Chicago Plug-In Day 2013: EV Interest Increasing?

At the Naperville (near Chicago, IL) Plug-In Day, members of the Fox Valley Electric Auto Association examine a Tesla Roadster.Leafs, Teslas and Volts zipped all around the Naperville test track on Sunday, Sept. 29, as Chicago's edition of National Plug-In Day was a success. With more than 120 people in attendance, the test track saw traffic all day as Nissan held official ride-and-drives, while Teslas, Volts and conversion electrics shared space on the public track.

Interest in electric vehicles seems to be on the rise in 2013 and, luckily, just in time. At the Battery/Hybrid/Electric Show in Novi (Detroit suburb), Michigan in September, Dave Hurst, principal research analyst, Navigant Research (www.navigantresearch.com), reminded the audience that EV interest dropped to 32% in 2012, down 8% from (at 40%) 2011.

Hurst told EV Parade that new data on EV interest (and other trends) for 2013 is coming soon. Navigant's 2013 EV survey “is going out to the field this week and will be part of a White Paper in November 2013 of this year,” according to Navigant.

With sales for PHEVs rising in 2013, it would portend that interest has gone up considerably. Right? In Navigant Research's survey from 2012, two categories measured interest for EVs: Extremely Interested and Very Interested. 

59,853 PHEV vehicles have been sold through August 2013, according to the Electric Drive Transportation Association (www.edta.org)

Also telling in Navigant's 2012 survey is the “Somewhat Interested/Somewhat Disinterested,” category, with 34% of the respondents represented there, approximately.

So will this category's size change dramatically in 2013? Will the needle move considerably to the very interested? Or, will it stay the same and those in the strong categories in 2012 contributed to the increased sales in 2013?

As an industry follower, the major auto OEMs in the U.S. are not pushing or even educating the public on their electrification programs via effective marketing. And, specifically, the two that stand out are Ford and GM.

What could be interesting is if the "somewhat interested" category is in the same place it was in 2012 and the needle didn't move? 

With strong sales results in 2013, what would have happened if Ford or Chevy did a great job marketing their vehicles? At the Plug-In Day event in Chicago, no Ford or GM ride-and-drives. Action is louder than words someone once said.

>> PHEV sales figures from 2012, via Johh Voelcker at Green Car Reports.