Universal adoption is in the implementation phase. The debate is over. One can pine about the motivation but the course is set.
As for primary electric, we are in a transition phase. It take only a look at BOm to see what is behind the push towards that.by manufacturer.
Thread is PHEV.... so that is off subject.
Total adoption is on the way, regardless of leve a plug is a nice add.
Doesn’t matter. If they don’t sell, they’re next to useless. The customer determines the future. You either satisfy the customer or you go out of business. If you think that less than 4% of the new car buying public is going to convince the other 96%, you go ahead and bet your money on that prediction. I find it amusing that everyone just assumes that legislation driven product is going to change buying habits.
Question to the electric drive faithful - what are you going to do when all these paradigm shifting disruptor models sit unsold on dealer lots?
Continue to manufacture them citing the same old “right around the corner” canard?
Write new laws forcing people to buy them?
Punish the manufacturers for not selling enough of them?
Try to entice customers to buy them with taxpayer funded incentives?
You may notice all but one of the above has been done and still failed only to produce a little over 3% of new car sales in the US and even less in Europe.
Those are not opinions, but historical, empirical fact and truth.
This thread was started to address the author’s “no doubt” statement and the scope of the claim. Hybrid electrification would not exist outside of the fuel economy mandates punishing manufacturers for . . . what their customers are buying. Electric primary drive vehicles are failing to match the predicted sales uptake and you can only stop/start so much and buy so many credits from Tesla to avoid exorbitant federal charges.
The car buying public is not pushing electric hybridization. Punitive legislation is. The market demand simply does not exist, at least nowhere near enough to justify the R&D capital expenditures.
Eventually, people will figure it out and the legislative directives pressing this direction will return to normalcy. The big variable is how much financial damage will be done before the powers that be come to that realization.
Outside of a few (very few, extreme minority few) members on automotive forums, I am seeing absolutely zero interest in these developments. No one I know has expressed any interest or is delaying any purchase waiting for more advanced electrification. Granted, I only have about 6,000 or so social media contacts . . .
These things will sit on lots, production will cease, and little will change. They’ll offer incentives to get rid of them, which will work to clear off aging inventory, but demand will not sustain production. Auto makers will end up paying even more fines, but at least they will be able to say, “Look, we tried everything, but they don’t sell. You have to stop punishing us for what our customers choose to buy.” And they’ll be right.
Valiant effort, but it was a no win scenario at the onset. Lesson learned. Listen to your customers.