Sunday December 31, 2017 – Fuel Cell Propaganda – This week I have been reading a lot of bull about fuel cells and I just wanted to set the record straight.  First let me say that while I am an advocate for battery electric vehicles I am not opposed to fuel cell vehicles.  I think that they will form a critical part of our transportation infrastructure especially for things like shipping where the use of large volumes of batteries seems impractical.

The big lie that I keep hearing over and over again from the likes of Toyota is that battery electric cars are polluting because the energy that is used to charge them comes from coal fire plants where fuel cells have absolutely no emissions except water. 

This is the same old argument used by the fossil fuel industry about cars that burn gas being cleaner than battery electric vehicles.  They want people to think that the hydrogen used to drive the fuel cell magically appears in the tank while every time someone charges their car there is a guy back at the power plant who starts shoveling coal into the fire to generate the electricity.

The truth is that the cars, whether they are fuel cell or battery electric, are only as clean as the source of their fuel.  Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe but it is also one of the most reactive so it is rarely found on earth in its natural form.  Hydrogen can be found in everything from Water to the Human body and to get at that hydrogen the chemical bonds in the molecules must be broken and that takes energy; lots of energy. 

Back in the American civil war the North used hydrogen balloons to survey battlefields and help direct troop movements.  They got the hydrogen for these balloons by adding acid to iron filings.  This releases the hydrogen from the acid and it can be captured to fill the balloon.  This method would not work for the fuel cell though as the hydrogen released is too polluted with other elements like sulfur which would cause damage to the fuel cell's membrane.

Today most hydrogen is produced by one of two  methods.  The first is by the process of steam reformatting of fossil fuels and the second is by electrolysis of water.  Both of these methods are energy intensive and that energy has to come from some source.  It has been calculated that a battery electric car could go about twice as far as a fuel cell car with the energy required to extract 1 kilogram of hydrogen from water by electrolysis.

Today most hydrogen is used for fuel cell vehicles is created by using steam reformatting of natural gas.  The energy for this comes from burning natural gas and there is also a bunch of energy needed to compress and transport the hydrogen once it is generated.  That's why Shell was advertising the benefits of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on twitter last night with the same lie that was being passed by Toyota.  Shell is a company that stands to benefit greatly from the mass adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as it will keep their customer attached to the fuel pump and filling their coffers. 

There are some fuel cell stations that create the hydrogen by electrolysis of water and these sometimes get the energy they need from solar power, which does make the hydrogen zero emission assuming that the same solar energy is also used to compress the hydrogen when pumping it into the fuel cell vehicle.  Remember, it takes quite a bit of energy to compress a couple of kilograms of hydrogen to 10,000 psi. 

Toyota is testing interesting process that converts solid waste from sewage into bio-gas then into hydrogen.  The bio-gas is actually methane but because it is derived from bio-products it is actually carbon neutral.  If they burn some of this to create steam that is then used to reformat more of the bio-gas the hydrogen is produced with zero emissions.  They then have to burn more of the bio-gas, or use some of the hydrogen in a fuel cell, to compress the hydrogen into a fuel cell truck, powered by more hydrogen from the bio-gas, to transport it to the gas station.  From there they have can either use more hydrogen, or perhaps solar or wind power, to generate the energy to  compress the hydrogen into the fuel cell car's gas tank.  Assuming all of this is done using renewable energy, we have zero emission hydrogen.

Toyota estimates that this process used at a single sewage plant could provide enough hydrogen to fuel 600 cars.  Of course it would be much more economical to just burn the bio-gas to generate electricity which would be able to fuel a lot more battery electric cars.

In all good propaganda there is an element of truth that is slanted to make people believe what the originator wants them to believe.  Yes, sometimes the electricity used to charge an electric car comes from coal powered plants, although coal is becoming less and less of a fuel source.  Yes, it is possible for hydrogen to be generated, distributed, and sold in a way that makes it carbon neutral.  The reality is that the electric grid is getting cleaner, hydrogen is often made from fossil fuels, and the cost to roll out true carbon neutral hydrogen fuel infrastructure is going to be huge.

Companies like Toyota and Shell would benefit greatly from the move to a hydrogen based transportation paradigm so they keep putting out their fuel cell propaganda.  I hope we don't fall for it. 

Sunday December 24, 2017 – Blocked Chargers – It's been a while since I had a good rant but this passed week I have been plagued with blocked charges so I thought it might be time to bring this up again. 

It started with a trip to the mall a week ago.  I went to Westfield's Century City Shopping center to have lunch and cruise the mall.  I stopped by the charging station there and I noticed that all the chargers were occupied and there was a Prius Prime that looked like the driver was waiting for someone to move.  I also noticed that Mall security were there too taking photographs.  I think that Mall security leave notes on the cars that are not charging but there is no consequences so people continue the bad behavior.

I parked and walked over to the chargers and noticed that while all 6 charging bays were occupied only 2 vehicles were actually charging, a Fiat 500e and a Volt.  I find it difficult to understand why someone driving an EV would block a charger if they didn't intend to charge, I'm sure they would be mad as hell if they wanted to charge and someone else was blocking the charger.  Having said that, the parking spaces are marked "Electric Vehicle Parking Only" so it is easy to justify parking there since there is no signage that says that you must be connected for charging purposes.  Now, there are a lot of parking spaces in that same area marked as reserved for low emission vehicles but they are not policed so everyone treats them like regular spaces and parks there.

The good news is that as part of the remodel that is in progress at the Mall they are going to add another 10 to 12 charging bays.  The bays are already wired for the chargers and signs are up but the chargers haven't been installed yet.

After lunch I stopped by the Beverly Hills Public Library to try and get a charge there.  Three of the parking spaces were in use but the fourth was blocked by an EV which is a very common problem at this location.  These parking spaces are marked as electric vehicle charging spaces and there are signs saying they will ticket of car not connected for charging' but this is never enforced so people just ignore the signs.  The result was that I didn't have enough charge to make it home and had to run the gas engine for a while.

This weekend I took a trip out to Temecula and I had mixed experience with chargers.  When I got there I went to get lunch in Old town.  They have 4 chargers there, two in a parking lot at one end and two at the civic center a block away from the main street.  The first set of chargers were both in use but the second set were both free and I was able to get some charge while I ate lunch.  There is also  an EVGo fast charger in one of the lots and that was available too, but my Prius plug-in doesn't support fast charging.

In the evening I drove down to the Pechanga Hotel and Casino.  They have 10 chargers there.  8 of them were in use but 2 were blocked, one by a Tesla, and one ICEd by a Prius C.  The result was that I once again ran out of charge before I got back to my hotel, which doesn't have charging anyway.  People would not think about parking in front of a pump in the gas station while they went off and watched a movie so why do they think it is OK to leave their car blocking an EV charging station.  I went back there this lunchtime and had my choice of 4 charging bays.  Of the six occupied bays only one other car was actively charging.  Four of the cars were fully charged and one was not plugged in at all. 

The only place I know here in Southern California that actually has rules for using their chargers that are enforced on a regular basis is Santa Monica.  The charging spaces there are clearly marked for electric vehicle charging only and if you are parked at a charger and do not plugged in you will get a ticket.  They don't have a rule about lurking at the chargers if you are fully charged, which is difficult to enforce, instead they have a 4 hour maximum stay.  This is enough for most cars to get enough charge to make it home.

I keep saying this but if we are going to make electric cars work it's not enough just to scatter chargers around and hope for the best.  Cities need to set up rules that will prevent people from blocking chargers and most importantly these rules need to be enforced.  I would also like to see charging bays at hotels like they have at Perchanga.  For the most part all that is needed is level 1 charging which would be a nice perk for guests without being too expensive to set up or use.  Most people could get a good enough charge with level 1 charging while they slept.

Sunday December 17, 2017 – Old v New – Last week I attended the LA Auto show and one thing really highlighted the transition we are seeing in personal transportation.

As I walked into the South Hall the first thing I saw was the Tesla stand. This is the first year that Tesla has appeared in the main hall representing one more step for Tesla becoming a front line automobile manufacturer.  They have already become one of the largest manufacturers in the luxury car market outselling such established names as Cadillac and Lincoln.  In their stand at the LA Auto  Show was their latest threat to the internal combustion engine powered car, the Model 3.  Tesla already has deposits on over 450,000 model 3s and the numbers appear to be growing even though deliveries are still a trickle.

The latest word on the model 3 is that the issue they were having with battery manufacture has been resolved and they are now building at a rate close to 1,000 per week.  Reports are that Tesla lots are beginning to fill with Model 3s awaiting delivery and we should expect a significant jump in cars going out the door when December sales numbers come in.  It looks like Tesla is actually on track to build 20,000 cars per month by the second quarter of 2018 and this is going to change the perception of plug-in cars as they start to become more visible on the streets.

I made my way to the Mazda press conference and their sales pitch represented everything that was old in the car industry. The contrast made me imagine what it would have been like when Ford was the cutting edge of technology while some clung to the horse and buggy but, in the end, either adapted or disappeared becoming a footnote in history.

Mazda did have some interesting technology to reveal.  They put a lot of money into making the gas engine more efficient and they are continuing this trend with the Skyactive-X compression-ignition engine.  Now compared to an electric motor the gas engine is very complex and the Skyactive-X takes this to a whole new level.  While it does use compression ignition similar to how a diesel engine works, it does not totally eliminate the spark plug which is needed in certain situations like when the engine is cold.  Mazda do claim that this engine gets many of the benefits of diesel, including better fuel economy, without the need for expensive equipment to meet emissions standards.  To add to the complexity the engine is also turbo-charged.

While Tesla is leading the way to an electric future. Mazda, in their press conference, showed that they are trying hard to stay with the past.  They seem unaware that it doesn't matter if they can wring impressive fuel economy from a gas engine, we just can't afford to keep poisoning our atmosphere by continuing to burn fossil fuels.  Mazda appear to be behaving like the carriage makers of the 19th century.

In 1900 there were 7,000 companies building horse drawn carriages in the US.  Almost none of them survive today being replaced by upstarts like Henry Ford who moved into the whole new industry, the automobile.  One that did survive was the Duran-Dort Carriage Co.  After seeing an automobile on a trip to Europe Alexander Brownell Cullen Hardy is said to have told Billy Durant to "get out of the carriage business before the automobile ruins you."  Durant didn't act on this dire warning right away but in 1904 he bought a struggling carmaker called Buick, and General Motors was born.  Other carriage makers like Studebaker also moved into automobile manufacture but most didn't, at least until it was too late, and went out of business.

Mazda has entered into a joint venture with Toyota to develop electric transportation so they may end up surprising us but that's not how their press conference came across.  Tesla on the other hand have already started to expand their product line beyond the Model 3.  They showed a Semi-Truck to the press recently and have started taking orders.  They also have a new roadster in the works that is going to compete in the Supercar category and they are expected to announce a CUV version of the Model 3 some time next year.

The technology of personal transportation is changing and more countries are looking to ban sales of internal combustion engine powered vehicles.  Some companies like GM appear to be adapting while others like Mazda appear to be clinging to the past and new companies are attempting to follow Tesla into the car making business.  Who will survive and who will become a footnote in history will be determined over the next 10 years.

Sunday December 10, 2017 – November 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  November 2017 was the best November on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 17,158 plug-in cars were sold in November, well ahead of the previous highest November sales set in 2016 which saw estimated sales of 13,237 cars. 

After selling 1,362 cars in October, Volt sales climbed to 1,702 cars in November.  Sales were substantially down from November 2016 when 2,5311 Volts were sold.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a big impact on Chevy Volt sales and there is a rumor that GM is considering replacing the Volt with  a plug-in hybrid crossover.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt have been increasing steadily each month since April setting new monthly sales records every month.  This continued in November with sales falling just 13 short of the 3,000 mark at 2,987 cars. Previously, in October, Bolt sales were 2,781 The Bolt is now available nationwide so I expect to see it break the 3,000 car mark in December which is traditionally the best month of the year for plug-in car sales. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted and by the end of October only 14 Spark EVs have been sold in 2017.  Somehow in November Chevy managed to find 7 more Spark EV to sell after selling no cars in August, September, or October.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. In July sales were just 2 cars while in August sales dropped down to 1 car and no cars were sold in September or October or November.

The replacement for the ELR is the Cadillac CT6 PHEV and sales have been growing ever so slowly since it went on sale in April.  Each month since it went on sale has set a new sales record with the 27 cars sold in October rising to 29 cars sold in November. 

In November GM sold a total of 4,725 plug-n cars, up from the 4,170 it sold in October.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In the third quarter Tesla usually focuses on domestic sales in a rush to meet quarterly sales estimates. In November Tesla sales were an estimated 2,115 cars.

After selling an estimated 1,120 Model S sedans in October, sales in November increased to 1,335 cars.  This was the worst second month of the quarter results for Model S sales in 2017.  It appears that Tesla is diverting resources away from Model S production to the Model 3.

Sales of the Model X didn't fare quite so badly in November with estimated sales of 1,875 cars. This was the best second month of the quarter results for the Model X in 2017.  Previously in October Tesla had sold an estimated 850 cars.

Tesla held a delivery party on July 28th to deliver the first Model 3 cars to 30 customers.  In August they built another 100 cars but not all of these were delivered to customers.  Inside EV estimates that Tesla actually delivered somewhere between 40 and 75 cars setting their estimate at the high end of the range at 75.  Tesla said it would ramp up production to approximately 1,500 in September and expected to be building about 20,000 cars per month by December.  This ramp-up appears to have been delayed due to what Tesla describes as "bottlenecks in production", with the largest problem being the battery pack assembly at the Gigafactory, so in September only 115 Model 3s were delivered.  This number increased just slightly in October when an estimated 145 model 3 cars were delivered.  November saw a substantial increase in Sales to  345.  The question now is can Tesla sustain this rate of improvement and top 1,000 cars in December.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In November they sold a total of 2,821 cars spread across their seven plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016.  Recently though they seem to have stabilized in the 500 - 600 car range.  In September they sold 538 cars which is at the bottom of this range but October saw sales step outside the range once again, increasing to 686 cars.  November saw sales plummet to just 283 cars.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in June they were close to the bottom of that range selling 22 cars.  July saw a little bit of an improvement as sales climbed to 55 cars, but August saw them drop  back to 29 cars while in September they pulled back further to 27 cars and in October there was a slight increase to 33 cars.  November sales improved again to 44 cars.

Sales of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In  September sales were 333 cars and this fell by 10 cars in October to 323 cars.  Then in November sales went wild leaping to 929 cars setting a new sales record.

Sales of the 330e also did well in November selling 477 cars, the second best month ever.  Previously in October 307 cars were sold.

The same thing happened with the BMW 530e which set a new all time sales record selling 872 cars in November after selling 583 cars in October.

Sales of the BMW 740e is expected to remain low for the rest of this year as the car is basically sold out so the US only received a token inventory.  In November sales fell just 3 short of tying the record sales month when 120 cars were sold.  October sales were 54 cars up slightly from the 43 cars sold in September.

At the very end of June BMW started selling yet another plug-in hybrid, the Mini Countryman PHEV placing 10 of them in the hands of Customers.  In July, its first full month of sales, 75 cars were delivered to customers and sales improved in August to 86 cars but fell back to 80 cars in September and to 74 cars in October.  In November they set a new monthly sales record selling 96 cars.

One of the big success stories of 2017 is the Toyota Prius Prime which is selling extremely well considering that it is sold in only a small number of states and dealer inventory is limited.  Like many of the plug-in cars the Prius Prime appears to have fallen into a selling range, in this case the range is 1,600 - 1,900 cars.  In October sales of the Prius Prime was 1,626 cars and this climbed in November to 1,834 cars.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in November they sold 249 Mirai FCEVs.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 2,451 Mirai.

Ford didn't do so well in November selling just 1,375 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and November was no exception with sales of 731 cars.  Previously in October 741 cars were sold.

 
Sales for the C-Max Energi fell in November to 523 cars after selling 569 cars in October.
 
The Ford Focus EV has remained in its usual range of 100 to 200 cars selling 121 cars in November after selling 115 cars in October.  At least it is consistent.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 785 Plug-in Cars in November.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in November sales were 315 cars.  This was considerably lower than the 310 cars they sold in October.

After a rocky start, sales of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivan seem to be taking off again after a glitch in July where sales were just 125 cars.  August got back to what appears to be more normal sales of 300 to 500 cars per month with sales of 345 cars and in September sales improved further to 475 cars.  Sales in October were previously misstated at 1,175 but have since been adjusted to 875 minivans being sold.  Unfortunately the plant where they are made was closed down for re-tooling for most of October so I was expecting sales in November to be hard hit by lack of inventory but they still managed to sell an estimated 570 cars.

Honda have returned to the plug-in market in full force when they started selling the plug-in hybrid version of the Clarity at the end of November.  Unfortunately they are not separating out sales of the electric from the FCEV so I am going to have to estimate sales of these, and by estimate I mean guess.  In November Honda sold an estimated 444 plug-in Vehicles.

Sales of the Clarity electric seem to have jumped in November going from October sales of 34 to November sales of an estimated 439 which is a new record for the Clarity BEV.

Sales of the PHEV started right at the end of the month with and Honda says that it delivered just 5 cars in November.  I suspect that some PHEV sales have been counted as BEV sales so it wouldn't surprise me if these numbers were revised at the end of December.

Like Toyota, Honda is also investing big-time in Fuel Cell Vehicles.  In October I estimate that they leased 20 Clarity FCEVs. 

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016.   In August, they broke out of this range selling an estimated 300 cars, their best sales month ever.  They didn't do quite as well in September and October but still managed to stay well above the 200 car level selling 255 and 210 cars respectively.  In November they stayed above the 200 level with sales of 207 cars.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January.  In October they sold 235 cars dropping back a little in November to  213 cars.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 420 plug-in cars in October.

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV normally sells in the 100 - 200 range but strayed outside this range by selling 265 cars in August, a record high. September saw a pullback with 236 cars sold.  In October it dropped back to its normal selling range with 174 cars sold but jumped back above 200 in November with sales of 204 cars.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In October they sold 370 cars, up from the 295 cars they sold in October.  The reason for this is that the old models are almost gone and the new models are either AWOL or just trickling into dealerships.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range but recently sales have fallen as inventory of the 2017 is cleared and the 2018 hasn't reached the US in any numbers.  There were just 17 cars sold in October but this improved a little in November climbing to 38 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in July sales came in right in the middle of the normal range at 308 cars.  Sales in August were just a little higher at 317 cars but fell to 187 in September.  They moved back into the normal selling range in October selling 203 cars and sales increased in November to 289 cars.

The Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid sold a 73 cars in October, but managed to sell just 38 cars in November.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  Porsche dealers did managed to find 5 copies to sell in November after selling just 2 car in October.

Volvo is one of the companies that has committed to electrifying their entire lineup of cars.  Toward this end they began selling the XC60 PHEV at the end of July, delivering 13 cars.  In August they delivered and additional 65 cars while September saw an additional 97 sales.  October saw sales edge up  to 100 cars but in November sales dropped back to 82 cars.  The XC60 PHEV is an SUV that offers an EPA estimated 18 miles of all electric range.

In September Volvo introduced their first plug-in hybrid sedan, the S90 T8 PHEV selling 5 units.  October saw sales increase to 28 cars with a further increase to 32 cars in November.  If Volvo can stock this car in quantity is should sell quite well..

In November Volvo sold a total of 318 Plug-in Vehicles.

With sales of the next generation Nissan Leaf expected to Start early next year I have expected sales of the current model to fall off but that didn't happen until October when, after selling over 1,000 cars per month sales fell off a cliff at just 213 cars.  In November sales fell further to just 175 cars.  Going forward I expect to see slow sales of the current generation Leaf as inventory is depleted in advance of the new model's arrival currently set for early 2018.

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 210 cars in October falling to 135 cars in October.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

Sales of the Hyundai Ioniq also seem to have faltered in November with just 23 cars sold after selling 28 cars in October.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected in the fall.

In November Hyundai sold a total of 158 plug-in cars. 

It appears that Mercedes-Benz is going to discontinue production of the B250e later this year so I expect sales will continue to be low for this vehicle which normally sells in the 40 - 60 range.  In November 31 cars were sold after selling 59 cars in October. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars.   November sales fell below this range for the fourth straight month with 22 cars being sold after selling in October.

Sales of the  Mercedes Benz GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV have recently hovered in the 30 - 60 range.  In July sales fell slightly below the normal trading range with just 27 cars making it off dealer lots.  Things got even worse in August with just 23 cars sold while September sales dropped to just 14 cars and again in October to 8 cars making this the worst sales month ever for this SUV.  Sales did recover in November moving back into the normal range with 41 cars sold.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

The Mercedes-Benz C350e set a new sales record in August selling 212 cars.  This would have seriously depleted inventory and in September sales dropped to a more normal 126 cars then tumbled further to just 49 cars in October and 16 cars in November.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 110 Plug-in cars in October.

I have been asking for a while now when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Well, it finally arrived in August with sales of 94 cars.  In September, as inventory improved, sales climbed to 123 cars but in October sales fell back to 73 cars and fell further to 68 cars in November.  To put this in context, Smart sold just 130 cars in the US for October so the electric model made up more than 50% of Smart sales for the month.

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales needing to sell just 1,579 plug-in cars surpass the record high of 158,617 cars sold in 2016.  This should be easy even without significant Tesla Model 3 sales.  The question is not will 2017 be a record year but rather how will we fare in 2018 given that the republican tax plan includes ending the federal tax credit for electric cars after the end of this year.

Sunday December 3, 2017 – 2017 LA Auto Show  – On Wednesday and Thursday this week I attended the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show and it proved to be quite an event, particularly the number of small start-up companies that were showing off prototype electric vehicles.  On the other hand, most of the large carmakers used the show to introduce an array of SUVs and crossover vehicles only a very few of which were electric.

The first press conference was BMW and they really blew my socks off.  They started out with the usual blurb about adding more and more horse-power to their cars and CUVs but then they also said that they see the future as electric and by 2021 all of their line-up will be designed to be powered by gas, PHEV or electric.  Then they started to roll out some of their latest offerings which included the all electric Mini Concept LX with a 100 Mile range, the Vision Dynamic Concept which is an all electric sedan with a range of 370 miles, a top speed of 125 mph, and 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds.  Both will go  into  production with the Vision Dynamic being available in both 4-door and coupe versions.

What turned out to be the star of the show this year was the introduction of the BMW i8 roadster.  This is an open top version of the iconic BMW i8 which will sport more power at 369 hp. and an electric only drive range of 18 miles.

The next press conference was at Mercedes-Benz.  I was hoping that they would announce the follow-on for the B250e which is going out of production, but they didn't have anything remotely like that.  They did have a plug-in hybrid from AMG in their line-up with the Project One.  For Project One AMG have developed a road car from the Mercedes Formula 1 car.  It's a 2-seat car with a plug-in hybrid power train.  It starts with a 1.6 liter V6 that powers the formula 1 car.  The Engine has an electric turbo charger and is capable of reving to 11,000 rpm.  There is a single electric motor connected to the front wheels with 2 more connected to the rear, and the whole thing produces in excess of 1,000 hp.  All electric range is 16 miles and the car will top out at 270 mph.

Next I went to Mazda's press conference and on my way there I walked past the Tesla display.  While Tesla as exhibited at the LA Auto Show several times, this is the first time they have had a spot on the main floor of the convention center.  They had the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 on display.  Unfortunately the Model 3 was locked so  I only got a look at the outside which looked like a smaller version of the model S to me.   
 
Mazda is one of the companies that has been vocal in saying that the future of personal transportation lies with gas engines not electric and this message was repeated again in their press conference.  They indicated that they would be coming out shortly with an updated version of their Skyactive system that would feature compression ignition on a gas engine which should improve efficiency further.  They also  showed off their vision coupe concept which is an indication of how their designs would evolve but was unlikely to make it into production.

Porsche was the next up and they showed off the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo.  This is a hatchback version of the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which has been given some performance boost.  It has a 4 liter V8 engine and a single electric motor that gives a combined 680 hp.  All electric range was given as 30 miles on a charge and with a 14.1 KWh lithium ion battery I would expect the EPA to come up with at least 25 miles of all electric range.  Porsche have already started taking orders for the car in Germany but I am not sure when it will be available here in the US.

I stopped by the Grand Tour Mayhem Pub for a lunch of bangers and mash washed down with  a glass of English beer which was great for an old Brit like myself.  The Pub was there to promote season 2 of the Amazon Prime series Grand Tour.  Unfortunately Clarkson, Hammond, and May were not there in person but they did have cardboard cutouts for a photo op.

The afternoon proved to be pretty much of a bust plug-in vehicle wise as Lincoln, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai all had SUVs or CUVs on show while Volvo had yet another way to lease a car, a subscription model that covers everything from the car to maintenance to insurance for one monthly fixed fee that is the same for any person who subscribes to a specific model and trim level.  They even had their first customer sign up for a Volvo XC 40 using the new service.

There was one piece of good news, Mitsubishi did confirm that, after numerous missed deadlines over the past 4 or 5 years, the Outlander PHEV will finally go on sale in the US in December.  Speaking of Mitsubishi, 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the launch of their first car, the Mitsubishi Model A, in 1917.  To commemorate the event they had West Coast Custom merge the powertrain on the Outlander PHEV into the body and chassis of a 1917 Model A to make a really fun looking car.

Thursday started out in the Technology pavilion where Green Car Journal presented their green car of the year award.  The winner of the 2018 award went to the Honda Clarity range of cars.  I can understand a little why they chose this car since it's a Honda and they do offer fuel cell, battery electric, and plug-in hybrid options but the Fuel Cell is only available in a very limited area in Southern California and the San Francisco bay area while the Electric is only available in a few sites and both are lease only.  They did say that the plug-in hybrid would be in dealerships starting December 1 but so far I have only found one dealership here in the LA area that appears to have them in stock and they don't even make it clear if they are electric or PHEV.  Meanwhile, the Tesla Model 3 wasn't even considered a finalist even though it has the potential to become the first truly mass market electric car.

Toyota had two  presentations, the first following immediately after the green car of the year awards where they showed off their fuel cell powered truck.  This is apparently a Kenilworth semi truck that has been modified to be powered by two of the fuel cells that are used to power the Mirai FCEV.  This truck has a range of around 200 miles and is being used by Toyota to do local hauls from the port of Los Angeles.  Interestingly they had a display showing the truck out accelerating a diesel truck which was an obviously copy from Tesla's presentation of their new semi truck.  There other presentation was yet another concept SUV.

Like last year the ride and drive was only 3 cars but this year one of those cars was the next generation Nissan Leaf.  I was hoping to take a test drive and compare it to my test drive of the original Leaf.  I have to say that Nissan appears to have improved the Leaf in almost every possible way.  One of my big issues in the Leaf was the lack of power in economy mode but with the new Leaf, while you can feel the difference in power, I didn't feel unsafe in economy.  With a step up in Range to 150 miles and a slightly lower base price the Leaf is sure to sell well.  The Leaf should be available some time early next year with a 225 mile range option expected to ward the end of 2018.

As I got out of the Leaf one of the Nissan employees came up and said they had a request for me.  It turned out that the next person in line for the test drive was my old friend David Shelton.  David is a long time EV driver who I hadn't seen for several years so it was nice to say hello.

The rest of the morning was devoted to some small start-up companies that are developing electric powered cars. 

The first of these was Arcimoto.  I have mentioned this company before in my blogs as they have been developing a three wheel tandem EV for a few years now.  The news from the LA Auto Show is that they are about to start serial production of the car.  They even handed the keys of the first customer car to Mark Frohnmayer who also happens to be their CEO.  They expect to deliver car number 2 to a customer in December with full serial production getting under way around the start of March.  Currently they have about 1,000 firm orders.

I found that David had also decided to attend the Arcmoto presentation which gave us some time to catch up while we waited to start the presentation.  I had thought about taking the Arcimoto for a test spin but the guys at their ride and drive were busy with a couple of other people so I  had decided to pass.  David had taken the test drive though and he told me that the three-wheeler was a whole lot of fun to drive.  It would be perfect for tooling along Pacific Coast Highway on a warm summers day.  After saying our goodbyes and promising to get together more often I stopped to watch the presentation from Aria Group.

Aria Group unveiled the prototype of their FXE plug-in hybrid.  This is no ordinary plug-in hybrid.  It has a 6.2 liter V8 engine plus and electric motor driven by a 10 KWh lithium ion battery pack that can put out an insane 1,150 hp.  This is all framed by an attractive sports car body.  This they said would propel the car from 0-40 in just 3.1 seconds. The car will be built in a limited run of just 400 cars.

Aria was followed by two cars that were both 3 wheel electric prototypes.  The first was from electric bike maker Sondors was a bright red 3 seat that they are funding through crowdsourcing.  They are targeting a base price of $10,000 for a base model with a 75 mile range and they will also offer larger battery pack options to give 150 and 200 miles of range.  The car will be freeway capable and has a claimed 0-60 time of 5 to 8 seconds presumable depending on options.

Following Sondors was another three-wheel offering, Ampere.  The Ampere prototype seemed much less well developed than the Sondors but they did have video of the car being driven around.  The prototype was a 3-wheel roadster that sat very low on the ground.  There were no doors on the car so entry was to just climb in like you would on a race car.  They are targeting a price of $9,900 and for this they say you will get a freeway capable car with a 100 mile range.  The car looked really low on the ground so I asked about things like speed bumps and pot-holes.  They told me that the production vehicle would have about 5 inches of additional ground clearance which should allow it to survive most speed bumps.  The car is to be built right here in LA and is said to be 80% production ready.

This year's LA Auto Show had more electric cars on display than ever before.  Most manufacturers now have some form of plug-in car in production and these cars are starting to move from being hidden in the back to being displayed front and center.  The EV world just keeps on expanding.

Sunday November 26, 2017 – Charger Infrastructure – This week I received an email from Chris Yoder via the RAV4-EV mail list which gave me some food for thought about charging infrastructure.  Chris and his family had just returned from a trip they had taken from the LA area to the four corners region in a Tesla Model S.  This trip had mostly been accomplished using the Tesla supercharger network with a couple of charges done outside the network.

One of the chargers was done at a campground on the route where they were able to get a level 2 charge, and the other was done using level 1 while in Boulder, CO.  The second charge was done at level 1 because they had the time and didn't want to bother going to one of the level 2 chargers that are available in the Boulder area. 

Just 20 years ago this sort of trip was almost unimaginable.  Some people did manage to do long distance trips in the EV1 and the Honda EV+ but it took lots of planning to find places where a portableized charger could be plugged in.  Now with the Tesla all Chris had to do was to hit Navigate followed by Home and the tesla would figure out a route that would take him home via available superchargers.  Tesla really have got this right.

GM, Nissan, and Ford on the other hand have made a decision to rely on chargers provided by a group of companies like Chargepoint and EVGo to build out a network.  The result is a mishmash of chargers that require different cards to activate and are not always situated in convenient places of along routes that make traveling long distances easy.  It also doesn't help that there are two different charging standards while Tesla has its own proprietary standard. 

Pricing for charging is also very variable but that is to be expected and as competition arises prices will begin to stabilize.  Right now competition doesn't seem to be impacting pricing.  Chargepoint allows pricing to be set by the site owner.  Prices tend to vary from free to as much as $2.00 per hour.  Blink also has some chargers around my area.  These used to be set at $2 per hour but are now usage based at 59 cents per KWh for guest usage and 49 cents per KWh for members.  EVGo has membership based pricing too, with the basic membership with no annual fee costing $1.50 per hour for charging at Level 2 and $4.95 plus 20 cents per minute for DC fast charging.

One problem with this is that to find a charging station in a location where you  are travelling you need to look at the charger map for each of the different companies and pick the ones that work for you.  This in itself makes travelling long distances by EV hard work.  Plugshare attempts to solve this by maintaining a map of all the available charging points.  Information about charging stations is often sent in to plug-share by EV drivers and their map is the most comprehensive map you can find.  The only issues I have with plugshare is that they don't distinguish between level 1 and level 2 charging until you actually read the detailed description, and some of the level 1 charging they show is of dubious legality.  I would also like to see them identify the different providers so if you don't use EVGo chargers, for example, you don't need to look at the details for the charger to know it's not a charger you want to use.

EVGo just installed a charger at Bristol Farms in West Hollywood but it doesn't appear to be powered on yet and does not appear on the EVGo charger map or on plugshare.  I went over there to check it out on Thursday and when I got there the charger was iced by an Infinity SUV.  Not content to ICE one space the driver had parked across the two spaces marked for "EV charging only", blocking both spaces.  There is only one charger so having two spaces is a little overkill anyway but it does have a tendency to promote blocking the chargers as it gives the impression that these are EV parking spaces not EV charging spaces. 

Blocking chargers is also rampant in Beverly Hills where they have some Chargepoint chargers that have a level 2 charger and a plug behind a door that can allow a driver to use the EVSE that came with the car to charge at level 1.  The problem is that most people don't know about the level 1 outlet so think it is OK to park in the second space.

I  have been having problems with Chargepoint recently.  The parking structure near where I  work had 2 of the chargepoint chargers with the level 1/level 2 set-up.  These have recently been replaced by two of the dual head chargers that are set to charge at the full rate of 6.6 KW with one person plugged in and then drop the rate to 3.3 KW on each of the two charger cords when the second person plugs in.  The problem is that while my car only pulls 2.3 KW the charge rate is still cut in half when someone else plugs in so I end up getting only 1.3 KW if the charger is shared.  Worse still, the rate is dropped even when the person connects to the other physical charger.  This typically means that my car is at the charger longer so it isn't available for other people to use.

Now that we have electric cars that are capable of travelling long distances we need to be more mindful of public charging.  It needs to be both available and reliable.  Imagine driving out in the middle of nowhere and pulling into the only gas station for miles only to find that the pumps were all blocked by a load of Teslas just parked there while the drivers went off to have a meal and do some sightseeing.  ICE car drivers would be outraged.

So, here is what we need.  First EV drivers should never park in a charging bay unless they actually want to charge.  Second, rules about ICE cars parking in charging bays need to be enforced.  I've repeated this many times but I will say it again, Beverly Hills has the best rules for using their public charging that I have ever seen but they are actually useless as they are never enforced.  We have to start ticketing and/or towing cars that ICE public charging.  We also really need a comprehensive way to find chargers without having to go to multiple web sites.  Plugshare is a good start but it would be so much better if the various charging providers fed real time data from their charger networks to the site.

Driving electric is great but we need to make sure that charger infrastructure keeps up with the growth of electric cars so one day it will be no more of a challenge to take your Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf on a long distance road trip as it is to take my Prius.  Happy charging. 

Sunday November 15, 2017 – Tesla Goes Truckin – Last Thursday night Tesla hosted a gathering at the Space X facility in Hawthorne, CA where it rolled out prototypes of its new electric semi truck.  This reveal had been postponed due to problems with Model 3 production but once again Tesla appears to have produced a revolutionary product. 

