In case you were unaware, General Motors is putting forward a major effort in the electric vehicle segment, announcing billions in investments, as well as plans to launch 30 new EV models by 2025. However, a recent study indicates that most car shoppers are still on the fence with regard to electric vehicles.
According to the inaugural J.D. Power Electric Vehicle Consideration Study, 59 percent of new vehicle shoppers participating in the study indicated that they were either “somewhat likely” or “somewhat unlikely” to consider an electric vehicle for their next purchase or lease.
“Right now, the projected BEV supply outweighs consumer interest. And for every new-vehicle shopper seriously considering BEVs, there’s another at the opposite end of the spectrum,” said senior director, automotive retail at J.D. Power, Stewart Stropp. “To avoid a potential ongoing inventory surplus, it behooves manufacturers and retailers to identify why shoppers in the middle ground aren’t completely sold on the technology, and how to get them over the hump into the ‘very likely’ consideration camp.”
According to the study, experience in an electric vehicle can boost consumer confidence considerably, with 46 percent of consumers studied who had previously owned or leased an EV saying they are “very likely” to consider another EV purchase, compared to 6 percent who said they are “very unlikely” to consider an EV. What’s more, respondents who had ridden in an EV were three times as likely to say they were “very likely” to consider an EV (20 percent) over those who had not ridden in an EV (7 percent).
Additionally, J.D. Power found that almost a third of non-considerers cited a lack of information as a reason not to consider an electric vehicle.
“Anything stakeholders can do to get more people into electric vehicles, whether it’s experiential events, take-home test drives or other proactive efforts, will help break down the preconceptions people have about BEVs and drive higher consideration,” Stropp said.
Other key findings include a greater consideration among heavy-use drivers, such as those who take more than 10 road trips a year (versus respondents who take no road trips) and those who commute more than an hour (versus those who don’t commute). The consideration rate is also higher among premium brand buyers.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more General Motors electric vehicle news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Source: J.D. Power
Comments
People will be skeptical till the new models arrive. The Bolt is not going to change many minds.
Now once we get models that work with 400 to 600 mile range and prices begin to come down for a nice sized SUV EV. Minds will be more open.
This is a marathon not a sprint race and a lot will happen in the coming years and advancements will come sooner.
Well said. For me personally, I would need an EV to be under $30,000 and 500 miles of range to seriously consider it. Seeing that is probably 10 years away, I will continue to root for the technology from the sidelines.
When I can buy a nice used one for $3k that’ll do 400 miles of range, I’m in.
I don’t finance vehicles, and the cost of EV’s will never reach a stage where I can pay cash for one new; and I won’t trust the batteries on a used one for a long time.
(plus it can be below freezing in my town for 8 months of the year and lithium Ion batteries aren’t great in the cold)
EVs will never be that cheap because of the expensive unions and environmental regulations. If Biden really cared about EVs he would drop the doctor title from his wifes name and build more nuclear plants to support all the charging so electricity won’t be more expensive than gas after he takes away the gas stations that prevent monopolies.
My requirements before I consider a pure electric:
Minimum 300 mile range in the midwest in winter
I should be able to charge it at any gas station
It should charge to 100% within 20 minutes
Five year warranty on batteries
Until the above is possible I am perfectly happy buying a gasoline powered car
You’ve got four ‘wants’ … of which one is silly, one is costly, one is absurd and the last is already reality.
The silly requirement is that gasoline stations universally offer Level 3 charging that will charge from 0-100 percent in 20 minutes for something around a 100 kw battery. First, the primary advantage of EVs is you don’t go to gas stations and gas stations don’t want charging stations because they’d rather not offer you the alternative. The ’20 minute’ charge also would require some mighty costly heavy-duty electric service to accomplish that kind of recharge.
Finally, the typical battery/power-system warranty for EVs is eight years.
Right now I drive a Spark EV that was manufactured and registered by GM in Michigan in February 2013 (’14 year model) and recently went out of warranty. Even with non-low rolling resistance tires, I’m getting 70 miles range at this point.
I suspect if I were to keep the car, in ten more years it will still ‘run’ fine. It will probably be slower (won’t dump 120+kw maximum) and its range may drop to 35-40 miles which means it is still practical for an elderly person who drives three miles to church three times a week and to the grocery store and doctor in twenty-mile round trips. Hell, with a level 2 charger handy, you could probably deliver pizzas for a cost as low as 1-cent a mile provided you could charge at the pizzeria. (My overnight EV rate for my home service is priced at 4 cents a KWH in Georgia).
