Electric cars will need lots of financial support - report

CNNMoney.com ^ | Thursday January 15, 2009 | Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com

[mtrott]

Electric cars have a big role to play in reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions, but it's going to cost a lot, according to a new report. It could even push automakers into further trouble.

For electric and hybrid vehicles to achieve their environmental potential, the world's governments will need to step in with high levels of financial support for consumers and industry, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm. And the cost savings in fuel won't be nearly enough to provide the incentive without that government cash.

[MediaMole]

The economics are the easy part. Just throw tax dollars at the project forever and ever.

I would love to know how well an electric car will work when it is -10F and there are three foot drifts of snow.

Battery life? Heater? 4WD?

I guess that dying in an unheated golf cart stuck in a snowbank without any remaining battery charge will reduce my carbon footprint.

[RoadTest]

You mean millions of people are going to charge their cars from our already over strained power grid?

Can we build some atomic power plants to feed them? Huh? Can we? Huh?

[chipengineer]

“Under what BCG calls the “most likely” scenario - where oil costs about $150 a barrel and governments enforce existing CO2 regulations - about 11 million hybrid and 3 million electric vehicles will be sold globally in 2020. Even then, they will make up just 28% of those sold in the word’s biggest markets.”

$150/barrel sounds pretty cheap in 2020!

Also, by then Toyota’s original Prius patents will have expired, allowing good hybrids from all manufactures to be more than price competitive. My guess is that even without subsidies, more than 80% will at least be hybrids by then.