Electric car sales are soaring in Europe (but not the US)

Short but somewhat interesting:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/19/electric-car-sales-booming-in-europe/

It's not surprising, given the mentality of the majority of US citizens.

jamieo said:

It's not surprising, given the mentality of the majority of US citizens.

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I think the higher gasoline taxes in Europe definitely helps, and I for one am a proponent of increasing federal gas tax in order to:

1) Dissuade gasoline use,

2) Provide funding for infrastructure (roads, electric charging, hydrogen fuel, etc).

But I also know all of that is a pipe dream....

jamieo said:

It's not surprising, given the mentality of the majority of US citizens.

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Clearly the Eurpopeans are geniuses. :roll: With more than twice as many people as the U.S., they have managed to purchase ALMOST as many EVs as the U.S. citizens have during the same period.

That's an uptake rate less than half of ours rate. Last year it was more like one-fourth.

RegGuheert said:

jamieo said:

It's not surprising, given the mentality of the majority of US citizens.

Click to expand...

Clearly the Eurpopeans are geniuses. :roll: With more than twice as many people as the U.S., they have managed to purchase ALMOST as many EVs as the U.S. citizens have during the same period.

That's an uptake rate less than half of ours rate. Last year it was more like one-fourth.

Click to expand...

Well considering their commitment to green energy, infrastructure, and potentially future revolutionary energy technology I would say they are fast getting ahead of us.

And if you look at the following stats you would see that they don't buy nearly as many cars as people in US do. So that number starts getting much closer to one to one (1.33 to 1) so they are not far behind. Also if you consider that US car sales were 16.5 million and 12.1 in Europe that further brings the number to almost the same percentage as US. I love the bigger picture!

Vehicles per 1000 people

4 United States 809
16 Germany 588
20 France 578
33 United Kingdom 519

We're only #4? Strange.

None of my UK relatives own a car. They walk, bike, bus, and train.

DNAinaGoodWay said:

We're only #4? Strange.

None of my UK relatives own a car. They walk, bike, bus, and train.

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Yeah, I was a bit surprised by that too! Here is the complete list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita

Oh, I see, the first three are tiny countries and the list includes all types of motor vehicles except motorcycles.