I do not see a single relevant spec where the Prius prevails. I do see a (IMHO mostly irrational) plaque stating that the A2 is "subcompact", which in some mysterious way is supposed to mean the Prius can be sold for more money.
The Prius does 0-60 mph in 10 seconds(compared to the 13 seconds of the Audi A2), has more passenger space than the A2(beating it out in rear leg room, head room, shoulder room), has more trunk space than the A2(Prius has 16.1 ft^3 versus A2 at 13.8 ft^3), gets about the same fuel economy as the A2(Prius at 67.3 mpg imperial while gas A2 gets 56 mpg imperial! The 3L diesel does much better at 93 mpg imp but was very limited production), and the Prius has a slightly higher price tag(Nevermind the ridiculous dealership markups on the A2, often pushing them past the £16k region).
Guess which one consumers are more likely to buy given the choice? Go with car A that gets about the same fuel efficiency as, better acceleration than, more room than, and about the same price as car B, or go with car B?
The A2 was aimed at a market for fuel efficient cars but priced in the territory of luxury and performance cars. While it is an excellent product(I'd love to have one), from the standpoint of a typical consumer, there were 'superior'(as in roomier, faster, bigger) products available that gave similar fuel economy for a similar price.
There is a reason that the VW Lupo faired better than the A2. Lower cost, similar performance and fuel economy to the A2. For what it was, the A2 was overpriced.
However, people gracefully bought Mercedes' A class, which has a similar price tag and is really subcompact (if this word means anything at all).
Yeah. 0-60 mph in 10 seconds, same passenger and cargo room as the A2, and the Mercedes name. Naturally, snobs wealthy enough to drop £14k+ on a car are going to go for snob appeal, performance, and room moreso than fuel economy. People who go for fuel economy usually don't have that kind of money to dump on a car.
Further, the A class sold so many total units worldwide because it was also available in Japan, Australia, South America, Mexico, and Canada. The A-class had about 3 times the potential number of buyers as the A2. Lo and behold, it sold 5 times as many units as the Europe-only Audi A2, which makes a lot of sense when you factor in performance and appeal on top of market range.
The A2 could have foregone all the expensive technology, kept the low drag shape, the small profile, used a larger engine for more performance, and aimed down market like the VW Lupo, and it could have been marketed on a larger scale. It probably would have fared much better while getting roughly the same fuel economy. Observe the Skoda Fabia Elegance Tdi and Peugeot 206 GLX HDI. Both cost ~25% less than the A2, achieved better acceleration performance than the A2, and only got about 10 mpg less according to EU government fuel economy statistics(although the limited production 3L version absolutely killed all of them on fuel economy). These cars didn't share the A2's fate.
I do not understand this logic. Do you assume that for some reason the percentage in market penetration would have been higher in Asia?
No not percentage. I'm saying that more cars would have been sold altogether if the market for the A2 wouldn't have been confined to Europe only.
The following sounds like you're convinced that one could build much better cars much cheaper. This might be true, but (I think) is a little beside the point.
It's not a matter of conviction but a matter of history. It's been done. The Viking Research Institute at Western Washington University has built 70+ mpg 0-60 mph in 5 second supercars back in the 1970s. Auto Industry wouldn't touch them, even though that level of performance was top tier at the time and there certainly would have been demand on that basis alone. In the 1990s, the U.S. government funded the PNGV program, and from that, the big 3 developed 70+ mpg midsize cars with little cost penalty to(in volume), similar styling cues/appearance to, and the same performance as the midsize cars that were on the market at the time. There are individuals who have done non appearance altering aerodynamic modifications to their cars that have improved fuel economy over 20% by that alone, and more could be achieved if they had access to a wind tunnel and a way to create a whole new car body from scratch to make subtle changes to it.
The fact that the auto companies could build much better cars is not beside the point, it is the point. The consumers want everything in the same package for a low price, the auto industry could still do it and make a profit, BUT this strategy doesn't maximize profits and therefore the auto industry flat out refuses. If they did make these cars, they'd go and charge $35k for these cars when the consumers want them for $20k(and a profit could still be made at $20k), and then the auto makers say there's no market when the consumers don't want to pay $35k for them.
