Are electrical cars a sign of wealth. Why these are not the ideal customers
How Kelley Blue Book executive analyst Rebecca Lindland believes people with money are not the ideal consumers
Though electrical cars has failed to really garner significant traction within the global market for automobiles it is making some headway in another market, luxury.
According to Kelley Blue Book executive analyst Rebecca Lindland, this is the only market at the moment that is showing significant signs of peoples wants shifting towards the electric cars. This can be seen in the increased production from Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes Benz, the three companies who hold over eighty-five percent of luxury electrical car market.
Though most people would see this as a possible sign that the global automobile market will follow suit Rebecca disagrees on this logic. Rebecca does not see this as a positive change in fact her all around opinion of this trend is negative.
“We are incentivizing all the wrong people: early adopters that risk orientated and have money”
In other words Rebecca believes that the current incentives target the rich who already have money. This unfortunately is a minority of the global automobile market, and if electric cars stay in this niche market there will never be any significant changes to electric cars.
Yet price is not a reason for why electric cars is a luxury dominated market. By Rebecca’s calculations some of these electric cars are not outrageously priced. For example some Tesla models only cost $29,000– $30,000. This is right around where most cars that run on fossil fuels sit, and for others significantly cheaper.
The solution in Rebecca’s eyes is to completely change the incentives to encourage more people such as the middle and lower class to invest in electric cars. Rebecca believes these changes must start from state and federal subsidy program are structured. At the moment these programs offer seventy five hundred dollars in tax credit but only for the first 200,000 buyers. For most that would not be a reason to move away from traditional cars which most people still believe are superior to electric powered. If this happens she believes that people who make more humble annual incomes will be encouraged to purchase electric cars and the overall demand for these kind of vehicles will increase. More buyers equates to more production and that raises overall interest of such vehicles. If people are interested in looking into the features of these types of cars they might realize investing in an electric car could be an more financially stable decision.
