Who would have thought even a decade ago that FORD would be issuing apparently pro-EV news releases?
That said, IMO we need to be a little more careful how we use the Ford survey data. It doesn't say that 83% of EV owners are charging their EVs with PV. It says that 83% of them HAVE or ARE INTERESTED IN GETTING PV capacity. That's a pretty substantial difference. Regrettably I can't find a web resource that breaks out the have-its from the wanna-have-its. So, this number doesn't really tell us anything about how many current EV owners are charging with alternative energy. What it does suggest is a strong correlation between EV ownership and environmental consciousness. In terms of selling and promoting EVs, you can view this in two ways. One is that promoters should "fish where the fish are," and continue pushing EVs "green cred" or even increase these efforts. The other is to say that the way to increased EV adoption is to edge toward promoting their dollars-and- cents value. Which is the right EV promotion strategy? To determine that, we should look at the reasons that owners bought gas-only "hybrids" 10-12 years ago, vs why they buy them today. If we see a substantial increase in Prius and other non-pluggable "hybrid" sales among cost-conscious buyers over that decade, that might suggest that at some point (though maybe not yet) we should swing toward promoting EVs' economic benefits. If the majority of non-plug "hybrid" buyers still buy them for their "greenness," that argues in favor of the first strategy above. Either way, we have a big job ahead of us to counter the growing negative PR being dispensed by the traditional energy providers. They have way more media clout than we do, and seem to be doing very well at sowing FUD about EVs supposedly "increasing pollution" with trumped-up, bogus data about coal fired powerplants. 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 http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
