Why Is the EV Adoption Curve So Flat? Check Out the Ford Focus Electric
A couple of times a year, I order up a free “press pass” and head out to a conference on electric vehicles. Tonight, I’ll be driving south, staying with a friend in Los Angeles, then getting up early and continuing down to San Diego for the first day of the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure USA 2012.
I don’t think I’ll be the only one asking tough questions of the panelists, insofar as anyone can see that the EV adoption curve isn’t what most people (including me) had predicted a few years ago. What really happening here?
By my wits, it’s summed up in the new Ford Focus Electric ad, featuring photographs of the gasoline-powered car and its new battery-powered brother side by side. They look identical, but the electric version is $40,000 — about two-and-a-half times the sticker price of the other ($16,500). So the customer now can have a who-cares car, worry about running out of charge, and pay an extra $23,500 for the privilege. That’s something to get excited about, isn’t it?
If I were trying to show customers the folly of electric vehicles, and get them to stick with the good ol’ gas-burners for as long as possible, this is exactly the way I’d do it. Sure makes you wonder who composed that ad, and why.
I notice that the head of market strategy at Coda has been asked to make a presentation. Seriously? Isn’t this like learning about sobriety from Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan? And in the case of Coda, the consumer value proposition contains all the nonsensical elements of the Ford Focus Electric — but wait, there’s more! Not only is the car even far less attractive than the Ford, but the customer is expected to buy the car (and its warranty) from a company whose continued existence is incredibly unlikely. Sounds like the deal of the century.
Sorry for the sarcasm; regular readers will recognize that I actually support electric transportation. But I’m also a big fan of sanity and reason, ingredients that, for some reason, are distinctly lacking here.
Currently, EVs make economic sense only for people who drive far more than the average amount and do almost all their driving in the city. Considering that, the demand for EVs will be low. However, that may change with improving battery technology and other improvements. At least it’s a start.
@Frank Eggers
Frank, Ev technology comes in different forms. EREV’s like the GM Volt or Plug-in Prius C, make good economic sense.
More expensive EV’s with 2-300+ mile range capacity, make good environmental sense.
Commercially, Trucks and light delivery Vans are already able to prove economically viable.
Marcopolo,
Probably they do make good economic sense for some people. However, I’d have to be a total financial idiot to get an electric or hybrid car.
I bought my 2004 Mazda 3 new. It now has barely over 17,000 miles on it. If you were to do a discounted cash flow or internal rate of return analysis on it, considering the little I use it, the analysis would show that it would make no sense to replace it with an electric or hybrid car.
Whether an electric or hybrid vehicle can be economically justified depends on how it is used. I really don’t feel like going through the detailed computations to prove it, but it should be obvious that the interest on the additional investment has to be considered; electric and hybrid cars do cost more. Even if one pays cash, one forgoes the opportunity to earn income on the additional investment.
For delivery trucks, which are constantly stopping and starting, electric drive may well be justified. IC engines are very inefficient under those conditions, whereas electric vehicles would retain their efficiency under those conditions; instead of wasting kinetic energy when stopping, they could recover that energy. Electric drive could also make good sense for garbage trucks because they stop at every house and their engines probably spend more time idling than driving the truck.
Hybrid city busses could also make sense since if well-designed, they could recover kinetic energy when stopping and wouldn’t need to waste energy idling. For hybrid city busses, it might make more sense to use ultra capacitors instead of batteries.
Busses used to convey people at airports from terminals to planes should probably be electric. Hospitals sometimes have small gasoline vehicles to convey people from parking lots and garages to the hospital; surely they should be electric.
Again, whether electric or hybrid vehicles can be economically justified depends on how they are used. For the average car driver, in their present state of development, electric and hybrid cars probably cannot be economically justified. But there are always a few people who are quick to embrace new technologies even when they cannot be economically justified. They serve a useful purpose by helping to accelerate the development of new technology.