Trying to kill the electric car... AGAIN?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

powersurge

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 21, 2015
Messages
1,743
Location
Long Island, NY
I am a long time follower of technology and remember how in the 1990s, the Chevrolet EV1 was "killed", as seen in the great documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?" This should be standard viewing for anyone on this forum. I just saw a thread about low sales of Leafs have been in October, 2015.

Are the Petroleum and Car companies trying to "kill the electric car" again? Could the ridiculously low prices in the past year hovering at about $2/gal be a way to take the air out of the sails (sales- ha ha) of the electric car? I think it really must have hurt Tesla and all EV related industries... ??
 
I've done a lot of casual reading about this, by no means anything close to research and there's a ton of theories about the price of gas and many are linked to the environment. The most plausible in my opinion is the countries with plentiful cheap gas have realized that they won't run out by the time the majority of the world switches off gas. With the way prices were going it was profitable for other places to explore for expensive to extract oil. It is probable that shipping, airplanes and maybe even trucking won't switch off gas anytime soon. If the price of gas is low now so that expensive oil is never extracted and maybe even some of the places with expensive oil now (Alberta oil sands for example) shut down then by the time the market shrinks for oil they will be the only ones left.
 
I view the price of gas as being indicative that all is NOT as well with the economy as the Washington talking heads of both stripes would have you believe. Bread and circuses, my friends. Bread and circuses.
 
powersurge said:
I am a long time follower of technology and remember how in the 1990s, the Chevrolet EV1 was "killed", as seen in the great documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?" This should be standard viewing for anyone on this forum. I just saw a thread about low sales of Leafs have been in October, 2015.

Are the Petroleum and Car companies trying to "kill the electric car" again? Could the ridiculously low prices in the past year hovering at about $2/gal be a way to take the air out of the sails (sales- ha ha) of the electric car? I think it really must have hurt Tesla and all EV related industries... ??

at $2.50 a gallon and $0.10 per kwh my Leaf costs half as much to drive as my Prius. If gas gets down to $1.25 a gallon my Leaf is still a nicer car but I'm more likely to use the Prius for convenience if I don't want to charge as often.

If gas gets below $0.75 a gallon I'd actually start driving the Prius more (like the majority of the time) and the Leaf less. Lower than $.50 cents a gallon and I just park the Leaf 90% of the time.

Do you really think gas will get low enough to matter? I think I'll be driving EVs pretty much all the time from 2015 on.
 
Oil prices seem to reflect the state of world-wide economic health more than they do an attempt to stomp out EVs or shale. I don't think we'll ever have to worry about EVs ever going away completely, but I don't think they will expand as rapidly as we all hoped.
 
Adjusted for inflation, the price of gasoline isn't all that cheap in historical terms.

Regardless, the way for EVs to "win" is to become unquestionably superior. It's all about the batteries. And some big changes are already on the horizon.
 
minispeed said:
With the way prices were going it was profitable for other places to explore for expensive to extract oil.
Exactly.
Once OPEC saw that the US and Canada had developed better methods for extracting shale oil (and knowing that North America is sitting on a crap-load of it), they had to lower prices to keep the technology from being developed further, allowing a significant new competition into the market.

So no, not an attempt to kill EVs - they were just collateral damage.
 
No, no one is trying to kill EVs with low gas prices.
Gas prices are low because there is a ton of supply and not much demand.
Shale oil has added a huge amount of supply.
SA is trying to kill high price oil drillers, not EVs.

And even if they were, it is too late.
People, and companies are starting to figure out how much better EVs are.
Perhaps not for everyone, but for many people they are much more convenient.

Better performance.
Higher safety.
Lower maintenance.
Better quality ride.
Lower cost of fuel.

Multiple large automotive companies with products in the market.

No, "they" may try, but I don't think anyone is going to kill the electric car this time around.
 
powersurge said:
I think it really must have hurt Tesla and all EV related industries... ??
Given Tesla's pricing strategy, their target customers clearly aren't price sensitive to fuel costs. And besides, the drip in prices is temporary...
 
