This family of electric motors will drive GM’s new electric vehicles

GM will have 22 new EVs on sale by 2023, and they'll all use these motors.

Read the whole story

 

[Dr Gitlin]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

Like with any other government social engineering programs (e.g. reducing/eliminating nicotine consumption), the solution is to make it no longer financially viable to continue down the current path. In this case, price in the true cost of the externalities of fuel production and road maintenance for a given vehicle, and people's behavior will change.

Again, do you see that being remotely plausible? The boomer wing of the democratic party wants as little to do with climate change as the GOP, and as I mentioned earlier the GOP is on its way to adopting Qanon as the only thing it believes in.

 

[ranthog]

Good on GM for taking this seriously.

If an OEM isn't figuring out motors and batteries now, it will likely not be able to catch up before their cash cow products start having to be discounted to the point of unprofitability. It'll be just about impossible to sell a brand new gasoline powered vehicle by the mid-2030s. The glut of used gas vehicles that are no longer affordable to operate or are illegal to drive in an increasing number of jurisdictions will cause resale value to crater. That means banks will be unwilling to approve those 6, 7, and 8 year loans that many consumers have become accustomed to, unless it's for an EV.

There will always (for some value of "always") be a market for ICE vehicles in the US. It's simply too big for EVs to be able to meet all needs in the foreseeable future. However, EVs are rapidly reaching the point where if you don't live in the deep boonies they're practical. That will certainly (if the pricing can be rationalized soon) take a big chunk out of the ICE market otherwise, and the lightly used ICE vehicles that the EVs replace will keep the boonies well-supplied for a long time. Let's put a post-it reminder on 2025 to see how the EV pickups and SUVs are doing.

Where is "too big for EV's" in the US? I don't think I've ever been anywhere that a vehicle that can get 300 miles is not big enough.

My brother is a contractor in a rural area and the only thing he's concerned about with electric work trucks is how heavy they would be and with them tearing up work sites and getting stuck due to weight.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

So GM was looking for an "executive chief engineer of electric vehicles", and picked a guy who's last name starts with they abbreviation of KiloWatt?

Well played. I am now interested.


Obviously the next big corvette model will be hybrid (if not full electric) and thus be even more of a radical change than the new mid-engine model? Interesting times.

I'm thinking hybrid for the next Vette. Despite the ability to get obscene amounts of power and torque out of electric drives, the battery is still an issue, and a 5000# Vette (after stuffing more than 100 kwh of battery into it) isn't going to be attractive.

The base model C8 has a 3535 pound curb weight; figuring about 1389 pounds for the battery (weight of the 93 kWh battery in the Taycan) and we're still at 4924 But, how does the weight of the other electric bits weigh relative to what you get to ditch?

The Panamera and Taycan are similar in size-- the latter weighs about 450 pounds more despite the extra 1389 pound battery, so I suspect that the EV C8 above would probably still just be around 4000 pounds or so.

Yeah, the LT1 engine in the C8 weighs 465 lbs by itself, without the transmission and associated bits and pieces. A sub-4000 lb electric 'vette is totally doable with today's tech.

The Panamera and Taycan are not built on a common architecture. There's a little bit of Panamera in the Taycan's front suspension though. (This is to say it's not analogous to compare the Panamera and Taycan with a C8/C8 Z06.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

I don't expect individual Americans to make the choice. I expect policymakers to actually fucking do something about the problem.

Really? In a country where one of the only two political parties is in the process of being captured by an insane conspiracy theory that boils down to the protocols of the elders of Zion, you think we have policymakers capable of solving problems?

As a voice that carries weight and influences public opinion YOU also have a responsibility to drive change. A responsibility you have chosen to neglect or reject (by your own words).

It's easy to point to the evil politicians and ignore your own part in all this. But it's not the right thing to do culturally, ethically or morally.

YOU are "somebody". You can't pretend not to be, even if it's convenient.

This whole routine where you just stoke yourself to a giant rage-boner and act like a sanctimonious prick in any thread about a car that isn't the size of a Reliant Robin is so unutterably fucking tiresome. Gitlin might as well advocate a wholesale national transition to magical carriages drawn by My Little Ponies farting the aroma of a fresh bag of gummy worms, so failing to write angry climatology fanfiction is hardly an ethical, moral, or cultural failure. It's just an understanding that any such idea is not moving forward in American culture anytime soon, and that wasting words talking about it is a waste of time.

Particularly when this one can be reasonably expected to have carbon emissions rate of a Prius, which makes it, and his discussion of it in this article, Not The Fucking Problem.

