Why Electric Cars Matter to America: Economic Recovery & Energy Independence
There is so much talk about electric cars lately, it's enough to make you sick. In the interest of painting a more complete picture, I thought I'd lay it out for you clearly and precisely why electric cars matter.
First, let's address the concern that electric cars are not a viable option for most Americans. The primary concern is that electric cars will never have the range to replace our oil-addicted vehicles. The most common response to this objection is, "most Americans only commute about twenty miles a day for work." That might be true, but that is only one way that we use our cars. While many Americans have more than one car, it's hard to imagine an America where we keep one car for commuting and one car for everything else. It might make sense for many of us, but that's not a compelling sales pitch to an individual making a purchasing decision. That won't make electric cars matter.
Second, there's a lot of concern that if we all start driving electric cars, we'll have problems with the grid. Luckily, we're going to start making cars that are as smart as our cell phones that are programmed to charge during the off-peak hours -- late at night and way early in the morning. That will help. Something else few people want to talk about, although it will help, is affordable home solar power systems. That's one way to keep money in the US and stop sending it abroad to foreign governments with questionable political ties that might not be in our best interest from a national security position.
New Electric Car from Coda
Coda is all-but-ready to release an electric vehicle with a range of 120 miles, a top speed of 80mph, and it's a four door sedan that looks good. You don't have to be a Hollywood movie star to afford it, a mid-to-low-level executive will do.
Coda is backed by ex-Goldman Sachs brass, which came in to breath new life into the company's previous incarnation, which produced lower quality electric vehicles for Asian markets. The new Coda is the result of a number of cherry-picked joint ventures with best-in-class manufacturing and R&D capabilities. Coda represents the type of entrepreneurial chops that will likely form this next era in automotive advancements.
Back to Detroit
Now that we're all shareholders in big banks and car companies, I think it's within our rights to demand that Detroit makes cars that customers want -- you remember that old idea where a company makes products that customers actually want and then we buy them in exchange for money. It's directly related to that old-fashioned idea where companies make money or they go out of business. While Congress is still waiting to see a viable business plan from anybody in Detroit, I'm officially raising my hand as a shareholder and saying that I want Detroit to make stuff for-profit moving forward.
If we can't compete in cars anymore, maybe we could try competing in a new category like the electric vehicle market. On the scoreboard of ideas, that's Detroit 0, CleanPowerTV 1.
Waiting for Detroit isn't the only option. Nissan is doing it already with the Leaf. Korea is looking strong already. Luckily, for those of us who still believe in American ingenuity and manufacturing, there are a number of start-ups ready to take the electric reigns:
To Be Continued...
