Electric car sales are flat

Ford Focus Electric Forum

Help Support Ford Focus Electric Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

fordfocuselectric

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 25, 2010
Messages
113
Interesting view by the Richmond Times on the sales numbers of electric vehicles versus normaly vehicles. I wonder if the Ford Focus Electric will fare any better? Or if it doesn't have to do so much with demand but more with the supply of the electric vehicles to the consumer? I bet there would be more Leaf's being purchased if they were available... there are definitely people that would by the Ford Focus Electric version if it was available right now!

By Richmond Times:
Washington has sunk $5 billion trying to cajole automakers to produce electric cars, and the effort has paid off. Slowly but surely, vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf, Ford Focus Electric and Chevy Volt are moving into the nation's showrooms.

But in January GM only sold 321 Volts out of the total of 142,919 GM vehicles sold that month. There's already a $7500 tax credit but apparently that isn't enough to motivate people to buy an electric vehicle.

Bribing carmakers to build cars that consumers have to be bribed to buy is not a recipe for long-term success.

Read the full article here:
http://www2.starexponent.com/news/2011/apr/16/big-shock-electric-car-sales-are-flat-ar-976184/
 
Right - I see so many Leafs and Volts sitting on dealers lots. No one is even coming in for test drives... And they are asking $1000's below MSRP.
 
You do have to wonder how much 'actual' pent-up demand there is for pure EV's -- noted over on the LEAF forum that today marks the 1-year anniversary for online reservations and of course some people (including myself) have no clue as to when we can actually get one! At least Ford has Chicago listed as a target city but again no actual dates have been shared -- will I wait or purchase something else? Well, for now it's a waiting game as the car we've pretty much decided will be replaced (an '06 Mazda3 GT) is still running fine and can last -- I don't like that we're only driving it on very short trips which is bad for most ICE cars so my wife and I swap cars for our daily work commutes (mine is 4X longer) and take the Mazda3 for weekend errands; others aren't so fortunate and don't want to throw money into something that will end up costing a lot more to maintain than it's worth. The whole idea of an EV suites us quite well versus an ICE in that most of my wife's commute is 7 miles/day round trip -- on cold winter days that's a killer on an ICE which barely warms up (she uses the heated seats primarily which are almost instant heat -- our garage is heated as well). Walking, biking and/or a scooter, etc. isn't really an option as these are not simply residential or city streets (no bike paths either and no shoulders as well in some places) so it's great that we're starting to see alternative fuels --- we were happy with our '98 New Beetle TDI in years past but the family out grew it (back seats only works for people under 5' 4") as well as using B20 bio-diesel in it, but again the short commutes weren't good for it. The Volt's not bad but don't like the fact that you have two power plants to maintain (regardless if the 'engine' is simply a generator) versus going pure EV; to me it's just another variation on the Prius which may be needed by some households but not us (at least at this stage of our lives -- can still afford and prefer multiple cars and have no concern over 'range anxiety').
 
The general news media is completely lost on this topic. The sales figures, especially for the LEAF, are supply constrained. No one has any idea yet what the ultimate 'run rate' ales will be for EVs in the next 5 years. Using a supply constrained sales figure for that "analysis" is flawed from the start.
 
We at the Ford Focus Electric Forum totally agree!

I posted that more just for your information than to actually imply that I support that point of view. It's surprising the amount of mainstream media that pushes this stuff and the number of people that seem to believe it! Although, what CAN you believe these days!
 
Back
Top