Plug‐in 2011, Raleigh, North Carolina

The fourth annual Plug-in convention was in Raleigh, North Carolina from July 18-21. The location
was a departure from the previous three locations in California. Despite not being hosted in the
greenest state, California, it still drew a substantial audience and renown speakers.

The convention started with a plenary consisting of several policy makers and representatives from
major manufacturers of EVs. GM and Nissan updated the audience with the up-to-date status of
sales of the Volt and the Leaf.

Both cars are selling very well and the initial demand is exceedingexpectations. Nevertheless, the adoption curve is going to be slow. It is astonishing that for theLeaf there are 350,000 hand raisers, i.e., these many residents expressed interest in buying theLeaf. Nissan also revealed new features of the upcoming Leaf 2012 and market expansion toseveral other states beyond the initial roll out.

The states selected are those that are in the processof building the necessary charging infrastructure. They also announced the third batch of states where the Leaf will begin selling at the end of the year. GM also discussed the success of its Volt and the fact that most of the owners drive mostly on battery. While many rebuke the Volt as being a “green car” there was plenty of evidence that the Volt indeed can be considered a green car. Many Volt owners testified that many miles can be driven only on battery with substantial overall miles being made by a single fill of the tank.

The remaining part of the conference was divided into three parallel sessions: one on charging infrastructure, one about electric vehicles, and the third one on outreach. All of the sessions were well attended with frequent standing audience due to the lack of sitting capacity.

With respect to public infrastructure, there continue to be two camps. One consists of vendors and serviceproviders of charging infrastructure stressing the need for deployment of public infrastructure, whileon the other hand, there are advocates from NGOs that do not see such a need and claim that most of the driving is for short distances and charging exclusively happens at home.

Only time will provide an answer. Conventional wisdom says that EV drivers will use public charginginfrastructure if it is available. In lack of such infrastructure they will adapt their driving habits. The main question is if the latter will divert several potential EV owners back to good old gasoline cars. At the moment the charging infrastructure is being built in several parts of the U.S and Canada, in
particular Quebec.

At the end of Tuesday, the most intensive day, the audience also had a chanceto see the second installment of the popular documentary Who Killed the EV. This second installment titled "The Revenge of EVs", was broadcast to the audience in afterhours and was
wrapped up by a panel.

On the exhibition floor there were the standard suspects such as Coulomb, Siemens, GM, andNissan. There is also a growing presence of service providers in support of the industry. EVConnect, a Los Angeles based company, is providing services to electric vehicle manufacturerssuch as Fisker Automotive and in deployments of charging stations.

This nascent industry is definitely growing albeit with a slow growth rate. At this point it isabsolutely clear that the collapse of EVs that occurred in the late 90s will not repeat. The industry has already advanced enough that such a scenario is out of question. The only verdict out there that is yet to be made is the growth rate of the industry. The fundamental question is how quickly are the Americans willing to put on the table upfront extra money to purchase an electric vehicle in exchange for reduced operational costs.

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