evnow said:
So, the future of Leaf (and EVs in general) is now somewhat uncertain. Will the low sales and slow change continue even after MY13 is introduced ? What will happen to the large battery factory that Nissan has built ?
Will there be some other breakthrough that actually does what Leaf we thought would do ?
I think as a mass market vehicle, EV's are still another generation or maybe two away. Even with high priced gasoline at $10+ per gallon, I think you'll see wholesale conversions to cheap natural gas before widespread EV adoption. Even hybrids are still a tiny portion of the 75 million cars sold around the world annually.
That doesn't mean that the LEAF can't be successful long term, but I doubt it. I don't see Nissan addressing battery thermal issues with the next generation battery (due 2014/2015), mostly because few people are NOT buying the car for a perception of rapid range reduction; 99% of those not buying today would not buy even if the battery never degraded ever, forever. Even if the car had 150 miles of real range (not made up Nissan BS), those of us in the EV world would probably faint, but the mass audience would barely yawn. Giving away the cars with unsustainable sub $200 leases barely makes a bump in sales.
Neither cheap acquisition or purchase price, double range, or zero technical problems will gain mass appeal today.
The charging infrastructure is decades away from being anything even close to oil stations. There are entire STATES in the USA without any appreciable infrastructure. When there is a single EV dealer in the state of Montana, I'll think there's at least hope.
Besides Nissan and BMW, I do not see much hope for a mass market EV car on the horizon. I think the BMW products will be a high priced niche within a niche, and therefore not widely adopted. Much like the market that BMW has now with oil cars.
Tesla could surprise me with the BlueStar, but I think it will be similar in range/concept/price to the BMW product than the LEAF, and therefore once again, a niche in a niche and not widely adopted. The $50,000 to $100,000 Model S/X are going to be tough to sustain over the next 5-10 years, when like the LEAF, all the excited guys like me have bought one (or two). The normal "rich" guy will just get a BMW, Lexus, Mercedes Benz, Infiniti, et al oil burner for those prices like they do today.
All the California compliance cars, which make up the remaining EV offerings (except real fringes like Coda and neighborhood EV's) could go away in 2 seconds, just like they did in 2003. I'm sure Toyota thought it would be easy to sell 2600 compliance Rav4's, but already they are having problems with less than three months on the market (140 sold so far, with 55 of those going directly to dealers).