On Aug 28, 2014, at 2:26 PM, EVDL Administrator via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
> From what I've read, part of the idea behind their lease - they'll sell you > the car, but not the battery - is to keep the car's selling price low. I > think the battery lease costs about what you'd spend on on fuel for a > comparable car for a typical monthly driving distance I wish them great success, but I don't see this as a winning strategy. Let's face it; unless you're the type of person to subscribe to this list, you're going to see econobox EVs as being less desirable than a comparable gasoline-powered car, if for no other reason than that it's something strange and different and new. You're going to need the EV to be significantly better for you personally, and for most that means significantly better financially on a timescale of not much more than a single year -- people who buy econoboxes generally don't have the capital to consider timeframes longer than that. If you just break even but still have the limited range and seating and cargo and all the rest, it's not going to sell. And an econobox that costs more -- that costs as much to purchase, as much to lease the battery as buy the gas, and then you have to pay for the electricity on top of it? And still has limited range and probably very slow charging? Who's going to be interested? I know marketing types love to lock people in to recurring fees, and I'm sure automakers are looking for ways to do that in yet more ways with EVs. But I just don't see leasing a battery as going over any better than leasing gas tanks or tires or windshield wiper fluid. It just reeks of nickel-and-diming, and sends the message that the battery is something overpriced and disposable for what it's being sold for. It'd make much more sense to simply not sell the car at all and only lease it -- though, of course, we saw what happened when GM did that with the EV1. Don't break out the price of the battery from the rest of the car. If you know it's not going to last, make that fact clear up front and offer an extended warranty / guaranteed exchange / whatever to cover it. Better yet, don't try to pass off disposable junk as durable goods, and just build the battery to last in the first place and market your car to a wealthier demographic until prices come down. Cheers, b& -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 801 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20140828/6515bb85/attachment.pgp> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
