Dirty Gavin

Newsom signed an executive order to ban the sale of gasoline powered vehicles after 2035. Good luck with that

"Showdown at the AC Corral"

'Charge rage': Too many electric cars, not enough workplace chargers

Modern times call for modern problems. The Gurus of Global Warming convinced many of their acolytes that the way to enlightenment and global salvation lay in abandoning the internal combustion engine for an electric car.
(Cue the cute, little, three eyed aliens from Toy Story: "Oooooh!") And it was good.

And a handful of far sighted individuals bought electric cars and a handful of far sighted employers built a handful of charging stations for their employees. And it was good.

And then, they started to be plagued by their success.

Eager to reduce energy use, German software company SAP installed 16 electric vehicle charging ports in 2010 at its Palo Alto campus for the handful of employees who owned electric vehicles. Just three years later, SAP faces a problem that is increasingly common at Silicon Valley companies -- far more electric cars than chargers. Sixty-one of the roughly 1,800 employees on the campus now drive a plug-in vehicle, overwhelming the 16 available chargers. And as demand for chargers exceeds supply, a host of thorny etiquette issues have arisen, along with some rare but notorious incidents of "charge rage."

Sixty one electric cars and sixteen chargers? What could possibly happen?

"In the beginning, all of our EV drivers knew each other, we had enough infrastructure, and everyone was happy. That didn't last for long," said Peter Graf, SAP's chief sustainability officer and the driver of a Nissan Leaf. "Cars are getting unplugged while they are actively charging, and that's a problem. Employees are calling and messaging each other, saying, 'I see you're fully charged, can you please move your car?'"

Unlike road rage, these people will not try to force you off the road, or shoot you, but they might send out a nasty email blast!

George Betak learned firsthand the perils of "charge rage" last fall when he worked at Yahoo's (YHOO) Sunnyvale headquarters, where he said more than 100 employees who drove plug-in vehicles regularly tussled over limited charging spots. Betak, who no longer works at Yahoo, drives the all-electric BMW Active E and one day made the grave mistake of unplugging a colleague's Chevy Volt.

"I needed to be somewhere by 6 p.m., and all of the active chargers were full. I couldn't plug in all day," he said. "There was a Volt that appeared to be finished charging, so I unplugged it so I could get a half-hour boost. The Volt isn't pure electric -- it also has a gasoline engine. The next day, I learned that the Volt owner was furious, and he sent out this email blast saying that I stole his charge.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) estimates about 20,000 electric cars being used in northern California today, and expects 800,000 by the end of 2020. I'm sure that the wonderful people who brought you Solyndra will have figured out a solution by then!

Until then, let's be careful out there!

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art
Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

Get Your Tesla Model S - They're Hot! They're Smokin'!

No, seriously. They're smoking...

Meanwhile, another Model S electric car caught fire Wednesday near Smyrna, Tenn., following a crash. This was the third Model S to have caught fire in the last five weeks. One burned near Seattle and another in Mexico. Both cars were in crashes and the fires injured no one.

Normally, car fires are not significant events that influence investors. There are about 150,000 annually, according to the National Fire Protection Assn. However, safety officials have been tracking fires in electric cars, as well as computers and other equipment, out of concern that the lithium-ion battery systems might be fire-prone.

Three in five weeks? Out of a relatively small number of cars on the road? This cannot bode well for Tesla. In fact, their stock has taken a hit on the news of this latest car-B-que.

Tesla Motors shares continued to fall Thursday as the automaker confirmed a third fire in one of its high-end electric cars and a major auto reviewer pointed out problems with its Model S luxury hatchback.

The 9%, or $13.40, decline in mid-morning trading to $137.76 followed a 15% plunge in the shares Wednesday after the automaker said limited supplies of batteries were hampering sales and that it was spending heavily on research and development to design new models. Tesla shares have been on a run for most of the year, rising about 400% before this reversal.

But, tke heart! If your electric car catches fire, you can always invite Al Gore over for some S'mores!

What Do Electric Cars and Bricks Have in Common?

Bricks maneuver better without a battery!

In driving, there's a maxim about driving at night: You should never overdrive your headlights. That means you shouldn't drive faster than you can see to stop. The supposedly well intentioned advocates of electric car technology are overdriving their headlights.

Tesla Motors' lineup of all-electric vehicles — its existing Roadster, almost certainly its impending Model S, and possibly its future Model X — apparently suffer from a severe limitation that can largely destroy the value of the vehicle. If the battery is ever totally discharged, the owner is left with what Tesla describes as a "brick": a completely immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed down the street. The only known remedy is for the owner to pay Tesla approximately $40,000 to replace the entire battery. Unlike practically every other modern car problem, neither Tesla's warranty nor typical car insurance policies provide any protection from this major financial loss.

