Worldwide LEAF sales compared with Prius (85 months - 108%)

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
You wouldn't have a LEAF or any other production BEV to drive if it weren't for California's ZEV quotas. We both know this, so why does this need to be justified?
I never denied that. Let's remind everyone of the comment that you made to which I responded:
GRA said:
...I feel that the elephant in the room that is missing in the HEV vs. BEV comparison is that AFAIA HEVs never had government quotas for sales.
Frankly, that statement, while *perhaps* true, is incredibly disingenuous. While CA may have only ever had "ZEV" quotas, those quotes were an overreach and they pulled back on them at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. What that meant is that CA allowed manufacturers to meet their ZEV quotas by delivering HEVs instead. In other words, during that period, CARB's ZEV quotas were not actually ZEV quotas, but rather they were de facto HEV quotas.

So it is a real stretch to try to imply that the Prius and the LEAF somehow grew under a different regulatory environment. In fact it was nearly identical.

But of course you already knew that to be the case. And you've never purchased either an HEV or a BEV. Instead you come here every day to tell us why you have eschewed these technologies and try to tell us how poorly BEV sales are doing.
Reg, why did the EV-1exist? Why were the LEAF and Volt available here? Would either of these have occurred without California's quotas? No. And the near-term growth of ZEVs and PHEVs is still driven by quotas (such as China's and California's), and subsidies. We haven't yet reached the point where any of these AFVs can survive on their own, except at the luxury end of the market.

As to HEVs, they weren't viable here until they had a better product (the 2nd Gen. Prius),but what really drove sales was the jump in gas prices about the same time the Gen 2 arrived. Absent that, people would have been buying more pickups and SUVs, just as they are again. So neither tech's sales have been unaffected by major outside influences (and in California, the Prius also benefited from SO HOV stickers).

As to your final statement, I don't "come here every day" to tell people why I have eschewed these techs, but if someone asks or wonders why mainstream users aren't opting for them, I'll give my reasons. You're the one hung up on that. As to how poor BEV sales are, those are facts, no more, no less. I report sales good or bad, and look forward to the time when they are good without any need for quotas or subsidies. As it is, there's a chance that total U.S. PEV sales in 2018 may finally equal or exceed the annual sales of one of the top ten sales marques (not the top three, which are all pickups and sell north of 500k a year), which will be a minor milestone. Hopefully, in the the next five years or so a single PEV marque will be able to reach the top ten all by itself.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
You wouldn't have a LEAF or any other production BEV to drive if it weren't for California's ZEV quotas. We both know this, so why does this need to be justified?
Because it is not clear that is the case. Sure, the world would have been different with no CARB ZEV quotas. Battery technology was being driven by laptops and other uses to get cheaper and better, and this would have happened without electric cars. Electric car conversions would get better, cheaper and more available. Eventually, you would have a company like Tesla ramping up from one or two conversions a year, to hundreds of conversions, then thousands, then a production car. Or an automaker deciding they wanted to be first, and probably at the high end. Sure, the breakout would have been later, but how much later? I don't know, and I doubt if you do. <snip>
Can we agree that it would have been significantly later, and without subsidies as well would likely still not have happened? Would such a start-up have survived without government help and quotas? Even with those, many EV and related start-ups have failed (Do I need to list them), and as the established automakers had no burning desire to move into this area where was the impetus to come from? AC Propulsion, exactly the sort of company doing a few conversions that you're talking about, didn't become Tesla. And Tesla only exists and survived owing to quotas and government loans in its early days.
 
GRA said:
So neither tech's sales have been unaffected by major outside influences...
Tilting at strawmen? No one has claimed that the sales of these two products were unaffected by major outside influences. No one. You imagined that. This thread was created to compare growth rates of these two technologies since the Prius is widely recognized as being very successful.
GRA said:
...(and in California, the Prius also benefited from SO HOV stickers).
Just like the LEAF. hence, my last comment:
RegGuheert said:
So it is a real stretch to try to imply that the Prius and the LEAF somehow grew under a different regulatory environment. In fact it was nearly identical.
Here's a repeat of my recent prediction: Even if the Prius sales surpass those of the LEAF in the upcoming year, overall BEV sales will continue to far outpace overall HEV sales from 13 years prior. This will be true EVEN IF WE DO NOT HAVE A BIG JUMP IN GASOLINE PRICES. But it's not because of any important difference in the regulatory environments, as you are trying to imply. It is because BEVs provide a much more compelling value proposition than HEVs did back then.