The point is, the highest and best use for my little Spark EV in the next decade is as a local delivery vehicle that operates with great efficiency over a small area. Either that or a suburban kids first car capable of getting him/her to school and back but without the option of a road-trip that has you stopping every 50 miles to charge.
I would imagine our friend who INSISTS on a fast charger at every gas station will not purchase an EV since – unless Communism fully takes over in the USA, last I looked Filling Stations are private mostly Mom and Pop businesses. As far as the heavy electricals go, it will be far cheaper installation wise and electric bill wise to buy the newer fast chargers that have batteries in them – such that they only draw enough power from the mains as an electric dryer does.
I only drive plug in vehicles but I’ll be the first to admit that plug-ins are not a cure-all end-all for everyone.
The thing frustrating about many EV type people is that they INSIST RIGHT NOW everything being done for THEM for free. And there is usually no different point of view allowed.
Until EVs work for long distance RURAL people who need TRUCKS and TOWING capability, these Biden-Barra golf carts should be ILLEGAL to drive so government money is spent on DRILLING OIL.
All EVs are good for is LOCAL delivery. Not more then 5 miles away. What if it stops working? How long is the extension cord? 70 miles?
More like lack of performance and crazy prices 😂. What this article really should cover is the auto media’s lack of interest in market demands and real people’s opinions. Remember “the death of the SUV” back in the early morning 2000’s and that the Prius was the “way of the future?” Yet here we are today and sedans are all but dead and SUV’s are king. I’ll believe eletric vehicles are the way of the future when I see it, and it won’t happen till customers who are about to dump a years saving for a vehicle they have to live with for 10 years can’t compare a Chevy sonic to a Chevy bolt and have both do the same thing, yet one costs three times as much and goes half as far 🤣
I agree with you 100%
Until an electric vehicle experience matches the experience of an internal combustion engine burning gasoline and the easy convenience of being able to fill up the vehicle within 5 minutes from any gas station electrics are one big expensive pipe dream
Why take a trip to fill up? You can charge your EV in the safety of your home while you sleep. Some can even charge for free with solar or wind turbine systems. Can you get gas for free? Before cars, horses could feed for free.
IDK, maybe because im cultured, and take a trip up to Dayton AF base (600 miles) or down to mammoth cave (300 miles) or even Nashville sometimes (500 miles) and once every two years i take a trip out west, a whopping 1000-1500 miles with my horses in tow, cause you see, Ray, Im not ingnorant, and am a mechanical engineer by degree and grew up a farmer and can tell you three things,
1. horses never ever in even in fairy tales ate for free. Let me see you do a summer cutting and stacking hay and you will change your mind about the economies of gas V horse in a heartbeat. They also require way more maintenance than a Chevy Vega, or 70’s ford
2. there is no way any magical superbattery will be able to charge in 5 minutes. Gas takes refill with a “pre-charged” chemical reaction, essentially it is the same as if you had EV’s swap batteries at gas stations. Anyone familiar with electrical arc flash calculations, or even basic welding principals knows when you run that much current through a wire, melting the wire is the least of your concerns. If a wire was to short to the air, you are talking about a transformer size explosion, and no breaker is going to blow when you are trying to shove 100 KWH,s down in under 5 minutes. There is no way in heaven, but definitely a way in hell, cause that is what your car is going to look like after receiving the same amount of juice that iron ore vats do in refineries.
3, nothing is ever free. We are never going to get fully ran by wind power either, as its a tinker project to show off while 90% of our grid is ran by gas, and the remaining 10 is mostly nukes. 2% of our grid is wind/solar, and that with 80% of our investment over the last 10 years going to these two money wasters. you will run off of gas or nukes in the future, or we wont be running at all.
2% being a DOE grid survey
I recently bought my second EV a Bolt, it will be used for commuting just like the 2012 Volt I drove for about three years. I like EV’s but the extra weight of the battery, precious metals supply and cost, lack of charging infustructure and lack of range are huge road blocks to overcome. GM has the worst marketing department, you wouldn’t know the EV1 ever existed. GM never mentions being the pioneer of the electric vehicle, Tesla gets all the hype. The advertising is key to their success, until GM can hype their technology and product better, to get people in the showroom, it doesn’t matter how much they invest! Expensive models like the Hummer and Caddy aren’t what average consumers can afford, an affordable high volume commuter vehicle is what they should concentrate on. Be the first manufacturer to offer the new trend in transportation for the masses. Go test drive a Bolt, you will be surprised, it’s a great vehicle and the price is very reasonable on 20 or 21 model.