The first thing to consider is range.  The Tesla Semi is said to have a range of 500 miles on a charge and this is based on the truck hauling its maximum payload of 80,000 lbs. and running at highway speeds.  To put this in prospective the average delivery distance for US trucks is 250 mile so the truck should, in theory, be able to do an average round trip delivery without recharging.

If 250 miles is the average trip length then about half of all trips are going to be longer than that meaning that the Semi will need to be able to recharge along the way.  Tesla has that covered too.  They plan on establishing a network of Mega chargers that are capable of charging the semi truck in 20 minutes.  The driver will be able to stop for a break and by the time they have stretched their legs, hit the rest room, and bought a cup of coffee, they will be ready to hit the road again with a full charge.  The Mega chargers will be solar powered using Tesla Power Wall battery banks to store energy for when the sun is not shining and Tesla is guaranteeing a cost 7 cents per KWh, making the cost of fuel much lower than that of a traditional diesel truck.

Part of this range comes from the design of the truck which Elon Must classified as being bullet shaped with a highly aerodynamic nose and flat underside.  The Semi will also have movable flaps that will automatically adjust to the trailer it is hauling.  This all adds up to  a coefficient of drag of just 3.6.  For comparison the CD of a Bugatti Chiron is 3.8.

The truck will be driven by 4 electric motors which give this a lot of reliability and safety features.  For example the truck will be able to run with just two of the electric motors functioning which means it's lot less likely that the truck will become totally inoperable.  Elon Musk said that Tesla is guaranteeing that the truck to be able to do 1 million miles.  The motors of course will also be capable of regenerative braking which means less need to service brakes which will reduce operating costs.

Performance wise, with a full 80,000 lb. load the Tesla truck should be able to go from 0-60 in about 20 seconds and maintain 60 mph  up a 5% grade.  This is way better performance than a comparable diesel truck and should be a money maker for the trucker as faster delivery means the ability to do more deliveries.

The trucks also come with some additional safety features.  First the windshield is made from armored glass which  is less likely crack than the average truck windshield.  Elon Musk claimed that the average truck had to deal with a cracked windshield on average once a year.  The truck could not be legally driven with a cracked windshield so having a windshield that is not prone to cracking saves money and avoids costly downtime for the truck.

The Tesla trucks will also come with the enhanced auto pilot which will provide all the same benefits as the driver of a Model S.  The trucks will have lane keep ability, the truck will keep itself a safe distance from the vehicle in front, and automaticly brake to avoid a collision.  One of the interesting features that Elon said they could do now is to convoy the vehicles.  This technology has the vehicles communicate with one another allowing them to travel much closer together than would normally be safe.  When the vehicle in front needs to brake this is transmitted to the vehicles following so they all brake together eliminating the distance needed for driver reaction.  What this does is to allow a string of trucks to behave much like a railway train.

The proof of these vehicles is in the total cost of ownership.  Tesla claims that operating on a 100 mile route a diesel truck costs about $1.51 per mile to operate while the cost of the Tesla Semi would be $1.26 per mile.  If these numbers are correct then many companies will be interested in these trucks which are scheduled to go into production on 2019.  I understand that Walmart has already placed an order for some of these trucks and of course Tesla itself it going to be able to use these for shipping parts from the Reno  factory where the battery packs are made to their assembly plant in Freemont, CA, which should allow them to do very effective beta testing.

There was one more surprise left.  One of the trucks in the presentation was carrying cargo.  This turned out to be a shiny red prototype Tesla Roadster.  Elon Musk said that this roadster, when it goes on sale in 2020 will be fastest production car ever.  The current prototype can do 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, hit 100mph in 4.2 seconds, and do the standing quarter mile in only 8.9 seconds.  Elon would not say what the top speed of this car was, just that it could do in excess of 250 mph.  The car comes with a 200 KWh battery pack which gives it a range in excess of 600 miles.  Tesla will be taking orders for the 1,000 run founder edition, which will cost $250,000, and will require the full purchase price with the order.

Both the Tesla trucks and the second generation Tesla Roadster look like more home runs for the company.  Not everyone was impressed though.  Some journalists have said that these reveals are just a tactic to divert attention for the current state of production hell that is the Tesla Model 3.  That might be true but the timing of these reveals seems about right for this stage in the product life cycle, and Tesla was hinting at these vehicles long before Model 3 production started.

Sunday November 12, 2017 – EV Tax Credit in Jeopardy – Last week the Senate released their version of legislation aimed at revamping the tax code and like the version put forward by Congress it provides large tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy while taking away many tax deductions, one of which will be the Federal tax credits on the sale of electric cars. 

The idea behind the current tax credit is to offset the increased cost of electric cars over ICE vehicles so that the manufacturers can scale up to the point where they can reach price parity.  This is done to promote the new technology that is beneficial to society until it reaches widen enough acceptance that it no longer needs help.

The current tax credit varies from $2,500 to $7,500 and is basically set depending on the size of the battery pack.  All BEVs currently in production earn the full $7,500 but most plug-in hybrids get lesser amounts.  This tax credit it applicable to the first 200,000 vehicles sold in the USA by each manufacturer.  So far no manufacturer has reached this level of sales but some are coming close.  Tesla for example have sold about 170,000 cars and should hit the 200,000 mark by the end of the 1st quarter of 2018.  GM is also likely to hit 200,000 by the end of next year.

The whole idea of tax reform is supposed to be to spur industry but the Republicans have show that they are really interested in supporting old dying industries.  While the paltry sums being spent on EV tax credits are being cut, something that will have almost negligible affect on the growth in the deficit that is sure to result from the proposed tax legislation, billions in tax breaks for for the fossil fuel industry are not being touched.

Strategically this is a very poor decision as it will place the US Automobile industry at a huge disadvantage, effectively handing the industry over to the Chinese, who are pushing electric cars like crazy, while here in the US the government tries to keep the old school technology going even though we know that ICE cars are bad for our health and the health of our planet.

It wasn't totally unexpected that the republicans would try and end the EV tax credit, it is surprising that it lasted so long.  I really expected that the tax credit would have been one of the early targets for the Trump  administration as they waged war against the idea that we humans were the primary cause of climate change. 

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We are currently at a critical point in the adoption of electric cars.  Most automakers have come to the conclusion that the future is going to be electric cars.  There are a few hold-outs, mostly Fiat-Chrysler and Mazda, although both are reluctantly working on vehicle electrification.  Honda and Toyota do see electric vehicles as the future but believe that hydrogen will be the power source and so are actively investing in fuel cell technology but are also working on battery electric technology too. 
 
In the end I think the elimination of the tax credit may have a huge impact on electric car sales in the US as electric cars loose their competitiveness.  The brunt of this is going to be born by the traditional carmakers.  The largest impact will be on GM and Nissan as the loss of the tax credit will make the leaf, bolt, and Volt much less price competitive with ICE vehicles in their class.  Plug-in hybrids like the Ford Fusion Energi are going to be less impacted by the loss of the tax credit since the amount of the credit is much smaller with these cars.

 
Tesla is the car company that is hardest to call.  Most people who put down deposits for the Model 3 knew in advance that Tesla would reach  200,000 car sales long before their car would roll off the production line in Fremont, CA.  Even with  this knowledge they went ahead and placed an order anyway.  I suspect that most will continue with their purchase just because they want a Tesla.  I think we will see something similar with the Model S and Model X.  These are cars in the luxury segment of the market where price is a much lower factor in purchase decisions.  The only sad thing is that Tesla has been unable to ramp up Model 3 production as it predicted so thousands of people who should have been able to get the tax credit will miss out if it gets dropped.

The loss of the tax credit is going to impact foreign car companies much less than it does the domestic car industry.  While the US takes away incentives to move toward electric based transportation systems the same cannot be said for other parts of the world.  Europe and Japan is still going to be providing incentives for plug-in cars so companies like Nissan, BMW, and VW , who sell most of their plug-in cars outside the US, are still going to be able to reach the sort of volume needed to drive prices down.  The same can be said of the booming EV market in China.  If the US is not careful plug-in cars from Chinese companies like BYD and Cherry could end up taking huge chunks of market share from GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

The Automobile companies also have to deal with things like the California Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate where they have to sell a certain number of cars each year in the California or the 12 other states and Washington DC that follow California emissions rules.  That's one of the reasons why the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is also lobbying to keep the tax credit.

If the republicans are successful in passing their tax bill this year then I expect to see a large jump in people buying cars in December so they can take advantage of the tax credit.  This will cause inventory on dealer lots to be depleted so sales in January will more than likely be low and people shouldn't read too much into that.  March 2018 sales are actually going to be a better measure of the impact of the tax credit.  In March 2017 a total of 13,857 plug-in cars were sold.  It will be interesting to see how well this tracks in 2018 ignoring sales of the Model 3, which should be just starting to ramp up volume by March but were not available in March 2017. 

How can you help?  If you agree with me that the tax credit is still needed to help the US carmakers maintain technological parity with carmakers around the world, contact your representatives in Congress and the Senate and let them know that the elimination of the tax credit is a bad idea if they truly want to maintain the long term health of the automobile industry in the US.

On December 17, 2017 Noel added - Good news; it looks like the final version of the tax bill, which is expected to be voted on by Congress and the Senate next week will preserve both the EV tax credit and the renewable energy credit.

Sunday November 5, 2017 – October 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  October 2017 was the best October on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 14,598 plug-in cars were sold in October, well ahead of the previous highest October sales set in October 2016 which saw estimated sales of 11,007 cars. 

After selling 1,453 cars in September, Volt sales fell to 1,362 cars in October.  Sales were substantially down from October 2016 when 2,191 Volts were sold.  October saw the worst month for Volt sales since they sold 1,126 cars back in February 2016.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a big impact on Chevy Volt sales and there is a rumor that GM is considering replacing the Volt with  a plug-in hybrid crossover.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt have been increasing steadily each month since April and September saw a new record high at 2,632 cars.  This record didn't stand for long as the Bolt set a new record of 2,781 cars in October.  The Bolt is now technically available nationwide but inventory is still pretty slim in many areas, but should be growing steadily over the next few months. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  So far this year only 14 Spark EVs have been sold.  Somehow in June and July Chevy managed to find 1 more Spark EV to sell but no cars were sold in August, September, or October.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. In July sales were just 2 cars while in August sales dropped down to 1 car and no cars were sold in September or October.

The replacement for the ELR is the Cadillac CT6 PHEV and sales have been growing ever so slowly since it went on sale in April.  Each month since it went on sale has set a new sales record with the 27 cars sold in October, the exact same number that they sold in September. 

In October GM sold a total of 4,170 plug-n cars, up from the 4,112 it sold in September.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In the third quarter Tesla usually focuses on domestic sales in a rush to meet quarterly sales estimates. In October Tesla sales were an estimated 2,115 cars.

After selling an estimated 4,860 Model S sedans in September, sales in October tumbled to just 1,120 cars.  This was the second worst month of the year for Model S sales with only January sales of 900 coming in lower.

Sales of the Model X didn't fare quite so badly in October with estimated sales of 850 cars. This total was still the fourth lowest month of sales this year.  Previously in September Tesla had sold an estimated 3,120 cars.

Tesla held a delivery party on July 28th to deliver the first Model 3 cars to 30 customers.  In August they built another 100 cars but not all of these were delivered to customers.  Inside EV estimates that Tesla actually delivered somewhere between 40 and 75 cars setting their estimate at the high end of the range at 75.  Tesla said it would ramp up production to approximately 1,500 in September and expected to be building about 20,000 cars per month by December.  This ramp-up appears to have been delayed due to what Tesla describes as "bottlenecks in production", with the largest problem being the battery pack assembly at the Gigafactory, so in September only 115 Model 3s were delivered.  This number increased just slightly in October when an estimated 145 model 3 cars were delivered.  Tesla now estimates that they won't reach the 5000 cars per week production level until towards the end of the first quarter of 2018.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In October they sold a total of 2,045 cars spread across their seven plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016.  Recently though they seem to have stabilized in the 500 - 600 car range.  In September they sold 538 cars which is at the bottom of this range but October saw sales step outside the range once again, increasing to 686 cars.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in June they were close to the bottom of that range selling 22 cars.  July saw a little bit of an improvement as sales climbed to 55 cars, but August saw them drop  back to 29 cars while in September they pulled back further to 27 cars.  In October there was a slight increase to 33 cars.

Sales of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In  September sales were 333 cars and this fell by 10 cars in October to 323 cars.

After selling 409 cars in August, sales of the 330e fell to 329 cars in September and again in October to 292.  This is not bad considering that inventory hovered to around 500 units as the 2018 model year cars trickled in.

I was expecting sales of the BMW 530e to follow a similar patter to the 740e with sales remaining low and fluctuating as BMW were able to supply inventory.  BMW seem to be doing a good job with the 530e with sales in September hitting 511 cars then climbing to 583 cars in October.

Sales of the BMW 740e is expected to remain low for the rest of this year as the car is basically sold out so the US only received a token inventory.  October sales were 54 cars up slightly from the 43 cars sold in September.

At the very end of June BMW started selling yet another plug-in hybrid, the Mini Countryman PHEV placing 10 of them in the hands of Customers.  In July, its first full month of sales, 75 cars were delivered to customers and sales improved in August to 86 cars but fell back to 80 cars in September and to 74 cars in October.  The Mini Countryman PHEV has an EPA estimated all electric range of 12 miles and can run in EV mode up to 78mph.

One of the big success stories of 2017 is the Toyota Prius Prime which is selling extremely well considering that it is sold in only a small number of states and dealer inventory is limited.  In October, even with  inventory climbing to over 3,000 cars on dealer lots, sales of the Prius Prime dropped from 1,899 cars sold in September down to 1,626 cars in October.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in October they sold 203 Mirai FCEVs.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 2,202 Mirai.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 1,485 Plug-in Cars in October.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in October sales were 310 cars.  This was considerably lower than the 375 cars they sold in September.

After a rocky start, sales of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivan seem to be taking off again after a glitch in July where sales were just 125 cars.  August got back to what appears to be more normal sales of 300 to 500 cars per month with sales of 345 cars and in September sales improved further to 475 cars.  Sales in October really took off with 1,175 minivans being sold.  Unfortunately the plant where they are made was closed down for re-tooling for most of October so I expect sales in November to be hard hit by lack of inventory.

Ford didn't do so well in October selling just 1,425 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and September was no exception with sales of 741 cars.  Previously in September 763 cars were sold.

 
Sales for the C-Max Energi fell in October to 569 cars after selling 683 cars in September.
 
The Ford Focus EV has remained in its usual range of 100 to 200 cars selling 115 cars in October after 131 cars in September.  At least it is consistent.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016.   In August, they broke out of this range selling an estimated 300 cars, their best sales month ever.  They didn't do quite as well in September and October but still managed to stay well above the 200 car level selling 255 and 210 cars respectively.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January.  After setting a new all time high in August selling 182 cars they continued the upward trend with another all time high at 228 cars in September and increased sales again in October by selling 235 cars.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 445 plug-in cars in October.

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV normally sells in the 100 - 200 range but strayed outside this range by selling 265 cars in August, a record high. September saw a pullback with 236 cars sold.  In October it dropped back to its normal selling range with 174 cars sold.

Volvo is one of the companies that has committed to electrifying their entire lineup of cars.  Toward this end they began selling the XC60 PHEV at the end of July, delivering 13 cars.  In August they delivered and additional 65 cars while September saw an additional 97 sales.  October saw sales edge up  to 100 cars.  The XC60 PHEV is an SUV that offers an EPA estimated 18 miles of all electric range.

In September Volvo introduced their first plug-in hybrid sedan, the S90 T8 PHEV selling 5 units.  October saw sales increase to 28 cars.  If Volvo can stock this car in quantity is should sell quite well..

In October Volvo sold a total of 302 Plug-in Vehicles.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In October they sold just 295 cars, down from the 397 cars they sold in September.  The reason for this is that the old models are almost gone and the new models are either AWOL or just trickling into dealerships.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In June they fell within this range by selling 324 cars but moved back below the normal range in July with sales of just 218 cars.  In August sales fell even further to 129 cars and continued their free-fall moving just 85 copies in September and just 17 in October.  The 2017s are just about gone and the 2018s probably won't arrive in any number until early next year so sales will be very weak for the rest of the year.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in July sales came in right in the middle of the normal range at 308 cars.  Sales in August were just a little higher at 317 cars but fell to 187 in September but moved back into the normal selling range in October selling 203 cars.

The Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid sold a 124 cars in September, but managed to sell just 73 cars in October.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  Porsche dealers did managed to find 2 copies to sell in October after selling just 1 car in September.

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 190 cars in September climbing to 210 cars in October.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California, delivering 19 cars to paying customers.  May saw sales climb to 75 cars but June saw a pullback to 58 cars and in July sales pulled back even further to 43 cars.  August saw somewhat of a recovery climbing back to 66 cars but September pulled back again to 36 cars and just 28 cars in October.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected in the fall.

In October Hyundai sold a total of 238 plug-in cars. 

With sales of the next generation Nissan Leaf expected to Start early next year I have expected sales of the current model to fall off but that didn't happen until October when, after selling over 1,000 cars per month sales fell off a cliff at just 213 cars.  Previously in September they sold 1,055.  Going forward I expect to see slow sales of the current generation Leaf as inventory is depleted in advance of the new model's arrival currently set for early 2018.

It appears that Mercedes-Benz is going to discontinue production of the B250e later this year so I expect sales will continue to be low for this vehicle which normally sells in the 40 - 60 range.  In June  46 cars were sold but sales climbed above the normal trading range in July to 81 cars but dipped back into this range in August selling 58 cars while September saw a surge in sales hitting 87 cars with October sales falling back to 59 cars. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars.   September sales fell below this range for the second straight month with 35 cars being sold and this trend continued in October with sales of just 16 cars.

Sales of the  Mercedes Benz GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV have recently hovered in the 30 - 60 range.  In July sales fell slightly below the normal trading range with just 27 cars making it off dealer lots.  Things got even worse in August with just 23 cars sold while September sales dropped to just 14 cars and again in October to 8 cars making this the worst sales month ever for this SUV.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

The Mercedes-Benz C350e set a new sales record in August selling 212 cars.  This would have seriously depleted inventory and in September sales dropped to a more normal 126 cars and tumbled further to just 49 cars in October.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 132 Plug-in cars in October.

I have been asking for a while now when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Well, it finally arrived in August with sales of 94 cars.  In September, as inventory improved, sales climbed to 123 cars but in October sales fell back to 73 cars.  To put this in context, Smart sold just 140 cars in the US for October so the electric model made up more than 50% of Smart sales for the month.

Honda had been out of Plug-in sales since they sold the last of the Accord PHEV cars in early 2016.  That changed in July as Honda delivered the first 34 copies of the Honda Clarity BEV.  For August Honda sold 15 of the BEV version but this increased to 52 cars in September.  For October Honda reported just 34 sales of the Clarity brand but they do not break out BEV from FCEV.  Inside EV attributed all sales to BEV while CarSalesBase.com attributed all sales to FCEV.  I am going to split this down the middle and say that they Sold and estimated 17 Clarity EVs.

Like Toyota, Honda is also investing big-time in Fuel Cell Vehicles.  In October I estimate that they leased 17 Clarity FCEVs. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales needing to sell just 1,579 plug-in cars surpass the record high of 158,617 cars sold in 2016.  This should be easy even without significant Tesla Model 3 sales.  The question is not will 2017 be a record year but rather how will we fare in 2018 given that the republican tax plan includes ending the federal tax credit for electric cars after the end of this year.

Sunday October 29, 2017 – Autocar EV Bashing  – I was looking through some of the early reports from the 2017 Tokyo  Motor Show that just got underway this weekend, and I found several articles in the automotive press that were bemoaning the fact that most of the concept cars tended toward autonomous and electric vehicles.  An article in the British automobile magazine Autocar caught my attention.

There was a paragraph in there that read "In part, that’s why the simmering resentment among some of them about having their hands forced into making battery-electric cars is worth listening to. Their concern is not just about the billions being sunk into developing the technologies required, but a seemingly heartfelt belief that the infrastructure hasn’t been put in place to measure that battery electric cars do have a significantly lower environmental impact than combustion-engined cars."

This paragraph pointed to another article by Jim Holder entitled, "Electric cars: how environmentally-friendly is emissions-free?", that goes on to list all the widely debunked myths about zero emission vehicles being less environmentally friendly than gas cars.  Autocar is the longest running magazine devoted to automobiles, having been published since November 2, 1895 so I guess they are not very receptive to change.

His opening paragraph  sets the stage as he lists out the major points he is trying to make.

His first sentence says "The world’s 16 largest ships create as much CO2 as every car on the planet."  Actually no, this comes from a misreading of pollution as CO2.  What the 16 largest ships create is more S02 (Sulfur Dioxide) than all the cars in the world, and probably a few other pollutants too.  The reason is that while at see ships burn a form of oil known as bunker fuel which has a very high sulfur content.  I contrast, most countries now require low sulfur gasoline and diesel and in the US even coal fired plants are restricted in the amount of sulfur in the coal they burn or have scrubbers to remove the sulfur before it gets into the atmosphere.   
 
In his second sentence he adds, "It is better for the environment to keep running a 20-year old car than to scrap it and draw on more natural resources to buy another one."  There may be some truth to that but typically a 20 year old car is possibly going to be highly unreliable and if you live in the UK, as I assume Jim Holder does, it is probably going to be a rust bucket that is going to be highly unsafe.  I'm a big fan of keeping cars for a long time but older cars tend to be more polluting and over time you are going to be using resources to replace parts that wear out.  Engines and gearboxes start to leak oil and adds to the pollution.  At some point you are more than likely going to update your car so why not get one that pollutes less over its life.

Next he pulls up the most repeated and debunked claim of all, "Firing a coal power station to create energy for a car battery is dirtier and less efficient than burning fuel to power an engine to power a car." Well, who calls up the electric company to have them fire up a coal power plant to charge their battery?  Personally I like to cruise down to the local solar powered charging station but then again that's me.  The truth is that coal as a power source is dying being replaced by much cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind and that is part of the equation.  In the UK most of the coal fired power stations have been modified to burn Natural gas which is way way cleaner and produces a lot less CO2.  The truth  is that as the power generation mix gets cleaner so do electric cars.  Truthfully so do gas cars too since there is a lot of electricity used in the refining and distribution of gasoline and diesel, but much less so than with electric cars.

Finally he goes on to say "There isn’t enough lithium ion on the planet to meet the world’s escalating electric car ambitions. And so the list goes on."  Well, new sources of lithium are being found and will continue to be found as we move forward.  For example, Tesla is currently working with a couple of companies to source lithium in the US and Bolivia has only just scratched the surface of its Lithium reserves.  Meanwhile, most of the low hanging fruit of the crude oil world has already been plucked so extracting oil is becoming more expensive and requiring more energy.

He then goes into detail about the use of child labor in the mining of lithium.  Once again he has it somewhat wrong.  The child labor violations are actually in the mining of Cobalt.  The largest source of Cobalt, a chemical used in the production of some lithium batteries including most that power your cell phone, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which is known for exploitation of child labor.  Some companies like Apple are trying to move away from mined Cobalt and Tesla is trying to establish a source in North America but as of now the DRC accounts for between 50% and 60% of the world's supply.

Ford and GM get their batteries from LG Chem which has already stopped using Cobalt sourced in the DRC.

So  here is what we do know.  Hundreds of thousands around the world die prematurely each year from air pollution caused by the automobile.  A recent study showed 200,000 deaths from air pollution in the USA alone, of which 58,000 were directly linked to the automobile.

In the end we have to take steps to stop pollution.  That means cleaner energy sources as well as cleaner ways to use those energy resources.  Right now one problem we have is that we don't have a large scale set-up for recycling lithium.  Given the number of lap top and cell phone batteries that are being discarded every day we really need to do a better job of recycling them.  So far we don't have a lot of dead EV traction batteries to establish large scale recycling facilities.  Most batteries coming out of EVs are either being reused in conversion projects or being used for grid energy storage.  Eventually we will need to recycle lithium batteries like we recycle lead acid batteries today.

Sunday September 22, 2017 – Still Work to be Done – This week Joel Levin from Plug-in America sent me a link to an article by Mary Katherine Campbell called "The Future really is Electric, just ask General Motors, and Volvo, and Daimler, and Ford, and..." in which she reminds us that while many auto companies are shifting to electric there is still lots of work we need to do to make sure they stay on track. 

While these companies have committed to electrification of their vehicles we have to know what they mean by electric.  For example Volvo says that all its models will be electric by 2019.  This sounds pretty good, but the fine print reveals that while the direction is to go full electric most Volvo cars will actually be mild hybrids in 2019, meaning that the real change is to add a bigger battery to do engine stop/start not to actually drive the car in EV mode.  This does improve fuel efficiency and reduce pollution and CO2 so it is a step in the right direction but it has sometimes been oversold by the media.  Ford has also committed to making lots of its models electric but again the fine print shows that only 7 will actually be plug-in. 

Not all companies have bought in to electrification either.  Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat Chrysler, once asked people not to buy the Fiat 500e claiming that they lost $14,000 on each car they sold.  His strategy appears to be to make a few electric cars while waiting for something better to come along.  Other companies are also going EV reluctantly.  Mazda once told an audience of journalists at the LA Auto show that they could get better results from improving the internal combustion engine.  They are now in a consortium with Toyota trying to play catch-up.  Toyota and Honda, I think partially under pressure from the Japanese government, has jumped feet first into fuel cell vehicles and are also reluctantly starting to build plug-in cars to meet stricter emission standards.

Let's take a look at just how far we have to go.  So far this year an estimated 142,514 plug-in cars have been sold in the USA and we are on track break 200,000 for this year, depending on how well Tesla does at getting its production of the Model 3 rolling.  In contrast Ford sold a total of 222,248 vehicles in September, 1,577 of which could be plugged in.  

Ford's biggest selling model is the F-150 pickup which sold 82,302 trucks in September.  That's almost 4 times the estimated 21,325 plug-in vehicles sold in September.  The Ford Escape, at 25,575, also sold more cars than the total number of plug-in cars sold in September.

Similar statistics could be given for GM also with the Chevy Silverado (55,236) and Chevy Malibu (23,989) having sales in September that were more than the total number of plug-in cars sold in that month.

Clearly there is a hole in the plug-in universe.  None of the major carmakers is producing a plug-in truck and while there are a few Plug-in Hybrid SUVs on the market the closest that we come to a fully electric SUV is the Tesla Model X which is in the Luxury Car segment.  Both Via Motors and Workhorse do sell plug-in pickup trucks but both of these target the fleet market and do not report monthly sales.  The assumption is that monthly sales are pretty low for these two companies.  The question is, when is Ford or GM or Fiat/Chrysler going to come out with an all electric truck that can compete in the large truck market segment? 

So far I think I've been painting a bit of a bleak picture here as things are actually going quite well.  For example, Chevy sold a record 2,632 Bolts in September.  This outsold quite a few of Chevy's other models including The Corvette (1,506), Chevy Sonic (1,356), Chevy Spark ICE (2,009).  At Cadillac only one model, the XT5 (7,302) managed to sell more that the Chevy Bolt. Buick had three models that outsold the Bolt, the Encore (8,262), Enclave (3,991) and Envision (2,726).

So yes, I agree with Mary Katherine Campbell that we do need to keep vigilant and make sure that the move toward electrification of the transportation fleet keeps moving forward.  I want to see the Model 3 rolling off the assembly line in larger numbers.  I want to see a bigger variety of vehicles getting a plug.  Unfortunately the policies of our current Federal government is trying to push us back into the ICE age.  They do it, they say, to  help the economy and create jobs, but China is expected to produce over a million electric cars next year and if the US auto companies don't get on the electric road and stay on it, China will eat their lunch. 

Sunday October 15, 2017 – Move to End ICE Sales – While the US government is dismantling the Obama era laws that helped protect the environment, around the world other nations are beginning to take action that can only mean the end to the internal combustion engine (ICE) as a source of motive power. 

Oxford is the latest European city to move toward banning ICE vehicles in the city center, they are starting to introduce Zero Emission Zones where only zero emission vehicles will be allowed to drive.  The plan begin to ban gas and diesel powered cars, trucks, and buses from the entire city center by 2020.  One issue yet to be decided is if Plug-in Hybrids will be allowed to travel the streets in EV mode only or if they too will be banned.

What is interesting is that the move is not part of a drive to end global warming, although it will result in some reduction in the amount of CO2 produced, it is targeted as reducing the amount of oxides of nitrogen and other pollutants that have an impact on peoples health.  City Council board member John Tanner summed it up when he said "All of us who drive or use petrol or diesel vehicles through Oxford are contributing to the city's toxic air".

Paris has also announced that it plans to ban gas and diesel cars within city limits by 2030 and London is introducing an "ultra low emissions zone" which will work in a similar way to its existing congestion zone by charging a fee for gas and diesel cars to drive in this Zone.  London's congestion zone already works like this by allowing low polluting vehicles to enter the congestion zone without paying the daily fee.

The UK has already said it plans to ban the sale of gas and diesel cars by 2040 and the Scottish parliament has already said it plans to be more aggressive than the rest of the UK by targeting 2032 as the date to say goodbye to sales of ICE vehicles.  France is another major car market that plans to ban ICE vehicles by 2040.  In the case of France, with  most of its power generation coming from nuclear, the electric car will be especially good as it will be able to take up a lot of the capacity that is wasted overnight when nuclear power plants need to run but demand is low.

Other large, or potentially large car markets that have said they plan to ban sales of ICE vehicles are India and the worlds largest car market China.  A full ban by these two nations could really disrupt the worlds oil markets.

On a smaller scale the Netherlands has also said that it would phase out sales of new ICE vehicles by 2025.  Electric vehicles already have a 6.4% share of the market in the Netherlands, the second highest of any country.  Norway, where electric vehicles have a 29% market share, has also been widely reported as initiating a ban on sales of new ICE cars but it actually does not have one.  Instead they are using a carrot and stick approach with high taxes on ICE vehicles and large incentives on electric vehicles.  It appears to be working too; it was reported that 48% of car sales in September were electric.

Other countries considering an outright ban of ICE vehicle sales are Germany, Japan, Denmark, Spain, Portugal Ireland and South Korea.  California is also considering an outright ban on ICE vehicles although this is unlikely to happen as it may be slanted as an attempt to set fuel economy standards which are controlled by the Federal Government.  There is a high probability that such a law would get overturned in the inevitable law suite that would follow its passing.   I do see a possibility that individual cities may decide to take the London route and add Low Emission Zones in city centers.

Such looming laws are bound to have an impact on the automobile industry and all carmakers are now spending lots of money to develop and bring to market electric vehicles.  This can be illustrated by announcements recently made by GM and Ford who both recently came forward and laid out a future that will be more and more dominated by electrification.  GM for example recently announced that they are working on bringing 23 electric vehicles to market by 2023 with the first of these rolling out over the next 18 months.  Ford responded by saying that it will roll out 13 electric vehicles, with at least 7 of them being plug-in, over the next 5 years.

While much  of this has been driven by plans to fight global warming it appears that one of the big triggers has been the VW diesel emissions scandal.  The car makers have done a good PR job with diesel promoting it as a green alternative to reduce CO2 emissions.  Go back and read old articles in the press and you  will rarely see "Diesel" without the term "Clean" in front of it.  Look at the past 10 years or so and see how many times Green Car Journal has awarded Green Car of the Year awards to "Clean Diesel" cars.  Europe in particular embraced diesel even though many studies had linked particulate emissions to heart disease.  Then Diesel-gate struck and people began to realize that ICE cars are just not conducive to peoples health.

The move to electric vehicles has become inevitable and the outright banning of sales of ICE vehicles in major automotive markets is just one more nail in the coffin of internal combustion.  On July 24, 2003 a funeral was held for the EV1.  The EV1 was dead but the electric car lived on.  I wonder how long before we have a funeral for the ICE car?.

Sunday October 8, 2017 – September 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  September 2017 was the best September on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 21,325 plug-in cars were sold in September, well ahead of the previous highest September sales in September 2016 which saw estimated sales of 17,224 cars. 

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In the third quarter Tesla usually focuses on domestic sales in a rush to meet quarterly sales estimates. In September Tesla sales were an estimated 8,095 cars.

After selling an estimated 2,150 Model S sedans in August, sales in September climbed to 4,860 cars.  This was the best month of the year for Model S sales, and the second best total ever, only being eclipsed by the 5,850 cars sold in December 2016.

Sales of the Model X also hit a high for the year in September with estimated sales of 3,120 cars. This total was slightly down from the estimated 3,200 cars they sold in September 2016.  Previously in August Tesla had sold an estimated 1,575 cars.

Tesla held a delivery party on July 28th to deliver the first Model 3 cars to 30 customers.  In August they built another 100 cars but not all of these were delivered to customers.  Inside EV estimates that Tesla actually delivered somewhere between 40 and 75 cars setting their estimate at the high end of the range at 75.  Tesla said it would ramp up production to approximately 1,500 in September and expected to be building about 20,000 cars per month by December.  This ramp-up appears to have been delayed due to what Tesla describes as "bottlenecks in production" so in September only 115 Model 3s were delivered.  This number is going to be pretty accurate as it is based on the Tesla's its 3rd quarter sales numbers.

After selling 1,445 cars in August, Volt sales stayed pretty much the same, Climbing ever so slightly to 1,453 cars.  Sales were substantially down from September 2016 when 2,031 Volts were sold.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a big impact on Chevy Volt sales and there is a rumor that GM is considering replacing the Volt with  a plug-in hybrid crossover.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt have been increasing steadily each month since April and September saw a new record high at 2,632 cars.  Previously in August 2,107 cars were sold.  The Bolt is now technically available nationwide but inventory is still pretty slim in many areas. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  So far this year only 14 Spark EVs have been sold.  Somehow in June and July Chevy managed to find 1 more Spark EV to sell but no cars were sold in August or September.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. In July sales were just 2 cars while in August sales dropped down to 1 car and no cars were sold in September.

The replacement for the ELR is the Cadillac CT6 PHEV and sales have been growing ever so slowly since it went on sale in April.  Each month since it went on sale has set a new sales record with the 27 cars sold in September just topping the 23 cars sold in August. 

In September GM sold a total of 4,112 plug-n cars, up from the 3,576 it sold in August.

One of the big success stories of 2017 is the Toyota Prius Prime which is selling extremely well considering that it is sold in only a small number of states and dealer inventory is very limited.  In August 1,820 cars were sold and this number increased to 1,899 cars in September.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in August they sold 184 Mirai FCEVs.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 2,098 Mirai.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In September they sold a total of 1,861 cars spread across their seven plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016.  Recently though they seem to have stabilized in the 500 - 600 car range.  In August they sold 504 cars which is at the bottom of this range while September saw a small increase to 538 cars.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in June they were close to the bottom of that range selling 22 cars.  July saw a little bit of an improvement as sales climbed to 55 cars, but August saw them drop  back to 29 cars and in September they pulled back further to 27 cars.

