The first buyers of electric cars are to be praised, writes Bob Montgomery
EARLY ADOPTERS is the name given to people who buy the latest version of any new technology, be it the newest iPad or electric car and they tend to pay a lot for the privilege.
It’s a privilege their friends and neighbours might find dubious, and certainly overpriced, but history tells us there will be plenty of first adapters lining up to buy that first iPad (something we already have confirmed by the queues outside Apple shops worldwide).
There may not be queues outside the showrooms that offer the first electric cars for sale, but I’m willing to bet enough people will be prepared to pay the high cost of early electric car ownership to make it worthwhile for the car manufacturers to continue their development of such vehicles.
These early adopters of electric cars face two problems: high initial cost and a limited range. Let’s deal with high cost first. Here it’s informative to go back to the very early days of the motor car.
The first people to buy early cars were those who could afford them, the gentry and the wealthy merchant-classes. Their initial view of motoring was of a new sport to be added to those they already enjoyed such as hunting and shooting. They could afford to partake of this new past-time and grasped the opportunity enthusiastically.
But there was a snag, just as there is today with electric cars. In the early days of motoring, design progress was so rapid that a newly purchased car was likely to be out of date by end of the year.
So it was with early automobiles; so it was with early adopters of computer technology; so it is today with electric cars. And as in the early part of the last century, none of this will stop those who can afford it from buying the latest electric cars.
As for the other problem of range anxiety, for any early adapter who wants an electric car this is an annoying inconvenience. But, salvation is at hand, well, almost.
The motor industry is pouring vast resources into solving the problem of low range and only last week, Volkswagen electric vehicle expert Martin Eberhard stated that on the basis of current progress, within ten years a range of 500 miles should be possible.
All of this parallels the experience of the early adopters of the motor car who saw their cars rapidly develop out of recognition in terms of performance and reliability in those early years.
Our Government has set a target of 250,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads by 2020. That would take around 30,000 electric vehicle sales per year which, in post-recession Ireland, seems highly unlikely particularly when the are no significant initiatives to make electric motoring more affordable for motorists.
But, I’m willing to bet their will be a lot more electric cars on Irish roads in 2020 that we might currently imagine and for that we’ll have to give a lot of the credit to the early adopters.