Cadillac to become GM's EV brand, here comes the Electric "C8"...
01-12-2019, 04:30 PM
#21
Le Mans Master
After 20 years, EV battery tech is finally to the point where the bulk of the population can get by on their daily needs with one. There are still some issues to hash out, namely quick charging for people on long trips, but the technology is no longer limiting for most of what a person does on an average day. Every manufacturer is jumping on the tech, as much as ICE stalwarts may scream and shout, it is coming.
When they get the price down to what an entry level decent sedan costs now, somewhere in the low-mid 20's, I'll readily jump on one. I'd love to no longer pay for gas on my 100 mile daily commute.
When they get the price down to what an entry level decent sedan costs now, somewhere in the low-mid 20's, I'll readily jump on one. I'd love to no longer pay for gas on my 100 mile daily commute.
Yet for performance cars, ICE is still the way to go.
Last edited by 427Z0SX; 01-12-2019 at 04:31 PM.
01-12-2019, 04:39 PM
#22
Melting Slicks
The so far un-talked-about biggest hurdle is the lack of charging capability in most urban areas and in all suburban homes with more than 2 cars.
In most large urban areas, like NYC and it boroughs, where people don't have driveways, much less garages and park wherever they can within 3 blocks of where the live, there are currently zero charging facilities available and there will never be enough unless the governments spend on the order of $5 trillion to upgrade the grid and infrastructure to install 50 million charging stations.
....
In most large urban areas, like NYC and it boroughs, where people don't have driveways, much less garages and park wherever they can within 3 blocks of where the live, there are currently zero charging facilities available and there will never be enough unless the governments spend on the order of $5 trillion to upgrade the grid and infrastructure to install 50 million charging stations.
....
As far as the charging issue, it is rather easy to plan around having to charge three cars at once. I don't need to fill my car every day, and undoubtedly many folks will be able to go a week or more without topping off. It is also easy to develop tech that allows three cars to be plugged in, and to start charging one as soon as the previous is done.
01-12-2019, 04:43 PM
#23
Melting Slicks
Here you drive 50 miles a day for 50 weeks a year, but once a year you drive cross country and if an EV won't do it on a single charge it won't work for you. Really? You don't stop for lunch? I mean, take the other car. By the time all your cars are EVs, range won't be an issue. Battery design has NOT stagnated at all. Advances are being made all the time.
01-12-2019, 04:53 PM
#24
Safety Car
Cadillac has done a miserable job selling ice vehicles and now they will be expected to sell EV. This is what, the third time since around 2002 that Cadillac has been rebranded. I think this may be the death of Cadillac. I don’t think GM is capable to market Cadillac much less EV. And I do like some electric vehicles, they are just to pricy except for the LEAF which is ugly.
01-12-2019, 04:59 PM
#25
Safety Car
This study: https://www.inl.gov/article/charging...ructure-needs/ suggests otherwise. It makes sense for people to charge at work if there is a charger at work. It might work fine if the owner does not want to spend the grand it would take to wire up a circuit at home. But this study suggests people would much rather and do in fact charge at home. It doesn't make economic sense to pay 2.5 times as much for a commercial charge. That negates the whole point of buying an EV. So I'm not convinced the figure above is true at all. And of course they won't charge as fast as putting gas in a vehicle. Why should they have to? If you charge over night or at work, it doesn't matter.
People still get hung up on this non-issue. Unless you are traveling cross-country you don't need a 600 mile range. You don't even need a 200 mile range. All you need to do is get to work and back. All you need to do is get to the grocery store and back, to the mall and back. That is the vast majority of driving that we do. This kind of driving is what an EV is meant to accommodate and this accounts for the vast majority of gallons used. I have a friend who still has an XLR. This thing has a range of 90 miles only. After a year the car messaged him that it was going to force him to burn a tank of gas because the gas in the tank was over a year old. In a solid year he had NEVER used the gasoline engine. That's what most people will encounter.
