USA Today just reported that Ford is cutting the sticker price of the fully battery-powered plug-in Focus Electric by a flat $6,000. That’s on top of a $4,000 price reduction on the same vehicle a year ago. The new sticker price is $29,995 including shipping—but not including federal tax credits of up to $7,500 and state incentives that might effectively knock another $2,500 off the amount buyers pay.
Read more in TIME.
When he died, the patriot Paul Revere was embalmed in V8 juice, tanning lotion and several energy drinks. Surprisingly, he reappeared at a relatively recent conference of the Massachusetts Association of Automobile Dealers, looking fit and ready for another ride. The dealers had prayed for his second coming. They hoped that even though his previous ride was only one horsepower, he would consent to try a low-horsepower vehicle and ride the state, warning their brave residents that Tesla is online and in-store sales of electric cars coming. The dealers’ marketing folks felt that a reincarnated Revere would do wonders for their shaky image as wheeler dealers (excuse the pun). His deep, holier-than-thou, Fred Thomas-type voice (you know, the actor-turned-politician-turned-actor who now sells most anything on TV for money) would convince all but his former peer group (dead people) that Tesla was anti-American.
“What did Tesla do wrong,” asked Revere? Oh, it’s trying to sell its non-horse, torque-engine vehicles directly to modern-day patriots. Can you imagine euthanizing horsepower? Tears came to Revere’s eyes. But there’s more, paraphrasing a former automaker and cabinet officer Charles Wilson, one of the dealers indicates that what’s good for automobile dealers was and will always be good for America. What Elon Musk, the head of Tesla Motors, wants to do is eliminate dealerships. If the present case before the courts in Massachusetts is won by Tesla and Teslas are sold online, from a storefront, or shopping mall, surely Ford, Chrysler and General Motors will not be far behind. Forget capitalism, forget free markets, forget competition, even forget, Paul, your membership in the old Tea Party in Boston (you know, the taxation-without-representation crowd). Forget everything you fought for. By eliminating dealerships, Tesla will cost jobs. Dealers soon will have to close their doors. Bypassing dealers to sell cars will also first limit and then end our community philanthropy — you know, Little League teams, Fourth of July concerts, community picnics, jerseys for kids etc. Tesla’s headquarters is in California, and it’s a crazy state with Hollywood and all that. Californians act like foreigners. Tesla’s founder believes in global warming, he isn’t satisfied with life in America and he is developing a spaceship where the elite can, someday soon, travel to a second home and ruin our local economy. Losing dealers will make every community less American. Sure, vehicle costs may come down and emissions may improve, but what American is unwilling to pay extra to save his or her friendly auto dealer?
Revere was puzzled. He was a merchant way back then and he believed that competition and the free market were part of the American Dream. (To be honest, he also feared riding and did not understand how he could ride a multiple-horse powered vehicle. He had only mounted one horse.)
But he understood what the dealership folks were trying to tell and sell him. While in his heart, he was a bit ambivalent, he finally said he would do the famous ride again, and this time, because mileage capacity had increased and population of Massachusetts had grown, he agreed to try to go farther west than in his famous, poet-legitimized and sanctified ride.
But just as he gave them the okay, the dealerships received an email from a colleague in Boston that Tesla had won in the Massachusetts court. One dealer started crying. Several others criticized “those activist judges.”
Revere asked to read the email. It indicated that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously determined that the Mass. State Automobile Dealers “lacked standing to block direct Tesla sales under a state law designated to protect franchises owners from abuses by car manufacturers” (Reuters, Sept. 15, 2014). Succinctly, the law was tied to the franchise relationship rather than unaffiliated manufacturers like Tesla.
The court’s finding should make it easier for Tesla to secure positive rulings in many other states. Earlier this spring, senior officials from the Federal Trade Commission strongly indicated that laws outlawing direct sales harmed consumers. Revere, after looking at the email, felt guilty that he had all but agreed to replicate his famous ride. But he was consoled by the fact that freedom and competition won out, at least in the Tesla case in Massachusetts, and that at least consumer democracy was alive and well in the state. He couldn’t help but muse on the fact that Texas, a state supposedly committed to minimal regulation and almost zero interference by government concerning businesses and citizens’ lives, turned its back on Tesla because of lobbying by dealers. Tesla cannot sell directly in Texas. But, as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested, “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” After driving a Tesla (with no horsepower), Revere went back to the halo- lit neter lands happy. We haven’t heard from him since. But on faith alone, his experience with reincarnation likely would have made him a fan of Tesla’s electric cars and other alternative fuels.
