Browsing Category: "Cars"
Tata Buys Land Rover & Jaguar from Ford
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss anything. Thanks for visiting!
Tata just bought the Land Rover and Jaguar brands from Ford for $2.3 billion.
How Tata will make it work:
- Utilize Ford technology and combine with partners such as Fiat to further improve mutual quality
- Relaunch quality image with a 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty or ten year warranty. Hyundai did a similar act when they turned around from having some of the poorest quality cars to being the #1 non-premium brand in JD Powers Quality Surveys.
- Consolidate chassis and focus on the luxury image and establish strong reputation before extending down into lower-priced cars.
- Share platforms with Fiat and lean on Fiat to establish distinctive styling.
- Concentrate all your efforts on the engine and transmission, sourcing Fiat’s best and selling them Land Rover/Jaguar’s best.
- Sourcing even a small percentage of mundane parts from India will save hundreds of millions in cost.
Tata and India in general has a general flair that is more in line with Europe than America. As a result, I would expect Tata to forge a strong alliance with Fiat with whom it already has a joint-venture plant in India building engines. Fiat plans on bringing the Alfa Romeo brand back to the U.S. and the Land Rover/Jaguar dealer network could help Fiat quickly establish a
I believe Tata will improve the brands distribution and market share in Europe and domestically in India as well as nearby China. India and China have growing luxury appetites and this purchase will eventually feed those markets.
Verdict: Thumbs up. Tata bought for $2.3 billion what Ford paid $4.5. Ford improved the brands somewhat, but otherwise mismanaged them. Tata with its smaller portfolio of vehicles will be able to focus and give these brands the attention they deserve.
Who killed the electric battery?
I watched “Who Killed the Electric Car” some time ago. Ever since I’ve been intrigued by electric cars and electric car conversions.
While doing my online research, I realized that the battery and the drive are the two most important components. The battery is where the real cost adds up. Range, cost, and weight are the 3 important factors that batteries dictate for an electric vehicle project. It turns out that 10 years ago we had a very good if not perfect battery to jump-start the electric car. It was the Ovonic NiMH. It had 70wh/kg capacity, 1,750 cycles to 100% depth of discharge. Discharge ability is important for EV’s. Energy Conversion Devices quoted them at $150/kWh for a production run of 20,000 cars.
General Motors didn’t wish the electric car to compete with their main-stream gas cars and trucks and sold the patent to Chevron Texaco. Chevron Texaco vigorously protects this battery technology and even sued Toyota for making a similar design. Further with the oil company winning that case, it was able to win a restriction on the maximum AH size of the batteries to 10AH. This prevents them from ever being used in a road EV. Further Chevron Texaco is responsible for about half the price premiums on today’s hybrids. They charge $1,200/kWh for the battery when it could be $150. How well do they control NiMH technology? Well every NiMH battery has to be licensed from a company - Cobasys, wholly owned by Chevron. Manufacturing is limited to consumer electronics size batteries. This explains why Tesla Motors is using thousands of small consumer-grade batteries in its electric vehicle.
These batteries could last 300,000 miles, but is unavailable. It would allow EV’s with a 200-300 range and make EV conversions with 150 mile ranges a possibility. It is such a shame that we developed the technology right here in the U.S.A. to lead the world in the next phase of automotive systems.
I have found some promising companies such as 123 Systems making Lithium Ion batteries that are quite expensive now. Unfortunately I see many references of them “partnering” with Cobasys. I can only believe that there will be some sort of collusion to keep battery prices high. I see the Cobasys link time and time again. If I were a battery startup, I would say the way to make big bucks if you don’t give a damn about society is simple. Build a better battery. Advertise your technology. If you don’t violate oil company patents, then sell out to big oil. Sad to say the least.
I recently came across a battery startup using high capacity capacitors in Austin called EEstor. There is a consumer screwdriver that uses similar technology. Unfortunately the EEstor technology is exclusively licensed to a Canadian electric car maker - Zenn Motors. What’s the play here? Well if I was a gambling man I’d say Zenn Motors will get bought out the moment EEstor’s batteries are proven. Big oil has the bucks. I hope the EEstor battery story does not become a story that was never heard.
My research continues, but boy does this tick me off! Batteries seem to be the key to any potential project. So the question is this… do I do a conversion with a small range of 50 miles (enough to get to work and back) and wait for battery technology to advance? or do I spend $10,000 to get a 150 mile range?
