ERG4ALL said:
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"For electric-vehicle sales to grow significantly several things need to happen. Vehicles need to be much lighter, battery technology needs to be cheaper and offer greater performance, urban authorities have to promote zero emission zones, industrial capacity to support the technologies needs to be created, petroleum prices have to rise, renewable energy prices have to fall and consumers have to be re-educated in terms of how they think about personal mobility.
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Neil Winton can be reached at: "
[email protected]"
I want to applaud Neil for sticking his neck out like this for his fellow cronies in the oil industry. This article and ones like it will surely become classic relics of a bygone era in short order and stand to embarrass their authors in perpetuity.
Oh I guess anyone who owns a Leaf at this point will be considered a cool-aid drinking fanatic that can't see anything objectively. Call me what you will, but after just 700 miles on our Leaf and starting to crunch the numbers, it appears to me that this article is wildly biased and fundamentally uninformed. IMHO, economics are going to drive the ICE off the road, driving EV, at least for now, is way less expensive!
I have never really analyzed my driving habits until now, but it's becoming abundantly clear that the vast majority of my driving is remarkably short distances, as has been claimed by many. Even with an L1 charger, if I simply charge the car whenever I can, I'm good to go for most of what my wife and I want to do. Turns out we even have an outlet built in the side of our post light... on a 20 amp switch, it's charging out there right now on L1, from our post lamp!!! We've plugged it in three times today without thinking much about the end and start time of charge or the amount of total capacity, as each trip we did was well within capacity... we simply did what we wanted to do. I agree with Ray in his previous post, simply providing 20 amp plugs at curbs might just be the best way to provide simple, cheap and abundant options for folks as charging while I'm shopping would add up to even more freedom. But it's hardly needed with the capacity already provided by the first round of Leafs (assuming it's a families second car). The most eye popping thing that has me jumping up and down is the realization that I'm spending something like the equivalent of 70 cents a gallon for "gas"!!! And I'm lucky enough to live in an area where, whith a simple call to my utility, I have signed up to have 100% of my electricity generated by Geothermal, Wind, Bio-Gas and solar.
Neil Winton, I don't know what planet you're living on, but surely you've got a horse in the race that you are not telling us about. The Leaf is light enough, the battery technology is doable in terms of cost and performance, the electric grid is already there and ready for relatively simple modifications to make it even more available than gas stations are today, petroleum prices have risen to alarming heights priming consumer demand for an alternative, renewable electric energy prices have fallen to just over 10% above dirty coal, at least her in Washington state, and I for one am getting a fast re-education about how I think about my personal mobility.
I think the timing is perfect for EV right now, a veritable perfect storm of forces could easily cause this technology to take off.
I have to commend Nissan for taking the substantial risk and pioneering this product for the mass market, so far, it appears to be a job well done!
g