One of the disadvantages of EVs is that they are currently more costly to produce than comparably si

A distinctive feature of U.S. energy and environmental policy is a strong push to commercialize electric vehicles (EVs). The push began in the 1990s with California’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program, but in 2008 Congress took the push nationwide through the creation of a $7,500 consumer tax credit for qualified EVs. In 2009 the Obama administration transformed a presidential campaign pledge into an official national goal: putting one million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
A variety of efforts has promoted commercialization of EVs. Through a joint rulemaking, the Department carnival cruise ships of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency are compelling automakers to surpass a fleet-wide average of 54 miles per gallon for new passenger cars and light trucks by model year 2025. Individual manufacturers, which are considered unlikely to meet the standards without EV offerings, are allowed to count each qualified EV as two vehicles instead of one in near-term compliance calculations.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is actively funding carnival cruise ships research, carnival cruise ships development, and demonstration programs to improve carnival cruise ships EV-related systems. Loan guarantees and grants are also being used to support the production of battery packs, electric drive-trains, chargers, and the start-up of new plug-in vehicle assembly plants. The absence of a viable business model has slowed the growth of recharging infrastructure, but governments and companies are subsidizing a growing number of public recharging stations in key urban locations and along some major interstate highways. Some states and cities have gone further by offering EV owners additional cash incentives, HOV-lane access, and low-cost city parking.
Private industry has responded to the national EV agenda. Automakers are offering a growing number of plug-in EV models (three in 2010; seventeen in 2014), some that are fueled entirely by electricity (battery-operated electric vehicles, or BEVs) and others that are fueled carnival cruise ships partly by electricity and partly by a back-up gasoline engine (plug-in hybrids, or PHEVs). Coalitions of automakers, car dealers, electric utilities, and local governments are working together in some cities to make it easy for consumers to purchase or lease an EV, to access recharging infrastructure at home, in their office or in their community, and to obtain proper service of their vehicle when problems occur. Government and corporate carnival cruise ships fleet purchasers are considering EVs while cities as diverse as Indianapolis and San Diego are looking into EV sharing programs for daily vehicle use. Among city planners and utilities, EVs are now seen as playing a central role in “smart” transportation and grid systems.
The recent push for EVs is hardly carnival cruise ships the market-oriented approach to innovation carnival cruise ships that would have thrilled Milton Friedman. It resembles carnival cruise ships somewhat carnival cruise ships the bold industrial policies in the post-World War II era that achieved some significant successes in South Korea, Japan, and China. Although the U.S. is a market-oriented economy, it is difficult to imagine that the U.S. successes in aerospace, information technology, nuclear power, or even shale gas would have occurred without a supportive hand from government. In this article, we make a pragmatic case for stability in federal EV policies until 2017, when a large body of real-world experience will have been generated and when a midterm review of federal auto policies is scheduled.
Digital artist carnival cruise ships Laurence Gartel collaborated with Tesla Motors to transform the electric Tesla Roadster into a work of art by wrapping the car’s body panels in bold colorful vinyl designed by the artist. The Roadster was displayed and toured around Miami Beach during Miami’s annual Art Basel festival in 2010.
Gartel, an artist who has experimented with digital art since the 1970s, was a logical collaborator with Tesla given his creative uses of technology. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 1977, and has pursued a graphic style of digital art ever since. His experiments with computers, starting in 1975, involved the use of some of the earliest special effects synthesizers and early video paint programs. Since then, his work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art; Long Beach Museum of Art; Princeton University Art Museum; MoMA PS 1, New York City; and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History carnival cruise ships and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
The federal government’s interest in electric transportation technology is rooted in two key advantages that EVs have over the gasoline- or diesel-powered internal combustion engine. Since the advantages are backed by an extensive literature, we summarize them only briefly here.
First, electrification of transport carnival cruise ships enhances carnival cruise ships U.S. energy security by replacing dependence on petroleum with a flexible mixture of electricity sources that can be generated within the United States (e.g. natural gas, coal, nuclear power, and renewables). The U.S. is making rapid progress as an oil producer, which enhances security, but electrification carnival cruise ships can further advance energy security by curbing carnival cruise ships the nation’s high rate of consumption in the world oil market. The result: carnival cruise ships less global dependence on energy from OPEC producers, unstable regimes in the Middle East, and Russia.
