[dennis]

A friend of mine just traded in his Nissan Leaf for a low emission Chevy Volt that has access to the HOV lane. I believe that the inability to regularly find an available charging station where he works (Google) was the primary driver for his decision.

This prompted me to see what the current U.S. adoption rates are for PHEVs vs BEVs.

June YTD
Nissan Leaf 535 3148
Ford Focus 89 n/a
Mitsubishi i 33 446

Chevy Volt 1760 8817
Prius PlugIn 695 4333

My conclusion: range anxiety is real.

 

[Fabulist]

A friend of mine just traded in his Nissan Leaf for a low emission Chevy Volt that has access to the HOV lane. I believe that the inability to regularly find an available charging station where he works (Google) was the primary driver for his decision.

This prompted me to see what the current U.S. adoption rates are for PHEVs vs BEVs.

June YTD
Nissan Leaf 535 3148
Ford Focus 89 n/a
Mitsubishi i 33 446

Chevy Volt 1760 8817
Prius PlugIn 695 4333

My conclusion: range anxiety is real.

I would have thought Google would have hundreds of charging stations around their campus. The biggest factor seems to be the daily commute distance. If you live 10 miles away from the office, a Leaf is more than enough. If, like me, you office and home are almost 50 miles apart, then the refueling anxiety starts rearing its ugly head.

 

[doug]

Yeah Google MV has tons of chargers. Though I think so many employees have EVs at this point, getting a charging spot may be fairly competitive.

 

[Dutch]

A friend of mine just traded in his Nissan Leaf for a low emission Chevy Volt that has access to the HOV lane. I believe that the inability to regularly find an available charging station where he works (Google) was the primary driver for his decision.

This prompted me to see what the current U.S. adoption rates are for PHEVs vs BEVs.

June YTD
Nissan Leaf 535 3148
Ford Focus 89 n/a
Mitsubishi i 33 446

Chevy Volt 1760 8817
Prius PlugIn 695 4333

My conclusion: range anxiety is real.

Range anxiety is definitely real when car companies deliver cars that get only 100 miles on a charge, and even less when it's cold (Leaf). They give EV's a bad name. 200 or 300 miles is the minimum to take away the anxiety, 400 even better. But for that to become an affordable reality, kWh-prices still have to come down considerably.

 

[smoothoperator]

If technically possible, it would be nice to have several different battery pack options with a PHEV 50/75/100 miles etc. A lot of consumers would pay for more electric range.

 

[scottf200]

I don't think the masses want to change their habits or stress for their cars. They want to use a heater in the winter for example. They want to have the flexibility of handling unexpected events or run errands whenever they want/need.

From the leaf forum. Note they threw in the Japan numbers as a "feel good" IMHO.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2883&sid=273e8a73a07ac07f887eb3f0cfc795d6

P.S. Send your friend to www.voltstats.net to sign up and have his car information picked up 4 times a day. It pretend to be an "iphone". It does NOT have/use the 4 digit PIN so no remote commands can be sent. Lot of cool graphs at the individual car level. See clickable link in my sig.

 

[smoothoperator]

I don't think the masses want to change their habits or stress for their cars. They want to use a heater in the winter for example. They want to have the flexibility of handling unexpected events or run errands whenever they want/need.

From the leaf forum. Note they threw in the Japan numbers as a "feel good" IMHO.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2883&sid=273e8a73a07ac07f887eb3f0cfc795d6

P.S. Send your friend to www.voltstats.net to sign up and have his car information picked up 4 times a day. It pretend to be an "iphone". It does NOT have/use the 4 digit PIN so no remote commands can be sent. Lot of cool graphs at the individual car level. See clickable link in my sig.

odd that they just did not do a worldwide sales tabulation, why just Japan?

 

[scottf200]

odd that they just did not do a worldwide sales tabulation, why just Japan?

Because there is no easy way to get numbers outside of the USA. There is no legal or regulatory requirement for manufacturers to do that.