Are Electric Cars Meant For Everyone?
There is a considerable buzz on electric cars these days. And Nissan Leaf has taken a lead over Chevrolet’s Volt by announcing the bookings in the US and Japan. Initial response to Nissan Leaf is very encouraging. However, as a normal car owner like me, the perinent question to ask at this point of time is to find out if you will buy an electric car right now or in the forseeable future.
This is a tough question, because the solution will lie in a mix of multiple factors. And the biggest factor that could make or break the entire electric car market industry is the affordable availability of fossil fuels. If gasoline, petrol and diesel are available at prices that do not hurt the entire population, there won’t be many takers for the electric cars for sure. Nobody wants to invest in a charging station or to rely on a very limited number of charging stations that may be available in the public infrastructure.
Bear in mind that distribution networks of petrol and diesel have been setup and running since ages. The overall fuel-delivery industry has matured to such an extent that there are multiple addon benefits that are available to the business owners or fleet owners that directly impact the swift, smooth and concise running of business and fleet operations. The distribution networks offer so many benefits that are addon to the essential fuel. An example is the availability of fleet fuel cards by almost all the distribution partners like Shell, Texaco or Esso. A business fleet fuel card can allow the business owners and fleet managers to effectively set targets for business fuel expenses and then manage them on a continuing basis Getting the indivuals to migrate to a new fuel form will be tough and getting business owners to migrate fleet operations to a newer fuel will be even tougher. Unless the industry matures and is assured of continuous and unhindered availability of green fuel, there is little chance of fleet operations to rely on them.
Now compare the above scenario with an Electric car charging stations that are just about starting up. And this is one of the biggest challenges for the electric car market space.
Initial cost of buying an electric vehicle is higher than the traditional automotive product offerings . With the exception of few enthusiasts, mass-population will adopt green cars if they see merit in reducing their ongoing expenses. Add to this the comfort of ease of availability of charging stations The cost-benefits need to include the one-time costs as well as the running and maintenance costs for the electric vehicle. As a normal human tendency, people resist change. Hence changing the traditional-fuel driven vehicles with electric cars will depend on a lot of practical factors that could decide the future of the entire electric vehicle industry of future.