losmorob

This months Road & Track mentions the electric XB from the CA company.
List is $50,000.

paul34

that's fine for concept and research, but obviously its not viable now, especially as a Scion.

Scion has never been about pricey, $20k+ base models... its about afforidibility and everything a car should have focused at the young adult segment of the market. Obviously an electric would push the cost farrrrr over what any Scion should ever be.

In its current form the electric idea basically violates all that is Scion. Of course I assume that they would be developing a cheap electric solution but again... where will everyone get their electricity from? The coal-fired plants in their hometown? Will we see electricity rates near the price of gasoline? Think about it... an already strained grid + millions of electric cars = disaster

bronxblaza117

i think a hybrid scion or electric scion would be nice... im in the city and hybrids are basically made for the city... i worry about gas just as much as the next guy, with enough time and inovation price will come down, wouldnt mind a hybrid tc...!!!

toby3002

its a good idea, but not for everyone. for example, that would be a good car for me at home, since i drive maybe 30 miles a day, but it would not be possible to road trip up to norcal to see my gf. I vote hybrid!

jetlounge

iTrader: (3)

The Prius is overpriced right now, and a $50k xB is a whopper. "Good for the environment" isn't a big enough draw. The economics for battery technology just don't make sense today. The folks working on Prius kits figured it would cost Toyota about $3k per car to get it to trickle charge and get the equivalent of 100mpg. a $3k premium seems about right.

yesti

LOL, can't believe they posted that either...

GetCaughtDead

____, if I lived 3 blocks from work but had a sweet Tesla in the garage, I'd drive it to work too!

SkaTG2k3

when i say over 20k... we are talking about OUT OF THAT ballpark ... the xb electric, as stated in this thread is gonna come to about 40+... i do not consider that in the ballpark... i consider that DOUBLE the ballpark... not 21or 22, as u r guessing it will be... make a google search on electric cars, they are a WEEEE smidgen pricier than a tc with a couple options!

SkaTG2k3

and to GetCaughtDead is say... agreed... haha!

losmorob

I've always thought about what happens 4-5 years later when your batteries need to be replaced. They DO wear out. How much for replacement? Availability?

What would be the resale value of a 4 year old electric Scion XB with maybe a year left on it's battery life?

yesti

supposedly they are D cells, like in your flashlight. NiMH. Li-Ion is better has the nasty habit of exploding if shorted out (like in an accident).

SkaTG2k3

nasty habbit... u sound like Q from james bond... hahaha

TheScionicMan

Let's keep the concept straight. AC is using the xB as a platform for THEIR electric conversion. There is nothing in any of the articles that says they are making this for Scion to sell. It says they are working with Toyota but that could mean a lot of things, considering they both work with electric vehicle components.

goyogi

The Tesla Roadster is beautiful. I had the priviledge of seeing it up close and personal several months ago when I interviewed with them. I didn't get the job, I was more interested in visiting them to see if they were for real. Tesla will offer the option to put solar on your roof to offset any emissions. Also it's far easier to clean up and keep clean centralized power stations. There is technology out there to clean these coal power plants up but the plants don't want to spend the money on it. Luckily, I have the option to purchase green power. It costs me about 2-3 bux a month more.

It's also easy to forget that it takes energy to pump the oil out of a foreign country and onto a ship while being guarded by our ground troops. And energy to ship it half way round the world to the US while being guarded by the Navy. And energy to pump it to the refinery. And energy to refine the crude into stuff your car can use. Then you have to transport that gasoline with diesel trucks to stations all over the US.

BTW in car heaven California, petroleum refining is the number one consumer of energy in the manufacturing sector. In 1997, the industry consumed 7,266 million KWh of electricity and 1,061 million Therms of natural gas. This consumption amounted to 15 and 28 percent of the state's total manufacturing sector's electrical and natural gas consumption respectively.

You have to compare "well to wheels" in energy efficiency and pollution. You have to compare it all, not just what comes out of a gas powered engines tailpipe to a coal plant. I wish I could find the study. I'll have to do some hunting.

Also, when will most people recharge? At night when electrical consumption is lower. And power plants don't shut down generators when the load is lower at night. There is lots of excess electricity at night. And there are incentives to electric car owners already in California to recharge at night. It's called time of use (TOU) metering. Basically when demand state wide is high (typically M-F 12pm-6pm) you are charged a higher $/kwh and when demand is low, in the evening and weekends, you are charged a much lower rate. I know EPRI did a study on this. I'll dig around and see what I can find if you are interested.