And if that rage-boner lasts more than three hours, go see your doctor. I hope to god it's a long wait.

I haven't reported you to moderators, but this is probably the most d*ckish post I have seen this year. Please stop the ad hominem.

I stand by my opinions. You can disagree and tell me why. I am not being sanctimonious - I put my money and time where my mouth is, because I think it's the right thing to do. Accusing me of being sanctimonious is just you being a giant jerk.

You are more a part of the problem than you care to realize. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk.

 

[traumadog]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

We already gave up our supersize fries, don’t ask us to downsize any further!

I’m curious how well GM might support the crate market. It would be nice to have some (near) drop in replacements for older vehicles. Yes, I’m the type of person who would happily drive around an EV 70’s Cutlass.

Make the battery 442 volts, and you have a winner!

Heck, given how GM has justified "442" in the past (the 4-cylinder, 4-valve, 2-cam "HO" Quad4-powered Calais), then having 42 400V cell packs would justify the moniker too.

 

[IntellectualThug]

You are more a part of the problem than you care to realize. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk.

Yeah that right there? Maybe this is just how Danes talk to each other but in English...superduper sanctimonious. Not gonna catch a lot of people with that tone.

 

[TheFu]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

We already gave up our supersize fries, don’t ask us to downsize any further!

I’m curious how well GM might support the crate market. It would be nice to have some (near) drop in replacements for older vehicles. Yes, I’m the type of person who would happily drive around an EV 70’s Cutlass.

Plus the avoidance of paying new VAT to the state for a new vehicle is always desired. Some states changed from an annual payment tax mode to a time-of-purchase or registration for out of state vehicles. This makes me want to keeps the same 20 yr old VIN forever, but fix the parts as needed for the next 40 yrs. Paying 8% VAT just because we moved into a state seems abusive. There aren't any refunds, so if an owner moves in-out of the state a few times, the 8% tax is due each time.

Update - looked up. It is only 6.6% now, not 8% as claimed above. It was higher. The law prevents it from being over 9%. It is tied to the change of title process, so any change in owner forces payment. This is since 2013. "Title Ad Valorem Tax (TAVT)" is the official name.
* is paid every time vehicle ownership is transferred or a new resident registers the vehicle in Georgia for the first time.
* New Georgia residents have 30 days from their move date to register vehicles and pay the Title Ad Valorem Tax at a rate of 3%. For a $30K vehicle, that's $900 due. $10000 --> $300 due. Include that in your relocation budget.
* Public Safety-First Responders and widows have a $50,000 exemption. Is that fair for a police chief earning $130K/yr to be exempted? I'm not complaining about underpaid normal cops, firefighters, EMTs. Seems a salary cap needs to be included in the law.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Perhaps if you had something more constructive to say people would actually engage you with something other than dismissal.

This got me a little curious.

How do you suggest I go about that? How would I make a "constructive" post on this topic? Can you give an example?

This

As you might expect, the main focus for this third generation of electric motors has been efficiency.

So they're building a new Hummer? Really?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Making big, heavy and inefficient vehicles "electrical" does almost nothing for the environment.

We need a change in car culture, where the total pollution/CO2 footprint-per-mile matters. We do not need to convert a whole pile of polluting ICE vehicles to polluting EVs.

Could very easily have been something like this:

It's unfortunate so much focus has gone into building BEVs that take up so much infrastructure to accommodate and produce. But, I suppose this is a first step to altering how people think about EVs and getting the biggest carbon addicts to start changing their ways.

I wonder, however, how people might start pushing others to think differently about their vehicles and how they use them, though. Maybe enact incentives for electrical efficiency like California on a national level or start lobbying for CAFE-style requirements for BEVs.

Any time you outline a complaint, propose a solution or at least the start of a solution. Otherwise it's just whining. No amount of shrill declarations of the doom of the planet actually move us in the direction of, you know, fixing it. Concrete suggestions for achieving practical outcomes do.

Thank you. I'll think about it, and consider how to go about it.

Though I'll politely let you know that the car-crowd usually unleash their wrath on any post that doesn't agree with their world view. I have had a post that simply asked "What is the mileage of this car?" downvoted to -40 in the first half hour.

Would it not be fair to consider if there are other people than me who needs to do better here?

 

[Voyna i Mor]

Depressing tidbit: apparently Europe is starting to get more and more SUVs. And they're opting to run them on diesel.

