A Cheaper Electric Car By 2009???

CNN writes about a new electric car model from Miles Automotive, they that imported the Happy Messenger from China last year.  The new model XS 500 boasts a 120 mile range and a top speed of 80 mph, with a recharge time of 6 hours, for $30K.  These are impressive specs for a new electric car, especially compared to some of the glorified golf carts that are out there.  The price is certainly competitive with the few alternatives in that performance range.  But is it cheap enough?

Before I comment further I need to go back to the original Happy Messenger.  Take a look at the original specs from the pre-Miles Chinese version.  With those performance specs, at $10K this seemed like the perfect suburban electric commuter car.  But then something happened when Miles got ahold of it -the performance specs plummetted and the price went up.   It became a $15K golf cart.  So I’ve been annoyed with Miles ever since. 

Now the XS 500 restores the performance of the original Happy Messenger, and then some, but triples the original price.  I have a distinct feeling of bait-and-switch, or something like that.  But I suppose that’s water under the bridge.

This article didn’t impress me - the author didn’t do his homework.

Plug the car into a normal wall socket and, according to company literature, six hours later you’ve got a full charge.

While this sounds like the perfect vehicle, serious challenges remain.

Stop right there - a six hour recharge is characteristic of ‘the perfect vehicle?’   Drive 120 miles and then, six hours later, repeat.  Perfect. 

Electric car performance is a tenuous balance of range, sustained speed, and price.  Given that you have to recharge the car overnight, you size the battery based on how far the average commuter drives in a day.  Since the battery is the most expensive single component of the car, if you make the range too high, you drive the price up.  I think that the price-performance point for an electric-only vehicle, given the niche application as a suburban commuter car, is in the neighborhood of: 60-80 mile range, 65-80 mph, decked out the way we are used to - AC, power everything, stereo, etc.   And for that, I think people would pay $18-20K. 

People might pay more, however, for a plug-in hybrid.

The big automakers are also getting in on the electric game with their plug-in hybrids - vehicles that use an electric motor all the time but can recharge with both a plug and a conventional gasoline engine, giving them far greater range.

PHEVs, as I’ve posted many times, are a lot closer to the ‘perfect vehicle.’  Electric-only mode for local driving, hybrid operation for trips with a much longer range.  Upgrade a Prius with a A123/Hymotion PHEV conversion kit and get a proven car with much better gas mileage and improved range, with all the amenities of a Toyota.

The other facet to the all-electric car marketing dilemma is the need for ’real’ car like a minivan or SUV or whatever.  You need something for longer trips, and for when you need a car while recharging the electric.  At $10K, the original Happy Messenger was the perfect electric car for this situation.  The XS500, not so much.

On the other hand this lends itself to a novel marketing approach - “The XS 500 will meet 75 percent of your driving needs - if you want to take a trip, just rent a minivan!”  And when people discover just how much of the driving is local, they might start doing just that - eventually.  This is really the only way I could see the electric car being a disruptive technology - something so valuable it changes the fundamental way people think about local and long distance driving.  But they have to overcome the clear consumer preference to own a vehicle big enough to carry all their stuff whenever they want.

For someone who never leaves the city, you might never need the minivan - but you don’t need that kind of performance for a city-only car.  Cheaper alternatives exist for 40 mph cars with shorter ranges optimized for city driving.

Had Miles stuck with the original Happy Messenger price/performance spec, I’d be singin’a different tune. They didn’t, so I’m not.  Give us the cheap all-electric commuter cars, or give us the PHEVs.

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