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All Electric Cars Are a Fraud
John Petersen is an attorney specializing in venture capital investments in the alternative energy space with Fefer, Petersen & Cie in Berne, Switzerland. He argues that the entire electric car movement is a complete fraud orchestrated by a few big car companies pandering to growing numbers of “green” consumers.
Batteries are expensive, and do a poor job of replacing a gas tank. For example, the $100,000 all-electric Tesla roadster uses 6,000 model 18650 cell phone type batteries, which is akin to using “6,000 hamsters to pull a stage coach.”
Deutsche Bank says that there are enough new factories on the drawing board to build batteries generating 36 million Kwh by 2015. These will be used to power vehicles like the $44,300 Nissan Leaf, which launches in December, and will be powered by several hundred larger, soda can sized batteries.
But even if the world’s total battery output is devoted solely to vehicles like the Leaf, fuel savings would amount to only 600 million gallons of gasoline a year, worth only $1.8 billion, about five hours worth of global oil production. If these batteries were devoted to hybrid vehicles like the Prius, the energy savings would amount to 3.8 billion gallons worth, a much more substantial $11.4 billion.
The low hanging fruit for investors in the fuel efficiency race can be found by pushing forward existing, simpler, and cheaper technologies. A great example is the “stop-start” integrated starter/alternator. Cars burn about 10% of their fuel idling at traffic lights while driving in cities. “Stop-start” turns the engine off, and then restarts it when the light turns green.
European car manufacturers are rushing forward with this fuel saver, which costs about $600 per vehicle, to meet stringent CO2 standards. The system requires more advanced batteries which can handle dozens of engine starts a day, instead of a handful. The Department of Energy recently handed $34 million to Xide Technology (XIDE) to develop just such a product using a lead-carbon formula. Global auto parts supplier Johnson Controls (JCI) is also involved in the space.
The play here is that far more versatile batteries can command much higher prices, possibly $150, compared to the average $57 for traditional car batteries. Those taking a look at XIDE will find a $429 million market cap selling at $5.57/share versus $20 a year ago. In the meantime, car companies are going to hold back on making major capital investments in lithium battery power trains until the technology becomes proven. Better to invest in a company that may become profitable next year, rather than in five years, or never.
To learn more about John Petersen's views on alternative energy, please visit his blog at altenergystocks.com. You can also find an archive of his past work at http://seekingalpha.com/author/john-petersen/articles. To listen to my complete interview with John Petersen on Hedge Fund Radio, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com and click on the “Today’s Radio Show” menu tab on the left on my home page.
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And just how far do you think you'll get in that battery-operated jalopy? Electric-only vehicles are good for short hops and only short hops. Does the infrastructure exist to charge it where it dies? Does your place of business have charging stations in the parking lot? Can you take an electric vehicle on a long road trip? The answer to the last 3 questions is no. And the answer to 2 of the 3 will always be no.
If you go the all electric route, you will have to set up your own stations, just like the pony express mail system of old. A four hundred mile trip to see grandma will require 4 cars that you can exchange with and that are kept at the corral on standby. Since the recharge time is so long, doing it in one vehicle will take two days each way. What's not to like?
How about when the rescue squad shows up with the jaws of life to cut you out and take you to the emergency room. They bite into the damned thing and it fries two operators, or your whole family. If anyone believes that the Toyota systems have problems, you haven't seen anything yet. Hell, I'm looking for a 1960 Square Bird that will still run when the solar flair hits.
I also hope that others read up enough on science and tech. But even more I hope they come to smart conclusions. For starters, nothing *reasonable* can even come close to the energy of a gallon of petrol. And as someone else pointed out, an electric car isn't "free" energy. It still requires an electric grid to support it, and grids nationwide are in sorry shape.
That doesn't mean you can't make money investing in these companies, but there will be a lot of shocks along the way, and I predict it will eventually implode.
First, energy prices tend to fluctuate wildly, because our major energy stores are fossil-fuel based which rise and fall. A colder winter means more heating oil and coal fuel consumption so the price to make the energy to recharge your e-car batts will rise, sometimes dramatically. Second, governments are rattling the saber on carbon crap and trade schemes, and those will make uncertain times for the future price of energy. Uncle sugar won't tax the electric car, but it will tax the "fuel" it uses, thereby taxing its innovation. Third, the calculus used to determine how much our vehicles cost will become muddled, and that's part of the plan. The government can more easily hide taxation when it can muddle them. Right now my vehicle cost is tied most directly to how much a gallon of gas costs. Once I get an eclectic car, it shares the bill with my stove. With that cost now hidden, a commensurate tax increase won't cause as direct of a tax revolt as if they increase the already burdensome gas tax.
