There’s an observation I heard many years ago about one of the primary differences between Europeans and Americans:
Americans think 100 years is a long time.
Europeans think 100 miles is a long way.
Actually, Europeans don’t think about 100 miles one way or another. They would probably agree, though, that 161 kilometers (that's 100 miles to you and me) is a long way.
Europeans, then, (and other folks around the globe who are not Americans) are more interested in electric cars because they think a bit more long-term than we do, and they can see how electric cars would be a Good Thing, long-term.
Also, a car that’s limited to 40 miles (64 kilometers) on a single charge is probably more useful in Europe than it is in America.
Of course, that 40-miles-per-charge thing is all about America. The average American drives 30 miles a day. Give us a 40-mile-per-charge car and we can probably make it work most of the time.
But not all the time. If I want to drive to visit my extended family then I’m looking at anywhere from 100 to 300+ miles, meaning round trips of 200 to 600+ miles. This presents an electric car owner with a host of problems.
Europeans, in this scenario, could probably just take a train instead.
There are no passenger trains that serve my town. In fact I would have to drive 100 miles to catch a train to anywhere. And then I would find that no trains go to the other locations of my extended family, anyway.
I could take a Greyhound bus pretty much anywhere, but it would take a while. In fact, if I were to take the Greyhound to visit my most rural relatives, then that Greyhound trip would take 12 hours - minimum - to complete a journey that I can drive myself in 5. And then I’d still need either to rent a car to get to my multiple household destinations on the other end, or ask that a relative come pick me up and then ask relatives to chauffer me about for the duration of my stay.
They'd probably just lend me a car, actually...
Suddenly an electric car with a gas engine to charge the battery – the Chevy Volt, basically – looks a lot more reasonable.
To be fair, a lot of Europeans probably have similar issues. An electric car may work better for them, most of the time, but there are still going to be those times when you want to go to somewhere farther and more remote than either an electric car or public transport can take you.
There are some environments, though, that appear to be designed for the electric car. Isolated environments that have a small, closed footprint, basically. Environments like Israel. And Hawaii. These are two of the environments in which an organization named Better Place and its head dreamer Shai Agassi are working to make electric cars not just viable, but standard.
(Click the Shai Agassi link to an article from Wired, especially. The Better Place site is okay, but it always wants me to upgrade Flash.)
This is exciting stuff, but there’s another recent overseas electric car development to which I want to draw your attention. From South Africa by way of Paris, France I give you – the Joule! (Thanks again to Wired magazine).
There's a lot to like about the Joule. In addition to all the specs, I've got to say that I like the look of it.
Wired says the Joule will retail for $22,000 to $28,000. It has a range of 200 kilometers, although a battery expansion – cost unknown – can increase the range to 400km.
400km is not quite enough to get me from my current home to my ancestral home, but it’s close.
Interestingly enough, both the Joule manufacturer and Agassi’s Better Place have come to one basic out-of-the box conclusion regarding electric cars: Battery Leasing. The cost of the battery for an electric car and the ability to replace it years down the road is one of the most basic issues facing the electric car consumer. Leasing the battery cuts through most of these issues. In the case of Better Place it’s a critical component, as the plan is to swap out depleted batteries with fully-charged batteries on long car trips.
That being said, I want more financial information on how these battery-leasing programs are going to work, exactly. How much is it going to cost the consumer per year? How much is the charge for swapping out a depleted battery for a fresh one on a long trip? In short, what are all of the costs?
6 comments:
Well, i'm always deeply, deeply suspicious of leases when it comes to vehicles but it is something to learn more about.
Also... That whole "Europeans just take the train" thing is way out of date. As you know, i've lived there. Unless they are in a metropolitan area where they can take public transportation (and there are more cities of varying sizes with decent public transportation, i'll give you that) they drive everywhere just like we do. So, i'd really love it if we could drop that old saw.
Having said that... The volt would be perfect for a lot of environments in the US. For trips you rent a car or fly and then rent. Just like now for a lot of folks.
