The Expert Podcast

Electric vehicles (EVs) – it's all we hear about in the auto market is the conversion to electric vehicles. Some states are banning gasoline vehicles, and some states are putting laws in place about how many EVs are allowed to be sold. Manufacturers are going to models where their dealerships are not allowed to sell gasoline vehicles anymore. How is this going to affect what vehicles are available? Well, even though everybody behind the scenes is pushing for electric vehicles, consumers are not so much. According to ARS Technica, Americans are remaining resistant to the lure of EVs.

Well, I don't know what the lure is, but they're being forced because they’re still unaffordable. The lack of cheaper electric vehicles is going to be a problem. One of the cheapest electric vehicles is the Chevrolet Bolt, just shy of thirty thousand dollars. That’s going to be a six hundred-dollar car payment on typical financing – that’s not cheap. And while some people may think they'll save money on gasoline, the cost of your electric bill might be equal to the gasoline, so it may not save you much money in cash.

So while there’s a lot of incentives in the marketplace, consumers aren’t rushing out to buy EVs. If you do a deep dive on the data, it shows that the problem is that a third of the people say they’re willing to spend a maximum of $25,000 or less on a new EV. That takes them out of the market. There are no vehicles that cheap, and that’s going to be a big deal. In fact, only 15 percent say they’ll spend more than $65,000 on an EV because most of the vehicles are over that. And they may be good cars, but if you are limiting your offerings to 15% of the market, you’re not going to sell that many.

Now, will this change over time? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe if you have to buy them, you have no choice. But if 15% of the respondents have a price point that is most of the new EVs, that tells you all you need to know about what’s going to happen with electric vehicle adoption in the short run.

Now maybe incentives will help, maybe less availability of gasoline vehicles will help, maybe other regulatory factors will help. But at the moment, it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be a huge stampede to buying electric vehicles anytime soon. Put your comments below, let us know what you think, and keep an eye on the channel for more electric vehicle data and news so you can keep track of the market.