[Nerys]

fine. First ALL of this info is independently verifiable. doing so is your duty not mine. you don't have to take me at my word but you will need to do your own research if its not enough its all public information.

to estimate the full RETAIL price of an electric car if built with the objective of economy car economy being as cheap as possible no frills not fuel economy.

this car would have NO transmission. it would be direct drive (electric motor drive shaft to differential to wheels) it would not have the greatest acceleration or top speed but WOULD keep up with traffic would have tolerable acceleration (around what a minivan can do) and would go 70-80mph if you wanted too. the motor tech IS available to do this today. (it was not 15 year ago hence the ev1 had a 2 speed transmission IIRC)

if you want a performance car your going to pay a performance price go buy a tesla. this is for the AVERAGE JOE american who is suffering and needs a break.

First what is the cheapest full retail price no subsidy car you can buy. this is pretty easy there are a couple examples. an easy one is the nissan versa I believe. $9550 brand new cash out the door. (lets not forget this is no where near the cheapest next year elio motors will release their car full retail $6800)

so we have the basis for what full retail is on a car.

NOW we are going to REMOVE and throw out the following components.

Engine. Transmission. Cooling system. Smog System, Emissions system. Exhaust system. alternator and related components. power steering and related components. oil system and related components. ECU and related components. etc.. etc..

IE a "glider" as they call it in the industry.

how much "value" did we just strip from the car. Most mechanics I speak with say about 80-85% of the value of the car was just removed so you have essentially a $2000 glider. this is actually not too far off the mark from other examples of "glider" prices.

but to keep this fair and to account for unknown variables in labor and costs I am going to use 50% just to be on the ultra safe and accurate side of the equation.

so $4775 (this is full retail not cost) this is our electric car glider.

now the other "big" expense is the battery. this is a know value. GM and Ovonics announced publicly their success at being able to bring the E95 NIMH large format pack to market at a price (not cost but a full retail consumer price) of $4500.

that is the price of the battery.

NOW you can google this yourself but a good estimate is about $2000 for the motor and $2000 for the controller (prices range from $1500 to $5000 for each of these components remember we are going for economy here so on the low end I chose $2000 to be in a "safe" ballpark conservative value.

The charger will cost you about $500.

so the TOTAL full retail price of this car is $4775 + $4500 + $2000 + $2000 + $500

now mind you this is ULTRA conservative. the prices quotes for the motor and controller are current hobby niche grade components. MASS PRODUCE these parts on an automotive scale and they become EVEN CHEAPER and probably by quite a lot but again I wanted a realistic value you could research and validate the numbers from.

Total full retail MSRP price $13,775

this is a economy grade 4 door mid size sedan with an average range potential of around 100 miles to a charge.

NOW as to the lifespan of the battery. Ovonics rated the batteries at 250,000 miles to 80% SOC. this means after 250,000 miles the battery will still retain 80% of its original capacity. (so if you got 100 miles range new after 250,000 miles you can expect 80 miles range)

this is VERY conservative and real world testing shows this to be hugely under estimated. toyota test a rav4ev using this battery to 300,000 miles with ZERO relevant degradation in battery capacity. multiple in the hands of regular citizens rav4ev's with over 150,000 miles on the original 10-15 year old battery packs show ZERO measurable degradation in battery capacity. so you can safely say they are good for 300,000 miles and the real world data backs this up.

the average person drives 12,500 miles a year that is 25 YEARS before they would eve have to THINK about a battery replacement.

the Nimh battery has a capacity of 26kw/hours and this will average you around 80-110 miles per charge (as per existing real world rav4ev owners driving usage)

so 100 miles per charge is a good metric to do some basic math on.

lets go. at 12,500 miles per year you will need 3300 kw of power per year to run your electric car on average.

a 1200watt grid tie in is $250 shipped (ebay brand new not used)

you can buy solar panels of 240watt capacity for around $150 to $250 a piece so lets use $200 each and you need 4 but lets get 5 to be safe.

if we assume 10 hours a day sunlight. now lets drop that to 8 to account for low light and cloudy weather. and lets drop 15 days from the year to further account for weather and make our estimate more accurate.

so 5 panels 240watts per hour each x 8 x 350 gets you 3360 minimum kw per year. enough to easily cover the average persons 12,500 miles a year. you will likely end up with far more power produced than this that will simply reduce your electric bill. (47 states currently have buy back programs for cost avoided solar savings so your not trying to charge the car with the solar your just offsetting the kw's you use for the car with solar you "sell" back to the grid. if you use 3300kw and generate 3300kw your net cost is ZERO.

so $13,775 for the car and you pay $1250 and put the solar panels and tie in on your home.

the presumption here would be to help support this program the government would do what it does now. I DO NOT like subsidies so lets use a tax free subsidity. 0% interest loans. if you have 720 or better credit you can already get 0% auto loans.

7 year 0% loan is $164 a month.

average person gets 22mpg at $4 a gallon or $189 a month in gasoline.

the car is FREE for all intents and purposes IE your new loan payment is "less than" what your currently spending right now in gasoline every month (obvious "WE tend to get better than average but all these values are for the average)

for example I personally spend around $230 a month in fuel at 60mpg yearly average $4 a gallon in my geo metro. double that for my tracker (32mpg) but I would NEED $3000 in solar panels if I wanted to fully offset my fuel costs to charge the car.

none of this is blue sky or fictional or fantasy. besides the battery this is all off the shelf stuff you can look up yourself.

this is why GM killed it. THIS scares the crap out of them. I mean LOOK at it right now. we already have TWO manufacturers making $28,800 no subsidy electric cars with VERY EXPENSIVE lithium ion battery packs (Miev and Leaf)

these cars are only $15k away from what I describe above and they are loaded with not needed features amenities etc.. they are NOT bare bones economy cars.

if you have any questions about my figures please by all means ask away if its a reasonable sensible question.

NO this car is NOT POSSIBLE with lithium batteries. they are too short lived with far too high a cost attached to them. this is only possible (currently) with NIMH battery tech.

I don't need luck. I ESTIMATE you could actually build one with an MSRP of around $10,000 full retail NO SUBSIDIES. I "padded" my values by quite a bit so you can't argue they are fictional and making them easily verified.