Matthew Botos

The film Who Killed the Electric Car? takes a hard look at the demise of GM’s EV-1 electric car. It concludes car and oil companies, with some help from the federal government, pushed it aside in favor of a more status-quo friendly hydrogen car further in the future. I generally agree with that conclusion; these entities have already proven themselves capable of some pretty amazing feats when they choose to do so. More positively, it touched on the concept of a plug-in hybrid that allows pure electric power to be used for shorter trips, boosting gas mileage over 100 mpg.

It’s a solution that solves the range problem of pure electric cars, which ranges from 50 miles for a do-it-yourself conversion with lead acid batteries to 250 miles for a Tesla with expensive lithium-ion batteries. In contrast, gas cars typically have no problem meeting consumer demand for a 300 mile range. In my previous Electric Cars post, my personal interest was aimed more at a second car for local driving that makes up 90+% of my mileage, which is typical for many people.

Once again, you can’t drive a plugin-in hybrid off the lot, but conversion kits are available for the Prius. At $10,000 for reasonable weight and range, it’s a hefty premium on top of the existing $3,000 premium you pay for a hybrid. That said, there’s already been demonstrated consumer demand for the EV-1 and Prius, and car buyers routinely spend thousands more than the base price of a new car in accessories.

The costs are largely due to batteries and electronics, which recent history has shown are quickly lowered with economies of scale. Even a limited production run on a Tesla or Prius scale would start this process. At the same time, growing demand for other battery-dependent consumer products including laptops, iPods, and digital cameras will also drive battery technology and lower prices.

It really comes down to a matter of time and effort; if the government gave large companies the right incentives to start developing production plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars, economies of scale would make them a viable option within years instead of decades.