Things are heating up rapidly now. Say goodbye to 20%/year exponential growth, at least for the near future. I'm predicting 50% or more for at least the next three years, probably five or more.
 
GRA said:
Can we agree that it would have been significantly later, and without subsidies as well would likely still not have happened?

No. You might try not putting all your conclusions in one statement.

I can agree that it would have been different. Sure, passing n units or n% would have been later, for some values of n. I'm not sure that matters in the longer run. Things would have been different. With no Tesla soaking up market share, mind share and funding, what else changes? Perhaps a lot. Perhaps less.

The key technology driving electric cars is cheaper and more energy dense batteries. This is not the result of subsidies, government help, quotas and such, is mostly the result of laptops and cell phones. Without this technology, electric cars would be where fuel cell cars are, at best. With or without subsidies.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
So neither tech's sales have been unaffected by major outside influences...
Tilting at strawmen? No one has claimed that the sales of these two products were unaffected by major outside influences. No one. You imagined that. This thread was created to compare growth rates of these two technologies since the Prius is widely recognized as being very successful.
It does seem to me that by doing a straight numerical comparison of sales without explicitly taking account of those outside factors (gas prices, quotas, subsidies, perks), when the outside factors (with the exception of Tesla) remain more important to sales than any intrinsic capabilities of the vehicles themselves, that it presents a very skewed view of the intrinsic demand given a level playing field. As it is, if gas prices had remained where they were in say 2008 we would undoubtedly be seeing 2 or 3x current sales of HEVs/PEVs (remember the thread about when we'd see $5/gal. gas?), and I suspect pretty much the only reason people bought PiPs in California was because it was the cheapest way to get an SO HOV sticker.

RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
...(and in California, the Prius also benefited from SO HOV stickers).
Just like the LEAF. hence, my last comment:
RegGuheert said:
So it is a real stretch to try to imply that the Prius and the LEAF somehow grew under a different regulatory environment. In fact it was nearly identical.
Here's a repeat of my recent prediction: Even if the Prius sales surpass those of the LEAF in the upcoming year, overall BEV sales will continue to far outpace overall HEV sales from 13 years prior. This will be true EVEN IF WE DO NOT HAVE A BIG JUMP IN GASOLINE PRICES. But it's not because of any important difference in the regulatory environments, as you are trying to imply. It is because BEVs provide a much more compelling value proposition than HEVs did back then.

Things are heating up rapidly now. Say goodbye to 20%/year exponential growth, at least for the near future. I'm predicting 50% or more for at least the next three years, probably five or more.
And there's the core of our disagreement.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
Can we agree that it would have been significantly later, and without subsidies as well would likely still not have happened?

No. You might try not putting all your conclusions in one statement.

I can agree that it would have been different. Sure, passing n units or n% would have been later, for some values of n. I'm not sure that matters in the longer run. Things would have been different. With no Tesla soaking up market share, mind share and funding, what else changes? Perhaps a lot. Perhaps less.

The key technology driving electric cars is cheaper and more energy dense batteries. This is not the result of subsidies, government help, quotas and such, is mostly the result of laptops and cell phones. Without this technology, electric cars would be where fuel cell cars are, at best. With or without subsidies.
Actually,much of Li-ion battery development has been driven by Govt. research, not to mention funding battery factories (tax breaks etc.), so I don't think your contention is absolute. We might still be using better Li-Co-O2 batteires, with their higher risk of thermal runaway otherwise - that's what was in the Tesla Roadster, after all. 'Absent Tesla' strikes me as the heart of things, because they remain the only company to have produced a car that people desire when the fact of it being a BEV is way down the list of reasons. We can hope that there will be more such cars in the not too distant future.
 
GRA said:
WetEV said:
GRA said:
Can we agree that it would have been significantly later, and without subsidies as well would likely still not have happened?

