THE EV WILL SURVIVE THE GAS PRICE CRASH

Why cheap gas can’t kill the electric car

Levi M. Tillemann, January 16, 2015 (Washington Post)

“From 2010 to 2014, U.S. electric car sales surged from almost nothing to about 120,000 per year. But the haters and doubters persist…[and now gasoline] prices have plummeted…[to near] $2 per gallon nationally…[A] key selling point for electric vehicles — low fuel costs — is gone [but EVs are not in trouble because] today’s electric car boom isn’t really about oil prices at all; it’s about clean air. Under the leadership of California, a group of environmentally progressive states (Oregon, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut) has created market-based mandates that set a floor under the electric-vehicle market…The goal is to have 3.3 million of them on their roads by 2025. Thanks to clever policy design, the survival of electric cars doesn’t depend on the vagaries of the global oil market…For more than a century, electric cars have repeatedly lost out to oil…[But California’s electric-car program isn’t tied to oil prices...Implementing the mandate was a long, iterative process…But California kept going. Because the state was America’s largest auto market, it was too big for carmakers to abandon…Today America is the world’s largest market for electric cars, and about 90 percent of them are sold in states following California’s program…The electric-car effort is just the kind of strategic planning that will be needed to transition away from fossil fuels, avoid the next oil shock and drive America toward a clean-energy economy…” click here for more

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