In Another Volt…Called The Bolt, Eric Peters analyzed why current electric cars aren’t getting much traction with ordinary buyers (as opposed to the beautiful people who buy Teslas). In this article, Peters argues that electric cars might have a chance if they were freed from the government’s regulation. From Peters on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
The tragedy is, electric cars could probably work. If the government would get the hell out of the way.electric lead
The feds postulate requirements – basically, design parameters – that are at odds, that conflict – and make an economically sane electric car absolutely out of the question.
The government insist, for example, that every electric car be as “safe” as every non-electric car. This being defined as complying with every last federal standard – not necessarily meaning that the car in question simply refrain from being a death trap.
Most people outside the car business do not grok the distinction. They presume that every new car is “safe” since it meets federal crashworthiness standards (and other standards that have zip to do with that; bear with, I’ll explain) and every car that doesn’t, isn’t.
Nope. All it means is that every new car has met the currently applicable federal standards and made it through whatever crash tests apply today. It does not mean – out in the real world of two objects trying to occupy the same space, simultaneously – that a 2016 Chevy Aveo is a “safer” car to be in than a 1996 Caprice.
Especially if the Caprice pile-drives into the Aveo.
What has this to do with electric cars?
It has to do with weight – which is a function, to a very great extent, of the need to comply with the reams of federal ukase having to do with “safety.” This includes the latest pedestrian safety mandates… which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with how “safe” the car is for the people within. Also requirements that challenge (oops, demand) the car companies build cars able to support their own weight upside down. Most cars do not end up this way, but the mandate assumes they will and so requires lots of heavy steel to buttress the roof, so that it can support the car’s weight if it ends up tits (er, wheels) up.
Which adds weight.
Which is very, very problematic for the functional (and so economic) viability of an electric car. The heavier it is, the more work its electric motor/battery pack must perform to get it moving. And the more work these must do, the faster the battery loses its charge. And because batteries, by their nature, take a awhile to recharge, you end up with a car that has an intolerable flaw.
Well, two of them.
The first flaw is the abbreviated range of travel. While it’s true that most people – or at least, many people – may not need to be able to drive continuously more than 100 miles at a stretch every single day, the fact remains that knowing you could is critical to the psychological acceptance by the general public of the electric car.
Take that away and you have a car that most people do not want.
And most electric cars can’t go even 100 miles before they need to be recharged – which manifests the second (and arguably, more serious) problem: Recharge times.
They are impossibly long.
To continue reading: Electric Cars Could Work… If The Government Got Out Of The Car Business