Sales of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In  August sales were 317 cars and this climbed a little in September to 333 cars.

After selling 409 cars in August, sales of the 330e fell to 329 cars in September.  This is not bad considering that inventory dropped to around 400 units in advance of the 2018 model year cars that are now starting to arrive.

I was expecting sales of the BMW 530e to follow a similar patter to the 740e with sales remaining low and fluctuating as BMW were able to supply inventory.  BMW seem to be doing a good job with the 530e with sales in August hitting 345 cars then climbing to 511 cars in September.

Sales of the BMW 740e is expected to remain low for the rest of this year as the car is basically sold out so the US only received a token inventory.  September sales were 43 cars up slightly from the 39 cars sold in August.

At the very end of June BMW started selling yet another plug-in hybrid, the Mini Countryman PHEV placing 10 of them in the hands of Customers.  In July, its first full month of sales, 75 cars were delivered to customers and sales improved in August to 86 cars but fell back to 80 cars in September.  The Mini Countryman PHEV has an EPA estimated all electric range of 12 miles and can run in EV mode up to 78mph.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in September selling 1,577 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and September was no exception with sales of 763 cars.  Previously in August 762 cars were sold.

 
Sales for the C-Max Energi fell in September to 683 cars after selling 705 cars in August.
 
The Ford Focus EV has remained in its usual range of 100 to 200 cars selling 131 cars in September, exactly the same number they sold in August.  At least it is consistent.

With sales of the next generation Nissan Leaf expected to Start early next year I would have expected sales of the current model to fall off but that doesn't seem to be happening.  Nissan is still managing to sell more that 1,000 cars with  sales of 1,055 cars.  Previously in August they sold 1,154, which was just a little down from July when 1,283 cars were sold.  Going forward I expect to see slow sales of the current generation Leaf as inventory is depleted in advance of the new model's arrival currently set for early 2018.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 850 Plug-in Cars in September.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in September sales were 375 cars.  This was considerably lower than the 415 cars they sold in August.

After a rocky start, sales of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivan seem to be taking off again after a glitch in July to where sales were just 125 cars.  August got back to what appears to be more normal sales of 300 to 500 cars per month with sales of 345 cars and in September sales improved further to 475 cars.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016.  In July the Kia Soul once again stayed within it's normal trading range selling 145 cars but, in August, they broke out of this range selling an estimated 300 cars, their best sales month ever.  They didn't do quite as well in September but still managed to stay well above the 200 car level selling 255 cars.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January.  After setting a new all time high in August selling 182 cars they continued the upward trend with another all time high at 228 cars in September.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 483 plug-in cars in September.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In September they sold just 397 cars, down from the 625 cars they sold in August.  The reason for this is that the old models are almost gone and the new models are either AWOL or just trickling into dealerships.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In June they fell within this range by selling 324 cars but moved back below the normal range in July with sales of just 218 cars.  In August sales fell even further to 129 cars and continued their free-fall moving just 85 copies in September. the 2017s are just about gone and the 2018s haven't started arriving yet so things look bleak for October.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in July sales came in right in the middle of the normal range at 308 cars.  Sales in August were just a little higher at 317 cars but fell to 187 in September.  Again the issue is that the 2016 model is almost gone and the longer range 2017 model just started showing up in dealerships.

The Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid sold a solid 178 cars in August.  In September sales fell to 124 cars.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  February saw just 1 car being sold, in March this number tripled to 3 cars, and April split the difference landing at 2 cars sold, while in May sales dropped back to 1 car with no sales in June or July and just 1 car sold in August and September.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the Panamera 4 e-Hybrid .

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV normally sells in the 100 - 200 range but strayed outside this range by selling 265 cars in August, a record high. September saw a pullback with 236 cars sold.

Volvo is one of the companies that has committed to electrifying their entire lineup of cars.  Toward this end they began selling the XC60 PHEV at the end of July, delivering 13 cars.  In August they delivered and additional 65 cars while September saw an additional 97 cars being delivered to customers.  The XC60 PHEV is an SUV that offers an EPA estimated 18 miles of all electric range.

In September Volvo sold a total of 333 Plug-in Vehicles.

It appears that Mercedes-Benz is going to discontinue production of the B250e later this year so I expect sales will continue to be low for this vehicle which normally sells in the 40 - 60 range.  In June  46 cars were sold but sales climbed above the normal trading range in July to 81 cars but dipped back into this range in August selling 58 cars while September saw a surge in sales hitting 87 cars. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars.   September sales fell below this range for the second straight month with 35 cars being sold after August sales of 32 cars.

Sales of the  Mercedes Benz GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV have recently hovered in the 30 - 60 range.  In July sales fell slightly below the normal trading range with just 27 cars making it off dealer lots.  Things got even worse in August with just 23 cars sold while September sales dropped to just 14 cars making September the worst sales month ever for this SUV.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

The Mercedes-Benz C350e set a new sales record in August selling 212 cars.  This would have seriously depleted inventory and in September sales dropped to a more normal 126 cars.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 262 Plug-in cars in September

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 185 cars in August but climbed to 190 cars in September.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California, delivering 19 cars to paying customers.  May saw sales climb to 75 cars but June saw a pullback to 58 cars and in July sales pulled back even further to 43 cars.  August saw somewhat of a recovery climbing back to 66 cars but September pulled back again to 36 cars.  Hyundai say the car will eventually be sold nationwide.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected in the fall.

In September Hyundai sold a total of 226 plug-in cars. 

I have been asking for a while now when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Well, it finally arrived in August with sales of 94 cars.  In September, as inventory improved, sales climbed to 123 cars.  In September Smart sold a total of 241 cars in the US so the electric model made up  approximately 50% of Smart sales for September.

Honda had been out of Plug-in sales since they sold the last of the Accord PHEV cars in early 2016.  That changed in July as Honda delivered the first 34 copies of the Honda Clarity BEV.  For August Honda sold 15 of the BEV version but this increased to 52 cars in September.

Like Toyota, Honda is also investing big-time in Fuel Cell Vehicles.  In September they leased 14 Clarity FCEVs. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid, the Hyundai Ioniq PHEV, Honda Clarity PHEV, The Kia Niro

PHEV and the Hyundai Outlander PHEV are all set to arrive in dealerships before the end of the year.  It was disappointing, although not surprising, that Tesla's ramp up  of the model 3 has been delayed so it will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to get back on track.  In any event, carmakers around the world are investing lots of money to move their vehicle range to some form of electric power.

Sunday October 1, 2017 – Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV US bound – Back in 2012 Mitsubishi showed their Outlander PHEV at the LA Auto show and said it would be available as a 2013 model year car.  For many reasons the this launch date kept getting pushed back and while the Outlander PHEV became the best selling plug-in hybrid in Europe it was never made available in the US.  That's about to change! 

Last year Nissan bought a large stake in Mitsubishi and it is now part of the Renault-Nissan alliance.  This has moved things along and the Outlander will finally begin to show up in Mitsubishi dealerships by the end of this year.  The unfortunate part is that if they had brought it to the US in 2013 then it would have been the only plug-in SUV on the market, so it would have had no competition, but with the Kia Niro PHEV set to launch in November the car will now have some serious competition.

The Mitsubishi Outlander is driven by a 12 KWh lithium battery pack.  The EPA estimate for this car is not yet available but it looks like the range will fall somewhere around 20 miles on battery only (It is rated at 33 miles on the less stringent European test cycle).  The battery drives two electric motors one connected to the front wheels and one connected to back for true 4-wheel drive.  When the battery is depleted the 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine kicks in to provide regular hybrid driving.  It is expected that on the highway the Outlander PHEV could get  as much as 40mpg .

There are a couple of interesting things that come standard with the Outlander PHEV.  There are "shifter" paddles on the steering column that control the amount of regen that the car uses.  Using the paddles you can shift to aggressive regen, have the car recharge the batteries as you drive, or switch to charge sustaining mode where the car works as a standard hybrid and keeps the level of charge where it is so you can switch to electric only at the best time, such as when entering a city center.  The other interesting standard feature is DC fast charging.  Since battery capacity on PHEVs is usually quite small the need for fast charging isn't considered important but for the Outlander PHEV Mitsubishi provides a standard CHAdeMO port which will allow the battery pack to be brought up to 80% in 30 minutes.

The Outlander PHEV also provides a standard J1722 port that will allow the batteries to be fully charged in around 4 hours using a level 2 charger or about 8 hours using the supplied 110V charger.

The Outlander PHEV should begin to show up  in the US in December of this year at a base price of $35,535 before tax credits.  The Federal tax credit for this car is expected to be around $6,000 bringing the price down to below $30,000 for those who can take advantage of the credit.  Sales are expected to  start out slow and Mitsubishi plans to sell around 3,000 - 4,000 cars in 2018.

Sunday September 24, 2017 – 2017 Frankfort Auto Show – The 2017 Frankfurt Auto Show ends today and this year it has shown that electric vehicles have become a major component in the future of car sales in Europe.  The show overlapped National Drive Electric Week here in the USA so it is fitting that it too featured electric drive transportation prominently.

There is a lot of pressure for manufacturers to produce electric cars for sale in Europe.  Both  Britain and France have indicated that they plan to stop the sale of gas and diesel cars by 2040, while some heavily polluted German cities are considering banning Diesel cars from city centers.  German automakers are heavily invested in diesel but sales are falling rapidly and if the car companies are to survive they need to move to electric power.  They will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this future but in the end it will be either electrify or go out of business.

The car companies are beginning to invest heavily in electric technology and it appears that many of the companies will be adding more and more electric models to their mix over the next three to five years.

One interesting vehicle came from Mercedes-Benz who showed off a plug-in hybrid SUV called the GLC F-Cell.  This car, which MBZ called a pre-production version, has a Lithium ion battery pack capable of around 30 miles all electric only driving, but the usual ICE engine is replaced with  a fuel cell stack that is capable of extending the range to 300 miles.  This is not the first plug-in hybrid that uses a fuel cell, Audi showed a concept vehicle a few years ago at the LA Auto Show, but this is the first time anyone has hinted that one will be going into production.

Brabus is a company that is known for taking Mercedes-Benz cars and adding all sorts of performance modifications.  Even Brabus got into the EV act showing a Smart Electric Drive that they had modified with  a 204 hp electric motor that will rocket the car from 0-60 in just 4.5 seconds.  The car comes with a 22KWh lithium ion battery which they say will give the car a range of 100 miles on a charge, although I suspect this is measured on the European test cycle which  on the EPA test cycle would translate to a range of around 88 miles per charge. 
 
Mercedes-Benz also showed the EQA concept, a 3 door compact hatchback from their new EQ division.   This car will come with a 268hp electric motor which should make it pretty sporty.  The car will be able to travel up to 400 Km (248 miles) on a charge depending on the size of battery selected.  The first EQ brand car, the EQC compact SUV, is expected to go on sale in 2019.

Honda also had an interesting concept car, the Urban EV.  The Urban EV is a four-seat sub-compact.   The two door design features suicide doors and a bench seat in the front.  There was no indication of the electric motor configuration or battery pack to for this car but Honda did indicate that a version would be sold starting in 2019.  Honda says it plans to have two thirds of all sales in Europe be electrified by the end of 2030.

BMW showed of a couple of concepts after saying it was planning on launching 25 vehicles that have electrified power trains by 2025.

The BMW i Vision Dynamics concept is a 4 door sedan that is clearly targeted to go head to head with the Tesla Model 3.  The car is projected to go 373 Miles (600 Km) on a charge with a top speed of 120mph and a 0-60 time of 4 seconds.  The car is also equipped with all the sensors needed for fully autonomous driving.  A version of this car could be on sale as soon as 2020.

BMW also showed off their Concept X7 iPerformance full sized SUV that features 3 row seating.  This is a plug-in hybrid and it is expected that this will form the basis of most BMW models going forward.  Unfortunately there was not very much information about the power train or battery size on this concept vehicle.

There Were many other electric concepts shown in Frankfurt this year including an all electric mini, a Smart electric concept, and concepts from companies like Kia and Hyundai.  VW said that all 300 models sold globally will be electrified by 2030.  They will launch the ID all electric car by 2020 to be followed by the already announced the electric VW Bus in 2022.  Mercedes said that their Smart brand will go all electric by 2022.

The 2017 Frankfurt Auto Show may prove to be a landmark show for the electric vehicle with battery electric and plug-in hybrid versions of cars being show by nearly every automaker and these automakers are also beginning to indicate that they are going to invest in the production of more and more electric car models.  The tipping point for electric car sales is getting near.

Sunday September 17, 2017 – 2017 Santa Monica Alt Fuel Expo – Yesterday I attended the Santa Monica Alt Fuel Expo held each year at the Santa Monica Civic Center.  I got there early to try and beat the crowds and I think I managed that quite well. 

Knowing that there would be no available chargers at the Civic Center, I stopped at Santa Monica place.  Surprisingly all 6 chargers were available so I was able to plug-in for the charge I would need to get me back home.  From Santa Monica Place it is a short walk to the Civic Center. 

The Expo itself also seemed smaller.  I was told that they were doing some work in the auditorium so there was nothing being held in there, everything was set out in the parking lot.  This year there were no EV start-ups unless you  count Karma, and only one company showing conversions.  I was told that Tesla had been there on Friday but the space they occupied was empty on Saturday morning.

The first place I hit was the Nissan stand.  They had the next generation Nissan Leaf on display.  It looked to me like it was quite a bit larger than the old leaf but that shows how sometimes static displays with doors, hood, and trunk open can make the car look bigger than it actually is.  It wasn't until I noticed one of the City of Santa Monica current generation Leafs parked nearby that I could compare and realize they are pretty much the same size.  The new leaf does look quite good though and I am sure it is going to sell well.  Of course they only had a static display and were not offering test drive so after checking out the cars I  moved on.  

The one car that had a large queue for test drives was the Chevy Bolt so I bypassed that car for the time being and went over to Kia where one of the ladies there told me I would be the first person to take a test drive that day.  They had a Soul EV, Kia Optima PHEV, and a nice  looking crossover that turned out to be the Niro PHEV.  Since I have already driven the Soul EV, and the Niro was not yet on the market, I decided to give it a whirl.  It really was a nice car to drive and quite comfortable.  The lady from Kia told me that the car would go about 35 miles on a charge and will be available for sale in November.

I walked around a little bit and noticed a sign saying Karma.  Parked next to the sign was what looked like a Fisker Karma but I assume that this is the new Karma that is now being built here in California.  I didn't see anyone around to talk to so I went back to the Chevrolet stand.  The line for the Bolt had thinned a little so  I decided to bite the bullet and get in line.  I turned out I didn't need to wait too long as they had 3 bolts giving test drives.

The first thing I noticed when getting into the Bolt was the bolster at the side of the seat was very hard making getting into or out of the seat quite uncomfortable.  The seats themselves were also uncomfortable.  I'm sure they would be OK for a short commute but I wouldn't like to sit in them for a 100 miles drive.  The guy from Chevrolet told me that they had heard this a lot and were passing the message up to Detroit.  Some people seem to be OK with the seats while others have used cushions to add comfort. 

Apart from the seats the car does drive really well.  It is a fun drive with  lots of power if you stomp on the go pedal and it seems to handle pretty well, although on the short test dive in busy traffic handling is always difficult to evaluate properly.  There are also several levels of regen and it can be set to a point where it will bring the car to a complete stop allowing one foot driving.

After checking out the Bolt I moved on to Honda which had all three of their Clarity vehicles on display including the PHEV that will not be available until the end of this year.  While the Clarity FCEV and the Clarity Electric are both lease only the PHEV will actually go on sale.  Yesterday Honda were only offering rides in the Clarity Electric.

The Clarity Electric is a pretty good EV for commuting with around 88 miles or range per charge.  In this case Honda had gone for building a larger more luxury EV rather than going for a high range econo-box.  The car is a big bigger than most EVs outside of Tesla and it does have lots of nice functions such as blind spot warning and a camera that lets you look at the curb when you do a right turn.  My biggest issue with the car though was not the range but, though not quite as bad as the Bolt, the seating felt uncomfortable.

The Clarity EV is actually quite spritely when you  run it in sport mode with plenty of kick from the accelerator.  Hit the button to put it into eco mode and the acceleration is notably less but it doesn't get sluggish like some cars I've driven.  The car offers four levels of regen controlled by a pair of paddles on the steering column.  The paddles are marked + and - but their use is counterintuitive.  If you  want to increate regen you pull up on the - paddle and if you want to reduce it you pull up on the + paddle.  I tried all 4 levels during my test drive but compromised on using level 2 for most of the course.

While I was exiting the car I got an alert on my phone saying my car was fully charged.  Not wanting to hog the charger, and having already driven most of the other cars available for test drives, I decided to head back to the car and get some lunch on the way home.

I have been attending the Santa Monica Alt Fuel Expo since it was just the clean car show held on 3rd Street Promenade where they first introduced cars like the Nissan Altra, Gizmo, and T-Zero to the public.  This year was the quietest that I have ever seen the event.  Lately this event has become part of National Drive Electric Week and I think that this has given potential attendees other options but lower crowds meant shorter lines for test drives so all in all it was a pretty enjoyable event. 

Sunday September 10, 2017 – August 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  August 2017 was the best August on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 16,624 plug-in cars were sold in August, well ahead of the previous highest August sales in August 2016 which saw estimated sales of 14,592 cars. 

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In the third quarter Tesla usually focuses on domestic sales in a rush to meet quarterly sales estimates. In August Tesla sales were an estimated 3,800 cars.

After selling an estimated 1,425 Model S sedans in July, sales in August climbed to 2,150 cars.  This was well below the estimated 2,852 cars sold in August, 2016.  Word is that Tesla is ramping up for a big push for September deliveries.

Sales of the Model X in August were unusual as they actually fell slightly below the July sales of 1,650 cars at 1,575 cars.  It looks like Tesla were getting rid of cars from inventory and demo vehicles with customer delivery expected to kick into high gear in September.

Tesla held a delivery party on July 28th to deliver the first Model 3 cars to 30 customers.  In August they built another 100 cars but not all of these were delivered to customers.  Inside EV estimates that Tesla actually delivered somewhere between 40 and 75 cars setting their estimate at the high end of the range at 75.  Tesla said it would ramp up production to approximately 1,500 in September and expected to be building about 20,000 cars per month by December.  It will be interesting to see how many of their September production makes it into customers hands.

After selling 1,518 cars in July, August saw Volt sales fall to 1,445 cars.  Sales were substantially down from August 2016 when 2,081 Volts were sold.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a big impact on Chevy Volt sales and there is a rumor that GM is considering replacing the Volt with  a plug-in hybrid crossover.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt increased in August up from 1,971 cars sold in July topping the 2,000 mark for the first time at 2,107 cars.  The Bolt is now technically available nationwide but inventory is still pretty slim in many areas. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  So far this year only 14 Spark EVs have been sold.  Somehow in June and July Chevy managed to find 1 more Spark EV to sell but no cars were sold in August.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. In July sales were just 2 cars while in August sales dropped down to 1 car.

The replacement for the ELR is the Cadillac CT6 and sales have been growing ever so slowly since it went on sale in April.  Each month since it went on sale has set a new sales record with the 23 cars sold in August just topping the 22 cars sold in July. 

In August GM sold a total of 3,576 plug-n cars, up from the 3,515 it sold in July.

One of the big success stories of 2017 is the Toyota Prius Prime which is selling extremely well considering that it is sold in only a small number of states and dealer inventory is very limited.  In July 1,645 cars were sold and this number jumped to 1,820 cars in August.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in August they sold 70 Mirai FCEVs.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,912 Mirai.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In August they sold a total of 1,729 cars spread across their seven plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016.  Recently though they seem to have stabilized in the 500 - 600 car range.  In July they  601 cars which is at the top of this range while August saw them dropping to the bottom of the range at 504 cars.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in June they were close to the bottom of that range selling 22 cars.  July saw a little bit of an improvement as sales climbed to 55 cars, but August saw them drop  back to 29 cars.

Sales of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In May they actually got back into the old range managing to sell 433 and stayed in that range for June with 488 cars sold, and July with sales of 463 cars, but in August sales fell to 317 cars.

After selling 387 cars in July, sales of the 330e climbed to 409 in August.  This is not bad considering that inventory dropped to around 400 units in advance of the 2018 model year cars that are now starting to arrive.

I was expecting sales of the BMW 530e to follow a similar patter to the 740e with sales remaining low and fluctuating as BMW were able to supply inventory.  BMW seem to be doing a good job with the 530e with sales in August hitting 345 cars after they sold 343 cars in July.

Sales of the BMW 740e is expected to remain low for the rest of this year as the car is basically sold out so the US only received a token inventory.  In July sales were 80 cars but dropped to just 39 cars in August.

At the very end of June BMW started selling yet another plug-in hybrid, the Mini Countryman PHEV placing 10 of them in the hands of Customers.  In July, its first full month of sales, 75 cars were delivered to customers and sales improved in August to 86 cars.  The Mini Countryman PHEV has an EPA estimated all electric range of 12 miles and can run in EV mode up to 78mph.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in August selling 1,598 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and in August it recaptured that position after being outsold for two straight month by the C-Max Energi, with sales of 762 cars.  Previously in July 703 cars were sold.

 
Sales for the C-Max Energi fell in August to 705 cars after selling 844 cars in July.
 
The Ford Focus EV has dropped back to its usual range of 100 to 200 cars selling 131 cars in August after selling 148 cars in July.  At least it is consistent.

As I write this, Nissan just showed its next generation Nissan Leaf in Tokyo and Las Vegas.  The car will offer about 150 miles of electric range at a base price of around $30,000.  While this has had some impact on sales of the current generation leaf Nissan still managed to sell more that 1,000 cars in August with sales of 1,154, which was just a little down from July when 1,283 cars were sold.  Going forward I expect to see slow sales of the current generation Leaf as inventory is depleted in advance of the new model's arrival currently set for early 2018.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 840 Plug-in Cars in June.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in July sales were 475 cars.  This Dropped to a still respectable 415 cars in August.

After a rocky start, sales of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivan seem to be taking off again after a glitch in July to where sales were just 125 cars.  August got back to what appears to be more normal sales of 300 to 500 cars per month with sales of 345 cars.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In August they sold a total of 625 cars, down just a bit from the 686 cars they sold in July.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In June they fell within this range by selling 324 cars but moved back below the normal range in July with sales of just 218 cars.  In August sales fell even further to 129 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in July sales came in right in the middle of the normal range at 308 cars.  Sales in August were just a little higher at 317 cars.

The Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid sold a solid 160 cars in July.  In August sales climbed a little to 178 cars.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  February saw just 1 car being sold, in March this number tripled to 3 cars, and April split the difference landing at 2 cars sold, while in May sales dropped back to 1 car with no sales in June or July and just 1 car sold in August.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016.  In July the Kia Soul once again stayed within it's normal trading range selling 145 cars but, in August, they broke out of this range selling an estimated 300 cars, their best sales month ever.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  In March sales fell back to 70 cars but jumped up in April to set a new monthly sales record at 86 cars.  In may they sold 1 less at 85 cars and June saw a further pullback to 78 cars.  July saw all-time high sales of 130 cars but then set a new all time high in August selling 182 cars.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 482 plug-in cars in August.

Another car with an all-time record month was the Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV which normal sells in the 100 - 200 range but strayed outside this range by selling 265 cars in August.  This beat the previous high month set in January, 2016 when 226 cars were sold.  Previously in July they sold 174 cars.

Volvo is one of the companies that has committed to electrifying their entire lineup of cars.  Toward this end they began selling the XC60 PHEV toward the end of July, delivering 13 cars.  In August they delivered and additional 65 cars.  The XC60 PHEV is an SUV that offers an EPA estimated 18 miles of all electric range.

In August Volvo sold a total of 330 Plug-in Vehicles.

It appears that Mercedes-Benz is going to discontinue production of the B250e later this year so I expect sales will continue to be low for this vehicle which normally sells in the 40 - 60 range.  In June  46 cars were sold but sales climbed above the normal trading range in July to 81 cars but dipped back into this range in August selling 58 cars. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars with March sales hitting the top of this range at 60 cars but sales of the S550e also jumped out of this normal selling range delivering 81 cars in April and 83 cars in May followed by an additional 81 cars in June and 124 cars in July.  This must have created lower than normal inventory as sales dropped to just 32 cars in August.

Sales of the  Mercedes Benz GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV have recently hovered in the 30 - 60 range.  In July sales fell slightly below the normal trading range with just 27 cars making it off dealer lots.  Things got even worse in August with just 23 cars sold.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

The Mercedes-Benz C350e set a new sales record in August selling 212 cars.  This was just slightly better than the previous record month set in January when 210 cars were sold.  Previously, in July, 112 cars were sold.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 325 Plug-in cars in August

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 205 cars in July but fell to just 185 cars in August.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California, delivering 19 cars to paying customers.  May saw sales climb to 75 cars but June saw a pullback to 58 cars and in July sales pulled back even further to 43 cars.  August saw somewhat of a recovery climbing back to 66 cars.  Hyundai say the car will eventually be sold nationwide.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected in the fall.

In June Hyundai sold a total of 251 plug-in cars. 

I have been asking for a while now when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Well, it finally arrived in August with sales of 94 cars.  Previously in July Smart registered 0 sales of its electric drive models.

Honda had been out of Plug-in sales since they sold the last of the Accord PHEV cars in early 2016.  That changed in July as Honda delivered the first 34 copies of the Honda Clarity BEV.  For August Honda didn't separate out the BEV and the FCEV listing just 56 Clarity cars sold.   Inside EV estimated that 15 of these cars were the BEV version.

Now Inside EV, who usually do a good job of estimating sales, reported that Honda had sold 15 of the BEV model but reported the FCEV sales at 56. By my calculation Honda actually sold 56 - 15 = 41 FCEVs in August. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid, the Hyundai Ioniq PHEV and Honda Clarity PHEV should start to arrive in dealerships before the end of the year.  The Tesla model 3 is being ordered in unprecedented numbers so it will be interesting to see if Tesla can ramp up as projected.  If they can it could trigger a radical shift from gas to electric over the next few of years.

In September Plug-in America will be kicking off National Drive Electric Week with more shows and more EVs to test drive then ever before.  This event has, in the past, caused a surge in demand for plug-in cars and with more models available than ever before it will be interesting to see if this happens this year.

Sunday Sep 3, 2017 –  Hurricane Harvey – The big news over the last week has been the incredible devastation that Hurricane Harvey has unleashed on the Gulf Coast in Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana.  Of course this sparked the debate about if Harvey was caused, or made worse by Global Warming.

Harvey started life as a tropical wave moving west from the coast of Africa in early August and formed into Tropical Storm Harvey off the Lesser Antilles on August 17 causing heavy rain and gusty winds.  By  August 19 the storm seemed to have petered out once more becoming a tropical wave before crossing the Yucatan Peninsula into the Caribbean.  Once over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico the storm picked up  steam again and once more became tropical storm Harvey.  It was expected to hit the coast somewhere in Texas as a Category 1 Hurricane but then something unusual happened.  In just 57 hours it went from a Tropical Storm to a Category 4 Hurricane.  Normally Hurricanes loose strength a little as they get close to land but nor Harvey, coming ashore near Rockport, TX on August 25th still at full strength.

The strangeness didn't stop there.  As it moved inland it came under the influence of two huge high pressure domes, one over the four corners region and one toward the east coast.  These caused the Hurricane to reverse course and return over the gulf waters where it meandered up  the coast at about 2 miles per hour dumping record amounts of rain in the Houston area.  Cedar Bayou recorded 51.88 inches from the storm while the average in the Houston are of just a shade under 50 inches.  The result of all this water was extensive flooding in the Houston area.  The Storm then made landfall again in Louisiana causing more flooding there.  The death toll currently sits at 47 but this is likely to rise as the floodwater recedes and homes can be checked.  The property damage estimate is $100 billion and climbing.  It is estimated that more that one million cars have been destroyed by the flooding.
 
I did notice that Texas Direct, based in Stafford, TX just started to re-list the Plug-in cars they have for sale on eBay so  it looks like they may have been on high enough ground not to get flooded out.  For people buying EVs from the Houston area though it is advisable to make sure they have not been flooded then are being offered for sale after they  have dried out and been cleaned up.

 
Back to the Question, was Harvey caused, or made worse by human caused global warming.  The straight answer is that we really don't know.  There are researchers who  have ways to determine the amount of influence humans have on some events but it will take them months to come to some firm conclusions.

Personally I don't think that Harvey  was caused by global warming but I do think that the fact that it went from a tropical storm to  a hurricane so quickly was almost certainly exacerbated by anthropogenic global warming.  The worst of the destruction though was caused by the two high pressure zones that kept the storm hugging the gulf coast instead of moving inland and falling apart.  The link between the two high pressure areas and global warming is somewhat tenuous so I don't think we will be able to do better than say that it might have influenced these two weather patterns.  However, it is clear that warmer water in the gulf did contribute to the record setting rainfall produced by Harvey,  So, bottom line is that Hurricane Harvey was probably not caused by global warming but was almost certainly made worse by it.

One thing that an event like Hurricane Harvey did is to bring people together.  The news was full of people who used their own boats or vehicles to go out time after time to help bring people to safety.  It didn't matter what their religion, ethnicity or political leanings were, it was people going out of there way to help people.  I think that our politicians in Washington would do well to follow by example and do what is best for the people who  have suffered under Hurricane Harvey irrespective  of how that impacts their political agenda. 

Sunday August 27, 2017 – EV Bashing in Forbes – Last week Forbes published an article by Steve Pociask entitled "Electric Vehicle Goal Ignore Some Scientific Facts And Statistics".  This article is another of those articles that tries to tell us that electric cars cause just as much pollution over the life cycle of the car as a regular gas powered car - something which has already been shown to be untrue multiple times. 

Mr. Pociask is the president of The American Consumer Institute which calls itself a "free market think tank"  It is set up so that donations are fully tax deductible but I haven't been able to find out anything about who their donors are but given the right wing nature of the ACI I suspect the usual group who are more than likely heavily involved in the fossil fuel industry.

While the article's title talks about "scientific facts and statistics"  the article is actually pretty much devoid of any real scientific evidence.  For his sources of scientific evidence he relies mostly on the output from a number of right wing think tanks along with an article in Scientific American.  Some of the stuff he comes up with here is just plain wrong.

For example he uses the old red herring that the addition of electric vehicles has increased reliance on coal when in fact the amount of electricity generated by coal has been dropping for the last few years here in the US.  He also talks about the decision in France to go all electric by 2040 as being a bad decision.  If we follow his logic, moving to electric vehicles is going to mean France will become more reliant on coal so the EVs will get dirtier.  The problem is that France only has 3 sets of generators that are fired by coal for a total or around 1.5 gigawatts of capacity.  France currently produces around 79% of its electricity from Nuclear and that percentage has been dropping as capacity is replaced with renewables.

France is actually an interesting case.  One of the big problems that face Nuclear is that the reactors can't just be turned off when demand is low.  What you have to do is bleed off the steam they produce instead of feeding it to the turbines.  Now since demand is much lower overnight, having a vast set of electric cars sucking up the energy that would normally be thrown away is a big win for the power generation company.  Even if they charge a low price for the electricity, it's still better than nothing.  Coal power plants have a similar situation, you can't restart them quickly enough to shut them off during low demand they are keep running at a much lower efficiency.  In these cases the net amount of pollution attributable to the EV is actually lower when it is using energy that would normally be thrown away because of lack of demand.

Another inaccuracy concerns Lithium which in the article is called a rare metal which has to be mined producing lots of toxic waste.  Most lithium is produced in Chile and Argentina and is actually derived from solar evaporation of brines in salt lakes.  It is the 14th most common element on earth and apart from being used in batteries it has a number of other uses including being used in a drug to treat bipolar disorder.  The big issue at the moment is that good recycling methods have not been set up yet as most lithium batteries from EVs are reused rather than recycled.

The article also cites a study by J.D. Little that in 2050 fossil fuels will still account for 79% for our energy requirements.  I don't think this is very probable, here in Southern California Edison territory fossil fuels only account for 60% of  our power mix and that number is shrinking as more solar is rolled out.  I can't see the rest of the country not following in the next 33 years.

The whole article appears to be pushing toward elimination of EV incentives so I  will leave you to ponder this question, Why do all these conservative think tanks want to stop incentives for electric vehicle but don't say anything about the billions of dollars in subsidies handed out to the fossil fuel industry?

Sunday August 20, 2017 – Eclipse v Grid – On Monday a total eclipse of the sun is going to make its way across the US.  This is going to have a huge impact on the amount of solar power being sent to the electric grid.  The question is can the grid handle this power drop? 

The eclipse will start in Oregon at around 9:06am PDT and will end at around 4:06pm in South  Carolina.  At any given point along the route the eclipse will last around two and a half hours.  During that time the amount of solar generation will drop off by about 70% per hour but will recover at about 90% per hour as the sun comes back Even in areas like Southern California, where there will only be a partial eclipse, solar generation is expected to be highly impacted.

This event is going to be a test of how the grid can handle such fluctuation.  Back in 1964 a component failure caused a cascading effect that Blacked out most of the Eastern United States.  Following this event the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) was formed to work out ways to prevent such events from occurring in the future.

Solar is now becoming a significant part of the energy mix feeding the grid, currently accounting for about 5% of grid's capacity nationally.  The question that is about to be answered is, can the electric grid handle a fall off of capacity, about 4%, that will occur during the eclipse.  Utilities will be closely monitoring the situation and have prepared plans that include asking customers to reduce usage if power levels fall to dangerously low levels, and to supplementing power generation with things like increasing the amount of hydro  being generated.

The Utilities have been planning for solar eclipse for a long time so they don't anticipate any issues on Monday.  The future may tell a different story though.  The next solar eclipse to occur over the US will happen in 2024.  By this time the amount of solar in the utility mix is expected to have grown to about 15% of overall capacity making the situation a lot more dangerous. 
 
What this situation does show is the need to store excess generated capacity so that it can be released to account for higher than expected demand, of loss of capacity such as cases where we get extreme cloudiness or wind power generation is limited because of unusually calm conditions.

Now electricity is a not easy to store in its native form.  The only way to store electricity as electricity is by the use of capacitors but capacitors discharge the stored energy very quickly so are not typically useful for long term storage.

The best known way to store electrical energy is in rechargeable batteries.  Rechargeable batteries are something that we are very familiar with.  Today most Americans have cell phones, tablets, laptops, and cordless tools.  All of these devices use batteries and of course every car on the road also has a battery to provide the electrical energy needed.  In the case of the ICE vehicle the battery is used to start the car and to run accessories like lights, horn, and radio.

