A Tale of Two Sales

BMW announced the other day it is cancelling production of the i3 – its first and so far only electric car.

The reason is pretty straightforward. They’re not selling well.

Correction: They’re not selling well here.

About 350-400 of them per month for the year so far – which works out to about seven or eight cars in each state per month. Which is probably why you haven’t seen an i3 yet.

And now you may never see one.

But in Europe, it’s a different story. BMW has sold lots of i3s over there. About 2,300 of them each month so far this year – which works out to five or six times as many there vs. here.

Why the disparity? Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $15.00 (as of 12:45 UTC - Details)

Probably because Americans are still free to not buy the i3 – while Europeans are increasingly not free to buy anything else. Or more accurately put, anything that isn’t an electric car – as a practical matter – because they’re being incrementally prohibited from driving other kinds of cars in various places, such as downtown areas.

Paris, for example, will soon be a combustion-engine-free-zone.

It’s hard to commute when you’re not allowed to drive.

European car buyers also know these IC verboten areas will almost certainly be expanded (cue that Swedish child of the corn Greta Thunberg screeching about her lost childhood) to the point that owning anything other than an electric car will be to own a useless car.

These IC bans serve the purpose of artificially Harrison Bergeroning (i.e., crippling) non-electric cars, in order to make people more accepting of naturally Harrison Bergeron’d electric cars – which are crippled by their limited ranges and ridiculously long recharge times.

If kneecapping non-electric cars doesn’t equalize the playing field, then they’ll simply be banned outright.  Several European countries have passed laws or are in the process of passing laws that will forbid the sale of cars that aren’t electric within the not-so-distant future.

Norway says by 2025 – which is just five years from now. The UK and Germany are also threatening sales bans that would go into effect by 2030.

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