Detroit 3 say they’ll need help to go electric

When Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker strolled into the Ford Motor Co. display last week at the Detroit auto show, Mark Fields had his pitch for electric vehicles ready.

The Ford vice president steered Corker toward a display showing the underside of a Focus converted to all-electric power, and pressed a case that Ford and other automakers couldn’t make such models happen alone.


“We are really going to need to partner with the government and the electric companies,” Fields said. “The infrastructure is key. If you’re going from one state to another, where are you going to plug in, what are you going to charge for it?”

It’s the kind of conversation that Detroit’s executives will have plenty of practice with in the coming years. Between government interest in new technology and last summer’s oil price spike to $150 per barrel, automakers see little choice but to push ahead with electric vehicles, despite drawbacks that have no easy answers today.

Detroit Free Press