GM needs to bring more to the table for EV's

Just saw this story about Nissan and how they are now working with the Major companies that operate public charging infrastructure to provide 2 years of free charging. I wish GM was as dedicated as Nissan is with EV's. I have a Volt and a Spark EV, but when my lease is up on my Spark, I may have to take a second look at the Leaf; I may have to live with the "ugliness" of it.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/nissan_offers_leaf_owners_two.html

There are more companies like GM than Nissan in the EV business. I'd be grateful that GM has built two pretty good electric powered cars (three, if you count EV1).

The simple fact is EV's don't make money like a Suburban or diesel pickup, unless you're Tesla.

TonyWilliams said:

There are more companies like GM than Nissan in the EV business. I'd be grateful that GM has built two pretty good electric powered cars (three, if you count EV1).

The simple fact is EV's don't make money like a Suburban or diesel pickup, unless you're Tesla.

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I enjoy both my Volt and Spark, but I wish they would put more then just a minimal effort in to their vehicles. We know the spark EV is just a compliance car, but it could be so much more. The Volt is actually an excellent vehicle, and I hope they address it's few short comings in the next version, I would love to see a small SUV with the Voltec system. Nissan puts a lot of effort in to promoting, and marketing the Leaf to make it profitable. It's not a perfect EV but Nissan has a continued effort to advance the leaf.

ecilopaveht said:

Nissan puts a lot of effort in to promoting, and marketing the Leaf to make it profitable. It's not a perfect EV but Nissan has a continued effort to advance the leaf.

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The LEAF has limitations, as does the Spark EV, but the market has responded with well over 100,000 LEAF sales.

GM was so far behind in the CARB compliance efforts that they bought more CARB credits than any other manufacturer (effective Sept 30, 2013).

Let's look at this longer term. If Nissan speeds to 200,000 cars sold in the USA, they lose their $7500 federal tax credit per vehicle. There's a big risk in getting to 200,000 first. GM can, at their leisure, offer a competing car in the future for $7500 less by sitting on their ass today.

The real advantage that Tesla and Nissan have with first mover is setting the infrastructure standard that will carry on well past the lost $7500 federal tax credit. Of course, GM and German car makers have attempted to counter that with mixed results. At least it didn't cost them much money to be the spoiler in that endeavor. Nissan and Tesla are spending millions (probably hundreds of millions for Tesla) that GM will likely not spend.

So beyond infrastructure changes what do you want GM to provide in the next gen EV? The engineers actually working on the car most likely have no influence over the larger infrastructure issue...

bespoke said:

So beyond infrastructure changes what do you want GM to provide in the next gen EV? The engineers actually working on the car most likely have no influence over the larger infrastructure issue...

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By far the number one thing is a onboard 6.6kw charger at the very least! Next give me some options, I want more then just heated seats and a leather wrapped steering wheel. Now support your choice of DCQC by deploying stations at dealers, at the very least. What is the point of putting a DCQC standard on your car you wont even support. Nissan is installing DCQC stations at some of its dealers.

ecilopaveht said:

bespoke said:

So beyond infrastructure changes what do you want GM to provide in the next gen EV? The engineers actually working on the car most likely have no influence over the larger infrastructure issue...

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By far the number one thing is a onboard 6.6kw charger at the very least! Next give me some options, I want more then just heated seats and a leather wrapped steering wheel. Now support your choice of DCQC by deploying stations at dealers, at the very least. What is the point of putting a DCQC standard on your car you wont even support. Nissan is installing DCQC stations at some of its dealers.

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Agree on the charger, but vehemently disagree on putting QCs at dealers. Absolutely the wrong place, as they're out of the way, often blocked, and usually only available during business hours. Nissan is finally starting to put them at other locations. No reason why GM should make the same mistake Nissan did.

And be sure to put QCs in multiples at each location, so that people can rely on being able to get a charge in a reasonable amount of time, without being stuck in a line or having a single failure make the trip impossible. Tesla does it right; no one else is, yet.

gra said:

ecilopaveht said:

Agree on the charger, but vehemently disagree on putting QCs at dealers. Absolutely the wrong place, as they're out of the way, often blocked, and usually only available during business hours. Nissan is finally starting to put them at other locations. No reason why GM should make the same mistake Nissan did. Tesla does it right; no one else is, yet.

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Spot on!

Agree on the charger, but vehemently disagree on putting QCs at dealers. Absolutely the wrong place, as they're out of the way, often blocked, and usually only available during business hours. Nissan is finally starting to put them at other locations. No reason why GM should make the same mistake Nissan did.

And be sure to put QCs in multiples at each location, so that people can rely on being able to get a charge in a reasonable amount of time, without being stuck in a line or having a single failure make the trip impossible. Tesla does it right; no one else is, yet.