It seems like a kind of Hollywood fantasy — autonomous little roadsters scooting in and out of traffic, breathlessly avoiding collisions and getting to their destination before anyone else.
Then again, it seems like the inevitable. If computers can perform medical diagnoses, accomplish instant translations for tourists and power Martian rovers, what’s so complicated about driving a car?
The self-driving car has gotten a lot of publicity lately. Google has a demonstration project and there have been the usual speculations about how long before self-drivers become a common sight. Four states have passed legislation allowing their operation and this month self-driving cars received the ultimate accolade of any new technology by being opposed by the Ralph Nader’s Consumer Watchdog, thereby joining fracking, nuclear power, GMO foods and other technological advances as being opposed by the Naderites.
Yet in truth, the idea of self-driving vehicles has been around for a long, long time. Experiments go back as far back as the 1920s. Engineers tried burying electric cables beneath the road to send signals that would keep cars on track. With the development of computers, however, research switched to autonomous vehicles with a dozen auto manufacturers and universities doing serious work.
In 1995, Carnegie Mellon University built an autonomous vehicle that traveled 3,100 miles cross-country for the “No Hands Across America” tour, with only minimal human intervention. In 2005, a Google vehicle equipped with 3D cameras, radar and a software package called Google Chauffeur won a $2 million prize in a Grand Challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2010, four self-driving vehicles designed at the University of Parma, Italy duplicated Marco Polo’s expedition by driving from Italy to China with only occasional intervention by their human drivers. Google’s fleet of a dozen self-driving cars has now logged 700,000 miles on public highways without experiencing any trouble. The only accident occurred when one of them was read-ended by another vehicle at a traffic light.
Indeed, as things stand now, the biggest obstacle to widespread adoption may be the predictable human reluctance to have the wheel taken out of their hands. One poll in Germany found that while 22 percent of respondents had a positive attitude toward driverless cars, 44 percent were skeptical and 24 percent were actively hostile toward the idea.
So aside from inspiring a hundred high school science projects and proving that computer geeks can do just about anything, what would be the advantage of self-driving vehicles? Here are a few of the possibilities:
Greater fuel efficiency: Advocates say that the precision achieved by automated vehicles in evening out traffic flows would cut down on national gasoline consumption. Instead of some cars dawdling in the fast lane while others weave in and out, traffic would follow a much more orderly pattern. Estimates are that a large fleet of self-driving vehicles could cut national fuel consumption by as much as 10 percent.
The advance of non-gasoline fuel systems: Since the experiments with trolley-like electronic tracks of the 1920s, self-driving systems have been associated with electric cars. While it will be perfectly possible to mount self-driving equipment on a gasoline-powered car, the “wave of the future” seems to be associated with non-gasoline vehicles. Google’s self-driver runs on electricity as do nearly all other experimental models.
Fewer accidents: Although humans may be reluctant to admit it, the vast majority of accidents are caused by driver error. The 360-degree visibility and unblinking vigilance of self-drivers could be a vast improvement. Many new cars are already beginning to incorporate some of the features with rear-view cameras and automatic braking. The 2014 Mercedes S-class offers options for self-parking, automatic accident avoidance and driver fatigue detection. One website that projects the self-driving future even suggests that the main job losses would be among: 1) hospital emergency room services, 2) auto repair shops and 3) trial lawyers specializing in auto accidents!
Peer-to-peer sharing of traffic information: The end point of self-driving would be a peer-to-peer information-sharing system whereby individual vehicles would be warned of congestion and traffic tie-ups and routed away from them. A 2010 study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projected that an amazing 80 percent of all traffic accidents could be avoided by such a peer-to-peer system that smooth out traffic patterns and prevent cars from bumping into each other on congested highways.
