2014 year EV summery

[jeffand]

We sadly say goodbye to the Honda Fit EV, Mitsubishi I-MiEV. Also in 2015 the Chevy Spark EV, and the Toyota Rav4 will be discontinued. But 2014 did bring some good news. We saw a number of new electrics went on sale in 2014. New plug ins for this year are the BMW I3, BMW I8, Mercedes B-Class ED, Kia Soul EV, VW E-Golf and Porsche Cayenne S e-Hybrid. Exciting news came from Tesla with the announcement of the duel motor Model S release. The P85D model S with 691 HP can propel the car from 0-60 in an insane 3.2 seconds.
In 2015 we have to look forward to the new and improved 2016 Chevy Volt. The Volt will have more driving range, and accelerate 20% faster. The Chevy Spark EV will be replaced by the slightly larger Chevy Sonic EV. This should attract more customers because of the increased room found in the Sonic. The Tesla model X should be in production during the third quarter of 2015. I think Tesla will be delivering model X's sometime in late 2015. We should see pricing on Tesla website sometime in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2015. The new Nissan Leaf will have a significant range improvement and much better body styling. The release date of the new Leaf has not been announced yet.

 

[michael]

The RAV is already gone. Just a few dribs and drabs at some dealers. Too bad, it's a very good car...friends own one and I'm envious of its range. They do a 120 mile round trip every day, without recharging, even in cold weather, through the mountains.

We don't know quite what the new Volt will bring. Chevy had (has?) the opportunity to completely take over the lower price range of the market, but based on the rumors they blew it. If the new Volt had:

1. 60 mile all electric range
2. 6 kW class charging
3. Backseat to fit 3 people
4. Improved user interface

Then it would have completely shot past FFE, Energi, Leaf, etc. But based on the rumors it looks like they gave it a better back seat, but only slightly increased AER and charging rate, still leaves the others in the running.