Electric Cars Are Totally Bloody Awesome (Missed Messaging)

November 20th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

Note: This is the first of probably dozens of articles I’ll be publishing from my trip to Barcelona for EVS27 — exclusive interviews, pictures, EV reviews, interesting EV research findings, and more. Stay tuned for some really awesome stuff!

BMW i3 electric car and me in Barcelona, one day before my BMW i3 test drive.
(This image is available for republishing and even modification under a CC BY-SA license, with the key requirement being that credit be given to Marika Shahan / EV Obsession / CleanTechnica, and that those links not be removed.)

I think I test drove 8 electric cars within the past 5 days. Time after time, the #1 thing that came to mind was: “This is so much nicer than a gasmobile. This is f***ing awesome!” You step on the acceleration (maybe we should say, “step on the electricity”) and a smile immediately comes to your face. The quick and powerful yet quiet acceleration is simply awesome. If you step on it enough, it can throw you back, reminding me of the experience in some planes when you take off. It also makes me think of Star Trek, when they jet the starship into a speed beyond light speed. Now that I’m writing this, it of course seems a little crazy, but that’s what came to mind for me on multiple occasions.

Of course, the whole ride is super smooth and super quiet. There is no rumbling engine. It’s definitely one reason why the driving experience of an EV is so much better than the driving experience of a gasmobile.

There’s actually something called “the EV smile” — what people get after or while testing out an electric vehicle. I’ve seen it time after time now, and I’ve had it time after time. An EV owner I talked with at EVS27 said that he still gets it. In the link above, you can read about another EV owner who still gets it. I’m pretty sure I’ll have it for years.

The frustrating thing is that this top EV selling point is hardly ever mentioned in advertising or EV promotion. One of the reasons for this is that EVs are much, much greener than gasmobiles. Also, they allow you to cut gasoline out of your personal life (as well as the unpleasant cost of fueling up). These are huge EV benefits that those in the industry have assumed they need to center their advertising around. It’s not a horrible assumption, but I think its also not the best.

People want to be greener. People want to cut oil out of their lives and would love to never have to visit a gas station again. However, these are not things that the majority of people base their purchasing decisions on.

People base their purchasing decisions on desire, emotion, thrill, love. EVs are amazing to drive. When it comes to the pleasure of driving, the excitement of driving — EVs trump gasmobiles. What EV producers and EV advocates need to be doing is telling people how much more enjoyable driving an EV is. Show them — through videos of people driving an EV for the first time, or after driving an EV for the first time; through videos of EV owners, the majority of whom don’t intend to ever go back to gasmobiles.

In a lot of cases, people who get an EV intend for it to be a supplemental second car. However, once they own it, it generally ends up being the car everyone in the family wants to drive, and many families will move on and drop their gasmobile for another EV or PHEV.

I had the pleasure of talking with one major EV leader (who I won’t name at this moment) while at EVS27. He related a story to me that reiterates the awesomeness of EVs well. He owns a Chevy Volt, and a relative of his got to know about the Chevy Volt through him. The relative eventually decided to buy one. Now, this EV leader notes that his relative “can’t shut up about the car.” It’s a story that many of you have probably lived through.

In a number of presentations at EVS27, it was emphasized that what is needed for EVs to hit “the big time” in a regional or national market is simply greater awareness about the cars. Incentives are helpful, charging stations are helpful, extending range and reducing costs are helpful, but the often-unacknowledged and perhaps biggest factor is simply raising EV awareness.

This was emphasized, for example, in a presentation about Norway’s tremendous EV leadership — the geographically large, dispersed, and cold country is the global leader in EVs per capita. Sure, Norway has some incentives for EVs, but so do numerous other countries. Sure, Norway has a decent and growing network of EV charging stations, but so do many other places. What Norway’s population has — probably more than the population of any other country — is a broader and deeper EV awareness. As a result, the Tesla Model S was the top-selling car (of any kind) in Norway in September, and the Nissan Leaf was the top-selling car (of any kind) in Norway in October. There’s no reason other countries can’t replicate Norway’s success.

Long story short: Help to spread the total awesomeness of driving electric vehicles. People are attracted to fun, awesomeness, and excitement. Electric cars offer all of these things, way more than gasmobiles. If people are pulled in by this buzz (and they will be much more so than by EVs’ green props or oil-free selling point), they will look to try out an EV for themselves. Once they try out an EV, they are quite likely to be impressed and to want to own an EV. Once they own an EV, they are quite likely to want to drive it rather than a gasmobile, and even get rid of any gasmobiles in their garage.

