Here's a link to an article (from January 2013) in Plastics Today which explores the impact of the weight of EVs and suggests that making them lighter would help market penetration. In Europe, EVs were only 0.2% of new car sales in 2012 (the equivalent figure in the USA was 0.6%). The new Renault Zoe, at 1.4 tonnes, is dubbed "an electric tank" by the consulting firm Frost and Sullivan. Of course, where range is an issue for the environmentally conscious car owner, hybrids such as the Vauxhall Ampera are an option likely to become increasingly popular, in my view, because they provide all-electric motoring over reasonable ranges (I've seen up to about 90 miles round trip quoted as being achievable from one charge) while also including a petrol engine to remove range anxiety completely from the equation. It's just a shame that hybrids seem to be so much more expensive than pure EVs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About the BloggerI'm David Calver - an Accountant with a passion for sustainability. Categories
All
Archives
February 2016
|