Lightyear One - from solar racer to commercial product

[All Darc]

Range is not like they said :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH7V2tU3iFc

[Xist]

How much would the Arcimoto cost if they sold 100,000 a year?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

How much would the Arcimoto cost if they sold 100,000 a year?

You mean at what price would there be demand for 100k units per year?

... I also think the product is niche, so once people that want one have them, the initial demand shrinks to a trickle.

[Hersbird]

Originally Posted by All Darc

Range is not like they said :

That Kia is impressive at the lowest price.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

You mean at what price would there be demand for 100k units per year?

I've never studied marketing, so apologies if this is something basic that all marketing majors know anyway. But, isn't there an inherent demand for something that would dictate the maximum number that a company could expect to sell? Say only 50,000 people in the US want something like an Arcimoto (three-wheeled EV with unenclosed body). Finding the relationship between price and demand such that the company could theoretically sell 100,000 of them when only 50,000 potential customers even want one would be moot, wouldn't it?

Same for the unnamed, future Lightyear model--they say they want to sell 100,000/year at $55,000. Okay. How many people even want a $55,000, solar-powered car that makes compromises such as no infotainment system, looks significantly different than a conventional car, and costs signifcantly more to repair in the event of body damage to achieve its efficiency goals? On some level, you have to play to your customers' expectations.

To the posters frustrated that Ecomodders are looking critically at this car: appreciating the Lightyear One for what it is, and the engineering and development it represents, is one thing; criticizing its potential for market success, especially at the level the company expects, is quite another. We can do both. If this thing was cheap enough, I'm sure most of us here would drive one in a heartbeat. But we're a small, tiny minority of drivers, and in no way typical.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Vman455

I've never studied marketing, so apologies if this is something basic that all marketing majors know anyway. But, isn't there an inherent demand for something that would dictate the maximum number that a company could expect to sell? Say only 50,000 people in the US want something like an Arcimoto (three-wheeled EV with unenclosed body). Finding the relationship between price and demand such that the company could theoretically sell 100,000 of them when only 50,000 potential customers even want one would be moot, wouldn't it?

I barely graduated HS, so my economics knowledge comes from a class I took my senior year and whatever I learn on my own...

What you say makes sense, though not precisely how you put it. If the Arcimoto was free, there would be way more than 50k customers, so price always plays a factor in demand. There might even be people somewhere that wouldn't take a free one, but would if you paid them. Then there's probably a few that would be willing to pay $50,000 for one.

What price would it have to be to sell 50k units in the first year? I'd think it would have to be pretty low considering that most people aren't willing to drive a small trike, with no heating/AC, with limited storage...

It's a very fun car, but I probably wouldn't entertain owning one unless it got down to $5k or so. I can buy a used Nissan leaf for that price, and it has most of the utility and safety of a conventional car.

[Xist]

So, you are waiting for a used Arcimoto market?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

So, you are waiting for a used Arcimoto market?

You know me well.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

What you say makes sense, though not precisely how you put it. If the Arcimoto was free, there would be way more than 50k customers, so price always plays a factor in demand. There might even be people somewhere that wouldn't take a free one, but would if you paid them. Then there's probably a few that would be willing to pay $50,000 for one.

Yeah, taking the argument ad absurdum, you could find some linear relationship between price and customer volume that would (theoretically) extend into the company paying its customers to take the product. But in the real world I don't think that works. Even further down in your post--rather than spend $5,000 on a used Arcimoto, you would spend $5,000 on a Leaf because of the differences in utility, comfort, safety, etc.

But going back to the Lightyear--that's all well and good for the company to say it wants to sell 100,000 of them per year at $55,000, but does that market even exist? And if the price is lowered to, say, $35,000, could they expect to sell 200,000/year or would there only be 100,000 people each year who actually want one at any price, and the other 100,000 theoretical customers are buying SUVs anyway?

All this is just conjecture on my part anyway; I'm sure the Lightyear people have done at least some market research. But I still wonder how accurate those numbers are; after all, Fisker expected to sell a lot of cars too and we all saw how that went. Or for a more extreme example, Elio.

[redpoint5]

The Model 3, the best selling plug-in in the US sold 160k units last year. The runner up, Prius Prime, sold 24k units. Perhaps there's more demand globally for the Lightyear, but I don't see them taking Tesla's milk shake with a more expensive, slower car. I wish them well, even if I don't expect them to do well.



"The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product."