These batteries can be enlarged to provide pretty good storage for the electrical grid.  For example a large version of Tesla's Powerwall is currently used to store excess energy from a solar array in Southern California.  Smaller versions can be used to smooth out electrical supply issues with household solar although at the moment, legally, this can only be done on an installation that is off grid.

Batteries don't store electricity directly, they store it in the form of chemical energy.  A battery is made up of three elements, a cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte.  When the battery is discharges a chemical reaction occurs between the electrolyte and the anode creating negatively charged particles that flow to the positively charged cathode.  When electricity is applied to the cell, the reaction is reversed returning the anode and electrolyte back to there original state ready for the next discharge cycle.

There are many other ways to store electrical energy.  It can be stored as kinetic energy in a spinning flywheel,  It can be stored by compressing gas then using the energy as the gas decompresses to generate electricity.  It can be used to pump water up to a higher level where it can then released again to run a turbine to generate hydroelectric power.  It can even be stored as chemical energy by electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen and oxygen then passing those gases through a fuel cell to product water and electrical energy.

The impact the eclipse will have on the grid will very interesting as we will be able to model this to predict what will happen when much more of our electricity is being produced by renewable sources.  In the end I think we will not see any major issues with the grid this time around but it will show the need for grid level storage in the future.

Sunday August 13, 2017 – Workhorse Trucks – Workhorse is the manufacturer of range extended electric step vans.  They have sold these vans to customers like Alpha Baking, Fed Ex and Brinks.  The step vans use the popular Morgan Olsen step van body mounted on a Workhorse chassis with their electric power train and a BMW range extender gas engine.  They are now in the process of introducing a range extended pick-up truck, the Workhorse W-15. 

While they already have orders for about 5,000 of these trucks from large fleet customers they are currently assessing if they should move into  the consumer and small fleet markets.  To gauge demand they have added a sign-up button on their website that will allow you get in the queue to be notified if they decide to move forward with the consumer version.  There is no commitment when signing up so if you are interested the URL is http://workhorse.com/pickup/. 

The Workhorse W-15 is a crew cab pick-up truck that will seat 5 people and weighs in at 7,200 lbs.  It offers a payload capacity of 2,200 lbs. and is capable of towing 5,000 lbs.  The car is driven by a battery pack made of Panasonic cells that is said to give the truck an 80 mile all electric range before the range extender kicks in.  The gas motor provides unlimited range with a full tank being able to provide an about 310 miles of additional driving at an estimated 28mph highway, 32 mpg city fuel economy.  Like most electric vehicles the W-15 gets lots of torque off the line allowing it to hit 60mph in just 5.5 seconds.  

Workhorse started life in 2007 as a company called AMP.  Originally they converted Saturn Sky roadsters to electric drive.  After that they developed systems for powering larger vehicles such as the Chevy Equinox.  With the appearance of cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt it became apparent that converted vehicles would be difficult to sell in volume so they began to develop power trains for delivery vehicles.  Working originally with Navistar, then with TRC they continued to refine their power train    .

In March, 2015 they acquired the Workhorse chassis assembly plant in Union City, IN along with the Workhorse brand name.   They are now manufacturing medium duty Vans in the 14,500 - 22,500 lb. GVW category at this plant.

Pick-up  trucks are one of the vehicles that are missing from the currently available line of electric vehicles.  In the 1997 - 2003 period we had a choice of Chevy S10E and Ford Ranger EV, but now we have no real competition for gas driven pickup trucks.  If you want a pick-up truck but also want to go electric, or have a fleet as small as a single vehicle, then consider going to the Workhorse website and expressing interest.

Sunday August 6, 2017 – July 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  July 2017 was the best July on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 15,607 plug-in cars were sold in July, well ahead of the previous highest July sales in July 2016 which saw estimated sales of 13,067 cars. 

After selling 1,745 cars in June, July saw Volt sales fell to 1,518 cars.  Sales were substantially down from July 2016 when 2,406 Volts were sold.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a big impact on Chevy Volt sales and there is a rumor that GM is considering replacing the Volt with  a plug-in hybrid crossover.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt increased in July up from 1,642 cars sold in June to a new record high of 1,971 cars, which made it the best selling plug-in car for the month.  Increasing sales are a result of both better inventory and the availability of the Bolt in more of the CARB States. August will see the Volt going on sale nationwide and with a decent inventory it will be interesting to see if sales will pass the 2,000 car mark for the first time next month. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  January and February were tied at 4 cars, while sales in March dropped to just 3 cars, in April 1 car was sold with no Sales in May.  Somehow in June and July Chevy managed to find 1 more Spark EV to sell.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, 5 in November, and just 3 in both December and January, Cadillac registered no sales in February.  Somehow in March they managed to find 2 more cars to sell and even managed to sell 7 in April but dropped back to 0 in May.  June came as somewhat of a surprise when 7 more ELR were sold while in July sales dropped down to 1 car.

April saw the first sales of the new Cadillac CT6 here in the US with a total of 6 cars being delivered.  In May sales increased to 16 cars and 20 in June.  July saw another small increase as sales hit 22 cars.  The CT6 is a plug-in hybrid with an all electric range of around 30 miles.  The car is built in China and imported into the US. 

In July GM sold a total of 3,514 plug-n cars, up from the 3,415 it sold in June.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In the third quarter Tesla usually focuses on domestic sales in a rush to meet quarterly sales estimated. In July Tesla sales were an estimated 3,105 cars. 

After selling an estimated 2,350 Model S sedans in June, sales in July fell to just 1,425 cars.  This was well below the estimated 1,954 cars sold in June, 2016.  The reason for the lower sales may be due to production issues with the 100 KWh battery pack, or possible the ramp-up to begin production of the model 3.

After disappointing sales of just 715 Model X in April, Sales more than doubled in May at an estimated 1,730 cars. There was a further increase in sales to an estimated 2,200 in June but sales fell back to 1,650 cars sold in July.  This was jstill more than double the 750 sold in July 2016.

Tesla held a delivery party on July 28th to deliver the first Model 3 cars 30 customers.  In August they plan to build another 100 cars ramping up to approximately 1,500 in September the building up to about 20,000 cars by December.  In their quarterly report Elon Musk noted that they had received 65,000 cancellations over the last year with orders currently standing at 455,000.  Currently they are recieving about 1,800 orders per day so it is clear that even at 20,000 cars per month waits for a new car will be very long.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In July they sold a total of 2,004 cars spread across their six plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016.  Recently though they seem to have stabilized in the 500 - 600 car range.  In April they sold 516 cars, dropping to 506 cars in May, and climbing back to 567 cars in June.  In July they hit the top of the range selling 601 cars.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in June they were close to the bottom of that range selling 22 cars.  July saw a little bit of an improvement as sales climbed to 55 cars.

Sales of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In May they actually got back into the old range managing to sell 433 and stayed in that range for June with 488 cars sold.  They repeated this again in July with sales of 463 cars.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW is finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. January saw sales of 129 cars but sales did rebound a little to 144 cars in February and March saw sales of 365 cars.  In April sales fell back again to a still respectable 260 cars but bounced right back to 475 cars in May.  In June they did even better selling 496 cars and setting a new all time high monthly sales record.  Sales fell  again in July to a still respectable 387 cars.

BMW were supposed to release the 530e in April and it turns out they did just that,l selling 6 cars for the month.  Sales really didn't get underway until May though when a total of 147 cars left dealer lots.  I expect the story on the 530e will be the same as that of the 330e and 740e where inventory is low as cars are built for Europe first so sales will be constrained for some time to come.  June surprised me however as sales climbed to 239 units.  I had expected this to have deleted inventory but BMW still managed to sell 343 cars in July.

In May sales of the BMW 740e was just 42 cars after selling 123 cars in April.  Sales bounced back a little in June to hit 52 cars and this trend continued in July as sales climbed to 80 cars.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while and will fluctuate depending on when inventory arrives in the US.

 At the very end of June BMW started selling yet another plug-in hybrid, the Mini Countryman PHEV placing 10 of them in the hands of Customers.  In July, its first full month of sales, 75 cars were delivered to customers.  The Mini Countryman PHEV has an EPA estimated all electric range of 12 miles and can run in EV mode up to 78mph.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in July selling 1,695 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi but in July, for the second straight month, it was outsold by the C-Max Energi, with sales of just 703 cars.  Previously in June 707 cars were sold.

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January, but climbed again in February where they sold 639 cars.  March saw another slight bump in sales with 662 cars sold, and the trend continued in April with an additional 749 cars delivered and jumped again to 950 cars in May.  June couldn't quite match May as sale fell back to 936 cars with a further fall in July to 844 cars.
 
In March Ford sold an astonishing 407 Focus EVs as it cleared out inventory to make way for the newer longer range model.  It couldn't last though and sales dropped back to the usual 100 to 200 range in April with sales of 120 cars and stayed there in May with 132 cars, June with 110 cars, and July with 148 cars being sold.

Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November and it has become the sales success of the year so far.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  Toyota kept up the pace selling just 4 less in February with 1,362 cars being sold.  In March, with the sales area slowly expanding but still very limited, they managed to sell and additional 1,618 cars.  In April they set a new record month of sales with 1,819 cars being sold, outselling the Chevy Volt to make the Prius Prime the best selling plug-in for the month.  In May the Prius Prime held onto the crown posting a very impressive 1,908 sales, a new all-time high.  Finally, the almost none existent dealer inventory seems to have taken its toll with June sales falling to 1,619 cars and July just a little higher at 1,645 cars.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in July they sold 82 Mirai FCEVs.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,842 Mirai.

Nissan is scheduled to announce the new version of the Leaf in Tokyo this September and they have been offering lease extensions to those who might be interested in upgrading to the new vehicle when it becomes available.  Sales have been surprisingly robust given that a new model is just around the corner and in June they delivering 1,506 cars.  Sales fell in July to 1,283 cars.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In July they sold a total of 686 cars.  This was quite a drop from the 751 cars sold in June.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In June they fell within this range by slling 324 cars but moved back below the normal range in July with sales of just 218 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in June they were towards the bottom of the range with 232 cars.  July saw a reversal of fortunes as sales came in right in the middle of the normal range at 308 cars.

The Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid sold a solid 160 cars in July.  Previously in June sales were 195 cars.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  February saw just 1 car being sold, in March this number tripled to 3 cars, and April split the difference landing at 2 cars sold, while in May sales dropped back to 1 car with no sales in June or July.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 600 Plug-in Cars in June.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in June sales were 495 cars.  This Dropped to a still respectable 475 cars in June.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid Minivan and actually sold 12 in January.  Chrysler extended the Christmas and New Year break for an extra week because of an general oversupply of vehicles at its dealers and this impacted production on the Pacifica Hybrid.  Compounding the issue, a quality control hold was placed on the vehicles so cars have just began arriving in dealerships around April 17.  In April 205 Pacifica Hybrids were delivered to Customers.  May saw that number more than double to 485.  This has probably taken care of most of the people who had pre-ordered and had delivery delayed and in June sales dropped back to 355 cars and fell further in July to  just 125 cars.

It appears that Mercedes-Benz is going to discontinue production of the B250e later this year so I expect sales will continue to be low for this vehicle which normally sells in the 40 - 60 range.  In June  46 cars were sold but sales climbed above the normal trading range in July to 81 cars. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars with March sales hitting the top of this range at 60 cars but sales of the S550e also jumped out of this normal selling range delivering 81 cars in April and 83 cars in May followed by an additional 81 cars in June and 124 cars in July.

Sales of the  Mercedes Benz GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV have recently hovered in the 30 - 60 range and June was no exception when 41 cars were sold.  In July sales fell slightly below the normal trading range with just 27 cars making it off dealer lots.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz had put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold but I suspect that this depleted inventory pretty badly and February saw sales drop back to 51 cars, while sales in March plummeted to just 17 cars and to just 3 cars in.  In May only slightly more where soldat 7 cars and in June there were no sales at all.  Cars must have arrived in the US in time for July as sales leaped to 112 cars.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 344 Plug-in cars in July, well ahead of the 168 cars they sold in June.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016.  In June exactly 100 cars were sold.  In July the Kia Soul once again stayed within it's normal trading range selling 145 cars.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  In March sales fell back to 70 cars but jumped up in April to set a new monthly sales record at 86 cars.  In may they sold 1 less at 85 cars and June saw a further pullback to 78 cars.  July saw all-time high sales of 130 cars.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 275 plug-in cars in July.

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 255 cars in June but fell to just 205 cars in July.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California delivering 19 cars to paying customers. May saw sales climb to 75 cars but June saw a pullback to 58 cars. In July sales pulled back even further to 43 cars.  Hyundai say the car will eventually be sold nationwide.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected later in the year.

In June Hyundai sold a total of 248 plug-in cars. 

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV Normal sells in the 100 - 200 range but strayed just outside this range by selling 202 cars in June.  July saw them fall back into the normal range selling 174 cars.

Honda has been out of Plug-in sales since they sold the last of the Accord PHEV cars in early 2016.  That changed in July as Honda delivered the first 34 copies of the Honda Clarity BEV.  The Honda Clarity BEV is a battery electric version of the Honda Clarity fuel cell vehicle.  It will be interesting to see how well this car sells since it offers just 80 miles of range on a charge.  A PHEV verision is also expected later this year.

  Like Toyota it appears that Honda are also investing heavily in Fuel Cell Vehicles. In June they sold 82 Clarity FCEVs. 

I have to ask, when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Sales have been down to almost nothing since the older model went out of production last year.  In March sales were just 13 cars and April saw a further pull-back when Smart sold only 3 cars and even less in May with just 1 being sold.  June was a little better with 3 sales but 0 sales were recorded in July.  The latest news is that Smart is expected to become an EV only brand here in the US.

Mitsubishi Have finally thrown in the towel on the i-Miev.  After selling just 5 cars this year, and none in the last three months, they announced that all new cars in the US had been sold and no more would be shipped here.  Their plan is to begin selling the Outlander PHEV later this year but they have been saying that they are going to release the car here for 4 years but have never been able to that because of hot sales in Europe.

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid and the next generation Smart EV should start to arrive in dealerships soon.  The Tesla model 3 is being ordered in unprecidented numbers so it will be interesting to see if Tesla can ramp up as projected.  If they can it could trigger a radical shift from gas to electric over the next few of years.

Sunday Jul 30, 2017 – Tesla Model 3 – On Thursday night Tesla hosted an event at their factory in Freemont, CA where the Tesla cars are built, and the keys were handed over to the first 30 Model 3 customers.  At the meeting Elon Musk said that 50 cars had been built with 30 going to customers and 20 being held for testing.  It is believed that all of these first 30 customers are Tesla employees who will be effectively beta testing the car.

So far only a couple of journalists have been given the opportunity to  test drive the model 3 and the results have been overwhelmingly positive.  It appears that Tesla has managed to make a car that is both affordable, and true to the Tesla Lineage.

The car is a 4 door, 5 seat sedan, with a conventional trunk at the rear instead of the Hatch featured in the Model S.  Additional luggage space is located up front in what Tesla calls the frunk.  The frunk is sized to fit a piece of carry on luggage so if it doesn't fit in the frunk you are going to have to check it when flying.  The car will initially be offered with two different battery packs. The base model will have a price starting at $35,000 and will have a 60 KWHr battery that offers an EPA estimated range of 220 miles.  The premium level, starting at $44,000 will Have a 75 KWHr battery pack which pushes the EPA estimated range up to 310 miles.   
 
The performance offered by the two sub-models will also be somewhat different.  The base model will offer a 0-60 time of 5.6 seconds and a top  speed of 130 mph.  The premium model will boost this to 5.1 seconds for the 0-60 time and a top speed of 140 mph.  Both of these are rear wheel drive but Tesla does plan on adding an all wheel drive version at a later date.

 
Internally the car is very minimal.  There is no conventional gauges with everything being displayed on a single digital display.   There are 2 stalks on the steering column, one of which is for the indicators and the other is for selecting drive mode such as forward and reverse.  The second stalk also doubles as a control for cruise control when the car is in motion.  There are also two thumb wheels on the steering wheel that can be customized from the digital display to control a variety of functions.

Internally the car's rear window extends to encompass most of the roof which is designed to make the car feel spacious and also to present a good overall view.  Fair skinned people like myself needn't worry though  as the roof is manufactured to block out UV rays and is said to be equivalent to wearing SPF 90 sunblock.  Like all Tesla's it has been Engineered for safety and received an overall five star rating in crash tests.  Both the base and premium trim levels will come with all the hardware required for full autonomous driving, although this feature will not be enabled until later.

The battery pack is located under the floor in the Model 3 but this car is made of iron not aluminum like the Model S, which will means a higher center of gravity.  This leads us to ask just how well the car will handle.  Journalists from Motor Trend were the first to do an extended test drive on this car and they seemed to be very impressed with comments like "almost zero body roll".  Kim Walker compared the ride to the Alfa Giulia saying that "the 2.0-liter Alfa Romeo Giulia feels like a wet sponge by comparison".

It appears that Tesla has produced the car they had promised, a great car at a relatively affordable price.  Of course like with cars from all manufacturer, the bells and whistles that are add-ons soon add up, so most people will be paying more than the base price a Model 3.  The bad news is that Tesla have a long way to go to  fill the almost 400,000 pre-orders (which could be half a million by now since they have continued to take orders after the original order window opened).  The plan is to deliver a further 100 cars in august ramping up rapidly after that until they hit around 20,000 cars per month by the end of December.  If Tesla can manage to meet this volume, a car ordered today will probably not be delivered until the end of 2018 or early in 2019.  Sounds like it might just be worth the wait.

Sunday July 23, 2017 – Midwest EVOLVE – Most of the buzz about EVs occurs on the two coasts, especially here in Californian and some of the East Coast states like New York and New jersey.  A couple of weeks ago I got an email letting me know about Midwest EVOLVE, a project promoting EVs in the Midwest. 

Midwest EVOLVE is a coalition of clean city organizations based in seven states, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, North Dakota, Indiana, and Wisconsin.  These seven organizations are working with the American Lung Association and a whole bunch of other partners to promote electric vehicles as a solution to air pollution including greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the things that Plug-in America always says is that the best way to promote electric cars is to put butts in seats.  Midwest EVOLVE embraces this idea by organizing ride-and-drive events throughout the year and also has created a number of electric vehicle expo events around their area including an Electric Room that will educate people on electric vehicle technology as part of the 2018 Twin Cities Auto Show in March next year.  You can check out their upcoming events here or keep an eye on the EVFinder Events page where I will be adding events as time permits.

Their web site also includes a very good page that breaks down the benefits of electric cars into various categories including performance, technical innovation and the benefits for fleet owners.  I found the section on Environmental benefits to be especially good.  They manage to give a pretty good breakdown of the difference between direct emissions and life cycle emissions.  Life cycle emissions in particular are difficult to understand but the article does manage to give a pretty good explanation without getting into the complexities of trying to attribute emissions over the 10 or 15 year lifespan of a vehicle from cradle to grave.

The section on fleet operations gives a nice rundown of why a plug-in car, although  costing more up-front, can actually save costs over the lifetime of the vehicle.  This is broken down into fuel savings, and savings on Maintenance.  One particular statistic they  quote is that fleets that operate plug-in cars often see better employee retention than those that do not.  This is something I have never seen before although if you have ever driven a plug-in vehicle is makes sense.  Reasons given are the smoother quieter ride, the elimination of diesel and gas fumes, and the idea that they are operating advanced technology.

Their section on charging is very well done.  The article on home charging gives a very good description of level 1 and level 2 charging, while the piece on workplace charging gives a rundown of the considerations that an employer might was to review in deciding to set up charging for its employees.  There is even a charger location map that covers the whole of the country, not just the region covered by the seven groups that make up the coalition.

One thing that I thought was lacking was in the "About Us" section.   While there is plenty of information about the reasons to buy plug-in cars I didn't see anything that says that any of these entities have electric cars in their fleets.  Many years ago, when ZAP first introduced the Xebra, I had an opportunity to spend some time with then CEO Gary Star.  He told me that the best thing that State and Local government could do to help plug-in vehicle sales was to buy them for their fleets.  I'm sure that the coalitions them selves don't have large fleets of vehicles but their members do and it would be nice to know that these member entities are practicing what they preach.

I think that Midwest EVOLVE is doing things right.  Their focus is on getting the word out about plug-in vehicles by organizing event and ride-and-drives.  I'm sure that this effort will pay off big time as electric vehicles become more and more attractive to own.  We are close to a tipping point on electric cars and efforts like this are what is going to put plug-in cars on the map in the Midwest.

Sunday June 11, 2017 – Model 3 on its Way – Late last week Elon Musk tweeted a picture of the very first production version of the Tesla Model 3 after it rolled off the assembly line at their factory in Freemont, CA.  The Model 3 apparently got regulatory approval two weeks early. 

It is rumored that the first production vehicle will go to Elon Musk which would not surprise me at all.  According to one of his tweets the person who was first in line for the model 3 gave his spot to Elon as a 46th birthday present.

Inside EV reported that an insider at Tesla told them that they would produce over 1,000 cars in July but this doesn't match the tweet that Elon posted right after the picture of the first production Model 3.  In that tweet he said that they will be holding a delivery party on July 28 the where they  will hand over the keys to the first 30 cars. Production ramp-up will start slowly with about 100 cars being produced in August, but then the pace will pick up quickly with a target of over 1,500 cars in September reaching about 20,000 cars by December.  People placing orders today should not expect to see their car until at least mid 2018.

Details about the Model 3 are still a little sketchy and the Tesla web site does not appear to have been updated to match the latest information even though by now they must have the EPA sticker information since this would be required before starting production.  I have to assume by this that the official EPA range would be as good as or better than the range quoted on their web site. 
 
The car is a 5-seat sedan and it has already been confirmed that this car will be configured as a 4 door sedan not a hatchback.  The car is designed to get a 5-star rating in crash tests but so far I haven't been able to find actual results although  crash testing is complete.  The cars will come with all the hardware required for self driving capability and will also be Supercharger enabled although, for the model 3, supercharging will not be free.

Range per charge is 215 miles.  This is slightly less than the range of the Chevy Bolt and spy picture of a pre-production model caught at a Supercharger seems to indicate that some battery capacity models are capable of ranges quite a bit higher than this.  I should be noted that the pre-production model that was sighted could have a larger pack than the production model so for now 215 miles it is.  The car also doesn't accelerate quite as fast as the model S but still comes in with a 0-60 time quoted as less than 6 seconds.

Base price for the model. 3 starts at $35,000 before tax and state incentives kick in.  For people living here in California that means a $7,000 tax credit and a state rebate of $2,500 bringing down the base price to $25,000

With the launch  of the Model 3 at the end of this month we are going to see a transition from electric cars being an oddity to  electric cars becoming mainstream.  Tesla has taken enough deposits on cars to keep the factory humming for at least a year and if the car comes up to expectations then I expect the model 3 to become a very popular car and will certainly become the best selling EV for 2018.

It's not just the number of cars that the model 3 will sell that will be important, it is also the impact it will have on the other carmakers.  They have known for some time now that the future of automobile technology was electric but while Tesla was disrupting the luxury car space most carmakers were happy to make low range EVs and plug-in hybrids to meet government mandates.  Then Tesla showed off their Model 3 concept and it became clear that they planned to move into the mid-sized sedan market.  Other companies had to react or risk getting left in the dust.

GM, who has been one of the few companies who treated the electric car as a new opportunity, quickly released the 238 mile range Chevy Bolt.   They Followed the usual practice of rolling the car out in California the slowly adding states until they are selling in every state, which is expected to happen in August.  Tesla on the other hand are selling in every state right off the bat.

Other carmakers have been slower to react, pushing range into the low 100 miles area with  Honda just coming out with a car that does just 80 miles on a charge later this year.  Nissan, who's Leaf EV has been the best selling plug-in worldwide is expected to show their 200+ miles range EV in Japan this September, although sister company Renault does have a version of the ZOE on sale in Europe that does more than 200 miles on a charge.  Both Honda, Audi, and Ford are also supposed to be working on 200+ miles range cars too but we have no indication of when these will actually hit the market.

Other companies need to react and the question is will they get cars to market soon enough to stop Tesla from gathering enough market share to eventually dominate the industry.  Personally I think that some companies have enough customer loyalty to be able to hang on to their customers.  There are plenty of diehard Honda fans who will wait for the longer range Honda rather than jumping ship for Tesla, but companies like Fiat-Chrysler might struggle to retain customers.  The Model 3 also has a chance to put a nail in the coffin lid of Fuel Cells too.  If battery electric cars are selling like hotcakes then why spend the billions of dollars needed to provide hydrogen infrastructure across the USA.

Sunday July 9, 2017 – June 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  June 2017 was the best June on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 17,182 plug-in cars were sold in June, well ahead of the previous record set in June 2016 which saw estimated sales of 14,863 cars. 

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In the third quarter Tesla usually focuses on domestic sales in a rush to meet quarterly sales estimated. In June Tesla sales were an estimated 4,550 cars  This was below analysts estimates causing Tesla shares to take a big hit. 

After selling an estimated 1,620 Model S sedans in May, sales in June climbed to an estimated 2,350 cars.  This was well below the estimated 3,700 cars sold in June, 2016.  The reason for the lower sales may be due to production issues with the 100 KWh battery pack, or possible the ramp-up to begin production of the model 3.

After disappointing sales of just 715 Model X in April, Sales more than doubled in May at an estimated 1,730 cars. There was a further increase in sales to an estimated 2,200 in June.  This was just slightly better than the 2,150 cars sold in June 2016.

The good news for Tesla is that the first production Model 3 rolled off the production line last week.  Tesla plans to have a delivery party on July 28th to deliver cars to the first 28 customers.  In August they plan to build another 100 cars ramping up  quickly after that to about 20,000 cars in December.

After selling 1,817 cars in May, June saw Volt sales inch lower to 1,745 cars.  Like May, sales were down from June 2016 by about 4%.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a small impact on Chevy Volt sales.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt increased in June up from 1,566 cars sold in May to a new record high of 1,642 cars.  Increasing sales are a result of both better inventory and the availability of the Bolt in more of the CARB States.  It is now available in 11 States but can now be ordered in all states with  nationwide roll-out now set for August. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  January and February were tied at 4 cars, while sales in March dropped to just 3 cars, in April 1 car was sold with no Sales in May.  Somehow in June Chevy managed to find 1 more Spark EV to sell.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, 5 in November, and just 3 in both December and January., Cadillac registered no sales in February.  Somehow in March they managed to find 2 more cars to sell and even managed to sell 7 in April but dropped back to 0 in May.  June came as somewhat of a surprise when 7 more ELR were sold.

April saw the first sales of the new Cadillac CT6 here in the US with a total of 6 cars being delivered.  In May sales increased to 16 cars and June saw a further jump to 20 cars.  The CT6 is a plug-in hybrid with an all electric range of around 30 miles.  The car is built in China and imported into the US. 

In June GM sold a total of 3,415 plug-n cars, up from the 3,399 it sold in May.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In June they sold a total of 1,874 cars spread across their six plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016.  Recently though they seem to have stabilized in the 500 - 600 car range.  In April they sold 516 cars, dropping to 506 cars in May, and climbing back to 567 cars in June.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in June they were close to the bottom of that range selling 22 cars.  Previously in May they had sold just 18 cars.

Sales of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In May they actually got back into the old range managing to sell 433 and stayed in that range for June with 488 cars sold.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW is finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in sales, going up to 240 cars.  January saw sales drop back to 129 cars but sales did rebound a little to 144 cars in February and March saw another all time record set at 365 cars.  In April sales fell back again to a still respectable 260 cars but bounced right back up again to 475 cars in May.  In June they did even better selling 496 cars and setting a new all time high monthly sales record.

BMW were supposed to release the 530e in April and it turns out they did just that selling 6 cars for the month.  Sales really didn't get underway until May though when a total of 147 cars left dealer lots.  I expect the story on the 530e will be the same as that of the 330e and 740e where inventory is low as cars are built for Europe first so sales will be constrained for some time to come.  June surprised me however as sales climbed to 239 units which I suspect will have depleted inventory quite badly.

In May sales of the BMW 740e was just 42 cars after selling 123 cars in April.  Sales bounced back a little in June to hit 52 cars.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while and will fluctuate depending on when inventory arrives in the US.

 At the very end of June BMW started selling yet another plug-in hybrid, the Mini Countryman PHEV placing 10 of them in the hands of Customers.  The Mini Countryman PHEV has an EPA estimated all electric range of 12 miles and can run in EV mode up to 78mph.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in June selling 1,753 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi but in June, with sales of just 707 cars, it was outsold by the C-Max Energy.  Previously in May 1,000 cars were sold.

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January, but climbed again in February where they sold 639 cars.  March saw another slight bump in sales with 662 cars sold, and the trend continued in April with an additional 749 cars delivered and jumped again to 950 cars in May.  June couldn't quite match May as sale fell back to 936 cars.
 
 In March Ford sold an astonishing 407 Focus EVs as it cleared out inventory to make way for the newer longer range model.  It couldn't last though and sales dropped back to the usual 100 to 200 range in April with sales of 120 cars and stayed there in May with 132 cars, and June with 110 cars being sold.

Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November and it has become the sales success of the year so far.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  Toyota kept up the pace selling just 4 less in February with 1,362 cars being sold.  In March, with the sales area slowly expanding but still very limited, they managed to sell and additional 1,618 cars.  In April they set a new record month of sales with 1,819 cars being sold, outselling the Chevy Volt to make the Prius Prime the best selling plug-in for the month.  In May the Prius Prime held onto the crown posting a very impressive 1,908 sales, a new all-time high.  Finally, the almost none existent dealer inventory seems to have taken its toll with June sales falling to 1,619 cars.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in June they sold 129 Mirai FCEVs.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,742 Mirai.

Nissan is scheduled to announce the new version of the Leaf in Tokyo this September and they have been offering lease extensions to those who might be interested in upgrading to the new vehicle when it becomes available.  Sales have been surprisingly robust given that a new model is just around the corner and in May they delivering 1,392 cars.  Sales were up in June climbing to 1,506 cars.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 850 Plug-in Cars in June.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in May sales were 665 cars.  This Dropped to a still respectable 495 cars in June.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid Minivan and actually sold 12 in January.  Chrysler extended the Christmas and New Year break for an extra week because of an general oversupply of vehicles at its dealers and this impacted production on the Pacifica Hybrid.  Compounding the issue, a quality control hold was placed on the vehicles so cars have just began arriving in dealerships around April 17.  In April 205 Pacifica Hybrids were delivered to Customers.  May saw that number more than double to 485.  This has probably taken care of most of the people who had pre-ordered and had delivery delayed and in June sales dropped back to 355 cars.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In June they sold a total of 751 cars.  This was quite a drop from the 859 cars sold in May.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In May they fell a little short of this with 294 cars but moved back into the normal range in June when sales hit 324 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in May they were towards the top of the range with 381 cars.  June saw a reversal of fortunes as sales came in close to the bottom of the normal range at 232 cars.

The bright spot in April for the VW was the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid which sold a solid 185 cars, there best result since selling 197 cars back in August 2016.  They couldn't quite manage this in May falling 11 short with174 cars being sold but in June sales once again climbed into record territory with sales hitting 195 cars.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  February saw just 1 car being sold, in March this number tripled to 3 cars, and April split the difference landing at 2 cars sold, while in May sales dropped back to 1 car with no sales in June.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 220 cars in May but climbed up to 255 cars in June  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California delivering 19 cars to paying customers. May saw sales climb to 75 cars but June saw a pullback to 58 cars.  Hyundai say the car will eventually be sold nationwide.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected later in the year.

In June Hyundai sold a total of 313 plug-in cars. 

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV Normal sells in the 100 - 200 range but strayed just outside this range by selling 202 cars in June.  Previously in  May they sold 146 cars.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016. In May the Kia Soul once again stayed within it's normal trading range selling 129 cars.  In June exactly 100 cars were sold.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  In March sales fell back to 70 cars but jumped up in April to set a new monthly sales record at 86 cars.  In may they sold 1 less at 85 cars and June saw a further pullback to 78 cars..

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated178 plug-in cars in June.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range.  April saw a little bit of a breakout when sales hit 66 cars but in May sales dropped back to a more normal 46 cars and June was a repeat of May with an additional 46 cars being sold.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars with March sales hitting the top of this range at 60 cars but sales of the S550e also jumped out of this normal selling range delivering 81 cars in April and 83 cars in May followed by an additional 81 cars in June.

Sales of the  Mercedes Benz GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV have recently hovered in the 30 - 60 range and June was no exception when 41 cars were sold.  Previously in May with just 33 cars were sold.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz had put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold but I suspect that this depleted inventory pretty badly and February saw sales drop back to 51 cars, while sales in March plummeted to just 17 cars while in April just 3 cars were sold.  In May only slightly more where sold with a total of 7 cars and in June there were no sales at all.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 168 Plug-in cars in June just 1 less than they sold in May.

I have to ask, when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Sales have been down to almost nothing since the older model went out of production last year.  In March sales were just 13 cars and April saw a further pull-back when Smart sold only 3 cars and even less in May with just 1 being sold.  June was a little better with 3 sales.  The latest news is that Smart is expected to become an EV only brand here in the US.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  In January Mitsubishi didn't sell any i-MiEV but they did manage 1 sale in February, 3 sales in March, and 2 sales in April.  June joins May and January with no cars being sold. It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

Honda isn't currently selling a plug-in car but like Toyota they are investing heavily in Fuel Cell Vehicles. In June they sold 49 Clarity FCEVs. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid and the next generation Smart EV should start to arrive in dealerships soon.  The Tesla model 3 is already rolling off the assembly line so we should start to see sales of that model starting to hit the streets by the end of the month.  The indications are that first sales will be at the very end of July but early sales are likely to go to Tesla Employees who will basically be beta testers.  The question now is can Tesla ramp up production by the end of the year to rates close to 20,000 per month. 

Sunday Jul 2, 2017 – Cordless Charging –  I just read an interesting article on EV World called "Cutting the Chord: How & Why Wireless Charging is the Future" by Grant Covic.  This article presents some compelling arguments for why cordless charging will replace the current method of charging by cord.  I think that this is highly likely but not for the reasons specified in the article. 

The main idea presented in the article was that it is much more convenient to use cordless charging than it is to plug-in.  This is vey  true, it is much less of a hassle to just drive into your parking space and walk away knowing that your car will be charging while you are away.

Mr. Covic gives many examples including the person who pulls into their garage thinking they are going to go out soon and don't need to charge, then having plans change and forgetting to go out and plug the car in before they go to  sleep.  Another example, which I do know happens, is someone driving a fleet car who doesn't bother to plug the car in when they return the car to the depot, and the next guy driving the car ends up getting stranded.

These are both good example of what can happen if you forget, or can't be bothered, to plug in an electric car.  For those that drive electric though it soon becomes second nature although even the most experienced EV drivers have been known to forget to plug-in their cars.  People forget to put gas in their cars also, and like forgetting to plug in your EV it is a pretty rare event.

