2010: The Year Electric Cars Go Mainstream?

A lot of interesting news regarding electric cars, which have gone from "not on the map" to "we're coming in 2010" within a few short years. These are exactly the innovations an energy hungry world is going to need.... and it is even better for the United States because plugging a car into the wall of your house will use coal or natural gas as opposed to petrol - and we have a lot of the former 2 as opposed to begging on our knees for more petrol. Not that we needed any more reasons to be long term bullish on nat gas and coal....

While it will just be a drop in the bucket at first, this could be the first of a large scale paradigm shift in the 2010-2020 period. But economics are the mother of innovation - I expect a long period of this sort of technology breakthrough borne of necessity in our "World of Shortages" scenario. Shortages created, economic pain, lag effect ... then technological breakthrough to help offset shortages.... and keep repeating as we bring another 2.5 Billion humans to bear on the planet, to swim along with the current 6.5 Billion.

We discussed Tesla Motors (and potential IPO) here



Nissan's coming to market by 2010 per NYTimes



The GM Volt concept has been a huge hit at the Detroit Auto show - working hard for model year 2010 (meaning ready for 2011)



And via Wall Street Journal Norway's Think Auto is considering bringing a 110 mile range "city car" to the US by 2009.

• Norway's Think Global AS, with backing from U.S. venture capital investors, plans to produce and sell a small all-electric car in the U.S. that could go as far as 110 miles when fully charged – fresh evidence that the race to woo American consumers with electric cars is heating up and drawing interest from the same investors that helped build Silicon Valley.
• Oslo-based electric carmaker, which recently set up a U.S. office in Menlo Park, Calif., is trying to determine what geographical areas to focus its sales activities on, with an aim to launch the car – the Think City – in 2009.
• Jan-Olaf Willums, Think Global chief executive officer, said Think plans to sell the City, to be priced less than $25,000, in densely populated cities because of the car's limited range. The car is just hitting the market in Norway, Sweden and Denmark where a typical user drives the vehicle for a relatively short commuting distance and plugs it into an electric outlet in his garage to charge it overnight.
• ....believes Think could eventually sell as many as 30,000 to 50,000 City cars a year in the U.S. once production ramps up and a sales network for the model is fully established.
• "Because of the dollar's extreme weakness, it doesn't make sense to ship cars across the Atlantic." The Norwegian executive said Think would like to see which state and city could provide the "best deal," referring to investment incentives such as tax breaks.
• In addition to the City, Think plans to add to its product lineup in late 2010 in Europe a second all-electric vehicle: the Think Ox, a five-seat car-SUV crossover. Using currently available battery technology, the car has a driving range of about 150 miles when the vehicle is fully charged. A U.S. launch is expected to follow shortly after, Mr. Willums said.