Even though car manufacturers are constantly improving the batteries that they put in electric cars, people are not yet convinced to pay more for an EV, even if it offers huge fuel savings in the long run.
This is the conclusion of a recent international survey performed in 17 countries on 13,500 people, which shows that only 9 percent of the respondents would pay more than $2,000 above the price of a similar fossil fuel-powered vehicle for an EV. 78 percent wouldn’t spend more then $30,000 for an electric car such as the Nissan Leaf and most want at least 200 miles of autonomy on a single charge (a reasonable distance, imho).
One other aspect that consumers take into consideration is the time it takes to charge an electric car. While Nissan and JFE Engineering from Japan recently (and, respectively, not-so-recently) invented under-ten-minutes chargers, the average EV owners still need some boring 8 hours for charging up their electric toys in Europe, plugged into the 220-volt grid. In the U.S. you need some even boring 20 hours to do the job.
Well, it looks like money, convenience and comfort win over being more environmentally-conscious to the majority of people. Good things need time to happen, but the future is already beginning to shape up.
Just look at the recently-unveiled beta version of the Tesla Model S, whose autonomy goes as high as 300 miles and the price nears the Nissan’s Leaf, while the specs are coming from outer space technology and science-fiction movies. I still (optimistically) think that the future’s bright for electric cars.
