Remember Obama's promise to put 1,000,000 electric cars on the road by 2015?

He missed that target by over 800,000.

(Investors)- Back in the good old days when President Obama didn't have so many dings on his record, he promised that by 2015 there'd be more than 1 million electric cars on the road.
Well, with just days to go, he's only about 826,000 or so cars short of that goal.
Instead of 200,000 Nissan Leafs on the road today -- as Obama's Department of Energy predicted in 2011 -- there are less than 70,000.
And while Obama forecast 375,000 Chevy Volt sales by 2014, just a bit more than 71,000 have made it off the showroom floor.
Fisker, which was supposed to be selling 85,000 electric cars a year by now, went bankrupt last year.
Add it up, and there are a grand total of less than 180,000 plug-ins on U.S. roads today. Worldwide, there are only 400,000.

Why electric cars fail with consumers...

Tesla Model S Sedan

Why do electric cars fail with consumers? Most Americans want to be green and help save the environment. Of course, electric cars aren't that green because making the batteries is toxic to the environment, but most people don't know that. I think the problem consumers have with electric cars is well demonstrated in the NYT Tesla high-performance Model S sedan test drive excerpted below. Americans fear being stranded on the side of the road and won't give up their gas and go vehicles.

Via NYT:

[...]As I crossed into New Jersey some 15 miles later, I noticed that the estimated range was falling faster than miles were accumulating. At 68 miles since recharging, the range had dropped by 85 miles, and a little mental math told me that reaching Milford would be a stretch. 

I began following Tesla’s range-maximization guidelines, which meant dispensing with such battery-draining amenities as warming the cabin and keeping up with traffic. I turned the climate control to low — the temperature was still in the 30s — and planted myself in the far right lane with the cruise control set at 54 miles per hour (the speed limit is 65). Buicks and 18-wheelers flew past, their drivers staring at the nail-polish-red wondercar with California dealer plates. 

Nearing New York, I made the first of several calls to Tesla officials about my creeping range anxiety. The woman who had delivered the car told me to turn off the cruise control; company executives later told me that advice was wrong. All the while, my feet were freezing and my knuckles were turning white. 

After a short break in Manhattan, the range readout said 79 miles; the Milford charging station was 73 miles away. About 20 miles from Milford, less than 10 miles of range remained. I called Tesla again, and Ted Merendino, a product planner, told me that even when the display reached zero there would still be a few miles of cushion. 

At that point, the car informed me it was shutting off the heater, and it ordered me, in vivid red letters, to “Recharge Now.”[...] Read it all...

Green Fail: $17 million in Stimulus money and a visit from President Obama creates 2 jobs in Elkhart, Indiana

President Obama visited in 2009 and made a nice speech. Taxpayers ponied up 17 million in stimulus tax credits to a Swedish electric car company a questionable track record. The result is a mostly empty warehouse and two jobs. Way to go President Obama.

Via CBS News:

As incentive, the federal government offered Think City $17 million in stimulus tax credits. 

Dorinda Heiden-Guss heads up the local economic development effort. "We were excited," she said. "We were invigorated at a very devastating time."

But it turns out the company had a checkered track record, including three previous bankruptcies. We recently visited Think City's Indiana plant, and here's what we found: a largely empty warehouse.

Everybody hoped that by this time there would be more than 400 workers inside a bustling plant. Instead, today, there are just two workers at Think City. Rodney and Josh are slowly finishing assembly on a few dozen 2011 models shipped in from Norway.

We were able to drive a Think City car around the empty space where investors once envisioned an assembly line churning out 20,000 vehicles a year.

Now in its fourth bankruptcy, Think Global has been bought by a Russian investor who didn't return our calls.

Obama prepares to flush another billion dollars down the 'green' toilet

In December 2011, the electric car start-up Aptera closed shop for good. Chevy Volt sales are so poor GM has temporarily suspended production, but President Obama wants to spend another billion on electric vehicles. He is completely clueless.

(CNS News) – President Barack Obama used a visit to a North Carolina truck manufacturer on Wednesday to announce a $1 billion program to promote electric and other alternative vehicles through tax incentives for consumers and federal grants to states to finance infrastructure to support them.

The “National Community Deployment Challenge” includes incentives for individuals and businesses to buy “advanced cars and trucks” through a $10,000 tax credit – up from the $7,500 allowed under current tax law.

The plan also includes a “Race to the Top” contest that would reward grants to states with “model communities” that invest in the infrastructure to support those vehicles, such as charging stations or natural gas corridors “where alternative fuel trucks can transport goods without using a drop of oil,” the White House Press Fact Sheet on the program states.

