Comments on: Chinese Scare: The Electric Cars Are Coming!

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:24:13 +0000

Dear article writer,

1. What NYT says is "China wants to raise its annual production capacity to 500,000 hybrid or all-electric cars and BUSES (emph. added) by the end of 2011", not cars only as you wrote in the first sentence.

2. The upto (again, missed) $8,800 subsidy you referred to the NYT article was 'offered to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle they purchase', not aimed at chinese consumers. How about consumers in China? "(A)n interagency panel is planning tax credits for consumers who buy alternative energy vehicles".

By: michael e. v. knight

michael e. v. knight — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:11:16 +0000

Heres a Chinese Hybrid electric car for under $22,000 that goes 62 miles on electric power alone:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/byd-f3dm-electric-plug-in-hybrid-china.php

By: Verne

Verne — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:15:24 +0000

This is crazy. I just don’t understand why the US, European, and Asian automakers cannot build an electric car. The Tesla and Tango exist – yes for alot of money, but if they had the resources of the big boys, we could have an electric vehicle next year that was affordable. Aptera should be out later this year and it is affordable. Let’s stop this nonsense that this will take years to develop. If it takes the Chinese to push the envelope, I’m all for it.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:03:52 +0000

GM must be joking. This “vehicle” is a pointed stick in the public eye. They deserve to go under, I’ll never buy a GM car again, what an insult.

By: Samie

Samie — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:28:00 +0000

As someone said battery costs are key in bring affordable EV vehicles to the U.S. An advantage the Chinese may have is in their R&D in that if backed by the government the advances into battery technology will have a greater chance of making it in to real production. In the U.S we often create great innovations through advances in technology but if it hurts another industry we sometimes find it more viable to hold patents with no intention on production to control the change in markets. Example could be the patent on the flat- less tire for cars that was bought up by one of the tire companies in the 1970′s. The U.S can not be complacent in this type of manner in developing affordable EV’s. Also special interests like the oil companies are seeking ways to control the market of alt. energies and battery production by buying large shares in some of these companies which allows them to sometimes micro manage and underfund r&d this helps slow down in the short-term changes or faster expansion of these markets. In my opinion this is why there could be an opportunity for foreign automakers to make serous inroads into the U.S EV market if we keep this type of attitude and don’t start getting serious about being a leader and game changer as was Toyota and the Japanese Government with the full hybrid development and production of the Prius.

By: Dave K.

Dave K. — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:25:41 +0000

I agree with Ross and also with 9691, I have a friend with a 12 year old EV with NiCd batteries, technology from the '70s.
It has a 70 mile range on a FRENCH made $10K battery pack(Saft) that is good for 150K miles, so tell me the big 3 couldn't have made a "Volt like" car in the 70s. they just really don't want to.
Buy the time we drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century the Chinese will have eaten their lunch.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:49:46 +0000

i agree with Ross Nicholson. Too many people drastically underestimate the speed with which China is progressing. And the extent of everything they do. For every person in the U.S. there are four people in China. Yes, many of them are very, very poor. But that number is decreasing dramatically. The number of Chinese engineers graduating annually dwarfs our output. Is the quality of our graduates better. Maybe our top 20% is as good as their top 5%, but they still win. I have found “the rule of 4″ to be a useful rule of thumb for calibrating my thinking about China and their progress: at equilibrium, everything there is 4 times more than here; and everything is progressing 4 times faster than here. They clearly understand every shortcoming they have, and are focused on overcoming them. If you have lived there for a year of two (recently) you will see what I mean. If you haven’t you might check with someone who has before summarily dismissing everything Chinese.

By: Lost Prius to wife

Lost Prius to wife — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:16:48 +0000

Ross Nicholson, to a great degree, you are right. But it really depends on what kind of direction management is providing at the top of the various Chinese companies. Too many times the directive is “do not add any more cost; it is good enough as it is”. This is where safety issues start. Add in the tendency to accept substandard parts, or material that is dangerous to humans, instead of rejecting their use, the safety issues escalate even higher. It is entirely possible that “The Chinese can do it in two.” But I seriously doubt that they will because of the directions from the top management, in general, that the world has observed in the past.

By: John K

John K — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:28:01 +0000

Heh - let's do a bit of substitution, shall we?

Boycott ALL American goods until the US government can prove to the world it's not poisoning our food, environment, and the world.

For example, not significantly contributing to that garbage pile floating in the Pacific Ocean that's three times the size of Texas.

By: sufipoet

sufipoet — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:50:49 +0000

The electric (alternative energy as a whole) industry is a result of non-investment. This was due to the suppressed price of oil in the last 30 years.

The oil & gas industry went against Economics 101 logic with INCREASED DEMAND and DECREASED SUPPLY but SUSTAINED OR LOWERED PRICE. This led to a mis-presumption by the bean counters - that price of low oil & gas means a linear growth for everything that runs on it. So they built more diesel generated power plants, built bigger and faster vehicles (from planes to ships to cars) and more roads. What was worse was that our future global economy were planned based on these un-sustainable presumptions! And our society is still being shaped by these infrastructures!

The current situation (economic and social, globally but especially in US) is a case of interventionist economics gone bad. Intervention to create 'soft landings' is acceptable BUT not to create a fundamental lie! Capitalism requires that natural selection happen regularly (on a smaller scale). Or else it would be like daming a river, sooner or later the dam will burst and the effect (as we are now experiencing!) will be much worse.