Electric-car sales are on fire. Okay, well, only a few electric cars have actually gone up in smoke. But with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opening a formal safety investigation into fears about fires started by the much-hyped Chevrolet Volt, it’s become clear yet again that electric vehicles are The Next Big Thing — and they always will be.
Safety questions are the last thing that the electric-vehicle market needs. Indeed, the U.S. already has a huge excess of electric-vehicle (EV) battery-production capacity. This month, A123 Systems, one of the country’s highest-profile battery makers for the EV market, cut 35 percent of its workers at two Michigan plants. A123 was one of several dozen companies that got subsidies from the Obama administration, which has handed out $2.4 billion in grants to the EV sector, as well as nearly $2.6 billion in loans. (More on that in a minute.) Further, despite Obama’s hopes, made clear during his State of the Union speech earlier this year — that the U.S. would be “the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road” — sales of cars like the Volt, a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf, have been tepid at best.
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In October, combined sales of the Volt and Leaf amounted to just 1,957 units. That means that the two vehicles captured just two-tenths of 1 percent of total U.S. light-duty vehicle sales, which totaled 1.021 million units. GM has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the Volt, but in October, when the auto giant sold 186,895 light-duty vehicles, the Volt accounted for just 1,108 of them. Put another way, GM sold 168 times more conventional vehicles last month than it did Volts. Meanwhile, Nissan sold 849 copies of the Leaf, while its overall sales totaled 82,346.
The ongoing NHTSA investigation — which has sparked lots of coverage in the mainstream media — will almost certainly drive down EV sales over the coming months. And that’s bad news for GM, which had hoped to sell 16,000 Volts in 2011. But through October, it had sold just over 5,000 Volts, which carry a suggested retail price of $41,000.
The lackluster sales of electric vehicles should not surprise anyone. For 110 years, American consumers have been hearing that electric cars are on the verge of viability. Consider this May 19, 1901, news report from the Los Angeles Times concerning a new battery invented by Thomas Edison: “If the claims which Mr. Edison makes for his new battery be not overstated, there is not much doubt that it will make a fortune for somebody. The electric automobile will quickly and easily take precedence over all other kinds of motor carriages.”
I could easily provide another two dozen examples of news clips from papers like the New York Times and Washington Post, all of which promise that the age of electric cars lies just past the next stoplight.
By lavishing billions of dollars in stimulus money and loan guarantees on the electric-vehicle business, the Obama administration hoped to jump start the century-old automotive technology. That hasn’t happened. Instead, we’re seeing a slow-motion replay of the Solyndra debacle. Consider what’s happening at Ener1, the parent company of Indianapolis-based battery maker EnerDel, which was awarded a $118.5 million grant from the Department of Energy. Of that amount, the company has reportedly received $55 million.
Despite the subsidy, Ener1 appears to be circling the drain. In August, after it announced it would restate its financial results, the company was hit with a wave of investor lawsuits. The company’s 2010 losses of $69 million were restated to an actual loss of $165 million. Last month, the company was delisted by the NASDAQ, and several top executives have left. In January, when Joe Biden visited EnerDel’s battery plant in Indiana, Ener1’s stock was selling for $4. About the time that Biden was visiting the plant, EnerDel was claiming that its new plants would have “the capacity to produce battery packs for approximately 600,000 hybrid-electric vehicles, or 60,000 battery-electric cars.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Ener1’s stock was selling for $0.09.
I was slightly dejected after reading this article. I was hoping that the electric car could perform well in the US. It seems that more European countries and japan are receptive to electric cars. I think it will take more than just government intervention to boost sales of the EV.
I think everyone would love to see the thing succeed. But it's insane for a totally broke federal government to be subsidizing a product everyone knows can't succeed because almost no one wants it and most can't afford it.
Then do you support government subsidizing oil production? The only way I could stop paying high gas prices was to stop buying the stuff. I found an american-built electric car without any government incentive and put up solar on my roof so the electric utility cannot treat me like the oil companies did. I keep all my gas and electric money and save thousands every year.
Do whatever you want but don't complain about the results.
Yes, Mike, it would be great if the Volt were to succeed. Nonetheless, I have my small economy to manage, and I find Honda answers where American cars never have. I would love to buy a Volt, but I rely on my cars and I have responsibilities to Mom and apple pie that supersede duty to GM.
