But things will change. EV ranges will increase, more charging stations will be installed, and gasmobiles parked in EV spots will get towed and fined.

Sure, but ICEs are incredibly inefficient at turning that energy into motion. About 80% of the energy is turned into waste heat.

Here’s what might be interesting – a weight/size comparison for EV and ICEV “essential stuff” .

For the EV, measure batteries, electric motor, battery-related electronics and anything else unique to EVs.

For the ICEV measure engine, cooling system, exhaust system, fuel system including fuel tank and any other components not used in an EV.

The Chevy Spark gas model runs 2269 to 2368, depending on transmission. Add in 9.2 gallons of fuel at 6.2 pounds/gallon, or 57 more pounds.

The Spark EV weighs 2989 pounds, curb weight. 564 pounds more than a fueled up auto transmission ICE Spark at 2425 pounds.

Bit of weight advantage for the fuel version. But future battery improvements will increase capacity per pound. Moving from the LEAF ~120 kW/kg to Envia’s ~400 kW/kg would mean a 270 mile range Spark with no weight gain.

270 mile range is not as good as the ~350 mile range of the gas Spark, but it’s likely plenty for most drivers.

The concept of the Rogers adoption curve is not that once a new technology has satisfied the early adopters, it will sink away in oblivion. The idea is that the majority of people wait until the early adopters have cleared the way for them. And then they step in. In large numbers. EV’s will not be any different, unless a disruptive competing technology emerges (some breakthrough in biofuels or hydrogen), or the development of cheaper and better batteries completely stalls.

I think we will see the early majority once the 2nd generation LEAF comes out in 2-3 years.

http://evobsession.com/electric-vehicles-sales-update-june-2013-sales/

We do some blogging on energy at
http://www.empowernetwork.com/paulsagala/ and also resuming at http://www.bsprimer.com
for the East African region.

Visit us and share our views.

Here in Japan, on the other hand, the transition seems to be following a more traditional route, at least from my personal observation. Hybrids have sold well here and models like the Prius are all over the place. But the country as a whole still seems to be dragging its feet in developing an electric infrastructure,so there are still very few plug-in vehicles, although this is certainly starting to change with the post-Fukushima push towards renewables.

Indeed, I believe the biggest factor holding back the transition here is the lack of convenient charging points, because I don’t think there are any major psychological, economic, or political barriers . Parking in general is very limited so there are almost no places you can plug in when on the go. Even worse is that large numbers of car owners (at least in the cities) can’t plug in at home either; they either live in apartments or homes without garages, and instead use nearby external parking facilities.

But suddenly the Leaf at 6K less and Tesla ramping up production has changed every thing and now EVs are in charge. There is also comparison like EV Mobile and Gasmobile.

Across the board many EV’s price has gone down and they are outselling Plugins easily. Its nice to read. Hope Spark-EV will open a new Front in the EV sales.

I still believe there is room for ALOT of innovation in hybrid packaging. Imagine Tesla’s powertrain, but with about 80% of the battery section cut out, and an ICE engine + transmission + exaust are all in that space packaged super well. Obviously the complexity of this goes up an insane amount. The good part of an electric powertrain is it’s simplicity. Liquid fuel is still better than batteries though in terms of pure energy.

The Chevy Volt powertrain is really complicated, REALLY complicated.