2009 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 1309-1317
Predicting how the electric vehicle market will develop from now on is a very important issue for not only countries that have led the car market such as Japan but also for countries that are going to develop. Then, in order to predict the diffusion of electric vehicles, the diffusion speed and price transition of former cars was analyzed quantitatively, and research which clarifies the prediction method of the diffusion rate of a car was performed. The universal relation about the sale and diffusion of cars became clear by considering a technical element in it. Conventionally, the demand forecast of a new product was carried out after the sale start. Past experience and a specialist's opinion were adopted in part. In a prior study, it was shown clearly that there was great influence by the leading role of engineering development and production and sale of a key device in each product. The relationship means whether the process of technology development and production sales is initiated by the device manufacturer only or through collaboration with the product manufacturer. In this paper, the results could be extended to the auto industry and so the same tendency was observed. Furthermore, the results were applied to predicting diffusion and the price of an electric vehicle, and if the problems, which were the interference of the present diffusion, can be solved, the earliness of diffusion and transition of the price of an electric vehicle could be decided by the development speed of the battery. The problems were both the short mileage from one charge and the more expensive price in comparison a common vehicle. According to the result of consumer electronics apparatus, the case was that 20 % of diffusion will be carried out in about 5 years after sales start, and the prices at that time are 50 % or less compared with a start price.
