The poll results, published in May, revealed that many Americans still aren’t interested in pure electric cars. The poll asked a sample of 1,024 adults a simple question: “How high do you think gas prices would have to rise before you would buy an electric car that you could only drive for a limited number of miles at one time?”
Fifty-seven percent of those adults said they would not buy an electric car, no matter the price of gasoline. What’s particularly interesting about the results, though, is the fact that the pollsters broke down the answers by gasoline price and found that as the prices rose, fewer Americans would be willing to buy an electric car. With a gasoline price of under $6 per gallon, for example, 12 percent said they would consider an EV. After that, the percentages dropped: from $6 to $7.99, 10 percent; from $8 to $10, 9 percent; and above $10 a gallon, just 3 percent.
Shouldn’t we expect it to be the other way around? If the criterion were the price of gasoline, shouldn’t more Americans say, “Well, if gas hits 10 bucks a gallon, I’ll consider going electric.”
What this tells us is that two diametrically opposed camps have formed. On one side, we have the EV proponents, many of whom would buy a battery-operated electric car, even if gasoline were free. On the other side, we have 57 percent of Americans who simply won’t consider an EV.
But the problem isn’t the article. And it isn’t the poll. The critical passage in the Gallup survey is this: "…you could only drive for a limited number of miles at one time."
The results tell us that when many Americans see that phrase, they balk. Sure, many have heard the statistics that say 75 percent of Americans drive 40 miles a day or less. And many know that approximately 90 percent of all driving is within the range of EVs.
But what about the other 10 percent of our driving? Do we need another car just for that? If we deliver the kids to college, or take the family on a short vacation, do we have to make a trip to the local Avis first?
The problem remains: For many Americans, pure electric vehicles -- that is, battery-driven vehicles -- still have too little range to serve as a good first car and are too expensive to serve as a backup. In this economy, many consumers can’t plunk down $30,000 or $40,000 on a second car.
That’s why General Motors, in its wisdom, decided to put an internal combustion engine and a gas tank on the Chevy Volt. Like it or not, the Volt teaches us that gasoline is still an important part of the energy mix.
American consumers recognize that, and they have every right to. Yes, we could say they’re biased: But they’re merely biased toward financial responsibility.
I think the poll reflects the likely concerns about battery life. Without proper, widely available recharging stations, pure electric vehicles equipped with today's battery technology will no doubt have a hard time infiltrating the mainstream. Also, as an on-the-go mom carting kids around all the time, while I want to be environmentally correct, I do need the room my gas-guzzling SUV provides. So longer battery life, but roomier vehicles are likely what's going to get me to consider going electric.
The problem with electric car is, beside poor range specially in cold weather, is the charging time which is way too long. It prevents long trip as you will have to stop, find a charging station (not easy these days) and ... wait...
I have heard once that in California, someone was proposing battery replacement stations. So as today with gas station, you drive in, remove your empty battery and replace it with a charged one. You now pay for the charge and the battery location.
For this to be accepted by customer, the car owner does not own the battery but rent it. This way he will accept to change the battery when empty. For sure, the car manufacturers must provide the same battery format and same connector. Batteries must be interchangeable.
This is the only way you can do long drive with an electric car, and the "filling" time will be similar to what is done now, stopping at a gas station, filling, pay and drive away. No time lost.
Gas station where not available when the first cars started rolling, so the same with this approach, the gas station must migrate to become battery charging/exchange station.
I think range anxiety will be associated with electric cars for as long as there are electric cars, at least for current drivers (i.e., those old enough to remember gas engines). However, as plug-in electrics like the Nissan Leaf move out in the market, increased familiarity with these vehicles on the part of the public will breed increased acceptance. Clearly, though, we're going to be in the early adopter phase for quite a while.
Right now, many people (probably most people) view the electric car as a very expensive vehicle that underperforms its gas-fueled counterpart. Apple needs to come out with an iCar that is incredibly user friendly and offers surprising benefits that we didn't even know we wanted until Apple presented them.
Apple doesn't offer much in new technology. The company takes existing technology, makes it friendly, makes it cool. Electric cars will probably not take off until some brand owner does to the electric car what Apple did to the smartphone.
