EVs: get them while they're hot!

[Silveredwings]

For anyone considering owning an EV, here is an example of how hot they are right now. A used
<a href="http://www.rtpnet.org/pipermail/teaa-l/2006/000183.html">Rav4 EV</a> just sold last night on eBay for $67,300.

While, I think Toyota makes a great product, it's hard to imagine a car of this type selling for that much money...except for when I consider the times we're in and that it's an EV. I hope car makers notice that some people are fully willing to put their money where their mouth is.

[Compaq888]

I seriously doubt this car was $67k brand new. If this continues then dealers will jack up the prius prices.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by Compaq888

I seriously doubt this car was $67k brand new. If this continues then dealers will jack up the prius prices.

You are correct. They sold for around $42,000 brand new. After tax benefits they ended up costing around $30,000.

There are not too many Rav4 EV's around, so it's a matter of supply and demand right now.

[Compaq888]

Originally Posted by Matt Timion

You are correct. They sold for around $42,000 brand new. After tax benefits they ended up costing around $30,000.

There are not too many Rav4 EV's around, so it's a matter of supply and demand right now.

So many Rav4 EV's will get jacked. They are selling at 200%+ their value. I know where there are a couple :evil:

[kickflipjr]

I saw that rav4 on ebay when it was still active. It was at $30,000 at the time and i thought it was expensive.

[SVOboy]

So many Rav4 EV's will get jacked. They are selling at 200%+ their value.

I hope you're joking. It doesn't make sense to steal a completely unique car, it's not like you can sell it whole, and you can't really part it out either and have the parts be totally anonymous. That's like stealing a new civic, sure someone just paid 14k for it, but the engine is useless to most and you can't sell a stolen shell.

[Compaq888]

who said anything about selling. All you have to do is have a homey at the DMV to give you a completly new registration for the car and you can drive it around.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody in the dmv and I hate their long lines.

[SVOboy]

Sometimes you scare me. My dmv has never had more than a 5 minute wait, also,

[Compaq888]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

Sometimes you scare me. My dmv has never had more than a 5 minute wait, also,

Sometimes the line here is 20-30min. I haven't gone to the DMW since 2002 so I don't know how it is now.

[SVOboy]

30 minutes seems like a fair price to pay to be allowed to drive.

[JanGeo]

We have a few offices in the state and they were trying to cut back and close all but one in Pawtucket about an hours drive from Newport - typical wait is an hour - pick a number and wait. Imagine a single DMV for the entire state! And the million they save having the one office would be spent on people paying for the gas and the time to drive to Pawtucket - it didn't happen but it was the Govenor's idea.

[Silveredwings]

Originally Posted by Compaq888

who said anything about selling. All you have to do is have a homey at the DMV to give you a completly new registration for the car and you can drive it around.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody in the dmv and I hate their long lines.

The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicle's (RMV's) ability to lose your title is legendary. Where do you think all those 'lost' titles end up? Very corrupt.

On the other hand, whoever setup the RMV's system & web site did a decent job of making it useful. If you can't take care of your business online, you can look at the wait times at each location before you even head over there. Not too bad.

[The Toecutter]

I hope car makers notice that some people are fully willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Car makers did notice. And it scared them.

EVs cost about $.005-.01/mile in maintenance, mostly stuff like windshield wipers, and tires. Electric motors have one moving part. No oil changes, tune ups, servicing, engine parts that go bad... Electric motors last over 500,000 miles routinely. A typical gas powered car requires about $.05/mile in maintenance and lasts 150,000 miles.

So if people drove EVs, they'd cost 1/5 as much to maintain and last more than 3 times as long.

Aftermarket parts and services account for roughly half of profit margins pulled in by the major auto companies.

So an EV is a threat to their bottom line. The automakers do not wish to see people driving around in cars that are cheap to maintain and last 3 or more times as long. This will threaten their bottom line in the long term, and thus shareholders and execs cry foul at the idea. The auto industry wants us driving around in high maintenance gas guzzlers with lots of useless crap added to fatten profit margins and increase maintenance costs, and thus that is what they market most agressively.

This is also why the automakers aren't making highway capable EVs for the general public. It's about maximizing profit, and nothing else.


The Ovonic NiMH battery, if mass produced, qwould be $150/kWh, according to ECD chairman Robert Stemple. Or a pack for the RAV4, if mass produced and if the battery were Ovonic, would cost about $5,000 per pack. It is hypoethesized these battery packs will last over 250,000 miles. Already, the oldest RAV4 EVs in use have battery packs approaching 150,000 miles with no decrease in usable range yet.

Chevron Texaco bought the Ovonic NiMH battery patent, sold the patent by GM who didn't want EVs to take hold. Chevron-Texaco are so protective of the patent they sued Toyota for having and using a similar battery design, and won. Guess what they charge for this battery?

Up to $1,500/kWh! In fact, this oil company is responsible for half of the price premium on tody's hybrids because of that.


