The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Better Place have signed an agreement to create a mass market for electric vehicles in Israel, an excellent target market for 5 reasons: (1) sales tax exceeds 60 percent for gasoline vehicles, (2) gasoline costs over $6 per gallon, (3) most driving distances fit the range of electric vehicles, (4) the nation does not want to be dependent on foreign oil, and (5) electric vehicles have strong government support.
China has more than 450 million bicycles. Jonathan Weinert, working on his PhD at the Institute of Advanced Transportation Studies at U.C. Davis, reported from China, “In a thousand-year-old village in the Shanghai countryside, where people live on a couple dollars a day and the average home lacks a toilet, it hit me (well, almost). I was crossing the intersection and nearly got blind-sided by a surprisingly quiet zero-emission electric bicycle.” China went from selling 330,000 electric bikes in 2000 to selling 20 million in 2007.
Martin Eberhard, then CEO and founder of Tesla Motors, arrived in a Tesla Roadster, a zero-emission vehicle that can accelerate from zero to 60 in 4 seconds. As I talked with him, it was easy to see why he was smiling. When I rode in the Tesla, I held on as it accelerated, then held on to my wallet as I left this dream sports car. Tenacity paid-off. Tesla brought its exciting Roadster to market. The breakthrough 300-mile range Tesla Model-S Sedan is being ordered by the thousands. You can now drive the Roadster zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds.
Environmentally concerned car buyers worry that that switching to an electric vehicle does not help. They are concerned that instead of using one fossil fuel, petroleum, another will be used, coal. Many electric vehicles are three times more efficient than vehicles that run on gasoline. Mitsubishi Motors, an early leader in electric vehicles, estimates EV efficiency at 67 percent instead of 30 percent for a hybrid-electric and 15 percent for a normal gasoline vehicle.