I am a country boy, through and through. I don’t like crowds, or traffic congestion, or the endless hustle and bustle that entails city life. That said, I enjoy a visit to the city (either Boston or New York, I’m half way in between both) and I can see some of the appeal of living there. Yet just as “white flight” led to suburban sprawl in the late ’40′s and 50′s, people seem to be gravitating back to cities… especially in the developing world.
Frost & Sullivan, a global consulting firm, released a study that suggests “Mega-Supercities” will drive up the demand for electric vehicles. So tell us something we don’t know.
I love cars, but if by some twist of fate I wound up living in a city, I doubt I’d have a car. I’d rather walk 15 blocks then drive five blocks in rush hour. For cities though, electric cars really do make sense. Many vehicles don’t drive more than 50 miles a day anywhere in the city, and there is ample infrastructure in place that installing an EV charging station wouldn’t be much trouble. Plus, you city folk tend to be more “open” to new ideas, like electric vehicles. Kudos.
The report itself was not released to the media, just a brief summary which basically stated what we all already known; cities are likely to be the first adopters of electric vehicles. What a “Mega-Supercity” is, they do not detail, though I imagine a city of say, 10 million residents or more. One need look no farther than the launching sites of the Chevy Volt or Nissan LEAF to see that. Looking west to China, we see cities virtually exploding with people as peasants move where the factory jobs are. This raises an interesting conundrum to me though.
Should cities be developing both public transit systems and promoting electric vehicles? Or should they focus on one, or the other?
Source: Frost & Sullivan via Green Car Advisor | Image: Wikipedia/Sting
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About Christopher DeMorro
No reason they can’t do both. Like you said, not everyone would own a car. Take a gander at New York City. Some people live there their entire lives and never own a car.
No reason they can’t do both. Like you said, not everyone would own a car. Take a gander at New York City. Some people live there their entire lives and never own a car.