Auto Industry - Alternative Energy: Electric-Vehicle's slowly gaining ground

Renault-Nisan Leaf Electric Car

 "The electric car is not dead," general motors North America president Mark Reuss insisted at the recent Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. He's right: automakers are introducing more battery-powered vehicles than ever before, a hopeful sign for this promising green technology. Fiat, Cadillac, Ford and Honda are all launching new electric models this year. Sales of the two mainstream plug-ins already on the market are up: GM's Chevy Volt sales tripled in 2012 over the year before, while the Nissan Leaf's rose modestly, by 1.5%.

The major shortcoming with EVs at present is the energy required to manufacture their enormous batteries. Some skeptics have contended that if you factor battery production into an electric car's environmental footprint, the vehicles really aren't that much greener than today's Corollas. But the Lantern finds studies such as this one too academic, since they assume that all of an electric car's "fuel" comes from coal; even in the heart of West Virginia, only about 73 percent of electricity is coal-generated. Also worth noting: a recent Department of Energy study pointing out that there's plenty of surplus electricity that goes unused at night, when people would presumably be recharging their cars.

Nissan's Leaf electric car has become the highest-selling electric car of all time.

The company has now sold more than 50,000 examples of the Leaf, sold across Japan, Europe and the U.S.
Since the car went on sale in 2010, those 50,000 Leaf owners have racked up over 161 million miles. In reality, that figure is probably even higher--Nissan can only monitor those Leafs equipped with the Carwings telemetry system, and not every owner has registered.

Despite some issues with battery degredation in hotter areas of Arizona and elsewhere, Nissan says the Leaf has the company's highest customer satisfation rating, beating all its other models. Over 95 percent of Leaf drivers are satisfied with their cars.

That also echoes findings with the Chevy Volt, which has topped several customer satisfacation surveys in its limited time on sale. It seems that electric vehicles are comfortably matching the expectations of owners.

EU-Digest