Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland

Update: Fisker Karma Electric Car Gets Worse Mileage Than an SUV...

by Warren Meyer

The Fisker Karma electric car, developed mainly with your tax money so that a bunch of rich VC’s wouldn’t have to risk any real money, has rolled out with an nominal EPA MPGe of 52 in all electric mode (we will ignore the gasoline engine for this analysis).

Not bad?  Unfortunately, it’s a sham.  This figure is calculated using the grossly flawed EPA process that substantially underestimates the amount of fossil fuels required to power the electric car, as I showed in great depth in an earlier Forbes.com article.  In short, the EPA methodology leaves out, among other things, the conversion efficiency in generating the electricity from fossil fuels in the first place [by assuming perfect conversion of the potential energy in the fuel to electricity, the EPA is actually breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics].

In the Clinton administration, the Department of Energy (DOE) created a far superior well to wheels MPGe metric that honestly compares the typical fossil fuel use of an electric vs. gasoline car, using real-world power plant efficiencies and fuel mixes to figure out how much fuel is used to produce the electricity that goes into the electric car.

As I calculated in my earlier Forbes article, one needs to multiply the EPA MPGe by .365 to get a number that truly compares fossil fuel use of an electric car with a traditional gasoline engine car on an apples to apples basis.  In the case of the Fisker Karma, we get a true MPGe of 19.  This makes it worse than even the city rating of a Ford Explorer SUV.

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Electric cars may not be so green after all...

by Ben Webster

ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

The Committee on Climate Change, the UK government watchdog, has called for the number of electric cars on Britain's roads to increase from a few hundred now to 1.7 million by 2020.

Britain's Department for Transport is spending $66 million over the next year giving up to 8,600 buyers of electric cars a grant of $7700 towards the purchase price. Ministers are considering extending the scheme.

The study was commissioned by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which is jointly funded by the British government and the car industry. It found that a mid-size electric car would produce 23.1 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 tonnes for a similar petrol car. Emissions from manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 per cent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.

Many electric cars are expected to need a replacement battery after a few years. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 tonnes, compared with 5.6 tonnes for a petrol car. Disposal also produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery. The study also took into account carbon emitted to generate the grid electricity consumed.

Greg Archer, director of Low CVP, said the industry should state the full lifecycle emissions of cars rather than just tailpipe emissions, to avoid misleading consumers. He said that drivers wanting to minimise emissions could be better off buying a small, efficient petrol or diesel car. “People have to match the technology to their particular needs,” he said.

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DNC Chairwoman Drives A Foreign Car

by Doug Powers
and Steve Gill

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the DNC, ripped into Republican presidential contenders who opposed President Obama’s 2009 bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler.

“If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes,” she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by The Christian Science Monitor.

But according to Florida motor vehicle records, the Wasserman Schultz household owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan, another Japanese company…

By the way, the base price for an Infiniti FX35 is $42,600. For less money at $41,000, she could have bought a Chevy Volt. Why didn’t she buy an eco-electric Chevy?

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GM’s electric car “doesn’t really make a lot of sense”

by David Shepardson

Washington — Consumer Reports offered a harsh initial review of the Chevrolet Volt, questioning whether General Motors Co.'s flagship vehicle makes economic "sense." The extended-range plug-in electric vehicle is on the cover of the April issue — the influential magazine's annual survey of vehicles — but the GM vehicle comes in for criticism.

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."

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London to Edinburgh: stagecoach quicker than electric car

by Christopher Booker

In its obsessive desire to promote the virtues of electric cars, the BBC proudly showed us last week how its reporter Brian Milligan was able to drive an electric Mini from London to Edinburgh in a mere four days – with nine stops of up to 10 hours to recharge the batteries (with electricity from fossil fuels).

What the BBC omitted to tell us was that in the 1830s, a stagecoach was able to make the same journey in half the time, with two days and nights of continuous driving. This did require 50 stops to change horses, but each of these took only two minutes, giving a total stopping time of just over an hour and a half.