Our SUVs are a lot smaller than your SUVs on average. The volume ones are mostly under 4.4m long, basically tall hatchbacks.

Also, they are Euro 6D and included in the car fleet, so the fleet average 95g/km still applies. Compared with the Diesel E-class I was driving in the late 1990s, they are not bad.

We do have the same idiotic system of different rules for light commercials, however, which has led to the absurdity that the Suzuki Jimny ceased to be imported as it raised the Suzuki fleet average too high when it was a (tiny) 4 seater SUV, but it is coming back as a 2 seater light commercial next year.

 

[Toastr]

I was just at a Toyota dealership for service and compared window stickers on a Civic and a Prius.

That is a rather open minded Toyota dealership to be having new Honda Civics on the lot.

You sure you were comparing apples to apples similar features and options.

Yeah, that has a real "things that didn't happen" ring to it.

Meanwhile, in the real world, a 2021 Corolla LE costs $20,275 and a 2021 Corolla Hybrid LE costs $23,400.

 

[Dinjiin]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

Your resignation on the issue is predictable, but worrying.

Change is needed no matter if you or "Americans" agree with it or not. And the price for change is going one way only: up!

I guess I just don't understand the reluctance to even discuss change, when it is so obviously needed. It is a stance so naive and conservative I struggle to understand why a place like Ars Technica chooses to support it.

It is a realistic view on the dysfunction of our current political system. What percentage of the general population drives large vehicles? What percentage of registered Republicans who participate in primary elections do?

A moderate Republican who votes for increasing taxes or licensing requirements for those vehicles would be punished severely during the next primary and they know it.

 

[QMaverick]

Also, Mr. Splatman, one of your earlier points was not exactly inviting an open and honest debate:

"It's a d*ck move by GM that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they just don't give a damn because dollars."

It also flies in the face of the major studies on the subject produced in the past few years. Here are a couple of examples:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/ ... -heres-why

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ly-on-coal

The TLR conclusion is that comparable vehicles (meaning comparable vehicle class) are cleaner, even when running on coal, than their ICE bretheren.

So, replacing a dirty, F-150 or F-250 with an EV Hummer would be a significant gain in terms of reducing carbon footprint. GM also happens to be ahead of the European manufacturers (last I checked) in terms of battery/motor efficiency, which bodes well for the efficiency of the Hummer (relatively speaking).

GM is starting with the Hummer for 2 reasons:
1. Pick-up trucks are the best selling vehicles in the USA
2. They can PRICE the Hummer at a point that should net them a profit while still being competitive enough to sell. This will give them the cash they need to build other EVs.

It's logical, and makes good business sense and seems a direct indicator that GM is serious about expanding their EV lineup (which will include more practical, efficient EVs).

The reason people came across as hostile is that you SEEMED to just have a hate on for GM with your initial posts, and you also seem to be ignoring all of that

 

[Voyna i Mor]

You are more a part of the problem than you care to realize. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk.

Yeah that right there? Maybe this is just how Danes talk to each other but in English...superduper sanctimonious. Not gonna catch a lot of people with that tone.

This from "Intellectual Thug" many of whose posts do, indeed, come over as thuggish.

Perhaps you might have a microsecond attack of humility in which to wonder why so many Europeans actually do see the US like this, rightly or wrongly.

 

[kragg]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

You know what?

Tough sh*t.

How many times have we been through this same fscking cycle since the first energy crisis in '73? We come out with smaller cars in response to the crisis; and as soon as the immediate crisis is over, people start buying big vehicles again... only to be caught flat-footed when the inevitable next crisis comes up. We never seem to learn; I expect Ford and GM to be screwed next time, after dropping standard cars from their lineup.

It's time to stop faffing around and break the cycle.

I think you'll find those cycles of increased buying correspond well with increased advertising. We're enthralled by the fantasy vision they sell us on the tube. Auto manufacturers don't get enough squeeze out of the sale of economical vehicles. Smaller manufacturers get drowned out by the large ones who saturate the airwaves with psychological programming fueled by consumer money.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

You are more a part of the problem than you care to realize. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk.

Yeah that right there? Maybe this is just how Danes talk to each other but in English...superduper sanctimonious. Not gonna catch a lot of people with that tone.

What tone? The one where he accuses me of being sanctimonious, or the one with the "rage boner"?

Are you explaining to me how I can make better and less hostile posts, while giving his a complete pass? Seriously?

 

[Dinjiin]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

We already gave up our supersize fries, don’t ask us to downsize any further!

