Car Manufacturers going all-electric: General Discussion

[05XR8]

Didn't they (Hyundai) just release the Ioniq? Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and Full Electric?

Eh, Hybrid, Electric and "Electric Plus" (the same thing as the Volt?)

That's right, See? Tick that one for the Forgotten Car Thread.

 

[Joey D]

Despite this, no Brand are even bothering to advertise and introduce Electric & Hybrid cars apart from Toyota with their poorly selling Prius and Tesla who recently introduced it to our market.

GM pushes the Volt pretty heavily. As does pretty much any luxury car maker that has a token hybrid system on their cars.

Also, the Prius isn't poor selling, it just doesn't sell well in the US currently.

I think this thread should be the general discussion for traditional car manufacturers commiting to electric power only from a certain date.

Electric only is still a really long ways off, most makers are just saying electrification (which is a fancy way of saying they'll have a hybrid or electric variant of a particular model).

 

[ToyGTone]

Except for GM, Ford, Chrysler, VW, Nissan, BMW, Kia, Hyundai, Mercedes, and Audi.

These are all just the ones I've seen on the road in the past few months, though, there are probably some I'm not listing.

I also know Porsche is making a Cayenne Hyrbid but I haven't seen one myself.


It's been a long time since Toyota was the only name in the hybrid/electric game in the US.

GM pushes the Volt pretty heavily. As does pretty much any luxury car maker that has a token hybrid system on their cars.

Also, the Prius isn't poor selling, it just doesn't sell well in the US currently.

I'm talking about my region market which the majority of Brands tend to care less overall. The Toyota Prius is been here for over a year and i barely see any of them yet. They went on and advertised them everyone to the point they had to use some local internet celebrities in their Youtube/TV Ads yet no one wanted a Prius due to several reasons like the misconception of Electric cars being hard to work on, The battery won't last long, the car is way too expensive to buy and also to maintain and also the fact the Interior looks cheap and the Exterior is awful. Toyota did nothing about it. They also sold Lexus Hybrids before they even introduced the Prius and guess what? It sold even worse.

Other Brands in the Gulf States?

GM? They never brought the Volt here although i saw Bolt Ads lately but apart from that, nothing.
Ford? Forget about it, they just want to sell Taurus and Mustangs.
Chrysler? All they care about is selling all of their RT & SRT versions.
Volkswagen? We didn't even get a Diesel version (Although that might be a positive thing), let alone Hybrid or Electric.
Nissan? They sold the Pathfinder Hybrid at one point then mysteriously gone away.
BMW? Apart from the I8 which it self isn't that popular over here, again nope.
Kia? I forgot they even did "green" cars but once again, none of them are available here.
Hyundai? I heard they are going to bring the Ioniq to our GCC Market but it's not here yet.
Mercedes Benz? Unless they made and released a Electric Version of the G Wagon over here, otherwise not yet.
Audi? I'm not aware of one to be honest.
Porsche are selling some Hybrids version of their cars but i haven't yet to see one being driven.

You could say that we are wealthy and have cheap fuel so we don't need that, right? Except nope, Fuel and plenty of other stuff have raised up in the last few years. Next year we are going to be ****ed by the VAT system. Also they doesn't even care if the new care being sold is Petrol or Electric at all, they will all label it as the same...no push for going green or stuff so why would anyone buy something like that?

They only choice at this point is to apply for a loan and get a Toyota Yaris or Corolla.

Sorry for going offtopic.

 

[homeforsummer]

Still amazed the preconception that a hybrid will be unreliable still exists, given there are people rolling around in old Priuses with half a million miles on the original battery, but I guess it still varies from market to market. You can't really blame Toyota not marketing hybrids too heavily in the gulf states when historically those markets haven't had any need for economical cars.

Seriously, the battery thing is complete BS (the weedy nickel battery in my old Insight is 16 years and 140k miles old now and doesn't yet need replacing), and they're generally cheaper to maintain than the equivalent conventional vehicle. They don't go wrong, and go through consumables slower than most other cars too. A quick google suggests it's not uncommon for Prius owners to get more than 100k miles out of a set of brake pads because so much of the deceleration is handled by the regen.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

With the news that Porsche is switching to Formula-E, I think that the WEC should have a long hard look at electric endurance racers.

Having an all-electric class for the 24-hrs of Le Mans would be perfectly aligned with the spirit of the race. In the early days of the race, finishing was overwhelmingly the largest burden & goal. It doesn't seem possible for a battery-powered racer to finish the 24-hrs of Le Mans at the moment, and that makes the prospect of teams trying genuinely exciting. Come on WEC! Even if the cars were significantly slower than the LMP classes, it would be exciting to see some drama in the actual endurance component of the race. And wouldn't it be so much more relevant than watching a mid-engine Porsche 911 race around with only a token relationship to a production model?

