One of the perennial topics of interest regarding cars, in general, is whether to buy or lease. We won’t dive into that decades-long debate, but we were curious to see the results of that consideration among early EV drivers.
One of the wonderful things about working in the cleantech industry is, sappy as it sounds, the people. We aren’t at the early, early phases of industry growth, but we’re at an early enough stage that many of the leaders in the industry are still adventurous, compassionate people who are striving to help society.
Cleantech leaders from 11 countries are now set to converge on Berlin and Wroclaw for the next edition of our Cleantech Revolution Tour. We have longtime EV and solar leaders from the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, the USA, Sweden, and Portugal joining the conference.
Last year, when I presented* at a big institutional investment conference in India, there was a lot of talk about solar, but little about electric vehicles. Of course, a large portion of my presentation was about Tesla and electric cars. The presentation* from Indian Minister of Coal, Power, and New & Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal, highlighted the highly competitive cost of solar power but didn’t really touch electric vehicles.
I’m of the opinion that most households could actually do just fine with a Nissan LEAF, BMW i3, Ford Focus Electric, or the like — and then also benefit as a consumer from the wonderful inherent features of an electric car. One key reason I think so is because I’ve seldom known a household that needed to drive all the cars in their household a super long distance on the same day. Typically, households have 2–3 cars in the US, and when one is out on a road trip, the others are still enjoying a slow-paced, short-trip city life. So, why couldn’t one of them be a medium-range electric car.
Working in the cleantech communication business since the middle of 2009, I can say that I’ve picked up quite a few cleantech communication tips, and I try to sharpen them every day. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen a lot of examples of bad, bad, bad cleantech communication — communication flubs are quite abundant in this field. (And, yeah, I’ve been the person behind those bad examples from time to time.)
Many cleantech enthusiasts actually use talking points and discussion strategies that are counterproductive. Yikes!
This summer “Kick Gas” — an electric vehicle promotion — aims to speed up the progress into electric, zero-emissions transport. Nissan is giving away free fuel to show more people what life without a gas tank can be like. This “Kick Gas” initiative is coming to several fueling locations in 5 US Northeast cities.
Revolution is a brewing. In two weeks, we will be in the midst of our second Cleantech Revolution Tour conference in Berlin, and our 4th overall. We have a tremendous lineup of speakers and panelists scheduled for Berlin and Wroclaw, and a unique format that will result on some practical end products.
Additionally, this year’s series brings “tour” into the agenda in a deeper way — with each conference held in two cities.
Which electric vehicle incentives are most effective? Which will stimulate the most EV adoption? Which break down the biggest barriers to EV awareness, experience, and transition?
One of the benefits of driving electric is that electric motors and drivetrains are inherently much more efficient than gasoline- or diesel-powered engines/drivetrains. Aside from that inherent energy conservation, though, how much do electric car drivers strove to conserve energy? And how much does driving electric encourage them to conserve energy? These are matters we dug into a little bit in our latest electric car driver report.
