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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3454 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: It’s time to make the call – fossil fuels are finished. The rest is detail.

I guess we're disagreeing on the definition of "mass market", which is ok. To stick to hard numbers, Tesla sells something like 10,000 cars per quarter (at an operating loss, even at $80k or whatever they are), and the Leaf sells about 4,000 (in the US; I don't know about their global). The Corolla, by comparison (which I consider to be the gold standard of fuel efficient cars), sells more than 80,000 per quarter, while the Cruze sells about 60,000. Sure they're selling, but they're niche at this point.





user-inactivated  ·  3454 days ago  ·  link  ·  

In the world of cars, 10,000 a year is a decent number for a niche model. If you're a small time company like Tesla, that's amazing.

kleinbl00  ·  3454 days ago  ·  link  ·  

C'mon, man, you're better than this.

Google tells me that there were 16 million cars sold last year. Inside EVs tells me that 160,000 of them were electric. That's one percent. Not a lot no matter how you look at it.

But these are durable goods we're talking about. The IRS depreciates cars over a 5 or 6 year period and for our purposes, EVs weren't even available until 2011. Compare and contrast: the first DVD player was introduced in 1996 and didn't match VHS sales until 2002... and DVDs cost $20, not $20k. There were under 20k electric car sales in 2011; in 2014 there were 320k. That's a 100% increase, year over year, every year. Tesla wasn't even a manufacturer five years ago and now you're arguing that because they aren't outselling the Corolla they never will.

If you can walk down to the dealership and see one on the showroom floor, it's mass-market. The difference with electric cars is there's likely to be a waiting list.

b_b  ·  3454 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Again, point well taken. I mainly just want to see the problem of recycling 20,000,000 large batteries addressed. I'm sure it's out there; I've just never come across it.

kleinbl00  ·  3454 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It ain't like we're talking lead acid, yo. all it takes is economics.