Electric vehicle grants scheme backfires as taxpayers subsidise £87,000 sports cars

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/25/green-sports-cars-subsidise-taxpayers

Electric vehicle grants scheme backfires as taxpayers subsidise £87,000 sports cars

Slow roll-out of electric vehicles means pricey Tesla Roadster and Mitsubishi i-Miev will be only two cars eligible for new £5,000 grant

Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 February 2010 17.04 GMT

Subsidising expensive sports cars is not the most obvious way to fight global warming. But soon, anyone with £87,000 will be able to claim a UK taxpayer-funded £5,000 grant to help them buy Tesla's supercharged electric car, the Roadster, in the name of cutting carbon emissions.

The Guardian has learned the Tesla Roadster is one of just two cars that will be available http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/olev/">from the start of a new government grants scheme announced today to encourage the take-up of greener cars. Existing electric cars, such as the G-Wiz – the most popular consumer electric car on UK streets – and the MEGA e-City will not be eligible because they do not go fast enough.

The new plug-in car grant, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/16/green-cars-transport-incentives-emissions">a plan first revealed by the Guardian last April, will offer car-buyers a maximum £5,000 discount on electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen vehicles from 1 January 2011. But the slow roll-out of electric vehicles by car-makers is putting the brakes on ministers' hopes for a rapid electric car revolution in the UK.

Apart from the Tesla Roadster, the only other model that will be on sale in time for the introduction of the grant is the Mitsubishi i-Miev, a four-seater car that will cost a hefty £25,000 before the grant. These two cars will be followed in March 2011 by the heavily hyped Nissan Leaf, a five-seater mass market electric car capable of running 100 miles between charges.

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[customerserviceguy]

1. I'm not really sure that this is a backfire

If we're talking about replacing a gasoline-powered Cooper Mini with an electric Cooper Mini, we're talking about saving less fuel than replacing a gasoline-powered sports car with an electric version. If the goal is to reduce the use of fossil fuels in vehicles, the sports car accomplishes that end.

Besides, most sports car enthusiasts I've known prefer the throaty purr of a gasoline engine anyway, if it takes cash to talk them out of that fetish, so be it. If electric sports cars proliferate, they'll make electric cars 'cool', and more acceptable to the public.

Not a bad outcome.

[Statistical]

2. I think people don't realize what Tesla has done.

Green cars have routinely been mocked in public, on TV, in movies. Small wimpy, boring, the exact opposite of what mainstream wants/desires.

The roadster is changing that. People complain it is for the rich.... Guess what even if it only cost $10,000 they still wouldn't sell anymore. Right now they are capacity constained. They sell every single unit they make months before it is produced.

So selling an EV for less would simply mean less money to imrove the product.

Tesla has a smart business model IMHO
Roadster (2008) = $100,000 ea about 2,000 produced annually
Model S (2011) = $50,000 ea about 10,000 produced annually
"BlueStar (2012) = $25,000 ea about 10K-20K initially and plans to ramp up to 100K annually.

This it he Model S:

More like a Sports Sedan. It "only" does 0 to 60 in 5.9 seconds (vs 3.7 seconds in Roadster).

If Telsa had tried to go right to the BlueStar (codename BTW) they would have failed. They have made mistakes, and learning things along the way. Much easier to recover from mistakes on 2,000 units with high profit margin then on 50,000 units and low profit margin.

[Nederland]

3. Spot on

I'm sick and tired of people complaining about Tesla's business model. If they think they have a better model they should go start their own damn car company and prove it.

[Statistical]

4. Yeah Tesla is actually profirtable which is something most EV projects can't say.

Even if the Bluestar schedule slips by a year that will be bringing the first mass produced EV with li-ion batteries down from $100,000 product to $25,000 in less than 5 years. I can certainly wait a couple years if that is what it takes to bring it to the masses.

EV saves a substantial amount of fuel/energy and provides a 50%+ reduction in CO2 which is a win-win

Gasoline Vehicle:
12,000 miles @ 40mpg = 300 gallons of gasoline @ $4.00 per gallon = $1200 per year = $6000 per 5 years

Electric Vehicle:
12,000 miles @ 0.25 kWh per mile = 3,000 kWh @ $0.10 per kWh = $300 per year = $1,500 per 5 years.

Net savings: $4,500 in fuel costs over 5 years.

CO2 output is roughly 50% (at 40mpg vs 4miles per kWh).

You could improve improve the metrics some by generating your own power (even less CO2) at home with a Bloom fuel cell if they can get residential unit (2KW) out in 5 years.

EV are essential for any meaningful CO2 reduction.