No. You might try not putting all your conclusions in one statement.

I can agree that it would have been different. Sure, passing n units or n% would have been later, for some values of n. I'm not sure that matters in the longer run. Things would have been different. With no Tesla soaking up market share, mind share and funding, what else changes? Perhaps a lot. Perhaps less.

The key technology driving electric cars is cheaper and more energy dense batteries. This is not the result of subsidies, government help, quotas and such, is mostly the result of laptops and cell phones. Without this technology, electric cars would be where fuel cell cars are, at best. With or without subsidies.
Actually,much of Li-ion battery development has been driven by Govt. research, not to mention funding battery factories (tax breaks etc.), so I don't think your contention is absolute. We might still be using better Li-Co-O2 batteires, with their higher risk of thermal runaway otherwise - that's what was in the Tesla Roadster, after all. 'Absent Tesla' strikes me as the heart of things, because they remain the only company to have produced a car that people desire when the fact of it being a BEV is way down the list of reasons. We can hope that there will be more such cars in the not too distant future.

Sure, battery research and development owes much to government research, staring with at minimum the space program, moving to the energy crisis of the 1970's and on. But the major use that was driving the volume manufacturing was laptops and cell phones. Volume manufacturing is what drives prices down. Falling prices for batteries make BEVs practical.

So what would have happened without the CARB ZEV mandate that produced the EV1?

I don't know, you don't know.

There were already home made conversion cars back in the 1990s. Perhaps Zelectric would have filled the Tesla slot. Perhaps even Plasma Boy. Or from the Chinese, which have started about 50 car companies in recent years. Or even Nissan. Or someone else. Once the technology gets out in the wild, it has the potential of exploding (defined as growing at 20% per year). It might have been much slower to start... Or maybe faster without the polarizing Elon Musk.

There are millions of ways that EVs might have gotten started without the EV1 and/or Tesla. Some of these ways match your opinion. Some do not. We can never know which way would have happened with CARB mandates, or any other action for that matter.


"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."


--Omar Khayyam
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
Actually,much of Li-ion battery development has been driven by Govt. research, not to mention funding battery factories (tax breaks etc.), so I don't think your contention is absolute. We might still be using better Li-Co-O2 batteires, with their higher risk of thermal runaway otherwise - that's what was in the Tesla Roadster, after all. 'Absent Tesla' strikes me as the heart of things, because they remain the only company to have produced a car that people desire when the fact of it being a BEV is way down the list of reasons. We can hope that there will be more such cars in the not too distant future.
Sure, battery research and development owes much to government research, staring with at minimum the space program, moving to the energy crisis of the 1970's and on. But the major use that was driving the volume manufacturing was laptops and cell phones. Volume manufacturing is what drives prices down. Falling prices for batteries make BEVs practical.
Actually, a key patent for the NMC Li-ion technology which is very popular in second-generation BEVs today is owned by 3M:
3M said:
A key 3M patent for lithium ion battery nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode technology has emerged from reexamination at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with all original claims being confirmed as patentable and with no amendments (U.S. Patent 7,078,128). NMC cathode technology is widely used in lithium ion batteries for consumer electronics and electric vehicles. The patented technology enables lithium ion battery makers to design electrodes for specific applications for optimum balance of power, energy, stability and cost.
They funded development work of this technology at Dalhousie University starting in the early 1990s:
3M said:
3M pioneered the development of the unique mixed metal oxide cathode technology in the early 1990s in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Dahn, at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia.

3M has a number of product solutions and a broad-based technology portfolio targeting lithium ion batteries including anode powders, cathode powders and electrolyte additives. For more information on 3M Battery Materials and NMC cathode licensees visit http://www.3M.com/batterymaterials.
I give Dr. Dahn a lot of credit for sticking with his belief in the value of this invention and working for the last couple of decades to eliminate significant drawbacks which faced the technology in its early years. It is turning out to be a very significant enabler for BEV technology. This article at Quartz discusses some of the issues experienced with the early NMC chemistries as originally co-invented at both Dalhousie University and Argonne National Lab.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
WetEV said:
No. You might try not putting all your conclusions in one statement.