Electric cars are far superior to gas powered cars EXCEPT for the battery. That's slowly coming around. Tesla will warranty their battery for 100,000 miles, which, in 10 years time or so, the batteries will have higher energy, more power, and cost less. The battery technology has really improved because of the demands by portable electronic consumers. The newer LiIon technology is also safer. Look at A123 systems. VERY nice technology but pricey for now since they just released it within the past year. But I don't know if Tesla will be using this battery or what. They are pretty closed lipped about it.

I've met Ian Wright and he gave me a ride in his Wrightspeed X1. What a blast! Ian used to work for Tesla and he thought there was a better way to get a electric car to market so he left and built the X1. The X1 is using ACPropulsion motor and controller. So did the Tesla Roadster initially. Supposedly they have their own design now.

As far as ACPropulsion goes and their Scion xB project...it's been in the making for a couple of years now. ACP is a great engineering firm. One of their engineers was pivitol in creating the GM EV1. Smart, smart people. Poor, poor business people though. They really need a good business leader to take the product to market. Most of what ACP seems to do is R&D and sells their technology to major automanufactures and universities. I visited ACP back in March and talked with the President, Tom Gage, and saw the Scion xB up on the rack half taken apart. I can't say much more but I REALLY do hope that they get the xB EV to market this year. It keeps getting delayed. Maybe they should collaborate with Tesla to bring it to market.

For now EVs are for better paid people. The first 100 Tesla roadsters are being priced at 100k. This is for the many multimillioraires (including Governor Schwarzenegger who is supposedly buying one) who want to make a difference and help out. After the first 100 are sold the price is supposed to be $80-$85k. Still pricey but their objective is to take that money and plow it back into the company and make an electric 4 door sedan priced about $50k in 2008. Still pricey but then they will again take that money and put it back into the company to produce an even more affordable car. Maybe 2010? Kinda like typical new electronics. They cost lots at first but there are those that will pay a premium to have to have it. But the price and features slowly trickle down to the majority lesser paid population. Just look at cell phones, and computers.

I'm waiting for the Scion xB conversion myself. But I'm not holding my breath.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

GetCaughtDead

But if you simply look at the two, granted both cars look sick, but the X1 really doesn't look like anything I could imagine seeing on the road. That's not to say I don't like it, but its dune-buggy-appearance would turn alot of people off. The Tesla, on the other hand, looks sick and has a full body, and basically just looks more streetable. I can imagine them putting a soft top on that thing and it would just look like a nice high-end sports car, maybe on the lower end of exotic. Both cars are amazing machines, but in the end, I think the Tesla would appeal to a wider audience in terms of aesthetics. It couldn't be that hard to add a nice fiberglass (cf would be cool, but the price of the car is high enough as it is) body to the X1 and make it look equally sweet though.

uberscionofglendale

i've said this in numerous threads, and gotten flamed for it, but here goes again. the scion market is not cars under 20k. xy kids drive cars that cost more than 20k. the number 1 car that i have compared to the tC, is the lexus IS. people who come in and look at the tC (kids) are looking at x amount of cars, and one of them is very often the IS.
i think that people make the mistake of assuming that the situation they're in, is the situation that everyone is in. granted, a large portion of the xy market don't have jobs paying 30k and up, most are in college and working part time. but, another thing i see, is they live at home, don't pay rent, and use their parents credit (if their parents don't buy the car for them altogether).
last point i wanna make, is that toyota has always said that scion was meant to capture a very small portion of the xy generation, the "trend setters."
anyways, sorry to thread ninja, flame away, or back on topic

SkaTG2k3

if the xy kids are such a SMALL PORTION of the audiance they are trying to capture... how do you explain the Scion marketing campain? Even if you are looking for the trend setters, I do not see the income earning population wanting to BE COOL like the trend setters kids. Yeah, I had a lexus IS on my list, I also had a Mitsubishi Evo and a Mustang GT... but look what I am driving! Daddy will only pay for so much, and Daddy knows that the Lexus is a car that is meant to fit within HIS means... not mine... thus a car under 20k and tuned to be my generations cool car was an easy sell on DAD, even though it is marketed towards me!

I will agree that I see a lot of people over 27 DRIVING tCs... but i think that is more to do with the fact that when you sell a great car for a great value, you could have a marketing campain of a guy taking a dump on a plate... people will still buy the car...