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A Rocky Road Ahead: The Problems with Plug-in Cars

Will plug-in cars be a success?

If by success, we mean “sell lots of vehicles” the answer is probably “no” unless the price comes down a lot–say 50% from today’s prices, so that price is in line with what common people can afford. People don’t pay more for a car than the loan officer will approve for a loan, plus their available down payment. Today’s high price puts plug-ins out of the price range for most people unless there are huge government subsidies–subsidies that governments cannot afford. The cars have other drawbacks–like limited range and the possible need for expensive battery replacement long after the warranty has expired–further cutting back on the marketability of the cars.

The high cost of plug in vehicles is not just the batteries–it is the cost of the cars themselves. Unless these costs can be brought down, the use of batteries with lower capacity to recapture braking energy and to provide an acceleration boost, similar to the way today’s Prius does today, may be a better choice, and is likely to produce a car which is salable to a wider range of potential buyers.

Even with their drawbacks, I expect plug-in cars will find at least a small market, for a number of reasons that I will explain in this post. One of these reasons is that many people believe that plug-in automobiles will reduce CO2 emissions. In my view, this belief is false–but this belief, as well as a number of other hopes and fears, are likely to lead a steady interest in plug-in automobiles by those wealthy enough to afford them, as well as support by politicians who want to appear to be doing something useful.

We know that metals costs are closely related to oil costs, because oil is used in their extraction. So reducing battery costs may be a challenge. And it is not just battery costs that are high–it is the rest of the car cost that is high-priced as well, especially for the Volt, which runs on either gasoline or electricity (but only for 35 miles on electricity). Furthermore, at current pricing, it is doubtful that auto manufacturers are making money on the cars. They likely will need cost decreases, just to be able to keep sales prices at their current levels, if they are to earn a reasonable profit.

EPA Gas Mileage Guide

A two fuel economy estimates, which are:

An estimate that represents the city urban driving, in which a vehicle is started in the morning. An estimate highway which is a mixture of driving on rural Interstate in a heated vehicle, typical of longer trips in free-flowing traffic.

One thing you should understand, even if the EPA has recently improved its methods for estimating fuel economy, fuel economy of your vehicle will almost certainly vary from one estimate of the EPA. It varies greatly depending on where and how you drive, as well as other factors.

Aggressive driving, such as speed, acceleration and braking wastes gas, it can reduce your fuel consumption by 33% at highway speeds and 5% around town. You must remove the excess weight avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle could reduce your mpg up to 2%.

You can calculate your vehicle's gas mileage by the EPA gas mileage calculator, you can see the actual mileage and the estimated gas prices. As it was said that the EPA gas mileage calculator is based on laboratory tests of cars. In fact, several factors can influence fuel consumption.So you must be careful on the EPA gas mileage guide, if you want a good vehicle gas mileage.