Much has been made about electric cars over the past year. You’ve heard the President promote all kinds of “green” businesses, and he has helped encourage them by offering all kinds of incentives like tax breaks for purchasing these products. Obama even bragged that America could have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
Despite all of these large efforts, the campaign has done little to boost sales of this technology. Optimism was huge three to four years ago when the first mass produced electric cars came onto the market.
Stocks of companies that manufactured the components shot up in anticipation that this was the next wave of popular technology that was going to expand. Electric cars included the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf and many others.
When we look at the numbers, we see that reality does not meet the hype. Here are some numbers from 2011 –
|
|
Dec 2010
|
Jan 2011
|
Feb 2011
|
Mar 2011
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Total
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|
Volt
|
326
|
321
|
281
|
608
|
1,536
|
|
Leaf
|
19
|
87
|
67
|
298
|
471
|
As illustrated in the chart above, there is no way that auto makers are going to meet the projected figures, especially since all of the problems that have recently been brought to light about the Chevy Volt. These problems, combined with high costs, and the stable gasoline prices have dampened demand for these cars.
Given the high price of nearly $50,000 for the Volt, even after the tax incentives, most consumers just find it too expensive to give up their traditional gas automobiles, especially since these cars don’t perform nearly as well, and they don’t have as much room.
When you factor in the recent national average electricity rate of 11 cents per kilowatt hour, Consumer Reports calculated that the Volt costs about 5.7 cents per mile to drive in electric-only mode. That really is not enough savings to chase the perceived benefits. For the time being, hybris, such as the Toyota Prius might be the best alternative.
Furthermore, with new oilfields being exploited in the USA, and oil production expected to actually increase, the hopes for these manufacturers may end up being much further off into the future than anticipated.
