Demand For Electric Or Autonomous Cars In Doubt Despite Huge Investments-AlixPartners

Nobody will buy an electric vehicle unless it's loaded with government subsidies and the computer driven car is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. And yet car makers are spending kerzillions of dollars to provide these vehicles, mainly on the basis that even though they are not sure if anyone will buy one, they can't risk being blindsided one day by a Silicon Valley upstart making something in his basement. I've still not met anyone who would rather rent a vehicle when he needed it rather than own one, even if it was almost immediately available, and despite the fact we all know it makes no sense to spend all that money on a vehicle that Morgan Stanley says will be used just 4% of the time. I've held these views for some time and felt a bit isolated expressing them, but after reading the latest report from AlixPartners, the global consulting firm, the evidence is mounting that victory for electric cars and autonomous ones is not a foregone conclusion.. "The automotive industry faces the possibility of a monumental capital drain in the near term as hundreds of players, including non-traditional ones, are all pouring unprecedented sums into electric and autonomous vehicles years before those technologies are fully cost-competitive in the market, when consumers are questioning the cost and safety of some of the technologies, and just as the market itself is set to continue a cyclical downturn," AlixPartners said. The AlixPartners study finds that by 2023 a whopping $255 billion will be spent globally developing electric vehicles, and that some 207 electric models are set to hit the market by 2022, many of them destined to be unprofitable due to currently-high systems costs, low volumes and intense competition.