CHINA: Chinese invest in electric vehicles

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CHINA: Chinese invest in electric vehicles

The guys who can afford Tesla, can also afford to change the batteries quite often. Are these guys representing the market? Certainly. Niche market, that’s all. The batteries have still a long way to go to get the power density equal to that of the gasoline (or close).

You are right, in France (in Europe in general) they use what makes sense, - light and efficient cars. They did not jump on the “hybrid band wagon” as there is no financial benefit to consumer… Volt is a “range extender”. It is heavy, not very aerodynamic, and counting on people who drive no more than 40 miles per day. Recharging Volt from the home plug will use electricity produced from dirty coal… Nothing to write home about.

Cheap labor in Mexico or China will not solve the problem, product must make sense to consumers. Hybrids are staying in the niche area, and it looks the market is saturated. Electric cars are here? Where? One thing is sure, and you are right, - we will one day all drive electric cars. We only don’t know when. I remember reading in l’Ingenieur de l’automobile (1972 issue) that “if the batteries progress as they did in the last 20 years (1950-1970), we all will be driving electric cars in the 80-ties…” We are 27 years later and are still discussing an obvious matter, the batteries’s performance. Volt is not the way to go in my view. It will take superefficient cars first, and then, when batteries improve (we can’t predict the breakthrough) we will convert them to BEV. I don’t think Tesla or Chinese ventures will change anything in electric car market. Unless their bodies are light and very aerodynamic, which I doubt, they could gain a niche place with the (far from perfect) batteries, waiting for the performing ones.

We have to improve the efficiency of cars first, then we can wait for the batteries to improve, as long as it takes...

Comment added 20 Jul 2007 by Mark Kmicikiewicz