Essentially, no. Even if the panel operates at rated capacity for the full 8 hours, which is rather unlikely, that's 0.8 kWh, which is a small fraction of the battery capacity. At a normal electrical consumption of about 6 km per kWh which seems typical of most EVs, this would get you 5 km down the road. You would need 10 of those panels to approach the charging rate of a 110V cord. And that's if it's not cloudy.
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Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?
- Thread starter PrivatePilot
- Start date
Essentially, no. Even if the panel operates at rated capacity for the full 8 hours, which is rather unlikely, that's 0.8 kWh, which is a small fraction of the battery capacity. At a normal electrical consumption of about 6 km per kWh which seems typical of most EVs, this would get you 5 km down the road. You would need 10 of those panels to approach the charging rate of a 110V cord. And that's if it's not cloudy.
No.
EV's are about 17.5 kwh per 100 km. Assuming you were parked 8 hours with the panel aimed at the sun the whole time you would add .1*8/17.5*100=4.5 km of electric range per panel. That is the best case scenario, factor in that they won't be at optimal angle, clouds, charger inefficiency etc, you could expect much less.
Typical GM ******** ..... While people in Canada wait apparently 8-10 months for Bolt order to be fulfilled, GM is idling Orion factory, because their Bolt inventory is high.
I thought they are beyond the anti-sell EV crap of the past. I guess not .... Really comical.
The factory is shut down every summer for a break, that's not news. They have extended that break by a couple of weeks because the Sonic is not selling, just as they are doing with 3 other plants that are building vehicles they have too much inventory of. One article mentioned that they build something like 1 Bolt for every 50 Sonics. GM just really need to get off their *** and send 1000 units of their excess US Inventory up here and they'd be all set. Frustrating as hell for those of us waiting though.
Buyers aren't stupid.
even though electric cars are the future, nobody is going to rush out and buy a Bolt as the market is clearly showing.
there are lots of great electric cars coming in the near future from better makers. we should see some traction in the market by then.
even though electric cars are the future, nobody is going to rush out and buy a Bolt as the market is clearly showing.
there are lots of great electric cars coming in the near future from better makers. we should see some traction in the market by then.
Hmm ... I am not sure, I am buying this as a normal summer shut down. I expected GM to use the heads up time on M3 launch usefully. The sort of dicking around they have shown with Bolt release tells me that perhaps they are still pretending to be in the EV game, rather than contending ....
The reasoning given makes sense given the downturn in new car sales in the US, it's just pathetic that they ignore the international markets like Canada and Norway (for Ampera-e's that are just a couple of badges and switches different from the Bolt). Canada has a ton of outstanding orders with deposits and Norway may be even worse, I've heard reports of over 4000 unfilled orders there.
It sucks even more when the reviews of the car are overwhelmingly positive.
It sucks even more when the reviews of the car are overwhelmingly positive.
Maybe GM isn't making any money on Bolts. They may want the publicity/regulatory praise while shipping the fewest possible units.
I forget what was Lunatic's dealership experience, but salespeople are usually all petrolheads who know next to nothing about plug ins and either steer people to gas or give bad info. I would say that's GM's biggest obstacle to reaching their sales targets.
slowbird
Well-known member
Odd. My experience with dealerships is that the sales staff know dick all about cars. Even the ones they are selling.
My dad brought his RX-8 to his Mazda dealership to see what he could get for a trade in. Salesman is writting down the details of the car and goes:
"Engine size?"
My dad: "1.3L"
Salesman: "tisk. That's it huh? 4 cylinder then?"
My dad: "It's a rotary. No cylinders."
Salesman: "a what?"
My dad: "you're a salesman for Mazdas and you don't know what a Rotary engine is?"
That about sums up 90% of my dealerships sales experiences
I would disagree ...
The early EV adopters don't need a knowledgeable dealer. The way it works, you come in, you tell them you are about to order this car in such a trim. The will tell you price and availability. Early EV adopters know their stuff like most petrol heads do when they go shopping for their car. Early EV adopters are not your typical Civic, Corola or Camry crowd who know nothing about cars in general.
The issue is that a dealer you don't expect to be EV knowledgeable tells you that it will take loooong time to get the car order fulfilled and he does not exactly even know how long the looooong is ..... and that is solely a problem of GM.