I’m an aerospace engineer, and while I agree with most of the evidence you cite to back up your conclusions, there are numerous R&D projects underway to improve both vehicle range and charging speed. Every month, it seems, there is a new breakthrough in battery tech and/or a product introduction that changes the status quo for EVs and batteries, as one would expect with hundreds of companies and thousands of scientists and engineers working on both the fundamental science and products.
I’m not a big fan of most renewables; I think wind and solar are dead ends for several reasons ($/kWh being the most obvious, but also the amount of land they take up – though solar is obviously somewhat better since photovoltaic cells can be placed on almost any roof – so long as the sun is shining). Nuclear would be a far better answer, but the green lobby won’t have it; at least not yet (and maybe never).
As for growing up on a farm? I did, too; perhaps that’s why, like you, I’m more interested in common sense solutions that trying to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Terrific thread, and excellent points. We need more middle-ground, common-sense opinions like this in the public sector.
And more drilling and pipelines so we can bring back the Volt.
Renewable energy is the most expensive kind you can buy and it totally let down the state of Texas and California. We should build nuclear plants because they don’t need subsidies.
The whole grid in Texas collapsed for a whole bunch of reasons – it wasn’t just the renewables. Natural gas pipelines froze (or at least the valves and pumps did), preventing power generation. There was no reserve capacity. Texas is largely isolated from the rest of the country’s grid, so it couldn’t bring in capacity to deal with the demand. Etc.
California is another story, and largely one where fossil fuel and nuclear generation stations are being taken off-line. Wonder of wonders – the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing from time to time.
There is no way to store solar power. America should ban solar power and mandate nuclear power that never freezes.
The Natural Gas in Texas mainly failed due to the IDIOTIC worry about ‘Greenhouse Gases’ from ICE compressor stations that were all converted to electric motors – bogging down the ‘grid’ more.
And since there is plenty of jacket heat from several hundred horsepower Natural Gas Fired engines, the stations couldn’t have frozen to begin with IF they had the sense to leave the perfectly fine, economical (the gas company gets the gas at a discount) Gas-Fired engines in place that used to be there.
Democrats cause our problems, Republicans fix em!
I know you don’t live in Georgia ’cause the rate payers here are subsidizing the hell out of nuclear here and, if I’m not mistaken, the billions in cost overruns totals in the billions of dollars … all, by GOP passed Georgia law … being paid in advance by Georgia Power users IN ADVANCE.
Solar, on a cost per KWH, is actually less expensive than gas and monumentally less expensive than coal and nukes. It is that these solar arrays can deliver electricity to the grid at less than four cents a kwh including battery backup … and that is after Dumbdonald arbitrarily imposed a twenty five percent tariff on solar panels.
And as far as subsidies for oil, fans of the greasy stuff should know that we the people have been subsidizing the oil biz for going on a century with things like oil depletion allowance, the taking of land for pipelines and a whole host of other benefits those in the industry seek to maintain as they suck the wealth of the nation as they poison people.
Do you, for instance, know that one ‘reasonable theory’ for the rise of violence in the last part of the twentieth century and its decline since then has be attributed to the presence of lead in gasoline pumped out into central cities as commuters added lane after lane disrupting the old by poisoning the air from leaded gasoline. BTW, the evidence for this comes from the history of removing lead from gasoline … seems folks stopped killing each other in greater numbers.
Indeed, the oil lobby, including those so enamored by ICE powered vehicles has been at the root of wars and other carnage from the use of the product.
What needs to happen is that the use of oil, which will never be eliminated, needs to be reserved only for those uses for which their is no viable alternative.
As an EV owner with one of the first SPARK EVs made, it is an early fourteen model registered in Feb twenty thirteen, even this range limited car is a very viable alternative that costs me about two cents a mile to run.
The way EV manufacturers are getting charge times down is reducing current flow by increasing charging voltage. They have already reached 900V in some cases. There is as much danger in extremely high current as there is extremely high voltage. There is a reason that you don’t see over 750V in normal building operations, and there is a separate section of the Electrical Code for “high voltage” being anything over 750V.