I’m curious how well GM might support the crate market. It would be nice to have some (near) drop in replacements for older vehicles. Yes, I’m the type of person who would happily drive around an EV 70’s Cutlass.

Plus the avoidance of paying new VAT to the state for a new vehicle is always desired. Some states changed from an annual payment tax mode to a time-of-purchase or registration for out of state vehicles. This makes me want to keeps the same 20 yr old VIN forever, but fix the parts as needed for the next 40 yrs. Paying 8% VAT just because we moved into a state seems abusive. There aren't any refunds, so if an owner moves in-out of the state a few times, the 8% tax is due each time.

Just be glad that they haven't passed a $1,000 leaving Springfield state tax.

 

[Jeff S]

Question: Are electric motors getting better at regnenerative braking? What I mean is, I've noticed at least on my ford Hybrid, if I brake more than a long, slow, gentle brake, I lose a lot of power - the regen braking requires it to be very gradual, low-torque braking.

Now, on a full EV as opposed to a hybrid, you're using a higher-torque motor. It produces more acceleration, and I would think, conversely, can produce more torque also while braking (and converting that extra energy into electricity).

Although it's also, I suppose possible that the limit is the batteries? That you can't charge them at as high a peak power as would be generated by the motor during more aggressive braking, or it might set them on fire or make them burst or something?

 

[Jamjen831]

Are they going to finally bring prices down to mainstream levels? Last I looked, you can buy several efficient ICE cars for the cost of one EV (or an efficient ICE car and lifetime carbon offsets *and* go on a nice vacation and buy carbon offsets for *that too* and have money left over for your savings account).

I was just at a Toyota dealership for service and compared window stickers on a Civic and a Prius. The Prius cost $10000 more with an EPA-estimated annual gas cost savings of $300 vs the Civic. That's 33 *years* of driving to make up that cost difference. And that's not even a full EV, but a hybrid with mature technology that's been around for many years.

Fuel cost isn't the whole story for TCO; presumably EVs need even less maintenance than hybrids, and the Prius already has one of the lowest maintenance costs of any car ever made. But it had better be a pretty big maintenance savings to make up that kind of efficiency difference.

And this doesn't even get into the weeds of convincing people to buy a car based on total cost of ownership for their particular annual mileage and usage patterns, or even figuring that out for oneself.

I got my 2017 Nissan Leaf (new) for under $15K after all my rebates. I'm not aware of many ICEV that run under $8K.

 

[Z06 Vette]

So the Hummer H2 had a 32 gallon tank to allow to skip to every other gas station. How big of a battery is this un-aerodynamic beast going to take? Although with regenerative breaking, it might end up with some extreme mileage rating (100 mpge city, 10 mpge highway)

 

[rosen380]

So GM was looking for an "executive chief engineer of electric vehicles", and picked a guy who's last name starts with they abbreviation of KiloWatt?

Well played. I am now interested.


Obviously the next big corvette model will be hybrid (if not full electric) and thus be even more of a radical change than the new mid-engine model? Interesting times.

I'm thinking hybrid for the next Vette. Despite the ability to get obscene amounts of power and torque out of electric drives, the battery is still an issue, and a 5000# Vette (after stuffing more than 100 kwh of battery into it) isn't going to be attractive.

The base model C8 has a 3535 pound curb weight; figuring about 1389 pounds for the battery (weight of the 93 kWh battery in the Taycan) and we're still at 4924 But, how does the weight of the other electric bits weigh relative to what you get to ditch?

The Panamera and Taycan are similar in size-- the latter weighs about 450 pounds more despite the extra 1389 pound battery, so I suspect that the EV C8 above would probably still just be around 4000 pounds or so.

Yeah, the LT1 engine in the C8 weighs 465 lbs by itself, without the transmission and associated bits and pieces. A sub-4000 lb electric 'vette is totally doable with today's tech.

The Panamera and Taycan are not built on a common architecture. There's a little bit of Panamera in the Taycan's front suspension though. (This is to say it's not analogous to compare the Panamera and Taycan with a C8/C8 Z06.

FWIW-- I chose those two cars as they are from the same manufacturer and are about the same size and are sports cars (like the Corvette), so figured the A-to-B would about as good as we can get.

If you have a source for how much the likely non-battery components of an EV Corvette would weigh and how much everything you get to remove would weigh, I'm more than happy to see that.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Also, Mr. Splatman, one of your earlier points was not exactly inviting an open and honest debate:

"It's a d*ck move by GM that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they just don't give a damn because dollars."

You are right.

