Will lower gas prices have a large effect on EV sales?
To a certain extent but there is a way that car makers could diminish the cheap gas advantage.
The Tesla has never been a car whose sales have been driven by high fuel prices. It’s appeal has been in performance and technology as well as status and muted luxury.
Anybody who has driven an EV loves the real world acceleration. By real world I mean 0-30. The burst of energy to change lanes or get on the freeway.
The average car takes much longer from a full stop to 30 MPH than an EV. From 30-60 it’s about the same time but the gasoline car spend from 30-60 catching up.
0-60 in 4 seconds is nice but in an ICE car that requires tens of thousands of dollars and an average MPG of around 12 MPG everyday to do that the very fews times you need that power. You just don’t need or can’t really enjoy your 700HP vehicle as much as you would like to.
Your 2 seat loud and obnoxious sports cars are the proverbial 12 inch penis. Impressive looking but not to many places that can handle all of it.
The only place cars like those have any use other than getting you a superficial mate are on the track. And they are actually more likely to get you tickets than they are a mate if you are not that good looking anyway that you need to buy the car to have women look at you.
Add to that most people with cars like that never take them to a track like many Jeep or 4×4 owners never take them off road and you have probably explained why most Americans think they are broke and don’t like to pay taxes.
Car makers have to stop only building tiny compact EV’s as well. While they might get the job done they aren’t impressive at all, don’t tell me that size doesn’t matter. Small might be able to fit in any parking spot but only the city dweller sees that as an advantage. We don’t live in Europe.
Most Americans don’t fit in a Smart EV or Fiat EV. We are large people. Many of us are over 6 feet tall and many are over 200 pounds. Or both. We need cars we fit in.
In order to get more people into the cars they need to be real world cars. The e-Golf and Mercedes B-Class are a nice start but they are still too expensive for only having 80 miles of range.
The new cars being announced with 200 mile ranges will start selling if you really build enough and sell them outside of the few CARB States.
They will outsell the Chevy Volt which still isn’t a 5 passenger car. The rear leg room is still to small. And the battery down the middle is just as bad as the Ford and their batteries across the truck or cargo bay. They will not find many new buyers. They will just keep many of the buyers they have. Unless they change to a flat battery pack under the floor.
The greatest thing about owning an EV, or even a Hybrid, is rarely or ever having to stop to buy gas. Even if the price of gas is $1 per gallon. The approximate equilibrium price of gas to electricity as fuel for cars.
It really is nice to come home at night and just plug in your car instead of having to wait in line and pump gas.
The worst part now about driving any car is filling up the gas tank. It’s rare that I ever get the gas station to myself. Then after waiting in line for 5-10 minutes, I have to get out, swipe my card and spend 5 minutes looking at the guy next to me that cut in front or committed some breach of gas station etiquette.
With an EV you just pull into the garage, plug in and walk into the house and go about your normal business. You wouldn’t even think of buying a phone where you had to go to the store and buy new batteries every few days. Then through the dead batteries on the street like the emissions form your tail pipe.
With the advent of the 100 mile plus battery, which is enough for most peoples daily commute, that will be shortly followed by the 200 mile battery, the plug it in at night car that can work for 100% of your daily driving needs will be all you really need.
Add to that, no more oil changes, tune ups and all those other regular maintenance items that an internal combustion engine car has and you will be hooked.
That doesn’t even included all the environmental benefits.
A 200 mile range, 5 seats and a price tag of $30k in a sporty car like a VW Golf or Kia Soul might just be what it takes to get this evolution in transportation to catch on.
It will be interesting to see how Tesla responds to these challengers that are now taking the 200 mile advantage away from Tesla.
I don’t think it will be long before my 12 year old son looks at driving a gasoline powered vehicle like he does someone smoking a cigarette. We know smoking is hazardous to your health and does cause cancer. The same thing is true of ICE vehicles.
We are just not willing to admit it yet as we love our cars.
The automakers are just starting to give us EV’s we can love.
Thanks Elon. You’re the guy who got this party started. Hopefully you keep leading the way and not letting the Big 3 kill the EV like G.M. did in the past.
I don’t think the big automakers are going to rest unless you stumble and fall.
I don’t think Apple and Google will really be a threat to the Big 3 like Tesla. For some reason you’ve got them really scared even though you only build less than 10’000 cars a month.
I might just have to buy Tesla stock now that it back down to the Moon instead of Mars, a place you want to go. Once the price comes back down to Earth people wont think your shooting for the stars.