GM Spending Big Money on EV Production Plants

Some of the new Evs coming out are claiming ranges of 400 miles.
Watch out, Tesla. Rivian is gearing up to produce a sleek all-electric truck that can hit 60 mph in as little as 3.0 seconds. Depending on the battery option chosen, the R1T can travel 230 to 400-plus miles on a single charge, with prices starting in the high $60,000 range for the cheapest 105-kW-hr model. Each wheel has its own 197-hp electric motor, allowing precise torque vectoring at each wheel for increased traction. On the downside, Rivian has shown the R1T having a short bed that's just 4.6 feet long and 4.5 feet wide, and towing the max 11,000 pounds will cut the truck's all-electric driving range in half.


Claims don't mean much or hold that much weight.... Real world is never predictable. And battery is not straight forward as they make it seem.... Just look at what people do with deep charge/starter batteries.... A abused great Northstar AGM TPPL battery won't put out hardly 300 deep cycles... To a depth of 50 percent of discharge... Where one taken great care of can get 1,100 deep cycles to 50 percent of discharge...

No difference between that battery circumstance and the battery running a vehicle... Lots and lots of variables there.

And if one thinks pushing 800 Volts into a battery is helpful to it's longevity... That is very, very, very hard to believe.
 
Some of the new Evs coming out are claiming ranges of 400 miles.

400 EV miles is possible in modest traffic, with extensive use of regenerative braking. 400 miles of EV highway travel is not possible at today's high highway speeds. My 400 mile leg was 5 hours and I made it nonstop. I also made it an hour into the return leg before I needed fuel.

Max highway range for today's best EV's remains about 200 miles till very near empty. A big 100Kwh battery can produce 100HP for 1 hour, or 33 HP for 3 hours. 33HP is about normal highway power requirements for a sedan. 380 watt hours per mile is normal for a Tesla at exactly the highway speed limit.

Best Case: A brand new (healthy battery) Model S long range can go 260 miles to empty at 80. And 225 miles to empty at 85. Leaving 25 miles cushion, that means the near $100K car can go 200 miles at today's speeds. Sadly, the batteries tend to lose a few percent of range pretty quickly, so a new car can do this, but an older, say 2 years, "battery pack" will suffer some loss, about 5% loss of rated range, or 12 highway miles. That matters when you can only go 200 to begin with.

tesla-battery-degradation-4.png
 
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Infrastructure is key. The world wants EVs. America can lead the way or let someone else have it.

China will be the world leader in EV technology.


China for decades played catch-up to German, Japanese and American automakers, which dominated internal combustion vehicle technology. Now, China is positioned to lead electric vehicle development, industry executives say.

"The future of Volkswagen will be decided in the Chinese market," said Herbert Diess, chief executive of VW, which has decades-old joint ventures with two of China's largest automakers....."

Speaking earlier this week to a small group of reporters in Beijing, Diess said China “will become one of the automotive powerhouses in the world.”

“What we find (in China) is really the right environment to develop the next generation of cars and we find the right skills, which we only partially have in Europe or other places,” he said.

Roughly 45 percent of the global industry’s planned EV investment and procurement spending, more than $135 billion, will occur in China, which is heavily promoting the production and sale of electric vehicles through a system of government-mandated quotas, credits and incentives.

As a result, EV spending by major Chinese automakers from SAIC to Great Wall Motor could be matched or even exceeded by multinational joint-venture partners such as VW, Daimler and GM, as they dramatically expand their electric vehicle portfolios in China and ramp up battery purchases from Chinese suppliers.
 
Even though VW is investing heavily in EVs, they have not given up on the ICE.


While some have rushed to announce the demise of the ICE is coming, the peeps from Wolfsburg don’t see it that way. In an interview with Autocar, technical chief Matthias Rabe explained why VW argues the traditional engine “will have a longer future than some people predict.” While synthetic fuels are still far from being massively produced for the automotive industry, he believes it makes sense to invest in e-fuels since EVs still have limitations in terms of range while their batteries are still large and heavy.

Even though EVs will be the number one priority from now on, investments in combustion engines are still planned to update the vast array of gasoline and diesel powertrain VW sell across its many brands. In addition, some of their cars can run on compressed natural gas, although these CNG models are only available in select markets primarily in Europe. Speaking of Audi, it has been developing e-fuels since 2013 and is working on synthetic e-gasoline and e-diesel to show there’s another way to reduce CO2 emissions other than by rolling out EVs.

BMW is also a strong believer the combustion engine still has a long life ahead as R&D boss, Klaus Froehlich, expressed the company’s commitment to ICEs for at least 30 more years. Some of the engines in low demand and/or expensive to produce will be gradually dropped, but BMW has vowed to sell diesels for 20 more years and gasoline engines for about 30.
 
