US electric car market full of spark - Yahoo! Finance UK In a mostly positive article about EV and PHEV sales, I was drawn to the following paragraphs: All told, electric passenger cars currently cost $5,000 to $6,000 more to their owners than an equivalent fossil fuel car over the vehicle's lifetime, according to a new study by the Paris-based International Transport Forum. "The current generation of electric cars represents a significant improvement over previous ones. Nonetheless, electric vehicles remain more expensive than their fossil-fueled equivalents and may need government assistance to trigger wide-spread uptake," the study said. At first I thought they were just talking about the maintenance costs, but then I figured out that they were talking about the overall cost of ownership. Then I thought that another way of describing the overall costs is to say that, taking into account the current $7,500 tax credit for most fully electric vehicles, the overall costs of an electric car are now $1,500 - $2,500 less than an equivalent fossil fuel car. How's that for a glass is half full attitude?
Fell free to cherry pick your own out of context quotes to fit your own agenda. ELECTRIC VEHICLES REVISITED – COSTS, SUBSIDIES AND PROSPECTS AN ILLUSTRATION WITH MODELS MARKETED IN FRANCE http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/DiscussionPapers/DP201203.pdf "Summary This paper compares the lifetime costs of like internal combustion and battery electric vehicle pairs on the market in France and finds that relative costs of electric vehicles remain elevated for consumers and even more so for society under current conditions and typical use scenarios. It also suggests that in those cases where electric vehicles do already compare favourably to internal combustion engine powered cars, subsidies may be superfluous. In the future, a number of simultaneous changes in battery electric vehicles (BEV) and ICE technology, fiscal regimes and prevailing energy prices might reduce and even eradicate the consumer cost differential in favour of ICEs." "In this paper, we use Prud’homme’s framework and supplement it with up-to-date information relating to market prices and vehicle performance characteristics for three electric vehicles offered for sale in France by Renault." "Because of the small set of vehicle pairs and the fact that they represent only one manufacturer, we caution the reader that the results of our analysis should be taken as an indicative snapshot of the relative costs of BEVs vs. ICEs at this point in time (e.g. at the first stages of what is hoped to mass commercialisation)." Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles: Made for Each Other? http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/DiscussionPapers/DP201202.pdf "Summary Recent technological advances in electricity distribution and load management that make use of information and communications technologies, referred to as “smart grids”, promise to facilitate the integration of EVs into electricity load and to lower costs. Smart-grid technology can enable EV-charging (grid-to-vehicle, or G2V) load to be shifted to off-peak periods, thereby flattening the daily load curve and significantly reducing both generation and network investment needs. Advanced metering equipment is an essential component, enabling a two-way flow of information and providing customers and utilities with real-time data and enabling customers to schedule charging intelligently." Legit papers in my opinion.
Make that 6,000 euro, the msrp. difference between the BEV with leased battery and a diesel model with option package not given. Life cycle costing was over 15 yrs. The following quote is not from the actual study but from a "Policy Brief" http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/PolicyBriefs/PDFs/2012-06-14.pdf "The current generation of electric cars represents a significant improvement over previous ones. Nonetheless, electric vehicles remain more expensive than their fossil-fueled equivalents and may need government assistance to trigger wide-spread uptake," the study said." The rest of the statement was not quoted. "In line with strategic decarbonisation goals, governments have provided research and development funding and, in many cases, direct and sometimes substantial purchase subsidies. One reason is the belief that the shift to a low-carbon transport is inevitable but that an early (and assisted) shift to electro-mobility will reduce the overall burden on society." What the study says. "If manufacturers are correct in believing that they have incorporated lessons from the past and are offering a relatively mature technology to a targeted and potentially receptive market then the current generation of electric cars may surpass the limited market success of previous electric car generations. The analysis of a few limited cases that we have undertaken in this paper, however, would seem to indicate that the cost barriers for consumers are still important and that uptake of the EVs we have examined will largely, but not exclusively, be conditioned by the availability of government subsidies."
...I am thinking this might be same OECD report we discussed here in this thread ( I will check later) Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News (see OECD report)
