Join Plug In America in urging Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the CARB Board, and members of the California State Legislature to close a gaping loophole that could deal a blow to the proliferation of plug-in vehicles just as the federal government is awarding billions of dollars to automakers to advance battery technology. CARB's Zero Emission Vehicle program has no minimum timeframe for vehicles used for compliance. Thus, BMW's one-year pilot program consisting of just 500 converted electric Mini Coopers leased at an astonishing $850 per month will earn the same full credit as a real vehicle production program. We're asking you to tell Ms. Nichols that CARB must close this loophole so that only vehicles offered for sale receive full ZEV program credit.

Visit this page to take action: www.pluginamerica.org/closecarbloophole

 

Jeff,
I signed at the website as well as sending a separate email to my politician - his website didn't accept the auto generated email. I've also added additional detail about my participation. Thanks again for the link.

 

I don't know. At this stage in the development of electric vehicles is it really a good idea to discourage lease programs of this type? BMW is putting these cars out for a specific amount of time and will then tear them apart to see what happened. This seems like a good way to advance the technology. I think it is good to give the car companies credit for this kind of program.

 

Sure - especially if they charged us $450~600 per month instead of $850. Yeah, I knew about the lease rate when I applied, but they also claimed 500 of us would be paying the same $850 per month.

Our comrades in Germany are paying about $650 per month. 150 MINI Es given away at $10 per month? And not all of them are non-profit entities!

Wake up and smell the 91 octane gasoline!

 

Robin, I'm not sure what BMW would tear apart. The tZero power electronics from AC Propulsion has been on the road since 1992. ACP has plenty of their own R&D on their product. ACP provided all the parts of the MINI-E that makes it an electric car. The power electronics, motor and batteries. The BMW part of the car is the same as all gas MINIs. BMW is not advancing this technology, they are following as these cars are made with the same technology as the 15 year old GM EV1. The same people invented this system used today. The harm is that the MINI-E should be for-sale so they can stay on the road and displace gas cars forever. BMW is pretending that the technology isn't ready.

 

It's not ready for prime time, based on some of the blogs I've been reading from those who are driving them, let alone long term ownership..........

I don't see the point of this whole exercize, I'm sure there a re a lot of reasons why they don't want them in the public's hands permanently yet, just as GM withdrew the EV's when their leases were up too.......

 

MINIdave you should drive a MINI-E. The small problems with these converted cars are being adjusted. They are very fun to drive.
Having to Guess the reasons OEMs do what they do is exactly the point.

BTW, GM TOOK my EV1 from me 3 months before my lease was up as they did with hundreds of others in the program.
See "Who Killed the Electric Car", I lived that story.

The point of this exercise is to ultimately stop buying oil from people who hate us. Stop polluting the air with our with our cars. Save operating cost driving fun, high-performance battery electric vehicles like the MINI-E.
NO GAS, NO MAINTENANCE!
We need to see that they are made available for-sale to everybody ASAP so we can stop being a captive audience and a slave to the internal combustion engine.

 

Boy for once I wish I could read an intelligent, impartial argument for/against electric vehicles that wasn't self serving. I just finished scouring that entire site. I really hoped it might make a good case. Instead, it is full of generalities and vague statements without citation.

Now, on to research natural gas technology. Looks promising.

BTW, they don't mention CNG vehicles at all in their "THE CLEANEST CARS: WELL-TO-WHEELS EMISSIONS COMPARISONS" article. Odd. There are a lot of CNGVs around here. I wonder how they stack up? Seems Sherry Boschert wouldn't know.

 

Sorry....this thread is about the law in question. Please disregard my off-topic post.

I'm on the fence about the subject of the thread. Some progress in better than none I would think. What exactly is BMW getting away with through this loophole? Is anybody else taking advantage? Is the purpose and spirit of the law upheld. I'm still deciding.

 

Perhaps the technology is ready, but BMW may not be ready. I would think that BMW would not want to depend on AC Propulsion forever. They would want their own engineers to gain some experience with what happens to the various parts of electric cars with use, how they work within their own car, and what the real-world problems are. They may also not want their reputation to be based on someone else's power train. Even if they did, they would want some field experience with the issues that occur with that power train. I would guess that this is mainly a leaning experience for BMW.

I've added Who Killed the Electric Car to my Netflix queue. However, the EV1 was from a different era. The political forces now in play are much different from what they were then. GM has paid a dear price for their past attitudes. Climate Change is now generally accepted as reality by the majority of Europeans and Americans. W and the oil thugs have left office in disgrace. It is now generally understood that oil is a national security issue for the USA. Any car company that does not embrace some form of green technology will be left in the dust. I think the car companies are scrambling to figure out what that technology will be. So, I have no problem with their doing controlled experimental programs.

Most car companies are taking the easy, and perhaps timid, hybrid route. Lithium-ion batteries have serious disadvantages, both practically and environmentally. Because of the environmental impact of making batteries, electric cars cannot really be considered the ultimate green solution. They are a very important learning step towards a greener future. Battery and hydrogen technologies are moving forward. It is hard to know what the best energy storage system for cars will turn out to be.

I need to hear a really good reason why the law should be changed to discourage experimental programs. You might think that it would force BMW to sell electric cars. I think it might just stop them from working on electric cars, and taking a more timid hybrid path. I don't want to punish companies for experimenting with, what for them is probably, a more radical and risky approach.

