The Return of the Electric Vehicle

February 5-6, 2009

Written in response to New York Times article "Detroit Goes for Electric Cars, but Will Drivers?"

From sixth grade to ninth grade, I was completely obsessed with electric vehicles. I read every book on alternative fuel vehicles in the regional library system and surfed the web to look for updates and more information. I read about its history from the nineteenth century to the present, as well as its mechanics from a book on converting an internal combustion (gasoline) vehicle to electric. When I read the New York Times article, I was happy about some of the optimism, but I think the journalist is almost entirely using speculations based on pure talk for his argument. Talk is cheap, action and change are not.

The title of the article reads "Detroit Goes for Electric Cars, but Will Drivers?" If not for this title, I would have probably assumed that this article was a simple piece of exciting news, but the article title makes it clear that Mr. Vlasic is presenting an argument. Right away, he sends the message to the reader that automakers have done their part for success of widely-available fully-electric vehicles and that the future lies completely in the hands of consumers. The word "goes" forges an impression that automakers have gone out of their way, and the word "but" coupled with the question mark imply a hint of complete blame on consumers.

The article begins with making the news sound impressive. "Totally electric ... just six months ... a tall order ... in the rapidly expanding race" are specific examples of diction. Perhaps it's just ordinary news story exaggeration or perhaps it's a not-so-hidden argument, but it sends a certain message to the reader. I would love if this news was the real truth, but the journalist seems to lack in-depth knowledge of the past relationship between American automakers, Big Oil, and the electric vehicle. American automakers want more greedy profits, Big Oil wants more greedy profits, and both would prefer to preserve the status quo.

Electric vehicles threaten automaker profits because they threaten the market of the megasized car and in part because they are more reliable. Sound illogical? It shouldn't. With competition for the lowest-priced vehicles, automakers instead make large portions of their profits from vehicle maintenance and repair - often done using "genuine" service and "genuine" parts. Electric vehicles are much simpler and therefore require less maintenance and repair. They don't have complex powertrains, transmission systems, nor brake pads (as a result of regenerative braking), and they certainly don't have thousands of explosions every minute. The only maintenance electric vehicles require is battery replacement (every 100,000 or 200,000 miles, depending on battery type), windshield wiper fluid replacement, and ordinary tire and suspension maintenance. It only seems logical to work with powerful Big Oil - whose livelihood is threatened - to resist change.

This isn't just theory - it's historical reality. In the 1990's, all of the major automakers started manufacturing electric vehicles and leasing them as a result of California's 1990 electric vehicle mandate. For instance, GM produced the EV1, the first modern production electric vehicle from a major automaker. Ford produced the Ford TH!NK and converted a Ranger pickup truck to electric. But American automakers did perhaps the worst marketing of any product in history, actually citing limitations of their cars in "marketing" material, rather than their advantages. They eventually decided to refuse to renew lease contracts, citing "lack of consumer demand" (yet somehow there were more people in waiting lists than cars available). Companies like GM ended their electric vehicle programs and laid off employees working on those programs. With the exception of Toyota, the major automakers literally destroyed every single last electric vehicle by car crusher after their leases expired, even after lessees had collected more than enough money to purchase the remaining vehicles, and even when many of the cars were completely recyclable. GM replaced their electric vehicle program with a purchase of the Hummer brand. Long afterwards, GM vice president Christopher Preuss cited consumer protection as the reason for refusing to sell the EV1 back to former- lessees. Since when have automakers cared so much about consumer safety as to refuse to sell a car? Since the time they deemed the catalytic converter catastrophic for vehicle design and consumer safety? Since the time they said nobody would ever buy a car with airbags and since the time when they managed to delay standard passive restraints by 20 years?

Automakers don't mind to pretend progress and claim that these programs are failures as long as they are are able to use taxpayer money. In the 1990's they wasted California taxpayer money on electric vehicle programs that eventually produced huge piles of metal scrap in the form of crushed cars. They succeed in killing California's 1990 electric vehicle mandate after working with Big Oil and a federal government under President Bush to convince the California Air Resources Board that hydrogen was the way of the future. Hydrogen cars were never practical because of their extremely high price, low range, expensive fuel, and lack of a fueling infrastructure. Hydrogen soon after silently left the headlines. Now automakers are somehow interested again in electric vehicles and want to use federal bailouts for a "greener" economy.

I don't mind having the federal government spend money on a greener America; in fact I would love it, but I hate deception much more. By avoiding critical analysis, the journalist is deceiving the American public about progress, and assigning almost complete blame to them for any shortfalls.

As a form of change, electric vehicles require some form of work, and work is exactly what automakers have been unable to do. In the past thirty years, the average fuel economy of all American cars has not noticeably improved. In the past century, Ford has gone from a fuel economy of approximately 20 miles per gallon (Model T, 1908) to an average fuel economy of 19.7 miles per gallon - no noticeable change at all. Talk by Ford's "spokesperson" and "show" are nowhere as valuable as Ford's consistent history throughout the past 100 years. Without concrete proof, saying that Ford has "gone for electric cars" is worse than an exaggeration.

