Electric Cars Totter On To Sales Charts; Will Volt Or Leaf Win?

“would you use your precious dollars to buy a car that died after 100 miles and needed an eight hour recharge, or one which gave you about 200 miles of range after the battery runs out ”

Count the number of electric cars you see on the way to work today, and that will give you a clue as how sales are going. You’re not allowed to include the ones stranded by the side of the road with dead batteries.

Unless you’re in central Paris or London, you are probably in shut-out territory.

According to British newsletter Automotive Industry Data, sales of electric cars in Western Europe totalled only 4,856 in the first three months of 2012 for a market share of 0.15 per cent. This included the Nissan Leaf, and Peugeot and Citroen city cars based on a Mitsubishi  model. There were some sales of the Opel Ampera, the European equivalent of GM’s Chevrolet Volt now being launched across Europe. In France the biggest seller is the Bollore Bluecar, used in a Paris-based car sharing scheme.

Renault of France is launching the Fluence electric sedan, the Kangoo electric van, a smaller battery only Zoe sedan and its Twizy commuter vehicle. Ford has an electric Focus on the launch pad. Toyota’s plug-in hybrid version of the Prius will muddy the waters of definition because it can run just on batteries, but then uses a mixture of gasoline and electricity to power the car when the battery runs dry.

But these are early days for electric cars, and it doesn’t mean that someday they won’t be ubiquitous, and arguments are raging about what is the best way of providing transport that progressively cuts the use of dwindling fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel.

Currently, the two main automotive contenders are the battery-only powered Nissan Leaf, and the Chevrolet Volt, which uses a back-up internal combustion engine to generate electricity when the battery runs out of puff. On the face of it that seems like an unfair contest. After all, given the choice, would you use your precious dollars to buy a car that died after 100 miles and needed an eight hour recharge, or one which gave you about 200 miles of range after the battery runs out after 30 miles, and could be refuelled in five minutes?

Generation Y
There is a fading case for fuel cells, while some experts reckon that not only will car engineering change, but the whole concept of car buying may switch away from ownership, as the so-called Generation Y brings more economical and less egotistical ways to move around the city and highway. Some experts reckon that electrified bikes and scooters will be the transportation of choice, pointing to huge use of these cheap machines now in China.

Governments have decided that some form of electric power will have to take a bigger slice of personal transport. The G8 Group of Industrial Nations has tasked the Paris-based International Energy Agency to plot a course for more use of electricity to power cars which include the target of at least 50 per cent of sales by 2050 for electric only and plug-in electric vehicles. By 2020 global sales should be at least five million electric and plug-in vehicles. Another target is to cut battery costs from the current $500 to $800 per kilowatt-hour down to $300 to $400 per kWh by 2020, if not sooner.

Key assumptions by the IEA in which it seeks to justify electric vehicles includes data on actual car use. It reckons that in the Britain, 97 per cent of trips are less than 50 miles, and 50 per cent less than 6.2 miles. In Europe, 50 per cent of trips are less than 6.2 miles and 80 per cent less than 15.5 miles. In the U.S. , about 60 per cent of vehicles are driven less than 31 miles daily, and 85 per cent are driven less than 62 miles. Governments want to drastically cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions too.

Added flexibility
Even if these figures about car use are right, potential car buyers are still going to want the added flexibility offered by a Chevy Volt, especially in Europe where many families own only one car.

“I’m a big fan of EREVs (Extended Range Electric Vehicles) like the Volt,” said Nicolas Meilhan, analyst with consultancy Frost & Sullivan in Paris.

“The Volt makes more sense because you don’t need any new infrastructure, and you don’t have to worry about the range as you would in a Leaf. Every time the range left in a Leaf goes below 50 kilometers (31 miles) you start to sweat. If you have to sweat 50 per cent of your time, it’s not nice,” Meilhan said.

He sees a great future for the EREV concept.

“The Volt is to EREVs what the Toyota Prius was to hybrids 15 years ago. There is still a lot of room for improvement and optimization. I imagine GM will want to expand this EREV powertrain across its range as Toyota did with various cars and Lexus (its luxury subsidiary),” Meilhan said.

John Voelcker, New York City-based editor of Green Car Reports, begs to differ, saying that the Leaf has big attributes especially in the U.S. where families own more cars than Europeans.

“That (the case against the Leaf) is arguably the case for predominantly single-car households in European countries that want to buy a plug-in car, but it’s not the case in the States. Unlike Europe, the average U.S household has in excess of two cars, and affluent U.S. households, which are the bulk of early Leaf and Volt buyers, have more than three. Sure, a Volt is a much safer solution if you’re limited to a single car, since the U.S. has zero or marginal transit except in a few cities. But single-car households are not the buyers of Leafs and Volts. Instead, for them, the plug-in car replaces a second or third vehicle,”

Voelcker said.

The Leaf has other qualities, according to Voelker

• A Leaf is cheaper than a Volt – $35,200 vs $39,995, and costs less to run – all electric vs some electric plus some gasoline.
• The Leaf is lighter because it has a battery and no engine, making it lighter and more efficient.
• The Leaf is far larger inside than a Volt.

Electric vehicles are a healthy option as well.

Frost & Sullivan’s Meilhan says that electric vehicles will allow cleaner air in cities, now often made deadly by diesel fumes. Europeans have concentrated on using diesels to power cars economically, but have been lax with the health consequences. European Union legislation in 2014 will make diesel engines much cleaner, but hugely expensive.

As cities get bigger and pollution more of a problem electric scooters and bikes will be the vehicle of choice.

“20 million electric bikes and four million electric scooters were sold in China last year. There are a total of 120 million electric bicycles on the road. That is the urban transportation of the future,” he said.

Meilhan reckons that younger buyers will have different needs for transportation and this is likely to force change on car design. The so-called Generation Y, those born between the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s – are more open to the idea of car sharing, like the Bollore project in Paris.

“Owning a car is thought to be very stupid by Generation Y and they are moving from car ownership to renting. The business model of the future is to rent. Today it’s not cool to own a car,” Meilhan said.

Right-on
A recent report from Frost & Sullivan setting out a list of demands likely from Generation Y buyers reads like a right-on wish list, full of worthy hopes which are often toned down when the option costs money. The fact that this group has suffered an unprecedented hit to its financial and employment prospects might account for a lack of enthusiasm for buying cars and luxury goods. A return of the good times might change all that.

Meanwhile, given that Frost & Sullivan estimates Generation Y comprises 75 million people in the U.S. and 100 million in Europe, it’s not surprising car manufacturers want to make sure whether they want Leafs or Volts.

Neil Winton – May 1, 2012