More efficient traffic lights: How much time and gas is wasted by cars waiting for the light to change when no cars are coming in the crossing lane? Computerized systems linked to self-drivers could do wonders to hasten traffic flow and ease the time needlessly spent waiting for red lights.
Driving services for people who cannot drive: Many elderly and handicapped people cannot drive under ordinary circumstances, but could manage a vehicle in which they program it to tell it where they want to go. One of Google’s first early adapters was Steve Mahan, a California resident who is legally blind. This YouTube video shows him running a series of errands through his neighborhood, including a visit to a drive-in taco stand. All this might seem that it would increase driving and add to the nation’s fuel consumption until you consider that many of these people are already serviced by elaborate jitney systems that spend a great deal of time making empty runs. Once again, self-drivers would add precision and efficiency to the system.
Mass public transit — the possibility of a whole new personal mobility system: At the end point of this new technology is the vision of a whole new transportation system where far fewer vehicles would be needed to get people where they want to go. Driving this vision is the statistic that the average car is parked 90 percent of the time. If these vehicles could be put to more efficient use — something along the lines of bike-sharing on city streets — then the need for vehicles might be drastically reduced. Particularly in urban settings, more efficient matching of vehicles and passengers would cut down on the need for street parking. Uber, the San Francisco company that matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire, is now operating in 200 cities in 42 countries around the globe. The fuel savings it creates through matching efficiency are phenomenal.
Much of the fruits of these innovations are still in the future, but don’t put it past innovators like Google to make it happen quickly. In 2012 the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the country’s first license to a Toyota Prius modified with Google technology. Florida and Michigan have also issued permits for road testing. Next January, Google will launch 200 gumdrop-shaped vehicles completely void of steering wheel, brake and gas pedal that will begin cruising the streets of Mountain View, Calif., in an experiment supervised by the California DMV.
The future may be closer than we think.
France currently grants new car buyers a credit of 6,300 euros ($8,400) if they purchase an electric vehicle. But if a new bill submitted to Parliament by France’s Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy is approved, customers will be eligible for an additional bonus of 10,000 euros if they switch from a diesel powered vehicle to an electric one. That’s a total of 16,300 Euros or about $22,000.
China is considering a massive government program to build more charging stations for electric vehicles and boost demand for the eco-friendly cars. The policy, which could provide as much as 100 billion yuan ($16 billion) in funding, will be announced soon, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News this week.
[Blog] Until recently, the Chevy Volt was the only range-extended electric car available in the U.S. I’ve driven a Volt for almost three years now, and it’s been a splendid car–quiet, smooth, peppy, and amazingly economical
If you want to get a special incentive for driving a hybrid, you’re a few years too late; but a tax credit applies to nearly every electric car and plug-in hybrid on the market and it can, in some cases, effectively reduce your cost for such a model to that of an ordinary gasoline vehicle (or even less).
A new electric supercar made its debut here Sunday to try to lure a few of the well-heeled away from traditional high-octane machines. It’s called the Renovo Coupe, a sexy rear-wheel-drive supercar powered by batteries that is billed as being able to leap from zero to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds.
The ‘60s and early ‘70s were exhilarating at times and depressing at other times. America seemed angry and divided about the Vietnam War, the struggle over civil rights and equal rights for women. Many of those who were against the war and supported civil rights for minorities and equal rights for women were passionate about their views and saw themselves as change agents in an America that they viewed as perfectible but not perfect. They debated, they marched, they shouted, they irritated, and they (at times) exceeded legal boundaries. Some even took personal risks by becoming Freedom Riders in the south. By the early ‘70s, they had made a positive difference. They had become legends in their own time, capped off by Woodstock — an exotic, culture-changing, music rebellion concert. America would never again be the same!
I ask myself why the effort to break up the oil industry’s monopoly at the gas pump has won intellectual interest among some, but not the passion and the emotion of the ‘60s. No one is riding in a vehicle column through the nation, stopping at gas stations to plead for an opportunity for consumers to choose among alternative or replacement fuels. No one is shouting en masse about the extensive environmental harm and economic loss caused by our reliance on gasoline. Very few are concerned with the widening income gap and increasing poverty in America. Where is the concern about the negative impact that gas prices have on the purchasing power of the poor?
