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On average, driving is mostly about short trips – to work, to the gym, to the grocery store.
Unfortunately, modern consumers don’t buy cars based on their average needs. They buy for their exceptional needs.
Gasoline has taught them that. For all its faults, gasoline is still an amazing fuel.
While battery makers burn the midnight oil trying to figure out how to reach a specific energy of 450 Wh/kg, gasoline already offers 12,000 Wh/kg.
Even if you account for efficiency differences, the contrast is still enormous.
The simple truth is that electric car manufacturers are still scuffling around, trying to figure out how to make money off small, mainstream EVs.
They need those tax credits because they’re losing cash on every electric car they sell.
Even Tesla, Inc. – which sells big, expensive EVs – is still struggling with the bottom line. Recently released numbers showed
that Tesla lost $330 million in the first quarter of 2017. Those losses were 17% more than the first quarter of last year.
Tesla, Inc. lost $330 million in the first quarter of 2017. (Source: Tesla, Inc.)
No one was ever more forthright about this matter than Sergio Marchionne, the refreshingly honest chief executive
of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Talking about his company’s all-electric Fiat 500e in 2014, he said ,
“I hope you don’t buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000.”