EV technology is here. It works. But we will never see them on dealership lots if we continue our current economic business as usual. We have already seen that the big auto companies will not sell to Americans a viable highway capable EV unless it is mandated. Small businesses are shut out by regulations the big players lobbied for. And the stupid rednecks in this country can't stop blaming Nader, when it is truly industry itself that got us where we are today...

[Silveredwings]

Originally Posted by The Toecutter

Car makers did notice. And it scared them.

...

So an EV is a threat to their bottom line. The automakers do not wish to see people driving around in cars that are cheap to maintain and last 3 or more times as long.

Yes, I totally agree. They will continue to do this until there is an equal threat that some company will finally mass market EVs, and thereby expose the emperor's new clothes. So long as they can give us unnecessary complexity (e.g. Hybrids), they will maintain the status quo. GM successfuly lobbied to crush the railroads so that we could all drive cars. Detroit used to expect consumers to replace their clunkers every year. Then the Japanese companies came along in the 1970s and put themselves on the map by providing what no other company would: quality. But they provided it incrementally, meaning only enough to keep ahead of the competition but not enough to create a revolution. That's what the EV is, a revolutionary quantum leap in the industry. Their perceived risk is that they will put themselves out of business. As long as nobody threatens to raise the bar that high, none of them are willing to rock that boat.

You're right, the big guys won't do it, and the barriers to entry for little guys are too high...but we all know it's inevitable.

[The Toecutter]

Whether it is inevitable depends on how peak oil plays out. If we have a crisis scenario(likely) AND we weren't in the beginning stages of mass market EV adoption by that time, you'll very likely be walking, provided the scenario isn't so severe that you're either starving to death or in some 3rd world country dying in an oil war...

EVs by no means are a solution in themselves, but they are a very essential component of one if we are to keep something resembling our living standard without strip-mining the entire planet or killing off most of the world's population.

But the oil industry, the government, the auto industry, banking establishment, and defense industry all have a conflict of interest with the public. They want growth, and they'll surpress every advancement they can and perpetuate every problem they can if it will keep people working and spending as much as humanly possible to maintain their living standards...

Big business wants to get bigger and so too does big government. The EV is just one of those advancements that threaten to shrink both, in the form of reduced taxes, reduced subsidies, and reduced oil wars on part of the government, and reduced consumer spending and reduced monopoly control on part of industry.

[philmcneal]

excellent read on the subjects to why Plug in hybrids won't make it into our hands until at least 5 more years or so. May I ask where did you get most of your reading from?

[The Toecutter]

Only I'm not talking about plug in hybrids. I'm talking about full fledged battery electric cars with comparable range to today's gas guzzlers.

Here's an article I wrote on supression of the EV. Every last claim is cited and documented.

http://www.visforvoltage.com/forums/... 8f68a71ea929

Check the sources. I got my information from all sorts of places.

[JanGeo]

Hey Toecutter do you know Remy?

[The Toecutter]

Who's Remy?

[JanGeo]

www.thebox66.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ETList/messages

Currently on the road somewhere beteen Chicago and LA

[The Toecutter]

Ahh, he's the Remy who wrote this article on the NiMH battery:

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/hurryupandwait.html

[philmcneal]

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

sweet a movie!??!?! anyone want to go watch ?

[tomauto]

I will gladly pay my 6 bucks (ticket) and 15 dollars (gas) to watch this movie.

[JanGeo]

Originally Posted by The Toecutter

Ahh, he's the Remy who wrote this article on the NiMH battery:

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/hurryupandwait.html

Yeah he is also the one that convinced me to buy a Scion xB which is what he just drove across country in (his) - he was at AC Propulsion on Monday meeting them and is on his way back now. They are working on electrifying a few xB's I mean they have them stripped out and ready for some custom made motors. By next year they will be able to cruize Route 66 all the way to Chicago - charging on the way at electric charging stations.

[The Toecutter]

Unfortunately, my Triumph won't have enough range for that.

I'm looking at 100 miles range at 60-65 mph. This is using lead acid batteries, and with very liberal use of aeromods and other efficiency upgrades.

But hell, it's a start. If I had the cash, I'd be more than happy to put charging stations in-between all of Remy's, so that cruising this route would be much more practical for hobbyists. But if I had the cash, it goes without saying that my conversion would be done by now.

Most conversions only go 40-60 miles per charge at highway speeds. The charge stations listed are over 200 miles apart!

It would be nice to have a charging station every 20-30 miles. That would even make lead acid conversions practical for long distance travel. Drive an hour, plug in for an hour, drive another hour, and so on and so forth. Or in my case, drive for two hours and charge as much, then continue.

[kickflipjr]

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

sweet a movie!??!?! anyone want to go watch ?

I was so upset when i first heard about GM crushing/destorying all the EV1s.

What a waste.

Check out the site. Its cool.

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