It was not a personal attack on any poster here though. I am not sure why my hostility to GM and their disregard for the planet translates into an apparent acceptance of constant ad hominems.

It also flies in the face of the major studies on the subject produced in the past few years. Here are a couple of examples:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/ ... -heres-why

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ly-on-coal

The TLR conclusion is that comparable vehicles (meaning comparable vehicle class) are cleaner, even when running on coal, than their ICE bretheren.

I am not disagreeing with anything in those links, nor disputing anything in them. And in a vacuum an electric Hummer might be theoretically better than an ICE Hummer (I think calculations would be needed before we know that for sure). But the point is: even an electrical Hummer is bad. So no Hummer at all would be better. Releasing an electric Hummer just perpetuates the notion that such products/cars are completely OK to buy and use.

I understand the business rationale. It's a decision made to advance GMs bottom line. That doesn't mean we can't criticize that decision. No company exists in a vacuum. They have a responsibility to the survival of the planet same as the rest of us.

 

[Jeff S]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

We already gave up our supersize fries, don’t ask us to downsize any further!

I’m curious how well GM might support the crate market. It would be nice to have some (near) drop in replacements for older vehicles. Yes, I’m the type of person who would happily drive around an EV 70’s Cutlass.

Plus the avoidance of paying new VAT to the state for a new vehicle is always desired. Some states changed from an annual payment tax mode to a time-of-purchase or registration for out of state vehicles. This makes me want to keeps the same 20 yr old VIN forever, but fix the parts as needed for the next 40 yrs. Paying 8% VAT just because we moved into a state seems abusive. There aren't any refunds, so if an owner moves in-out of the state a few times, the 8% tax is due each time.

That sucks. Does the 'basis' for the 8% tax at least depreciate with the vehicle? I mean, vehicles depreciate infamously quickly. Roughly halving in value every 2 years, right?

Still, it seems like if you can prove you already paid it once, that they shouldn't be able to tax you again - you already paid it.

 

[IntellectualThug]

You are more a part of the problem than you care to realize. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk.

Yeah that right there? Maybe this is just how Danes talk to each other but in English...superduper sanctimonious. Not gonna catch a lot of people with that tone.

What tone? The one where he accuses me of being sanctimonious, or the one with the "rage boner"?

Are you explaining to me how I can make better and less hostile posts, while giving his a complete pass? Seriously?

Yeah sorry, but you kinda earned that response. You talk like that constantly. Like the only person with a clear understanding of the situation is you, and you're somehow on some moral high ground from which to communicate your Grand Truths. It's a stable behavior across dozens of threads that any regular Cars Technica reader is aware of and it's really, truly worn out its welcome.

On the opposite end is kkeane's constant malingering about how BEVs can't do this that or the other thing. No one wants to hear it, especially considering several people at this point have called out your break-even claim and you haven't retracted it. I mean, seriously, your "source" from Finland is basically a bunch of incomprehensible graphs with zero context. I tried reading it and couldn't make heads or tails of half of it.

When you join cars threads it's literally always to moan about environmental impact, and basically never to engage on any other subject related to automobiles. That ingratiates you to no one. Want to know why your question about MPG got -40 votes? Because you asked it. And we all know that all you plan to do when it's addressed is launch some sanctimonious tirade with not a single proposed solution to match the complaints.

On balance? kkeane is much worse, which is why he's in my killfile and you aren't, but unless and until you start acting like you care about cars beyond how many gCO2/km they produce, no one will have much interest in what you've got to say.

 

[Snark218]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

Like with any other government social engineering programs (e.g. reducing/eliminating nicotine consumption), the solution is to make it no longer financially viable to continue down the current path. In this case, price in the true cost of the externalities of fuel production and road maintenance for a given vehicle, and people's behavior will change.

Once again, for those of us sitting in the back: for this solution to actually be a solution, it would have to be a viable piece of legislation. Our fucking Senate can't pass a simple relief package for an obvious, unavoidable, acute national need in an election year. The Senate majority party's platform explicitly states that it will not accept a carbon tax in any form. If you think that this is a piece of legislation that can be passed in the US in the next 15 years, you are either delusional or have no understanding whatsoever of our political situation.

 

[Rabid Hungarian]

I want GM EVs to be good. But, given what's been going on with the company again since the bankruptcy, it's clear that the beancounters still hold sway over the engineers. I'm not sure I'd trust an EV - or anything - from GM over the long haul.

 

[traumadog]

Also, Mr. Splatman, one of your earlier points was not exactly inviting an open and honest debate:

"It's a d*ck move by GM that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they just don't give a damn because dollars."