Note: The creater of the Ovonic battery now makes solar panels. The engineer/founder of the company truely is a pioneer in environmental engineering. It is sad that his technology was sold to an oil company.
Taste of Lexus
My cousin, brother, wife, and I went to the Taste of Lexus event this past weekend. Taste of Lexus is an event that Lexus holds once a year across 16 cities in the U.S. where you get to eat good food and drive most of the Lexus lineup.
I drove the following cars:
- IS 350
- GS 350
- GS 450h
- LS 460
- LS 600h
- RX 350
- RX
My brother whipped the LS600H around the track with no problems. The rest of us went along for the ride. He didn’t hit a single cone! That is a very impressive limo of a car Lexus has built and it gets 24mpg to boot.
Hybrid = More HP not MPG
One thing I did notice with all the hybrids is that Lexus seems to go for total hp rather than actually give you significantly more mileage. For example the GS450H gives 23mpg. My wife’s GS300 non-hybrid by comparison gives 22mpg (per rating). In reality we are experiencing around 27mpg mixed which is consistent with what other drivers are reporting. By comparison other individuals are reporting close to 25mpg with the GS450h. I think it is unfortunate that the emphasis is on adding more power for a given car rather than increasing its mileage.
Golf Challenge
They also had a tee off competition using a golf simulator. I got 22ft from the hole! That’s pretty good for a beginner. I’ve been to the driving range 4 times, and had 1 class. That’s the full extent of my golf experience. Unfortunately someone else tee’d off and got within 2 feet of the hole. None-the-less I was very proud of my showing in the contest. I can’t wait to hit the real golf course. That’s not me in the above picture by the way. I have a better swing. :o)
With as many tires as I go through, you’d think Michelin would give me a free ride in their blimp. Folks this is what happens when you eat too many donuts in the morning.
Can you get to work without a car? Biking/Training it to work
My experiment
Monday I plan on doing something I’ve never done in my life… Ride my bike to work. Actually I will be riding my bike to the light rail station, riding the train down, then biking it the final leg to work.
Yesterday I timed the trip to the initial train station. It is 3.3 miles and it took me 25mins to get there. I needed to make sure that I am physically able to do it. I didn’t have much difficulty. I don’t normally do cardio so I honestly wasn’t sure about this.
I will definitely be adding some time to my commute. It normally takes me 45mins by car. I am expecting the new bike/train method to take 1 1/2 hr (hopefully).
The Route
leg 1: Biking it from home to the light rail station [3.3 miles]
leg 2: Riding the train with my bike [? miles]
leg 3: Biking it to work from the train station [2.3 miles]
Why am I doing this?
- I complain about public transportation not being viable all the time. I should make an honest effort to see how it is, how plausible it is, and just experience it.
- It is good for the environment. I will be using 0 of my own car’s gas, using mass-transit and a bike.
- It is good for my health. Unless I get hit by a car or get caught in the rain this is a good thing for my body.
- It is cheaper. Though this does not really register as a motivation, I’ll save around $2-2.50 in gas.
My Normal Drive
Below is my normal drive (16.5 miles and 35-45 mins)
Preparing for the Worst
I need to email my manager and let him know that I may be late if I have “difficulties” in my commute. Hopefully I will be able to withstand the Texas sun and not pass out. I have Google Maps on my Treo 650 now. I’m glad they finally released the app for Treo’s. [Go to www.google.com/gmm from your phone to download it.] That will help me if I get lost. I will be a newbie and carry some water with me and some granola bars. Its no Tour ‘de France, but its more than I normally do.
Leave a comment and tell me how easy/difficult it is to commute by bike in your city. Any tips for us newbies? Leave a comment. I’d be happy to hear from you.
Wish me luck readers!
Update [7/28]:
I was able to get the exact distance I’d have to bike from the train station to work using gmap-pedometer. My brother pointed this site out to me a year ago. It’s a cool Google Maps mashup that allows you to manually track your trail on a Google map. This can be useful for joggers, bikers, etc.
Update [7/30]:
I have a scheduled task right after work at 6:30 so I chose not to experiment today. I will be biking it tomorrow -7/31
Update [7/31]:
Rain :o( Will try again tomorrow. I’m not up for venturing through rain on my first go at this.
No Priuses for Iran
Wired Magazine, one of my favorite periodicals had this graph of global gas prices on their website.
Yet another reason Iran is evil - They pay only 33cents/gallon at the pump. I guess Toyota won’t be selling many Priuses there.