The Tesla fast charging is supposed to be bad for the battery. They say it themselves. That has to be resolved. GM has always been big on electric drive back into the days of Electro Motive. Nothing like the pulling power of electric. It was the only way to replace steam locomotives I think. GM is gambling. I hope it works for them. Ford and GM are all we have left. In time of war if it happens again, they are our domestic suppliers.
 
So GM is spending $4.6 billion. By the time they are finished with these plants Tesla will have several more plants up and running and still be 5 years ahead of GM and not in debt. And does anyone want to bet that these new GM's, while EV's will be poorly executed and assembled using parts bin technology rather than a clean sheet of paper for every component from the ground up ?
Good luck with it.
And while being an ex Tesla employee and stockholder and believer in Musk and their products, an EV is still not right for me. My next (and second) vehicle will be a gas guzzling, hydrocarbon emitting, loud sports car. Just because I want one.
 
The question I have is, just who is the target market for this thing? What is the expected demand?
At least Ford's Mustang Mach-e is an SUV and their electric pickup is the legendary F-150.
What was GM thinking? Heck, the Volt and Bolt were spot on EVs.

Vehicles like the Hummer and Corvette (which I love) are for bragging rights; they are generally loss leaders.
 
The Tesla fast charging is supposed to be bad for the battery. They say it themselves. That has to be resolved. GM has always been big on electric drive back into the days of Electro Motive. Nothing like the pulling power of electric. It was the only way to replace steam locomotives I think. GM is gambling. I hope it works for them. Ford and GM are all we have left. In time of war if it happens again, they are our domestic suppliers.

On fast charging after 5 years Bjorn Nylands Model S had only degraded 5%. So yes fast charging isnt great but great experience has been applied to the charging algorithms. Any battery is most coddled at its lowest possible charge rate, but that doesn't work on a road trip.

Tesla is an American company - so in any wartime we have them too.
 
On Tubi that are advertising the heck out of it.
Taking pre-orders.

This is worth discussing.

They aren't taking "pre orders" - they are taking "reservations" to place an order because GM is not allowed to sell direct.

What do you guys guess the markup above MSRP will be on the first ones at the dealerships? 10-20-30K or more?
 
See my sig - we have the EV for in town and the TDI for if/when we take a longer trip. Its truly the best of both worlds as the TDI has the cargo hauling capability of a small SUV, E-Golf has slightly less cargo hauling capability but still pretty impressive.

I have an older EV that was only 83 mile range when new, w/60k and 3.5 years on the clock I am hitting 75-78 miles per charge. Works perfect for my commute which was slowly killing the TDI I traded in for it (6.5 miles round trip) and on "bad" weeks I have to charge Monday and Friday, more often than not I am charging the Thursday or Friday before the weekend and it typically carries me through a full week.

My E-Golf is my first BEV car and I am entirely sold. Range anxiety was squashed within the first couple weeks, it does require a tiny bit more planning but it becomes second nature on when you need to plug in.

Just as an example - October to date it has cost me ~$12 to go 228 miles. This would have been a full tank of diesel on my old TDI (with my short commute) at ~$28.
 
On fast charging after 5 years Bjorn Nylands Model S had only degraded 5%. So yes fast charging isnt great but great experience has been applied to the charging algorithms. Any battery is most coddled at its lowest possible charge rate, but that doesn't work on a road trip.

Tesla is an American company - so in any wartime we have them too.
I was going to go back and add Tesla as a war resource company, but they aren’t GM or Ford in manufacturing prowess for military vehicles. They can be ordered to make something I am sure. As for battery degradation Tesla itself says fast charging isn’t good for the battery long term. They would have scientifically determined this. Otherwise they wouldn’t be advertising it in their documents to their disadvantage.
I traded my Volt in with a lifetime mpg of 168 over 42k miles. I put two gals of gas in this year just to drive it to dealers. I think this makes more sense to many people who want an ev but want to go anywhere anytime and not look and think about charging stations. What if your EV is at 1/4 charge and at midnight you get a call from your family member they are in the hospital 300 miles away? 400 miles away? You better have a backup gas powered car. This has happened to me. Get in car and go.
 
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I was going to go back and add Tesla as a war resource company, but they aren’t GM or Ford in manufacturing prowess for military vehicles. They can be ordered to make something I am sure. As for battery degradation Tesla itself says fast charging isn’t good for the battery long term. They would have scientifically determined this. Otherwise they wouldn’t be advertising it in their documents to their disadvantage.
I traded my Volt in with a lifetime mpg of 168 over 42k miles. I put two gals of gas in this year just to drive it to dealers. I think this makes more sense to many people who want an ev but want to go anywhere anytime and not look and think about charging stations. What if your EV is at 1/4 charge and at midnight you get a call from your family member they are in the hospital 300 miles away? 400 miles away? You better have a backup gas powered car. This has happened to me. Get in car and go.

