EAGERBEAVER said:
I am a retired automotive engineer and a very happy Leaf owner, who encourages everyone to drive electric for personal financial and national economic reasons and for public health and security reasons. My primary interest is in working with other early adopters to find and utilize the best means for persuading the general public to drive electric on clean electricity, whenever practicable and have written and widely circulate a report on the benefits. I seek ideas for and assistance in achieving this goal from all early adopters. Together we can make this world a better place for ourselves and future generations. You may obtain this paper and contribute ideas for moving this ball down the field by e-mailing me:
[email protected]. Walt
I think if an individual cares enough about those reasons to drive an electric vehicle he/she needs little more than the support of public charging (if needed for their drive) to get them into an ev.
For me, the push to finally buy was the instalation of a quick charge near my work (45miles 1 way) and several new 240v 24hr on the way home. I have tried to get the property owner where I work to instal a 240v charger and it probably won't happen any time soon.
For the rest of the people who are not looking, or don't even know about ev's you can never tell them they should because of those reasons, with the exception of "personal financial".
As Henry Ford said if you asked the people what they wanted they would have said faster horses. What people want now is a car that gets better fuel economy but doesn't give up anything else. The only way to get those people into EV's is to show them how it is a better car, and truth be told I think the only way we would get a large percentage of the population to drive EV is through PHEV. People are not willing to give up unlimited range.
If the government mandated that every vehicle must go at least 11 miles 0 emissions on all of the epa cycles (chose it because it's the lowest current, ie PIP) it would do a lot more collectively than the current incentives to get people into full BEV. Because each car would have a much smaller battery it wold be easier to supply. If you took the money out of incentives to buy and put it into incentives for employers to build charging for their employees you would in theory double that 11 miles of 0 emissions. The government should also mandate that all new homes/condos be offered with charging pre wired within 15ft of the parking area and all new parking lots over a certain size have a minimum percentage of charging spots (a much higher percentage for paid lots, and if you pay for parking the charge is free).
However the big change will come from commercial vehicles. A semi gets 6mpg now on diesel, and almost everything you buy (unless you shop directly at the airport/rail yard/marina) will have fuel cost built into the price of the goods.
I find it odd that Toyota and Honda are backing hydrogen, I think the real support for hydrogen will come from commercial trucks and once that is in place it will be the ideal fuel for a PHEV with the majority of the daily use being overnight charging from home.