Car blogs

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor


It sounds like a lot of cars, until you stop and compute.


Pike Research is predicting that global sales of battery-electric and plug-in electric vehicles will grow substantially over the next five years with a total of 3.2 million BEVs and PHEVs sold by 2015 - a compound annual growth rate of 106%.


But annual sales by 2015 will be only a bit above 1 million electric-drive cars and trucks, said Pike Senior analyst Dave Hurst. That's only about 1.5 percent of the anticipated 70 million light vehicles that will be sold around the world that year.


Pike's EV sales forecast comes in a week when EV supporters have been hit by reports that high depreciation will make electric vehicles less economical to own than regular internal combustion vehicles in the first three years and that the impact of the batteries and electricity for EVs will make them less environmentally friendly than some diesels.


The report also comes in the midst of an ongoing global economic slump, something that could have profound impact on consumers' willingness to pay the technology premium that makes most electric-drive vehicles cost more than their conventional counterparts.


Hurst, however, tells us he considered those issue and decided that in the first few years of ECV and PHEV sales they simply won't matter much. 


"Environmental and economic concerns will play a role, but in the first few years we don't see them having a big impact because the newness factor will still be strong enough" to created demand, Hurst said in an interview with Green Car Advisor.
Continue reading...

Tags: China, Plug-ins and Electric, EV Sales Forecast, EVs, PHEVs, Pike Research

---

Automakers Will Have Sold 3.2 Million EVs, PHEVs by 2015 Says Pike Research was originally published by Green Car Advisor. Read the full story by clicking here.