General Electric announced a couple of years ago it would spend $1 billion converting its fleet of passenger cars to electric powered models to give the industry a boost — and build a bigger market for the products it makes that go into electric vehicles or the power stations that recharge them.
The company said it would buy 25,000 electric cars over five years, the largest commitment to the technology made thus far. GE was a bit slow in fulfilling that promise but is now making up for lost time. In 2011, it purchased 300. But this year every single sedan the company buys for an employee will be a Chevrolet Volt.
The impact will be significant. General Electric is a huge company with many divisions involved in a multitude of separate manufacturing enterprises. It operates throughout the U.S. and in many foreign countries. When it goes all electric, the demand for charging stations will rise, the manufacturers of the units will discover ways to become more efficient so they can bring the price down within the reach of more and more customers.
If big oil cooperates and the price of gasoline remains $3.50 or more, the conversion from gas to electric will happen faster and be more pervasive than any of us can now imagine. The industry says a Chevy Volt can be operated for about $400 a year in comparison with $2,000 for a gasoline-fueled car. In 10 years, that’s more than $15,000 in savings.
With or without GE, the electric car industry is expanding. Tesla is coming out with a new, larger model. Ford will begin selling its C-Max minivan in 2013. Toyota has a model in the works.
What this means for all of us is that the United States will become energy-independent sooner. Domestic production of energy is increasing. More oil is being pumped from U.S. wells thanks to improved technology and, most significantly, production of natural gas has increased so dramatically that prices have plummeted. As gas prices fall, so does the cost of electricity — which means the economy of electric cars seems assured well into the future.
Producing electricity with clean-burning gas and replacing fossil fuels with electricity will reduce the present discharge of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which could at least slow down the rate at which the climate will change, the polar ice caps will melt and the oceans will rise.
GENERAL ELECTRIC took its electric car initiative because its chief executive officer, Jeff Immelt, is convinced electric is the future for cars — and because the company’s last name is Electric. It has a vested interest in seeing the technology succeed. Other companies with a little less at stake should follow because they can afford to do so and because it would help their country cope.
If sales grow strong enough, the price will drop dramatically, WattStation charging towers will appear everywhere, the air will be cleaner to breathe and those folks in the Middle East will become much easier to live with.
Within a year or two, the Volt or the C-Max or some other model will make sense in Iola, too. And we all will have lived to welcome in another era.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
