'Field of Dreams' Marketing Plan

Eric04

Original poster
Member
Dec 3, 2014
392
West Michigan
This info isn't entirely new, just expounded upon with a little more detail. I'm left with more than a few questions. Among them:

Will Ultium be more reliable than the old platform, in which Bolt owners are still waiting for redress?

Forget the lack of charging infrastructure, few dealers around here can even service an EV, fewer Mom and Pops yet. A metal art sculpture in the garage you're making payments on makes for bad PR. How swiftly can they get the dealers up to snuff?

The promised price looks great. Realistic? Have they seen the market lately? Loss leaders in automotive?

I'm fine with the EV transition, to a point. Cramming these things on to the market isn't going to clear up the warts though.

 

Mike534x

Member
Apr 9, 2012
894
I do look forward to the eventual EV transition that will inevitably take place, but what'll kill the adoption rate is the extreme dealer mark ups. The F-150 lighting is already seeing (don't remember off the top of my head) but its like something close to $30-40k on top of the sticker price or along those lines. From the reading I've done, the push would make sense if/when Solid State batteries start to hit the market, and mature. Its safer then Lithium (supposedly), and in theory is more efficient while having the potential to be more energy dense. If that's the case, then Solid Sate Batteries could match or get close to the range current ICE cars can achieve currently.

Though I do have my own concerns about electric cars, and that's how they'll primarily hold up in the Rust Belt, and further North where the temps are low enough to send batteries to an early grave. Speaking of grave, I also worry about the eventual rust eating rotting away the undercarriage and potentially exposing the battery packs/cells?
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,262
Ottawa, ON
Though I do have my own concerns about electric cars, and that's how they'll primarily hold up in the Rust Belt, and further North where the temps are low enough to send batteries to an early grave.

I had a guy at work that had a Nissan Leaf. Although this was an early EV model, his problem was that he didn't have enough juice to travel back home at the end of his shift when temps were in the -20c, which is common here. He had to make arrangements to be able to plug in while he worked. And since it was in the early days of EVs, the brass didn't want to let him plug in at the two EV chargers we did have because of the cost of the power, how to recover those costs, etc. The S/Sgt let him park in the indoor garage in his spot and plug in to the 15A plug there. It only happened a couple of times so costs were really negligible.

I do have concerns about rust. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Anything exposed will be affected. A lot of times, brakes disintegrate from rust before the pads even wear out. Motors exposed to the elements will suffer.

And serviceability is another problem.
 

Mike534x

Member
Apr 9, 2012
894
It doesn't help the Leaf had a sub-average range as well. That's why I'm thinking if the push for EV's does happen on a bigger scale, they need to either use Solid State Batteries, or a newer type of battery tech that can withstand the cold or boost the range enough that when its cold out you take a minimal hit. Unless they plan to add a "heater" element to the battery pack. I read the F-150 Lightning has a dual A/C compressor setup, one for the cabin and the other cools the battery packs.

Another thought that crossed my mind are rodents, we know the damage they do already adds up to thousands....I'd hate to imagine what'll happen to an EV. I did see that news story not too long ago! If I recall correctly, the same thing happened with the first gen Prius. Batteries at the time were going for about 10-12k which was roughly about what the cars value was.

What'll be interesting is seeing how the aftermarket battery plays out, I can see a ton of CCC batteries popping up for much lower costs. I think I would be wary of buying anything at that point, unless I know its an OEM grade one. After the experiences I've had with no-name ones bought and used in phones, tablets and laptops the gamble for a car is way too risky.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Eric04 and Mooseman

Eric04

Original poster
Member
Dec 3, 2014
392
West Michigan
2035 seems to be the consensus date for ICE retirement. In that relatively small amount of time existing electrical grids will need to add a great deal of capacity, and of as now there is no viable plan to do this. Some locales cannot handle current summer demand let alone an exponential uptick.

Range in cold climates is a *huge* problem. According to owners of various makes/models the drop is up to 40%. Not only are we not there yet, we've not begun to plan the trip. None of the battery tech is proven and the end user will be the beta tester.

All said, I'd be up for owning an EV so long as I had an ICE in the garage too. Hell, I even considered buying a Bolt as a 3 season ride but then the market said no. This decade should be an interesting one in automotive regardless.
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,262
Ottawa, ON
As far as range is concerned, in a country such as Canada, Australia and to some extent, the US, we have very long expanses of land that is devoid of any infrastructure to support EVs. I was made acutely aware of this last year when I was towing our RV though northern Ontario, there were signs between an expanse of Hwy 17 with LAST GAS for X KM signs and we rolled into a town with the fuel gauge approaching E. And the fuel prices were at a premium too. What would someone in an EV do? Carry a generator? An extra battery pack in a trailer? Both of these kinda negates the whole thing with EVs. And if some sort if company puts in chargers along such routes, will they charge a premium for the privilege of charging there? And so time consuming to charge EVs. Tesla did try swappable battery packs with an automated system to do the exchange but it died an early death due to costs and issues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Eric04

Forum Statistics

Threads
23,273
Posts
637,499
Members
18,472
Latest member
MissCrutcher

Members Online

No members online now.