Cadillac to be Center of GM's EV Push

olds442 (Quad4 version) heading to the boy's room:

EV will kill the gas motor in the 2030s maybe sooner.  When the solid state batteries arrive and recharges are in 5 minutes and gas stations replace 50% of their fuel pumps with charging ports all the dominoes will fall.  

Not to mention you’ll probably have a electric family sedan that is cheaper and faster than a V8 muscle car in 10 years.  Tesla already makes a sedan faster than a Lamborghini for 1/3rd the money.  That is going to trickle down.

Actually although I made fun of GM up above for this do-all electric platform, it is kind of brilliant.  But ONLY if individuality can be incorporated into the various silhouettes, as in steering, ride, road feel, power level, AFFORDABILITY and CONSISTENT, RELIABLE RANGE that can be replenished in the same time as an ICE vehicle.

On 1/11/2019 at 12:31 PM, smk4565 said:

They better work fast, many luxury brands will have EV’s on sale this year.

You were saying @smk4565??

12 hours ago, smk4565 said:

EV will kill the gas motor in the 2030s maybe sooner.  When the solid state batteries arrive and recharges are in 5 minutes and gas stations replace 50% of their fuel pumps with charging ports all the dominoes will fall.  

You told us EVs would be the "majority" [IE: over 50%] of the market by 2025.

Why would 50%of gas pumps be ripped out when there are 270 million IC vehicles in the U.S., and EVs are only selling 350K per year??

10 hours ago, balthazar said:

You told us EVs would be the "majority" [IE: over 50%] of the market by 2025.

Why would 50%of gas pumps be ripped out when there are 270 million IC vehicles in the U.S., and EVs are only selling 350K per year??

It will be a long transition for sure.

On 1/12/2019 at 10:20 AM, regfootball said:

114,533 gas stations versus 43,011 public charge points and charge points will be growing massively.

and each gas station has 24-32 pumps, which is 3 million pumps (probably more like 5 million pumps when all is said and done)= 1.4% the electric charge locations vs gas which may be inconvenient for lots of people (no one traveling is going to swing out of the way to go to a dealership to charge their car).  So in blunt terms, there are no chargers out there to service much more than 1% of the population, even less of a number when you add the term 'conveniently'.  I still never see anyone using the charge ports at grocery stores, etc. and even at the apartment complexes we develop in the public chargers, virtually never get used.

Pushing EV's now is a means to push vehicles that sell at out of reach prices to generate income to pay for battery development and autonomous vehicles.  Cadillac must have determined they can no longer play in the upper income bracket so they must be giving up on trying they will use the profits from their overpriced ford edges to fund the electrics cause the only who can buy them are the high end buyers. Some day the costs will come down for the everyday shopper BUT THEY WON'T BUY THEM UNTIL THERE ARE 3,000,000 charge points and can top of their battery in 5 minutes to go 300 miles.

Also not in this discussion is that people will not spend 2-3 grand to rewire their existing homes for fast car charging.  I advocate modifying building code to mandate proper electrical for fast charging a car, for newly built construction.  But since most people live in old homes and can't afford to fix little things when broken on their house, something will have to incentivize buyers to rewire their home service.  New carpet or furniture or a plug in for a car that costs 1/3-2x more?  Hmm i'll go with new furniture.  

5-15 minute charge time on demand will be what people want and require for on the go charging.  And very few will have any car charging capabilities at home for 10 years or more.

By the way I do love electrics, I wanted a volt but never got one because its too small to be practical.  

So let's look at what you posted:

114,533 gas stations and you state 24-32 pumps, 43,011 public charge Points, each one on average has 8 to 12 charge connections, So using your interesting math, we have 114,533 at 24 pumps = 2,748,792 pumps and 43,011 Charge Points with 8 charge connections = 344,088 electric public charge connections. Now this does not take into account home charging which is not public and as you stated with 24-32 pumps per gas station, I am taking the average for public charge Points, yet Tesla tends to average 24 plus charge connections at their superstations so the electric charging connections would be considerably more.

