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Buying An Electric 'Compliance Car'? Think Hard About Servicing First
There are now more than a dozen plug-in electric cars for sale in the U.S., but not all electric cars are created equal.
And a pair of recent articles about service challenges experienced by owners of the Toyota RAV4 EV underscores that buyers should be fully aware of the context in which their electric car is sold.
Only five plug-in cars have sold more than 10,000 units in the U.S. since launch: the Chevrolet Volt, Ford C-Max Energi, Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S, and Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid.
MORE: Electric Cars: Some Are Real, Most Are Only 'Compliance Cars'--We Name Names
The Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid could hit that mark this year, but nine others are low-volume or compliance cars.
Volume matters
What's a "compliance car"? It's a battery-electric vehicle sold only to keep an automaker in compliance with California zero-emission vehicle rules.
Those regulations require the six largest makers selling in the state to deliver a certain number of vehicles with no tailpipe emissions, starting in 2012.
It's important to note that these are actually very nice vehicles; the phrase "compliance car" doesn't indicate that they're substandard in any way--the grounds on which some automakers have objected to the term being used for their specific vehicle.
Specially, compliance cars include the Chevrolet Spark EV, Fiat 500e, Honda Fit EV, and Toyota RAV4 EV--all of them sold only in California and a handful of other "ZEV Rule" states.
(A fifth model, the Ford Focus Electric, is sold nationwide, but only in very low volumes; Ford has been so consistently and publicly negative on its prospects that it may as well be a compliance car.)
Service challenges
Two recent articles published by PlugIn Cars highlight in detail the downsides of buying such a compliance car:
