Just over 1/2 of 1% of anything is a paltry number, unless you are a fact-free Enviro-Mental – in which case it is cause to revel.
These (electric/hybrid) vehicles were 0.65 percent of total North American sales, again a best-ever performance.
If that’s a record – more than a decade and about $6.5 billion-in-government-subsidies-just-since-2008 into the experiment – it may be time to end the experiment.
Does lead Enviro-Mental President Barack Obama think so? Not so much.
Some car manufacturers, however, are reaching this eminently logical conclusion.
Toyota Motor Corp has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands….
“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,” said (Vice Chairman Takeshi) Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota’s development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.
And Toyota has been the dominant leader of the minuscule plug-in market. The Prius electric is the #1 U.S. 2012 seller, and the Camry hybrid is #2.
Anyone else succumbing to “green” car Reality?
Nissan Motor CEO Carlos Ghosn finally admitted the automaker will not meet its sales target for its all-electric Leaf — in another sign of the broad struggle of the electric vehicle industry….
Ghosn…has been far more bullish on EVs than any other major auto executive… (But) company executives have internally spent months debating how to officially abandon the sales target.
What about General Motors (GM) – a.k.a. Government Motors – and its more-than-$3 billion-in-federal-government-subsidies-alone Chevy Volt? You know, GM – the $51 billion part of the $83 billion auto bailout? On which we’re poised to lose more than $42 billion? The GM of which We the Taxpayers still own 26%? That GM.
Has Reality seeped into GM’s plug-in approach? Not so much.
GM after October on pace for less than 25,000 2012 Volt sales
GM Shuts Down Chevy Volt Production…For the Third Time this Year
Reality is speaking. Toyota and Nissan appear be listening.
Government Motors?
Not so much.
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