Emerging Industry Overview: Electric Vehicles
Industry Snapshot
Electricity can be used to power a wide range of vehicles, including automobiles, vans, pickup trucks, motorcycles, buses, forklifts, and scooters. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the official U.S. government provider of energy statistics, electric vehicles, sometimes referred to as EVs, fall into one of three power source categories: batteries, hybrids, and fuel cells. An EIA report released in April of 2010 indicated that there were approximately 1.5 million alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles on the road in 2008, of which approximately 2,800 were electric vehicles.
As the EIA explains, "A...