Low sales of a car right before a performance improving refresh? Sure, must be a conspiracy.

The Prius has been through several cycles, and all end with ebbing sales that really tank right before the new model is available. Nothing special here.

With EV's the battery and range are an even bigger deal to the perceived value of the car. Unless you are buying an S model Leaf, you would be crazy not to wait unless the incentives were crazy good.
 
I agree that EVs are here to stay... I will always drive an electric car from now on. The good point now is that we are able to BUY the cars, not like when they LEASED the EV1s in the 1990s. That way, we control the technology, and they cannot take it away. Unfortunately, car companies are really pushing the Lease so they can take the cars out of our hands at the end. I understand that some cars are ONLY a lease, like the smart, and Honda (I am sure there are more). I hope more people buy their cars so that we have more political clout in the future.
 
powersurge said:
I agree that EVs are here to stay... I will always drive an electric car from now on. The good point now is that we are able to BUY the cars, not like when they LEASED the EV1s in the 1990s. That way, we control the technology, and they cannot take it away. Unfortunately, car companies are really pushing the Lease so they can take the cars out of our hands at the end. I understand that some cars are ONLY a lease, like the smart, and Honda (I am sure there are more). I hope more people buy their cars so that we have more political clout in the future.

Leases are popular, however the car companies don't own them and I think you attributing the motive you did is off base. The leasing company may not even be associated with the manufacturer.

The definition of a lease is that the car is taken out of your hands at the end of the lease.
This is part of the reason people lease. In addition, it allows people who wouldn't qualify for the federal rebate to still benifit.
 
No, they are not trying to kill EV's. It is simply the Saudi's putting a revenue crunch on the shale producers here in North America. SA view recent activity as a full out assault on their way of life, and clearly revenue driven. They can afford to put a squeeze on for a couple years. But the price of oil WILL start to rise once the demand returns after running some small producers out of business....that's a 100% guarantee!
 
IowaShocker said:
No, they are not trying to kill EV's. It is simply the Saudi's putting a revenue crunch on the shale producers here in North America. SA view recent activity as a full out assault on their way of life, and clearly revenue driven. They can afford to put a squeeze on for a couple years. But the price of oil WILL start to rise once the demand returns after running some small producers out of business....that's a 100% guarantee!

And the lower price will ignite demand world-wide.
 
powersurge said:
I agree that EVs are here to stay... I will always drive an electric car from now on. The good point now is that we are able to BUY the cars, not like when they LEASED the EV1s in the 1990s. That way, we control the technology, and they cannot take it away. Unfortunately, car companies are really pushing the Lease so they can take the cars out of our hands at the end. I understand that some cars are ONLY a lease, like the smart, and Honda (I am sure there are more). I hope more people buy their cars so that we have more political clout in the future.


Can't speak for others but I own my smart EV. I actually don't know anyone who leases one although I know some in the US have leased the battery.
 
Zythryn said:
powersurge said:
I agree that EVs are here to stay... I will always drive an electric car from now on. The good point now is that we are able to BUY the cars, not like when they LEASED the EV1s in the 1990s. That way, we control the technology, and they cannot take it away. Unfortunately, car companies are really pushing the Lease so they can take the cars out of our hands at the end. I understand that some cars are ONLY a lease, like the smart, and Honda (I am sure there are more). I hope more people buy their cars so that we have more political clout in the future.

Leases are popular, however the car companies don't own them and I think you attributing the motive you did is off base. The leasing company may not even be associated with the manufacturer.

The definition of a lease is that the car is taken out of your hands at the end of the lease.
This is part of the reason people lease. In addition, it allows people who wouldn't qualify for the federal rebate to still benifit.


With the way the federal rebate is applied I think a lease only option makes it easier for dealers to sell the car. No matter who walks through the door when they start looking at it the salesperson can say $7500 comes off the price from the rebate. Not, well lets sit down and talk about it and see what's best for you and if you qualify and when you get your money.....

