As major automakers (including General Motors) race to develop the next generation of autonomous and electric vehicle technology, interest among consumers remains static, according to a recent study.
Chevrolet Bolt EV
Per the recent J.D. Power 2020 Q3 Mobility Confidence Index Study, perception of autonomous and electric vehicle technologies among North American consumers has not changed, despite a shift in commuting habits resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Mobility Confidence Index for battery-electric vehicles remains neutral, decreasing among American drivers to 54 from 55 (on a 100-point scale) while increasing among Canadian drivers to 58 from 57,” J.D. Power reports. “For self-driving vehicles, the index is still low, slipping to 34 from 35 in the United States, while holding steady at 36 in Canada.”
Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle
With the major change in transportation following the COVID-19 pandemic, a shift in perception of these new technologies would not be totally unexpected. However, the recent J.D. Power study indicates this is not the case.
“With so many more people working from home or making shorter commutes, this is an opportunity to further tout the benefits of battery-electric vehicles and self-driving technologies,” said executive director of driver interaction and human interface research at J.D. Power, Kristin Kolodge. “However, consumers remain skeptical because of their lack of first-hand experience with these technologies and lack of education about how and why these technologies work.”
Cruise Origin with plastic partition.
The J.D. Power study was conducted using survey responses from consumers and industry experts, including 8,500 responses regarding electric vehicles, and 9,000 responses regarding autonomous vehicles. The survey was fielded in September of this year.
Among the highlight findings was a rising expectation among consumers for greater driving range and lower charge times, as well as generally low first-hand experience with electric vehicles.
General Motors is gearing up to release a bevy of new electric vehicles in the next few years, with “at least” 20 new EV models by 2023. GM also unveiled the fully autonomous Cruise Origin shuttle bus/taxi in January, which is expected to enter production in late 2022.
Over the summer, GM announced it would allocate $20 billion between 2020 and 2025 to expand development of its autonomous and electric vehicle programs.
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Source: J.D. Power
Comments
You spend $100K on a new GMC Hummer EV; would you want the vehicle to drive autonomously or get behind the wheel and do the driving yourself.. the answer is clear as there’s no better satisfaction than driving the vehicle yourself.
Omegatalon
1. Your a businessman discussing a multimillion dollar deal on the phone. Do you want to.
A) Drive yourself
B) have the car drive you
C) be in a Buick, they’re known for having a quiet ride
If I were dealing with multimillion deals on a regular basis I probably would be in the back of a chauffer driven limo!
“Lack of first hand experience with these technologies” As this tech becomes more common people will gradually shift over.
For me, electric perhaps someday; self driving-NEVER!
Self driving is not for general population. It’s for services such as taxi / delivery and their value is in replacing workforce.
where is all the electric power going to come from to charge these EVs when nuke power is out of the question and they want to do away with all fossil fuels ?? just to equal the KW produced by all forms of generation we have now you will need 500,000 turbines and each turbine site needs .75 acres so do the math finding than much ground where the wind blows most of the time. how much electrical power is needed to produce the batteries ??
Ask the homeowners or businesses that are adding solar to their rooftops or parking lots. Driving on sunshine.
The biggest challenge to solar (rooftop and utility grade) is the over supply of power during the day. Utilities are struggling with how to balance production and demand. EVs are being looked at to soak up excess power during high solar generation times and with the EV’s large batteries, provide power back to the grid during peak demand periods.
This is a bigger joke than COVID omg the EV bs, they are NOT selling they won’t work where it’s really cold the list goes on and on, it’s major PR talk on GM’s part. in 2017 GM said they would have 20 new EV by 2023? really it’s the end of 2020 you still have only 1 what a joke.
Don’t work in cold weather? Tell that to Iceland and Norway drivers. September In Norway has the PEV Market Share at 82%. Pure fossils tumbled to just 11.1% market share. Graph at: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/01/september-in-norway-goes-off-the-charts-record-ev-market-share-of-82/ Iceland EV September sales increased to 705 new registrations. That’s 63% of the overall market! Iceland is the second most plug-in friendly market globally, after Norway.
Ranj Pillai, Canadian Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, during the unveiling of the strategy: “Electric vehicles are proven to be reliable, consistent and efficient in our cold weather, with many Yukoners using their electric vehicles year-round.