The first sentence is true, by their own admission to the tune of 9K USD per car ... mainly due to the low volume and the fact that the complete drive train, incl. battery pack is made by LG Chem .... you will never make money under those circumstances.
The second sentence is how many people today view GM'S EV efforts, but it's a speculation obviously.
Hmmmm ... How to answer this without violating the terms of a NDA.
I know what at least part of the problem is with the Bolt on the manufacturing side and it has to do with the rate at which certain parts specific to that car can be built. I don't know whether the capacity constraint that I'm aware of is the only one ... it might not be. Rule of thumb in the auto manufacturing sector is that if your equipment has a problem, that's OK as long as someone else has a bigger problem, so you're not the one in the immediate line of fire, and we're not, YET ...
Lake Orion is being idled because small cars in general, and the Sonic in particular, are not selling well. (Fuel prices are too low. Likely the same reason the Bolt is not selling well in the USA.) They can not simply switch over and make all Bolts to clear the order backlog because the rate at which Bolt-specific parts would have to be manufactured to do that, is not even remotely close to being possible at the moment.
I can't answer why GM has orders going unfilled in Canada and Europe while having unsold cars in the USA. They can't just take cars already built for one market and move them to a different market. There are too many differences between them, not the least of which is the paperwork declaring which standards it was built to. It looks like they built too many for the US market while not anticipating demand elsewhere.
GM wants to sell as many of these as they can in the USA where it helps with CAFE. That may have something to do with it.
"Flexible assembly lines" are all well and good but parts specific to each vehicle still need to be stamped out and placed in fixtures and welded together, and we can't just snap our fingers and put in more fixtures and more robots to get the job done faster overnight, although we're trying ...
I know what at least part of the problem is with the Bolt on the manufacturing side and it has to do with the rate at which certain parts specific to that car can be built. I don't know whether the capacity constraint that I'm aware of is the only one ... it might not be. Rule of thumb in the auto manufacturing sector is that if your equipment has a problem, that's OK as long as someone else has a bigger problem, so you're not the one in the immediate line of fire, and we're not, YET ...
Lake Orion is being idled because small cars in general, and the Sonic in particular, are not selling well. (Fuel prices are too low. Likely the same reason the Bolt is not selling well in the USA.) They can not simply switch over and make all Bolts to clear the order backlog because the rate at which Bolt-specific parts would have to be manufactured to do that, is not even remotely close to being possible at the moment.
I can't answer why GM has orders going unfilled in Canada and Europe while having unsold cars in the USA. They can't just take cars already built for one market and move them to a different market. There are too many differences between them, not the least of which is the paperwork declaring which standards it was built to. It looks like they built too many for the US market while not anticipating demand elsewhere.
GM wants to sell as many of these as they can in the USA where it helps with CAFE. That may have something to do with it.
"Flexible assembly lines" are all well and good but parts specific to each vehicle still need to be stamped out and placed in fixtures and welded together, and we can't just snap our fingers and put in more fixtures and more robots to get the job done faster overnight, although we're trying ...
Considering the level of enlightenment and interest in EVs demonstrated by this thread, there's a lot salespeople could do to influence EV sales.
Cleantechnica followed up on that article SunnY posted because apparently it got a pretty strong response. Lots of comments from people who went to buy Bolts, one pretty stunning one: "The Chevy salesperson told me that the Bolt was not being made yet, that the tax incentive ended January 2017". He gave the dealer a chance to get their info right and call him back so he could buy their car. They never did.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/19/general-motors-recreating-saturn-disaster-chevy-bolt-cleantechnica-original/
Some are suggesting that GM doesn't really want to sell Bolts, which is ridiculous. All that time and investment just for a PR stunt? Please.
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It's a sad, but common, situation when salespeople in dealers know less about the cars than the people buying them. This is by far not unique to GM. I know someone who recently bought a Ford C-Max Energi, and they pretty much had to coax the dealer into letting them order it (it seems that NO dealers keep these in stock). The dealer would rather sell one of the 10 or 20 Escapes that they had sitting on the lot.
http://insideevs.com/lg-chem-cant-keep-unexpectedly-high-demand-hyundai-ioniq-electric/
LG Chem also supplies GM.
LG Chem also supplies GM.
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