I can agree that it would have been different. Sure, passing n units or n% would have been later, for some values of n. I'm not sure that matters in the longer run. Things would have been different. With no Tesla soaking up market share, mind share and funding, what else changes? Perhaps a lot. Perhaps less.

The key technology driving electric cars is cheaper and more energy dense batteries. This is not the result of subsidies, government help, quotas and such, is mostly the result of laptops and cell phones. Without this technology, electric cars would be where fuel cell cars are, at best. With or without subsidies.
Actually,much of Li-ion battery development has been driven by Govt. research, not to mention funding battery factories (tax breaks etc.), so I don't think your contention is absolute. We might still be using better Li-Co-O2 batteires, with their higher risk of thermal runaway otherwise - that's what was in the Tesla Roadster, after all. 'Absent Tesla' strikes me as the heart of things, because they remain the only company to have produced a car that people desire when the fact of it being a BEV is way down the list of reasons. We can hope that there will be more such cars in the not too distant future.
Sure, battery research and development owes much to government research, staring with at minimum the space program, moving to the energy crisis of the 1970's and on. But the major use that was driving the volume manufacturing was laptops and cell phones. Volume manufacturing is what drives prices down. Falling prices for batteries make BEVs practical.

So what would have happened without the CARB ZEV mandate that produced the EV1?

I don't know, you don't know.

There were already home made conversion cars back in the 1990s. Perhaps Zelectric would have filled the Tesla slot. Perhaps even Plasma Boy. Or from the Chinese, which have started about 50 car companies in recent years. Or even Nissan. Or someone else. Once the technology gets out in the wild, it has the potential of exploding (defined as growing at 20% per year). It might have been much slower to start... Or maybe faster without the polarizing Elon Musk.

There are millions of ways that EVs might have gotten started without the EV1 and/or Tesla. Some of these ways match your opinion. Some do not. We can never know which way would have happened with CARB mandates, or any other action for that matter.
There were homemade conversion cars back in the '60s at least (and production BEVs in the 1900s), Big 3 interest in the late '60s and government support for their development back in the '70s as a result of the Oil Embargo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle#1990s:_Revival_of_interest

Suffice it to say that the cars lacked desirability for the mass market, just as has been the case with the first gen. of 21st century production BEVs, even though the latter were much improved over the former. From the '80s on powerful cars and then SUVs started to take hold once oil prices declined, and that held right up until 2004 when prices spiked again. Ever since the first time fossil-fueled ICEs drove BEVs out of the market in the 19-teens, the main driver of interest in and research on BEVs (and AFVs generally) has been high oil prices. You could add concerns about GHGs and air pollution to that, especially now, but for the average person that's distinctly secondary.
 
GRA said:
And before Jeff Dahn or Yi Cui there was Stan Whittingham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_Stanley_Whittingham

and John Goodenough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough

This stuff stretches back into the early '70s, when the first Lithium (primary) battery was commercialized by a division of Exxon.
Neither Whittington nor Goodenough developed NMC technology, so they are irrelevant to your claim that we would somehow be stuck on Lithium Cobalt Oxide technology. The simple fact is that NMC was invented about 25 years ago in a Canadian university under funding from 3M, so, no, we would not be stuck on Lithium Cobalt Oxide today.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
And before Jeff Dahn or Yi Cui there was Stan Whittingham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_Stanley_Whittingham

and John Goodenough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough

This stuff stretches back into the early '70s, when the first Lithium (primary) battery was commercialized by a division of Exxon.
Neither Whittington nor Goodenough developed NMC technology, so they are irrelevant to your claim that we would somehow be stuck on Lithium Cobalt Oxide technology. The simple fact is that NMC was invented about 25 years ago in a Canadian university under funding from 3M, so, no, we would not be stuck on Lithium Cobalt Oxide today.
That wasn't my point, they both 'invented' Li-ion technology, to the extent that anyone can be said to invent something. In actuality, everyone stands on the shoulders of those who've gone before, and most inventions are invented more or less simultaneously by different people, because the enabling tech that makes it possible has arrived, and there's some demand for it. Or sometimes, the demand can be created (i.e. the technology 'push' instead of 'pull' model).
 
