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Slow Moving Vehicle
by
Bertel Schmitt
(IC: employee)
Published: May 27th, 2013
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Select EV SalesCompanyVehicleUnitsTime-frameTesla MotorsModel S.4,900 Q1 2013Fisker AutomotiveKarma Source: ABC News[/url]
Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Published May 27th, 2013 9:09 AM
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I am afraid that with natural gas in North America currently selling for the BTU equivalent of $30 per barrel oil, Brent crude at $100 per barrel is, to put it mildly, unsustainable. To maintain market share Saudis have to first try $70 per barrel oil, followed by $50 (or less) per barrel oil. In that environment, EV's will bite the dust.
That's what's funny about EVs... automotive enthusiasts will all say "OMG the Leaf sucks the Tesla rules!!" when the number show the Leaf is selling 10x as much as any other entries. 60k isn't world-beating stuff but it's about the same number of Maximas that are sold annually, hardly nothing. A compact EV makes way, way more sense to me than a $100k luxury EV. Tesla is a cool concept and I hope it succeeds but it's basically just a novelty vehicle and the numbers bear that out. I'm a 30-something dad dealing with car seats, costco trips etc and I would totally consider a Leaf if the pricing and/or tax credits got a bit more competitive.
The chart is meaningless without context. The lousy cars don't sell, just like any product. The Leaf outsold hundreds of other nameplates last year, including the Porsche 911.
In the early 1970's I used to work with a guy named Harry Perry who had recently published the lead (and famous) article in Scientific American that analyzed the prospects for electric cars. He personally explained the whole business to me as he saw it then. The bottom line was that EV's would start to become a practical alternative to the internal combustion engine in the first decade of the 21st century. The little dude was spot on even in his timing. I think 2012 was when one of Harry's curves crossed. That was 40 years ago. EV's have about 4% of the new car market as we speak, which is in line with Harry's 1973 projections. Someday, I really do think EV's will dominate. Harry assumed no breakthroughs in either battery technology or in fossil fuel production. Imo, 'fracking' is a breakthrough in fossil fuel production, and this will delay the dominance of EV's for several more decades. When a long-ago mentor proves to be that accurate after almost half a century, I am impressed almost beyond words. By comparison, I must say that the present day opinions of one or another feather merchant on this topic don't mean shit to me.