Electric Car - Electric Car Industry

The electric car industry currently is suffering just like the
non-electric car industry. All types of electric cars whether they
are fully electric or Hybrids are experiencing slow sales with
some manufacturers in the United States such as Toyota and Honda
saying that the collapse of the world economy has put development
spending back.

The problems in the electric car industry it is hoped will only
be short term and not mirror those of the non-electric car industry
which suffered from regular cycles of poor financial performance,
labour problems including an over priced workforce and lack of
true investment.

Fortunately currently the electric car industry has two areas of
inward investment the first is from private investors who believe
that they can do a better job than the traditional car manufacturers
and they include Richard Branson’s Virgin Electric and Elon Musk
from Google’s Tesla Motors.

To date Tesla Motors have produced a 150 mph sports car that is
completely battery operated and drives like a dream, there are two
problems with it to date, an enormous price tag and a very
disappointing range and Virgin are still working on prototypes.
This all means that the results from private investors are patchy
to say the least and disappointing to be more uncharitable, so
how are the major manufacturers fairing currently?
Most if not all major manufacturers of cars around the world have
a choice of electric cars, usually a hybrid of some kind, a car
that uses one or more forms of fuel to power it and often uses
kinetic energy recovery systems to charge batteries from braking
energy as well as dynamos to charge the batteries.
Hybrid cars from both Toyota and Honda are boxy but for driving
from the suburbs to town and back are just fine, though it has to
be said so is the train, however the technology is in place for the
designs to become much better and the energy efficiency of electric
cars to improve and so the electric car industry today has what
might be best described as promise.

It is this ‘promise’ and the great returns that will flow from
getting the first electric car ‘right’ that drives the electric
car industry, once things like the efficiency of batteries to
store energy improves and less energy, efficiency and electricity
is lost from the inefficient batteries and the enormous weight of
the battery technology today the appeal of electric cars will be
widespread.

In the future if the public do buy into electric cars because they
are better than conventionally powered cars then the rewards from
a popular brand are endless, the Toyota Corolla launched in 1966 has
sold to date 32 million and more models currently a Toyota about
$16,000 and in 1966 it cost about $500 so if Toyota just made an
average of $2000 profit over the 43 years they have been making
the Corolla they would have made $6.4 billion.

So the future for the electric car and the best manufacturer is
very bright and better still the future for the planet when we
are all driving electric cars is good, but there will still be
significant amounts of pollution involved in generating the
electricity needed to power the cars of the future.

ELECTRIC CAR INDUSTRY