I for one thought the gen2 Volt was a very cool car. I hope to see similar schemes, but it seems the industry is leaning toward all electrics.

I think today one could get caught flat footed in certain circumstances - just like if you went to start your car at midnight to find the battery dead.

Lets say you pull into that station at 2AM with 1/16 of a tank left to find your credit card being declined. Happened to me before.

I used the credit card at the stations air pump - which reported the sale to new jersey location, then tried to fuel up 10 feet away at the pump- and the card was locked due to suspected fraud being run in NJ, then Cali. Had a handful of cash, and an amex but no person was at the station and they didnt take amex.

A flat tire at 2AM can kill any trip.

In a few more years charging will be ubiquitous and everywhere, but not today for sure.
 
400 EV miles is possible in modest traffic, with extensive use of regenerative braking. 400 miles of EV highway travel is not possible at today's high highway speeds. My 400 mile leg was 5 hours and I made it nonstop. I also made it an hour into the return leg before I needed fuel.

Max highway range for today's best EV's remains about 200 miles till very near empty. A big 100Kwh battery can produce 100HP for 1 hour, or 33 HP for 3 hours. 33HP is about normal highway power requirements for a sedan. 380 watt hours per mile is normal for a Tesla at exactly the highway speed limit.

Best Case: A brand new (healthy battery) Model S long range can go 260 miles to empty at 80. And 225 miles to empty at 85. Leaving 25 miles cushion, that means the near $100K car can go 200 miles at today's speeds. Sadly, the batteries tend to lose a few percent of range pretty quickly, so a new car can do this, but an older, say 2 years, "battery pack" will suffer some loss, about 5% loss of rated range, or 12 highway miles. That matters when you can only go 200 to begin with.

tesla-battery-degradation-4.png
You keep quoting Tesla specifications. Yet there are companies that are coming out with vehicles that are leaping frogging their battery range. Many EVs made now by GM, Tesla, etc. (and those on the drawing board by others) are quite viable for at least secondary autos-based on every available statistic. AVerage trip from home, average commute, etc.
 
You keep quoting Tesla specifications. Yet there are companies that are coming out with vehicles that are leaping frogging their battery range.

That's just not so. Electrochemical energy storage has strict limitations. We can only move so many ions, as there are only so many ions to move. Put another way, 1Ev per atom is the limit.

I'm not claiming EV range can't improve. It clearly can, by using ever larger batteries and ever better aerodynamics. Nor am I claiming that 400 miles of "around town" range is insufficient for many drivers.

I am claiming that batteries can't do what fuels can.
 
You keep quoting Tesla specifications. Yet there are companies that are coming out with vehicles that are leaping frogging their battery range. Many EVs made now by GM, Tesla, etc. (and those on the drawing board by others) are quite viable for at least secondary autos-based on every available statistic. AVerage trip from home, average commute, etc.

Who is leapfrogging teslas battery range?
 
They've shipped nothing everything from them is theoretical - thats a 2018 article and still no rivians.

Additionally they talk about using much larger packs The 100D now gets rated at 400 miles from 100KWH pack and that article talks about 400 miles from a 180 KWH pack - much less efficient

But if it's range you're after, the 180.0-kWh R1T is the one to get. It's slightly less powerful, with "just" 700 horsepower and a 3.2-second zero-to-60-mph time, but Rivian states it will have a range of more than 400 miles.

We heard the same folderol from VAG about the e-tron, then the taycan. They they released and missed the range and charging targets.
 
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They've shipped nothing everything from them is theoretical - thats a 2018 article and still no rivians.

Additionally they talk about using much larger packs The 100D now gets rated at 400 miles from 100KWH pack and that article talks about 400 miles from a 180 KWH pack - much less efficient

But if it's range you're after, the 180.0-kWh R1T is the one to get. It's slightly less powerful, with "just" 700 horsepower and a 3.2-second zero-to-60-mph time, but Rivian states it will have a range of more than 400 miles.

We eard the same folderol from VAG about the e-tron, then the taycan. They they released.

You know Uncle Dave-this technology is coming. Whether it's Rivian or somebody else. You are among the many on here. New tech phobia and the acceptance thereof on here is a disease. You guys can jet keep buying I.C.E. motors and wrenching on weekends until your hearts content. For me-while I won't be replacing my Siverado with an EV anytime soon. It's definitely a consideration as a replacement for my wife's car next time around.
Happy Wrenching!
 
You know Uncle Dave-this technology is coming. Whether it's Rivian or somebody else. You are among the many on here. New tech phobia and the acceptance thereof on here is a disease. You guys can jet keep buying I.C.E. motors and wrenching on weekends until your hearts content. For me-while I won't be replacing my Siverado with an EV anytime soon. It's definitely a consideration as a replacement for my wife's car next time around.
Happy Wrenching!

Im highly confused.... are you saying I have "new tech phobia" ??
 
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