Teslas start at about $49,000. Granted, it is a vehicle more likely to be purchased by the well-to-do. But, imagine the joy of anyone coming back from a vacation or business trip, and discovering that they had forgotten to plug the car in, or someone accidentally unplugged the cord, or a breaker tripped and their $50 to $100K sports car now needs a $40,000 battery and a tow truck or it will never move again. (Unless, maybe up on cinderblocks, in an upscale version of Rio Linda?) And good luck finding one in stock at the local Sears or Pep Boys! Figure on it being in the shop for a while.

This is technology not yet ready for prime time. Some electric cars are little more than street legal golf carts. Others, like the Teslas, are poised to become lawn sculptures. When the technology is ready, people will buy more and more of them, and that will make them cheaper to mass produce. (Think big screen TVs.) But, in the meantime, are government subsidies of overpriced electric cars the wisest use of our limited resources? I sincerely doubt it.

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Explosive New Deals on a Chevy Volt!

Well, something new, anyway! We did a story here last week about electric cars catching fire (Is it Karma if Al Gore's Electric Cars Cause Fires?). And we went out of our way to point out it was NOT the Chevy Volt.

And we're not talking about the car-b-que prone Chevy Volt here.

As Gilda Radner used to say: "Never mind!"

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- General Motors is recalling the Chevrolet Volt to make changes that it says will help prevent fires from coolant leaks which may follow a severe side impact.

"Coolant leak that could cause a fire"...where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. The Karma.

The recall applies to all of the approximately 8,000 Volts on the road today. Dealers will also make changes on cars on their lots...

Eight thousand cars sold in two years? And every single one of them is being recalled. Only, GM isn't calling it a "recall". That has negative connotations to it, don'tcha know? But then, so does having your car catch fire!

GM will call it a "customer satisfaction campaign." Because most customers are more satisfied when their cars don't burst into flames! And since Government Motors is run in part by the Obama administration, expect a new marketing campaign:

Chevy Volt - Fourth Best Car Ever!

Cross posted at Say Anything

Is it Karma if Al Gore's Electric Cars Cause Fires?

And we're not talking about the car-b-que prone Chevy Volt here.


(Karma is the name of the car!)

After confirming that the A123 battery in the Fisker Karma has a battery safety issue and then figuring out a way to fix the problem, Fisker and the NHTSA have announced an official recall for 239 Karmas. The official reason for the recall is that:

Within the high-voltage battery, certain hose clamps may have been positioned incorrectly during assembly. if positioned incorrectly, the battery compartment cover could interfere with the hose clamps, potentially causing a coolant leak from the cooling hoses.
Consequence: If coolant enters the battery compartment, an electrical short could occur possibly resulting in a fire.

Fisker Motors was the recipient of an Obama administration approved federal loan guarantee of $529 million, to build cars in Finland. From October 20th.:

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty -- and pricey -- cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore...

Is it just me, or is the electric car just not ready for prime time yet? At least the 1% will have something stylish to drive on their way to Occupy Wall Street rallies!

Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money. While more are promised soon, just 40 of its Karma cars (below) have been manufactured and only two delivered to customers' driveways, including one to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio. Tesla's SEC filings reveal the start-up has lost money every quarter. And while its federal funding is intended to help it mass produce a new $57,400 Model S sedan, the company has no experience in a project so vast.

Well, the Obama administration has a lot of experience in doing things half-vast!
Just three words, think: Solyndra on wheels!

Cross posted at Say Anything

Eliminate Tax Loopholes for the Rich -Starting with GM

I've been thinking a lot about our fearless leader's call for higher taxes on the rich. Close those "tax loopholes" that help them to avoid paying their "fair share".

Let's start here:


Chevy Volt - Code Blue

The MSRP for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt in the U.S. starts at $40,280. Starts. That's the base model. For a car that goes (according to the EPA) 35 miles in all-electric mode. The total range is 379 miles (gas and electric).

Now, I don't know about you, but thirty five miles will not get me to work and back on any given day. Hell, some days, three hundred and seventy nine miles won't cut it either. So, who buys a car that is not reliable enough to get you to work and back on a single charge and is too small to be comfortable on a long trip?

It is ill suited, therefore to be one's primary or sole means of transportation, so, who is it that can afford a $40,000 subcompact to drive, aside from commutes or vacations? The rich. Anyone could buy a Chevy Cruze, which is a gas version of the Volt (only $23,000 cheaper), with more head room, legroom and a longer range. Who buys an expensive novelty car that's not very practical, just to prove a point, or make one feel better about themselves and the "environment"? This car has Ed Begley, Jr. written all over it!