 

Well robin I just return from a 4th of July party were I was talking to 3 Tesla Roadster owners and they all say screw BMW and all the old school car makers. They don't get it. Maybe their business model is dead. Long live the small electric car makers that are already selling electric cars. Tesla just got hundreds of millions of dollars from the fed to build electric cars. GM was bailed out. BMW is just starting to figure it out. what can I say. Lead or follow.

 

russgriz, anytime you have to burn something to move your *** you are living in the past. Home Solar to power EVs. It's already happening.
We don't want to BUY gas. Liquid or gas. Just plug-in. It's too simple I know.
Do you use a gasoline TV?

 

It is easier to turn a 20 ft speedboat than a 51 ton container ship.

Having been an owner of a small company, I'm well aware of their ability to adapt quicker than large corporations. I also know how difficult it is to compete with the economies of scale. I'd love to have a Tesla, but not at $100K+.

Government funding of small companies, that can innovate and take risks, is an excellent way to push the technology forward. I am all in favor, and was hoping that this is the kind of economic stimulus the Obama administration would do in a large way.

 

Yes Robin, sadly The GMs and the BMWs might have to go because they plan a small scale for EVs. Tesla is thinking big.
After considering the MINI-E at $926 a month with tax I might just ordering a Tesla Roadster and be done with it. At least I'll OWN it.

 

Russgriz, Here's Plug In America's Press release on the matter.

CARB Loophole, Allowing BMW to Lease its Mini E, Could Stunt EV Proliferation

Plug In America is urging Mary Nichols, chief of California's air board, to close a gaping loophole that could deal a blow to the proliferation of plug-in vehicles just as the federal government is awarding billions of dollars to automakers large and small to advance battery technology.

The California Air Resources Board's Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program has no minimum timeframe for vehicles used for compliance. Therefore, BMW's one-year pilot program consisting of just 500 converted electric Mini Coopers leased at an astonishing $850 per month will earn the same full credit as a standard vehicle production program.

"CARB is allowing BMW to game the system by accruing the maximum number of ZEV credits with the least amount of effort," says Plug In America legislative director Jay Friedland. Previous lease-only programs led to the crushing by automakers of thousands of vehicles in the 1990s, Friedland notes.

"We encourage pilot programs, which get cars on the road and enable valuable early feedback, but in order to receive full credit, these vehicles must be offered for sale," he says.

The ZEV program loophole, which Plug In America denounced before a critical 2008 air board vote, extends through 2011. "CARB had plenty of time to see this coming," Friedland says. "BMW is not the first automaker to take advantage of the loophole, but it should be the last. Consumers should have full access to the fuel efficient cars they are demanding."

Adds Plug In America advisory board member Chelsea Sexton: "This is turning out to be a half-baked, poorly executed program by BMW, who is acting solely for the sake of regulatory compliance. Shame on CARB for allowing it."

BMW's poor planning has caused a host of problems. The first Mini Es were delivered in late May, some six months after BMW's stated delivery date. This delay caused a large percentage of people to drop out of the program. Furthermore, BMW did not have enough proper charging cables manufactured, leaving up to 300 lessees with a minimum 23-hour recharging time. As a result, many drivers are not able to use the vehicle daily.

Meanwhile, in order to meet today's(6/30) deadline for maximum CARB credit, BMW has been dumping dozens of cars into municipal fleets to be leased for only $10 a month, most recently pulling some of those vehicles from retail consumers who had been willing to pay full price and complied with the nearly 8-month process required to get one of the cars.

"We're concerned that this situation won't be seen for what it is—a botched BMW program," Sexton says. "Instead, plug-in vehicles will be perceived as too expensive, problematic and not ready for prime time. BMW's mistakes reflect badly on other car companies, on the technology itself and on the plug-in vehicle movement."

Santa Monica resident Jeff U'Ren is one customer who was dropped from the program, without explanation, the night before he was to take delivery of his Mini E.

"I longed to drive a high performance EV again," says U'Ren, a former GM EV1 driver. "Just having that car on the road is such an important tool to show that EV technology is viable. People continue to think it's way too expensive and impractical."

In contrast to BMW's lease plan, Nissan has announced a late 2010 delivery of 5,000 all-electric vehicles designed from the ground up and offered for sale for between $25,000 and $33,000, before federal tax credits. The Japanese auto company, recently awarded a $1.6-billion loan from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to build a battery plant and modify its existing Tennessee facilities, has also announced that it will deliver hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles in 2012.

The Dept. of Energy also awarded $465-million and $5.9-billion loans to Tesla Motors and Ford, respectively, to make electric and other fuel efficient vehicles.

About Plug In America: Plug In America is leading the nation's plug-in vehicle movement. The nonprofit organization works to accelerate the shift to plug-in vehicles powered by clean, affordable, domestic electricity to reduce our nation's dependence on petroleum and improve the global environment. For more information: http://www.pluginamerica.org.

 

Looks like Nissan wants to be the first major manufacturer to mass produce an EV that you can buy, and by 2012:

http://www.autoweek.com/article/2009...NEWS/907069997

 

An intriguing idea . . . owning the car but leasing the battery. If it pans out this would really help with cheaper-in-the-long-run-but-more-expensive-at-first conundrum. Plus maybe its cheaper to put out a battery with a 3 year rather than 10+ year life? Nissan may be on to something here . . .

 

Yes, I like that idea too.