Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/29/2011 07:28 PM Report

About 2,200 Chevy Volts have been sold so far in 2011.

The average transaction price is $42,000 minus the $7,500 tax credit.

Still too high of a price. Shai has the right price idea.

Mimar  12/15/2010 08:09 AM Report

EVs are upon us! Get ready, the takeover will even be more fulgurant than we could ever imagined. There is nothing a naysayer can do to reverse the steam. Certainly not silly remarks and false myths thrown around. (They are either bought, or silly; or both).

Sometimes claims can even come from places where you wouldn't expect. This one is from a Green Peace guy: "Electric cars run mostly on power derived from coal and nuclear power, and that's not environmentally friendly." Of course, everyone mostly, skeptics, auto industry execs, petro-lobbyists, jumped right into it: "You see, even Green Peace doubts electric cars, blah, blah…" Green Peace should have done his homework beforehand: even a coal power plant is much more efficient to produce electricity which in turn an electric car is much more efficient converting into kinetic energy than a gasoline car burning fuel on board to move. When you add up all the figures, you can safely say that every gasoline car's share of pollution would give me room for at least 5 electric cars, even with their long coal-tailpipes; even much, much more with nuclear-tailpipes (let me correct that: when it is finished with the fossil fuels we have to take care of nuclear fuels, too, but first thing is first).

But wait, there is more… You can add more electric cars without even touching anything, since 90% of them will recharge over night when electricity is produced with not much demand (that we do all sorts of things to conserve, climbing water to height is my favorite or just waste it anyway by illuminating the high-ways at night:)

Besides, you can't tax EVs of our inefficient, dirty electricity generating technologies; it is NOT EV's problem. Although, it will resolve that one too. There will not be new coal power plants because of electric cars (not even 1), on the contrary, there will be plants shutting down because of refineries going out of business.

I can understand that Big Threes are trembling right now, looking at Nokia and seeing the same destiny for themselves. So they better be prepared to come up with something, and better then inventing names like VOLT/AMPER/OHM.

sannerwind  12/10/2010 10:46 AM Report

Technology will overtake their plans: Ultra Rapid large scale Battery rechargers in 2 minutes; longer range lighter batteries/ ultracapacitors rechargeable anywhere including home/ offices; $5K made in US Car (cars are overpriced!) all means cars will become commodities; High efficiency, low cost, multifuel turbine, my company’s project, for a 150MPG on diesel, 5 passenger sedan (Sannerwind@gmail.com). Auto’s are finally going to be technologically worked over as PC’s, cell phones, and TV’s have been. Once the dam breaks, it will inundate the prior business models, and thinking. Autos cost too much, and by steeply reducing their costs, the genie will never be put back in the bottle or back seat. It is all economics, “Green” is a diversion. “Next gen autos” will save the voting population thousands dollar savings per year on capital expenditures, operating costs and depreciation, will be unstoppable. Automotive Efficiency is inversely proportional to cost (not comfort or performance), which will Sever oil dependence, and significant reductions in GHG; all of which are consequences.

Srini  12/05/2010 06:02 PM Report

A good idea. But no way is it going to curb the release of toxic co2 gases. Shai clearly says cheekily "Oil"!! :-)

As anyway the coal, fossil fuels used in pumping electricity to the grid will release harmful gases. Added to it the toxicity of the Lithium, Trace elements like Cadmium/Zinc/Mercury that will be toxic and dangerous to the environment when used to manufacture large batteries. Imagine a toxic spill like the one in the gulf of mexico!

And also with Oil demand going down, the US Dollar which is pegged to Oil consumption in the world is going to go down and bring the US Economy down. So the concept is not going t o work. Instead research should be done on building Hydrogen/Oxygen => H20 Engines to replace the Combustion engine. Replace Oil with Non Polluting engine.

