Automotive
 |
| Tesla is banking on european waiting lists |
Waiting Lists Edition
With several waiting lists around the world, mounting to several thousand reservations, Tesla has its hands full to satisfy all of them, right now Europe's waiting lists are being delivered, to be followed early next year by Asia and left-hand drive countries, so only in the next Spring on we'll see if Tesla sales isn't just a early adopter thing and can keep growing without the need of reservation lists.
Volvo also had a unexpected success with the Volvo V60 Plug-In, especially in the Netherlands, where in a certain moment it had a thousands waiting list, now being delivered, and now responsible for a surprising #1 spot there. A promising start for the swedish automaker.
Speaking of Netherlands, Mitsubishi has allegedly a 8.000 waiting list in the Low Countries and more than 10.000 reservations of the Outlander Plug-In in Europe, an already enormous number that still has the thousands of japanese reservations left out. Mitsu will need several months to satisfy all these reservations, so it's no surprise that the US landing of the japanese SUV was postponed several months, they just don't produce enough cars to satisfy all this demand.
| BMW i3 "Angry Puppy" look |
BMW - When the bavarian automaker announced the "i" sub-brand, with the advanced carbon fibre platform and two dedicated plug-ins, i feared they would be sold with speculative prices to a selected few, but to my surprise, the prices aren't that high (For a premium plug-in, at least), with the i3 starting at some 40.000$ and the i8 at 135.000$. Too bad that the i3 side profile was ruined...But still, BMW conservative sales goals should be surpassed and next year some 15.000 "i's" might be zooming down the streets, so their profitability should be a slam dunk.
Ford - After the first baby steps (Focus Electric), then came the Energi brothers to put the american learning to walk and now, with the first steps in Europe, it's preparing itself to run along Renault, Toyota or Mitsubishi. Battery costs must be down and it won't be long for an extensive price cut (2014 models?). As for the second generation of batteries, a tip: Make them smaller, so it won't ruin trunk space...
Renault - Two Words for their bad sales moment: Batteries and Rentals. The first bad option was delivering cars without the battery ownership option, cutting off sales, aggravated by the high rental/low mileage ratio. The second bad option has to do with the fact that the french manufacturer concentrated its focus just in Europe, almost completely ignoring the rest of the world, where 3 (USA, Japan and China) out the 4 largest EV markets are...And Renault's presence in ev-friendly scandinavian countries can only be classified as Marginal...
