Peter VanDerWal wrote: >Joe sixpack might not but some people will. Perhaps not by the >millions but at least by the thousands. > >GM could have sold or leased thousands of EV1s in California alone, >had they been willing. Open up sales to the reast of the US and >they could have sold a hundred thousand easy. And this is for a >$40,000+ two seater sports car.
A hundred thousand easy? In a decade, maybe. There are about 8.5-9 million new cars sold in the U.S. each year, total. This figure does not count trucks, which account for about the same number of units annually, but which are aimed at a very different type of market. (Figures from a study done by the University of Michigan.) Perhaps 2% of those 9 million cars retail in the $40K+ range - and since I'm excluding trucks, 2% is a plenty generous figure. That's only 180,000 *total* cars annually in the price range you are talking about. Do you really think that a single EV model will pull more than 50% of that niche market? Even the California ZEV alliance claims that only about 30,000 units of the hybrid Prius and Civic were sold in the entire U.S. prior to the end of 2001. That is the sales figure of the models together, not for each, and covers at least a two-year span. Toyota's own website claims a worldwide production figure for the Prius of just 100,000 units over a five-year span. Worldwide. Five years. For a car that costs half as much, carries twice as many passengers, and has no range limitation compared to the EV1. A sales goal of 100,000 production EVs, let alone EV1s in particular, in a decade is plenty optimistic. If I'm a shareholder in a large auto maker who has invested entirely for the purpose of making money, I wouldn't want them to be putting hundreds of millions of dollars into that tiny market space. (I don't own any stock in any auto maker, BTW.) I'm as enthusiastic about electric technology as the next guy, but let's keep our discussions grounded in reality, shall we? -- -Adam