If it's cool, cost isn't an issue. Just look at the pricing on the MacBook Pro. You can get three Dells for the same price. The electric car is waiting for its iCar moment.
I think the key to adoption here is consumer behavior. The electric cars are not going to have the same range and convenience of refueling as the gasoline and diesel powered cars for quite some time. However many US households have two cars. Perhaps having one electric car and one conventionally fueled one would work out for many people. The statistics seem to show that most daily commutes are less than 100 miles. For thos other situations the conventionally fueled vehicle is better.
Consider this, if the electric cars had similar range and could be refueled overnight (inexpensively), at home and the purchase price was maybe 20% more would the adoption rate improve? I am guessing it would. So the problem is really one of battery life and refueling time. These two caharacteristics are being steadily improved. There is a point in the near future when the technology will reach the point when it can fulfill the role required better than now. Until that time the adoption rate is going to be lower although perhaps steadily improving.
The bottom line is that consumers might be somewhat flexible in many transportation respects. But since a car is a long term investment, and a significant one for most households, the adoption rate is not going to be very high without some give on the part of the consumers regarding usage characteristics.
I like your thinking on this Rob - you should get Steve Jobs on the phone and see if you can get a cut of the profits! Of course, the iCar would be way overpriced in the beginning, but give it a year or two and it would get slashed by a third when the latest and greatest iteration of the car came out.
I think that the electric car should pass through the natural pathway of acceptance. There should be a clear demand for it. At this time it is being pushed as a green solution agains a proven product. One issue is a battery, then the range, then the charging time, then the price, then.......
The product shouldn't be pushed by the environmentalists. We should be given ample time to properly research and design the product so it is userfriendly and reliable.
We may change our approach to battery design, and make new power sources modular, where one item is rechargeble and another is disposable. then it may be purchased anywhere on the way and added to exhisting internal battery as a boost. who knows what can be developed, but we need time.
Our government should stop wasting money and redirect it to R&D, NASA, private grants, etc... Look what is happening now in the industry. We need to get back to production and manufacturing, not service and clerical jobs.
R&D---R&D----R&D: without that we should forget about electric car.
To Sensor Pro: I wholeheartedly agree with you. The common assumption is that the current battery materials will follow Moore's Law -- costs will drop by a factor of two every few years, performance will double every few years. The truth, though, is this is a long, hard road. Since I started writing about electric cars in '88, we've seen the material of choice change from lead acid to nickel iron to sodium sulfur to advanced lead acid to nickel metal hydride to lithium polymer to lithium ion, to name just a few. And during this march of progress, there's been one constant: expectations always exceeded reality. The only way we're going to get the EV's promised land -- as you point out -- is with a big commitment to R&D, R&D, R&D.
Something is mixed up with these numbers, I think.
If 57% of Americans won't consider buying an electric car, that must mean that 43% of Americans would consider buying an electric car, right?
So what to make of the claim that, if the price of gasoline is under $6 a gallon, only 12% of Americans would be willing to buy an electric car? And the bizarre result that, if the price goes above $10 a gallon, the percentage actually decreases to 3%?
For what it's worth, when I looked at the USA Today article, I couldn't find the data broken down by gas price. The article from greenchipstocks.com seemed to give a different set of numbers for this than the Design News article. Both of them claimed to be citing numbers from the USA Today poll, but, as I said, there was nothing in the actual article.
Am I just not understanding something, or is something seriously screwed up with these numbers?
The numbers indeed came directly from Gallup, but they weren't contained in the USA Today story. The poll was based on interviews of 1,024 adults living in the U.S. The particular survey question said, "Suppose gasoline prices continued to rise. How high do you think gas prices would have to rise before you would buy an electric car that you could only drive for a limited number of miles at one time?" As our story reported, the answers were:
Less than $6.00, 12%.
$6.00 - $7.99, 10%
$8.00 - $10.00, 9%
More than $10.00, 3%
What not do, no matter the price, 57%
No opinion, 9%
For whatever reason, these numbers did not appear in USA Today. They were sent directly to us, for our use, by Gallup.
And, yes, it's strange that the potential number of electric car buyers goes DOWN as the price of gas rises above $10. In a completely logical world, the number of potential EV buyers would rise as the price of gas goes higher. It's odd to have the highest numbers at the two extreme ends of the spectrum.
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