Surprisingly, very few Americans seem worried that most of the wars we are fighting either overtly or covertly involve (to some degree) our or our allies’ dependence on oil and, sometimes, lead to our becoming allied with some unsavory folks. I keep remembering a relatively recent conversation I had with a special services soldier who quite clearly indicated that he and his colleagues believed the U.S. was in Iraq not because of the quest for democracy or freedom, but because of the West’s need for oil. He indicated that it was b.s. — all this talk about building democracy. Whether it’s Iraq, Syria, or Egypt, Americans themselves are having growing doubts about why we have been, are now, or might be in the future, involved in Middle Eastern wars. Many, if not most, hope that their kids are not the first in and the last out.
What is it going to take to stimulate the adrenaline of Americans when it comes to the oil industry’s ability to limit competition at the gas pump through price management, franchise agreements, and political muscle in Congress? I suspect the draft helped energize the public’s antipathy toward the Vietnam War, but for the most part, the anti-Vietnam movement secured the intense support of only a minority of Americans. Indeed, polls at the time indicated that both the women’s and the civil rights movements also had less than majority support. Yet, in all three instances, the overlapping minorities among the population wielded a big political voice, bigger than their numbers.
Why? I suspect media-savvy, bright, and committed leadership had much to do with it. Further, they were helped by the tragic assassinations of President Kennedy; his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy; and Martin Luther King, Jr. Growing public distrust of politicians caused by the gap between the facts on the ground and press releases concerning Vietnam increased the willingness of the American public to support the marchers. Polls began to shift on the war, civil rights, and equality for women. All three issues won increasing numbers and granted legitimacy to efforts to end the war and to assist the “have nots” and the “have less” among us. Given the federal budget authorizations and appropriations, an argument could be made that the halcyon days of the Great Society actually occurred during the first years of President Nixon. This is not heresy. Look at the budget details from 1965 through the early ‘70s.
Can we replicate the passion associated with the Vietnam War, civil rights and women’s rights movements and focus it on more democracy and freedom for consumers concerning choice of fuels? Probably not! The issues involved are difficult to grasp for the public. It is unlikely that families will sit down at the dinner table and stimulate conversation on the benefits and costs of replacement fuels or flex-fuel vehicles. Americans are not going to “March on Exxon” as they did on the Pentagon or gather at the National Mall in D.C. in the hundreds of thousands as they did for civil rights.
The term “silent majority” has been used without a hard and sustained predictable meaning in the last four or five decades. It’s a phrase that needs amplification and definition today. It could become the missing public change agent concerning replacement fuels. Coalition building among supportive pro-environmentalists, businesses, consumers, and anti-poverty groups could lead to the development of multitasked, innovative, and interactive national education program with a broad reach (e.g., town meetings, the newspaper and website articles, webinars, Twitter, movies, YouTube, etc.). Its success could convert a now-silent majority or near majority into a thoughtful, articulate majority focused on breaking up the monopoly at the pump. Success would be reflected in poll numbers supportive of federal, state, and local leaders who are willing to push for open fuel markets and increased FFVs. There would be a coalition of the willing; that is, an increasing number of Americans who would provide backbone to public policymakers who, in turn, would commit to challenging the oil companies’ understandable desire to sustain restricted fuel markets and the status quo favoring gasoline over environmentally better, safer, and cheaper replacement fuels. Their support would be conveyed through voting, and the use of innovative communication technology, rather than marching. The results would be illustrated by new, important, expanded democratically made choices by you and me, regarding fuel and vehicles — and maybe a new Woodstock composed of music celebrating America’s new freedoms. I didn’t go to the last one, but will go to the next one celebrating expanded choice for consumers, a healthier economy, and an improved environment.
Electric vehicles have been around longer than gasoline burners, but it has taken over a century for battery technology to make EVs a viable alternative to internal combustion engines. And as the public slowly begins to embrace the technology, social media analysts recently looked at the online chatter to see which e-cars are getting the most attention.