The North Carolina company, Daimler Trucks North America, is a partner in the Energy Department’s SuperTruck initiative, which wants to increase fuel efficiency of long haul trucks, or 18-wheelers, by 50 percent by 2015, according to the White House.

Keep on reading…

Electric Car Sales in UK Suffer Brown Out

Consumers on both sides of the Atlantic show lackluster interest in electric cars.

(The Guardian)- Hopes that £5,000 government grants would make 2011 "remembered as the year the electric car took off" have been dashed with the release of new figures showing uptake of the greener cars has sputtered out.

Only 106 electric cars were bought in the third quarter of 2011 through the "plugged-in car grant" scheme, launched in January. It marks a significant slump in demand on already sluggish-take-up, with 465 cars registered through the scheme in Q1 and 215 in Q2.

However, trade body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) pointed out that all electric car registrations – both inside and out of the grant scheme – have gone from 167 in 2010 to 940 in 2011.
Electric car campaigners and industry had hoped this would be the year the year the cars – billed as a clean low carbon alternative to conventional petrol and diesel models – made a breakthrough. Former transport secretary Phillip Hammond said in January: "Government action to support affordable vehicles and more local charging points means we are on the threshold of an exciting green revolution – 2011 could be remembered as the year the electric car took off."

The number of electric vehicles in the UK stands at just 1,107, a tiny chunk of the country's 28.5m cars. But the government had hoped to incentivise take-up with the launch of grants of up to £5,000, preserving the grant during last summer's cuts and putting aside £43m, or enough for 8,600 cars, until March 2012. The scheme is due to be reviewed in January.

Outrage: Obama administration gives half a billion dollars to Fisker Automotive so they can start making electric cars in Finland

Fisker Karma- rear 

You just can't make stuff this stupid up. Speaking of stupid, Al Gore is involved.

(ABC News) — With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

“There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle,” the car company’s founder and namesake told ABC News. “They don’t exist here.”

Henrik Fisker said the U.S. money so far has been spent on engineering and design work that stayed in the U.S., not on the 500 manufacturing jobs that went to a rural Finnish firm, Valmet Automotive.

“We’re not in the business of failing; we’re in the business of winning. So we make the right decision for the business,” Fisker said. “That’s why we went to Finland.”

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty — and pricey — cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

Keep on reading…

Fail: Electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents

President Obama hardest hit...

(The Australian) — Electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

Gallop Finds Electric Cars Will Not Be Popular

57% say they won't buy an electric car no matter what price gas rises too.

(USA Today) — Nearly six of 10 Americans — 57% — say they won’t buy an all-electric car no matter the price of gas, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

That’s a stiff headwind just as automakers are developing electrics to help meet tighter federal rules that could require their fleets to average as high as 62 miles per gallon in 2025. And President Obama has set a goal of a million electric vehicles in use in the U.S. by 2015.

The anti-electric sentiment unmasked by the poll shows that pure electrics — defined in the poll question as “an electric car that you could only drive for a limited number of miles at one time” — could have trouble getting a foothold in the U.S.

Rasmussen Poll Shows Taxpayers Will Have to "Pony Up" to get Americans to Buy Electric Cars

When told of the high price of electric vehicles, only 14% of Americans said they are likely to buy one in the next year according to a new Rasmussen survey.

But when asked if they’d buy one if they knew it would cost $15,000 more than traditional cars of comparable size, just 14% say they’d be likely to purchase an electric car. Eighty-one percent (81%) say it’s not likely they’d buy an electric car if it cost that much more.

Rasmussen found the percentage doubled to 30% when Americans were told taxpayers would foot $7500 of the bill. The poll didn't discuss any of the drawbacks of electric cars. The cheaper Nissan Leaf only has a range of 100 miles and that is if you don't run the heater or air conditioner.

The Leaf is all-electric, which means you never have to worry about burning gasoline or having to deal with the maintenance issues of a combustion engine, such as changing the oil or replacing the spark plugs or timing belts. The trade off is that it has a range of only 100 miles — less if you drive fast or run the heater or air conditioner, both of which draw power from the battery.

The overpriced more expensive Chevy Volt only goes 40 miles and then the gasoline engine kicks in. You still have to fill-up with the Volt.

But the Volt's electric battery will power the car for only the first 40 miles, requiring many drivers to buy and burn gasoline. On longer trips, the benefit of the electric engine will be largely negated because the car will be using the gas engine most of the time.