Bottom line, Idea wouldnt work in the real world, but it has a chance to reduce US dependance on Arab Countries and weaken them. Instead the US might setup regimes in countries like Bolivia for the lithium supplies there. So instead of Oil, we will all be hungry on a new trace element.

Not Sold!

Not a game changer. Just side stepping the real issue.

JimBullis  12/05/2010 05:15 PM Report

We witness here the workings of a master entrepreneur.

Did Agassi say he was 'not going back to being CEO at SAP'?

Did Charlie Rose get tricked into saying that the 'battery will be the new oil'? And while Agassi acknowledged coal, sort of, the mis-statement by Charlie Rose was not corrected.

Did Agassi shift the focus to the 'electric motor efficiency'? This, of course, calls on general misunderstandings that the electric motor efficiency can be compared with real engine efficiency of an internal combustion engine.

Was this whole discussion started with reference to climate change problems? But then the acknowledgment came that coal would, or was it could, be the source of the power. So the zero tailpipe emissions that became the emphasis has nothing to do with the CO2 caused by the battery carrying car. We had something about reduction of CO2 even with coal, but compared with what, we did not get clear. The fact is that electric cars cause production of power using coal, and that this causes more CO2 than would be caused by good hybrids such as the Prius.

So then we are left to believe the software, information technology folks as they invoke Moore's Law about how fast costs go down in new technologies.

The peak vomitation came with hearing about how California has been conned into paying for taxicabs to run between San Francisco and San Jose. This is freeway driving that should show the actual maximum inefficiencies of the electric powered but inefficient basic nature of the Leaf type automobile. The cost of this will probably be picked up by the PG&E rate-payers, and since it has to be natural gas that makes the electric energy, the cost will be high. Of course, for the test, this will not be noticed, and the test will be announced as a great success.

The EPA joins in the duplicity by allowing Nissan to claim 99 MPGe under the absurd formula for 'MPGe' that completely ignores the energy lost in the power plant. In general, the appropriate MPGe for the Leaf should be about 33 MPGe, and under California pretensions it could be about 45 MPGe. Ultimately, the California pretension will result in more coal being burned elsewhere for electric power, so the real rating for the Nissan Leaf should be about 33 MPGe, regardless of local pretensions.

And of course there is a huge geo-political benefit to shifting from oil to coal. But do we have to be insulted by the pretense that this will help reduce CO2?

toddblack  12/05/2010 04:30 PM Report

you skeptics are retarded,,, he is looking into the future and building off what not only is possible and most practical now, but what we as people can do(not individuals invested in old ways of doing things)...LOOK AT SOLAR INNOVATIONS AS THE SOLUTION TO OUR ENERGY PROBLEMS and a way to gear up to supporting this idea.... UNI-SOLAR.com RULES and Im not even invested in it. The recharging stations can be directly connected to large solar grids....blah, blah, blah....If you cant beat em, join em in their efforts, losers

robdverity  12/05/2010 03:53 PM Report

saiwan

Executive V.Pres.

OPEC

saiwan  12/04/2010 05:32 AM Report

I found it rather unfortunate that Charlie did not ask Shai about the actual source of the energy used in the proposed "green" cars. Yes, they are zero emissions from the metaphorical tailpipe, but the electric energy has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is mostly a coal-powered electricity generating plant. Coal is dirtier than diesel or gasoline; presently it comprises nearly 80 percent of the total CO2 emissions produced by the generation of electricity in the United States. But that is not the worst part of the story. Since the electricity from coal-fired is only about 33% efficient due to transmission losses (and the fact that all plants lose great amounts of efficiency when burning coal to create steam to turn turbines etc.), using electricity to move cars is massively inefficient. Imagine how black America's air would be if all cars were electric supported by literally hundreds of extra coal-fired plants that would be required. When the conversation with Shai got even close to this concern, Shai said that soon Beijing will be ringed with solar-powered electricity generating plants. While this may or may not be true, virtually all predictions say that coal will be the world's fuel for electricity generation for the next generation.

