Big Cities Charged Up for Electric Cars

Big city drivers are chomping at the bit to buy an electric car, despite the significant inconveniences the initial models would be saddled with. A new report from consulting firm McKinsey found that demand in the three “megacities” it surveyed—New York, Paris, and Shanghai—was so high that electric cars could account for up to 16% of new vehicle sales by 2015, up from essentially nothing today.

The first crop of electric cars will come saddled with range limitations, and charging stations will be few or non-existent. That makes big cities, where driving distances are shorter, the perfect laboratory for them, McKinsey says. “There’s a small group of early adopters, people who are really interested in this technology,” the group's top auto guru tells Time. “They'll take some inconvenience.”
(More electric vehicles stories.)