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GM is not in the QC infrastructure business and I don't ever see them going this route, but they could fund a deployment of SAE QC at select local dealers. I agree this is not the ideal place for them, but GM needs to support the choice of adopting the SAE QC standard. It would be much easier to outfit dealers with the Chargers at first until commercial infrastructure catches up. I feel the roll out of the SAE QC will be painfully slow, as most tax incentives for commercial business have ended and the amount of capital that would have to be spent for the very few cars it would support does not make it financially feasible to deploy these chargers. Tesla has this game down! If GM followed in its footsteps they could have a true winner. Imagine GM funded its own massive charging infrastructure and made it part of the OnStar system. If you are a member of OnStar you charge for free. They start building more vehicles based on the Voltec platform and advanced and refined the spark. GM would be unstoppable. GM has the capital to do this they just fail to fully deliver even with two great vehicles like the Volt and Spark EV.

ecilopaveht said:

GM is not in the QC infrastructure business and I don't ever see them going this route, but they could fund a deployment of SAE QC at select local dealers. I agree this is not the ideal place for them, but GM needs to support the choice of adopting the SAE QC standard. It would be much easier to outfit dealers with the Chargers at first until commercial infrastructure catches up. I feel the roll out of the SAE QC will be painfully slow, as most tax incentives for commercial business have ended and the amount of capital that would have to be spent for the very few cars it would support does not make it financially feasible to deploy these chargers. Tesla has this game down! If GM followed in its footsteps they could have a true winner. Imagine GM funded its own massive charging infrastructure and made it part of the OnStar system. If you are a member of OnStar you charge for free. They start building more vehicles based on the Voltec platform and advanced and refined the spark. GM would be unstoppable. GM has the capital to do this they just fail to fully deliver even with two great vehicles like the Volt and Spark EV.

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I totally agree.
I think that a true QCDC fast 20 min Charger at a Dealer is just fine for me and most.
I think it should be free too, but I would be willing to pay a $1 or 2 for it.

Nissan that is down the street form my work does not have a charger at the dealer sad for Nissans and they sell a bunch of Electric Leafs there.

Telsa Does have it all. Course they are JUST doing Electric so they have a Special Spot for them.
Just wish I could afford one of their cars

Several things would have to change before dealers could be thought of as decent places for public charging stations. I think their current locations a less than desirable for this purpose. More importantly the entire dealer culture would have to change. The average dealer, even the nice ones, don't want to see you unless you're buying something be it cars, parts, or service. I've also seen it a number of times where if you didn't purchase your car from them you're not treated well. Just imagine how happy and welcoming that BMW dealer a mile or two from my office would be if I brought my Spark in for a free charge. :lol:

Few are the EV owners that can not make do with a 120V, 12 amp charge at their own residence. Most of the remainder can wring the last bit of range from an EV and have capacity for evening trips after work. Via the on board 3.3KW charger with a 30 amp 240V receptacle supply.
The 20 minute quick EV charge is for the kind of person with the perpetually dead cell phone :roll: because they can't plan ahead far enough to charge it.
Who wants to bake the life out of the batteries with 20 minute charges :shock: ?

buickanddeere said:

The 20 minute quick EV charge is for the kind of person with the perpetually dead cell phone :roll: because they can't plan ahead far enough to charge it.
Who wants to bake the life out of the batteries with 20 minute charges :shock: ?

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Disagree. I don't run my cell phones to anywhere near dead and I've used my CHAdeMO port about 10x now. Heck, at work, much of the time my phone's plugged in and doesn't get below 75% on a workday.

I've used it because the charging was free, sorta on the way (and I could sit in my car catching up on emails, reading, be on the phone, etc.) and to reduce the amount I need to charge at home on weekends. Also, I can only L1 charge at home, so it can take quite awhile to replenish range.

(I get free L2 charging at work, but I only go to work on weekdays.) Today, I used a free CHAdeMO DC FC at Walgreens, which I've used a few times before. Sometimes, I use one at a Nissan dealer.

As for the latter, at least w/the Leaf with its battery chemistry and NO battery cooling system, there was found to be little difference in degradation vs. using just L2 vs. CHAdeMO DC FC. See http://green.autoblog.com/2014/03/17/dc-fast-charging-not-as-damaging-to-ev-batteries-as-expected/. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=14271 has more info/discussion but MNL is currently down.

DC FC can be great for taking an EV on trips where you cannot stop THAT long to charge on the way or your destination (e.g. 60+ miles one way, all highway in sub-90 mile EPA range EVs). Ask some Leafers w/good CHAdeMO DC FC infrastructure like in OR and WA about their usage patterns and reasons. Ask Model S owners who use Tesla Superchargers to do long road trips.

In one session (either mine or someone else's) on CHAdeMO, after 31 minutes, 14.8 kWh was dispensed and the DC FC had ramped down to 9.5 kW output. SoC was ~86%. If you're doing this to enable you to travel further and have no means of charging at the destination or for a long time on the way, 31 mins is a lot better than ~4.75 hours.

Andy Palmer (Nissan exec) who lives in Japan has mentioned that his only car is a Nissan Leaf. I think it helps that there are over 1967 CHAdeMO DC FCs in Japan per http://www.chademo.com/. From http://chargedevs.com/features/a-new-leaf-localized-manufacturing-and-a-focus-on-infrastructure/,

“I know I can drive across the whole of Japan and know that I’ll always be within 20 km of a fast charger,” he said.

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Tesla's Supercharger infrastructure enabled http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/cross-country-rally-numbers.

buickanddeere said:

Few are the EV owners that can not make do with a 120V, 12 amp charge at their own residence.

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I would suggest the reverse is true.

My particular EV adds 3 miles per hour at 12a/120v, so for a typical 40-80 miles of driving that I do in a day, I would need 13-26 hours to recharge every night.

In addition, the 3 miles per hour is with weather that doesn't require battery heating or cooling.

Finally, the efficiency at 12a/120v is grossly less so than at higher charge speeds.