[LINK] Standards, please! The third coming of electric vehicles

[Scott Howard]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 10:34 PM, David Boxall <
david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au> wrote:

> <
> http://theconversation.edu.au/standards-please-the-third-coming-of-electric-vehicles-6377
> >
> One interesting comment:
> > A grand total of 47 electric vehicles were sold in Australia in 2011,
> and in the US, they have 0.02% of the market.
>

17,345 electric cars were sold in the US last year. That's a hell of a lot
more than 0.02% of the "market" (depending on exactly what you consider the
"market" to include). Vehicles like the Chevy Volt (~50km electric range,
>500km petrol range) will no doubt increase this number in 2012 as they
remove the main limitation that electric cars have previously had, being a
relatively limited range.

> Hybrid owners in the US, and probably in Australia, almost never buy
> another one, so overall the outlook is not promising.
>

Almost never?

Recent numbers (eg,
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-repeat-hybrid-car-buyers-20120409,0,416214.story)
show the repurchase rate of hybrids at 35%.  Whilst that's certainly a fair
distance away from 100%, it's certainly not "almost never".

  Scott.