Yeah, the Volt - if delivered as advertised, and if affordable - appears to fit the bill.
My worry is that GM stops developing it because gas comes down in price. Or that GM delivers the car but no one buys it because gas comes down in price.
I really have mixed feelings about seeing gas prices come back down below $3 a gallon...
Hmmm... Idmike, how recently did you live in Europe? I spent a year as an exchange student in England waaaaay back in '89-'90, and back then I found the combo of public transit in cities and trains across the country to be absolutely boffo. I traveled from Oxford to Wales on bus, train, then bus, with hiking thrown in (the purpose of the trip), and found it to be cheap, convenient and easy.
Certainly, you can't reach every little burg with the train/bus combo, but I'd wager you can reach every major, and most medium, municipalities without ever needing a car. Even once you get there, buses are rampant.
Natch, this all could've changed a lot since I was there. And I spent very little time on the Continent, so I cannot speak of it other than to say in Paris, public transit was again brilliant and easy.
I think the idea behind trains is mainly to get folks to and from the big and medium cities. Wouldn't eliminate our car culture, for sure, but if I could get from here to the Ville by train, I'd probably do it instead of the drive.
Just some thoughts.
PS -- VW turbodiesels rule!
We lived in Germany from 2000-2003. It may be different in the "affordable" catagory for our family of 4 vs singles/couples. It was just my experience that outside of decent sized cities the train got pretty pricey. The only time we took it and saved money was the sleeper train from London to Edinborough and back.
We had a pretty friendly relationship with our landlords and they would talk about how the take the train thing was really an idea from the past. As soon as cars became affordable in Europe they were very much the preferred mode of transportation.
Huck,
I'm sorry but if you're having mixed feelings about seeing fuel prices come down below $3.00 then you really don't understand the correlation between the price of gas and the price of EVERYTHING we eat, use, wear, and work with on a daily basis.
As someone on a small income struggling to feed and house a family of four i humbly suggest you think a little less selfishly. (which i mean in the nicest possible way, of course...)
See, this is why I love comments. Because you're right.
I was in the grocery store last night, and the price of roughly everything I typically buy has gone up 20 to 60 percent. And yes, it's because the price of fuel affects the price of EVERYTHING, as you say.
You know, it occurs to me that a lot of the differences of opinion we're having is because of the differences between the single-person lifestyle and the family lifestyle.
The train may make a lot more sense in Europe, for instance, when it's just one person with a backpack.
One or two adults trying to carry all of the luggage and paraphernalia necessary for themselves AND two small children, WHILE wrangling the two small children in question is an entirely different experience. Why pay 4 times the ticket price for that level of inconvenience? Regardless of cost, it's a lot easier to load up a car or a van in that case.
Once you factored in the cost you clearly found it to be less expensive to drive, anyway.
It's been great, though, to see public transport ridership go up when gas prices went up. And to see great progress being made on fuel economy for cars. To see hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles rise in popularity. To see car companies that offer fuel-efficient vehicles succeed while companies that have failed to concentrate in that area are suddenly very concerned about fuel efficiency, and hybrid cars, and electric cars.
It takes more investment up front, and in some cases more government investment (in buses, say), but people were finding ways to reduce costs.
Businesses were also looking into ways to reduce costs. Shipping items by train had become much more popular for a few months, there.
All I'm trying to say is that I don't want to see us lose the progress we were making on fuel economy and reduction of fuel use. This is something we should be doing, regardless of the price of gas. But we as a country didn't do it before because gas was cheap.
The mixed feelings come in because I like it as much as anyone when it costs less to fill my gas tank, and when it costs less to fill my belly.
I'm concerned with one belly. You're concerned with four, so I understand your concerns are magnified and multiplied.
I admit, though, that it's easy for me to forget what it's like for families. Thanks for reminding me.
For my own sake, I do hope the reduction in gas prices will quickly translate into a reduction in the price of Fruity Oaty Bars, Little Debbie snacks, and frozen pizza...
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