Good report. I simply find it
Good report. I simply find it amazing that we continue to accept this nonsense that ultra-high cost EVs will somehow, one day reduce in cost to the point where every man, woman and child can own one. Any other time we snipe at trickle-down economics; but here we are, touting and praising its benefits. Fact is, government subsidies with taxpayer money cannot compete with today's market forces; and that force is us. The economy and the avarage wage earners who live within it simply cannot afford the cost.
Instead of trying to meet the needs of the many, we have been fed a line that meeting the needs of the few wealthy who can actually afford BMWs will somehow give the tech a boost and bring costs down. What a joke!
With all respect to Volt technology, this is not the first time that GM has botched a marketed vehicle. Recall the Chevy SSR, a great two-seat truck with a $40K price tag. It was the few good men that bought it, though. If GM had set a price that everyone could afford, they would have sold out to every male over 40 for sure; and I would have been one of them.
The Volt propulsion is indeed a gem of an achievment in such a short time, but the Prius is kicking its ass in sales. And putting a marketing hat on, any product planner with any brains would not have touted the Volt for the masses as GM and the government has. Furthermore, the battery technology using lithium is just too expensive for the masses; it's super heavy and rife with serious design backups just to ensure it remains safe.
The development money would have been better spent toward a lightweight body structure first. Then any small hybrid combo even with with a zinc-air battery, or a nat-gas or a small displacement ICE like Ford's 1.0 liter EcoBoost combo would have made this more affordable and thus more acceptabe to greater sales; and the MPG would have made a greater impact simply because so many more people would be driving it.
The only way those Li-ion batteries can come down in price is if they build them with cheap Chinese or Indian labor. And that's what's likely to happen, unless we develop in mass a battery tech like zinc-air which has greater power density at a lower price per Kwh. In the meantime, ICE tech will prevail simply due to manufacturing economics.