In an exchange between Ford Motor Co’s CEO Alan Mullaly and Mahalo’s CEO Jason Calacanis at All Things Digital, Ford’s head man said the unthinkable: electric cars will take a while (quite a while) to become market dominant.

This immediately created excited commentary amongst the EV geeks around the ‘Net.  When the story hit Auto Blog Green, Sam Abuelsamid thought it measured.  Christopher DeMorro at Gas2 was also realistic with his assessment of the CEO’s reasoning.  It should be obvious by my statements so far that I’m with Abuelsamid, DeMorro and Mullaly.

Of course, this “electrics won’t be common anytime soon” thinking doesn’t sit well with most EV geeks.  The commentary on both of those blogs was prolific and many of the posters are astoundingly obtuse.

In my experience talking with EV types both online and off, the perspective is basically geography-centric.  If you live in California (as most columnists do, it turns out), you see half the cars on the road as a Prius and you are catered to by every EV maker on the planet, who bring their wares to you first.  Just as those who live in New York City seem to think that the future of transportation revolves around bicycles.

If you live anywhere else, such as myself being in Wyoming, you have a different outlook.  First, I know that I’m not spending $50,000 on a car no matter what it’s drive train.  I’m certainly not spending $102,000 on a 2-seat sports car, as this is just ludicrously impractical.

Probably the best sum-up was made by AutoBlog commenter Throwback, who said:

“Calacanis exhibits the typical narrow view that some EV proponents have about the average consumer. To suggest it’s lame that we need a charging infrastructure to make wide spread adoption of Evs possible shows how clueless he is about the average car buyer. The average car buyer wants reliable transportation and connivence. For the average Camry owner to BUY an EV, the car has to be as convenient and reliable (or more) as their current car, otherwise why switch? Yes he loves EVs and I’m sure everyone in his circle does as well, so therefore everyone MUST want an EV regardless of whether or not they can charge it. Cost is irrelevant because everyone is as wealthy as he is. Good thing he’s not running Ford.”

What Throwback is alluding to is called Commentator’s Disease.  This is what happens when someone is insulated from the real world of everyday folk by financial security, a lack of reality-based friendships, and an inability to personally connect with those who are in different circumstances.  In less friendly circles, it’s called Elitism.  I’ll stick with Commentator’s Disease.  Usually, this is used to refer to people in Washington, D.C., but it can apply to anyone.

It’s blatantly obvious that Calacanis suffers from this malady.  He’s so disconnected that he assumes that everyone can easily afford a Tesla Roadster, has a garage (with charging station) to put it in,  and is on the waiting list for a Nissan LEAF (and probably reserved it using their iPad 3G).  Sorry, Calacanis, but not all of us are like that.  We can’t all afford dedicated fast-chargers in our garage and probably don’t have a second one out by the pool either.

Funny thing is, even if they aren’t in the same financial situation as Calacanis, a lot of blog commentators seem to have the same elitist (er… Commentator’s Disease-ridden) outlook.  They assume that because they want an electric car (and want it NOW) and all of their geek friends do too, everyone else must want one as well.

Comments like “a 100 mile range covers 94% of Americans’ driving needs” and “the technology is there, the big car companies just don’t want to embrace it” and so forth are their usual tripe.  I’ll use myself as an example of why the first is bogus and I’ll use the reality of technology to disprove the second point.

First, I live at a 90-mile round trip from the nearest city (read: Walmart and shopping mall) and in a place where the weather can get bitter cold, a vehicle’s efficiency can quickly be lost to wind resistance, and where access to charging stations or charge points is non-existent.  This means that a 100-mile range might barely be good enough, but it’s going to often not be.  I’m also, like most Americans, unwilling to spend a year’s salary on a car.  Sorry, but those $30,000+ price tags don’t cut it.  I’ve never owned a new car and I never will own one and I definitely won’t be paying anything more than $20,000 for a car (so far, my top purchase has been $14k).  Sorry, but I can think of better things to do with my money than waste it on car payments and interest.  I have a Toyota pickup truck that is used for utility and my wife’s Honda Civic gets better mileage than the Prius on the highway.  Like most people in my situation, I’m also intimately familiar with how maintenance and repairs can be done DIY on these vehicles.

The second point is even worse.  These people are assuming that just because the technology exists, it should be readily available and it’s only the “big evil corporations” that are holding it back.  Sorry, but that rationale won’t get you into Mensa.

Space rockets have existed for 50+ years.  I don’t see everyone with one of those in their back yards.  High speed rail has been around for quite a while too, but those don’t exist in every city and large town either.  Why not?  Because neither technology is practical in every situation – or even most.  New technologies, such as our modern EVs, are expensive.  Even the “100 years ago” EVs that these people love referring to when attempting to negate the “new tech” argument, were very different than today’s and those electrics were the purview of… you guessed it, the wealthy.

Sorry to break it to you, but most people are not wealthy or even moderately well off.  Most of us are average, to put it bluntly, and so most of us can’t afford $50k cars and related technologies.  In fact, most Americans don’t even have a garage and a large chunk of people rent and don’t own a residence.

I hate to burst the bubbles of these otherwise fine EV geeks, but in the real world, most people aren’t really into electric cars.  They’ve probably seen them on TV a couple of times, maybe read an article that someone sent them or that appeared in USA Today, but for the most part: cars still mean gasoline for the vast majority of the world.  Yes, this is changing, but it’s a slow process.  Even after Ford began selling his paradigm-shattering Model T, it took decades for the car to become common.

In 1914, the Model T sold about 250,000 units and the U.S. had a population of 99.1 million people.  Two years later, sales were at 472,000 units and the population was at 101.9 million people.  Obviously, even if you count all units sold in that 3-year span, the population growth stayed ahead of the sales curve.

It wasn’t until after World War II, thirty-plus years later, that the automobile became extremely common and it wasn’t until the 1960s that the number of drivers nearly equaled the number of vehicles owned.  There are more than two hundred million cars in the U.S. today.  How long do you think it’ll take for these brand new electrics to replace them?  Both culturally and physically?

Quite a while.  So the Ford man is right.  Try and have some patience and perspective, EV geeks.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.