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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (613136)	5/26/2011 1:48:36 PM
From: TopCat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578924

"Going from $40K to mid-$20K represents a savings of $15K. You're telling me that half of the battery costs that much?" What happens when you have to replace one of those things? What happens to the market for hybrids and electrics in a few years when batteries start having to be replaced?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (613136)	5/27/2011 11:02:32 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1578924

"They have plans of cutting the price to the mid-$20k range. By cutting the battery capacity in half..." Correct. See the difference when you don't selectively quote? And yes, it does mean that the battery costs a lot of money. Not necessarily directly, although that would be the bigger part, but a larger, heavier battery is not free outside of its direct cost. "Going from $40K to mid-$20K represents a savings of $15K. You're telling me that half of the battery costs that much?" I am not saying that, GM is. Try paying attention for once instead of searching for gotchas. Now that figure likely includes things like the car would be lighter thus reducing the stress on other components, the charging circuit could be smaller, the car itself could be smaller due to the smaller battery volume, the safety features could be lighter because of the smaller mass, etc. Not to mention a lower price point would mean a larger sales volume and the attending economies of scale. So it isn't immediately obvious that it is just spin. What is immediately obvious is the battery is pretty expensive. As an engineer you should understand that there is more than just the cost of the battery involved. Are you sure you aren't a janitor or something?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (613136)	5/27/2011 7:03:36 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578924

That sounds a bit high, but batteries for a full scale electric car (no glorified golf carts) are very expensive. That, the longer refill time, and the extra weight and space for the batteries, are the main arguments against mass adoption of electric cars. (There are other arguments as well, much less charging infrastructure then there is filling infrastructure for gasoline powered cars, questions about sufficient availability of some of the materials used for the batteries, the need for new generation capacity, etc.)