Cordless charging is very good on paper especially when driving some of the older generation vehicles like the Nissan Leaf which had an EPA estimated range of only 84 miles it is very likely that the average person, with a daily driving need of 30 - 40 miles is going to need to charge the batteries on a daily basis.  Battery costs are falling however and this is being see not as cheaper cars but as cars with longer range.  You can now buy a Nissan Leaf with 107 miles range and it is expected that the next generation will have a range of over 200 miles.  That means that the average person doesn't need to charge every day. 

Suppose you own a Chevy Bolt.  With an EPA estimated range of 238 miles the average daily commute is going to be using only about 16% of the battery pack's capacity.  Now I don't pretend to be a battery expert but my understanding of lithium batteries is that they don't like to be stored full, they last much longer being stored close to empty.  In that case you might not want to charge every day, maybe just twice per week to help extend battery life.  There are ways around this, for example being able to set the car to charge when projected range falls below 40 miles for example, with a "start charge" button for when you  know you are going to need a full charge on your next trip.

Another issue is that many electric companies have excess power during the early morning hours so you might not want to start charging right away as rates will be cheaper after hours.  This issue will eventually go away though.  First, as we move toward more renewable power, surplus energy will be available during the day from solar and in the evening from wind but will be in short supply in the early hours as coal fired plants, which need to be kept running overnight, disappear from the grid.  As the grid gets smarter the utility companies will want to be able to turn on charging when they have excess power and stop it again when demand begins to outstrip supply.  This can be accomplished irrespective of if the car is attached by cord or is cordless. 

For me the best reason to go cordless is that it gives the ability of cars to be able to charge as they drive.  Right now if you want to travel long distances in an EV it takes some planning.  In the Chevy Bolt for example you have to stop after the first 200 miles for an hour or so of fast charging.  Now charging is getting faster and that time it going to fall but imagine if you can pick up power from coils buried in the highway.  Electively you could drive non-stop and arrive with a reasonable amount of charge to get you from the highway to your final destination.

I think that cordless charging will also help with fleet operations.  Routes are pretty predictable for many fleets so the use of cordless charging is a good way to take the human factor out of charging. 

Finally we are about to enter the era of autonomous vehicles.  It appears that autonomous vehicles are going to be linked closely with ride sharing.  Ownership of vehicles is expected to drop as more people subscribe to services where they only have to pay for the time they use in a car.  These autonomous vehicles are going to need to manage their charge levels.  Cordless charging is going to make that so much  easier.  When charge begins to get low the car can just find a vacant charging bay and sit there until it has enough charge to handle the next request that comes in.  This will be much easier to implement that having robotic arms to plug-in the car of have  the passenger plug-in the car when it reaches their destination.

I actually do agree with  Mr. Corvic.  Cordless charging will become the norm, but not because people forget to plug-in.

Sunday Jun 25, 2017 – Going Green on Campus – Back in early April, Chrissy from Let's Go Solar sent me a link to an interesting article by Toren Elste called "Going Green on Campus".  While the article didn't seem a good fit for my links pages it did have lots of interesting tips for living a more sustainable life.  I always thought it would make a good subject for one of my blogs and I finally got some time to actually write about it.

Toren Elste is an outreach and event specialist in the Department of Sustainability at the University of Washington.  With degrees in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Science and a passion for the environment that dates back to childhood she is eminently qualified to write about sustainability.

At the top of the page is a neat little quiz that gives you eight questions and then tells you how you scored on the green scale.  After I worked out that I needed to answer the first question to get the next question to appear I breezed through the test scoring 8 out of 8 and being declared a green machine.  To be honest I fudged a couple of the questions.  For example I would definitely turn the lights off when leaving the room and I have many of the vampire loads unplugged when not in use but there are a few that I leave on for convenience, including one too many electric clocks.   
 
Below that there is an index that zips you  down the page to the appropriate section.  These section are oriented towards college students and campus life but they do offer a pretty good summary of some of the ways that you can make your lifestyle more sustainable.  Many of the things in here are things that you can do without much effort too.

 
Two of these sections caught my eye as being appropriate to the electric car movement.  The section on clean energy noted that fossil fuels were a leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and listed some ways that colleges were working to reduce their fossil fuel usage.  Interestingly it only listed solar energy and biofuels ignoring both hydro power and wind energy.  Solar of course is becoming a no-brainer as costs are now falling below most fossil fuels, but unless your focus is strictly on greenhouse gases biofuels are a bit hit and miss.  Bio-diesel in particular can still produce unhealthy amounts of particulates which greatly reduces its effectiveness as a true green alternative.

The other section I zoomed in on was transportation.  This is of course the focus of evfinder.com so I was most interested in this section.  It did mention how colleges are keeping things cleaner by moving toward electric vehicles but it also included the use of bio-diesel and I have already commented on that above.  The article doesn't make the link but of course many supporters of EVs think that the best solution is EV plus PV (solar).

Still it does go into other things that can certainly make for a healthier planet.  It focuses on bike share programs which are actually a very good way to get around on a large campus.  It also talks about incentives to rideshare for staff and students that live off campus.  When I used to work a long way from home I carpooled and I  know that the incentives we had were very nice.  Unfortunately the company I worked for determined that they didn't actually increase the number of people that rideshared so the incentives were eventually dropped.

Much of the rest of the site included things like selecting items that have less packaging or reducing the amount of stuff that you buy, and consider buying used items instead of new.  The idea of buying locally produced items is also included.  Buying local reduces the environmental impact of shipping goods over long distances.  There isn't anything really new at this site but it puts most ideas in one place and it is a good source to review against you current lifestyle to see how you stack up.  After writing the first draft of this blog in encouraged me to drop off my recycling and buy some locally sourced produce for lunch.

I recommend that you review Going Green on Campus for yourself it's worth a look and might even create some new behavior to make your lifestyle more sustainable.

Sunday Jun 18, 2017 – When to Buy a Plug-in Car – This week I read a very interesting report called "When Should I Buy an Electric Car"  written for webuyanycar.com.  The report looks at the cost of buying an electric car and tries to project when buying one will be a be financially cheaper than buying an ICE car in the UK. 

First the report delves a little into history noting that while the current group of electric cars had only started to be produced in 2011, electric cars have been around for 200 years.  That's not too far off, the earliest electric vehicle was probably the one built by Thomas Davidson around 1837.  He also mentions the Tesla model S which is noted as a "Premium Product" in the UK. 

Next the report looks at the total number of electric cars in the UK and notes that currently there are 95,000 electric cars in the UK up from 3,500 in 2013.  This represents a very impressive growth rate.  It also says that worldwide sales were a robust 462,000 in 2015 with the bulk of the sales in China, the USA, Norway and the UK in that order.  It does point out that this represents about 1% of worldwide light vehicle sales.

Next there is a really neat graphic that lists the top markets for electric cars.  It shows the current market share, the number of electric cars at the end of 2010 and 2015 with projections for 2020.  The projections look pretty realistic except for the US number of 1,200,000.  We are currently at about 600,000 plug-in cars sold but with the Tesla Model 3 starting production in July and the Chevy Bolt being sold nationwide in August, the pace should pick up considerably.  Tesla alone is expected to sell close to 1,200,000 cars in the January 2018 to December 2020 timeframe. 

The next section asks how much  does an electric car cost.  It shows the current price of a Nissan Leaf and also talks about some of the other electric cars that are being sold in the UK including the best selling Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV and the funky Renault Twizy both of which are not available in the USA.  A graphic shows the cost comparison of buying a Nissan Leaf compared to the petrol and diesel versions of the Ford Focus.  Unfortunately the graphic doesn't list options and all too often people compare base models but the base model of the EV is often much better equipped than the base of the car being compared to so the comparison is not totally valid.  In this case though I am going to assume that the two cars are similarly equipped and the purchase price of the Leaf is net of government incentives.  In this case the Ford Focus would work out about $5,000 cheaper than the Nissan Leaf over the first 5 years of ownership.

Please note that a part of this is that the Nissan Leaf is more expensive to insure than the Ford Focus.  In the UK there are 50 insurance groups numbered from 1 to 50 with 1 being the cheapest to insure and 50 being the most expensive.  Clearly the annual premium for the Leaf, being in group 18, is going to be a lot more expensive than the Ford Focus to insure.  Unfortunately  the report does not give me the actual amounts projected and I am not familiar enough with the UK insurance industry to be able to tell just from the group number.  Other than the initial higher cost I am also not sure why the Leaf would be so much more expensive to insure than the Focus.

The next section is a graphic that lists performance numbers as compared to the Ford Focus petrol and Diesel vehicles.  In this graphic the Ford Focus won out on every category except CO2 emissions.  Maximum range, top speed, and power came as no surprise.  I was a little but surprised that the Leaf put out more torque than the petrol version of the Focus hatchback but the biggest shock was that the Leaf's 0-60 time was slower than the Focus; usually an electric will smoke an ICE ever time in the dash from 0-60. 
 
The next section had some very interesting information about the cost of an electric car.  One of them was the conclusion on why the resale values were so low.  This was blamed squarely on the cost of a replacement battery pack.  I agree here that one of the reasons that people are skittish about buying used EVs is that we really don't know about how long the battery pack will last on these cars.  Early Nissan Leafs did show severe battery degradation when they were charged in really hot temperatures like those experienced in the deserts of the Western US.  Tesla batteries are doing much better with some indications that they might manage to last as much as 200,000 miles before they hit the 80% threshold usually used to determine when the battery needs to be replaced.  The truth is though that we really don't have enought data yet to really know how long these batteries are going to last.  The good news here is that we are not seeing large capacity drops so far in cars that are now as much as 7 years old.

 
Nesxt was the most interesting graphic, at least for me,  in the whole report; the trend on battery costs per kilowatt hour.  The graphic shows that while the cost of batteries makes up about 25% of most electric cars, battery costs have been falling rapidly dropping as much as 80% from 2010 to 2016.  If this rate can be sustained the optimistic view shows that the point where electric and ICE car costs reach parity, which is $150 per KWh, could be reached as early as 2022.  Even at conservative rates parity would be expected no later than 2030. 

In the end the conclusions drawn are somewhat wishy-washy.  The problem is that while the report looked closely at the way batteries were evolving it failed to consider other innovations in the electric car space.  These include longer range vehicles  with ranges in excess of 200 miles such as the latest version of the Renault ZOE and the Chevy Bolt that are just starting to emerge.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like GM will be making a RHD version of the Bolt so this may not be available in the UK.  Tesla's Model 3 will also be making it's appearance later this year but may not get to Europe until 2018.

Advances are also being made in fast charging.  Right now we have the ability to take a Chevy Bolt up to  about 50% in around 30 minutes and faster charger options are beginning to be devised.  In my opinion the fall of battery prices are going to go into adding more range rather than reducing costs in the near term, so I don't expect price parity to occur until 2030.  There are other reasons for buying an EV though including the smooth quite ride and the ability to charge overnight at home, not to mention that the ICE puts out toxic fumes that cause major health problems, so I think that the market will continue to grow and evolve.

Sunday June 11, 2017 – Richard Hammond's EV Crash – Yesterday former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was involved in a crash while driving the Rimac Concept One electric supercar.  At the time he was filming a segment for his new show, The Grand Tour, at the Hemburg Hill climb course outside the town of St Gallan in Switzerland. 

The car, which appeared to be working well suddenly appeared to be accelerating out of control towards a 90 degree turn.  The car couldn't make the turn and flipped over and rolled down the hill finally bursting into Flames.  Fellow presenter Jeremy Clarkson later tweeted "It was the biggest crash I've ever seen and the most frightening".

Fortunately Richard Hammond was able to crawl out of the overturned car before it caught fire.  He was very shaken but awake and talking.  He was airlifted to a local hospital where he was diagnosed with  a fractured knee.  Looking at pictures of the crash it seems incredible that anyone could have survived but this goes to show just how far we have come with crash protection for the occupants of vehicles. 
 
The Rimac Concept One is built by Rimac Automobili in Croatia and has been described as the worlds first electric supercar.  It has electric motors powering all four wheels with a total power output of 811 KW and is capable of accelerating from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds.  The 90 kWh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide battery pack gives the car a range of 310 miles per charge.  Starting in 2014 a limited production run of just 8 cars was done and all 8 cars were sold.  Reports are that the car involved in the collision was worth over two million dollars.

We can expect a lot of misinformation about the crash over the next few days until the investigation is complete and the true cause is known.  I've already read one report that says the car burst into flames then veered off the road which is clearly incorrect.  I should also point out that in such a horrific crash having an ICE car catch fire would not be considered strange at all.

I've also heard a lot of comments about Hammond, May, and Clarkson getting too old to be driving fast cars but in this case it doesn't seem to be Richard Hammond's fault.  I suspect that these three will begin to slow down a bit though and get someone more like the Stig to do the fast driving.  I remember the tag line on the ads for The Grand Tour which said "what could go wrong"; well now we know.

Sunday Jun 4, 2017 – May 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  May 2017 was the best May on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 16,568 plug-in cars were sold in May, well ahead of the previous record set in May 2015 which saw estimated sales of 11,540 cars.  This is partly due to having more choices in more locations than ever before.   

After selling 1,807 cars in April, May saw Volt sales inch higher to 1,817 cars.  Like April, sales were down from May 2016 but this time only by about 4%.  It does appear that sales of the Chevy Bolt is having a small impact on Chevy Volt sales.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt increased in May up from 1,292 cars sold in April to a new record high of 1,566 cars in May.  Increasing sales are a result of both better inventory and the availability of the Bolt in more of the CARB States.  It is now available in 11 States but full nationwide roll-out won't happen until the 2018 model becomes available later this year. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  January and February were tied at 4 cars, while sales in March dropped to just 3 cars and in April only 1 car was sold.  It looks like inventory is now deleted because no sales were recorded for May.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, 5 in November, and just 3 in both December and January., Cadillac registered no sales in February.  Somehow in March they managed to find 2 more cars to sell and even managed to sell 7 in April but dropped back to 0 in May.

April saw the first sales of the new Cadillac CT6 here in the US with a total of 6 cars being delivered.  In May sales increased to 16 cars.  The CT6 is a plug-in hybrid with an all electric range of around 30 miles.  The car is built in China and imported into the US. 

In May GM sold a total of 3,399 plug-n cars, up from the 3,113 it sold in April.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the first month of the quarter Tesla always focuses on international sales so domestic volume is typically at its lowest .  April was no exception with Tesla selling an estimated 1,840 cars for the month.  The second month of the quarter on the other hand is usually sees medium sales as Tesla does a mixture of domestic and international sales.  In May Tesla sales were an estimated 3,350 cars. 

After selling an estimated 1,125 Model S sedans in April, sales in May climbed to an estimated 1,620 cars.  This was still better than the estimated 1,200 cars sold in May, 2016.

After disappointing sales of just 715 Model X in April, Sales more than doubled in May at an estimated 1,730 cars. This is only the second month since it went on sale that the Model X has outsold the Model S.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in May selling 2,082 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and May was no exception with sales of exactly 1,000 cars, up from the 905 cars sold in April. 

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January, but climbed again in February where they sold 639 cars.  March saw another slight bump in sales with 662 cars sold, and the trend continued in April with an additional 749 cars delivered and jumped again to 950 cars in May.
 
 In March Ford sold an astonishing 407 Focus EVs as it cleared out inventory to make way for the newer longer range model.  It couldn't last though and sales dropped back to the usual 100 to 200 range in April with sales of 120 cars and stayed there in May with a slightly higher 132 cars being sold.

Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November and it has become the sales success of the year so far.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  Toyota kept up the pace selling just 4 less in February with 1,362 cars being sold.  In March, with the sales area slowly expanding but still very limited, they managed to sell and additional 1,618 cars.  In April they set a new record month of sales with 1,819 cars being sold, outselling the Chevy Volt to make the Prius Prime the best selling plug-in for the month.  In May the Prius Prime held onto the crown posting a very impressive 1,908 sales, a new all-time high, even though dealer inventory is barely over 1,000 units.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and  in April they sold 106 Mirai FCEVs.  In May sales jumped to 162 cars.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,613 Mirai.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In April they sold a total of 1,612 cars spread across their five plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016. In April they sold 516 cars, dropping to 506 cars in May.

I'm not sure what happened to the BMW i8 but sales seem to have totally tanked.  They used to traded in the 150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range and in May they didn't even manage that with sales of just 18 cars.  Previously in April they had sold 23 cars.

Sales  of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range. In May they actually got back into the old range managing to sell 433 up from the 291 cars they sold in April.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW is finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in sales, going up to 240 cars.  January saw sales drop back to 129 cars but sales did rebound a little to 144 cars in February and March saw another all time record set at 365 cars.  In April sales fell back again to a still respectable 260 cars but bounced right back up again to 475 cars setting a new all time high monthly sales record.

BMW were supposed to release the 530e in April and it turns out they did just that selling 6 cars for the month.  Sales really didn't get underway until May though when a total of 147 cars left dealer lots.  I expect the story on the 530e will be the same as that of the 330e and 740e where inventory is low as cars are built for Europe first so sales will be constrained for some time to come.

In May sales of the BMW 740e was just 42 cars after selling 123 cars in April.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while and will fluctuate depending on when inventory arrives in the US.

Nissan is scheduled to announce the new version of the Leaf in Tokyo this September and they have been offering lease extensions to those who might be interested in upgrading to the new vehicle when it becomes available.  Sales have been surprisingly robust given that a new model is just around the corner and in April they delivering 1,063 cars.  Sales were up in May climbing to 1,392 cars.

Fiat Chrysler America is not a big fan of plug-in cars and do not break out sales separately.  InsideEV does a very good job of estimating sales from new car registration and state rebate information so I have been using their estimates.  In total Fiat Chrysler delivered an estimated 1,150 Plug-in Cars in May.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, but it is estimated that in April sales were 441 cars.  This jumped to 665 cars in May.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid Minivan and actually sold 12 in January.  Chrysler extended the Christmas and New Year break for an extra week because of an general oversupply of vehicles at its dealers and this impacted production on the Pacifica Hybrid.  Compounding the issue, a quality control hold was placed on the vehicles so cars have just began arriving in dealerships around April 17.  In April 205 Pacifica Hybrids were delivered to Customers.  May saw that number more than double to 485.  This has probably taken care of most of the people who had pre-ordered and had delivery delayed so it will be interesting to see what June will bring.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In April they sold a total of 850 cars.  This was a nice increase from the 795 cars sold in April.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In March they popped up above their normal range selling 414 cars, but in April they just managed to squeak into the bottom of the range selling just 301 cars.  Sales fell a little bit more in May down to 294 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in March sales were  right in this range at 342 cars.  Like Audi in April they also squeaked into the bottom of the range selling just 307 cars but sales climbed right back up to 381 in May.

The bright spot in April for the VW was the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid which sold a solid 185 cars, there best result since selling 197 cars back in August 2016.  They couldn't quite manage this in May falling 11 short with174 cars being sold.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which was expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May but doesn't appear to have arrived yet.  February saw just 1 car being sold, in March this number tripled to 3 cars, and April split the difference landing at 2 cars sold, while in May sales dropped back to 1 car.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 295 cars in March but pulled back to 280 cars in April then dropped again in May to 220 cars.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California delivering 19 cars to paying customers. May saw sales climb to 75 cars.  Hyundai say the car will eventually be sold nationwide.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected later in the year.

In May Hyundai sold a total of 295 plug-in cars. 

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016. In May Kia once again stayed within it's normal trading range selling 129 cars.  This was quite a bit less than the 167 cars that were sold in April.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  In March sales fell back to 70 cars but jumped up in April to set a new monthly sales record at 86 cars.  In May they sold 1 less at 85 cars and

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 214 plug-in cars in May.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range.  April saw a little bit of a breakout when sales hit 66 cars but in May sales dropped back to a more normal 46 cars.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars with March sales hitting the top of this range at 60 cars but sales of the S550e also jumped out of this normal selling range delivering 81 cars in April and 83 cars in May.

There was so little fanfare that almost nobody knew these cars were going on sale, yet in June Mercedes Benz quietly began selling the GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV.  After setting a new sales record with 83 cars being sold in December, January sales dropped back to 52 cars. Sales bounced back a little in February to 59 cars but in March sales fell again to 47 cars and even further in April to 36 cars.  The downward trend continued in May with just 33 cars being sold.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz had put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold but I suspect that this depleted inventory pretty badly and February saw sales drop back to 51 cars, while sales in March plummeted to just 17 cars while in April just 3 cars were sold.  In May only slightly more where sold with a total of 7 cars.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 169 Plug-in cars in April.

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV was one of the few cars that did not beat their January 2016 sales numbers reporting only 96 cars being sold in January well below the 226 cars they sold in January, 2016 and the 204 cars sold in December. Things got even worse in February with only 83 cars being sold. March saw the SUV return to it's normal trading range of 100 - 200 range selling 103 cars while April saw sales land squarely in the middle of the range with 145 cars sold In May sales rose by just 1 to 146 cars..

I have to ask, when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Sales have been down to almost nothing since the older model went out of production last year.  In March sales were just 13 cars and April saw a further pull-back when Smart sold only 3 cars and even less in May with just 1 being sold.  The latest news is that Smart is expected to become an EV only brand here in the US.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  In January Mitsubishi didn't sell any i-MiEV but they did manage 1 sale in February, 3 sales in March, and 2 sales in April.  May matched January with no cars being sold. It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

Honda isn't currently selling a plug-in car but like Toyota they are investing heavily in Fuel Cell Vehicles. In May they sold 119 Clarity FCEVs. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid, the next generation Smart EV, and the Mini Clubman PHEV should start to arrive in dealerships soon.  By July the Tesla model 3 should be rolling off the assembly line so we should start to see sales of that model starting to hit the streets in August.  The indications are that first sales will be at the very end of July but early sales are likely to go to Tesla Employees who will basically be beta testers. 

Sunday May 28, 2017 – Climatology – Let me start by saying that I am not a climate scientist although I do have a background in science and engineering, but since there is much confusion about Climatology, I thought that I would take a shot at removing some of the confusion on this subject. 

First of all there is a lot of confusion between Climatology and Meteorology.  Meteorology looks at short term systems in an attempt to predict what the weather will be like in the near future and is typically focused on a the local area.  For example it will be trying to predict what the temperature, precipitation, and wind speed will be like locally for the next day, week, or two weeks.  Climatology on the other hand is trying to asses the impact that weather averaged globally over a period of time and identify trends and their impact globally when they are projected into the future.

To do this climate scientists generally build models.  Now use of models is often criticized by skeptics but they are essential to make sense of extremely complex processes that are occurring around the world.  The problem is that until someone invents time travel climate scientists can't go into the future to measure what the temperature is.  To try and predict these values they build a model.  The model is then compared with data that has been collect over time for say the last 30 years to see how well it fits the actual climate trend.  Models are refined over time to accommodate new data and new understandings about how the climate works.  These models are then used to project the trends into the future to give a pretty accurate idea of how the climate is changing over time.

Meteorologists also use models that are designed to predict how weather patterns will move over time based on historical data about how they have moved in the past.  It is one of the ways that weather prediction has improved over the years.

Climate models are built around climate patterns which are known as modes of variability.  The best known of these is the El Nino Southern Oscillation which is a a cycle characterized by warming and cooling of surface temperature in the Eastern Pacific.  This cycle lasts on average 5 years although it is quite variable.  The phenomena leads to warming and cooling of surface temperatures around the world and is characterized by an increase in the frequency and strength of typhoons. 

Other things that impact the climate modules are called Forcings. Climate Forcings include variability in the amount of energy emitted by the sun, variability in the amount of energy absorbed by the Earth, and variability of energy radiated back into space from the Earth.

Energy flowing from the sun tends to vary in an 11 year cycle that is tied to the occurrence of sunspots.   The more sunspots there are the more energy is emitted by the sun.  As sun spots increase and decrease over time the the amount of energy falling on the Earth also increases and decreases.  We are now in the 24th sunspot cycle since measurement began in 1755 and this has been the weakest solar cycle in the last 100 years.  The cycle peaked in April 2014 and since then the sunspot activity has been steadily decreasing. 

Feedback loops are also important in climate models.  Feedback loops are effects that occur as a result of Forcings with the effect occurring again with greater or lesser strength.

One feedback is caused by the greening of the planet.  Global warming skeptics often point out the increased CO2 in the atmosphere helps plants grow which sounds like a good thing.  Well, as ice melts in the Artic and Antarctic it exposes rock and mosses begin to grow on there.  The ice was while and used to reflect heat back into space, but mosses are dark green in color and absorb heat,   This creates a feedback loon where the air heats up which causes more ice to melt exposing more rock which grows more moss leading to more heating.

So what about CO2?

Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is one of a group of compounds known as Greenhouse Gasses.(GHG).  Energy from the sun passes through the atmosphere and heats up the ground during the daytime.  This energy is then radiated back into space as a longer wave infrared radiation.  GHGs like CO2 block this outgoing radiation, reflecting the heat back down the Earth.  This is the same phenomenon that keeps a greenhouse warm because glass has a similar effect to GHGs.  It is also why your car gets really hot inside when you leave it parked in direct sunlight.

Greenhouse gases have become particularly important to Climatology for a very simple reason.  Since the start of the industrial revolution the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been rising.  Examining the isotopes of CO2 in the air scientists can see that the rise has been mostly caused by the burning of fossil fuel.  When Climatologists work with their models the only way that they can fit the model to the data from about 1880 onwards is to put in a forcing for CO2.  This shows a direct relationship between the rate the climate has been heating up and increase in CO2 in our atmosphere.

Climatology is much more complex that what I have detailed here but I hope this will help people understand some of the major impacts on world climate and to better understand why we should be worried about the effects that our burning of fossil fuel is having on this world.

Sunday May 21, 2017 – Next EV for EV Drivers – This week Cleantechnia released the results of a survey they conducted of 2,000 EV drivers in 28 countries asking questions like what EV they will purchase next and what they desired in a future EV.  The survey results have some bias as it was not taken from a random selection of people but amongst Cleantechnia readers who voluntarily filled out their survey.  Still, the results are quite interesting.

The survey responses were classified in to six categories.  First they were split between North America, which includes Canada, and Europe.  Each regional group was divided into Tesla Drivers, none Tesla BEV drivers, and plug-in hybrid drivers.

Some of the results of the survey were quite interesting.  The most common reason for getting a plug-in car was Environmental with results varying from 30% - 45% across the six groups.  There was also a desire for a broader range of vehicle types especially for mid-sized sedans and vehicles in the SUV/Crossover categories..   
 
Most respondents said they expected their next EV to have more than 200 miles of range even though they indicated that they didn't really need so much range.  They also wanted cars that were capable of Level 3 and super-fast charging even though most respondents said they rarely used such charging.

 
Surprisingly, most respondents said that public charging infrastructure was convenient, accessible and reliable.  However, most respondents said they usually charged at home while very few said that they regularly use public charging.

For environmental benefits most advocate EV plug PV.  An interesting statistic from the survey is that the number of people who had solar panels installed on their home varied across the groups going from 28% to 40%.  This ties in well with surveys done here in California that found that people that bought EVs were more likely to go solar.

The most interesting results from the survey came from the question about what EV the respondents would buy next.  the majority of respondents said that their next EV would be a Tesla model 3.  This was the number one answer in all six categories and I suspect many of the respondents have already placed their deposit on one.  In particular, the vast majority of Tesla owners said that their next EV would be another Tesla.

Outside the desire for a Tesla, the survey showed a quite a degree of brand loyalty.  For example Chevy Volt drivers indicated that their next vehicle would be either another Chevy Volt or a Chevy Bolt.  Nissan leaf drivers also were more likely to replace their existing car with another Leaf.  There were a couple of cars that were under represented in the survey because they sell best in countries that have a small number of Cleantech readers.  The Renault ZOE is the best selling EV in Europe but most sales are in France. The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is the best selling plug-in in Europe but is a best seller in the Netherlands.  Because they were so under-represented it is difficult to tell drivers of these vehicles exhibit the same degree of brand loyalty.

Clearly there is a lot of bias in this survey.  For example it doesn't look like there was an option to say that their next car would be a FCEV or perhaps that they would go back to ICE cars.  A small number of people did respond to say that they thought that their current EV would be the last car they bought as they expected it to last the rest of their lives.  Still, it does tend to affirm what many EV advocates have been saying for a long time, once a person gets used to driving an electric car they never want to go back to gas.

Sunday May 14, 2017 – Range Anxiety – I read a couple of interesting articles this week about range anxiety so I thought that it was time to revisit this topic as it is often cited as a major reason why people are not buying electric cars. 

In truth, limited range is slowly loosing pull as a reason that people are not buying electric cars as advances in battery technology means that the new crop of vehicles have significantly longer range than the earlier vehicles.  Where cars like the first generation Nissan Leaf had a range of around 80 miles, more recent models like the Hyundai Ioniq have an all electric range of 110 miles.  The average driver does 30 miles per day so basically the additional range of the latest electric cars give an additional day of driving before needing to charge.  Cars like the Chevy Bolt, with an EPA estimated range of 238 miles have started to push the range even further giving most people plenty of range for their day to day driving. 

One of the articles I read said that range anxiety is something unique to electric cars but this is not totally true.  The worst case of range anxiety I ever experienced was traveling across the desert with no other cars in sight watching the fuel gage drop lower and lower then finding that the only gas station for miles around was closed, now that's range anxiety.  I experienced this many years ago driving my old Chevy.  I was able to stretch out my available fuel and make it another 20 miles to an open gas station but it was the most nervous I have ever been in a car, gas or electric.

The real problem is not really the range of the car but the time it takes to charge.  Even with a level 2 charger the Chevy Bolt is going to take at least 10 hours to charge and people worry that they have to wait for 10 hours to charge their car making long distance travel take an extended length of time.  Fortunately a lot of new cars also come with a fast charging option which allows the car to fill up in a much shorter time.  For the Chevy Bolt I understand that it takes about an hour on most fast chargers to get up to 80% charge which gives you plenty of time to get a meal or do some shopping while waiting for the car to fill.

Using a fast charger is still a lot slower than filling up an ICE car and this is really the issue that is pushing some companies like Toyota, Honda and Hyundai into experimenting with fuel cell cars.  Gas cars tend to have a much longer range than electric cars, although my old Chevy with its V6 engine and relatively small gas tank was lucky to give me 175 miles around town.  Still, the convenience of spending just 5 minutes at a gas station to fill up for another 300 miles of driving is compelling for many people, especially those who don't know the convenience of waking up each morning with a full tank.

For the average driver, a 10 hour overnight charge from a 110V outlet will cover the average 30 mile drive.  For a car like the Hyundai Ioniq Electric that would mean making your regular 30 mile drive each day and having 80 miles of additional range in case you needed to run errands during the week. 
 
There is another issue that was also brought up this week triggered by a BMW i3 driver in Canada who was very upset that he wasn't getting the 200 KM range advertised by BMW.  This is partly due to the European manufacturers over-promising on range because they initially measure range on the very lenient European test cycle.  The EPA test cycle gives a range that is somewhat closer to real world driving and for the BMW i3 the range  is 81 miles (130 KM).  It shouldn't be surprising that someone expecting a 200 KM range who is only getting 130 KM would be upset.

 
Real world range is another reason that people would get range anxiety.  Range tends to vary quite a bit depending on conditions and driving style.  This is true of gas cars as well as electric but becomes a lot more noticeable in an electric car.  With a gas car, you typically get a fuel gage that measure the amount of fuel in the gas tank.  If you turn on the air conditioner it isn't going to change the level of fuel in the tank so you would have no idea that your range just dropped quite a bit.  Only if you track your fill-ups would you really notice the difference in mpg. 

In an electric car it's quite different.  Most cars provide an estimate of miles remaining based on the state of charge of the battery pack.  In my Prius Plug-in, when I turn on the AC my miles remaining is immediately going to drop by about 20% which is really going to freak out someone who is already close to the limits of their range. Of course in a plug-in hybrid I know that the gas engine will kick in when I run low on charge so I wouldn't be worried but in a pure electric this could be cause for concern.

In the case of running the AC it might be the difference between making it to the destination and needing a charge before you get there.  Of course the miles have not been consumed by turning on the AC, the estimate just changed to reflect the higher current draw on the batteries that is created by the AC.  If I turn off the AC the range would go up by 20% again, so I could drive home without the AC even though this might not be as comfortable as the driver would like.

There are other things that affect range too.  One of the worst is the need for heat in cold environments.  ICE cars get their heat by using the waste heat created by the engine but there is very little waste heat for an electric car, not enough to heat up the cabin on a sub-zero day.  EVs are usually equipped with either heat pumps or electric heaters and both these pull a lot of juice out of the battery.  In really cold climates this can suck as much as 40% of the range out of the batteries and this has to be taken into account when choosing an EV.  Plug-in hybrids usually get their heat from running the ICE engine so they are much less impacted by cold weather. 

 
Another factor affecting range is how heavy footed you are.  Jackrabbit starts can be a lot of fun for torque junkies and an EV can usually out-accelerate and ICE by quite a margin but this does negatively impact range.  High speed also has consequences.  Driving a Chevy Bolt on the freeway at 80 mph will yield significantly less than 238 miles of range.  Again this is not isolated to EVs, anyone who drives an ICE on the freeway at 80 mph will also see their mpg significantly reduced.
 
To make EVs long range cars there is an ever growing number of chargers being installed across the country.  There are several issues with the charging station networks at the moment that need to be considered when buying an EV. 

The first is the nature of these charging locations.  They tend to be distributed around urban areas where there are a significant number of electric vehicles on the roads.  Here in Southern California there are lots of level 2 charging stations scattered around so you can usually find one wherever you go.  In some areas of the country though chargers are few and far between making long distance travel very difficult unless you have someone at the other end who will let you plug in at their home.  Charger networks are being built out slowly and it does make sense to put chargers where the cars are and as EVs become more commonplace the EV charger networks will expand to incorporate more remote areas.

Fast DC chargers, also known as Level 3 chargers are more of an issue.  The biggest problem is that there are 3 incompatible standards for Level 3 charging.  Tesla has its well known network of Superchargers that are well distributed along major highways allowing Tesla drivers to travel coast to coast with little more effort than an ICE driver.  The Japanese carmakers use their own standard called ChaDeMO which is used on cars like the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV.  The US and European manufacturers use a third standard called Combined Charging System (CCS) which is the charger type used on cars like the BMW i3 and Chevy Bolt. 

The problem with multiple standards is that this just makes it harder to get more coverage.  Typically Tesla goes its own way although they do now offer an adapter that will allow Teslas to use ChaDeMO chargers.  while the other companies rely on charger network providers like Chargepoint and.EVGo to set up chargers.  This sometimes means a location will have just ChaDeMO or just CCS so a driver has to plan carefully when he wants to travel long distances.  This does lead to range anxiety and discourages many from risking longer distance travel with their EV.

