Fleeting Opportunity to Jumpstart the Electric Vehicle Industry

Electric vehicles (EVs) are getting a lot of attention these days in auto shows and TV shows.  Looking beyond the buzz, the multi billion dollar question for the auto and energy industries is whether there will be millions or thousands of EVs on the road in the next several years. As with any innovative product or service, the speed and magnitude of adoption will depend on having sufficiently numerous and influential early adopters able to talk favorably about the benefits of driving and operating EVs.  Early success stories are critical to convincing the more skeptical masses to become part of the momentum that is building as the auto industry revs up its launch of EV models in 2010 and beyond.

One of the best opportunities to create groups of early adopters is to focus on organizations with large fleets of vehicles that tend to travel within a limited radius before returning to a centralized location where battery charging equipment could be used between trips or overnight.  Given the limited mileage and charging options expected to be available for most EV drivers in the early years, the auto industry should be speeding to provide customized EV models and charging stations that make it easy to convert entire fleets of cars and light trucks from gas to electric power.

Government subsidies and financing of the production and purchase of EVs suited for fleets would jumpstart the EV industry by providing a volume of demand for EVs that is needed to achieve economies of scale in producing, distributing and servicing EVs.  This would be an especially worthwhile investment since it would not only benefit EV producers and their supply chains but it would also benefit purchasers who would see lower priced EV models due to the costs of producing EVs and key components such as batteries being spread across a much larger number of EVs sold.

Examples of organizations with fleets that have recently announced considering or committing to electrifying their fleets include:
1) US Postal Service
2) Duke Energy Corp. and FPL Group Inc. 
3) Nihon Kotsu taxi operator

Organizations like these can provide the early success stories needed by the EV industry to compete against the incumbent gas-powered vehicles in the multi billion dollar race for winning the hearts and budgets of vehicle buyers.

Thoughts?