...but you will see it on TV. And that is what will stop the industry on its tracks.
People are used to gasoline. They are comfortable with it, if you will. Electricity is another matter. People fear electricity. They don't understand it. If electric cars are seen as roving high-tension wires that can electrocute you and your family in a crash that will be the end of the industry. People don't care about statistics but they react very readily to anything that triggers fundamental fears.
Families have burnt to death horribly in gasoline fires, too. They don't tend to show that kind of thing on TV at all (and I don't think that burning to death is significantly less horrible than electrocution).
I don't understand why robomartin got downvoted. His comment is very valid.
You only need ONE case of this accident covered on TV to get the industry into serious problems. Electric cars are new, thus interesting for media, and will capture attention (read: scare people).
And people really don't care about statistics, they do care about what they see in TV. Unfortunately, news services break our perception of reality. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic. That's why people freak about shooting in schools when the chance that their child gets run over by a car is much, much higher. Or, [insert random post-9/11 paranoia] vs. cancer rates. Or, what Chernobyl and Fukushima did to public perception of otherwise safe nuclear power.
You know I thought most people know that gasoline burns and that they have to be really fucking careful with the stuff.
Same thing they also already know about electricity.
So, I am not sure that you could stop the electric car industry by worrying people that the energy store could kill them, as everybody who has been on the roads long enough has seen burned out cars from pile-ups at some point.
People are used to gasoline. They are comfortable with it, if you will. Electricity is another matter. People fear electricity. They don't understand it. If electric cars are seen as roving high-tension wires that can electrocute you and your family in a crash that will be the end of the industry. People don't care about statistics but they react very readily to anything that triggers fundamental fears.