Awesomeness is what turned Apple into a giant. It’s what makes people wait in line outside for the next Apple product. Awesomeness is what made gaming consoles commonplace. Awesomeness is what makes sports such a popular pastime, and even something people are obsessed with watching. Awesomeness will lead to EVs taking over the automobile market. The question is, “how soon?” It’s all about awareness. Many or most people you know probably can’t even name an electric car or know about Tesla Motors. You’d be surprised. And most of them, even if they know that much, surely know very little about electric vehicles and probably don’t have a clue that electric vehicles are awesome to drive. That needs to change. Help to spread the word!

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Tags: Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVs, EVS27

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

StevesWeb

I agree 100% about the joy of driving an EV. In particular I like my little Spark EV a bit more than the Leaf I test drove, but in both cases the cars are so quiet and pressing the Volt Pedal™ makes them just suddenly go faster. While a gas pedal causes a car to make a lot more noise and gradually start going faster, with a Volt Pedal the response seems almost instantaneous – and quiet. I am liking very much electric car, make more!
bruce dp

>I test drove 8 electric cars within the past 5 days
The writer sounds like he had as much fun as I did when I was reporting at EVS-12 in the 90’s when EVs were really new, and so was the Internet.

BTW, that “the EV smile”, is actually much more than that. The EV community had been calling it an “EV grin” starting way back in those days, when if you wanted an EV, you either built one, or had one built for you (there were no production EVs being sold at that time).

An EV grin shows much more pleasure than just a smile
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grin
It also refers to how addictively fun driving an EV is.

A Volt is not an EV, it is a plug-in-hybrid (phev/pih) which can be driven in electric-only mode, but for a shorter distance than an EV. pih have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The public needs to learn about plugins (the term is used for both EVs and pih), and look at their driving needs. Then get free rides in plugins at your local EAAev.org Chapter or EV organization. There are free forums on all the vehicles where you can get answers from owners. QnA with owners is much better than at a dealer who only wants to make a sale. A few Enterprise and Hertz offices have plugins that can be rented for a week, so you will have actual/practical experience before deciding.

Once the public is knowledgeable of plugins, they can make up their own minds whether an EV or pih will suit their needs, or they are better off sticking with a high mpg fuel car and rising fuel prices.
{brucedp.150m.com}
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Thanks for the history! Unfortunately, next EVS is in South Korea — not sure if I’ll make it for that one. We’ll see.
  
  Regarding the Volt: I use “EV” inclusively, with PHEV’s being a sub-category. I’d switch to “plugins” but I just don’t think that term is very catchy and sounds too much like industry jargon.
  - http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
    
    But I’m open to discussion.
Chris_in_Raleigh

So today, my wife had the EV, so I had to drive the gas car. I was in a hurry, the fuel gauge was on Empty, and I didn’t have time to go get gas first. That never happens in the EV which is always on Full when I leave the house.

Yet another reason we love our EV (a Nissan Leaf).
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Man, that’s one to share.
  As Jay Leno said while driving the Mission RS, what if EVs came first? How inconvenient and unpleasant would we find so many things about gasmobiles!
  - Eletruk
    
    Well, actually, EVs did come first. In the early 1900s there were more EVs on the road than gasmobiles. Due to huge inconveniences that having a gasmobile had (dealing with questionable gas, have to manually turn over the engine, noisy, smelly, smoky, oily/greasy, high maintenance and restrictive laws) EVs were great. However, over the years all those issues were resolved and EVs main drawback (range) became really apparent.
    - http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
      
      Yes, yes, I know, and sure Jay does, too. Think the point was just if the roles were reversed today.
JamesWimberley

Norway is cold, rich and high-minded.
- Jouni Valkonen
  
  In Norway they understand what is the true value of oil. It is just foolish to burn oil in gas mobiles. It is far better for the economy to export all oil that is available.
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  I brought up the rich thing in the Q&A session, as well as the way a technology’s sales start to grow much faster at a certain level of market saturation. However, the speaker from Nissan still emphasized that a lot of Norway’s success simply comes down to awareness that has come about through many different initiatives and policies.