Actually, yes, I do want it to fail. I want it to fail so boldly and completely that no numbskull bureaucrat, congressman, or administration will ever think of doing what DC did to move the Vol,t a design exercise, to an actual vehicle.
Had the Volt been an actual answer to a problem, great. But it wasn't. Batteries still are no where close to getting where they need to be and won't be for quite some time. We just haven't gotten past the technological barriers. My guess is that hydrogen vehicles have a much better chance.
When I can buy a clean diesel - which the US makers aren't building, and thus ceding it to the Germans - that gets better gas mileage than even a prius, with proven technology without all the electrical worries, why aren't we pushing that? Because US fuel efficiency rules don't consider diesels I was recently told. Really.
CAFE in itself is responsible for thousands of motoring deaths as well, as we have some strange fear about using fossil fuels on two points I guess - one) peak oil (which seems to be an ever moving target/guess who now has more oil and natural gas reserves in the world, and moving higher every day? (Hint it isn't anywhere in the middle east)). Two) some confusion about how I am killing the planet everytime I exhale, as scientists continue to bleat over CO2 with not a single pro-warming/CO2 observation matching the modeling hysterics. The science is not settled, however, whatever observations we have do not support the CO2 is evil hypothesis.
So yes. Get the govt out, and see if electrics can survive on their own - they can't right now.
First the Government forces taxpayers to pay for it.
Then their apologists like you, want us to double down on an investment we taxpayers were never consulted on in the first place.
You liberals sang a different tune with the Iraq War. You did NOT say:
"Argue all you want about whether the war should have been started in the first place, but....wouldn't it be great if the Iraq War were a smashing success? "
Back then, your attitude was: If it's misbegotten, then it's just as well if it flops.
What you're hearing is "I told you so." This Volt fiasco was a slow-motion train wreck from the beginning, like so many liberal attempts to engineer society and manipulate human behavior. So stupid and ill-conceived that one is tempted to attribute it to simple political corruption - at least THAT would make sense. Contemplate Solyndra as you digest that last sentence.
I would strongly disagree with the assessment of Johan de Nysschen who said. . . . There are not enough idiots who will buy it. (the Volt)." Obama was elected President, so clearly our country is full of idiots. Based on this, there has to be a bright future for the sale of Volts.
The problem is that many Barry voters cannot afford the $20,000 Chevy Cruze let alone the $40000 Chevy Volt. That's why they don't sell, rich liberals are few in number.
I am waiting for the same idiots who made the decision to deep-six the Edison light bulb (incandescent) to pass legislation to end domestic production of internal combustion engine vehicles. Hey, if we won't take our medicine willingly, they have the power to force it down our throats. And if that fails, they can start limiting CO2 exhalations per household or per person, and raise money off fines to further subsidize all the "good" causes they approve of.
Being made in America is not a sufficient justification for purchase. We wouldn't be shopping at Wal-Mart and dollar stores if we were committed to buying American. I don't mind forgoing the purchase of an imported item I don't need, but I need a dependable car that isn't a potential firetrap. And yes, I have a ten-year-old imported car.
I also suggest that American cars would be more competitively priced if the government would back off and stop dictating what the cars have to be like aside from accident safety concerns. I won't get into the effect of labor laws and environmental legislation/regulations on the price.
"None of this is surprising." That's not going to be the DoE's line when it comes out that it's flushed yet another $1 billion down the toilet in service to the Greenist faith. No, as with Solindra, the company line will be all about how "unexpected" it was that $45,000 cars with the features of $20,000 cars don't sell.
I well remember back some sixty years ago when I was working for Westinghouse Electric Co. they were attempting to develop an electric car, if failed due to the same problems current e-cars are failing, inefficient battery power. Now the bureaucrats think they can solve the problem by legislative fiat.
The problems with the Chevy Volt's batteries will eventually be worked out.
What won't be worked out so easily, is the total lack of an infrastructure to support the car.
I rent an apartment and I park my car in the street. I have no garage. How could I recharge a Chevy Volt? With a 500 foot long extension cord?
I did quite a bit of traveling by car on company business. I would stay in hotels and motels which also had parking lots. Where would I go to recharge the batteries of the car?
Electric cars make sense only if there's a staggering investment in charging stations across the country. We've got some 400,000 gas stations nationwide which make refueling gasoline-powered cars convenient. That's the type of huge ubiquitous infrastructure--requiring a staggering investment--that will be needed to make electric cars practical.
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