Now if you ever choose to fill out your profile to share with us where you live and a bit more about who you are rather than just a name we can check and see what the EV adoption rate is in your area. Since you say you never see anyone at the charge points one would have to make the assumption you live in an area with low EV adoption unlike the west coast where EVs are accepted and you see auto's at the Charge points all the time.

As @Drew Dowdell and @oldshurst442 have stated, EVs is also a change in habits as one would plug it in so that you always start your day out with a full battery pack, so for most people needing to stop and charge during the day is very uncommon. Plus many places at work have charging connections so employees can charge up if needed. My building has 12 charge connections always filled with auto's and they systems notify you when done so you can move your auto for the next person to use it.

XFC or Extreme Fast Charging is your 800V  5 to 15 min full charge based on battery size. 15 min for a 500 mile battery pack is no different than a large SUV or Truck gas tank.

As far as your over priced estimate of paying to rewire a house, ALL HOUSES are already wired, you have your 110 which is more than enough to charge overnight while you sleep. If you want a 220 to cut it down to a few hours, again houses already have the circuits and mostly it is the $500 charger unit and connection where ever you want it and even then I have not seen that electrical cost go more than $1,000 to $1,500 cost on the high end.

VW Diesel Gate is what is paying for your XFC chargers being installed around North America and this year they will double the Charge Points with an average 8 to 12 connections per location, so that will bring to about 86,000 charge points by the end of 2019 and there will still be 2 more years left on the VW Billion dollar installation of charge points so year 2020 should be around 129,000 charge points and 2021 about 172,000 charge points with 8 charge connections would mean in 2021 the plan is to have 1,376,000 more charge connections and that does not take into account businesses who install charge connections or private owned charge connections or the growth of Tesla and the OEM auto companies such as GM who is requiring ALL Dealerships to install the XFC 800V fast chargers or Porsche who is also doing the same thing as is Ford, VW, BMW and MB plus I bet the rest of the auto companies. 

In short, we will easily see a couple million charge connections in just a few short years, far faster and easier to install charge connections than gas stations and pumps.

Like Olds, I expect a much faster change over to the very cool and quick EVs.

On 1/11/2019 at 6:56 PM, Cmicasa the Great said:

... but obviously more luxurious than the Model S, which unless U spend serious coin, has a very basic interior.

LOL... you can spend all the extra coin you want and you will still get an interior that won't even measure up to a Hyundai with Tesla. Apart from a large LCD touch screen there is nothing particularly luxurious or enticing about any Tesla's interior. Sitting in a Tesla is like sitting in a Laptop. You get either broad swats of plastic or broad swats of covered plastic. Teslas' are ergonomically challenging and you can't even get adjustable head rests.

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Teslas are expensive cars. Teslas are fast cars. Teslas are prestigious cars. Teslas are cars in which you can flaunt your prosperity by exhibiting the size of the BATTERY you can afford. Teslas are a lot of things, but Teslas are NOT luxurious cars.

1 minute ago, dwightlooi said:

LOL... you can spend all the extra coin you want and you will still get an interior that won't even measure up to a Hyundai with Tesla. Apart from a large LCD touch screen there is nothing particularly luxurious or enticing about any Tesla's interior. Sitting in a Tesla is like sitting in a Laptop. You get either broad swats of plastic or broad swats of covered plastic. Teslas' are ergonomically challenging and you can't even get adjustable head rests.

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Teslas are expensive cars. Teslas are fast cars. Teslas are prestigious cars. Teslas are cars in which you can flaunt your prosperity by exhibiting the size of the BATTERY you can afford. Teslas are a lot of things, but Teslas are NOT luxurious cars.

Quoted for Truth. To be honest....the more I look at premium cars the more I like Audi.