Yet at the same time, electric cars are far from impossible. Electric vehicles predate the internal combustion engine by over 50 years. At the turn of the century, electric vehicles outnumbered their internal combustion counterparts. In fact, Henry Ford's own wife owned and drove an electric vehicle. Now, during the past 50 years, small companies have produced electric vehicles and "do-it-yourselfers" have converted internal combustion cars. Doing the reverse conversion would be pretty much impossible because of the complexity of internal combustion engines and their transmissions. For example, electric vehicles typically have only one or two gears in their transmission system, because that's all electric motors need.

Initial consumer demand is always an issue, but this article has clearly exaggerated this point, claiming "They may balk, for example at limits on how far they can drive on a single charge." This is not a complete lie; the range of electric vehicles are limited by their batteries. But later claiming that more advanced battery technology is needed is a lie. Commonly-produced electric vehicles of the nineteenth century usually had ranges of approximately fifty miles on a single charge - way more than their gasoline counterparts. The 1899 B.G.S. electric car had a range of 180 miles on a single charge. Price is an issue, yet the second generation GM EV1 (1999) managed to have a range of 75 to 150 miles (NiMH batteries) with a lease payment of as little as $299 per month. Not bad for a car that was hand-built by its engineers with doctorates. But GM acquired a controlling share in the company that developed the EV1's batteries and later sold its shares, including patents required for the production of the batteries, to Big Oil (Texaco, now owned by Chevron). Chevron has now refused to produce electric vehicle batteries, and as a result of their production patents, prohibits others from doing so.

Even so, over the past ten years, battery technology has made major progress (Li-ion batteries) thanks to use of more advanced batteries in laptops and other consumer electronics such as cell phones, cameras, and digital audio players. The size of cell phone batteries ten years ago is an excellent point of comparison.

Even with the electric car's higher purchasing price (at least until production on a massive scale), the power of marketing should not be ignored. Sure, customers may "balk" at range limitations, but they might also balk about driving a tank down the road, yet automakers have managed to sell SUV's, Hummers, and other aircraft carriers, thanks to advertising propaganda that big and heavy is the only way to drive. Or, look at the Toyota Prius as an example, which was effectively advertised and effectively sold. American automakers advertise tanks and claim there is no market for electric vehicles.

If a company wants to truly market a product, they would compare the product to other products on favorable ground. For the the electric vehicle, this would not mean comparing its initial cost, but rather the total cost over the car's lifetime, expressed as total cost per mile, accounting for fuel, maintenance, and depreciation. Electric vehicles would excel in all three areas. The cost of electricity for an electric car is roughly 75% cheaper than gasoline for a gasoline car. (And it's much cleaner, even if electricity is powered by 100% coal.) The only maintenance electric vehicles require is battery replacement (every 100,000 or 200,000 miles, depending on battery type), windshield wiper fluid replacement, and ordinary tire and suspension maintenance. As a result of fewer moving parts and the resulting long lifespan, the depreciation is much less. Other benefits to advertise would include being patriotic (don't buy oil from "unfriendly" nations overseas), far less noise, the extremely fast acceleration from 0-60 MPH in one gear, and the convenience of charging at home (compare to charging a cell phone) - not the inconvenience of not being able to charge at a gas station.

The article also mentions Nissan as promising to sell an electric vehicle. The journalist does not mention that Nissan manufactured a fully-electric vehicle, called the Nissan Altra. The Nissan Altra was the first production electric vehicle to use Li-ion batteries, which are more advanced than the NiMH batteries used in the GM EV1. The cars were crushed approximately three years ago - the last electric vehicles to be crushed by the major automakers.

With so much corporate history against electric vehicles, the situation is not as optimistic as the journalist writes. Newer electric vehicles have been delayed for several years, yet there is no innovation. These new cars are expensive ($40,000) during worse economic times. Automakers know that no average American will justify purchasing such a car. These new cars are technologically less advanced than their 1990 counterparts, with GM's Volt having a range of 40 miles instead of the 75-150 miles of the EV1. Automakers know that no average American will be satisfied without effective marketing, especially at a range of 40 miles. On a marketing level, this is a recipe for disaster. Every piece of solid evidence seems to indicate that automakers want to use taxpayer money directed towards a "greener" economy for their own purposes or want to preserve the status of megasized cars by claiming that electric vehicles are not marketable.

I'm all for electric vehicles and I do believe they are practical. After all, many electric vehicles have been built by small companies and "do-it- yourselfers" who have successfully and relatively easily converted gasoline- powered cars, without spending billions. But without any concrete evidence, I fear that the American auto industry will repeat the marketing disaster of the 1990's on a massive scale, this time using federal taxpayer money to discredit the electric vehicle. It's all a question of if the automakers can effectively use their resources for the tiniest bit of innovation and marketing.

Regardless of what GM executives claim, in terms of consumer opinion, the GM EV1 was a huge success. For what car would its drivers protest in front of a parking lot holding their end-of-lease cars to the point of arrest? And what company would crush those cars and ensure that they are never seen again?