According to Bloomberg New Finance, 41,000 electric vehicles sold globally in 2011. Checking my files, of these, roughly 27,000 (66%) were Nissan Leafs (select markets wordwide), and 8,000 (20%) were Chevy Volts. (US only). The Mitsubisi imiev/Citroen C-Zero/Peugeot ion chipped in with another 5,000 units (12%) in Europe and presumably the rest were Mitsubishi sales in Japan.
According to Pike Research, 257,000 electric vehicles will be sold in 2012.
That's a 600% increase. Really?
I hope so, but I just don't see it. My guess remains 100,000 to 150,000 units. Prices - in spite of some reductions - are perceived to be too high, there are still no 'affordable' M1 EVs on the market (the Renault Zoe is launched this Autumn), and the media are schizophrenic in their reporting. US government funding has stalled, many of the startups are going bust, marketing budgets for new launches are being scaled back and it looks to me like we are still a little while away from take off.
When will that be? Perhaps it will be when the price of conventional fuel tips past the psychological price points. Here in the UK that could be £100 to fill up a tank of diesel or petrol (a 10% price rise at the pumps should do it), in the US it probably needs to hit $5 a gallon, so another 25% increase.
I'm optimistic about the EV market, I love the technology, I've spent nearly a decade in the EV industry now, hundreds of hours on this blog tracking and reporting stuff and listening to what the experts say. And besides, we have to get our emissions down somehow, even though we are in tough economic times. It's just going to take a while...
