2010: The Year the Electric Car Becomes a Reality?
Electric cars are zooming into a dealership near you.
Oct. 8, 2010 — -- This fall marks the beginning of the largest rollout of electric cars and the infrastructure to support them in U.S. history.
More than 20,000 charging stations across the nation will be deployed -- and that's just the beginning. If all goes as planned, American households will be transformed into gas stations of the future, electric car corridors will connect major cities and electric car-sharing programs will sprout up in cities across the nation.
Within a few years, every major automobile manufacturer will release a version of an electric car. It's all in the pipeline. Welcome to the electric-fueled future. If you believe the hype, it's about to change the way you drive.
Mark Perry, director of product planning for the Nissan Leaf, an all-electric, zero-emission car just given a Popular Mechanics "breakthrough award," stopped by "Good Morning America" to discuss the rollout.
"Fifty thousand units of the Nissan Leaf will be mass produced the first year," Perry said. "If you want to make a difference in oil demand and carbon emissions, you have to make a lot of cars."
The Nissan Leaf goes on sale in December with a price tag of roughly $25,000 after federal rebates. It is billed as the first electric car to be priced competitively with standard vehicles.
The Leaf will seat five. It comes with a battery warranty for eight years and 100,000 miles, and the ability to save you $2,000 a year on gas, assuming you travel 15,000 mile and get 25 miles per gallon.
The Leaf travels 100 miles per charge, which might be fine for the average consumer, because 80 percent travel less than 50 miles per day.
But for those that want to have more range, they have some help from the government. The U.S. Department of Energy has allocated $400 million to electrify the transportation sector. It will help build an electric car infrastructure that will allow people to charge their electric cars as they travel. Within the next few years, some areas of the country will have more electric car charging stations than gas stations.
