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China, Europe Drive Shift To Electric Cars as US Lags (reuters.com)
Electric cars will pick up critical momentum in 2017, many in the auto industry believe - just not in North America. Tighter emissions rules in China and Europe leave global carmakers and some consumers with little choice but to embrace plug-in vehicles, fuelling an investment surge, said industry executives gathered in Detroit this past week for the city's annual auto show. From a report: "Car electrification is an irreversible trend," said Jacques Aschenbroich, chief executive of auto supplier Valeo, which has expanded sales by 50 percent in five years with a focus on electric, hybrid, connected and self-driving cars. In Europe, green cars benefit increasingly from subsidies, tax breaks and other perks, while combustion engines face mounting penalties including driving and parking restrictions. China, struggling with catastrophic pollution levels in major cities, is aggressively pushing plug-in vehicles. Its carrot-and-stick approach combines tens of billions in investment and research funding with subsidies, and regulations designed to discourage driving fossil-fueled cars in big cities. The road ahead for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States, however, could have more hairpin curves.
Americans want to drive their own cars and trucks. It's part of our culture. No one want to sit in a robotic electric fagmobile.
Being in Canada(yah, talk about population density) I can tell you I've drive by many houses and business with electricity hoping I could make to a gas station before i run out of gas.
I've had to walk 3 KM to get a jerry can, then another 2KM to a gas station, then another 4KM back to my car when I ran out of gas once... if I could just have run an extension cord into the house I was stopped in front of it sure would have saved me a lot of trouble.