The smart ED here in Canada where the rebates are different is not lease only so they aren't planning on keeping them all after.

IowaShocker said:
No, they are not trying to kill EV's. It is simply the Saudi's putting a revenue crunch on the shale producers here in North America. SA view recent activity as a full out assault on their way of life, and clearly revenue driven. They can afford to put a squeeze on for a couple years. But the price of oil WILL start to rise once the demand returns after running some small producers out of business....that's a 100% guarantee!

I'm not so sure that's a guarantee.... I think the Saudis will keep the price low until demand drops off enough that a high price won't allow the expensive producers to get back into production. My uneducated guess is sometime after 2025
 
minispeed said:
I think the Saudis will keep the price low until demand drops off enough that a high price won't allow the expensive producers to get back into production. My uneducated guess is sometime after 2025
For that to happen, they'd actually have to run the American producers completely out of business. It will be too easy for them to simply resume the processing of shale oil as the price goes up.

I found this Bloomberg article which actually appears to be stating the opposite. Shale oil is generally not expensive to process anymore, it's resulting in a huge increase in supply, thus driving down costs, and the Saudi's are the ones who are being hurt the most by the falling prices. Interesting.
 
Moof said:
Low sales of a car right before a performance improving refresh? Sure, must be a conspiracy.

The Prius has been through several cycles, and all end with ebbing sales that really tank right before the new model is available. Nothing special here.
And worldwide Prius sales took a dip in the same year of availability as LEAF sales are now, and both for similar reasons: waiting for a big refresh and low gasoline prices.

I am projecting worldwide LEAF sales this year of around 45,000. That would put same-year LEAF sales 60% above the Toyota Prius and cumulative LEAF sales 84% above Prius.

What LEAF needs to match the Prius going forward are three things: a GREAT refresh, resumption of rising gasoline prices and lackluster competition. I expect they will get the first two. As far as competition goes, I doubt the market will leave the LEAF uncontested the way it did the Prius in 2004. Tesla and GM are the likely spoilers for Nissan. We'll have to see what they offer, but those products will not likely take the entire market from Nissan, only some of it.
 
I think that we are entering a conversation about oil. Maybe we need to start a topic about the reason we are all getting the Leaf... For me it's the idea of "Peak Oil", and the devastating ecological effect that most people don't even address regarding the "Tar Sands" method of getting oil. For me we should not be using Tar Sand petroleum (at any price) because it destroys the environment irrevocably, and also shows us that we have run out of "easy to get" oil... Wake up world! (we EV people are cool).
 
powersurge said:
I am a long time follower of technology and remember how in the 1990s, the Chevrolet EV1 was "killed", as seen in the great documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?" This should be standard viewing for anyone on this forum. I just saw a thread about low sales of Leafs have been in October, 2015.

Are the Petroleum and Car companies trying to "kill the electric car" again? Could the ridiculously low prices in the past year hovering at about $2/gal be a way to take the air out of the sails (sales- ha ha) of the electric car? I think it really must have hurt Tesla and all EV related industries... ??
I wish the electric cars did get that much attention, but as others have stated, it is world economics. Oil producing companies know that if they flood the market, prices drop. That's great at the pump when gas is cheap, but it comes at a cost. Mainly, jobs; because when oil is cheap worldwide, there is no reason to spend millions to drill for more. That puts people out of work and eventually creates a shortage which then rebounds gas prices up again.

Oil companies and the like look at the long forecast, if they sell gas for $2 / gallon one year, they can sell for $3 / gallon for 2 years and still come out ahead with the only issue being less profits, instead of more, but still profits. While cheap gas in the US is great, it cost a lot of US jobs to get it, so it's really a net-loss game in the end. Fracking is becoming big in the US, despite the environmental damage it causes. Natural gas is a great energy source; I just wish it was better used.
 
Back
Top