2012 Nissan Leaf
Electric vehicles were supposed to be the solution to all of this country's fossil-fuel woes. Proponents promised that EVs would offer zero-emissions transportation and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, and that they could be cheaply refueled anywhere, any time — just plug one in and recharge it wherever there was an outlet to spare.
Unfortunately, it seems that those promises may have been a bit optimistic, premature or both. The truth is that today's electric and plug-in vehicles are expensive, inconvenient to charge and not quite as "green" as initially thought. Consequently, in the highly politicized automotive climate that exists after Detroit's near-collapse and massive, taxpayer-funded bailouts, the very idea of a road-ready electric car has become a political flashpoint, with rhetoric flying hot and heavy on both sides of the issue.
What's more, EVs aren't selling. While the government continues to push EV-based grant and loan money and consumer tax incentives, Chevrolet Volts molder on dealer lots amid production shutdowns due to lack of demand. Nissan Leaf EV sales have failed to hit the modest 10,000 units the automaker hoped to offload in 2011.
So what happened to the "future of the automobile," and, more importantly, can EVs survive in a country that seems not to want them?
Read: Building a Better Electric Vehicle
The Current Landscape
If you pay attention to what manufacturers are touting, the situation hardly seems dire. Of the major auto manufacturers, only Mitsubishi and Nissan offer pure electrics for sale in the United States. General Motors offers the range-extended Volt, and Ford, BMW, MINI, Audi and Honda will soon to put their own EVs on the road. "Concept" EVs abound — everything from Volkswagen's E-Bugster shown at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit to an upscale Infiniti LE sedan concept that bowed at the New York Auto Show. The problem is that real-world sales don't support this optimism.
Through March 2012, Mitsubishi moved 212 units of its i compact EV in four states since deliveries began in December 2011. The Volt and the Leaf both fell short of their modest 10,000-unit sales goals in 2011, with 7,671 and 9,674 models sold, respectively. In the case of the Volt, the sales slump was prominent enough that GM shut down Volt production for five weeks in March and April, and will again for a week in July to deal with bloated inventory.
The Pricing Problem
Electric vehicles aren't cheap. For instance, the Mitsubishi i is a $30,000 car that is smaller than a $13,000 Ford Fiesta and has a range of less than 100 miles. The Nissan Leaf starts at $35,200 and the Chevy Volt at $39,145, while the upcoming Ford Focus EV will sell for just under $40,000 and the Toyota RAV4 EV costs more than $50,000. The federal government offers $7,500 tax credits for these vehicles, and some states also offer incentives, but even so you are still paying Audi A3 or BMW 1-Series money for vehicles with serious inherent limitations.
Read: Toyota Readies RAV4 EV for Production
Automakers, it seems, are pulling a play from the consumer electronics industry and shifting their admittedly significant research and development costs onto early adopters. The problem, of course, is that the product and ownership cycle for, say, an iPad is worlds apart from that of an automobile. New and highly upgraded versions of various gadgets appear nearly every year, while each iteration of a vehicle will survive for several years without the likelihood of a price drop or the promise of a significant improvement in functionality with the next version, as with tech products.
Also, Generation Y, the demographic group that recent studies show drives less, eschews traditional car ownership and is tech-obsessed and highly eco-conscious — that is, the one group perfectly poised to embrace EVs — is priced out of consideration.
