Obama in 2011: a million electric cars on US roads by 2015. By end-2015, 401k had been sold
Barack Obama25 January 2011 · State of the Union address
«With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.»
About 401,000 plug-in vehicles had been sold by the end of 2015; the million mark was passed in 2018.
Sales reached 17.8k by the end of 2011. The million was passed in 2018, three years after the deadline.
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The president named a number of electric cars four years ahead in his address to Congress. Less than half were sold by the deadline; the million came three years later.
First the words: who said it, when and where, verbatim (translations are ours). Answer Yes or No, or just open the answer: the stamp is the outcome, below it what came of it. On the chart the dark line is the fact year by year up to the deadline, the pale one after it; the blue dashed line is the promised number from the year of the words to the deadline, the light band the time the promise gave; the ring on the line is when it was said, the ring in the stamp’s colour the fact in the deadline year, beside it how far it landed from the goal. The numbers on the right are the scale.
- Barack Obama, State of the Union address quote
«With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.»
- What happened late
About 401,000 plug-in vehicles had been sold by the end of 2015; the million mark was passed in 2018.
Quote: State of the Union address of 25 January 2011 (American Presidency Project). Fact: US Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory, sales by model, summed by year. Outcome: «came true» — the promised number reached by the deadline («about» within 5%), an event happened before the end of the year promised; «exceeded» — with room to spare; «nearly» — short by no more than 10%; «late» — reached, but after the deadline; «did not come true» — not reached; «came true, then undone» — reached, then reversed. The deadline is the end of the year named.
These are sales, not cars on the road: some have been scrapped. Plug-in hybrids are included. The same goal was in Obama’s 2008 campaign, without a year in the quote.
A question for this picture
What speeds the switch to electric cars more: subsidies or cheaper batteries?