The solution to pollution isn’t switching to 1000hp EV’s, it’s convincing people they don’t need an F-350 to drive around by themselves in their daily commute to feel important.
(50 years ago houses could make do with 60A services, now they need 200A…electricity doesn’t come without some environment impact)
Homes today still exist with 60 ampere services, and while you say they ‘need’ 200 ampere services – most load calculations only require a 100 ampere service for a new home. In my area, new ‘overhead’ (service drop) services are typically 100 amperes, and, in some areas where the utility mandates 150 amperes for an underground service (due to the increased expense of changing it), those homes get 150 since it is the minimum this particular utility will allow.. My utility however has no problem with any kind of 100 ampere service.
Presumably, the supposedly optional 19 kw Lyriq or Hummer charging rates will often require a service upgrade. In lieu of that expense, perhaps those purchasers will get along adequately with slower charging rates.
I personally have 3 electric (plug-in) cars, 2 – 240 volt (small) wall boxes, a very large 8′ x 10′ hot tub ( that I’ve converted to Natural Gas heat to save the electricity for charging the cars), electric sauna, and central air conditioning, which runs just fine on the home’s original 100 ampere electric service.
My L2 charger is on a separate meter, and works just fine, as well. Personally, I don’t see DC fast charging happening in residential settings unless the prices come WAY down.
I haven’t wired a new home in my area that calculated out to less than 100A in several years. We require an EV charger in the garage, and that will always put it over 100A. We also don’t bother with 125A-150A services. With the constant increase demand of electrical loads, we jump right up to 200A services. Every new subdivision in my area is required to be developed with a 200A service. If you have 2 large electric vehicles, you will require a large service or have to stagger your charging cycles.
WELL Cdnsolman, if you live in Quebec with almost free hydroelectric electricity, then you will have an Electric Stove, Electric Water Heater, Electric Dryer, and possibly an electric boiler for those who like heated floors or radiators. Or a heat-pump with supplemental back up electric heat.
People with 3 electric cars will typically then need more than 200 amperes in such a case… But in the USA the majority of households today heat with utility Natural Gas.
In my case I have 8 gas appliances, and am soon going to convert my electric grill to natural gas, since the natural gas fired hot tub boiler (I’m told less than 1 in 100 people actually go through the trouble of doing this) is on a nearby inside wall. If I didn’t have the electric cars , 5 hp pressure washer (electric), or 3 – 3 hp hot tub pump motors, here would be my load calculation:
2200 square feet @ 3 watts per square foot………………………………….6600 watts
1500 watts each for 2 appliance ckts and laundry circuit………………4500 watts
Subtotal Lighting, Laundry and Small Appliance ckts……………………11,100 watts
First 3,000 watts at 100%…………………………………..3,000 watts
Next 8,100 watts at 35%……………………………………2,835 watts
Service Entrance Load for General Lighting, Small Appliance, Laundry 5,835 watts
Central Air conditioner loading using minimum circuit ampacity:………4,,347 watts
Dishwasher/Disposer (interlocked operation)…………………………………… 1,200 watts
HVAC Forced-Air Blower……………………………………………………………………….800 watts
Grand total:……………………………………………………………………………………..12,182 watts
AT 120/240 volts, that equals 50.8 amperes so the calculated load is 51 amps.
For a dwelling, 100 amperes however is the minimum legally required for a new home – however, a 60 ampere electric service would easily satisfy the loading for
most homes this size with all gas appliances…. Its only the hot tub pumps, and 3 electric cars which pushes me over this. The typical home does not have these
electric consumers.
Down voted a factual – detailed commentary? Too bad a few silly people with nothing else to do hang out here without making serious, substantial comments.
Wind and solar are completely subsidized unlike nuclear.
Raymond, its not “free” to charge an EV. You or someone is paying in the end. Public chargers aren’t free. Not everyone has solar at their house and solar panels aren’t “free” to install either. If you charge at work for “free” the company is eating it up in their bills.
Pretty much this… The only thing I’d add is that I would like my range to stay over 300 miles, even in the dead of winter, until atleast 10 years or 100,000 miles.
