July 8, 2009
Electric vehicles, will they be the leader of Environmentally Friendly Car race?
| On July 3rd, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (MMC) revealed their goal for their brand new electric vehicle (EV) i-MiEV: a sales goal of 2,500 cars for general consumers in 2010. MMC originally considered the target of customers for the i-MiEV to be government officials, other public offices or businesses. However, after the official announcement of i-MiEV, MMC had received a large number of inquiries from consumers who were highly interested in the EV. Contrary to what was expected, MMC decided to put more effort into marketing this new car to general consumers due to the high amount of interest from the public. i-MiEV will be available by the end of July 2009. Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. also announced the launch of its Subaru Plug-in STELLA electric vehicle on June 4th, which is equipped with a high-performance lithium-ion battery. Delivery is expected to start in late July with approximately 170 units in total. The two key features of the Subaru Plug-in STELLA electric vehicle are that it can generate speeds of 100km/h at its maximum and can be fully rechargeable in 8 hours with an AC100V household power outlet or 5 hours with an AC200V. After the June 23rd shareholders meeting for Nissan Motor Company, a press conference was held unveiling plans to start manufacturing up to 100,000 electric vehicles per year in their factories in Japan and in the U.S. by 2012. First their Oihama factory in Kanagawa prefecture will start mass-production of 50,000 cars yearly during 2010. Hybrid vehicles like PRIUS of Toyota Motors or INSIGHT by Honda Motor Co. are currently leading the market of environmental cars. Announcements of new EV’s attract more and more consumers because they run on electricity only and there are zero CO2 emissions. As for the i-MiEV, if it is charged during lower priced energy saving times, its mileage is 1 yen per kilometer which is far less expensive than hybrid cars. However, there are some concerns on the popularity of EV. High production costs of car rechargeable batteries make the vehicle price relatively expensive, approximately 3.2 million yen, even after including the subsidy from the Japanese government. Also, it needs specific equipment to charge the car battery at home or when using outside stations. There is no question about the potential market for these vehicles. According to Fuji Keizai Co., Ltd., a Japanese marketing consultation and researching firm, the global market of electric vehicles is expected to expand to annual sales volume of up to 210,000 units by 2015. |
