DEAR SERGEANT AL: I am in the process of considering the purchase
of an all-electric plug-in vehicle. I have been wait-listed for two different
models but haven’t decided which one I want, if I even still want to buy an
electric car at all. The process has been very frustrating. What’s your present take on plug-in cars? --GAS REGULATIONS EXCLUDE EXERCISING NEGLIGENCE, POWER, EXECUTION, ECONOMY,
PRUDENCE, ENERGY, AND ECOLOGY.
 |
| BMW's ActiveE Electric car, based on their 1 Series model, is finally available at dealers, but only in very limited quantities. It is only going to be leased to a limited number of customers, and once the lease is over, very much like what GM did to its first electric car years ago, all BMW electric cars will be returned to headquarters in Munich and scrapped down to pieces after careful examination. |
DEAR GREEN PEEPEAE: Good luck with your new car purchase shopping
regardless of what kind of car you decide to buy. Before buying anything, I
always suggest to first shop for car insurance, then shop for financing, if
that’s the way you have to buy, then when you’re sure you have an idea what car
you want and that you can afford it, then go shop around at different dealers or online with a car buying service to
get the best price for your new car. I sympathize with you because I too this
past spring was in the market to buy an all-electric plug-in vehicle, and I was
serious about it, to meet countless turns of dead-ends and disappointments to
throw my hands up and finally decide to buy what I hope is the last gasoline
powered car I’ll ever buy. I am still on a wait-list after spending $100 to
purchase a number to buy an electric car that is now delayed in production for
over a year now, and there lays the problem in considering whether to go
electric: the technology is still new, the startup car companies that are
making new models are having problems staying financially afloat, all the car
companies are still tweaking their product with delays and recalls, and with
the slow economy despite the car industry resurgence, the American market is
weary at the moment of adopting such an expensive new unproven technology. We were
led to believe that electric cars are a great way to save the environment
because of the pure clean energy they use with no emissions. We forgot about
the part of that equation of how the electricity is produced, particularly if
carbon fuels are used. Depending on what part of the country you reside,
especially if you are in an area where the primary fuel that produces
electricity is coal, that purchasing an electric car is not as green as we were
led to believe.
Let’s take a closer look at
each of these aspects to decide whether an electric car is the right thing for
you:
1. The technology is still new: No matter how you
break this down, we already have issues with hybrid technology to begin with; the issues with
all-electric just grow exponentially from there. Hybrids and electrics cost more because
the batteries are an expensive component when buying the car new and expensive to replace when the car is old. The batteries do not last as long as we would like between each charge and over the life of the batteries and the car. Some brands have
had problems with the performance of their products and had to answer those
claims either in the press or in civil court. Most of the products are so new
that in most cases either the government or the car insurance industry haven’t
had the opportunity to crash test the vehicles to determine whether they are
safe component-wise or accident-wise. With one product, the batteries ignited a fire under the battery cover after an auto accident which launched a product recall that damaged their brand and product reputation. They temporarily ceased production, restarted, and instituted damage control that they've been in ever since . . .
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| This is the Tesla Model S. It finally launched just a few days ago. How smoothy its production goes, we shall soon see. I hope it doesn't have the same problems that plagued Coda, Fisker, etc., and the Chevy Volt. |
2. Most of the car companies making electrics are
too new and have little money. The car industry seems to be in a history cycle
of repeating itself from over a hundred years ago when there were a plethora of
car companies turning out all different kinds of products, for most of them to
go out of business because of their rapidly changing market demographics, their finances, or the
state of the economy. Many of these startup electric car companies rapidly lose their cash positions as product delays postpone their product roll-outs. Americans are becoming like Europeans to keep their cars
for more than five years, if not longer. I would love to buy American, and buy a Fisker,
Tesla, or a Coda, but will they be around 5, 10, 15 years from now to service
their products if the cars they make even last that long? Companies that have
tried to put out an electric car even with government help have faced
bankruptcy, and Fisker and Tesla, two of the more successful ones, are already on
financially shaky ground.
