One of the most fascinating things about technological developments is watching them make it to market as real world products and services available to consumers. This process is almost always slower than we’d like (everything looks simpler to those of us who don’t have to do the work to make it happen, after all), and sometimes it takes some surprising twists along the way.

Plug-in hybrids and full EVs are good examples of both the delay and the labyrinthine route from laboratory to retail availability. I’ve been saying for longer than I (or my wife) care to think that electrified personal transportation will represent an immensely disruptive moment for the car business. The two main hurdles for companies are (1) getting battery prices low enough to make the vehicles more than niche products, and (2) getting would-be buyers to expand their comfort zone beyond the strengths and weaknesses of petroleum fueled vehicles.

I’ve long argued that the first hurdle is by far the bigger issue; if the battery in your 100-mile EV costs $30,000, I guarantee that you won’t sell many copies. Luckily, we’ve seen from the pricing of the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi iMiEV that the car companies have made great strides in reducing battery costs.

The second hurdle, customer acceptance, is to a large extent a figment of the imagination of some overly cautious auto execs and hydrogen car proponents. The idea that people will only buy a vehicle if they can drive at least 250 or 400 or however many miles between fill ups/rechargings is ridiculous. Once again, I say all you have to do is look at the US and see how many households have a convenient place to plug in a vehicle overnight and have at least one car that’s driven less than 100 miles/day by a comfortable margin. This still represents a potential market for millions of vehicles, even before businesses, government offices, airports, etc. are festooned with recharging stations. Given the slow initial production volume of PHEVs and EVs, we have years to get the infrastructure up to speed, unlike hydrogen, which demands that we have a refueling infrastructure in place on day one in any local area where one expects to sell HFCVs.

When disruptive events hit markets, there are two ways companies can react: They can leap into the fray, embrace the change, and basically gamble that being on the bleeding edge will pay off in the long run. Obviously this can be very risky in motor vehicles, computers, or any other technology-driven market. Call this the “no balls, no blue chips/bet the house” option. The other approach is to be far more cautious and see how the market plays out, and hope consumers don’t remember or care that you weren’t an innovator. This is the “let someone else jump first/we’re Microsoft, we don’t need no stinkin’ innovation” option.

It’s been clear for a while that among the major car companies, Nissan was taking option one. They saw the coming electrification of vehicles as an opportunity. They’re pushing hard on the Leaf, and so far it looks like the bet is going to pay off. Barring any major surprises, I expect to see them become a much more visible brand in the US, for example.

I’ve been disappointed in the reluctance of Honda and Toyota to leap into the EV space. Honda was the first to market a hybrid (the original Insight) and Toyota made the electric RAV4, the darling of the “who killed the electric car and got my dog pregnant” camp.

It seems that my disappointment was a bit premature, given the news that’s erupted recently:

Plus, Ford was already on board with a Focus EV set for production in 2011. (Honestly, I’m not sure what GM and Chrysler are up to on EVs.)

I think we’ve now progressed to the point where consumer surveys and Nissan’s early order program for the Leaf have convinced other companies that it’s safe to take the EV leap. I’d guess that these projects fro Toyota, Honda, and VW were in the works for a while, but moving them from a secret internal effort to a publicly announced product is a gigantic commitment.

This is all very good news, as electrification is the main step the US will take to reduce our oil imports and also our transportation-related CO2 emissions.[1] And it can’t begin too soon.

[1] I know that the people who hate the US’ car-centric culture will decry how we’re making a major transition but not fixing the core problem, namely the number of miles we drive. We should be reconfiguring our residential areas so that people can travel less and make much greater use of mass transit, bicycles, and walking, they say. My response is that I think that’s always been a pipe dream. While it’s undeniable that one can sit down with a clean sheet of paper and come up with plans that would, in fact, dramatically reduce miles driven and improve residents’ overall quality of life, the one thing I never see addressed is a general plan for how one manages to acquire enough clean sheets of paper and the funds to implement those plans, not to mention finds residents to move into them. Creating a few localized areas that follow a much more intelligent plan is one thing; coming up with a way to apply it to enough of a highly suburbanized country of over 300 million people to make a significant difference in our oil consumption and CO2 emissions is a whole different ballgame.

Love it or hate it, the US is locked into car-centrism for a long time, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to find ways for people to do the “wrong” thing better instead of waiting until we can convince (or force) them to do the “right” thing.

 

Visit Lou's Graphs Page.

 

TCOE is on Twitter, too