You are right.

It was not a personal attack on any poster here though. I am not sure why my hostility to GM and their disregard for the planet translates into an apparent acceptance of constant ad hominems.

It also flies in the face of the major studies on the subject produced in the past few years. Here are a couple of examples:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/ ... -heres-why

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ly-on-coal

The TLR conclusion is that comparable vehicles (meaning comparable vehicle class) are cleaner, even when running on coal, than their ICE bretheren.

I am not disagreeing with anything in those links, nor disputing anything in them. And in a vacuum an electric Hummer might be theoretically better than an ICE Hummer (I think calculations would be needed before we know that for sure). But the point is: even an electrical Hummer is bad. So no Hummer at all would be better. Releasing an electric Hummer just perpetuates the notion that such products/cars are completely OK to buy and use.

I understand the business rationale. It's a decision made to advance GMs bottom line. That doesn't mean we can't criticize that decision. No company exists in a vacuum. They have a responsibility to the survival of the planet same as the rest of us.

If you are arguing that a large EV is bad for the environment, then by extension, you can argue all individually owned vehicles are bad.

It seems like an extremely problematic stance to take that the majority of humans won't accept.

 

[MMarsh]

I remember seeing ads for early battery lawnmowers maybe 15-20 years ago but in the last five years they have really taken off. I have one from Sun-Joe for my small city lawn, my Dad with a much larger lawn has an eGo mower. He loves it and he's certainly not someone who identifies as a tree-hugger - it's powerful, does the job and is so much easier to deal with than cantankerous gas engines.

Unless you need a riding mower there's little reason to buy a gas mower these days.

I had an electric Ryobi Mulchinator mower back in the early '90s. It worked fine back then and runtime was never a problem for my 1/4 acre lot. The main problem at the time was the lead/acid battery, which would go dead if you didn't condition it properly over the winter months. It was so quiet that when I first used it my neighbor thought I was pushing an inoperable mower around the yard for some reason. Due to a lawsuit over the shutoff switch sticking (which caused several foot/toe injuries), Ryobi pulled it from the market.

Given the state and cost of current technology, it's surprising that the vast majority of motorized residential yard tools have not already converted to electric power. I see people struggling with noisy, smelly, vibrating yard tools every weekend. I can't wait to get rid of my ICE snowblower.

I had to replace a 46" lawn tractor and 30" snowblower last year. I could not find electric machines, at any dealer, to do those jobs.
A handful exist now, but $6100 CAD for an electric mower vs. $2400 for its 4-stroke equivalent.... that's really hard to justify on a machine that only runs about 20 hours a year.
A phased-in regulatory mandate, with incentives for R&D and factory modernization, might go a long way towards making economies of scale viable in that sector. Otherwise, they're going to keep milking those $300 V-twin engines for a long time to come.

 

[Snark218]

You are more a part of the problem than you care to realize. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk.

Yeah that right there? Maybe this is just how Danes talk to each other but in English...superduper sanctimonious. Not gonna catch a lot of people with that tone.

What tone? The one where he accuses me of being sanctimonious, or the one with the "rage boner"?

Are you explaining to me how I can make better and less hostile posts, while giving his a complete pass? Seriously?

Oh, would you grow the fuck up, child. You cannot possibly be unaware of how hostile, sanctimonious, and assholish you are behaving, or that when you act that way, you get the rhetorical pimp hand.

 

[traumadog]

So the Hummer H2 had a 32 gallon tank to allow to skip to every other gas station. How big of a battery is this un-aerodynamic beast going to take? Although with regenerative breaking, it might end up with some extreme mileage rating (100 mpge city, 10 mpge highway)

Aside from their particular size, I'd say the OEM's have had decent success with aerodynamics for these trucks.

I mean, when you have the diesel half-tonners pushing low 30's MPG for their diesels, I'd think that the efficiency isn't that bad.

 

[unequivocal]

Don't worry. GM will fuck up the marketing for anything they put out. Seriously I looked at a Volt and then a Bolt when I looked at supplementing my ICE with an electric every day driver. I know more about these vehicles than the dealers and I went to 3 different dealers when I decided to kick the tires.
And this isn't just my experience. Google it. The dealers are not properly trained on how to answer people's questions on electrics, or only has something like one SME.

I can only quote others to explain the phenomenon you are describing..