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Electric Cars' Cold-Weather Shortcomings

by Charles Lane

Count me among the many thousands of Washington area residents who spent Wednesday night stuck in traffic as a snowstorm sowed chaos all around us. Being car-bound in sub-freezing weather for six hours can make a guy think. I counted my blessings. The situation could have been worse, I realized: My fellow commuters and I could have been trying to make it home in electric cars, like the ones President Obama is constantly promoting, most recently in his State of the Union address.

It is a basic fact of physical science that batteries run down more quickly in cold weather than they do in warm weather, and the batteries employed by vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Volt are no exception.

The exact loss of power these cars would suffer is a matter of debate, partly because no one has much real-world experience to draw on. But there would be some loss. Running the heater to stay warm, or the car radio to stay informed, would drain the battery further.

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First Volt Sale? A Prius Trade-in

by Henry Payne

Green pols say that electric cars are the future. Many auto analysts counter they are a tree-hugger niche — like sports cars are for gear-heads. That is, the Chevy Volt will merely cannibalize Prius sales rather than convert, say, Camry buyers.

Would Wednesday’s first Volt customer offer a clue on who’s right? Jeff Kaffee bought the first Volt in Parsippany, N.J. The car he traded in? A 2005 Toyota Prius hybrid. “I considered that the best car at the time,” said Kaffee, a 69-year-old realtor. “I like leading-edge technology. . . . The Prius is a fine car, but this is definitely the next step forward.”

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Car designed to stop global warming has an overheating problem

by Tim Blair

It’s meant to stop global warming, but Toyota’s Prius has a cooling problem:

Japan’s Toyota Motor has offered to fix around 650,000 Prius models worldwide to repair a defective engine coolant pump, in a move it said was not a recall …

The world’s largest automaker said it would “voluntarily” replace a pump controlling the temperature of the hybrid engine system, which may cause overheating if it does not work properly.

Prius owners may no longer be quite so smug...

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Prius to Sell Speakers to Simulate Engine Noise

by Ryan Fleming

The Toyota Prius will offer a new option on August 30 that will alert pedestrians when it is running quietly.

While thinking of words to describe the Toyota Prius, ninja-like and stealthy may not be the first to come to mind, but Toyota might disagree. Cnet is reporting that the hybrid car will soon offer a $148 speaker that will play sounds that simulate the “same noise level as a regular car engine.”

For those that have never been stalked by a Prius, when the car is running the electrical motor, the Prius is quiet. Apparently too quiet. Once the combustion engine takes over, the car sounds like any other, but when it is going slowly under electrical power, the car is quiet enough that some pedestrians may not hear it coming.

The Prius joins Nissan’s hybrid, the Leaf, which will be on sale in in the U.S. later this December. Both the Leaf and the Prius are adding the sounds in accordance with Japanese Ministry of Land standards, designed to protect pedestrians.

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Obama Administration Buys One in Four Hybrids

by Angela Greiling Keane and Jeff Green

President Barack Obama's administration has bought almost a fourth of the Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. hybrid vehicles sold since he took office, accelerating federal purchases as consumer demand wanes.

The U.S. General Services Administration, which runs the government fleet, bought at least 14,584 hybrid vehicles in the past two fiscal years, or about 10 percent of 145,473 vehicles the agency purchased in that period, according to sales data obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request. In fiscal 2008, hybrids accounted for less than 1 percent of government purchases, the data showed.

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How to Prep Your Home for an Electric Car

by Jonathan Fahey

Getting your home ready to charge an electric car will require little time or money — or a couple months and thousands of dollars.

It depends on what kind of electric car you buy, the wiring in your home and how quickly you want to juice your ride.

Electric cars are powered by batteries that are charged by plugging them into a standard wall socket or a more powerful charging station. The charging station will cut your charging time roughly in half, and reduce the chance you'll trip a circuit in your home. But it will likely cost $2,000 or more, including installation. The price will rise if you need a new electrical panel, which could add another $2,000.

