The distance road in the beginnings
The Think costs 35,000 euros, one of the few electric cars currently on sale; for about 10,000 euros you can buy any car of the same level with combustion engine. The difference is very big, so it is considered essential to cover electric cars to encourage people to make the leap to electric cars.
However, to reduce prices, production must be higher and auto companies must check that demand is high enough for electric cars to start producing in series. The market of electric cars is wrapped in a terrible wheel.
Public institutions are the best candidate to break the wheel. This is clear for both car vendors and for researchers and manufacturers. In fact, about 17% of automotive sales are bought to supply fleets of public entities or large corporations. Thus, "taking advantage of government subsidies, they could start buying electric cars," according to Mikel Uribe of Mondragón Automoci.
Uribe believes that the implementation of electric car rental systems in large cities could be a "good opportunity." They would be like existing bicycle rental systems in several cities to further promote urban mobility and, incidentally, encourage the trade in electric cars.
Standing Parado
The solution already exists, now it is necessary to shoot with gun output. "At the moment we have not received any request to buy electric cars," explains Mercedes Mondelo, Elizasu car vendor in Astigarraga. In it you can find the electric Think car, along with other bicycles, motorcycles and electric buses. "People come to see, they like, but they don't go beyond, I see the humble society," he said.
Given the stoppage of the sale, the intention of the Movele project promoted by the Spanish government is "very difficult": It wants to market 2,000 electric cars by the end of 2010. Uribe, however, does not share this view. In his opinion, the quantity will be "very short". "In fact, the Movele2 project is already being prepared, since the first quarter of 2010 will end the money planned for the purchase of electric cars," he explains. Any natural person or public or private entity may request the subsidy.
However, Uribe also sees that citizens will cost more than public institutions to start buying electric cars. He does not believe, however, that it is a matter of apathy, but of necessity: "I think that at this moment who has to buy a new car will not start thinking about the electric car, he is thinking about the subsidies that are in force because he will buy the car at two thousand euros cheaper".
Igor Cantero, of Cegasa, believes that people are "accustomed to the characteristics of cars with combustion engine". In addition to the price, Cantero's statement refers to the autonomy of the cars, the time of filling the deposit and the infrastructure that allows filling the deposit. "With electric cars we can't wait, we won't have it," he says.
For those who have two cars
All these reservations and reticences of the users are well known by the car companies and, however, if not all, the vast majority has promised that in 2012 they will have on sale one or another car model that works with electric motor. For whom?
In Uribe's opinion, "families with two cars are potential buyers." In families with two cars, often one of them is a small car for the city, as the goal would be to be electric. In fact, it is intended to promote the use of electric cars in cities and various administrations offer bonuses to users of electric cars: they do not have to pay OTA, they have permission to circulate through the bus lane, discounts have been made on some taxes such as VAT or the vehicle circulation, etc.
"I think the electric car is going to enter little by little and from a given moment the climb is going to be much more evident," says Cantero. This has happened when other new technologies have been incorporated into the automotive sector, such as the arrival of hybrid cars. Last year more than 400,000 units of Toyota Prius were sold in the world, a car that has been on the market for nine years and whose sales have been much lower.
Taking into account that the electric car market will be launched in 2012, no one can think that the battery technology can be too late when it becomes capable of producing in large quantities, for which experts have indicated that it will take two or three years.
Researchers and manufacturers who work with batteries are not concerned. In fact, batteries of high capacity and low price will not be necessary from the beginning. "We have to be prepared for the moment when the electric car market gains strength," says Igor Cantero, "when everyone wants to buy an electric car."
For Cantero, the European directives will have much to say in this last step: "When the emission limits of carbon dioxide are more sharpened, they must necessarily induce citizens to buy electric cars, since from a given moment they will not be able to reduce the level of discharge of the cars with combustion engine what the norms demand".
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