On Sat, 31 Aug 2002 11:59:57 -0700 Lee Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Joe Faggella wrote:
>
> > Anyone who tries to market a 50 mile range
> auto is doomed to failure
> > in the marketplace. Joe sixpack just will not
> purchase such an auto.
>
> That all depends on your definition of
> "failure". Joe Sixpack may not be
> your customer, but there are thousands of other
> people who *would* be.
> Even such terrible EVs as the Citicars sold by
> the thousands. NEV / golf
> cars are selling in similar volumes today.
> Taylor-Dunn sells EV delivery
> trucks worldwide in large quantities.
>
> Thousands per year is a failure for Ford Motor
> Company, but a runaway
> success for a small company.
> --
> Lee A. Hart
>
Hi Lee and Others,
You make an outstanding point. Lots of us here on the EVDL are looking for
just such a vehicle and going to the brink of personal expense to build
something that will work for a meager or conservative application.
As these EV's would gain public visibility, the novelty of them alone would
generate a sort of word-of-mouth network. I don't og to many of the "normal"
places in ym car. I go to locations that take me well off the beaten path at
times. I go to those places because I don't want to go to, say, the local
shopping mall, or to a ball game downtown. In those venues, the inordinate and
esoteric are missed, overlooked or scoffed at by those who's lives are on a
different vector.
I do go to places that put me into contact with other renegades and paradigm
benders. Even my neighbor, who is a 26 year old new age hippie, would be
interested in such a vehicle.
There are also lots of people right now who are starting to see that one way
to take control over one's own life is through "getting skiny and going
outside teh lines"; that is, they are giving up on a lot of the truly
unnecessary extra financial boat anchors.
The poor, by standards of per annum, are sometimes the richest people in the
world and just don't see it right away. They don't have to have a room sized
vehicle to show how affluent they are. Some folks probably really have a need
for SUV's, vehicles that can be driven cross-country at the drop of a phone
call. Many of us do pretty much the same 25 to 50 miles a day or less. Most
SUV drivers, IMHO, probably live in civilized areas with good, level and well
maintained roads.
The acceptance of EV's has more to do with un-brainwashing people and helping
them adopt the belief that _less is more_.
Actions speak louder than words and beliefs are expressed in questions and
statements. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's louder than John Wayland's
stereo.
I stand by my intuition that most people usually won't change a great deal
until they have to out of neccesity or survival.
Anyone care to speculate whether Ford crushes the Think? The Think may become
just a Thought soon. I don't know if I'm up to baraging them with inquiries
about seeling vehicles that come off lease. I wasted a good deal of time doing
that with the EV1. Time that I could have spent actually putting some parts on
my ever-on-going trike project.
Regards,
Rick
