>> And on what, exactly, do you base this claim? Economies of scale >> require sufficient demand to sustain them, and a significant up-front >> investment. > >On the fact that they build the Corvett in similar numbers to what I >suspect the EV1 would sell (if it was for sale). Mass produced the PbA >EV1 would probably cost less than a Corvett (it has fewer parts). > >I suspect the reason that GM caused the EV1 to fail is because they were >afraid of the consequences. If the EV1 was sucessful then California >would require that 4% of there vehicles sold be EVs. If California were >allowed to force them to sell 4% EVs then other states would follow. > The net result could be a requirement that GM sell MORE than 100,000 >EVs per year. While I believe that there is a nation wide market for >50,000 to 100,000 EV1s per year (at least initially) I don't believe >that there is a sustained market for 100,000 per year. that means they >would have to attract buyers that wouldn't be willing to spend $40,000 >on an EV1 so they'd have to price it cheaper to get enough customers to >meet the state mandates and that might cause the price to drop below >viable levels.
Alongside that reasoning, I offer the following hypotheses: Manufacturers stand to lose the costs of "stranded assets" including not only the physical plants that make outmoded engines, but patents and work put forth on those technologies, and infrastructures designed to service and repair those outmoded technologies. If EV's are dramatically simpler and more maintenance-free over the life of the vehicle, then this would reduce profits over the life of the vehicle for the manufacturer, and maybe get cars out on the road that would need to be replaced less often. It's hard to say what demand there might be for EV's because those few efforts that have been made to half-offer them to fleets or even (rarely) to the public have been so anti-sales that it's hard for me to say definiitively how much interest there was or is. I think there's more than the manufacturers have let on, and I think their credibility is low.