I'm definitely a gas/petrol guy for life (or as long as they let me be) but having an electric car as an every day car is absolutely a no-brainer for a multitude of reasons. I'll keep my gas-burner for the weekend blasts and desert road trips.

 

[Joey D]

I think hot swap batteries could work for an electric endurance racer. It'd be slower than fueling up a car, but I think it could still work and as long as a team had racks of batteries in the pits charging they'd be able to make it the whole way. Plus with DC fast charging it wouldn't take super long for those batteries to get juiced up.

***After a quick search it looks like Panoz is already trying to figure it out: http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/meet-the-electric-car-that-wants-to-battery-swap-its-wa-1796184774

 

[ToyGTone]

Still amazed the preconception that a hybrid will be unreliable still exists, given there are people rolling around in old Priuses with half a million miles on the original battery, but I guess it still varies from market to market. You can't really blame Toyota not marketing hybrids too heavily in the gulf states when historically those markets haven't had any need for economical cars.

Fuel Economy? Since fuel over here wasn't that expensive, they didn't care that much on buying cars based on "MPG" but more on reliability, popularity and toughness. Another problems goes to the fact that the majority of repair shops over here can't deal with anything "complicated". Hybrids and Electric cars are still very new technology and no one wants to risk buying something only to find out that the average car mechanic worker from South Asia (not discrimination intended) couldn't find any spare parts or figure how to fix it. This is the same reason why the majority of grey imports we tend to do from US are often on cars that are popular here already.

Seriously, the battery thing is complete BS (the weedy nickel battery in my old Insight is 16 years and 140k miles old now and doesn't yet need replacing), and they're generally cheaper to maintain than the equivalent conventional vehicle. They don't go wrong, and go through consumables slower than most other cars too. A quick google suggests it's not uncommon for Prius owners to get more than 100k miles out of a set of brake pads because so much of the deceleration is handled by the regen.

You're right but I'm not sure how would the battery works here in the desert heat or how much the Maintenance Center of certain brand will exaggerate the cost because their Sheikh owner of the Brand can.

Hybrids can sell here but not when something like the Prius being sold for almost the price of a Camry while being less powerful, less spacious and people having way too much doubt in this car despite being a Toyota.

 

[Dennisch]

but I think it could still work and as long as a team had racks of batteries

I would like to see them implement a rule that states that a pack needs to be able to be fully charged in let's say 4 hours or so. Also limit the amount of available packs.

Make LMP2 top gun, and let the electrics dwindle between the GT's or something. They shouldn't be slower, because then it might become a bit too dangerous.

 

[05XR8]

Audi would win anyway. There'd be a hold time rule in the pitbox. Somehow, Audi will be clever. They'd swap rear ends in the garage, to negate that rule, with packs ready to go.

 

[Danoff]

Still amazed the preconception that a hybrid will be unreliable still exists, given there are people rolling around in old Priuses with half a million miles on the original battery, but I guess it still varies from market to market. You can't really blame Toyota not marketing hybrids too heavily in the gulf states when historically those markets haven't had any need for economical cars.

Seriously, the battery thing is complete BS (the weedy nickel battery in my old Insight is 16 years and 140k miles old now and doesn't yet need replacing), and they're generally cheaper to maintain than the equivalent conventional vehicle. They don't go wrong, and go through consumables slower than most other cars too. A quick google suggests it's not uncommon for Prius owners to get more than 100k miles out of a set of brake pads because so much of the deceleration is handled by the regen.

Did you just compare something like a battery for a hybrid to brake pads?

My primary concern when it comes to owning an electric car is the battery. If I buy a model S D and hang on to it for 20 years, will it still work? Will I be able to service it? Will they even still make batteries for it?

http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/4802/how-long-do-electric-car-batteries-really-last

Owning any car for an extended period of time results in some deterioration of parts - especially rubber stuff. But with electric vehicles there is real concern that just holding onto them for a few decades will make them trash, and that's a major deterrent. Especially because electric cars seem best suited to people that don't rack up a lot of miles.

On the other hand, there is the real possibility that batteries will just get better and cheaper and you'll be able to plug in an adapter to your model S D in 20 years and put in a battery with 10x the capacity, 1/2 the weight, and costs peanuts, and nobody will care that you've "modded" it because it doesn't affect how the car drives fundamentally.

It's a very unknown future.

 

[Turbo]

Volvo will release its first all-electric car next year:

“That’s the area [of range] we’re aiming at. We’re in the middle of development, and we are constantly chasing new steps. It’s quite different to develop a car compared to 5 or 10 years ago. You set a prerequisite 3 or 4 years before a car’s launch, and you run towards that target, and if you did well, you came out with a competitive offer”, said Henrik Green head of Research & Development at Volvo.

https://www.carscoops.com/2018/01/volvo-launch-first-ever-ev-next-year-electric-xc40-follow/