Sounds quite convincing to me. Executive summary: standard electric plugs give 3kW, do the maths for the time you have to stands still waiting for recharging.
Interestingly, I learned (p.11) that the PSA and Renault started a mini infrastructure of charging point in the public space in the 1995, at the times where they were the majors (only?) producers of BEV. They cut the loss some years ago after PSA sold 10.000 cars, and Renault a bit less.

So I believe they paid the learning price, and you should not discard their opinion so hastily.

France was smart to do a study like this to evaluate the time-frame where the electric car market could be self-sustaining. However, the suppression of the information points out the danger of governments choosing technologies. The fact that they don’t want to know the answer after asking the question is reminiscent of Bush’s treatment of global warming.

Governmental policy needs to be results-based, not politically-based or picking winners and losers in the technology wars. While many people want to jump to the final answer immediately, it makes more sense to optimize what we have now. In America, we seem to be fixated on the powertrain, but the whole vehicle needs to be treated to make it low-mass, low drag, low rolling resistance, but still functional. A little here and a little there adds up. Why just have aero-kits on hybrids? Sell mileage specials without conventional powertrains too.

Since the battery is still the weak point in the system (too heavy and too large for the energy stored) continued hybrid development is probably the right way to encourage the necessary improvements, while avoiding pushing half-baked technology onto the market through an EV mandate. This way, you get more production-geared urgency (rather than the research lab pace), without causing another no-win situation like the EV1.

I just read the report, and it is actually quite accurate. As always, the press is not fair in extracting some of the parts and citing them in inappropriate context, but we are used to it. I also dislike the fact that the President would *arbitrarily* conceal a repport he himself ordered just because the conclusion does not fit is understanding of the situation (which is quite poor). I can’t honestly believe this repport to be biased towards fuel powered vehicle industry since the panel of reviewers and experts were chosen by *the government itself*. I would expect them to be biased towards electric vehicles, if at all.

As for the repport itself, it points out some flaws of the actual electric car technology (meaning the technology that is already in place and ready to be mass developped and marketed).
The flaws are :
- relative inefficiency of actual batterie technology and the need to shift to lithium based batteries to achieve reasonable performances.
- the need of a *strong politic will* to develop electric vehicles (both to educate people and to go against the regular car industry).
- the need of a vast country or continental wide infrastructure to allow someone to charge his electric car wherever he goes. You certainly do not want to switch car at a border because the country you are going to does not have any electric car infrastructure right ? It might not be seen as a problem for big countries like the US, but in many small European countries (Belgium, Netherland, …) in a one hour drive, you are actually out of your country !.

So in itself, the repport is not against the technology of electric car per se, but warns that if things stay as they are and the governents just wait for the electric car to becomes the default, then nothing will change. It also points out that to ease the transition, hybrid cars may be a possible solution. That’s it.

I’m French and think of myself as environment-friendly (I don’t even own a car).
I would really be glad if electric car could be massively adopted. However, I only want this to be so IF this is the right technology, and the pros and cons have been fairly discussed. Even if you see a critical report or objections to your point of view, the right way to deal with them is to argue against with facts, not conceal them from the public. I’m even less keen to endorse what our President did knowing is past behaviours and knowing that he has personal interests in the matter.
Let us not repeat the error of ethanol (how is it for a green vehicle which shifts the energy crisis to the food crisis ?). Any contribution is useful to a discussion so that the right solution is adopted. If we plan to develop electric vehicles as a standard, we must do it right the first time.

The car ist listed with a norm consume of
14,4 kWh/100km city traffic
19,6 kWh/100km outside town

In city traffic, the energy efficiency is more than 4 times better than the natural gas version

Natural gas version: 8,3 kg natural gas/100km
Cleanova II: only 1,9 kg natural gas/100km when the natural gas is converted to electric power in a CCPP with 58% efficiency.

So this supressed “report” contains only unresponsible nonsens.

It’s the same discussion again and again with people not informed about plug-in hybrid and modern battery technology.

I discuss often with this stuck in the mud people. I know every nonsens argument, they bring again and again.

I’m not against EVs in any way, but it’s a hard sell in tough economic times when you ask people to buy a inferior product. If gasoline was $5/gallon again , it’d be absolutely worth it. Unfortunately at the current time it’s not that way.

France I believe is THE BEST candidate for a EV powered economy and highway system. They have a very high proportion of nuclear powerplants to everything else. This would put them ahead of everyone else, it’d be much harder to do something on the wide scale in the US.