Electric vehicles face many hurdles compared to their conventional, internal-combustion-powered counterparts. Consumers are generally unfamiliar with them plus they have range-related issues, but that’s not all; pricing is also a problem for new-vehicle shoppers.
Navigant Research, a consulting firm based in Boulder, Colo. conducted a survey of more than 1,000 people asking them about electric vehicles. They found that prices higher than $25,000 were a major turnoff for potential buyers.
Additionally, some 71 percent of respondents plan to spend less than 25 grand on their next vehicle. That’s a bitter pill for automakers to swallow as vehicle prices creep upward every year. But what’s even more distressing is that some 43 percent of individuals queried indicated they would not spend more than $20,000 on a new ride. Most electric vehicles cost significantly more than this.
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On the bright side, 67 percent of consumers feel positively about hybrids and 61 percent have favorable opinions about pure-electric vehicles. However, they’re much less familiar with individual nameplates.
The Chevrolet Volt ranked highest with consumers; some 44 percent of those surveyed were “somewhat familiar” with the range-extended electric. But only 6 prevent were “extremely familiar.”
Batteries make up a huge part of an electric vehicle’s price tag, but David Hurst, Navigant’s principal research analyst projects that battery prices will drop by roughly a third come 2020. This could be good news for EVs, but will that be enough to put them within reach of most consumers by the end of the decade?
[Source: Automotive News]
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