Will consumers buy expensive coal powered plug-in vehicles?
The Government Accounting Agency (GAO) has completed its research on the benefits of plug-in vehicles, availability and challenges of incorporating plug-in vehicles into the federal fleet according to GreenCarCongress. While the report found that plug-in vehicles offer much potential, it also found lots of problems.
For instance America must either embrace nuclear or wide scale renewable power projects in order for plug-ins to reach their potential. Of course, each of these paths offers its own set of extensive problems, such as costs, public approval, etc. Moreover, significant cuts in battery costs, coupled with much higher gas prices, and a more robust auto demand, for instance, will be required to create enough demand for plug-ins to keep the technology moving forward.
Ultimately, the GAO report suggests that wide scale plug-in adoption, even at the Federal level, is going to be a complex process. More than anything, at least in my opinion, the report seems to imply that wide scale plug-in adoption might be much further into the future then many of us would like to believe.
Certainly, US automakers need to continue, even increase, their plug-in efforts, but isn’t it becoming more and more obvious that US automakers need to completely reconsider their short-to-midterm auto production plans? For example, can the US auto industry continue to move forward without a direct competitor – in terms of cost and technology – to the Toyota Prius?
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