Oil suffocates cheap electric cars – AUTOMEDIA

The electric car segment is under very serious threat due to the coronavirus, buyer insecurity and very low oil prices, according to analysts at consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. On Monday, the US-based WTI broke the all-time record, hitting negative values: Merchants were paying customers to take it because they no longer had inventory to store it.

WoodMac experts estimate that electric vehicle sales to decline at least 43% this year, instead of the recently expected increase. Therefore, no more than 1.3 million cars will be sold worldwide in 2020.

Low fossil fuel prices, which are likely to persist for a long time, further widen the price gap between conventional and electric vehicles. Plus, most potential buyers of battery-powered cars have never had one before, and this will be their first encounter with the technology. A In times of economic uncertainty, people are not inclined to innovate and they prefer the known solutions, pointed out in their analysis by WoodMac.

The development of the Chinese market after the coronavirus is significant: it contracted 21% in January and 80% in February. But electric model sales suffered even more: a decrease of 54% in January and more than 90% in February.

Observers are finding signs of the same thing in the United States, where intensive pandemic measures began only on March 20. Electric car manufacturers are already required to offer huge discounts on their models: GM, for example, takes $ 10,000 off the price of a Chevrolet Bolt.

Tesla, which for the first time last year managed to meet its preliminary sales plan, expected to deliver more than 500,000 vehicles by 2020. However, the epidemic disrupted production at the Fremont plant, and Nevada’s famous Giga Factory, where batteries are manufactured, operates at a fraction of its capacity. Separately, the company reduced the wages of all its employees, the largest being the chief scissors – 30%.

Photo: Deserves-Benz