Rise of the modern electric vehicle

One of the themes of the book is that the modern PEV industry is as much a creature of governmental policy as it is a product of innovative capitalism. I do not discount the crucial role of influential scientists, engineers, and business leaders, but I make a special effort to highlight the roles of governmental leaders that have been instrumental in setting policy conditions that are conducive to PEV deployment. Some of the key government officials are well-known politicians (e.g., Shinzo Abe, George W Bush, Wen Jiabao, Li Keqiang, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger) whose role in PEV development is unknown, poorly understood or misunderstood. Other influential public servants are not household names (e.g., Wan Gang, Kai Ma, Mary Nichols) but played influential roles in the emergence of the modern PEV. While there is much subjectivity in singling out particular public servants, I point to the work of some key public officials to underscore the central roles of political leaders and public administrators in building a PEV industry and to balance the tremendous attention that technical and business leaders receive. ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK Chapter 2 evaluates the modern PEV from consumer perspectives, explaining why marketing PEVs is more difficult than expected. The public policy rationales for PEVs are covered in Chapters 3 (energy security), Chapter 4 (urban air quality), Chapter 5 (climate change) and Chapters 6 through 9 (different facets of the economic development rationale). Chapter 10 describes how the Volkswagen emissions-cheating scandal provided an unexpected boost to the modern PEV in both Europe and the US. Chapter 11 addresses innovations in the charging infrastructure necessary to support a PEV-based transportation system. Chapter 12 compares the packages of policy measures that politicians adopt to persuade consumers to use PEVs. Chapter 13 examines the key factors that will determine PEV market shares in 2021-2030 based on synoptic summaries of 2010-2020 developments in China, Europe, California, the United States and Japan.