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GE to buy 25K electric fleet vehicles

Government-subsidized GE to buy government-mandated car from government-owned GM with government-confiscated money....

by Aaron Smith

GE said Thursday it will buy 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet through 2015 in the largest-ever purchase of electric cars.

GE will begin with an initial purchase of 12,000 vehicles from General Motor Co., starting with Chevy Volt in 2011. The conglomerate said it "will add other vehicles as manufacturers expand their electric vehicle profiles."

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Commentary by I Hate The Media:

Unfortunately, we don’t have one of those handy Glenn Beck chalkboards, but please stick with us as do our best to explain this situation.

Corporation A (let’s say General Electric) heavily invests in green technology that no one wants. When this tech fails to generate revenue adequate to bankroll its own existence, stimulus funds are provided to help keep the company afloat.

Corporation B (let’s say General Motors) is effectively taken over by the government. At the government’s direction, an electric car is designed and manufactured. Although it is touted as an innovation in green technology, no one wants it.

Corporation A, which is awash with taxpayer stimulus cash, promises to buy at least 25,000 of these cars from Corporation B, which is awash in government ownership. The sticker price is $41,000 per unit, although it is possible that Corporation A will get a handsome quantity discount from Corporation B.

Simultaneously, congress is pursuing legislation that will force consumers to use green tech. The same sort that Corporation A is so heavily invested in.

Surprisingly, this story was not reported by Corporation A-owned MSNBC.

Will masses embrace electric cars despite high prices?

by Chris Woodyard

The government and the auto industry are promoting electric transportation as a way to cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil, ease the need for more U.S. oil drilling and cut carbon dioxide in the air. But the technology remains a colossal gamble, with billions invested by the industry and billions in subsidies from the government for research, factories and a direct-to-consumer rebate of $7,500 to partially offset the higher price of electrics.

Buyers still have to be convinced that being Earth-friendly is worth several trade-offs — beyond the cars' sticker prices, which can be double the cost of a similarly sized conventional car. Most prominently, most electric cars for now will have a range of about 100 miles before they need to be recharged. That process can take as few as 30 minutes with special chargers, but in most situations will take up to eight hours.

Even if you haven't paid attention to electric cars, you soon won't be able to escape hearing about them. Nissan has started its ad campaign for the fully electric Leaf. Chevrolet is about to crank up promotion for the Volt, a plug-in electric that also has an onboard generator powered by an auxiliary gas engine. Electric advocacy groups, such as Plug In America, plan their own public education campaigns.

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Volt Fraud At Government Motors

by Investor's Business Daily

Government Motors' all-electric car isn't all-electric and doesn't get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like "shovel-ready" jobs, maybe there's no such thing as "plug-ready" cars either.

The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it's already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we're all being taken for a ride.

Advertised as an all-electric car that could drive 50 miles on its lithium battery, GM addressed concerns about where you plug the thing in en route to grandma's house by adding a small gasoline engine to help maintain the charge on the battery as it starts to run down. It was still an electric car, we were told, and not a hybrid on steroids.

That's not quite true. The gasoline engine has been found to be more than a range-extender for the battery. Volt engineers are now admitting that when the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph, the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors. That's not charging the battery — that's driving the car.

So it's not an all-electric car, but rather a pricey $41,000 hybrid that requires a taxpayer-funded $7,500 subsidy to get car shoppers to look at it.

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Electric Ford Focus needs recharging four times per day

by Barry Park

Owners of an electric version of Ford's Focus hatchback may have to put up with plenty of inconvenience to keep the car on the road.

The car maker released details of the car this week that shows it anticipates owners of an electric version of its Focus hatchback may have to recharge it up to a whopping 1500 times a year — or up to four times a day.

The car may need so many recharges that the car maker says it has developed a special ergonomic plug so US customers can use a standard household power point to recharge their car, rather than using a special wall-mounted unit that cuts the amount of time needed to fully charge.

However, the system using the normal powerpoint can take up to 12 hours to fully recharge the Focus, meaning many owners will need to plug the car in several times a day to ensure they have enough reserves of electricity in the car’s batteries to fit in a full day of driving.

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