SARASOTA - The Florida debut of a documentary about the resurgence of the electric car happened last week in Sarasota. Producers chose this area because it has embraced the electric car movement.
More automakers are now offering electric vehicles. There's the Nissan Leaf, which is a 100% electric car. And the Chevrolet Volt, which can use both electricity and gasoline.
On the high end of the market, Tesla offers a high performance roadster. And the newest vehicle on the market is the Fisker Karma, a luxury four door sedan that uses batteries and gasoline to extend its range.
Other automakers like Ford and Toyota are also coming out with electric vehicles within the next year or two. And they all agree that before consumers will embrace the electric car, an infrastructure of charging stations needs to be built.
More and more of them are going in across the area, encouraging drivers to plug in and charge up. "You know, the cars are very cool and they get great gas mileage, but you also need the public charging infrastructure to give consumers confidence that on cars that are pure electric, that they go to movies, go out to eat or whatever they're doing, they can plug in and charge while they're doing what they're doing," says Ken Stokes of Ecotechnologies.
"I hope people are interested in seeing what's available now and they have options that are available to reduce the costs associated with buying gasoline," says Nina Powers of Sarasota County Sustainability.
Many people in sustainability effort agree, electric cars will not be the only way to get around in the future. But they will be one of the options and in time, one of the more popular ones.
