We all know that one of the industries that pollute the most is the automotive industry. With several millions of vehicles on the roads, that consume every day millions of tons of fossil fuels, the air in the megacities becomes more and more unbreathable.But it seems hope is knocking at our doors in the close future. A study published recently says that electric cars (both battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles) will have a constant increase of sales and will get by 2015, to as much as 16% of the new car sales in New York City. 16% will mean about 70,000 cars with no CO2 emissions.
One of the drivers in the green direction could be the government by instituting high levels of taxes for polluting vehicles and reducing them to as little as zero the ones for EVs. With lower taxes and increased subsidies, EV sales will surely increase constantly in the next years.
The increase for other metropolitan areas like Paris or Shanghai is expected to be around 9 and 5%, respectively. Paris will get around 80% EVs of new vehicle sales by 2015. What the report claims is that most of the EVs will actually be plug-in hybrids.
The only problem for the future will be the charging stations. At this moment, as most countries/major cities that show interest in buying EVs already implemented some charging stations things seem to be on the good track.
These report was made based on a one year-long study, surveying around 2,000 consumers.