The biggest driver of range anxiety is worry about getting to a charger and finding it in use or blocked.  Last time I was at Westfield's Century City Shopping Center I found all 8 chargers were in use and there was already a guy in a BMW i3 waiting for a charger.  Fortunately Westfield's is planning to add more chargers as part of their expansion of the Mall which should be completed by Fall of this year.  My biggest beef is going to a charger location and find that somebody has parked in one of the charging bays but isn't charging.  Tesla drivers are the worst offenders here but I've seen lots of other plug-ins blocking chargers.  Getting to a charger when your range is getting low and finding it blocked can really spark an attack of range anxiety.

 
Earlier this week on Twitter I saw someone complaining about Plug-in Hybrids hogging the chargers.  Chelsea Sexton had a good comeback for this pointing out that the chargers are there to maximize electric miles driven and so it is beneficial for plug-in hybrids to be able to charge.  I can understand how it might be worrying for an EV driver to get to a charging station and find all the chargers being used by plug-ins and this is another trigger for range anxiety.  Personally I'm in favor of more 110V outlets rather than a limited number of Level 2 chargers.  It takes a lot longer to get a full charge at level 1 but it is quite enough for many PHEVs which could then leave the faster Level 2 chargers to the EVs.

There are solutions coming down the pike to address range anxiety.  The first one is faster Level 3 chargers so that an EV can fill up in 5 minutes instead of 60 minutes.  I think that it will be a while before such chargers become available but higher voltage Level 3 chargers are already starting to appear that will cut charging time down to about half what the current models take.  Another solution is destination charging.  Given the growth of plug-in cars I find it amazing that charging stations are not becoming commonplace at hotels everywhere.  The availability of even Level 1 charging at a hotel would make travel much easier.  On the last trip I took there were no chargers at any of the local hotels with the exception of Pechanga Hotel-Casino which has about 8 Level 2 chargers most of which were in use on the couple of times I visited.  I finished up charging at one of two locations provided by the city of Temecula in Old Town. 

Range anxiety shouldn't bother people who want to use an EV for things like a daily commute and running errands around town.  Unless someone has a really long commute a simple overnight charge should provide more than enough range for most people's daily needs.  Where range anxiety kicks in is when you need to take that EV on a long distance trip.  For some this is just not feasible but for many all it takes is a little extra planning and a little extra time.  As EVs improve over time this will become less and less of an issue. 

Sunday May 7, 2017 – April 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  April 2017 was the best April on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 13,152 plug-in cars were sold in April, well ahead of the previous record set in April 2016 which saw estimated sales of 10,531 cars.  Set this against a backdrop of general auto sales which were down about 4.7% in April and thing begin to look bright for plug-in sales, although it is the increasing number of plug-in models that is helping keep sales growing. 

After selling 2,132 cars in March, April saw Volt sales decline to 1,807 cars.  Sales were down about 9% over April 2016 verses a general decline in GM light vehicle sales of 5.8%.

Sales of the Chevy Bolt on the other hand increased in April up from 952 cars sold in February to a new record his of 1,292 cars in April.  Even the record high sales were a bit of a disappointment as some dealerships had been heavily discounting the car and appear to have plenty of inventory.  I think a good part of the problem is the issue with seats.  While many drivers have said they are OK with the seating in the Bolt some owners are not happy while others have given uncomfortable seating as a reason for not buying one.  It appears that Chevy might have some issues with the seat which seems to have a lot of variability in the padding causing some seats to be uncomfortable for some drivers. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  January and February were tied at 4 cars, while sales in March dropped to just 3 cars and in April only 1 car was sold.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, 5 in November, and just 3 in both December and January., Cadillac registered no sales in February.  Somehow in March they managed to find 2 more cars to sell and even managed to sell 7 in April.

April saw the first sales of the new Cadillac CT6 here in the US with a total of 6 cars being delivered.  The CT6 is a plug-in hybrid with an all electric range of around 30 miles.  The car is built in China and imported into the US. 

In April GM sold a total of 3,113 plug-n cars, just 2 less than it sold in March.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the Third month of the quarter Tesla always does a big push to try and meet their quarter end projections.  March was no exception with Tesla selling an estimated 6,200 cars for the month.  The first month of the quarter on the other hand is always very low as Tesla switches to sending cars to fulfilling international orders.  In April Tesla sales were 1,840 cars. 

After selling an estimated 3,450 Model S sedans in March, sales fell in April to an estimated 1,125 cars.  This was still better than the estimated 900 cars sold in January, the first month of the previous quarter.

The Model X also saw the expected large drop in Sales in April falling from March sales of an estimated 2,750 cars to just 715 cars being sold in April.  This was also less than the 750 Model X that were estimated to have been sold in January 2015.

Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November and it has become the sales success of the year so far.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  Toyota kept up the pace selling just 4 less in February with 1,362 cars being sold.  In March, with the sales area slowly expanding but still very limited, they managed to sell and additional 1,618 cars.  In April they set a new record month of sales with 1,819 cars being sold, outselling the Chevy Volt to make the Prius Prime the best selling plug-in for the month.

Sales could have been a whole lot higher for this PHEV but sales are still limited to a very small area of the country and dealers just can't get enough of them with a car staying on the dealer lot for an average of just 2 weeks.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and in March they sold 118 Mirai FCEVs.  In April sales dropped to 106 cars.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,451 Mirai.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in April selling 1,774 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and April was no exception with sales of 905 cars, down from the 1,002 cars sold in March. 

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January, but climbed again in February where they sold 639 cars.  March saw another slight bump in sales with 662 cars sold, and the trend continued in April with an additional 749 cars delivered.
 
So what happened with sales of the Ford Focus Electric?  It seems like there was a lot of incentives to move the older car to make room for the new model with and EPA estimated range of 115 miles.  In March Ford sold an astonishing 407 Focus EVs.  It couldn't last though and sales dropped back to the usual 100 to 200 range in April with sales of 120 cars.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In April they sold a total of 1,213 cars spread across their five plug-in models.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July 2016. In April the sold 516 cars, quite a bit less than March were they sold 703 cars.

BMW i8 Has normally traded in the  150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 20 - 60 range.  In February they sold 58 cars but the total dropped to just 49 cars in March and they only managed sales of 23 cars in April.

Sales  of the X5 xDrive40e used to trade in the range of 400 - 600 but this year they have only been trading in the 200 - 400 range.  In March they were close to the top of this new range with 397 cars being sold, but in April they fell back to what has become the new norm selling 291 cars.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW are finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in sales, going up to 240 cars.  January saw sales drop back to 129 cars but sales did rebound a little to 144 cars in February and March saw another all time record set at 365 cars.  In April sales fell back again to a still respectable 260 cars.

In August BMW dealers were supposed to begin receiving the new 7 Series plug-in hybrid, the 740e, and finally, in December they made it to dealerships,  By the end of December the keys to 23 cars had been handed over to customers.  January added a further18 cars to BMWs sales total and February saw sales climb to 35 cars.  March saw another increase in sales going up to 42 cars sold.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while so April sales of 123 cars came as a complete surprise.

After sales of the Nissan Leaf dropped below the 1,000 cars level to 772 cars in January they did rebound in February when they sold a surprising 1,037 cars.  March got even better as sales hit 1,478 units, and they managed to stay above the 1,000 mark in April delivering 1,063 cars.  Nissan is expected to announce the next generation Leaf, probably with a 200 mile range, soon with sales expected to begin towards the end of this year.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In April they sold a total of 795 cars.  This was a sizable drop from the 885 cars sold in March.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In March they popped up above their normal range selling 414 cars, but in April they just managed to squeak into the bottom of the range selling just 301 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in March sales were  right in this range at 342 cars.  Like Audi in April they also squeaked into the bottom of the range selling just 307 cars.

The bright spot in April for the VW was the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid which sold a solid 185 cars, there best result since selling 197 cars back in August 2016.  This was quite a decent increase over the 126 cars sold in March.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which is now expected to show up in US dealerships some time in May.  February saw just 1 car being sold, in March this number tripled to 3 cars, and April split the difference landing at 2 cars sold.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, and they don't break out sales figures, so I have been using the numbers calculated by Inside EV from state rebate information.  March sales came in at an estimated 355 cars and in April sales increased to an estimated 441 cars.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid Minivan and actually sold 12 in January.  Chrysler extended the Christmas and New Year break for an extra week because of an general oversupply of vehicles at its dealers and this impacted production on the Pacifica Hybrid.  Compounding the issue, a quality control hold was placed on the vehicles so cars have just began arriving in dealerships around April 17.  Typical of Fiat Chrysler America they refuse to split out sales of the Pacifica Hybrid so once again I turned to Inside EV who estimated that in April 205 Pacifica Hybrids were delivered to Customers.

In total Fiat Chrysler delivered 646 Plug-in Cars in April.

Sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV in was 190 cars falling to 175 cars in February.  Sales recovered somewhat in March climbing back up to 295 cars but pulled back to 280 cars in April.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered.

In April Hyundai also began sales of the all electric version of the Ioniq in California delivering 19 cars to paying customers.  Hyundai say the car will eventually be sold nationwide.  The Ioniq Electric has a range of around 120 miles with a price starting at less than $31,000 before incentives so it should sell reasonably well if Hyundai can get cars to dealerships.  A plug-in hybrid version is also expected later in the year.

In April Hyundai sold a total of 299 plug-in cars. 

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  They have normally traded in the 100 - 200 range straying above that only once when they sold 217 cars in September 2016. In April the Kia Sould once again stayed within it's normal trading range selling 167 cars.  This was slightly less than the 171 cars that were sold in March.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  In March sales fell back to 70 cars but jumped up in April to set a new monthly sales record at 86 cars.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 253 plug-in cars in April.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range.  March was no exception with sales falling to 50 cars but April saw a little bit of a breakout when sales hit 66 cars.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars with March sales hitting the top of this range at 60 cars but sales of the S550e also jumped out of this normal selling range delivering 86 cars in April.

There was so little fanfare that almost nobody knew these cars were going on sale, yet in June Mercedes Benz quietly began selling the GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV.  After setting a new sales record with 83 cars being sold in December, January sales dropped back to 52 cars. Sales bounced back a little in February to 59 cars but in March sales fell again to 47 cars and even further in April to 36 cars.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz had put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold but I suspect that this depleted inventory pretty badly and February saw sales drop back to 51 cars, while sales in March plummeted to just 17 cars while in April just 3 more cars were sold.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 186 Plug-in cars in March, a slight increase after two months of declining sales.

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV was one of the few cars that did not beat their January 2016 sales numbers reporting only 96 cars being sold in January well below the 226 cars they sold in January, 2016 and the 204 cars sold in December. Things got even worse in February with only 83 cars being sold.  March saw the SUV return to it's normal trading range of 100 - 200 range selling 103 cars while April saw sales land squarely in the middle of the range with 145 cars sold.

I have to ask, when will the upgraded Smart Electric Drive begin to arrive in the USA.  Sales have been down to almost nothing since the older model went out of production last year.  In March sales were just 13 cars and April saw a further pull-back when Smart sold only 3 cars.  The latest news is that Smart is expected to become an EV only brand here in the US.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  In January Mitsubishi didn't sell any i-MiEV but they did manage 1 sale in February, 3 sales in March, and 2 sales in April.  It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

Plug-in car sales did OK in April with a 30% increase over April 2016.  This is in a month that has been difficult for carmakers who have almost all seen declining sales.  It should also be remembered that April had one less sales day that March. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The BMW 530e and Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid should start to arrive in dealerships during May.  By July the Tesla model 3 should be rolling off the assembly line so we should start to see sales of that model in July or August.  The indications are that first sales will be at the very end of July but early sales are likely to go to Tesla Employees who will basically be beta testers. 

Sunday April 30, 2017 – New EV Tax in California – This week Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a new bill that will increase gasoline tax by about 12 cents per gallon to fund improvements to the California's infrastructure.  Since EVs don't use gasoline they would not contribute to these infrastructure improvements so the bill includes a provision to place a $100 tax for electric vehicles that will be added to the annual registration fees.  These taxes will rise each year as they are inflation linked.

This increase in vehicle registration fees has been roundly opposed by EV Supporters including Plug-in America.  There is some good news in the fine print of the law though.  While the gas tax increases starting November 1 of this year the $100 fee is only applicable to cars that are 2020 model year and later, and will become effective on July 1, 2020.  Now, the bill actually states that this amount is applicable to "zero emission vehicles" so it is unclear if this will also apply to plug-in hybrids too as these would get hit by both the gas tax and the $100 fee.  What is clear is that this tax will apply to fuel cell vehicles.

Of course the right wing is up in arms about this and have even started a movement to recall one of the legislators, Democratic Senator Josh Newman, who voted for the tax.  Senator Newman narrowly won his seat in normally republican Orange County.

The money from this tax hike is desperately need to fix some of California's ailing infrastructure.  It is designed to plug the $59 billion hole in what is needed to fix California's bridges and roads.  The American people are wildly tax averse and so while they complain about the state of our roads they don't want to foot the bill to pay for them being fixed.  Now it's time to pay the piper.

What's funny is that Donald Trump ran on a platform that included investing billions to fix America's crumbling infrastructure but that promise seems to have disappeared from his agenda, at least for his first 100 days.  The problem is that since President Bush did his massive tax cuts there has been huge deficits in the national budget.  As a result things like infrastructure problems have been placed on the back burner and the nation's roads and bridges have continued to deteriorate.  With the Republicans holding the purse strings for much of his two terms, President Obama was unable to get the Bush tax cuts rolled back and so things continued to get worse. 

Now President Trump has plans to fix infrastructure and his way might work, but if you think we are going to get away without paying for it you are going to be in for a big surprise.  The extreme right is looking for almost no government at all with the exception of spending large amounts on the defense budget.  So let the private sector do the repair.  If a bridge needs fixing then let them fix the bridge using a toll to recoup the costs and make a profit.  What you end up with is paying tolls whenever you want to drive.  This is already being done around the country, even here is California.  It's called a toll but it is really a usage fee, so you can pay the money as a tax or you can pay the money as a toll but in the end the money is still going to come out of your pocket. 

The only difference is that I can choose not to travel so I don't have to pay the toll.  Then again, if I don't travel I don't burn gas, so I don't pay the gas tax either.  Gas tax is a usage fee too, only it's called a tax so Americans are opposed to it.

 
Now the $100 fee being slapped on the zero emission vehicle driver is something different.  EV owners are going to pay the fee whether they drive or stay home.  It really is a tax not a usage fee.  I personally think that in the end we will finish up with a system that is based on miles traveled and vehicle weight as these are the real things that determine the damage that traffic does to the road.  This would mean tracking cars using GPS technology and this opens up a whole new can of worms including privacy issues and out of state travel.  For now the usage fee tagged on to the registration fee is a workable compromise.

It was inevitable that some form of taxation would be levied on electric cars so that they would help fund the maintenance of our roads and bridges.  I just hope that the electric car market has become strong enough by 2020 that it won't be badly impacted by the introduction of this $100 annual fee. 

Sunday April 23, 2017 – BMW Installing Chargers – Last week BMW installed the first of 100 chargers it is planning on rolling out to National Parks across the country.  The first four chargers were commissioned at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in Orange New Jersey.  On top of that BMW is going to be picking up the cost of the electricity for the first six months making the chargers free. 

The chargers are Sema level 2 charging stations that are capable of providing power up to about 7.2KW and should be able to charge at rate of 20-25 miles per hour if the EV is equipped with a charger capable of charging at that rate.  The irony here is that BMW is installing AC chargers at the place from which Thomas Edison advocated using DC for electrical power. 

This sounds like a good thing to me but Seth Weintraub from Electrek wasn't impressed.  He thought that BMW should have been installing DC fast chargers.  His logic sounded reasonable.  He argued that if he drove a BMW i3 the 60 miles to attend the opening event he would need to wait around for a couple of hours after the event to get a full charge while he would only need 30 minutes if they had DC fast chargers.

In the comments section he also added that a 30 minute charge would allow 6 to 10 drivers to get a charge in the 3 to 5 hours that a typical patron spends at the museum.  He also suggested that Level 2 chargers should not be installed at places like grocery stores and shopping centers.

Studies have shown that level 2 chargers, and are the most cost effective solution for places where people stay for extended periods of time.  For really extended stays level 1 charging even becomes more cost effective but in this case the 3 to 5 hours typical stay is pretty good for level 2 chargers.  The BMW that Seth talked about would have gotten 60 miles of range in a 3 hour stay which should have been plenty to make the 60 mile trip back home. 

On the other hand, it the charger had been a DC fast charger then the drive would most likely have just left the car at the charger for the duration of their visit blocking it for other users. Not to mention that the charger might not be usable at all if the chargers were Chademo and the BMW uses CCS.  Of course there could always be parking restrictions put on the DC charging station charging bay.  Seth is suggesting 30 minutes of charging.  Assuming that the parking restrictions are being policed, and I have found that in many cases they are not, the the person would need to leave the museum tour and head back to their car after 30 minutes.  In fact they would probably have to wait with the car or risk getting ticketed so that's 30 minutes wasted time.

Now don't get me wrong. fast chargers are desperately needed but not at places where people are going to spend an extended amount of time.  Fast chargers are needed at places like highway rest stops and in town places close to the highway.  If there was a fast charger close to the highway the Seth would have had the option to stop for a 30 minute charge on his way home rather than wait 2 hours for a charge at the Edison National Park.

One thing that I do agree with Seth on is that level 2 chargers are mostly useless at grocery stores except where these are part of a larger shopping center where people will spend lots of time.  Most people spend 20 to 30 minutes in the grocery store and that is only going to give you at best 10 miles of range.  Here is an example from personal experience, this lunchtime I went to a local Whole Foods store and plugged in there while I shopped. While I was there I bought food from their food bar and ate it in the little area set aside for this.  Getting back to my car I had take just 30 minutes and my car had accumulated just 4 miles.  Now keep in mind that my Prius Plug-in only has a 2.4 KWh battery charger so charging rates are pretty slow.  The i3 Seth was talking about would have accumulated about 10 miles in that same 30 minutes but still, that's not much. 

DC charging makes some sense at a Grocery Store as it can give you a decent amount of range while you pick up your groceries.  For the BMW i3 this would have boiled down to about 64 miles of range for that same 30 minutes which is a decent amount of range but installing a DC fast charger is expensive so the store is going to find it cost prohibitive.

In the case of a shopping center they really want you to spend time there so the slower charging rate is going to work to their advantage.  It keeps customers there to browse or eat and this can mean impulse buying and more business for the shopping center.  It can also be a reason to choose a shopping center over a competing shopping center that does not provide charging options.

Let me illustrate my point.  Yesterday I decided to go to the beach.  On a nice warm day like we had yesterday I can get about 11 miles of range out of my batteries.  There is no way that I can make it to the beach and back again on a single charge as the closest beach is about 8 miles away.  If I go to Santa Monica I can usually find available Level 2 chargers.  There are a few Level 1 chargers in Santa Monica place too but because of the charger bay layout most of these are inaccessible.  I was able to find an available charger and get a full charge while I ate, did some shopping, and walked around enjoying this beachside community.  Because of availability of chargers I was able to make the round trip without burning any gas while Santa Monica vendors were the recipients of my discretionary spending.

One last thing, Seth ended up taking a Chevy Bolt to the BMW event instead of the i3.  This meant they could easily make the round trip without a charge.  To his credit he didn't use one of the chargers so it was available to someone who needed it.  Now, I would have had no problem with him using the charger especially since the pictures I saw indicated that most of them were not being occupied during the event.  What I do take exception to is EV drivers who block charging stations but are not using them.

Sunday March 12, 2017 – 2017 New York Auto Show – This weekend saw the opening of the 2017 New York Auto show and there were a few new electric cars and concepts on display.  As fuel economy standards get tougher around the world companies are responding by increasingly electrifying their vehicle line-up and we saw quite a bit of this in this years show.

When Honda announced their newest version of the Clarity Fuel Cell Vehicle in Los Angeles they also hinted that this would be the first of a family of Clarity vehicles that would include a battery electric and plug-in hybrid versions.  At this years New York Auto Show Honda made good with this promise showing off both the Electric and Plug-in hybrid Clarity cars.

The Clarity Electric will only be available in California and Oregon but Honda did hint that if there was enough people wanting to buy the car in other states they might consider expanding the sales area.  The Clarity EV will be powered by a 161hp electric motor driven by a 25.5 KWh lithium ion battery pack which Honda says will provide a range of about 80 miles on a charge and a EPA estimated 111-Mpge fuel economy rating.  The car will also offer fast charging capability using the CCS charge connection capable of charging to 80% in about 30 minutes.  While I am sure that this will appeal to die-hard Honda fans the range is way short of the 100+ miles that the latest generation of EVs are now offering and way way below the 200 mile range of the Chevy Bolt, next generation Leaf, and Tesla Model 3.  It looks to me like a car that was designed to fail. 
 
The Clarity Plug-in hybrid on the other hand looks like a winner to me if it is priced correctly.  The car is driven by a 181hp electric motor that is powered by a 17KW lithium ion battery pack which is said to provide an estimated 42 miles of all electric range.  On the ICE side is a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder Atkinson-cycle motor that is based on the current Fit power unit and appears to function as a range extender with the ability to also drive the wheels which is similar to the Voltec power train on the Chevy Volt.  EPA fuel economy is rated at 105-Mpge which is comparable to the 106-Mpge of the Chevy Volt even though the Clarity is a larger vehicle.

 
So far there is no indication of when we should expect these two vehicles will be available, all that Honda said is "later this year" but it was hinted that like it's FCEV cousin, the Clarity Electric will initially be offered as lease only.

Kia has the Soul EV on sale here and just recently began selling their Optima plug-in hybrid in the US.  At the New York Auto Show they introduced a new plug-in hybrid that is bound for sale in the US, a PHEV version of the Niro Crossover.  The Niro PHEV will be driven by the same 1.6 liter 4 cylinder engine and AC motor as the Niro Hybrid but the battery will be bumped up to an 8.9 liter lithium ion pack that Kia claim will power the car for up to 34 miles of all electric range.  I expect this is based on a more lenient standard and once the official EPA numbers come out the range will be more like 28 miles.

The Kia Niro PHEV is expected to go on sale in Europe in the fall but so far no release date for the US has been specified.

Just when we thought it was gone the Porsche Panamera S e-Hybrid appeared once again at the New York Auto Show as the Porsche Panamera Turbo S e-Hybrid.  Take the Panamera V-8, add a couple of turbo chargers, then hook it up to a 14.4 KWh lithium ion battery pack and you end up with a power train that can kick out 680hp, but can also give an all electric range of 31 miles.  When pushed the car can do 0-60 in just 3.2 seconds and offers a top speed of 193mph.  There is no indication of when this car will go on sale but it has been priced starting at $182,450.

Lucid Motors also showed a couple of concept cars at the New York Auto Show this year.  First they had a version of the Lucid Air sedan which is basically a test mule which will give a pretty good indication of the car that they plan to put on sale in a couple of years.  The Lucid Air is aimed at the luxury car market and will be a direct competitor to the Tesla Model S.  It is expected to come with a dual motor set-up offering capable of outputting 1,000hp with power coming from a 100 KWh lithium battery pack.  This is expected to give the car a range of over 300 miles and offer a 0-60 time of just 2.5 seconds.

The second car that Lucid showed was the Air Alpha Speed which had recently been clocked at 217mph at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio.  Lucid pointed out that 217mph was the maximum speed that could be tested and is not necessarily the top speed of this car.  The Air Alpha Speed appears to use the same power train as the Air but there was no indication if this is what should be expected of the Air when it launches in 2019 or if this is going to be offered as a separate high performance model.

The electrification of vehicle power trains continues to move forward and at each show we are seeing more new plug-in models headed to showrooms.  I wonder when the tipping point will occur and demand for Plug-in cars begins to eclipse demand for regular gas models.

Sunday Apr 9, 2017 – March 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  March 2017 was the best March on record for EV sales and the second best monthly sales numbers of all time.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015.  Overall an estimated 18,107 plug-in cars were sold in March, destroying the previous record set in March 2016 which saw estimated sales of 13,857 cars. 

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the Third month of the quarter Tesla always does a big push to try and meet their quarter end projections.  March was no exception with Tesla selling an estimated 6,200 cars for the month.  They also exceeded analysts expectation for the first quarter reporting more than 25,000 vehicles sold worldwide, their best quarter ever. 

After selling an estimated 1,750 Model S sedans in February sales jumped in March to an estimated 3,450 cars.  This was still below their sales for March 2016 when an estimated 3,990 cars were sold.

The fall-off in sales of the Model S was more than made up for by an uptick in the sales of the Model X which saw its best March sales with an estimated 2,750 cars being sold.  In February Tesla had sold only 800 Model X.

After selling 1,820 cars in February, March saw Volt sales climb back above 2,000 with sales of 2,132 cars.  This was the best March for the Volt since they sold 2,289 cars back in March 2012.

As promised GM began delivery of the Chevy Bolt in the middle of December and managed to deliver 579 Bolts.  In January sales of the Chevy Bolt climbed to 1,152 cars but dropped in February falling short of the 1,000 mark with a disappointing 952 cars.  In March sales increased slightly to 978 cars but still fell short of the 1,000 car mark. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  January and February were tied at 4 cars While sales in March dropped to just 3 cars.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, 5 in November, and just 3 in both December and January., Cadillac registered no sales in February.  Somehow in March they managed to find 2 more cars to sell. 

In March GM sold a total of 3,115 plug-n cars.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in March selling 2,071 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and March was no exception with sales of 1002 cars, up from the 837 cars sold in February.  This is the first time that Ford has sold more than 1,000 Fusion Energi this year which may indicate that they have overcome inventory problems that resulted in the lower sales in recent months. 

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January, but climbed again in February where they sold 639 cars.  March saw another slight bump in sales with 662 cars sold.
 
So what happened with sales of the Ford Focus Electric?  It used to be that they sold in the 100 to 200 range but over the past year they have been selling in the 50 - 100 car range.  What a difference a few extra miles of range can make!  The new improved range Ford Focus is now becoming available with an EPA estimated 115 miles of range and the addition of DC fast charging.  Ford did some clearing of inventory of the older version hitting sales of 228 in February.  In March they began clearing a long backlog of orders for the new version which resulted in sales of 407 cars. This was their best sales month ever for the Focus EV well ahead of the previous record of 264 set in August 2014.

Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November and it has become the sales success of the year so far.  During November, with sales in a limited number of areas, mostly California and Oregon, they sold 781 cars.  This set a record for the most plug-in cars sold in the first month of sales.  Not to be outdone, December sales increased to 1,641 cars.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  Toyota kept up the pace selling just 4 less in February with 1,362 cars being sold.  In March, with the sales area slowly expanding but still very limited they managed to sell and additional 1,618 cars just short of December's record sales tally.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and in February they sold 110 Mirai FCEVs.  In March sales climbed again to 118 cars.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,345 Mirai.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In February they sold a total of 830 cars but sales jumped to 1,556 in March.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July  In November sales were right in the middle of the range with 629 cars sold and In December things picked up again a little with sales of 791 cars. January saw sales fall to 382 cars and sales fell a little further in February to 318 cars.  March sales recovered somewhat climbing to 703 cars.

BMW i8 Has normally traded in the  150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 50 - 60 range.  In February they sold 58 cars but the total dropped to just 49 cars in March.

Sales  of the X5 xDrive40e moved closer to the normal trading range of 400 - 600 cars in March with sales of 397 cars.  In February they had sold just 275 cars.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW are finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in sales, going up to 240 cars.  January saw sales drop back to 129 cars but sales did rebound a little to 144 cars in February and March saw another all time record set at 365 cars.

In August BMW dealers were supposed to begin receiving the new 7 Series plug-in hybrid, the 740e, and finally, in December they made it to dealerships,  By the end of December the keys to 23 cars had been handed over to customers.  January added a further18 cars to BMWs sales total and February saw sales climb to 35 cars.  March saw another increase in sales going up to 42 cars sold.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while.

After sales of the Nissan Leaf dropped below the 1,000 cars level to 772 cars in January they did rebound in February when they sold a surprising 1,037 cars.  March got even better as sales hit 1,478 units.  Nissan is expected to announce the next generation Leaf, probably with a 200 mile range, soon with sales expected to begin towards the end of this year.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands. In march they sold a total of 885 cars.  This was a little better than the 815 cars sold in February.

The Audi A3 e-Tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range.  In February they hit the top end of their normal trading range by selling exactly 400 cars.  In March they popped up above their normal range selling 414 cars.

The normal selling range for the VW e-Golf is 200 - 400 cars and in March sales were  right in this range at 342 cars.  Previously in February 293 e-Golf were sold.

After selling 177 cars in January sales of the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid fell to 121 cars in February but increased a little to 126 in March.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which is expected to show up in US dealerships some time in April.  February saw just 1 car being sold and March this number tripled to 3 cars.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, and they don't break out sales figures, so I have been using the numbers calculated by Inside EV from state rebate information.  February sales came in at an estimated 240 cars and in March sales increased to an estimated 355 cars.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid Minivan and actually sold 12 in January.  Chrysler extended the Christmas and New Year break for an extra week because of an general oversupply of vehicles at its dealers and this impacted production on the Pacifica Hybrid.  Compounding the issue, a quality control hold was placed on the vehicles so cars have just begun shipping again and are expected to begin arriving in dealerships around April 17.  As a result, no sales of the Pacifica Hybrid were recorded in March.

December sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 325 cars which was the second best sales month for this car, being beaten only by the 375 cars they sold back in July, 2016.  In January sales fell back to 190 cars and the fall continued in February with an estimated 175 cars sold.  Sales recovered somewhat in March climbing back up to 295 cars.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered. 

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  Things seem to be changing and in September Kia set a monthly sales record, crossing the 200 mark for the first time, with sales of 217 cars. In December the Kia Soul had it second best sales month of the year with 197 cars sold.  Sales fell in January when they notched up just 117 deliveries.  In February things improved a little and 152 cars were sold and in March a further 171 cars left dealer lots.  It looks like Kia Soul has set a new trading level this year and will continue to sell in the 100 - 200 car range going forward.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  In March sales fell back to 70 cars.  This is one of the few cars that sold less cars in March than it did in February.  It will be interesting to see how well this car sells in the coming months.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 241 plug-in cars in March.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range.  March was no exception with sales falling to 50 cars after selling 56 cars in February.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 40 - 60 cars with March sales hitting the top of this range at 60 cars.  Previously in February 51 cars were sold.

There was so little fanfare that almost nobody knew these cars were going on sale, yet in June Mercedes Benz quietly began selling the GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV.  After setting a new sales record with 83 cars being sold in December, January sales dropped back to 52 cars. Sales bounced back a little in February to 59 cars but in March sales fell again to 47 cars.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz had put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold but I suspect that this depleted inventory pretty badly and February saw sales drop back to 51 cars, while sales in March plummeted to just 17 cars.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold a disappointing 174 Plug-in cars in March, the second straight month of declining sales.

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV was one of the few cars that did not beat their January 2016 sales numbers reporting only 96 cars being sold in January well below the 226 cars they sold in January, 2016 and the 204 cars sold in December. Things got even worse in February with only 83 cars being sold.  March saw the SUV return to it's normal trading range of 100 - 200 range selling 103 cars.

Smart Electric Drive sales used to make up a significant portion of total Smart sales but recently sales have been quite low.  The reason for this appears to be that production of the old model has ceased.  The new model is expected to go on sale early in 2017 and is expected to have slightly better range than the current model, increasing to 88 miles.  Since September sales have stayed in the 40 - 50 range and December sales just squeaked in at 40 cars. In January sales dropped to only 15 copies and February saw a bit of a rebound to 22 cars but then sales in March dropped to just 13.  The latest news is that Smart is expected to become an EV only brand here in the US.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  In January Mitsubishi didn't sell any i-MiEV but they did manage 1 sale in February and 3 sales in March.  It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

Plug-in car sales went exceptionally well in March with a 30% increase over March 2016.  This is in a month that has been difficult for carmakers who have almost all seen declining sales especially in the small car segment. 

This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  The Ioniq Electric, Cadillac CT6 PHEV, BMW 530e and Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid should start to arrive in dealerships during April, and  sales of the Pacifica Hybrid are also likely to resume.  By July the Tesla model 3 should be rolling off the assembly line so we should start to see sales of that model in July or August.  The indications are that first sales will be at the very end of July but early sales are likely to go to Tesla Employees who will basically be beta testers. 

Sunday April 2, 2017 – Tesla Inventory – Remember when you used to place an order for a Tesla and then had to wait months to get a car, unless we are talking about the model 3, Tesla has inventory.

While this is something not really expected of Tesla it is something that is common for most car manufacturers.  While sales ebb and flow the manufacturer wants to keep the production line running at a pretty constant rate.  I remember when I worked in the automobile industry stopping the production line was a really big deal. What that means for the company is that sometimes production falls below demand and sometimes it exceeds demand. When production falls below demand and the production line maintains the same rate, then cars build up at the factory.  When demand picks up again the production line stays steady and the excess demand is filled from already built inventory. 
 
What usually happens is that if demand does not recover then production is slowed, often by shutting down the production line and laying of workers temporarily.  If demand gets too great and inventory becomes too depleted, then this means overtime as the factory attempts to increase production to fill the demand.  It the production engineers have done their jobs properly these two situation occur very rarely.  In Tesla's case this shouldn't be considered a bad thing, it's just part of normal business in the car industry.

For the person who is interested in a Tesla it does add an opportunity.  You can go to the Tesla web site and click on either Model S or Model X then click on New Inventory.  You will get a list of new cars that are currently built and ready to go.  There is a slider that can be used to set your price range and you can see what cars are available in that range.  There is also a function that lets you calculate shipping costs.  I live in Southern California and when I ran the shipping cost function it came up as a no cost item but as they say in the auto business "your mileage may vary".

On closer inspection it looks like most of the cars currently in inventory were showroom models and do have a little bit of mileage on them although they appear to have never been registered so may be eligible for both Federal and State tax incentives. 

The advantage of buying this way is that you can get a new Tesla much quicker than if you order from one of their showrooms.  On the web site Tesla quotes a delivery time of 14 days.  The disadvantage is that you have to take what is available, you don't get to configure the car exactly the way you want. 

I also noticed that they had a few Model S with the 60 KWh batteries in inventory.  These cars are still available for order but that option goes away in about two weeks.  If you still want one of the S 60 models then there may be a few left in inventory after they stop taking orders for them.  When I looked at inventory the difference between the cheapest S 60 and the cheapest S 75 was $8,650 so if you don't need the additional range of the 75KWh battery this may be an opportunity to get into an S 60 model even after they have stopped taking orders for them. 

 
Of course since the 75KWh battery option is just a software upgrade Tesla might choose to perform the upgrade on any remaining S 60 models in inventory once the 60 KWh option ends.. 

If you are looking for a Tesla and don't feel you need a test drive then the option to buy from existing inventory might be a good way to get a Tesla into your garage.

