Bob Lutz may have never thought liking electric cars ten years ago – yet a recent interview and his involvement in VIA Motors, an electric truck manufacturing company, show he also digs Tesla Motors and Fisker (which he wants to help).
The interview, given to CNBC on Friday, outlined Lutz’s appreciation for what Tesla is doing, by saying that “Elon Musk’s Tesla has achieved two out of the three [things]. They are a long way away from mass-market pricing.” Just like Musk, he predicted the battery prices to come down, but also that it will happen 10 years from now.
“When customers can charge a car overnight to travel 400 miles and be in and out of a fast-charge station in 15 or 20 minutes, “at that point, who needs a gasoline engine?” Lutz asked.
On the other hand, Lutz is kinda pessimistic as to whether electric cars will become mainstream in the next 12 years. He said he’d be “surprised” if they reached 10 percent of the total auto market by 2025, which is 7 to 8 million cars.
An other idea that Bob Lutz has debated in the interview is his opinion over the type of customers that currently buy a Tesla. He says nobody buys them to save money, at these prices. “People are buying the car because it’s the cool thing to do” – I don’t agree, nor disagree with this. There can be situations when you really travel a lot and instead of buying an S-class Mercedes or a BMW X6 you’d rather not pay for gasoline but charge for free, and eventually, in 5 to 6 years you’ll get your money back.
Or, as Lutz puts it, trucks are the best way to go electric these days, as they eat a lot of fuel and people use them more to do work rather than for pleasure (thus justifying his belief in VIA Motors).
Fisker, according to Lutz, “launched too soon,” and cut its own branch by not taking the time to improve the qualitative aspects of the car. Well, Lutz is in talks with Fisker to acquire them, and the technology resembles a lot with that in the Chevy Volt, which he was promoting only a few years ago.
