Who killed the electric car? No one.
It may be a strange time to talk about fuel efficiency when gas prices worldwide have been plunging 鈥� in the United States to little more than $2 a gallon.
But worldwide automakers are still stretching for that brass ring of fuel efficiency, pushed in part by government regulations and perhaps pulled by their own sense of corporate responsibility.
Toyota, for example, loves the idea of nonpolluting cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Tesla Motors is showing that its all-electric vehicles can generate the 鈥済otta have it鈥� appeal of the latest iPhone, even if they are not yet affordable by the masses.
Volkswagen is reeling from people discovering that it had made false claims for its 鈥渃lean鈥� diesel engines, which at least temporarily puts a big question mark on whether diesel technology will be a viable way to squeeze extra miles out of a gallon of fossil fuel.
This week Toyota, perhaps with an eye toward polishing its own green credentials while VW stumbles around in a cloud of diesel soot, announced that by 2050 it would cut the average emission from Toyota vehicles by 90 percent (compared with 2010 levels) while trimming sales of its conventional gasoline-powered vehicles to close to zero.
Toyota鈥檚 first fuel-cell car, the Mirai, went on sale last year in Japan and should be available in parts of the US and Europe this year.
VW now says it plans to add expensive (but real) new emission controls to its diesel models. And it also said it would bring out an all-electric version of its Phaeton sedan, along with more VW models that would offer plug-in electric-gasoline hybrid engines.
But the biggest players in the electric car game may turn out to be a group of Chinese companies. China represents a huge and growing domestic automobile market as its people become more affluent. Combine that with a serious problem: the air quality in China. The Chinese government is prepared to go to great lengths to put more nonpolluting cars on the road.
Indications are that Chinese companies will be making close copies of Teslas at a fraction of the cost, taking advantage of the country鈥檚 loose copyright laws and Tesla鈥檚 own willingness to share its technology openly. 鈥淩eal environmental benefits will only happen if the big car companies make risky decisions to make electric vehicles,鈥� Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, has said. 鈥淚 hope they do. We鈥檒l try to be as helpful as we can.鈥�
At the same time China is placing a luxury tax on Teslas imported into that country. As a result Mr. Musk has been critical of the Chinese companies, which he says aren鈥檛 interested in advancing knowledge in the field.
One top contender in China, according to an article in WIRED online, is the Le* Car, a new venture by LeTV, China鈥檚 version of Netflix headed by billionaire Jia Yueting. Le* Car may debut at the Beijing auto show next spring.
鈥淔ive years ago, I didn鈥檛 think Tesla would become a viable business. Today, though, they make a really good car,鈥� says Joe DeMatio, deputy editor of Road & Track magazine. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no reason to believe that a Chinese company can鈥檛 do the same thing.鈥�
In 2006 a controversial documentary film asked 鈥淲ho Killed the Electric Car?鈥� The answer in 2015, apparently, is not the world鈥檚 automakers. Even as gasoline prices plummet (for now), automakers are gearing up for a post-fossil-fuel era.
