Volkswagen makes huge electric vehicle commitment

[jpak]

http://www.contracthireandleasing.com/car-leasing-news/index.php/2010/07/24/volkswagen-makes-huge-electric-vehicle-commitment/

German car manufacturer Volkswagen has made the clearest indication yet of its commitment to the electrification of the automobile.

The company will invest more than five billion Euros a year in research and development as well as committing 23,000 employees worldwide to its e-mobility campaign.

The announcement was made by chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen Dr Martin Winterkorn as part of the Electronics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California.

According to the plans, the Touareg Hybrid, which was launched this year, will be followed by a Jetta Hybrid in 2012 and a new E-Up model after that. A Golf Blue E-Motion will also be launched with Volkswagen aiming to offer an electric car for every customer.

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[dmallind]

1. Great news. A few more like this and oil gets some real competition. NT

[klook]

2. This could come along just in time for me.

I'm hanging on to my 1996 car as long as possible -- in hopes that my next car will use little to no petroleum.

I can afford a new car now but have no interest in perpetuating old, oil-based automotive technology.

[diane in sf]

3. Me too--just keeping the 97 car going until I can go off petroleum--I'll also be doing

this to help fix my living costs for retirement.

[Terry in Austin]

4. Good on Volkwagen for taking this step. That said...

I did stumble a little, however, on the framing of this as "electrification of the automobile."

Maybe it's too fine a point, but I think that "the automobile" as an institution -- the car system -- is trouble beyond just the fact that cars run on fossil fuels. The implication is that we can just put something greener under the hood, and merrily motor on with Business As Usual.

The "electric automobile" framing leads to discussions, for example, of "highway-safe EV's," when what we need to talk about is "EV-safe highways."

It's a matter of expectations about how personal transportation fits into our lives and into a green, energy-poor future.

If you think of an EV as "a car," it's something you'd expect to hop into any time and drive 20 miles at 40 mph to run an errand -- and if you need to, another one like it later the same day -- and think nothing of it.

You wouldn't think of "a car" as something that you share with neighbors and drive 5 miles at 20 mph a couple of pre-arranged times a week.

But the latter scenario is likely to be the more fitting one for the changes to come.