Levin: “We’re talking about a real revolution in transportation. Moving from gasoline to electricity is a big change for most people and it takes a little while for people to get comfortable with the change.”

That’s Joel Levin of the nonprofit, Plug-In America. Eight years ago President Obama set a goal to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

Levin says we fell short because there were not compelling options available. But as auto makers develop new models and consumers see more EVs on the road, that’s changing.

Levin: “We’ve seen with EVs very often that they sell in clusters. That someone will buy a car, and then a few months later their next door neighbor gets one and a few months later his cousin gets one and then there’s sort of an exponential growth in that way.”

Some data suggests low gas prices contributed to the recent slump in sales, but Levin does not expect the downturn to last, as new and better EVs hit the market.

Levin: “The ride is just better, it’s smooth, it’s quiet, they have a lot of power. We think that in the long run electric vehicles are so compelling for so many reasons that they will succeed because they’re better cars, not because gasoline is expensive.”

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.

More Resources
Plug In America website
Electric vehicle sales fall far short of Obama goal
Auto makers go electric even if gas is cheap
Cheap gasoline will kill the electric car again
Electric cars: what early adopters and first followers want