Who killed the Detroit auto industry? No one - it was suicide.
Lets face it - Automobiles, even the greenest and leafiest of them, cannot solve the core problem for cars – they’re simply too expensive. They are so expensive that millions of potential drivers are looking for alternatives.
Total Light Vehicle Sales YTD August 2009
Net Change:
Average vehicle Price:
Net Drop:
7,050,199
(2,712,702)
$25,000
+/- ($67,817,550,000)
Automakers tried harder to make the problem go away -
With considerable hype and hyperbole the industry has heralded the age of hybrid and plug in electric vehicles, without addressing the fundamental flaws in the traditional automobile industry and their products. Look at all they they have done:
industry
- Received extensive government support
- Renewed their focus on fuel efficiency (again)
- Down-sized, and laid off thousands (again)
- Worked on fuel cell technology
- Put batteries in some cars
Will it work? No. Automakers are solving the wrong problem.
Auto sales are declining because cars are:
- Expensive to buy
- Expensive to fuel
- Expensive to park
- Expensive to insure
- Expensive to the environment
Changing American economic circumstances and a generational shift in demographics are leaving traditional automobiles even further behind. Some of these factors include:
- New young auto buyers who don’t have cash or credit
- Global warming and air quality has everyone looking for a new choice
- Older auto owners with reduced pensions and benefits need to economize
- Walkable communities and denser urban zones need fewer cars or even - no cars
In short - the auto industry cannot control the environment that is killing it.
(Sounds a little like dinosaurs, doesn’t it?)
The need for personal transportation continues
The need and desire of drivers to have personal transportation will not go away or be fully addressed by buses, trains or light rail. No matter how convenient public transport may become, the need for personal vehicles will remain, and simply because the current automakers cannot or have not addressed this need with a recognition of developing constraints does not mean that it cannot be done. The challenge is in making vehicles that are cost effective, stylish and desirable. Auto buyers didn’t go away, and their numbers are only increasing. They are waiting, however, for the industry to offer the vehicle they want. We think that vehicle is the Pedalectric.
Pedalectrics meet the needs of the latest generation of auto buyers
Based on advance bicycle engineering and the adoption of some of the latest aerodynamic design, aircraft metal alloy and carbon composite materials, Pedalectrics take advantage of the most efficient motive power technology, bicycles, as a starting point for a radically efficient vehicle.
Pedalectrics use the latest energy, electronic and communications technologies. Solar recharging, ipod docking, GPS tracking apps for cell phones, black box with video, and dozens of other features can be built into the frame of Pedalectric ULGVs with negligible weight. Electronics that only luxury vehicles carry are standard equipment in Pedalectrics. After all, they only cost a few dollars to make – they should only cost a few dollars to put in your car.
The future in personal transport begins with Ultra Light Ground Vehicles from Pedalectric.
