Pikes Research keeps interest in EV Scooters

I see a lot of fuzzy math lately with the MIC numbers and Pikes research. MIC sales for scooters up 50% ( yes over 2010 which was terrible ) now that I examine the North American numbers this research seems a little on the low side. I'm not saying it can't happen ( the industry and yours truly is pushing for it,) but that the numbers don't add up. Scooters are already the 1% of the Motorcycle Industry, electric scooters will see faster growth than gasoline ones. So I think the numbers are backwards they should be closer to the 100k piece range for the USA for one simple reason.

Chinese manufacturers will dump them in large numbers and they don't belong to the MIC. Also subsidies and incentives are likely to make Ebikes and EV Scooters the next hot import for the US market with more dealers selling the next $1,000 EV Scooter rather than the $10,000 Vectrix or Brammo.

Thoughts?

Over at Gas 2.0 http://gas2.org/
According to analysts at the Pikes Research facility, the North American market will grow to more than 41,000 electric motorcycles and nearly 28,000 electric scooters by 2017.

In other parts of the world, scooter and motorcycle markets benefit from government incentives and high (relative to US) gas prices that contribute to sales already, but cities worldwide are facing urban transportation difficulties due to population growth and rising fuel costs, which have led the Pikes team to predict significant e-bike growth in markets outside of the US, as well.

• Western Europe: 109,945 e-motorcycles, 91,625 e-scooters
• Pacific Asia: 2.7 mil e-motorcycles, 13.5 mil e-scooters
• China: 2.2 mil e-motorcycles, 19.5 mil e-scooters

Growth like this would boost the overall electric 2-wheeler market from its present size (approx. 17 million units in 2011) to an estimated (again, by Pikes Research) 138 million units by 2017.

Senior analyst Dave Hurst writes that increasing population density will become a challenge for transportation systems and that e-motorcycles and scooters have a strong appeal to consumers and governments, alike. “They are relatively low cost to own,” explains Hurst. “They do not take a lot of space, and are easy to maintain, therefore making them attractive for city dwellers. Governments also like these vehicles because they can utilize existing transportation and electricity infrastructure without the congestion problems and emissions impacts of conventional automobiles.”