Philadelphia Car Show 2013

The Philadelphia Auto Show - through 1/27/2013

I spent an hour and a half at the Philadelphia car show on Monday, 1/21/2013.  It was much like the 2012 car show when it came to electric vehicles.  A few more models to look at but a whole lot missing this year.  I was going to drive down to the show with my son and park at a parking garage which stated it had one Chargepoint L2 charger but the price to park would have been $25 plus the 90 miles round trip.  Instead we paid $1 to park and $22 for two round-trip tickets on the regional light rail.  Saving the 70 or so odometer miles and hassles of driving while using public transit is a good thing in my book.  I'm sure the charger would have been available at the lot as not much public charging activity happens in Philadelphia.

The car show starts off with a whole sub-floor of the DUB collections and customized rides.  I'm not really into that so I skipped taking pictures of that area.

For EVs, to sum it up - only about 8 actual models of available plug in vehicles were on display.
- Chevrolet Volt
- Fisker Karma
- Ford Focus EV
- Ford C-Max Energi
- Ford Fusion Energi
- Mitsubishi i-MiEV
- Nissan Leaf
- Prius Plug-in
- Volvo CUV (concept)

What was missing:
- BMW Active-E, or new i-models
- Cadillac ELR
- Fiat 500 E
- Tesla Motors
- Via Motors

Impressive 1921 Milburn Electric car in the classic car section.

On to what we can actually buy.

Ford was in the center of the big room and had a good spread.  The plug-ins were all in a central circle together for easy access.

Ford had the best "electric" visuals on hand.  They had an Energi engine taken-apart for viewing of the connection between the 4-cyclinder and the electric motor.

Volvo prototype of a plug-in hybrid CUV.

Ford Fusion Energi

Ford C-Max Energy engine/motor combo:

Ford Focus EV motor:

C-Max Energy trunk-space.  Not much when compared to the Volt.  The reason appears to be due to the battery placed behind the rear seat.  This offers the 5th passenger seat.

 Chevy Volts were sort of pushed off to the side, near the left-most wall of the entire convention center.  There was some traffic around the two (red and blue).  They should have had a white one in between.

Here's a Nissan Leaf sitting next to a nice black Nissan GT-R.  The GT-R was getting twice the attention of the Leaf.  The Leaf rep was saying the Leaf gets 100 miles per charge.  Not good as the window sticker states 73-miles per charge.

The auto show had limited EVs.  Now, what do people really want to see?  Here is a group around the Ford Raptor dual-duty truck.  Lots of interested kids and adults:

Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep have no plug-ins at the show (nor available at all).  People lined up to ride the Jeep course up and simulated hill and over the simulated bumps.  As Jon Stewart says people want to buy the truck to pull the boat they don't have to the lake they don't go to.

What did most people look at?  The Porches, Jaguars, Mercedes, and these two popular cars.  Based on the people lined up wanting to sit in the Porche, Jaguar and other high-end cars - these companies should do fantastically in 2013!! :)  Actually, yes, this is the oogle factor where 99% of those sitting in these expensive performance cars are only dreaming of taking them for a spin.

Big lines to sit in some of the USA-built Corvettes and the Canadian-built Camaros:

The star of the show really is this.  The Lexus LF-LC - Lexus Future - Luxury Coupe
This is a design for a 500-hp hybrid concept which really is a head-turner.

Ok - what lies ahead for the gasoline car culture?  The immediate issue is "will gasoline prices go up sooner or later?"

Let's review this for now.  The rate of growth over the last three months show that WTI oil is rising faster than Brent Crude oil.  WTI is used for the midwestern gasoline products and for exports from the Gulf refineries.  We are said to be producing more oil in the USA.  Doesn't help at all with lowering oil prices.  Brent Crude is imported and is used at the East and West Coast refineries.

Let's come back to the oil price charts in a year and see how things are doing after 2013 closes out.


The real lack of interest of car companies to pursue a strong marketing campaign for plug-in EVs is showing that both car firms and buyers are not showing a high interest in EVs compared to all the other cars that have powerful engines and flashy curves.  Buyers were looking at the EVs but how they spoke of them sounded to lack real interest and of more novelty.  I did see a family of five looking at the Volt...

I didn't really enjoy the car show this year very much.  I was hoping to see more activity for plug-ins and it was lack-luster.  My real hope is that we continue to see better sales that lead to a doubling of the 2012 unit-sales of plug-in models and renewed interest in plug-ins helped by Ford, BMW and others.  We will see changes in 2013 too with some predictions of mine.  I believe that Coda closes their doors in the USA.  Fisker comes very close to closing their doors as well.  Ford will become the plug-in sales leader of 2013 with the Energi and Focus EV models combined versus the GM plug-ins of Volt + ELR.  Volt will sell about 130% of the units of 2012 while ELR will sell about 2,500 units.  I think this is due to the lack of serious leadership to get dealerships on board other than the high-volume dealerships.  People will hear more about the 2014 Volt and start to consider waiting for that model to come out rather than going for a 2012 or 2013 model.  Oh yeah, Toyota will continue to sell the Plug-in Prius well.  I don't know why someone would want between 6-11 miles of electric power that may still use the engine during acceleration.  But they will sell in the 1,000-1,500 per month range.

Like the Philadelphia Auto Show catch-phrase this year says:  Find Your Vroom!   People want engines and noisy exhaust.  They are really not ready for plug-in vehicles in a large scale.  At all.  It may take the children of the current generation to catch onto plug-ins.  I saw a nice young girl being guided by her mom to sit in the Nissan Leaf.  It looked like they both were enjoying it.  Maybe that girl will drive an EV as her first car and perhaps as her only type of vehicle as she grows up.