One big mistake I see being made is that people judge EVs based on what is available today as if nothing will change, and they also judge EVs based on the most extreme practice that is possible, e.g. driving 600 miles a day. Here you drive 50 miles a day for 50 weeks a year, but once a year you drive cross country and if an EV won't do it on a single charge it won't work for you. Really? You don't stop for lunch? I mean, take the other car. By the time all your cars are EVs, range won't be an issue. Battery design has NOT stagnated at all. Advances are being made all the time.
People still get hung up on this non-issue. Unless you are traveling cross-country you don't need a 600 mile range. You don't even need a 200 mile range. All you need to do is get to work and back. All you need to do is get to the grocery store and back, to the mall and back. That is the vast majority of driving that we do. This kind of driving is what an EV is meant to accommodate and this accounts for the vast majority of gallons used. I have a friend who still has an XLR. This thing has a range of 90 miles only. After a year the car messaged him that it was going to force him to burn a tank of gas because the gas in the tank was over a year old. In a solid year he had NEVER used the gasoline engine. That's what most people will encounter.
One big mistake I see being made is that people judge EVs based on what is available today as if nothing will change, and they also judge EVs based on the most extreme practice that is possible, e.g. driving 600 miles a day. Here you drive 50 miles a day for 50 weeks a year, but once a year you drive cross country and if an EV won't do it on a single charge it won't work for you. Really? You don't stop for lunch? I mean, take the other car. By the time all your cars are EVs, range won't be an issue. Battery design has NOT stagnated at all. Advances are being made all the time.
01-12-2019, 04:59 PM
#26
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No different than the folks I know who own a pickup for the once a year they buy plywood at Home Depot, then spend the other 355 days trying to fit a long bed truck in a parking garage in Detroit. Some people get too hung up on the corner cases to realize the other 98% of what it is used for, and the options available for those corner cases.
Last edited by mschuyler; 01-12-2019 at 05:19 PM.
01-12-2019, 05:34 PM
#27
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01-12-2019, 06:25 PM
#28
Le Mans Master
953 top level automotive executives around the world were surveyed, and 78% of them said that the breakthrough technology for EVs won't be better batteries, but hydrogen fuel cells. I agree with that. Fast electric charging is still slow. Who wants to sit around a charging station for a half hour to an hour every 200 miles? How can you possibly travel any distance like that? Add to this, that every time you fast charge, the battery life and capacity is degraded. That last 20% of charging takes forever. You can't fill the battery at your house to 100% everyday either, or the battery life and capacity is degraded. You want to increase range beyond the 300 miles we have now (which really isn't 300 miles when you can only charge to 80% on a regular basis), it gets to be impractical from a weight and size standpoint. We have hydrogen fuel cell cars now that will go over 350 miles on a 5 minute fill-up, and the new Hyundai Nexo is 380 miles. And you can fill up 100%, not 80%, without degrading anything.
When the lithium ion battery degrades over time, the cost to replace the battery will far exceed the value of the car, so the car will be junked. This is one reason why electric cars have such high depreciation. The range of an electric car will never be greater than the day your drive it off the showroom.
Then you have to consider where the energy is coming from. Most people charge in the middle of the night when rates are lowest. That's also when the sun isn't shining, and winds are at their lowest level. In California, less than 10% of the electricity is coming from renewables at night. You can check it out yourself at caliso.gov. So really, you are running your electric car on fossil fuels.
Excess renewable energy produced during the day can be used to make hydrogen, and used as a transportation fuel. It already is. 33% of California's hydrogen at a vehicle filling station comes from renewables, and at some stations it is 100%. Hydrogen can also be used to run stationary fuel cells.
Fuel Cell EVs are in their infancy. If the cost of hydrogen, and fuel cells can be brought down (GM is working with Honda on this, and a new joint FC plant is starting up in 2020), and they get more stations up and running, I can see this as a replacement for the internal combustion engine. People would not have to change their lifestyle to drive a FCEV. People really don't care what drives the car, as long as they don't have to adjust their schedule around the car.
