Electric car activists are shifting their campaign to persuade Detroit to go electric into high gear. Plug In America, a nonprofit group that advocates “clean air and energy independence” this morning demanded that “automakers manufacture Electric Vehicles (EV) so that they can dump the pump.”
Their timing couldn’t be better. The average price of a gallon of gas hit $4 over the weekend.
Linda Nicholes, president of Plug In America, says it’s time for America’s car manufacturers to respond.
Call Toyota, call GM, call Ford, call them all and tell them that you won’t buy another car until it can be plugged in and charged with electricity. Americans must demand the choice to drive cars that run on cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity.
If you’ve ever seen the film Who Killed The Electric Car?, you know that there’s a lot more to this issue than meets the eye. Auto manufacturers have some powerful incentives to keep making gas-powered engines — even when customers would rather buy an electric vehicle.
That may be changing.
GM is talking about — and testing — an electric car called the Volt. In a recent blog posting, GM’s vice chairman, Bob Lutz, reported on his test drive of a prototype Volt. He sounded cautiously optimistic about the future of EVs.
Now, don’t run to the Chevy dealer and order your Volt yet: The “test mule” I drove – a previous-generation Malibu – wasn’t calibrated properly, and there are an awful lot of tests that this battery must pass before it’s cleared for production.
I think the time for talk is long past. If GM and others don’t follow Renault’s lead to produce zero-emissions vehicles in the next five years, American car manufacturers — and American motorists — will be the losers.
