One of the keys to successful product launches is finding a niche that’s bound to be successful, and using that success to tell the story to a broader audience. Nowhere is this more important than in the introduction of electric transportation. Fortunately, as demonstrated in this article about the introduction of the Nissan Leaf in Hawaii, this niche-marketing concept is not lost on these folks.
When you think of an environment whose attributes make EVs a slam dunk, it’s hard to imagine better circumstances than most of the island nations – or, in this case, island states: low speeds, expensive gasoline – and, best of all, finite ranges that are easily accommodated by a reasonably sized battery pack. If Leaf drivers get anywhere close to 100 miles on a charge, there will be very little range anxiety to dampen the Aloha spirits of native Hawaiians and their tourist customers.
A friend of mine who is trying to raise public or private money for his extremely well-conceived electric vehicle start-up just wrote to me with words that ring true:
[We’ll be attending the] upcoming Annual Congressional Business Summit, and this is a point of focus for me right now. I don’t know what they will do, other than to hear them say, “Wow what a neat idea.” I guess I shouldn’t be a cynic, but the last 14 months have opened my eyes as to the two-facedness of Congress. They like to talk about how small business is the source of 80% of the new jobs, and then promptly deliver money to the large corporations that spend most of their time trying to make sure small businesses evaporate. Millions in campaign support and a veritable army of lobbyists seems to be working just fine.
When my friend Paul Scott, co-founder of Plug-In America took a trip to Yokohama last June to test drive the Nissan Leaf, I never dreamed it would include a private lunch with CEO, Carlos Ghosn — and ultimately — a gig selling the Leaf at Santa Monica Nissan. If you’re in town and want a great EV made by a team truly committed to the future of clean transportation, ask for Paul. Tell ‘em Craig sent ya.
See his blog post on the subject here.
I try to stay at least partially connected to the mainstream coverage of renewable energy and electric transportation – not so much because I believe there is truth there, but because I need to know what the mainstream consumers believe. This morning’s article in the Wall Street Journal on the Nissan LEAF was telling, for two reasons:
The author asserts, “Such a car would have been science fiction five years ago.” This, of course, is utter tripe. Until they famously killed the electric car over a decade ago, GM was making EVs that its customers absolutely adored. Some insiders report that the project was killed not because it was a failure, but for the precise opposite reason: it proved that the world had a huge appetite for electric transportation, and GM had no sincere interest in heading in that direction. At the same time, Toyota was having a similar experience with its electric RAV-4. When the decision came to recall and crush all the EVs, a maelstrom of protest arose, the remnants of which are still present in our conversations today. In any case, it most certainly completely untrue that the LEAF would have been science fiction five years ago. Anyone trying to follow this subject with any level of precision and honesty has to wonder about the agenda that could drive revisionist history like this.
The other obvious point the author repeats dozens of times through the article is that the driving experience is a nonevent. “I can think of hundreds of ways to describe the Maserati’s ear-strafing exhaust, but I’m at a loss to describe the nearly mute and rheostatic squeeze-and-go response of the LEAF,” he writes. He goes on with similar language to describe the braking system, the turning, etc. – ensuring that any reader will feel like less of a person to purchase a LEAF.
Again, one wonders about the agenda here.
We certainly see a great deal of the old “David and Goliath” metaphor in our conversations in this industry – especially in electric transportation. Though a number of EV start-ups have gone belly-up over the past few years, there are still many such Davids, feverishly ramping up to take on the Goliaths of Nissan, GM, and the other traditional automakers.
Bob Lutz, former co-chairman of GM, said on CBS’s 60 Minutes about a year ago that only experienced carmakers have the background to deliver electric vehicles. Horse hockey. That’s self-serving garbage, and he knows it. Obviously they have an advantage – especially since they’re approaching the problem with $85 billion of your (taxpayers’) money. But we’re about to see exactly what a whole slew of nimble companies with good ideas and cutting-edge technology can do, in competition against the stodgy behemoths.
I know I’m not alone in wishing that this weren’t the worst period in history for capital formation since the Great Depression. But even in their hamstrung condition, we’re about to enter some exciting times in the electric vehicle market. In addition to Tesla – a company that garners an astonishing amount of ink each week, we have Phoenix Motorcars, Coda, BYD, Fisker, and many others right behind them.
I’m wondering what effect this new, competitive environment – and a true paradigm shift in driving – will have on the GM IPO. What’s investors’ forecast for a company like GM, selling into an auto consumer base that doesn’t think or act like the baby boomer generation? Where will the modern car-buyer go who wants a high-quality automobile that doesn’t make him a slave to the oil companies? I guess we’ll see shortly – but I see another rock to the head coming for Goliath.
Dr. Bob Goldschmidt writes:
We are only fooling ourselves if we think electric cars won’t be charged during peak usage hours.
Bob: I’m interested to hear you say that. Why do you believe this? Even the people who don’t care about the environment are quite protective of their checking accounts. If offered a huge discount for off-peak charging, won’t almost everyone take it?
I spoke with Honda’s Steve Ellis yesterday about the position I took in my book re: hydrogen fuel-cell-based cars. Steve is a vocal proponent for this controversial technology, and his job, I’ve come to learn, involves busily correcting misinformation on the subject – of which there is plenty.
His position is that all technologies that have the potential to help move us toward clean energy and transportation should be on the table for discussion, and that the advocates of batteries should be as supportive of hydrogen as the hydrogen people are of batteries. As I knew he would, he took exception to my position I took in my book (and that of the spokesperson for EPRI) that hydrogen as a fuel source is inherently inefficient, and that the infrastructure by which fuel would be delivered lags too far behind electricity.
Steve points out that the four-to-one advantage of fuel energy to kinetic energy in battery-electrics vs. fuel-cells applies only in the very worst case scenario – one that no one is seriously suggesting. He also notes that Honda would not make a bet like this if they didn’t think they were going to win.
I can see these points, but I don’t know, Steve. You’re obviously a dedicated, knowledgeable and honest professional. But, as I’ve often said, I hope you’re paid well; you certainly deserve to be given the size of the task you so energetically take on.
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