ZAP annonced a one-month record sales in August at $737,000, which nearly doubles their sales form August of 2007.
In contrast, conventional auto industry sales for the US fell 15.5% compared with August of last year but rose 10% from July, the worst month in 16 years, Autodata Corp. reported to the Associated Press. Ford reported August sales were down 26.5% from August 2007. GM said its August sales were down 20%. Chrysler LLC said its U.S. sales fell more than 34% last month.
Great trend! At the end of the day, though, I'm sure that the raw numbers in terms of EV vs. conventional sedan sales are utterly incomparable. I still have hope that more standard hybrid (for peace of mind in terms of running out of electric charge while driving) vehicles will continue to pave the way -- especially the Volt!!!
Edited by lola - Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:42:40 GMT
Oh sure, ZAP and the other EV makers are miniscule compared to the sizes of the major auotmakers. It's just good to see more people moving toward EVs and fewer toward gas guzzlers.
Yeah, that's definitely a good trend to be seeing. Let's just hope it continues!
Hopefully come 2010, some of the new (slightly more affordable) highway speed EVs will be hitting the ground and will get some good market demand. I think in terms of mass adoption, the Volt and the Miles highway speed EV have a leg up. I do like the Triac and the Aptera a lot but I wonder how people will react to the very different look (although who knows...we could see the same thing happen with those as we did the Prius, i.e. lots of folks opted for the Prius because it was distinctly a hybrid as compared to the Camry hybrid).
It will also be interesting to see how the ZAP Alias does, because ZAP has developed a pretty extensive network of dealerships across the country and just began building the manufacturing plant in Kentucky which will have the capability of producing 300 vehicles per day. But the Alias is a pretty unique design and will only seat 2. But then again it will also be relatively affordable at around $32.5k, and be able to say it was made in the USA.
