ELECTRIC CARS STALLING

A few weeks ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notified Tesla informing them of plans to study suspected defects in its electric cars manufactured between 2012 and 2019.

The company has been challenged by the negative publicity of three of its lithium-ion battery cars spontaneously bursting into flames last August.

This news comes on top of a petition sent to the safety administration last September by a law firm representing a group of Tesla electric car owners claiming that updates to the cars’ batteries actually reduced the distance a car could run on a charge by about 25 to 30 miles.

A Bloomberg study shows that over 20 percent of the owners of Tesla’s electric cars are frustrated over the long wait for service.

Even after the company added service centers, a third of Tesla’s customers complained of having to wait ten days or more just to get a service appointment. The electric vehicle industry has seen other challenging news this year.

The major British company Dyson cancelled its electric car project last month.

Also last month, Harley-Davidson had to stop all production of fully electric motorcycles as a result of faulty charging equipment.

TREND FORECAST: Monthly sales of electric vehicles worldwide fell by 14 percent so far this year. For the entire year, it is estimated that only three million electric vehicles will be sold worldwide for 2019, which is just 2.58 percent of the 86 million annual auto sales.

As we have continually noted, until a more advanced battery and/or new power generating source is designed/invented, electric vehicles will continue to hold a minor share of the automobile marketplace.