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
- Upton Sinclair

 

[Snark218]

But anyway, let's get back to how a Hummer EV will probably emit carbon at a rate somewhere around that of a Prius or a B-segment subcompact, and cannot possibly be worse than a gasser equivalent. Somehow, we got off on a tangent about various posters' feelings.

 

[MMarsh]

Also, Mr. Splatman, one of your earlier points was not exactly inviting an open and honest debate:

"It's a d*ck move by GM that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they just don't give a damn because dollars."

You are right.

It was not a personal attack on any poster here though. I am not sure why my hostility to GM and their disregard for the planet translates into an apparent acceptance of constant ad hominems.

It also flies in the face of the major studies on the subject produced in the past few years. Here are a couple of examples:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/ ... -heres-why

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ly-on-coal

The TLR conclusion is that comparable vehicles (meaning comparable vehicle class) are cleaner, even when running on coal, than their ICE bretheren.

I am not disagreeing with anything in those links, nor disputing anything in them. And in a vacuum an electric Hummer might be theoretically better than an ICE Hummer (I think calculations would be needed before we know that for sure). But the point is: even an electrical Hummer is bad. So no Hummer at all would be better. Releasing an electric Hummer just perpetuates the notion that such products/cars are completely OK to buy and use.

I understand the business rationale. It's a decision made to advance GMs bottom line. That doesn't mean we can't criticize that decision. No company exists in a vacuum. They have a responsibility to the survival of the planet same as the rest of us.

If GM stops building gas and diesel powered light trucks entirely, all those people will go buy the F-series or the Ram instead.
If GM, Ford, and whatever corprate entity owns Ram this month all stop selling gas & diesel light trucks, those customers will go jack up Tundras and Titans instead.
If American politicians try to ban the sale of gas & diesel light trucks for non-commercial purposes, or restrict their use in urban areas, those politicans will be tarred, feathered, drawn, quartered, and then voted out in favour of someone who says "Rahhhh FREEDOM!"

So the only good near-term option, for America, is to build & sell EVs that appeal to the people who buy the most environmentally-evil vehicles. To do that, you need trucks that are big, boxy, flashy, in-your-face, and take off like a bat outta hell when you press the pedal. Which is exactly what's happening here.

 

[ranthog]

You might as well ask Americans to stop being American if you're going to demand they stop driving massively oversized vehicles.

Like with any other government social engineering programs (e.g. reducing/eliminating nicotine consumption), the solution is to make it no longer financially viable to continue down the current path. In this case, price in the true cost of the externalities of fuel production and road maintenance for a given vehicle, and people's behavior will change.

Again, do you see that being remotely plausible? The boomer wing of the democratic party wants as little to do with climate change as the GOP, and as I mentioned earlier the GOP is on its way to adopting Qanon as the only thing it believes in.

I think the democratic party is pretty united on doing something about climate change. There are disagreements on how much and how quickly, but there was no questions about the need to spend a significant amount on the problem.

This is more about the American public. The amount of political capital this would take would be atrocious and could be used to fund a lot of climate change related programs and raise the taxes to do it. This would be the death panels all over again.

It would be a hard fight when there are a lot of big changes that need to be made that would be far easier than this to get passed through. I think it will be worth fighting at some point, but for now we have easier and more impactful fights to make.

 

[Snark218]

Depressing tidbit: apparently Europe is starting to get more and more SUVs. And they're opting to run them on diesel.

Our SUVs are a lot smaller than your SUVs on average. The volume ones are mostly under 4.4m long, basically tall hatchbacks. .

The overwhelming majority of SUVs sold in the US are the same goddamn Rav4s, CR-Vs, Rogue/X-Trails, Tucsons, and Kuga/Escapes that sell like mad in Europe. Yes, we have plenty of larger vehicles, and more large vehicles are sold in the US than in Europe or Asia, and that sucks. But it's not like we all trundle around in Tahoes.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Yeah sorry, but you kinda earned that response. You talk like that constantly. Like the only person with a clear understanding of the situation is you, and you're somehow on some moral high ground from which to communicate your Grand Truths. It's a stable behavior across dozens of threads that any regular Cars Technica reader is aware of and it's really, truly worn out its welcome.

So has the unfounded and irrational support of giant gas guzzlers.

I mean, seriously, your "source" from Finland is basically a bunch of incomprehensible graphs with zero context. I tried reading it and couldn't make heads or tails of half of it.

Sorry, I guess it's because I have seen so many of the numbers in other reports that I have gotten used to looking beyond them.

The production and energy consumption figures in the tables are VW's official numbers. These are also used in other reports with largely the same conclusions.

