2024 $7500. "tax rebate"

If they use LIFEPO4 (which is what the official announcement said) it’s very unlikely it will qualify for the full credit if at all.

 

The government is hoping more cars will qualify down the road, time will tell

 

With gm’s software issues, and their about face on ev’s, and their sudden realization that that Toyota was right about hybrids all along, I have to wonder.

 

I own two EVs and would not mind if the purchase subsidy went away.

I still like the emission credits. That goes to makers of EVs. It also covers exhaust gasses.

Bob Wilson

 

....and a $45,000 price tag for a micro-compact 'cuv' with questionable build quality and a single source fuel system supported by a 20-year-old infrastructure?

Pass, for now.
I'm hip to the BEV thing, but I want a few more suckers to pay for the non-recurring engineering fees - besides.....
Crash safety.
We just buried a beloved member of our church, an 18-year-old college student whose only fault was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in a 'five star rated" small car on a US Highway when a 41-year-old in a 10 year old pickup passed three slower cars and hit two others.
AND yes..... I know.
I always tell 'statisticians' the same thing:
You KNOW you're going to be in a major accident.

Pick ONE:
2023 Dodge 4x4 dually, or Honda CVCC........

THAT is because you're an engineer.
You know deep inside that BEVs will have 'arrived' as a viable alternative to 'gassers' when they stop bribing people with their own tax money to drive them.

Besides....they SHOULD be cheaper to manufacture than ICE vehicles without the tax kickbacks.

 

That is Tesla's Mission Statement goal. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

Concur.

 

The first are real. The others are results of the first being conflated as stand alone reasons. The plug in hybrids might actually be a compromise to dealers asking for hybrids.

 

agreed, but do the reasons matter? gm is always foundering like this. they know how to make gasser. everything else for the last 30 years has been lip service.

 

Crashes are a big problem. The bigger problem is every time people buy a 1,000lb heaver vehicle they increase the probability of someone dying from it crashing by 10%. While you or I bying a bigger vehicle shifts the odds off onto everyone else, everyone else buying a bigger vehicle then shifts even greater odds back onto you and I.

It's a vicious circle with no real answer. Had the 18-year-old college student driven a Suburban then someone else in another church would be burying someone else. And if they both had Suburbans, chances are both would be need to be buried.

The bigger the vehicle you drive you also increase the likely hood of killing a pedestrian. Pedestrian safety was getting better until 2009. From there it has plummeted. In town, some 10 people I know have been hit as pedestrians and many have died, and all of them were by SUV's or pickups.

I don't know which is worse, going to 10 pedestrian funerals or 10 sub-compact car owner funeral.

 

Ultium and a couple true BEV platforms is more than lip service. VW had software issues that delayed their BEV releases. GM also has delays with getting automation working. The EVs sold so far had their battery packs hand made.

 

Interesting statistical analysis.
If it were not for the fact that some people still build things and grow food in this country I suppose that the 'GVWR wars' theory would have more merit. The 18-year-old in question was driving a Scion, and he was killed by a middle-aged contractor whose company logo was emblazoned on it's side.
He didn't mean it, and it was a stupid, tragic mistake.
I myself was thanking a kind and loving GOD that it wasn't a fellow classmate.


Part of what makes BEVs safe is their low center of gravity and their mass.
Physics doesn't care about people's feelings.

 

I’m not putting Vdumb ahead of gm in ev development.
My point is that gm is not a market leader outside of gassers.
They gave up on ev1, volt, bolt and now claim they are going to develop hybrids.
There’s essentially nothing in their lineup at present except gassers.

 

markets respond.....

 

I grabbed another ten shares

 

Low center of gravity is a good thing, but the GVWR war isn't overall good.

Either everyone needs to buy a large vehicle (perhaps all drive Rivians and Tesla Cybertrucks) and stop walking and riding bikes in order to even out everyone's possibilities (which still wouldn't be zero), or maybe something needs to be done to prevent accidents altogether.

Better street designs, more stringent requirements for driver's licenses, lower speed limits. I don't know, I'm no expert. But I really would like to be able to walk to work without feeling like I'm a sitting duck at a shooting range.

 

Everyone is behind Tesla, but they didn't start by cranking out Model 3s in record numbers. My point is that GM not being a leader EVs now doesn't mean they are just paying lip service to the cars.

Seems everybody has problems with software to some degree.
The EV industry faces a core challenge: software bugs | Popular Science
The software seems more integrated with the entire car in an EV compared to an ICE. It's like one powerful computer doing everything instead of having individual functions being handled by multiple devices. This is a new way of doing things for car companies, and they'd be having issues with ICE models if they had decided to design them this way.

In hindsight, GM made a mistake with the EV1. That tech did find its way into the Volt and other GM hybrids. Canceling a model in one market is not giving up on the tech. A PHEV based on the Volt's drive train is for sale in China, and maybe elsewhere, now, and has been for years. So they aren't going to be developing new hybrids, but bringing models from elsewhere to here. The Bolt EUV was for sale in China as a Buick Velite 7 for a couple years before GM introduced it here. The Bolt itself was always planned to be leaving the market for a couple years, but GM delayed when that happened.

 

I don't see how being an EV has anything to do with software choices of the whole car. The drive system is in many ways much more simple compared to an ICE with a transmission.

An EV motor works by pulse width three phased modulation that doesn't need much more than an angle sensor, a temperature sensor and a lookup table.

ICE's have a much more complex lookup table for their injector timings and amounts (many times pulse width modulated and different for each cylinder), ignition timings (many times different for each cylinder), throttle valve and EGR valve settings, cam profile settings, etc. being constantly calculated from O2 sensors, knock sensors, MAF sensors, MAP sensors, crank angle sensors, cam angle sensors, temp sensors, and all that is done with transmission control all at the same time.

Maybe being more simple means that they can combine the EV's ECU (or is it MCU, "motor control unit") with another processor that does something else, both in one single unit.

 

Gm should have stayed with apple and android, look what happened to Toyotas 3 billion dollar software debacle

 

ICEs have a network of microcomputers controlling individual systems that are fairly isolated from one another. The ECU causing a misfire isn't going to shut down the radio. With EVs, they've made the systems more integrated. There is probably a cost benefit to this, but car companies weren't computer companies, and there is a learning curve for the traditional ones. Also even the new ones. Rivian shut down some owners infotainment systems with a basic system update.

The Blazer EV uses Google for its infotainment. Still has problems.