A Roadmap to Vehicle Electrification
The first mass-market electric vehicles are expected in showrooms next year, and a coalition
of business leaders has laid out a sweeping plan for the adoption of EVs and the
infrastructure to support them.
The Electrification Roadmap makes the usual arguments for electric cars (reduced emissions,
less dependence on foreign oil), lays out the challenges to their adoption and offers some
policy proposals for overcoming them. More striking is its bold call for a national goal of
seeing EVs account for 75 percent of all light-duty miles driven by 2040. The plan was
developed by the Electrification Coalition and the consulting firm PRTM.
"Up to now, electrification seemed like a pipe dream," said Fred Smith, chairman and CEO of
FedEx and a member of the Electrification Coalition announced today. "But we are offering a
realistic, practical, achievable plan to build a transportation system that will enhance our
national security, propel economic growth and reduce carbon dioxide emissions."
Many automakers are developing electric vehicles, and the Chevolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are
slated for production next year. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn is among the auto industry's most
vocal advocates of the technology, but even he has said EVs will comprise no more than 10
percent of the market by 2020.
If the coalition's goal is to be achieved, one in four vehicles on the road by then will have to be
electric.
To reach that target, the coalition — of which Ghosn is a member — says electric and plug-in
hybrids must comprise 25 percent of the market by 2020. Reaching that level, according to
Automotive News, will require having 14 million cars with cords on the road. That's light years
ahead of President Obama's goal of seeing 1 million such vehicles by 2015.