Electric Cars Are Best As City Cars: America May Follow Europe

@Laurent:

Actually I'm quite surprized by how homogeneous the world has become (actually, I'm not surprized at all, but that's getting into another subject). I like electric cars on winding roads, that's why I want BIG BATTERIES so that I don't have to stop driving prematurely.

France it seems has other problems these days, namely more than excessive taxation, Hollande's threatening Nationalization of the World's Largest Steelmaker, and
Wealth Flight out of the country ( Capital Controls, anyone?). Methinks France would have been better off choosing Jean-Marie Le Pen or his daughter Marine. Distancing the country from the rest of the increasingly Banker Controlled countries of Europe can only mean long term good for France.

What's an English decent person doing defending France? After all, we all trace our ancestry from 11th century England, from France!

France has always made interesting automobiles, and now several significant EV models. I would hope PSA Peugeot-Citroen survives its increasing alliance with our General Motors. I would hate to see French uniqueness Die.

@Bret,
I'd bet that 100% of your neighbors who have golf carts also have an ICE vehicle. This is the beauty of having enough space to be sustainable, unlike Europe. They probably have enough space to park both their ICE and their golf cart so they can select the right tool for the right job.
Europe has gotten too overrun over the centuries and has not invested enough in their habitability infrastructure so nobody has enough space to do much. Therefore, they try to cram as much life into insufficient space as they can afford. This significantly restricts their options.
In the US, however, we have lots of space to live but, of course, we still don't always use it for the best purposes such as using large trucks (that are easy to park here) for simple commuting.

The physics is the same on both sides of the pound. To be safe in a car, on a long road, in a city or in on a freeway you need to have reasonable crumple zones to absorb the crash energy and do so on a sufficient length to limit the deceleration that you endure. Europe or America it doesn’t matter, it is the same physics and therefore when you factor out the economic differential people automatically buy the same safety they can afford and thus purchase the same type of car.

Really Interesting article, But what is more interesting is as people may purchase/lease a City EV and figure out it can do more, like a longer commute, more frequent trips, less range anxeity and ultimately figure out normally your only traveling at most 25-30miles between desitnation points allowing plenty of room to travel. I drive our LEAF to the extent every day, 68-70mile RT commuter, Plenty of infrastructure along the way if i need to stop. And i usually come home and charge very shortly before we start our city run abouts all within $3-4 of electrons. CANT BEAT IT!

It would be more accurate to say that electric cars are great for suburbia. In dense cities cars are often not necessary, and finding places to charge can be problematic for apartment and condominium dwellers. In suburban areas the distances driven are enough to derive real benefit from electric propulsion, while not too far for non-Tesla EVs, and it is generally easy to charge at home.

The LEAF has just taken over our family gas guzzlers. I live in the suburbs of Nashville and commute 30 miles round trip to work. We run to a mall about 3 miles away and eat run around in the afternoon with the family, go see friends, go play golf, go watch a movie. My truck just sits there parked unless I need to make a trash run or have a long trip. The other day I had the opportunity to drive a new FY13 Altima for a day, had to run to the gas station. I had to remember how to work the pump it was strange. Guys it all depends on your daily travel distance.

Battery problem – what battery problem? So a few people in Nevada extreme heat had some issues. People in the same area have done just fine. Overhyped!

Cold Weather – have you tried warming up your car with your phone app before you go out? It warms your LEAF up using the house electricity, nice and toasty when you get in. I charge my leaf outside, truck in garage. Guess what it works and then there is minimal affect on your range.

The car works!

@Anonymous,
Yes, we've gotten pretty efficient at harnessing energy sources to allow us to roam around freely and it has enabled our species to thrive in nearly every corner of the planet.
We started by harnessing the horse. Then learned to build boats and harnessed the wind to propel them. We also invented the wheel that made it more efficient. Further advancements allowed us to use the wind even better and we learned to harness falling water.
The last, wonderful energy source that that we harnessed for this task, petroleum, was revolutionarily better than previous schemes. Unfortunately, it is a finite resource with some undesirable emissions products. I guess our choices now are to go back to the drawing board and find a better solution or step back in mankind's progress to a previous state.
I chose the former, you're welcome to return to a simpler time if you'd like.

@Warren,
First of all, if you sign in, you'll get an edit button so you can adjust your posts.
Next: I think the big issue is sustainability.
I think there may be a disconnect between growth and improvement. IMHO, there is no sustainable growth rate if it doesn't have a ceiling. The growth of human population must stop at some point or it will destroy itself. Unfortunately, as the population gets too big, the quality of life will have to start to decline.
I think population growth is a different topic than improving our transportation to make it sustainable so I'll leave it for different discussions. I don't have enough energy to tackle too many problems and I'm in pretty deep with transportation now.
I'm pretty sure that we could sustain (and probably improve) our current population and lifestyle if we'd just work on improving a few technologies to make them sustainable. This does, of course, require changing our energy source to sustainable ones instead of the finite ones we're using today.
I believe that even today's admittedly hedonistic, self-serving suburban lifestyle could be sustained if we were to switch to renewable (primarily solar, wind, hydro, and bio-fuel). This will, of course require changes at both the generation and usage of energy.
EVs represent a viable way to use these varied energy sources to provide the flexible suburban lifestyle that so many in the world strive for.
While I'm very much interested in them, I'll leave the energy sources, like population growth, to different discussions where they are more on-topic.

@Warren,
I enjoyed reading that link. I don't, however, agree that our planet doesn't have sufficient sustainable energy to maintain today's standard of living throughout the world.
I do agree that we'll have to use energy better and costs of goods will likely increase since sustainable energy is likely to be more expensive than that which can be dug up from the ground. This, will, of course reduce our access to as many luxury goods as we have today. For some, that may mean foregoing the luxury of a large home in the suburbs for their big-screen satellite TV, leased luxury gas guzzler, voracious wine budget, exploited illegal immigrant gardeners, home bottled water delivery, etc.
We will definitely have to prioritize more but I don't see the suburban home as being a definite loss.
I also understand your hesitance to 'sign in'. Plugin-cars doesn't hit you that way but, of course, there's nothing to prove they won't if someone else buys them. You won't, however, be able to edit though.

@Warren,
What's wrong with him saying that "By the numbers, solar is a can-do resource, and wind has large-scale capability as well."
I figure that, and the links in it kind of jive with my understanding as well. I like "can do" :-)
We just need to go towards renewables and he agrees with me that solar and wind appear to be the most viable on a large scale.
We can argue what 'sustainable' means all day long but we certainly don't have to argue what it doesn't mean.
For example, any dependence on petroleum for transportation, whether in a Hummer or a Prius is not sustainable and never will be no matter how many MPG the next generation of Prius gets.
Using CFLs for light instead of incandescent is not sustainable if it doesn't eliminate our need for coal or natural gas to generate some of our electricity.
I, too, think his reasoning is pretty good overall.