In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama said he was aiming to get 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Now, a new study shows that this goal is improbable. According to a report released on Wednesday, car makers are not planning to make enough vehicles, to meet that goal, due to uncertain consumer demand.
This new information is based on the manufacturers’ announced production numbers and an analysis of consumer demand.The study panel consisted of a Ford executive, an industry research group, a federal energy scientist and representatives from an environmental group.
Industry experts have come to the conclusion that expanding sales of EVs within four years in an effort to reach the milllion-car goal is not likely.
“There is a big challenge in going from marketing the Leaf or the Volt to early adopters to selling them to mainstream retail car-buyers,” said John Graham, dean of the school of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, which conducted and funded the 80-page study. “Until then, the automakers’ production plans will be quite cautious.”
Nissan and General Motors,which both happen to be the EV leaders currently, also gave their input for the study.
General Motors announced that it will produce up to 45,000 Volts in 2012. Nissan stated that it will sell around 25,000 LEAFs in the United States this year. Nissan is also currently building a Tennessee plant that can manufacture 150,000 vehicles a year.
Experts are concerned that under existing laws, sales for both car companies could decrease dramatically after manufacturer sells 200,000 plug-in cars, because at that point the $7,500 federal tax-credit incentive for purchases expires. The new bill proposed by Congress would lift the cap on the tax incentive from 200,000 to 500,000 per manufacturer.
Robbie Diamond, president of the Electrification Coalition, agreed that consumer demand under current federal policy will remain too weak to meet the goal.
“It’s hard to see how we get to 1 million vehicles with current policy,” he said.He added that new incentives will create more demand. “If 1 million want to buy electric cars, the automakers will make them,” he said.
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Consider advanced batteries, bio fuels and eventually fuel cells for electrification of vehicles for the masses. As soon as the true cost to own and the vehicles are practical for most people to consider, the sales flood gates will burst open IMO. I just don’t want countries like China to dominate this market because of lowest price from cheaper labor.
BLIND GUY(Quote)
With only a couple of companies selling EV’s, no way we’ll hit that mark. We need all Car mfgr’s to be delivering EV’s!
C’mon Nissan push those LEAF’s out!!!
I agree with you but how do you compete against labor where they get $20/week for pay?
We either have to get them up to our living standards or go down to theirs. I don’t see either one happening. But that’s JMHO.
CaptJackSparrow(Quote)
I agree with you but how do you compete against labor where they get $20/week for pay?
We either have to get them up to our living standards or go down to theirs. I don’t see either one happening. But that’s JMHO.
Ideally it would be great if both countries would benefit equally, but thats not happening. America seems to be behind the 8 ball concerning China with not alot of leverage to correct the imbalance. As individuals we can try to make informed decisions with our purchases to help change that balance. American manufacturing needs to stay on top of quality to help make this correction of balance happen. It kinda makes me hungry for a piece of “American Pie”
BLIND GUY(Quote)
For once it is not North America. What is Carlos Ghosn doing…he’s got 27,000 firm orders and it’s 190 to Yokohama, 67 to Northern England on the Environmental Freighter (St. Petersburg) that was supposed to be bringing thousands to our shore, 200 to Hong Kong, 89 in America in January…What gives?
Does anyone know the January sales figures for the Nissan Leaf in Japan?
Canucnik(Quote)
They could give away leafs and the numbers would still be almost nothing…but you increase the gas prices by $2/gal and they won’t be able to build enough. Too bad a increase tax for gas will never pass, not with big oil running the show! We don’t pay at the pump we pay out of all our back pockets increasing the taxes and/or the deficit (32 billion in subsidies to the oil companies while green tech gets 500 mil…) with this happening it pays to drive a Hummer in stead of Leaf. Person driving a leaf gets to pay for the gas of the guy driving the Hummer, how nice.
EV-FREAK(Quote)
We think the Nissan Leaf strategy for the car in Japan was to initially establish it in the Taxi and Rental car business. Show it off, identify it’s importance. Carlos Ghosn is almost attempting to forgo the rebate by equating, bamboozling and waiting to sell the car @ $40.6K (American). The Leaf has 6000 early adopters waiting in Japan trying to complete the “Paper Work”, Carlos sell ‘em the car, already!!
And send many more thousands to America right NOW!
This strategy is very weak, very poor…if he blows this, he will go from Carlos the Great, to “Mendel Meak” in one product introduction!
Canucnik(Quote)
I think 2015 will be a banner year for EV sales. One million by 2015, I would have to say is unlikely, but by the end of 2015 YES. LEAFs and Volts will be in full production in 2012 and they alone could sell up to 500,000 by 2015. Other models will be brought out by GM, Nissan, and other companies. I am doubtful that Ford is fully committed, that is their approach of converting standard models and relying on outside suppliers to do the engineering keeps their development costs down but production costs higher, so I don’t expect to see high volume from them. I do expect to see high volume from Japanese and Korean manufacturers and if they hit the market soon then the 1M is doable.
Roy H(Quote)