Could the turbocharger kill the electric car?
It seems to me that the ICE business is putting together a huge push-back against electric cars. There's an unending stream of these sort of articles.
Although it may be an odd-sounding name for a green technology, the turbocharger raises fuel efficiency levels by up to 40 per cent and is now included in 75 per cent of new cars in Europe. That could rise to nearly 90 per cent by 2015.
They are far less common in the United States, mainly due to North Americans’ aversion to diesel-powered cars, which are particularly suited to turbocharging — but that is expected to change soon in an era of strict fuel economy standards.
But industry officials and analysts say electric cars will have only a small sliver of the market even by 2020. Doubts abound about prohibitively high battery costs, infrastructure issues, range anxiety and the size of the electric cars’ carbon footprint when power comes from fossil-fuel burning plants.
What is the point of charging a battery with electricity produced from a coal-burning power plant?
“Consumers are being naive to think they’ll be able to go out and buy an electric car now,” said Christoph Stuermer, a car industry analyst at IHS Global Insight research institute. “People want them but they’re not really ready for the mass market.”
It seems to me that the ICE business is putting together a huge push-back against electric cars. There's an unending stream of these sort of articles.