A man looks into a Nissan Leaf electric car that is plugged into a charging station at the Seward Park Co-op apartments on the Lower East Side of Manhattan May 6, 2011 in New York. Connect by Hertz unveiled its first rental electric car and charging station in New York City where customers can rent this car by the hour.
"Is the world ready for electric cars? Are electric cars ready for the world? At least one prominent Canadian automotive consultant thinks the answer to both questions is no and he’s pretty passionate about why.
Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, says that in trying to see through the electric vehicle hype, he has looked at the track record of the closest comparable vehicle — the gas-electric hybrids.
“In those 11 years, Canadians bought 18 million vehicles, and 58,000 hybrids, which, in my mind, is almost nil,” he says.
DesRosiers considers himself fairly plugged in to what buyers are thinking and he believes he understands why hybrids have gained such little traction. He says it comes down to the four main decisions consumers make — consciously and subconsciously — about buying a vehicle:
1. Size and type: pickup, sedan, two-door, etc. “Hybrids have been pretty limited, so if you can’t get the type of vehicle you want in a hybrid, hybrids aren’t even on your list.”
2. Performance: “People say they want a car with a certain get-up-and-go. Quite frankly, many hybrids are underpowered.”
3. Features: From navigation to leather to heated seats, DesRosiers says many hybrids, particularly the less expensive models that could be more popular, “aren’t very well appointed.”
4. Price: Hybrids often cost considerably more than competing gasoline-only models. “And, now, consumers are saying, ‘Wait a second, I have to compromise on size, I have to compromise on performance, I have to compromise on my features ... and pay more?’”
DesRosiers plugs all that consumer preference data into his brain and looks ahead to electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt and he says he is not overly optimistic.
“You relate all that back to plug-in electrics and you have to make a serious compromise on size and type of vehicle and they’re going to be very limited. You have to make very serious compromises on the performance variables and God help you if you want to turn on your radio or your air conditioning or your heat. And, then, hang on to your hat, you have to pay upward of $15,000 to $20,000 more for this product relative to a product that gives you what you want. Do you realize how much fuel you can buy for $15,000?”
Of course, none of this is to say that DesRosiers is writing off electric cars forever. New technology and solutions to his objections are inevitable — and today’s electric cars, bought by the so-called early adopters, will provide sound technological building blocks for cars of the future.
As for automakers, General Motors, which is bringing out the Volt in seven Canadian markets this year and Canada-wide in 2012, doesn’t dispute DesRosiers’ logic.
Jason Easton, corporate communications manager for GM Canada, says that, while the Volt may not take the market by storm, “It’s hard to say what’s going to happen in five to 10 years, and we certainly intend to make the Volt a mainstream consumer product.”
Em: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/ ... story.html