Fourth and last, the government has erected roadblocks to just about every attempt by innovative Americans to expand our energy infrastructure. Hydroelectric? Hurts the rare farting waterfrog. Nuclear? No new plants have been approved in decades. Drill oil on our own land? Nope. Nada. Sorry. Drill oil off our own shore? No. Hurts the rare farting seafrog. Natural gas production? Nyet. Hurts the rare farting desert frog. Mine more coal? Nope, hurts the rare farting miner frog. Result? Fail. Where's the requisite increase in capacity going to come from?
Ultracapacitors can compete with gasoline.
Compressed air isn't bad either. http://www.gizmag.com/go/3523/
It's all about energy density, ease of storage & refill/recharge.
Capacitors are usually hung on a power line to correct the power factor due to inductive loads. If the load the utility sees becomes primarily capacitive, their line loss can become quite significant compared with the kwh consumed by their end users. This is similar to the issue with the cheap cf bulbs that have real bad PF. I would assume the capacitors would have to be real low loss so they don't leak all their stored power internally, in which case the power factor is real low.
Wow.
Google "ultracapacitor".
Google excerpts:
about 1/10,000th the volumetric energy density of gasoline
High self-discharge - the rate is considerably higher than that of an electrochemical battery
Still needs to be charged, and presumably from the grid. Everyone along the block charging their cars overnight gonna swing the PF and as I stated before result in higher line losses. Unless you're thinking energy harvesting will be enough.
Capacitors, batteries or what have you are the electric car equivalents of an oil barrel or a fuel tank.
I would argue that it's all about power requirements, and where that power will come from. A storage tank can be efficient, but if you don't have anything to put into it, it doesn't matter.
My workshop air tank is just a tank. It's the electric or gas motor on top of it that fills it with energy.
There's no free lunch. But assuming that air came compressed, and batteries and capacitors came filled up, the technology advances are fascinating.
You are missing/ignoring the efficiency that results from the economy of scale.
Those big gas turbine generators are very efficient (and the existing hydro is paid for).
Then of course there's nuclear power (and thorium power would provide 1000 years of nuke power with vastly decreased radioactive waste).
You'll notice I didn't mention solar or wind as those are only solutions for very remote areas (barring a technological breakthrough).
So generation clearly isn't the problem.
And I'm sure you realize the air tanks that run those cars are a completely different animal than your shop tank. The fact that you bring up a shop air tank indicates you're at best being argumentative, at worst willfully ignorant.
Gas Turbines will never be as efficient as steam turbines. The thermal efficiency of the cycle is the end point. Coal fired boilers operating at super critical pressure (3300psi+) with high superheat will beat the effiency of any gas turbine by itself. The steam turbine plant operates on the Rankine cycle while the gas turbine operates on the Brayton cycle. The effiency limit of the steam plant is higher in the Rankine cycle versus the gas turbine in the Brayton cycle.
Now, if you take and combine the two plants together, a combined cycle (gas turbine + steam turbine) you can raise the efficiency higher than either plant by itself.
Compressed natural gas might be an interim answer for autos. A Canadian company already makes a unit that mounts on the wall of your garage that compresses natural gas for auto fuel.
+1000
oi! don't these people understand the basic principles of reality. Compressed air is an energy carrier not a source of energy. The more levels away from the energy source the less efficient.
What the hell, don't you people understand that oil isn't going to be around forever??? There have been organized civilizations for over 5000 years, and oil has only been used for about 100 years. Oil may last another 50-200 years; then what? Claiming that "oil is better because it already has the energy stored in it" is a moronic argument.
The very best way forward is to dramatically reduce the human population --- what do all those useless people do anyway? In any event, we will need good energy storage systems.
Funny how irrationality kicks in this kind of topic.
Reducing world population? What has this to do with the topic?
And how?
Of course oil is better. That should be undisputable. Oil extends life.
I never said we should continue using it the way I use it. I was speaking to the fact that trying to run oil based technology off of another fuel source is ultimately futile. (except maybe natural gas). All these energy storage systems except for the simplest will prove to be a net loss in the long run.
I haven't put a lot of thought it into it but I don't think a higher population has to be an issue. A higher population just requires higher levels of organization.
Actually, it's a moronic fact that things that have energy in them are better sources of energy than, errrr..., things that don't have any energy in them. The relative scarcity or surplus of the commodity doesn't change its physical properties.
