As of late, President Obama launched a program called EV-Everywhere Challenge. This is an attempt to bring everyone together (scientists, business leaders, government and engineers) to develop an infrastructure and market for a robust electric vehicle market in ten (10) years.
So after reading the press release, it was quite obvious that this is an effort to try and bring all the players together. However, it is not seemed to be a realistic approach to developing an electric vehicle structure for the United States.
While Secretary Chu and the Obama Administration wishes this to be a reality, there are multiple obstacles to letting this occur.
For starters, when the Federal Government attempts to bring people together, it goes back to the revised addage of it all depends what your definition of everyone is. If people are excluded from the process or not requested to be involved then their plans are a failure from the get go. People as I stated before a those who actually developed electric vehicle progrms in the 1990’s and early 2000’s prior to the first wave of electric vehicles being crushed. Those older program managers, infrastructure developers and people that love electric vehicles and are more aware of the hurdles, obstacles, people, processes that made EVs a success. If those people are not included in the process, we have a half of an attempt to meet America’s challenges.
So why would the Federal Government exclude those who made electric vehicles great prior to the Obama Administration? Probably because the people who are running the EV infrastructure movement today or the car companies and/or energy companies are not in the business of including people of differing views. They are in the business of profit and collecting as many Federal dollars as possible without any interruptions of reality or processes.
Bottom line, here is the problem. People like me or those who worked for electric utilities that were involved with developing the electric vehicle market and frankly have more experience than those that would be brought to the table by the Federal Government don’t work for those respective agencies or car companies or utilities. They are like me or members of the Electric Auto Association or people that have small businesses in various locations across the country.
To think that the Federal Government would go the distance to find those people are completely unrealistic since I don’t have the capital like an EV infrastructure company or a car company or an electric utility. In addition, I might even add that those left in some of these electric utilities are not aware how people use cars. They are only interested in creating an EV fee structure that is equivalent to the cost of gas versus being a realistically and deeply cheaper rate. It use to cost me to charge a THINK City of the past about $1.50. To think that privatized electric resellers would allow for such a deep cut in costs to American drivers is as funny as the movie “Super Troopers” (aka stupid hilarious).
So here is a bit of advise to the US Department of Energy and the Obama Administration:
If you want to think big, bring everyone to the table. I mean EVERYONE!! Don’t just bring those people to the table that are merely paying political campaign contributions or those who received stimulus monies. I never got stimulus monies but I am aware of more things that would make EV markets successful. This includes processes, people that can make things happen and also aware of realistic EV business models. So far, the people that have been brought to the table can build a car or a charging station. However, can they get the masses to buy or lease electric cars; no. To I fear that this exercise is one of futility? Yes. Do I believe that they can be more inclusive; yes! Will they be more inclusive; only the future will tell.
Source: US Department of Energy