Wanna lower your carbon footprint? Buy a hybrid...or better yet, don't drive. Your last choice should be an electric car.

bmchenry  12/03/2010 05:13 PM Report

Battery costs remain very high. It will be even more difficult for Battery Place to show a profit than it is for individuals to justify buying an all-electric car.

I think Agassi said that 90% of new cars in Israel would be all-electric by 2017. If the fleet is going to be all-electric that quickly, it would make sense to look at an all-electric alternative to battery swapping: providing power from the electric grid to vehicles while they are moving. This has been done with electric trains, subways and buses so we know it is feasible. The sliding contacts would probably be embedded in the curb or guard rail so as to be unobtrusive and still prevent accidental electric shock. The power strips will accessed by a robotic arm and hand. (Inductive pick-up is also possible but losses of 20% will probably rule it out.)

Relative to providing every vehicle with a large battery (100 mile range), intermittently providing power along the main roads should prove to be quite economically attractive and efficient. Here's a thought exercise to demonstrate that point: Given 100 million all-electric battery powered cars with batteries costing only $5000, the capital cost for just the first set of batteries is $500 billion. If partial electrification costs average $4 million per mile, how many miles of main roads could be electrified for the same cost as 100 million large batteries? The answer is 500,000,000,000 / 4,000,000 = 125,000 miles. Since there are about 45,000 of Interstate highways, this means that all of the interstates and all of the major arterials in metro areas could be powered for the cost of just the first of many sets of big batteries. (There would be little utility load smoothing by overnight changing of car batteries but there will also not be substantial battery charge/discharge losses.)

Roadtrains will be the bridging technology to all-electric cars. Requiring physical hitches, these will be built upon the purely electronically coupled roadtrains being developed in the EU (SARTRE) and in Japan. See roadtrains.us for some details and contact bruce.mchenry@keyprize.org to get involved.

jrsva  12/03/2010 12:26 PM Report

This was a fascinating interview. The idea of exchangeable batteries for electric vehicles is something I have been advocating for some time. What's still missing is solar PV panels on the vehicles to aid in recharging whenever the vehicle is in the sun, either moving or parked.

mfatah281  12/03/2010 05:30 AM Report

The U.S.(except California), once again, has no leadership on this matter. We are indeed becoming a third world nation. This can of course be reversed if we cultivate and encourage more social entrepreneurship and engineering, if not through the government, than perhaps through the private sector. We cannot afford to go along being as dumb as we want to be!

REMant  12/02/2010 08:40 PM Report

I wanted to make clear something that was passed over fairly quickly without noting its significance. The high cost of electric cars is, I believe, mostly due to the battery. Having consumers lease batteries in "filling stations" instead of having to buy them, will make the cars more affordable overnight, and part of the price of conversion to the new system can, in this way, be born by investors. Investing in the system can eventually be as lucrative as investing in gas and I see no reason why it won't be snatched at. The interview stressed the convenience of switching batteries, but it is this point about affordability, which is really important.

shackwell  12/02/2010 06:39 PM Report

If everyone was like Shai Agassi, this world would really be a better place.

REMant  12/02/2010 12:38 PM Report

The technology alone can't overcome the fundamental monetary problem. The Chinese and OPECis gave us the money to buy the gas with and they plus central bank policy could still derail any move to eliminate it. It was the Fed's interest rate cuts in 2007 that abruptly raised the price of oil and precipitated the mortgage crisis. This doesn't mean electric wouldn't be better than gas, but it clearly isn't the real answer. Electric cars are technically superior, both in acceleration, and in driveability, and inherently more efficient. They don't, for instance, have to idle. They don't have energy-losing transmissions. When they slow they can generate electricity. As a business model, not only is it better to lease the batteries, but also the cars, themselves, and rental on demand is even more efficient. The problem is that like all services, leasing tends to increase costs, because it encourages monopoly and irresponsibility.