Some of us are. I can see quite clearly that this article is a complete crock.
Huh? Stock pumping? The 52 week high is 8.87 not 20. Hmmm not even facts.
This is not the only issue with battery powered cars. Another one is the fact that the electrical grid might not be able to cope with the demand when a huge number of electrical cars are plugged in at the same time (e.g. overnight).
I'd still promote fuel cell cars. They run on hydrogen and oxygen and produce water. Zero emission.
http://wp.me/px1MN-dU
Hydrogen is the perfect fuel, except it is inefficient to produce, difficult to ship, difficult and cumbersome to store, and expensive, and unreliable to use.
but other than that,.. it's a winner.
"Because there are no hydrogen reservoirs anywhere on earth, every single bit of it has to be created from some other source of energy at a loss. In other words, hydrogen is an energy sink. In creating hydrogen, we lose energy, and that’s not pessimism, that’s the law. The second law of thermodynamics, to be exact. Because hydrogen is a carrier of energy, not a source, it is more accurately described like this: A battery." - Chris Martenson
A gasoline fuel cell is a SUBSTANTIALLY better idea.
These achieve efficiency vastly higher than ICE or other combustion engines.
People just have no clue how much energy is in a barrel of oil.
It's like 23-25 THOUSAND man-hours worth of energy.
Yes, we need nuke plants, PBMRs, right now. Long TOISF and CCJ.
Sorry, but you obviously have no clue as to what the fuck you're talking about.
They turn down capacity overnight because demand is less. If demand goes up they just bring more back on line.
Not all of it can be taken off line at night though. There's currently underutilized constant capacity at night. That's why electricity costs less during off peak hours.
And unless fuel cell efficiency goes up by an order of magnitude, it's a dead end.
Zero emission, until you factor in that the cheapest way to make hydrogen is splitting natural gas, emitting CO2 in the process. Of course, splitting water using electricity is possible but that would require the use of fossil/fissile power plants (assuming renewables are not going to be sufficiently big enough in the short run), and about 95% of that electricity is wasted as heat. Furthermore you need quite a tank to store that hydrogen. Moreover:
*) while driving about 33% of H2 will evaporate
*) H2 has to be pure enough otherwise your fuel cell membrane will clog up
*) there's a lot of expensive/rare metals required, just as in battery powered cars
F-yeah electric cars are a fraud. I have an inline 4 Altima that gets mileage as good or better than just about any hybrid on the road. And surely the environmental impact of making the inline-4 is nothing compared to what it takes to extract, refine n use all the various battery components (rare earths and whatnot). If Americans really want to save money and the environment, they'd do well to trade in their V-6 for a 4-banger.
Goddamnit this shit pisses me off.
Fuck you Mad Hedge Fund Trader.
You are shoveling the biggest bunch of horseshit that I have seen in a long time, and this makes me question ALL of your information on ALL subjects, given that this was so poorly fact checked.
I have done extensive research in to mild-hybrid (on board gas/diesel generator + batteries) vehicles, and they give substantial increases in fuel efficiency.
This is because due to the nature of piston internal combustion motors they are most efficient when run at a steady speed and torque. This allows you to match the generator to the motor.
If you run them at variable speeds (e.g. use them to power a car) your efficiency drops off a cliff.
So sorry - Yes, mild hybrids are more fuel efficient.
Above and beyond that, the cost of electricity per mile is ONE THIRD that of gasoline. So even if you can only 'tank up' the first 40 miles on electricity, the end cost to the consumer per mile is far less.
Will this provide 100 mpg cars? No. For that you'd need supercritical fuel injection technology.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/transonic-supercritical-fuel-injection....
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/03/04/transonic-gets-supercritical-with-f...
And if a supercritical fuel injected motor were matched to a generator, I imagine 100+ MPG is not unrealistic. If you mated this with ultracapacitors (for better conversion efficiencies)150 MPG is possible (IMO, I haven't run the numbers on this yet). Venture capitalists take note. This is a game changer.
At best this is incredibly sloppy and lazy analisis.
At worst it is bullshit propaganda which makes me wonder who exactly people like Mad Hedge Fund Trader work for.
Is it more fuel efficient when the fuel used for the increased cost of production is included? If a regular new Civic is $18K and gets about 40 mpg, what is the cost of the energy saved - if any is saved - when I pay $45K for a Leaf? If your point is that spending twice the money will optomize for less gasoline per mile, you win. That does not win the optomized for total efficiency prize.
