| In a recent study presented at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) workshop on California’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate, U.C. Berkeley Professor Dr. Kenneth Train found that average consumers would demand that a battery-powered EV be approximately $28,000 less expensive than a comparable internal-combustion vehicle before they would agree to own and drive it.
“Since the average retail transaction price of an internal-combustion Toyota RAV4 is about $21,000, this would mean that in order to meet California’s EV mandate, Toyota would have to give the average consumer a free RAV4-EV plus a check for approximately $7,000,” said Dr. Train. “This would be necessary to offset the shortcomings, such as limited range, that are characteristic of EVs.”
Conducted by Dr. Train and National Economic Research Associates, an internationally recognized economic consulting firm, the study also concluded that the mass market is not ready to accept EVs as general use vehicles. Customers place a large negative valuation on EVs for reasons other than their price, performance, and operating costs. The negative valuation is still significantly strong even when consumers are informed about the potential positive effect of EVs on California air quality.
The study, which examined the potential market for electric vehicles and polled an unusually large sample of more than 1,000 California vehicle owners, was commissioned by Toyota and General Motors. |
