America refuses to fall in love with electric cars

EPD Amendments Passenger Car Greenhouse Gas Emission RegulationsCompleted in December 2021, only returning standards to those of the Obama administration in the mid-2010s. This is in stark contrast to China and Europe, which have aggressively pursued carbon reduction policies and encouraged the production of electric vehicles.

Politics aside, there’s a simpler reason why adoption in the U.S. has stalled while EVs in other countries have taken off. “Historically, there simply haven’t been enough charging points,” said Alyssa Altman, director of transportation and mobility at consultancy Publicis Sapient in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Potential EV customers are concerned with keeping their vehicles powered on long journeys, and for some trips in the U.S., the lack of charging stations makes that impossible.” Publicis Sapient’s data suggests that this remains a The problem, the distribution of the 113,600 charging stations in the US is unevenly concentrated in areas where EV adoption is already relatively high, such as California. “For me, the main bottleneck is infrastructure,” said Coco Zhang, ING’s environmental, social and governance analyst. “Consumer perceptions are slow to change due to the current lack of EV infrastructure.”

It’s not that American consumers don’t want EVs.When Volkswagen opened pre-orders for its ID.4 EV in September 2020, customer demand made website crashes. They worry about being stuck in expensive electric cars. “While the current data looks bleak, progress is being made in the U.S. and more imaginative solutions are emerging that will fit into the American way of life, such as providing charging stations at fast food restaurants and grocery stores,” Altman said.Ability get a taco bell Charging your car at the same time can be a temptation for many Americans. Affordability is also a major issue, said Chintagunta, whose research found that EV sales would rise significantly if adoption became cheaper.

China faces some of the same geographic issues as the U.S., including range anxiety, but it has successfully embraced electric through what Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of Germany’s Duisburg Center for Automotive Research, calls a “leapfrog effect.” Auto: China’s auto industry doesn’t have much experience building internal combustion engines, so when alternatives come, it’s easy to abandon them. This puts Chinese manufacturers in an enviably odd position. Because it’s not tied to a soon-to-be-obsolete vehicle-powered model by a century of business experience, the market can adapt more quickly.

The difference in approach to electric vehicles can be seen through a company with operations in the US and China: General Motors.Through a joint venture with SAIC and Guangxi Automobile GroupTwo Chinese state-owned companies, General Motors, make the Hongguang Mini, an ugly entry-level electric car that Chinese citizens liken to a bread box on wheels that retails for about $4,500.

The model sold in China 138,790 in the past three months The total number of EV models sold by GM in the U.S. during the same period in 2021 was 26. (General Motors declined to comment for this story.)