Over at the Atlantic, technology writer Alexis Madrigal ran the numbers and found some pretty daunting scale issues with Obama's seemingly ambitious SOTU goal for electric vehicles (EV): 1,000,000 by 2015.
[Note: updated on 1/31 to correct typo in one of our figures]
In the comment-free tradition of this humble feature, here's a brief run-down:
- Obama's goal: 1,000,000 new EV's by 2015 (250,000 per year, average)
- New cars sold in 2009: ~10,000,000 (note: due the the recession, 2009 was a lower-than-average year for car sales. 12-14,000,000 may be more typical)
- Total vehicles in the U.S. fleet: 250,000,000 (250 times Obama's goal!)
- Total EV's on the road today (2007): ~70,000-80,000
- Total hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) sold in the past decade (as of 2009): 1,500,000
You can read the full post (and find additional sources) here.
