When the General Motors EN-V concept vehicles were demonstrated at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show http://bit.ly/u69R8R and http://bit.ly/tNtRpU, one of the most frequently asked questions by the media was "when will we see something like this hit the streets?"
Christopher Borroni-Bird, GM's director of advanced technology vehicle concepts explained that small autonomous vehicles like the EN-V were probably at least ten years out. One of the limiting factors is the accuracy of current GPS systems. Right now the satellite based location system is can pinpoint a location down to about 3 meters (all bets are off if you are in an urban canyon in a place like Manhattan or Chicago). Reliable autonomous operation will require sub 1-meter positioning so that vehicles can stay in their lanes and better performance in dense urban areas that these vehicles are best suited too.
Borroni-Bird mentioned a new generation of GPS satellites that would be put into orbit later this decade could resolve this problem. Lockheed Martin is about to take a big step in this direction as it starts testing the first of these new satellites in preparation for launch in 2014. http://bit.ly/sNAbBl
Bring on the new birds and the pod cars!
#en-v #env #autonomousdriving
Google+: Reshared 2 times
Google+: View post on Google+
Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.
Seeing as you're so interested in the combination of GM and electric cars, I think you will find this fresh article from this morning most interesting: "Setting the record straight: Chevrolet Volt and the government": http://www.thestreet.com/story/11354404/1/setting-it-straight-chevy-volt-vs-the-government.html
Nice rebuttal. Frankly, the far-right Mackinac Center has virtually no credibility and will criticize anything not endorsed by the John Birch society.
I had never heard about that center/institute before, but I simply found the methodology to divide whatever number there is with the number of cars sold to date (6,000) so laughable I just couldn't help pointing it out. I also wouldn't be surprised that if the numerator ($1.5 trillion or whatever) includes a lot of fluff such as tax credits as opposed to actual grants. Remember, when people criticize "oil companies" they also include what are perfectly legitimate deductions for investment expenses and amortizations and depreciation into a "subsidy" bucket. It's wrong to include such fluff when criticizing oil companies, and it would be wrong to use a similar methodology to criticize the Volt program as well. Anyway, I didn't even bother getting into exactly how that $1.5 trillion was composed — that's a story for another story…
At some point several years ago I ended up on their mailing list for copious press releases and they provide no way to unsubscribe. I ended just creating a gmail filter to send anything from Mackinac directly to trash.
I assume you'll be covering Ford, Cadillac, and lord knows what else, from CES in the second week of January? Any plug-in EVs you think will be announced at CES this year?
Unfortunately, I'm not working on the media side of the business right now so I won't be covering any of them under my byline. Given that I'm not a fan of Las Vegas, I can thankfully say that I won't be at CES at all.
As for what will be shown, Ford has announced that it will show the Evos PHEV concept that was at Frankfurt (first time in North America) and Cadillac will be highlighting the new ATS and its CUE infotainment system. Unless they pull a huge surprise, I don't expect to see a plug-in there, although they could show the Converj/ELR concept.
I haven't heard about any other automakers CES plans for vehicles, I think most of the news will be around infotainment and connectivity with Daimler doing a keynote.
I personally will be closer to home at the Detroit Auto Show.
Oh wow, what's your new beat? Also, I don't count concepts such as the Ford Evos — I strongly prefer substantially production-ready cars such as the Ford C-Max Energi, where I would like to hear/see a lot more detail. Cars that are within 10 months or less of making it into consumer garages.
This article estimates the 2012 U.S. sales for each plug-in electric car; 600% growth to 130,000 units: http://www.thestreet.com/story/11366016/1/600-growth-industry-electric-cars.html
While the growth rate from 2010 to 2011 is certainly impressive, the number is somewhat misleading. Extreme volatility is inherent when you start from almost nothing. If you sell 10 examples one year and 100 the next, that's 1,000% growth but you still sold only 100 units.
The 3-5 years will give us a much better indication of the true near term market for EVs. Right now we are still in the early adopter phase where the hard-core plug-in enthusiasts are snapping up the first available examples. Once we get past 50,000 units in the field, will the vast middle part of the market be willing to pay the $10,000+ premiums for a plug-in?
After more than a decade on the market, hybrids which are much more affordable than than plug-ins still sell barely than 200,000 units a year with leader Toyota only pushing 178,587 in 2011, largely on the back of the Prius. My guess is plug-ins will plateau at less than 50,000 annually in North America for the next decade.
Indeed the 2011 growth rate for plug-ins was over 1,000% 🙂 Anyway, I thought the hybrid number was more like 300,000, not 200,000. As for the plug-ins going forward, I think the word-of-mouth will be very powerful, and should lead to robust growth in the coming years. Price premiums will compress, and if the spread between gasoline/diesel and electricity prices increases, then I think a fairly large share of people will go for them. The gas savings for the current hybrids in the market is modest — 50 MPG for a Prius whereas several cars now offer 40 MPG highway and 30 MPG city for close to 35 blended. People may be attracted by the silent operation and lowered maintenance costs, including no oil leaks in the garage anymore 🙂 If sales indeed grows to over 100,000 (such as 130,000) in 2012, I would have to believe the 2013 number will be higher still, with more models available, some of them less pricey, including the Chevy Sonic Spark which will sell for $29,995 minus rebates, so subtract $7,500 Federal and as much as $5,000 in some states, for a net of $17,500.