When the lithium ion battery degrades over time, the cost to replace the battery will far exceed the value of the car, so the car will be junked. This is one reason why electric cars have such high depreciation. The range of an electric car will never be greater than the day your drive it off the showroom.
Then you have to consider where the energy is coming from. Most people charge in the middle of the night when rates are lowest. That's also when the sun isn't shining, and winds are at their lowest level. In California, less than 10% of the electricity is coming from renewables at night. You can check it out yourself at caliso.gov. So really, you are running your electric car on fossil fuels.
Excess renewable energy produced during the day can be used to make hydrogen, and used as a transportation fuel. It already is. 33% of California's hydrogen at a vehicle filling station comes from renewables, and at some stations it is 100%. Hydrogen can also be used to run stationary fuel cells.
Fuel Cell EVs are in their infancy. If the cost of hydrogen, and fuel cells can be brought down (GM is working with Honda on this, and a new joint FC plant is starting up in 2020), and they get more stations up and running, I can see this as a replacement for the internal combustion engine. People would not have to change their lifestyle to drive a FCEV. People really don't care what drives the car, as long as they don't have to adjust their schedule around the car.
Last edited by Michael A; 01-12-2019 at 06:35 PM.
01-12-2019, 07:52 PM
#29
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953 top level automotive executives around the world were surveyed, and 78% of them said that the breakthrough technology for EVs won't be better batteries, but hydrogen fuel cells. I agree with that. Fast electric charging is still slow. Who wants to sit around a charging station for a half hour to an hour every 200 miles? How can you possibly travel any distance like that? Add to this, that every time you fast charge, the battery life and capacity is degraded. That last 20% of charging takes forever. You can't fill the battery at your house to 100% everyday either, or the battery life and capacity is degraded. You want to increase range beyond the 300 miles we have now (which really isn't 300 miles when you can only charge to 80% on a regular basis), it gets to be impractical from a weight and size standpoint. We have hydrogen fuel cell cars now that will go over 350 miles on a 5 minute fill-up, and the new Hyundai Nexo is 380 miles. And you can fill up 100%, not 80%, without degrading anything.
When the lithium ion battery degrades over time, the cost to replace the battery will far exceed the value of the car, so the car will be junked. This is one reason why electric cars have such high depreciation. The range of an electric car will never be greater than the day your drive it off the showroom.
Then you have to consider where the energy is coming from. Most people charge in the middle of the night when rates are lowest. That's also when the sun isn't shining, and winds are at their lowest level. In California, less than 10% of the electricity is coming from renewables at night. You can check it out yourself at caliso.gov. So really, you are running your electric car on fossil fuels.
Fuel Cell EVs are in their infancy. If the cost of hydrogen, and fuel cells can be brought down (GM is working with Honda on this, and a new joint FC plant is starting up in 2020), and they get more stations up and running, I can see this as a replacement for the internal combustion engine. People would not have to change their lifestyle to drive a FCEV. People really don't care what drives the car, as long as they don't have to adjust their schedule around the car.
Last edited by mschuyler; 01-12-2019 at 08:03 PM.
01-12-2019, 08:41 PM
#30
Banned Scam/Spammer
EVs are here to stay. Competition in this arena will become intense bringing the prices down rapidly. The chrome wheel and round taillight crowd can get on board or simply live in the past. Technology is changing our world and the products we use at an exponential rate. The ICE will become a museum piece in the near future whether some of the troglodytes here believe so or not. The world changes whether Joe 6-pack likes it or not.
01-12-2019, 08:54 PM
#31
Le Mans Master
EVs are here to stay. Competition in this arena will become intense bringing the prices down rapidly. The chrome wheel and round taillight crowd can get on board or simply live in the past. Technology is changing our world and the products we use at an exponential rate. The ICE will become a museum piece in the near future whether some of the troglodytes here believe so or not. The world changes whether Joe 6-pack likes it or not.
