Future Plans

How many times have you heard howlers like these?

"The ETV-1 [developed for the DOE by Chrysler] possesses a range of only 50 to 75 miles, although further development is expected to increase this to 100 miles by 1990 and 150 miles by the year 2000."

--California Air Resources Board, Electric Vehicle Systems, February 28, 1985, p.16

"If we suppose that sales of EVs might be 5 percent of total vehicle sales in 2000 and 15 percent by 2025, then the number of vehicles required in the European Community would be 420,000 in 2000 and 1.75 million in 2025."

--P. McGeehin and R.M. Dell, "A Review of the Energy Case for Electric Vehicles", in Resources for Electric Vehicles and their Infrastructure, London Electric Vehicle Development Group, November, 1979, p. 107.

In 1982, Argonne National Lab projected that one percent of the U.S. vehicle fleet would be electric by the year 1990 and 5 percent by the year 2000.

--reported in California Air Resources Board, Electric Vehicle Systems, February 28, 1985, p.24.

Reread your prediction. Is it funny? Or does it make you sad? OK, so maybe predicting the future is actually hard work. We would like to honor the efforts of those who have tried to anticipate the future of the electric vehicle by collecting all the published predictions about the electric vehicle industry that we can find.

Seriously, let's look at what's been said in the past about the future, and try to figure out who was right and who was wrong, and why. You can help by sending us copies of whatever clippings, articles, papers and reports you have that contain such predictions. Maybe you even gave a speech or two! Don't be shy! We'll put all the predictions together on the website, and then we can see what we've learned.

Also, let's not forget that predicting the future requires more than just counting cars, companies, and battery technologies. Preparing communities of the future to be ready to adapt to changing patterns of mobility and behavior may be even harder and more important than designing the new technologies that people will use there. Here are some prize-winning entries from a 1993 contest on "Electric Vehicles and the American Community: A National Planning and Design Competition," which encouraged entrants to imagine municipal infrastructure that would expand the use of electric vehicles.