re: “I’d like to know where you’ve gotten the idea that GM has 3rd-rate engineers. “

I don’t mean that GM has 3rd rate engineers any more than anyone else does (a few always slip through). The majority of GM’s engineers are 1st rate, equal or better than anyone in the Silicon Valley, NASA, or other glory locations! A problem is that too many of the managers making a lot of the decisions at GM were 3rd rate engineers that really didn’t understand anything other than the details of the technology that GMI had taught them. Every place gets a few 3rd rate engineers and unfortunately (Dilbert principle), with out a lot of effort, they (Roger Smith et al?) can rise up to management where they can make many bad decisions.

re: “Please remember that Tesla was the company who had to turn to Detroit engineers to solve significant issues in build quality, and that their only potential innovation, the 2-speed transmission in an EV, failed to work. I personally know quite a few people who could have handled that job!”

This is utter mis-information which I’ve heard from many in Detroit. I don’t know who is passing this nonesensical mantra around but they don’t have a clue what happened at Tesla:
First of all, there is no reason an electric car needs a transmission at all. Tesla’s management, however, felt that for marketing reasons, they needed to be able to beat supercar performance but, since it hadn’t really be done before, felt that a conventional (ie archaic ICE paradigm based) approach of using a transmission was necessary as a risk reduction.
They, therefore, tried to develop a 2-speed transmission to give low speed torque while maintaining top-end speed. Being a small, startup in an industry that does not know startups, they couldn’t get anyone who knew about reliable transmissions to work with them. Instead, they could only get specialty (ie racing) transmission experts to work with them. These guys, of course, can’t build transmissions that last very long. The transmissions Tesla started with would fall apart after about 5000 miles. The mistake, however, was not Tesla’s incompetence but the choice to put a transmission in in the first place.
Tesla’s engineers, in parallel with the transmission development effort, developed a Power Electronics Module (PEM) and electric motor that could put out enough low-speed torque to allow the roadster to get the targeted 4.7 second 0-60 acceleration while maintaining the 125+ mph top speed (limited today, purely by the chosen cooling system and desire for efficiency – so don’t count on this limit remaining, should the market drive it higher). What Detroit probably also missed is that part of the 0-60 acceleration was because they didn’t lose the 0.1 second required to shift a transmission.
So, I guess, you’re right that the buggy whip experts (transmission engineers) in Detroit can make better buggy whips (transmissions) than Tesla’s Silicon Valley geeks. They can feel really good about themselves, knowing that Tesla’s engineers can’t whip (shift) their teams (motors) to perform as well as Detroit’s buggy whip engineers can. They will be able to smugly take this satisfying knowledge all the way to the unemployment line since EVs don’t need to be whipped (shifted) like horses (ICE) do. They will propagate this knowledge, even to the smart Detroit engineers such as yourself so you completely miss the key lesson. EVs don’t need transmissions.

Now getting past the misunderstandings, let me address a few other key points you made:

Tesla did nothing that anyone else couldn’t also have done. I agree. They DID something. Nobody else DID. Why not? Why did GM kill their EV1 when they could have made an electric version of their ‘Vette that would have trashed any ICE ‘Vette. This would have really brought the costs of batteries down and fast so they could take their brake, tire, seals (whoever needs them), electronics (not really a Detroit specialty), etc along and made great, sustainable vehicles for the future. No, Detroit put silly $5 fuel sensors on their fuel lines and claimed they were ‘flex fuel’ when we all know that E-85 is a farce and irregardless, with 100% E-85 use, the ‘flex fuel’ vehicles would have to have their fuel systems replaced after a short time because they really can’t handle the ethanol. It did allow them to fit through CAFE loopholes they had gotten slipped in though.

Up front EV costs: The only part of an EV today that is more expensive than an ICE today is the battery. Electric motors are quite simple, power electronics are trivially cheap, and EV power trains are also trivial. Now on to the battery. With no high-volume, large format, commodity, high-specific-energy, battery business on our planet, it is certainly difficult to predict where the costs can go. Li-ion and to a lesser degree NiMH raw materials are extremely cheap. Therefore, the costs lie in the manufacturing. Tesla was forced to start with a high-margin car in order to bring the volumes up to get battery prices down. They’ve apparently been doing a great job, dropping the price from the early days of ~$50K down to the $20K they’re warrantying them for today. That is in 1 year of manufacturing. Between improving manufacturing methods and automation, getting better cell pricing through stronger buying power, Tesla’s battery costs have come down a lot. With even stronger buying power, more investment by others to meet Tesla’s and other EV manufacturer’s needs, this will only drop further.
I just hope Tesla’s ego-maniacal financier doesn’t destroy the company before others pick up the battle from them.
I have to disagree with your assessment that I hate GM products because they have ICEs in them. I like the ICE. I like ’57 Chevy’s, early ’60′s ‘Vettes and Mustangs, ’70′s muscle cars, black ’78 trans Ams, ’80′s Mustang 5.0s, ’70′s station wagons, pre-1990′s pickup trucks, Jeep CJs, several different Porche’s, 1991 Geo Metro convertibles, etc. I also like the horses, sailboats, and steam engines. I really liked the performance, convenience, and future capability of the EV1.
The problem is that I believe the time has come to start moving beyond the ICE yet its industry is fighting dirty to preserve itself, to the detriment of vehicle performance, society, and the future of our lifestyle.
I’m happy to let the market decide itself but we have no free market so that is tough (although as Tesla proves, not impossible). We do have free communications though so I’m taking advantage of it to counter myths that the ICE industry is creating as part of their dirty fight to continue business as usual.
I, personally, believe that our future hope lies in smart folks such as yourself and many others who frequent Hybridcars.com, with excellent knowledge, insight, and strength.
I also believe that there may be other solutions to the world’s transportation than EVs. I just have seen that EVs really do offer one real solution yet they are being unfairly beat down for greedy, parochial reasons.
Sorry to all for the long rant.

And I’m not talking about the ICE powertrain. Brakes, tires, seals, electronics, that’s where limited production cars often suffer.

You’ll know that EV’s are successful when they are numerous, profitable (i.e., self-supporting), and mainstream.

From your comment about “owing GM,” I know that you think it’s important to be self-supporting. EV’s are not even close yet. Based on another article here on the cost of batteries, it will be a while.

I’ve never argued that EV’s take little maintenance. But you pay for it in initial cost. The required maintenance for ICE’s is so minimal today that I don’t see the big deal.

I’d like to know where you’ve gotten the idea that GM has 3rd-rate engineers. GM is known to have better engineers than any other manufacturer (and certainly better than Tesla). We’ve had management problems before, when the bean-counters refused to pay for higher quality parts, but our engineers have always been highly respected, especially by the Japanese.

Please remember that Tesla was the company who had to turn to Detroit engineers to solve significant issues in build quality, and that their only potential innovation, the 2-speed transmission in an EV, failed to work. I personally know quite a few people who could have handled that job!

I’m afraid you are showing that you are getting your information about us from some very limited and biased sources.

The reasons it took $1 billion to do the EV1 were several. We had arrogant leadership (in Roger Smith) whose method was to throw money at things (he had no product knowledge), we had a bloated cost structure (high UAW labor rates – I made less than a starting line worker when I started there with a masters degree) and much poorer Computer-Aided Design tools. (Roger Smith sowed the seeds of destruction that eventually sent us into bankruptcy.)

Now we do much more with much less, and now we can make money on our products. I know you’re still prejudiced against our products because they all use ICE’s (much like 99.999% of all other products), but if you opened your eyes and compared our products to others, you’d be forced to change your tune.

If you notice, in all this, I haven’t said the Tesla is a bad car. I just see it as a niche vehicle, made with other company’s parts, that anyone could have done.