 |
| This is the Coda. This car and its company have been plagued with delays. |
3. Car companies are still tweaking their product
with delays and recalls. Delays, delays, delays, nothing but delays. This
was the reason why as I type this, there is a gasoline-powered car in my garage
and not an all-electric plug-in. This spring I came close to buying a Coda. I
am still on their wait list to buy their sedan since the Fall of last year. The car was supposed to be
ready for production and delivery by October 2011, then November 2011, then Spring 2012, then I
was told they would instead make two models. Originally Coda was supposed to produce just one car that had a battery range of 150+ miles. Then they decided to split their project into two models, apparently to compete with the Nissan Leaf (100 miles) and the Chevy Volt (40 miles). The Coda model with a shorter range (about 125
miles) would be available sooner, and the longer range (which was the one I originally wanted and needed for Southern
California driving at 150+ miles) and thus the more expensive model, would be
available later in the Fall of 2012. When they personally called me in March this year to give me
this information, I decided upon hanging up the phone with them to give up looking for an electric car
and instead purchase a gas powered one. There lays the problem with electrics;
they still need tweaking. GM had problems selling the Volt this year after a recall that set
back not just the car but perhaps their brand as well, scaring people back to the old dark days of how horrible GM reliability used to be. Toyota introduced the Prius back
in 1997. Over the years since, Toyota and the rest of the automotive industry faced endless delays producing an all-electric vehicle even though they had all that time for product development and improvement . . .
 |
| Chevy has been plagued with problems with the Chevy Volt. They seem to be turning these issues around. But if they're having problems with a hybrid, where will that leave them and their customers with an all electric plug-in? |
4. The American market is
weary at the moment of adopting such an expensive new unproven technology. The American car
industry is back. But the rest of us are still digging out from the Great Recession, however. Even
with industry and government discounts and rebates, electric cars for now are
still expensive. It costs money to set up a plug-in infrastructure in a home or at work. These cars
seem to be better suited for urban environments verses rural areas, but most city garages are
still not electric-ready. Range anxiety is still a major issue. The range of these cars for longer trips is pitiful. It seems to be asking too much, at least for now, for
an electric car to have the same range as a gasoline car on a full tank. Until
the car industry addresses this problem, the all-electric plug-in car is in peril.
 |
| This is the Tesla Model X, an all electric plug-in SUV, the first in America, and Tesla's next model due for a roll-out. It's future is not as certain if the current Model S in production does not succeed. |
5. Purchasing an electric car is not as green as we were
led to believe. If you live in a part
of the country where you get your electric juice from either nukes or
hydro-electric power like a dam for instance, you’re good to get an electric car, and in
fact it will cost you way less to recharge the vehicle than to either fuel a gas-powered car, or juice with electric that comes from carbon. If you get your electric juice from carbon
fuels, however, you’re basically back at square one with poisoning the
environment. I guess an electric car in these circumstances is still the lesser
of two or possibly three evils, to not let that deter anyone from getting an
electric car if they really want one. But if getting an electric car to go purely green is the sole reason to buy one, then the reasoning
stands on shaky ground.
 |
| The Toyota Prius has been around for 15 years now, can you believe it? It's been tried and tested true. But you would have figured by now after 15 years that car and battery companies would have found a way to make a reliable, more efficient, and longer lasting battery for an all electric plug-in. But they haven't. What's the problem? |
So what options do you have, GREEN PEEPEAE? My suggestion: citing you with a WARNING: 2013 seems
to be a better year coming for the electric car. If you can hold off for at least
another year, preferably even more for 2014 if possible when hopefully all three of the big American auto
makers will have at least one all-electric option available, and the smaller
startups have had the time needed to work out their issues, you might have more
options available to decide which electric car is right for you. This will give
them the extra time they need to get their cars crash tested and work out
the battery issues so that you have less of a chance of being stuck with a
recall or an unsafe car. I am a car enthusiast, so I don't mind being an early adopter, but it's never a good idea to buy an all-new car in it's first year of production. Ideally it's best to buy a car in year two after they get the bugs out, which is why my guess is that 2014 will be an even better year for the electric car. Regardless of what you decide, the more you wait to buy an electric car, I believe the better the market will become. Good luck and safe driving.
P.S. TO GREEN PEEPEAE If I discouraged you from buying
this car, may I suggest I lure you in the opposite direction of what hurdles
you may face in buying an expensive gas guzzling car by
clicking here to read about the gas guzzler and luxury tax. If you decide to buy a guzzler,
then may I suggest you click here and first read PART 3 of my first series on driving flashy cars and getting a traffic ticket. Regardless, both
guzzlers and electrics do go very fast, so either way you decide,
once your car is out on the road, may I also suggest you read all of my 12 part
series on HOW TO AVOID OR FIGHT A TRAFFIC TICKET, start here with PART 1. Again, good luck,
whatever you decide to do. KINDLY, YOUR HUMBLE CIVIL SERVANT, SGT. AL
MY DEAR READERS: Thank you for your growing support. In the meantime, please support me by signing up on Pinterest.com, on Twitter @SgtAlCastro, and Digg.com. Please be safe!
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Sgt. Al here. I welcome your comments, ideas, and suggestions. You have questions about the police, and I'm interested in hearing what you have to say as a citizen. Thanks!