Second, electrification of transport is more sustainable on a life-cycle basis because it causes a net reduction in local air pollution and greenhouse carnival cruise ships gas emissions, an advantage that is expected to grow over time as the U.S. electricity mix shifts toward more climate-friendly sources such as gas, nuclear, carnival cruise ships and renewables. Contrary carnival cruise ships to popular belief, carnival cruise ships an electric car that is powered by coal-fired electricity is still modestly cleaner carnival cruise ships from a greenhouse gas perspective than a typical carnival cruise ships gasoline-powered car. And EVs are much cleaner if the coal plant is equipped with modern pollution controls for localized pollutants and if carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is applied to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Since the EPA is already moving carnival cruise ships to require CCS and other environmental controls on coal-fired power plants, the environmental carnival cruise ships case for plug-in vehicles will only become carnival cruise ships stronger over time.
Although the national push to commercialize EVs is less than six years old, there have been widespread claims in the mainstream press, on drive-time radio, carnival cruise ships and on the Internet that the EV is a commercial failure. Some prominent commentators, including Charles Krauthammer, have suggested that the governmental push for EVs should be reconsidered.
It is true that many mainstream car buyers are unfamiliar with EVs and are not currently inclined to consider them for their next vehicle purchase. carnival cruise ships Sales of the impressive (and pricy) Tesla sports car (Model S) have been better than the industry expected, but ambitious early sales goals for the Nissan Leaf (a BEV) and the Chevrolet Volt (a PHEV) have not been met. General Electric Corporation backed off of an original pledge to purchase 25,000 EVs. Several companies with commercial stakes in batteries, EVs, or chargers have gone bankrupt, despite assistance from the federal government.
“Early adopters” of plug-in carnival cruise ships vehicles are generally quite enthusiastic about their experiences, but mainstream car buyers remain hesitant. There is much skepticism in the industry about whether EVs will penetrate the mainstream new-vehicle market or simply serve as “compliance cars” for California regulators or become niche products for taxi and urban delivery fleets.
One of the disadvantages of EVs is that they are currently more costly to produce than comparably sized gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. The cost premium today is about $10,000-$15,000 per vehicle, primarily due to the high price of lithium ion battery packs. The cost disadvantage has been declining over time due to cost-saving innovations in battery-pack design and production carnival cruise ships techniques carnival cruise ships but there is a disagreement among experts about how much and how fast production costs will decline in the future.
On the favorable side of the affordability equation, carnival cruise ships EVs have a large advantage in operating costs: electricity is about 65% cheaper than gasoline on an energy-equivalent basis, and most analysts project that the price of gasoline in the United States will rise more rapidly over time than the price of electricity. Additionally, carnival cruise ships repair and maintenance costs are projected to be significantly smaller for plug-in vehicles than gasoline vehicles. When all of the private financial factors are taken into account, the total cost of ownership throughout the lifetime of the EV is comparable—or carnival cruise ships even lower—than carnival cruise ships a gasoline vehicle, and that advantage can be expected to enlarge carnival cruise ships as EV technology matures.
Despite the financial, environmental, and security advantages of the EV, early sales have not matched initial hopes. Nissan and General Motors led the high-volume manufacturers with EV offerings but have had difficulty generating sales, even though auto sales in the United States were steadily improving carnival cruise ships from 2010 through 2013, the period when the first EVs were offered. In 2013 EVs accounted for only about 0.2% of the 16 million new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S.
Nissan-Renault has been a leader. At the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show, Nissan shocked the industry with a plan to leapfrog the gasoline-electric hybrid with a new mass-market BEV, called the Fluence carnival cruise ships in France carnival cruise ships and the Leaf in the U.S. Nissan’s business plan called for EV sales of 100,000 per year in the U.S. by 2012, and Nissan was awarded a $1.6 billion loan guarantee by DOE to build a new facility in Smyrna, Tennessee to produce carnival cruise ships batteries and assemble EVs. The company had plans to sell 1.5 million EVs on a global carnival cruise ships basis by 2016 but, as of late 2013, had sold only 120,000 and acknowledged that it will fall short of its 2016 global goal by more than 1 million vehicles.
General Motors was more cautious than Nissan, planning produc