How strongly? I would off-handedly guess that most maintenance comes from leakages, rust, soft/hardware failures, mechanical stuff like gear shifting and the like, and very few maintenance events are directly related to the amount of horse power needed. (At least this is my experience with driving a lot in older cars and witnessing people's troubles with newer cars.)
Strongly enough to impact powertrain and transmission maintenance costs more than $.01/mile. When you use less horsepower to maintain a speed, you're needing less torque than you otherwise would, and are thus putting less stress on parts. Decreasing by ½ the amount of torque a transmission routinely sees can mean a lifespan more than 2 times greater for that transmission. Any harmonic effects at cruise would have decreased amplitude and thus less wear is made. This reduced amplitude of harmonics also positively impacts pistons, cranks, valves, belts, ect. These vibrations literally chip and crack these parts, and when you're demanding less power, that stress is reduced.
This is also why people who drive the hell out of their cars end up needing to do more repairs.
Then no conspiration of any sort is needed to explain the absence of low-drag cars.
Perhaps not, but what if it is present anyway?
Living in the heart of Europe, I have a choice from car makers from over twenty countries. Was there governmental over-regulation in all of those countries? (I honestly do not know.)
Maybe, but there is with certainty plenty of regulation in Europe. Try getting a custom EV on the road where you live. I know many people have tried, and the vast majority have failed. Too much red tape and even outright refusal. Further, those car makers from over 20 countries are pretty much owned by a small group of different automakers who control what these companies produce.
Volkswagen owns Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Seat.
Renault owns Nissan.
BMW owns Mini, Rolls-Royce.
Daimler/Chrysler owns Dodge, Hyundai(which owns Kia), Jeep, Maybach, Mercedes, and Smart.
Fiat owns Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lancia, Maserati.
Ford owns Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury, and Volvo.
General Motors owns Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Subaru, Suzuki, and Vauxhaul.
Toyota owns Daihatsu.
Then you have Peugeot(which owns Citroen), Honda, and Mitsubishi.
When it really comes down to it, worldwide, about 10 different companies are making almost all of the world's automobiles.
There is a mere appearance of competition and a small variance between marques, but nothing really stands out(unless you have $100,000+ to pay for it).
These same companies all have the same goal: maximize profit. They all lobby for legislation to stall competition from small automakers and prevent them from gaining a foothold, and none of these large companies are enthusiastic about leapfrogging fuel efficiency or offering EVs for sale.
Only one of these large car makers is even considering EVs for mass market, and that's Mitsubishi, and they will do it only in Japan and if and only if the Japanese government subsidizes the EVs to make up for the lower profit margins on each one sold.
Fit whatever explanation you think will fit, but consider that the technology is there, there is demand, it can be affordable. Using Occam's razor, I came to my conclusion after throwing out all those explanations that are false...
I am always suspicious about monolithic world-views. If GM canned the electric car, why should VW, say, not jump in, just to spit in GM's eye? The car makers are fighting (at least in Europe) pretty badly for market shares, and it would seem patently absurd to me if they gathered to agree conspiratively upon not to enter a new, promising market niche.
If VW does that, and markets EVs with lower profit margins, eventually they make less money because people start buying them instead of gas powered cars. Charge $35-40k for that $20k EV to make up for the loss in aftermarket parts and services, and now people won't buy it. Charge $20k, and people buy it, you still get a $3-5k profit margin, but that's down from the $15k profit margin you'd otherwise have from a gasoline car combined with its profit from parts and services. People might first flock to VW and total gross profit would initially be high in a few years, but the other automakers would either start building EVs or go bankrupt, and if they do build EVs, eventually now everyone is stuck building the lower profit margin EVs and some semblance of competition returns. Corporations naturally like to avoid competition.
EVs are a pandoras box of low profit. That is why the majors aren't enthusiastic but all sorts of small, unentrenched companies like Tesla and AC Propulsion are doing all they can to take an opportunity to get them to market. Unfortunately, there's so many regulations lobbied into place by the majors that the small companies will never have the money for the mass production needed to get prices competitive. Tesla built a $100,000 exotic because they no know one is going to pay $100,000 for a family sedan. Volume is everything.
