Takeaway: Green enthusiasts applaud electric cars as a breakthrough innovation to control emissions.
However, these cars’ limited range along with an absence of charging stations may leave consumers stranded.
The product’s success is unlikely unless automakers find an effective way to fill these voids by identifying and serving a niche market better than do legacy products.
Only highly satisfied customers will tout the product’s benefits to others and thereby help the manufacturers cross the chasm to broad-based product adoption.
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Excerpt from Washington Post, “Where can I juice up my ride?”, by Pete Whoriskey, November 17, 2009.
Electric cars entering U.S. showrooms as early as next year will be engineering marvels: stylish, battery-operated, zero-emission wonders. While most electric cars are expected to be recharged at home, the predicament of a driver who runs out of battery power on the road has yet to be settled.
A Nissan chief executive said in an interview that he believes that range anxiety will afflict only a portion of the potential market. For plenty of people, trips of 100 miles or less will be fine.
General Motors, meanwhile, has studied range anxiety and seems to have arrived at a different conclusion. Accordingly, its forthcoming electric car runs on a battery for the first 40 miles, but when the charge runs low, a gasoline engine kicks in. With or without public charging stations, a Volt driver can motor on as long as there is a gas station nearby.
“For a long time, cars have represented a way to move around — freedom,” a GM executive said. “Some people are unwilling to accept restrictions to that.”
Nissan said that by forgoing the gas engine at the expense of a more limited range, Nissan will be better able to make its electric cars cheaply.
Nissan and other companies exploring the market for electric cars say it would be very difficult to win over consumers without the benefit of the $7,500 tax credit for people who purchase electric cars.
Edit by BHC
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The Homa Files 
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