EVs: Are they really on the way?

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By Doug Peeples

SGN news editor

Any major change in technology has its share of skeptics and electric vehicles are no exception. But if the researchers, consultants and other observers are right, you will be seeing them more and more on the road and in the driveway. It will be a gradual wave – certainly not an eruption – but they're coming. The car makers touting their new all-electric and plug-in rides certainly believe it. And so do the organizations, technology companies and electric utilities working to ensure they can be successfully integrated into the smart grid.

There's a lot going on in the EV world now, and we want to share some of those developments – from new entries in the market to how customers feel about them and how utilities can (and should) respond to them, as well as some of the technologies and integration efforts.

What's new...

Nissan is growing its U.S. market for 2012 and taking reservations for its Leaf electric in Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. For 2012, the Leaf will include more standard equipment, including fast charging and cold weather features. And Mitsubishi Motors delivered its first all-electric built for the U.S. market, the Mitsubishi i, to a couple in Hawaii earlier this month – somehow fitting in that Hawaii is a hot bed of smart grid activity.

Ford is now taking reservations for its 2012 Focus Electric and also offering a range of other all-electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrids. The new Focus will initially launch in California, New York and New Jersey with introductions in a total of 19 U.S. markets to follow. For 2012, a limited number of the five-passenger Focus will be available.

And how could we talk about anything smart grid-related without mentioning China? Working with Chinese car maker Brilliance Jinbei Automobile, BMW is working on a new EV brand specifically for that market. A BMW official said that, while China is now the biggest auto market in the world, it doesn't have an international brand originating there.

And if you're in the market for a premium electric sedan, Tesla Motors is taking reservations for its Model S for 2012 (starting price: $57,400). And for affluent sports car enthusiasts who want the feeling of being shot out of a cannon when they punch the accelerator, the Tesla Roadster remains in the model lineup.

What about the EV market? Will consumers really buy in?

IBM recently released a research report, The shift to electric vehicles: Putting consumers in the driver's seat, that offers a rational, well-researched view of consumer thinking about EVs and how the manufacturers and other stakeholders can nudge the car-buying public to more sustainable, if unfamiliar, transportation. 'Unfamiliar' is the word to fasten on here. In the consumer survey segment of its study, IBM found that while "average consumers" like the idea and sustainability benefits of EVs, they don't particularly like the idea of paying more for them. The range anxiety issue hasn't gone away, either.

And, they don't know much about EVs. Half of the potential EV drivers surveyed said they "know little to nothing about electric vehicles." IBM makes a number of suggestions beyond the obvious one: education. The report suggests where to focus consumer attention, but it also recommends zeroing in on technology to distinguish the consumer experience "based on connected features embedded throughout the vehicle and surroundings" and developing business models with creative partnerships outside the current industry ways of doing business. In other words, yes, EVs are coming. But there's work to be done to support consumer adoption.

Clean technology research and consulting firm Pike Research says that EV telematics, the things that help drivers understand what's going with their car (like rate of charge, how much juice is left and where the next charging station is), will become a market worth $1.4 billion by 2017. Pike says that while basic telematics packages will be standard on most plug-in EVs by that time, a lot of customers are going to want more – features like life traffic and weather information and streaming content. And Pike says hardware manufacturers are pedaling much faster than usual to come up with solutions. Pike also says in another research report that it expects almost 100,000 EVs will be equipped with vehicle-to-grid technologies in the same time frame.

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