Correct, and it doesn't make sense in your example. The bottom line is that it has to be better on the bottom line.
Clearly the boutique aspect of electric cars is allowing premium pricing. Hopefully this will change.
Right now, the most cost effective option is to buy a used a Prius and hack it
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/01/hack_your_hybri.php
Because the auto manufacturers want to charge you $5000-$8000 more for a fucking plug on a new one:
http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1040132_toyota-prius-plug-in-hybrid-...
...Anybody else pissed off yet?
I am very interested in your ideas, do you have a newsletter to which i may subscribe?
I wish! I have a blog, but it's on finance.
If enough people want, I'll start posting interesting technology and hacking articles. I put up a poll.
http://thetaildoesnotwagthedog.blogspot.com/
Sorry dnarby, but the supercritical fuel injection is little more than a gimmick. The "metal-oxide catalyst" (most likely some form of zeolite and precious metal compound) that is required for this is very prone to coking, very temperature sensitive, and likely to be very expensive to replace. You would be better off converting your vehicle to propane or nat gas to achieve the vapor mixing that they are talking about.
It is also difficult to tell how much power the engine will have with it tuned exclusively for mpg. You can buy chips for many cars right now that will almost double your milage, but they have the same problem - no power.
Wow, I really want to know who your inside source is in their labs.
Fucking experts are everywhere!
Psychophants make me trully afraid. They always know more than you, and many times will use force to back their opinions. Reminds me of Paul Krugman and Frank Rich and their extreme shortsightedness (or are they just paid off?). Intellectuals who have no understanding outside their limited fields of study
The majority of electricity is generated by coal. Don't forget to add in the increased envirnomental damage from that. Don't forget the increased mining and transportation costs of coal over oil. Don't forget the entire supply chain for the batteries. Kinda like with ethanol how they forgot about the subsidies. (Long term capital management...) Just because it looks cheaper now, doesn't mean it is. Let's inneficiently burn the fossil fuel coal, then inefficiently transmit on the power line to our cars...Yes that's a winner. I don't need to go through all the calculations to know you can't beat net gain of oil with anything else. I can't wait to see how much resources society wastes on solar panels before they figure out they're a net loss. You're never going to beat the efficiency of a billion years of evolution, i.e. organic machines. When the fossil fuels are gone it'll be obvious none of this technology works without them
Natural gaswould be the best option for U.S. cars. I suspect we'll blow lots of resources on electric though, unless it all collapses before we get that far.
Yes, natural gas would be better than coal.
The question is, is it better to convert that to grid power or use it to drive a generator on a mild hybrid.
While the economy of scale gives an advantage to the electric producer (really big machines produce electricity far more efficiently than small machines), the conversion losses might make it more advantageous to use CNG as fuel for a mild hybrid.
I have a feeling it's pretty close either way, but I'm guessing.
Cars - the concept of millions of personal, private, air-conditioned, surround-sound, 70 mph overland transportation environments - has been and is a fraud.
Cheap 130,000BTU per gallon fuel was the ultimate fraud.
Absolutely Thorny Xi...
We are in the first stage of the greatest energy crisis mankind will ever know and people are still debating what is the best method to continue the status quo. Affordable mass personal transportation and the lifestyle and global economy it produced was only ever possible because of natures rare one time only gift of extremely energy dense cheap oil and our ability to produce it at ever increasing rates.
The first half of the age of oil and the automobile is over and along with it, the entire energy fueled exponenetial growth economic model that built our civilisation. Time to get used to the idea of living within walking and cycling distance of work and public transport, and thats if your lucky enough to have a job.
Only 100 years ago we were riding horses, electric trams and steam trains, only oil changed that and there are no energy resources that can even come close to replacing oils net energygains. Its back to the future we go, holding hands and praying for some magic technological breakthrough is a fools game...
well thank you for sharing the fruits of your research with all of us. a distinction that i glossed over but is relevant is that of what kind of electric car we're talking about. i think an all electric/battery car is retarded, which is the point MHFT was making imo.
i don't think the big ups at Government Motors put a quarter the thought you have dnarby, into which electrical power system makes the most sense.
He was, but you missed one of my points:
It costs about 1/3 as much per mile to drive an electric car using grid energy.
And that's calculated using NYS residential peak rates!
MHFT is still a tool. Question is, whose tool is he?
Mad Hedge Fund Trader is claiming pure electric cars to be a fraud; not hybrids. Re-read the last sentence of his fourth paragraph.