Sunday March 26, 2017 – Discounted EVs – One of the biggest problems we have faced in recent years that has been holding back the sale of electric cars is a shortage of vehicles on dealer lots.  This is still an issue for many of the vehicles currently on sale but once in a while we see plug-in cars being discounted and we have that situation at the moment with the Chevy Bolt.

I did a quick survey of the 9 Chevy dealerships in the Los Angeles area and all of them had Bolts on their lots.  The numbers ranged from 9 to about 240 cars with an average of around 100 cars available per dealer.  Most of these dealerships appear to be offering the cars at MSRP but 3 were offering discounts of between $1,000 and $2,500.  From articles I have read it appeared that discounting was much widespread, although I'm sure that armed with the knowledge that other dealers are offering discounts would give a buyer some leverage when negotiating the purchase price.

I must say that I was very surprised to see such deep discounts on the Bolt this early in the sales cycle since it is only in it's fourth month of sales.  In general the automotive press has been very positive about the Bolt and it has received several awards including Green Car of the Year.  Car and Driver had this to say about the Bolt, "Anyone with a typical new-car budget can afford a Bolt. And, in the bigger picture, it no longer matters if Tesla goes belly-up. Electric cars appear to have laid down permanent roots in the automotive landscape with the first long-range, affordable EV from an established, mainstream automaker".

The biggest criticism of the Bolt doesn't appear to be about the car at all but about the Fast charging infrastructure.  The problem stems from the fact that GM is not going to drive expansion of the CCS fast charging infrastructure as Tesla has done with their superchargers.  This has left huge gaps where it becomes very difficult and time consuming to drive between some cities because there is no fast chargers on the route.  To exacerbate the situation one of the main providers of fast charging, EVGo has set up its chargers to stop charging after 30 minutes.  That means if you want to fill your Bolt you have to initiate 3 charging sessions at $10 per session so a full charge is going to cost $30 which puts the cost to fill up on a par with an equivalent sized gas car.

Eventually infrastructure will get built out and there is already a move amongst Bolt drivers to boycott EVGo stations if at all possible so they are going to have to fix the situation or suffer the consequences. 

GM Sold 2,114 Bolts in the first two months of this year and it will be interesting to see how many they sell in March.  I expect that the discounting that we see may help boost sales this month.

 
Toyota on the other hand doesn't seem to be needing to discount the Prius Prime.  Dealers appear to be having trouble keeping them on the lots.  With an average time on the lot of just 16 days Toyota dealers in California are asking for more inventory just to keep up with demand.  I've seen people in other states complaining about California hogging the Prius Prime after being told by their dealership that there will have to wait for months to get a car allocated for them.

One company we know that will have difficulty filling orders this year is Tesla.  With over 300,000 orders for the Tesla Model 3 it appears that there is going to be a long wait before they can ramp up and begin producing cars at sufficient volume to meet that much demand.  There is good news on this front though, this week Elon Musk posted a video on Twitter showing a beta version of the Model 3 being tested on the streets.  Mr. Musk has also been sending out tweets that are intended to set expectation levels for the Model 3.  This all bodes well for the car and it looks quite possible that Tesla will be able to start deliveries close to the end of July target they set for themselves.

I reported a few weeks ago that there were a large number of heavily discounted lease returns showing up in the used car market.  Now with the ability to get a big discount on a Chevy Bolt there has never been a better time to buy an electric car. 

Sunday March 19, 2017 – Trump and CAFE – Last Wednesday President Trump traveled to Detroit to announce changes that would impact the CAFE standard rules set in place by President Obama.  I feared the worst but what we got was probably the most rational thing that the Trump administration has done so far.

In 2012 the EPA issued rules that set fuel economy standards for the period from 2017 through 2025.  Under these rules each automaker had to achieve a combined fleet fuel economy of 54.5 mpg.  Part of that ruling included a mid term review to take place in 2018 which would determine if these numbers were even feasible and adjust the 2025 target if necessary.  One week before President Obama left office the EPA issued a notice that they would keep the 54.5 mpg target and the 2018 review was dropped. 

One of the first things that happened when President Trump took office is that he met with the heads of the US carmakers and they told him the usual story of how these standards couldn't be met and asked for them to be lowered.  It was the same old story we have heard before with almost every mandated innovation;  meeting the standard would make the cars too expensive for people to afford and would cost the US a million jobs.  They also took a shot at California emissions standards saying that they want one nationwide standard for fuel economy.

It was widely expected that the Trump Administration would roll back the existing CAFE standards and attempt to cancel the California waiver.  Neither of these things happened.

What did happen is that President Trump rolled back the EPA action taken in the last week of President Obama's term which means that, for now, the 54.5 mpg target for 2025 is still in place but this requirement will be reviewed in 2018 allowing it to be reduced or eliminated then.  The President also chose, at least for now, to leave the California emissions waiver in place too, which means that California can continue to set it's own emissions standards and other states can chose to follow the Federal standard or the California standard. 

The reasoning behind this action is that while rolling back an executive order from the last week of the previous President's term is quite easy there would be a much bigger fight trying to roll back the actions from 2012.  It is just much easier to make changes at an already scheduled review.

The California Waiver is an even more difficult problem and California has vowed to not give up it's right to set clean air standards without a fight.  Not going after the existing waiver but waiting until this waiver has expired also makes some sense and it is quite likely that the EPA would loose the fight to scrap the existing waiver in court no mater how badly Scott Pruitt would like to hand that over to his buddies in the fossil fuel industry.  The granting of the California waiver is written into the clean air act which was signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1970.  This law includes a statement saying that the EPA will grant a waiver to California.  To revoke the waiver would require one of two things to happen.  First there would need to be a major amendment to the clean air law to remove that clause, or the EPA would have to show that Federal clean air rules would be more effective than the California rules.

It should be pointed out that California does not have the right to set vehicle fuel economy standards.  It is only able to set emissions standards.  This does mean that they cannot, for example, continue to require 54.5 mpg by 2025 even if the Federal fuel economy standard is rolled back to a fleet average of say 35 mpg.  What they can do is to require the automobile manufacturers to sell cars in the state of California that produce a certain level of air pollutants which is less that the Federal Standards.  Currently the California rules include a provision for the manufacturers to sell a certain number of cars that have zero tail pipe emissions.  Note also that these rules apply only to sales of cars in California and the other states that have elected to use the California emission rules instead of the Federal ones.

Why is President Trump's stance on this important?  While the fossil fuel industry clearly has a huge influence on the current Republican administration and would like to see fuel and air pollution standards lowered or eliminated, this does not apply to the rest of the world.  If US automakers are given a pass they are going to become the next steam engine manufacturers.  As a young boy growing up in the UK I can remember a railway system that was driven by steam locomotives.  These were rapidly being replaced by diesel powered trains and the companies that didn't move to producing diesel locomotives quickly disappeared.  The same thing is going to happen to a car industry that puts its faith in big SUVs that spew high levels of pollution, including CO2.

The rest of the world is moving rapidly to set higher and higher fuel economy standards and their car makers are responding by producing cleaner vehicles, mostly through electrification.  In the long run, as former GM CEO Bob Lutz once said, "Electrification of the automobile is a foregone conclusion".  Those companies that don't recognize this and plan accordingly are doomed and the weakening of fuel economy standards is, in the end, going to make it less likely that they will be able to play catch-up and survive.

As someone who has lived in the Los Angeles area I can personally attest to the success of the California emission rules.  Air in the state is much cleaner that it was 35 years ago when I first came here.  The bad news is that certain areas of California, including the Los Angles basin are still the most polluted areas of the nation so we still have a long way to go.  The California emission rules have directly led to many innovations that makes everyone's air cleaner.  Things like eliminating lead from gasoline and cleaner tail pipe emissions because of catalytic converters have been a direct result of these rules and we can't begin to backslide on them now, or health, and the health of future generations depends on them.

Sunday March 12, 2017 – 2017 Geneva Auto Show – The Geneva Auto Show is the first major auto show of the year in Europe and it has always been the place where the European manufacturers tend to show of the latest trends and future direction.  Many Plug-in cars have made their debut here and this year there were a few more to add to the tally.

Luxury carmaker Bentley has indicated that it will be moving into the EV space.  It will be launching a plug-in hybrid version of its Bentayga SUV sometime next year.   It also indicated that it intends to move into the full EV space by showing their EXP 12 speed 6e concept.  This car is a 2 seat roadster and while Bentley did not give out specifics on the drivetrain they did imply that the car will have a range of about 200 miles.

The best selling EV in Europe isn't sold here in the US but the Renault showed a version at the Geneva Auto Show that is sure to peak interest in the brand here in the US.  The Renault ZOE e-sport concept is a two seat version of the hatchback that is fitted out with electric motors on both the front and rear axles powered by a 40KW lithium ion battery pack.  The combination is capable of putting out 456hp and 472 lb-ft of torque.  This gives the e-sport a 0-60 time of 3.2 seconds and a top speed of 130 miles.  The bad new is that it's unlikely Renault will make a production version of this car. 
 
European carmakers have learned that they can obtain a pretty sizable performance boost by adding an electric motor.  Porsche has sold plug-in hybrid versions of the Cayenne SUV and Panamer S sedan for quite sometime now, and the Porsche 918 Spyder is the most powerful Porsche ever built. They took the Panamera one step closer to the 918 Spyder with the Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid.  The powertrain blends a 4.0 liter V8 engine that puts out 550hp with a 136hp electric motor.  This gives the car a 0-60 time of 3.2 seconds and a top speed of 193 mph.  The 14.1 KWh lithium-ion battery pack is rated at 31 miles of electric range based on the European test cycle which probably translates to about 25 miles on the stricter US standard.  There is also an optional 7.2KW charger to allow a full charge in about 2 hours when plugged into a 240V supply.

 
At the other end of the scale Honda gave a sneak peek at the autonomous vehicle concept that they will be showing at CES in April.  This car is a small 2 seat EV known as the NeuV and looks to be about the same size as a Smart.  The details of the power train and its autonomous capability will be revealed at CES, but it was noted that the concept does come with a steering wheel so it looks like a driver will be required to take control if necessary.

VW on the other hand did not provide a steering wheel or pedals in its Sedric automated vehicle concept.  The Sedric looks like a box on wheels with an interior that just features comfortable seating and a windshield that is actually an LED screen.  VW has invested a lot of money in moving toward autonomous vehicles and the Sedric is intended to be a level 5 autonomous vehicle meaning that it can drive itself anywhere.  The plan is to sell such vehicles to both customers and ride hailing services like Lyft and Uber.  VW is also launching their own rideshare service. 

The Geneva Auto Show is also about performance so a lot of the big reveals were high performance sports cars luxury cars but this year we have continued to see more cars that are adding a plug.  The growth of autonomous vehicles is also beginning to pick up pace as companies begin to show what will become their first generation of self driving cars, the first of which is expected to make an appearance in showrooms around 2021.

Sunday March 5, 2017 – February 2017 EV Sales – Another month, another sales record.  February 2017 was the best February on record for EV sales.  The last time that EV sales have not set a record month was in May 2016 which fell just 173 cars short of May 2015 overall an estimated 12,049 plug-in cars were sold in February, destroying the previous record set in February 2016 which saw estimated sales of 7,763 cars. 

After returning record sales of 3,691 cars in December, sales of the Chevy Volt for January were 1,611 cars the Volt continued to be the  best selling plug-in for the month in February selling 1,820 cars. This was the best February sales ever for the Volt and well ahead of the previous record of 1,626 cars set way back in February 2013.

As promised GM began delivery of the Chevy Bolt in the middle of December and managed to deliver 579 Bolts.  In January sales of the Chevy Bolt climbed to 1,152 cars but dropped in February falling short of the 1,000 mark with a disappointing 952 cars. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  In January sales fell just 4 cars and this was repeated in February when 4 more cars left dealerships.  It seems unlikely that any more cars will be shipped to the US from Korea so sales will continue low until existing dealer inventory is gone.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, 5 in November, and just 3 in both December and January., Cadillac registered no sales in February.  This might mean that inventory of new cars is finally exhausted.

In February GM manage to sell 2,776 plug-n cars.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the Third month of the quarter Tesla always does a big push to try and meet their quarter end projections.  February is always a month when Tesla focuses on international sales in the early part of the month switching to domestic sales in the latter part of the month. 

After selling an estimated 900 Model S sedans in January sales picked up in February where an estimated 1,750 cars were handed over to customers.  This was the best February ever for sales of the Model S  beating the estimated 1,550 cars they sold in February 2016.

Like the Model S, the Model X also saw its best February sales with an estimated 800 units, and up a little from January when an estimated 750 cars were sold.  Also like the Model, Model S sales were considerably better than the 270 cars that they sold in February 2016.

Total sales at Tesla for February were 2,550 up substantially from the estimated 1,650 cars sold in January, 2017. 

Once again Ford was a strong performer in February selling a total of 1,704 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

Ford's best selling plug-in is typically the Fusion Energi and February was no exception with sales of 837 cars, up from the 606 cars sold in January.  Ford appears to be having trouble keeping inventory on dealer lots recently which accounts for the lower sales in recent months. 

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January but climbed again in February where they sold 639 cars.
 
Sales of the Ford Focus Electric have recently been slow.  It used to be that they sold in the 100 to 200 range but over the past year they have been selling in the 50 - 150 car range.  In fact in 2016 they only managed to sell more than 100 cars in two months that year, March, when they sold 110 cars., and December when the sold 101 Focus EVs.  In January Focus EV sales dropped to the low end of the range with just 56 cars being sold.  The new improved range Ford Focus is now becoming available with an EPA estimated 115 miles of range and the addition of DC fast charging, and as a result it appears that Ford has been clearing inventory of the older version hitting sales of 228 in February.  This is the second best sales month ever for the Focus EV after Ford sold 264 in August 2014.

What a difference a couple of months can make in the Plug-in world.  Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November.  During the month, with sales in a limited number of areas, mostly California and Oregon, they sold 781 cars.  This set a record for the most plug-in cars sold in the first month of sales.  Not to be outdone, December sales increased to 1,641 cars.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  Toyota kept up the pace selling just 4 less in February with 1,362 cars being sold.  It looks like  the Prius Prime is on track to become one of the best selling Plug-in cars in 2017.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and in January they sold 83 Mirai FCEVs.  In February sales climbed again to 110 cars.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,227 Mirai.

After sales of the Nissan Leaf dropped below the 1,000 cars level to 772 cars in January they did rebound in February when they sold a surprising 1,037 cars.  It should be noted that sales beat the 930 cars they sold in February 2016.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots as priority is given to sales in Europe.  In January they sold a total of 841 cars but sales dropped back to 830 in February.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July  In November sales were right in the middle of the range with 629 cars sold and In December things picked up again a little with sales of 791 cars. January saw sales fall to 382 cars and sales fell a little further in February to 318 cars.

BMW i8 Has normally traded in the  150 - 200 range but so far this year they have only managed to trade in the 50 - 60 range.  In January sales were just 50 cars.  Things improved a little in February with sales climbing to 58 cars.

Sales  of the X5 xDrive40e also showed a small increase in sales in February going from January with sales of just 262 cars to 275 cars in February.  This is well below the 400 - 600 car range they were selling in the later half of 2016.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW are finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in Sales going up to 240 cars, an all time high.  This couldn't be sustained however so January saw sales drop back to 129 cars but sales did rebound a little to 144 cars in February.

In August BMW dealers were supposed to begin receiving the new 7 Series plug-in hybrid, the 740e, and finally, in December they made it to dealerships,  By the end of December the keys to 23 cars had been handed over to customers.  January added a further18 cars to BMWs sales total and February saw sales climb to 35 cars.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands and for the first time they managed to break the 1,000 car barrier with Sales of 1,056 cars in August, 2016.  December saw them back above 1000 cars with 1,187 cars sold, their best sales month ever.  In January they fell short of selling 1,000 cars by just 2, selling 998 cars in total and February saw a further pullback to just 815 cars.

After selling a record number of cars in December with sales of 589 cars, sales of the Audi A3 e-Tron dropped back to their normal selling range of 300 - 400 by selling 387 cars during the month of January.  In February they hit the top end of their normal trading range by selling exactly 400 cars.

After three months of trading above their normal 200 - 400 selling range sales of the VW e-Golf dropped back to more normal sales levels in November selling 305 cars.  December saw sales climb back above the 400 again with sales of 443 cars.  In January sales headed back to their normal range once more with sales of 332 cars and stayed in that range in February with an additional 293 cars being sold.

After selling 177 cars in January sales of the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid fell to 121 cars in February.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which is expected to show up in US dealerships some time in April.  November sales of 88 cars pretty much blew out existing inventory so December sales dropped to just 3 cars and January fell even further to 2 cars while February saw just 1 car being sold.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, and they don't break out sales figures, so I have been using the numbers calculated by Inside EV from state rebate information.  January sales came in at an estimated 345 cars and February sales dropped down to an estimated 240 cars.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid and actually sold 12 in January.  Sales are expected to start towards the end of February but Chrysler extended the Christmas and New Year break for an extra week because of an oversupply of vehicles at its dealers so the Pacifica Hybrid didn't ship.  Compounding the issue is a quality control hold being placed on the vehicles so it is uncertain when they will actually be shipped to dealers so there were no sales recorded in February.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  Things seem to be changing and in September Kia set a monthly sales record, crossing the 200 mark for the first time, with sales of 217 cars. In December the Kia Soul had it second best sales month of the year with 197 cars sold.  Sales fell in January when they notched up just 117 deliveries.  In February things improved a little and 152 cars were sold.  It looks like Kia Soul has set a new trading level this year and will continue to sell in the 100 - 200 car range going forward.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  In February Kia sold an additional 85 cars.  It will be interesting to see how well this car sells in the coming months.

In total Kia managed to sell an estimated 237 plug-in cars in February.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range. February was no exception with sales climbing to 56 after selling 53 cars in January.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 20 - 50 cars with September sales hitting an all time high of 41 cars.  October blew this out of the water though with sales jumping to 174 cars.  This will have seriously depleted inventory and sales fell again in November to 52 cars but still stayed above their normal trading range.  December saw another month above the normal trading level as sales climbed to 71 cars.  January sales dropped back to 55 cars but still stayed above the historical trading range as did February with another 51 cars.  It appears that the 40 - 60 car range has become the new norm.

There was so little fanfare that almost nobody knew these cars were going on sale, yet in June Mercedes Benz quietly began selling the GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV.  After setting a new sales record with 83 cars being sold in December, January sales dropped back to 52 cars, but bounced back a little in February to 59 cars.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz have put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold but I suspect that this depleted inventory pretty badly and February saw sales drop back to 51 cars.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 217 Plug-in cars in February down from 370 Plug-in cars in January.

December sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV were 325 cars which was the second best sales month for this car, being beaten only by the 375 cars they sold back in July, 2016.  In January sales fell back to 190 cars and the fall continued in February with an estimated 175 cars sold.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered. 

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV was one of the few cars that did not beat their January 2016 sales numbers reporting only 96 cars being sold in January well below the 226 cars they sold in January, 2016 and the 204 cars sold in December. Things got even worse in February with only 83 cars being sold.  The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV has mostly traded in the 100 - 200 range and I expect this to continue going forward.

Smart Electric Drive sales used to make up a significant portion of total Smart sales but recently sales have been quite low.  The reason for this appears to be that production of the old model has ceased.  The new model is expected to go on sale early in 2017 and is expected to have slightly better range than the current model, increasing to 88 miles.  Since September sales have stayed in the 40 - 50 range and December sales just squeaked in at 40 cars. In January sales dropped to only 15 copies and February saw a bit of a rebound to 22 cars being sold.  The latest news is that Smart is expected to become an EV only brand here in the US.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  In January Mitsubishi didn't sell any i-MiEV but they did manage 1 sale in February.  It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

Plug-in car sales went exceptionally well in February especially since the month has only 28 days.  This year is already on track to set another record for electric car sales and we are already seeing new models arrive on a pretty regular basis.  March should see the arrival of another BMW plug-in hybrid, the 550e along with sales of the Pacifica Hybrid, while in April both the Ioniq Electric and Porsche Panamera 4 e-Hybrid should start to arrive in dealerships.  Later in the year we should see some models like the Focus EV and the VW e-Golf get upgrades to increase range to aver 100 miles.  By July the Tesla model 3 should be rolling off the assembly line so we should start to see sales of that model in July or August. 

Sunday February 26, 2017 – Charger Deployment Study – I just came across a study done at the University of Ohio by Xiaomin Xia, Ramteen Sioshansia, and Vincenzo Maranob that attempted to model and optimize the deployment of charging infrastructure and while it wasn't perfect they did come to conclusions similar to what I have been preaching for a while now.

The study developed a model to simulate and optimize the placement of charger infrastructure to determine where to place EV chargers to maximize their use by none fleet owners of electric vehicles. 
 
Like any such study the results will often depend on the assumptions going into the model and in this case their assumption was to base the model on an EV with 73 miles of range which corresponds to the Nissan Leaf.  Since this study was done around Columbus, OH this is a pretty good selection since the most available EVs there are the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt.  However, the situation is changing as manufacturers are now beginning to release their second generation of EVs which typically have a range of around 120 miles, while the Chevy Volt and the Tesla models all have a range of over 200 miles.  Having said that, there is a large number of low priced low mileage used EVs on the market at the moment which fit into the studies assumptions nicely.

One of the places where I thought that the study was lacking is that they only considered level 1 and level 2 charging but made the assumption that DC fast charging was not relevant to charging being installed in residential areas.  I think this was an oversight for of the study as I believe that fast charging is going to have an increasingly important role as the rate of EV adoption continues to climb. 

The study also looked at the impact at a variety of funding levels from $0.5 million to  $3.5 million to provide public charging for an area of about 2,320 square miles that is home to 1.7 million people who collectively own 1.1 million vehicles.  They looked at installation of charging locations in three different types of location, workplace charging, University campuses, and shopping centers.  The area was divided into 17 travel regions but assumptions for average miles travelled for each of these regions were not specified in the paper. 

Other thing I took issue with was the cost they assigned to the install the chargers, and the 1% desired EV penetration rate they used in the study.  The study assumed that it would cost $425 to install a level 1 charger and $925 to install a level 2 charger with the assumption that any required equipment like transformers were already available.  From what I have seen this is grossly underestimating these costs particularly for the level 2 charge which can be as much as $6,000 per unit to install.  The cost for level 1 is closer assuming that places can just utilize already existing 110V outlets but running additional outlets is still likely to be more expensive the $425.  The target of 1% penetration is probably OK for Columbus, OH but here on the west side of Los Angeles we are already above that level. 

 
I still think that many of the results they got are quite valid though.  In their modeling they found that it was most cost effective to install level 1 charging at workplaces when funds were at the lower level of the scale.  This is something I have been saying for a long time.  At my office I don't need a $2 an hour level 2 charger that is going to top my car up in less than 2 hours and then leave me hogging the charger for the rest of the day.  Of course I would move my car after the charge was complete but most people don't.  Access to a 110V plug at their parking space is all that most EV drivers need.  In fact Level 1 charging is good for any location where people stay for a long time such as long term parking at airports of railway stations. 

The study also found something else that we already knew, about 96% of drivers would be able to meet their daily driving needs by charging at home.  This is one of the interesting things about the EV market.  One of the things that discourage people from driving electric is the lack of EV infrastructure yet once they buy an EV they find that for the most part, they just need to charge at home, and need to use public chargers very rarely.  Of course there is still a significant proportion of people who live in places like apartments where they don't have the ability to charge at home and public charging infrastructure is key to EV adoption for this segment of the population.

In the Study, as funding levels increased the indication was that adding level 2 charging at places where people stay for shorter periods of time became more beneficial.  In the model this allowed enough charging capacity to meet the charging needs of most of the remaining drivers who drive into the area where chargers are installed.  At the $3.5 million funding level only 1% of drivers cannot make their daily travel needs.

Anyone who has been following my blog will know that this study confirms what I have been saying for years.  However, even though it was published recently it is already out of date.  I would like to see this study being redone but using a criteria that better matches what the driver of 2018 is going to see.  That includes a mixture of plug-in vehicles that includes a mix of vehicles with ranges like the ones we have in this study, cars that have an average range of 120 miles, and cars that have a range of 200 miles.  The study also needs to take into account the availability of DC fast charging.  target penetration should be reviewed at both 2% and 5% levels.

Now just let me get on my soap box a little.  One of the biggest issues with charging infrastructure is that while the chargers are there it doesn't mean they are available.  One of the issues often brought up when it comes to funding public charging is that chargers often sit unused.  In this area where EV adoption is some of the highest in the nation I often see chargers being blocked mostly by EVs using the charger as a convenient parking space.  At other times the charger is blocked by someone who parks there for a long time after charging is complete.  It is rare to see chargers being blocked by ICE cars anymore but it still happens once in a while.  Along with charging infrastructure being installed there is a strong need to establish rules for using the chargers and to enforce there rules.

Sunday February 19, 2017 – Electric Buses – While we all love to drive around in our cars, public transportation is vital to the functioning of our cities.  In cities like London buses move millions of people every day.  Even in car friendly Los Angeles many people rely on the bus to get them to work and home every day.  There is a growing trend around the world to electrify the bus fleet.

There is a big problem with the conventional bus; it is usually powered by a diesel engine.  While public transportation is often seen as being good for the environment we all know that diesel engines are a huge source of air pollution and emissions from diesels, especially particulate emissions, have been linked to a whole host of health problems.

Here in Los Angeles the problem has been addressed by converting the entire bus fleet to run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).  CNG buses are much cleaner than their diesel counterparts and it a place like Los Angeles, which has some of the worst air quality issues in the country, this change has made a huge impact on the air we breath.

Now many places are looking to take that one step further with the growing inclusion of electric buses into city fleets.

 
Electric Buses are not new but they had to be powered by overhead wires and were known as trolley busses.  While growing up I can remember riding the trolley busses in Leeds.  They were quite and clean but the overhead wires meant that it was difficult to route the trolley bus around a problem such as an accident that blocked a street, or a water main burst.  Battery technology is improving at a rapid pace though and now a new generation of electric buses are starting to emerge.

The trend started with electric shuttle buses.  These busses usually run over very short routes so they don't need a lot of range to be able to run for most of the day without the need to re-charge.  Shuttles like this have been running around Santa Barbara, CA for over 10 years and have provided excellent service transporting passengers between Sterns Wharf and down town Santa Barbara.  Typically these buses do not provide enough range to meet the requirements of daily use around big cities.

A new generation of electric buses are starting to emerge from companies like Proterra and BYD.  These buses offer much larger range per charge than the older shuttle buses; enough range to meet the needs of bus routes in most cities around the world. 

London for example has just bought 5 double decker electric buses from BYD.  These buses have the same basic layout as the current double decker diesel buses and operate on route 98 from Willesden to Holborn.  The buses have a range of 180 miles on a charge which is more than enough to allow them to run the full day without re-charging.  Transport for London also operates a number of single decker electric buses and some hybrid buses on their routes.

Los Angeles is also beginning to add electric buses to their fleet.  LADOT recently purchased 4 35 foot buses from BYD for use on their downtown fleet.  The buses will be built at the BYD facility in Lancaster, CA.  They can travel about 135 miles on a full charge which is adequate for many routes serviced by LADOT.  Not to be outdone, the LA Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has also signed an agreement to purchase 25 electric buses from BYD.

Proterra, has also been developing a series of buses and currently has close to 100 buses in use spread over 18 cities around the country.  They  offer both 35ft and 40ft single decker buses some of which are capable of travelling over 250 miles on a charge.  They also offer a very interesting fast charging option.  Fast charging stations can be installed at bus stops where the bus stands for longer than normal, such as the turn around point at the end of the route.  The bus is charged via an overhead power line and the charging is done automatically without driver intervention.  Typically a bus can add about 26 miles of range during a 5 minute layover.  In many cases this is enough that the bus is able to run 24 7.

Electric buses have the same advantage as electric cars; as the power grid gets cleaner so do the electric buses.  Since there are no tailpipe emissions the buses also don't pollute at a local level.  To paraphrase Bob Lutz, electrification of the bus is a forgone conclusion. 

Sunday February 12, 2017 – Hyundai Ioniq Line – This week I got an email from Hyundai saying that two of the models from the Ioniq line of cars was about to hit dealerships, and it could be as early as tomorrow.  I don't think their web developers got the same note because when I went to the Build screen on the Hyundai web site the Ioniq was not listed.

The Ioniq made its North American debut at the 2016 New York Auto Show.  There three flavors in the Ioniq line that are all built on the same body; hybrid, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and electric.  What is set to begin selling is the hybrid and the electric versions with the plug-in hybrid expected to join its two siblings later this summer. 

While we don't have the actual EPA numbers for these cars yet, the hybrid is projected to offer a combined fuel economy rating of 58mpg which, if this holds up, is going to be better than the 56mpg EPA rating for the Prius Eco, the current most fuel efficient car on US roads.

The hybrid is driven by a 1.6 liter Atkinson-cycle motor coupled to a single electric motor via a 6 speed dual clutch transmission.  The Ioniq body is styled to look like a fairly standard 5-door similar to the Hyundai Elantra but still manages to offer up a coefficient of drag of just 0.24.

The Ioniq Electric will be driven by a 28 KWh lithium-ion battery that is expected to give the car an EPA rated range of 124 miles.  While this is pretty good when compared to the first generation electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and Fiat 500e, the range is not going to compete well with the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3, both of which are expected to get more than 200 miles on a charge.  To address this issue Hyundai has announced that the range will be extended to around 200 miles by 2018. 

The Ioniq Electric has a 6KW internal charger that can fully charge the battery in as little as 4 hours and 24 minutes when connected to a 220V level 2 charger.  The 110V charger that comes with the car will take around 23 hours to fully charge the car.  The Ioniq Electric will also come with a CCS DC charging option that can charge the car to 80% in as little as 24 minutes.  The car will also come with a paddle shifter that will allow the driver to select 4 different modes of regen.

The Ioniq PHEV will come with the same power train set-up as the hybrid but the battery pack will be much larger at 8.9 KWh.  This is expected to give the Ioniq PHEV an all electric range of about 31 miles.  This will make the Ioniq very competitive with the Prius Prime.

The biggest news on the Ioniq Electric and Ioniq PHEV is about the battery warranty.  One of the biggest questions that potential buyers ask is how long the battery will last and how much it will cost to replace.  Hyundai's answer to that question is to offer a lifetime warranty on the batteries.  If a battery module should fail on one of these vehicles it will be replaced under warranty for the lifetime of the vehicle.

I expect the Ioniq hybrid to sell very well given that it looks much more mainstream that the Prius liftback while offering as good as or better fuel economy.  The Ioniq electric is a different story though. While the Electric is technically supposed to be sold nationwide it is not going to be sold by every dealership.  I suspect that Hyundai is going to keep inventory at a level that constrains sales.

Sunday February 5, 2017 – January 2017 EV Sales – The first month of 2017 saw a much lower level of sales than we saw in December but this was always expected.  The good news is that we saw the highest ever EV sales for January.  Not only that, but at an estimated 10,615 cars sold, we blew away the previous record set in January 2016 where just 6,221 cars were sold.  Sales were actually much better than I expected fired by excellent results from two newcomers, the Chevrolet Bolt, and the Toyota Prius Prime.

After returning record sales of 3,691 cars in December, sales of the Chevy Volt were not expected to do that well in January.  While sales were much lower for the Volt they still managed to sell a very respectable 1,611 cars making the Volt the best selling plug-in for the month. This was the best January sales ever for the Volt and well ahead of the 996 cars they sold in January 2016.

As promised GM began delivery of the Chevy Bolt in the middle of December.  GM had said that they would be delivering the first cars to Lift drivers and that appears to have been what happened as most dealers in California and Oregon didn't see cars arriving in any numbers until the very last days of December.  GM still managed to deliver 579 Bolts in December.  In January sales of the Chevy Bolt climbed to 1,152 cars. 
 
With the arrival of the Bolt, sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and 17 cars in December.  In January sales fell just 4 cars. It seems unlikely that any more cars will be shipped to the US from Korea so sales will continue low until existing dealer inventory is gone.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, and 5 in November, sales in December dropped back to just 3 with an equal number being sold in January.  Cadillac's plug-in sales will probably continue at a dribble until the CT6 PHEV goes on sale in mid-2017.

In January GM manage to sell 2,780 plug-n cars which is a pretty good total for January.  That was after selling 4,290 cars in December which was their best sales month ever for plug-in cars.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the Third month of the quarter Tesla always does a big push to try and meet their quarter end projections.  January is always a month when Tesla focuses on international sales and it appears that this January was no exception. 

December was Tesla's best sales month ever for the model S, delivering an estimated 5,850 cars.  In January sales dropped to an estimated 900 cars.  While this was a pretty bad month for US deliveries at Tesla they still did better than the estimated 850 cars they sold in January 2016.

Like the Model S, the Model X also had its best sales month ever in December selling an estimated 3,875 units, but sales of the Model X also fell in January to an estimated 750 cars.  Also like the Model, Model S sales were considerably better than the 270 cars that they sold in January 2016.

Total sales at Tesla for December were 9,725 cars which was also Tesla's best sales month ever.  This dropped to just 1,650 cars in January, 2017. 

What a difference a couple of months can make in the Plug-in world.  Toyota started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November.  During the month, with sales in a limited number of areas, mostly California and Oregon, they sold 781 cars.  This set a record for the most plug-in cars sold in the first month of sales.  Not to be outdone, December sales increased to 1,641 cars.  In January they sold a very surprising 1,366 Prius Prime making it the second highest sales for a plug-in in January.  It looks like  the Prius Prime may well become one of the best selling Plug-in cars in 2017.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and in December they sold 116 Mirai FCEVs.  In January sales dropped to 83 cars.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,117 Mirai.

Once again Ford was a strong performer in January selling a total of 1,135 plug-in cars split across its three models. 

After being out-sold by the C-Max Energi in December the Ford Fusion regained its position as Ford's best selling plug-in by selling 606 cars In January.  This was the worst sales month for the Fusion Energi since they sold 581 cars in January 2016.   Previously in December they sold1,099 cars.

 
After posting record sales for the C-Max Energi in December with 1,289 cars sold, sales dropped to just 473 cars in January.  Similar to the Fusion Energi we have to go all the way back to January, 2016 to see lower sales numbers when 350 cars were sold.
 
Sales of the Ford Focus Electric continue to be slow.  It used to be that they sold in the 100 to 200 range but over the past year they have been selling in the 50 - 150 car range.  In fact in 2016 they only managed to sell more than 100 cars in two months that year, March, when they sold 110 cars., and December when the sold 101 Focus EVs.  In January Focus EV sales dropped to the low end of the range with just 56 cars being sold.  While this was not their lowest sales month the Focus Electric was one of the few models not out of production that sold less than they did in January, 2016.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands and for the first time they managed to break the 1,000 car barrier with Sales of 1,056 cars in August.  December saw them back above 1000 cars with 1,187 cars sold, their best sales month ever.  In January they fell short of selling 1,000 cars by just 2, selling 998 cars in total. 