On 1/13/2019 at 8:09 AM, smk4565 said:

EV will kill the gas motor in the 2030s maybe sooner.  When the solid state batteries arrive and recharges are in 5 minutes and gas stations replace 50% of their fuel pumps with charging ports all the dominoes will fall.  

Not to mention you’ll probably have a electric family sedan that is cheaper and faster than a V8 muscle car in 10 years.  Tesla already makes a sedan faster than a Lamborghini for 1/3rd the money.  That is going to trickle down.

That is like saying warp drives will replace chemical rockets in space flight. Yeah, it'll be great but it'll require a fundamental change in the understanding of physics (or in the case of batteries chemistry).

(1) Solid State Batteries already exist. They are called Lithium-Polymer Cells.

(2) By the very nature of solid electrolytes they CANNOT offer the high current properties automotive or other high draw devices demand. Current, you see, require free ionic movement in the electrolyte and being a solid means you have a limited amount of that.

(3) The problem with electric cars is not the lack of charging points per say, but the time it takes to put the equivalent of 300 miles of range in a car -- be it a tank of gas or 80 kWh of battery charge.

(4) To charge a 80kWh battery in 5 minutes will boil the electrolytes and cause an explosion. But even if it didn't,  Delivering 80 kWh of charge in 5 mins with a 440 volt supply will require 2182 Amps. FYI, the electric chair puts about 7 to 12 amps through the condemned.

(5) The need to wait hours to recharge a vehicle is an inherent disadvantage of electric propulsion. It is a problem to live with, accept and work with. It is not something you can simply wish away by some magic of engineering or science.

GM’s own studies on the Volt were that 80% of people didn’t drive over 40 miles a day.  We have EV’s that can do over 200 miles a day and even 300.  95% of people out there are not driving over 5 hours per day.  I don’t think range anxiety is that big a deal for most consumers.  

5 hours ago, dwightlooi said:

LOL... you can spend all the extra coin you want and you will still get an interior that won't even measure up to a Hyundai with Tesla. Apart from a large LCD touch screen there is nothing particularly luxurious or enticing about any Tesla's interior. Sitting in a Tesla is like sitting in a Laptop. You get either broad swats of plastic or broad swats of covered plastic. Teslas' are ergonomically challenging and you can't even get adjustable head rests.

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Teslas are expensive cars. Teslas are fast cars. Teslas are prestigious cars. Teslas are cars in which you can flaunt your prosperity by exhibiting the size of the BATTERY you can afford. Teslas are a lot of things, but Teslas are NOT luxurious cars.

i liked that one.

41 minutes ago, smk4565 said:

GM’s own studies on the Volt were that 80% of people didn’t drive over 40 miles a day.  We have EV’s that can do over 200 miles a day and even 300.  95% of people out there are not driving over 5 hours per day.  I don’t think range anxiety is that big a deal for most consumers.  

It is a LUXURY car so a 80~100 mile range on battery (about 25~30kWh) is a justifiable luxury. There is also the practical problems of asking a 15kWh to put up with the current draw and discharge cycles of a 300~500 hp motor for the kind of performance buyers of a LUXURY electric car will presumably want.

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But, 75~100 kWh is simply three times more than you'll need 95~99% of the time. Three times the cost on the most expensive component in an EV is a big deal. Three times the weight on the heaviest component in an EV is a big deal. Like Teslas or hate Teslas, know that Teslas are VERY HEAVY vehicles. How heavy? Any dua motor Model S is almost 5,000 lbs (4,900-something to be exact). You don't want that if you want great performance, ride and handling.

