Lightweight Electric/Hybrid Vehicle Design

Introduction xix
culture which would also help to pare the substantial overhead costs that are passed onto the
customer in traditional auto-manufacture.
0.2.6 DIFFERENT CULTURE FROM THE PRIVATE I.C.E. CAR
The different performance package offered to the public by the EV involves disadvantages, such
as comparatively low range and carrying capacity, which need to be offset in the customer’s mind
by advantages such as low maintenance, noise and vibration, creating the need for a different form
of marketing and distribution from that of the conventional private car. The lower volume production
rates also involve a quite different set of component and system suppliers, for servicing a specialist
manufacture of this nature. The need for a charging infrastructure different from petrol stations
also serves to distinguish EVs as a separate culture. Purchase price will be higher and resale price
probably lower due to obsolescence in the face of advancing technology. The notion of periodically
billing the customer for an ongoing personal mobility is likely to be preferable to just selling a car.
The customer is thus spared the hassle of bargaining with dealers, obtaining finance, insurance
and registration as well as the bother of refuelling and making arrangements for periodic servicing.
Periodic servicing is likely to be extended to 50 000 mile intervals for EVs, and systems for
refurbishing high mileage vehicles with updated technology systems might well be ‘on the cards’.
The interlinking of mobility providers by horizontal networks would obviously benefit the customer
as he/she travels from one area to another, possibly using different transport modes. The provider
might be a sort of cross between travel agent and customer liaison officer of a motoring organization,
but principally the leaser of the EV, Fig. 0.3.
The need to perceive the EV as a function-specific addition to the family vehicle fleet is also
important so that a town car for the school-run, shopping or commuting can complement the
conventional car’s use for weekend and holiday outings of longer distance. The local mobility
provider will need PR skills to be regularly contactable by clients, but will not need the high cost
service station premises of the conventional car dealer. In manufacturing the EV a different
perception of OEM, from that of the conventional car assembler, is also apparent, because it is
likely to be a company much smaller in size than that of its key specialist system suppliers who
will probably serve many other industries as well. The OEM would become systems integrator for
Fig. 0.3 Local government is the provider in the
French city of La Rochelle where electric cars such as
this Peugeot 106 are made available to its citizens.