GRA said:
RegGuheert said:
The simple fact is that NMC was invented about 25 years ago in a Canadian university under funding from 3M, so, no, we would not be stuck on Lithium Cobalt Oxide today.
That wasn't my point,....
But it is PRECISELY what you SAID that prompted me to point out where NMC came from:
GRA said:
Actually,much of Li-ion battery development has been driven by Govt. research, not to mention funding battery factories (tax breaks etc.), so I don't think your contention is absolute. We might still be using better Li-Co-O2 batteires, with their higher risk of thermal runaway otherwise...
You can try to change the subject, but we can all read what you wrote.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
RegGuheert said:
The simple fact is that NMC was invented about 25 years ago in a Canadian university under funding from 3M, so, no, we would not be stuck on Lithium Cobalt Oxide today.
That wasn't my point,....
But it is PRECISELY what you SAID that prompted me to point out where NMC came from:
GRA said:
Actually,much of Li-ion battery development has been driven by Govt. research, not to mention funding battery factories (tax breaks etc.), so I don't think your contention is absolute. We might still be using better Li-Co-O2 batteires, with their higher risk of thermal runaway otherwise...
You can try to change the subject, but we can all read what you wrote.
Oh, okay, I see where you're coming from. But then who developed Li-Mn-02, or Li-Fe-PO4, or Li-NCA, all of which have been used in place of Li-Co-O2 for BEVs? Who paid for that research, and why?
 
GRA said:
Oh, okay, I see where you're coming from. But then who developed Li-Mn-02, or Li-Fe-PO4, or Li-NCA, all of which have been used in place of Li-Co-O2 for BEVs? Who paid for that research, and why?
It matters not. Those are NOT precursors to NMC, so we would not be stuck with LI-Co-O2.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
Oh, okay, I see where you're coming from. But then who developed Li-Mn-02, or Li-Fe-PO4, or Li-NCA, all of which have been used in place of Li-Co-O2 for BEVs? Who paid for that research, and why?
It matters not. Those are NOT precursors to NMC, so we would not be stuck with LI-Co-O2.
As they are substitutes for Li-Co-02, we're not stuck with it. Whether they were the result of push or pull, I couldn't say, although I suspect it was more the former.
 
GRA said:
WetEV said:
Sure, battery research and development owes much to government research, staring with at minimum the space program, moving to the energy crisis of the 1970's and on. But the major use that was driving the volume manufacturing was laptops and cell phones. Volume manufacturing is what drives prices down. Falling prices for batteries make BEVs practical.

So what would have happened without the CARB ZEV mandate that produced the EV1?

I don't know, you don't know.

There were already home made conversion cars back in the 1990s. Perhaps Zelectric would have filled the Tesla slot. Perhaps even Plasma Boy. Or from the Chinese, which have started about 50 car companies in recent years. Or even Nissan. Or someone else. Once the technology gets out in the wild, it has the potential of exploding (defined as growing at 20% per year). It might have been much slower to start... Or maybe faster without the polarizing Elon Musk.

There are millions of ways that EVs might have gotten started without the EV1 and/or Tesla. Some of these ways match your opinion. Some do not. We can never know which way would have happened with CARB mandates, or any other action for that matter.

There were homemade conversion cars back in the '60s at least (and production BEVs in the 1900s), Big 3 interest in the late '60s and government support for their development back in the '70s as a result of the Oil Embargo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle#1990s:_Revival_of_interest

Ah yes, but the earlier cars were mostly lead acid batteries. Not an ideal technology.

GRA said:
Suffice it to say that the cars lacked desirability for the mass market, just as has been the case with the first gen. of 21st century production BEVs, even though the latter were much improved over the former. From the '80s on powerful cars and then SUVs started to take hold once oil prices declined, and that held right up until 2004 when prices spiked again. Ever since the first time fossil-fueled ICEs drove BEVs out of the market in the 19-teens, the main driver of interest in and research on BEVs (and AFVs generally) has been high oil prices. You could add concerns about GHGs and air pollution to that, especially now, but for the average person that's distinctly secondary.

