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 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.