This is the case of putting the cart before the horse. Until the infrastructure is in place to support EVs, and battery technology is such that it can compete with ICE for range, refueling(recharging) it’s no more than a commuter car. As for trucks the same applies, a truck is designed to be a work vehicle not a status symbol even though many people drive them for status. Until an EV truck can work like an ICE Truck they will never succeed. At the present time an EV pulling less than 4000 lb trailer with a normal 300 mile range can’t travel more than 123 miles without needing recharging, away from metropolitan areas, recharging stations are scarce, plus 5-6 hours recharging time for 80% is not acceptable for me.
Where I was growing up in the fifties in the Mississippi River Delta of the midsouth, probably half the people had ever gone further than sixty miles from home as that is about how far Memphis was. How far could folks go in a day in a Conestoga wagon? five or six miles???
Unless you’re Ted Turner whose ranch in Wyoming or whereever it is and you might drive a hundred miles on your land, the vast majority of trips of all kinds are less than thirty miles. That you would have to have a range of three hundred miles for all but a rare six hour road trip is ridiculous. It is kind of like demanding the base burger at McDonalds is a fifty pound patty, not a quarter pounder. Yet you order it knowing you will waste fourty nine pounds with each order.
That doesn’t make sense … so know you know.
Many potential buyers never educate themselves on electric vehicles, and believe the common gas car ads as true. Since GM and Tesla never put ads on TV or in other media, only the well educated who investigate on their own the true benefits of electric driving will buy EVs.
So for those who post against EVs, get educated correctly now before all new gas cars will be gone by 2050. Or else plan to keep your gassers forever. And for GM, start posting better EV ads, since the Cadillac Lyriq ads during the Super bowl were silly or useless.
I agreed with your point of view, I don’t know who is running GM ads department, whoever the person is, doing a lousy job.
“ I agreed with your point of view, I don’t know who is running GM ads department, whoever the person is, doing a lousy job.”
Deborah Wahl. She used to do those ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ ads for the big burger chain so Mary brought her over.
I haven’t seen a good or memorable gm ad in years.
I wonder how long it will take before such batteries are possible
To get 300 miles from a battery in winter would mean a roughly 500 mile battery range in summer – that’s actually not far off (Tesla and Lucid Air are at 400+ already, and Rivian will have that range as well). The biggest convenience is being able to juice up at home on a Level 2 charger, making a long range battery and convenient, fast charging necessities only for road trips (but definitely required). My per-mile energy cost is about 30-40% less than for my gas-powered cars.
The next generation of fast chargers, at 400V+, plus wireless capacitive systems such as the ones already used in electric bus fleets (there is a SAE standard as well) will get batteries to full charge in around 15 min in the next 2-3 years. Toyota’s solid state Li-ion battery tech being introduced later this year may be even better during that timeframe.
I bought a Chevy volt a few years back, and have 180,000 miles on it. I love it! Battery only degraded by 4% lol. I drive 30min to work plug in, and drive home. I barley ever have to use the gas motor. Oh its a first gen volt too so only 40mile range. I will always buy EV and almost anyone who actually takes the leap will too.
See, the Volt and Voltec made sense. EV when you want it, range extension when you need it. No chargers around on your family road trip? Gas generator will keep you going. Oops, ran the tank out but still have to go further? Fill it up and keep going.
If Voltec got to 100-150mi EV range and then extend it with a super efficient ICE range generator to extend you 300-400 more miles if necessary, it would be the cat’s meow.
Obama killed the Volt with his bailouts of the Tesla and Solyndra.
What happens when it is time to dispose of these batteries and what will be the cost of replacement? They WILL eventually have to disposed of.
That’s a good question, and it deserves a good answer. For now, most of the disposal efforts have been focused on reusing EV cells for other devices that require Li-ion batteries. Eventually, those will be exhausted, as well, but not for years (and possibly decades). By then, so goes the thinking, we’ll know what to do with the toxic materials.
But the same is true for all Li-ion battery packs, not just those in EVs. Smartphones, laptops, cameras, etc., have the same issues. It’s going to be a real problem requiring good solutions. For now, they don’t really exist (neither for that matter, do they really exist for good ol’ alkaline batteries, either; disposing of your common Duracells into the city landfill isn’t good for the ground water).
After you spend ten grand on a new battery, the value and interest of the EV will drop (just like a new engine replacement) so the owner is left with a net value of Zero.
In other news, there is ongoing research with synthetic fuel for ICE vehicles. They are comparable to EV emissions! This early in the game to me is very impressive. ICE vehicles are going nowhere!
EV’s are ok and practical for a select few but not everyone.
Hagerty has several interesting articles on it.
