In Denmark, Ambitious Plan for Electric Cars
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Is saving $40,000 at the showroom enough to get drivers behind the wheel of an electric car? With a program in the works to add easy access to charging stations, Denmark is about to find out.
For all their potential, electric cars have always been the subject of more talk than action, and only a handful are on the road in Denmark. But now the biggest Danish power company is working with a Silicon Valley start-up in a $100 million effort to wire the country with charging poles as well as service stations that can change out batteries in minutes.
The government offers a minimum $40,000 tax break on each new electric car — and free parking in downtown Copenhagen.
But even in Denmark, one of the most environmentally conscious nations in the world, skepticism abounds. It is not clear that car buyers can be persuaded to make the switch.
“There is a psychological barrier for consumers when their car is dependent on a battery station,” warned Henrik Lund, a professor of energy planning at Aalborg University. “It’s risky.”
The Silicon Valley company, Better Place, is making a big push in Denmark and in Israel. That makes those two countries the world’s most important test cases for the idea that electric motors and batteries can supplant the petroleum-burning engines that have powered cars for more than a century.
The experiment has other implications beyond the borders of this Scandinavian nation of 5.5 million. That is because Denmark is trying to do more than simply move away from the internal combustion engine.
By revamping the power grid, Dong Energy, Better Place’s partner and the biggest utility in Denmark, wants to power the anticipated fleet of electric cars with wind energy, which already supplies nearly 20 percent of the country’s power.
With Better Place and the smart grid working together, cars would charge up as the winds blow at night, when power demand is lowest. Charging would soak up the utility’s extra power and sharply shrink the carbon footprint of electric vehicles.
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