In an effort to prove electric cars will work even in the smaller cities of middle America, Mitsubishi Motors has launched an ad campaign touting how it is flooding the city of Normal, Ill., with up to 1,000 of its i electric cars.
We're fairly sure that the folks in Normal, population about 50,000, will like them: The town's economy counts on having a giant Mitsubishi auto plant in town. The plant makes about half the vehicles that the Japanese maker sells in the U.S.
Mitsu forgets to mention its connection to the town in the ad campaign that started yesterday. Normal is portrayed as a quick-sprouting electric-car capital of the U.S. because of all the i cars showing up there. To help foster the change, 30 high-speed electric car chargers are being installed around town.
The promotion underscores the challenge that faces electric-car makers. All the people who can afford high-priced electric cars and who are so devotedly green that they need to have one are snatching them up. But those ranks will quickly run thin. Makers now need to convince average drivers to buy electric cars as well. One would think that electric car makers would find them almost entirely in crowded, urban areas on the coasts where environmental consciousness runs high -- New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland. Not a place like Normal, which is in the center of the state isolated from the Chicago metro area.
The campaign is a prelude to a nationwide test-drive campaign for the i, which isn't on sale yet.
From USAToday
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