Audi Chief Calls Chevy Volt “A Car For Idiots”
Bring on the war of words. In a frank conversation with MSN writer Lawrence Ulrich, Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen has said that the Chevy Volt will fail and that anybody who buys the car is an idiot. Not only that, de Nysschen has lumped proponents of any type of electric car into a category of “intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are.”
I’m guessing that means a fair amount of the people reading this would be considered idiots and pompous intellectual elites in Mr. de Nysschen’s book. Funny that. Hearing an Audi executive mocking any other car as being for intellectual pompous elites is, err, interesting, given that Audi is known for being in exactly that category themselves. Agh.
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So taking the diplomatic view, ignore, for a minute, his purposely inflammatory and derogatory statements, and consider his analysis. In de Nysschen’s mind, no one will be willing to pay the expected $40,000 base price of the Volt when the cars it’s competing with are $15,000 less (he thinks the Volt will be competing with Toyota Corollas). Also, he noted, the Volt doesn’t deliver a premium luxury experience and, therefore, its eco-lux price tag is inexcusable to the average consumer.
Keep in mind that de Nysschen is a strong proponent of diesel technology and Audi is currently investing a lot of energy and capital promoting diesels to Americans. He feels that modern fuel-sipping low emissions diesel technology has been largely ignored by the US government and that people have been wrongly convinced into thinking that electric cars are the answer.
His preference for diesels over electric and plug-in cars is based on his following conclusions:
- A wholesale shift from gas to electric cars in the US would result in a net increase in carbon dioxide emissions due to the fact that about 70% of American electricity currently comes from coal plants.
- Recent advances in diesel technology have resulted in very high mileage cars with extremely low emissions.
- Diesels already have the infrastructure needed to provide a fuel supply. Electric cars need to have infrastructure built and completely upgraded.
On the surface, he may have some thought-provoking points. But I’ve done some thinking on this topic in the past too, and this is what I’ve concluded:
- While it’s true that about 50% of American electricity currently comes from coal, that number is changing quickly as more renewables come online. In some areas of the country, large amounts of electricity already come from renewable sources. Given that EVs will come on relatively slowly as well, it makes sense to conduct the switch simultaneously.
- Regardless of that, there is research that shows even given the current ratio of coal power in the US, it would be less polluting to switch to plug-in hybrids and electric cars.
- It’s much easier and more cost effective to regulate a relative handful of single source emitters such as power plants than it is to regulate hundreds of millions of tailpipes. When new pollution reduction technology comes online all you have to do is go to your power plant and add the new technology there. Imagine trying to get that new technology into all 250 million cars.
- Transmission of electrical power is orders of magnitude more efficient than shipping refined oil all around the country to thousands of different fuel stations.
- If the power source in your car (electricity) is independent of the power generation method (coal, natural gas, wind, solar, geothermal, wave, biomass burning, etc.) you ensure that not only will your transportation method be adaptable to future changes, you also increase the stability and security of your transportation infrastructure because you have a diverse variety local power sources to choose from.
While I agree with Mr. de Nysschen that the US should be taking a good look at the viability of diesels (especially considering that Europeans can already buy a huge variety of high mileage diesels), his analysis of why electric cars are doomed to fail is completely off base. And his method of delivery of the message is tasteless and unnecessarily mean.
Source: MSN autos
Image Credit: Audi USA
cause he would know whats best for us right. tell him and his 70’s porn mustache to shove his junk Audi’s where it hurts, and concentrate on actually making a new model cause they haven’t changed their crappy over priced lineup in forever and hair
While I love the idea of the electric car I am not in love with the 10 million batteries that it takes to move them.
I am not a scientist nor an engineer but I believe batteries are made up of toxic chemicals. I also realize today’s batteries will not last the life of a car. A car owner will have to purchase multiple sets of them throughout the lifespan of the vehicle.
Batteries are not only insanely expensive but also insanely heavy. Pushing an extra thousand pounds of batteries around does not seem very “fuel” efficient to me.
If you can make a light inexpensive battery that will last for 20 years and is made out of non-toxic chemicals sign me up. Till then a 70 mpg diesel VW makes a lot more sense.
Well I am an engineer and I have come to understand that EVs are already very sensible on the engineering scale but so too are the very efficient VW diesels at 70mpg, and esp that 280 mpg slim mobile. I used to think EVS were a flaky idea too, but the physics is on the side of EVs and peak oil is against the ICE.
The electric drive train is already very efficient in motion, recaptures energy in breaking, and no drive energy used in idle or parking (save for cabin use). It is true that batteries are expensive right now and somewhat heavy and are toxic in manufacture but things are changing. Many improvements are on their way for EVs that are not yet in many models.
Supercaps can be added that will allow batteries to be tuned for storage density rather than performance giving perhaps a 2x storage increase even with lead acid cells but any cell type works better with super caps.
