Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Electric Cars

[Geee]

Weekly Standard:

Electric cars are expensive, inefficient, and unpopular. Take GM’s electric car, for instance, the Chevrolet Volt. It costs $41,000 (though consumers can get a $7,500 tax credit from the federal government for buying it), sold less than 600 in January and February combined (608 in March, according to Chevrolet), and runs solely on a battery for the first 40 miles before the gas-powered battery charger kicks in.


But not everyone’s so dour on the prospect that this car might be the wave of the future. “I heard…that GM initially was thinking of [selling] 5,000 cars a year,” Energy secretary Steven Chu said Friday morning at a breakfast for reporters “They’re reevaluating that. They think the demand is much, much higher.” Chu must have been referring to revised GM numbers, since the company’s initial production estimates were 60,000 when development first began on the Volt in 2007. Even as late as last October, GM set expectations at selling 10,000 to 15,000 units in 2011 and predicted that number would reach 60,000 for 2012. (No word yet on expected production levels for the newly announced Volt convertible.)

Even if sales do end up reaching one of these changing goals, it seems that most of orders for Volts aren't from your average Joe; they're being bought for corporate or government fleets. GE announced it will purchase 12,000 Volts, but it's perhaps no coincidence that the company whose CEO is President Obama's favorite would be assisting the administration in achieving its goal of getting a million electric vehicles on the road.

So what’s the value of encouraging these cars to market if the American consumer just doesn’t want to buy electric right now? Chu argues that the rapid technological research in rechargeable car batteries, funded by the federal government, is making more efficient, less expensive, and unsubsidized electric cars a reality in the near future. “When you can buy a car for $25,000 without subsidy and it can really go three or four hundred miles, then I would say that there would be a significant market penetration,” Chu said. “One hundred miles at $30,000, it’s different. But the trajectory is very rapidly going in this direction.”

[Pepper]

Geee!

 

 

Chu argues that the rapid technological research in rechargeable car batteries, funded by the federal government, is making more efficient, less expensive, and unsubsidized electric cars a reality in the near future.

 

Chu.Epic.Fail.

 

Since when does the federal government fund anything? Those are your and my tax dollars over which unfortunately we have little say once they get taken from us.

[AceRimmer]

How do these new-wave cars recharge? They need a plug to an outlet that feeds electricity produced by 1: Nuclear energy; 2: Natural gas; 3: Oil; 4: Coal.

 

Is it me, or isn't there a conundrum in Chu and Obambi's logic?

[Pepper]

Ace

 

You are forgetting those wind farms. Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

 

[Geee]

With all the hot air in Washington, there should be no energy crisis.

[Saltbag]

At the risk of personal injury and mocking, I will say that I believe that ONE DAY, an electric car could be a better option. Today's electric cars are complete losers, but as they develop they will improve. The thought that they can become as good (or as fun!) as big, bad internal combustion engine ... that seems like a long way out. Energy generated in a power plant with scrubbers and other environmental controls will always beat a car's tailpipe with regard to pollution. It's a matter of efficiently transferring that energy to an electric car, and that car not being a complete piece of crap that nobody wants to buy.

 

That being said, the government should have no role in this. Period.

[SrWoodchuck]

What about the proposed government funding for the "high speed" electric locomotive? Chu's choo-choo?

[AceRimmer]

What about the proposed government funding for the "high speed" electric locomotive? Chu's choo-choo?

 

 

What goes unexamined by our LSM is that for a high speed electric train, you need to build a line of electric towers and wire them to Chu's choo-choo. That is never brought up in our "investments" in future tech by Obambi or Chu.

[Pepper]

Saltbag, no injury or mocking from me.

 

Electric is fine for some uses provided the charging stations were there.

 

But it all comes at cost.

 

 

 

8 to 16 hours to charge is not a selling point. Around 1 minute in. But you can get an email or text alert to let you know when the cart is charged.

[NCTexan]

I just heard an audio clip of Barry pushing the "hybrid" car solution.

 

Not exactly a hot selling point to me.

 

My first thought was "This 'hybrid' president ain't working out so well!"