The electric car appears to be in trouble.
Surprisingly, it is not. This past week, the floor of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit was stacked with glitzy new electric cars, from the BMW i3 to the Chevrolet Bolt to SUVs and micro-cars. That’s because today’s electric car boom isn’t really about oil prices at all; it’s about clean air. Under the leadership of California, a group of environmentally progressive states (Oregon, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut) has created market-based mandates that set a floor under the electric-vehicle market. In other words, they’re forcing automakers to sell electric cars. The goal is to have 3.3 million of them on their roads by 2025. Thanks to clever policy design, the survival of electric cars doesn’t depend on the vagaries of the global oil market.