On 22 Jan 2013 at 9:40, Martin WINLOW wrote: > IMO there is only one principle reason why EVs (and I mean electric vehicles, > not PIHs or anything else with an ICE in it) are not selling as I would hope > (or their manufacturers might have expected) and that is the price of oil.
This does affect EV sales. (It also affects membership in the EVDL, btw.) Another substantial EV sales driver would be significant >inconvenience< in purchasing liquid fuel. The following is not intended to be a political statement, merely a supportable and documented statement of fact, so please don't jump on me for it. The largest growth in purchasing power worldwide has been, and for the foreseeable future will be, among the most wealthy. In the middle class, purchasing power is largely stagnant, and in the poor it's declining. The one area of the US economy which has shown robust growth since 2008 is products aimed at the wealthy. So, growth-oriented manufacturers and advertisers are, and will be, targeting the moneyed class. The wealthy aren't much affected by trasportation fuel prices, which are a tiny percentage of their budgets. However, they tend to be (or think they are ;-) busy people. My perception, admittedly anecdotal, is that they detest inconvenience. Back in the 1970s, stockbrokers and CEOs paid college kids to sit in their cars in the filling station lines. If in future the same folks have to wait in line at a filling station, or put up with rationing or quasi-rationing such as the alternate-day schemes used in the 1970s, they might do some of that again. They'll also be heading for the EV showrooms. Whether by design or no, I can't say; but with their high-end EVs, Tesla is probably ideally positioned to take advantage of this phenomenon. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