So, if the rich, or at least, moderately well off, want to buy a Volt, let them! But, about those "loopholes"...

Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat. Start with the $50 billion bailout (without which none of this would have been necessary), add $240 million in Energy Department grants doled out to G.M. last summer, $150 million in federal money to the Volt’s Korean battery supplier, up to $1.5 billion in tax breaks for purchasers and other consumer incentives, and some significant portion of the $14 billion loan G.M. got in 2008 for “retooling” its plants, and you’ve got some idea of how much taxpayer cash is built into every Volt.

But, wait! (As they say) There's more! Let's give every rich person who buys a Chevy Volt a $7,500 tax credit (read: "loophole"), so all the poor people who can't even afford a single new car can help subsidize the rich to buy an extra one!

Now, am I really incensed that the rich are taking advantage of this "loophole", not available to poorer folks? Not really. Even with a $7,500 tax break, the Volt is still overpriced and under featured. The sales numbers of the Volt, even after a flood of government money are anemic and somewhat pathetic.

So, what's the point? It's this: One man's loophole is simply another man's deduction. The demagoguery of using the term "loophole" to generate class envy, by implying an unfair advantage (in areas where you really just want to raise taxes) while ignoring similar tax breaks in areas you want to encourage, is hypocritical to say the least.

When this administration tells you they want to "close the loopholes" so that the rich "pay their fair share", what they are talking about is raising taxes, pure and simple. It has been noted that even taxing "the rich" at 100% and confiscating everything they have, would not solve the problems created by a spendthrift Congress, so "taxing the rich" is just a bit of class envy political theater, used to distract the voters away from the real problem by demonstrating that they are at least "doing something". (And sticking it to those rich guys, doggone it!)

And although Barack Obama has acknowledged that it is not a good idea to raise taxes during a recession, still, he has tried to 1) end the Bush across the board tax cuts last December, 2) eliminate "loopholes" like depreciation on private jets, and 3) calls for a quote unquote "balanced" approach that includes even more tax increases.

And speaking of "balance", if raising taxes in a recession is a bad thing, how is it "balanced" to do a bad thing with a good thing? This whole nonsense about "balancing" spending cuts with tax increases (What about five to one? Ten to one? Etc.) can be illustrated thusly: You've been buying clean ground beef and one day your butcher decides he's going to "balance" that by selling a little beef with e.coli mixed in.

Would this "balanced" approach be more palatable if the mixture is ten to one beef instead of five to one? Or would it still bad for you?

"Balance" is probably a word that "focus grouped" well, and Obama would much rather tell you he's taking a "balanced approach" than to tell you he's actually in favor of raising taxes during a recession. But don't buy it... and change your butcher!

Electric Car: Short Run, Then Goes Dead

The company, that is! They Think, Therefore They Are No More*, Think Global AS is filing for bankruptcy.

The electric car maker that launched its North American operations in northern Indiana has filed for bankruptcy protection in Norway, a major creditor said Wednesday morning.

Think Global AS plans to liquidate its assets, according to a statement from its exclusive battery supplier, Ener1 Inc.

Ener1, which engineers and makes its batteries in the Indianapolis area at its EnerDel subsidiary, notified investors Wednesday that the company would take a charge of more than $32 million on unpaid loans and accounts receivable from Think Global.

Wonder if anyone sold "short"?

*More properly, "They Think Globally, Therefore They Are No More".

H/T Gateway Pundit

Electric Car Catches Fire... Again

Not "catches fire" as in "selling like hotcakes". No, they mean literally catching fire! As in "Car-B-Que"!


Chevy Re-volt

BARKHAMSTED,Conn. -- A hybrid electric Chevrolet Volt believed to have sparked an overnight blaze in a garage in Barkhamsted last week, reignited again on Monday.

The state fire marshal's office is investigating how the electric car parked at a Center Hill Road home caught fire Monday morning.

Last week, homeowners Storm Connors and his wife, Dee, woke up to the sound of a smoke alarm around 4 a.m.

The couple's garage, where they parked their new Chevrolet Volt hybrid, was on fire.

These cars are hot, hot hot!

...On Monday morning, firefighters were called back to the home when the car caught fire again.

Electric cars are soooo popular! This can only help! Not.

On a related note, I was driving up I-5 this afternoon when I came up on a trailer being towed up the highway. It was for an electric car company, whose name I shall not mention, but they were touting these zero emission vehicles as a way to "green your fleet". Which part of their electric fleet do you think was pulling this trailer?


(Ford F-350, shown less than actual size)

Update: For those of you with memories like mine, they take a little jogging. Another infamous electric car fire cost Neil Young about $850,000