On 26 Apr 2020 at 15:51, Lawrence Rhodes via EV wrote: > Electric adoption will happen much quicker if the security of the oil supply > changes or the price of oil skyrockets or people become aware of the harm and > cost pumping, refining and burning fossil fuel poses.
Awareness of the harm won't do it. It's not sufficiently immediate, and it's not personal. A few people kind of care, but it's mostly lip service, forgotten as soon as the car sales person starts to push yet another big ICE SUV. Fuel price has a somewhat stronger effect on EV adoption. Gasoline is around $6-7 a gallon in Europe, and that's helped some. So have their discounts on EV taxes and fees. Of the 3 factors you mention, fuel availability has the largest effect. Most people will gripe at high fuel prices, but will still pay them. However, if you make them try 5 or 6 filling stations before they find one that's open, or if they have to wait in line for an hour or two to fill the tank, that's when they'll start to see the convenience of just-plug-it-in EV charging. The very strongest EV incentive is still direct government manipulation. EVs have been a big success in Norway because the country has crippling purchase taxes on ICEVs, but not on EVs. EVs are also doing fairly well in big cities that levy congestion charges and/or day-based exclusions on ICEVs and not on EVs. In the US, ICEVs and fuel for them aren't priced in line with the harm they cause to society. Meanwhile, even with subsidies, EVs aren't competitively priced. Until those factors change, EVs won't become a truly common sight on US roads. Those factors are purely political. Nothing in the US's political landscape suggests that they'll change any time soon. Don't hold your breath. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/index.html INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