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It only takes about 20 hp to keep a 3000~4000 lbs car at 75 mph on the freeway. A simple turbine generator the size of a wastepaper basket and weighing 30 lbs will provide 30~50 hp. Now, that 10~30 hp  (7.5~22.5 kW) of excess power will also mean that a 25~30kW battery will be recharged in about an hour or two of freeway cruising. If you are parking the car and running the charger it'll recharge the car in about a hour. This recharge rate is also properly matched to the fast charging rate of Lithium Ion batteries (about 30~32 kW). The difference is that nobody wants to be tethered to a fast charging station for an hour; it is like having a fast charging station you use while driving. Developing such a device is well worth the investment because a (relatively) lengthy recharge duration, battery mass and battery costs are NOT GOING TO GO AWAY. You will always have a need for a mobile means of replenishing your battery. It will be a single stage centrifugal turbo generator and it won't be that efficient (about 20~25% thermally efficient) but efficiency doesn't matter since you are only using it 1~5% of the time. There is no radiator, no coolant, nothing. It'll cost about the same as a turbocharger, an intercooler and a 30hp electric motor -- because that is exactly what it is a turbocompressor/turbine, a recuperator and a motor generator. You need intake air and somewhere to vent the exhaust, that's all. This is a heck of a lot simpler, lighter and cheaper than a Hybrid drive train with an ICE, a transmission, coolant circuit and all the other nonsense.

On 1/13/2019 at 1:42 PM, ocnblu said:

  But ONLY if individuality can be incorporated into the various silhouettes, as in steering, ride, road feel,

GM hasnt done crappy badge engineering since the bailout. I dont need to remind anybody about the FWD J Bodies or the FWD A platform or the W-Bodies, etc.

Other than GM dumping their 3.6 V6 and their 2.0T in all their vehicles today without any relevant tuned differences between the models, Id say GM is doing a fine job in creating different driving experiences between their cars and CUVs.  Kinda.

EVs are a lot more easier to be able to differentiate them especially when it comes to steering and ride and road feel due to the fact that EVs are easier to be programmed by computers.  Hence why Tesla does this update software thing... The hardware is hooked up to the computer and voila!

The internal combustion engine since the 1980s has been able to be configured by computer.  Fuel injection was the start of that evolution...As hard as that was to get the ball rolling,  the computer controlled ICE is almost perfected today with all kinds of computer controlled mondules and sensors...ICE has been digitized. And with this, ICE can be configured very easily to make an engine as efficient as possible, or that very same engine, as racy and visceral as possible. 

An electric motor is almost made perfect for computer controlled configurabilty... so there is that regarding your wishes.

As far as silhouettes go, as long as the skateboard platform is scalable, its up to GM and how much money they are willing to spend on different body styles and shapes and you got your wish there. 

You say that EVs are "souless".   But that may be farther from the truth.

PS: Electricity does make noise. And its possibly the most eerie sound a machine can make.  It may not be a symphony like what we are used to with ICE...

But Id like to challenge that argument too...

How many Average Joes like to hear a Harley Davidson rumble past them?

How many Average Joes like to hear crotch rockets scream past them?

Alls I know is that muscle cars and all cars actually were muzzled quite a lot sometime in the 1970s because most people regard ICE cars just too darned loud.  THAT is a fact!

Motorcycles were left alone but zoom by often enough in your motorcycle in the morning or late at night and see how fast your SOB neighbour will call the cops on you...

wut

PS:

Quote

Sitting in a Tesla is like sitting in a Laptop.

 THAT is part of the appeal (to some)...

To others...

They like to laugh hysterically

5 minutes ago, oldshurst442 said:

PS: Electricity does make noise. And its possibly the most eerie sound a machine can make.  It may not be a symphony like what we are used to with ICE... 

Electricity itself -- unlike high pressure gases -- generally do not make noise. But in order to use electricity to do work and move a vehicle you need to have two things which definitely do.

The first is the motor itself. These either use a bunch of offset electrical coils or offset bunch of coil and magnet pairings fed by an an alternating current or a rapidly switching current. When stationary they BUZZ. When in rotation they transition into a whine.

The second is the variable frequency drive or the inverter. These... well... always just BUZZ.

The lack of significant vibrations is the reason EVs are more refined. A different kind of noise is definitely there, but not the shakes. And, that is a big deal.