Podcast | Energy Gang Discusses Oil Prices and Ramifications for Cleantech

Are lower oil prices going to sour adoption of electric vehicles in the short-term? Probably, yes.

However, the solar adoptiong angle is fascinating as it pertains to electric vehicle owners and their desire to own solar panels and be the source of fuel for their cars (just received a PlugInsights survey on this very issue).

The podcast provides great context from the usual suspects and Michael Levi, a senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins to talk about OPEC, the resiliency of America’s unconventional oil & gas sector, low prices on consumers, and renewable energy sectors.

>> This article has been updated (12 EST)

Saw this from Nissan's chief, Carlos Ghosn via Davos 2015 @therealautoblog:

"I don't think it is going to be slowing down," he said. "The people who are buying mainly for economic reasons may be deterred from it, but you have plenty of consumers buying EV for other reasons. On top of this, even though the price of oil is unpredictable – nobody has predicted last year that we would be at this level of oil price today and nobody knows where oil price will be next year or two years down the road – but what is predictable is that the regulation on emissions is going to get tougher in the various markets where we are present. So, our EV strategy is here not only to face too much dependence on oil or the cost of oil, but also to allow us to meet the very stringent regulations on emissions that are happening and will be happening in the future.