When the recent rainfall in Los Angeles flooded the parking garage in my condo building, I found myself in the market for a new car. Since my wife and I have a young daughter, the Tesla Roadster was impractical and a bit pricey. It would have looked really nice in my parking spot, but who am I kidding? We looked into the Tesla Model S but deliveries were another year away and other automakers’ electric vehicles are unavailable til later this fall. An electric vehicle (EV) would have been great, but since we live in a condo and park in a garage, getting electricity to charge an EV would have been challenging. Even if EVs were available now, I am uncertain if I would have purchased one due to this charging dilemma that condo owners and apartment residents share. However, things are changing fast in cities across the country with companies emerging catering to the EV crowd and local governments preparing for the influx of EVs onto their streets. Even with the recent negative press that Toyota has been receiving, we ultimately chose the 2010 Prius.
Trusting the Toyota Brand
For years, Toyota has been a reliable automaker dedicated to quality and safety. Since our daughter was going to be a regular passenger in our Prius, safety was our main concern, but after doing some research and talking to Luiz Caldas at Toyota Santa Monica, I felt confident in choosing the Prius. Although More owners of Toyota vehicles say recall repairs aren’t working, some of the problems are unwarranted like the Sikes incident involving a Prius here in California. In a recent Businessweek.com article by Bloomberg’s Jeff Green, Don Esmond, senior VP of Toyota’s U.S. sales unit projects 11.7 million Toyotas to be sold in 2010. “The brand got tarnished,” he said.”But I don’t think it rusted the armor all the way through.” I think Toyota has done what it needs to do and will continue to address the issues with the recall eventually restoring its reputation over time. When Toyota FT-EV arrives in 2012, Luiz Caldas will probably give me a call and I’ll probably take a test drive.
EVs Are Coming – Are We Ready?
In the early 1990s, General Motors tried to bring electric vehicles to mainstream America but failed documented in the popular Who Killed the Electric Car? Are we ready now? EV automakers such as Think, BYD, Fisker, and others hope to become household names like Nissan and Chevrolet who have the Leaf and Volt coming out by year’s end. Companies such as AeroVironment and Coulomb Technologies are providing charging solutions for EV owners and Mitsubishi in their joint venture with Japan Delivery System (JDS) are tackling issues with charging EVs for people who live in apartment buildings.
Los Angeles Ranked #1 EV-Ready City
According to ASG Renaissance, a market research firm hired by Think, the city of Los Angeles topped the list of electric vehicle-ready cities in the U.S. LA Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa has a vision for his city and hopes it will be Leading the Charge on Electric Cars. He writes in his Huffington Post article, “Soon, you will be able to stop at an electric charging station that is not only good for your wallet, but good for the environment too…In California, we all bear a unique responsibility – as the eighth largest economy in the world, California has the highest ratios of car ownership anywhere in the world.” It will be exciting to see the charging infrastructure develop over the next few months welcoming the arrival of EVs. In the future, especially with LA’s preparations to welcome EVs, my family will probably cruise around in an EV, but for now we’re proud owners of a 2010 Toyota Prius.
Tags: electric vehicles, EVs, Los Angeles, Prius, Tesla, Toyota