After selling a record number of cars in December with sales of 589 cars, sales of the Audi A3 e-Tron dropped back to their normal selling range of 300 - 400 by selling 387 cars during the month of January.  This was their 3rd best sales month ever after November and December of 2016.

After three months of trading above their normal 200 - 400 selling range sales of the VW e-Golf dropped back to more normal sales levels in November selling 305 cars.  December saw sales climb back above the 400 again with sales of 443 cars.  In January sales headed back to their normal range once more with sales of 332 cars.

One car that actually sold better in January than it did in December was the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid.  After posting sales of  152 in December sales increased to 177 cars in January.

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamera 4 e-hybrid which is expected to show up in US dealerships some time in April.  November sales of 88 cars pretty much blew out existing inventory so December sales dropped to just 3 cars and January fell even further to 2 cars.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

BMW sales have been all over the map for the past year or so.  The issue appears to be inventory; it just seems like they can't produce enough cars to provide sufficient inventory on dealer lots.  In December they sold a total of 1,756 cars but sales dropped back to 841 in January.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place, varying from a low of just 182 cars in January, 2016 to a high of 1,479 in July  In November sales were right in the middle of the range with 629 cars sold and In December things picked up again a little with sales of 791 cars. January saw sales fall to 382 cars.

In contrast, the BMW i8 was the only BMW plug-in model that showed a month over month decrease in November going from 199 cars in October to 173 cars.   This trend continued in December as sales dropped to 133 cars, well below the expect 150 - 200 range they normally sell in.  Things got even worse in January as sales dropped to just 50 cars.  This was still an improvement on January, 2016 where only 32 cars were sold.

Sales  of the X5 xDrive40e also showed a sizable drop in sales in January with sales of just 262 cars.  In December 569 cars were sold. While BMW does now have about 500 cars on dealer lots going into February they still haven't built it back up to levels seen earlier in the year so sales will probably continue to be constrained for the next few months.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW are finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in Sales going up to 240 cars, an all time high.  This couldn't be sustained however so January saw sales drop back to 129 cars.

In August BMW dealers were supposed to begin receiving the new 7 Series plug-in hybrid, the 740e, and finally, in December they made it to dealerships,  By the end of December the keys to 23 cars had been handed over to customers.  January added a further18 cars to BMWs sales total.  The issue is the same as we saw with the 330e, the car is basically sold out for the next year so the US only received a token inventory meaning sales are expected to remain low for this car for a while.

Sales of the Nissan Leaf had shown a steady improvement over the last few months of 2016.  After having their best month of the year selling 1,316 cars in September they managed to improve sales again to 1,412 cars in October, 1,457 cars in November, and 1,899 in December.  In January sales dropped back to 772 cars.  It should be noted that like most plug-in cars that are currently in production sales did beat the 755 cars they sold in January, 2016.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range. January was no exception with sales falling to 53 after selling 54 cars in December.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 20 - 50 cars with September sales hitting an all time high of 41 cars.  October blew this out of the water though with sales jumping to 174 cars.  This will have seriously depleted inventory and sales fell again in November to 52 cars but still stayed above their normal trading range.  December saw another month above the normal trading level as sales climbed to 71 cars.  January sales dropped back to 55 cars but still stayed above the historical trading range.

There was so little fanfare that almost nobody knew these cars were going on sale, yet in June Mercedes Benz quietly began selling the GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV.  December set a new sales record with 83 cars being sold but in January sales dropped back to 52 cars.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz have put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  January sales were even better with 210 cars being sold.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 370 Plug-in cars in January just 9 less than the 379 cars they sold in December.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, and they don't break out sales figures, so I have been using the numbers calculated by Inside EV from state rebate information.  January sales came in at an estimated 345 cars.  This was quite a bit below the December sales estimate of 650 cars.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid and sales are expected to start towards the end of February.

October sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV was 255 cars and November saw an additional 285 cars being sold.  December sales climbed to 325 cars which was the second best sales month for this car, being beaten only by the 375 cars they sold back in July.  In January sales fell back to 190 cars.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered. 

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  Things seem to be changing and in September Kia set a monthly sales record, crossing the 200 mark for the first time, with sales of 217 cars. In December the Kia Soul had it second best sales month of the year with 197 cars sold.  Sales fell in January when they notched up just 117 deliveries.  It looks like Kia Soul has set a new trading level this year and will continue to sell in the 100 - 200 car range going forward.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but sales didn't actually kick off until January when 40 cars were sold.  It will be interesting to see how well this car sells going forwards.

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV was one of the few cars that did not beat their January 2016 sales numbers reporting only 96 cars being sold in January well below the 226 cars they sold in January, 2016 and the 204 cars sold in December.  I suspect that the XC90 T8 PHEV has mostly traded in the 100 - 200 range and I expect this to continue going forward.

Smart Electric Drive sales used to make up a significant portion of total Smart sales but recently sales have been quite low.  The reason for this appears to be that production of the old model has ceased.  The new model is expected to go on sale early in 2017 and is expected to have slightly better range than the current model, increasing to 88 miles.  Since September sales have stayed in the 40 - 50 range and December sales just squeaked in at 40 cars. In January sales dropped to just 15 copies.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  After a sales surge in April when they sold 6 i-MiEV things cooled of in May when sales dropped back to just 2 cars.  In June sales improved by 100% over May as they sold 4 cars.  In July things got wild as sales surged to 20 cars.  Things improved again in August when sales climbed to 25 cars.  The momentum couldn't be maintained and sales dropped again in September to 17 cars.  October saw a further pull back to 4 cars, while November pushed this back up to 5 cars and December sales dropped back to 3 cars.  In January Mitsubishi didn't sell any i-MiEV.  It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

January is typically a very difficult sales month for electric cars.  People usually rush to get their purchases done in December so that they can claim the tax credit in April, and so sales in January tend to be really slow.  Add to that the typically bad weather in the mid-west and north-east and this usually makes for a bad month for dealers.  Still, sales this January were much better than I expected.  If you exclude models like the Cadillac ELR that are no longer in production then most cars did better in January than they did in January of the previous year.  Add to that the Chevy Bolt and Prius Prime, both of which did very well for their second month of sales, and there is much to be pleased about.  February is a short sales month so it too is typically one of the weakest months of the year so it will be interesting to see how we fair.

Sunday January 29, 2017 - Auto Company CEOs v Fuel Economy – I just read an article on Newsmax about a meeting that President Trump held with the various CEOs of the Nation's largest automobile manufacturers and quite frankly, if the report is true, it wasn't good.

The report was mostly based on a quotes from Ford CEO Mark Fields who estimated that current fuel economy standards could put 1 million US jobs at risk.  It appears that Fields along with GM CEO Mary Barra and Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne did not ask for fuel economy standards to be eliminated but they did want them to "take into account consumer demand". 

One of the most disturbing piece of the article was that these CEOs, while not asking for CAFE rules to be set aside altogether,  appear to be asking for a single set of rules for the nation.  What that means is that they are requesting that the Trump Administration remove the ability of California to make its own rules when it comes to cleaning up the air.  The EPA has already dropped hints that it intends not to renew the waiver that allows California to do it.  This will also affect the 13 other states that have adopted the California rules.

The waiver was originally granted to California because it has the worst pollution problems in the nation.  In an attempt to clean up the air, especially in Southern California where the air in the LA basin is the worst in the nation, CARB introduced the ZEV Mandate in 1990.  This mandate has been modified over the years but requires car manufacturers to sell a certain number of zero emission vehicles each year.  The car makers have been trying to get this rule overturned ever since it was implemented and have managed to get it weakened several times but have never managed to kill it.  This time they may finally be able to get their wish at a time when zero emission vehicles are going to be key to their survival.

This could lead to a very interesting situation.  lf California has to finally scrap the ZEV mandate there are plenty of things that they can do to promote sales of plug-in vehicles in the state. 

First they can make regulations such as ZEV only lanes of state highways.  Things like allowing ZEVs in the carpool lane on interstate highways with a single person also require a waiver from the Federal government and I full expect that waiver to be cancelled too at some point.  That would mean that ZEVs would no longer be able to use the carpool lane solo on interstate freeways.  State routes though are a different matter and could theoretically be modified by the state of California without Federal approval.

Most of the load however could be carried at the city level.  For example the state and municipal fleets are quite large so if they began insisting that the cars they buy come with a plug then the carmakers are going to have to respond or risk loosing a big chunk of business.  I'm sure Tesla would be quite happy to step in and start supplying California state and city fleets with cars if Ford, for example, decided to stop making plug-in cars.

Cities could also take the London approach by setting congestion charges and making ZEVs exempt or much cheaper to access the congestion zone.  Imagine if you had to pay $20 per day to drive your SUV to your office in down town San Francisco while the guy with the Chevy Bolt gets to drive there for free.  At some point the ZEV becomes a no-brainer.

In the end, it is likely that cuts in CAFE standards, and the removal of the waiver allowing California to make their own rules will end up backfiring on the Automakers.  The rest of the world is going ahead and making stricter and stricter fuel economy standards, if the US carmakers don't respond they are eventually going to die out and that will cost the US a lot more than 1 million jobs.

Sunday January 22, 2017 – Lease Returns – One of the biggest arguments against plug-in cars has always been the cost.  It even sometimes trickles into the thinking of EV Advocates.  I was once talking about the need for public charging so that people who live in apartment buildings or have to park on the street would be able to drive a plug-in vehicle, and was told that people who live in apartments couldn't afford plug-in vehicles.  It wasn't true then and it is even less true now.

The first thing to note is that the price of plug-in cars in general is falling fast.  While a lot has been made of the Bolt being a 238 mile range EV that can be bought for around the price of the average new car after tax incentives, other cars are also available or coming to a dealership soon that greatly drops the cost of ownership of plug-in cars. 
 
Something else is happening too.  Early on a lot of people chose to lease cars rather than buy.  This was a combination of people not knowing how well the batteries would hold up, and very favorable lease rates being offered by the car makers.  These leases were typically written for 3 years although some 2 year leases were also written.  While some people purchased their car at the end of the lease, others chose to get new cars, so there are now lots low mileage 2013 and 2014 cars starting to show up on the used market.

Lease terms usually contain a clause that limits the number of miles that can be driven in each year and there is a per mile charge for any mileage that exceeds this limit.  Typically plug-in car leases limit the car to 10,000 miles per year and drivers do try not to exceed this value. 

For the used car buyer this means that there are currently lots of used 2013 plug-in cars coming onto the market.  Typically I am seeing cars with around 20,000 miles on the clock with prices in the $8,000 - $10,000 range.

 
Another interesting thing I am seeing is a good number of compliance cars showing up at dealerships outside the original sales area.  The is particularly true of the Fiat 500e which was only sold in California and Oregon but is now showing up at dealerships like Carvana in Atlanta and Texas Direct in the Houston area, but there has also been a few Chevy Spark EVs showing up as well. 

There is also a good selection of used Nissan and Chevy Volts that are currently on sale.  These tend to have slightly more miles on the clock than the compliance cars and command a bit higher price, especially the Volt which seems to be holding its price better than most of the plug-in cars.  Even at that you can find 2013 Volts at around $12,500 with about 40,000 miles on the clock.  The Smart Electric Drive, which is also sold nationwide, is one of the cheapest of the lease return cars and low mileage versions can be found for around $8,000.

So what should you watch out for when buying one of these cars.  Well, you have to check the usual things that you would when buying any used car, like making sure that it hasn't been in an accident and that it is mechanically sound.  There are a couple of other things that need to be taken into considerations.

First lets go back to the apartment dweller.  The first thing you have to do is to figure out how you are going to keep it charged.  Do you have access to a plug at home or at work.  All the plug-in cars being produced today can be charged at a regular 110V outlet so if you have access to one, even if it means passing the charge cable though a window, then you are probably good.  If you don't have access then look around for public chargers near your home or workplace.  You can use websites like plugshare to locate chargers.  I would recommend taking a look at the chargers to see how busy they are, are they regularly blocked by cars that are not charging, and what the cost would be, including any parking fees.

If you are looking to buy a compliance car like the Fiat 500e and don't live in one of the states were the car was sold then you should make sure that you have a dealership nearby that is capable and willing to service and repair the car.  I've heard people complain that they had bought a used Fiat 500e and the local dealer refused to work on it telling the customer they would have to have it shipped to California to get it serviced.  Fortunately electric cars don't need too much in the way of service but if you are not able to take care of the car yourself it should be a major concern so check with dealers in your area to see if they are willing to work on the car, also check with the dealership selling the car to see if they are capable and willing to service and repair it after the purchase.

For cars that are sold nationwide there is much less to worry about.  The main thing is the state of the batteries.  Volt batteries appear to be holding up well but leaf batteries have been known to loose significant capacity over time.  Fortunately the Leaf has an option to display the current capacity of the car.  This tends to be more of an issue with earlier cars that were used in very hot climates like southern Arizona but it is worth a check. I would recommend walking away from a car with low miles that shows over 20% capacity loss.

If you want to go plug-in but were put off by the high price tag then a low mileage lease return might be a good way to get into one.  Give one a try, you are going to like it.

Sunday January 15, 2017 – 2017 Detroit Auto Show – This week saw the opening of the 2017 Detroit Auto Show also known as NAIAS.  2016 saw several new plug-in vehicles arriving in dealerships so it shouldn't be a major surprise that there weren't many new plug-in cars making their debut in Detroit this year, although nearly every automaker's stand will have at least one plug-in car on display. 

This year the new cars being debuted had a lot more sedans and hatchbacks, like the redesigned Toyota Camry, and less SUVs and crossovers than I had expected.  For the production ready cars there was only one plug-in, the Hyundai Ioniq, and that was only there because Hyundai was showing their autonomous concept version which actually debuted at CES.

The Ioniq was first shown at last year's New York Auto Show and will be the first car to offer Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and EV versions of the same vehicle.  The car is already on sale in Korea and Europe and was originally slated to begin sales in the last quarter of 2016 but so far has been a no-show. 

There were some interesting cars that were shown as concepts.

 
The first of these was the VW e-Golf which was also shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show last November.  This is really an improved version of the current e-Golf and will feature a larger battery pack boasting a capacity of 35.8 KWh which VW claim will give the car a range of 124 miles on a charge.  The larger sized battery comes with a boost to the power output from the charger allowing the batteries to be charged at a rate of 7.2 KW which should give a full charge in about 6 hours.  Power has been boosted also giving the electric motor and additional 19hp.  This will allow the e-golf to do 0-60 in 9.6 second.

VW also showed yet another Microbus Concept.  The I.D Buzz concept is powered by two 201hp electric motors, one on each axle.  This provides a combined power of 396hp offering a 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds and an electronically limited top speed of 99mph.  The 111 KWh lithium battery pack will offer a range of 270 miles on a charge but with concepts VW usually quotes ranges measured on the European test cycle but we would still expect an EPA rang well in excess of 200 miles.  The concept can use CCS DC fast charge port that can have the batteries charged up to 80% in 30 minutes or an inductive charging system that can charge at a rate or 150KW.  My reaction is - just produce it already!

One interesting company exhibiting in Detroit is the Chinese company GAC.  They are planning on selling cars in the US before the end of this decade and this is the third year they have attended the Detroit Auto Show.  One of the cars they had on display was the GE3, a fully battery powered compact SUV.  The GE3 is scheduled to go on sale in China in June.  The car is powered by a 47 KWh battery pack that they claim will give a 200 mile range on the European test cycle.  This seem wildly optimistic to me and I suspect that once the SUV is fitted with all the stuff needed to pass US crash and safety test, and then run on the stricter EPA test cycle, the range is more likely to around 120-130 miles.  Power is transmitted to the road via a 67hp motor. 

The most interesting concept shown in Detroit was from Rinspeed. The Oasis is designed to be a fully electric self driving car used for car sharing applications in urban environments.  It can be configured as a passenger vehicle or as a cargo vehicle.  It is unlikely that this car will ever go into production although it could function as a quadra-cycle in Europe and as a NEV here in the US.  It was actually designed to show a new way of using cars for personal mobility in urban environments.  This is an idea that the big automakers are telling me is only about 5 years away from reality.

This year's Detroit Auto show didn't have much to cheer about for electric car supporters like me, but over the next year I expect to see exciting things starting to emerge in the EV space as more new vehicles begin to show up in showrooms while older models get a refresh with longer range and better performance at a lower cost. 

Sunday January 8, 2017 – December 2016 EV Sales – December was an incredible month for EV sales.  With sales of an estimated 24,785 cars during the month, December 2016 not only became the best December ever but also the best sales month ever, beating the previous best month, June 2016, by almost 10,000 cars.  Before we get too excited though I suspect that what we saw were people trying to lock in the Federal tax credit thinking that it will probably be gone under the Trump administration.

Tesla never gives out how many cars they sell each month but Inside EV does a pretty good job of estimating their overall monthly sales.  In the Third month of the quarter Tesla always does a big push to try and meet their quarter end projections.  This quarter Tesla had been working to set up production of cars with all the sensors required for autonomous driving so sales had been slow for the first two months, but they did have a bunch of cars in transit at the end of November. 

In December they really kicked things into gear delivering an estimated 5,850 Model S cars. This was not only Tesla's best month ever for the Model S but also the best sales month for any plug-in car.  In November they sold an estimated 1,400 cars.

Like the Model S, the Model X also has low sales in November delivering 900 cars, but in December sales climbed to 3,875 cars making this the best sales month ever for the Model X.

Total sales at Tesla for December were 9,725 cars which was also Tesla's best sales month ever.  To put these sales in perspective,  Tesla sold more plug-in cars in December than the total number of plug-in cars that were sold in the months of January (6,221 cars) or February (7,763 cars) of 2016. 

Sales of the Chevy Volt also hit record territory in December when 3,691 cars were sold.   The previous record high was 3,381 set back in August, 2013. This also pushed them up to 24,739 cars making 2016 the best year ever for Volt sales beating out the previous best year, 2013, by 1,645 cars. Previously in November GM had sold 2,531 Volts.

As promised GM began delivery of the Chevy Bolt in the middle of December.  GM had said that they would be delivering the first cars to Lift drivers and that appears to have been what happened as most dealers in California and Oregon didn't see cars arriving in any numbers until the very last days of November.  GM still managed to deliver 579 Bolts in December.
 
With the arrival of the Bolt sales of the Chevy Spark EV are being wound down as inventory is depleted.  In October 260 cars were sold and this number dropped to 39 cars in November and just 17 cars in December.  It seems unlikely that any more cars will be shipped to the US from Korea so sales will continue low until existing dealer inventory is gone.

 
Sales of the Cadillac ELR have been steadily falling as existing dealer inventory is depleted and no more are being built. After selling 6 cars in both August and September, 3 in October, and 5 in November, sales in December dropped back to just 3.  Sales will probably continue at a dribble until the CT6 PHEV goes on sale in mid-2017.

In December GM manage to sell 4,290 cars making it the best sales month ever for plug-in cars at GM  In November they sold 2,531 plug-in cars,  It remains to be seen if GM can continue to sell close to 2,000 Volts per month into the early months of 2017, and how well the Chevy Bolt will sell in the coming months.

When we talk about plug-in cars nobody seems to mention Ford but they have been a strong performer over the years.  This month was unusual though as sales of their best selling Fusion Energi slipped, dropping overall sales from November's 2,604 cars down to 2,489 cars in December, still a pretty good showing.

After posting the best sales numbers of the year in November at 1,817 cars the Ford Fusion went into December with only about 2,000 cars on dealer lots.  As a result, sales in December fell to just 1,099 cars, making this the third worst sales month of the year.

 
After 3 straight months of declining sales, Ford managed their second best month of the year for the C-Max Energi with

November sales hitting 721.  The low inventor situation for the Fusion Energi appears to have benefitted the C-Max Energi as it had its best sales number ever, with 1,289 cars sold.  We have to go all the way back to November of 2012 to see the previous best month when 1,259 cars were sold.
 
This year Ford has been struggling to sell the Focus EV which is now getting towards the end of its life.  While they used to consistently sell in the 100 - 200 range this year they had only managed to sell more than 100 in one month, March, when they sold 110 cars.  December saw the second time in 2016 that they topped the 100 mark when the sold 101 Focus EVs.  Previously in November they had sold 66 cars.

Sales of the Nissan Leaf have been improving over the last few months.  After having their best month of the year selling 1,316 cars in September they managed to improve sales again to 1,412 cars in October, and sales in November climbed to 1,457 cars.  In December sales climbed even further to a 1,899 making this the best sales month of the year for the Nissan Leaf. At CES Nissan said that the new Leaf would be shown soon so I am guessing they will either show it at this years Detroit Auto Show, or more likely at the Geneva Auto Show.

BMW sales appear to be all over the map this year.  After selling an incredible 2,375 cars in July, sales at BMW stayed over the 2,000 cars mark for the second straight month hitting 2,085 in August.  They just couldn't keep this up though and sales in September fell to just 1085 cars but improved a little in October selling 1,139 cars, and once again in November when they sold 1,453 cars.  December showed a further increase to 1,756 cars.

 
Sales of the i3 in particular have been all over the place this year varying from a low of just 182 cars in January to a high of 1,479 in July  In November sales were right in the middle of the range with 629 cars sold.  In December things picked up again a little with sales of 791 cars.

In contrast, the BMW i8 was the only BMW plug-in model that showed a month over month decrease in November going from 199 cars in October to 173 cars.   This trend continued in December as sales dropped to 133 cars, well below the expect 150 - 200 range they normally sell in.

Sales  of the X5 xDrive40e showed a moderate gain in December with 569 cars sold after sales in November of 436 cars.  While BMW does have inventory on hand they still haven't built it back up to levels seen earlier in the year so sales will probably continue to be constrained for the next few months.

The 330e is a good seller in Europe and I expect it to do well here in the US too once dealer inventory builds to sufficient levels.  The good news is that BMW are finally beginning to get cars on dealer lots and this was reflected in October with 92 sales. In November they blew that number away as sales climbed to 215 cars setting a new monthly sales record.  December saw another increase in Sales going up to 240 cars, an all time high.

In August BMW dealers were supposed to begin receiving the new 7 Series plug-in hybrid, the 740e, and finally, in December they made it to dealerships.  By the end of December the keys to 23 cars had been handed over to customers.

Toyota stopped production of the Prius Plug-in and the RAV4-EV earlier this year.  They appear to have sold the last of the Prius Plug-in inventory with 0 cars sold in the last 3 months.

The big news from Toyota is that they started delivering the new Prius Prime in the second week of November.  During the month, with sales in a limited number of areas, mostly California and Oregon, they sold 781 cars.  This set a record for the most plug-in cars sold in the first month of sales.  Not to be outdone, December sales increased to 1,641 cars.  I expect the Prius Prime to continue to sell well.

Toyota is putting its money into Fuel Cell cars and in November they sold 105 Mirai FCEVs.  They beat this number in December by selling an additional 116 cars.  By my reckoning, since they went on sale in January 2016, Toyota has sold a total of 1,034 Mirai.

VW now has 4 plug-in cars being sold across its family of brands and for the first time they managed to break the 1,000 car barrier with Sales of 1,056 cars in August.  They sort of did a repeat in September when they sold exactly 1,000 cars but in October sales dropped back to 931 cars and they followed this up by selling 966 cars in November.  December saw them back above 1000 cars with 1,187 cars sold, their best sales month ever. 

November saw sales of the Audi A3 e-Tron hitting 394 cars, an all time record month.  This record didn't stand for long though as it was eclipsed by December sales of 589 cars.  The A-3 e-tron normally sells in the 300 - 400 range and this is the first time sales have climbed above 400 cars.

After three months of trading above their normal 200 - 400 selling range sales of the VW e-Golf dropped back to more normal sales levels in November selling 305 cars.  December saw sales climb back above the 400 again with sales of 443 cars.  This was their third best month of the year.

After setting all time high records in February and March sales of the Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid started on a downward spiral. when sales fell from 244 cars in March to 237 cars in April, 191 cars in May, 176 cars in June, and 148 cars in July.  This trend reversed in August when 197 cars were sold but that reversal was temporary as sales dropped back to 131 cars in September.  October did see a slight improvement selling 7 more cars for a total of 138, and in November sales improved again to 179 cars.  The momentum couldn't be sustained however and sales dropped back to 152 in December

 
The Panamera S e-Hybrid is being phased out and will be replaced by the Panamers 4 e-hybrid which is expected to show up in US dealerships some time in April.  November sales of 88 cars pretty much blew out existing inventory so December sales dropped to just 3 cars.  It seems unlikely that more will be shipped to the US so sales will be scarce until the arrival of the new model.

The Fiat 500e is just a compliance car for Fiat Chrysler America, and they don't break out sales figures, so I have been using the numbers calculated by Inside EV from state rebate information.  December sales came in at an estimated 650 cars, up from the 590 cars sold in November.

Fiat Chrysler America have begun production of the much anticipated Pacifica Hybrid and sales are expected to start late in January or early February.

It appears that Mercedes Benz is keeping inventory of the B250e in short supply.  This was reflected in sales that seem to hover in the 40 - 60 range.  December was no exception with sales rising to 54 after selling 52 cars in November.  Rumor has it that supply will remain limited until the next generation, expected to offer more than 200 miles of range, becomes available. 

Sales of Mercedes Benz's first plug-in hybrid model the S550e PHEV appeared to have settled into the range of 20 - 50 cars with September sales hitting an all time high of 41 cars.  October blew this out of the water though with sales jumping to 174 cars.  This will have seriously depleted inventory and sales fell again in November to 52 cars but still stayed above their normal trading range.  December saw another month above the normal trading level as sales climbed to 71 cars.

There was so little fanfare that almost nobody knew these cars were going on sale, yet in June Mercedes Benz quietly began selling the GLE 550e plug-in hybrid SUV.  October sales were just 19 cars but in November sales increased to 30 cars tying July for the best sales month.  December sales were more than double the previous best sales month with 83 cars being sold.  Given the American's love affair with SUVs this car should sell relatively well but the car is only available as a special order item in most locations so that results in limited sales.

Mercedes-Benz have put back the launch of the C350e several times but it finally began appearing in dealerships in December.  First month sales were pretty impressive at 171 cars.  I expect that this car will sell well if Mercedes-Benz can supply enough inventory to its dealers.

Overall Mercedes Benz sold 379 Plug-in cars in December.

October sales of the Hyundai Sonata PHEV was 255 cars and November saw an additional 285 cars being sold.  December sales climbed to 325 cars which was the second best sales month for this car, being beaten only by the 375 cars they sold back in July.  Like sister company Kia they only stock small amounts of cars in dealer inventory in a limited number of states and while it is technically available nationwide in most states it has to be special ordered. 

The Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV saw its worst sales numbers of the year in May with just 110 cars sold. They did stage a recovery in June with sales climbing back up to 166 vehicles while July showed another improvement going up to 178 cars sold.  August saw a slight pull back falling back to 176 cars.  The pullback continued in September when 148 cars were sold, and in October selling just 142 cars.  Sales recovered in November at 161.  December became the second best sales month of the year with 204 cars sold.  I suspect that the XC90 T8 PHEV will continue to sell in the 100 - 200 range going forward.

I've always said that the Kia Soul EV should be a good seller but Kia has always kept inventory constrained on this car.  Things seem to be changing and in September Kia set a monthly sales record, crossing the 200 mark for the first time, with sales of 217 cars.  In October sales dropped back into the normal trading range selling 190 cars and November saw another drop in sales down to 179 cars.  In December the Kia Soul had it second best sales month of the year with 197 cars sold.  It looks like Kia has set a new trading level this year and will continue to sell in the 100 - 200 car range going forward.

Kia also has the Optima PHEV which was expected to go on Sale here in the US starting in December, but was a no-show.  It will be interesting to see if sales kick off in the new year.

Smart Electric Drive sales used to make up a significant portion of total Smart sales but recently sales have been quite low.  The reason for this appears to be that production of the old model has ceased.  The new model is expected to go on sale early in 2017 and is expected to have a better range than the current model, increasing to 88 miles.  Since September sales have stayed in the 40 - 50 range and December sales just squeaked in at 40 cars. Previously in November Smart had sold 47 cars.

Mitsubishi just don't appear to be able to supply plug-in cars to the US.  After a sales surge in April when they sold 6 i-MiEV things cooled of in May when sales dropped back to just 2 cars.  In June sales improved by 100% over May as they sold 4 cars.  In July things got wild as sales surged to 20 cars.  Things improved again in August when sales climbed to 25 cars.  The momentum couldn't be maintained and sales dropped again in September to 17 cars.  October saw a further pull back to 4 cars, while November pushed this back up to 5 cars and December sales dropped back to 3 cars.  It looks like the i-MiEV will continue to trade in the 1 to 10 car range going forward.

I was expecting excellent sales in December but even I was surprised at how strong sales were. Several things came together to help push sales along including the usual rush to lock in tax credits before year end and the arrival of several new models that went on sale in December.  I expect that sales in 2017 will build on this growth as we see more new models, like the Kia Optima Plug-in and the Pacifica Hybrid arriving in showrooms while existing models, like the Smart, get updates with more range at the same or lower base price.

Having said that I do expect much lower sales numbers in January which is quite normal.  I do expect sales to be well ahead of January 2016 though for a few reasons.  First, Tesla produced a lot of cars in December and while it will concentrate on international sales in January, there were still a lot of cars in transit at the end of December which will add to their January sales count.  Second the Chevy Bolt is going to be arriving at dealerships in larger numbers in January and pre-orders will no doubt mean good sales in the first month of the year.  I also expect to see the Prius Prime continue to do well which should boost total sales for the month.

Sunday January 1, 2017 – Charging into 2017 – Today is the start of a brand new year and unless we see some major roadblocks placed by the incoming Republican administration I expect to see a huge bounce in the number of electric cars being sold in the coming year.  Building from 2016, which is already the best year ever for EV sales even without the December sales figures, I expect to see a large growth in sales in 2017.

People who have followed my blog over the years know that in the past I have bucked the trend saying that we don't need to have a large amount of public charging infrastructure to roll out electric vehicles.  I proved to be right as most people who bought electric cars charged at home and didn't really need public charging.   

Things do change though and 2017 is going to be a pivot point where the lack of EV infrastructure will now start to put the brakes on EV sales.  We started to see this at the end of 2016 when it became apparent the all was not sweetness and light in the Tesla Supercharger network.

While the network is still doing a fantastic job providing Tesla owners with the ability to do long distance travel, it became apparent that some of the stations on busy routes would sometimes become overcrowded.  Tesla started out by asking their drivers not to use local superchargers for a free charge instead of charging at home.  Then it became apparent that not all Tesla drivers were considerate of others.  Complaints came in that drivers would park their cars at a Supercharger then leave them there for hours at a time; way longer that the time it takes to get to 80% charge.  Tesla responded to this by setting a cost for people leaving their cars after obtaining a full charge.  They have also changed their Supercharger program so that new owners will get 1,000 miles of free charging per year after which they will have to pay to use the Superchargers..

Over Christmas I took a trip out to Temecula.  This is just about 100 miles from LA so in theory at least a Chevy Bolt or Tesla Model 3 should be able to do the round trip without a re-charge although that would mean parking the car in the hotel and walking everywhere.  A weekend stay is going to be no problem if you can get a full, or almost full charge.

Paradise Chevrolet would be one option but they only have 1 charger so you would be lucky to get to use it. Having said that it was available when I visited them to check if the Bolts had arrived.  The City of Temecula provides 4 chargers in Old Town.  When I got there on Christmas day both chargers in the lot by the Museum were available so I was able to get a partial charge there, but the businesses in Old Town were pretty much closed so I had the place to myself.  When I went back the following day both of the chargers were in use.  Fortunately for me one of the chargers in the 6th Street garage was available so I was able to get another partial charge. 

The other place where I was able to charge was at the Pechanga Casino.  On both nights I went there I was able to get the last available charger and was able to get a full charge both times.  These turned out to be expensive charges as the slot machines were not friendly on either night. On the second night there one of the chargers was being blocked by a regular Prius.

My experience in Temecula made me think about what would happen when thousands of Bolts hit the streets and people want to use them for longer trips.  Trips from LA to places like Temecula, San Diego, Santa Barbara, or Palm Springs are quite doable in a Chevy Bolt but not without some sort of charge at the destination.  Once again Tesla has it right when they install destination chargers at various hotels.  I can see a time in the not-too-distant future where the availability of a charger is going to be drawing point for hotels.  Even the ability to plug in to a 110V outlet will probably make 100 - 120 mile trips very doable.

There is some help on the way.  EVgo has just started construction of a new DC fast charger location in Baker.  This charger is going to have the ability to charge at 350 KW.  It will come with a solar array and battery back-up and will be able to charge 4 cars at once using either CHAdeMO or the combined charging standard (CCS).  If the Chevy Bolt supported such high capacity charging, in theory it should be able to give a Chevy Bolt an 80% charge in about 8 minutes.  Baker is about 226 miles from LA so in theory the Bolt's 238 mile range should be sufficient to get to this charger but unfortunately the drive goes over the Cajon pass and the climb would just drain away the charge too much to be able to make this drive without an intermediate charge.  It does however open up the idea of driving your EV from LA to Las Vegas with only limited stops for charging.

Elon Musk has also been dropping hints that the next generation supercharger could be coming soon.  From his tweets it looks possible that the new superchargers will allow a Tesla to charge at a rate that will provide 80% of charge at a rate that is similar to the time taken to fill a gas car.  If Tesla can do that then we are looking at the end of age of oil.  Fuel Cell Vehicles are going to be in a great deal of trouble.  The one advantage they have over batter electric is that they can fill fast.  If a battery electric car can fill just as fast then who would want to mess with hydrogen?.

So here is what we need to concentrate on in 2017 to support the large number of electric cars that is going to hit the streets.

First we have to make sure that the existing infrastructure is available so laws need to be enacted to stop people from blocking chargers and to stop people from hogging chargers when they are done with charging.  I have often cited the law established by Beverly Hills as a template that could be used by other cities building similar regulations.  It's not enough to craft such laws and stick up signs, the laws have to be enforced which could include ticketing violators and even towing cars that are preventing others from charging.

We need to continue rolling out level 1 and level 2 charging infrastructure with the emphasis on destination charging.  For many all that is needed in a hotel parking lot is access to a bunch of 110V outlets.  Cars are often sitting in hotel car parks for 8 - 10 hours per night and often longer; plenty of time  to get enough charge for the following day's driving. 

The fast charger network needs to be enhanced to build more corridors between cities to allow all electric cars to be used for long distance travel. This is especially true for the CCS chargers which are still in relative short supply compared with CHAdeMO or Tesla Superchargers.  The availability of fast charging also opens up the possibility for ownership of electric cars to those who currently live in apartments and don't have the ability to charge at home.