01-12-2019, 08:57 PM
#32
Banned Scam/Spammer
01-12-2019, 09:24 PM
#34
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But not a very good one in context of an EV thread. The transition to EVs (or Fuel Cells) won't happen over night, but it will happen (IMO) a lot faster than most of us think. Meanwhile, we have one more C8/V8 Vette to enjoy before everyone starts bitching about the advent of the C9 Lectric Vette. I think the point of this particular thread is to start taking EV vehicles seriously, so it is appropriate to talk about them. Apparently GM is making Cadillac at the forefront of their EV strategy. And for the record, if this all folds over into a fuel cell strategy, that's fine with me. But the EV part is happening now and the C8 will be contemporaneous with a whole lot of EVs from GM itself, as well as competitive brands. Within five years (2024) most of us here will have an EV in our stable. We may hold onto our V8s until they are pried from our cold, dead fingers, but even that is inevitable because the Lectric Vette is going to be one awesome machine!
01-12-2019, 09:30 PM
#35
Le Mans Master
I highly doubt the c9 is electric only. Most manufactures have stated they will manufacture gas engines past 2040. Sports cars and trucks will be the last to go. I do not doubt you see an electric corvette along side the gas model at some point. Most of those fan boying over the electrics do not own one currently, that is telling.
01-12-2019, 09:51 PM
#36
Le Mans Master
EVs are here to stay. Competition in this arena will become intense bringing the prices down rapidly. The chrome wheel and round taillight crowd can get on board or simply live in the past. Technology is changing our world and the products we use at an exponential rate. The ICE will become a museum piece in the near future whether some of the troglodytes here believe so or not. The world changes whether Joe 6-pack likes it or not.
01-12-2019, 09:54 PM
#37
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I highly doubt the c9 is electric only. Most manufactures have stated they will manufacture gas engines past 2040. Sports cars and trucks will be the last to go. I do not doubt you see an electric corvette along side the gas model at some point. Most of those fan boying over the electrics do not own one currently, that is telling.
I do not think it is "telling" at all given there are so few models to choose from currently. In fact, there are studies out that attribute the fall in demand for sedans to people who are waiting for EVs to become more available. I'm a perfect example of that. I'm delighted GM is going to use Cadillac to spearhead their EV focus. I have a CTS VSport and in a couple of years I will be an excellent candidate to transition to an EV. And here's GM saying they are dumping their sedans to the point of closing factories and laying off workers so they can concentrate on SUVs, crossovers, and trucks AS THEY TRANSITION TO EVs. How's THAT for "telling."? Is GM "fanboying" over electrics? Good Lord, that's ludicrous! NOBODY is going to be making ICE vehicles in 2040.
My guess is that GM is working as hard as they can to get crossovers, SUVs, AND trucks into the EV fold because that's next. if GM does not do this, Tesla may as well buy their factories. This is going to be a massive and fast transition. If you have ever seen graphs of transitions you will know they come in an "S" curve fashion. The tail of the S starts out slow, even appearing not to move, but at critical mass it launches skyward. That's where we are with EVs. The infrastructure is in place. The technology is there. In the next five years, it takes off.
The C9 will be the Lectric Vette. Plan on it.
01-12-2019, 10:04 PM
#38
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How can "competition" bring down the cost of electric cars, when it is the cost of materials and manufacturing of the batteries that is keeping prices high? They are even subsidized, and they are still expensive. Plus, Tesla, who has the lowest battery costs is still losing money on every car. It is only subsidies and emissions credits that is keeping that company going.
01-12-2019, 10:08 PM
#39
Drifting
I drive on average 80ish miles a day. If GM made something similar to tesla's offering, I would be highly considering it. I also work at a GM engine plant. We don't think the ones starting today will be making engines when they retire......
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