Sorry Elon, it was just a dream.
Battery replacement is theoretically possible (just as engine replacement is) but unlikely for most owners (which is also true of engine replacement) or even second owners. There are tens of thousands of EV and hybrid battery packs that have been around for 10+ years; degradation of capacity runs around 4-5% over that time span – nothing to write home about.
While I agree with your point about ICE still being around for a long time, I disagree that they will serve only a niche. As the tech gets better, they’ll be more widely adopted.
Biden blocked the Keystone pipeline which would have brought synfuel to taxpayers. Now we will have to bail out the EV industry.
The batteries will end up in the same toxic, leaky landfill the frozen wind mills are in up in the Dakotas.
Perhaps when their range improves, when there are more charging sites, when they don’t look like a Smart car, and when gas hits $10 a gallon the public will be more accepting.
Electricity will be more expensive than gas once Biden takes the gas stations away. Electricity companies will have a monopoly. This is just a shell game.
EV is a lifestyle choice. PERIOD.
EVs are like gender changes.
an EV covers 99% of most people’s driving needs with no fuss. why don’t manufacturers offer some sort of program for the few times a year when you need a ICE for really long trips? maybe a credit/discount for a loaner from the local dealer.
With Teslas, it’s already possible to drive coast-to-coast (so long as you’re driving where there are superchargers, of course). It adds time and massive inconvenience versus driving an ICE over the same distance. But … it’s possible.
This absolutely makes driving an EV over long distances a “lifestyle choice” (to use the comment above) for now. But then, driving over a long distance is already a lifestyle choice absent a compelling reason to drive at all (such as economics, hauling stuff, etc.).
The first, practical, EV semi-trucks are coming in the next 3-5 years; almost every OEM is working on them or is partnered with someone to do so. Together with wireless capacitive or inductive fast charging, that will prompt Pilot Centers, Flying J, and other businesses that cater to long-haul truckers to install charging pads at their facilities to serve their customers (capitalism is a wonderful thing). They will be a forcing function for the underlying technology, availability of charging while on the road, and the underlying economics.
Electricity is an important resource that will only get more expensive as demand goes up and Biden takes gas stations away. Electricity should be reserved for necessities like homes and buildings, not cars.
That is a terrible idea. They would have to maintain a huge fleet of gas cars somebody only uses once a year. It makes more sense to drill more oil and build the Keystone pipeline so we will never run out of cheap, domestic oil.
I think the public needs to be educated better on the distances and the amount of charging stations that are available or will be available moving forward
There aren’t any stations because the Biden administration requires lengthy environmental reviews before anything can be built. Better to have a gas car or a hybrid.
Good thread.
I think Chevy is making a mistake.
Has Chevy perfected the building gad powered vehicles after building them his many years. The answer is no. There are problems that need to be fixed and there are still recalls which need to be addressed.
In order to move the bulk of their purchasers to EVs they need to prove to the purchasers that the product wil meet their needs for the climate , environment they live in and at trade in time get good value.
Today, purchasers have a good idea of their costs to purchase, use and trade in their used vehicle.
If Chevy goes to 30 models in 2025 without educating its purchasers the conversion to EVs could be a huge failure.
I will look to a hybrid first before considering an EV. I live in a cold environment with snowy roads in the winter and I will need to drive a minimum a 200 miles in a single trip in temperatures of -15F without having to be concerned to look for a recharge station.
Additionally, Chevy has not talked about going for a vacation where we drive over 2500 miles one way. Where are the recharge stations and what is the recharge time. To make it easy I would be driving on interstate highways with a daily drive distance of between 500 to 700 miles.
It’s impossible to charge an EV more than 300 miles from home. The extension cord alone would require it’s own spool trailer which decreases efficiency.
First a note about me to show where I am coming from….
I’m on my 6th plug in car – and have owned FIVE GM plug in vehicles – and I currently own 2 plug in hybrids (a 2014 ELR – so called First Generation Voltec, a Second Generation 2019 Volt), and currently own 1 BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle with no gasoline backup), an early 2017 BOLT ev – you know, the one with the problematic battery that GM is still trying to permanently rectify).
