Concept cars are starting to make their way away from the car show showrooms and into the sales dealership departments across America. That means two things have to happen: a major government, such as China’s, will have to require greatly increased EV sales; or gas prices will have to rise to the Moon, well past the $4-a-gallon level they hit in the US after the financial crisis, before the oil market tanked last year.
The analogy doesn’t hold up for EVs, however, because we already know that there’s massive market for personal mobility: 18 million in annual sales in the US, 20 million in China, and so on. EVs simply change the propulsion proposition. In sales, that is. According to Motoring Life, Kia’s sales in the Western European market rose nearly 40{c0ab263b3175d981033b17d6eec654a369e659a5af23b80a9510e95dedf16ccb} in 2005.
Meanwhile, we’re in the midst of a deluge of new EV concepts, from Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW …