I don't have data for this, and don't know where I might find it, but based on data documenting that ICEV buyers don't consider fuel efficiency as important as cup holders, I'd guess that many (relatively) small and light ICEVs are bought not for their fuel efficiency but for their lower purchase prices.
Automakers HATE that. They like selling big vehicles, because land yachts are preceived as more valuable, and thus can be sold at higher prices and higher profits. But they grit their teeth and offer a few smaller vehicles, because they don't entirely want to give up that market segment (though some almost have in the past; that's why the Geo Metro evaporated). They presumably figure that if they can get a poorly paid person to buy a Chevy Spark, when / if that person gets a better job, he or she might buy a Tahoe. Generally, they're right. It's regrettably true that very few people choose efficiency for its own sake over convenience and comfort. This makes hyper-efficient vehicles, especially in the US, too small a market to attract the interest of a major automaker. It's also too small a market to support the costs of a small automaker developing a vehicle. Basically, it's too small a market, period. Meanwhile, Tesla has succeeded in making EVs because they made them luxury cars. IMO, if they'd made Teslas hyper-efficient cars, they'd be out of business now. (And they wouldn't be the first by any mens.) Maybe someone else can think of others, but the only way I can think of to get extremely limited-market hyper-efficient vehicles on the market is for a government or philanthropic organization to subsidize the development cost and sale price. I can't think of a charity flush enough with cash to do that (can anyone else?), and international political trends are generally moving toward austerity, not government activism. So I don't see a mass market Stella or similar EV happening in my lifetime. Maybe yours, if you're under 30 or so. I think that if you want one any time soon, you're going to have to build one. The best scenario I can imagine is the publication of plans, and possibly even the availability of kits. This has its own problems, though. One obvious one is that few people want to build their own vehicles. Another is that of the few who do, and buy kits or plans, most never actually finish them. Another intractable problem is that vehicle kits and plans usually call for recycling and repurposing of parts and assemblies from existing factory vehicles. That limits the useful life of the plans and kits as the necessary used vehicles age and vanish from the boneyards. By the time you get your kit or plans designed, debugged, and on the market, the parts are already starting to dry up. So you, the designer, don't have enough time to recoup your investment before parts become too hard to get. This same problem has limited the usefulness of EV conversion kits, BTW. One example is the venerable Voltsrabbit kit. http://www.electroauto.com/catalog/dccustkits.shtml For years now, one of the big challenges of building the Voltsrabbit, especially outside CA, has been finding an intact and usable early VW Rabbit. (There's also the fact that if / when it's done it's an almost 40 year old utilitarian car that happens to be electric, but that's a different problem.) The botttom line here is that, most likely, real-world you-can-buy-one long range EVs are going to come to us not through heroic efficiency, but rather thanks to big batteries, monster chargers, and maybe little effiiciency tweaks. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