The ´Golf is an easy car to make these calculations with, because there is so little difference between the ICE and EV version, except for the drive train and battery.

When you join cars threads it's literally always to moan about environmental impact, and basically never to engage on any other subject related to automobiles.

I do that often, yes. In articles with such cars.

I also comment Infotainment systems, navigation systems, and Tesla's failings in the self-driving space.

unless and until you start acting like you care about cars beyond how many gCO2/km they produce, no one will have much interest in what you've got to say.

Interesting. So emissions and environmental footprint is some kind of taboo?

And not just for me, mind you. I am not the only poster getting constant abuse when I comment. In fact ANY criticism in the thread of a car article will get immediately hammered no mater who put's it up. And the reaction is always toxic personal attacks... but the problem is me?

I don't buy it. I will give your previous advice some thought, and think of new ways to approach this. But I don't think it's fair to throw all the blame at my feet. There is a very hostile reaction to ANY criticism here - even when it is well behaved - and it feels like you are defending that. At least a little.

 

[Snark218]

But the point is: even an electrical Hummer is bad..

What is your feeling about the Prius, which may be realistically assumed to emit about the same, or the Golf TDI, which emits more?

 

[Snark218]

And not just for me, mind you. I am not the only poster getting constant abuse when I comment.
.

There's a common factor there, if you choose to see it.

Interesting. So emissions and environmental footprint is some kind of taboo?
.

You tell me, you're the one who's ignoring my very specific post with emissions estimates. For someone so militantly concerned with emissions, you don't seem particularly interested in actually discussing them, and much more compelled by broad, sweeping, sanctimonious attacks.

(that's the common factor)

 

[Z06 Vette]

But anyway, let's get back to how a Hummer EV will probably emit carbon at a rate somewhere around that of a Prius or a B-segment subcompact, and cannot possibly be worse than a gasser equivalent. Somehow, we got off on a tangent about various posters' feelings.

NO!! we must move on to the 3 parking spots these things take!

/s

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Also, Mr. Splatman, one of your earlier points was not exactly inviting an open and honest debate:

"It's a d*ck move by GM that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they just don't give a damn because dollars."

You are right.

It was not a personal attack on any poster here though. I am not sure why my hostility to GM and their disregard for the planet translates into an apparent acceptance of constant ad hominems.

It also flies in the face of the major studies on the subject produced in the past few years. Here are a couple of examples:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/ ... -heres-why

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ly-on-coal

The TLR conclusion is that comparable vehicles (meaning comparable vehicle class) are cleaner, even when running on coal, than their ICE bretheren.

I am not disagreeing with anything in those links, nor disputing anything in them. And in a vacuum an electric Hummer might be theoretically better than an ICE Hummer (I think calculations would be needed before we know that for sure). But the point is: even an electrical Hummer is bad. So no Hummer at all would be better. Releasing an electric Hummer just perpetuates the notion that such products/cars are completely OK to buy and use.

I understand the business rationale. It's a decision made to advance GMs bottom line. That doesn't mean we can't criticize that decision. No company exists in a vacuum. They have a responsibility to the survival of the planet same as the rest of us.

If you are arguing that a large EV is bad for the environment, then by extension, you can argue all individually owned vehicles are bad.

It seems like an extremely problematic stance to take that the majority of humans won't accept.

Basically I am arguing that ANY big-ass inefficient vehicle is bad, regardless of it's engine technology.

You are right that individually owned vehicles are also bad, but they serve a practical purpose so we might seek a way to make their continued use feasible. One way to do that is to make them efficient.

 

[ranthog]

Don't worry. GM will fuck up the marketing for anything they put out. Seriously I looked at a Volt and then a Bolt when I looked at supplementing my ICE with an electric every day driver. I know more about these vehicles than the dealers and I went to 3 different dealers when I decided to kick the tires.
And this isn't just my experience. Google it. The dealers are not properly trained on how to answer people's questions on electrics, or only has something like one SME.

I can only quote others to explain the phenomenon you are describing..

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
- Upton Sinclair

I think that people are missing the big difference at a structural level.

The Volt and Bolt were never probably intended to be big in the market. To a certain extent they were probably viewed as dipping the toes into BEV production to keep their options open, and make sure they can get serious about BEV production in the future. GM was hedging bets.

GM is serious this time because they're building a common architecture, which is a major long term investment that requires larger volume of sales to recoup and only makes sense if you're going to electrify a lot of models.

With that commitment is going to probably come a lot more marketing and training for dealerships.