Only high fuel prices?

Only?

We must know different people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVTIpS5zb4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vTCK9ywBA

Suck Amps!

Love the smell of ozone in the morning!
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
WetEV said:
Sure, battery research and development owes much to government research, staring with at minimum the space program, moving to the energy crisis of the 1970's and on. But the major use that was driving the volume manufacturing was laptops and cell phones. Volume manufacturing is what drives prices down. Falling prices for batteries make BEVs practical.

So what would have happened without the CARB ZEV mandate that produced the EV1?

I don't know, you don't know.

There were already home made conversion cars back in the 1990s. Perhaps Zelectric would have filled the Tesla slot. Perhaps even Plasma Boy. Or from the Chinese, which have started about 50 car companies in recent years. Or even Nissan. Or someone else. Once the technology gets out in the wild, it has the potential of exploding (defined as growing at 20% per year). It might have been much slower to start... Or maybe faster without the polarizing Elon Musk.

There are millions of ways that EVs might have gotten started without the EV1 and/or Tesla. Some of these ways match your opinion. Some do not. We can never know which way would have happened with CARB mandates, or any other action for that matter.

There were homemade conversion cars back in the '60s at least (and production BEVs in the 1900s), Big 3 interest in the late '60s and government support for their development back in the '70s as a result of the Oil Embargo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle#1990s:_Revival_of_interest

Ah yes, but the earlier cars were mostly lead acid batteries. Not an ideal technology.
And NiFE, and NA-S, NiCd, NiMH etc. While Li-ion batteries are better than these, they're not an ideal technology either. An ideal battery tech would last the lifetime of the car with no degradation, weigh next to nothing and take up no space, provide instantaneous 0-60 times, have unlimited range so it never needs recharging, and be free. As none of that's likely, we can only hope for something that can at least equal fossil-fueled ICEs in most areas, while exceeding them in others and falling short in areas that most people don't care about.

WetEV said:
GRA said:
Suffice it to say that the cars lacked desirability for the mass market, just as has been the case with the first gen. of 21st century production BEVs, even though the latter were much improved over the former. From the '80s on powerful cars and then SUVs started to take hold once oil prices declined, and that held right up until 2004 when prices spiked again. Ever since the first time fossil-fueled ICEs drove BEVs out of the market in the 19-teens, the main driver of interest in and research on BEVs (and AFVs generally) has been high oil prices. You could add concerns about GHGs and air pollution to that, especially now, but for the average person that's distinctly secondary.
Only high fuel prices?

Only?

We must know different people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVTIpS5zb4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vTCK9ywBA

Suck Amps!

Love the smell of ozone in the morning!
As I wrote, the MAIN driver of interest in BEVs has been high oil prices. What exactly does drag racing have to do with the general public's interest (more accurately lack of same) in BEVs for their daily transportation? I know that IEVS posts Model S PxxxD vs. whatever drag racing videos whenever they need to fill some space, and that appeals to some people, but what real world significance does that have? Most people aren't driving around in top fuel funny cars, or Formula 1/E cars either.
 
GRA said:
As I wrote, the MAIN driver of interest in BEVs has been high oil prices.

As you assert.... I'd agree that that is the main driver of interest for some people.

Not everyone agrees.


GRA said:
What exactly does drag racing have to do with the general public's interest (more accurately lack of same) in BEVs for their daily transportation?

Some people are different than you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2XiCYA3C9s

Remember that something new often starts with a niche product. Build one that ten people want. Sell those ten people ten more, that a hundred people want. And so on. Starts in a fringe. Each round is better and cheaper and "more mainstream". You seem to think that the low end, caring only about cost, is the only place of interest.

Tesla didn't start at the low end. Almost no one buys a Tesla to save money on gasoline. Even if gasoline hit $10 per gallon.
 
What's with the strawman arguments, Wet EV? "Main" doesn't mean "everybody" in any definition. I agree that numerically, low fuel and ownership costs are the "majority" (if you prefer that word) driver of EV sales. And I was in a drag racing team (pit crew) when I was 13 years old...
 
Back
Top