Two interesting dispatches from the electric-car front. The first comes from Denmark, which just announced a $40,000 tax break on each electric car, with free parking in downtown Copenhagen.
The announcement by the Danish government is certainly a splashy prelude to the climate change conference it’s hosting this month. Denmark is putting forth a $100 million plan to push electric cars to the masses and — with the help of Silicon Valley start-up Better Place — build an infrastructure of charging poles and service stations that can change out batteries in minutes. Better Place is working with Dong Energy, the biggest utility in Denmark, to modernize Denmark’s grid to allow cars to be charged overnight via wind power, when winds are blowing and power demand is low.
For all of the promise of the Danish effort, some challenges remain. Other than Renault, no automakers have yet to agree to make cars that are compatible with Better Place’s recharging stations. And there are doubts about the infrastructure, with questions still remaining about the standards for batteries. To help get the project over the hump, Danish local and national governments will be the first in line to buy the new cars.
From one of the world’s most eco-conscious cities, we go to one of the world’s most car-choked – in Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa just announced that the city plans to update 400 existing charging stations while adding another 100. Moreover, electric vehicle owners are set to receive tax rebates to construct home chargers and have access to high-occupancy vehicle lanes.
The city said it would streamline the regulatory processes for the charging stations, and suggested that it might revise standards and building codes to encourage more plug-in options. The city will also spend $6 million to purchase a fleet of electric vehicles.
Two takeaways from these reports: One is the idea that the electric-car future is predicated not so much on the automobile but on an infrastructure system that can support it. As Bernard Avishai wrote in Inc. magazine recently, the ecosystem that springs from the rise of the electric car, rather than the car itself, is what’s really going to revolutionize the economy.
The second is the very fact of these developments. There’s a concreteness to these advancements that gives one hope that when it comes to electric cars, we are no longer in the realm of fantasy. It may all still come to naught, but at the very least we are seeing encouraging signs of public commitment and private initiative coming together to help make innovative ideas into reality.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27072829@N00/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
(h/t to Infrastructurist)