Electric Transportation Conference in Los Angeles — Craig Shields to Speak on the EV Adoption Curve

I’m speaking at an Electric Transportation conference in Los Angeles in a few weeks, in which I’ve been asked to take on the issue of the EV adoption curve – a subject near and dear to my heart. Here’s Boston Consulting Group’s take on the matter, in which they expect to see pure (battery) EV and plug-in hybrids growing 5% globally by 2020. It’s a bit unclear what this means. 5% more EVs on the road than today? 5% of new car sales? 5% of total cars on the roads?

In any case, they’re looking at some of the right variables: oil prices, battery energy densities, consumer willingness to pay a bit more for an eco-friendly car, and improvements in the economy of internal combustion engines. But what they’ve missed is what I would call the “sociological phenomenon” of EVs.

I predict that the power of the “word of mouth” that takes place when we get more than a few hundred LEAFs and Volts on the road (not to mention EVs from BMW, Ford, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, etc.) will be enormous. We’ve seen countless times that consumer demand – even for stupid products – can explode in a short period of time. I predict that in spades for EVs.