since Earth Day in 1970. Time to tell them to knock it off!!!
Regards,
Jim
The fourth thing to remember: they don’t care what you want. Actually they’ll punish you if it’s not what they want.
Here’s a letter from my State Senator; this is what a “moderate” Democrat is like these days: