Biden Spills Beans on Automaker's Full Line of New Vehicles

T

TraderZones

Hmm, this isn't the first time Biden put his foot in his mouth...

Biden Spills Beans on Automaker's Full Line of New Vehicles
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
By Gary Gastelu

Vice President Joe Biden, during a visit Tuesday to a Delaware automotive assembly plant, unwittingly revealed startup manufacturer Fisker Automotive's undisclosed plans to produce a full line of plug-in hybrid vehicles at the facility.

Near the end of his speech, Biden asked the crowd of mostly UAW workers, who had worked at the Boxwood Road facility in Wilmington when it was owned by General Motors, to “imagine when this factory, when the floor we’re standing on right now is making 100,000 plug-in hybrid sedan, coupes and crossovers every single year."

Fisker, which is in the process of purchasing the plant, previously said only that it was developing the sedan, to be priced at around $40,000 after state and federal tax credits are taken into account.

In an interview with Foxnews.com after the presentation, company founder and CEO Henrik Fisker confirmed that what Biden said was accurate.

“He definitely told what our product plans are,” Fisker laughed, adding that all of his company's cars are being developed from the start with at least three derivatives in mind.
 
These electric cars are bullshit. If/when 100 mpg cars are common-place, do you really believe oil producers won't cut production in order to keep demand artificially high?

In real terms, you'll be no better off than you currently are. You and I simply won't benefit from increased efficiency.

Oh yeah, Biden is a jackass.
 
I won't pay 40k net for electric. Heck get a Hyundai for 14k that get's good gas mileage. T Boone's idea of natural gas is much better. I guess he didn't contribute enough to give his idea momentum.
 
100 mpg causing the Arabs drown in their own oil? I would be more concerned about 500 million new Asian drivers causing availability of cheap energy to shrink.
 
Plug-ins are coming. Now you know why they are banning all the good lightbulbs in a few years, to free up grid capacity for this.

I drive 2 miles a day back and forth to the train station and would be fine with something like this.

Buy copper futures as electric motors use a lot of it. Or just scavenge pennies.
 
Ummm, joule for joule, these 'electric cars' are less efficient than petrol (gasoline) vehicles. In other words, if you need "x" amount of energy to power a gas vehicle, you'll need 1.1x to power an 'electric' car.

And quite simply, the infrastructure does not exist to charge them, nor can people afford to buy them when the US vehicle fleet is so relatively modern.

40 grand, get real, most Americans are lucky these days if they can afford food without food stamps.
 
Quote from pitz:

Ummm, joule for joule, these 'electric cars' are less efficient than petrol (gasoline) vehicles. In other words, if you need "x" amount of energy to power a gas vehicle, you'll need 1.1x to power an 'electric' car.
More...

This is untrue. Gas cars (internal combustion engines, which mostly produce waste heat) are something like 18% efficient. Electric vehicles are far more efficient. The numbers I have seen is that they go at least 4x farther for the same amount of fuel.

Their problems are, that battery storage technology and costs are not up to the task yet...
 
This is untrue. Gas cars (internal combustion engines, which mostly produce waste heat) are something like 18% efficient. Electric vehicles are far more efficient. The numbers I have seen is that they go at least 4x farther for the same amount of fuel.
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Well, you have to consider the full-cycle efficiency (ie: coal out of the ground, to heat, to steam, to shaft work, to electricity, ..). Once you do all the math, its not too hard to see that the full-cycle efficiency of such a 'system' is similar to that of a liquid-fuelled petrol-fired vehicle. ie: no net energy gain.

Their problems are, that battery storage technology and costs are not up to the task yet...
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And the electrical infrastructure doesn't exist. Etc., etc.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Energy_efficiency

Production and conversion electric cars typically use 10 to 23 kW·h/100 km (0.17 to 0.37 kW·h/mi).[6][10] Approximately 20% of this power consumption is due to inefficiencies in charging the batteries. Tesla Motors indicates that the vehicle efficiency (including charging inefficiencies) of their lithium-ion battery powered vehicle is 12.7 kW·h/100 km (0.21 kW·h/mi) and the well-to-wheels efficiency (assuming the electricity is generated from natural gas) is 24.4 kW·h/100 km (0.39 kW·h/mi).[11] The US fleet average of 10 l/100 km (24 mpg-US) of gasoline is equivalent to 96 kW·h/100 km (1.58 kW·h/mi), and the Honda Insight uses 32 kW·h/100 km (0.52 kW·h/mi) (assuming 9.6 kW·h per liter of gasoline).

The greater efficiency of electric vehicles is primarily because most energy in a gasoline-powered vehicle is released as waste heat. With an engine getting only 20% thermal efficiency, a gasoline-powered vehicle using 96 kW·h/100 km of energy is only using 19.2 kW·h/100 km for motion.
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Yup GTS. The big problem is that the electric grid itself isn't delivering energy at much better than 20% overall efficiency.

14,000 kJ/kWhour is pretty typical of coal-fired generation (exclusive of the coal mining process itself), which is ~25% efficient when you do the math.

Natural gas, ie: combined cycle cogeneration, generation is the exception, and not the rule.
 
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