G. David Felt

I hope Cadillac is already planned for a proper EV to have in the family as the current petro and PHEV is good but they need a true EV and I would say a PHEV CUV would also be the right thing to do. I am excited to see what Genesis does as I suspect it will really make the rest of the luxury market also step up.

Who cares about fleet sales, I would rather have a profitable GM with "I Want Product" than one driven by needing fleet sales.

Turbo is a fun toy but not the efficient catch all that the gov makes them out to be or the auto companies. I find my NA V8 to be equal and in many way superior to the whole turbo mess.

Was that not Solent Green?

+1 to Drew and Bill as I agree totally with what you both have stated! ^^^^

Cools specs, nice update, but over all Audi just has never done anything for me. Not sure why but they just do not inspire me with excitement. This update included.

Depending on the size of the battery pack and weight you want to add to the auto, from 100 miles to 400 miles. The newer Lio cells should really help out with the range.

Agree with you on the PZEV as that one has always made me wonder and yet some of the asian brands that make PZEV auto's seem to enjoy sales success and yet I have not seen any American brand be PZEV yet and doubt they ever will.

Protean Electric has a number of white papers covering conversions, hybrids, etc. Some very interesting concepts and info. Protean Electric White Papers Their Myth and Realities paper is very insightful as well as many of their papers. Yes I realize this is also marketing as they are trying to get people to buy their products. I also see plenty of potential for converting older auto's, reducing weight and allowing for many new auto's to push the boundaries of what an auto can be.

+1 to Suav as I agree I think the auto business has peaked and will taper down over the next couple quarters as people are waiting for new product that is promised late 2017 or as a 2018 model.

+1 ^ to Casa as I like his product road map! One thing to add is EV versions to the line and make sure they are also in the XT line.

G. David Felt Staff Writer Alternative Energy - www.CheersandGears.com Electric Axles and the 4WD Ford F150 EV! Researching for conversion of my 1994 GMC SLE Suburban to electric made me think about 4WD as it is currently just a 2WD rig. As I started to search I found many options for taking certain electric motors and connecting them to the transmission and using what is there already on AWD/4WD auto's for moving the vehicle. I got to thinking much like Tesla, what about an Axle Electric motor solution and started to search to see what was out there and was very surprised to find many interesting home grown and some commercial options. EV Axel BING Search This led me to find a company in China called YIWO who does car to HD Truck electric axles for OEMs to custom conversions. YIWO Alibaba web page This search then led me to the YIWO company home page also hosted by Alibaba where one can find an amazing variety of axles for use in traditional petro auto's to plug-in hybrids to pure EVs. YIWO Home Page While doing this search I found that Alibaba has an amazing amount of EV parts on their Amazon like web site. Alibaba With this search I then came across an interesting write up from 2011 about in wheel motors allowing for a simple 4WD approach to auto's while not affecting the driving characteristics. This brought me to Protean Electric which was founded in 2009 in Troy Michigan. They now have an office in UK and an office with production in China. Protean Electric Protean Electric took a totally different approach to EV auto's They started with adding the motors with regenerative braking at the wheel. This allowed them to then make 8 powerful mini motors working together to improve HP and Torque along with braking to have a far more efficient package. This design allowed them to take a 2009 Ford F150 Pickup and dump the existing powertrain, including driveline, heavy axle and create an 4WD Pickup without having to touch the existing handling characteristics by putting the battery pack in the exact center of the auto to keep the truck hauling and handling just like Ford Engineered it to be. As you can see the battery pack from the rear axle picture, the last picture posted above. What about the interior you ask? Easy, Protean Electric changed out the dash for a digital display that they also make and added to the center console a 3 button shifter that covers Drive, Neutral and Reverse plus as you can see in the picture below, a big red kill switch button that probably could be incorporated better into the dash. So what about Horsepower and Torque? This is where is gets really exciting as this Ford F150 with the 4WD in Wheel motors produces the following: 2,300 lbs feet of combined torque from a dead stop 448 HP from the combined 4 motors Now the great part is you can dial down the torque and HP so you can lengthen the life of the battery pack. According to P.E. they have stated that most implementations of this solution done at 578 pound feet of Peak torque, 355 pound feet of continuous torque and horsepower of 320 for the 4 motors combined which equals out to 80 HP per motor, 88.75 pound feet of continuous torque per motor with a peak torque of 144.5 per motor per the companies interview with pickuptrucks.com. Protean Electric has recently done for Mercedes-Benz a Brabus 4WD EV station wagon. Brabus 4WD powertrain. What this tends to impress on me is that the future for electric auto's is bright and as battery technology gets better and better, we are moving to a silent world of autos that will push you back into your seat and have you hanging on to an amazing gut thrilling ride.

Surprised that none of the German Fans have commented on this!

Very interesting thoughts you have stated Suaviloquent. Appreciate you chiming in here about this.

A traditional HDD most certainly has a shelf life though. My SSD in my MacBook Pro has been going strong for over three years with more RAW file rewrites than be counted by Stepehn Hawking. No complaints at all on my end. I will never use a HDD again. Agree with Surreal, that SSD is the future and for many, the whole fear of SSD failures is not an issue like it was 4-5 years ago. Lately the SSDs have pretty strong life. Now for cold storage of data, you can and should use spinning drives I feel due to the much lower cost. Yet enterprise SSDs are proving that long life is very possible with SSDs. Like NASA, the tech eventually trickles down to the retail level.

Got it, Much appreciated for the clarity Balthazar, so at this point, have your truck registered for the weight class up to 6000lbs and not 1lb more so you do not have to deal with mud flaps.

Yawn and the continuation of minutia models that most people will never remember continues from the Germans who look for world domination as german versions of Toyota, Chevy or Ford.

You cannot say that they prefer that the B class does not sell. They have millions wrapped up in production equipment, built product, etc. At this point they need to sell what they have and based on the Features / Spec, the BOLT is superior in every way to the B Class. MB needs to clean house and get ready for the competition cleaning their minimal EV portfolio.

OK, Call me confused but you DO NOT want mud flaps and trucks over 6000 are required you say so why register it at the heavier class?

Your statement about the B-Class is wrong, according to the MBUSA web site you can get them in Oregon and Washington plus Colorado which I checked. For the Seattle and Lynnwood dealership they have 42 B250e models between them ranging in price from $35K to $50K for their 85 mile range. I am willing to bet that they will get heavily discounted when the BOLT comes out.

But an E- Class does not make all the others so get a new E Class and that will fix all other car sales too?

No Big Deal as electricity is cheap here, so I am more than happy to charge my bolt at home or at the thousands of 240v and DC fast charge stations around washington state.

Another CUV win for a company with car loss. I think I see a trend here, LOL

Another further proof that the market is moving to CUVs and leaving cars. Flip Flop There goes the lollypop.

WOW, at first I was cool a very positive sales growth, but on further review it is not much different from the others. Down on CUVs and up or equal on cars. Interesting.