Electric car sales predicted to be slow this decade

By Chris Anderson-Peters | May 17th, 2010

A study by Deloitte Consulting suggests electric cars will only make up 2-5 percent of the US market by 2020.

Mitsubishi Electric Car

This survey comes after Nissan forecast electric vehicles would make 10 per cent of the market by 2020.

The Deloitte survey based the results on high cost batteries, production and the limited performance of electric cars.

Deloitte does expect the cost of batteries for electric vehicles will be slashed by 40 per cent by 2014 from the current $1000 per kilowatt battery on offer.

Nissan is already addressing the issue, cutting the battery costs from US$472 to $370 per kilowatt on their first electric car, the Nissan LEAF.

The consulting firm said it expected that advanced batteries to power electric cars would cost near $600 per kilowatt in 2014. That would be down from near $1,000 per kilowatt today.

The survey also found that people would prefer to buy an electric car from Toyota (17 percent) as opposed to a Ford (12 percent).

Nissan LEAF

Nissan came in ninth on the survey with 4 per cent, a bit of concern considering the LEAF has been an expensive project for the company.

Toyota tops the list due to its trustworthy Prius brand which arguably kick started the entire Hybrid/Electric vehicle race around the world.

Despite the Toyota Prius being a hybrid and not a full-electric vehicle, the survey suggests people had faith in Toyota producing a better electric vehicle than competitors Ford and Nissan.

Australia will soon see the Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car in showrooms followed by the Nissan LEAF in 2012.

Source: Deloitte Consulting

Shak

I think this firm may be a bit too close to the cardigan brand.

Andrew M

I dont really think this survey is biased.

If the question was who do you trust to make a performance car, the results would be flipped with toyota rock bottom, and Ford/Nissan toward the top.

Its just consumers associating brands with a certain image, and then assuming that image is their only bread.

I also doubt electric cars will have a hold of the market inside another 10 years.
At the end of the day the peoples dollars will speak loudest, and electric cars, even with suggested production cost decreases, will still be an expensive alternative

Shak

How do you know its not biased? It could be like one of those AC Nielsen polls were they only survey 1000 people and then say ‘all’ Australians think that way. Unless you know know every facet of a survey, you can assume bias is present in some way.

Andrew M

I agree that Im not one for betting the house on survey results, but I myself would assume the results to be a fairly good representation of consumers thoughts for the simple reasons I outlined earlier.

Of Course more people would accept a Toyota electric vehicle over a Nissan or Ford. Im not saying Toyotas example of an electric vehicle would or would not be better than Fords or Nissans, just that consumers tend to rest towards brand familiarity.

Heck, I doubt many people even know that Ford and Nissan make electric vehicles whereas Toyota has pushed their versions at us for some time. Its only natural for people to assume a familiar make (like Toyota) would be more acceptable

Camry lover

Consumers also tend to gravitate towards Toyota models due to their more elegant styling.
Andrew M

ha ha ha,
comedy central has kicked off again

Nick K

Untill electric cars have a range of around 400kms and can fast charge in 10 minutes… Forget it.
svd

Mitsubishi should be at the forefront of electric vehicle technology since I think it is the only vehicle manufacturer which has an electric division which produces industrial and consumer electrical goods.
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