While there might be bilateral agreement between some car manufacturers and some oil companies, the other manufacturers simply did not take much care. VW built 200 Citystromer once, then (I was told) basically lost interest because they could not get richer with EVs than with ICEs.
Could not get richer. That's been my point all along. But they could strill pull a profit on them, if they tried.
All the automakers are looking out for the interests of the shareholders. The consumers don't mean near as much anymore, and with lack of meaningful competition, the consumers are corralled right where the oligopoly wants them.
The only study with this name I could find uses survey data from 2000; is this the one you mean? In this case, it is stated that the respondents were explained a lot about cost and maintenance before being asked a question. While this is not immoral, it is generally frowned upon in survey studies; mostly because everyone knows that answers to such "prepared" questions might not be reliable (ask him in a week, without "preparation", he will tell you something completely different). This is because you can convince (in short terms) an undecided person very easily, but this conviction will usually not hold out for long, particularly since it is not "stress-tested".
I do not say that there would not be a good market niche for EVs,
No less accurate or any different than the market surveys the major automakers use. The market for SUVs in the US was virtually created by such methods along with prolific ad campaigns, when one previously didn't exist.
I just point out that any market analyst would label this results as not too reliable (95% confidence is not helping here
95% confidence interval is usually considered a point of scientific consensus. This is a very basic concept learned in a Probability and Statistics course.
Basically, there was a 95% chance that the immediate market for EVs with ranges of 80 miles per charge, comparable price to gas cars, and capability to reach highway speeds was 12-18% of California's new car sales. 12% of California's new car sales is 150,000 cars per year.
Nevermind the waiting lists of thousands of people wanting to buy electric cars(automakers refused to sell, would only lease) when there were no meaningful advertising campaigns. It spread almost entirely by word of mouth and yet thousands of people had lined up wanting to buy. And this was just in one US state at about 10 or so dealerships.
Dealerships even dissuaded people from leasing them by flat out refusing to talk about the cars and refusing to lease cars sitting on the lot to willing customers.
Those who could lease them were put through a rigorous background check that basically eliminated 95% of potential leesees who otherwise wanted the cars.
Then the auto industry claims that they only leased a few thousand electric cars, when they only made a few thousand and every last one was leased or sold.
Would Hummers or Corvettes have sold if they were never advertised, couldn't be bought, had potential customers harassed when they inquired about the cars, and deliberately restricted supply to a few thousand when demand was much higher still?
Well, I'd love to buy such a thing, where can I sign?
You can't. The large automakers refuse to do it; the small automakers know it's possible but they don't have the resources for mass production to get cost per unit down. Non recurring engineering costs for an automobile, no matter what it is run on, are huge. $200+ million to develop a mass market car that meets strict government regulations, and the crash testing alone can top $40 million. The small companies willing to produce EVs don't have that kind of cash nor any feasible way to accumulate it in a short period of time, and without it, they are stuck hand building their cars which makes them comparable in price to Ferraris and Lamborghinis, no matter how powerful the car and no matter what the battery pack is. If you hand build a 0-60 in 4 second, 250 mile range Li Ion Tesla Roadster and hand build a 0-60 mph in 10 second, 80 mile range lead acid EV, they'll still cost about the same due to per unit labor costs.
Considering the severity of peak oil, any rational person would immediately note that profits should NOT be the key concern in automobile manufacturing and that leapfrogging the technology, while not as profitable as status quo, can still turn a profit. Another solution is needed. Either deregulate the smaller companies so that some semblance of competition can return to the auto industry, and if that's not enacted, MANDATE that consumers have available EVs. Either way will get the job done, and the major automakers would not like either method one bit. The auto industry wants(and mostly has) a 'free market' where shareholders have all the say and consumers, employees, and people affected by the business decisions have little or no say. This is not a free market, it's a rigged market. Either make the market free, or make the regulations fair.
The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson
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