coppertalk

A consumer’s experience –  finding  the electric car to suit his needs

By John Hipchen, Technical Marketing Consultant, Exel Consulting Group, Palatine, IL

Full Disclosure – My Professional Work Experience 

I started my career as a chemist but was quickly moved into technical sales and marketing.  Much of my career has been spent developing markets for new technology and managing small groups of engineers and technical experts focused on new innovations.  Although my work has covered industries ranging from oil and asphalt to metals and heat transfer, I find it interesting that it always seems to be connected in some way to automobiles and transportation.

Since the late 90’s, I have been working closely with the Copper Development Association (CDA) where I help to promote new technologies that use copper or are related to copper in different ways.  More recently, electric vehicles are of particular interest to the copper industry and to me as well.  An electric vehicle contains up to three times more  copper than a traditional gasoline-powered automobile.

Part I – My Electric Vehicle Adventure

I am also interested in alternative energy, especially in light of increasing costs.  As a consumer, I want to explore transportation options that are economically viable.  Rising fuel costs are not only impacting our economy, but also the way we live.  As a big believer in human ingenuity, I am willing and even anxious to change my lifestyle in exchange for efficiency, a better environment and lower costs.

The first time I drove an EV was at the Business of Plugging In conference in Detroit in Oct. 2010.  I drove the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf, an E-modified Ford Focus, the Tesla and the Transit Connect electric commercial vehicle.  I was particularly impressed by the Leaf.  It was surprisingly fast (as all the EV’s are), quiet and the instrument panel was intuitive/easy to understand.  I live in the Chicago area and my understanding was that Nissan had decided not to sell the Leaf in Illinois due to a lack of infrastructure regarding charging stations.  However, Nissan changed their mind in 2011 and announced that they would begin taking orders for the Leaf again on Aug. 5, 2011.  I can’t help but think this was not only due to support from government agencies, but Walgreens announcement that they have already installed charging stations in many of their locations – one is just a few minutes from my house.

So, on Friday August 5th, I walked into Arlington Nissan and talked to a salesmen trained to deal with customers interested in the Leaf.