Reva announce prices for new car

[Grumpy-b]

Most of the manufacturers are aiming to change the way we view our car ownership. Since the cost with batteries will be too high for most personal buyers.
There will have to be a huge change in the way we buy and use our cars.
Most new cars are not purchased by individuals, despite the hype of the bangers for cash drive by the Government. Most cars are bought by lease finance companies for commercial use. and then we buy the previously enjoyed vehicles two three or four years down the line.
The plug in ev will not be bought by most fleet users as they do high mileage or, are used as car hire vehicles for up to 14,000 miles then sold on.
The price paid initially for these vehicles is also nowhere near the price that is quoted by the dealers. So the gap between ICE vehicles and a Plug in will be even greater in reality.
Most EVs will be either used in towns as commuter cars, or as a second car for local journeys.
The model being pursued by most manufacturers is that of vehicle purchase with battery leasing. Keep the car price low enough for personal purchasers and keep the lease costs low enough to be able to afford. A bit like the buy half now and never buy the second half, just buy a new car that most dealers were doing a couple of years ago.
In the states they have a culture of buying many things on credit, so its not such a change of direction for them. More people buy new cars and fewer company/ lease cars in europe, so it also wont be such a change for them either. The UK is different with its huge coompany car culture, and personal second user approach. This wont change overnight. the company/ lease car business relies on us continuing to buy decent used cars, if not the lease cost goes up, and they dont do the business.

Lots of things will have to change for us in the UK, especially attitude to ownership, if we are ever to move towards a greater use of plug ins.

Younger people dont have such a fear of credit as us older gits do. I readily remember having a mortgage of 15% thats unheard of. If my kids had to suffer that sort of interest on their student loans of £20k I cant imaginge the impact on society. No student would ever work again. They could never afford to pay the interest let alone the loans. But the point is that we now have a generation who are used to using credit , so for them its not such a big leap to leasing your car.

Grumpy-b

[MB]

Here are some pictures and a review of the Reva NXR:

http://gwiz.myfastforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2729

Reva also announced the NXG sportscar which will be available in 2011:

http://gwiz.myfastforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2725

They had enquiries from a couple of Ferrari dealers asking if they could sell these.