by Wallace Wyss –
Lots of companies are talking about their Electric Vehicle (EV) plans, with say VW, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes having dozens of new models coming out by 2021.
But sales of EVs at present are dismal, a little over 3%. So what we, as a nation, need to do is sweeten the deal for EV buyers, reward them for being a special class of people who are willing to embrace new technology. They stuck their necks out and bought that Tesla, that Prius, or Volt or Bolt so damn it, we, the public who wants clean air, should be amenable to rewarding them.
Here’s five incentives, which could be instituted within weeks, which would result in immediate higher visibility for those who go green before us other car buyers.
1. All electric car hybrid owners at every place of employ with 50 or more employees would be given first dibs on the first five rows of employee parking. In other words, if you have an internal combustion car, you can “buy” yourself a closer parking place by going EV.
2, Registration fees for EVs, hydrogen cars, etc. are to be frozen at $1,000 no matter what the price tag of the car. Except in places like Oregon where the registration fee is well below this number.
3. Clean air zones will be opened at tourist attractions known for ecology, such as special gardens, (Palos Verdes ,etc.) so only the EV crowd gets to park there. All over America there would be small parking areas near prestige cultural venues just for the EV crowd.
4. Owners of EVs and other clean air cars are eligible to apply for scholarships for their children studying environmental sciences. Those scholarships would be announced at National events, with the students and their EVs shown.
5. Clean Air used car dealerships will be sponsored by the government in trendy areas so potential customers can find them easily. This would give buyers of EVs a single place to buy them or trade them in regardless of brand.
Even if these incentives only bump up 2021 sales of EVs to 5% that would be a significant beginning toward opening the EV market to new buyers.
Electric BMW – photo by Richard Bartholomew
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is co-host of Autotalk a weekly radio show on cars broadcast out of KUCR FM 88.3 in Riverside, CA.
I don’t think any of that is needed. I think the coming of EV’s is a freight train gathering speed at a breakneck pace.
I think electric vehicles are inevitable as well as Charley says. The big issue I see is range anxiety and ease of being able to easily and quickly charge the vehicles. Tesla has a big leg up on all of the manufacturers planning to introduce new electric cars and is far ahead of the learning and manufacturing curve. However, until an extended range electric car is introduced there will be limitations on how fast people adopt owning electric cars en masse. A recent news story involved a half mile long line of Tesla’s waiting to be able to charge during the recent Thanksgiving holiday on I-5 near Bakersfield. Besides not having sufficient range to make a long trip between L.A. and S.F. areas, there were far too few charging stations available and places that have super chargers, for the masses of Tesla owners to juice up at. Also, charging an electric car is not nearly as fast as filling a tank with gasoline. Until these issues are resolved, it may take quite a while for electric vehicles to be greeted with open arms by the buying public. There also may be some environmental issues to consider as to what happens with disposal of used up batteries.
Where would you park the coal fired power plants used to generate the clean electrical energy?
Alfred Jensen – excellent point. The greenies should also consider the severe environmental impact of strip mining the crap out of the earth to get to the materials necessary to build these “green” cars.
https://thinkprogress.org/more-electric-cars-means-more-destructive-mining/
The largest sales of EV’s is in California. So let’s say our great governor decides to mandate EV usage by some date in the near future. As the state sits right now its power grid is a hot mess. It wouldn’t be able to handle the demand. Every time the wind blows PG&E is shutting down the grid, then what ? A new blog called My Bicycle Quest.
I think back to when the first flat screen TV’s came out and how expensive to manufacture etc etc. Now they are dirt cheap and everywhere. We seem to have a way of overcoming these obstacles with solutions that are not even on our radar’s yet.
They have been telling us that about batteries for the past 100 years. NASA worked on it for thirty years , Tesla for another decade. Lucky Gold Star is giving it a go but there are no real breakthroughs
That’s just about enough to stop me reading this altogether.
I am afraid to ask where the phrase “a hot mess” came from