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Do you think there will be 10 Million EV on the road by 2016?
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html
Agassi proposes to separate the car from the battery and create a network of battery swap sites. The proposed cost in 2011 will be 8 cents a mile in electricity. Within five years scale will drive the price to 2 cents a mile.
Agassi doesn't mention were the electric will be generated, only that it will not be from coal.
Agassi has a solution for the car model, a network infrastructure extending range, and a battery swap machine (2 minutes).
Do you think his business model will work? Agassi predicts 100 million ev replacing ICE vehicle. Why do you think?
Agassi proposes to separate the car from the battery and create a network of battery swap sites. The proposed cost in 2011 will be 8 cents a mile in electricity. Within five years scale will drive the price to 2 cents a mile.
Agassi doesn't mention were the electric will be generated, only that it will not be from coal.
Agassi has a solution for the car model, a network infrastructure extending range, and a battery swap machine (2 minutes).
Do you think his business model will work? Agassi predicts 100 million ev replacing ICE vehicle. Why do you think?
answers (3)
In my opinion there are two significant obstacles to achieving this goal by 2016: manufacturing capability and fueling infrastructure.
The process to design and re-tool manufacturing facilities to build Agassi's "low-cost" vehicle would take a minimum of two to four years if everything was ready to go TODAY. That only leaves three to five years to build 10 million vehicles... about 7,000 vehicles to be built each day over a period of 365 days per year for four years. Not a small task, especially considering it's new technology and resources for the batteries (+20 million required to supply the battery changing stations) may not be available on such a large scale.
There is no mention of how the electricity to recharge the batteries would be generated or how the network of "battery stations" would be built-out. Again, building tens or hundreds of thousands of these battery changing facilities throughout major cities and along highway routes will take massive resources, labor and time that is likely to take much longer than seven years.
There is currently insufficient electricity generating, transmission and distribution capacity to serve the requirements of these battery stations. It's not simply a matter of using electricity at night when "nobody is using it" as that is not the case. The existing generation capacity is not located in areas where the demand would occur, and building new electric capacity (whether generation, transmission or distribution) is an expensive and onerous task. Our communities have moved from being NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) to BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and the truth is that solar and wind, even at ten times their current contribution, are an insignificant contribution to this country's demand for electricity.
Bottom line... not likely to happen by 2016... if ever.
The process to design and re-tool manufacturing facilities to build Agassi's "low-cost" vehicle would take a minimum of two to four years if everything was ready to go TODAY. That only leaves three to five years to build 10 million vehicles... about 7,000 vehicles to be built each day over a period of 365 days per year for four years. Not a small task, especially considering it's new technology and resources for the batteries (+20 million required to supply the battery changing stations) may not be available on such a large scale.
There is no mention of how the electricity to recharge the batteries would be generated or how the network of "battery stations" would be built-out. Again, building tens or hundreds of thousands of these battery changing facilities throughout major cities and along highway routes will take massive resources, labor and time that is likely to take much longer than seven years.
There is currently insufficient electricity generating, transmission and distribution capacity to serve the requirements of these battery stations. It's not simply a matter of using electricity at night when "nobody is using it" as that is not the case. The existing generation capacity is not located in areas where the demand would occur, and building new electric capacity (whether generation, transmission or distribution) is an expensive and onerous task. Our communities have moved from being NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) to BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and the truth is that solar and wind, even at ten times their current contribution, are an insignificant contribution to this country's demand for electricity.
Bottom line... not likely to happen by 2016... if ever.
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Electric Grid infrastructure doesn't seem the capacity for this increased load.
It sounds appealing, separating the car from the battery costs. You buy the car for 20k and the agassi Inc provides the battery. A contract for power pricing is established and every 200-300 miles the battery is exchanged by robot in 2 minutes. About the same time to fuel a gas car. Your cost would be about 8 cents a mile.
Agassi claims production in the first year will be 150k evs.
Pluggin hybrids will probably emerge as the dominate business model and you pay for the battery and the car and fixed
It sounds appealing, separating the car from the battery costs. You buy the car for 20k and the agassi Inc provides the battery. A contract for power pricing is established and every 200-300 miles the battery is exchanged by robot in 2 minutes. About the same time to fuel a gas car. Your cost would be about 8 cents a mile.
Agassi claims production in the first year will be 150k evs.
Pluggin hybrids will probably emerge as the dominate business model and you pay for the battery and the car and fixed
Just my own personal opinion, no. Unless you are including hybrid cars, but it sounds like your question is referring to pure electric vehicles.
Right now, EVs are prohibitively expensive for most people. There is definitely a cost saving per mile, but what most people are going to see is the huge base price of the car (isn't a Tesla sedan like $60,000?) This makes it too expensive for people to buy up front. It's like compact fluorescent bulbs. The bulbs will save you money over the long term, but what people see is the up front costs, where the bulbs are far more expensive.
I do think we will eventually have 10 million electric cars on the road. But 7 years is a small amount of time. The cars are very expensive right now, and though the prices will go down, it will take a number of years before an electric car is closely priced to a similar gas guzzler.
The battery swap idea is interesting. It reminds me of propane grills. When I want to refill the propane tank on my grill, I just take my tank down to the hardware store and they give me a new tank.
I think this will be a very difficult business model. It's the same problem with hydrogen cars. People don't want to buy hydrogen powered cars because there are no filling stations, and investors don't want to build filling stations because there are no hydrogen cars on the road. Many people think hydrogen cars are a great idea, but they simply aren't feasible because of the lack of infrastructure.
Right now, EVs are prohibitively expensive for most people. There is definitely a cost saving per mile, but what most people are going to see is the huge base price of the car (isn't a Tesla sedan like $60,000?) This makes it too expensive for people to buy up front. It's like compact fluorescent bulbs. The bulbs will save you money over the long term, but what people see is the up front costs, where the bulbs are far more expensive.
I do think we will eventually have 10 million electric cars on the road. But 7 years is a small amount of time. The cars are very expensive right now, and though the prices will go down, it will take a number of years before an electric car is closely priced to a similar gas guzzler.
The battery swap idea is interesting. It reminds me of propane grills. When I want to refill the propane tank on my grill, I just take my tank down to the hardware store and they give me a new tank.
I think this will be a very difficult business model. It's the same problem with hydrogen cars. People don't want to buy hydrogen powered cars because there are no filling stations, and investors don't want to build filling stations because there are no hydrogen cars on the road. Many people think hydrogen cars are a great idea, but they simply aren't feasible because of the lack of infrastructure.
Unless the nations economy gets back to normal and unemployment drops dramatically, I don't see this happening. They are too expensive and people haven't got the money.
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