GM Goes All In on EVs: Pickups & SUVs

Solar farms are hard to look at … solar panels on a home roof is Ok and even provides airgap/shade for the roof, and removes power loss from transmission lines … far quieter than wind stuff …
A small solar spread got hit by a twister about an hour north of here … the big panels are good sized sails !

There's a solar install here locally that takes up almost 200 acres of what was formerly farm land. It has an installed capacity of 10MW and operates at an average CF of around 16%, meaning it actually represents ~1.6MW of generating capacity or produces ~14,000MWh a year. We have a tiny local hydro dam of the same installed capacity that out-produces it by 3x and takes up far less space. The solar farm gets paid $0.42/kWh.

Up the road about an hour is Darlington nuclear generating station, which takes up ~140 acres at most and produces ~28,000,000MWh/year. Darlington is currently older than the solar farm will last (it's 30 years old, farm is projected to last around 20, though it has already had 1/3rd of its panels replaced as they failed prematurely) and gets paid ~$0.09/kWh.

These things are not alike.
 
Solar farms are hard to look at … solar panels on a home roof is Ok and even provides airgap/shade for the roof, and removes power loss from transmission lines … far quieter than wind stuff …
A small solar spread got hit by a twister about an hour north of here … the big panels are good sized sails !


I remember driving through the Mojave and seeing both large solar fields and windmill fields and thinking about the huge impact that had to have on the desert.

Roof top solar is fine. Large warehouses are prime real estate for that.

Meanwhile I will enjoy electricity from mainly hydroelectric sources as we have plenty of those in the PNW, for now.
 
Cadillac possibly accelerating plans to be all-electric


Looks much like a noble version of the new offer from a local electronics store here https://www.euronics.de/markt-indersdorf-gruber-und-depre/aiways-u5/

Could probably "love" both and both will be interesting to follow now. Time will tell if these can have a perma-link (30 km from MAN (VW people) and BMW) and those will still be tied to much of Chevrolet after the transition. Chevrolet is showing a retrofit package for the K5 Cheyenne right now? We've only bits and pieces of that left in our cellar.

This transition of the automotive ecosystems is what demands numbers like 2035/2030 advised at some point.
 
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https://www.greencarreports.com/new...rst-us-plant-to-build-only-electric-cars

Quote
...On Monday, GM announced the U.S. will get another all-EV plant. The company will spend $2.2 billion to convert its existing Detroit-Hamtramck plant to build only battery-electric vehicles. GM said that full employment at the plant is projected at 2,200 jobs—up from just 900 at the plant today.

...What will those vehicles be? GM said Hamtramck will ultimately produce a "variety of all-electric trucks and SUVs." While the company didn't specify underlying platforms, the plant is being retooled for multiple vehicles built on GM's "BEV3" electric-vehicle architecture.

Specifically, GM said one of the new EVs built in the plant will be an "electric pickup truck" scheduled to launch late in 2021. It added that the recently announced Cruise Origin self-driving shuttle vehicle will be built in Hamtramck "soon after" the EV pickup truck's debut.

The electric pickup may be a GMC Hummer, turning the well-known but polarizing brand derived from military trucks into a model line under GM's luxury-truck label GMC. Little else is known about the truck—and the rumored revival of Hummer could be wrong—but watch for little bits of information to dribble out at regular intervals over the next 18 months.

...GM's announcement couches Hamtramck as the company's first all-EV plant. It certainly doesn't mention Tesla, and it also ignores another company whose own plant dedicated to electric vehicles will open around the same time as GM's.

That would be Rivian, the quiet startup that spent nine years in stealth mode before debuting its full-size R1T electric pickup truck and R1S electric SUV in fall 2018.

Rivian will soon announce how much the R1T and R1S will cost and claims that tens of thousands of people have put down deposits of $1,000 to get in line for its electric trucks, which are expected to be produced in the second half of next year. They will be built at the Normal, Illinois, assembly plant the electric-truck maker bought from Mitsubishi several years ago.
Note to self: Dump GM stock.
 
Gm is smart to push cadillac and hummer as electrified brands.
They are going to have a hard time competing at the lower end of the BEV segment.
They can bury some inefficiency in the higher MSRP these brands allow.
It's one of the few non money losing plays they have at this stage.
 
Gm is smart to push cadillac and hummer as electrified brands.
They are going to have a hard time competing at the lower end of the BEV segment.
They can bury some inefficiency in the higher MSRP these brands allow.
It's one of the few non money losing plays they have at this stage.
Yep … how ironic if the Chevy Spark will be left out 😷
 
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Isn't it possible in the event of a serious crash with an EV that the first responders as well as the occupants might be in great danger of electrocution while being extricated from the damaged vehicle?

Certainly a car crash can catch on fire from leaking gasoline but do EVs present a new type of problem?
 
Isn't it possible in the event of a serious crash with an EV that the first responders as well as the occupants might be in great danger of electrocution while being extricated from the damaged vehicle?

Certainly a car crash can catch on fire from leaking gasoline but do EVs present a new type of problem?
Good question. Data continues to be collected; the EV market is tiny in comparison.
I can tell you that Tesla won the top safety award from the Insurance Institute for Highway safety in 2019. The Audi e-tron also scored very high. I believe other EVs did not fare as well.
 
I look forward to driving on trips and seeing mile after mile of solar panels where good old earth once was. (Not)
Studies indicate that it would take nearly 2 miles of solar adjacent to, and end to end along major interstates to make enough power to drive 24 hours of normal traffic.
 
Actually, I'm thinking about getting totally out of the stock market.

I thought about that as well. When the facebook IPO hit and no one could trade except Goldman I realized I wasnt part of the club.

No one was ever held accountable.
 
Hardly surprising situation. Please keep your political commentary to yourselves.

Or this will be locked.
 
Did you have to delete entries or is this a preemptive warning – to render it more of an armament or nukes thread first to arrange more freedom for graceless agitation? Hard to understand that way.
 
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