Monday, May 11, 2009

Lithium: Vauxhall Trixx: buy the Car and Lease the Engine - new ideas for fully Electric Town Car. TNR.v, SQM, GOOG, WLC.v, CLQ.v, BYD, CDNX, HUI, XAU

Problem of Entry cost, when the price of the batteries is still very high, is the main constrain for mass market penetration by Electric Cars. New, elegant and well known solution, could help our Next Big Thing to grow fast: while better place is using model close to mobile operators and standard batteries to be changed at better place stations - here idea is that it could be difficult to make Lithium-ion batteries standard without Design compromise - which is the main selling point of any car in triangle Design - Utility- Price. Help could come from the aircraft leasing business: Engines for aircrafts are sold and leased often separately and aircraft itself is leased as well. Next step will be to squeeze government by automakers for subsidies for financing the leasing operations for Electric Cars and, who knows, maybe the same financial giants involved in aircrafts leasing will move into this market one day.




The Trixx was introduced to the world some years ago as a concept car, now AutoExpress UK has confirmed that the 2 + 1 car, that would rival the Toyota iQ, will go into production. In Vauxhall guise, the Trixx will feature the same powertrain that will be housed in the first Ampera.
Due to space constraints and weight saving measures the 1.4-liter engine used to expand the Ampera’s mileage will be ditched for a full blown electric powertrain. This will mean that it will run only 90 miles till the next charge up, as opposed to the Ampera which can go for 300 miles.
The problems being faced with the Trixx at the moment is its cost for production as according to AE, the lithium ion Batteries alone will cost £8000. This will bring up the total price of the car, which can see people being put off by the overall price.
Vauxhall might opt to lease the engines when it does come into production, which would mean you would buy everything apart from the engine which will still be owned by Vauxhall."

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