There is a super cap company called EEStor that promises radical improvement in energy storage. Most engineers don’t believe it yet, but the latest leaks I have studied gives me a much better feel for it than before based on a new type of aqueous manufacture process rather than packed powder.
Lithium Ion has many variations and many new types are in R/D. There are preliminary designs that could have a 10x fold increase in charge storage density using nanotube technologies.
Just as the PC has evolved in performance and cost by a million fold over the last 30 years, a tiny fraction of that improvement will happen in energy storage too, just wait a few more years for the dozens of new research projects to yield fruit.
A very long time ago the CEOs of IBM and DEC thought the world wide markets for computers would be very very limited, little did they predict the microprocessor revolution and the spirit of silicon valley. That spirit is alive and well all over the world working on all the problem areas of EVs.
Even ICEs may yet see a nice bump in efficiency by mixing diesel and gas burning in the same unit, about 20% better than gas or diesel alone and there are also TEGs to recover wasted tailpipe energy.
Just follow the various stories here and physorg or science daily.
I would say this Audi CEO is a complete idiot (as most CEOs are) and doesn’t know what he is talking about. Most all gas powered vehicles must eventually give way to electric drive trains no matter what. There are exceptions but most commuter trips will eventually be electric or hybrids.
There are some concerns though already about EVs, such as potential world shortages of rare earth metals needed for the motors, batteries etc. Right now these mostly come from China, but there are supplies world wide if we are prepared to mine and pollute locally. Also Lithium may yet go into tight supply, as usual, higher prices will lead to more exploration.
i don’t care what anyone says I’m sticking with my horse and buggy these “automobiles” will never be affordable or safe…never…
yea 70 mpg diesels are great too bad that Americans don’t force car companies to sell them here i mean its been almost 40 years since the embargo you would think if we wanted diesel we would have them by now…
there are batteries that are non toxic look at the zero motorcycle and if we think we know everything than we will get nothing… we must do what Americans do best, innovate. Or did we forget/forgetting how to do that?
This was probably one of the most well spoken articles i have read in a long time and it is what i have been saying for a long time now! Yes 70mpg diesel is good but it is not getting us anywhere. All it is doing is slowing the problem down until eventually we will have to switch to electric anyway. Even though much of the energy we use in our houses comes from coal plants, this will not last and they will be changed. Also i was reading an article about being able to power 250,000 homes from a satellite that would send energy down through microwaves. If somehow this could be done safely than the possibilities are endless. So many things can be done with electricity and with technology moving the way it is today, there will be new ways and more efficient ways to do almost everything.
The real idiots in this case are Chevy with their 230 mpg claim based on completely non-practical measurements.
I am surprised that Audi can allow anyone to blurt out such a damaging statement. I wonder if this guy will keep his job after this, considering that more and more ‘enlightened souls’ are seeing that any advancement in petroleum technology is just delaying the inevitable rush towards peak oil.
I can install a solar panel or wind turbine at home that will recharge my future EV, but I would never consider trying to install a diesel bowser in my home. Go figure
Call me a idiot because I would love to have a Volt. I am 73 years old and I am running out of time. 70 MPG VW would buy that, but how many 90 year old men buy cars? Been reading about the Volt for years, heck GM can’t even put their Equinox in the show rooms. Guess the best I can do is get a Toyota Prius.
Nice post JJ, fair & balanced w/ a healthy dose of optimism…like it. I also think that EV technology will go the way of the pc, although I wonder if it’ll be much faster than the pc. As soon as someone produces a lightweight, long-life, & high density electric storage system, all hell is going to break loose. I’d like to see EESTOR pave the way and hope that their EESU works out. It’s been really secretive from the get go, but then again, so was the Manhattan project.
Frank said on September 3rd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
The real idiots in this case are Chevy with their 230 mpg claim based on completely non-practical measurements
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Although I think there are better ways to publicize the capabilities of the Volt the EPA-designed driving cycle is entirely practical and statistically valid.
Most people will get much better than 230 mpg CITY when they plug-in their Volts at night. My own driving patterns would have me fueling up once every 2-3 months.
The HWY number is what most people interested in the Volt are curious about even though that is not the most frequent length of trips they make.
I never said not to continue working on electric vehicles or that they are not what we will be driving in the future. What I did say is that right now, today, this week the average person should not waste their money on an electric vehicle purely because battery technology is not where it needs to be to make electric vehicles cost effective. If you are wealthy and want to drive one feel free, for the rest of us it would be a lot smarter to wait a few years till battery prices, weight and lifespan improve.
The masses are not as stupid as they appear. When buying an electric vehicle will cost less than a gas vehicle and do most of what a gas vehicle can, almost everybody will jump on board.