With that said – I wonder about those people who say they have almost no battery degradation after 180,000 miles… My GM batteries have all decreased in capacity just below the point where ‘warranty degradation’ would require replacement. Which is perfectly ok from my point of view: to make an analogous comparison to a used Impala as a for instance – the heater motor may die after the bumper to bumper warranty is expired, or (back when they had 100,000 mile power train warranties) the transmission dies at 100,500 miles. If I owned such a car (actually a friend did – that is how I’m familiar with it), I would have no trouble since that is the Agreement I made at the time of purchase – that is, the car remained trouble-free as long as it was supposed to.
Range Anxiety and cost of electricity – normally trivial – is in most of the country subject to variable rates for energy charges…. Only the ‘Delivery’ costs are fixed. For instance – many in Texas got their monthly electricity bills with a $50 delivery charge and an $8,700 energy charge. I’m in Western NY and have only experienced one BAD energy charge month in the 10 years at my current house, but the point is, it is in the back of my mind all the time as to something which COULD happen. The people in Texas, in retrospect would have been far better off with my ELR or Volts. As it was, Tesla S owners were complaining the cost to recharge one time was $900.
Toyota (and Ford and Chrysler/FCA/Stellantis) seem to be able to make money with their plug-in hybrids, with the Prius Prime and the Rav4 PRIME PHEV vehicles that have no such range anxiety, and can refuel two different ways – with the owner choosing the most economical – in the vast majority of cases it will be by plugging – in.
It is therefore a shame that GM has refused to find a way to make Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles profitably, which in almost all cases can be recharged using the ubiquitous car port or garage receptacle.
The totally electric route GM seems to be headed on with its ‘Boutique’ Vehicles seems to be a winning plan, since they will make money on simplified Ultium Batteries, as well as their vast majority 100% ICE vehicles – no longer having anything Hybrid whatsoever.
As far as the Bolt EV and EUV ‘free charging 220 volt receptacle installation’ it looks to me to be ‘Feigned Concern’ in that this ‘free program’ ends June 30th (the second week of Summer) before the first 2022 electric vehicle is ever even sold. And then GM won’t bother talking about specifics, which any new car buyer would want to know. The future Lyriq and Hummer will need to call an electrician to provide adequate recharging speeds if the purchaser is a high-mileage driver – so it is a bit of a shame that they don’t simple straightforward advice or policies…
I’m not saying GM should be responsible for recharging a Battery Electric Vehicle at all – but their policy and ‘feigned generosity’ should be clear and straight forward so as not to NEEDLESSLY WORRY someone new to electric vehicles…. Their current marketing policy is so confusing to me (after purchasing so many plug in vehicles), that I can only imagine the HORRID REACTION someone formerly thinking about taking the plunge to purchase a plug-in vehicle. Any ‘spark’ of interest GM has killed by the way they are mismanaging this.
GM designs cars to fall apart just after the warranty ends because profits are needed to pay for costly unions.
Electricity is a scare resource and will end up costing more than gasoline after Biden takes away the gas stations.
I will not buy an EV until it has a 1000 mile battery and a gasoline engine for faster pickup and sound effects and easy fueling and the fast charging needs to be 100% in less than 2 minutes after Biden takes away the gas stations.
Please provide a link to the story about President Biden “taking away gas stations”.
Proof is what happened in Texas. Wind turbines froze and brought down the whole grid!
Melania –
Texas had grid connected Electric Generation equal to 110% of the required electric load at the PEAK of consumption…. But Biden’s EPA would not allow the State’s Coal fired generating plants to run at more than 60% capacity…
(It is not generally known, but Central Stations ‘LIKE’ to run at 100% 24/7/365 – due to the peculiar characteristics of Steam – and will have SHORTENED LIVES when running at under 100% capacity)
If the EPA didn’t interfere – even with the silly electric motors running the gas compressor stations, AND the frozen windmills, AND the snow covered solar panels – Texas would have gotten away from this cold snap unscathed.
But the EPA interfered and therefore, the problem Snowballed.
That’s the truth the liberals don’t want us to know! Fascist EPA should be abolished! Coal could have saved Texas!
Say hi to Donald for us, Melania.
I will wait until manufacturers over produce EVs and have to place huge rebates on them to keep production going. 400 mile range for middle sized SUV thinking around 26-28K.Probably not GM until I see better quality results. Love our Honda Pilot….hope Honda comes up with a good SUV EV.
Honda is jap crap.
Mary makes women look incompetent and unable to run a company right.
Don’t ever quit reaching. Goals!
Has anyone ever been to Freedom Vapor Vape Shop located in 9645 East Colonial Dr Suite #106?