Prius-like: Can there be only one Leaf?
Early adopters only?
10 percent electric by 2020?
Unlike most upcoming EV producers, Nissan is quickly developing the manufacturing capabilities to sell as many as 500,000 EVs per year, about as many hybrid cars as Toyota produces today – more than 10 years after the launch of its first hybrid, the Prius. Consequently, by as early as 2020, Nissan believes electric cars could account for up to 10 percent of auto sales – one of the more aggressive forecasts in the auto industry – with Nissan largely leading the way.
While other forecasts suggest such EV sales numbers will take a bit longer to achieve, 10 percent EV some time around 2020, or at least before 2030, is a pretty common forecast. Similarly, such forecasts also indicate that hybrids could achieve 25 percent market penetration.
Thus, can Nissan focus solely on EVs at the expense of hybrids?
Perhaps Nissan believes that it can dominate EV sales early much that same way that Toyota dominates hybrid sales. For example, today, Toyota sells the far majority of hybrids sold in the world. Is this Nissan’s plan, to sell more than 50 percent of all the EVs sold in the world by 2020?
Is the best chance for EV success, in terms of manufacturing, acquiring as many early adopters as possible before the competition is fully developed? Hence, as with today’s hybrid market, can there be only one key EV until costs can be significantly reduced? Is this Nissan’s vision?
In contrast, by 2020, Toyota believes their fleet could be as much as 30 percent hybrid. Can Nissan completely ignore this rather significant market without dominating a majority of EV sales? Otherwise, wouldn’t their battery-powered portfolio be unbalanced?
Perhaps Nissan will quickly roll out a much more aggressive hybrid plan, but that does not seem to be Nissan’s intention. Instead, Nissan seems hell bent on dominating the EV space, which begs the question, in the next decade or two, is there room for only one Leaf, much as there has only been room for one Prius?