And I haven’t said there’s anything wrong with electric cars. I think they’re cool, in the right circumstances. I could see buying one in a few years for commuting. They just aren’t superior.

Pretend its 1978 and you’re talking about IBM and DEC versus Apple and Intel.
Past history doesn’t predict future performance.
If you take any new car design and divide it by 1000, you’ll get a huge recurring price. Toyota lost money on their first Prius’s as well – until it went to a regular production line, then the went into the black very quickly.
That isn’t what killed the EV. It was the buggy whip makers (3rd rate engineers and finance majors) mis-managing the car companies that had clawed their way up to the top and were afraid to change the processes that they had mastered.
Your Wise Old Engineer’s wisdom is obsolete with EVs (I bet he doesn’t want EVs either as they’ll obsolete him too). ICE = too many hot, moving parts. My Roadster will soon be going in for it’s 2nd scheduled checkup – at 24,000 miles. There’s no actual maintenance scheduled to be done, Tesla just wants to look it over so they can congratulate themselves, yet again, at how non-temperamental their design actually is. Don’t confuse an EV with a maintenance hogging (wimpy) Ferrari that spends more time on a lift than on its wheels.
I haven’t saved any money with the Tesla compared with the $50K extra over the cost of an Elise but I can see a sustainable future in it. Freedom isn’t free but at least I don’t have to give the ultimate sacrifice (I’m a Veteran don’t forget)- in fact, I’m having a blast being free!
Do you really think that $3/gal gas hasn’t skyrocketed? I remember $0.30/gal. 10X in 35 years sounds like skyrocketing to me. It even took 10 years of 2-digit inflation for us to even be able to tolerate it. Too bad we don’t still control the currency that set’s crude prices like we did in the ’70′s. Do you feel secure?

I’ll address your list:
a) The Tesla is very fast, and I imagine it is a blast to drive. I suppose it’s not quite as nimble as a Lotus Elise in the turns (my favorite part of driving), since it weighs 1,000 pounds more.
b) I don’t know about the others, but we (at GM) spent $1,000,000,000 to develop the EV1, not including the cost of the cars themselves. If we had sold 10,000 EV1′s, we would have had to charge $100,000 per car, PLUS the actual cost to build and assemble the parts, to break even. I’m not sure what salesmanship could make a success out of that.
c) If I had leased a car that cost $1,000,000 ($1 billion divided by 1,000 cars) for GM to provide and only paid $499 per month, I wouldn’t have wanted to give it up either.
d) When you give something away for nearly free, everybody wants it. It was an incedible bargain.
e) You’ve saved a couple of thousand dollars on gasoline in a year, but spent a lot on more the car (a Lotus Elise is about $50,000 vs. $120k for a Tesla).

Personally, I’d take the Lotus Elise, because it would be much more “flingable” and easier on the tires. It wouldn’t have the straight line speed, but you could drive it long distances to watch road races (one of my hobbies) and tour the track.

When I started here, a wise old engineer said, as I admired a Ferrari Testarossa, “The more a car costs, the less it’s worth.” What he meant was that a lot less effort goes into the average expensive car, because you don’t have to be too clever to make a few thousand expensive vehicles, and if they have issues, you can afford to spend time with the customer to make things right. Exotic cars tended to also be temperamental, because fewer engineers work on it to get the kinks out.

You have to be much more clever to make a quality car for the masses, that is high in quality, but inexpensive to produce, so you can make a profit. And they have to be more reliable, because it’s a person’s everyday transportation. It takes many more engineers, much more money, and the stakes are much higher.

We’ll see how Tesla does on their next car. I honestly wish them the best, but I don’t envy the uphill battle they have before them. It’s a bit like farming on poor ground. Just a slight drought can doom you.

I am willing to be proven wrong, but I seriously doubt we’ll see any EV car manufacturer “honestly” profitable (self-sustaining) for at least 10 years, and then only if gasoline finally does skyrocket (and that’s been “just around the corner” for 35 years).