EVs still work fine in snow / cold weather. They will lose some range, which varies from model to model. However, they are easy to charge up and remotely warm up during cold weather (kind of like the block heaters of gas cars.)
EVs lose 25% to 40% of their range when it gets below freezing
motorman is exactly correct. In addition, the power demands of thousands of electric cars charging at homes will require much greater distribution capacity (ex. Level 2 charger 220v @ 40 amps = 8 kw/hr per hour) whereas a typical home typically averages about 1 -2 kw/hr draw. This will require larger or more transformers, larger cables, larger or more sub-stations, etc. We have already seen this effect in some areas as many home air conditioning units now have a separate and interruptible power supply from the rest of the house.
Oscoda Bill,
The case is not as dire as you suggest.
The AAA American Driving Survey revealed that: Motorists age 16 years and older drive, on average, 29.2 miles per day or 10,658 miles per year. Women take more driving trips, but men spend 25 percent more time behind the wheel and drive 35 percent more miles than women.
The average EV gets about 3.5 miles per kilowatt-hour. So 9 KWH would be the average daily load required from a home. A level 1 charger using a standard receptacle (1.44 KW per hour) overnight would deliver over twice the average daily needs.
For folks with greater needs, there are high speed DC Fast Chargers being installed in towns and along driving corridors. Or most newer homes can install a level two charger at home (equivalent to electric dryers) which provides 180 miles or more overnight.
Your calculations need to reduce draw by 20% per electrical code making this 6 KW.
Most drivers charge at night when there the house load is lowest.
Didn’t say it was dire, but it certainly is a real consideration. Also, using nationwide averages is not a realistic method of addressing this issue. EV vehicle manufacturers are a prime example of this, if the average daily driving distance is only 29.2 miles per day then why are EV manufacturers building vehicles with 10+ times that range? The reality is that many areas in the country do not fit into the “average” and it is not unreasonable to expect that there will be areas of the country that will have completely different driving requirements than “average”. If that occurs then the scenario I described is not only possible, but likely, particularly given the condition of our national grid. Finally, if you reduce draw down to 6 kw the attractiveness of EVs to higher mileage drivers goes down because they cannot recharge overnight at home.
I’m interested in neither and never will be. I have a nice loaded full sized late model Impala that is very comfortable, awesome on road trips, can go a solid trip over 600 miles straight without stopping for gas, has plenty of power for what I need and can be fixed and serviced at any Chevy dealer or neighborhood shop, all for well under 20K! I also enjoy driving and alway will! The leftist government would love nothing more than to take away our freedoms and remove all of our classic cars off the road and ban oil. That might be okay for generations well into the future but as it is currently not many of us want this so quit forcing it down our throats. let the market gradually shift things in the direction it needs to go and decide from there.
There are many reasons people buy EVs with 200, 300, 400 mile ranges. Often it’s because of desire for the car to be suitable for road trips. These don’t affect the average daily drive for people across the United States. Of course there will be individuals and clusters of people with longer daily drives and people with much lower demands. Those with longer requirements can easily charge at night when there is plenty of supply on the grid or during the day in many areas where rooftop solar is causing over generation. Nine hours of charging at the 6KW provides 189 miles each day.
In California, a study by Pamela MacDougall, senior manager of power grid modernization for the Environmental Defense Fund, working with Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and Pacific Gas & Electric, looked at what would happen if EVERY household in a northern California town had an electric car.
They found that the best solution to that problem is simply to nudge people away from charging their cars as soon as they get home from work. People should be encouraged to charge later when power demand is lower. That’s not hard because many electric cars have charging timers that can be set so that charging begins at off-peak times. Even if as few 30% of drivers waited for off-peak hours, that alone would resolve most power issues without extra capacity being needed.
In fact, rather than adding to peak power loads, EVs can help take pressure off the grid during demand spikes or potential brownouts, MacDougall said. An EV is, after all, a large battery hooked up to the power grid. When demand in an area rises, EVs can feed power back into the grid relieving some of the demand on generating stations.
Someone better let Tesla know that EVs aren’t selling so they can figure out where all the cars they are producing are disappearing to!
why neurosurgeon for back pain
I am not at all interested in Electric Vehicles.
I think that Internal Combustion Engines should be around another 50-100 years.